2 10 70 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/475931c0d6b85d90da46c35334e2653f.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=vgP8-yFiDi-m%7EYrcrrpDe%7EdQz344CkrzWzB-%7ExcDZuYPEyOrNO8pBgFzuSXq521JhY8TciGypfID7xcYW1NsXq%7EpwEYhizMbP-%7ER3cR5SNpwNWCYo2isu4003kVyzNQabHgPNxAk9alE7PGTX895JjtMLP3WZazU59Sr3OgrSYhCkF-Kp016zPesUXjhPUhzroNqWJnKSbX1KdvqRD%7E9B-b23PbFcxlIqjgGEyy8%7EQZMQBCrVNMfuSvHQUaQ1fUG9aQpEFXKHmKTdipGciG4ktqQlpLf0B%7E1qY4GkL3YHL%7EvHR1OWW9Y45nX0uLyDZuagisVmskq-HBzbbZKIsdp9Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7ac5ae359b3b4154c7b53dc2923bd2ef PDF Text Text N&tuu I o$5 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY EXAMINED FROM A RATIONALIST STANDPOINT. BY CHARLES WATTS. “ To believe without evidence and demonstration is an act of ignorance and folly.”—Volney. (Issued for the Rationalist Press Committee.) London: WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET ST. ��PREFACE. In the following pages there is no attempt to criticise all the alleged evidences in favour of Christianity. The aim of the writer has been to fairly examine the principal claims that have recently been put forward on behalf of the orthodox faith. It is hoped that the exami­ nation that has been made, and the facts given in these pages, may be of some practical service to the young and earnest searchers for truth. C. W. �CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION ... .. .. ... 5 ••• THE NATURE AND VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES ... 7 GOD AND RELIGION ... ... ••• T4 THEISM AND OTHER “ ISMS ” ... ••• ... THE QUESTION OF REVELATION MIRACLES ... ... ... ... ... .. ... ... ... ... 20 , ••• 23 29 THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTEROF CHRIST... ... 34 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST ... ••• 42 ... ••• ... ... 5° 63 ... THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ... LIST OF BOOKS RECOMMENDED TO STUDENTS �INTRODUCTION. The purpose of the following unpretentious contribution to the modern criticism of the claims of orthodox Christianity is to present to the reader, from a Rationalistic standpoint, a popular, brief, and impartial examination of the evidences which are set forth in support of the supernatural and unique character of the Christian religion. The object of the writer has been to ascertain if there is sufficient reason to justify the maintaining of the various positions that are now taken by Christian exponents in the defence of their faith. The nature of the evidence required for such a purpose, and the different subjects to which it is applied, together with the questions that are defended, are all duly considered. We have taken the recently-published “ Handbook of Christian Evidences,” by Dr. Alexander Stewart, Professor of the Theological University of Aberdeen, as a basis for our critical examination ; but we have not attempted to reply in detail to all the positions laid down in his book. We have preferred to give a general summary of the argu­ ments that may be advanced against his conclusions, so that those who read both treatises may be the better able to form an accurate judgment on the various questions dealt with. The “ Handbook ” is issued specially for the young, with the expressed hope “ that it may be the means of strengthening the faith of inquiring minds, at a time when the most sacred truths are subjected to unsparing criticism.” The Professor has stated his case calmly, and we trust it will be found that we have been equally calm in presenting the Rationalistic view. We desire that those who read the “Handbook” should carefully peruse the following pages, and we hope that its contents may strengthen the discriminating power of in­ quiring minds at a time when all rational persons should be “ ready always to give answer to every man that asketh them a reason concerning the hope that is in them.” �6 INTRODUCTION. We sincerely hope that no believer in Christianity will hesitate to read and to well ponder over what is here written. If what we have stated be studied with an earnest desire to arrive at truth, good results only will follow, for, as Bacon says, it is “ error alone that suffers through conflict with truth.” Principles unable to withstand the test of investiga­ tion are destitute of what should be . one of their highest recommendations. Belief without critical examination has too often perpetuated error and fostered credulity. If Christianity be fallacious, why should not its fallacy be made known ? If, however, it be true, its truth will be the more apparent as its claims are honestly investigated and examined. Dr. Collyer observes, in his lectures on miracles, that “ he who forbids you to reason on religious subjects, or to apply your understanding to the investigation of revealed truth, is insulting the character of God, as though his acts shrank from scrutiny—is degrading his own powers, which are best employed when they are in pursuit of such sublime and interesting subjects.” Dr. Chalmers, the eminent Scotch divine, also remarks: “We should separate the exercises of the understanding from the tendencies, of the heart. We should be prepared to follow, the light of evidence, though it may lead us to conclusions the most painful and melancholy. We should train our thoughts to all the hardihood of abstract and unfeeling intelligence. We should give up everything to the supremacy of argument, and be able to renounce without a sigh all the tenderest prepossessions of infancy the moment that truth demands of us the sacrifice.” �SECTION I. THE NATURE AND VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. It is reasonable to demand that definite evidence should be furnished in support of extraordinary claims. Proof that would be sufficient to win our belief in an ordinary matterof-fact occurrence would be inadequate to establish the truth of those claims which are generally put forward on behalf of Christianity. According to Webster, evidence is “ that which elucidates and enables the mind to see truth ; proof arising from our own perceptions by the senses, or from the testimony of others, or from the induction of reason.” Thus we have three methods through which evidence is obtained, and we propose to consider if either one of them is of any value in establishing the claims of Christian exponents. 1. Consciousness.—This method can only be of service where truths are self-evident, which those claimed for Chris­ tianity are not; therefore, if they can be corroborated at all, it must be from external sources. If Christian truths were self-evident, there would be no necessity for the repeated efforts that are being constantly made to ascertain what the truths are. Moreover, we find that different persons have different conceptions of what Christianity really is, while many fail to recognise in any way its alleged verities. It appears to us that this would not be so if Christian claims were based upon self-evident truths, for in that case they would command ready assent from every honest inquirer. 2. Testimony.—This method, to be valuable as evidence, should be thoroughly trustworthy, and ought to come to us through channels that are, beyond all doubt, unimpeachable. But, in reference to Christianity, the very opposite is the fact. Its testimony is found in the New Testament, which, as the Rev. Dr. Giles observes, contains “contradictions that cannot be reconciled, imperfections that would greatly �THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. detract from even admitted human compositions, and erroneous principles of morality that would have hardly found a place in the most incomplete systems of the philo­ sophers of Greece and Rome ” (“ Christian Records,” Preface, p. 7). John W. Haley, M.A., in his work on “An Examination of the Alleged Discrepancies of the Bible,” also states (pages 1 and 2) that “ no candid and intelligent student of the Bible will deny that it contains numerous discrepancies ; that its statements, taken prima facie, not in­ frequently conflict with or contradict one another, may safely be presumed. This fact has been more or less recog­ nised by Christian scholars in all ages.” Haley further alleges in the same work (page 2) : “ Moses Stuart (‘Critical History and Defence of Old Testament Canon,’ page 193 : revised edition, page 179), whose candour was commensurate with his erudition, acknowledges that ‘ in our present copies of the Scriptures there are some discrepancies between different portions of them which no learning or ingenuity can reconcile.’ To much the same effect Archbishop Whately (‘ On Difficulties in Writings of St. Paul,’ essay 7, section 4) observes : ‘ That the apparent contradictions of Scripture are numerous....... is too notorious to need being much insisted on.’ ” Now, we submit that testimony, coming through such a doubtful channel as these eminent Christian writers have stated the New Testament to be, cannot be depended upon as furnishing reliable evidence in favour of the extraordinary claims of Christianity. 3. The Induction of Reason.—The evidence to be derived from this method in support of Christianity is exceedingly slight. Reason gives no authority for the belief in the Fall of Man, Original Sin, Vicarious Sacrifice, the Trinity, the Miraculous Conception, Hell, and Eternal Torments. To us it seems most unreasonable to expect that all mankind, with their different trainings and varied mental capacities, should be compelled to accept one particular faith under a threat of the infliction of a most cruel and agonising penalty (see Acts iv. 10-12 ; Mark xvi. 16 ; 2 Thess. i. 7, 8, 9); to believe that a good God would so have arranged matters that the majority of his children would be doomed to eternal perdition (see Matt. vii. 13, 14 ; Matt. xx. 16), and that God should have ordained some men to condemnation and others to dishonour before they were born (see Jude 4; Romans �THE NATURE AND VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 9 ix. 15-22). These are but a few specimens of a system against which reason revolts. The only “ evidence ” that can fairly be produced in favour of orthodox Christianity is that of faith and revelation. It was by these agencies that the greatest Bible blessings were said to have been obtained, and through which it is reported that St. Paul himself was convinced of its truth (see Hebrews xi. ; Gal. i. 12). Such “evidence,” however, is impotent to have any practical argumentative force to-day. In dealing with Christian evidences, we must not overlook the fact that the present age is one of unlimited inquiry, which should neither be baffled nor arrested—a time when many of the old landmarks of theology are being removed. We have thus to make a new survey of the controversial field, in order to ascertain our correct position. Indeed, we are frequently cautioned by modern Christian writers that we must attack the latest views put forth concerning their faith. This appears to us a reasonable request, for no sensible general would waste his powder upon forts that had been abandoned by the enemy. But the fact that Christians have been compelled to take up new positions in defence of their faith is certainly no evidence in its favour, but rather the opposite. Still, as they have forsaken their old citadels, it is necessary to follow them to their new battle-ground. The changes that have taken place in the advocacy of Christianity are indeed remarkable, and they afford striking evidence against the assumption of its being a God-sent religion. Let us note a few of its principal mutations. At a period not very remote the whole of the Bible was believed to be the “ word of God ; ” Christians of to-day assert that only a portion of the Scriptures should be so described. Hence plenary inspiration has been given up, and we are now informed that the Bible contains the “inspired word,” but that the whole of it is not inspired. The question, however, here arises, How are we to distinguish the inspired from the un­ inspired ? Is the human to decide what is divine ? If yes, the reason of man is superior to the revelation of God. If no, by what evidence are we to judge what is truth and what is error in the Bible? Miracles are now said to require evidence to prove their truth, whereas in former times they were cited to prove the truth of Christianity. Prophecy is now thought to be the desire of the human heart, and is no �IO THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. longer depended upon as the infallible foreteller of future events. The fact that unbelievers have heroically faced death in attestation of what they deemed to be true has caused Christian exponents to give up the contention that martyrdom proves the truth of that for which a man becomes a martyr. Now, surely it cannot reasonably be alleged that these changes and modifications afford any evidence of the stability of the Christian faith. To affirm that the Christians of the past were in error in their conceptions of the nature of Christianity does not remove the difficulty, because we have no evidence that the Christians of the present time are more correct in their representations of Christianity than were their predecessors. Both have had the same sources from which they drew their conclusions. Besides, what guarantee have we that Christians of future generations will not condemn the nineteenth-century interpretation of their faith ? The mutability which has hitherto characterised the Christian religion will, in all probability, continue as knowledge in­ creases and mental freedom expands. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that, if Christianity were perfect at its inception, every subsequent change must necessarily have deteriorated its value ; while, if it were not perfect at its origin, and if the alterations which it has undergone have improved it, then its present condition is the result of man’s ingenuity, and the faith of to-day is not the production of what is called Divinity. Professor Stewart, in his “Handbook,” says : “The evi­ dences of Christianity do not claim to be demonstrative, but to have a high degree of probability—as high as in the case of other principles which determine human action.” But there is no analogy between Christianity and “ other principles which determine human action.” We have no evidence upon which we can depend as to the origin and early history of the Christian faith, and therefore we cannot consistently apply the law of probability to its birth and infancy. In human affairs we establish “ a high degree of probability,” either by personal investigation or upon the trustworthy testimony of others. In the case of the establishment of Christianity, however, we can adopt neither of these methods. Of course, personal examination is impossible ; and, apart from the New Testament, there is �THE NATURE AND VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. II no reliable testimony, either sacred or secular, as to the birth, life, and death of Jesus. Supposing the Gospel account of his birth is accepted, even then only one person could testify as to its accuracy, and she maintained silence upon the subject. No other person then living could have vouched for its truth. How, therefore, is it possible for us to possess any evidence of the miraculous introduction of Christ into the world ? At the most we have but an account of a rumour that is supposed to have been circulated two thousand years ago ; and this rumour did not, it appears, reach the historians living at the time when the birth is said to have taken place. Even two of the special biographers of Christ seem to have known nothing of the event. This is where good testimony would be valuable; but it is no­ where to be found in the two Gospels referred to. It is quite useless to talk about “the nature and value” of the evidences of Christianity, as many theologians do, inasmuch as the institution of the faith is not the subject of any history that has survived to the present day. The docu­ ments that are alleged to have contained its earliest cre­ dentials cannot be traced. It is admitted by Biblical scholars that nothing was known of the New Testament for nearly two centuries after the events therein recorded were said to have happened; and it is also acknowledged that, from that period to the present, the book has been altered again and again. Now, remembering that these very Scrip­ tures contain the only evidence of the primitive history of Christianity, it will be seen that such evidence cannot be of any real value in the attempt to establish the validity of the Christian claims. An important fact in connection with the value of Christian evidences is this, that the very nature of many of the events recorded in the New Testament is such that it is impossible to secure any evidence to prove that they took place. The age of implicit belief has gone, and the intelligent minds of to-day cannot be satisfied by being told that ages ago things occurred that are now known to be contrary to the experience of the world and to the laws of nature. The knowledge that certain phenomena result from natural causes should prevent men from ascribing them to agencies above, beyond, or outside nature. Hence evidences, to carry conviction, ought to refer to matters which accord with what is known of �12 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. nature and of man. The fact is Christian evidences do not do this, for they are cited to prove the truth of a system which teaches many absurd improbabilities that no sane man would now believe upon any amount of testimony. For instance, what evidence would prove to the existing generation that a child could be born without a human father, that the human body could possess at one time hundreds of devils, and that dead men could be raised to life from their graves ? Such things are opposed to all reason, and yet they form a part of the teachings of Chris­ tianity. The best evidence that can be adduced to prove the truth of any religion is the reasonableness of its doctrines and the practicability and usefulness of its ethics. With such advan­ tages its truth becomes self evident, and requires no elaborate treatises to prove its value. Now, it is of these two particular features that Christianity is deficient; its doctrines are mystical and absurd, and, so far as it has any unique morality, it is incapable of being reduced to practice in daily life. Of its doctrinal folly there is ample evidence in its teachings as to the Trinity, the scheme of salvation, and the perplexity of Free Will; of the impracticability of the ethical inculcation the Sermon on the Mount is a sufficient witness. It is true this “ Sermon ” has been called the Magna Charta proclaimed by Christ, although it has never been made the basis of any human government. Its injunc­ tions are so antagonistic to the requirements of modern civilisation that no serious attempt has ever been made to put them in practice. It may be mentioned that the genuineness of the “Sermon ” has been boldly questioned by Professor Huxley, who writes : “ I am of opinion that there is the gravest reason for doubting whether the Sermon on the Mount was ever preached, and whether the socalled Lord’s Prayer was ever prayed by Jesus of Nazareth” (“Controverted Questions,” page 415). The late Bishop of Peterborough said : “ It is not possible for the State to carry out all the precepts of Christ. A State that attempted to do so could not exist for a week. If there be any person who maintains the contrary, his proper place is in a lunatic asylum” (Fortnightly, January, 1890). Even supposing the historical claims for Christianity were supported by evidence, that would not be a sufficient set-off against the evidence of �THE NATURE AND VALUE OF CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 13 our time as to the inadequacy of Christianity to suit mundane requirements. Before the claims of Christianity can be evidentially estab­ lished, it must be proved that Christianity has self-evident truths and trustworthy testimony, and that its teachings har­ monise with cultivated reason. In its history no self-interest or party zeal must be imported ; candour and sincerity should be manifest, and bias and prejudice excluded. In its pages the difference between what was known to be true, and what was but the mere belief of the time, must be made clear. Such so-called historical evidence as consists of the imaginations of poets, the theories of dreamers, or accounts of pretended supernatural events, is to our mind utterly worthless for the purpose of establishing the truth and value of any moral system. Taking the New Testa­ ment as the only source of evidence as to Christ and his religion, the student is advised to ascertain, if possible, for himself whether or not it is of the nature of genuine history. To us it resembles what Livy says of Scipio Africanus, that the account of his life, trial, death, funeral, and sepulture was so contradictory that he was unable to determine what tradition or whose writings he ought to credit. The whole question of Christian evidence resolves itself into this : Is it probable enough to deserve implicit belief ? Now, to sum up our estimate of Christian evidences. To us they appear to be destitute of all the essentials of true evidence, and to be entirely worthless in proving that Christianity is aught but a natural growth. We consider that during its various stages of development it has yielded to the force of its environments, whereby many of its elements have been changed and modified to suit the tastes and requirements of those who professed it at different epochs of our history. We fail to discover a particle of legitimate proof to justify the orthodox claim that Christianity had a supernatural origin, that it has had an unbroken history, and that to-day it stands pre-eminently above all other systems as a practical monitor of human conduct. * �SECTION II. GOD AND RELIGION. Professor Stewart’s chapter, in his “ Handbook of Christian Evidences,” on “ God and Religion,” is a fair sample of orthodox exposition and defence. It is intended to justify the belief in a God who is described as the “ First Cause, a self-existent Being, the Creator and Regulator of the Universe;” and also to establish as a fact “ the reality, power, and universality of religion.” This, however, it should be remembered, has nothing to do with the question of Christian evidences, inasmuch as, if the main contentions of this chapter were proved to be correct, it would not necessarily prove the existence of the Christian Deity, or that Christianity is “ a universal phenomenon of human experience and history.” The fact seems to be overlooked that there are other gods believed in besides the one depicted in the Bible, and that there are several religions professed which have but little in common with Christianity. The duty of an expounder of Christian evidences appears to us to be to endeavour to show that the Theism of the Scriptures is reasonable, and that the religion based upon its teachings is true. Whatever is urged in reference to other religions may, or may not, be accurate; but it is of no value as Christian evidence. Let us illustrate our meaning upon these points. The God believed in by Voltaire, Paine, Francis William Newman, and most of the adherents of what is termed “ Advanced Theism,” is certainly not the same Deity as is believed in by so-called Christians, and therefore, if the existence of the God of the advanced Theists were demonstrated, it would not follow that the reality of the Bible God was established. The ablest of our modern Theists will not attempt to defend the “Supreme Being ” of either the Old or the New Testa­ ment. The same argument applies to religion. It is not �GOD AND RELIGION. 15 enough for an expounder of Christian evidences to make the general statement that religion is a fact, and to urge that a belief in some form of it is universal. Even if this were true, that would not prove the evidential claims made on behalf of the Christian system, which must be judged by its own merits. It is admitted that other religions, Buddhism for instance, is as sublime in its teachings as Christianity, and that the followers of Buddha are more numerous than the disciples of Christ. Up to the present time Christianity is not known by two-thirds of the human race j and among the one-third, where a knowledge of it obtains, the majority of the people have no practical faith in its teachings. As a matter of fact, religion /er se may be true, while the Christian form of it may be false. Orthodox believers seem to ignore this truth. We need not dwell here upon the original meaning of the term “religion,” or upon the fact that with the Romans it did not signify merely theological worship, but it meant justice to the State and to the com­ munity. It is only necessary for our present purpose to remind the reader that Christian evidences have failed to show that the religion of the New Testament is unique, or that it is superior to other religious systems. The theory that Christianity has the advantage of the authority of revelation to support it has no force whatever, for, as Max Muller, in his “Science of Religion” (page 45), observes, “ the claims to a revealed authority are urged far more strongly and elaborately by the believers in the Veda than by the apologetical theologians among the Jews and Christians.” Professor Stewart, like most Christian advocates, puts it that the study of the Christian evidences must be preceded by “ a conviction of the existence of God and of the reality amd power of religion.” Now, we submit that persons who are already convinced need no evidence to convince them, and, therefore, to seek for evidence to prove what is regarded as having been proved is, to say the least, a work of super­ erogation. Much importance is attached by Christian exponents to the alleged universal need that is said to be felt for religion. But the truth of this allegation will depend entirely upon the definition that is given of religion. If by the term we mean love, truth, justice, and benevolence, the cultivation of man’s moral nature, and the exemplifica­ II �i6 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. tion in our daily actions of fidelity to our professions, and due consideration for the rights and comforts of others, then, doubtless, most civilised person are religious. But if by religion we mean the teachings of theology and its doctrines, then its universal need has not been proved. Neither has it been shown that such religious ideas are innate; they are acquired as the result of early training and of general education. (See F. J. Gould’s “ Concise History of Religion,” vol. i., pages io, n, and 12.) Professor Stewart endorses, as indeed most Christians do, among the definitions of religion, the following : “ Religion consists fundamentally in the practical recognition of a con­ straining bond between the inward life of man and an unseen person.” “ The perception of the infinite under such manifestations as are able to influence the moral character of man.” Now, to assert that religion, as it is here defined, is universal is the height of presumption. We know of no one who can recognise a “ bond ” between himself and “ an unseen person,” or who has the faculties to perceive “ the infinite,” who is able “to influence the moral character of man.” The question is not if such a “bond” and “the infinite ” exist, but can we know of them ? If, as we allege, we cannot, then they form no part of practical religion, which is, when properly understood, the ruling principle of a man’s life. Now, we do know of many persons who acknowledge that they have no belief whatever in theo­ logical religion, and these facts are sufficient to destroy the contention of its universality. We repeat that there is a marked difference between the universal belief in some of the elements that are found in all the different religions of the world, and the universality of one particular form of religion. The former may be true, while the latter we know to be false, which proves that Christian evidences are of no value upon this point. For facts to prove that the belief in any one theological religion is not universal, the reader is referred to Sir John Lubbock’s “Origin of Civilisa­ tion,” Tuttle’s “ Career of Religious Ideas,” and to vol. i. of F. J. Gould’s “Concise History of Religion.” In these works ample evidence is furnished upon the authority of travellers and missionaries, whose names are there given, that tribes and races of men have been found where there was not the slightest belief in any form of religion. Sir �GOD AND RELIGION. z 17 John Lubbock, on page 467 of his work above mentioned, says : “ It has been asserted over and over again that there is no race of men so degraded as to be entirely without a religion—without some idea of a Deity. So far from this being true, the very reverse is the case. Many, we might almost say all, of the most savage races are, according to the nearly universal testimony of travellers, in this condition.” Burton states that some of the tribes in the Lake Districts of Central Africa “admit neither God, nor angel, nor devil” (page 468). “ In the Pellew Islands Wilson found no religious building nor any sign of religion....... Some of the tribes (of Brazilian Indians), according to Bates and Wallace, were entirely without religion.” Professor Stewart frankly admits that “it is not by argu­ ment we obtain our conviction of the existence of God,” but he adds : “ Formal arguments in support of this con­ clusion are not useless.” As this position is a very popular one among a certain section of Christians, and, moreover, as it is regarded as a part of the Christian evidences, it deserves a brief notice. In the first place, it appears to us that, if argument will not secure conviction, there is no utility in attempting to supply it; yet “ four forms ” of an argument are given by Professor Stewart to prove the exist­ ence of God. They are as follows 1. The First Cause. The belief in this is considered to be more reasonable than to believe either in an unending series of natural causes, or that things came “into existence without a cause.” Here, it will be observed, creation is assumed without a particle of evidence being given in its favour; while no notice is taken of the theory of the eternity of the universe. Now, if it is unreasonable to believe that anything could come into existence without a cause (which we think it is), what about the alleged First Cause, which is held to be zzzzcaused ? Is it not more reasonable to believe in the eternity of that of which we know something than in the zz/zcaused existence of that of which we know nothing ? 2. It is stated that, as there are in the works of nature marks of intelligence and purpose, the author of nature must be intelligent. The weak and inconclusive feature in this argument lies in the inference that intelligence in nature must have had an intelligent author. This very �THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. point, upon which some evidence is required, is simply assumed without even any attempt being made to give reasons for the assumption. If the intelligence in nature needed a higher intelligence to produce it, is it not fair to suppose, upon the same principle, that this higher intelli­ gence would require for its production a still higher intelli­ gence? Further, if, in consequence of the existence of intelligence, it be more rational to believe that the universe was caused than to believe that it is self-existent, then must it not be equally rational to consider that this still higher intelligence was caused ? 3. The allegation here is that our minds are so con­ stituted that we are driven to the conclusion that God is a being that must be. This is but an assertion, and, until some evidence is given in its support, it proves nothing. The same may be said of space, which we cannot conceive of either beginning or ending. 4. We are here told that we have a feeling of responsi­ bility to a personal and moral Being, and, therefore, we are led to infer his existence. To this we offer an unqualified denial; for no such feeling of responsibility is found among savages or untaught persons. To attempt to show that the presence of a moral sense in cultivated man is a proof of the existence of a supernatural power is really too illogical to require further comment than to say that it is a pure assumption, and cannot possibly afford any evidence of a logical conclusion. The case of Religion and God stands thus : The former, to be acceptable to the refined intelligence of the present age, should be free from all theological mysticism and doctrinal absurdity ; and the latter can only be a question of subjective faith, not capable of argumentative demon­ stration. Christianity has not the required freedom, and, therefore, it is desirable that it should yield to a better faith __one that is more in harmony with the genius and mental culture of the nineteenth century. As to the God of the Christians, with his Biblical record of folly, cruelty, and injustice, we allege that such a being is not suited as an object of worship; while in the earthquakes, cyclones, and volcanic eruptions that are constantly destroying the lives of thousands of innocent men, women, and children we fail to see any proof of love and kindness on the �GOD AND RELIGION. 19 part of what is termed the God of Nature. In our opinion, no moral argument can be based upon Theism in the presence of the fact that these calamities and disorders obtain in the world. So long as the lion and the tiger roam the forest pursuing their work of devastation and devouring their prey ; so long as vice flourishes, and virtue pines in want and misery; so long as “ fraud glitters in the palace, and honesty droops in the hovel,” so long shall we be ready to exclaim with the Rev. George Gilfillan, who, in his “ Grand Discovery of the Fatherhood,” in noticing the horrors and the evils that exist around us, asks : “ Is this the spot chosen by the Father for the education of his children, or is it a den of banishment or torture for his foes ? Is it a nursery, or is it a hell ? There is no discovery of the Father in man, in his science, philosophy, history, art, or in any of his relations.” Well may Dr. Vaughan, in his work, “The Age and Christianity,” write: “No attempt of any philosopher to harmonise our ideal notions as to the sort of world which it became a Being of infinite person to create, with the world existing around us, can ever be pronounced successful. The facts of the moral and physical world seem to justify inferences of an opposite description from benevolent.’ �SECTION III. THEISM AND OTHER “ ISMS.” In this section of his “ Christian Evidences ” Professor Stewart rejects Materialism, Pantheism, and Agnosticism, because they do not furnish a satisfactory “explanation of the universe.” The usual Christian allegation is here made that, if we do not accept the theory offered by Theism (it should be said by Christian Theism), we are logically bound to submit another to take its place. But to this we em­ phatically demur, for it does not follow, because the above “ isms ” fail to give an adequate explanation of the universe, that Christianity supplies the omission ; that is what should be proved, but it is not. The assertion that God created matter and life is no explanation of the one or the other. In the light of modern science, it is evident to us that the Bible account of the supposed origin of the universe and the creation of man—which contains the Christian theory— is utterly erroneous, and no evidence is produced to establish its validity. It is not enough, therefore, for expounders of the Christian evidences to show that Agnosticism or Materialism has no theory to explain the why and wherefore of existence ; they must, in order to make good their claim, prove that their hypothesis is a reasonable one. For instance, it must be demonstrated, as stated in the Old Testament, that the universe and Adam and Eve were created in six days, about six thousand years ago; that man was made from the dust of the earth, and that woman was made from one of his ribs ; that the human race has degenerated from an original state of perfection ; that death was the result of sin upon the part of Adam ; and that, in the time of Noah, a universal flood “ prevailed upon the earth a hundred and fifty days,” covering “ all the high hills and the mountains,” destroying “ every living substance ” that was then in existence, except �THEISM AND OTHER “ ISMS.” 21 Noah “ and they that were with him in the ark.” Further., before the Christian theory can be accepted as being true, evidence should be forthcoming that man by nature is necessarily corrupt, and that in him “dwelleth no good thing ” (see Romans iii. 23, vii. 18; 2 Cor. iii. 5 ; Phil. ii. 13, iii. 21; Psalm li. 5.); that the majority, of those who are now living are doomed to suffer after death the tortures of a burning hell (see Matt. vii. 13 and 14, xxii. 14; 2 Thess. i. 7, 8, 9); that it is possible for all mankind to believe one thing—namely, salvation through Christ (see Acts iv. 10, 11, 12; Mark xvi. 16); and that the New Testament is accurate in describing persons who were suffering from physical disease as being possessed with devils. Now, the reader is requested to particularly note that, from a Christian point of view, the question is not, are there any other theories of the universe apart from the one given by Christianity that will satisfy the critical test ? As Christians claim that their theory is correct, it should be made to harmonise with the facts of science, philosophy, and experience. Up to the present, so far as we are aware, no such harmony has been established. The very fact that the theory of evolution has been accepted even by many Theists, as a partial explanation of phenomena, is evidence that the Christian theory is not considered satisfactory. Granted that evolution does not come within the domain of demonstrated science, it does, however, agree with the science of probability, and Bishop Butler has said, “ Probability is the guide of life.” It should not be here overlooked that probability cannot apply to that of which nothing is known, hence it can have no refer­ ence to the alleged origin of the universe, or to its super­ natural government, for these are questions of speculation, not of knowledge. The very thought of a beginning of the universe is unthinkable, as Dean Mansel observes: “Creation is, to the human mind, inconceivable.” As to the term “ supernatural,” it means, in popular language, something higher than nature. But, if there is a sphere higher than nature, and yet often breaking through nature, nature itself must be limited by something, and the question arises, By what is such limitation fixed, and what is the boundary line which marks it off and separates it from the supernatural ? Further, supposing such a line to be well known, so that �22 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. no difficulty could arise in pointing it out, a still more diffi­ cult problem presents itself for solution—namely, how man, who is a part of nature, and able only to come into contact with nature, can push his knowledge into that other sphere which, being non-natural, cannot be at all accessible to a natural being ? If the supernatural region be synonymous with the unknowable, it cannot clearly concern us, simply because we have no faculties with which to cognise it, and no powers capable of penetrating into its profound depths. In examining the claims of Christianity, we must enforce our contention that we have nothing to do with any other system but that of Christianity, for the reason that, if there were twenty other theories, and all were proved to be false, that would not make the Christian theory true. Materialism and Agnosticism have no theories as to the origin and government of the universe by an external power; and while in our present inquiry we are not concerned to defend .either of these “ isms,” we desire to correct an error into which Professor Stewart has fallen. In reference to Agnosti­ cism, he observes : “ The truth in Agnosticism is that man’s knowledge of God....... is, though real, imperfect and inadequate.” This is an inaccurate statement of the Agnostic position, which recognises no knowledge, either adequate or inadequate, of the existence of God. Agnosti­ cism declares that the subject is outside our gnosis, and, while refusing to dogmatically deny Deity’s existence, it alleges that we can know nothing of him, since such a being as the one described by Theists transcends all our powers and faculties. The Agnostic is always willing to carry on his investigations into nature to the utmost extent of his ability. He seeks to wring from her the secrets hidden through all the ages of the past; he pushes his inquiries from point to point, and learns all that can be known of the marvellous processes of life and mind; but the incompre­ hensible he seeks not to comprehend, and the unknowable . he does not make the idle attempt to know. This course he deems more courageous, more dignified, and more candid than that adopted by the dogmatic theologian, who, yearning for a knowledge of the absolute, and yet failing to discover it, lacks the courage to avow his inability to achieve the impossible. �SECTION IV. THE QUESTION OF REVELATION. The positions taken by orthodox Christians upon the question of Revelation are : (i) That the Old and New Testaments contain a special revelation from God; that there are some parts of the Bible which are not divinely inspired, but are simply the recorded opinions of the writers, and that the New Testament is of more importance to Christians than the Old, because the latter was intended for the Jews. Some Christians, however, urge that, in order that the Jews may participate in the salvation offered through Christ, it is necessary that they should accept the New Testament as well as the Old. (2) That Biblical revelation was necessary, inasmuch as nature is not only insufficient as a guide to mankind, but that on many “ an occasion of our sorest need” it “is blind and deaf to our beseeching.” Such is the statement of Professor Stewart, who adds : “We find it impossible to believe that a Supreme Being who is good would leave man without needed guidance, and that One who is wise and powerful could not discover a method ■of affording such guidance.” (3) That the doctrine which denies that God “has revealed himself, except through nature and conscience, finds itself involved in difficulties when confronted with the problem of physical and moral evil.” These are the three principal features which differ­ entiate Christianity from natural religion. As to the first position. If the whole of the Bible is not a revelation from God, how are we to decide what portions are inspired and what are not ? If each person is to decide the question for himself, then, as the Rev. Dr. Caird has shown, other Bibles that inculcate teachings which are very different from those taught by Christianity may be con­ sidered as “ divine revelations.” Besides, this “ explanation ” �24 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. makes the man decide what is “ divine,” which is fatal to the claims of Christianity. Moreover, against the validity of this Christian position the following objections appear to us to deserve attention : Could revelations which are contra­ dictory in themselves emanate from a mind that is infinite and unchanging ? If the later revelation contains something which is superior to anything found in the earlier, is it not a reflection upon an all-wise and all-good God that he should have so long deprived his children of the superior communication ? Supposing that God sent the Old Testa­ ment to the Jews, it is reasonable to presume that he knew what would be sufficient for them. Is it not, therefore, orthodox impertinence to endeavour to force upon them the New Testament ? Another point that should be remembered is that, if this alleged new revelation were a direct communication from God, it could only have been so to the person or persons to whom it was made. A revelation to Paul would not be a revelation to us, and therefore it could be of no evidential value to the present generation. There is also to be con­ sidered the doubtful channel through which the New Testament has come down to us ; the many abridgments and interpolations to which the documents have been sub­ jected must necessarily have prevented it from being evidence in support of the Christian claims. Again, it does not appear that the writers of the New Testament professed that what they recorded was a revelation from God; they only claimed it to be a narration of what they saw, heard, and gathered from the traditions of earlier periods. This seems to be the Rationalistic view that should be taken of the entire Bible, inasmuch as the numerous errors and con­ tradictions which it contains make the fact self-evident that the book, as we have it to-day, could not possibly have been a revelation from a perfect Being. The second position taken by Christians as to revelation is based upon the double fallacy of supposing that the New Testament gives us a better guide for human conduct than we find in nature ; and that the God of Revelation is not “ blind and deaf to our beseeching.” Here, as in previous sections, we find orthodox assumptions taking the place of legitimate evidence. Can there be any doubt that the two important guides, cultivated reason and scientific facts, are �THE QUESTION OF REVELATION. 25 to be attributed to nature ? Where are these guides to be found in the Christian Revelation ? In it faith is regarded as being higher than reason, and reliance upon prayer as of more value than dependence upon science. It should be borne in mind that at one period of our history an attempt was made to accept this revelation as a guide of life, but it was found thoroughly inadequate as a monitor in human actions. The very effort to make it so completely paralysed the progress of science, the advancement of education, and the ethical growth of the age. Even now, when the “ Peculiar People ” follow the teachings of this revelation as a guide, the results are unfortunate, for the consistent believers are punished for adhering to the assumed revealed instructions. It is only where reason and science, aided by human experience, guide the actions of mundane life that we find advancement going on to a higher and nobler civilisation. Those who profess to believe that the God of Revelation is not “ blind and deaf to our beseeching ” should produce some evidence that their belief has a sound basis. It is of no value as evidence to remind us that Revelation promises that prayers shall be answered, unless it can be shown that the promises were fulfilled. And this, we submit, has not hitherto been done. Have we not on record too many instances where loving parents have spent hours in “ beseeching ” that the lives of their children should be spared ; of earnest prayers being offered up that pain and agony should cease; that poverty and despotism should no longer mar the happi­ ness of the race? Were not special supplications sent to the God of Revelation to avert the deaths of Prince Albert, the Duke of Clarence, the late Emperor of Russia, Abraham Lincoln, and Garfield ? In these cases not only personal, but national “ beseechings ” were made to the God of Revelation that the lives of these men should be saved; but he was “ blind and deaf ” to all “ beseechings.” It is no answer to say that in these instances it was not God’s will that the prayers should be answered, for, if that were so, it shows the folly of “ beseeching ” him to do anything. The Bible tells us that God “ knoweth the secrets of the heart ” (Psalm xliv. 21); that he “ doeth according to his will, and none shall stay his hand” (Daniel iv. 35); and that he “never changes” (Mai. iii. 6). If these “revealed” words �26 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. are to be relied upon, where is the utility of “ beseeching ” him to help us at all ? He knows when help is required, and, if he intends to render it, he will do so ; but, if he does not, no “ beseeching ” will be of any avail, for he “ never changes.” The third position involves the problem of the existence of physical and moral evil in the world. Professor Stewart, in his “ Christian Evidences,” admits that there are difficulties connected with this question, and he contends that the Deists with their “ God of Nature ” cannot remove the difficulties, but that the Christians with their God of Revelation can. Referring to John Stuart Mill’s essay, “On Nature,” the Professor says : “ It must be acknowledged that, if natural laws be all, and natural ends the only ends to be achieved, it is difficult to avoid the horns of Mill’s dilemma, by which we are called upon to reject either the power or the goodness of God. And what is true of physical evil is still more apparent when we turn to consider moral evil. Perfect as the system of the world may have been when it left the hands of its Creator, who can doubt, in the face of daily experience, that it has somehow gone wrong ? Christianity recognises this.” Here it may be asked : “ If the system of the world ” were originally perfect, how could it have “gone wrong”? And, if God were all-powerful, why did he allow it to go wrong ? The Christian’s answer is, that God could not give man liberty of choice, without his having the option of going wrong. This is the proffered harmony between the existence of a God of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, and the existence of physical and moral evil. We fail to see where the goodness of God is manifest here, for, from a human standpoint, we consider that, if a being had the power to keep the world right, it should have been impossible for it to have “ gone wrong.” It is admitted that there is physical evil in nature, and moral evil in man ; therefore they must both possess a power independent of, and opposed to, infinite power. Is not this both absurd and contradictory ? The defenders of the claims of Christianity seem to ignore the following logical conclusions from their premises : If the Christian Deity be the creator of all things, then he must necessarily be the “God of Nature,” and. in conse­ quence, he is responsible for the pain and misery produced �THE QUESTION OF REVELATION. 27 by such calamities as volcanoes, with their red-hot lava; the earthquakes and epidemics that destroy millions of human beings : the explosions in the mines which cause the agonising deaths of husbands, fathers, and sons, upon whom whole families are dependent for the means of existence; the railway accidents ; and the storms at sea. Now, these calamities occur either with or without God’s interference. If with his interference, he is not all-good; if without, he is not kind and benevolent ; and if they happen in spite of him, he is not all-powerful. Hence we agree with J. S. Mill when he says : “ For, however offensive the proposition may appear to many religious persons, they should be willing to look in the face the undeniable fact that the order of nature, in so far as unmodified by man, is such as no being, whose attributes are justice and benevolence, would have made with the intention that his rational creatures should follow it as an example” (essay, “On Nature,” p. 25). A new version of the Doxology would not be here out of place, and it should read something like this :— “ Praise God from whom all cyclones blow, Praise Him when rivers overflow, Praise Him who whirls the churches down, And sinks the boats, their crews to drown.” Briefly, the Rationalistic objections to the orthodox claims of a book-revelation from God are as follows : That in the New Testament nothing of any value is revealed that was unknown to the world before. That the God of Revelation, being the creator of all things, is responsible for the physical and moral evils in the world. That the same being who arranged for the redemption of man planned his fall, and surrounded that event with conditions that rendered moral freedom of no avail. That, if Adam and Eve before the Fall did not know good from evil, the power of choice to them was useless. That to postulate one infinite will as an abso­ lute ruler of the universe, and then to add millions of finite wills, which are capable of thwarting the Infinite one, is, to say the least, absurd. That no evidence has been produced which shows that the God of Revelation listens to human “ beseechings,” and supplies the wants of mankind more than does the “ God of Nature.” Finally, that cruel and unjust as nature is (which it ought not to be if it is the �28 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. production of a good God), in it are contained the remedies for all the evils that can be removed. When this nature is modified and improved by man, it is found to be the only source from which the means are obtained that enable us to augment human happiness, and to promote the physical, intellectual, and ethical advancement of the human race. �SECTION V. MIRACLES. The question to be kept in view in this section is : Supposing miracles were ever wrought, would that be evidence that Christianity is a divine system ? To prove that miracles have happened does not necessarily substantiate the claims of Christianity, because other religious systems also profess to be based upon the miraculous. Even the Bible admits that miracles occurred without divine aid. For proof of this the reader is referred to Deut. xiii. 1-3 ; Matt. xxiv. 24; Acts viii. 9, 10. Here it is clearly stated that miracles were actually performed by agencies the very opposite to those claimed by Christianity. Professor Stewart says the miraculous is “ evidence of the real and reliable character of the revelation, and of the divine source of the power, manifested in Christianity.” But this is a fallacy upon the very face of it. What have miracles to do with the “reliable character of the revela­ tion ” upon the practical duties of life ? If Christ did raise the dead, and perform other wonders, it would not make him accurate when he taught that this world should be con­ sidered as being only of secondary importance ; that utter indifference should be manifested as to the future of mundane life ; that a state of poverty is desirable ; that prayer is a reliable source of material help ; that salvation cannot be obtained except through him ; that the possession of devils was the cause of physical and mental disease ; or that the world was to have come to an end during the lifetime of those to whom he was speaking. Because the “ revelation ” very properly advises children to honour their parents, it does not, therefore, follow that it is “ reliable ” when it says that Christ was born without a human father, or that he could have been in two places at the same time. Neither does it �3° THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. corroborate the statement that Christ the Son, who was “ born of a virgin,” was as old as God the Father, and that the Devil has been more potent than either of them. To make good the claims of Christianity here put forth, their reliability must be established apart altogether from an appeal to miracles. The Christian claim, that the miracles which Christ is said to have performed prove that he was more than man, is equally fallacious. As already stated, wonders as great as those ascribed to Christ have been accomplished by persons who are admitted to have been but human. Besides, some of the miracles credited to Christ do not harmonise with that wisdom, utility, and justice which are said to be cha­ racteristic of divinity. As evidence of this, the reader is requested to peruse the account of his cursing the fig-tree (Matt, xxi.) ; of his reckless destruction of another person’s property by casting a herd of swine into the sea, so that they “ perished in the waters ” (Matt. viii. 32); and of his turning water into wine (John ii.). Dr. Middleton, in his “ Free Inquiry,” speaking of miracu­ lous events, .writes thus: “If either part be infirm their credit must sink in proportion ; and, if the facts especially be incredible, they must of course fall to the ground, because no force of testimony can alter the nature of things.” If the unbiased reader will test the miracles of Christ by the rule that this eminent Christian sets down, it will be seen how groundless the miraculous claims of Christianity really are. For, beyond doubt, many of the Christian “facts” are incredible ; and, therefore, as the Doctor observes, “ they must of course fall to the ground.” Is it credible that “ Lazarus should come from his grave, bound hand and foot with graveclothes,” after he was dead, and decomposition had set in ? That certain saints who were dead and in their graves should rise and go into the city, and be heard of no more ? That Christ should feed a hungry multitude of “about five thousand men, besides women and children,” with five loaves and two fishes, and, when all were filled, that there should be twelve baskets full remaining ? Such tales would not be believed to-day in connection with human affairs. Why,, then, should they be thought reliable in support of claims at which “reason stands aghast, and faith itself is half confounded ” ? �MIRACLES. 31 It is worthy of note, as showing the weakness of the claim that Christ’s miracles prove his divinity, that where he per * formed some of his principal works many of the people were not convinced of the genuineness of his professions. Faith was a necessary requisite for the belief in miracles. Where scepticism existed, Christ’s occupation as a thaumaturgus was gone. Matthew informs us (xiii. 58) that Christ “ did not many mighty works there, because of their un­ belief.” But, had the object of miracles been to prove the divine mission of Christ, it was in the midst of unbelief that they should have been wrought. Jesus seems to have suc­ ceeded tolerably well with his wonders among the ignorant, the insane, and the deaf and dumb people. When, however, he came in contact with thoughtful unbelievers, his prestige was gone. Hence, we read in Matthew (xi. 20): “Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not;” and in John (xii. 37): “ But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him.” Here is a clear admis­ sion that, in Christ’s time, his best miracles were disbelieved and rejected. Is it expected that in the nineteenth century we are more credulous than were our predecessors eighteen hundred years ago ? The question of the reality, or otherwise, of miracles is not here involved. Still, it may be urged, as against the Christian claims, that, if the stories of the miracles of the New Testament were true, the attributes of an omnipotent, good, all-wise, and impartial God would be destroyed. Further, the perfection of his government would be rendered impossible. A miracle, as understood by the Church, implies a special act upon the part of God, and his inter­ ference with natural sequences. Now, all acts of God— supposing him to be the being Christians regard him—must be good acts. If, therefore, it were wise for God to perform certain acts eighteen hundred years ago, it would have been equally wise for him to have done so four thousand years previously. So long, therefore, as he abstained from per­ forming those acts, so long did he withhold advantages from his children, and thereby deal unjustly towards them. To urge that an act of God may be good and necessary at one time, and not at another, is to reduce the government of God to a level with that of man, and to admit that the �32 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. “ divine ” economy is neither uniform nor perfect. Again, granting the existence of God, all sequences were arranged by that God. If arranged by him, they were so arranged from eternity. Anything which acted contrary to that arrangement was either the result of an after-plan on God’s part—in which case he is not all-wise and immutable—or the arrangement took place in spite of God; and in that case he is not all-powerful. We only know of existence as it is, and we judge of its nature and power from experience and investigation. From these sources of knowledge we learn that at certain degrees heat will burn, water will drown, and poison, in given quantities, will destroy life. To believe otherwise is for man to leave facts and reason, and to revel in fancy and credulity. The forces in nature, so far as we have discovered them, are regular in their order, and “ constancy of succession marks their operations.” These are truths that science has made known in modern times, and, if they were always relied upon, no claim could consistently be made for the reality of miracles. The Rationalistic view of the miraculous claims of Chris­ tianity may be thus briefly stated : (i) That it is impossible to prove from experience that Christ’s miracles were ever performed. (2) That the only approach to evidence of their reality is testimony, which is far from being reliable. (3) That it is not reasonable to suppose that God would work miracles, and at the same time endow man with faculties which enabled him to reject them. (4) That it is true some events have occurred that have not yet been accounted for by natural law. If this were not the case, science would now have no unsolved problems to deal with. But we know that many events that were once thought to be unaccount­ able science has now traced to natural law ; thus “ the supernatural of one age has become the natural of another.” (5) To the allegation that religious interests require a departure from the ordinary laws of nature, we reply that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary laws has not been defined, and it cannot be defined until the extra­ ordinary law is understood; and, when it is understood, actions in conformity thereto will not be considered miracu­ lous. (6) If it be true that God specially interferes in the order of the universe, all certainty in human affairs is an impossibility. (7) If a person to-day were to say that one �MIRACLES. 33 who was dead had been brought back to life, we should feel certain that that person had been deceived. Our conclusion would be based upon natural law, which there is no reason to suppose could ever have been violated. (8) Even if we admit the existence of supernatural power, before we can logically attribute any event to that power, should we not be prepared to state where the natural ends, and where the alleged supernatural begins ? Should we not, also, have some means of recognising the manifestations of that power ? Because we are not able to explain the why and the where­ fore of certain effects, that does not justify us in saying they are supernaturally produced. Until man knows all that nature can do, let him not presume to assert what it cannot do. �SECTION VI. THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. Professed Christians regard Christ as the foundation and centre of their faith. Whatever weaknesses may be thought to belong to other alleged evidences of the truth of Chris­ tianity, it is said that Jesus is the invulnerable rock, without flaw or imperfection. This extravagant and unprovable claim is sought to be maintained by Professor Stewart and other Christian defenders upon the following grounds :—(i) That the superior excellence of Christ’s character is acknow­ ledged by opponents of Christianity. (2) That the out­ lines of his life are historical, and that the portraiture given of him in the Gospels harmonises with the belief of the earliest Christians. (3) That this portraiture, in the words of Professor Stewart, “ must be either an invention or an idealised picture, or be drawn from actual knowledge of the person represented.” It is contended that it is impossible for it to have been either of the first two, and, therefore, his character “ is a strikingly original one.” (4) It is further alleged that, if the claims which Christ puts forward in his own name are not justified, they evince a fanatical selfdelusion, and are fatal to his moral reputation. Such is the latest evidence given for the purpose of proving the orthodox claims for Christ. That it is inade­ quate for the purpose we hope to demonstrate ; for, even if we admit that the facts are as stated in the first three positions here set forth, it does not, therefore, follow that the claims of Christianity are established. The fact that certain Sceptics hold a high opinion of Jesus; that the earliest Christians based their belief on the portraiture of the Gospels, which are supposed to be, in their “ main out­ lines,” historically accurate ; and that the character drawn of Christ is original, can in no way prove the truth of all that �THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 35 is taught by the Christian faith. For instance, it would be no proof that Christ was equal with God ; that he was in every particular perfect; that his death atoned for the sins of the world; and that his teachings are of practical value in regulating the mundane affairs of to-day. Before we can accept such positions as furnishing any evidence of the truth of the claims of Christianity, it must be shown : (i) That the opinions of the Sceptics were correct; (2) that the out­ lines of Christ’s life are consistent, and in accordance with natural law; and (3) that the portraiture given of Jesus in the Four Gospels is a correct one. In connection with this last point it should be remembered that during the early centuries no one definite uniform opinion as to the nature and character of Christ obtained among his followers. E. P. Meredith observes that “at a most early period of the Christian era there appear to have been great doubts as to the real existence of Christ. The Manichees, as Augustine informs us, denied that he was a man, while others maintained that he was a man, but denied that he was a God (August. Sermon, xxxvii., c. 12). The Fathers tell us that it was in the times of the apostles believed that Christ was a phantom, and that no such person as Jesus Christ had ever had any corporeal existence. There is, therefore, considerable force in the expressions of a modern writer, that the being of no other individual men­ tioned in history ever laboured under such a deficiency of ■evidence as to its reality, or ever was overset by a thousandth part of the weight of positive proof that it was a creation of imagination only, as that of Jesus Christ. His existence as a man has, from the earliest day on which it can be shown to have been asserted, been earnestly and strenuously denied ; and that not by the enemies of the Christian faith, but by the most intelligent, most learned, and most sincere ■of the Christian name who ever left to the world proofs of their intelligence and learning in their writings, and of their sincerity in their sufferings ”(“ The Prophet of Nazareth,” pp. 287-8). Even at the present day contradictory ideas are entertained as to the real personality or character of Christ. Trini­ tarians believe him to be God, but the Unitarians regard him only as a man ; while the Swedenborgians think him .a “ divine humanity.” The General Baptists maintain that �36 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. he died for all men, and the Particular Baptists assert that he died only for an elect number. Many of Christ’s admirers look upon his character as being perfect; others admit that, being human, his character must necessarily be imperfect. Christian Socialists claim him as a great social and political reformer ; but their more religious opponents aver that he was a spiritual regenerator, and that he spoke the truth when he said, “ My kingdom is not of this world.” In the New Testament there are clearly two portraitures given of Christ: the one, gentle and loving; the other, harsh and unforgiving. From the one come the sympathetic words : “ Father, forgive them “ Suffer little children to come unto me and the command, “ Love one another.” From the other proceed the gloomy and revengeful exclama­ tions : “ He that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God“ Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire “ If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, etc., he cannot be my disciple.” Now the question is, As these two portraitures are diametrically opposed to each other, and given by the same authorities, which is the correct one ? In reference to the fourth position put forth to prove the claims of Christianity, it differs from the other three, inas­ much as it is evidential; but the evidence is not for, but against, orthodox claims. The argument urged therein is that, if Christ were not what, according to the Gospels, he professed to be, he was a victim to a fanatical self-delusion, which would indicate weakness in his moral character. The question, then, is, Was Christ what he claimed to be, and did he do what he promised to accomplish ? Moreover, were his actions governed by reasonable modesty, or were they performed under the influence of uncontrolled enthu­ siasm? To decide this question, the New Testament is our only standard of appeal, and therein we find that the Gospels represent Christ as claiming to be equal with God, and yet he was not impervious to human weaknesses and imperfec­ tions. He suffered from hunger (Matt. iv. 2); he gave way to anger (Mark iii. 5), and to petty passion (Matt, xxi. 18, 19); he lacked power (John v. 19-30); and he was limited in wisdom (Mark xiii. 32). Further, he acknowledged that he could do nothing of himself (see John v. 19 and 30). He announced that he “proceeded �THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 37 forth and came from God” (John viii. 42); but he failed to justify this claim to his townsmen, for they said of him : “ Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and Judah, and Simon? And are hot his sisters here with us?” “Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know ? How is it, then, that he saith I came down from heaven ?” So un­ popular, however, he became at Nazareth that “all they in the synagogue rose up and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong ” (Mark vi. 3, John vi. 42, Luke iv. 28, 29). Even his own relatives had no faith in his pretensions to miraculous power; they accused him of secrecy, and told him to “ Depart hence, and go into Judaea, that thy disciples also may see the works that thou doest; for there is no man that doeth anything in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known. If thou do these things, show thyself to the world. For neither did his brethren believe in him ” (John vii. 1-5). In moments of enthusiasm Christ made promises which he never fulfilled. In Matthew (xix.) we are told that he promised that certain of his followers should “sit upon thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel ”; but there is no record that such an event ever took place. He also assured believers in him that they should “ cast out devils,” “ take up serpents, and, if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them” (Mark xvi. 17, 18). Will his followers test his promise in these matters ? Moreover, he em­ phatically said : “If two of you shall agree upon earth, as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my father which is in heaven” (Matthew xviii. 19). “ Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John xiv. 13, 14). Now, here Christ claims to be in a position to guarantee that the prayers of his believers shall be answered. But was he justified in so doing? Experience says, No; for, in spite of prayers asking that scepticism should cease, it has increased as time rolled on, until to-day it is more extensive than it ever was. What has been more prayed for than the unity of Christendom ? Jesus himself prayed �38 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. that his followers might be one (John xvii. 21); yet, from his time, divisions among Christians have gone on increasing, and each sect prays in vain for the conversion of the others. That many of the acts ascribed to Christ were of a fanatical kind is evident. For instance, his riding into Jerusalem upon an ass and a colt (Matthew xxi.); his enter­ ing the Temple, overthrowing the money-changers’ tables, and whipping the merchants from the building with “a scourge of small cords” (John ii. 15); his cursing the fig­ tree, because it did not bear fruit out of season ; his designating those who came before him as “thieves and robbers ” (John x. 8), and his vituperations against certain persons, calling them “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ?” No wonder that his friends thought he was “beside himself” (Mark iii. 21), and that the Jews considered “he hatha devil, and is mad ” (John x. 26). The Rev. Charles Voysey says Christ could “not have been God, because he was not a perfect man. He had faults which neither I nor my readers would venture to imitate without loss of self-respect. His mind gave way, and he was not responsible for what he said.” Instead of regarding Jesus as an impostor, the rev. gentleman said that “ he was simply mistaken, and finally insane” {Fortnightly Review, January, 1887). Perhaps this will account for his delusions in reference to prayer, his belief in people being possessed with devils, that believers could drink poison and suffer no injurious results, and that the world was to come-to an end during the lifetime of the people of his day. N ow, if fanaticism and self-delusion are fatal to moral reputation, as Professor Stewart says they are, then Christ’s moral character must be impaired, for the Gospels allege that he was a victim to both these draw­ backs. What, then, does the evidence at our command in refer­ ence to the claims of and for Christ prove ? Simply this : That for many centuries contradictory and varying beliefs have obtained in connection with a person called Jesus, who is supposed to have lived nearly two thousand years ago ; that he is regarded as having been the founder of the Christian religion; that his birth was miraculous, his life and teachings unique, his death unparalleled, and that he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven. These are the �THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 39 fundamental claims urged on behalf of orthodox Chris­ tianity ; and we submit that there is no historical evidence, sufficiently trustworthy, to justify such claims. We look in vain among the writings of Jewish and heathen historians, who lived in or near the time when the events are said to have happened, for any testimony of their occurrence. Besides, the incidents are so contrary to human experience, and the New Testament, which records the events, is so contradictory in narrating them, that, according to the general law of evidence, the claims have no logical demand upon our credence. The fact is that the reports found in the Gospels as to when and where Christ was born, his genealogy, his sayings and doings, and his death, resurrec­ tion, and ascension, are too conflicting and inconsistent for their credibility to be relied upon. Moreover, the theories based upon the supposition that the narratives were accurate are so discordant, and have been so varying in their develop­ ment, that it is difficult to conceive they were supported by fact. The Church, which accepted a theory in one age, often rejected it in another: while views that were regarded by some Christian exponents as being orthodox have been condemned by others as heterodox. And to-day the very beliefs that were based upon the records of the New Testa­ ment are either modified or entirely discarded, not only by secular scholars, but by learned divines. The new view entertained by “ advanced Christians ” is that Christ is an “ idealbut this position is not a sound one, inasmuch as the question arises, An ideal of what ? If the better parts of an ideal are marred by that which is erroneous and im­ practicable, the ideal is not a safe one for human guidance. That this is so in reference to the Christ of the Gospels is, to our mind, beyond doubt. Surely, with these facts before us, it is unreasonable to attempt to exact implicit belief in events destitute of logical coherence and of historical corroboration. We believe that the more dignified and correct course to take, from a Rationalist point of view, is to estimate the value of the traditions that have grown up around the name of Christ, by the peculiar features belonging to the ages of their growth, and by the intellectual light of the nineteenth century. Modern thought must not be fettered by ancient speculation. If it could be proved that the history of �40 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. Christ were historical, it would not make the impracticable portion of his teachings useful to us ; and if it could be shown that he was an impostor, it would not rob any truth he taught of its real value. In this utilitarian age what is said should be considered of greater importance than by whom it is said. Personally, the origin of Christianity has but little interest for us ; we are the more concerned as to its truth and utility. Like all religious systems, the one bearing the Christian name is a combination of the true and the erroneous, the real and the imaginary, and our duty is to discriminate between fact and fiction, and to accept the one and to reject the other. Neither do we consider that the admission that Jesus might have lived necessitates our regarding him either as a supernatural being or as an impostor. Supposing he lived, he might have been, as we think he was, self-deceived, his better judgment being over­ whelmed by his fanatical nature. Christians, while admitting the existence of Buddha and Mohammed, will not grant that they were divine personages, or that their teachings were perfect ; but the time is past for those religious founders to be denounced as impostors. Why should a different rule be applied to Christ ? His teachings are not superior to theirs, the progress of his faith has not been more extensive than theirs, and certainly his followers have not been more numerous than those of Buddha. What, then, is the Rationalist view of Christ? It is, briefly, this : That, assuming the New Testament account of him to be accurate, we must regard him as a man who possessed but limited education, who was surrounded by unfavourable influences for intellectual acquirements, who belonged to a race not very remarkable for literary culture, who retained many of the failings of his pro­ genitors, and who had but little regard for the world or the things of the world. Viewed under these circumstances, we can, while excusing many of his errors, recognise and admire something that is praiseworthy in his character. But, when he is raised upon a pinnacle of greatness as an exemplar of virtue and wisdom, and as surpassing the production of any age or country, he is then exalted to a position which he does not merit, and which deprives him of that credit which otherwise he would perhaps be entitled to. He revealed nothing of practical value, and �THE PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER OF CHRIST. 41 he taught no virtues that were before unknown. No doubt in his life there were many commendable features ; but he was far from being perfect. While he might have been wellmeaning, he was in belief superstitious, in conduct incon­ sistent, in opinions contradictory, in teaching arbitrary, in faith vacillating, and in pretensions great. He taught false notions of existence; he had no knowledge of science; he misled his followers by claiming to be what he was not, and he deceived himself by his own credulity. He lacked experimental force, frequently living a life of isolation, and taking but slight interest in the affairs of this world. It is this lack of experimental force throughout the career of Christ that renders his notions of domestic duties so thoroughly imperfect. As a son, he lacked affection and consideration for the feelings of his parents; as a teacher, he was mystical and rude ; and, as a reasoner, he was defective and illogical. Lacking a true method of reasoning, possessing no uniformity of character, he exhibited a strange example—an example injudicious to exalt and dangerous to emulate. At times he was severe when he should have been gentle. When he might have reasoned he frequently rebuked. When he ought to have been firm and resolute he was vacillating. When he should have been happy he was sorrowful and desponding. After preaching faith as the one thing needful, he himself lacked it when he required it the most. Thus, on the cross, when a knowledge of a life of integrity, a sensibility of the fulfilment of a good mission, a conviction that he was dying for a noble and righteous cause, and fulfilling the object of his life—when all these should have given him moral strength we find him giving vent to utter despair. So overwhelmed was he with grief and anxiety of mind that, we are told, he “ began to be sorrowful and very heavy.” “My soul,” he exclaimed, “ is sorrowful even unto death.” At last, overcome with grief, he implores his father to rescue him from the death which was then awaiting him. * * For further evidence that the orthodox view of Christ is erroneous, and that he was no general reformer, the reader is referred to the present writer’s pamphlet, “Was Christ a Political and Social Reformer?” where this phase of his character is fully dealt with. �SECTION VII. THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. The alleged resurrection of Christ is an important feature in his history. In fact, the orthodox defenders of Chris­ tianity stake the truth of their entire faith upon the reality of this one event, which is an exceedingly illogical thing to do. For, supposing Christ did rise from the dead, that would be no evidence that the whole system of orthodoxy is true and reasonable. Of course the fallacy in this instance originated with St. Paul, who is reported to have said : “ And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain ” (i Cor. xv. 14). “ What advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” This is really the most irrational and selfish test that was ever submitted to prove the validity of any claim. It makes the usefulness of Christianity to depend not upon its ethical value, but upon a theological dogma. The utter selfishness of the test is apparent, for it puts personal gain before all considerations of general good. If all belief in the resurrection were ignored, should we then have no duties to perform, and no consolation to support us in the battle of life ? Would all love for mankind and interest in their welfare cease ? Should we have no hearts to gladden, no homes to make happy, and no characters to improve and elevate ? The faith that makes the sunshine of existence, the recognition of duty, and the cultivation of virtue to depend upon the belief in a “ risen Christ ” is low and grovelling in the extreme, and it is thoroughly opposed to the Rationalist view of the nature and capabilities of the manifold energies of the human race. Fortunately, such a -sordid and degrading view of life is as false as it is despair­ ing ; for, long before the story of the resurrection was heard of, the noblest virtues were fostered and the highest possible �THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 43 happiness was realised; and even to-day it is the same among millions of the human family where the belief does not obtain. Although, from a Rationalist standpoint, the reality or otherwise of the resurrection of Christ should have no in­ fluence upon personal conduct, it may be interesting to inquire upon what grounds the belief in it rests. The account of such a marvellous event as the restoration from death to life of one upon whom the salvation of the world was supposed to depend should be supported by the clearest of evidence. But no such evidence exists, which is very remarkable, if the event were to be considered the strongest proof of the truth of Christianity. We have not the testi­ mony of any eye-witnesses of the resurrection. Early historians are silent in reference to it, and the accounts in the Gospels are inconsistent and contradictory. Even the extraordinary phenomena which are said to have happened at the death of Christ (Matt, xxvii.) are not mentioned by Seneca and Pliny, although each of them, as Gibbon informs, us, “in a laborious work, has recorded all the great pheno­ mena of nature—earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses —which his indefatigable curiosity could collect.” 2 Having, then, no historical evidence of the resurrection, let us see if there is any value in what the New Testament says upon the subject. We have not space to present the many contradictions contained in the Gospels as to the in­ cidents which are reported to have occurred at the resurrec­ tion ; but, if the reader will examine these carefully, it will be found that the four writers differ materially upon the following points : The number of women who went to the sepulchre; the number of “ angels ” or “men” the women found there; the words spoken by the “ angels ” or “ men ;” the giving of the information of what they had seen; to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection; and, finally, where the appearance of Christ after the resurrection took place. Such conflicting statements as are recorded in the four Gospels would not be received as evidence, even upon ordinary matters, in any of our law courts to-day. Some of these allegations must be false, and it is not impossible that none of them are true. Not being able to decide which is correct, we discard them all as being of no evidential value. In Matthew (xx. 18, 19) it is recorded that Jesus said : �44 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. “ Behold, we go up to Jerusalem ; and the Son of man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes, and they shall condemn him to death ; and shall deliver him to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge him, and to crucify him, and the third day he shall rise again.” Now, if these words were spoken, we may fairly suppose that such definite language would have made a deep impression upon his friends and disciples. But it does not appear to have done anything of the kind, for, as Greg observes: “We have ample proof that no such impression was made; that the disciples had no conception of their Lord’s approaching death—still less of his resurrection—and that, so far from their expecting either of these events, both, when they occurred, took them entirely by surprise; they were utterly confounded by the one, and could not believe the other. We find them shortly after—nay, in one instance, instantly after—these predictions were uttered disputing which among them should be greatest in their coming dominion (Matthew xx. 24-27 ; Mark ix. 34-5 ; Luke xxii. 25, 30), glorying in the idea of thrones, and asking for seats on his right hand and on his left in his Messianic kingdom (Matthew xix. 27, 28 ; xx. 21; Mark x. 37 ; Luke xxii. 30), which, when he approached Jerusalem, they thought “ would immediately appear” (Luke xix. 11; xxiv. 21). The four following incidents mentioned in the Gospels strongly corroborate the theory that Christ’s words, that he would “rise again,” had no effect upon some of his friends : (1) When the two women visited the sepulchre they took sweet spices to anoint the body (Mark xvi.), which they would not have done if they expected that he would rise from the grave ; (2) when Mary Magdalene discovered that the body was gone she thought the gardener had removed it (John xx. 15), which is quite inconsistent with the belief that the resurrection had taken place ; (3) when the women reported his resurrection to the disciples “ their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not ” (Luke xxiv. n), although it is distinctly said that Jesus told them the event would happen ; (4) when he was supposed to have appeared, after his resurrection, to the eleven disciples at Galilee “some doubted” (Matt, xxviii. 17), while others thought that “they had seen a spirit” (Luke xxiv. 37). So sceptical were certain of the disciples about the “ risen Christ ” that it is �THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 45 reported that he “upbraided them with their unbelief” (Mark xvi. 14). With these Gospel admissions that the story of the resurrection was not accepted as true by many of those who lived at the time it is said to have occurred, of what value is the assertion that the event gained universal assent ? Why, not only did some of the Christians disbelieve the story after all possible evidence had been produced (1 Cor. xv. 12), but the great body of the Jews and the Romans had no faith in its truth. The fact that the Jewish Sanhedrim, composed of educated Jews, and the six Roman governors, mentioned in the New Testament, who had every opportunity of judging of the genuineness or otherwise of the story, refused to believe in it, is evidence of its doubt­ ful character. Besides, according to Mosheim, many of the early Christians thought that Christ was not crucified, but that it was Judas ; and it was not until the second century, says Charles B. Waite, M.A., in his “History of the Christian Religion,” that “ the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ, in a material body, appeared.” It is evident that the writer of Matthew’s Gospel did not pretend to record contemporary events, for he writes : “ This saying is commonly reported among the Jews until this day ” (xxviii. 15). The case stands thus: The resurrection itself would have been an extraordinary event, one contrary to known natural law, and opposed to all human experience. In its favour we have no testimony either of eye-witnesses or of historians who lived at or near the time Christ is alleged to have risen. The accounts given by the writers of the Gospels upon the subject are too contradictory to be received as evidence; many of the people who, it is said, had been informed that Christ would rise had no idea that he had risen, while the most learned men of the period entirely disbelieved the story. These facts afford abundant .evidence that the resurrection is not a demonstrated truth. Now, let us briefly consider the reasons given by Christian exponents in favour of the belief in this—to say the least— improbable and uncorroborated story, which, be it remem­ bered, originated in an ignorant, uncritical, and superstitious age. In the first place, it is contended that, unless we accept the Christian account of the origin and perpetuation �46 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. of the belief in the resurrection of Christ, we are bound to furnish a better one. Logically, we are not compelled to do anything of the kind ; all that really devolves upon us who cannot accept the story is to examine the case for the affirmation, and to show that the reasons given are in­ sufficient to establish the truth of what is affirmed. Christians deny many of the pretensions of Buddha and Mohammed, and they disbelieve the stories of the resurrection of Chrishna, of Adonis, of Osiris, and of many other ancient “ saviours,” in whom thousands of sincere devotees have believed. But these very Christians do not deem it their duty to explain how the faith in the miraculous birth, death, and resurrection of these religious heroes originated, and how it was perpetuated. Why, then, are we expected to account for the belief in such an unlikely event as the resurrection of Christ ? Superstitions of various kinds, such as the belief in the miracles of the Catholic Church, in the pretensions of Joseph Smith, and in the story of the approaching end of the world, have always been found allied with ignorance and duplicity. These factors, no doubt, played an important part in the origination of the belief that Christ rose from the dead. While it is not necessary to the position we take that we should furnish a better reason for the existence of the belief in the resurrection than the one supplied by Chris­ tianity, the following probable causes may be assigned : (i) The expectation, based upon Christ’s own prediction, that he would rise again. It is true his words failed to impress some, but others of more weak and credulous natures were affected by what he was supposed to have said. (2) The revolt of the Jews against the Roman power which preceded the destruction of Jerusalem. This, no doubt, induced many of Christ’s disciples to think that the end of the world was at hand in accordance with his predictions (Matt. xxiv.; Mark xiii.• Luke xxi.), and that he was coming to establish his kingdom, in which they were to be governors (Matt, xix. 28). That they were deceived would not alter the fact that these events tended to justify, to their minds, the delusion in which they believed. (3) The disciples suffered from persecution which they might have mistaken for the fulfilment of another of their Master’s prophecies (Matt, xxiv. 9). These three circumstances were calculated to �THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 47 encourage the idea in credulous minds that Christ had been restored to life, and that he would be with them again. Of course, they were disappointed, as the second coming of Jesus was no more a reality than was his resurrection. Besides, resurrections were believed in long before Christ’s time. Ovid’s prophecy, in reference to JEsculapius, was very similar to what has been said about Christ. Here are the words :— “ Once, as the sacred infant she surveyed, The God was kindled in the raving maid ; And thus she uttered her prophetic tale : Hail, great physician of the world ! all hail ! Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come Shall heal the nations and defraud the tomb. Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs unconfined ; Make kingdoms thicker and increase mankind. Thy daring heart shall animate the dead, And draw the thunder on thy guilty head ; Then shalt thou die, but from the dark abode Shalt rise victorious, and be twice a God.” The belief in the resurrection has been perpetuated principally through persons accepting the faith without investigation. This has been the cause of the growth of nearly all the superstitions of the world. The fact that the belief in a personal devil, a burning hell, purgatory, and the efficacy of the mass has been retained so long is to be attri­ buted to the lack of free inquiry upon the part of those who have accepted these theological dogmas. The same with the belief in the resurrection. How many of those who regard it as a fact to-day have sought to ascertain what evidence it has in its support? Even the majority of ministers who preach this doctrine can give no other reason for believing in it than because they find that it is taught in a certain book; and most of the laity who endorse the belief that Christ rose from the dead are influenced by the delusion that heaven will be the reward of all who accept the belief, and that hell will be the portion of those who reject it. Even St. Paul, who is the principal witness for the resurrec­ tion, believed it on trust and faith, “according to the Scriptures” (i Cor. xv. 3, 4). He also thought that the end of the world would arrive in the time in which he lived, but he was mistaken. Why, then, should he be relied upon in reference to the resurrection ? The supposed evidence of �48 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. St. Paul is worthless to prove that Christ rose from the dead. He was not an eye-witness of the event, and his references to it are most misleading. For instance, he says, Christ was “seen of the twelve,” but Judas was dead (Matt, xxvii. 3-5), and Mathias was not chosen until after the Ascension (Acts i. 26). Then we are told “he was seen of above five hundred brethren yet not one of the five hundred has left the testimony that “ I saw Jesus.” “Last of all,” says St. Paul, “ he was seen of me.” But how did he see him ? Let the apostle answer for himself. “ I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body I cannot tell, or whether out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth), such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man (whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell: God knoweth) ” (2 Cor. xii. 1-3). Some of the Spiritualists to-day profess to have “visions and revelationsbut rational minds do not accept such “ visions and revelations ” as matters of fact, to be depended upon to prove anything of importance. Moreover, St. Paul’s idea of a resurrection was that it would be a spiritual one; and he says “ flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God ” (1 Cor. xv. 50); but the alleged resurrec­ tion of Christ was of his natural body, and, after he had risen, we are told he ate broiled fish just before he ascended “ up into heaven ” (Luke xxiv.). Professor Stewart says: “ The existence of the Church, and especially the early institution of the Lord’s Day and of Easter Day, are proofs of the nature and strength of primitive belief as to the resurrection.” To this wre reply, that the resurrection was not a recognised doctrine of the Church until the second century. But suppose it were, it would not follow that, because the Church believed it, therefore it was true. The Roman Catholics dedicated their Church to the “ Holy Virgin but is that evidence that Mary, who was the mother of many children, was a virgin ? There is St. Peter’s at Rome, although it is a disputed point that Peter ever went to Rome. As to the term “ Lord’s Day,” Tertullian (a.d. 200) is the first writer who applies to it the resur­ rection, and we can find no evidence that the two were associated prior to that time. The Professor ought to know that the “Lord’s Day” has no reference to the day when �THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 49 Christ is said to have risen. Many conflicting opinions have been given as to its real meaning. It has been thought to refer to “ the Gospel dispensation,” to “ the Day of Judgment,” to the “first day of the week;” but, so far as it can be applied to anything, it is to the Bible Sabbath, which is Saturday, the seventh day of the week, and this was not the day of the supposed resurrection. In reference to Easter, that was of pagan origin, and in Chambers’s “ Encyclopaedia ” (article “ Easter ”) it is said : “ With her usual policy the Church endeavoured to give a Christian significance to such of the rites as could not be rooted out; and in this case the conversion was practically easy.” Christian exponents have a reckless habit of connecting certain events together as if they bore the relation to each other of cause and effect, when, in reality, there is no such relation between them. To claim that the resurrection was a fact because the Church believed it, and because the “ Lord’s Day ” and Easter have become recognised institu­ tions, is the very height of theological assumption. There is not a shadow of legitimate evidence to support such a claim. We have dwelt upon this and the previous section at some length, for the reason that the subjects treated are regarded by Christians as affording the greatest proof of the truth of their claims. We trust that, from our examination of the points at issue, our readers will see that at least there are to these, as to most questions, two sides ; and it is for them to decide for themselves which they regard as the correct one. �SECTION VIII. THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. No one, we presume, who has marked the development of religious thought will deny that Christianity has been a potent factor in the history of the world. Its nature, incen­ tive, and general environment would naturally make it so. Nothing influences the theological mind, either for good or for evil, more than its notion of supernaturalism. If a person is induced to have absolute faith in the fatherhood and sovereignty of God, he deems it his first duty to carry out that which he considers to be the will of that God. Hence it is that during intellectual periods men’s notions of Deity have been refined and cultivated, and, as a consequence, op­ pression and persecution of Scepticism have been more rare ; while, on the other hand, when the multitude held rude ideas of divinity, minds pure and chaste were sickened at the scenes of cruelty and bloodshed which were enacted in accordance with what was supposed to be “ the will of God.”* What we desire to consider in this section is : Are the claims put forward by Christian exponents, as to the influ­ ence of Christianity upon personal character and natural progress, borne out by individual experience and the records of history ? As a rule, man is supposed to know himself better than others know him ; but there are instances in which other people can estimate a person more correctly than he can estimate himself. They will take a more dis­ passionate view of his character. They will be in a better position to compare him with others, and thus judge more accurately of his relations and comparative place in the scale of humanity. As with individuals, so it is with systems * For important facts bearing upon this point the reader is referred to Earl Russell’s “History of the Christian Religion” and to Buckle’s “History of Civilisation.” �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 51 of religions. The devotees of a certain faith are wont to regard it as being spotless, and as containing the panacea for all the imperfections of society. This is particularly the case with Christian advocates, who not only ignore all that is evil and defective in the world as belonging to their system, but credit Christianity with all the progress that has taken place in modern times. This we believe to be a theological assumption which is utterly opposed to the true history of all human improvement. The progress of a nation cannot be attributed to any one thing or to any one age, but rather to a combination of circumstances which have been in opera­ tion during many ages. For instance, had it not been for the scientific discoveries in the last century of a Watt, a Dalton, and others, the sciences with which their names are associated would not have been so easy of application to human utility as they are at the present time. It is equally true that for the freedom from religious intoler­ ance which we now enjoy we are as much indebted to Franklin, Paine, Carlile, Hetherington, Watson, and other Freethought heroes of the past, as to any of their repre­ sentatives of this generation. To judge fairly of the influence of Christianity, the following facts should be kept in view :— (i) That it it is not an original system of harmonious teach­ ings and of uniform history. This fact we have already abun­ dantly proved. No one who has carefully and impartially read the histories of the ancient religions and ethical systems can truly allege that the principal doctrines and moral teachings of the New Testament were known for the first time in their connection with Christianity. The able American writer, Charles B. Waite, M. A., in his “ History of the Christian Religion,” observes : “ Many of the more prominent doctrines of the Christian religion prevailed among nations of antiquity hundreds—and in some instances thousands—of years before Christ.” Judge Strange, in his work, “The Sources and Development of Christianity,” shows that nearly all the Christian doctrines—the Atone­ ment, Trinity, Incarnation, Judgment of the Dead, Immor­ tality, Sacrifice—were of Egyptian origin, and, therefore, existed long before the time of Christ. The same writer, on page 100 of the work mentioned, says : “ Christianity, it is thus apparent, was not the result of a special revelation from above, but the growth of circumstances, and developed out �52 • THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. of the materials, working in a natural manner in the human mind in the place and at the time that the movement occurred.” “To the truths already uttered in the Athenian prison,” remarks Mackay, “ Christianity added little or nothing, except a few symbols, which, though well calculated for popular acceptance, are more likely to perplex than to instruct, and offer the best opportunity for priestly mystifi­ cation.” Sir William Jones, in his tenth discourse before the Asiatic Society, says : “ Christianity has no need of such aids as many are willing to give it, by asserting that the wisest men of the world were ignorant of the great maxim, that we should act in respect to others as we would wish them to act in respect of ourselves, as the rule is implied in a speech of Lysias, expressed in distinct phrases by Thales and Pittacus, and I have seen it word for word in the original of Con­ fucius.” And the Rev. Dr. George Matheson, in his lecture on “ The Religions of China,” page 84, frankly states : “ The glory of Christian morality is that it is not original.” (2) That to say professed Christians have performed noble and useful actions is not sufficient to make good the orthodox claims ; it must be shown that such actions accord with the teachings of the New Testament. It does not follow that, because Christianity and civilisation co-exist, therefore the former is the cause of the latter. Scepticism now obtains more than at any previous period; but Christians will not grant that modern progress is the result of unbelief. Civili­ sation is not an invention, but a growth; a process from low animal conditions to higher physical, moral, and intel­ lectual attainments. The real value of civilisation consists in its being the means whereby the community can enjoy personal comfort and general happiness. History teaches that the progress of a people depends upon their knowledge of, and their obedience to, organic laws. The principal causes of modern civilisation are : The development of the intellect—this rules the world to-day; the expansion of mechanical genius—this provides for the increased needs of the people; the extension of national commerce—this causes an interchange of ideas; the invention of printing— this provides for the circulation of newly-discovered facts ; the beneficial influence of climate—this affects the con­ dition both of body and mind; the knowledge and the application of science—these reveal the value and the power �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 of natural resources ; the spread of scepticism—this provides for the vindication of the right of mental freedom; the practical recognition of political justice—this forms the basis of all just governments; and, finally, the establishment of the social equality of women with men—this secures the emancipation of women from that state of domestic servi­ tude and general inferiority in which theology had for centuries kept them. Now, these civilising elements are not to be found in the teachings of the New Testament; but, on the contrary, as we have shown in previous sections of this pamphlet, much that is taught therein discourages a progressive spirit (see Matthew vi. 25-34; xix. 21, 29; Luke xiv. 26 ; John vi. 27 ; xii. 25 ; 1 Corinthians vii. 20 ; Romans xiii. 1, 2; Ephesians v. 22-24; and 2 Peter ii. 13-18). (3) The personal results of Christianity have depended upon the nature and characteristics of those who accepted it as a belief. Hence persons of the most contrary disposi­ tions and the most opposite natures have been its illus­ trators, expounders, and living representatives. It has found room for all temperaments—-the ascetic and luxurious enjoyer of life; the man of action and the man of con­ templation ; the monk and the king; the philanthropist and the destroyer of his race; the iconoclastic hater of all ceremonies and the superstitious devotee. It has been, in the words of St. Paul, “ all things to all men.” This heterogeneous influence upon the human character, how­ ever, is by no means the result of any all-embracing com­ prehensiveness in Christianity, but is rather the effect of a system characterised alike by its indefinite, incomplete, and undecisive principles. This fact explains why some men have been good in spite of their being believers in the orthodox faith, while other believers have been destitute of the nobler qualities of our nature. The power that “ makes for righteousness ” came not from Christianity, but from the natural proclivities of its professors. If this were not so, we might justly expect that all the recipients of the faith would have been influenced for good. That they were not thus influenced we learn from the New Testament and Christian history. “Contentions,” “strife,” “ indignation,” “fraud,” and lying were indulged in by St. Paul and his contemporaries (see Acts xv. 39; Luke xxii. 24 ; Matthew �54 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. xx. 24; i Corinthians vi. 8 and v. 1 ; Matthew xxvi. 70, 72 ; 2 Corinthians xi. 8 and xii. 16). Mosheim admits that in the fourth century “ the Church was contaminated with shoals of profligate Christians....... It cannot be affirmed that even true Christians were entirely innocent and irreproach­ able in this matter ” (see Mosheim’s “ Ecclesiastical History,” vol. i., pp. 55, 77, 102, 193). Salvian, an eminent pious clergyman of the fifth century, writes : “ With the exception of a very few who flee from vice, what is almost every Christian congregation but a sink of vices ? For you will find in the Church scarcely one who is not either a drunkard, a glutton, or an adulterer....... or a robber, or a man­ slayer, and, what is worse than all, almost all these without limit ” (Miall’s “ Memorials of Early Christianity,” p. 366). Dr. Cave, in his “Primitive Christianity” (p. 2), observes : “ If a modest and honest heathen were to estimate Chris­ tianity by the lives of its professors, he would certainly proscribe it as the vilest religion in the world.” Dr. Dicks, in his “ Philosophy of Religion ” (pp. 366-7), also states : “ There is nothing which so strikingly marks the character of the Christian world in general as the want of candour [and the existence of] the spirit of jealousy....... Slander, dishonesty, falsehood, and cheating are far from being uncommon among those who profess to be united in the bonds of a common Christianity.” Wesley, after stating that “ Bible-reading England ” was guilty of every species of vice, even those that nature itself abhors, thus concludes : “ Such a complication of villainies of every kind, considered with all their aggravations; such a scorn of whatever bears the face of virtue; such injustice, fraud, and falsehood; above all, such perjury and such a method of law, we may defy the whole world to produce ” (“ Sermons,” vol. xii., p. 223). It is not true that, as orthodox believers allege, Chris­ tianity is a universal religion. Christ states that he was “ not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ” (Matthew xv. 24). And when he sent his disciples forth to preach he commanded them to “ go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not ” (Matthew x. 5). Besides, the very nature of the faith pre­ cludes it from being suitable to all the nations of the world. Hence it has always been subject to human conditions and �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 55 national environments, and when those factors were un­ favourable to its advancement it either made comparatively no progress, or its exponents altered its form that it might be adapted to the conditions by which it was surrounded. Of this fact there is abundant testimony. Tennent, in his “ Christianity in Ceylon,” says : “ Neither history nor more recent experience can furnish any example of the long reten­ tion of pure Christianity by a people themselves rude and unenlightened. In all the nations of Europe, embracing every period since the second century, Christianity must be regarded as having taken the hue and complexion of the social state with which it was incorporated, presenting itself unsullied, contaminated, or corrupted, in sympathy with the enlightenment, or ignorance, or debasement of those by whom it had been originally embraced. The rapid and universal degeneracy of the early Asiatic Churches is asso­ ciated with the decline of education and the intellectual decay of the communities among whom they were estab­ lished.” Dean Milman, in his “History of Civilisation,” observes : “Its [Christianity’s] specific character will almost entirely depend upon the character of the people who are its votaries....... it will darken with the darkness and brighten with the light of each succeeding century.” Lord Macaulay says, with no less truth than brilliancy: “ Christianity con­ quered Paganism, but Paganism infected Christianity. The rites of the Pantheon passed into her worship, and the subtleties of the Academy into her creed.” Francis William Newman, in his “ Phases of Faith,” also remarks: “ I at length saw how untenable is the argument drawn from the inward history of Christianity in favour of its superhuman origin. In fact, this religion cannot pretend to self-sustain­ ing power. Hardly was it started on its course when it began to be polluted by the heathenism and false philosophy around it. With the decline of national genius and civil culture it became more and more debased. So far from being able to uphold the existing morality of the best Pagan teachers, it became barbarised itself, and sank into deep superstition and manifold moral corruption. From ferocious men it learned ferocity. When civil society began to coalesce into order, Christianity also turned for the better, and presently learned to use the wisdom, first of Romans, then of Greeks ; such studies opened men’s eyes to new apprehensions of �56 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY the Scripture and of its doctrine. By gradual and human means, Europe, like ancient Greece, grew up towards better political institutions, and Christianity improved with them.” With these historical facts at their command, it is strange that Christian writers should put forward, as they do, such extravagant and groundless claims on behalf of their faith. Professor Stewart has the temerity to claim, in his “ Hand­ book of Christian Evidences,” the following as achieve­ ments of Christianity : (i) The introduction of the spirit of. humanity and the doctrine of brotherhood of man ; (2) the modern elevation of woman; (3) the abolition of slavery; (4) the extinction of the gladiatorial combats in Rome; (5) the establishment of hospitals; and (6) the fostering of art and general culture. These are some of the advantages for which it is said we are indebted to the influence of Christianity. A greater perversion of facts we have seldom encountered, as we purpose now showing. (1) The great principle of love, humanity, and the brotherhood of man was understood and practised long before Christianity existed. “ Love,” says the great teacher of the Academy, “ is peace and goodwill among men, calm upon the waters, repose and stillness in the storm, and balm of sleep in sadness.” “ Independently of Christian revelation,” says Merivale, “the heathen world was gravi­ tating, through natural causes, towards the acknowledgment of the cardinal doctrines of humanity ” (“ Conversion of the Roman Empire,” p. 118). In Mencius we have the noble statement that ‘^Humanity is the heart of man.” Lecky writes : “ The duty of humanity to slaves had been at all times one of those which the philosophers had most ardently inculcated....... But these exhortations [on the duty of abstain­ ing from cruelty to slaves], in which some have imagined that they have discovered the influence of Christianity, were, in fact, simply an echo of the teaching of ancient Greece, and especially of Zeno, the founder of the sect who had laid down, long before the dawn of Christianity [italics are ours], the broad principle that all men are by nature equal, and that virtue alone establishes a difference between them ” (“History of European Morals,” vol. i., pp. 324-5 ; see also “The Sacred Anthology,” by Moncure D. Conway, �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 57 pp. io and 354). Lecky also states that “the doctrine of the brotherhood of mankind” was an active factor in Rome, and that “ Cicero asserted it as emphatically as Seneca” {ibid, p. 361). Christ’s idea of brotherhood was an exceedingly limited one, inasmuch as it was confined to those who believed in him. Even at the “judgment day” mankind are to be divided, “ as a shepherd divideth. .his sheep from his goats” (see Luke xii. 9; Matthew xxv. 32). (2) The position of woman, according to the Bible, is low and humiliating in the extreme. It teaches that “ Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (Genesis iii. 16). It enjoins that, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything (Ephesians v. 22-24). Women are not to speak in public, but to be under obedience, as also saith the law ; they are not permitted to teach, but to learn in silence with all subjection, for the reason that “ Adam was first formed, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman, being deceived, was in the transgression ” (1 Timothy ii. 11, 15). These notions are not, when accepted, calculated to elevate the character or better the condition of woman. Herbert Spencer says : “ In England, as late as the seventeenth century, husbands of decent station were not ashamed to beat their wives. ' Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure for the purpose of seeing wretched women whipped at Bridewell. It was not until 1817 that the public whipping of women was abolished in England. Wives in England were bought from the fifth to the seventeenth century.” Contrast this with the treatment of woman before the advent of Christianity. Lecky says : “ The Roman religion was essentially domestic, and it was the main object of the legislator to surround marriage with every circumstance of dignity and solemnity. Monogamy was, from the earliest times, strictly enjoined, and it was one of the great benefits that have resulted from the expan­ sion of the Roman power that it made this type dominant in Europe. In the legends of early Rome we have ample evidence of the high moral estimate of women, and of their prominence in Roman life. The tragedies of Lucretia and of Virginia display a delicacy of honour, a sense of supreme excellence, of unsullied purity, which no Christian nation could surpass ” (“ European Morals,” vol. ii., p. 316). “The �58 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. legal position of the wife had become one of complete inde­ pendence, while her social position was one of great dignity ” (ibid., p. 323). Sir Henry Maine, in his “ Ancient Law,” says : “No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by the middle Roman law....... The later Roman law having assumed, on the theory of natural law, the equality of the sexes, control of the person of the woman was quite obsolete when Christianity was born. Her situation had become one of great personal liberty and proprietary independence, even when married, and the arbitrary power over her of her male relatives, or her guardian, was reduced to a nullity ; while the form of marriage conferred on the husband no superiority....... But Christianity tended from the first to narrow this remarkable liberty.”* (3) No one questions that slavery is taught in the Bible. But. the damaging fact to the Professor’s contention is that, while at the time when Christ is supposed to have lived the horrors of slavery existed on every hand, yet he was silent upon this great evil. In fact, slavery is endorsed in the New Testament, for we read : “ Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters as worthy of all honour.” “ Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters.” “ Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling.” “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear: not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward” (1 Tim. vi. 1 ; Titus ii. 9; Ephesians vi. 5; 1 Peter ii. 8). While the humanity of many professed Christians prompted them to oppose slavery, among the most persistent upholders of slavery and the most determined opponents to its abolition were Christians, not only of this country, but also of nearly all the American denominations. * For ample evidence, showing the unjust laws which Christian Councils passed, that were degrading to woman, and also the treat­ ment she received from the Christian Fathers, the reader is referred to a very able book, “Woman, Church, and State ” (chapters vii. and ix.), by Matilda J. Gage; also to “Men, Women, and Gods,” by Helen H. Gardener. In these two works ample evidence is given to dis­ prove the allegation that woman owes her improved condition to Chris­ tianity. �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 59 It is stated in “ The Life and Times of Garrison ” that, at an American convention held in May, 1841, he proposed: “ That, among the responsible classes in the non-slaveholding States, in regard to the existence of slavery the religious professors, and especially the clergy, stand wickedly pre­ eminent, and ought to be unsparingly exposed and reproved before all the people.” Theodore Parker said that, if the whole American Church had “ dropped through the Continent and disappeared altogether, the anti-slavery cause would have been further on” (“Works,” vol. vi., p. 333). He pointed out that no Church ever issued a single tract among all its thousands against property in human flesh and blood, and 80,000 slaves were owned by Presbyterians, 225,000 by Baptists, and 250,000 by Methodists. Even Wilberforce himself declared that the American Episcopal Church “ raises no voice against the predominant evil; she palliates it in theory, and in practice she shares in it. The mildest and most conscientious of the bishops of the South are slaveholders themselves.” Neither did Christianity improve the position of the slaves, for both Lecky and Gibbon have shown that the condition of slaves was, in some instances, better before than it was after the introduction of Christianity. Prior to Christianity many of the slaves had political power; they were educated, and allowed to mix in the domestic circles of their masters ; but subsequent to the Christian advent the fate of the slave was far more severe, hence Lecky observes : “ The slave code of imperial Rome compares not unfavour­ ably with those of some Christian countries. The physician who tended the Roman in his sickness, the tutor to whom he confided the education of his son, the artists whose services commanded the admiration of the city, were usually slaves. Slaves sometimes mixed with their masters in the family, ate habitually with them at the same table, and were regarded by them with the warmest affection ” (Lecky’s “ History of Morals,” vol. i., pp. 323 and 327). The Council of Laodicea actually interdicted slaves from Church com­ munion without the consent of their masters. The Council of Orleans (541) ordered that the descendants of slave parents might be captured and re-placed in the servile condition of their ancestors. The Council of Toledo (633) forbade Bishops to liberate slaves belonging to the Church. �6o THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. Jews having made fortunes by slave-dealing, the Councils of Rheims and Toledo both prohibited the selling of Christian slaves except to Christians. Parker Pillsbury’s excellent work, “ Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles,” is a strong indictment against the Christian Church for its conduct in supporting slavery. (4) It is not true that the Galilean faith removed the blots that dimmed the glory of the ancient world. Slavery, infanticide, and brutal sports remained for centuries after the erection of the symbol of the Cross. We grant that Rome, like every other country, had its vices ; but Chris­ tianity failed to remove them. As Lecky observes, “ the golden age of Roman law was not Christian, but Pagan ” (“History of European Morals,” vol. ii., p. 44). The gladiatorial shows of Rome had a religious origin ; and, while some of the grandest pagan writers condemned them, they were not abolished till four hundred years after the commencement of the Christian era. And be it observed that the immediate cause of their ultimately being stopped was that at one of the exhibitions, in a.d. 404, a monk was killed. “His death,” says Lecky, “led to the final abolition of the games ” {ibid, p. 40). It was a noteworthy fact that, while the passion for these games existed in Rome, its love for religious liberty was equally as strong; and it was this very liberty that was first destroyed in the Christian Empire {ibid, p. 38). Every nation has had its national drawback, and Christian countries are no exception to the general rule. Under the very shadow of the Cross cruelties of the deepest dye have been practised. Bull-fights, badger-hunting, cock-fighting, and pigeon-shooting have all been, and still are, favourite amusements in Christian lands. What was the state of morals in England during the reigns of Henry VIII., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and George IV. ? Was there ever a period of greater moral depravity and intellectual poverty than when the Christian Church was paramount and supreme, when the saints, the bishops, and the priests were guilty of the worst of crimes, including incest, adultery, and concubinage, when “ sacred institutions,” filled with pious nuns, were converted into brothels and hot-beds of infanti­ cide ? (ibid, 351). Rome, withall its immorality, will bear comparison with the early ages of Christianity. �THE INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY. 61 (5) There is no lack of evidence to prove that considera­ tion for the poor and the sick existed centuries before the Christian era. Such virtue is confined to no one race, and to no one religion. According to Prescott, the ancient Mexicans had hospitals in the principal cities “ for the cure of the sick, and for the permanent refuge of disabled soldiers” (“History of the Conquest of Mexico,” p. 140). Hospitals are evidently the outgrowth of dispensaries, and we are told that, as far back as the eleventh century b.c., the Egyptians had medical officers who were paid by the State, and who attended in some public place to prescribe for the sick who came there. These were qualified men ; for at this early date there was a College of Physicians, and only those who were licensed by this college were allowed to prac­ tise. R. Bosworth Smith, M. A., writes in his “ Mohammed and Mohammedanism ” : “No Christian need be sorry to learn, or be backward to acknowledge, that, contrary to what is usually supposed, two of these noble institutions [hospitals and lunatic asylums]....... owe their origin and their early spread, not to his own religion, but to the great heart of humanity, which beats in two other of the grandest religions of the world. Hospitals are the direct outcome of Buddhism” (p. 253). About 325 b.c. King Asoka com­ manded his people to build hospitals for the poor, the sick, and distressed, at each of the four gates of Patna and throughout his dominions. The first Christian hospital was built by a Roman lady named Fabiola, in the fourth century a.d., so that it took some time for Christianity to begin to develop this good fruit, though Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindoos had long before shown the value of it. If it were true that the world is indebted to Christianity for benevolent institutions, it would be a sad reproach to the supposed “ Heavenly Father,” who, until less than two thousand years ago, failed to inspire his children with active sympathy for those who required help. Were “ God’s chosen people ” destitute of love and consideration for their fellows ? Let the Old Testament answrer the question. (6) No doubt Christianity at one period gave an impetus to art, and so it did to monkish lying chronicles. William Hole, R.S.A., however, says: “Christianity brought about the deterioration of Greek art....... In early centuries Chris- �62 THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIANITY. tianity tended generally to the decay of art. When it did favour it, it was not through love of art, but for the sake of religion ” (Address delivered before the Edinburgh Philo­ sophical Institute, February 16th, 1892). The assistance that culture has received from Christian teachings is of a very doubtful character. Where in the New Testament is culture inculcated ? We know that the Christian Church destroyed much of the learning of Rome, and plunged Europe into a state of mental darkness. For centuries it monopolised, with a blighting force, the agencies of intellectual training, with the result that the world was cursed with what Lecky terms “ a night of mental and moral darkness,” and he further adds: “Nearly all the greatest intellectual achievements of the last three centuries have been preceded and prepared by the growth of scepticism. ....... The splendid discoveries of physical science would have been impossible but for the scientific scepticisms of the school of Bacon........ Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities, not till Mohammedan science and classical Freethought and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intellectual revival of Europe begin ” (“ History of Morals,” vol. ii., pp. 205 and 219). �Books recommended to Students of the Subjects discussed in the foregoing Pages. Buckles “ History of Civilisation.” Especially chapters iv.—vii. Professor Huxley’s “ Controverted Questions and his reference to Miracles in his “Life of Hume.” Laing’s “Modern Science and Modern Thought,” “Problems of the Future,” and “ Human Origins.” Leslie Stephen’s “An Agnostic’s Apology.” J. S. Mill’s “ On Liberty.” Schmidt’s “ Social Aspects of Early Christianity.” Draper’s “Conflict between Religion and Science.” J. Cotter Morison’s “ The Service of Man.” William Addis’s “ Christianity in the Roman Empire.” Herbert Spencer’s “ First Principles.” W. R. Greg’s “ The Creed of Christendom.” Charles Bradlaugh’s “ Genesis.” Evan Powell Meredith’s “The Prophet of Nazareth.” Mosheim’s “Ecclesiastical History.” Dr. Giles’s “ Hebrew and Christian Records.” Dr. Irons’s “The Bible and its Interpreters.” Rev. S. Davidson’s “ The Canon of the Bible.” Professor Graham’s “ The Creed of Science.” Karl Pearson’s “ The Grammar of Science.” Lecky’s “ History of European Morals.” 2 vols. Charles Watts’s “Was Christ a Political and Social Reformer?” G. W. Foote’s “Flowers of Freethought.” Constance E. Plumptre’s “ Natural Causation.” �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The claims of Christianity examined from a Rationalist standpoint Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles [1836-1906] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 62, [1] p. ; 19 cm. Notes: Bibliography on unnumbered page at the end. Issued for the Rationalist Press Committee. Date of publication from Cooke, Bill. The blasphemy depot (2003). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1895] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1571 N662 Subject The topic of the resource Christianity Rationalism Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The claims of Christianity examined from a Rationalist standpoint), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Christianity-Controversial Literature NSS Rationalism https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/01445ca0e8c72a4f0b8b4be09e0b17e4.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=G3dtNWP3gYutA0u7%7EaRLjQ2N5X8AJWJLiFCG3DmGZBAJ310bc-1xPFmfy83YgGCISEPAie94-VHyBnxCRrK2YoPPKI8DVuyCTmF-f2ZHWKR3U%7EJHaWixu5-uv6b5SGVD-4wTXWXUteudbiNK7ylfEdYo6BHCmvUj0QveNOVYE-8jFOMPl8i9OXOMhabBH7JthQXqjNfiZsWefqW2xw1qMYIJlpN1qxD5hLk8pLhuBi4QkMxMZN3i6o-u%7Ec1p%7EUIVmGknTzwJml%7EcgG%7EUtSRBQcsVvBY18mt5C4ieqfJE6WI65Xij59TgXV-060SHBrtGo3aATUJaT8t%7E5tO7m4%7Es9w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 7d31400272d5c17196bd7550965e7f6b PDF Text Text BIBLE MORALITY. 'Secularists have no desire to extol the Bible above its merits, nor to depreciate it below its deserts. We gladly admit that it contains some useful precepts; but these, as a rule, are intermixed with so many teachings of an in­ jurious character that their beauty is often overshadowed and their utility annulled. Its coarse language in many places renders it unfit for general perusal, and destroys its value as a standard for every-day life. The true worth of literature should be its moral tone. Novels are appreciated by the intelligent reader in proportion to their being “ adorned ” with a moral. And dramas fail to gain the approval of the thoughtful public unless virtue is inculcated in a chaste form. So with the Bible : if in its ethical tone it is defective, or if it is questionable in its injunctions or indelicate in its records, it cannot with advantage be accepted as an absolute monitor in human conduct. All correct codes of morals should be clear in their authority and practical in their application. This is the more necessary when severe penalties—as in the case of Christian ethics—are threatened for non-acceptance and dis­ obedience. Now, the ethics of the Bible are both contradic­ tory and impracticable. The same line of conduct is enjoined in one passage, and just as explicitly prohibited in another. One man is blamed because he is not cruel enough, and will not go on slaying the Lord’s enemies; another man’s chief glory consists in being a mighty man of war and a great destroyer of men, women, and children; while other passages proclaim, “Thou shalt not kill,” and enjoin mercy and “loving-kindness.” The most absolute rest is enjoined on the Sabbath, and the fiercest denunciations are hurled at the most vigorous Sabbatarian. Retaliation for wrong is counselled, and forgiveness is enjoined. We are told to “ love one another,” and we are commanded to hate our �2 BIBLE MORALITY. own flesh and blood. Industry is advised and also dis­ couraged; lustful pursuits are condemned and also permitted. Thus Biblical morality is destitute of the first fundamental condition of all just ethics. Among the general principles taught in the Bible and ex­ pounded by orthodoxy in this country is that belief, not conduct, is the foundation of virtue, and that uncharitable­ ness towards opponents is justifiable. One of the first in­ structions which a parent should enforce upon a child is never to impute bad motives in matters of belief or non­ belief. No lesson is more valuable than this, none more calculated to render the child’s life happy and unsuspicious, and to make its influence in the world more useful and beneficial. The Bible permits just the opposite. Accord­ ing to Christian teachings, if a man does an act of kindness, we are not to accept it with gratitude simply as an act of kindness, but we are to judge from the motives of his con­ duct. Did he perform the act from love to God, or did he do it only from respect for his fellow man ? If the former, his services will go up as a sweet smelling offering to Deity; if the latter, he merely performed a “ splendid vice.” The motive, not the act, is the thing to be considered. If men slay, ravish, and destroy for the glory of God, the motive not only condones, but consecrates, the act. Hence, in the early history of Christianity, the practice of lying for the good of the Church was not only allowed, but considered praiseworthy. To require universal belief in one particular faith, and to condemn to eternal perdition those who are unable to comply therewith, is not the most moral doctrine. Truly, a book that teaches that “many are called but few are chosen,” or, in other words, that the majority of our fellow creatures are to be cast into a burning lake, cannot assist to promote the happiness and good of mankind. The tendency of such teaching as this cannot have a beneficial effect, inasmuch as it often produces mutual hatred between man and man. Artificial and unjust distinctions of govern­ ment and of classes have often produced ill-feeling between man and man; but that evil has been increased by the religious distinctions based upon Biblical teaching. The natural law of love is simple and clear. It is a duty to love all men until we have reason to believe that the trust is mis­ placed or abused. It then becomes necessary to slightly �BIBLE MORALITY. 3 modify our conduct as an act of self-defence; hence the enactment of laws for the repression of crime and the curtail­ ment of injury. If a man’s belief teaches him that he can persecute, we have a right to be upon our guard, for we know from bitter experience that such belief has frequently shaped itself into conduct. But whatever man believes about matters that do not affect his conduct should produce in us neither love nor hatred towards him. His belief may be ever so curious, absurd, unreal, and fantastic, ever so ridiculous and self-contradictory, and in proportion of its partaking of those qualities it may excite and amuse us; but it ought not to make us respect or dislike him one whit more. With the Bible it is quite different: its defect con­ sists in its teaching us to love and respect certain people who believe certain things which have no direct beneficial bearing on their conduct; while we are to avoid those whose lives may be a model of purity and benevolence, but who cannot subscribe to a certain faith. The great principle of Bible morality is supposed to be contained in the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue, we are assured, enunciates moral lessons, against which no sub­ stantial objections can be brought. There are two versions of the Decalogue given in the Old Testament, varying in certain not unimportant particulars. Moses brought down, we are informed, the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai, where he had been having a tete-d-tete with the Lord. They were written on stone, and were copied off for future generations in Exodus xx. They are also given in Deuter­ onomy v.; but that was merely from memory, when Moses had become somewhat advanced in age. It is not surpris­ ing, therefore, that he should insert certain interpolations in the second giving of the law which are absent from the first. How this incongruity can be reconciled with the doc­ trine of the Divine inspiration of the Bible may be left for Christians to decide among themselves. The Decalogue is divided into two parts : that which relates to man’s duty to God, and that which relates to the mutual duties of man to man. It is worthy of notice that, although the second half contains six commands, and the former half only four, nevertheless the first half is a great deal longer than the second. Most of the commands of the second half are con­ tained in the most condensed form. The second, third, �4 bible morality. and fourth Commandments are all developments of the first. 7 he first really contains or assumes the three which succeed it. The first? which is, “ Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” of course involves the second against idolatry, the third against blasphemous swearing, and the fourth en­ joining restful remembrance of the creation of the world by God. It is curious, while God in these Commandments had so much to say in giving a complete code of conduct to his creatures, and confining himself as he did within the limits of a certain number of Hebrew characters, written on a stone small enough for a man to carry down the side of a steep mountain, that he should have wasted so much time in telling them how to behave to him, and have left so little space to contain what was far more important—viz., the rules to regulate our conduct to each other. The whole prescribed duty of man to man is contained in seventy­ seven words. The second Commandment brings out that particular character of the Christian God which is so con­ spicuous in other parts of the Bible. We are not to make and bow down to images. Very good advice, we readily admit. But why are we not to do so ? Is there any appeal to the generous and reverential sentiments of the human heart ? Surely a noble and good God would have said something similar to this : “ Thou shalt not bow down thy­ self to them, nor serve them; for I, the Lord thy God, am a great, beneficent, and generous God, with a wide, allembracing love. Thou shalt not degrade thy soul nor debase thy being by worshipping the gods of the heathen. I am your only father, who made and cares for you, and your place of reverence and trust is in the all-sustaining hollow of my hand.” Had the Deity said this, and proved his sincerity by appropriate actions subsequently towards his subjects, it would have done more to have won the affec­ tions of his children to him than the whole of his present recorded sayings contained from Genesis to Revelation. But no; we find that a sordid appeal is made partly to the mean fears, and partly to the paternal affections, of the Jews. They are forbidden to worship other gods: “ For I, the ILord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of rthe fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me.” Fancy a great, Almighty (God, creator of the earth, being jealous of the estranged �BIBLE MORALITY. 5 affection of an unfortunate Jew! But this is in keeping with the general character of the Christian Deity, and most of his particular and immediate acquaintances. The part of the Decalogue which has reference to us, as members of society, is so brief, in comparison to that which has been occupied by theology and the requirements of God, that little room is left for the introduction of rewards and punish­ ments which are to follow the fulfilment or non-fulfilment of so important a behest as “ Thou shalt not kill.” But the punishment of idolatry, a most cruel, unjust, and revengeful one, is given at full length. The fifth Commandment, “ Honour thy father and mother,” is certainly, as far as it goes, an excellent one. It comes home to the heart of everyone who has the feelings of love and duty within him. We can take no possible exception to its request. But the reason given for its fulfilment is as selfish as it is untrue. Yielding to no one in the belief that filial affection and re­ verence are not only duties, but carry with them (as all virtues do to some extent) their own reward in the satisfac­ tion of an approving sense of right, it has yet to be shown that the keeping of the first part of this command will secure the accomplishment of the second. Honouring parents does not invariably carry with it the fulfilment of the pro­ mise, “ Thy days shall be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” The best of sons have frequently been called upon to pay the last debt of nature when still in the bloom and vigour of their manhood, while some of the worst of characters live to a comparatively old age, a grief to their parents and a disgrace to themselves. Though, therefore, we would echo the command, “ Children, obey your parents,” we would also say : Do so, not from any selfish hope of personal gain or long life, but for the love you should have for those who have toiled for and protected you through years of infancy and helplessness. Duty, gratitude, and affection should be the inspiration to obedience, not the grovelling incentive given by the Bible. But may not this be taken as a fair sample of Bible teaching ? When­ ever we discover a noble thought, a just precept, or a gener­ ous sentiment, we generally find it surrounded by much that is impracticable, misleading, and fallacious. The sixth, seventh, and eighth Commandments call for no special remark, save that, when they point out the extremes of �6 BIBLE MORALITY. certain vices, and forbid their indulgence, they fail to state how far persons may go in their direction without commit­ ting fatal errors; and this difficulty is all the greater when we reflect that these were the very Commandments which most of God’s favourites had the greatest predilection for break­ ing- The chief object of the ninth Commandment is its limitation. Why should the word “ neighbour ” be intro­ duced in the prohibition of false swearing? It is equally a wrong to swear falsely against a stranger as against a neigh­ bour. The tenth Commandment is the only one of the second part of the Decalogue which errs by excess of Puri­ tanism. There can be no harm, for instance, in coveting a neighbour’s house if sufficient compensation is offered to in­ duce him to give up the lease; and, if we did not occasionally covet our neighbour’s oxen, beefsteaks and surloins would be even more scarce among the working classes than they are at present. Speaking broadly, the one great objection to the Decalogue is the absence of any noble, inspiring principle of conduct. It teaches no real love, no true charity; it is a penal code, not a rule of life. Orthodox believers are continually proclaiming that love is the foundation of Biblical ethics; the fact is, however, that, if human actions were regulated by some teachings of the Bible, there would be but few manifestations of love. To kill the inhabitants of a conquered city, and to save none alive (Deut. xx. io-i6),is a peculiar mode of exhibiting love to our fellow men. The conduct of Christ was not calculated to inspire us with a superabundance of love when he said: “Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my father which is in heaven ” (Matt. x. 33); or when he stated : “ But those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me” (Luke xix. 27). Here we have an indication of that unforgiving and revengeful spirit which destroys true affection. If there be any truth in the popular notions of sin and forgiveness, it was not moral for Christ to act as he did when speaking in a parable to his disciples. They, not being able to understand him, asked him for an explanation of what he then said. His reply was : “ Unto you is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but, unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables; that seeing, they may see and not perceive, �BIBLE MORALITY. 7 and hearing, they may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins be forgiven them ” (Mark iv.). This is not only partial and unjust, but a planned determination to teach so mysteriously that people should not learn the truth, in case they should thereby be saved. Such a mode of advocacy would be deemed in­ jurious, indeed, in these days, and is only equalled by the following “ inspired ” information to certain persons : “ And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteous­ ness ” (2 Thess. ii. n, 12). We are advised to be holy, even as God is holy; but what is holiness according to Bible morality? If a “Divine” sanction to a thing constitutes it holy, then deceit, murder, lying, and the deepest kind of cruelty are allied with Scriptural holiness. In 2 Kings x. God is represented as rewarding the following crimes, and thereby giving the Bible sanction to the worst kind of im­ morality. Jehu, having become King of Israel, commences his reign with a series of murders. Having resolved upon the destruction of the house of Ahab, Jehu commences his task in a manner possible only to those who fight with the “ zeal of the Lord.” Killing all who were likely to obstruct him in the carrying out of his base object, he arrived at Samaria, his purpose being to slay all the worshippers of Baal. In order, therefore, that he might entrap them all into one slaughter house, he announced that he was a great worshipper of Baal, and that he had come to offer a mighty sacrifice to this idol. By this craft he succeeded in drawing all the worshippers of Baal together. When the unfortunate victims were assembled, tendering their sacrifices, Jehu ordered his captains to go in and slay them, allowing none to escape. Accordingly, they were all sacrificed to the treachery of this “ servant of the Lord.” And this conduct is approved by God; for in verse 30 is recorded : “ And the Lord said unto Jehu, Because thou hast done well in executing that which is right in mine eyes, and hast done unto the house of Ahab according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.” Bible morality is further illustrated in the case of Samuel (1 Samuel xvi. 1-4). This prophet is commanded by God to go on a certain mission under false �8 BIBLE MORALITY. pretences, and with a direct falsehood upon his lips. Now, is it moral to deceive and murder ? If not, why did God command and encourage such vices ? And why should men be invited to imitate the example of one who practised such immoralities ? Biblical ethics are alleged to be based upon the “holiness of God.” In order to ascertain what that “holiness ” really is, it is only necessary to read Genesisxxx. and xxxi., where immorality, ingratitude, deceit, and theft are found to be ascribed to Jacob, who was encouraged and beloved by God; Exodus ix. 13-16, where people are' seen to have been raised up by God for the very pur­ pose of being “cut off from the earth;” Exodus xxxii., for an account of the anger, injustice, and cruelty of Moses, culminating in the slaughter of thousands of human beings at the command of God ; Joshua vi., viii., and x., for a record of his reckless murder of thousands of human beings, among whom were men, women, and children, at the special command of God; 2 Samuel xii. n-31, for adultery and cruelty in connection with David; and then peruse Psalms xxxviii. and cix. for a confession of a life of deceit, lying, and licentiousness. Yet we are told that David “ was a man after God’s own heart,” and that he “kept God’s com­ mandments, and did that only which was right in his eyes ” (1 Kings xiv. 8). Such maybe Biblical morality; but it is certainly opposed to Secular ideas of ethical philosophy. The teachings of the Bible in reference to slavery are barbarously unjust. According to its permit, men and women can be bought and sold like cattle, the weak being compelled to serve the strong. In Exodus xxi. 2-6 we have a most cruel law for regulating this “ Bible institution,” the cruelty and injustice of which law are two-fold. First, if the slave when he is bought be single, and if, during his seven years of slavery, he marries and becomes a father, then, at the expiration of his time, his wife and children are his master’s, and the slave goes out free. Is this moral ? What becomes of the poor man’s paternal affections ? Isthe love for his wife nothing ? Is he to be separated from that he holds dear, and to see the object of his affectionsgiven to the man who for seven years had robbed him of his independence and his manhood? If, however, the poor victim’s love for his wife and children be stronger than his desire for liberty, what is his fate? He is to be brought �BIBLE MORALITY. 9 to the door, have his ear bored with an awl, and doomed to serve his master forever. Thus Bible morality makes per­ petual slavery and physical pain the punishments of the exercise of the purest and best feelings of human nature. Where is the moral lesson in the statement: “ And thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after; for oxen or for sheep, or for wine or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth ; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou and thine household ” ? If this is not giving a license to the worst of passions, words have no meaning. But Bible morality strikes at the manhood and happiness of man. It stifles our tenderest affections, and urges the exercise of the cruellest passions by teaching that a man may kill the wife of his bosom if she dare to entice him secretly from his God (Deut. xiii. 6-9). Where is the man who will so far belie his nature as to accept such morality as this ? Unfortunately, Bible teachings have frequently caused a complete severance and breaking up of the ties of affection in families. The Bible commands its believers to leave father, mother, sister, and brother to follow Christ. According to its teachings, it is justifiable to break up a certain and a human bond that we may get a problematical chance of a problematical blessedness in a problematical future. There are few, doubt­ less, who have not learned in their own sad experience how the family tie has been often disunited by Christian teach­ ings. Brothers and sisters have been separated for years from the home of their childhood because they dared to emancipate themselves from the shackles of the prevailing faith. Accepting the term “ moral ” as expressing whatever is calculated to promote general progress and happiness, what morality is contained in the following passages from the Bible : “ Take no thought for your life “ Resist not evil “ Blessed be ye poor“ Labour not for the bread which perisheth “ Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward “ Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called“ Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake “ Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God............ Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the �IO BIBLE MORALITY. ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to them­ selves damnation”? Were these injunctions obeyed, health, independence of character, and political progress would be ignored. For the reforms we have hitherto secured we are indebted to men and women who practically disregarded the Bible, and based their conduct upon the principle of utility. To teach, as the Bible does, that wives are to be subject to their husbands in everything (Eph. v.); to “set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth ” (Colos. iii.); to “ love not the world, neither the things that are in the world ’* (i John ii.); to “ lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth” (Matt, vi.), is not to inculcate the principle of equality, or to inspire man with a desire to take an interest in “the things of time.” Whatever service the Bible may render in gratifying the tastes of the superstitious, it cannot, to men of thought and energy, be of any great moral worth. To persecute for non-belief of any teaching, but more particularly of speculative questions, is not in accordance with ethical justice. Is it true that the Bible encourages persecution for the non-belief in, or the rejection of, its teachings ? If yes, so far at least is its moral worth lessened. For belief in the truth of a doctrine, or the wisdom of a precept, is, to the honest inquirer, the result of the recogni­ tion on his part of sufficient evidence in their favour. When­ ever that evidence is absent, disbelief will be found, except among the indifferent or the hypocritical. Now, in the Bible there are many things that the sincere thinker is com­ pelled, through lack of evidence, to reject. What does the New Testament inculcate towards such persons? When Christ sent his disciples upon a preaching expedition he said (Matt, x.) : “Whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city shake off the dust of your feet.” This, we are informed by Oriental writers, was a mode in the East of showing hatred towards those against whom the dust was shaken. The punishment threatened those who refused the administra­ tions of the disciples is most severe, for “ it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.” In St. John xv. we read : “If a man abideth not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” This accords with the gloomy �BIBLE MORALITY. II announcement (2 Thess. i.): “ The Lord Jesus shall be re­ vealed from heaven, with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe.” Again (Mark xvi.) : “ He that believeth not shall be damned.” St. Paul exclaims (Gal. i.): “If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” He also says (1 Tim. vi. 3-5): “ If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ ....... he is proud, knowing nothing......... From such withdraw thyself.” “ Of whom is Hymenseus and Alexander ; whom I have delivered unto Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme” (1 Tim. i. 20). In these passages persecution and punishment are clearly taught for disbelief. And that such teaching has had an immoral tendency the excommu­ nications, the imprisonments, and sacrifice of the lives of heretics in connection with the history of Christianity abun­ dantly prove. Orthodox Christians contend that the Bible is a necessary factor in the educational system of all nations. While admitting the necessity of instruction in the affairs of daily life, they allege that a question of far greater importance is the preparation for existence “beyond the grave.” They profess to be impressed with the notion that there is a city of refuge in store for them when they arrive at the end of life’s journey; and, having to encounter many storms and difficulties ere they reach this supposed haven of rest, they feel assured that the Bible is a sufficient guide to carry them safely over the sea of time, and land them securely in the harbour of eternity. They therefore rely on this book as if it were unerring in its directions and infallible in its commands. Now, there is ample reason to doubt the capability of this Christian guide. Its inability, however, as an instructor and guide does not arise from any lack of variety of contents. The Bible contains a history of the cosmogony of the earth, and the story of man’s fall from what is termed his first estate of perfection and happiness. Then we have the �12 BIBLE MORALITY. history of God’s chosen people, from their uprise to their national extinction, with a record of the Jewish laws, speci­ fying those acts most calculated to propitiate the favour and secure the rew’ard of heaven, and those which are con­ demned, with their appropriate and stipulated punishments. We have also glimpses of the histories of other nations, the causes of their fall, and the account of their national sins, which drew down upon them that wrath of heaven which extinguished or sorely punished them. Following this, there is the story of Job—the lessons to be derived from the sudden collapse of his worldly greatness, and his soliloquies upon the mysteries of nature and of providence. Next come the Psalms—a copious manual of praise, prayer, cursing, and penitence, followed by the woes, lamentations, and mis­ fortunes of a host of prophets—some practical, some mystical, and some evangelical—together with the four different versions of the life, actions, and death of Christ; a short account of the early doings of the Church, recorded in several epistles written by sundry apostles, culminating in the strange and extraordinary nightmare of St. John the Divine. Now, any man who fails to discover in so large a field materials by which to regulate his life must do so, not from the scarcity, but the valuelessness, of the article supplied. In estimating the real value of the Bible as a moral guide it must be taken as a whole, by which is meant those books of the Old and New Testaments which are bound together and commonly called the Word of God. And here a ques­ tion arises that, if the knowledge of the whole Bible be necessary to our future happiness, which according to St. John it is, why is it that so many of the books that originally constituted the Bible are lost ? If the testimony of the book itself can be accepted, we have only a portion of what at one time composed the Bible. In Numbers a quotation is given from a book called “ The Book of the Wars of the Lord;” in Judges and Samuel we read of “The Book of Jasher;” in Kings mention is made of “The Book of the Acts of Solomon and in Chronicles of “ The Account of the Chronicles of King David.” We further read of “The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah ” and “ The Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel.” Allusion is also made to “ The Book of Nathan the Prophet ” and to �BIBLE MORALITY. 13 “The Book of Gad the Seer.” Notwithstanding the loss of these books, Christians exclaim, How wonderfully their book has been preserved ! Even the portions that are re­ tained are so full of mistakes, errors, and corruptions that its intelligent supporters are compelled to give the greater part of it up as incapable of defence, while those who still contend for its “ divinity ” hesitate to come forward and support it in public debate. Another question suggests itself: Are we to consider the Old. Testament as the Word of God ? If so, upon the Christian hypothesis, its teachings are equally as deserving of our respect as are those of the New Testament. If, on the other hand, the Old Testament is not intended for our acceptance, why is it preached and enforced as God’s Word ? True, it is sometimes stated that the Hebrew writings are useful for instruction, although they are not of the same authority with Christians as the New Testament. But here it is overlooked that the New Testament is founded upon the Old, and often appeals to it to corroborate its statements. Furthermore, the New Testament distinctly says that the Old was written by good and holy men for our instruction, etc. Besides, does not Christ emphatically state that he did not come to destroy its authority ? “ Think not,” says he, “ that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. Whosoever, therefore, shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven ; but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Here is a command not to break even one of the least of the com­ mandments. Again, Christ says: “The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat; whatsoever they bid you ob­ serve, that observe and do.” Among a collection of Chris­ tian stories occurs the following anecdote :—A person once asked a poor, illiterate old woman what she deemed to be the difference between the Old and New Testaments, to which she replied : “ The Old Testament is the New Testa­ ment concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testa­ ment revealed.” This has been triumphantly quoted by Christian writers to show the harmony existing between the �14 BIBLE MORALITY. two books. But it is absurd and contradicts facts. The assumption is, that the Old Testament is the partial statement of a body of truths, from which the New Testament differs not in kind, but only in degree. It is supposed that nothing in the New Testament contradicts what is stated in the Old, but only reveals and amplifies with a clearer light what had already been stated partially and under allegorical semblance in the Old. Now, so far is this from being correct that it would be difficult to find any two alleged bodies of sacred truths which differ from and contradict each other more than the divine revelation made through Moses and the prophets, and the revelation made through Christ and his Apostles. For instance, Moses taught that retaliation was a duty, while Christ strictly prohibits it. With Moses persecutors were put to the edge of the sword; with Christ, however, they were to be blessed. Under the old system, good works and a virtuous life were the conditions of Divine favour and reward, and bad works and a vicious life were to incur Divine disfavour and punishment. Under the new system, faith is the all-in-all, the essential condition of salvation. A proof of the inadequacy of the Bible as a guide and instructor is furnished by what are termed the “ liberal Christians.” Here we have men of the best intentions and of high intellectual acquirements refusing to accept the Bible as an absolute guide, or as an infallible instructor. With such persons the Bible has no value as “ infallible revela­ tion.” If, however, the Bible is not an infallible record, it is simply a human production, and has no more claim upon us, except what its merits inspire, than any other book. Is it not rather inconsistent to contend, as these liberal Chris­ tians do, that certain portions of the Bible are “ divine,” while the other parts are simply human ? If every Chris­ tian sect put forward similar contentions, there would be but few parts of the “ Holy Scriptures ” that would not be divine and human at the same time, according to the respec­ tive opinions of different classes of believers. But how are we to decide what is “ divine ” and what is human ? To what standard shall we appeal ? What criterion have we by which to test its genuineness ? Shall we accept the authority of the Protestant or the Catholic Church ? Shall we judge from the standpoint of the Trinitarians or the Unitarians? For the Bible to be trustworthy as a guide it should be �BIBLE MORALITY. 15 reliable in its statements and harmonious in its doctrines. That it is not so will be evident from the following reference to its pages. The Bible teaches that God is omniscient and omnipresent; yet in Gen. xi. 5 we read that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of menbuilded; and in Gen. xviii. 20, 21: “And the Lord said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me ; and, if not, I will know.” It teaches that God is immutable ; yet, on several occasions, we find him changing his mind, repenting, and sometimes turning back from his repentance; as in the great instance (Gen. vi. 6) : “ And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at the heart ” (also 1 Sam. xv. 10, 11). God told Balaam to go with the men (Num. xxii., 20), and was angry with him because he went (Num. xxii. 21, 22). It teaches that God is invisible, yet we read (Gen. xxxii. 30) : “And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel; for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved and (Ex. xxiv. 9, 10): “Then up went Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and they saw the God of Israeland, again (Ex. xxxiii. 11,23): “ And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend....... And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen and, finally (Gen. xviii.), we have the remarkable though perplexed account of the Lord paying a visit to Abraham in the plains of Mamre, and eating with him of cakes, butter, milk, and veal. It teaches that God is all good ■, yet we read (Isa. xlv. 7): “I form the light and create darkness : I make peace and create evil: I the Lord do all these things and (Lam. iii. 38): “ Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good ?” and (Ezekiel xx. 25): “ Wherefore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live.” It teaches that God is no respecter of persons ; yet we read (Gen. iv. 4, 5): “And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering ; but unto Cain and his offering he had no respect;” and (Ex. ii. 25) : “ And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them;” and (Rom. ix. 11-13) : “For the children being not yet �16 BIBLE MORALITY, born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth ; it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” And, in fact, nearly the whole Bible story is that of a chosen people, preferred above all other nations, surely for no superior goodness on their part! It teaches (Ex. xx. 5) that God is a jealous God, “ visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;” yet we read (Ezekiel xviii. 20): “ The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.” It teaches that Christ is God (John i. 1, 14; Heb. i. 8); yet we read (John viii. 40) : “ But now ye seek to kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard of God;” also (1 Tim. ii. 5): “ One mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” It teaches (John x. 30) that Christ and his father are one ; yet we read (John xiv. 28): “For my father is greater than I.” It teaches (John xvi. 30; Col. ii. 3) that Jesus knew all things ; yet we read (Mark xi. 13): “And seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, he came, if haply he might find anything thereon; and, when he came to it, he found nothing but leaves; for the time of figs was not yet■” and, far more significant (Mark xiii. 32) : “ But of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” It teaches of Jesus (John viii. 14): “ Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true; for I know whence I came, and whither I go ;” yet we read (John v. 31): “ If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.” It teaches further (1 Tim. ii. 6) that he gave himself a ransom for all; yet we read (Matt. xv. 24): “ I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel;” and (Mark vii. 26, 27): “The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled; for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it unto the dogs.” It teaches that miracles are proofs of a divine mission (Matt. ix. 6; John v. 36 ; Heb. ii. 4); yet (Deut. xiii. 1-3; Matt. xxiv. 24; 2 Thess. ii. 9) warns against false prophets and anti-Christs, who shall show great signsand wonders. It teaches in many passages of the New �BIBLE MORALITY. 17 Testament that the end of the world is at hand, as in Matt, xxiv., 1 Cor. xv. 51, 52; 1 Thess. iv. 15; 1 Peter iv. 7; yet we read (2 Thess. ii. 2, 3): “ That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means.” Further, on this subject, we read (Matt. x. 23), in which Jesus is addressing the Apostles he sent forth : “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be comeyet we read (Matt. xxiv. 14) : “ And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come and, similarly (Mark xiii. 10): “And the gospel must first be published among all nations.” It teaches (Luke i. 33 ; Heb. i. 8) that the kingdom of Christ shall endure forever; yet we read, in one of the most remarkable passages of the New Testament (1 Cor. xv. 24, 25, 28) : “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet........ And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all-in-all.” It teaches that the Holy Ghost is God (Acts v. 3, 4); yet we read (John xv. 26): “ But when the Com­ forter is come, whom shall I send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father and, again (John xiv. 16): “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter and, again (Acts x. 38); “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.” Finally, it teaches that “ all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable” (2 Tim. iii. 16); yet we read (1 Cor. vii. 6, 12): “ But I speak this by per­ mission, and not of commandment....... But to the rest speak I, not the Lord and similarly (2 Cor. xi. 17) : “ That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were fool­ ishly, in this confidence of boasting.” The foregoing are but a few of “ apparent discrepancies,” or, as we call them, direct self-contradictions; and, be it remembered, they concern the essentials of Christianity— the three persons of the God, the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, and the end of the world. The Bibliolater may �18 BIBLE MORALITY. be encouraged in the endeavour to reconcile them by the assurance that an indefinite further number, just as perplex­ ing, await solution. Those Christians who are too enlightened to accept the Bible, as it has chanced to come down to us, as in every word the very Word of God, and too free-minded to submit to the authority of a tradition which has varied with all climes and ages, or a Church whose history is a record of blunders, compromises, falsifications, self-contra­ dictions, probably unequalled in the annals of any merely secular institution whatever, manage to remain, in their own estimation, Christians, by believing that God’s saving revela­ tion to mankind is made in the Bible, and that everyone may read it for himself if he studies the volume in a re­ verent and prayerful spirit. They admit many errors of copyists, reject many passages, and even books, as decidedly spurious, and regard many others as doubtful; yet maintain that, all deductions made, there is left a clear and sufficient Divine message, whose essential character is untouched by .any of the errors or defects, and unchanged by any of the various readings. Now, this theory is certainly the most illogical which a Christian can hold ; for that of the thorough Bibliolater is consistent in its blind submission of reason to faith ; and the Roman and Church views are equally consistent in their blind submission to faith and tradition and ecclesiastical authority; while this new theory seeks and pretends to •conciliate things which are essentially irreconcilable—reason and faith, freethought and revelation, liberty and servitude, the natural and the supernatural. But, as it is the theory of some of the best and ablest of our religious fellow-citizens, and of those who are most heartily with us in much sound Secular work, it practically claims a fuller consideration here than it intrinsically merits. In the first place, it is evidently open to the fatal objec­ tion that it makes man the measure and standard of his God, setting up certain Scriptures as supernatural and Divine, then subjecting them to the arbitrament of human nature, the reason and conscience of the creature. Each of those who hold it says in effect: “ Here are books pur­ porting to contain the Word of God, and I believe they do contain it, but mixed with many vain words of men; �BIBLE MORALITY. 19 therefore, what suits me I shall consider Divine, and what does not suit me I shall reject.” Numerous clever attempts ■have been made to smooth away this sharp self-contradic­ tion ; but, so far as we are aware, and as was to be expected, not one that can be deemed even plausible by any candid outsider. There is but one mode of getting rid of it—a mode swift and effectual, obvious, and facile in theory; but, as long experience proves, very hard to put into practice— .and this is to surrender the initial claim of Divine inspira­ tion of the books, when, of course, it would be quite natural and consistent to sit in judgment on them, as on any other human writing, welcoming what in them we find good and true, rejecting what we find bad and false. It is indeed alleged that the special grace of the Holy Spirit always illumines and guides every one who studies these books in the proper frame of mind; but, as we find, in fact, that no two serious students read quite alike—each .reading in accordance with his peculiar temperament, intel­ lect, training, and circumstances, precisely as he would read were there no Holy Spirit in question—the said special grace, having no perceptible effect, may be safely left out of the calculation. Innumerable sectaries, all alike devout and sincere, all alike drawing their inspiration from the Bible, have differed widely on the very fundamental doc­ trines of Christianity; and we never heard of the Holy Spirit doing anything towards bringing these brethren into unity. A Christian eclectic submits the Bible to the test of his own reason and conscience, which have been educated and purified, not by the book itself, nor by any supernatural grace, but by the results of a long and gradual progress in secular enlightenment and civilisation ; which progress has been at nearly every step opposed on the authority of the book, and in the name of the religion founded on it. Doc­ trines that now revolt the common conscience did not in former centuries revolt the consciences of men who were taught by the book and purified by the Holy Spirit. It is not by special grace, nor revelation of the Holy Scriptures, but by critical scholarship, that men have come now to decide as to the genuineness and authenticity, the date and authority, of the various portions. Until free learning was revived at the classical or heathenish Renaissance, the Holy Spirit was content to leave all the most pious Biblical �20 BIBLE MORALITY. students in very deep darkness as to nearly all the points ott which our eclectic Christians are now so clearly enlightened. The family ideal set forth in the Bible is certainly not one of a high ethical nature. The domestic relationship of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon could not be emulated to-day without practising gross injustice,and submitting to utter moral degradation. The IndoEuropean race has developed in morals as in knowledge, and two thousand years ago, when Germanicus led the Roman legions, he beheld with wonder the respect with which the ignorant, rude, and warlike Germans treated their wives and daughters. It is an insult to civilised women for any one to commend the family ideal of those who made woman a slave. Even Christ is represented as treating women as if they were necessarily inferior to men ; while his conduct to his mother, his commendation and personal practice of celibacy, and his encouraging others to renounce their own obligations to their families, are not calculated to shed a halo of peace and happiness within the home circle. Moreover, St. Paul’s doctrine of the absolute submission of wives to their husbands can hardly be offered us to admire as an ideal. The Secularist family ideal is far superior to that of the Bible, inasmuch as it is on a level with the ethics of our societarian development. It teaches that marriage should be the result of mutual affection, and that such a union creates the responsibility of undivided allegiance, mutual fidelity, and mutual consideration. It affirms that in the domestic circle there should be no one-sided, absolute authority; that husband and wife should be partners in deed, not only in theory, animated alike by the desire to promote each other’s happiness. The basis of Bible morality, being God’s will, is very delusive, for the simple reason that, if such a will has been recorded, it is not known to us; and the conjectured repre­ sentations of it given to us by theologians of all ages are impracticable and conflicting. In the Bible there is not to be found only one will ascribed to its Deity, but many; and those are as contradictory as they are various. For instance, murder, adultery, theft, deceit, and other crimes can be proved from the Bible to be opposed to the expressed desire of God, as given in the Scriptures; while upon the �BIBLE MORALITY. 21 same authority these crimes can be shown to accord with God’s will. The result is, it is impossible to regulate human conduct upon the sanctions of either the “ inspired ” records. It is this peculiar nature of Bible teachings which was, prob­ ably, the cause of the early Christians lying for the glory of the Church (see Mosheim’s “ Ecclesiastical History ”), and of Christians at a more modern period robbing and murder­ ing those whom they termed heretics. In doing what they did in this persecuting business, the Bible believers, no doubt, thought that they were acting in accordance with •“God’s will,” as set forth in the “ Divine revelation.” The founders and promoters of those body-and-mind-destroying institutions, the Inquisition and the Star Chamber, were in all probability sincere, and many of them in the affairs of every-day life, apart from theology, good men. In religious matters, however, they were cruel and inhuman in the extreme. Why was this ? Because, no doubt, in punishing even to death those who opposed the true faith, they thought they were following the Bible as a guide (see Deuteronomy xiii. 6-9). The acceptance of the Bible as a standard of morality involves also the recognition of teachings and doctrines that are conflicting and impracticable. In one place we are told that faith alone will save us (Romans iii. 27, 28); while in another portion of this same “ authority ” we are assured that works are necessary to secure salvation (James ii. 24). In St. John we read, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me ” [Christ] (xiv. 6); and in the same gospel it is recorded, “ No man can come to me [Christ] except the Father draw him ” (vi. 44). This makes salvation depend, not upon man, but upon God. In John it is written, “ For there are three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one while Timothy states distinctly that “ there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” The New Testament teaches that Christ brought glad tidings for all men ; yet we are assured that he came but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel—that many are called, but few are chosen. In one chapter we learn that all sin can be forgiven, while in another part of the same book it is said that the sin against the Holy Ghost is never to be for­ given. In Timothy we read : “ For this is good and accept­ �22 BIBLE MORALITY. able in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all mento be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.’7' But this cannot be if it is true that “ for this cause God shall send them strong delusions, that they should believe a lie.” If the delusions are sent by God, and if in conse­ quence mankind believe a lie, and get punished hereafter for such belief, it is only fair to suppose that God’s will was that they should not come to a knowledge of the truth; which contradicts what is stated in Timothy. John assuresus that “ whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.” This is very consoling when we read the following : “ If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters—yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” To be a disciple of Christ you must hate your brother ; you are thus a mur­ derer, and “no murderer hath eternal life.” If you wish, therefore, to have eternal life, you must not become a dis­ ciple of Christ. Martyrdom by death may not always be the best way to advance a principle, inasmuch as more good can generally be done by living for a cause than by dying for it. But Christians say the martyrdom of the early Christians proves the truth of their doctrines, and in support of their contention they quote the words of Jesus : “ And I [Jesus] say unto you, My friends, be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.” These words, it is thought, prove that Jesus taught and held life cheaply, in order to advance more readily his doctrines. It appears, however, from John that Christ did what many of his followers now do—taught one thing and practised another; for on one occasion John says, “ Jesus walked in Galilee; for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.” What are we to do in this case—follow Christ’s teaching, or his example ? To follow both is impossible. Some persons condemn all war upon the ground that it is anti-Scriptural, and in their justi­ fication they quote Matthew, where he says : “ Then said Jesus unto them, Put up again thy sword into its place; for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.” The soldier, on the other hand, tells the peace man that we ought to possess swords ; for in Luke it is said : “ He that hath no sword let him sell his garments and buy one.” �BIBLE MORALITY. 23 Both would be equally justified, and both would be equally condemned, by the New Testament—a very perplexing position to be in. But the man fond of fighting would keep his sword, believing that the more Christianity became spread the more use there would be for the sword, as Christ declared: “ Think not that I am come to send peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” If Christ had succeeded in his object -—and he has partially—the advocate of the sword would have had good grounds for justification. St. Paul considers charity the highest of virtues, without which all other acquirements are as nothing. But then he immediately destroys the efficacy of such teaching by the following command : “ As we said before, so say I now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” We are told that “ wisdom is the principal thing, therefore get wisdom.” But we are also assured that in much wisdom there is much grief, and that he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. It is folly to guide man to wisdom, telling him that it is better than riches, while he is taught that “ the wisdom of the world is foolishness with God.” Where is the incentive for a youth to acquire knowledge when St. Paul says, “It is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the pru­ dent ” ? From these samples of the incoherent nature of Bible statements and teachings, it will be seen how impossible it is to rely implicitly on such a book as a guide in human conduct. True, Christians may urge that there is no con­ tradiction in the cases cited; that the Bible is God’s Word, and must therefore be all true. It is in vain that the student points out that this revelation abounds with impos­ sibilities and absurdities, for he is reminded that with God all things are possible, therefore let “ God be true, and every man a liar.” It is further urged that the mistakes occur through our lack of comprehension ; that the Scrip­ tures would be plain enough if we could only “ see our way clear ” to accept them as gospel; and that the depravity of our nature prevents us viewing revealed truth in a spiritual �24 BIBLE MORALITY. light. These are the sentiments of many who profess to accept the Bible as a guide. Truly, we must become as little children if we endorse the doctrine of Scriptural infalli­ bility. The conduct of those who, in the face of such incon­ sistency, contend for Bible infallibility is something more than foolish; it is criminal. To shelter all that the Bible contains under the halo of “ divinity ” is to pay homage to the worst of human weaknesses. If a man is to pursue an intellectual career; if he is to foster a manly independence; if he is to live a life of integrity, he must not be bound either by ancient folly or modern orthodoxy; but, unfettered, he should learn the lessons afforded by a knowledge of the facts of nature, and from the discoveries of science acquire those rules which through life will be a surer counsellor than the Bible, and a safer guide than theology. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bible morality Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Watts, Charles Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 24 p. ; 18 cm. Notes: From the NSS pamphlet collection. Title in KVK given as 'Bible Morality: Its Teachings Shown to be Contradictory and Defective as an Ethical Guide'. Publication given in KVK as London : Watts and Co., [19--]. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [19--] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1582 N658 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Ethics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><p>This work (Bible morality), identified by <span><a href="www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible-Criticism NSS Philosophy and Religion https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/1cbde489b25460e1e8410fa66ab4f003.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=bk6p%7Elno30rVe7768WuGpI9M62dcWyzWxDT3-VT5eXYy-yKCgCOYsFLpT2OJdHqx-qVOXBqJbdqr05Uz7r4DP-FWGHqjsv1fpgjFVnywXePBEA4mHgrADxi5oFf3D7c2tByvtNZlBicUavzsnfTrXD7X37iUdFsrDiP3rZSZto6CbKfa54eHrByudKxB9rf85YsoaiDrY3CBxMr5RiwCcJ3QnG1nctAAIPN7%7ElKaOJlNmX2ZDZ-CSXYUXoq3kCDvvd1GZ7b7uIukUxLdCx0GXw6lnDnYgHoG4S1AXN8SAy-jNQ3AktTbxQD0-L3Q25kpq2hMetsfmWVZv%7E-qQJBQag__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 1fb38316f3ca23e9420218fb57d12394 PDF Text Text 6 ' Bhhopsgate Institute Watts & Co.’s List OF PUBLICATIONS. Price is., by post is. 2d., TALES FROM THE BIBLE, TOLD TO MY DA UGHTER. By F. J. GOULD. The problem which often perplexes the mind of Agnostic parents, “ How best to introduce the Bible to our children,” receives a practical solution in this manual by Mr. Gould. The book presents the leading myths and incidents of the Old Testament in clear and simple language. The narrative, of course, is freed from the occa­ sional grossness of the original. While the author avoids irrele­ vant attack on orthodox beliefs, he leads the young reader, by passing but significant suggestions, to the conclusion that the in­ teresting old Hebrew legends are not to be accepted as genuine history. 64 pp., price 6d., by post 7d., The Claims of Christianity EXAMINED FROM A RATIONALIST STANDPOINT. By CHARLES WATTS. Contents:—The Nature and Utility of Christian Evidences— God and Religion—Theism and Other “ Isms ’’—The Question of Revelation—Christian Miracles—The Personality and Character of Jesus—The Resurrection of Christ—The Influence of Christianity upon the World—Cumulative Evidences of Christianity. Price 6d., by post 7d., WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE? THE ANSWER OF RATIONALISM. Consisting of Contributions by The Author of “Supernatural Religion,” Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, J. Allanson Picton, F. J. Gould, Professor Momerie, Dr. Ludwig Buchner, Leslie Stephen, Professor Max Muller, Thomas Whittaker, B.A., Edward Clodd, Bernard Bosanquet, LL.D. London; Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C. NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY �Now Ready, 209 pp., cloth, price 3s. 6d. post free, THE SECOND VOLUME OF A Concise History of Religion. By F. J. GOULD. The second volume of the “ Concise History ” gives in compact form the results attained by the best Biblical criticism of the Rational­ ist school. The system is chronological. In the opening sections useful particulars are given as to the geography of Palestine and the ethnographic characteristics of the Israelites and neighbouring nations. Ancient Judaism is traced from its first rude beginnings. The legends of the Patriarchs, of Joseph, and of Moses are com­ pared with similar legends in early non-Jewish histories. From the Judges and Kings, onward to the Exile, the Maccabaean war, the Roman conquest, and the times of Herod, Pilate, and Nero, the history of Israel is followed on the lines of purely natural evolu­ tion ; and the whole of the Old Testament is broken up into its original elements and placed in chronological order. Sketches are also introduced of the Apocryphal books and other interesting Hebrew literature. Thus the reader sees, as in a clearly-engraved map, the sources and development of Judaism till the rise of Chris­ tianity ; and the fortunes of the Hebrew people are interwoven with the story of their scriptures. A careful account is furnished of the growth of the belief in Immortality and of the Messianic hope. Finally, the relations are indicated between Christianity and the religions that surrounded it at its birth. Also, cloth, price 2s. 6d. post free, Vol. I., Comprising Sketches of the Chief Religions of the World, with the exceptions of fudaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. Vol. III. WILL BE PUBLISHED EARLY IN 1896. 16 pp., price id., by post l%d., Shall Thought be Fettered in England? SHOWING THE DISABILITIES UNDER WHICH FREE­ THINKERS AND SECULARISTS SUFFER.- By E. G. TAYLOR. London : Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C. �160 pp., 6d., by post 8d., ANTIDOTES TO SUPSRSTIfION. By GEORGE HENRY MARTIN. Contents:—I.—Christian Veracity. 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Contents: Introduction—The Agnostic’s Creed : God, Revelation, InspiraOf the Bible, Miracles, Man’s Future, Worship Prayer, The Invisible World, Marriage, Morality, The r Polarity—Elementary Science : The Universe, The Eaith, Atmosphere The Crust of the Earth, Geological Epochs and A The Solar System, The Seasons, Origin of Life, Evolution Descent of Man—Man’s Moral Code, Examination of Hymns and Aspirations—Marriage Ceremony—The of Children—The Burial of the Dead—Oaths and Affirma° for Burials—List of-Books—Alphabetical Index. booklet is high-toned and edifying.”— The Literary �Just Issued, crown 8vo, 224 pp., cloth, gold lettered, price 3s.; post free, 3s. 3d., IDEAL JUSTICE; OR NATURAL SCIENCE APPLIED TO ETHICS, ECONOMICS, AND RELIGION. AN ESSA Y. Also two Appendices, entitled “The Bases of Certitude” and “Evolution, or Epigenesis?” By H. CROFT HILLER, Author of “ Rhythmic Heredity” &c. “Even when the reader does not agree with Mr. Hiller, he always finds much in his pages to arrest his attention, to interest him, and to instruct him; and the very opposition to so able a writer is in itself a pleasurable exertion. At all events, the reader will find in the pages of ‘ Ideal Justice’ many excellent thoughts on various subjects besides Socialism : on morality, on determinism, on evolution, on freedom, on metaphysics, on God and religion, and on England’s future. We need hardly say, in conclusion, that we heartily recommend the book to our readers. The Agnostic Journal. Demy 8vo, handsome cloth, gilt lettered, price 3s.; post free, 3s. 3d., SOCIAL EVOLUTION AND the EVOLUTION OF SOCIALISM. A CRITICAL ESSAY. By GEORGE SHOOBRIDGE CARR, M.A. Cantab. ‘ ‘ He [the author] is a firm believer in Altruism, which he regards as a natural development, rather than an outcome, of Christianity— in fact, he holds that the latter has tended to retard the growth of the humane spirit which is now finding expression in enlightened Socialism and meliorative efforts.”—Two Worlds. “The book is written with not a little ability.”—Aberdeen Free Press. “ He certainly makes one or two good points as against Mr. Kidd.”—Glasgow Herald. “He [the author] is a scholar, a thinker, a teacher; and we hope for him a generous attention to his speculative views.”-—The Literary Guide. ‘ ‘ A useful and interesting contribution to the current literature of scientific Socialism. Justice. London: W. STEWART & CO., 41 Farringdon St., E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource [1895?] Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N681 Subject The topic of the resource Free thought Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Watts &amp; Co.'s list of publications), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Free Thought NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/95080df724687e8f85bc955d2afd0082.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=FTlBWTS5HY32bq9%7EliS181WiGkHSiQHxwILGgQtpDxGAwATNaRMFZpRPEtdAWlJgjLywGNCmeMGsZFEOSL%7EHXXHrqp5aSMrOR5HtmIdwK2jZBd3FMvGC-1TlwMWx1Ni0t7XoYAFn7-hclmfEP7G%7E68yqrJ1yspPSYkyW739PXJOc80xD%7E3HRCUWCFy8ldLfuQ-v5uUwm8wFhai7CF1D-xSdnbRgOAjR96lGkQQlTKkDegPwRFfLkxcV8vhAeJ0T8vwsU6SrXLKt9o1XfkNRKWfgRgdRvZ9ZIi6yntrEQwqi1nAndGYVnEJDyLnWFTC6qQA%7Ei0pnK1ATvEcNZgTTvhA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 17ed7abf3b96597bd14b94526bcbf698 PDF Text Text No. 10—R.P.A.CHEAP REPRINTS. INCLUDING THE Famous Belfast Address LECTURES AND ESSAYS By PROFESSOR TYNDALL WATTS & Co., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. (issued for the rationalist press association, limited) SECOND IMPRESSION, completing’ 35,000 copies. D, « ST­ ��Ife, NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY LECTURES AND ESSAYS �CONTENTS PAGE • • 5 - - i3 - ■ 43 - 54 - • 61 ■ - 76 ------ • - 94 Reflections on Prayer and Natural Law ■ * - 97 • ■ 100 • ■ 114 Biographical Sketch of The Belfast Address Apology for ti-ie - Author - Belfast Address the - - • Scientific Materialism Scientific Use of Science Man and Vitality Miracles and On Prayer Imagination the - ■ Special Providences as a Science and the - Form of Physical Energy“ Spirits 117 �LECTURES > AND ESSAYS BY JOHN TYNDALL (Cullings from “ Fragments of Science ”) [issued for the rationalist press association, ltd.] WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1909 ��BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH1 John Tyndall, natural philosopher, son of John Tyndall and his wife Sarah (Macassey), was born at Leighlin Bridge, co. Carlow, Ireland, on August 2nd, 1820. The Tyndalls, who claimed rela­ tionship with the family of William Tyndale the martyr, had crossed from Gloucestershire to Ireland in the seven­ teenth century. The elder John Tyndall, son of a small landowner, although poor, was a man of superior intellect, and he gave his son the best education which his circumstances could afford. At the local national school young Tyndall acquired a thorough knowledge of elementary mathematics, which quali­ fied him to. enter as civil assistant (in 1839) the ordnance survey of Ireland. In 1842 he was selected, as one of the best draughtsmen in his department, for employment on the English survey. While quartered at Preston in Lanca­ shire he joined the mechanics’ institute, and attended its lectures. He was at this time much impressed by Carlyle’s Past and Present, and to the stimula­ ting influence of Carlyle’s works was in part' due his later resolve to follow a scientific career. On quitting the survey Tyndall was employed for three years as a railway engineer. In 1847 he accepted an offer from George Edmondson, principal of Queen­ wood College, Hampshire, to join the college staff as teacher of mathematics ■hi and surveying. Mr. (afterwards Sir Edward) Frankland was lecturer on chemistry, and the two young men agreed respectively to instruct each other in chemistry and mathematics. But Queenwood did not yield all the oppor­ tunities they wished for, and they presently resolved to take advantage of the excellent instruction to be enjoyed at the university of Marburg in HesseCassel. The decision was for Tyndall a momentous one. He had nothing but his own work and slender savings to depend on, and his friends thought him mad for abandoning the brilliant possi­ bilities then open to a railway engineer. In October, 1848, Tyndall and Frank­ land settled at Marburg. Tyndall at­ tended Bunsen’s lectures on experimental and practical chemistry, and studied mathematics and physics .in the classes and laboratories of Stegmann, Gerling, and Knoblauch. By intense application he accomplished in less than two years the work usually extended over three, and thus became doctor of philosophy early in 1850. Thenceforward he was free to devote himself entirely to original research. x His first scientific paper was a mathe­ matical essay on screw surfaces—“ Die Schraubenflache mit geneigter Erzeugungslinie und die Bedingungen des Gleichgewichts fur solche Schrauben which formed his inaugural dissertation Smith-E,te-& Co- - tetolf of �biographical sketch 6 At Easter, 1851, Tyndall finally left when he took his degree. His first I Marburg and went to Berlin, where he physical paper, published in the Philo­ sophical Magazine for February, I^5I> became acquainted with many eminent was on “The Phenomena of a Water Jet” men of science. In the laboratory of —a subject comparatively simple, but not Professor Magnus he conducted a second investigation on “ Diamagnetism and without scientific interest. In conjunction with Knoblauch, Tyn­ Magne-crystallic Action,”1 which formed a sequel to that previously undertaken dall executed and published an impor­ with Knoblauch. A paper describing his tant investigation “ On the Magneto­ results was read at the Ipswich meeting optic Properties of Crystals and the of the British Association. He showed Relation of Magnetism and Diamag­ netism to Molecular Arrangement.”1 that the antithesis of the two forces was absolute : diamagnetism resembling They claimed to have discovered the existence of a relation between the magnetism as to polarity and all other density of matter and the manifestation characteristics, differing from it only by the substitution of repulsion for attrac­ of the magnetic force. Their funda­ mental idea was that the component tion and vice versa. The question of diamagnetic polarity molecules of crystals, and other sub­ was much discussed. Its existence, stances, are not in every direction at the originally asserted by Faraday, and same distance from each other. The superior magnetic energy of a crystal in reaffirmed by Weber in 1848, had been subsequently denied by Faraday, who a given direction, when suspended still continued doubtful. To meet all between the poles, they attributed objections, Tyndall, at a later date, again to the greater closeness of its mole­ took up the subject, and in three con­ cules in that direction. In support clusive investigations, the second of of their assumption they showed that, by which formed the subject of the Bakenan pressure, the magnetic axis of a bismuth crystal could be shifted 909 in azimuth, lecture delivered before the Royal Society in 1855, he put the polarity of bismuth the line of pressure always setting itself and other diamagnetic bodies beyond parallel with, or at right angles to, the question.2 Five years were. devoted _ by fine joining the two magnetic poles, ac­ him to the investigation of diamagnetism cording as the crystal was magnetic or and the influence of crystalline struc­ diamagnetic. This explanation differed ture and mechanical pressure upon the essentially from that of Faraday and manifestations of magnetic force. The Pliicker. In June, 1850, Tyndall went original papers (with a few omissions in to England, and at the meeting of the the last edition) are collected in his book British Association of that year in Edin­ burgh he read an account of his investiga­ on Diamagnetism (see p. 12). Before leaving Marburg in 1851, tion, which excited considerable interest. Tyndall had agreed to return to Queen­ He afterwards returned to Marburg for wood ; this time as lecturer on matter six months, and carried out a lengthy ; matics and natural philosophy. Here inquiry into electro-magnetic attractions at short distances.2 1 Phil. Mag., September, „ » lb., November, 1851 1 «Phil. Mag-P^h 1850. 2 lb., April, 1851. ib., 1856, pt. i. Trans., x8SSI �BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 7 ■ he remained two years. The first of first to last resembled that of father and the three investigations just alluded to son. Tyndall’s Faraday as a Discoverer ' was carried out at Queenwood, as was bears striking testimony to their attach­ I also a Series of experiments on “The ment. Other sketches of Faraday by Conduction of Heat through Wood.”1 Tyndall are in his Fragments of Science On June 3rd, 1852, Tyndall was elected and in the life of Faraday in the fellow of the Royal Society. Dictionary of National Biography. While at Queenwood he applied for Tyndall’s career was now definitely several positions which offered a wider marked out. To the end of his active scope for his abilities. On his way to life his best energies were devoted to the Ipswich in 1851 he had made the service of the Royal Institution. In acquaintance of T. H. Huxley, and a 1867, when Faraday died, Tyndall suc­ warm and enduring friendship resulted. ceeded him in his position as superin­ . They made joint applications for the tendent of the Institution. On his own chairs respectively of natural history retirement in the autumn of 1887 he and physics then vacant at Toronto; was elected honorary professor. but, tn spite of high testimonials, they In 1854, after attending the British were unsuccessful. They also failed Association meeting at Liverpool, Tyndall tn candidatures for chairs in the newly- visited the slate quarries of Penrhyn. founded university of Sydney, New His familiarity with the effects of pres­ South Wales. Meanwhile, soon after sure upon the structure of crystals led Tyndall’s departure from Berlin, Dr. him to give special attention to the Henry Bence Jones visited that city, problem of slaty cleavage. By careful and, hearing much of Tyndall’s labours observation and experiments with white and personality, caused him to be wax and many other substances which invited to give a Friday evening lecture develop cleavage in planes perpendicular at the Royal Institution. The lecture, to pressure, he satisfied himself that “On the Influence of Material Aggregation pressure alone was sufficient to produce Upon the Manifestations of Force,”2 was the cleavage of slate rocks. On June 6th, delivered on February nth, 1853. It 1856, he lectured on the subject at the produced an extraordinary impression, Royal Institution.1 Huxley, who was and Tyndall, hitherto known only among present, suggested afterwards that the physicists, became famous beyond the same cause might possibly explain the limits of scientific society. In May, 1853, laminated structure of glacier ice recently he was unanimously chosen as professor described in Forbes’s Travels in the of natural philosophy in the Royal Alps. The friends agreed to take a Institution. The appointment had the holiday and inspect the glaciers together. special charm of making him the colleague The results of the observations made of Faraday. Seldom have two men during this and two subsequent visits to worked together so harmoniously as did Switzerland are given in Tyndall’s classi­ Faraday and Tyndall during the years cal work, The Glaciers of the Alps that followed. Their relationship from (see p. 12). The original memoirs are in the Philosophical Transactions for ' See “ Molecular Influences,” Phil. Trans., Jvmaxy, 1853. * 2?^/. Inst. Proc., i. 185. 1 See appendix to Glaciers of the Alps. �8 Biographical sketch The very important series of researches 1857 and 1859. Tyndall, assisted by his on “Radiant Heat in its Relation to friend, Dr. Thomas Archer Hirst, made many measurements upon the glaciers in Gases and Vapours,” which occupied him continuation of the work of Agassiz and on and off for twelve years, and with J. D. Forbes. He discussed, in particular, which his name will be always especially the question as to the conditions which associated, were begun in 1859. He enable a rigid body like ice to move like was led from the consideration of glacier a river. He showed very clearly the problems to study the part played by defects of former theories, proving by aqueous vapour and other constituents repeated observations on the structure of the atmosphere in producing the and properties of ice the inefficacy of the remarkable conditions of temperature generally admitted plastic theory to ac­ which prevail in mountainous regions. The inquiry was one of exceptional diffij count for the phenomena. Through the direct application of the doctrine of culty. Prior to 1859 no means had been regelation, he arrived at a satisfactory found of determining by experiment, as explanation of the nature of glacier Melloni had done for solids and liquids, the absorption, radiation, and trans­ motion. The veined structure he as­ cribed to mechanical pressure, and the mission of heat by gases and vapours. By the invention of new and more deli­ formation of crevasses to strains and cate methods Tyndall succeeded in pressures occurring in the body of the glacier. In assigning to Rendu his controlling the refractory gases. . Fie found unsuspected differences to exist in position in the history of glacier theories, their respective powers of absorption. Tyndall gave offence to Professor While elementary gases offered practi­ Forbes. A controversy followed, in cally no obstacle to the passage of heat which the fairness of Tyndall’s attitude rays, some of the compound gases was fully vindicated. absorbed more than eighty per cent, of The expedition to Switzerland, under­ the incident radiation. Allotropic forms taken for a scientific purpose, had a came under the same rule; ozone, for secondary outcome. Tyndall was fasci­ example, being a much better absorbent nated by the mountains, and from that than oxygen. The temperature of the time forward yearly sought refreshment source of heat was found to be of in the Alps when his labours in London importance: heat of a higher tempAwere over. He became an accomplished ture was much more penetrative than mountaineer. In company with Mr. Vaughan Hawkins he made one of the heat of a lower temperature. The power to absorb and the power to earliest assaults upon the Matterhorn in radiate Tyndall showed to be perfectly i860. He crossed over its summit from reciprocal. He also established that, as Breuil to Zermatt in 1868. The first regards their powers of absorption and ascent of the Weisshorn was made by him, radiation, liquids and their vapours res­ in 1861. Tyndall’s descriptions of his pectively follow the same order. . Thus Alpine adventures are not only graphic and he was able to determine the position bf characterised by his keen interest in scien­ aqueous vapour, which, on account of tific problems, but show a poetical appre­ condensation, could not be experimented ciation of mountain beauties in which he [ upon directly. Experiments made with is approached by few Alpine travellers. �BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH dry and humid air corroborated the inference that, as water transcends all Other liquids, so aqueous vapour is powerful above all other vapours as a radiator and absorber. These results, questioned by Magnus and by a few liter experimenters, but fully established by Tyndall, explained a number of phenomena previously unaccounted for. Since Wells’s researches on dew, no fact has been established of greater impor­ tance to the science of meteorology than the high absorptive and radiative power Of aqueous vapour. Many years later <n experiment made in his presence by Mr. Graham Bell suggested to Tyndall a novel and interesting method of indi­ rectly confirming his former results.1 Using a dark solution of iodine in bisulphide of carbon as a ray-filter, Tyndall was able approximately to determine the proportion of luminous to non-luminous rays in the electric and Other lights. He also found that the obscure rays collected by means of a rock-salt lens would ignite combustible materials at the invisible focus; while some non-combustible bodies, exposed at the same dark focus, became luminous or calorescent. The astounding change in the deportment of matter towards heat »diated from an obscure source which accompanies the act of chemical com­ bination, and many other points of equal importance, were first established by these researches, for which Tyndall received the Rumford medal in 1869. Nine memoirs on these subjects were published in the Philosophical Transac­ tions^ and many additional papers in other journals. They have been gathered together in Contributions to Molecular * See “Action of Free Molecules on Radiant Heat, and its Conversion thereby into Sound,” 1882, pt. i. 9 Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat (see p. 12). This volume also includes a series of striking experiments on the decomposition of vapours by light, wherein the blue of the firmament and the polarisation of sky-light—illustrated on skies artificially produced — were shown to be due to excessively fine particles floating in our atmosphere. While engaged upon the last-mentioned inquiry, Tyndall observed that a lumi­ nous beam, passing through the moteless air of his experimental tube, was invisible. It occurred to him that such a beam might be utilised to detect the presence of germs in the atmosphere : air incom­ petent to scatter light, through the absence of all floating particles, must be free from bacteria and their germs. Numerous experiments showed “opti­ cally pure ” air to be incapable of developing bacterial life. In properly protected vessels infusions of fish, flesh, and vegetable, freely exposed after boiling to air rendered moteless by subsidence, and declared to be so by the invisible passage of a powerful electric beam, remained permanently pure and un­ altered ; whereas the identical liquids, exposed afterwards to ordinary dust­ laden air, soon swarmed with bacteria. Three extensive investigations into the behaviour of putrefactive organisms were made by Tyndall, mainly with the view of removing such vagueness as still lin­ gered in the public mind in 1875-6, regarding the once widely-received doc­ trine of spontaneous generation. Among the new results arrived at the following are noteworthy. Bacteria are killed below ioo° C.; but their desiccated germs—those of the hay bacillus in par­ ticular—may retain their vitality after several hours’ boiling. By a process which he called “ discontinuous heating,” �IO BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH whereby the germs, in the order of their development, were successively destroyed before starting into active life, he suc­ ceeded in sterilising nutritive liquids containing the most resistant germs. This method, since universally adopted by bacteriologists, has proved of great practical value. The medical faculty of Tubingen gave Tyndall the degree of M.D. in recognition of these researches. The original essays, written for the Philosophical Transactions, are collected in Floating Matter of the Air (see p. 12). In 1866 Tyndall had succeeded Faraday as scientific adviser to the Trinity House and Board of Trade. He held the post for seventeen years, and it was in connection with the Elder Brethren that his chief investigations on sound were undertaken, with a view to the establishment of fog signals upon our coasts. Many conflicting opinions were held as to the respective values of the various sound signals in use when Tyndall began his experiments at the South Foreland (May 19th, 1873). Very discordant results appeared at first, but all were eventually traced to variations of density in the atmosphere. Tyndall discovered that non-homogeneity of the atmosphere affects sound as cloudiness affects light. By streams of air differently heated, or saturated in different degrees with aqueous vapour, “acoustic flocculence” is produced. Acoustic clouds, opaque enough to intercept sound altogether and to produce echoes of great intensity, may exist in air of perfect visual transparency. Rain, hail, snow, and fog were found not sensibly to obstruct sound. The atmosphere was also shown to exercise a selective and con­ tinually varying influence upon sounds, being favourable to the transmission sometimes of the longer, sometimes of the shorter, sonorous waves. Tyndall recommended the steam siren used in the South Foreland experiments as, upon the whole, the most powerful fog signal yet tried in England. His memoir on the subject, presented to the Royal Society on February 5th, 1874, is sum­ marised in the book on Sound (see p. 12). Passing mention should be made of the beautiful experiments on sensitive flames described in the same volume. It was likewise in his capacity of scientific adviser that Tyndall was called upon, in 1869 and on many subsequent occasions, to report upon the gas system introduced by Mr. John Wigham, of Dublin, the originator of several impor­ tant steps in modern lighthouse illumina­ tion. Tyndall’s inability, during a long series of years, to secure what he con­ sidered justice towards Mr. Wigham led him eventually to sever himself from colleagues to whom he was sincerely attached. He resigned his post on March 28th, 1883.1 As a lecturer Tyndall was famed for the charm and animation of his language, for lucidity of exposition, and singular skill in devising and conducting beautiful experimental illustrations. As a writer he did perhaps more than any other person of his time for the diffusion of scientific knowledge. By the publication of his lectures and essays he aimed espe­ cially at rendering intelligible to all, in non-technical language, the dominant scientific ideas of the century. His work has borne abundant fruit in inciting others to take up the great interests which possessed so powerful an 1 See Nineteenth Century, July, 1888 ; Fort­ nightly Review, December, 1888, and February, 1889 ; New Review, 1892. �BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH attraction for himself. In Heat as a Mode of Motion (see p. 12), which has been regarded as the best of Tyndall’s books, that difficult subject was for the first time presented in a popular form. The book on Light gives the substance of lectures delivered in the United States in the winter of 1872-3. The proceeds of these lectures, which by jttdiefous investment amounted in a few years to between ^6,000 and ^7,000, were devoted to the encouragement of science in the United States. His views upon the great question as to the relation between science and theological opinions are best given in his presidential address to the British Asso­ ciation at Belfast in 1874, which occa­ sioned much controversy at the time (reprinted, with essays on kindred sub­ jects, in Fragments of Science, vol. ii.). The main purpose of that address was to maintain the claims of science to discuss all such questions fully and freely in all their bearings. On February 29th, 1876, Tyndall mar­ ried Louisa, eldest daughter of Lord Claud Hamilton, who became his com­ panion in all things. In 1877 they built a cottage at Bel Alp, on the northern side of the Valaise, above Brieg. There they spent their summers amid his favourite haunts. In 1885 they built what Tyndall called “a retreat for his old age” upon the summit of Hind Head, on the Surrey moors, then a very retired district. Sleeplessness and weak­ ness of digestion—ills from which he had suffered more or less all his life— increased upon him in later years, and Caused him to resign his post at the Royal Institution in March, 1887. His later years were for the most part spent at Hind Head. Repeated attacks of severe illness, unhappily, prevented the ii execution of the many plans he had laid out for his years of retirement. In 1893 he returned greatly benefited from a three months’ sojourn in the Alps. But a dose of chloral, accidentally adminis­ tered, brought all to a close on December 4th, 1893. Tyndall’s single-hearted devotion to science and indifference to worldly advan­ tages were but one manifestation of a noble and generous nature. A resolute will and lofty principles, always pointing to a high ideal, were in him associated with great tenderness and consideration for others. His chivalrous sense of justice led him not unfrequently—irrespective of nationality or even of personal ac­ quaintance, and often at great cost of time and trouble to himself—to take up the cause of men whom he deemed to have been unfairly treated or overlooked in respect to their scientific merits. He thus vindicated the claim of the unfortu­ nate German physician, Dr. Julius Robert Mayer, to have been the first to lay down clearly the principle of the conservation of energy and to point out its universal application ; and succeeded in obtaining his recognition by the scientific world in spite of eminent opposition. The same spirit appeared in his defence of Rendu’s title to a share in the explanation of glacier movement, and of Wigham’s services in regard to lighthouses. Tyndall took a warm interest in some great political questions. He sided strongly with the Liberal Unionists in opposing Mr. Gladstone’s Home Rule policy. Tyndall was of middle height, sparely built, but with a strength, toughness, and flexibility of limb which qualified him to endure great fatigue and achieve the �12 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH most difficult feats as a mountaineer. His face was rather stern and strongly marked, but the sharp features assumed an exceedingly pleasing expression when his sympathy was touched ; and the effect was heightened by the quality of his voice. His eyes were grey-blue, and his hair, light-brown in youth, was abundant and of very fine texture. He had gener­ ally, like Faraday, to bespeak a hat on account of the unusual length of his head. A medallion of Tyndall, executed by Woolner in 1876, is, perhaps, the best likeness that exists of him. Tyndall’s works have been translated into most European languages. In Germany (where Helmholtz and Wiede­ mann undertook the translations and wrote prefaces) they are read almost as much as in England. Some thousands of his books are sold yearly in America, and a few translations have been made into the languages of India, China, and Japan. In the Royal Society’s catalogue of scientific papers 145 entries appear under Tyndall’s name between 1850 and 1883, indicating approximately the number of his contributions to the Philosophical Transactions, the Philo­ sophical Magazine, the Proceedings of the Royal Society and of the Royal Institu­ tion, and other scientific journals. A great variety of subjects besides those glanced at above occupied his attention. They are for the most part dealt with in the miscellaneous essays collected in Fragments of Science and New Frag­ ments. The essence of his teaching is contained in the following publications : 1. The Glaciers of the Alps, being a Narrative of Excursions and Ascents, an Account of the Origin and Phenomena of Glaciers, and an Exposition of the Physical Principles to which they are Related, i860; reprinted in 1896; trans­ lated for the first time into German in 1898. 2. Mountaineering in 1861: A Vacation Tour, 1862 (mostly repeated in Hours of Exercise). 3. Pleat Considered as a Mode of Motion, 1863; fresh editions, each altered and enlarged,*n 1865, 1868, 1870, 1875 ; the sixth edition, 1880, was stereotyped. 4. On Sound, a course of eight lectures, 1867 ; 3rd edit., with additions, 1875 ; 4th edit., revised and augmented, 1883 ; 5th edit., revised, 1893. 5. Faraday as a Discoverer, 1868; 5th edit., revised 1894. 6. Researches on Diamagnetism and Magne-crystallic Action, including the Question of Diamagnetic Polarity, 1870; third and smaller edition, 1888. 7. Fragments of Science for Unscientific People: A Series of Detached Essays, Lectures, and Reviews, 1871; augmented in the first five editions; from 6th edit., 1879, in two vols. 8- Hours of Exercise in the Alps, 1871 ; 2nd edit., 1871; 3rd edit., 1873; reprinted in 1899. 9. Contributions to Molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat: A Series of Memoirs published in the Philosophical Transactions and Philosophical Magazine, with additions, 1872. 10. The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice, and Glaciers (International Scientific Series), 1872 ; 12th edit., 1897. 11. Six Lectures on Light, delivered in America in 1872-3, 1873; 5th edit., 1895. 12. Lessons in Electricity, at the Royal Institution, 1876; 5th edit., 1892. 13. Essays on the Float­ ing Matter of the Air in Relation to Putre­ faction and Infection, 1881; 2nd edit., 1883. 14. New Fragments, 1892; last edit., 1897. 15. Notes on Light: Nine Lectures delivered in 1869, 1870. 16. Notes on Electrical Phenomena and Theories : Seven Lectures delivered in 1870, 1870. L. C. T. �LECTURES AND ESSAYS THE BELFAST ADDRESS1 . § i. An impulse inherent in primeval man turned his thoughts and questionings betimes towards the sources of natural phenomena. The same impulse, in­ herited and intensified, is the spur of scientific action to-day. Determined by it, by a process of abstraction from experience we form physical theories which lie beyond the pale of experience, but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see every natural occurrence resting upon a cause. In forming their notions of the origin of things, our earliest historic (and doubtless, we might add, our prehistoric) ancestors pursued, as far as their intelligence permitted, the same course. They also fell back upon experience 5 but with this difference— that , the particular experiences which furnished the warp and woof of their theories were drawn, not from the study of nature, but from what lay much closer to them—the observation of men. Their theories accordingly took an an­ thropomorphic form. To supersensual beings, which, “however potent and invisible, were nothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps raised from among mankind, and retaining all human passions and appetites,”2 were handed Over the rule and governance of natural phenomena. Tested by observation and reflection, these early notions failed in the long run I to satisfy the more penetrating intellects of our race. Far in the depths of history we find men of exceptional power differentiating themselves from the crowd, rejecting these anthropo­ morphic notions, and seeking to con­ nect natural phenomena with their physical principles. But, long prior to these purer efforts of the understanding, the merchant had been abroad, and rendered the philosopher possible; commerce had been developed, wealth amassed, leisure for travel and specula­ tion secured, while races educated under different conditions, and therefore differ­ ently informed and endowed, had been stimulated and sharpened by mutual contact. In those regions where the commercial aristocracy of ancient Greece mingled with their eastern neighbours, the sciences were born, being nurtured and developed by free-thinking and courageous men. The state of things to be displaced may be gathered from a passage of Euripides quoted by Hume: “ There is nothing in the world; no glory, no prosperity. The gods toss all into confusion ; mix everything with its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and uncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence.” Now, as science demands the radical extirpation of caprice and the absolute reliance upon law in nature, there grew, with the growth of scientific notions, a desire and determina­ tion to sweep from the field of theory Delivered before the British Association on Wednesday, August 10th, 1874. 2 Hume, Natural History of Religion. �LECTURES AND ESSA YS this mob of gods and demons, and to place natural phenomena on a basis more congruent with themselves. The problem, which had been pre­ viously approached from above, was now attacked from below; theoretic effort passed from the super- to the subsensible. It was felt that, to construct the universe in idea, it was necessary to have some notion of its constituent parts _ of what Lucretius subsequently called the “ First Beginnings.” Abstracting again from experience, the leaders of scientific speculation reached at length the pregnant doctrine of atoms and molecules, the latest developments of which were set forth with such power and clearness at the last meeting of the British Association. Thought, no doubt, had long hovered about this doctrine before it attained the precision and com­ pleteness which it assumed in the mind of Democritus,1 a philosopher who may well for a moment arrest our attention. “ Few great men,” says Lange, a non­ materialist, in his excellent History of Materialism, to the spirit and to the letter of which I am equally indebted, “ have been so despitefully used by history as Democritus. In the distorted Images sent down to us through unscien­ tific traditions there remains of him almost nothing but the name of ‘the laughing philosopher,’ while figures of im­ measurably smaller significance spread themselves out at full length before us.” Lange speaks of Bacon’s high apprecia­ tion of Democritus—for ample illustra­ tions of which I am indebted to my excellent friend Mr. Spedding, the learned editor and biographer of Bacon. It is evident, indeed, that Bacon considered Democritus to be a man of weightier metal than either Plato or Aristotle, though their philosophy “was noised and celebrated in the schools, amid the din and pomp of professors.” It was not they, but Genseric and Attila and the barbarians, who destroyed the atomic philosophy. “ For, at a time when all 1 Born 460 B.c. human learning had suffered shipwreck, these planks of Aristotelian and Platonic philosophy, as being of a lighter and more inflated substance, were preserved and came down to us, while things more solid sank and almost passed into oblivion.” The son of a wealthy father, Demo­ critus devoted the whole of his inherited fortune to the culture of his mind. He travelled everywhere; visited Athens when Socrates and Plato were there, but quitted the city without making himself known. Indeed, the dialectic strife in which Socrates so much delighted had no charm for Democritus, who held that “the man who readily contradicts, and uses many words, is unfit to learn any­ thing truly right.” He is said to have discovered and educated Protagoras the Sophist, being struck as much by the manner in which he, being a hewer of wood, tied up his faggots as by the sagacity of his conversation. Democritus returned poor from his travels, was sup­ ported by his brother, and _ at length wrote his great work entitled “Diakosmos,” which he read publicly before the people of his native town. He was honoured by his countrymen in various ways, and died serenely at a great age. The principles enunciated by Demo­ critus reveal his uncompromising antago­ nism to those who deduced the phenomena of nature from the caprices of the gods. They are briefly these: 1. From nothing comes nothing. Nothing that exists can be destroyed. All changes _ are due to the combination and separation of mole­ cules. 2. Nothing happens by chance j every occurrence has its cause, from which it follows by necessity. 3. The only existing things are the atoms and empty space; all else is mere opinion. 4. The atoms are infinite in number and infinitely various in form ; they strike together, and the lateral motions and whirlings which thus arise are the begin­ nings of worlds. 5- The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties of their atoms, in number, size, and aggregation. 6. The soul consists of fine, smooth, �THE BELFAST ADDRESS round atoms, like those of fire. These are the most mobile of all: they inter­ penetrate the whole body, and in their motions the phenomena of life arise. The first five propositions are a fair general statement of the atomic philo­ sophy, as now held. As regards the sixth, Democritus made his finer atoms do duty for the nervous system, whose functions were then unknown. The atoms of Democritus are individually without sensation; they combine in obedience to mechanical laws ; and not only organic forms, but the phenomena of sensation and thought, are the result of their combination. That great enigma, “ the exquisite adaptation of one part of an organism to another part, and to the conditions of life,” more especially the construction of the human body, Democritus made no attempt to solve. Empedocles, a man of more fiery and poetic nature, intro­ duced the notion of love and hate among the atoms to account for their combination and separation; and, bolder than Democritus, he struck in with the penetrating thought, linked, however, with some wild speculation, that it lay in the very nature of those combinations which were suited to their ends (in other words, in harmony with their environment) to maintain themselves, while unfit combinations, having no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear. Thus, more than 2,000 years ago, the doctrine of the “ survival of the fittest,” which in our day, not on the basis of vague conjecture, but of positive know­ ledge, has been raised to such extra­ ordinary significance, had received at all events partial enunciation.1 Epicurus,2 said to be the son of a poor schoolmaster at Samos, is the next dominant figure in the history of the atomic philosophy. He mastered the writings of Democritus, heard lectures in Athens, went back to Samos, and subsequently wandered through various countries. He finally returned to Athens, * s«e Laxge, 2nd edit., p. 23. 2 Born 342 B.c. 15 where he bought a garden and sur­ rounded himself by pupils, in the midst of whom he lived a pure and serene life, and died a peaceful death. Democritus looked to the soul as the ennobling part of man; even beauty, without under­ standing, partook of animalism. Epi­ curus also rated the spirit above the body; the pleasure of the body being that of the moment, while the spirit could draw upon the future and the past. His philosophy was almost identical with that of Democritus ; but he never quoted either friend or foe. One main object of Epicurus was to free the world from superstition and the fear of death. Death he treated with indifference. It merely robs us of sensation. As long as we are, death is not; and when death is, we are not. Life has no more evil for him who has made up his mind that it is no evil not to live. He adored the gods, but not in the ordinary fashion. The idea of Divine power, properly purified, he thought an elevating one. Still he taught: “Not he is godless who rejects the gods of the crowd, but rather he who accepts them.” The gods were to him eternal and immortal beings, whose blessedness excluded every thought of care or occupation of any kind. Nature pursues her course in accordance with everlasting laws, the gods never inter­ fering. They haunt “ The lucid interspace of world and world Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind, Nor ever falls the least white star of snow, Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans, Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar Their sacred everlasting calm.”1 Lange considers the relation of Epi­ curus to the gods subjective ; the indica­ tion, probably, of an ethical requirement of his own nature. We cannot read history with open eyes, or study human nature to its depths, and fail to discern such a requirement. Man never has been, and he never will be, satisfied with the operations and products of the Understanding alone; hence physical 1 Tennyson’s Lucretius, �LECTURES AND ESSA YS i6 science cannot cover all the demands of his nature. B at the history of the efforts made to satisfy these demands might be broadly described as a history of errors —the error, in great part, consisting in ascribing fixity to that which is fluent, which varies as we vary, being gross when we are gross, and becoming, as our capa­ cities widen, more abstract and sublime. On one great point the mind of Epicurus was at peace. He neither sought nor expected, here or hereafter, any personal profit from his relation to the gods. And it is assuredly a fact that loftiness and serenity of thought may be promoted by conceptions which involve no idea of profit of this kind. “ Did I not believe,” said a great man1 to me once, “ that an Intelligence is at the heart of things, my life on earth would be intolerable.” The utterer of these words is not, in my opinion, rendered less but more noble by the fact that it was the need of ethical harmony here, and not the thought of personal happiness hereafter, that prompted his observation. There are persons, not belonging to the highest intellectual zone, nor yet to the lowest, to whom perfect clearness of exposition suggests want of depth. They find comfort and edification in an abstract and learned phraseology. To such people Epicurus, who spared no pains to rid his style of every trace of haze and turbidity, appeared, on this very account, super­ ficial. He had, however, a disciple who thought it no unworthy occupation to spend his days and nights in the effort to reach the clearness of his master, and to whom the Greek philosopher is mainly indebted for the extension and perpetua­ tion ot his fame. Some two centuries after the death of Epicurus, Lucretius2 wrote his great poem, On the Nature of Things, in which he, a Roman, developed with extraordinary ardour the philosophy of his Greek predecessor. He wishes to win over his friend Memnius to the school of Epicurus ; and although he has no rewards in a future life to offer, ’ Carlyle. 3 Born 99 B. C. although his object appears to be a purely negative one, he addresses his friend with the heat of an apostle. • His object, like that of his great forerunner, is the destruc­ tion of superstition; and considering that men in his day trembled before every natural event as a direct monition from the gods, and that everlasting torture was also in prospect, the freedom aimed at by Lucretius might be deemed a posi­ tive good. “ This terror,” he says, “ and darkness of mind, must be dispelled, not by the rays of the sun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of nature.” He refutes the notion that anything can come out of nothing, or that what is once begotten can be recalled to nothing. The first beginnings, the atoms, are indestructible, and into them all things can be resolved at last. Bodies are partly atoms and partly com­ binations of atoms; but the atoms nothing can quench. They are strong in solid singleness, and, by their denser combination, all things can be closely packed .and exhibit enduring strength. He denies that matter is infinitely divisi­ ble. We come at length to the atoms, without which, as an imperishable sub­ stratum, all order in the generation and development of things would be des­ troyed. The mechanical shock of the atoms being, in his view, the all-sufficient cause of things, he combats the notion that the constitution of nature has been in any way determined by intelligent design. The interaction of the atoms throughout infinite time rendered all manner of combinations possible. Of these, the fit ones persisted, while the unfit ones disappeared. Not after sage deliberation did the atoms station themselves.in their right places, nor did they bargain what motions they should assume. From all eternity they have been driven together, and, after trying motions and unions of every kind, they fell at length _ into the arrangements, out of which this system of things has been evolved. . “ If you will apprehend and keep in mind these things, Nature, free at once and rid of �THE BELFAST ADDRESS her haughty lords, is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling of the gods.”1 To meet the objection that his atoms cannot be seen, Lucretius describes a violent storm, and shows that the in­ visible particles of air act in the same way as the visible particles of water. We perceive, moreover, the different smells of things, yet never see them coming to our nostrils. Again, clothes hung up on a shore, which waves break upon, become moist, and then get dry if spread out in the sun, though no eye can see either the approach or the escape of the water-particles. A ring, worn long on the finger, becomes thinner; a water­ drop hollows out a stone; the plough­ share is rubbed away in the field; the street-pavement is worn by the feet; but the particles that disappear at any moment we cannot see. Nature acts through invisible particles. That Lu­ cretius had a strong scientific imagina­ tion the foregoing references prove. A fine illustration of his power in this respect is his explanation of the ap­ parent rest of bodies whose atoms are in motion. He employs the image of a flock of sheep with skipping lambs, which, seen from a distance, presents simply a white patch upon the green hill, the jumping of the individual lambs being quite invisible. His vaguely grand conception of the atoms falling eternally through space suggested the nebular hypothesis to Kant, its first propounder. Far beyond the limits of our visible world are to be found atoms innumerable, which have never been united to form bodies, or which, if once united, have been again dispersed—falling silently through im­ measurable intervals of time and space. As everywhere throughout the All the' same conditions are repeated, so must the phenomena be repeated also. Above 1 Monro’s translation. In bis criticism of this work {Contemporary Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman does not appear to be aware of the really sound and subtile observations on which the reasoning of Lucretius, though erroneous, sometimes rests. 17 us, below us, beside us, therefore, are worlds without end; and this, when considered, must dissipate every thought of a deflection of the universe by the gods. The worlds come and go, attract­ ing new atoms out of limitless space, or dispersing their own particles. The reputed death of Lucretius, which forms the basis of Mr. Tennyson’s noble poem, is in strict accordance with his philo­ sophy, which was severe and pure. § 2- Still earlier than these three philoso­ phers, and during the centuries between the first of them and the last, the human intellect was active in other fields than theirs. Pythagoras had founded a school of mathematics, and made his experi­ ments on the harmonic intervals. The Sophists had run through their career. At Athens had appeared Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who ruined the Sophists, and whose yoke remains to some extent unbroken to the present hour. Within this period also the School of Alexandria was founded, Euclid wrote his Elements, and made some advance in optics. Archimedes had propounded the theory of the lever and the principles of hydrostatics. Astronomy was immensely enriched by the discoveries of Hippar­ chus, who was followed by the historically more celebrated Ptolemy. Anatomy had been made the basis of scientific medicine; and it is said by Draper1 that vivisection had begun. In fact, the science of ancient Greece had already cleared the world of the fantastic images of divinities operating capriciously through natural phenomena. It had shaken itself free from that fruitless scrutiny “ by the internal light of the mind alone,” which had vainly sought to transcend experi­ ence, and to reach a knowledge of ultimate causes. Instead of accidental observation, it had introduced observa­ tion with a purpose; instruments were employed to aid the senses, and scientific 1 History of the Intellectual Development 0] Europe, p. 295. �i8 LECTURES AND ESSA YS method was rendered in a great measure complete by the union of Induction and Experiment. What, then, stopped its victorious advance ? Why was the scientific intellect compelled, like an exhausted soil, to lie fallow for nearly two millen­ niums, before it could regather the elements necessary to its fertility and strength ? Bacon has already let us know one cause; Whewell ascribes this stationary period to four causes—obscu­ rity of thought, servility, intolerance of disposition, enthusiasm of temper; and he gives striking examples of each.1 But these characteristics must have had their antecedents in the circumstances of the time. Rome, and the other cities of the Empire, had fallen into moral putrefac­ tion. Christianity had appeared, offer­ ing the Gospel to the poor, and by moderation, if not asceticism of life, practically protesting against the pro­ fligacy of the age. The sufferings of the early Christians, and the extraordinary exaltation of mind which enabled them to triumph over the diabolical tortures to which they were subjected,2 must have left traces not easily effaced. They scorned the earth, in view of that “build­ ing of God, that house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” The Scriptures which ministered to their spiritual needs were also the measure of their science. When, for example, the celebrated question of Antipodes came to be discussed, the Bible was with many the ultimate court of appeal. Augustine, who flourished a.d. 400, would not deny the rotundity of the earth; but he would deny the possible existence of inhabi­ tants at the other side, “ because no such race is recorded in Scripture among the descendants of Adam.” Archbishop Boniface was shocked at the assumption of a “ world of human beings out of the reach of the means of salvation.” Thus reined in, Science was not likely to make much progress. Later on, the ’ History of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. * Described with terrible vividness in Renan’s Antichrist. political and theological strife between the Church and civil governments, so powerfully depicted by Draper, must have done much to stifle investigation. Whewell makes many wise and brave remarks regarding the spirit of the Middle Ages. It was a menial spirit. The seekers after natural knowledge had for­ saken the fountain of living waters, the direct appeal to nature by observation and experiment, and given themselves up to the remanipulation of the notions of their predecessors. It was a time when thought had become abject, and when the acceptance of mere authority led, as it always does in science, to intellectual death. Natural events, in­ stead of being traced to physical, were referred to moral, causes; while an exercise of the phantasy, almost as degra­ ding as the spiritualism of the present day, took the place of scientific specula­ tion. Then came the mysticism of the Middle Ages, Magic, Alchemy, the Neo­ platonic philosophy, with its visionary though sublime abstractions, which caused men to look with shame upon their own bodies, as hindrances to the absorption of the creature in the blessedness of the Creator. Finally came the scholastic philosophy, a fusion, according to Lange, of the least mature notions of Aristotle with the Christianity of the West. Intel­ lectual immobility was the result. As' a traveller without a compass in a fog may wander long, imagining he is making way, and find himself after hours of toil at his starting-point, so the schoolmen, having “ tied and untied the same knots, and formed and dissipated the same clouds,”1 found themselves at the end of centuries in their old position. With regard to the influence wielded by Aristotle in the Middle Ages, and which, to a less extent, he still wields, I would ask permission to make one remark. When the human mind has achieved greatness and given evidence of extraordinary power in one domain, there is a tendency to credit it with ’ Whewell. �THE BELFAST ADDRESS similar power in all other domains. Thus theologians have found comfort and as­ surance in the thought that Newton dealt with the question of revelation—forgetful of the fact that the very devotion of his powers, through all the best years of his life, to a totally different class of ideas, not to speak of any natural disqualifica­ tion, tended to render him less, instead of more, competent to deal with theo­ logical and historic questions. Goethe, starting from his established greatness as a poet, and indeed from his positive dis­ coveries in Natural History, produced a profound impression among the painters of Germany, when he published his “ Farbenlehre,” in which he endeavoured to overthrow Newton’s theory of colours. This theory he deemed so obviously absurd that he considered its author a charlatan, and attacked him with a corre­ sponding vehemence of language. In the domain of Natural History Goethe had made really considerable discoveries; and we have high authority for assuming that, had he devoted himself wholly to that side of science, he might have reached an eminence comparable with that which he attained as a poet. In sharpness of observation, in the detection of analogies apparently remote, in the Classification and organisation of facts according to the analogies discerned, Goethe possessed extraordinary powers. These elements of scientific inquiry fall in with the disciplines of the poet. But, on the other hand, a mind thus richly endowed in the direction of Natural His­ tory may be almost shorn of endowment as regards the physical and mechanical sciences. Goethe was in this condition. He could not formulate distinct mecha­ nical conceptions; he could not see the force of mechanical reasoning; and, in regions where such reasoning reigns Supreme, he became a mere ignis fatuus to those who followed him. I have sometimes permitted myself to compare Aristotle with Goethe—to credit the Stagirite with an almost superhuman power of amassing and systematising facts, but to consider him fatally defective T9 on that side of the mind in respect to which incompleteness has been just ascribed to Goethe. Whewell refers the errors of Aristotle not to a neglect of facts, but to “a neglect of the idea appropriate to the facts; the idea of Mechanical cause, which is Force, and the substitution of vague or inapplicable notions, involving only relations of space or emotions of wonder.” This is doubt­ less true; but the word “ neglect implies mere intellectual misdirection, whereas in Aristotle, as in Goethe, it was not, I believe, misdirection, but sheer natural incapacity, which lay at the root of his mistakes. As a physicist, Aristotle displayed what we should con­ sider some of the worst of attributes in a modern physical investigator—indis­ tinctness of ideas, confusion of mind, and a confident use of language which led to the delusive notion that he had really mastered his subject, while he had, as yet, failed to grasp even the elements of it. He put words in the place of things, subject in the place of object. He preached Induction without practising it, inverting the true order of inquiry by passing from the general to the particular, instead of from the par­ ticular to the general. He made of the universe a closed sphere, in the centre of which he fixed the earth, proving from general principles, to his own satisfaction and to that of the world for near 2,000 years, that no other universe was possible. His notions of motion were entirely unphysical. It was natural or unnatural, better or worse, calm or violent—no real mechanical conception regarding it lying at the bottom of his mind. He affirmed that a vacuum could not exist, and proved that if it did motion in it would be impossible. He determined a priori how many species of animals must exist, and showed on general prin­ ciples why animals must have such and such parts. When an eminent contem­ porary philosopher, who is far removed from errors of this kind, remembers these abuses of the a prion method, he will be able to make allowance for the �20 LECTURES AND ESSA YS jealousy of physicists as to the accep­ tance of so-called 4 priori truths. Aris­ totle’s errors of detail, as shown by Eucken and Lange, were grave and numerous. He affirmed that only in man we had the beating of the heart, that the left side of the body was colder than the right, that men have more teeth than women, and that there is an empty space at the back of every man’s head. There is one essential quality in physical conceptions which was entirely wanting in those of Aristotle and his followers— a capability of being placed as coherent pictures before the mind. The Germans express the act of picturing by the word vorstellen, and the picture they call a Vorstellung. We have no word in English which comes nearer to our requirements than Imagination ; and, taken with its proper limitations, the word answers very well. But it is tainted by its associations, and therefore objec­ tionable to some minds. Compare, with reference to this capacity of mental presentation, the case of the Aristotelian, who refers the ascent of water in a pump to Nature’s abhorrence of a vacuum, with that of Pascal when he proposed to solve the question of atmospheric pressure by the ascent of the Puy de Dome. In the one case the terms of the explanation refuse to fall into place as a physical image; in the other the image is distinct, the descent and rise of the barometer being clearly figured beforehand as the balancing of two varying and opposing pressures. §3During the drought of the Middle Ages in Christendom, the Arabian in­ tellect, as forcibly shown by Draper, was active. With the intrusion of the Moors into Spain, order, learning, and refine­ ment took the place of their opposites. When smitten with disease, the Christian peasant resorted to a shrine, the Moorish one to an instructed physician. The Arabs encouraged translations from the Greek philosophers, but not from the Greek poets. They turned in disgust “ from the lewdness of our classical mythology, and denounced as an un­ pardonable blasphemy all connection between the impure Olympian Jove and the Most High God.” Draper traces still farther than Whewell the Arab elements in our scientific terms. He gives examples of what Arabian men of science accomplished, dwelling particu­ larly on Alhazen, who was the first to correct the Platonic notion that rays of light are emitted by the eye. Alhazen discovered atmospheric refraction, and showed that we see the sun and the moon after they have set. He explained the enlargement of the sun and moon, and the shortening of the vertical diameters of both these bodies when near the horizon. He was aware that the atmosphere decreases in density with increase of elevation, and actually fixed its height at 58^ miles. In the Book of the Balance of Wisdom he sets forth the connection between the weight of the atmosphere and its increasing density. He shows that a body will weigh differ­ ently in a rare and dense atmosphere, and he considers the force with which plunged bodies rise through heavier media. He understood the doctrine of the centre of gravity, and applied it to the investigation of balances and steel­ yards. He recognised gravity as a force, though he fell into the error of assuming it to diminish simply as the distance, and of making it purely terrestrial. He knew the relation between the velocities, spaces, and times of falling bodies, and had distinct ideas of capillary attraction. He improved the hydrometer. The deter­ minations of the densities of bodies, as given by Alhazen, approach very closely to our own. “I join,” says Draper, “in the pious prayer of Alhazen, that in the day of judgment the All-Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Raihan, because he was the first of the race of men to construct a table of specific gravities.” If all this be historic truth (and I have entire confidence in Dr. Draper), well may he “ deplore the �THE BELFAST ADDRESS systematic manner in which the litera­ ture of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the Mohammedans.”1 The strain upon the mind during the stationary period towards ultra-terrestrial things, to the neglect of problems close at hand, was sure to provoke reaction. But the reaction was gradual; for the ground was dangerous, and a power was at hand competent to crush the critic who went too far. To elude this power, and still allow opportunity for the ex­ pression of opinion, the doctrine of “two­ fold truth ” was invented, according to which an opinion might be held “theo­ logically,” and the opposite opinion “philosophically.”2 Thus, in the thir­ teenth century, the creation of the world in six days, and the unchangeableness of the individual soul, which had been so distinctly affirmed by St. Thomas Aquinas, were both denied philoso­ phically, but admitted to be true as articles of the Catholic faith. When ^Protagoras uttered the maxim which brought upon him so much vituperation, that “opposite assertions are equally true,” he simply meant to affirm men’s differences to be so great that what was subjectively true to the one might be subjectively untrue to the other. The great Sophist never meant to play fast and loose with the truth by saying that one of two opposite assertions, made by the same individual, could possibly escape being a lie. It was not “ sophis­ try,” but the dread of theologic ven­ geance, that generated this double deal­ tag with conviction; and it is astonishing to notice what lengths were allowed to men who were adroit in the use of [artifices of this kind. Towards the close of the stationary period a word-weariness, if I may so express it, took more and more possession of men’s minds. Christendom had become sick of the School Philosophy and its verbal wastes, which led to no 1 Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 359. 2 Lange, 2nd edit., pp. 181, 182. issue, but left the intellect in everlasting haze. Here and there was heard the voice of one impatiently crying in the wilderness: “Not unto Aristotle, not unto subtle hypothesis, not unto church, Bible, or blind tradition, must we turn for a knowledge of the universe, but to the direct investigation of nature by obser­ vation and experiment.” In 1543 the epoch-marking work of Copernicus on the paths of the heavenly bodies appeared. The total crash of Aristotle’s closed universe, with the earth at its centre, followed as a consequence, and “The earth moves 1” became a kind of watch­ word among intellectual freemen. Coper­ nicus was Canon of the church of Frauenburg in the diocese of Ermeland. For three-and-thirty years he had with­ drawn himself from the world, and devoted himself to the consolidation of his great scheme of the solar system. He made its blocks eternal; and even to those who feared it, and desired its over­ throw, it was so obviously strong that they refrained for a time from meddling with it. In the last year of the life of Copernicus his book appeared; it is said that the old man received a copy of it a few days before his death, and then departed in peace. The Italian philosopher, Giordano Bruno, was one of the earliest converts to the new astronomy. Taking Lucretius as his exemplar, he revived the notion of the infinity of worlds ; and, combining with it the doctrine of Copernicus, reached the sublime generalisation that the fixed stars are suns, scattered number­ less through space, and accompanied by satellites, which bear the same relation to them that our earth does to our sun, or our moon to our earth. This was an expansion of transcendent import; but Bruno came closer than this to our present line of thought. Struck with the problem of the generation and maintenance of organisms, and duly pondering it, he came to the conclusion that Nature, in her productions, does not imitate the technic of man. Her process is one of unravelling and unfolding. �LECTURES AND ESSA YS 22 The infinity of forms under which matter appears was not imposed upon it by an external artificer; by its own intrinsic force and virtue it brings these forms forth. Matter is not the mere naked empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother, who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb. This outspoken man was originally a Dominican monk. He was accused of heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in Geneva, Paris, England, and Germany. In 1592 he fell into the hands of the Inquisition at Venice. He was im­ prisoned for many years, tried, degraded, excommunicated, and handed over to the civil power, with the request that he should be treated gently, and “without the shedding of blood.” This meant that he was to be burnt; and burnt accordingly he was, on February 16th, 1600. To escape a similar fate Galileo, thirty-three years afterwards, abjured upon his knees, with his hands upon the holy Gospels, the heliocentric doctrine, which he knew to be true. After Galileo came Kepler, who from his German home defied the ultramontane power. He traced out from pre-existing observations the laws of planetary motion. Materials were thus prepared for Newton, who bound those empirical laws together by the principle of gravitation. § 4* In the seventeenth century Bacon and Descartes, the restorers of philosophy, appeared in succession. Differently edu­ cated and endowed, their philosophic tendencies were different. Bacon held fast to Induction, believing firmly in the existence of an external world, and making collected experiences the basis of all knowledge. The mathematical studies of Descartes gave him a bias towards Deduction; and his fundamental principle was much the same as that of Protagoras, who made the individual man the measure of all things. “ I think, therefore I am,” said Descartes. Only his own identity was sure to him ; and the full development of this system would have led to an idealism, in which the outer world would have been re­ solved into a mere phenomenon of con­ sciousness. Gassendi, one of Descartes’s contemporaries, of whom we shall hear more presently, quickly pointed out that the fact of personal existence would be proved as well by reference to any other act as to the act of thinking. I eat, therefore I am, or I love, therefore I am, would be quite as conclusive. Lichten­ berg, indeed, showed that the very thing to be proved was inevitably postulated in the first two words, “ I think and it is plain that no inference from the postulate could, by any possibility, be stronger than the postulate itself. But Descartes deviated strangely from the idealism implied in his fundamental principle. He was the first to reduce, in a manner eminently capable of bearing the test of mental presentation, vital phenomena to purely mechanical prin­ ciples. Through fear or love, Descartes was a good Churchman ; he accordingly rejected the notion of an atom, because it was absurd to suppose that God, if He so pleased, could not divide an atom; he puts in the place of the atoms small round particles, and light splinters, out of which he builds the organism. .He sketches with marvellous physical insight a machine, with water for its motive power, which shall illustrate vital actions. He has made clear to his mind that such a machine would be competent to carry on the processes of digestion, nutrition, growth, respiration, and the beating of the heart. It would be competent to accept impressions from the external sense, to store them up in imagination and memory, to go through the internal movements of the appetites and passions, and the external movements of the limbs. He deduces these functions of his machine from the mere arrangement of its organs, as the movement of a clock, or other automaton, is deduced from its weights and wheels. “ As far as these functions are concerned,” he says, “ it is �THE BELFAST ADDRESS not necessary to conceive any other vegetative or sensitive soul, nor any other principle of motion or of life, than the blood and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns continually in the heart, and which is in nowise different from the fires exist­ ing in inanimatebodies.” Had Descartes been acquainted with the steam-engine, he would have taken it, instead of a fall of water, as his motive power. He would have shown the perfect analogy which exists between the oxidation of the food in the body and that of the coal in the furnace. He would assuredly have anticipated Mayer in calling the blood, which the heart diffuses, “ the oil of the lamp of life,” deducing all animal motions from the combustion of this oil, as the motions of a steam-engine are deduced from the combustion of its coal. As the matter stands, however, and con­ sidering the circumstances of the time, the boldness, clearness, and precision with which Descartes grasped the prob­ fem of vital dynamics constitute a marvellous illustration of intellectual power.1 During the Middle Ages the doctrine of atoms had to all appearance vanished from discussion. It probably held its ground among sober-minded and thoughtful men, though neither the church nor the world was prepared to hear of it with tolerance. Once, in the year 1348, it received distinct expression. But re­ tractation by compulsion immediately followed; and, thus discouraged, it Slumbered till the seventeenth century, when it was revived by a contemporary and friend of Hobbes of Malmesbury, the orthodox Catholic provost of Digne, Gassendi. But, before stating his rela­ tion to the Epicurean doctrine, it will be well to say a few words on the effect, as regards science, of the general introduc­ tion of monotheism among European nations. “ Were men,” says Hume, “ led into the apprehension of invisible intelligent ’ See Huxley’s admirable Essay on Descartes. Sermons, pp. 364, 365. «3 power by contemplation of the works of Nature, they could never possibly enter­ tain any conception but of one single Being, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and adjusted all its parts to one regular system.” Refer­ ring to the condition of the heathen, who sees a god behind every natural event, thus peopling the world with thousands of beings whose caprices are incalculable, Lange shows the impossibility of any compromise between such notions and those of science, which proceeds on the assumption of never-changing law and causality. “ But,” he continues, with characteristic penetration, “ when the great thought of one God, acting as a unit upon the universe, has been seized, the connection of things in accordance with the law of cause and effect is not only thinkable, but it is a necessary con­ sequence of the assumption. For when I see ten thousand wheels in motion, and know, or believe, that they are all driven by one motive power, then I know that I have before me a mecha­ nism, the action of every part of which is determined by the plan of the whole. So much being assumed, it follows that I may investigate the structure of that machine, and the various motions of its parts. For the time being, therefore, this conception renders scientific action free.” In other words, were a capricious god at the circumference of every wheel and at the end of every lever, the action of the machine would be incalculable by the methods of science. But the actions of all its parts being rigidly determined by their connections and relations, and these being brought into play by a single motive power, then, though this last prime mover may elude me, I am still able to comprehend the machinery which it sets in motion. We have here a conception of the relation of Nature to its Author, which seems perfectly acceptable to some minds, but perfectly intolerable to others. Newton and Boyle lived and worked happily under the influence of this conception ; Goethe rejected it with vehemence, and the same �24 LECTUEES AND ESSA FS repugnance to accepting it is manifest in Carlyle.1 The analytic and synthetic tendencies of the human mind are traceable through­ out history, great writers ranging them­ selves sometimes on the one side, some­ times on the other. Men of warm feelings, and minds open to the elevating impressions produced by nature as a whole, whose satisfaction, therefore, is rather ethical than logical, lean to the synthetic side; while the analytic har­ monises best with the more precise and more mechanical bias which seeks the satisfaction of the understanding. Some form of pantheism was usually adopted by the one, while a detached Creator, working more or less after the manner of men, was often assumed by the other. Gassendi, as sketched by Lange, is hardly to be ranked with either. Having formally acknowledged God as the great first cause, he immediately dropped the idea, applied the known laws of mechanics to the atoms, and deduced from them all vital phenomena. He defended Epicurus, and dwelt upon his purity, both of doctrine and of life. True he was a heathen, but so was Aristotle. Epicurus assailed superstition and re­ ligion, and rightly, because he did not know the true religion. He thought that the gods neither rewarded nor punished, and he adored them purely in consequence of their completeness : here we see, says Gassendi, the reverence of the child, instead of the fear of the slave. The errors of Epicurus shall be corrected, and the body of his truth retained. Gassendi then proceeds, as any heathen might have done, to build up the world, and all that therein is, of atoms and molecules. God, who created earth and water, plants and animals, produced in the first place a definite number of 1 Boyle’s model of the universe was the Stras­ burg clock with an outside Artificer. Goethe, on the other hand, sang :— “ Ihm ziemt’s die Welt im Innern zu bewegen, Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen.” See also Carlyle, Fast and Present, chap. v. atoms, which constituted the seed of all things. Then began that series of com­ binations and decompositions which now goes on, and which will continue in future. The principle of every change resides in matter. In artificial produc­ tions the moving principle is different from the material worked upon; but in nature the agent works within, being the most active and mobile part of the material itself. Thus this bold ecclesiastic, without incurring the censure of the Church or the world, contrives to outstrip Mr. Darwin. The same cast of mind which caused him to detach the Creator from his universe led him also to detach the soul from the body, though to the body he ascribes an influence so large as to render the soul almost unnecessary. The aberrations of reason were, in his view, an affair of the material brain. Mental disease is brain-disease; but then the immortal reason sits apart, and can­ not be touched by the disease. The errors of madness are those of the instru­ ment, not of the performer. It may be more than a mere result of education, connecting itself, probably, with the deeper mental structure of the two men, that the idea of Gassendi, above enunciated, is substantially the same as that expressed by Professor Clerk Maxwell, at the close of the very able lecture delivered by him at Bradford in 1873. According to both philoso­ phers, the atoms, if I understand aright, are prepared materials, which, formed once for all by the Eternal, produce by their subsequent interaction all the phenomena of the material world. There seems to be this difference, however, between Gassendi and Maxwell. The one postulates, the other infers, his first cause. In his “ manufactured articles,” as he calls the atoms, Professor Maxwell finds the basis of an induction which enables him to scale philosophic heights con­ sidered inaccessible by Kant, and to take the logical step from the atoms to their Maker. Accepting here the leadership of Kant, I doubt the legitimacy of Maxwell’s �THE BELFAST ADDRESS 25 draws the sharpest distinction between our real selves and our bodily instru­ ments. He does not, as far as I remember, use the word “soul,” possibly because the term was so hackneyed in his day, as it had been for many genera­ tions previously. But he speaks of “living powers,” “perceiving or percipient powers,” “moving agents,”“ourselves,” in the same sense as we should employ the term “ soul.” He dwells upon the fact that limbs may be removed, and mortal diseases assail the body, the mind, almost up to the moment of death, re­ maining clear. He refers to sleep and to swoon, where the “ living powers ” are suspended but not destroyed. He con­ siders it quite as easy to conceive of existence out of our bodies as in them ; that we may animate a succession of bodies, the dissolution of all of them having no more tendency to dissolve our real selves, or “ deprive us of living faculties—the faculties of perception and action—than the dissolution of any foreign matter which we are capable of receiving impressions from, or making use of for the common occasions of life.” This is the key of the Bishop’s position : “ our organised bodies are no more a part of ourselves than any other matter around us.” In proof of this he calls attention to the use of glasses, which “prepare objects” for the “percipient power ” exactly as the eye does. The eye itself is no more percipient than the glass; is quite as much the instrument of the true self, and also as foreign to the true self, as the glass is. “ And if we see with our eyes only in the same manner as we do with glasses, the like § 5< may justly be concluded from analogy of all our senses.” Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a the doctrine of bodily instruments, as it may be called, assumed- immense im­ precisely opposite conclusion: and it certainly would be interesting, if not portance in the hands of Bishop Butler, profitable, to us all to hear what he who, in his famous Analogy of Religion^ would or could urge in opposition to the developed, from his own point of view, reasoning of the Bishop. As a brief and with consummate sagacity, a similar discussion of the point will enable us to idea. The Bishop still influences many see the bearings of an important question, superior minds; and it will repay us to I will here permit a disciple of Lucretius dwell for a moment on his views. He logic; but it is impossible not to feel the ethic glow with which his lecture con­ cludes. There is, moreover, a very noble strain of eloquence in his description of the steadfastness of the atoms : “Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to modify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and dimen­ sions of the earth and the whole solar system. But though in the course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in the heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems evolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems are built—the foundation stones of the material universe—remain unbroken and unworn.” The atomic doctrine, in whole or in part, was entertained by Bacon, Des­ cartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle, and their successors, until the chemical law of multiple proportions enabled Dalton to confer upon it an entirely new significance. In our day there are secessions from the theory, but it still stands firm. Loschmidt, Stoney, and Sir William Thomson have sought to determine the sizes of the atoms, or rather to fix the limits between which their sizes lie; while the discourses of Williamson and Maxwell delivered in Bradford in 1873 illustrate the present hold of the doctrine upon the foremost scientific minds. In fact, it may be doubted whether, wanting this funda­ mental conception, a theory of the material universe is capable of scientific statement. �26 LECTURES AND ESSA YS to try the strength of the Bishop’s posi­ tion, and then allow the Bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling back, if he can, the difficulty upon Lucretius. The argument might proceed in this fashion :— “ Subjected to the test of mental pre­ sentation (Vorstellungj, your views, most honoured prelate, would offer to many minds a great, if not an insuperable, difficulty. You speak of ‘ living powers,’ • percipient or perceiving powers,’ and ‘ ourselves ’; but can you form a mental picture of any of these, apart from the organism through which it is supposed to act ? Test yourself honestly, and see whether you possess any faculty that would enable you to form such a concep­ tion. The true self has a local habitation in each of us; thus localised, must it not possess a form ? If so, what form ? Have you ever for a moment realised it ? When a leg is amputated the body is divided into two parts; is the true self in both of them or in one? Thomas Aquinas might say in both; but not you, for you appeal to the consciousness associated with one of the two parts, to prove that the other is foreign matter. Is consciousness, then, a necessary ele­ ment of the true self ? If so, what do you say to the case of the whole body being deprived of consciousness ? If not, then on what grounds do you deny any portion of the true self to the severed limb? It seems very singular that, from the beginning to the end of your admirable book (and no one admires its sober strength more than I do), you never once mention the brain or nervous system. You begin at one end of the body, and show that its parts may be removed without prejudice to the perceiving power. What if you begin at the other end, and remove, instead of the leg, the brain ? The body, as before, is divided into two parts; but both are now in the same predicament, and neither can be appealed to to prove that the other is foreign matter. Or, instead of going so far as to remove the brain itself, let a certain portion of its bony covering be removed, and let a rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of pressure be applied to the soft substance. At every pressure ‘ the faculties of perception and of action ’ vanish; at every relaxation of pressure they are restored. Where, dur­ ing the intervals of pressure, is the per­ ceiving power ? I once had the discharge of a large Leyden battery passed unex­ pectedly through me : I felt nothing, but was simply blotted out of conscious existence for a sensible interval. Where was my true self during that interval? Men who have recovered from lightning-stroke have been much longer in the same state; and, indeed, in cases of ordinary con­ cussion of the brain, days may elapse during which no experience is registered in consciousness. Where is the man himself during the period of insensibility ? You may say that I beg the question when I assume the man to have been unconscious, that he was really conscious all the time, and has simply forgotten what had occurred to him. In reply to this, I can only say that no one need shrink from the worst tortures that super­ stition ever invented, if only so felt and so remembered. I do not think your theory of instruments goes at all to the bottom of the matter. A telegraph­ operator has his instruments, by means of which he converses with the world ; our bodies possess a nervous system, which plays a similar part between the perceiving power and external things. Cut the wires of the operator, break his battery, demagnetise his needle; by this means you certainly sever his connection with the world; but, inasmuch as these are real instruments, their destruction does not touch the man who uses them. The operator survives, and he knows that he survives. What is there, I would ask, in the human system that answers to this conscious survival of the operator when the battery of the brain is so disturbed as to produce insensibility, or when it is destroyed altogether ? “ Another consideration, which you may regard as slight, presses upon me with some force. The brain may change from health to disease, and through such �THE BELFAST ADDRESS a change the most exemplary man may be converted into a debauchee or a mur­ derer. My very noble and approved good master had, as you know, threatenings of lewdness introduced into his brain by his jealous wife’s philter; and sooner than permit himself to run even the risk of yielding to these base prompt­ ings he slew himself. How could the hand of Lucretius have been thus turned against himself if the real Lucretius remained as before ? Can the brain or can it not act in this distempered way without the intervention of the immortal reason? If it can, then it is a prime mover which requires only healthy regu­ lation to render it reasonably self-acting, and there is no apparent need of your immortal reason at all. If it cannot, then the immortal reason, by its mis­ chievous activity in operating upon a broken instrument, must have the credit of committing every imaginable extrava­ gance and crime. I think, if you will allow me to say so, that the gravest consequences are likely to flow from your estimate of the body. To regard 'th® brain as you -would a staff or an -eyeglass—to shut your eyes to all its aiystery, to the perfect correlation of its condition and our consciousness, to the fact that a slight excess or defect of blood in it produces the very swoon to which you refer, and that in relation to it our meat, and drink, and air, and exercise have a perfectly transcendental value and significance—to forget all this does, I think, open a way to innu­ merable errors in our habits of life, and may possibly, in some cases, initiate and ffoster that very disease, and consequent mental ruin, which a wiser appreciation ©f this mysterious organ would have ^voided.” I can imagine the Bishop thoughtful after hearing this argument. He was not the man to allow anger to mingle with the consideration of a point of this kind. After due reflection, and having Strengthened himself by that honest Contemplation of the facts which was habitual with him, and which includes 27 the desire to give even adverse reasonings their due weight, I can suppose the Bishop to proceed thus : “ You will remember that in the Analogy of Religion, of which you have so kindly spoken, I did not profess to prove anything abso­ lutely, and that I over and over again acknowledged and insisted on the small­ ness of our knowledge, or rather the depth of our ignorance, as regards the whole system of the universe. My object was to show my deistical friends, who set forth so eloquently the beauty and beneficence of Nature and the Ruler thereof, while they had nothing but scorn for the so-called absurdities of the Chris­ tian scheme, that they were in no better condition than we were, and that, for every difficulty found upon our side, quite as great a difficulty was to be found upon theirs. I will now, with your per­ mission, adopt a similar line of argument. You are a Lucretian, and from the com­ bination and separation of insensate atoms deduce all terrestrial things, includ­ ing organic forms and their phenomena. Let me tell you in the first instance how far I am prepared to go with you. I admit that you can build crystalline forms out of this play of molecular force; that the diamond, amethyst, and snow­ star are truly wonderful structures which are thus produced. I will go farther, and acknowledge that even a tree or flower might in this way be organised. Nay, if you can show me an animal without sensation, I will concede to you that it also might be put together by the suitable play of molecular force. “ Thus far our way is clear, but now comes my difficulty. Your atoms are individually without sensation; much more are they without intelligence. May I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this problem ? Take your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and all the other atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the brain is formed. Imagine them separate and sensationless; observe them running together and �28 LECTURES AND ESSA YS forming alt imaginable combinations. This, as a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind. But can you see, or dream, or in any way imagine, how out of that mechanical act, and from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought, and emotion are to rise ? Are you likely to extract Homer out of the rattling of dice, or the Differential Cal­ culus out of the clash of billiard-balls ? I am not all bereft of this VorstellungsKraft of which you speak, nor am I, like so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum as regards scientific knowledge. I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound until thei> tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and Corti’s fibres in motion; I can also visualise the waves of ether as they cross the eye and hit the retina. Nay more, I am able to pursue to the central organ the motion thus imparted at the periphery, and to see in idea the very molecules of the brain thrown into tremors. My insight is not baffled by these physical processes. What baffles and bewilders me is the notion that from those physical tremors things so utterly incongruous with them as sensation, thought, and emotion can be derived. You may say, or think, that this issue of consciousness from the clash of atoms is not more incongruous than the flash of light from the union of oxygen and hydrogen. But I beg to say that it is. For such incongruity as the flash possesses is that which I now force upon your attention. The ‘ flash ’ is an aflair of consciousness, the objective counterpart of which is a vibration. It is a flash only by your interpretation. You are the cause of the apparent incongruity; and you are the thing that puzzles me. I need not remind you that the great Leibnitz felt the difficulty which I feel; and that to get rid of this monstrous deduction of life from death he displaced your atoms by his monads, which were more or less perfect mirrors of the universe, and out of the summation and integration of which he supposed all the phenomena of life—sentient, intellectual, and emotional—to arise. “ Your difficulty then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as great as mine. You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its demand for logical continuity between molecular processes and the phenomena of consciousness. This is a rock on which Materialism must inevitably split whenever it pre­ tends to be a complete philosophy of life. What is the moral, my Lucretian ? You and I are not likely to indulge in illtemper in the discussion of these great topics, where we see so much room for honest differences of opinion. But there are people of less wit or more bigotry (I say it with humility), on both sides, who are ever ready to mingle anger and vitu­ peration with such discussions. There are, for example, writers of note and in­ fluence at the present day who are not ashamed publicly to assume the ‘ deep personal sin ’ of a great logician to be the cause of his unbelief in a theologic dogma.1 And there are others who hold that we, who cherish our noble Bible, wrought as it has been into the constitu­ tion of our forefathers, and by inherit­ ance into us, must necessarily be hypo­ critical and insincere. Let us disavow and discountenace such people, cherish­ ing the unswerving faith that what is good and true in both our arguments will be preserved for the benefit of humanity, while all that is bad or false will disappear.” I hold the Bishop’s reasoning to be unanswerable, and his liberality to be worthy of imitation. It is worth remarking that in one re­ spect the Bishop was a product of his age. Long previous to his day the nature 1 This is the aspect under which the late Editor of the Dublin Review presented to his readers the memory of John Stuart Mill. I can only say that I would as soon take my chance in the other world, in the company of the “un­ believer,” as in that of his Jesuit detractor. In Dr. Ward we have an example of a wholesome and vigorous nature soured and perverted by a poisonous creed. �THE BELFAST ADDRESS 29 of the soul had been so favourite and I The lode of discovery once struck, general a topic of discussion that, when those petrified forms in which life was at the students of the Italian Universities one time active increased to multitudes wished to know the leanings of a new and demanded classification. They were Professor, they at once requested him to grouped in genera, species, and varie­ lecture-upon the soul. About the time ties, according to the degree of similarity of Bishop Butler the question was not subsisting between them. Thus confu­ only agitated but extended. It was seen sion was avoided, each object being by the clear-witted men who entered this found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to arena that many of their best arguments it and to its fellows of similar morpho­ applied equally to brutes and men. The logical or physiological character. The Bishop’s arguments were of this character. general fact soon became evident that He saw it, admitted it, took the conse­ none but the simplest forms of life lie quence, and boldly embraced the whole lowest down; that, as we climb higher animal world in his scheme of immor­ among the superimposed strata, more per­ tality. fect forms appear. The change, however, § 6. from form to form was not continuous, but by steps—some small, some great. “ A Bishop Butler accepted with unwaver­ section,” says Mr. Huxley, “ a hundred ing trust the chronology of the Old Tes­ feet thick will exhibit at different heights tament, describing it as “ confirmed by a dozen species of Ammonite, none of the natural and civil history of the world, which passes beyond the particular zone collected from common historians, from of limestone, or clay, into the zone below the state of the earth, and from the late it, or into that above it.” In the inventions of arts and sciences.” These presence of such facts it was not possible words mark progress; and they must to avoid the question: Have these forms, seem somewhat hoary to the Bishop’s showing, though in broken stages, and successors of to-day. It is hardly neces­ with many irregularities, this unmistak­ sary to inform you that since his time the able general advance, been subjected to domain of the naturalist has been im­ no continuous law of growth or variation ? mensely extended—the whole science of Had our education been purely scientific, geology, with its astounding revelations or had it been, sufficiently detached from regarding the life of the ancient earth, influences which, however ennobling in having been created. The rigidity of old another domain, have always proved conceptions has been relaxed, the public hindrances and delusions when intro­ mind being rendered gradually tolerant duced as factors into the domain of of the idea that not for six thousand, nor physics, the scientific mind never could for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand have swerved from the search for a law thousand, but for seons embracing untold of growth, or allowed itself to accept the millions of years, this earth has been the anthropomorphism which regarded each theatre of life and death. The riddle of successive stratum as a kind of mechanic’s the rocks has been read by the geologist bench for the manufacture of new species and palaeontologist from subcambrian out of all relation to the old. depths to the deposits thickening over Biassed, however, by their previous the sea-bottoms of to-day. And upon education, the great majority of natural­ the leaves of that stone book are, as you ists invoked a special creative act to know, stamped the characters, plainer account for the appearance of each new and surer than those formed by the ink group of organisms. Doubtless numbers of history, which carry the mind back of them were clear-headed enough to see into abysses of past time, compared with that this was no explanation at all—that, which the periods which satisfied Bishop in point of fact, it was an attempt, by the Butler cease to have a visual angle. introduction of a greater difficulty, to �3° LECTURES AND ESSA YS These papers were followed in 1859 by the publication of the first edition of the Origin of Species. All great things come slowly to the birth. Copernicus, as I informed you, pondered his great work for thirty-three years. Newton for nearly twenty years kept the idea of Gravitation before his mind ; for twenty years also he dwelt upon his discovery of Fluxions, and doubtless would have continued to make it the object of his private thought had he not found Leibnitz upon his track. Darwin for two-and-twenty years pondered the problem of the origin of species, and doubtless he would have continued to do so had he not found Wallace upon, his track.1 A concentrated, but full and powerful, epitome of his labours was the consequence. The book was by no means an easy one; and prooably not one in every score of those who then attacked it had read its pages through, or were competent to grasp their signifi­ cance if they had. I do not say this merely to discredit them ; for there were in those days some really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the heat of popular prejudice, and willing tc accept any conclusion that science had to offer, provided it was duly backed by fact and argument, who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin’s views. In fact, the woik needed an expounder, and it found one in Mr. Huxley. I know nothing more admirable in the way of scientific exposi­ tion than those early articles of his on the origin of species. He swept the curve of discussion through the really significant points of the subject, en­ riched his exposition with profound original remarks and reflections, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an argument which a less compact mind would have spread over pages. But there is one impression made by the book itself which no exposition of it, 1 Zoonomia, vol. i., pp- 5°°‘510, _ however luminous, can convey ? and 2 In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer {Principles of account for a less. But, having nothing I to offer in the way of explanation, they for the most part held their peace. Still, the thoughts of reflecting men naturally and necessarily simmered round the question. De Maillet, a contemporary of Newton, has been brought into notice by Professor Huxley as one who “had a notion of the modifiability of living forms.” The late Sir Benjamin Brodie, a man of highly philosophic mind, often drew my attention to the fact that, as early as 1794, Charles Darwin’s grand­ father was the pioneer of Charles Darwin.1 In 1801, and in subsequent years, the celebrated Lamarck, who, through the vigorous exposition of his views by the author of the Vestiges of Creation, gen­ dered the public mind perfectly familiar with the idea of evolution, endeavoured to show the development of species out of changes of habit and external con­ dition. In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder of our present theory of Dew, read before the Royal Society a paper in which, to use the words of Mr. Darwin, “ he dis­ tinctly recognises the principle of natural selection ; and this is the first recognition that has been indicated.” The thorough­ ness and skill with which Wells pursued his work, and the obvious independence of his character, rendered him long ago a favourite with me; and it gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight upon this additional testimony to his penetration. Professor Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew, Von Buch, the author of the Vestiges, D’Halloy, and others, by the enunciation of opinions more or less clear and correct, showed that the question had been fer­ menting long prior to the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace simultaneously, but independently, placed their closely concurrent views before the Linnean Society.2 Psychology, 2nd edit., vol. i., p. 465) expressed “the belief that life under all its forms has arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through the instrumentality of what are called natural causes.” This was my belief also at that time. 1 The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has been dignified in the highest degree. . . �THE BELFAST ADDRESS that is the impression of the vast amount of labour, both of observation and of thought, implied in its production. Let US glance at its principles. It is conceded on all hands that what are called “varieties” are continually produced. The rule is probably with­ out exception. No chick, or child, is in all respects and particulars the counter­ part of its brother and sister; and in such differences we have “ variety ” in­ cipient. No naturalist could tell how far this variation could be carried ; but the great mass of them held that never, by any amount of internal or external change, nor by the mixture of both, could the offspring of the same progenitor so far deviate from each other as to con­ stitute different species. The function of the experimental philosopher is to combine the conditions of Nature and to produce her results; and this was the method of Darwin.1 He made himself acquainted with what could, without any manner of doubt, be done in the way of producing variation. He asso­ ciated himself with pigeon-fanciers— bought, begged, kept, and observed every breed that he could obtain. Though derived, from a common stock, the diversities of these pigeons were such that “ a score of them might be chosen which, if shown to an ornithologist, and he were told that they were wild birds, would certainly be ranked by him as welldefined species.” The simple principle which guides the pigeon-fancier, as it does the cattle-breeder, is the selection of some variety that strikes his fancy, and the propagation of this variety by inheritance. With his eye still directed to the particular appearance which he wishes to exaggerate, he selects it as it re-appears in successive broods, and thus adds . increment to increment until an astonishing amount of divergence from the parent type is effected. The breeder The first step only towards experimental demonstration has been taken. Experiments now begun might, a couple of centuries hence, ftimish data of incalculable value, which ought to be supplied to the science of the future. 3« in this case does not produce the elements of the variation. He simply observes them, and by selection adds them together until the required result has been ob­ tained. “No man,” says Mr. Darwin, “ would ever try to make a fantail till he saw a pigeon with a tail developed in some slight degree in an unusual manner, or a pouter until he saw a pigeon with a crop of unusual size.” Thus nature gives the hint, man acts upon it, and by the law of inheritance exaggerates the deviation. . Having thus satisfied himself by indu­ bitable facts that the organisation of an animal or of a plant (for precisely the same treatment applies to plants) is to some extent plastic, he passes from varia­ tion under domestication to variation under nature. Hitherto we have dealt with the adding together of small changes by the conscious selection of man. Can Nature thus select ? Mr. Darwin’s answer is, “Assuredly she can.” The number of living things produced is far in excess of the number that can be supported ; hence at some period or other of their lives there must be a struggle for existence. And what is the infallible result ? If one organism were a perfect copy of the other in regard to strength, skill, and agility, external con­ ditions would decide. But this is not the case. Here we have the fact of variety offering itself to nature, as in the former instance it offered itself to man ; and those varieties which are least com­ petent to cope with surrounding con­ ditions will infallibly give way to those that are most competent. To use a familiar proverb, the weakest goes to the wall. But the triumphant fraction again breeds to over-production, transmitting the qualities which secured its main­ tenance, but transmitting them in different degrees. The struggle for food again supervenes, and those to whom the favourable quality has been transmitted in excess will triumph as before. It is easy to see that we have here the addition of increments favourable to the individual, still more rigorously carried out than in the case of domestication; �32 LECTURES AND ESSA YS for not only are unfavourable specimens not selected by nature, but they are destroyed. This is what Mr. Darwin calls “ Natural Selection,” which acts by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profit­ able to the preserved being. With this idea he interpenetrates and leavens the vast store of facts that he and others have collected. We cannot, without shutting our eyes through fear or preju­ dice, fail to see that Darwin is here dealing, not with imaginary, but. with true causes; nor can we fail to discern what vast modifications may be produced by natural selection in periods sufficiently long. Each individual increment may resemble what mathematicians call a “differential” (a quantity indefinitely small)but definite and great changes may obviously be produced by the inte­ gration of these infinitesimal quantities, through practically infinite time. If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the notion of creative power,, acting after human fashion, it certainly is not because he is unacquainted with the numberless exquisite adaptations on which this notion of a supernatural. Artificer, has been founded. His book is a repository of the most startling facts of this descrip tion. Take the marvellous observation which he cites from Dr. Kruger, where a bucket with an aperture . serving as a spout is formed in an orchid. Bees visit the flower; in eager search of material for their combs they push each other into the bucket, . the drenched ones escaping from their involuntary , bath by the spout. Here they rub their backs against the viscid stigma, of the flower and obtain glue; then against the pollenmasses, which are thus stuck to the back of the bee and carried away. “ When the bee, so provided, flies to another flower, or to the same flower a second time, and is pushed by its comrades into the bucket, and then crawls out. by the passage, the pollen-mass upon its back necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid stigma,” which takes up the pollen; and this is how that orchid is fertilised. Or take this other case of the Catasetum. “Bees visit these flowers in order to gnaw the labellum; in doing this they inevitably touch a long, taper­ ing, sensitive projection. This, when touched, transmits a sensation or vibra­ tion to a certain membrane, which is instantly ruptured, setting free a spring, by which the pollen-mass is shot forth like an arrow in the right direction, and adheres by its viscid extremity to the back of the bee.” In this way the fer­ tilising pollen is spread abroad. It is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the teleologist that rejects teleology, seeking to refer these wonders to natural causes. They illus­ trate, according to him, the method of nature, not the “ technic ” of a manlike Artificer. The beauty of flowers is due to natural selection. Those that distin­ guish themselves by vividly contrasting colours from the surrounding green leaves are most readily seen, most frequently visited by insects, most often fertilised, and hence most favoured by natural selection. Coloured berries also readily attract the attention of birds and beasts, which feed upon them, spread their manured seeds abroad, thus giving trees and shrubs pos­ sessing such berries a greater chance in the struggle for existence. With profound analytic and synthetic skill, Mr. Darwin investigates the cell­ making instinct of the hive-bee. His method of dealing with it is representa­ tive. He falls back from the more per­ fectly to the less perfectly developed in­ stinct—from the hive-bee to the humblebee, which uses its own cocoon as a comb, and to classes of bees of interme­ diate skill endeavouring to show how the passage might be gradually made from the lowest to the highest. The saving of wax is the most important point in the economy of bees. Twelve.to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are said to be needed for the secretion of a single pound of wax. The quantities of nectar necessary for the wax must therefore be vast, and every improvement of construc­ tive instinct which results in the saving �THE BELFAST ADDRESS of wax is a direct profit to the insect’s life. The time that would otherwise be devoted to the making of wax is devoted to the gathering and storing of honey for winter food. Mr. Darwin passes from the humble-bee, with its rude cells, through the Melipona, with its more artistic cells, to the hive-bee with its astonishing architecture. The bees place themselves at equal distances apart upon the wax, sweep and excavate equal spheres round the selected points. The spheres intersect, and the planes of inter­ section are built up with thin laminae. Hexagonal cells are thus formed. This mode of treating such questions is, as I have said, representative. The expositor habitually retires from the more perfect and complex, to the less perfect and simple, and carries you with him through stages of perfecting—adds increment to increment of infinitesimal change, and in this way gradually breaks down your reluctance to admit that the exquisite climax of the whole could be a result of natural selection. Mr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and, Saturated as the subject was with his own thought, he must have known, better than his critics, the weakness as well as the strength of his theory. This of course would be of little avail were his object a temporary dialectic victory, instead of the establishment of a truth which he means to be everlasting. But he takes no pains to disguise the weak­ ness he has discerned; nay, he takes every pains to bring it into the strongest light. His vast resources enable him to cope with objections started by himself and others, so as to leave the final impression upon the reader’s mind that, if they be not completely answered, they certainly are not fatal. Their negative force being thus destroyed, you are free to be influenced by the vast positive mass of evidence he is able to bring before you. This largeness of know­ ledge and readiness of resource render Mr. Darwin the most terrible of antago­ nists. Accomplished naturalists have levelled heavy and sustained criticisms 33 against him—not always with the view of fairly weighing his theory, but with the express intention of exposing its weak points only. This does not irritate him. He treats every objection with a soberness and thoroughness which even Bishop Butler might be proud to imitate, surrounding each fact with its appropriate detail, placing it in its proper relations, and usually giving it a significance which, as long as it was kept isolated, failed to appear. This is done without a trace of ill-temper. He moves over the subject with the passionless strength of a glacier; and the grinding of the rocks is not always. without a counterpart in the logical pulverisation of the objector. But though in handling this mighty theme all passion has been stilled, there is an emotion of the intellect, incident to the discernment of new truth, which often colours and warms the pages of Mr. Darwin. His success has been great; and this implies not only the solidity of his work, but the preparedness of the public mind for such a revelation. On this head a remark of Agassiz impressed me more than anything else. Sprung from a race of theologians, this celebrated man combated to the last the theory of natural selection. One of the many times I had the pleasure of meeting him in the United States was at Mr. Winthrop’s beautiful residence at Brook­ line, near Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all halted as if by common consent in front of a window, and continued there a discussion which had been started at table. The maple was in its autumn glory, and the exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, in my case, to interpenetrate without disturbance the intellectual action. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned, and said to the gentlemen standing round : “ I confess that I was not prepared to see this theory received as it has been by the best intellects of our time. Its success is greater than I could have thought possible.” B �LECTURES AND ESSA YS 34 § 7- In our day grand generalisations have been reached. The theory of the origin of species is but one of them. Another, of still wider grasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the Con­ servation of Energy, the ultimate philo­ sophical issues of which are as yet but dimly seen—that doctrine which “ binds nature fast in fate,” to an extent not hitherto recognised, exacting from every antecedent its equivalent conse­ quent, from every consequent its equiva­ lent antecedent, and bringing vital as well as physical phenomena under the dominion of that law of causal con­ nection which, so far as the human understanding has yet pierced, asserts itself everywhere in nature. Long in advance of all definite experiment upon the subject, the constancy and in­ destructibility of matter had been affirmed; and all subsequent experi­ ence justified the affirmation. Mayer extended the attribute of indestructi­ bility to energy, applying it in the first instance to inorganic,1 and afterwards with profound insight to organic nature. The vegetable world, though drawing all its nutriment from invisible sources, was proved incompetent to generate anew either matter or force. Its matter is for the most part transmuted gas ; its force transformed solar force. The animal world was proved to be equally uncreative, all its motive energies being referred to the combustion of its food. The activity of each animal, as a whole, was proved to be the transferred activity of its molecules. The muscles were shown to be stores of mechanical energy, potential until unlocked by the nerves, and then resulting in muscular con­ tractions. The speed at which messages fly to and fro along the nerves was deter­ mined by Helmholtz, and found to be, not, as had been previously supposed, 1 Dr. Berthold has shown that Leibnitz had sound views regarding the conservation of energy in inorganic nature. equal to that of light or electricity, but less than the speed of sound—less even than that of an eagle. This was the work of the physicist: then came the conquests of the com­ parative anatomist and physiologist, re­ vealing the structure of every animal and the function of every organ in the whole biological series, from the lowest zoo­ phyte up to man. The nervous system had been made the object of profound and continued study, the wonderful, and, at bottom, entirely mysterious controlling power which it exercises over the whole organism, physical and mental, being recognised more and more. Thought could not be kept back from a subject so profoundly suggestive. Besides the physical life dealt with by Mr. Darwin, there is a psychical life presenting similar gradations, and asking equally for a solution. How are the different grades and orders of Mind to be accounted for? What is the principle of growth of that mysterious power which on our planet culminates in Reason ? These are questions which, though not thrusting themselves so forcibly upon the attention of the general public, had not only occupied many reflecting minds, but had been formally broached by one of them before the Origin of Species appeared. With the mass of materials furnished by the physicist and physiologist in his hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty years ago, sought to graft upon this basis a system of psychology; and two years ago a second and greatly amplified edition of his work appeared. Those who have occupied themselves with the beautiful experiments of Plateau will remember that when two spherules of olive-oil, suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water of the same density as the oil, are brought together, they do not imme­ diately unite. Something like a pellicle appears to be formed around the drops, the rupture of which is immediately followed by the coalescence of the globules into one. There are organisms whose vital actions are almost as purely physical as the coalescence of such drops �THE BELFAST ADDRESS of oil. They come into contact and fuse themselves thus together. From such organisms to others a shade higher, from these to others a shade higher still, and on through an ever-ascending series, Mr. Spencer conducts his argument. There are two obvious factors to be here taken into account — the creature and the medium in which it lives, or, as it is often expressed, the organism and its environment. Mr. Spencer’s funda­ mental principle is, that between these two factors there is incessant interaction. The organism is played upon by the environment, and is modified to meet the requirements of the environment. Life he defines to be “ a continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.” In the lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense diffused over the entire body; then, through impressions from without and their corresponding adjustments, special portions of the sur­ face become more responsive to stimuli than others. The senses are nascent, the basis of all of them being that simple tactual sense which the sage Democritus recognised 2,300 years ago as their common progenitor. The action of light, in,the first instance, appears to be a mere disturbance of the chemical pro­ cesses in the animal organism, similar to that which occurs in the leaves of plants. By degrees the action becomes localised in a few pigment-cells, more sensitive to light than the surrounding tissue. The eye is incipient. At first it is merely capable of revealing differences of light and shade produced by bodies close at hand. Followed, as the interception of the light commonly is, by the contact of the closely adjacent opaque body, sight in this condition becomes a kind of “anticipatory touch.” The adjustment continues; a slight bulging out of the epidermis over the pigment-granules supervenes. A lens is incipient, and, through the operation of infinite adjust­ ments, at length reaches the perfection that it displays in the hawk and eagle. So of the other senses; they are special 35 differentiations of a tissue which was originally vaguely sensitive all over. With the development of the senses, the adjustments between the organism and its environment gradually extend in space., a multiplication of experiences and a corresponding modification of conduct being the result. The adjustments also extend in time, covering continually greater intervals. Along with this exten­ sion in space and time the adjustments also increase in speciality and complexity, passing through the various grades of brute life, and prolonging themselves into the domain of reason. Very striking are Mr. Spencer’s remarks regarding the influence of the sense of touch upon the development of intelligence. This is, so to say, the mother-tongue of all the senses, into which they must be trans­ lated to be of service to the organism. Hence its importance. The parrot is the most intelligent of birds, and its tactual power is also greatest. From this sense it gets knowledge, unattainable by birds which cannot employ their feet as hands. The elephant is the most saga­ cious of quadrupeds—its tactual range and skill, and the consequent multiplica­ tion of experiences, which it owes to its wonderfully adaptable trunk, being the basis of its sagacity. Feline - animals, for a similar cause, are more sagacious than hoofed animals—atonement being to some extent made in the case of the horse by' the possession of sensitive prehensile lips. In the Primates the evolution of intellect and the evolution of tactual appendages go hand in hand. In the most intelligent anthropoid apes we find the tactual range and delicacy greatly augmented, new avenues of know­ ledge being thus opened to the animal. Man crowns the edifice here, not only in virtue of his own manipulatory power, but through the enormous extension of his range of experience, by the invention of instruments of precision, which serve as supplemental senses and supplemental limbs. The reciprocal action of these is finely described and illustrated. That chastened intellectual emotion, to which �3& LECTURES AND ESSA YS I have referred in connection with Mr. Darwin, is not absent in Mr. Spencer. His illustrations possess at times exceed­ ing vividness and force; and from his style on such occasions it is to be in­ ferred that the ganglia of this Apostle of the Understanding are sometimes the seat of a nascent poetic thrill. It is a fact of supreme importance that actions, the performance of which at first requires even painful effort and delibera­ tion, may, by habit, be rendered auto­ matic. Witness the slow learning of its letters by a child, and the subsequent facility of reading in a man, when each group of letters which forms a word is instantly, and without effort, fused to a single perception. Instance the billiardplayer,. whose muscles of hand and eye, when he reaches the perfection of his art, are unconsciously co-ordinated. Instance the musician, who, by practice, is enabled to fuse a multitude of arrangements, auditory, tactual, and muscular, into a process of automatic manipulation. Com­ bining such facts with the doctrine of hereditary transmission, we reach a theory of Instinct. A chick, after coming out of the egg, balances itself correctly, runs about, picks up food, thus showing that it possesses a power of directing its move­ ments to definite ends. How did the chick learn this very complex co-ordina­ tion of eyes, muscles, and beak ? It has not been individually taught; its per­ sonal experience is nil, but it has the benefit of ancestral experience. In its inherited organisation are registered the powers which it displays at birth. So also as regards the instinct of the hive­ bee, already referred to. The distance at which the insects stand apart when they sweep their hemispheres and build their cells is “ organically remembered.” Man also carries with him the physical texture of his ancestry, as well as the inherited intellect bound up with it. The defects of intelligence during in­ fancy and youth are probably less due to a lack of individual experience than to the fact that in early life the cerebral organisation is still incomplete. The period necessary for completion varies with the race and with the individual. As a round shot outstrips the rifled bolt on quitting the muzzle of the gun, so the lower race, in childhood, may outstrip the higher. But the higher eventually overtakes the lower, and surpasses it in range. As regards individuals, we do not always find the precocity of youth prolonged to mental power in maturity; while the dulness of boyhood is some­ times strikingly contrasted with the intel­ lectual energy of after years. Newton, when a boy, was weakly, and he showed no particular aptitude at school; but in his eighteenth year he went to Cam­ bridge, and soon afterwards astonished his teachers by his power of dealing with geometrical problems. During his quiet youth his brain was slowly preparing itself to be the organ of those energies which he subsequently displayed. By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian phrase) the image and superscription of the external world are stamped as states of consciousness upon the organism, the depth of the impression depending on the number of the blows. When two or more phenomena occur in the environ* ment invariably together, they are stamped to the same depth or to the same relief, and indissolubly connected. And here we come to the threshold of a great ques­ tion. Seeing that he could in no way rid himself of the consciousness of Space and Time, Kant assumed them to be necessary “forms of intuition,” the moulds and shapes into which our intuitions are thrown belonging to ourselves, and with­ out objective existence. With unexpected power and success, Mr. Spencer brings the hereditary experience theory, as he holds it, to bear upon this question. “ If there exist certain external relations which are experienced by all organisms at all instants of their waking lives— relations which are absolutely constant and universal—there will be established answering internal relations, that are absolutely constant and universal. Such relations we have in those of Space and Time. As the substratum of all other �THE BELFAST ADDRESS relations of the Non-Ego, they must be responded to by conceptions that are the substrata of all other relations in the Ego. Being the constant and infinitely repeated elements of thought, they must become the automatic elements of thought—the elements of thought which it is impossible to get rid of—the “ forms of intuition.” Throughout this application and ex­ tension of Hartley’s and Mill’s “ Law of Inseparable Association,” Mr. Spencer stands upon his own ground, invoking, instead of the experiences of the indi­ vidual, the registered experiences of the race. His overthrow of the restriction of experience to the individual is, I think, complete. That restriction ignores the power of organising experience, furnished at the outset to each-individual; it ignores the different degrees of this power pos­ sessed by different races, and by different individuals of the same race. Were there not in the human brain a potency ante­ cedent to all experience, a dog or a cat ought to be as capable of education as a man. These predetermined internal re­ lations are independent of the experi­ ences of the individual. The human brain is the “ organised register of infi­ nitely numerous experiences received during the evolution of life, or rather during the evolution of that series of organisms through which the human organism has been reached. The effects of the most uniform and frequent of these experiences have been successively bequeathed, principal and interest, and have slowly mounted to that high intelli­ gence which lies latent in the brain of the infant. Thus it happens that the European inherits from twenty to thirty cubic inches more of brain than the Papuan. Thus it happens that faculties, as of music, which scarcely exist in some inferior races, become congenital in superior ones. Thus it happens that out of savages unable to count up to the number of their fingers, and speaking a language containing only nouns and verbs, arise at length our Newtons and .Shakespeares.” 37 § 8. At the outset of this Address it was stated that physical theories which lie beyond experience are derived by a pro­ cess of abstraction from experience. It is instructive to note from this point of view the successive introduction of new conceptions. The idea of the attraction of gravitation was preceded by the obser­ vation of the attraction of iron by a magnet, and of light bodies by rubbed amber. The polarity of magnetism and electricity also appealed to the senses. It thus became the substratum of the conception that atoms and molecules are endowed with attractive and repellent poles, by the play of which definite forms of crystalline architecture are produced. Thus molecular force becomes structural.'1 It required no great boldness of thought to extend its play into organic nature, and to recognise in molecular force the agency by which both plants and animals are built up. In this way, out of expe­ rience arise conceptions which are wholly ultra-experiential. None of the atomists of antiquity had any notion of this play of molecular polar force, but they had experience of gravity, as manifested by falling bodies. Abstracting from this, they permitted their atoms to fall eter­ nally through empty space. Democritus assumed that the larger atoms moved more rapidly than the smaller ones, which they therefore could overtake, and with which they could combine. Epicurus, holding that empty space could offer no resistance to motion, ascribed to all the atoms the same velocity; but he seems to have overlooked the consequence that under such circumstances the atoms could never combine. Lucretius cut the knot by quitting the domain of physics altogether, and causing the atoms to move together by a kind of volition. Was the instinct utterly at fault which 1 See Fragments of Science, vol. ii., article on “ Matter and Force or Lectures on Light, No. �38 LECTURES AND ESSA YS caused Lucretius thus to swerve from his own principles ? Diminishing gradu­ ally the number of progenitors,. Mr. Darwin comes at length to one “ primor­ dial form but he does not say, so far as I remember, how he supposes this form to have been introduced. He quotes with satisfaction the words of a celebrated author and divine who had “gradually learnt to see that it was just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe He created a few original forms, capable of self-development into other and needful forms, as to believe He required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.” What Mr. Darwin thinks of this view of the introduction of life I do not know. But the anthropomorphism, which it seemed his object to set asioe, is as firmly associated with the creation of a few forms as with the creation of a multitude. We need clearness and thoroughness here. Two courses, and two only, are possible. Either let _ us open our doors freely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let us radically change our notions of matter. If we look at matter as pictured by Democritus, and as defined for genera­ tions in our scientific text-books, the notion of conscious life coming out of it cannot be formed by the mind. . The argument placed in the mouth of Bishop Butler suffices, in my opinion, to crush all such materialism as this. . Those, however, who framed these definitions of matter were but partial students. . They were not biologists, but mathematicians, whose labours referred only to such accidents and properties of matter as could be expressed in their formulae. Their science was mechanical science, not the science of life. With matter in its wholeness they never dealt; and, denuded by their imperfect definitions, “ the gentle mother of all ” became the object of her children’s dread. Let us reverently, but honestly, look the ques­ tion in the face. Divorced from matter, where is life ? Whatever our faith may say, our knowledge shows them to be indissolubly joined. Every meal we eat, every cup we drink, illustrates the mysterious control of mind by matter. On tracing the line of life backwards, we see it approaching more and more to what we call the purely physical con­ dition. We come at length to those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol and water. We reach the pro­ togenes of Haeckel, in which we have “ a type distinguishable from a fragment of albumen only by its finely granular character.” Can we pause here? We break a magnet, and find two poles in each of its fragments. We continue the process of breaking ; but, however small the parts, each carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity of the whole. And when we can break no longer, we prolong the intellectual vision to the polar molecules. Are we not urged to do something similar in the case of life ? Is there not a temptation to close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that “Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods”? or with Bruno, when he declares that matter is not “ that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb ”? Believing, as I do, in the con­ tinuity of nature, I cannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use. Here the vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the eye. By a necessity engendered and justified by science I cross the boundary of the experimental evidence, and dis­ cern in that matter which we, in our ignorance of its latent powers, and not­ withstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of all terrestrial life. If you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove that any form of life can be developed out of matter, without demonstrable antecedent life, my reply is that evidence considered �THE BELFAST ADDRESS perfectly conclusive by many has been adduced; and that were some of us who have pondered this question to follow a very common example and accept testi­ mony because it falls in with our belief, we also should eagerly close with the evidence referred to. But there is in the true man of science a desire stronger than the wish to have his beliefs upheld —namely, the desire to have them true. And this stronger wish causes him to reject the most plausible support, if he has reason to suspect that it is vitiated by error. Those to whom I refer as having studied this question, believing the evidence offered in favour of “ spon­ taneous generation ” to be thus vitiated, cannot accept it. They know full well that the chemist now prepares from in­ organic matter a vast array of substances, which were some time ago regarded as the sole products of vitality. They are intimately acquainted with the structural power of matter, as evidenced in the phenomena of crystallisation. They can justify scientifically their belief in its potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organisms. But, in reply to your question, they will frankly admit their inability to point to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be developed, save from demonstrable an­ tecedent life. As already indicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through lower ones down to the lowest; and it is the prolongation of this line by the intellect, beyond the range of the senses, that leads them to the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated.1 The “materialism”, here professed may be vastly different from what you suppose, and I therefore crave your gracious patience to the end. “The 'question of an external world,” says J. S. Mill, “ is the great battle-ground of metaphysics.”2 Mr. Mill himself reduces •external phenomena to “ possibilities of sensation. ’ Kant, as we have seen, 1 Bruno was a " Pantheist,” not an “ Atheist ” •Oi a “ Materialist.” ’ Examination of Hamilton, p. 154, 39 made time and space “ forms ” of our own intuitions. Fichte, having first by the inexorable logic of his understanding proved himself to be a mere link in that chain . of eternal causation which holds so rigidly in nature, violently broke the chain by making nature, and all that it inherits, an apparition of the mind.1 And it is by no means easy to combat such notions. For when I say “ I see you,” and that there is not the least doubt about it, the obvious reply is, that what I am really conscious of is an affection of my own retina. And if I urge that my sight can be checked by touching you, the retort would be that I am equally transgressing the limits of fact; for what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but that the nerves of my hand have undergone a change. All we hear, and see, and touch, and taste, and smell are, it would be urged, mere variations of our own condition, beyond which, even, to the extent of a hair’s breadth,’ we cannot go. That anything answering to our impressions exists outside of our­ selves is not a fact, but an inference, to which all validity would be denied by an idealist like Berkeley, or by a sceptic like Hume. Mr. Spencer takes another line. With him, as with the uneducated man, there is no doubt or question as to the existence of an external world. But he differs from the uneducated, who think that the world really is what con­ sciousness represents it to be. Our states of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside entity which produces them and determines the order of their succession, but the real nature of which we can never know.2 _ In fact, the whole process of evolution is the manifestation of a power absolutely inscrutable to the 1 Bestimmung des Menschen. 2 In a paper, at once popular and profound, enhUed, “ Recent Progress in the Theory of Vision, contained in the volume of lectures by Helmholtz, published by Longmans, this sym­ bolism of our states of consciousness is also dwelt upon. The impressions of sense are the mere signs of external things. In this paper Helmholtz contends strongly against the view that the consciousness of space is inborn; and �40 LECTURES AND ESSA YS intellect of man. As little in our day as in the days of Job can man by searching find this Power out. Considered funda­ mentally, then, it is by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life on earth is evolved, species differentiated, and mind unfolded, from their prepotent elements in the immeasurable past, The strength of the doctrine of Evolu­ tion consists, not in an experimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible to this mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific thought. From contrast, moreover, it derives enormous relative cogency. On the one side we have a theory (if it could with any propriety be so called) derived, as were the theories referred to at the beginning of this Address, not from the study of nature, but from the observa­ tion of men—a theory which converts the Power whose garment is seen in the visible universe into an Artificer, fashioned after the human model, and acting by broken efforts as man is seen to act. On the other side we have the conception that all we see around us, and all we feel within us—the phenomena of physical nature as well as those of the human mind—have their unsearchable roots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal span of which is offered to the investigation of man. And even this span is only knowable in part. We can trace the development of a nervous system, and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of sensation and thought. We see with undoubting cer­ tainty that they go hand in hand. But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment we seek to comprehend the connection he evidently doubts the power of the chick to pick up grains of corn without preliminary lessons. On this point, he says, further expertments are needed. Such experiments have been since made by Mr. Spalding, and they seem to prove conclusively that the chick does not need a single moment’s tuition to enable it to stand, run, govern the muscles of its eyes, and peck. Helmholtz, however, is contending against the notion of pre-established harmony, and I am not aware of his views as to the organisation of experiences of race or breed. between them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here required which the human mind cannot command ; and the effort to solve the problem—to borrow a com­ parison from an illustrious friend of mine—is like that of a man trying to lift himself by his own waistband. All that has been said in this discourse is to be taken in connection with this funda­ mental truth. When £< nascent senses are spoken of, when “ the differentiation of a tissue at first vaguely sensitive all over” is spoken of, and when these possessions and processes are associated with “ the modification of an organism by its environment,” the same parallelism, without contact, or even approach to contact, is implied. Man the object is separated by an impassable gulf from man the subject. There is no motor energy in the human intellect to carry it, without logical rupture, from the one to the other. § 9The doctrine of Evolution derives man, in his totality, from the interaction of organism and environment through countless ages past. The Human Under­ standing, for example—that faculty which Mr. Spencer has turned so skilfully round upon its own antecedents—is itself a result of the play between organism and environment through cosmic ranges_ of time. Never, surely, did prescription plead so irresistible a claim. But then it comes to pass that, over and above his understanding, there are many other things appertaining to man whose pre­ scriptive rights are quite as strong as those of the understanding itself. It is a result, for example, of the play of organism and environment that sugar is sweet, and that aloes are bitter 5 that the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose. Such facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate reason has ever been rendered) are quite as old as the understanding; and many other things can boast an equally ancient origin. Mr. Spencer at one place refers �THE BELFAST ADDRESS to that most powerful of passions—the amatory passion—as one which, when it first occurs, is antecedent to all relative experience whatever; and we may press its claim as being at least as ancient, and as valid, as that of the understanding itself. Then there are such things woven into the texture of man as the feeling of Awe, Reverence, Wonder—and not alone the sexual love just referred to, but the love of the beautiful, physical, and moral, in Nature, Poetry, and Art. There is also that deep-set feeling, which, since the earliest dawn of history, and pro­ bably for ages prior to all history, incor­ porated itself in the religions of the world. You, who have escaped from these religions into the high-and-dry light of the intellect, may deride them; but in so doing you deride accidents of form merely, and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious sentiment in the nature of man. To yield this sentiment reasonable satisfaction is the problem of problems at the present hour. And grotesque in relation to scientific culture as many of the religions of the world have been and are—dangerous, nay, destructive, to the dearest privileges of freemen as some of them undoubtedly have been, and would, if they could, be again—it will be wise to recognise them as the forms of a force, mischievous if permitted to intrude on the region of objective knowledge, over which it holds no command, but capable of adding, in the region of poetry and emotion, inward completeness and dignity to man. Feeling, I say again, dates from as old an origin and as high a source as intelli­ gence, and it equally demands its range of play. The wise teacher of humanity will recognise the necessity of meeting this demand, rather than of resisting it on account of errors and absurdities of form. What we should resist, at all hazards, is the attempt made in the past, and now repeated, to found upon this elemental bias of man’s nature a system which should exercise despotic sway over his intellect. I have no fear of such a consummation. Science has already to 41 some extent leavened the world; it will leaven it more and more. I should look upon the mild light of science breaking in upon the minds of the youth of Ireland, and strengthening gradually to the per­ fect day, as a surer check to any intel­ lectual or spiritual tyranny which may threaten this island than the laws of princes or the swords of emperors. We fought and won our battle even in the Middle Ages : should we doubt the issue of another conflict with our broken foe ? The impregnable position of science may be described in a few words. We claim, and we shall wrest from theology, the entire domain of cosmological theory. All schemes and systems which thus infringe upon the domain of science must, in so far as they do this, submit to its control, and relinquish all thought of controlling it. Acting otherwise proved always disastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous to-day. Every system which would escape the fate of an organism too rigid to adjust itself to its environment must be plastic to the extent that the growth of knowledge demands. When this truth has been thoroughly taken in, 'rigidity will be relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things now deemed essential will be dropped, and elements now rejected will be assimi­ lated. The lifting of the life is the essential point, and as long as dogma­ tism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out, various modes of leverage may be employed to raise life to a higher level. Science itself not unfrequently derives motive power from an ultra-scientific source. Some of its greatest discoveries have been made under the stimulus of a non-scientific ideal. This was the case among the ancients, and it has been so among ourselves. Mayer, Joule, and Colding, whose names are associated with the greatest of modern generalisa­ tions, were thus influenced. With his usual insight, Lange at one place remarks that “it is not always the objectively correct and intelligible that helps man most, or leads most quickly to the fullest and truest knowledge. As the �42 LECTURES AND ESSA YS sliding body upon the brachystochrone reaches its end sooner than by the straighter road of the inclined plane, so, through the swing of the ideal, we often arrive at the naked truth more rapidly than by the processes of the understand­ ing.” Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a hindrance to science; but he means the enthusiasm of weak heads. There is a strong and resolute enthu­ siasm in which science finds an ally; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather than to the diminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening productiveness of men of science, in their mature years, is to be ascribed. Mr. Buckle sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral force. He gravely erred; for with­ out moral force to whip it into action the achievement of the intellect would be poor indeed. It has been said by its opponents that science divorces itself from literature; but the statement, like so many others, arises from lack of knowledge. A glance at the less technical writings of its leaders —of its Helmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond—would show what breadth of literary culture they com­ mand. Where among modern writers can you find their superiors in clearness and vigour of literary style? Science desires not isolation, but freely combines with every effort towards the bettering of man’s estate. Single-handed, and sup­ ported, not by outward sympathy, but by inward force, it has built at least one great wing of the many-mansioned home which man in his totality demands. And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends indicate that on one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only by wise com­ bination of the parts required, with those already irrevocably built, that we can hope for completeness. There is no necessary incongruity between what has been accomplished and what remains to be done. The moral glow of Socrates, which we all feel by ignition, has in . it nothing incompatible with the physics of Anaxagoras which he so much scorned, but which he would hardly scorn to-day. And here I am reminded of one among us, hoary, but still strong, whose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, far more than any other of this age, unlocked whatever of life and nobleness lay latent in its most gifted minds—one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean Eleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they suffered and dared— fit, as he once said of Fichte, “ to have been the teacher of the Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves of Academe.” With a capacity to grasp physical principles which his friend Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of exercise has not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is the world’s loss that he, in the vigour of his years, did not open his mind and sym­ pathies to science, and make its conclu­ sions a portion of his message to mankind. Marvellously endowed as he was—equally equipped on the side of the Heart and of the Understanding—he might have done much towards teaching us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to enable them in coming times to dwell together, in unity of spirit and in the bond of peace. And now the end is come. With more time, or greater strength and know­ ledge, what has been here said might have been better said, while worthy matters, here omitted, might have re­ ceived fit expression. But there would have been no material deviation from the views set forth. As regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards you, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or without your consent, is rapidly surround­ ing you, and in relation to which some adjustment on your part may be neces­ sary. A hint of Hamlet’s, however, teaches us how the troubles of common life may be ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase intellectual peace at the price of intel­ lectual death. The world is not without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in persons who seek their �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS shelter, and try to persuade others to do the same. The unstable and the weak have yielded and will yield to this per­ suasion, and they to whom repose is sweeter than the truth. But I would exhort you to refuse the offered shelter, and to scorn the base repose—to accept, if the choice be forced upon you, com­ motion before stagnation, the breezy leap of the torrent before the foetid stillness of the swamp. In the course of this Address I have touched on debatable questions, and led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground—and this partly with the view of telling you that, as regards these questions, science claims unrestricted right of search. It is not to the point to say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer, may be wrong. Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed certain that these views will undergo modification. But the point is that, whether right or wrong, we claim the right to discuss them. For science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not urged to erect it into an idol. The inexorable advance of man’s understanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims of his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never satisfy, 43 are here equally set forth. The world em braces not only a Newton, but a Shake­ speare—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael —not only a Kant, but a Beethoven— not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of these, but in all, is human nature whole. They are not opposed, but supplementary—not mutually exclu­ sive, but reconcilable. And if, unsatis­ fied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will still turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith ; so long as this is done, not only without intolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened recogni­ tion that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable, and that each suc­ ceeding age must be held free to fashion the mystery in accordance with its own needs—then, casting aside all the restric­ tions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for the noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the knowing facul­ ties, may be called the creative faculties of man. Here, however, I touch a theme too great for me to handle, but which will assuredly be handled by the loftiest minds, when you and I, like streaks of morning cloud, shall have melted into the infinite azure of the past. APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS' 1874 The world has been frequently informed of late that I have raised up against myself a host of enemies ; and consider­ ing, with few exceptions, the deliverances of the Press, and more particularly, of the religious Press, I am forced to admit that the statement is only too true. I derive some comfort, nevertheless, from .. the reflection of Diogenes, transmitted to us by Plutarch, that “he who would be saved must have good friends or violent enemies ; and that he is best off who possesses both.” This “best” con­ dition, I have reason to believe, is mine. Reflecting on the fraction I have read of recent remonstrances, appeals, The word “Apology” is here used in its original sense, as signifying “Vindication” 01 Defence”; no retractation is implied.— Ed. �44 LECTURES AND ESSA YS has himself told us how and where this menaces, and judgments—covering not Address of his was composed. It was only the world that now is, but that written among the glaciers and the soli­ which is to come—I have noticed with tudes of the Swiss mountains. It was mournful interest how trivially men seem no hasty, hurried, crude production; its to be influenced by what they call their every sentence bore marks of thought religion, and how potently by that and care.” “ nature ” which it is the alleged province My critic intends to be severe: he is of religion to eradicate or subdue. From simply just. In the “ solitudes ” to fair and manly argument, from the tenwhich he refers I worked with delibera­ derest and holiest sympathy on the part tion, endeavouring even to purify my of those who desire my eternal good, I pass by many gradations, through deli­ intellect by disciplines similar to those berate unfairness, to a spirit of bitter­ enjoined by his own Church for the ness, which desires with a fervour inex­ sanctification of the soul. I tried, more­ over, in my ponderings to realise not pressible in words my eternal ill. Now, only the lawful, but the expedient; and were religion the potent factor, we might to permit no fear to act upon my mind, expect a homogeneous utterance from save that of uttering a single word on those professing a common creed, while, which I could not take my stand, either if human nature be the really potent in this or in any other world. factor, we may expect utterances as Still my time was so brief, the diffi­ heterogeneous as the characters of men. culties arising from my isolated position As a matter of fact, we have the latter; suggesting to my mind that the common were so numerous, and my thought and expression so slow, that, in a literary religion, professed and defended by point of view, I halted, not only behind these different people, is merely the the ideal, but behind the possible. accidental conduit through which they Hence, after the delivery of the Address, pour their own tempers, lofty or low, I went over it with the desire, not to courteous or vulgar, mild or ferocious, as the case may be. Pure abuse, how­ revoke its principles, but to improve it verbally, and above all to remove any ever, as serving no good end, I have, word which might give colour to the wherever possible, deliberately avoided reading, wishing, indeed, to keep, not notion of “ crudeness, hurry, or haste.” In connection with the charge of only hatred, malice, and uncharitable­ Atheism my critic refers to the Preface ness, but even every trace of irritation, to the second issue of the Belfast far away from my side of a discussion Address. “ Christian men,” I there say, which demands not only good-temper, but largeness, clearness, and many-sided­ “are proved by their writings to have their hours of weakness and of doubt, as ness of mind, if it is to guide us to even well as their hours of strength and of provisional solutions. It has been stated, with many varia­ conviction; and men like myself share, in their own way, these variations of tions of note and comment, that in mood and tense. Were the religious the Address as subsequently published moods of many of my assailants the only by Messrs. Longman I have retracted alternative ones, I do not know how opinions uttered at Belfast. A Roman strong the claims of the doctrine of Catholic writer is specially strong upon ‘ Material Atheism ’ upon my allegiance this point. Startled by the deep chorus might be. Probably they would be very of dissent which my “ dazzling fallacies ” strong. But, as it is, I have noticed have evoked, I am now trying to retreat. during years of self-observation that it is This he will by no means tolerate. “ It not in hours of clearness and vigour is too late now to seek to hide from that this doctrine commends itself to my the eyes of mankind one foul blot, one mind; that in the presence of stronger ghastly deformity. Professor Tyndall �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS and healthier thought it ever dissolves and disappears, as offering no solution of the mystery in which we dwell, and of which we form a part.” With reference to this honest and reasonable utterance my censor exclaims: “ This is a most remarkable passage. Much as we dislike seasoning polemics with strong words, we assert that this apology only tends to affix with links of steel, to the name of Professor Tyndall, the dread imputation against which he struggles.” Here we have a very fair example of subjective religious vigour. But my quarrel with such exhibitions is that they do not always represent objective fact. No atheistic reasoning can, I hold, dis­ lodge religion from the human heart. Logic cannot deprive us of life, and religion is life to the religious. As an experience of consciousness it is beyond the assaults of logic. But the religious life is often projected in external forms —I use the word in its widest sense— and this embodiment of the religious sentiment will have to bear more and more, as the world becomes more en­ lightened, the stress of scientific tests. We must be careful of projecting into external nature that which belongs to ourselves. My critic commits this mis­ take : he feels, and takes delight in feeling, that I am struggling, and he obviously experiences the most exquisite pleasures of “the muscular sense” in holding me down. His feelings are as real as if his imagination of what mine are were equally real. His picture of my “ struggles ” is, however, a mere delusion. I do not struggle. I do not fear the charge of Atheism; nor should I even disavow it, in reference to any definition of the Supreme which he, or his order, would be likely to frame. His “ links ” and his “ steel ” and his “dread imputations ” are, therefore, even more unsubstantial than my “streaks of morn­ ing cloud,” and they may be permitted to vanish together. These minor and more purely personal 45 matters at an end, the weightier allegation remains, that at Belfast I misused my position by quitting the domain of science, and making an unjustifiable raid into the domain of theology. This I fail to see. Laying aside abuse, I hope my accusers will consent to reason with me. Is it not lawful for a scientific man to speculate on the antecedents of the solar system ? Did Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel quit their legitimate spheres when they prolonged the intellec­ tual vision beyond the boundary of experience, and propounded the nebular theory ? Accepting that theory as prob­ able, is it not permitted to a scientific man to follow up, in idea, the series of changes associated with the condensation of the nebulae; to picture the successive detachment of planets and moons, and the z relation of all of them to the sun ? If I look upon our earth, with its orbital revolution and axial rotation, as one small issue of the process which made the solar system what it is, will any theo­ logian deny my right to entertain and express this theoretic view ? Time was when a multitude of theologians would have been found to do so—when that arch-enemy of science which now vaunts its tolerance would have made a speedy end of the man who might venture to publish any opinion of the kind. But that time, unless the world is caught strangely slumbering, is for ever past. As regards inorganic nature, then, we may traverse, without let or hindrance, the whole distance which separates the nebulae from the worlds of to-day. But only a few years ago this now conceded ground of science was theological ground. I could by no means regard this as the final and sufficient concession of theo­ logy ; and, at Belfast, I thought it not only my right but my duty to state that, as regards the organic world, we must enjoy the freedom which we have already won in regard to the inorganic. I could not discern the shred of a title-deed which gave any man, or any class of men, the right to open the door of one of these worlds to the scientific searcher and to �46 LECTURES AND ESSA YS close the other against him. And I con­ sidered it frankest, wisest, and in the long run most conducive to permanent peace, to indicate, without evasion or reserve, the ground that belongs to Science, and to which she will assuredly make good her claim. I have been reminded that an eminent predecessor of mine in the Presidential chair expressed a totally different view of the Cause of things from that enunciated by me. In doing so he transgressed the bounds of science at least as much as I did; but nobody raised an outcry against him. The freedom he took I claim. And looking at what I must regard as the extravagances of the religious world; at the very inadequate and foolish notions concerning this universe which are enter­ tained by the majority of our authorised religious teachers; at the waste of energy on the part of good men over things unworthy, if I may say it without dis­ courtesy, of the attention of enlightened heathens ; the fight about the fripperies of Ritualism, and the verbal quibbles of the Athanasian Creed ; the forcing on the public view of Pontigny Pilgrimages ; the dating of historic epochs from the defini­ tion of the Immaculate Conception; the proclamation of the Divine Glories of the Sacred Heart—standing in the midst of these chimeras, which astound all think­ ing men, it did not appear to me extra­ vagant to claim the public tolerance for an hour and a half, for the statement of more reasonable views, views more in accordance with the verities which science has brought to light, and which many weary souls would, I thought, welcome with gratification and relief. But to come to closer quarters. The expression to which the most violent ex­ ception has been taken is this: “ Aban­ doning all disguise, the confession I feel bound to make before you is that I pro­ long the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life.” To call it a “chorus of dissent,” as my Catholic critic does, is a mild way of describing the storm of opprobrium with which this statement has been assailed. But the first blast of passion being past, I hope I may again ask my opponents to consent to reason. First of all, I am blamed for crossing the boundary of the experimental evidence. This, I reply, is the habitual action of the scientific mind—at least of that por­ tion of it which applies itself to physical investigation. Our theories of light, heat, magnetism, and electricity, all imply the crossing of this boundary. My paper on the “ Scientific Use of the Imagination,” and my “Lectures on Light,” illustrate this point in the amplest manner ; and in the article entitled “ Matter and Force ” I have sought, incidentally, to make clear that in physics the experiential incessantly leads to the ultra-experiential; that out of experience there always grows some­ thing finer than mere experience, and that in their different powers of ideal extension consists, for the most part, the difference between the great and the mediocre investigator. The kingdom of science, then, cometh not by observation and experiment alone, but is completed by fixing the roots of observation and experiment in a region inaccessible to both, and in dealing with which we are forced to fall back upon the picturing power of the mind. Passing the boundary of experience, therefore, does not, in the abstract, con­ stitute a sufficient ground for censure. There must have been something in my particular mode of crossing it which pro­ voked this tremendous “chorus of dis­ sent.” Let us calmly reason the point out. I hold the nebular theory as it was held by Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel, and as it is held by the best scientific intellects of to-day. According to it, our sun and planets were once diffused through space as an impalpable haze, out of which, by condensation, came the I solar system. What caused the haze to �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS condense ? Loss of heat. What rounded the sun and planets ? That which rounds a tear—molecular force. For seons, the immensity of which overwhelms man’s conceptions, the earth was unfit to main­ tain what we call life. It is now covered with visible living things. They are not formed of matter different from that of the earth around them. They are, on the contrary, bone of its bone, and flesh of its flesh. How were they introduced? Was life implicated in the nebula—as part, it may be, of a vaster and wholly Unfathomable Life; or is it the work of a Being standing outside the nebula, who fashioned it, and vitalised it; but whose own origin and ways are equally past finding out ? As far as the eye of science has hitherto ranged through nature, no intrusion of purely creative power into any series of phenomena has ever been observed. The assumption of such a power to account for special phenomena, though often made, has always proved a failure. It is opposed to the very spirit of science ; and I there­ fore assumed the responsibility of holding up, in contrast with it, that method of nature which it has been the vocation and triumph of science to disclose, and in the application of which we can alone hope for further light. Holding, then, that the nebulae and the solar system, life included, stand to each other in the relation of the germ to the finished organism, I reaffirm here, not arrogantly or defiantly, but without a shade of indis­ tinctness, the position laid down at Belfast. Not with the vagueness belonging to the emotions, but with the definiteness belonging to the understanding, the scientific man has to put to himself these questions regarding the introduction of life upon the earth. He will be the last to dogmatise upon the subject, for he knows best that certainty is here for the present unattainable. His refusal of the creative hypothesis is less an assertion of knowledge than a protest against the assumption of knowledge which must long, if not for ever, lie beyond us, and 47 the claim to which is the source of per­ petual confusion upon earth. With a mind open to conviction he asks his opponents to show him an authority for the belief they so strenuously and so fiercely uphold. They can do no more than point to the Book of Genesis, or some other portion of the Bible. Pro­ foundly interesting, and indeed pathetic, to me are those attempts of the opening mind of man to appease its hunger for a Cause. But the Book of Genesis has no voice in scientific questions. To the grasp of geology, which it resisted for a time, it at length yielded like potter’s clay; its authority as a system of cosmo­ gony being discredited on all hands by the abandonment of the obvious meaning of its writer. It is a poem, not a scien­ tific treatise. In the former aspect it is for ever beautiful: in the latter aspect it has been, and it will continue to be, purely obstructive and hurtful. To knowledge its value has been negative, leading, in rougher ages than ours, to physical, and even in our own “free” age to moral, violence. No incident connected with the pro­ ceedings at Belfast is more instructive than the deportment of the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland; a body usually too wise to confer notoriety upon an adver­ sary by imprudently denouncing him. The Times, to which I owe a great deal on the score of fair play, where so much has been unfair, thinks that the Irish Cardinal, Archbishops, and Bishops, in a recent manifesto, adroitly employed a weapon which I, at an unlucky moment, placed in their hands. The antecedents of their action cause me to regard it in a different light; and a brief reference to these antecedents will, I think, illu­ minate not only their proceedings regard­ ing Belfast, but other doings which have been recently noised abroad. Before me lies a document bearing the date of November, 1873, which, after appearing for a moment, unaccountably vanished from public view. It is a Memorial addressed by seventy of the �4» LECTURES AND ESSA YS Students and Ex-students of the Catholic University in Ireland to the Episcopal Board of the University ; and it consti­ tutes the plainest and bravest remon­ strance ever addressed by Irish laymen to their spiritual pastors and masters. . It expresses the profoundest dissatisfaction with the curriculum marked out for the students of the University, setting forth the extraordinary fact that the lecture­ list for the faculty of Science, published a month before they wrote, did not contain the name of a single Professor of the Physical or Natural Sciences. The memorialists forcibly deprecate this, and dwell upon the necessity of education in science : “The distinguish­ ing mark of this age is its ardour for science. The natural sciences have, within the last fifty years, become the chiefest study in the world; they are in our time pursued with an activity unparalleled in the history of mankind. Scarce a year now passes without some discovery being made in these sciences which, as with the touch of the magician’s wand, shivers to atoms theories formerly deemed unassailable. It is through the physical and natural sciences that the fiercest assaults are now made on our religion. No more deadly weapon is used against our faith than the facts incontestably proved by modern re­ searches in science.” Such statements must be the reverse of comfortable to a number of gentle­ men who, trained in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, have been accustomed to the unquestioning submission of all other sciences to their divine science of Theology. But this is not all: “ One thing seems certain,” say the memorialists, “ viz., that if chairs for the physical and natural sciences be not soon founded in the Catholic University, very many young men will have their faith exposed to dangers which the creation of a school of science in the University would defend them from. For our generation of Irish Catholics are writhing under the sense of their inferiority in science, and are determined that such inferiority shall not long continue; and so, if scientific training be unattainable at our University, they will seek it at Trinity or at the Queen’s Colleges, in not one of which is there a Catholic Professor of Science.” . Those who imagined the Catholic University at Kensington to be due to the spontaneous recognition, on the part of the Roman hierarchy, of the intel­ lectual needs of the age will derive enlightenment from this, and still more from what follows : for the most formid­ able threat remains. To the picture of Catholic students seceding to Trinity and the Queen’s Colleges the memo­ rialists add this darkest stroke of all: “ They will, in the solitude of their own homes, unaided by any guiding advice, devour the works of Haeckel, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, and Lyell: works in­ nocuous if studied under a professor who would point out the difference between established facts and erroneous inferences, but which are calculated to sap the faith of a solitary student deprived of a discriminating judgment to which he could refer for a solution of his difficulties.” In the light of the knowledge given by this courageous memorial, and of similar knowledge otherwise derived, the recent Catholic manifesto did not at all strike me as a chuckle over the mistake of a maladroit adversary, but rather as an evidence of profound uneasiness on the part of the Cardinal, the Archbishops, and the Bishops who signed it. They acted towards the Students’ Memorial, however, with their accustomed practical wisdom. As one concession to the spirit which it embodied, the Catholic Univer­ sity at Kensington was brought forth, apparently as the effect of spontaneous inward force, and not of outward pressure becoming too formidable to be success­ fully opposed. . The memorialists point with bitterness to the fact that “the name of no Irish Catholic is known in connection with the physical and natural sciences.” But this, they ought to know, is the complaint of free and cultivated minds wherever �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS a Priesthood exercises dominant power. Precisely the same complaint has been made with respect to the Catholics of Germany. The great national litera­ ture and the scientific achievements of that country, in modern times, are almost wholly the work of Protestants. A vanishingly small fraction of it only is derived from members of the Roman Church, although the number of these in Germany is at least as great as that of the Protestants. “ The question arises,” says a writer in an able German periodical, “ what is the cause of a phenomenon so humiliating to the Catholics ? It cannot be referred to want of natural endowment due to climate (for the Protestants of Southern Germany have contributed powerfully to the creations of the German intellect), but purely to outward circum­ stances. And these are readily discovered in the pressure exercised for centuries by the Jesuitical system, which has crushed out of Catholics every tendency to free mental productiveness.” It is, indeed, in Catholic countries that the weight of Ultramontanism has been most severely felt. It is in such countries that the very finest spirits, who have dared, without quitting their faith, to plead for freedom or reform, have suffered extinction. The extinction, however, was more apparent than real, and Hermes, Hirscher, and Gunther, though individually broken and subdued, prepared the way, in Bavaria, for the persecuted but unflinching Frohschammer, for Dollinger, and for the remarkable liberal movement of which Dollinger is the head and guide. Though moulded for centuries to an obedience unparalleled in any other country, except Spain, the Irish intellect is beginning to show signs of indepen­ dence; demanding a diet more suited to its years than the pabulum of the Middle Ages. As for the recent mani­ festo in which Pope, Cardinal, Arch­ bishops, and Bishops are united in one grand anathema, its character and faith are shadowed forth by the Vision of Nebuchadnezzar recorded in the Book of Daniel. It resembles the image 49 whose form was terrible, but the gold, and silver, and brass, and iron of which rested upon feet of clay. And a stone smote the feet of clay ; and the iron, and the brass, and the silver, and the gold, were broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshing-floors, and the wind carried them away. Monsignor Capel has recently been good enough to proclaim at once the friendliness of his Church towards true science, and her right to determine what true science is. Let us dwell for a moment on the proofs of her scientific competence. When Halley’s comet appeared in 1456 it was regarded as the harbinger of God’s vengeance, the dispenser of war, pestilence, and famine, and by order of the Pope the church bells of Europe were rung to scare the monster away. An additional daily prayer was added to the supplications of the faithful. The comet in due time disappeared, and the faithful were com­ forted by the assurance that, as in previous instances relating to eclipses, droughts, and rains, so also as regards this “nefarious” comet, victory had been vouchsafed to the Church. Both Pythagoras and Copernicus had taught the heliocentric doctrine—that the earth revolves round the sun. In the exercise of her right to determine what true science is, the Church, in the Pontificate of Paul V., stepped in and, by the mouth of the Holy Congregation of the Index, delivered, on March 5th, 1616, the following decree :— And whereas it hath also come to the knowledge of the said Holy Congregation that the false Pythagorean doctrine of the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun, entirely opposed to Holy writ, which is taught by Nicolas Copernicus, is now published abroad and received by many. In order that this opinion may not further spread, to the damage of Catholic truth, it is ordered that this and all other books teaching the like doctrine be sus­ pended, and by this decree they are all respec­ tively suspended, forbidden, and condemned. �5o LECTURES AND ESSA YS But why go back to 1456 and 1616 ? Far be it from me to charge bygone sins upon Monsignor Capel, were it not for the practices he upholds to-day. The most applauded dogmatist and champion of the Jesuits is, I am informed, Perrone. No less than thirty editions of a work of his have been scattered abroad for the healing of the nations. His notions of physical astronomy are virtually those of 1456. He teaches boldly that “God does not rule by universal law....... that when God orders a given planet to stand still He does not detract from any law passed by Himself, but orders that planet to move round the sun for such and such a time, then to stand still, and then again to move, as His pleasure may be.” Jesuitism proscribed Frohschammer for questioning its favourite dogma, that every human soul was created by a direct supernatural act of God, and for asserting that man, body and soul, came from his parents. This is the system that now strives for universal power; it is from it, as Monsignor Capel graciously informs us, that we are to learn what is allowable in science, and what is not 1 In the face of such facts, which might be multiplied at will, it requires extra­ ordinary bravery of mind, or a reliance upon public ignorance almost as extra­ ordinary, to make the claims made by Monsignor Capel for his Church. Before me is a very remarkable letter addressed in 18751 by the Bishop of Montpellier to the Deans and Professors of Faculties of Montpellier, in which the writer very clearly lays down the claims of his Church. He had been startled by an incident occurring in a course of lectures on Physiology given by a pro­ fessor, of whose scientific capacity there was no doubt, but who, it was alleged, rightly or wrongly, had made his course the vehicle of materialism. “Je ne me suis point donne,” says the Bishop, “ la mission que je remplis au milieu de 1 The next four paragraphs, as this date indi­ cates, were inserted only in the subsequent reprints.—Ed. vous. ‘ Personne, au temoignage de saint Paul, ne s’attribue & soi-meme un pared honneur; il y faut etre appele de Dieu, comme Aaron.’ Et pourquoi en est-il ainsi ? C’est parce que, selon le meme Apotre, nous devons' etre les ambassadeurs de Dieu; et il n’est pas dans les usages, pas plus qu’il n’est dans la raison et le droit, qu’un envoye s’accredite lui-meme. Mais, si j’ai regu d’En-Haut une mission; si l’Eglise, au nom de Dieu lui-meme, a souscrit mes lettres de creance, me sierait-il de manquer aux instructions qu’elle m’a donnees et d’entendre, en un sens different du sien, le role qu’elle m’a confie ? “ Or, Messieurs, la sainte Eglise se croit investie du droit absolu d’enseigner les hommes; elle se croit depositaire de la verite, non pas de la verite fragmentaire, incomplete, melee de certitude et d’hesitation, mais de la verite totale, complete, au point de vue religieux. Bien plus, elle est si sfire de l’infaillibilite que son Fondateur divin lui a communiquee, comme la dot magnifique de leur indissoluble alliance, que, meme dans l’ordre naturel, - scientifique ou philosGphique, moral ou politique, elle n’admet pas qu’un systeme puisse etre soutenu et adopte par des chretiens, s’il contredit a des dogmes definis. Elle considere que la negation volontaire et opiniatre d’un seul point de sa doctrine rend coupable du peche d’heresie; et elle pense que toute heresie formelie, si on ne la rejette pas courageusement avant de paraitre devant Dieu, entraine avec soi la perte certaine de la grace et de l’eternite.” The Bishop recalls those whom he addresses from the false philosophy of the present to the philosophy of the past, and foresees the triumph of the latter. “Avant que le dix-neuvieme siecle s’acheve, la vieille philosophic scolastique aura repris sa place dans la juste admiration du monde. Il lui faudra pourtant bien du temps pour guerir les maux de tout genre, causes par son indigne rivale; et pendant de longues annees encore, ce nom de philosophic le �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS plus grand de la langue humaine apres celui de religion, sera suspect aux ames qui se souviendront de la science impie et materialiste de Locke, de Condillac ou d’Helvetius. L’heure actuelle est aux sciences naturelies : c’est maintenant l’instrument de combat contre l’Eglise et contre toute foi religieuse. Nous ne les redoutons pas.” Further on the Bishop warns his readers that everything can be abused. Poetry is good, but in excess it “ Les may injure practical conduct. mathematiques sont excellentes : et B ossuet les a louees ‘ comme etant ce qui sert le plus a la justesse du raisonnement ’; mais si on s’accoutume exclusivement a leur methode, rien de ce qui appartient a l’ordre moral ne parait plus pouvoir etre demontre ; et Fenelon a pu parler de rensorcellement et des attraits diaboliques de la geometrie.” The learned Bishop thus finally accen­ tuates the claims of the Church:— “ Comme le definissait le Pape Leon X, au cinquieme concile cecumenique de Latran, ‘ Le vrai ne peut pas etre contraire a lui-meme : par consequent, toute asser­ tion contraire a une verite de foi revelee est necessairement et absolument fausse.’ Il suit de la que, sans entrer dans l’examen scientifique de telle ou telle question de physiologie, mais par la seule certitude de nos dogmes, nous pouvons juger du sort de telle ou telle hypothese, qui est une machine de guerre anti-chretienne plutot qu’une conquete serieuse sur les secrets et les mysteres de la nature......... C’est un dogme que l’homme a ete forme et fagonne des mains de Dieu. Done il est faux, heretique, contraire a la dignite du Createur et offensant pour son chef-d’oeuvre, de dire que l’homme constitue la sepiieme espece des singes. ....... Heresie encore de dire que le genre humain n’est pas sorti d’un seul couple, et qu’on y peut compter jusqu’a douze races distinctes 1” The course of life upon earth, as far as Science can see, has been one of amelioration—a steady advance on the whole from the lower to the higher. The Si continued effort of animated nature is to improve its condition and raise itself to a loftier level. In man improvement and amelioration depend largely upon the growth of conscious knowledge, by which the errors of ignorance are con­ tinually moulted, and truth is organised. It is the advance of knowledge that has given a materialistic colour to the philo­ sophy of this age. Materialism is there­ fore not a thing to be mourned over, but to be honestly considered—accepted if it be wholly true, rejected if it be wholly false, wisely sifted and turned to account if it embrace a mixture of truth and error. Of late years the study of the nervous system, and its relation to thought and feeling, have profoundly occupied inquiring minds. It is our duty not to shirk—it ought rather to be our privilege to accept—the established results of such inquiries, for here assur­ edly our ultimate weal depends upon our loyalty to the truth. Instructed as to the control which the nervous system exer­ cises over man’s moral and intellectual nature, we shall be better prepared, not only to mend their manifold defects, but also to strengthen and purify both. Is mind degraded by this recognition of its dependence ? Assuredly not. Matter, on the contrary, is raised to the level it ought to occupy, and from which timid ignorance would remove it. But the light is dawning, and it will become stronger as time goes on. Even the Brighton “Church Congress” affords evidence of this. From the manifold confusions of that assemblage my memory has rescued two items, which it would fain preserve : the recognition of a relation between Health and Religion, and the address of the Rev. Harry Jones. Out of the conflict of vanities his words emerge wholesome and strong, because undrugged by dogma, coming directly from the warm brain of one who knows what practical truth means, and who has faith in its vitality and inherent power of propagation. I wonder whether he is less effectual in his ministry than his more embroidered colleagues ? It surely �52 LECTURES AND ESSA YS behoves our teachers to come to some definite understanding as to this question of health; to see how, by inattention to it, we are defrauded, negatively and positively : negatively, by the privation of that “ sweetness and light ” which is the natural concomitant of good health; positively, by the insertion into life of cynicism, ill-temper, and a thousand corroding anxieties which good health would dissipate. We fear and scorn “ materialism.” But he who knew all about it, and could apply his knowledge, might become the preacher of a new gospel. Not, however, through the ecstatic moments of the individual does such knowledge come, but through the revelations of science, in connection with the history of mankind. Why should the Roman Catholic Church call gluttony a mortal sin ? Why should fasting occupy a place in the dis­ ciplines of religion ? What is the mean­ ing of Luther’s advice to the young clergyman who came to him, perplexed with the difficulties of predestination and election, if it be not that, in virtue of its action upon the brain, when wisely applied, there is moral and religious virtue even in a hydro-carbon ? To use the old language, food and drink are creatures of God, and have therefore a spiritual value. Through our neglect of the monitions of a reasonable materialism we sin and suffer daily. I might here point to the train of deadly disorders over which science has given modern society such control—disclosing the lair of the material enemy, ensuring his destruction, and thus preventing that moral squalor and hopelessness which habitually tread on the heels of epidemics in the case of the poor. Rising to higher spheres, the visions of Swedenborg, and the ecstasy of Plotinus and Porphyry, are phases of that psychical condition, obviously con­ nected with the nervous system and state of health, on which is based the Vedic doctrine of the absorption of the indi­ vidual into the universal soul. Plotinus taught the devout how to pass into a condition of ecstasy. Porphyry com­ plains of having been only once united to God in eighty-six years, while his master Plotinus had been so united six times in sixty years.1 A friend who knew Wordsworth informs me that the poet, in some of his moods, was accus­ tomed to seize hold of an external object to assure himself of his own bodily exist­ ence. As states of consciousness such phenomena have an undisputed reality and a substantial identity ; but they are connected with the most»heterogeneous objective conceptions. The subjective experiences are similar, because of the similarity of the underlying organisations. But for those who wish to look beyond the practical facts there will always remain ample room for speculation. Take the argument of the Lucretian in­ troduced in the Belfast Address. As far as I am aware, not one of my assailants has attempted to answer it. Some of them, indeed, rejoice over the ability displayed by Bishop Butler in rolling back the difficulty on his oppo­ nent ; and they even imagine that it is the Bishop’s own argument that is there employed. But the raising of- a new difficulty does not abolish—does not even lessen—the old one, and the argu­ ment of the Lucretian remains untouched by anything the Bishop has said or can say. And here it may be permitted me to add a word to an important controversy now going on: and which turns on the question: Do states of consciousness enter as links into the chain of ante­ cedence and sequence, which give rise to bodily actions, and to other states of consciousness; or are they merely by­ products, which are not essential to the physical processes going on in the brain ? Speaking for myself, it is certain that I have no power of imagining states of * I recommend to the reader’s particular attention Dr. Draper’s important work entitled History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (Messrs. H. S. King and Co.). �APOLOGY FOR THE BELFAST ADDRESS consciousness, interposed between the molecules of the brain, and influencing the transference of motion among the molecules. The thought “ eludes all mental presentation and hence the logic seems of iron strength which claims for the brain an automatic action, unin­ fluenced by states of consciousness. But it is, I believe, admitted by those who hold the automaton-theory, that states of consciousness are produced by the marshalling of the molecules of the brain : and this production of conscious­ ness by molecular motion is to me quite as inconceivable on mechanical princi­ ples as the production of molecular motion by consciousness. If, therefore, I reject one result, I must reject both. I, however, reject neither, and thus stand in the presence of two Incomprehensibles, instead of one Incomprehensible. While accepting fearlessly the facts of mate­ rialism dwelt upon in these pages, I bow my head in the dust before that mystery of mind which has hitherto defied its own penetrative power, and which may ultimately resolve itself into a demon­ strable impossibility of self-penetration. But the secret is an open one—the practical monitions are plain enough, which declare that on our dealings with matter depend our weal and woe, phy­ sical and moral. The state of mind which rebels against the recognition of the claims of “ materialism” is not un­ known to me. I can remember a time when I regarded my body as a weed, so much more highly did I prize the 53 conscious strength and pleasure derived from moral and religious feeling—which, I may add, was mine without the inter­ vention of dogma. The error was not an ignoble one, but this did not save it from the penalty attached to error. Saner knowledge taught me that the body is no weed, and that, treated as such, it would infallibly avenge itself. Am I personally lowered by this change of front ? Not so. Give me their health, and there is no spiritual experience of those earlier years—no resolve of duty, or work of mercy, no work of self­ renouncement, no solemnity of thought, no joy in the life and aspects of nature —that would not still be mine; and this without the least reference or regard to any purely personal reward or punish­ ment looming in the future. And now I have to utter a “ farewell ” free from bitterness to all my readers ; thanking my friends for a sympathy more steadfast, I would fain believe, if less noisy, than the antipathy of my foes; and commending to these a passage from Bishop Butler, which they have either not read or failed to lay to heart. “ It seems,” saith the Bishop, “that men would be strangely headstrong and selfwilled, and disposed to exert themselves with an impetuosity which would render society insupportable, and the living in it impracticable, were it not for some acquired moderation and self-govern­ ment, some aptitude and readiness in restraining themselves, and concealing their sense of things.” �54 LECTURES AND ESSA YS SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM1 1868 The celebrated Fichte, in his lectures on the “Vocation of the Scholar,” insisted on a culture which should be not one­ sided, but all-sided. The scholar’s in­ tellect was to expand spherically, and not in a single direction only. In one direction, however, Fichte required that the scholar should apply himself directly to nature, become a creator of know­ ledge, and thus repay, by original labours of his own, the immense debt he owed to the labours of others. It was these which enabled him to supplement the knowledge derived from his own re­ searches, so as to render his culture rounded and not one-sided. As regards science, Fichte’s idea is to some extent illustrated by the constitu­ tion and labours of the British Associa­ tion. We have here a body of men engaged in the pursuit of Natural Know­ ledge, but variously engaged. While sympathising with each of its departments, and supplementing his culture by know­ ledge drawn from all of them, each student amongst us selects one subject for the exercise of his own original faculty —one line, along which he may carry the light of his private intelligence a little way into the darkness by which all knowledge is surrounded. Thus, the geologist deals with the rocks; the biolo­ gist with the conditions and phenomena of life; the astronomer with stellar masses and motions ; the mathematician with the relations of space and number; the chemist pursues his atoms ; while the physical investigator has his own large field in optical, thermal, electrical, acoustical, and other phenomena. The British Association then, as a whole, faces physical nature on all sides, and pushes knowledge centrifugally outwards, the sum of its labours constituting what Fichte might call the sphere of natural knowledge. In the meetings of the Association it is found necessary to resolve this sphere into its component parts, which take concrete form under the respective letters of our Sections. Mathematics and Physics have been long accustomed to coalesce, and here they form a single section. No matter how subtle a natural phenomenon may be, whether we observe it in the region of sense or follow it into that of imagination, it is in the long run reducible to mechanical laws. But the mechanical data once guessed or given, mathematics are all-powerful as an instrument of deduction. The command of Geometry over the relations of space, and the farreaching power which Analysis confers, are potent both as means of physical discovery and of reaping the entire fruits of discovery. Indeed, without mathe­ matics, expressed or implied, our know­ ledge of physical science would be both friable and incomplete. Side by side with the mathematical method we have the method of experi­ ment. Here, from a starting-point fur­ nished by his own researches or those of others, the investigator proceeds _ by combining intuition and verification. He ponders the knowledge he possesses, and tries to push it further; he guesses, and checks his guess; he conjectures, and confirms or explodes his conjecture. These guesses and conjectures are by no means leaps in the dark; for knowledge once gained casts a faint light beyond its own immediate boundaries. There is no discovery so limited as not to 1 President’s Address to the Mathematical and Physical Section of the British Association at Norwich. �SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM 55 illuminate something beyond itself. The relationship to each other. When this force of intellectual penetration into this is done, we find that the observed penumbral region which surrounds actual motion of the hands follows of necessity knowledge is not, as some seem to think, from the inner mechanism of the watch dependent upon method, but upon the when acted upon by the force invested genius of the investigator. There is, in the spring. The motion of the hands however, no genius so gifted as not to may be called a phenomenon of art, but need control and verification. The prothe case is similar with the phenomena foundest minds know best that Nature’s of nature. These also have their inner ways are not at all times their ways, and mechanism and their store of force to that the brightest flashes in the world of set that mechanism going. The ultimate thought are incomplete until they have problem of physical science is to reveal been proved to have their counterparts this mechanism, to discern this store, in the world of fact. Thus the vocation and to show that, from the combined of the true experimentalist may be action of both, the phenomena of which defined as the continued exercise of they constitute the basis must, of neces­ spiritual insight, and its incessant cor­ sity, flow. rection and realisation. His experiments I thought an attempt to give you even constitute a body, of which his purified a brief and sketchy illustration of the intuitions are, as it were, the soul. manner in which scientific thinkers Partly through mathematical and regard this problem would not be un­ partly through experimental research, interesting to you on the present occa­ physical science has, of late years, sion ; more especially as it will give me assumed a momentous position in the occasion to say a word or two on the world. Both in a material and in an tendencies and limits of modern science; intellectual point of view it has produced, to point out the region which men of and it is destined to produce, immense science claim as their own, and where it changes—vast social ameliorations, and is futile to oppose their advance; and vast alterations in the popular conception also to define, if possible, the bourne of the origin, rule, and governance of between this and that other region to natural things. By science, in the which the questionings and yearnings of physical world, miracles are wrought, the scientific intellect are directed in vain. while philosophy is forsaking its ancient But here your tolerance will be needed. metaphysical channels, and pursuing It was the American Emerson, I think, others which have been opened or who said that it is hardly possible to state indicated by scientific research. This any truth strongly, without apparent in­ must become more and more the case as justice to some other truth. Truth is philosophical writers become more deeply often of a dual character, taking the form imbued with the methods of science, of a magnet with two poles; and many better acquainted with the facts which of the differences which agitate the think­ scientific men have established, and with ing part of mankind are to be traced to the great theories which they have elabo­ the exclusiveness with which partisan rated. reasoners dwell upon one half of the I f you look at the face of a watch, you duality, in forgetfulness of the other. see the hour and minute-hands, and The proper course appears to be to state possibly also a second-hand, moving both halves strongly, and allow each its over the graduated dial. Why do these fair share in the formation of the resul­ hands move; and why are their relative tant conviction. But this waiting for the motions such as they are observed to be? statement of the two sides of a question These questions cannot be answered implies patience. It implies a resolution without opening the watch, mastering its to suppress indignation, if the statement various parts, and ascertaining their of the one half should clash with our �56 LECTURES AND ESSA YS convictions, and to repress equally undue elation, if the half-statement should happen to chime in with our views. It implies a determination to wait calmly for the statement of the whole before we pronounce judgment in the form of either acquiescence or dissent. This premised, and I trust accepted, let us enter upon our task. There have been writers who affirmed that the Pyra­ mids of Egypt were natural productions; and in his early youth Alexander von Humboldt wrote a learned essay with the express object of refuting this notion. We now regard the pyramids as the work of men’s hands, aided probably by machinery of which no record remains. We picture to ourselves the swarming workers toiling at those vast erections, lifting the inert stones, and, guided by the volition, the skill, and possibly _ at times by the whip of the architect, placing them in their proper positions. The blocks, in this case, were moved and posited by a power external to them­ selves, and the final form of the pyramid expressed the thought of its human builder. Let us pass from this illustration of constructive power to another of a dif­ ferent kind. When a solution of common salt is slowly evaporated, the water which holds the salt in solution disappears, but the salt itself remains behind. At a certain stage of concentration the salt can no longer retain the liquid form; its particles, or molecules, as they are called, begin to deposit themselves as minute solids—so minute, indeed, as to defy all microscopic power. As evaporation con­ tinues, solidification goes on, and we finally obtain, through the clustering together of innumerable molecules, a finite crystalline mass of a definite form. What is this form ? It sometimes seems a mimicry of the architecture of Egypt. We have little pyramids built by the salt, terrace above terrace from base to apex, forming a series of steps resembling those up which the traveller in Egypt is dragged by his guides. The human mind is as little disposed to look without question­ ing at these pyramidal salt-crystals as to look at the pyramids of Egypt, without inquiring whence they came. How, then, are those salt-pyramids built up ? Guided by analogy, you may, if you like, suppose that, swarming among the constituent molecules of the salt, there is an invisible population, controlled and coerced by some invisible master, placing the atomic blocks in their positions. This, however, is not the scientific idea, nor do I think your good sense will accept it as a likely one. The scientific idea is that the molecules act upon each other without the intervention of slave labour; that they attract each other, and repel each other, at certain definite points or poles, and in certain definite directions ; and that the pyramidal form is the result of this play of attraction and repulsion. While, then, the blocks of Egypt were laid down by a power external to themselves, these molecular blocks of salt are self-posited, being fixed in their places by the inherent forces with which they act upon each other. I take common salt as an illustration, because it is so familiar to us all; but any other crystalline substance would answer my purpose equally well. Every­ where, in fact, throughout inorganic nature, we have this formative power, as Fichte would call it—this structural energy ready to come into play, and build the ultimate particles of matter into definite shapes. The ice of our winters and of our polar regions is its handiwork, and so also are the quartz, felspar, and mica of our rocks. Our chalk-beds are for the most part composed of minute shells, which are also the pro­ duct of structural energy; but behind the shell, as a whole, lies a more remote and subtle formative act. These shells are built up of little crystals of calc-spar, and, to form these crystals, the structural force had to deal with the intangible molecules of carbonate of line. This tendency on the part of matter to organise itself, to grow into shape, to assume defi­ nite forms in obedience to the definite action of force, is, as I have said, all- �SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM pervading. It is in the ground on which you tread, in the water you drink, in the air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests itself throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature. The forms of the minerals resulting from this play of polar forces are various, and exhibit different degrees of com­ plexity. Men of science avail themselves of all possible means of exploring their molecular architecture. For this purpose they employ in turn, as agents of explora­ tion, light, heat, magnetism, electricity, and sound. Polarised light is especially useful and powerful here. A beam of such light, when sent in among the molecules of a crystal, is acted on by them, and from this action we infer with more or less clearness the manner in which the molecules are arranged. That differences, for example, exist between the inner structure of rock-salt and that of crystallised sugar or sugar-candy is thus strikingly revealed. These actions often display themselves in chromatic phenomena of great splendour, the play of molecular force being so regulated as to cause the removal of some of the coloured constituents of white light, while others are left with increased intensity behind. And now let us pass from what we are accustomed to regard as a dead mineral, to a living grain of corn. When this is examined by polarised light, chromatic phenomena similar to those noticed in crystals are observed. And why? Because the architecture of the grain resembles that of the crystal. In the grain also the molecules are set in definite positions, and in accordance with their arrangement they act upon the light. But what has built together the molecules of the corn ? Regarding crystalline architecture, I have already said that you may, if you please, consider the atoms and molecules to be placed in position by a Power external to them­ selves. The same hypothesis is open to you now. But if in the case of crystals you have rejected this notion of an external architect, I think you are bound 57 to reject it in the case of the grain, and to conclude that the molecules of the corn, also, are posited by the forces with which they act upon each other. It would be poor philosophy to invoke an external agent in the one case, and to reject it in the other. Instead of cutting our grain of corn into slices and subjecting it to the action of polarised light, let us place it in the earth, and subject it to a certain degree of warmth. In other words, let the molecules, both of the corn and of the surrounding earth, be kept in that state of agitation which we call heat. Under these circumstances, the grain and the substances which surround it interact, and a definite molecular architecture is the result. A bud is formed; this bud reaches the surface, where it is exposed to the sun’s rays, which are also to be regarded as a kind of vibratory motion. And as the motion of common heat, with which the grain and the substances surrounding it were first endowed, enabled the grain and these substances to exer­ cise their mutual attractions and repul­ sions, and thus to coalesce in definite forms, so the specific motion of the sun’s rays now enables the green bud to feed upon the carbonic acid and the aqueous vapour of the air. The bud appropriates those constituents of both for which it has an elective attraction, and permits the other constituent to return to the atmosphere. Thus the architecture is carried on. Forces are active at the root, forces are active in the blade, the matter of the air and the matter of the atmosphere are drawn upon, and the plant augments in size. We have in succession the stalk, the ear, the full corn in the ear; the cycle of molecular action being completed by the produc­ tion of grains similar to that with which the process began. Now there is nothing in this process which necessarily eludes the conceptive or imagining power of the human mind. An intellect the same in kind as our own would, if only sufficiently expanded, be able to follow the whole process from �§8 LECTURES AND ESSA YS beginning to end. It would see every molecule placed in its position by the specific attractions and repulsions exerted between it and other molecules, the whole process, and its consummation, being an instance of the play of molecular force. Given the grain and its environ­ ment, with their respective forces, the purely human intellect might, if suffi­ ciently expanded, trace out a priori every step of the process of growth, and, by the application of purely mechanical principles, demonstrate that the cycle must end, as it is seen to end, in the reproduction of forms like that with which it began. A necessity rules here, similar to that which rules the planets in their circuits round the sun. You will notice that I am stating the truth strongly, as at the beginning we agreed it should be stated. But I must go still further, and affirm that in the eye of science the animal body is just as much the product of molecular force as the chalk and the ear of corn, or as the crystal of salt or sugar. Many of the parts of the body are obviously mechanical. Take the human heart, for example, with its system of valves, or take the exquisite mechanism of the eye or hand. Animal heat, moreover, is the same in kind as the heat of a fire, being produced by the same chemical process. Animal motion, too, is as cer­ tainly derived from the food of the animal as the motion of Trevethyck’s walking-engine from the fuel in its fur­ nace. As regards matter, the animal body creates nothing; as regards force, it creates nothing. Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? All that has been said, then, regarding the plant may be restated with regard to the animal. Every particle that enters into the composition of a nerve, a muscle, or a bone has been placed in its position by molecular force. And unless the existence of law in these matters be denied, and the element of caprice introduced, we must conclude that, given the relation of any molecule of the body to its environment, its posi­ tion in the body might be determined mathematically. Our difficulty is not with the quality of the problem, but with its complexity ; and this difficulty might be met by the simple expansion of the faculties we now possess. Given this expansion, with the necessary molecular data, and the chick might be deduced as rigorously and as logically from the egg as the existence of Neptune from the disturbances of Uranus, or as conical refraction from the undulatory theory of light. You see I am not mincing matters, but avowing nakedly what many scientific thinkers more or less distinctly believe. The formation of a crystal, a plant, or an animal is, in their eyes, a purely mechanical problem, which differs from the problems of ordinary mechanics in the smallness of the masses, and the complexity of the processes involved. Here you have one half of our dual truth; let us now glance at the other half. Associated with this wonderful mechanism of the animal body we have phenomena no less certain than those of physics, but between which and the mechanism we discern no necessary con­ nection. A man, for example, can say “I feel,” “I think,” “I love”; but how does consciousness infuse itself into the problem ? The human brain is said to be the organ of thought and feeling: when we are hurt, the brain feels it; when we ponder, or when our passions or affections are excited, it is through the instrumentality of the brain. Let us endeavour to be a little more precise here. I hardly imagine there exists a profound scientific thinker, who has reflected upon the subject, unwilling to admit the extreme probability of the hypothesis, that for every fact of con­ sciousness, whether in the domain of sense, thought, or emotion, a definite molecular condition, of motion or struc­ ture, is set up in the brain; or who would be disposed even to deny that, if the motion, or structure, be induced by internal causes instead of external, the effect on consciousness will be the same? �SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM Let any nerve, for example, be thrown by morbid action into the precise state of motion which would be communicated to it by the pulses of a heated body, surely that nerve will declare itself hot— the mind will accept the subjective inti­ mation exactly as if it were objective. The retina may be excited by purely mechanical means. A blow on the eye causes a luminous flash, and the mere pressure of the finger on the external ball produces a star of light, which Newton compared to the circles on a peacock’s tail. Disease makes people see visions and dream dreams; but, in all such cases, could we examine the organs implicated, we should, on philo­ sophical grounds, expect to find them in that precise molecular condition which the real objects, if present, would super­ induce. The relation of physics to conscious­ ness being thus invariable, it follows that, given the state of the brain, the corres­ ponding thought or feeling might be inferred : or, given the thought or feel­ ing, the corresponding state of the brain might be inferred. But how inferred ? It would be at bottom not a case of logical inference at all, but of empi­ rical association. You may reply that many of the inferences of science are of this character—the inference, for ex­ ample, that an electric current, of a given direction, will deflect a magnetic needle in a definite way. But the cases differ in this, that the passage from the current to the needle, if not demonstrable, is conceivable, and that we entertain no doubt as to the final mechanical solution of the problem. But the passage from the physics of the brain to the corre­ sponding facts of consciousness is in­ conceivable as a result of mechanics. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass, by a process of reason­ ing, from the one to the other. They appear together, but we do not know why. 59 Were our minds and senses so expanded, strengthened, and illuminated, as to enable us to see and feel the very mole­ cules of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their groupings, all their electric discharges, if such there be; and were we intimately acquainted with the corresponding states of thought and feeling ; we should be as far as ever from the solution of the prob­ lem, “How are these physical processes connected with the facts of conscious­ ness ?” The chasm between the two classes of phenomena would still remain intellectually impassable. Let the con­ sciousness of love, for example, be asso­ ciated with a right-handed spiral motion of the molecules of the brain, and the consciousness of hate with a left-handed spiral motion. We should then know, when we love, that the motion is in one direction, and, when we hate, that the motion is in the other; but the “ why ?” would remain as unanswerable as before. In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the brain, I think the position of the “ Materialist ” is stated, as far as that position is a tenable one. I think the materialist will be able finally to maintain this position against all attacks; but I do not think, in the present condi­ tion of the human mind, that he can pass beyond this position. I do not think he is entitled to say that his molecular groupings and motions explain every­ thing. In reality they explain nothing. The utmost he can affirm is the associa­ tion of two classes of phenomena, of whose real bond of union he is in abso­ lute ignorance. The problem of the con­ nection of body and soul is as insoluble in its modern form as it was in the prescientific ages. Phosphorus is known to enter into the composition of the human brain, and a trenchant German writer has exclaimed, “ Ohne Phosphor, kein Gedanke !” That may or may not be the case; but even if we knew it to be the case, the knowledge would not lighten our darkness. On both sides of the zone �6o LECTURES AND ESSA YS here assigned to the materialist he is equally helpless. If you ask him whence is this “ Matter ” of which we have been discoursing, who or what divided it into molecules, who or what impressed upon them this necessity of running into organic forms, he has no answer. Science is mute in reply to these questions. But if the materialist is confounded and science rendered dumb, who else is pre­ pared with a solution? To whom has this arm of the Lord been revealed? Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our ignorance, priest and philosopher, one and all. Perhaps the mystery may resolve itself into knowledge at some future day. The process of things upon this earth has been one of amelioration. It is a long way from the Iguanodon and his contem­ poraries to the President and Members of the British Association. And whether we regard the improvement from the scientific or from the theological point of view—as the result of progressive deve­ lopment, or of successive exhibitions of creative energy—neither view entitles us to assume that man’s present faculties end the series, that the process of amelioration ends with him. A time may therefore come when this ultra-scien­ tific region, by which we are now enfolded, may offer itself to terrestrial, if not to human, investigation. Two-thirds of the rays emitted by the sun fail to arouse the sense of vision. The rays exist, but the visual organ requisite for their translation into light does not exist. And so, from this region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, rays may now be darting, which require but the development of the proper intellectual organs to translate them into knowledge as far surpassing ours as ours surpasses that of the wallowing reptiles which once held possession of this planet. Mean­ while the mystery is not without its uses. It certainly may be made a power in the human soul; but it is a power which has feeling, not knowledge, for its base. It may be, will be, and I hope is turned to account, both in steadying and strengthen­ ing the intellect, and in rescuing man from that littleness to which, in the struggle for existence, or for precedence in the world, he is continally prone. Musings on the Matterhorn^ July 2ytht 1868. Hacked and hurt by time, the aspect of the mountain from its higher crags saddened me. Hitherto the impression it made was that of savage strength; here we had inexorable decay. But this notion of decay implied a reference to a period when the Matterhorn was in the full strength of mountainhood. Thought naturally ran back to its remoter origin and sculpture. Nor did thought halt there, but wandered on through molten worlds to that nebulous haze which philosophers have regarded, and with good reason, as the proximate source of all material things. I tried to look at this universal cloud, containing within itself the prediction of all that has since occurred; I tried to imagine it as the seat of those forces whose action was to issue in solar and stellar systems, and all that they involve. Did that formless fog contain potentially the sadness with which I regarded the Matterhorn ? Did the thought which now ran back to it simply return to its primeval home ? If so, had we not better recast our defini­ tions of matter and force; for, if life and thought be the very flower of both, any definition which omits life and thought must be inadequate, if not untrue. Are questions like these warranted? Why not ? If the final goal of man has not been yet attained; if his development has not been yet arrested, who can say that such yearnings and questionings are not necessary to the opening of a finer vision, to the budding and the growth of diviner powers ? When I look at the heavens and the earth, at my own body, at my strength and weakness, even at these ponderings, and ask myself, I§ �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION there no being or thing in the universe that knows more about these matters than I do; what is my answer ? Suppos­ ing our theologic schemes of creation, condemnation, and redemption to be dissipated; and the warmth of denial which they excite, and which, as a motive force, can match the warmth of affirma­ tion, dissipated at the same time ; would the undeflected human mind return to 61 the meridian of absolute neutrality as regards these ultra-physical questions? Is such a position one of stable equi­ librium ? The channels of thought being already formed, such are the questions, without replies, which could run athwart consciousness during a ten minutes’ halt upon the weathered crest of the Matter­ horn. SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION1 “Lastly, physical investigation, more than anything besides, helps to teach us the actual value and right use of the Imagination—of that wondrous faculty which, left to ramble uncontrolled, leads us astray into a wilderness ofperplexities and errors, a land of mists and shadows ; but which, properly controlled by experience and reflection, becomes the noblest attribute of man ; the source ofpoetic genius, the instrument of discovery in Science, without the aid of which Newton would never have invented fluxions, nor Davy have decomposed the earths and alkalies, nor would Columbus have found another Continent.”—Address to the Royal Society by its President, Sir Benjamin Brodie, Nov. 30th, 1859. I carried with me to the Alps this year the burden of this evening’s work. Save from memory I had no direct aid upon the mountains; but to spur up the emotions, on which so much depends, as well as to nourish indirectly the intellect and will, I took with me four works, comprising two volumes of poetry, Goethe’s Farbenlehre, and the work on Logic recently published by Mr. Alex­ ander Bain. In Goethe, so noble other­ wise, I chiefly noticed the self-inflicted hurts of genius, as it broke itself in vain against the philosophy of Newton. Mr. Bain I found, for the most part, learned and practical, shining generally with a dry light, but exhibiting at times a flush of emotional strength, which proved that even logicians share the common fire of humanity. He interested me most when he became the mirror of my own condi­ tion. Neither intellectually nor socially is it good for man to be alone, and the sorrows of thought are more patiently borne when we find that they have been experienced by another. From certain passages in his book I could infer that Mr. Bain was no stranger to such sorrows. Speaking, for example, of the ebb of intellectual force, which we all from time to time experience, Mr. Bain says: “The uncertainty where to look for the next opening of discovery brings the pain of conflict and debility of in­ decision.” These words have in them the true ring of personal experience. The action of the investigator is periodic. He grapples with a subject of inquiry, wrestles with it, and exhausts, it may be, both himself and it for the time being. He breathes a space, and then renews the struggle in another field. Now this period of halting between two investi­ gations is not always one of pure repose. It is often a period of doubt and dis­ comfort—of gloom and ennui. “ The uncertainty where to look for the next opening of discovery brings the pain of * Discourse delivered before the British Association at Liverpool, September 16th, 1870. �62 LECTURES AND ESSA YS conflict and the debility of indecision.” It was under such conditions that I had to equip myself for the hour and the ordeal that are now come. The disciplines of common life are, in great part, exercises in the relations of space, or in the mental grouping of bodies in space; and by such exercises the public mind is, to some extent, prepared for the reception of physical conceptions. Assuming this preparation on your part, the wish gradually grew within me to trace, and to enable you to trace, some of the more occult features and operations of Light and Colour. I wished, if possible, to take you. beyond the boundary of mere observation, into a region where things are intellectually discerned, and to show you there the hidden mechanism of optical action. But how are those hidden things to be revealed? Philosophers may be right in affirming that we cannot transcend experience: we can, at all events, carry it a long way from its origin. We can magnify, diminish, qualify, and combine experiences, so as to render them fit for purposes entirely new. In explaining sensible phenomena, we habitually form mental images of the ultra-sensible. There are Tories even in science who regard Imagination as a faculty to be feared and avoided rather than employed. They have observed its action in weak vessels, and are unduly impressed by its disasters. But they might with equal justice point to exploded boilers as an argument against the use of steam. With accurate experiment and observa­ tion to work upon, Imagination becomes the architect of physical theory. Newton’s passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was an act of the prepared imagina­ tion, without which the “laws of Kepler could never have been traced to their foundations. Out of the facts of chemistry the constructive imagination of Dalton formed the atomic . theory. Davy was richly endowed with the imaginative faculty, while with Faraday its exercise was incessant, preceding, accompanying, and guiding all his experi­ ments. His strength and fertility as a discoverer is to be referred in great part to the stimulus of his imagination. Scientific men fight shy of the word because of its ultra-scientific connota­ tions ; but the fact is that without the exercise of this power our knowledge of nature would be a mere tabulation of co-existences and sequences. We should still believe in the succession of day and night, of summer and winter; but the conception of Force would vanish from our universe; causal relations would disappear, and with them that science which is now binding the parts of nature to an organic whole. I should like to illustrate by a few simple instances the use that scientific men have already made of this power of imagination, and to indicate afterwards some of the further uses that they are likely to make of it. Let us begin with the rudimentary experiences. Observe the falling of heavy rain-drops into a tranquil pond. Each drop as it strikes the water becomes a centre of distur­ bance, from which a series of ring-ripples expand outwards. Gravity and inertia are the agents by which this wave-motion is produced, and a rough experiment will suffice to show that the rate of propagation does not amount to a foot a second. A series of slight mechanical shocks is experienced by a body plunged in the water, as the wavelets reach it in succession. But a finer motion is at the same time set up and propagated. If the head and ears be immersed in the water, as in an experiment of Franklin’s, the tick of the drop is heard. Now, this sonorous impulse is propagated, not at the rate of a foot, but at the rate of 4,700 feet a second. In this case it is not the gravity but the elasticity of the water that comes into play. . Every liquid particle pushed against its neighbour delivers up its motion with extreme rapidity, and the pulse is. propagated as a thrill. The incompressibility of water, as illustrated by the famous Florentine experiment, is a measure of its elasticity ; �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION and to the possession of this property, in so high a degree, the rapid trans­ mission of a sound-pulse through water is to be ascribed. But water, as you know, is not neces­ sary to the conduction of sound; air is its most common vehicle. And you know that when the air possesses the particular density and elasticity corre­ sponding to the temperature of freezing water, the velocity of sound in it is 1,090 feet a second. It is almost exactly one-fourth of the velocity in water; the reason being that, though the greater weight of the water tends to diminish the velocity, the enormous molecular elasticity of the liquid far more than atones for the disadvantage due to weight. By various contrivances we can compel the vibrations of the air to declare them­ selves; we know the length and fre­ quency of the sonorous waves, and we have also obtained great mastery over the various methods by which the air is thrown into vibration. We know the phenomena and laws of vibrating rods, of organ-pipes, strings, membranes, plates, and bells. We can abolish one sound by another. We know the physical meaning of music and noise, of harmony and discord. In short, as regards sound in general, we have a very clear notion of the external physical processes which correspond to our sensations. In the phenomena of sound, we travel a very little way from downright sensible experience. Still the imagination is to some extent exercised. The bodily eye, for example, cannot see the condensations and rarefactions of the waves of sound. We construct them in thought, and we believe as firmly in their existence as in that of the air itself. But now our experience is to be carried into a new region, where a new use is to be made of it. Having mastered the cause and mechanism of sound, we desire to know the cause and mechanism of light. We wish to extend our inquiries from the auditory to the optic nerve. There is in the human intellect a power of expan­ sion—I might almost call it a power of 63 creation—which is brought into play by the simple brooding upon facts. The legend of the spirit brooding over chaos may have originated in experience of this power. In the case now before us it has 'manifested itself by transplanting into space, for the purposes of light, an adequately modified form of the mecha­ nism of sound. We know intimately whereon the velocity of sound depends. When we lessen the density of the aerial medium, and preserve its elasticity constant, we augment the velocity. When we heighten the elasticity and keep the density constant we also augment the velocity. A small density, therefore, and a great elasticity, are the two things necessary to rapid propagation. Now light is known to move with the astound­ ing velocity of 186,000 miles a second. How is such a velocity to be obtained ? By boldly diffusing in space a medium of the requisite tenuity and elasticity. Let us make such a medium our starting-point, and, endowing it with one or two other necessary qualities, let us handle it in accordance with strict mechanical laws. Let us then carry our results from the world of theory into the world of sense, and see whether our deductions do not issue in the very phenomena of light which ordinary knowledge and skilled experiment reveal. If in all the multiplied varieties of these phenomena, including those of the most remote and entangled description, this fundamental conception always brings us face to face with the truth; if no con­ tradiction to our deductions from it be found in external nature, but on all sides agreement and verification; if, more­ over, as in the case of Conical Refraction and in other cases, it actually forces upon our attention phenomena which no eye had previously seen, and which no mind had previously imagined—such a conception must, we think, be some­ thing more than a mere figment of the scientific fancy. In forming it, that composite and creative power, in which reason and imagination are united, has, we believe, led us into a world not less �64 LECTURES AND ESSA YS real than that of the senses, and of which the world of sense itself is the suggestion and, to a great extent, the outcome. Far be it from me, however, to wish to fix you immovably in this or in any other theoretic conception. With all our belief of it, it will be well to keep the theory of a luminiferous ether plastic and capable of change. You may, moreover, urge that, although the phe­ nomena occur as if the. medium existed, the absolute demonstration of its exist­ ence is still wanting. Far be it from me to deny to this reasoning such validity as it may fairly claim. Let us endeavour by means of analogy to form a fair estimate of its force. You believe that in society you are surrounded by reason­ able beings like yourself. You are, perhaps, as firmly convinced of this as of anything. What is your warrant for this conviction ? Simply and solely this: your fellow-creatures behave as if they were reasonable; the hypothesis, for it is nothing more, accounts for the facts. To take an eminent example : you believe that our President is a reasonable being. Why? There is no known method of superposition by which any one of us can apply himself intellectually to any other, so as to demonstrate coincidence as regards the possession of reason, If, therefore, you hold our President to be reasonable, it is because he behaves as if he were reasonable. As in the case of the ether, beyond the “ as if” you can­ not go. Nay, I should not wonder if a close comparison of the data on which both inferences rest caused many re­ spectable persons to conclude that the ether had the best of it. This universal medium, this light-ether as it is called, is the vehicle, not the origin, of wave-motion. It receives and transmits, but it does not create. Whence does it derive the motions it conveys ? For the most part from luminous bodies. By the motion of a luminous body I do not mean its sensible motion, such, as the flicker of a candle, or the shooting out of red prominences from the limb of the sun. I mean an intestine motion of the atoms or molecules of the lumin­ ous body. But here a certain reserve is necessary. Many chemists of the pre­ sent day refuse to speak of atoms and molecules as real things. Their caution leads them to stop short of the clear, sharp, mechanically intelligible atomic theory enunciated by Dalton, or any form of that theory, and to make the doctrine of “ multiple proportions ” their intellectual bourne. I respect the caution, though I think it is here mis­ placed. The chemists who recoil from these notions of atoms and molecules accept, without hesitation, the Undulatory Theory of Light. Like you and me, they one and all believe in an e ther and its light-producing waves. Let us consider what this belief involves. Bring your imaginations once more into play, and figure a series of sound-waves passing through air. Follow them up to their origin, and what do you there find ? A definite, tangible, vibrating body. It may be the vocal chords of a human being, it may be an organ-pipe, or it may be a stretched string. Follow in the same manner a train of ether-waves to their source, remembering at the same time that your ether is matter, dense, elastic, and capable of motions subject to, and determined by, mechanical laws. What then do you expect to find as the source of a series of ether-waves ? Ask your imagination if it will accept a vibrating multiple proportion—a numerical ratio in a state of oscillation ? I do not think it will. You cannot crown the edifice with this abstraction. The scientific imagination, which is here authoritative, demands, as the origin and cause of a series of ether-waves, a particle of vibrat­ ing matter quite as definite, though it may be excessively minute, as that which gives origin to a musical sound. Such a particle we name an atom or a molecule. I think the intellect, when focussed so as to give definition without penumbral haze, is sure to realise this image at the last. With the view of preserving thought �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION continuous throughout this discourse, and of preventing either failure of know­ ledge or of memory from causing any rent in our picture, I here propose to run rapidly over a bit of ground which is probably familiar to most of you, but which I am anxious to make familiar to you all. The waves generated in the ether by the swinging atoms of luminous bodies are of different lengths and ampli­ tudes. The amplitude is the width of swing of the individual particles of the waves. In water-waves it is the vertical height of the crest above the trough, while the length of the wave is the hori­ zontal distance between two consecutive crests. The aggregate of waves emitted by the sun may be broadly divided into two classes: the one class competent, the other incompetent, to excite vision. But the light-producing waves differ markedly among themselves in size, form, and force. The length of the largest of these waves is about twice that of the smallest, but the amplitude of the largest is probably a hundred times that of the smallest. Now the force or energy of the wave, which, expressed with reference to sensation, means the intensity of the light, is proportional to the square of the amplitude. Hence the amplitude being one-hundred-fold, the energy of the largest light-giving waves would be tenthousand-fold that of the smallest. This is not improbable. I use these figures not with a view to numerical accuracy, but to give you definite ideas of the dif­ ferences that probably exist among the light-giving waves. And if we take the whole range of solar radiation into account—its non-visual as well as its visual waves—I think it probable that the force, or energy, of the largest wave is more than a million times that of the smallest. Turned into their equivalents of sensa­ tion, the different light-waves produce different colours. Red, for example, is produced by the largest waves, violet by the smallest, while green is produced by a wave of intermediate length and ampli­ tude. On entering from air into a more 65 highly refracting substance, such as glass or water, or the sulphide of carbon, all the waves are retarded, but the smallest ones most. This furnishes a means of separating the different classes of waves from each other; in other words, of analysing the light. Sent through a re­ fracting prism, the waves of the sun are turned aside in different degrees from their direct course, the red least, the violet most. They are virtually pulled asunder, and they paint upon a white screen placed to receive them “ the solar spectrum.” Strictly speaking, the spec­ trum embraces an infinity of colours ; but the limits of language, and of our powers of distinction, cause it to be divided into seven segments: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. These are the seven primary or prismatic colours. Separately, or mixed in various pro­ portions, the solar waves yield all the colours observed in nature and employed in art. Collectively, they give us the impression of whiteness. Pure unsifted solar light is white ; and, if all the wave­ constituents of such light be reduced in the same proportion, the light, though diminished in intensity, will still be white. The whiteness of snow with the sun shining upon it is barely tolerable to the eye. The same snow under an overcast firmament is still white. Such a firma­ ment enfeebles the light by reflecting it upwards : and when we stand above a cloud-field—on an Alpine summit, for instance, or on the top of Snowdon— and see, in the proper direction, the sun shining on the clouds below us, they appear dazzlingly white. Ordinary clouds, in fact, divide the solar light impinging on them into two parts—a reflected part and a transmitted part—in each of which the proportions of wave-motion which produce the impression of whiteness are sensibly preserved. It will be understood that the con­ dition of whiteness would fail if all the waves were diminished equally, or by the same absolute quantity. They must be reduced proportionately, instead of equally. If by the act of reflection the c �66 LECTURES AND ESSA YS waves of red light are split into exact halves, then, to preserve the light white, the waves of yellow, orange, green, and blue must also be split into exact halves. In short, the reduction must take place, not by absolutely equal quantities, but by equal fractional parts. In white light the preponderance, as regards energy, of the larger over the smaller waves must always be immense. Were the case otherwise, the visual correlative, blue, of the smaller waves would have the upper hand in our sensations. Not only are the waves of ether re­ flected by clouds, by solids, and . by liquids, but when they pass from light air to dense, or from dense, air to light, a portion of the wave-motion is always reflected. Now, our atmosphere changes continually in density from top to bottom. It will help our conception if we regard it as made up of a series of thin con­ centric layers, or shells of air, each shell being of the same density throughout, a small and sudden change of density occurring in passing from shell to shell. Light would be reflected at the limiting surfaces of all these shells, and their action would be practically the same as that of the real atmosphere. And now I would ask your imagination to picture this act of reflection. What must become of the reflected light ? The atmospheric layers turn their convex surfaces towards the sun; they are so many convex mirrors of feeble power; and you will immediately perceive that the light regu­ larly reflected from these surfaces cannot reach the earth at all, but is dispersed in space. Light thus reflected cannot, there­ fore, be the light of the sky.. But, though the sun’s light is not reflected in this fashion from the aerial layers to the earth, there is indubitable evidence to show that the light of our firmament is scattered light. Proofs of the most cogent description could be here adduced; but we need only con­ sider that we receive light at . the same time from all parts of the hemisphere of heaven. The light of the firmament comes to us across the direction of the solar rays, and even against the direction of the solar rays ; and this lateral and opposing rush of wave-motion can only be due to the rebound of the waves from the air itself, or from something sus­ pended in the air. It is also evident that, unlike the action of clouds, the solar light is not reflected by the sky. in the proportions which produce white. The sky is blue, which indicates an excess of the shorter waves. In account­ ing for the colour of the sky, the first question suggested by analogy would undoubtedly be, Is not the air blue? The blueness of the air has, in fact, been given as a solution of the blueness of the sky. But how, if the air be blue, can the light of sunrise and sunset, which travels through vast distances of air, be yellow, orange, or even red ? The passage of white solar light through, a blue medium could by no possibility redden the light. The hypothesis of a blue air is therefore untenable. In fact, the agent, whatever it is, which sends us the light of the sky, exercises in. so doing a dichroitic action. The light reflected is blue, the light transmitted is orange or red. A marked distinction is thus exhibited between the matter of the sky and that of an ordinary cloud, which exercises no such dichroitic action. By the scientific use of the imagina­ tion we may hope to penetrate this mystery. The cloud takes no note of size on the part of the waves of ether, but reflects them all alike. It exercises no selective action. Now, the cause of this may be that the cloud particles are so large, in comparison with, the waves of ether, as to reflect them all indifferently. A broad cliff reflects an Atlantic roller as easily as a ripple produced by a sea-bird s wing; and in the presence of large reflecting surfaces the existing differences of magnitude among the waves of ether may disappear. But supposing the re­ flecting particles, instead of being very large, to be very small in comparison with the size of the waves. In this case, instead of the whole wave being fronted and thrown back, a small portion only is �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION shivered off. The great mass of the wave passes over such a particle without reflection. Scatter, then, a handful of such minute foreign particles in our atmosphere, and set imagination to watch their action upon the solar waves. Waves of all sizes impinge upon the particles, and you see at every collision a portion of the impinging wave struck off; all the waves of the spectrum, from the extreme red to the extreme violet, being thus acted upon. Remembering that the red waves stand to the blue much in the relation of billows to ripples, we have to consider whether those extremely small particles are competent to scatter all the waves in the same proportion. If they be not— and a little reflection will make it clear that they are not—the production of colour must be an incident of the scatter­ ing. Largeness is a thing of relation; and the smaller the wave, the greater is the relative size of any particle on which the wave impinges, and the greater also the ratio of the portion scattered to the total wave. A pebble, placed in the way of the ring-ripples produced by heavy rain-drops on a tranquil pond, will scatter a large fraction of each ripple, while the fractional part of a larger wave thrown back by the same pebble might be infinitesimal. Now we have already made it clear to our minds that, to preserve the solar light white, its con­ stituent proportions must not be altered; but in the act of division performed by these very small particles the proportions are altered; an undue fraction of the smaller waves is scattered by the particles, and, as a consequence, in the scattered light blue will be the predominant colour. The other colours of the spectrum must, to some extent, be associated with the blue. They are not absent, but deficient. We ought, in fact, to have them all, but in diminishing proportions, from the violet to the red. We have here presented a case to the imagination, and, assuming the undulatory theory to be a reality, we have, I think, fairly reasoned our way to the conclusion, that were particles, small in comparison to the sizes of the ether waves, sown in our atmosphere, the light scattered by those particles would be exactly such as we observe in our azure skies. When this light is analysed, all the colours of the spectrum are found, and they are found in the proportions indicated by our conclusion. Blue is not the sole, but it is the predominant colour. Let us now turn our attention to the light which passes unscattered among the particles. How must it be finally affected ? By its successive collisions with the particles the white light is more and more robbed of its shorter waves; it therefore loses more and more of its due proportion of blue. The result may be anticipated. The transmitted light, where short distances are involved, will appear yellowish. But as the sun sinks towards the horizon the atmospheric distances increase, and consequently the number of the scattering particles. They abstract in succession the violet, the indigo, the blue, and even disturb the pro­ portions of green. The transmitted light under such circumstances must pass from yellow through orange to red. This also is exactly what we find in nature. Thus, while the reflected light gives us at noon the deep azure of the Alpine skies, the transmitted light gives us at sunset the warm crimson of the Alpine snows. The phenomena certainly occur as if our atmosphere were a medium rendered slightly turbid by the mecha­ nical suspension of exceedingly small foreign particles. Here, as before, we encounter our sceptical “as if." It is one of the parasites of science, ever at hand, and ready to plant itself and sprout, if it can, on the weak points of our philosophy. But a strong constitution defies the parasite, and in our case, as we question the phenomena, probability grows like growing health, until in the end the malady of doubt is completely extirpated, fl he first question that naturally arises is this: Can small particles be really proved �68 LECTURES AND ESSA YS to act in the manner indicated? No doubt of it. Each one of you can submit the question to an experimental test. Water will not dissolve resin, but spirit will dissolve it; and when spirit holding resin in solution is dropped into water, the resin immediately separates in solid particles, which render the water milky. The coarseness of this precipitate depends on the quantity of the dissolved resin. You can cause it to separate either in thick clots or in exceedingly fine particles. Professor Briicke has given us the proportions which produce particles particularly suited to our present purpose. One gramme of clean mastic is dissolved in eighty-seven grammes of absolute alcohol, and the transparent solution is allowed to drop into a beaker containing clear water, kept briskly stirred. An exceedingly fine precipitate is thus formed, which declares its pre­ sence by its action upon light. Placing a dark surface behind the beaker, and permitting the light to fall into it from the top or front, the medium is seen to be distinctly blue. It is not perhaps so perfect a blue as may be seen on excep­ tional days among the Alps, but it is. a very fair sky-blue. A trace of soap in water gives a tint of blue. London, and I fear Liverpool, milk makes an approxi­ mation to the same colour, through the operation of the same cause; and Helm­ holtz has irreverently disclosed the fact that the deepest blue eye is simply a turbid medium. The action of turbid media upon light was illustrated by Goethe, who, though unacquainted with the undulatory theory, was led by his experiments to regard the firmament as an illuminated turbid medium, with the darkness of space behind it. He describes glasses showing a bright yellow by transmitted, and a beautiful blue by reflected, light. Pro­ fessor Stokes, who was probably the first to discern the real nature of the action of small particles on the waves of ether,1 1 This is inferred from conversation. I am describes a glass of a similar kind.’ Capital specimens of such glass are to be found at Salviati’s, in St. James’s Street. What artists call “ chill ” is no doubt an effect of this description. Through the action of minute particles, the browns of a picture often present the appearance of the bloom of a plum. By rubbing the varnish with a silk hand­ kerchief optical continuity is established and the chill disappears. Some years ago I witnessed Mr. Hirst experimenting at Zermatt on the turbid water of the Visp. When kept still for a day or so, the grosser matter sank, but the finer particles remained suspended, and gave a distinctly blue tinge to the water. The blueness of certain Alpine lakes has been shown to be in part due to this cause. Professor Roscoe has noticed several striking cases of a similar kind. In a very remarkable paper the late Principal Forbes showed that steam issuing from the safety-valve of a locomo­ tive, when favourably observed, exhibits at a certain stage of its condensation the colours of the sky. It is blue by reflected light, and orange or red by transmitted light. The same effect, as pointed out by Goethe, is to some extent exhibited by peat-smoke. More than ten years ago, I amused . myself by observing, on a calm day at Killarney, the straight smoke-columns rising from the cabin-chimneys. It was easy to project the lower portion of a column against a dark pine, and its upper portion against a bright cloud. The smoke in the former case was blue, being seen mainly by reflected light; in the latter case it was reddish, being seen mainly by trans­ mitted light. Such smoke was not in not aware that Professor Stokes has published anything upon the subject. 1 This glass, by reflected light, had a colour “strongly resembling that of a decoction o horse-chesnut bark.” Curiously enough, Goethe refers to this very decoction : ^'Ianr) ne^me einen Streifen frischer Rinde von der Rosskastanie, man stecke denselben in ein Gias Wasser, und in der kurzesten Zeit werden wir das vollkommenste Himmelblau entstehen sehen. —Goethe s Werke, B. xxix., p. 24. �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION exactly the condition to give us the glow of the Alps, but it was a step in this direction. Briicke’s fine precipitate, above referred to, looks yellowish by transmitted light; but, by duly strengthening the precipitate, you may render the white light of noon as ruby-coloured as the sun, when seen through Liverpool smoke or upon Alpine horizons. I do not, however, point to the gross smoke arising from coal as an illustration of the action of small particles, because such smoke soon absorbs and destroys the waves of blue, instead of sending them to the eyes of the observer. These multifarious facts, and number­ less others which cannot now be referred to, are explained by reference to the single principle, that, where the scatter­ ing particles are small in comparison to the ethereal waves, we have in the reflected light a greater proportion of the smaller waves, and in the trans­ mitted light a greater proportion of the larger waves, than existed in the original white light. The consequence, as regards sensation, is that in the one case blue is predominant, and in the other orange or red. Our best microscopes can readily reveal objects not more than s^Loth of an inch in diameter. This is less than the length of a wave of red light. Indeed, a first-rate microscope would enable us to discern objects not exceeding in diameter the length of the smallest waves of the visible spectrum.1 By the microscope, therefore, we can test our particles. If they be as large as the light-waves, they will infallibly be seen; and if they be not so seen, it is because they are smaller. Some months ago I placed in the hands of our Presi­ dent a liquid containing Briicke’s pre­ cipitate. The liquid was milky blue, and Mr. Huxley applied to it his highest microscopic power. He satisfied me that, had particles of even nrsWath of an inch in diameter existed in the liquid, 1 Dallinger and Drysdale have recently measured cilia -^Ars^th of an inch in diameter. 1878. 69 they could not have escaped detection. But no particles were seen. Under the microscope the turbid liquid was not to be distinguished from distilled water.1 But we have it in our power to imitate, far more closely than we have hitherto done, the natural conditions of this prob­ lem. We can generate, in air, artificial skies, and prove their perfect identity with the natural one, as regards the exhi­ bition of a number of wholly unexpected phenomena. By a continuous process of growth, moreover, we are able to connect sky-matter, if I may use the term, with molecular matter on the one side, and with molar matter, or matter in sensible masses, on the other. In illustration ot this, I will take an experiment suggested by some of my own researches, and described by M. Morren of Marseilles at the Exeter meeting of the British Asso­ ciation. Sulphur and oxygen combine to form sulphurous acid gas, two atoms of oxygen and one of sulphur constitut­ ing the molecule of sulphurous acid. It has been recently shown that waves of ether issuing from a strong source, such as the sun or the electric light, are com­ petent to shake asunder the atoms of gaseous molecules.2 A chemist would call this “ decomposition ” by light; but it behoves us, who are examining the power and function of the imagination, to keep constantly before us the physical images which underlie our terms. There­ fore I say, sharply and definitely, that the components of the molecules of sulphurous acid are shaken asunder by the ether-waves. Enclosing sulphurous acid in a suitable vessel, placing it in a dark room, and sending through it a powerful beam of light, we at first see nothing : the vessel containing the gas seems as empty as a vacuum. Soon, 1 Like Dr. Burdon Sanderson’s “ pyrogen/' the particles of mastic passed, without sensible hindrance, through filtering-paper. By such filtering no freedom from suspended particles is secured. The application of a condensed beam to the filtrate renders this at once evident. 2 See article on “New Chemical Reactions Produced by Light,"Fragments of Science, vol. i. �70 LECTURES AND ESSA YS however, along the track of the beam a beautiful sky-blue colour is observed, which is due to light scattered by the liberated particles of sulphur. For a time the blue grows more intense; it then becomes whitish, and ends in a more or less perfect white. When the action is continued long enough, the tube is filled with a dense cloud of sul­ phur particles, which by the application of proper means may be rendered indi­ vidually visible.1 Here, then, our ether-waves untie the bond of chemical affinity, and liberate a body—sulphur—which at ordinary tem­ peratures is a solid, and which therefore soon becomes an object of the senses. We have first of all the free atoms of sulphur, which are incompetent to stir the retina sensibly with scattered light. But these atoms gradually coalesce and form particles, which grow larger by con­ tinual accretion, until after a minute or two they appear as sky-matter.. In this condition they are individually invisible; but collectively they send an amount of wave-motion to the retina, sufficient to produce the firmamental blue. The particles continue, or may be caused to continue, in this condition for a con­ siderable time, during which no micro­ scope can cope with them. But they grow slowly larger, and pass by in­ sensible gradations into the state of cloud, when they can no longer elude the armed eye. Thus, without solution of con­ tinuity, we start with matter in the atom, and end with matter in the mass ; sky­ matter being the middle term of the series of transformations. Instead of sulphurous acid, we might choose a dozen other substances, and produce the same effect with all of them. In the case of some—probably in the case of all—it is possible to preserve * M. Morren was mistaken in supposing that & modicum of sulphurous acid, in the drying tubes, had any share in the production of the “ actinic clouds” described by me. A beautiful case of molecular instability in the presence of light is furnished by peroxide of chlorine, as proved by Professor Dewar. 1878. matter in the firmamental condition for fifteen or twenty minutes under the con­ tinual operation of the light. During these fifteen or twenty minutes the particles constantly grow larger, without ever exceeding the size requisite to the production of the celestial blue. Now, when two vessels are placed before us, each containing sky-matter, it is possible to state with great distinctness which vessel contains the largest particles. The eye is very sensitive to differences of light, when, as in our experiments, it is placed in comparative darkness, and the wave-motion thrown against the retina is small. The larger particles declare themselves by the greater white­ ness of their scattered light. Call now to mind the observation, or effort at observation, made by our President, when he failed to distinguish the particles of mastic in Briicke’s medium, and when you have done this, please follow me. A beam of light is permitted to act upon a certain vapour. In two minutes the azure appears, but at the end of fifteen minutes it has not ceased to be azure. After fifteen minutes its colour, and some other phenomena, pronounce it to be a blue of distinctly smaller particles than those sought for in vain by Mr. Huxley. These particles, as already stated, must have been less than nroVoth of an inch in diameter. And now I want you to consider the following question : Here are particles which have been growing continually for fifteen minutes, and at the end of that time are demonstrably smaller than those which defied the microscope of Mr. Huxley— What must have been the size of these particles at the beginning of their growth I What notion can you form of the magnitude of such particles ? The distances of stellar space give us simply a bewildering, sense of vastness, without leaving any distinct impression on the mind; and the mag­ nitudes with \yhich we have here to. do, bewilder us equally in the opposite direc­ tion. We are dealing with infinitesimals, compared with which the test objects of the microscope are literally immense. �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION Small in mass, the vastness in point of number of the particles of our sky may be inferred from the continuity of its light. It is not in broken patches, nor at scat­ tered points, that the heavenly azure is revealed. To the observer on the summit of Mont Blanc, the blue is as uniform and coherent as if it formed the surface of the most close-grained solid. A marble dome would not exhibit a stricter continuity. And Mr. Glaisher will inform you that, if our hypothetical shell were lifted to twice the height of Mont Blanc above the earth’s surface, we should still have the azure overhead. By day this light quenches the stars; even by moonlight it is able to exclude from vision all stars between the fifth and the eleventh magnitude. It may be likened to a noise, and the feebler stellar radiance to a whisper drowned by the noise. What is the nature of the particles which shed this light ? The celebrated De la Rive ascribes the haze of the Alps in fine weather to floating organic germs. Now the possible existence of germs in such profusion has been held up as an absurdity. It has been affirmed that they would darken the air, and on the assumed impossibility of their existence in the requisite numbers, without invasion of the solar light, an apparently powerful argument has been based by believers in spontaneous generation. Similar argu­ ments have been used by the opponents of the germ theory of epidemic disease, who have triumphantly challenged an appeal to the microscope and the chemist’s balance to decide the question. Such arguments, however, are founded on a defective acquaintance with the powers and properties of matter. Without committing myself in the least to De la Rive’s notion, to the doctrine of spon­ taneous generation, or to the germ theory of disease, I would simply draw attention to the demonstrable fact, that in the atmosphere we have particles which defy both the microscope and the balance, which do not darken the air, and which exist, nevertheless, in multitudes suffi­ 7i cient to reduce to insignificance the Israelitish hyperbole regarding the sands upon the sea-shore. The varying judgments of men on these and other questions may perhaps be, to some extent, accounted for by that doctrine of Relativity which plays so im­ portant a part in philosophy. This doc­ trine affirms that the impressions made upon us by any circumstance, or com­ bination of circumstances, depend upon our previous state. Two travellers upon the same height, the one having ascended to it from the plain, the other having descended to it from a higher elevation, will be differently affected by the scene around them. To the one nature is expanding, to the other it is contracting; and impressions which have two such different antecedent states are sure to differ. In our scientific judgments the law of relativity may also play an impor­ tant part. To two men, one educated in the school of the senses, having mainly occupied himself with observation; the other educated in the school of imagina­ tion as well, and exercised in the con­ ceptions of atoms and molecules to which we have so frequently referred, a bit of matter, say yvfonrth of an inch in dia­ meter, will present itself differently. The one descends to it from his molar heights, the other climbs to it from his molecular lowlands. To the one it appears small, to the other large. So, also, as regards the appreciation of the most minute forms of life revealed by the microscope. To one of the men these naturally appear conterminous with the ultimate particles of matter; there is but a step from the atom to the organism. The other discerns numberless organic gradations between both. Compared with his atoms, the smallest vibrios and bacteria of the microscopic field are as behemoth and leviathan. The law of relativity may to some extent explain the different atti­ tudes of two such persons with regard to the question of spontaneous generation. An amount of evidence which satisfies the one entirely fails to satisfy the other; �72 LECTURES AND ESSA FS and while to the one the last bold defence and startling expansion of the doctrine by Dr. Bastian will appear perfectly con­ clusive, to the other it will present itself as merely imposing a labour of demo­ lition on subsequent investigators.1 Let me say here that many of our physiological observers appear to form a very inadequate estimate of the distance which separates the microscopic from the molecular limit, and that, as a con­ sequence, they sometimes employ a phraseology calculated to mislead. When, for example, the contents of a cell are described as perfectly homogeneous or as absolutely structureless, because the microscope fails to discover any struc­ ture; or when two structures are pro­ nounced to be without difference, because the microscope can discover none, then, I think, the microscope begins to play a mischievous part. A little consideration will make it plain that the microscope can have no voice in the question of germ structure. Distilled water is more perfectly homogeneous than any possible organic germ. What is it that causes the liquid to cease contracting at 39° Fahr., and to expand until it freezes? We have here a structural process of which the microscope can take no note, nor is it likely to do so by any con­ ceivable extension of its powers. Place distilled water in the field of an electro­ magnet, and bring a microscope to bear upon it. Will any change be observed when the magnet is excited ? Absolutely none ; and, still, profound and complex changes have occurred. First of all, the particles of water have been rendered diamagnetically polar; and secondly, in virtue of the structure impressed upon it by the magnetic whirl of its. molecules, the liquid twists a ray of light in a fashion perfectly determinate both as to quantity and direction. Have the diamond, the amethyst, and the countless other crystals formed in 1 When these words were uttered I did not imagine that the chief labour of demolition would fall upon myself. 1878. the laboratories of nature and of man no structure ? Assuredly they have ; but what can the microscope make of it? Nothing. It cannot be too distinctly borne in mind that between the micro­ scopic limit and the true molecular limit there is room for infinite permutations and combinations. It is in this region that the poles of the atoms are arranged, that tendency is given to their powers; so that when these poles and powers have free action, proper stimulus, and a suitable environment, they determine, first the germ, and afterwards the com­ plete organism. This first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope. When duly pondered, the complexity of the problem raises the doubt, not of the power of our instrument, for that is but whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will . ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature.1 In more senses than one Mr. Darwin has drawn heavily upon the scientific tolerance of his age. He has drawn heavily upon time in his development of species, and he has drawn adventurously upon matter in his theory of pangenesis. According to this theory, a germ, already microscopic, is a world of minor germs. Not only is the organism as a whole wrapped up in the germ, but every organ of the organism has there its special seed. This, I say, is an adventurous draft on the power of matter to divide itself and distribute its forces. But, unless we are perfectly sure that he is overstepping the bounds of reason, that he is unwittingly 1 “ In using the expression, ‘ one sort of living substance,’ I must guard against being supposed to mean that any kind of living protoplasm is homogeneous. Hyaline though it may appear, we are not at present able to assign any limit to its complexity of structure.”—Burd on Sanderson, in the British Medical Journal., January 16th, 1875. We have here scientific insight, and its correlative caution. In tact, Dr. Sanderson’s important researches are a continued illustration of the position laid down above. �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION sinning against observed fact or demon­ strated law—for a mind like that of Darwin can never sin wittingly against either fact or law—we ought, I think, to be cautious in limiting his intellectual horizon. If there be the least doubt in the matter, it ought to be given in favour of the freedom of such a mind. To it a vast possibility is in itself a dynamic power, though the possibility may never be drawn upon. It gives me pleasure to' think that the facts and reasonings of this discourse tend rather towards the justification of Mr. Darwin than towards his condemnation; for they seem to show the perfect competence of matter and force, as regards divisibility and distribu­ tion, to bear the heaviest strain that he has hitherto imposed upon them. In the case of Mr. Darwin, observa­ tion, imagination, and reason combined have run back with wonderful sagacity and success over a certain length of the line of biological succession. Guided by analogy, in his Origin of Species he placed at the root of life a primordial germ, from which he conceived the amazing variety of the organisms now upon the earth’s surface might be deduced. If this hypo­ thesis were even true, it would not be final. The human mind would infallibly look behind the germ, and, however hopeless the attempt, would inquire into the history of its genesis. In this dim twilight of conjecture the searcher wel­ comes every gleam, and seeks to augment his light by indirect incidences. He studies the methods of nature in the ages and the worlds within his reach, in order to shape the course of speculation in antecedent ages and worlds. And though the certainty possessed by experi­ mental inquiry is here shut out, we are not left entirely without guidance. From the examination of the solar system, Kant and Laplace came to the conclusion that its various bodies once formed parts of the same undislocated mass; that matter in a nebulous form preceded matter in its present form ; that, as the ages rolled away, heat was wasted, condensation followed, planets were detached; and 73 that finally the chief portion of the hot cloud reached, by self-compression, the magnitude and density of our sun. The earth itself offers evidence of a fiery origin; and in our day the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace receives the indepen­ dent countenance of spectrum analysis, which proves the same substances to be common to the earth and sun. Accepting some such view of the con­ struction of our system as probable, a desire immediately arises to connect the present life of our planet with the past. We wish to know something of our remotest ancestry. On its first detach­ ment from the central mass, life, as we understand it, could not have been present on the earth. How, then, did it come there ? The thing to be encou­ raged here is a reverent freedom—a free­ dom preceded by the hard discipline which checks licentiousness in specula­ tion—while the thing to be repressed, both in science and out of it, is dog­ matism. And here I am in the hands of the meeting—willing to end, but ready to go on. I have no right to intrude upon you. unasked, the unformed notions which are floating like clouds, or gather­ ing to more solid consistency, in the modern speculative scientific mind. But if you wish me to speak plainly, honestly, and undisputatiously, I am willing to do so. On the present occasion— “ You are ordained to call, and I to come.” Well, your answer is given, and I obey your call. Two or three years ago, in an ancient London College, I listened to a discus­ sion at the end of a lecture by a very remarkable man. Three or four hundred clergymen were present at the lecture. The orator began with the civilisation of Egypt in the time of Joseph; pointing out the very perfect organisation of the kingdom, and the possession of chariots, in one of which Joseph rode, as proving a long antecedent period of civilisation. He then passed on to the mud of the Nile, its rate of augmentation, its present thickness, and the remains of human �74 LECTURES AND ESSA YS handiwork found therein : thence to the rocks which bound the Nile valley, and which teem with organic remains. Thus in his own clear way he caused the idea of the world’s age to expand itself indefi­ nitely before the minds of his audience, and he contrasted this with the age usually assigned to the world. During his discourse he seemed to be swimming against a stream ; he manifestly thought that he was opposing a general convic­ tion. He expected resistance in the subsequent discussion; so did I. But it was all a mistake; there was no adverse current, no opposing conviction, no resistance; merely here and there a half-humorous but unsuccessful attempt to entangle him in his talk. The meeting agreed with all that had been said regarding the antiquity of the earth and of its life. They had, indeed, known it all long ago, and they rallied the lecturer for coming among them with so stale a story. It was quite plain that this large body of clergymen, who were, I should say, to be ranked among the finest samples of their class, had entirely given up the ancient landmarks, and trans­ ported the conception of life’s origin to an indefinitely distant past. ■ This leads us to the gist of our present inquiry, which is this : Does life belong to what we call matter, or is it an inde­ pendent principle inserted into matter at some suitable epoch—say when the j hysical conditions became such as to permit of the development of life ? Let us put the question with the reverence due to a faith and culture in which we all were cradled, and which are the undeniable historic antecedents of our present enlightenment. I say, let us put the question reverently, but let us also put it clearly and definitely. There are the strongest grounds for believing that during a certain period of its history the earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the theatre of life. Whether this was ever a nebulous period, or merely a molten period, does not signify much ; and if we revert to the nebulous condition, it is because the probabilities are really on its side. Our question is this : Did creative energy pause until the nebulous matter had condensed, until the earth had been detached, until the solar fire had so far withdrawn from the earth’s vicinity as to permit a crust to gather round the planet ? Did it wait until the air was isolated ; until the seas were formed; until evaporation, condensation, and the descent of rain had begun; until the eroding forces of the atmosphere had weathered and decomposed the molten rocks so as to form soils; until the sun’s rays had become so tempered by» distance, and by waste, as to be chemically fit for the decomposition necessary to vegetable life ? Having waited through these seons until the proper conditions had set in, did it send the fiat forth, “ Let there be Life! ”? These questions define a hypothesis not without its difficulties, but the dignity of which in relation to the world’s know­ ledge was demonstrated by the nobleness of the men whom it sustained. Modern scientific thought is called upon to decide between this hypothesis and another; and public thought gene­ rally will afterwards be called upon to do the same. But, however the convic­ tions of individuals here and there may be influenced, the process must be slow and secular which commends the hypo­ thesis of Natural Evolution to the public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful mecha­ nism of the human body, but that the human mind itself—emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena—were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refutation. But the hypothesis would probably go even farther than this. Many who hold it would probably assent to the position that, at the present moment, all our philosophy, all our poetry, all our science, and all our art— �SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, and Raphael —are potential in the fires of the sun. We long to learn something of our origin. If the Evolution hypothesis be correct, even this unsatisfied yearning must have come to us across the ages which separate the primeval mist from the consciousness of to-day. I do not think that any holder of the Evolution hypothesis would say that I overstate or overstrain it in any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring before you, unclothed and unvarnished, the notions by which it must stand or fall. Surely these notions represent an absurdity too monstrous to be enter­ tained by any sane mind. But why are such notions absurd, and why should sanity reject them ? The law of Rela­ tivity, of which we have previously spoken, may find its application here. These Evolution notions are absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the intel­ lectual gibbet, in relation to the ideas concerning matter which were drilled into us when young. Spirit and matter have ever been presented to us in the rudest contrast, the one as all-noble, the other as all-vile. But is this correct? Upon the answer to this question all depends. Supposing that, instead of having the foregoing antithesis of spirit and matter presented to our youthful minds, we had been taught to regard them as equally worthy, and equally wonderful; to consider them, in fact, as two opposite faces of the self-same mystery. Supposing that in youth we had been impregnated with the notion of the poet Goethe, instead of the notion of the poet Young, and taught to look upon matter, not as “ brute matter,” but as the “ living garment of God ”; do you not think that under these altered cir­ cumstances the law of Relativity might have had an outcome different from its present one? Is it not probable that our repugnance to the idea of primeval union between spirit and matter might be considerably abated? Without this total revolution of the notions now preva­ lent, the Evolution hypothesis must stand 75 condemned; but in many profoundly thoughtful minds such a revolution has already taken place. They degrade neither member of the mysterious duality referred to ; but they exalt one of them from its abasement, and repeal the divorce hitherto existing between them. In substance, if not in words, their position as regards the relation of spirit and matter is: “ What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” You have been thus led to the outer rim of speculative science, for beyond the nebulae scientific thought has never hitherto ventured. I have tried to state that which I considered ought, in fair­ ness, to be outspoken. I neither think this Evolution hypothesis is to be flouted away contemptuously, nor that it ought to be denounced as wicked. It is to be brought before the bar of disciplined reason, and there justified or condemned. Let us hearken to those who wisely sup­ port it, and to those who wisely oppose it; and let us tolerate those, whose name is legion, who try foolishly to do either of these things. The only thing out of place in the discussion is dogma­ tism on either side. Fear not the Evolution hypothesis. Steady yourselves, in its presence, upon that faith in the ultimate triumph of truth which was expressed by old Gamaliel when he said: “ If it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; if it be of man, it will come to nought.” Under the fierce light of scientific inquiry, it is sure to be dissi­ pated if it possess not a core of truth. Trust me, its existence as a hypothesis is quite compatible with the simultaneous existence of all those virtues to which the term “ Christian ” has been applied. It does not solve—it does not profess to solve—the ultimate mystery of this uni­ verse. It leaves, in fact, that mystery untouched. For, granting the nebula and its potential life, the question, whence they came, would still remain to baffle and bewilder us. At bottom, the hypothesis does nothing more than “ transport the conception of life’s origin to an indefinitely distant past.” �76 LECTURES AND ESSA VS Those who hold the doctrine of Evo­ lution are by no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and they only yield to it a. provisional assent. They regard the nebular hypothesis as pro­ bable, and, in the utter absence of any evidence to prove the act illegal, they extend the method of nature from the present into the past. Here the observed uniformity of nature is their only guide. Within the long range of physical inquiry they have never discerned in nature the insertion of caprice. Through­ out this range the laws of physical and intellectual continuity have run side by side. Having thus determined the elements of their curve in a world of observation and experiment, they prolong that curve into an antecedent world, and accept as probable the unbroken sequence of development from the nebula to the present time. You never hear the really philosophical defenders of the doctrine of Uniformity speaking of impossibilities in nature. They never say, what they are constantly charged with saying, that it is impossible for the Builder of the universe to alter His work. Their business is not with the possible, but the actual—not with a world which might be, but with a world that is. This they explore with a courage not unmixed with reverence, and accord­ ing to methods which, like the quality of a tree, are tested by their fruits. They have but one desire—to know the truth. They have but one fear—to believe a lie. And if they know the strength of science, and rely upon it with unswerving trust, they also know the limits beyond which science ceases to be strong. They best know that questions offer themselves to thought which science, as now prose­ cuted, has not even the tendency to solve. They have as little fellowship with the atheist who says there is no God as with the theist who professes to know the mind of God. “ Two things,” said Immanuel Kant, “ fill me with awe : the starry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibility in man.” And in his hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action has ceased, and the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific investigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking contact with the hamper­ ing details of earth, it associates him with a Power which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can neither analyse nor comprehend. SCIENCE AND MAN' A magnet attracts iron; but when we analyse the effect we learn that the metal is not only attracted but repelled, the final approach to the magnet being due to the difference of two unequal and opposing forces. Social progress is for the most part typified by this duplex or polar action. As a general rule, every advance is balanced by a partial retreat, every amelioration is associated more or less with deterioration. No great mecha­ nical improvement, for example, is intro­ duced for the benefit of society at large that does not bear hardly upon indivi­ duals. Science, like other things, is subject to the operation of this polar law, what is good for it under one aspect being bad for it under another. 1 Presidential Address, delivered before the Birmingham and Midland Institute, October 1st, 1877 ; with additions. �SCIENCE AND MAN Science demands above all things per­ sonal concentration. Its home is the study of the mathematician, the quiet laboratory of the experimenter, and the cabinet of the meditative observer of nature. Different atmospheres are re­ quired by the man of science, as. such, and the man of action. Thus the facilities of social and international inter­ course, the railway, the telegraph, and the post-office, which are such undoubted boons to the man of action, re-act, to some extent injuriously, on the man of science. Their tendency is to break up that concentrativeness which, as I have said, is an absolute necessity to the scientific investigator. The men who have most profoundly influenced the world from the scientific side have habitually sought isolation. Faraday, at a certain period of his career, formally renounced dining out. Darwin lives apart from the bustle of the world in his quiet home in Kent. Mayer and Joule dealt in unobtrusive retirement with the weightiest scientific questions. There is, however, one motive power in the world which no man, be he a scien­ tific student or otherwise, can afford to treat with indifference; and that is, the cultivation of right relations with his fellow-men—the performance of his duty, not as an isolated individual, but as a member of society. It is duty in this aspect, overcoming alike the sense of possible danger and the desire for repose, that has placed me in your presence here to-night. . To look at his picture as a whole, a painter requires distance ; and to judge of the total scientific achievement of any age, the standpoint of a succeeding age is desirable. We may, however, trans­ port ourselves in idea into the future, and thus survey with more or Jess com­ pleteness the science of our time. We sometimes hear it decried, and contrasted to its disadvantage with the science of other times. I do not think that this will be the verdict of posterity. I think, on the contrary, that posterity will acknowledge that in the history of 77 science no higher samples of intellectual conquest are recorded than those which this age has made its own. One of the most salient of these I propose, with your permission, to make the subject of our consideration during the coming hour. It is now generally admitted that the man of to-day is the child and product of incalculable antecedent time. His physical and intellectual textures have been woven for him during his passage through phases of history and forms of existence which lead the mind back to an abysmal past. One of the qualities which he has derived from that past is the yearning to let in the light of prin­ ciples on the otherwise bewildering flux of phenomena. He has been described by the German Lichtenberg as “ das rastlose Ursachenthier ” — the restless cause-seeking animal—in whom facts excite a kind of hunger to know the sources from which they spring. Never, I venture to say, in the history of the world has this longing been more liberally responded to, both among men of science and the general public, than during the last thirty or forty years. - I say “ the general public,” because it is a feature of our time that the man of science no longer limits his labours to the society of his colleagues and his peers, but shares, as far as it is possible to share, with the world at large the fruits of inquiry. The celebrated Robert Boyle regarded the universe as a machine; Mr. Carlyle prefers regarding it as a tree. He loves the image of the umbrageous Igdrasil better than that of the Strasburg clock. . A machine may be defined as an organism with life and direction outside; a tree may be defined as an organism with life and direction within. In the light of these definitions, I close with the con­ ception of Carlyle. The order and energy of the universe I hold to be inherent, and not imposed from without, the expression of fixed law and not of arbitrary will, exercised by what Carlyle would call an Almighty Clockmaker. But the two conceptions are not so much �78 LECTURES AND ESSA YS opposed to each other after all. In one fundamental particular they at all events agree. They equally imply the inter­ dependence and harmonious interaction of parts, and the subordination of the in­ dividual powers of the universal organism to the working of the whole. Never were the harmony and inter­ dependence just referred to so clearly recognised as now. Our insight regard­ ing them is not that vague and general insight to which our fathers had attained, and which, in early times, was more frequently affirmed by the synthetic poet than by the scientific man. The inter­ dependence of our day has become quantitative—expressible by numbers— leading, it must be added, directly into that inexorable reign of law which so many gentle people regard with dread. In the domain now under review men of science had first to work their way from darkness into twilight, and from twilight into day. There is no solution of con­ tinuity in science. It is not given to any man, however endowed, to rise spontaneously into intellectual splendour without the parentage of antecedent thought. Great discoveries grow. Here, as in other cases, we have first the seed, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear, the last member of the series imply­ ing the first. Thus, as regards the dis­ covery of gravitation with which the name of Newton is identified, notions more or less clear concerning it had entered many- minds before Newton’s transcendent mathematical genius raised it to the level of a demonstration. The whole of his deductions, moreover, rested upon the inductions of Kepler. Newton shot beyond his predecessors; but his thoughts were rooted in their thoughts, and a just distribution of merit would assign to them a fair portion of the honour of discovery. Scientific theories sometimes float like rumours in the air before they receive complete expression. The doom of a doctrine is often practically sealed, and the truth of one is often practically ac­ cepted, long prior to the demonstration of either the error or the truth. Per­ petual motion was discarded before it was proved to be opposed to natural law; and, as regards the connection and interaction of natural forces, intimations of modern discoveries are strewn through the writings of Leibnitz, Boyle, Hooke, Locke, and others. Confining ourselves to recent times, Dr. Ingleby has pointed out to me some singularly sagacious remarks bearing upon this question, which were published by an anonymous writer in 1820. Roget’s penetration was conspicuous in 1829. Mohr had grasped in 1837 some deep­ lying truth. The writings of Faraday furnish frequent illustrations of his pro­ found belief in the unity of nature. “ I have long,” he writes in 1845, “ held an opinion almost amounting to conviction, in common, I believe, with other lovers of natural knowledge, that the various forms under which the forces of matter are made manifest have one common origin, or, in other words, are so directly related and mutually dependent that they are convertible, as it were, one into another, and possess equivalence of power in their action.” His own researches on magneto-electricity, on electro-chemistry, and on the “ magneti­ sation of light,” led him directly to this belief. At an early date Mr. Justice Grove made his mark upon this question. Colding, though starting from a meta­ physical basis, grasped eventually the relation between heat and mechanical work, and sought to determine it experi­ mentally. And here let me say, that to him who has only the truth at heart, and who in his dealings with scientific history keeps his soul unwarped by envy, hatred, or malice, personal or national, every fresh accession to historic know­ ledge must be welcome. For every new-comer of proved merit, more espe­ cially if that merit should have been previously overlooked, he makes ready room in his recognition or his reverence. But no retrospect of scientific literature has as yet brought to light a claim which can sensibly affect the positions accorded �SCIENCE AND MAN * to two great Path-hewers, as the Germans call them, whose names in relation to this subject are linked in indissoluble association. These names are Julius Robert Mayer and James Prescott Joule. In his essay on “Circles” Mr. Emerson, if I remember rightly, pictured intel­ lectual progress as rhythmic. At a given moment knowledge is surrounded by a barrier which marks its limit. It gradually gathers clearness and strength until by-and-by some thinker of excep­ tional power bursts the barrier and wins a wider circle, within which thought once more entrenches itself. But the internal force again accumulates, the new barrier is in its turn broken, and the mind finds itself surrounded by a still wider horizon. Thus, according to Emerson, knowledge spreads by inter­ mittent victories instead of progressing at a uniform rate. When Dr. Joule first proved that a weight of one pound, falling through a height of 7 7 2 feet, generated an amount of heat competent to warm a pound of water one degree Fahrenheit, and that in lifting the weight so much heat exactly dis­ appeared, he broke an Emersonian “ circle,” releasing by the act an amount of scientific energy which rapidly overran a vast domain, and embodied itself in the great doctrine known as the “ Con­ servation of Energy.” This doctrine recognises in the material universe a constant sum of power made up of items among which the most Protean fluctua­ tions are incessantly going on. It is as if the body of Nature were alive, the thrill and interchange of its energies resembling those of an organism. The parts of the “stupendous whole” shift and change, augment and diminish, appear and disappear, while the total of which they are the parts remains quantitatively immutable. Immutable, because when change occurs it is always polar—plus accompanies minus, gain accompanies loss, no item varying in the slightest degree without art absolutely equal change of some other item in the opposite direc­ tion. 79 The sun warms the tropical ocean, converting a portion of its liquid into vapour, which rises in the air and is recondensed on mountain heights, return­ ing in rivers to the ocean from which it came. Up to the point where condensa­ tion begins, an amount of heat exactly equivalent to the molecular work of vaporisation and the mechanical work of lifting the vapour to the mountaintops has disappeared from the universe. What is the gain corresponding to this loss ? It will seem when mentioned to be expressed in a foreign currency. The loss is a loss of heat; the gain is a gain of distance, both as regards masses and molecules. Water which was formerly at the sea-level has been lifted to a position from which it can fall; mole­ cules which have been locked together as a liquid are now separate as vapour which can recondense. After condensa­ tion gravity comes into effectual play, pulling the showers down upon the hills, and the rivers thus created through their gorges to the sea. Every raindrop which smites the mountain produces its definite amount of heat; every river in its course developes heat by the clash of its cataracts and the friction of its bed. In the act of condensation, moreover, the molecular work of vaporisation is accurately re­ versed. Compare, then, the primitive loss of solar warmth with the heat gene­ rated by the condensation of the vapour, and by the subsequent fall of the water from cloud to sea. They are mathemati­ cally equal to each other. No particle of vapour was formed and lifted without being paid for in the currency of solar heat; no particle returns as water to the sea without the exact quantitative resti­ tution of that heat There is nothing gratuitous in physical nature, no expen­ diture without equivalent gain, no gain without equivalent expenditure. With inexorable constancy the one accom­ panies the other, leaving no nook or crevice between them for spontaneity to mingle with the pure and necessary play of natural force. Has this uniformity �80 ' LECTURES AND ESSA YS of nature ever been broken ? The reply blood-heat, then to redness, and finally is : “Not to the knowledge of science.” to a white heat. The heat under these What has been here stated regarding circumstances generated in the battery heat and gravity applies to the whole of by the combustion of a fixed quantity of inorganic nature. Let us take an illus­ zinc is no longer constant, but it varies tration from chemistry. The metal zinc inversely as the heat generated outside. may be burnt in oxygen, a perfectly If the outside heat be tzz’Z, the inside heat definite amount of heat being produced is a maximum; if the external wire be by the combustion of a given weight of raised to a blood-heat, the internal heat the metal. But zinc may also be burnt falls slightly short of the maximum. If in a liquid which contains a supply of the wire be rendered red-hot, the quantity oxygen—in water, for example. It does of missing heat within the battery is not in this case produce flame or fire, greater, and if the external wire be ren­ but it does produce heat which is capable dered white-hot the defect is greater of accurate measurement. But the heat still. Add together the internal and of zinc burnt in water falls short of that external heat produced by the combus­ produced in pure oxygen, the reason tion of a given weight of zinc, and being that to obtain its oxygen from the you have an absolutely constant total. water the zinc must first dislodge the The heat generated without is so much hydrogen. It is in the performance of lost within, the heat generated within is this molecular work that the missing heat so much lost without, the polar changes is absorbed. Mix the liberated hydrogen already adverted to coming here con­ with oxygen and cause them to recom­ spicuously into play. Thus in a variety bine ; the heat developed is mathemati­ of ways we can distribute the items of a cally equal to the missing heat. Thus, in never-varying sum, but even the subtle pulling the oxygen and hydrogen asunder agency of the electric current places no an amount of heat is consumed which is creative power in our hands. accurately restored by their reunion. Instead of generating external heat, This leads up to a few remarks upon we may cause the current to effect the Voltaic battery. It is not my design chemical decomposition at a distance to dwell upon the technical features of from the battery. Let it, for example, this wonderful instrument, but simply, decompose water into oxygen and hydro­ by means of it, to show what varying gen. The heat generated in the battery shapes a given amount of energy can under these circumstances by the com­ assume while maintaining unvarying bustion of a given weight of zinc falls quantitative stability. When that form short of what is produced when there is of power which we call an electric cur­ no decomposition. How far short ? The rent passes through Grove’s battery, zinc question admits of a perfectly exact is consumed in acidulated water; and in answer. When the oxygen and hydrogen the battery we are able so to arrange recombine, the heat absorbed in the de­ matters that when no current passes no composition is accurately restored, and it zinc shall be consumed. Now the cur­ is exactly equal in amount to that missing rent, whatever it may be, possesses the in the battery. We may, if we like, power of generating heat outside the bottle up the gases, carry in this form battery. We can fuse with it iridium, the heat of the battery to the polar the most refractory of metals, or we can regions, and liberate it there. The produce with it the dazzling electric light, battery, in fact, is a hearth on which and that at any terrestrial distance from fuel is consumed; but the heat of the the battery itself. combustion, instead of being confined We will now, however, content our­ in the usual manner to the hearth itself, selves with causing the current to raise a may be first liberated at the other side of given length of platinum wire, first to a the world. �SCIENCE AND MAN And here we are able to solve an enigma which long perplexed scientific men, and which could not be solved until the bearing of the mechanical theory of heat upon the phenomena of the Voltaic battery was understood. The puzzle was, that a single cell could not decompose water. The reason is now plain enough. The solution of an equi­ valent of zinc in a single cell developes not much more than half the amount of heat required to decompose an equivalent of water, and the single cell cannot cede an amount of force which it does not possess. But by forming a battery of two cells instead of one, we develop an amount of heat slightly in excess of that needed for the decomposition of the water. The two-celled battery is there­ fore rich enough to pay for that decom­ position, and to maintain the excess referred to within its own cells. Similar reflections apply to the thermo­ electric pile, an instrument usually com­ posed of small bars of bismuth and antimony soldered alternately together. The electric current is here evoked by warming the soldered junctions of one face of the pile. Like the Voltaic current, the thermo-electric current can heat wires, produce decomposition, magnetise iron, and deflect a magnetic needle at any distance from its origin. You will be disposed, and rightly disposed, to refer those distant manifestations of power to the heat communicated to the face of the pile, but the case is worthy of closer examination. In 1826 Thomas Seebeck discovered thermo-electricity, and six years subsequently Peltier made an observation which comes with singular felicity to our aid in determining the material used up in the formation of the thermo-electric current. He found that when a weak extraneous current was sent from antimony to bismuth the junction of the two metals was always heated, but that when the direction was from bismuth to antimony the junction was chilled. Now the current in the thermo-pile itself is always from bismuth to antimony, across the heated junction —a direction in which it cannot possibly establish itself without consuming the heat imparted to the junction. This heat is the nutriment of the current. Thus the heat generated by the thermo­ current in a distant wire is simply that originally imparted to the pile which has been first transmuted into electricity, and then retransmuted into its first form at a distance from its origin. As water in a state of vapour passes from a boiler to a distant condenser, and there assumes its primitive form without gain or loss, so the heat communicated to the thermo­ pile distils into the subtler electric current, which is, as it were, recondensed into heat in the distant platinum wire. In my youth I thought an electro­ magnetic engine which was shown to me a veritable perpetual motion—a machine, that is to say, which performed work without the expenditure of power. Let us consider the action of such a machine. Suppose it to be employed to pump water from a lower to a higher level. On examining the battery which works the engine we find that the zinc consumed does not yield its full amount of heat. The quantity of heat thus missing within is the exact thermal equivalent of the mechanical work performed without. Let the water fall again to the lower level; it is warmed by the fall. Add the heat thus produced to that generated by the friction, mechanical and mag­ netical, of the engine; we thus obtain the precise amount of heat missing in the battery. All the effects obtained from the machine are thus strictly paid for; this “ payment for results ” being, I would repeat, the inexorable method of nature. No engine, however subtly devised, can evade this law of equivalence, or perform on its own account the smallest modicum of work. The machine distri­ butes, but it cannot create. Is the animal body, then, to be classed among machines? When I lift a weight, or throw a stone, or climb a mountain, or wrestle with my comrade, am I not con­ scious of actually creating and expending �82 LECTURES AND ESSA YS force ? Let us look at the antecedents of this force. We derive the muscle and fat of our bodies from what we eat. Animal heat you know to be due to the slow combustion of this fuel. My arm is now inactive, and the ordinary slow combustion of my blood and tissue is going on. For every grain of fuel thus burnt a perfectly definite amount of heat has been produced. I now contract my biceps muscle without causing it to perform external work. The combustion is quickened, and the heat is increased; this additional heat being liberated in the muscle itself. I lay hold of a 56 lb. weight, and by the contraction of my biceps lift it through the vertical space of a foot. The blood and tissue con­ sumed during this contraction have not developed in the muscle their due amount of heat. A quantity of heat is at this moment missing in my muscle which would raise the temperature of an ounce of water somewhat more than one degree Fahrenheit. I liberate the weight: it falls to the earth, and by its collision generates the precise amount of heat missing in the muscle. My muscular heat is thus transferred from its local ' hearth to external space. The fuel is consumed in my body, but the heat of combustion is produced outside my body. The case is substantially the same as that of the Voltaic battery when it performs external work, or produces external heat. All this points to the conclusion that the force we employ in muscular exertion is the force of burning fuel and not of creative will. In the light of these facts the body is seen to be as incapable of generating energy without expenditure, as the solids and liquids of the Voltaic battery. The body, in other words, falls into the category of machines. We can do with the body all that we have already done with the battery— heat platinum wires, decompose water, magnetise iron, and deflect a magnetic needle. The combustion of muscle may be made to produce all these effects, as the combustion of zinc may be caused to produce them. By turning the handle of a magneto-electric machine a coil of wire may be caused to rotate between the poles of a magnet. As long as the two ends of the coil are uncon­ nected we have simply to overcome the ordinary inertia and friction of the machine in turning the handle. But the moment the two ends of the coil are united by a thin platinum wire a sudden addition of labour is thrown upon the turning arm. When the necessary labour is expended, its equivalent immediately appears. The platinum wire glows. You can readily maintain it at a white heat, or even fuse it. This is a very remark­ able result. From the muscles of the arm, with a temperature of ioo°, we extract the temperature of molten plati­ num, which is nearly four thousand degrees. The miracle here is the reverse of that of the burning bush mentioned in Exodus. There the bush burned, but was not consumed : here the body is consumed, but does not burn. The similarity of the' action with that of the Voltaic battery when it heats an external wire is too obvious to need pointing out. When the machine is used to decompose water, the heat of the muscle, like that of the battery, is consumed in molecular work, being fully restored when the gases recombine. As before, also, the transmuted heat of the muscles may be bottled up, carried to the polar regions, and there restored to its pristine form. The matter of the human body is the same as that of the world around us; and here we find the forces of the human body identical with those of inorganic nature. Just as little as the Voltaic battery is the animal body a creator of force. It is an apparatus ex­ quisite and effectual beyond all others in transforming and distributing the energy with which it is supplied, but it possesses no creative power. Compared with the notions previously entertained regarding the play of “vital force ” this is a great result. The problem of vital dynamics �SCIENCE AND MAN has been described by a competent authority as “ the grandest of all.” I subscribe to this opinion, and honour correspondingly the man who first suc­ cessfully grappled with the problem. He was no pope, in the sense of being infallible, but he was a man of genius whose work will be held in honour as long as science endures. I have already named him in connection with our illustrious countryman Dr. Joule. Other eminent men took up this subject subse­ quently and independently, but all that has been done hitherto enhances instead of diminishing the merits of Dr. Mayer. Consider the vigour of his reasoning. “ Beyond the power of generating in­ ternal heat, the animal organism can generate heat external to itself. A blacksmith by hammering can warm a nail, and a savage by friction can heat wood to its point of ignition. Unless, then, we abandon the physiological axiom that the animal body cannot create heat out of nothing, we are driven to the conclusion that it is the total heat., within and without, that ought to be regarded as the real calorific effect of the oxidation within the body A Mayer, however, not only states the principle, but illustrates numerically the transfer of muscular heat to external space. A bowler who imparts a velocity of 30 feet to an 8-lb. ball con­ sumes in the act one-tenth of a grain of carbon. The heat of the muscle is here distributed over the track of the ball, being developed there by mechanical friction. A man weighing 150 lbs. con­ sumes in lifting his own body to a height of 8 feet the heat of a grain of carbon. Jumping from this height the heat is restored. The consumption of 2 ozs. 4 drs. 20 grs. of carbon would place the same man on the summit of a mountain 10,000 feet high. In descending the mountain an amount of heat equal to that produced by the combustion of the foregoing amount of carbon is restored. The muscles of a labourer whose weight is 150 lbs. weigh 64 lbs. When dried they are reduced to 15 lbs. Were the oxidation corresponding to a 83 day-labourer’s ordinary work exerted on the muscles alone, they would be wholly consumed in 80 days. Were the oxida­ tion necessary to sustain the heart’s action concentrated on the heart itself, it would be consumed in 8 days. And if we confine our attention to the two ventricles, their action would consume the associated muscular tissue in 3% days. With a fulness and precision of which this is but a sample did Mayer, between 1842 and 1845, deal with the great question of vital dynamics. In direct opposition, moreover, to the foremost scientific authorities of that day, with Liebig at their head, this solitary Heilbronn worker was led by his calcu­ lations to maintain that the muscles, in the main, played the part of machinery, converting the fat, which had been previously considered a mere heat-pro­ ducer, into the motive power of the organism. Mayer’s prevision has been justified by events, for the scientific world is now upon his side. We place, then, food in our stomachs as so much combustible matter. It is first dissolved by purely chemical pro­ cesses, and the nutritive fluid is poured into the blood. Here it comes into con­ tact with atmospheric oxygen admitted by the lungs. It unites with the oxygen as wood or coal might unite with it in a furnace. The matter-products of the union, if I may use the term, are the same in both cases, viz. carbonic acid and water. The force-products are also the same—heat within the body, or heat and work outside the body. Thus far every action of the organism belongs to the domain either of physics or of chemistry. But you saw me cohtract the muscle of my arm. What enabled me to do so? Was it or was it not the direct action of my will? The answer is, the action of the will is mediate, not direct. Over and above the muscles the human organism is provided with long whitish filaments of medullary matter, which issue from the spinal column, being connected by it on the one side with the brain, and on the other side �84 LECTURES AND ESSA VS losing themselves in the muscles. Those filaments or cords are the nerves, which you know are divided into two kinds, sensor and motor, or, if you like the terms better, afferent and efferent nerves. The former carry impressions from the external world to the brain; the latter convey the behests of the brain to the muscles. Here, as elsewhere, we find ourselves aided by the sagacity of Mayer, who was the first clearly to formulate the part played by the nerves in the organism. Mayer saw that neither nerves nor brain, nor both together, possessed the energy necessary to animal motion ; but he also saw that the nerve could lift a latch and open a door, by which floods of energy are let loose. “As an engineer,” he says with admirable lucidity, “ by the motion of his finger in opening a valve or loosening a detent, can liberate an amount of mechanical energy almost infinite compared with its exciting cause; so the nerves, acting on the muscles, can unlock an amount of power out of all proportion to the work done by the nerves themselves.” The nerves, accord­ ing to Mayer, pull the trigger, but the gunpowder which they ignite is stored in the muscles. This is the view now universally entertained. The quickness of thought has passed into a proverb, and the notion that any measurable time elapsed between the infliction of a wound and the feeling of the injury would have been rejected as preposterous thirty years ago. Nervous impressions, notwithstanding the results of Haller, were thought to be transmitted, if not instantaneously, at all events with the rapidity of electricity. Hence, when Helmholtz, in 1851, affirmed, as the result of experiment, nervous transmis­ sion to be a comparatively sluggish process, very few believed him. His experiments may now be made in the lecture-room. Sound in air moves at the rate of 1,100 feet a second; sound in water moves at the rate of 5,000 feet a second; light in ether moves at the rate of 186,000 miles a second, and elec­ tricity in free wires moves probably at the same rate. But the nerves transmit their messages at the rate of only 70 feet a second, a progress which in these quick times might well be regarded as inordinately slow. Your townsman, Mr. Gore, has pro­ duced by electrolysis a kind of antimony which exhibits an action strikingly analo­ gous to that of nervous propagation. A rod of this antimony is in such a mole­ cular condition that when you scratch or heat one end of the rod the disturbance propagates itself before your eyes to the other end, the onward march of the dis­ turbance being announced by the develop­ ment of heat and fumes along the line of propagation. In some such way the molecules of the nerves are successively overthrown ; and if Mr. Gore could only devise some means of winding up his exhausted antimony, as the nutritive blood winds up exhausted nerves, the comparison would be complete. The subject may be summed up, as Du BoisReymond has summed it up, by reference to the case of a whale struck by a harpoon in the tail. If the animal were seventy feet long, a second would elapse before the disturbance could reach the brain. But the impression after its arrival has to diffuse itself and throw the brain into the molecular condition necessary to consciousness. Then, and not till then, the command to the tail to defend itself is shot through the motor nerves. Another second must elapse before the command can reach the tail, so that more than two seconds transpire between the infliction of the wound and the muscular response of the part wounded. The interval required for the kindling of consciousness would probably more than suffice for the destruction of the brain by lightning, or even by a rifle-bullet. Before the organ can arrange itself it may, there­ fore, be destroyed, and in such a case we may safely conclude that death is pain­ less. The experiences of common life supply us with copious instances of the libera­ tion of vast stores of muscular power �SCIENCE AND MAN by an infinitesimal “priming” of the muscles by the nerves. We all know the effect produced on a “ nervous ” organi­ sation by a slight sound which causes affright. An aerial wave, the energy. of which would not reach a minute fraction of that necessary to raise the thousandth of a grain through the thousandth of an inch, can throw the whole human frame into a powerful mechanical spasm, fol­ lowed by violent respiration and palpita­ tion. The eye, of course, may be appealed to as well as the ear. Of this the lamented Lange gives the following vivid illustration:— A merchant sits complacently in his easy chair, not knowing whether smoking, sleeping, newspaper reading, or the diges­ tion of food occupies the largest portion of his personality. A servant enters the room with a telegram, bearing the words, “Antwerp, etc........ Jonas and Co. have failed.” “Tell James to harness the horses 1” The servant flies. Up starts the merchant, wide awake, makes a dozen paces through the room, descends to the counting-house, dictates letters, and for­ wards despatches. He jumps into his carriage, the horses snort, and their driver is immediately at the Bank, on the Bourse, and among his commercial friends. Before an hour has elapsed he is again at home, where he throws him­ self once more into his easy chair with a deep-drawn sigh : “ Thank God I am pro­ tected against the worst, and now for further reflection.” This complex mass of action, emo­ tional, intellectual, and mechanical, is evoked by the impact upon the retina of the infinitesimal waves of light coming from a few pencil marks on a bit of paper. We have, as Lange says, terror, hope, sensation, calculation, possible ruin, and victory compressed into a moment. What caused the merchant to spring out of his chair ? The contraction of his muscles. What made his muscles contract ? An impulse of the nerves, which lifted the proper latch, and liberated the muscular power. Whence this impulse ? From the centre of the nervous system. But 85 how did it originate there ? This is the critical question, to which some will reply that it had its origin in the human soul. The aim and effort of science is to explain the unknown in terms of the known. Explanation, therefore, is con­ ditioned by knowledge. You have pro­ bably heard the story of the German peasant who, in early railway days, was taken to see the performance of a loco­ motive. He had never known carriages to be moved except by animal power. Every explanation outside of this concep­ tion lay beyond his experience, and could not be invoked. After long reflection, therefore, and seeing no possible escape from the conclusion, he exclaimed con­ fidently to his companion, “ Es miissen doch Pferdedarin sein”—“There must be horses inside.” Amusing as this locomo­ tive theory may seem, it illustrates a deep-lying truth. With reference to our present question, some may be disposed to press upon me such considerations as these :—Your motor-nerves are so many speakingtubes, through which messages are sent from the man to the world; and your sensor nerves are so many conduits through which the whispers of the world are sent back to the man. But you have not told us where is the man. Who or what is it that sends and receives those messages through the bodily organism ? Do not the phenomena point to the existence of a self within the self, which acts through the body as through a skilfully constructed instrument? You picture the muscles as hearkening to the commands sent through the motor nerves, and you picture the sensor nerves as the vehicles of incoming intelligence; are you not bound to supplement this mechanism by the assumption of an entity which uses it ? In other words, are you not forced by your own exposition into the hypothesis of a free human soul ? This is fair reasoning now, and at a certain stage of the world’s knowledge it might well have been deemed con­ clusive. Adequate reflection, however, �86 LECTURES AND ESSA YS shows that, instead of introducing light into our minds, this hypothesis con­ sidered scientifically increases our dark­ ness. You do not in this case explain the unknown in terms of the known, which, as stated above, is the method of science, but you explain the unknown in terms of the more unknown. Try to mentally visualise this soul as an entity distinct from the body, and the difficulty immediately appears. From the side of science all that we are war­ ranted in stating is that the terror, hope, sensation, and calculation of Lange’s merchant are psychical phenomena pro­ duced by, or associated with, the mole­ cular processes set up by waves of light in a previously prepared brain. When facts present themselves let us dare to face them, but let the man of science equally dare to confess ignorance where it prevails. What then is the causal connection, if any, between the objective and subjective—between mole­ cular motions and states of conscious­ ness ? My answer is : I do not see the connection, nor have I as yet met any­ body who does. It is no explanation to say that the objective and subjective effects are two sides of one and the same phenomenon. Why should the pheno­ menon have two sides ? This is the very core of the difficulty. There are plenty of molecular motions which do not exhibit this two-sidedness. Does water think or feel when it runs into frost-ferns upon a window-pane ? If not, why should the molecular motion of the brain be yoked to this mysterious companion —consciousness ? We can form a cohe­ rent picture of the physical processes— the stirring of the brain, the thrilling of the nerves, the discharging of the muscles, and all the subsequent mecha­ nical motions of the organism. But we can present to our minds no picture ef the process whereby consciousness emerges, either as a necessary link or as an accidental by-product of this series of actions. Yet it certainly does emerge— the prick of a pin suffices to prove that molecular motion can produce conscious­ ness. The reverse process of the pro­ duction of motion by consciousness is equally unpresentable to the mind. We are here, in fact, upon the boundary line of the intellect, where the ordinary canons of science fail to extricate us from our difficulties. If we are true to these canons, we must deny to subjective phenomena all influence on physical processes. Observation proves that they interact, but in passing from one to the other we meet a blank which mechanical deduction is unable to fill. Frankly stated, we have here to deal with facts almost as difficult to seize mentally as the idea of a soul. And if you are content to make your “ soul ” a poetic rendering of a phenomenon which refuses the yoke of ordinary physical laws, I, for one, would not object to this exercise of ideality. Amid all our speculative uncertainty, however, there is one prac­ tical point as clear as the day; namely, that the brightness and the usefulness of life, as well as its darkness and disaster, depend to a great extent upon our own use or abuse of this miraculous organ. Accustomed as I am to harsh lan­ guage, I am quite prepared to hear my “ poetic rendering ” branded as a “ false­ hood ” and a “ fib.” The vituperation is unmerited, for poetry or ideality and untruth are assuredly very different things. The one may vivify, while the other kills. When St. John extends the notion of a soul to “souls washed in the blood of Christ ” does he “ fib ” ? Indeed, if the appeal to ideality is cen­ surable, Christ himself ought not to have escaped censure. Nor did he escape it. “ How can this man give us his flesh to eat ?” expressed the sceptical flouting of unpoetic natures. Such are still among us. Cardinal Manning would doubtless tell any Protestant who rejects the doctrine of transubstantiation that he “ fibs ” away the plain words of. his Saviour when he reduces “ the Body of the Lord ” in the sacrament to a mere figure of speech. Though misuse may render it grotesque or insincere, the idealisation of ancient �SCIENCE AND MAN conceptions, when done consciously and above board, has, in my opinion, an im­ portant future. We are not radically different from our historic ancestors, and any feeling which affected them pro­ foundly requires only appropriate, cloth­ ing to affect us. The world will not lightly relinquish its heritage of poetic feeling, and metaphysic will be welcomed when it abandons its pretensions to scientific discovery and consents to be ranked as a kind of poetry. “A good symbol,”says Emerson, “is a missionary to persuade thousands. The Vedas, the Edda, the Koran, are each remembered by its happiest figure. There is no more welcome gift to men than a new symbol. They assimilate themselves to it, deal with it in all ways, and it will last a hundred years. Then comes a . new genius and brings another.” Our ideas of God and the soul are obviously sub­ ject to this symbolic mutation. They are not now what they were a century ago. They will not be a century hence what they are now. Such ideas consti­ tute a kind of central energy in the human mind, capable, like the energy of the physical universe, of assuming various shapes and undergoing various trans­ formations. They baffle and elude the theological mechanic who would carve them to dogmatic forms. They offer themselves freely to the poet who under­ stands his vocation, and whose function is, or ought to be, to find “ local habita­ tion ” for thoughts woven into our sub­ jective life, but which refuse to be mechanically defined. We now stand face to face with the final problem. It is this : Are the brain, and the moral and intellectual processes known to be associated with the brain— and, as far as our experience goes, in­ dissolubly associated—subject to the laws which we find paramount in physical nature? Is the will of man, in other words, free, or are it and nature equally “ bound fast in fate ” ? From this latter conclusion, after he had established it to the entire satisfaction of his understand­ 87 ing, the great German thinker Fichte recoiled. You will find the record of this struggle between head and heart in his book, entitled Die. Bestimmung des Menschen — The Vocation of Man.1 Fichte was determined at all hazards to maintain his freedom, but the price he paid for it indicates the difficulty of the task. To escape from the iron necessity seen everywhere reigning in physical nature, he turned defiantly round upon nature and law, and affirmed both of them to be the products of his own mind. He was not going to be the slave of a thing which he had himself created. There is a good deal to be said in favour of this view, but few of us prob­ ably would be able to bring into play the solvent transcendentalism whereby Fichte melted his chains. Why do some regard this notion of necessity with terror, while others do not fear it at all ? Has not Carlyle some­ where said that a belief in destiny is the bias of all earnest minds ? “ It is not Nature,” says Fichte, “it is Freedom itself, by which the greatest and most terrible disorders incident to our race are produced. Man is the cruellest enemy of man.” But the question of moral responsibility here emerges, and it is the possible loosening of this responsibility that so many of us dread. The notion of necessity certainly failed to frighten Bishop Butler. He thought it untrue —even absurd—but he did not fear its practical consequences. He showed, on the contrary, in the Analogy, that as far as human conduct is concerned the two theories of free-will and necessity would come to the same in the end. What is meant by free-will ? Does it imply the power of producing events without antecedents?—of starting, as it were,, upon a creative tour of occurrences without any impulse from within or from without ? Let us consider the point. If there be absolutely or relatively no reason why a tree should fall, it will not 1 Translated by Dr. William Smith, of Edin­ burgh ; Triibner, 1873. �LECTURES AND ESSA YS fall; and if there be absolutely or rela­ tively no reason why a man should act, he will not act. It is true that the united voice of this assembly could not persuade me that I have not, at this moment, the power to lift my arm if I wished to do so. Within this range the conscious freedom of my will cannot be questioned. But what about the origin of the “ wish ” ? Are we, or are we not, complete masters of the circumstances which create our wishes, motives, and tendencies to action ? Adequate reflec­ tion will, I think, prove that we are not. What, for example, have I had to do with the generation and development of that which some will consider my total being, and others a most potent factor of my total being—the living, speaking organism which now addresses you ? As stated at the beginning of this dis­ course, my physical and intellectual textures were woven for me, not me. Processes in the conduct or regulation of which I had no share have made me what I am. Here, surely, if anywhere, we are as clay in the hands of the potter. It is the greatest of delusions to suppose that we come into this world as sheets of white paper, on which the age can write anything it likes, making us good or bad, noble or mean, as the age pleases. The age can stunt, promote, or pervert pre­ existent capacities, but it cannot create them. The worthy Robert Owen, who saw in external circumstances the great moulders of human character, was obliged to supplement his doctrine by making the man himself one of the circumstances. It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste. How many disorders, ghostly and bodily, are transmitted to us by inheritance ? In our courts of law, whenever it is a question whether a crime has been committed under the influence of insanity, the best guidance the judge and jury can have is derived from the parental antecedents of the accused. If among these insanity be exhibited in any marked degree, the presumption in the prisoner’s favour is enormously enhanced, because the experience of life has taught both judge and jury that insanity is fre­ quently transmitted from parent to child. I met, some years ago, in a railway carriage the governor of one of our largest prisons. He was evidently an observant and reflective man, possessed of wide experience gathered in various parts of the world, and a thorough student of the duties of his vocation. He told me that the prisoners in his charge might be divided into three distinct classes. The first class consisted of persons who ought never to have been in prison. External accident, and not internal taint, had brought them within the grasp of the law, and what had happened to them might happen to most of us. They were essentially men of sound moral stamina, though wearing the prison garb. Then came the largest class, formed of individuals possessing no strong bias, moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of circumstances, which could mould them into either good or evil members of society. Thirdly came a class—happily not a large one—whom no kindness could conciliate and no discipline tame. They were sent into this world labelled “incorrigible,’’wickedness being stamped, as it were, upon their organisations. It was an unpleasant truth, but, as a truth, it ought to be faced. For such criminals the prison over which he ruled was certainly not the proper place. If con­ fined at all, their prison should be on a desert island, where the deadly contagium of their example could not taint the moral air. But the sea itself he was disposed to regard as a cheap and appro­ priate substitute for the island. It seemed to him evident that the State would benefit if prisoners of the first class were liberated ; prisoners of the second class educated; and prisoners of the third class put compendiously under water. It is not, however, from the observa­ tion of individuals that the argument against “ free-will,” as commonly under­ stood, derives its principal force. It is, as already hinted, indefinitely strengthened �SCIENCE AND MAN when extended to the race. Most of you have been forced to listen to the outcries and denunciations which rang discordant through the land for some years after the publication of Mr. Darwin’s Origin of Species. Well, the world—even the clerical world—has for the most part settled down in the belief that Mr. Darwin’s book simply reflects the truth of nature : that we who are now “ fore­ most in the files of time ” have come to the front through almost endless stages of promotion from lower to higher forms of life. If to any one of us were given the privilege of looking back through the aeons across which life has crept towards its present outcome, his vision, according to Darwin, would ultimately reach a point when the progenitors of this assembly could not be called human. From that humble society, through the interaction of its members and the storing up of their best qualities, a better one emerged; from this again a better still; until at length, by the integration of infinitesimals through ages of ameliora­ tion, we came to be what we are to-day. We of this generation had no conscious share in the production of this grand and beneficent result. Any and every generation which preceded us had just as little share. The favoured organisms whose garnered excellence constitutes our present store owed their advantages, first, to what we in our ignorance are obliged to call “accidental variation”; and, secondly, to a law of heredity in the passing of which our suffrages were not collected. With characteristic felicity and precision Mr. Matthew Arnold lifts this question into the free air of poetry, but not out of the atmosphere of truth, when he ascribes the process of ameliora­ tion to “a power not ourselves which makes for righteousness.” If, then, our organisms, with all their tendencies and capacities, are given to us without our being consulted; and if, while capable of acting within certain limits in accord­ ance with our wishes, we are not masters of the circumstances in which motives 89 and wishes originate; if, finally, our motives and wishes determine our actions —in what sense can these actions be said to be the result of free-will ? Here, again, we are confronted with the moral responsibility, which, as it has been much talked of lately, it is desirable to meet. With the view of removing the fear of our falling back into the con­ dition of “ the ape and tiger,” so sedu­ lously excited by certain writers, I propose to grapple with this question in its rudest form, and in the most uncom­ promising way. “ If,” says the robber, the ravisher, or the murderer, “ I act because I must act, what right have you to hold me responsible for my deeds ?” The reply is, “ The right of society to protect itself against aggressive and injurious forces, whether they be bond or free, forces of nature or forces of man.” “ Then,” retorts the criminal, “ you punish me for what I cannot help.” “ Let it be granted,” says society ; “ but had you known that the treadmill or the gallows was certainly in store for you, you might have ‘helped.’ Let us reason the matter fully and frankly out. We may entertain no malice or hatred against you; it is enough that with a view to our own safety and purification we are determined that you and such as you shall not enjoy liberty of evil action in our midst. You, who have behaved as a wild beast, we claim the right to cage or kill as we should a wild beast. The public safety is a matter of more impor­ tance than the very limited chance of your moral renovation, while the know­ ledge that you have been hanged by the neck may furnish to others about to do as you have done the precise motive which will hold them back. If your act be such as to invoke a minor penalty, then not only others, but yourself, may profit by the punishment which we inflict. On the homely principle that ‘ a burnt child dreads the fire,’ it will make you think twice before venturing on a repetition of your crime. Observe, finally, the con­ sistency of our conduct. You offend, �90 LECTURES AND ESSA YS you say, because you cannot help offend­ ing, to the public detriment. We punish, is our reply, because we cannot help punishing, for the public good. Practi­ cally, then, as Bishop Butler predicted, we act as the world acted when it sup­ posed the evil deeds of its criminals to be the products of free-will.”1 “ What,” I have heard it argued, “ is the use of preaching about duty if a man’s predetermined position in the moral world renders him incapable of profiting by advice ?” Who knows that he is incapable? The preacher’s last word is a factor in the man’s conduct, and it may be a most important factor, unlocking moral energies which might otherwise remain imprisoned and unused. If the preacher thoroughly feel that words of enlightenment, courage, and admoni­ tion enter into the list of forces employed by Nature herself for man’s amelioration, since she gifted man with speech, he will suffer no paralysis to fall upon his tongue. Dung the fig-tree hopefully, and not until its barrenness has been demonstrated beyond a doubt let the sentence go forth, “Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ?” I remember when a youth in the town of Halifax, some two and thirty years ago, attending a lecture given by a young man to a small but select audience. The aspect of the lecturer was earnest and practical, and his voice soon rivetted attention. He spoke of duty, defining it as a debt owed, and there was a kind­ ling vigour in his words which must have strengthened the sense of duty in the minds of those who heard him. No speculations regarding the freedom of the will could alter the fact that the words of that young man did me good. His name was George Dawson. He also spoke, if you will allow me to allude to it, of a social subject much discussed at the time—the Chartist subject of “ level­ ling.” Suppose, he says, two men to be 1 An eminent Church dignitary describes all this, not unkindly, as “ truculent logic.” I think it worthy of his Grace’s graver consideration. equal at night, and that one rises at six, while the other sleeps till nine next morning, what becomes of your level­ ling? And, in so speaking, he made himself the mouthpiece of Nature, which, as we have seen, secures advance, not by the reduction of all to a common level, but by the encouragement and conserva­ tion of what is best. It may be urged that, in dealing as above with my hypothetical criminal, I am assuming a state of things brought about by the influence of religions which include the dogmas of theology and the belief in free-will—a state, namely, in which a moral majority control and keep in awe an immoral minority. The heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Withdraw, then, our theologic sanctions, including the belief in free-will, and the condition of the race will be typified by the samples of indi­ vidual wickedness which have been above adduced. We shall, that is, become robbers, and ravishers, and murderers. From much that has been written of late it would seem that this astounding infe­ rence finds house-room in many minds. Possibly, the people who hold such views might be able to illustrate them by indi­ vidual instances. “ The fear of hell’s a hangman’s whip, To keep the wretch in order.” Remove the fear, and the wretch, follow­ ing his natural instinct, may become disorderly; but I refuse to accept him as a sample of humanity. “ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ” is by no means the ethical consequence of a rejection of dogma. To many of you the name of George Jacob Holyoake is doubtless familiar, and you are probably aware that at no man in England has the term “ atheist ” been more frequently pelted. There are, moreover, really few who have more completely liberated themselves from theologic notions. Among working-class politicians Mr. Holyoake is a leader. Does he exhort his followers to “ Eat and drink, for to-morrow we die”? Not so. In the �SCIENCE AND MAN August number of the Nineteenth Cen­ tury you will find these words from his pen : “ The gospel of dirt is bad enough, but the gospel of mere material comfort is much worse.” He contemptuously calls the Comtist championship of the working man “ the championship of the trencher.” He would place “the leanest liberty which brought with it the dignity and power of self-help ” higher than “ any prospect of a full plate without it.” Such is the moral doctrine taught by this “atheistic” leader; and no Christian, I apprehend, need be ashamed of it. Most heartily do I recognise and admire the spiritual radiance, if I may use the term, shed by religion on the minds and lives of many personally known to me. At the same time I can­ not but observe how signally, as regards the production of anything beautiful, religion fails in other cases. Its pro­ fessor and defender is sometimes at bottom a brawler and a clown. These differences depend upon primary dis­ tinctions of character which religion does not remove. It may comfort some to know that there are among us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call “ atheists ” and “ materialists,” whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by any ac­ cessible standard of morality, would con­ trast more than favourably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say “ offensive,” I refer simply to the inten­ tion of those who use such terms, and not because atheism or materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious newspapers, has any particular offensive­ ness for me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful husband, an honourable neighbour, and a just citizen —I should seek him, and find him, among the band of “ atheists ” to which I refer. I have known some of the most pro­ nounced among them not only in life but 9i in death—seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a “ hangman’s whip,” with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended upon their latest deeds. In letters addressed to myself, and in utterances addressed to the public, Fara­ day is often referred to as a sample of the association of religious faith with moral elevation. I was locally intimate with him for fourteen or fifteen years of my life, and had thus occasion to observe how nearly his character approached what might, without extravagance, be called perfection. He was strong but gentle, impetuous but self-restrained; a sweet and lofty courtesy marked his dealings with men and women; and though he sprang from the body of the' people, a nature so fine might well have been distilled from the flower of antece­ dent chivalry. Not only in its broader sense was the Christian religion necessary to Faraday’s spiritual peace, but in what many would call the narrow sense held by those described by Faraday himself as “ a very small and despised sect of Christians, known, if known at all, as Sandemanians,” it constituted the light and comfort of his days. Were our experience confined to such cases, it would furnish an irresistible argument in favour of the association of dogmatic religion with moral purity and grace. But, as already intimated, our experience is not thus confined. In further illustration of this point, we may compare with Faraday a philosopher of equal magnitude, whose character, in­ cluding gentleness and strength, candour and simplicity, intellectual power and moral elevation, singularly resembles that of the great Sandemanian, but who has neither shared the theologic views nor the religious emotions which formed so dominant a factor in Faraday’s life. I allude to Mr. Charles Darwin, the Abra­ ham of scientific men—a searcher as obedient to the command of truth as was the patriarch to the command of God. �92 LECTURES AND ESSA YS I cannot, therefore, as so many desire, look upon Faraday’s religious belief as the exclusive source of qualities shared so conspicuously by one uninfluenced by that belief. To a deeper virtue belonging to human nature in its purer forms I am disposed to refer the excellence of both. Superstition may be defined as con­ structive religion, which has grown incon­ gruous with intelligence. We may admit, with Fichte, “that superstition has un­ questionably constrained its subjects to abandon many pernicious practices and to adopt many useful ones the real loss accompanying its decay at the present day has been thus clearly stated by the same philosopher: “ In so far as these lamentations do not proceed from the priests themselves—whose grief at the loss of their dominion over the human mind we can well understand—but from the politicians, the whole matter resolves itself into this, that government has thereby become more difficult and expen­ sive. The judge was spared the exercise of his own sagacity and penetration when, by threats of relentless damnation, he could compel the accused to make confession. The evil spirit formerly per­ formed without reward services for which in later times judges and policemen have to be paid.” No man ever felt the need of a high and ennobling religion more thoroughly than this powerful and fervid teacher, who, by the way, did not escape the brand of “atheist.” But Fichte asserted emphatically the power and sufficiency of morality in its own sphere. “ Let us consider,” he says, “the highest which man can possess in the absence of religion—I mean pure morality. The moral man obeys the law of duty in his breast absolutely, because it is a law unto him; and he does whatever reveals itself to him as his duty simply because it is duty. Let not the impudent assertion be repeated that such an obedience, without regard to consequences, and without desire for consequences, is in itself impossible and opposed to human nature.” So much for Fichte. Faraday was equally distinct. “ I have no inten­ tion,” he says, “ of substituting anything for religion, but I wish to take that part of human nature which is independent of it. Morality, philosophy, commerce, the various institutions and habits of society, are independent of religion and may exist without it.” These were the words of his youth, but they expressed his latest convictions. I would add that the muse of Tennyson never reached a higher strain than when it embodied the sentiment of duty in ./Enone :— “And, because right is right, to follow right Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.” Not in the way assumed by our dog­ matic teachers has the morality of human nature been built up. The power which has moulded us thus far has worked with stem tools upon a very rigid stuff. What it has done cannot be so readily undone; and it has endowed us with moral constitutions which take pleasure in the noble, the beautiful, and the true, just as surely as it has endowed us with sentient organisms, which find aloes bitter and sugar sweet. That power did not work with delusions, nor will it stay its hand when such are removed. Facts, rather than dogmas, have been its ministers—hunger and thirst, heat and cold, pleasure and pain, fervour, sym­ pathy, aspiration, shame, pride, love, hate, terror, awe—such were the forces whose interaction and adjustment through­ out an immeasurable past wove the triplex web of man’s physical, intellectual, and moral nature, and such are the forces that will be effectual to the end. You may retort that even on my own showing “ the power which makes for righteousness ” has dealt in delusions; for it cannot be denied that the beliefs of religion, including the dogmas of theology and the freedom of the will, have had some effect in moulding the moral world. Granted; but I do not think that this goes to the root of the matter. Are you quite sure that those beliefs and dogmas are primary, and not derived ?—that they are not the products, �SCIENCE AND MAN instead of being the creators, of man’s moral nature ? I think it is in one of the Latter-Day Pamphlets that Carlyle corrects a reasoner, who deduced the nobility of man from a belief in heaven, by telling him that he puts the cart before the horse, the real truth being that the belief in heaven is derived from the nobility of man. The bird’s instinct to weave its nest is referred to by Emerson as typical of the force which built cathe­ drals, temples, and pyramids :— “ Knowest thou what wove yon woodbird’s nest Of leaves and feathers from her breast, Or how the fish outbuilt its shell, Painting with morn each annual cell ? Such and so grew these holy piles While love and terror laid the tiles; Earth proudly wears the Parthenon As the best gem upon her zone; And Morning opes with haste her lids To gaze upon the Pyramids; O’er England’s abbeys bends the sky As on its friends with kindred eye; For ut of Thought’s interior sphere These wonders rose to upper air, And nature gladly gave them place, Adopted them into her race, And granted them an equal date With Andes and with Ararat.” Surely, many utterances which have been accepted as descriptions ought to be interpreted as aspirations, or as having their roots in aspiration instead of in objective knowledge. Does the song of the herald angels, “ Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men,” express the exaltation and the yearning of a human soul ? or does it describe an optical and acoustical fact —a visible host and an audible song? If the former, the exaltation and the yearning are man’s imperishable posses­ sion—a ferment long confined to indivi­ duals, but which may by-and-by become the leaven of the race. If the latter, then belief in the entire transaction is 93 wrecked by non-fulfilment. Look to the East at the present moment as a com­ ment on the promise of peace on earth and goodwill toward men. That promise is a dream ruined by the experience of eighteen centuries, and in that ruin is involved the claim of the “ heavenly host ” to prophetic vision. But though the mechanical theory proves untenable, the immortal song and the feelings it expresses are still ours, to be incorporated, let us hope, in purer and less shadowy forms in the poetry, philosophy, and practice of the future. Thus, following the lead of physical science, we are brought without solution of continuity into the presence of pro­ blems which, as usually classified, lie entirely outside the domain of physics. To these problems thoughtful and pene­ trative minds are now applying those methods of research which in physical science have proved their truth by their fruits. There is on all hands a growing repugnance to invoke the supernatural in accounting for the phenomena of human life; and the thoughtful minds just referred to, finding no trace of evidence in favour of any other origin, are driven to seek in the interaction of social forces the genesis and development of man’s moral nature. If they succeed in their search—and I think they are sure to succeed—social duty will be raised to a higher level of significance, and the deepening sense of social duty will, it is to be hoped, lessen, if not obliterate, the strifes and heartburnings which now beset and disfigure our social life. Towards this great end it behoves us one and all to work; and devoutly wishing its consummation, I have the honour, ladies and gentlemen, to bid you a friendly farewell. �94 LECTURES AND ESSA YS VITALITY [i863] The origin, growth, and energies of living things are subjects which have always engaged the attention of thinking men. To account for them it was usual to assume a special agent, free to a great extent from the limitations observed among the powers of inorganic nature. This agent was called vital force ; and, under its influence, plants and- animals were supposed to collect their materials and to assume determinate forms. Within the last few years, however, our ideas of vital processes have undergone profound modifications ; and the interest, and even disquietude, which the change has excited are amply evidenced by the dis­ cussions and protests which are now common regarding the phenomena of vitality. In tracing these phenomena through all their modifications, the most advanced philosophers of the present day declare that they ultimately arrive at a single source of power, from which all vital energy is derived ; and the dis­ quieting circumstance is that this source is not the direct fiat of a supernatural agent, but a reservoir of what, if we do not accept the creed of Zoroaster, must be regarded as inorganic force. In short, it is considered as proved that all the energy which we derive from plants and animals is drawn from the sun. A few years ago, when the sun was affirmed to be the source of life, nine out of ten of those who are alarmed by the form which this assertion has latterly assumed would have assented, in a general way, to its correctness. Their assent, however, was more poetic than scientific, and they were by no means prepared to see a rigid mechanical signification attached to their words. This, however, is the peculiarity of modern conclusions: that there is no creative energy whatever in the vegetable or animal organism, but that all the power which we obtain from the muscles of man and animals, as much as that which we develop by the combus­ tion of wood or coal, has been produced at the sun’s expense. The sun is so much the colder that we may have our fires; he is also so much the colder that we may have our horse-racing and Alpine climb­ ing. It is, for example, certain that the sun has been chilled to an extent capable of being accurately expressed in num­ bers, in order to furnish the power which lifted this year a certain number of tourists from the vale of Chamouni to the summit of Mont Blanc. . To most minds, however, the energy of light and heat presents itself as a thing totally distinct from ordinary mechanical energy. Either of them can nevertheless be derived from the other. Wood can be raised by friction to the temperature of ignition; while by properly striking a piece of iron a skilful black­ smith can cause it to glow. Thus, by the rpde agency of his hammer, he gene­ rates light and heat. This action, if carried far enough, would produce the light and heat of the sun. In fact, the sun’s light and heat have actually been referred to the fall of meteoric matter upon his surface; and, whether the sun is thus supported or not, it is perfectly certain that he might be thus supported. Whether, moreover, the whilom molten condition of our planet was, as supposed by eminent men, due to the collision of cosmic masses or not, it is perfectly certain that the molten condition might be thus brought about. If, then, solar light and heat can be produced by the impact of dead matter, and if from the light and heat thus produced we can derive the energies which we have been accustomed to call vital, it indubitably follows that vital energy may have a proximately mechanical origin. In what sense, then, is the sun to be regarded as the origin of the energy de­ rivable from pLnts and animals? Let �VITALITY us try to give an intelligible answer to this question. Water may be raised from the sea-level to a high elevation, and then permitted to descend. In descend­ ing it may be made to assume various forms—to fall in cascades, to spurt in fountains, to boil in eddies, or to flow tranquilly along a uniform bed. It may, moreover, be caused to set complex machinery in motion, to turn millstones, throw shuttles, work saws and hammers, and drive piles. But every form of power here indicated would be derived from the original power expended in raising the water to the height from which it fell. There is no energy generated by the machinery ; the work performed by the water in descending is merely the parcelling out and distribution of the work expended in raising it. In precisely this sense is all the energy of plants and animals the parcelling out and distribu­ tion of a power originally exerted by the sun. In the case of the water, the source of the power consists in the forcible separation of a quantity of the liquid from a low level of the earth’s surface and its elevation to a higher position, the power thus expended being returned by the water in its descent. In the case of vital phenomena, the source of power consists in the forcible separation of the atoms of compound substances by the sun. We name the force which draws the water earthward “ gravity,” and that which draws atoms together “ chemical affinity but these different names must not mislead us regarding the qualitative identity of the two forces. They are both attractions ; and to the intellect the falling of carbon atoms against oxygen atoms is not more difficult of concep­ tion than the falling of water to the earth. The building up of the vegetable, then, is effected by the sun, through the reduc­ tion of chemical compounds. The phe­ nomena of animal life are more or less complicated reversals of these processes of reduction. We eat the vegetable and we breathe the oxygen of the air ; and in our bodies the oxygen, which has been 95 lifted from the carbon and hydrogen by the action of the sun, again falls towards them, producing animal heat and developing animal forms. Through the most complicated phenomena of vitality this law runs: the vegetable is pro­ duced while a weight rises; the animal is produced while a weight falls. But the question is not exhausted here. The water employed in our first illustration generates all the motion displayed in its descent, but the form of the motion depends on the character of the machinery interposed in the path of the water. In a similar way the primary action of the sun’s rays is qualified by the atoms and molecules among which their energy is distributed. Molecular forces determine the form which the solar energy will assume. In the separation of the carbon and oxygen this energy may be so con­ ditioned as to result in one case in the formation of a cabbage and in another case in the formation of an oak. So also, as regards the reunion of the carbon and the oxygen, the molecular machinery through which the combining energy acts may in one case weave the texture of a frog, while in another it may weave the texture of a man. The matter of the animal body is that of inorganic nature. There is no sub­ stance in the animal tissues which is not primarily derived from the rocks, the water, and the air. Are the forces of organic matter, then, different in kind from those of inorganic matter ? The philosophy of the present day negatives the question. It is the compounding, in the organic world, of forces belonging equally to the inorganic that constitutes the mystery and the miracle of vitality. Every portion of every animal body may be reduced to purely inorganic matter. A perfect reversal of this process of reduction would carry us from the inor­ ganic to the organic; and such a reversal is at least conceivable. The tendency, indeed, of modern science is to break down the wall of partition between organic and inorganic, and to reduce both to the operation of forces which �9o LECTURES AND ESSA YS are the same in kind, but which are differently compounded. Consider the question of personal identity in relation to that of molecular form. Thirty-four years ago Mayer, of Heilbronn, with that power of genius which breathes large meanings into scanty facts, pointed out that the blood was “the oil of the lamp of life,” the combustion of which sustains muscular action. The muscles are the machinery by which the dynamic power of the blood is brought into play. Thus the blood is consumed. But the whole body, though more slowly than the blood, wastes also, so that after a certain number of years it is entirely renewed. How is the sense of personal identity maintained across this flight of molecules ? To man, as we know him, matter is necessary to consciousness ; but the matter of any period may be all changed, while con­ sciousness exhibits no solution of con­ tinuity. Like changing sentinels, the oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon that depart seem to whisper their secret to. their comrades that arrive, and thus, while the Non-ego shifts, the Ego remains the same. Constancy of form in the grouping of the molecules, and not con­ stancy of the molecules themselves, is the correlative of this constancy of per­ ception. Life is a wave which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles. Supposing, then, the molecules of the human body, instead of replacing others, and thus renewing a pre-existing form, to be gathered first hand from nature and put together in the same relative positions as those which they occupy in the body. Supposing them to have the self-same forces and distribution of forces, the self-same motions and distribution of motions—would this organised con­ course of molecules stand before us as a sentient thinking being? There seems no valid reason to believe that it would not. Or, supposing a planet carved from the sun, set spinning round an axis, and revolving round the sun at a distance from him equal to that of our earth, would one of the consequences of its refrigeration be the development of organic forms ? I lean to the affirma­ tive. Structural forces are certainly in the mass, whether or not those forces reach to the extent of forming a plant or an animal. In an amorphous drop of water lie latent all the marvels of crystalline force; and who will set limits to the possible play of molecules in a cooling planet ? If these statements startle, it is because matter has been defined and maligned by philosophers and theologians who were equally unaware that it is, at bottom, essentially mystical and transcendental. Questions such as these derive their present interest in great part from their audacity, which is sure, in due time, to disappear. And the sooner the public dread is abolished with reference to such questions the better for the cause of truth. As regards knowledge, physical science is polar. In one sense it knows, or is destined to know, everything. In another sense it knows nothing. Science understands much of this intermediate phase of things that we call nature, of which it is the product; but science knows nothing of the origin or destiny of nature. Who or what made the sun and gave his rays their alleged power? Who or what made and bestowed upon the ultimate particles of matter their wondrous power of varied inter­ action ? Science does not know : the mystery, though pushed back, remains unaltered. To many of us who feel that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in the present philosophy of science, but who have been also taught, by baffled efforts, how vain is the attempt to grapple with the Inscrutable, the ultimate frame of mind is that of Goethe :— “ Who dares to name His name, Or belief in Him proclaim, Veiled in mystery as He is, the All-enfolder ? Gleams across the mind His light, Feels the lifted soul His might, Dare it then deny His reign, the All-up­ holder ?” �REFLECTIONS ON PRA YER AND NA TURAL LA W REFLECTIONS ON PRAYER AND NATURAL LAW 1861 Amid the apparent confusion and caprice of natural phenomena, which roused emotions hostile to calm investigation, it must for ages have seemed hopeless to seek for law or orderly relation; and before the thought of law dawned upon the unfolding human mind these other­ wise inexplicable effects were referred to personal agency. In the fall of a cataract the savage saw the leap of a spirit, and the echoed thunder-peal was to him the hammer-clang of an exasperated god. Propitiation of these terrible powers was the consequence, and sacrifice was offered to the demons of earth and air. But observation tends to chasten the emotions and to check those structural efforts of the intellect which have emotion for their base. One by one natural phenomena came to be associated with their proximate causes; the idea of direct personal volition mixing itself with the economy of nature retreating more and more. Many of us fear this change. Our religious feelings are dear to us, and we look with suspicion and dislike on any philosophy the apparent tendency of which is to dry them up. Probably every change from ancient savagery to our present enlightenment has excited, in a greater or less degree, fears of this kind. But the fact is, that we have not yet determined whether its present form is necessary to the life and warmth of religious feeling. We may err in linking the imperishable with the transitory, and confound the living plant with the decay­ ing pole to which it clings. My object, however, at present is not to argue, but to mark a tendency. We have ceased to propitiate the powers of nature— ceased even to pray for things in manifest contradiction to natural laws. In Pro­ testant countries, at least, I think it is conceded that the age of miracles is past. At an auberge near the foot of the Rhone glacier I met, in the summer of 1858, an athletic young priest, who, after a solid breakfast, including a bottle of wine, informed me that he had come up to “ bless the mountains.” This was the annual custom of the place. Year by year the Highest was entreated, by official intercessors, to make such meteorological arrangements as should ensure food and shelter for the flocks and herds of the Valaisians. A diversion of the Rhone, or a deepening of the river’s bed, would, at the time I now mention, have been of incalculable benefit to the inhabitants of the valley. But the priest would have shrunk from the idea of asking the Omnipotent to open a new channel for the river, or to cause a portion of it to flow over the Grimsel pass, and down the valley of Oberhasli to Brientz. This he would have deemed a miracle, and he did not come to ask the Creator to per­ form miracles, but to do something which he manifestly thought lay quite within the bounds of the natural and nonmiraculous. A Protestant gentleman who was present at the time smiled at this recital. He had no faith in the priest’s blessing; still, he deemed his prayer different in kind from a request to open a new river-cut, or to cause the water to flow up-hill. In a similar manner the same Pro­ testant gentleman would doubtless smile at the honest Tyrolese priest who, when he feared the bursting of a glacier dam, offered the sacrifice of the Mass upon the ice as a means of averting the calamity. That poor man did not expect to convert the ice into adamant, or to strengthen its texture, so as to enable it D �LECTURES AND ESSA YS 98 then, was the mine in which our gem must be sought. A modified and more refined form of the ancient faith revived; and, for aught I know, a remnant of sanguine designers may at the present moment be engaged on the problem which like-minded men in former ages left unsolved. And why should a perpetual motion, even under modern conditions, be impos­ sible? The answer to this question is the statement of that great generalisation of modern science which is known under the name of the Conservation of Energy. This principle asserts that no power can make its appearance in nature without an equivalent expenditure of some other power ; that natural agents are so related to each other as to be mutually con­ vertible, but that no new agency is created. Light runs into heat; heat into electricity; electricity into magnetism ; magnetism into mechanical force; and mechanical force again into light and heat. The Proteus changes, but he is ever the same; and his changes in nature, supposing no miracle to super­ vene, are the expression, not of spon­ taneity, but of physical necessity. A perpetual motion, then, is deemed impos­ sible because it demands the creation of energy, whereas the principle of Con­ servation is—no creation, but infinite conversion. It is an old remark that the law which moulds a tear also rounds a planet. In the application of law in nature the terms “great” and “small” are unknown. Thus the principle referred to teaches us that the Italian wind, gliding over the crest of the Matterhorn, is as firmly ruled as the earth in its orbital revolution round the sun; and that the fall of its vapour into clouds is exactly as much a matter of necessity as the return of the seasons. The dispersion, therefore,, of the slightest mist by the special volition of the Eternal would be as much a miracle as the rolling of the Rhone over the Grimsel precipices, down the valley of Hasli to Meyringen and Brientz. ■ See Helmholtz, Wechselwirkung der NaturIt seems to me quite beyond the to withstand the pressure of the water; nor did he expect that his sacrifice would cause the stream to roll back upon its source and relieve him, by a miracle, of its presence. But beyond the boundaries of his knowledge lay a region where rain was generated, he knew not how. He was not so presumptuous as to expect , a miracle, but he firmly believed that in yonder cloud-land matters could be so arranged, without trespass on the miracu­ lous, that the stream which threatened him and his people should be caused to shrink within its proper bounds. Both these priests fashioned that which they did not understand to their respective wants and wishes. In their case imagination came into play, uncon­ trolled by a knowledge of law. A similar state of mind was long prevalent among mechanicians. Many of these, among whom were to be reckoned men of consummate skill, were occupied a century ago with the question of per­ petual motion. They aimed at con­ structing a machine which should execute work without the expenditure of power; and some of them went mad in the pursuit of this object. The faith in such a consummation, involving, as it did, immense personal profit to the inventor, was extremely exciting, and every attempt to destroy this faith was met by bitter resentment on the part of those who held it. Gradually, however, as men became more and more acquainted with the true functions of machinery, the dream dissolved. The hope of getting work out of mere mechanical com­ binations disappeared; but still there remained for the speculator a cloudland denser than that which filled the imagination of the Tyrolese priest, and out of which he still hoped to evolve perpetual motion. There was the mystic store of chemic force, which nobody understood ; there were heat and light, electricity and magnetism, all competent to produce mechanical motion.1 Here, kriifie. �REFLECTIONS ON FRA YER AND NATURAL LAW present power of science to demonstrate that the Tyrolese priest, or his colleague of the Rhone valley, asked for an “ im­ possibility ” in praying for good weather ; but Science can demonstrate the incom­ pleteness of the knowledge of nature which limitqfl their prayers to this narrow ground ; and she may lessen the number of instances in which we “^.sk amiss ” by showing that we sometimes pray for the performance of a miracle when we do not intend it. She does assert, for example, that without a disturbance of natural law, quite as serious as the stop­ page of an eclipse or the rolling of the river Niagara up the Falls, no act of humiliation, individual or national, could call one shower from heaven or deflect towards us a single beam of the sun. Those, therefore, who believe that the miraculous is still active in nature may, with perfect consistency, join in our periodic prayers for fair weather and for rain; while those who hold that the age of miracles is past will, if they be con­ sistent, refuse to join in these petitions. And these latter, if they wish to fall back upon such a justification, may fairly urge that the latest conclusions of science are in perfect accordance with the doctrine of the Master himself, which manifestly was that the distribution of natural phenomena is not affected by moral or religious causes. “ He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Granting “the power of Free Will in man,” so strongly claimed by Professor Mansel in his admirable defence of the belief in miracles, and assuming the efficacy of free prayer to produce changes in external nature, it necessarily follows that natural laws are more or less at the mercy of man’s volition, and no conclusion founded on the assumed per­ manence of those laws would be worthy of confidence. It is a wholesome sign for England that she numbers among her clergy men wise enough to understand all this, and courageous enough to act up to their knowledge. Such men do service to 99 public character by encouraging a manly and intelligent conflict with the real causes of disease and scarcity, instead of a delusive reliance on supernatural aid. But they have also a value beyond this Local and temporary one. They prepare the public mind for changes which, though inevitable, could hardly, without such preparation, be wrought without violence. Iron is strong; still, water in crystallising will shiver an iron envelope, and the more unyielding the metal is the worse for its safety. There are in the world men who would encompass philo­ sophic speculation by a rigid envelope, hoping thereby to restrain it, but in reality giving it explosive force. In England, thanks to men of the stamp to which I have alluded, scope is gradually given to thought for changes of aggrega­ tion, and the envelope slowly alters its form, in accordance with the necessities of the time. The proximate origin of the foregoing slight article, and probably the remoter origin of the next following one, was this. Some years ago a day of prayer and humiliation, on account of a bad harvest, was appointed by the proper religious authorities; but certain clergymen of the Church of England, doubting the wisdom of the demonstration, declined to join in the services of the day. For this act of noncon­ formity they were severely censured by some of their brethren. Rightly or wrongly, my sympathies were on the side of these men ; and, to lend them a helping hand in their struggle against odds, I inserted the foregoing chapter in a little book entitled Mountaineering in 1861. Some time subsequently I received from a gentleman of great weight and distinction in the scientific world, and, I believe, of perfect ortho­ doxy in the religious one, a note directing my attention to an exceedingly thoughtful article on Prayer and Cholera in the Pall Mall Gazette. My eminent correspondent deemed the article a fair answer to the remarks made by me in i86r. I, also, was struck by the temper and ability of the article; but I could not deem its arguments satisfactory, and in a short note to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette I ventured to state so much. The letter elicited some very able replies, and a second leading article was also devoted to the subject. In answer to all, I risked the publication of a second letter, and soon afterwards, by an extremely courteous note from the editor, the discussion was closed. Though thus stopped locally, the discussion flowed in other directions. Sermons were �TOO LECTURES AND ESSA YS demonstrate earnestness, while gentlemanly feeling was too predominant to permit that earnestness to contract itself to bigotry or to clothe itself in abuse. It was probably the memory of this discussion which caused another excellent friend of mine to recommend to my perusal the exceedingly able work which in the next article I have endeavoured to review. * preached, essays were published, articles were written, while a copious correspondence occupied the pages of some of the religious newspapers. It gave me sincere pleasure to notice that the discussion, save in a few cases where natural coarseness had the upper hand, was conducted with a minimum of vituperation. The severity shown was hardly more than sufficient to MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES' 1867 It is my privilege to enjoy the friendship of a select number of religious men, with whom I converse freely upon theo­ logical subjects, expressing without dis­ guise the notions and opinions I enter­ tain regarding their tenets, and hearing in return these notions and opinions subjected to criticism. I have thus far found them liberal and loving men, patient in hearing, tolerant in reply, who know how to reconcile the duties of courtesy with the earnestness of debate. From one of these, nearly a year ago, I received a note, recommending strongly to my attention the volume of Bamp ton Lectures for 1865, in which the question of miracles is treated by Mr. Mozley. Previous to receiving this note, I had in part made the acquaintance of the work through an able and elaborate review of it in the Times. The combined effect of the letter and the review was to make the book the companion of my summer tour in the Alps. There, during the wet and snowy days which were only too prevalent in 1866, and during the days of rest interpolated between days of toil, I made myself more thoroughly con­ versant with Mr. Mozley’s volume. I found it clear and strong—an intellectual tonic, as bracing and pleasant to my mind as the keen air of the mountains was to my body. From time to time I jotted down thoughts regarding it, intending afterwards to work them up into a coherent whole. Other duties, however, interfered with the complete carrying out of this intention, and what I wrote last summer I now publish, not hoping to be able, within any reasonable time, to render my defence of scientific method more complete. Mr. Mozley refers at the outset of his task to the movement against miracles which of late years has taken place, and which determined his choice of a subject. He acquits modern science of having had any great share in the production of this movement. The objection against miracles, he says, does not arise from any minute knowledge of the law of nature, but simply because they are opposed to that plain and obvious order of nature which everybody sees. The present movement is, he thinks, to be ascribed to the greater earnestness and penetration of the present age. _ For­ merly miracles were accepted without question, because without reflection; but the exercise of the “historic imagina­ tion ” is a characteristic of our own time. Men are now accustomed to place before themselves vivid images of historic facts; and when a miracle rises to view, they halt before the astounding occurrence, and, realising it with the same clearness 1 Fortnightly Review, New Series, vol. i., p. 645. �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES as if it were now passing before their eyes, they ask themselves, “ Can this have taken place ?” In some instances the effort to answer this question has led to a disbelief in miracles, in others to a strengthening of belief. The aim of Mr. Mozley’s lectures is to show that the strengthening of belief is the logical result which ought to follow from the examination of the facts. Attempts have been made by religious men to bring the Scripture miracles within the scope of the order of nature, but all such attempts are rejected by Mr. Mozley as utterly futile and wide of the mark. Regarding miracles as a necessary accompaniment of a revelation, their evidential value in his eyes depends entirely upon their deviation from the order of nature. Thus deviating, they suggest and illustrate a power higher than nature, a “ personal will ”; and they commend the person in whom this power is vested as a messenger from on high. Without these credentials such a mes­ senger would have no right to demand belief, even were his assertions regarding his Divine mission backed by a holy life. Nor is it by miracles alone that the order of nature is, or may be, disturbed. The material universe is also the arena of ‘ ‘ special providences. ” Under these two heads Mr. Mozley distributes the total preternatural. One form of the pre­ ternatural may shade into the other, as one colour passes into another in the rainbow; but while the line which divides the specially providential from the miraculous cannot be sharply drawn, their distinction broadly expressed is this: that, while a special providence can only excite surmise more or less probable, it is “ the nature of a miracle to give proof, as distinguished from mere surmise, of Divine design.” Mr. Mozley adduces various illustra­ tions of what he regards to be special providences as distinguished from miracles. “The death of Arius,” he says, “ was not miraculous, because the coincidence of the death of a heresiarch taking place when it was peculiarly IOI advantageous to the orthodox faith....... was not such as to compel the inference of extraordinary Divine agency; but it was a special providence, because it carried a reasonable appearance of it. The miracle of the Thundering Legion was a special providence, but not a miracle, for the same reason, because the coincidence of an instantaneous fall of rain, in answer to prayer, carried some appearance, but not proof, of preternatural agency.” The eminent lecturer’s remarks on this head brought to my recollection certain narratives published in Methodist magazines, which I used to read with avidity when a boy. The general title of these exciting stories, if I remember right, was “The Providence of God Asserted,” and in them the most extraordinary escapes from peril were recounted and ascribed to prayer, while equally wonderful instances of calamity were adduced as illustrations of Divine retribution. In such magazines, or elsewhere, I found recorded the case of the celebrated Samuel Hick, which, as it illustrates a whole class of special providences ap­ proaching in conclusiveness to miracles, is worthy of mention here. It is related of this holy man that, on one occasion, flour was lacking to make the sacra­ mental bread. Grain was present, and a windmill was present, but there was no wind to grind the corn. With faith undoubting, Samuel Hick prayed to the Lord of the winds : the sails turned, the corn was ground, after which the wind ceased. According to the canon of the Bampton Lecturer, this, though carrying a strong appearance of an immediate exertion of Divine energy, lacks by a hair’s-breadth the quality of a miracle. For the wind might have arisen, and might have ceased, in the ordinary course of nature. Hence the occurrence did not “ compel the inference of extra­ ordinary Divine agency.” In like manner Mr. Mozley considers that “ the appear­ ance of the cross to Constantine was a miracle, or a special providence, according to what account of it we adopt. As �102 LECTURES AND ESSA YS dist and the Tyrolese peasant than in the only a meteoric appearance in the shape heart of Mr. Mozley. Indeed, those of a cross, it gave some token of preter­ feelings belong to the primal powers of natural agency, but not full evidence.” man’s nature. A “sceptic” may have In the Catholic canton of Switzerland them. They find vent in the battle-cry of where I now write, and still more among the Moslem. They take hue and form in the pious Tyrolese, the mountains are the hunting-grounds of the Red Indian ; dotted with shrines, containing offerings of all kinds, in acknowledgment of and raise all of them, as they raise the Christian, upon a wave of victory, above special mercies—legs, feet, arms, and the terrors of the grave. hands—of gold, silver, brass, and wood, The character then of a miracle, as according as worldly possessions enabled the grateful heart to express its indebted­ distinguished from a special providence, is that the former furnishes proof, while ness. Most of these offerings are made to the Virgin Mary. They are recogni­ in the case of the latter we have only surmise. Dissolve the element of doubt, tions of “ special providences,” wrought and the alleged fact passes from the one through the instrumentality of the Mother class of the preternatural into the other. of God. Mr. Mozley’s belief, that of the In other words, if a special providence Methodist chronicler, and that of the could be proved to be a special provi­ Tyrolese peasant, are substantially the dence, it would cease to be a special same. Each of them assumes that providence and become a miracle. There nature, instead of flowing ever onward is not the least cloudiness about Mr. in the uninterrupted rhythm of cause Mozley’s meaning here. A special pro­ and effect, is mediately ruled by the free vidence is a doubtful miracle. Why, human will. As regards direct action then, riot call it so ? The term employed upon natural phenomena, man’s wish by Mr. Mozjey conveys no negative sug­ and will, as expressed in prayer, are gestion, whereas the negation of certainty confessedly powerless; but prayer is the is the peculiar characteristic of the thing trigger which liberates the Divine power, intended to be expressed. There is an and to this extent, if the will be free, man, apparent unwillingness on the part of of course, commands nature. the lecturer to call a special providence Did the existence of this belief depend what his own definition makes it to be. solely upon the material benefits derived Instead of speaking of it as a doubtful from it, it could not, in my opinion, last miracle, he calls it “ an invisible miracle.” a decade. As a purely objective fact, He speaks of the point of contact of we should soon see that the distribution supernatural power with the chain of of natural phenomena is unaffected by causation being so high up as to be the merits or the demerits of men; that wholly, or in part, out of sight, whereas the law of gravitation crushes the simple the essence of a special providence is worshippers of Ottery St. Mary, while the uncertainty whether there is any con­ singing their hymns, just as surely as if tact at all, either high or low. By the they were engaged in a midnight brawl. use of an incorrect term, however, a The hold of this belief upon the human grave danger is avoided. For the idea mind is not due to outward verification, of doubt, if kept systematically before but to the inner warmth, force, and the mind, would soon be fatal to the elevation with which it is commonly special providence, considered as a means associated. It is plain, however, that of edification. The term employed, on these feelings may exist under the most the contrary, invites and encourages the various forms. They are not limited to trust which is necessary to supplement the Church of England Protestantism—they evidence. are not even limited to Christianity. This inner trust, though at first rejected Though less refined, they are certainly by Mr. Mozley in favour of external proof, not less strong in the heart of the Metho­ �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES is subsequently called upon to do momen­ tous duty in regard to miracles. When­ ever the evidence of the miraculous seems incommensurate with the fact which it has to establish, or rather when the fact is so amazing that hardly any evidence is sufficient to establish it, Mr. Mozley invokes “ the affections.” They must urge the reason to accept the conclusion, from which unaided it recoils. The affections and emotions are eminently the court of appeal in matters of real religion, which is an affair of the heart; but they are not, I submit, the court in which to weigh allegations regarding the credibility of physical facts. These must be judged by the dry light of the intellect alone, appeals to the affections being reserved for cases where moral elevation, and not historic conviction, is the aim. It is, moreover, because the result, in the case under consideration, is deemed desirable that the affections are called upon to back it. If undesirable, they would, with equal right, be called upon to act the other way. Even to the disciplined scientific mind this would be a dangerous doctrine. A favourite theory—the desire to establish or avoid a certain result— can so warp the mind as to destroy its powers of estimating facts. I have known men to work for years under a fascination of this kind, unable to extri­ cate themselves from its fatal influence. They had certain data, but not, as it happened, enough. By a process exactly analogous to that invoked by Mr. Mozley, they supplemented the data, and went wrong. From that hour their intellects were so blinded to the percep­ tion of adverse phenomena • that they never reached truth. If, then, to the disciplined scientific mind this incon­ gruous mixture of proof and trust be fraught with danger, what must it be to the indiscriminate audience which Mr. Mozley addresses ? In calling upon this agency he acts the part of Franken­ stein. It is a monster thus evoked that we see stalking abroad in the degrading spiritualistic phenomena of the present day. Again, I say, where the aim is to elevate the mind, to quicken the moral sense, to kindle the fire of religion in the soul, let the affections by all means be invoked ; but they must not be per­ mitted to colour our reports, or to influ­ ence our acceptance of reports, of occur­ rences in external nature. Testimony as to natural facts is worthless when wrapped in this atmosphere of the affec­ tions, the most earnest subjective truth being thus rendered perfectly compatible with the most astounding objective error. There are questions in judging of which the affections or sympathies are often our best guides, the estimation of moral goodness being one of these. But at this precise point, where they are really of use, Mr. Mozley excludes the affections and demands a miracle as a certificate of character. He will not accept any other evidence of the perfect goodness of Christ. “No outward life and conduct,” he says, “ however irre­ proachable, could prove His perfect sin­ lessness, because goodness depends upon the inward motive, and the per­ fection of the inward motive is not proved by the outward act.” But surely the miracle is an outward act, and to pass from it to the inner motive imposes a greater strain upon logic than that involved in our ordinary methods of estimating men. There is, at least, moral congruity between the outward goodness and the inner life, but there is no such congruity between the miracle and the life within. The test of moral goodness laid down by Mr. Mozley is not the test of John, who says: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous nor is it the test of Jesus: “By their fruits ye shall know them; do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles ?” But it A the test of another: “ If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” For my own part, I prefer the attitude of Fichte to that of Mr. Mozley. “The Jesus of John,” says this noble and mighty thinker, “ knows no other God than the true God, in whom we all are, and live, and may be blessed, and out of �104 LECTURES AND ESSA VS whom there is only death and nothing­ ness. And,” continues Fichte, “ he appeals, and rightly appeals, in support of this truth, not to reasoning, but to the inward practical sense of truth in man, not even knowing any other proof than this inward testimony: ‘ If any man will do the will of Him who sent Me, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.’ ” Accepting Mr. Mozley’s test, with which alone I am now dealing, it is evident that, in the demonstration of moral goodness, the quantity of the miraculous comes into play. Had Christ, for example, limited himself to the con­ version of water into wine, He would have fallen short of the performance of Jannes and Jambres; for it is a smaller thing to convert one liquid into another than to convert a dead rod into a living serpent. But Jannes and Jambres, we are informed, were not good. Hence, if Mr. Mozley’s test be a true one, a point must exist on the one side of which miraculous power demonstrates goodness, while on the other side it does not. How is this “point of contrary flexure ” to be determined ? It . must lie somewhere between the magicians and Moses, for within this space the power passed from the diabolical to the Divine. But how to mark the point of passage—how, out of a purely quantita­ tive difference in the visible manifestation of power, we are to infer a total inversion of quality—it is extremely difficult to see. Moses, we are informed, produced a large reptile; Jannes and Jambres produced a small one. I do not possess the intellectual faculty which would enable me to infer, from those data, either the goodness of the one or the badness of the other ; and in the highest recorded manifestations of the miraculous I am equally at a loss. Let us not play fast and loose with the miraculous; either it is a demonstration of goodness in all cases or in none. If Mr. Mozley accepts Christ’s goodness as transcendent be­ cause He did such works as no other man did, he ought, logically speaking, to accept the works of those who, in His name, had cast out devils, as demon­ strating a proportionate goodness on their part. But it is people of this class who are consigned to everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Such zeal as that of Mr. Mozley for miracles tends, I fear, to eat his religion up. The logical threatens to stifle the spiritual. The truly religious soul needs no miraculous proof of the goodness of Christ. The words addressed to Matthew at the receipt of custom required no miracle to produce obedience. It was by no stroke of the supernatural that Jesus caused those sent to seize Him to go backward and fall to the ground. It was the sublime and holy effluence from within, which needed no prodigy to commend it to the reverence even of his foes. As regards the function of miracles in the founding of a religion, Mr. Mozley institutes a comparison between the religion of Christ and that of Mohammed; and he derides the latter as “irrational” because it does not profess to adduce miracles in proof of its supernatural origin. But the religion of Mohammed, notwithstanding this drawback, has thriven in the world, and at one time it held sway over larger populations than Christianity itself. The spread and influence of Christianity are, however, brought forward by Mr. Mozley as “a permanent, enormous, and incalculable practical result” of Christian miracles; and he makes use of this result to strengthen his plea for the miraculous. His logical warrant for this proceeding is not clear. It is the method of science, when a phenomenon presents itself to­ wards the production of which several elements may contribute, to exclude them one by one, so as to arrive at length at the truly effective cause. Heat, for example, is associated with a phenome­ non; we exclude heat, but the phenome­ non remains : hence, heat is not its cause. Magnetism is associated with a pheno menon; we exclude magnetism, but the phenomenon remains: hence, magnetism �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES is not its cause. Thus, also, when we seek the cause of the diffusion of a religion —whether it be due to miracles or to the spiritual force of its founders—we exclude the miracles, and, finding the result unchanged, we infer that miracles are not the effective cause. This impor­ tant experiment Mohammedanism has made for us. It has lived and spread without miracles; and to assert, in the face of this, that Christianity has spread because of miracles is, I submit, opposed both to the spirit of science and the common sense of mankind. The incongruity of inferring moral goodness from miraculous power has been dwelt upon above; in another particular also the strain put by Mr. Mozley upon miracles is, I think, more than they can bear. In consistency with his principles, it is difficult to see how he is to draw from the miracles of Christ any certain conclusion as to His Divine nature. He dwells very forcibly on what he calls “ the argument from experience,” in the demolition of which he takes obvious delight. He destroys the argument, and repeats it, for the mere pleasure of again and again knock­ ing the breath out of it. Experience, he urges, can only deal with the past; and the moment we attempt to project expe­ rience a hair’s-breadth beyond the point it has at any moment reached we are condemned by reason. It appears to me that, when he infers from Christ’s miracles a Divine and altogether super­ human energy, Mr. Mozley places himself precisely under this condemnation. For what is his logical ground for concluding that the miracles of the New Testament illustrate Divine power ? May they not be the result of expanded human power ? A miracle he defines as something impos­ sible to man. But how does he know that the miracles of the New Testament are impossible to man ? Seek as he may, he has absolutely no reason to adduce save this—that man has never hitherto accomplished such things. But does the fact that man has never raised the dead prove that he can never raise the dead ? io5 “ Assuredly not,” must be Mr. Mozley’s reply; “ for this would be pushing ex­ perience beyond the limit it has now reached—which I pronounce unlawful.” Then a period may come when man will be able to raise the dead. If this be conceded—and I do not see how Mr. Mozley can avoid the concession—it destroys the necessity of inferring Christ’s Divinity from His miracles. He, it may be contended, antedated the humanity of the future; as a mighty tidal wave leaves high upon the beach a mark which by-and-by becomes the general level of the ocean. Turn the matter as you will, no other warrant will be found for the all-important conclusion that Christ’s miracles demonstrate Divine power than an argument which has been stigmatised by Mr. Mozley as a “ rope of sand ”—the argument from experience. The learned Bampton Lecturer would be in this position, even had he seen with his own eyes every miracle recorded in the New Testament. But he has not seen these miracles; and his intellectual plight is, therefore, worse. He accepts these miracles on testimony. Why does he believe that testimony? How does he know that it is not delusion; how is he sure that it is not even fraud ? He will answer that the writing bears the marks of sobriety and truth ; and that in many cases the bearers of this message to mankind sealed it with their blood. Granted with all my heart; but whence the value of all this? Is it not solely derived from the fact that men, as we know them, do not sacrifice their lives in the attestation of that which they know to be untrue ? Does not the entire value of the testimony of the Apostles depend ultimately upon our experience of human nature ? It appears, then, that those said to have seen the miracles based their inferences from what they saw on the argument from experience, and that Mr. Mozley bases his belief in their testimony on the same argument. The weakness of his conclusion is quadrupled by this double insertion of a principle of belief to which he flatly denies rationality. His �106 LECTURES AND ESSA YS reasoning, in fact, cuts two ways—if it destroys our trust in the order of nature, it far more effectually abolishes the basis on which Mr. Mozley seeks to found the Christian religion. Over this argument from experience, which at bottom is his argument, Mr. Mozley rides rough-shod. There is a dash of scorn in the energy with which he tramples on it. Probably some pre­ vious writer had made too much of it, and thus invited his powerful assault. Finding the difficulty of belief in miracles to rise from their being in contradiction to the order of nature, he sets himself to examine the grounds of our belief in that order. With a vigour of logic rarely equalled, and with a confidence in its conclusions never surpassed, he disposes of this belief in a manner calculated to startle those who, without due examina­ tion, had come to the conclusion that the order of nature was secure. What we mean, he says, by our belief in the order of nature is the belief that the future will be like the past. There is not, according to Mr. Mozley, the slightest rational basis for this belief :— That any cause in nature is more permanent than its existing and known effects, extending further, and about to produce other and more instances besides what it has produced already, we have no evidence. Let us imagine [he con­ tinues] the occurrence of a particular physical phenomenon for the first time. Upon that single occurrence we should have but the very faintest expectation of another. If it did occur again, once or twice, so far from counting on another occurrence, a cessation would occur as the most natural event to us. But let it continue one hundred times, and we should find no hesitation in inviting persons from a distance to see it; and if it occurred every day for years, its occurrence would be a certainty to us, its cessation a marvel. ....... What ground of reason can we assign for an expectation that any part of the course of nature will be the next moment what it has been up to this moment—i.e., for our belief in the uniformity of nature ? None. No demonstrative reason can be given, for the contrary to the recurrence of a fact of nature is no contradiction. No pro­ bable reason can be given; for all probable reasoning respecting the course of nature is founded upon this presumption of likeness, and therefore cannot be the foundation of it. No reason can be given for this belief. It is without a reason. It rests upon no rational grounds, and can be traced to no rational principle. “ Everything,” Mr. Mozley, however, adds, “ depends upon this belief; every provision we make for the future, every safeguard and caution we employ against it, all calculation, all adjustment of means to ends, supposes this belief; and yet this belief has no more producible reason for it than a speculation of fancy.........It is necessary, all-important for the pur­ poses of life, but solely practical, and possesses no intellectual character......... The proper function,” continues Mr. Mozley, “ of the inductive principle, the argument from experience, the belief in the order of nature—by whatever phrase we designate the same instinct—is to operate as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the carrying on of human society.” To sum up, the belief in the order of nature is general, but it is “an unintelligent impulse, of which we can give no rational account.” It is inserted into our constitution solely to induce us to till our fields, to raise our winter fuel, and thus to meet the future on the per­ fectly gratuitous supposition that it will be like the past. “ Thus, step by step,” says Mr. Mozley, with the emphasis of a man who feels his position to be a strong one, “ has philosophy loosened the connection of the order of nature with the ground . of reason, befriending in exact proportion as it has done this the principle of miracles.” For “this belief not having itself a foundation in reason, the ground is gone upon which it could be main­ tained that miracles, as opposed to the order of nature, are opposed to reason.” When we regard this belief in connec­ tion with science, “ in which connection it receives a more imposing name, and is called the inductive principle,” the result is the same. “The inductive principle is only this unreasoning impulse applied to a scientifically ascertained fact.........Science has led up to the fact; but there it stops, and for converting this fact into a law a totally unscientific principle comes into play, the same as �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES that which generalises the commonest observation of nature.” The eloquent pleader of the cause of miracles passes over without a word the results of scientific investigation, as proving anything rational regarding the principles or method by which such results have been achieved. Here, as elsewhere, he declines the test: “ By their fruits shall ye know them,” Perhaps our best way of proceeding will be to give one or two examples of the mode in which men of science apply the unintel­ ligent impulse with which Mr. Mozley credits them, and which shall show, by illustration, the surreptitious method whereby they climb from the region of facts to that of laws. Before the sixteenth century it was known that water rises in a pump, the effect being then explained by the maxim that “ Nature abhors a vacuum.” It was not known that there was any limit to the height to which the water would ascend, until, on one occa­ sion, the gardeners of Florence, while attempting to raise water to a very great elevation, found that the column ceased at a height of thirty-two feet. Beyond this all the skill of the pump-maker could not get it to rise. The fact was brought to the notice of Galileo, and he, soured by a world which had not treated his science over kindly, is said to have twitted the philosophy of the time by remarking that nature evidently abhorred a vacuum only to a height of thirty-two feet. Galileo, however, did not solve the problem. It was taken up by his pupil Torricelli, to whom, after due pondering, the thought occurred that the water might be forced into the tube by a pressure applied to the surface of the liquid outside. But where, under the actual circumstances, was such a pressure to be found ? After much reflection, it flashed upon Torricelli that the atmosphere might possibly exert this pressure ; that the impalpable air might possess weight; and that a column of water thirty-two feet high might be of the exact weight necessary to hold the 107 pressure of the atmosphere in equili­ brium. There is much in this process of pondering and its results which it is impossible to analyse. It is by a kind of inspiration that we rise from the wise and sedulous contemplation of facts to the principles on which they depend. The mind is, as it were, a photographic plate, which is gradually cleansed by the effort to think rightly, and which, when so cleansed, and not before, receives impressions from the light of truth. This passage from facts to principles is called induction; and induction, in its highest form, is, as I have just stated, a kind of inspiration. But, to make it sure, the inward sight must be shown to be in accordance with outward fact. To prove or disprove the induction, we must resort to deduction and experiment. Torricelli reasoned thus : If a column of water thirty-two feet high holds the pressure of the atmosphere in equili­ brium, a shorter column of a heavier liquid ought to do the same. Now, mercury is thirteen times heavier than water; hence, if my induction be correct, the atmosphere ought to be able to sus­ tain only thirty inches of mercury. Here, then, is a deduction which can be imme­ diately submitted to experiment. Torri­ celli took a glass tube a yard or so in length, closed at one end and open at the other, and, filling it with mercury, he stopped the open end with his thumb, and inverted it into a basin filled with the liquid metal. One can imagine the feeling with which Torricelli removed his thumb, and the delight he experienced on finding that his thought had forestalled a fact never before revealed to human eyes. The column sank, but it ceased to sink at a height of thirty inches, leav­ ing the Torricellian vacuum over head. From that hour the theory of the pump was established. The celebrated Pascal followed Tor­ ricelli with another deduction. He reasoned thus : If the mercurial column be supported by the atmosphere, the higher we ascend in the air, the lower �108 LECTURES AND ESSA YS the column ought to sink, for the less will be the weight of the air over head. He caused a friend to ascend the Puy de Dome, carrying with him a barometric column; and it was found that during the ascent the column sank, and that during the subsequent descent the column rose. Between the time here referred to and the present, millions of experiments have been made upon this subject. Every village pump is an apparatus for such experiments. In thousands of instances, moreover, pumps have refused to work; but on examination it has infallibly been found that the well was dry, that the pump required priming, or that some other defect in the apparatus accounted for the anomalous action. In every case of the kind the skill of the pump-maker has been found to be the true remedy. In no case has the pressure of the atmosphere ceased; constancy, as re­ gards the lifting of pump-water, has been hitherto the demonstrated rule of nature. So also as regards Pascal’s experiment. His experience has been the universal experience ever since. Men have climbed mountains, and gone up in balloons; but no deviation from Pascal’s result has ever been observed. Barometers, like pumps, have refused to act; but instead of indicating any suspension of the operations of nature, or any interference on the part of its author with atmospheric pressure, examination has in every in­ stance fixed the anomaly upon the instruments themselves. It is this weld­ ing, then, of rigid logic to verifying fact that Mr. Mozley refers to an “unreasoning impulse.” Let us now briefly consider the case of Newton. Before his time men had occupied themselves with the problem of the solar system. Kepler had deduced, from a vast mass of observations, those general expressions of planetary motion known as “ Kepler’s laws.” It had been observed that a magnet attracts iron; and by one of those flashes of inspiration which reveal to the human mind the vast in the minute, the general in the particular, it had been inferred that the force by which bodies fall to the earth might also be an attraction. Newton pondered all these things. He looked, as was his wont, into the dark­ ness until it became entirely luminous. How this light arises we cannot explain; but, as a matter of fact, it does arise. Let me remark here, that this kind of pondering is a process with which the ancients could have been but imperfectly acquainted. They, for the most part, found the exercise of fantasy more pleasant than careful observation and subsequent brooding over facts. Hence it is that, when those whose education has been derived from the ancients speak of “ the reason of man,” they are apt to omit from their conception of reason one of its most important factors. Well, Newton slowly marshalled his thoughts, or, rather, they came to him while he “ intended his mind,” rising like a series of intellectual births out of chaos. He made this idea of attraction his own. But, to apply the idea to the solar system, it was necessary to know the magnitude of the attraction, and the law of its variation with the distance. His con­ ceptions first of all passed from the action of the earth as a whole to that of its constituent particles. And persistent thought brought more and more clearly out the final conclusion, that every par­ ticle of matter attracts every other particle with a force varying inversely as the square of the distance between the particles. Here we have the flower and outcome of Newton’s induction; and how to verify it, or to disprove it, was the next question. The first step of the philo­ sopher in this direction was to prove, mathematically, that if this law of attrac­ tion be the true one, if the earth be con­ stituted of particles which obey this law, then the action of a sphere equal to the earth in size on a body outside of it is the same as that which would be exerted if the whole mass of the sphere were contracted to a point at its centre. Prac­ tically speaking, then, the centre of the �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES 109 tions extended, the planetary motions earth is the point from which distances had obeyed these laws; and neither must be measured to bodies attracted by Kepler nor Newton entertained a doubt the earth. as to their continuing to obey them. From experiments executed before his Year after year, as the ages rolled, they time, Newton knew the amount of the believed that those laws would continue earth’s attraction at the earth’s surface, to illustrate themselves in the heavens. or at a distance of 4,000 miles from its But this was not sufficient. The scien­ centre. His object now was to measure tific mind can find no repose in the mere the attraction at a greater distance, and thus to determine the law of its diminu­ registration of sequence in nature. The further question intrudes itself with tion. But how was he to find a body resistless might, Whence comes the at a sufficient distance? He had no sequence ? What is it that binds the balloon, and, even if he had, he knew consequent to its antecedent in nature ? that any height to which he could attain The truly scientific intellect never can would be too small to enable him to attain rest until it reaches the forces by solve his problem. What did he do ? which the observed succession is pro­ He fixed his thoughts upon the moon, a duced. It was thus with Torricelli; it body 240,000 miles, or sixty times the was thus with Newton; it is thus pre­ earth’s radius, from the earth’s centre. eminently with the scientific man of He virtually weighed the moon, and to-day. In common with the most found that weight to be ^ab-oth of what ignorant, he shares the belief that spring it would be at the earth’s surface. This will succeed winter, that summer will is exactly what his theory required. I will not dwell here upon the pause of succeed spring, that autumn will succeed summer, and that winter will succeed Newton after his first calculations, or autumn. But he knows still further— speak of his self-denial in withholding and this knowledge is essential to his them because they did not quite agree with the observations then at his com­ intellectual repose—that this succession, besides being permanent, is, under the mand. Newton’s action in this matter is circumstances, necessary ; that the gravi­ the normal action of the scientific mind. tating force exerted between the sun and If it were otherwise—if scientific men were not accustomed to demand verifica­ a revolving sphere with an axis inclined tion—if they were satisfied with the im­ to the plane of its orbit must produce the observed succession of the seasons. perfect while the perfect is attainable, Not until this relation between forces their science, instead of being, as it is, a fortress of adamant, would be a house of and phenomena has been established is clay, ill-fitted to bear the buffetings of the law of reason rendered concentric with the law of nature ; and not until the theologic storms to which it is this is effected does the mind of the periodically exposed. Thus we see that Newton, like Torri­ scientific philosopher rest in peace. The expectation of likeness, then, in celli, first pondered his facts, illuminated the procession of phenomena is not that them with persistent thought, and finally divined the character of the force of on which the scientific mind founds its belief in the order of nature. - If the gravitation. But, having thus travelled force be permanent, the phenomena are inward to the principle, he reversed his necessary, whether they resemble or do steps, carried the principle outwards, and not resemble anything that has gone justified it by demonstrating its fitness to before. Hence, in judging of the order external nature. of nature, our inquiries eventually relate And here, in passing, I would notice a to the permanence of force. From point which is well worthy of attention. Kepler had deduced his laws from obser­ Galileo to Newton, from Newton to our vation. As far back as those observa­ 1 own time, eager eyes have been scanning �Ito LECTURES AND ESSA YS the heavens, and clear heads have been pondering the phenomena of the solar system. The same eyes and minds have been also observing, experimenting, and reflecting on the action of gravity at the surface of the earth. Nothing has occurred to indicate that the operation of the law has for a moment been sus­ pended ; nothing has ever. intimated that nature has been crossed by spon­ taneous action, or that a state of things at any time existed which could not be rigorously deduced from the preceding state. Given the distribution of matter, and the forces in operation, in the time of Galileo, the competent mathematician of that day could predict what is now occurring in our own. We calculate eclipses in advance, and find our calcu­ lations true to the second. We deter­ mine the dates of those that have occurred in the early times of history, and find calculation and history in harmony. Anomalies and perturbations in the planets have been over and over again observed; but these, instead of demonstrating any inconstancy on the part of natural law, have invariably been reduced to consequences of that law. Instead of referring the perturba­ tions of Uranus to any interference on the part of the author of nature with the law of gravitation, the question which the astronomer proposed to himself was : “ How, in accordance with this law, can the perturbation be produced ?” Guided by a principle, he was enabled to fix the point of space in which, if a mass of matter were placed, the observed per­ turbations would follow. We know the result. The practical astronomer turned his telescope towards the region which the intellect of the theoretic astronomer had already explored, and the planet now named Neptune was found in its predicted place. A very respectable outcome, it will be admitted, of an impulse which “rests upon no rational grounds, and can be traced to no rational principle,” which possesses “no intel­ lectual character,” which “ philosophy ” has uprooted fiom “the ground of reason,” and fixed in that “large irra­ tional department ” discovered for it, by Mr. Mozley, in the hitherto unexplored wilderness of the human mind. The proper function of the inductive principle, or the belief in the order of nature, says Mr. Mozley, is “ to act as a practical basis for the affairs of life and the carrying on of human society.” But what, it may be asked, has the planet Neptune, or the belts of Jupiter, or the whiteness about the poles of Mars, to do with the affairs of society ? How is society affected by the fact that the sun’s atmosphere contains sodium, or that the nebula of Orion contains hydrogen gas ? Nineteen-twentieths of the force employed in the exercise of the inductive principle, which, reiterates Mr. Mozley, is “ purely practical,” have been expended upon subjects as unpractical as these. What practical interest has society in the fact that the spots on the sun have a decennial period, and that, when a magnet is closely watched for half a century, it is found to perform small motions which synchronise with the appearance and disappearance of the solar spots ? And yet, I doubt not, Sir Edward Sabine would deem a life of intellectual toil amply rewarded by being privileged to solve, at its close, these infinitesimal motions. The inductive principle is founded in man’s desire to know—a desire arising from his position among phenomena which are reducible to order by his intellect. The material universe is the complement of the intellect; and, without the study of its laws, reason could never have awakened to the higher forms of self-consciousness at all. It is the Non­ ego through and by which the Ego is endowed with self-discernment. We hold it to be an exercise of reason to explore the meaning of a universe to which we stand in this relation, and the work we have accomplished is the proper com­ mentary on the methods we have pursued. Before these methods were adopted the unbridled imagination roamed through �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROViDENCES nature, putting in the place of law the figments of superstitious dread. For thousands of years witchcraft, and magic, and miracles, and special providences, and Mr. Mozley’s “ distinctive reason of man,” had the world to themselves. They made worse than nothing of it— worse, I say, because they let and hindered those who might have made something of it. Hence it is that during a single lifetime of this era of “ unintel­ ligent impulse” the progress in know­ ledge is all but infinite, as compared with that of the ages which preceded ours. The believers in magic and miracles of a couple of centuries ago had all the strength of Mr. Mozley’s present logic on their side. They had done for them­ selves what he rejoices in having so effectually done for us—cleared the ground of the belief in the order of nature, and declared magic, miracles, and witchcraft to be matters for “ordi­ nary evidence” to decide. “The principle of miracles” thus “befriended” had free scope, and we know the result. Lacking that rock-barrier of natural knowledge which we now possess, keen jurists and cultivated men were hurried on to deeds the bare recital of which makes the blood run cold. Skilled in all the rules of human evidence, and versed in all the arts of cross-examination, these men, nevertheless, went systemati­ cally astray, and committed the deadliest wrongs against humanity. And why? Because they could not put Nature into the witness-box, and question her—of her voiceless “testimony” they knew nothing. In all cases between man and man their judgment was to be relied on; but in all cases between man and nature they were blind leaders of the blind.1 ' “In 1664 two women were hung in Suffolk, under a sentence of Sir Matthew Hale, who took the opportunity of declaring that the reality of witchcraft was unquestionable ; ‘ for first, the Scriptures had affirmed so much ; and secondly, the wisdom of all nations had pro­ vided laws against such persons, which is an argument of their confidence of such a crime.’ Sir Thomas Browne, who was a great physician hi Mr. Mozley concedes that it would be no great result if miracles were only accepted by the ignorant and super­ stitious, “because it is easy to satisfy those who do not inquire.” But he does consider it “ a great result ” that they have been accepted by the edu­ cated. In what sense educated ? Like those statesmen, jurists, and Church dignitaries whose education was unable to save them from the frightful errors glanced at above? Not even in this sense; for the great mass of Mr. Mozley’s educated people had no legal training, and must have been absolutely defence­ less against delusions which could set even that training at naught. Like ninetenths of our clergy at the present day, they were versed in the literature of Greece, Rome, and Judea; but as regards a knowledge of nature, which is here the one thing needful, they were “ noble savages,” and nothing more. In the case of miracles, then, it behoves us to understand the weight of the negative before we assign a value to the positive; to comprehend the depositions of nature before we attempt to measure, with them, the evidence of men. We have only to open our eyes to see what honest and even intellectual men and women are capable of, as to judging evidence, in this nineteenth century of the Chris­ tian era, and in latitude fifty-two degrees north. The experience thus gained ought, I imagine, to influence our opinion regarding the testimony of people inhabiting a sunnier clime, with a richer imagination and without a particle of that restraint which the dis­ coveries of physical science have imposed upon mankind. Having thus submitted Mr. Mozley’s views to the examination which they chal­ lenged at the hands of a student of nature, I am unwilling to quit his book without expressing my admiration of his genius as well as a great writer, was called as a witness, and swore ‘ that he was clearly of opinion that the persons were bewitched.’ ”—Lecky’s History of Rationalism, vol. i., p. 120. �I 12 LECTURES AND ESSA VS and my respect for his character. Though barely known to him personally, his recent death affected me as that of a friend. With regard to the style of his book, I heartily subscribe to the descrip­ tion with which the Times winds up its able and appreciative review: “ It is marked throughout with the most serious and earnest conviction, but is without a single word from first to last of asperity or insinuation against opponents ; and this not from any deficiency of feeling as to the importance of the issue, but from a deliberate and resolutely maintained self-control, and from an over-ruling, ever-present sense of the duty, on themes like these, of a more than judicial calm­ ness.” ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON MIRACLES Among the scraps of manuscripts, written at the time when Mr. Mozley’s work occupied my attention, I find the following reflections :— With regard to the influence of modern science, which Mr. Mozley rates so low, one obvious effect of it is to enhance the magnitude of many of the recorded miracles, and to increase proportionably the difficulties of belief. The ancients knew but little of the vastness of the universe. The Rev. Mr. Kirkman, for example, has shown what inadequate notions the Jews entertained regarding the “ firmament of heaven and Sir George Airy refers to the case of a Greek philosopher who was persecuted for hazarding the assertion, then deemed monstrous, that the sun might be as large as the whole country of Greece. The concerns of a universe, regarded from this point of view, were much more com­ mensurate with man and his concerns than those of the universe which science now reveals to us; and hence that to suit man’s purposes, or that in compli­ ance with his prayers, changes should occur in the order of the universe, was more easy of belief in the ancient world than it can be now. In the very magni­ tude which it assigns to natural pheno­ mena, science has augmented the dis­ tance between them and man, and in­ creased the popular belief in their orderly progression. As a natural consequence, the demand for evidence is more exacting than it used to be whenever it is affirmed that the order of nature has been disturbed. Let us take as an illustration the miracle by which the victory of Joshua over the Amorites was rendered complete. In this case the sun is reported to have stood still for “ about a whole day ” upon Gibeon, and the moon in the valley of Ajalon. An Englishman of average edu­ cation at the present day would naturally demand a greater amount of evidence to prove that this occurrence took place than would have satisfied an Israelite in the age succeeding that of Joshua. For to the one the miracle probably con­ sisted in the stoppage of a fiery ball less than a yard in diameter, while to the other it would be the stoppage of an orb fourteen hundred thousand times the earth in size. And even accepting the interpretation that Joshua dealt with what was apparent merely, -but that what really occurred was the suspension of the earth’s rotation, I think the right to exercise a greater reserve in accepting the miracle, and to demand stronger evidence in support of it than that which would have satisfied an ancient Israelite, will still be con­ ceded to a man of science. There is a scientific as well as an historic imagination; and when, by the exercise of the former, the stoppage of the earth’s rotation is clearly realised, the event assumes proportions so vast, in comparison with the result to be obtained by it, that belief reels under the reflec­ tion. The energy here involved is equal to that of six trillions of horses working for the whole of the time employed by Joshua in the destruction of his foes. The amount of power thus expended would be sufficient to supply every indi­ vidual of an army a thousand times the strength of that of Joshua, with a thousand �MIRACLES AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCES times the fighting power of each of Joshua’s soldiers, not for the few hours necessary to the extinction of a handful of Amorites, but for millions of years. All this wonder is silently passed over by the sacred historian, manifestly because he knew nothing about it. Whether, therefore, we consider the miracle as purely evidential, or as a practical means of vengeance, the same lavish squander­ ing of energy stares us in the face. If evidential, the energy was wasted because the Israelites knew nothing of its amount; if simply destructive, then the ratio of the quantity lost to the quantity em­ ployed may be inferred from the fore­ going figures. To other miracles similar remarks apply. Transferring our thoughts from this little sand-grain of an earth to the immeasurable heavens, where countless worlds with freights of life probably revolve unseen, the very suns whicb warm them being barely visible across abysmal space, reflecting that beyond these sparks of solar fire suns innumer­ able may burn, whose light can never stir the optic nerve at all, and bringing these reflections face to face with the idea of the Builder and Sustainer of it all showing Himself in a burning bush, exhibiting His hinder parts, or behaving in other familiar ways ascribed to Him in the Jewish Scriptures, the incongruity mus.t appear. Did this credulous prattle of the ancients about miracles stand alone; were it not associated with words of imperishable wisdom, and with ex­ amples of moral grandeur unmatched elsewhere in the history of the human race, both the miracles and th^ir “ evi­ dences ” would have long since ceased to be the transmitted inheritance of intelli­ gent men. Influenced by the thoughts which this universe inspires, well may we exclaim in David’s spirit, if not in David’s words : “ When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon, and the stars, which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou shouldst be mind­ ful of him, or the son of man that thou shouldst so regard him ?” J13 If you ask me who is to limit the out­ goings of Almighty power, my answer is, Not I. If you should urge that, if the Builder and Maker of this universe chose to stop the rotation of the earth, or to take the form of a burning bush, there is nothing to prevent Him from doing so, I am not prepared to contradict you. I neither agree with you nor differ from you, for it is a subject of which I know nothing. But I observe that in such questions regarding Almighty power your inquiries relate, not to that power as *it is actually displayed in the universe, but to the power of your own imagina­ tion. Your question is, not Has the Omnipotent done so and so ? or Is it in the least degree likely that the Omni­ potent should do so and so ? but, Is my imagination competent to picture aBeing able and willing to do so and so ? I am not prepared to deny your competence. To the human mind belongs the faculty of enlarging and diminishing, of distort­ ing and combining, indefinitely the objects revealed by the senses. It can imagine a mouse as large as an elephant, an elephant as large as a mountain, and a mountain as high as the stars. It can separate congruities and unite incon­ gruities. We see a fish and we see a woman ; we can drop one half of each, and unite in idea the other two halves to a mermaid. We see a horse and we see a man; we are able to drop one half of each, and unite the other two halves to a centaur. Thus also the pictorial repre­ sentations of the Deity, the bodies and wings of cherubs and seraphs, the hoofs, horns, and tail of the Evil One, the joys of the blessed, and the torments of the damned, have been elaborated from materials furnished to the imagination by the senses. It behoves you and me to take care that our notions of the Power which rules the universe are not mere fanciful or ignorant enlargements of human power. The capabilities of what you call your reason are not denied. By the exercise of the faculty here ad­ verted to, you can picture to yourself a Being able and willing to do any and �114 LECTURES AND ESSA YS every conceivable thing. You are right in saying that in opposition to this Power science is of no avail—that it is “ a weapon of air.” The man of science, however, while accepting the figure, would probably reverse its application, thinking it is not science which is nere the thing of air, but that unsubstantial pageant of the imagination to which the solidity of science is opposed. ON PRAYER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY fct_S72] The Editor of the Contemporary Review is liberal enough to grant me space for some remarks upon a subject which, though my relation to it was simply that of a vehicle of transmission, has brought down upon me a consider­ able amount of animadversion. It may be interesting to some of my readers if I glance at a few cases illustra­ tive of the history of the human mind in relation to this and kindred questions. In the fourth century the belief in Antipodes was deemed unscriptural and heretical. The pious Lactantius was as angry with the people who held this notion as my censors are now with me, and quite as unsparing in his denuncia­ tions of their “ Monstrosities.” Lactan­ tius was irritated because, in his mind, by education and habit, cosmogony and religion were indissolubly associated, and, therefore, simultaneously disturbed. In the early part of the seventeenth century the notion that the earth was fixed, and that the sun and stars revolved round it daily, was interwoven with religious feeling, the separation then attempted by Galileo rousing the animosity and kindling the persecution of the Church. Men still living can remember the indig­ nation excited by the first revelations of geology regarding the age of the earth, the association between chronology and religion being for the time indissoluble. In our day, however, the best informed theologians are prepared to admit that our views of the Universe and its Author are not impaired, but improved, by the abandonment of the Mosaic account of the Creation. Look, finally, at the excitement caused by the publication of the Origin of Species, and compare it with the calm attendant on the appear­ ance of the far more outspoken and, from the old point of view, more impious Descent of Man. Thus religion survives after the removal of what had been long considered essen tial to it. In our day the Antipodes are accepted; the fixity of the earth is given up; the period of Creation and the reputed age of the world are alike dissi­ pated ; Evolution is looked upon with­ out terror; and other changes have occurred in the same direction too numerous to be dwelt upon here. In fact, from the earliest times to the pre­ sent, religion has been undergoing a process of purification, freeing .itself slowly and painfully from the physical errors which the active but uninformed intellect mingled with the aspirations of the soul. Some of us think that a final act of purification is needed, while others oppose ihis notion with the confidence and the warmth of ancient times. The bone of contention at present is the physical value of prayer. It is not my wish to excite surprise, much less to draw forth protest, by the employment of this phrase. I would simply ask any intelligent person to look the problem honestly in the face, and then to say whether, in the estimation of the great body of those who sincerely resort to it, prayer does not, at all events upon special �ON PRA YER AS A FORM OF PHYSICAL ENERGY occasions, invoke a Power which checks andlaugments the descent of rain, which changes the force and direction of winds, which affects the growth of corn and the health of men and cattle—a Power, in short, which, when appealed to under pressing circumstances, pro­ duces the precise effects caused by physical energy in the ordinary course of things. To any person who deals sincerely with the subject, and refuses to blur his moral vision by intellectual sub­ tleties, this, I think, will appear a true statement of the case. It is under this aspect alone that the scientific student, so far as I represent him, has any wish to meddle with prayer. Forced upon his attention as a form of physical energy, or as the equivalent of such energy, he claims the right of sub­ jecting it to those methods of examina­ tion from which all our present knowledge of the physical universe is derived. And if his researches lead him to a conclusion adverse to its claims—if his inquiries rivet him still closer to the philosophy implied in the words, “ He maketh His sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain upon the just and upon the unjust”—he contends only for the displacement of prayer, not for its extinction. He simply says, physical nature is not its legitimate domain. This conclusion, moreover, must be based on pure physical evidence, and not on any inherent unreasonableness in the act of prayer- The theory that the system of nature is under the control of a Being who changes phenomena in compliance with the prayers of men is, in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate one. It may, of course, be rendered futile by being associated with conceptions which contradict it; but such conceptions form no necessary part of the theory. It is a matter of experience that an earthly father, who is at the same time both wise and tender, listens to the requests of his children, and, if they do not ask amiss, takes pleasure in granting their requests. We know also that this com­ pliance extends to the alteration, within I 115 certain limits, of the current of events on earth. With this suggestion offered by experience, it is no departure from scientific method to place behind natural phenomena a Universal Father, who, in answer to the prayers of his children, alters the currents of those phenomena. Thus far theology and science go hand in hand. The conception of an aether, for example, trembling with the waves of light, is suggested by the ordinary phe­ nomena of wave-motion in water and in air; and in like manner the conception of personal volition in nature is suggested by the ordinary action of man upon earth. I, therefore, urge no impossi­ bilities, though I am constantly charged with doing so. I do not even urge inconsistency, but, on the contrary, frankly admit that the theologian has as good a right to place his conception at the root of phenomena as I have to place mine. But without verification a theoretic conception is a mere figment of the intellect, and I am sorry to find us parting company at this point. The region of theory, both in science and theology, lies behind the world of the senses, but the verification of theory occurs in the sensible world. To check the theory, we have simply to compare the deductions from it with the facts of observation. If the deductions be in accordance with the facts, we accept the theory; if in opposition, the theory is given up. A single experiment is frequently devised by which the theory must stand or fall. Of this character was the determination of the velocity of light in liquids as a crucial test of the Emission Theory. According to it, light travelled faster in water than in air; according to the Undulatory Theory, it travelled faster in air than in water. An experiment suggested by Arago, and executed by Fizeau and Foucault, was conclusive against Newton’s theory. But while science cheerfully submits to this ordeal, it seems impossible to devise a mode of verification of their theories which does not rouse resentment in �116 LECTURES AND ESSA YS theological minds. Is it that, while the pleasure of the scientific man culminates in the demonstrated harmony between theory and fact, the highest pleasure of the religious man has been already tasted in the very act of praying prior to verifi­ cation, any further effort in this direction being a mere disturbance of his peace ? Or is it that we have before us a residue of that mysticism of the Middle Ages, so admirably described by Whewell— that “practice of referring things and events, not to clear and distinct notions, not to general rules capable of direct verification, but to notions vague, distant, and vast, which we cannot bring into contact with facts, as when we connect natural events with moral and historic causes”? “Thus,” he continues, “the character of mysticism is that it refers particulars not to generalisations homo­ geneous and immediate, but to such as are heterogeneous and remote; to which we must add, that the process of this reference is not a calm act of the intellect, but is accompanied with a glow of enthu­ siastic feeling.” Every feature here depicted, and some more questionable ones, have shown themselves of late; most conspicuously, I regret to say, in the “ leaders ” of a weekly journal of considerable influence, and one, on many grounds, entitled to the respect of thoughtful men. In the correspondence, however, published by the same journal, are to be found two or three letters well calculated to correct the temporary flightiness of the journal itself. It is not my habit of mind to think otherwise than solemnly of the feeling which prompts prayer. It is a power I which I should like to see guided, not extinguished — devoted to practicable objects instead of wasted upon air. In some form or other, not yet evident, it may, as alleged, be necessary to man’s highest culture. Certain it is that, while I rank many persons who resort to prayer low in the scale of being­ natural foolishness, bigotry, and intoler­ ance being in their case intensified by the notion that they have access to the ear of God—I regard others who employ it as forming part of the very cream of the earth. The faith that adds to the folly and ferocity of the one is turned to enduring sweetness, holiness, abounding charity, and self-sacrifice by the other. Religion, in fact, varies with the nature upon which it falls. Often unreasonable, if not contemptible, prayer, in its purer forms, hints at disciplines which few of us can neglect without moral loss. But no good can come of giving it a delusive value, by claiming for it a power in physical nature. It may strengthen the heart to meet life’s losses, and thus indirectly promote physical well-being, as the digging of 2Esop’s orchard brought a treasure of fertility greater than the golden treasure sought. Such indirect issues we all admit; but it would be simply dishonest to affirm that it is such issues that are always in view. Here, for the present, I must end. I ask no space to reply to those railers who make such free use of the terms “insolence,” “outrage,”“profanity,’’and “ blasphemy.” They obviously lack the sobriety of mind necessary to give accuracy to their state­ ments, or to render their charges worthy of serious refutation. �SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS ” 11? ______________________________________ —------------------ *---------------------------— : SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS” [1864] TtlEiR refusal to investigate “ spiritual phenomena” is often urged as a reproach against scientific men. I here propose to give a sketch of an attempt to apply to the “ phenomena ” those methods of inquiry which are found available in dealing with natural truth. Some years ago, when the spirits were particularly active in this country, Faraday was invited, or rather entreated, by one of his friends to meet and ques­ tion them. He had, however, already made their acquaintance, and did not wish to renew it. I had not been so privileged, and he therefore kindly arranged a transfer of the invitation to me. The spirits themselves named the time of meeting, and I was conducted to the place at the day and hour appointed. Absolute unbelief in the facts was by no means my condition of mind. On the contrary, I thought it probable that some physical principle, not evident to the spiritualists themselves, might under­ lie their manifestations. Extraordinary effects are produced by the accumulation of small impulses. Galileo set a heavy pendulum in motion by the well-timed puffs of his breath. Ellicot set one dock going by the ticks of another, even when the two clocks were separated by a wall. Preconceived notions can, more­ over, vitiate, to an extraordinary degree, the testimony of even veracious persons. Hence my desire to witness those extra­ ordinary phenomena, the existence of which seemed placed beyond a doubt by the known veracity of those who had witnessed and described them. The Sheeting took place at a private residence ia the neighbourhood of London. My host, his intelligent wife, and a gentleman who may be called X. were in the house when I arrived. I was informed that the ** medium ” had not vet made her appearance ; that she was sensitive, and might resent suspicion. It was therefore requested that the tables and chairs should be examined before her arrival, in order to be assured that there was no trickery in the furniture. This was done; and I then first learned that my hospitable host had arranged that the stance should be a dinner-party. This was to me an unusual form of investiga­ tion •, but I accepted it, as one of the accidents of the occasion. The “ medium ” arrived—a delicatelooking young lady, who appeared to have suffered much from ill-health. I took her to dinner and sat close beside her. Facts were absent for a consider­ able time, a series of very wonderful narratives supplying their place. The duty of belief on the testimony of wit­ nesses was frequently insisted on. X. appeared to be a chosen spiritual agent, and told us many surprising things. He affirmed that, when he took a pen in his hand, an influence ran from his shoulder downwards, and impelled him to write oracular sentences. I listened for a time, offering no observation.' “ And now,” continued X., “ this power has so risen as to reveal to me the thoughts of others. Only this morning I told a friend what he was thinking of, and what he intended to do during the day.” Here, I thought, is something that can be at once tested. I said immediately to X.: “If you wish to win to your cause an apostle, who will proclaim your principles to the world from the house­ top, tell me what I am now thinking of.” X. reddened, and did not tell me my thought. Some time previously I had visited Baron Reichenbach, in Vienna, and I > now asked the young lady who sat beside me whether she could see any of the �118 LECTURES AND ESSA YS curious things which he describes—the be able to see the interior of my own light emitted by crystals, for example ? eyes. The medium affirmed that she Here is the conversation which followed, could see actual waves of light coming as extracted from my notes, written on from the sun. I retorted that men of the day following the stance :— science could tell the exact number of Medium.—“ Oh, yes ; but I see light waves emitted in a second, and also their around all bodies.” exact length. The medium spoke of I.—“ Even in perfect darkness ?” the performances of the spirits on Medium.—“Yes; I see luminous atmo­ musical instruments. I said that such spheres round all people. The atmo­ performance was gross, in comparison sphere which surrounds Mr. R. C. with a kind of music which had been would fill this room with light.” discovered some time previously by a I.—“You are aware of the effects scientific man. Standing at a distance ascribed by Baron Reichenbach to of twenty feet from a jet of gas, he could magnets ?” command the flame to emit a melodious Medium.—“ Yes; but a magnet makes note; it would obey, and continue its me terribly ill.” song for hours. So loud was the music I.—“ Am I to understand that, if this emitted by the gas-flame that it might room were perfectly dark, you could tell be heard by an assembly of a thousand whether it contained a magnet, without people. These were acknowledged to being informed of the fact ?” be as great marvels as any of those of Medium.—“ I should know of its pre­ spiritdom. The spirits were then con­ sence on entering the room.” sulted, and I was pronounced to be a I.—“ How ?” first-class medium. Medium.—“I should be rendered During this conversation a low knock­ instantly ill.” ing was heard from time to time under I.—“ How do you feel to-day ?” the table. These, I was told, were the Medium.—“ Particularly well; I have spirits’ knocks. I was informed that one not been so well for months.” knock, in answer to a question, meant I.—“ Then, may I ask you whether “No”; that two knocks meant “Not there is, at the present moment, a yet ”; and that three knocks meant magnet in my possession ?” “Yes.” In answer to a question whether The young lady looked at me, blushed, I was a medium, the response was three brisk and vigorous knocks. I noticed and stammered : “ No ; I am not en rapport with you.” that the knocks issued from a particular I sat at her right hand, and a left­ locality, and therefore requested the spirits to be good enough to answer hand pocket, within six inches of her from another corner of the table. They person, contained a magnet. did not comply; but I was assured that Our host here deprecated discussion, as it “exhausted the medium.” The they would do it, and much more, byand-by. The knocks continuing, I wonderful narratives were resumed; but turned a wine-glass upside down, and I had narratives of my own quite as placed my ear upon it, as upon a stetho­ wonderful. These spirits, indeed, seemed scope. The spirits seemed disconcerted clumsy creations, compared with those by the act; they lost their playfulness, with which my own work had made me and did not recover it for a considerable familiar. I therefore began to match the wonders related to me by other time. Somewhat weary of the proceedings, I wonders. A lady present discoursed on once threw myself back against my chair spiritual atmospheres, which she could and gazed listlessly out of the window. see as beautiful colours when she closed While thus engaged, the table was rudely her eyes. I professed myself able to see pushed. Attention was drawn to the similar colours, and, more than that, to �SCIENCE AND THE “SPIRITS” wine, still oscillating in the glasses, and I was asked whether that was not con­ vincing. I readily granted the fact of motion, and began to feel the delicacy of my position. There were several pairs of arms upon the table, and several pairs of legs under it; but how was I, without offence, to express the conviction which I really entertained ? To ward off the difficulty, I again turned a wine-glass upside down and rested my ear upon it. The rim of the glass was not level,, and my hair, on touching it, caused it. to vibrate, and produce a peculiar buzzing sound. A perfectly candid and warm­ hearted old gentleman at the opposite Side of the table, whom I may call A., drew attention to the sound, and ex­ pressed his entire belief that it was spiritual. I, however, informed him that it was the moving hair acting on the glass. The explanation was not well received; and X., in a tone of severe pleasantry, demanded whether it was the hair that had moved the table. The promptness of my negative probably satisfied him that my notion was a very different one. The superhuman power of the spirits was next dwelt upon. The strength of man, it was stated, was unavailing in opposition to theirs. No human power could prevent the table from moving when they pulled it. During the evening this pulling of the table occurred, or rather was attempted, three times. Twice the table moved when my atten­ tion was withdrawn from it; on a third occasion, I tried whether the act could be provoked by an assumed air of inattention. Grasping the table firmly between my knees, I threw myself back in the chair, and waited, with eyes fixed on vacancy, for the pull. It came. For some seconds it was pull spirit, hold muscle; the muscle, however, prevailed, and the table remained at rest. Up to the present moment, this interesting fact is known only to the particular spirit in question and myself. A species of mental scene-painting, with which my own pursuits had long , 119 rendered me familiar, was employed to figure the changes and distribution of spiritual power. The spirits, it was alleged, were provided with atmospheres, which combined with and interpenetrated each other, and considerable ingenuity was shown in demonstrating the neces­ sity of time in effecting the adjustment of the atmospheres. A re-arrange­ ment of our positions was proposed and carried out; and soon afterwards my attention was drawn to a scarcely sensible vibration on the part of the table. Several persons were leaning on the table at the time, and I asked per­ mission to touch the medium’s hand. “ Oh 1 I know I tremble,” was her reply. Throwing one leg across the other, I accidentally nipped a muscle, and pro­ duced thereby an involuntary vibration of the free leg. This vibration, I knew, must be communicated to the floor, and thence to the chairs of all present. I therefore intentionally promoted it. My attention was promptly drawn to the motion; and a gentleman beside me, whose value as a witness I was particu­ larly desirous to test, expressed his belief that it was out of the compass of human power to produce so strange a tremor. “ I believe,” he added, earnestly, “ that it is entirely the spirits’ work.” “ So do I,” added, with heat, the candid and warm-hearted old gentleman A. “Why, sir,” he continued, “ I feel them at this moment shaking my chair.” I stopped the motion of the leg. “ Now, sir,” A. exclaimed, “they are gone.” I began again, and A. once more affirmed their presence. I could, however, notice that there were doubters present, who did not quite know what to think of the mani­ festations. I saw their perplexity ; and, as there was sufficient reason to believe that the disclosure of the secret would simply provoke anger, I kept it to myself. Again a period of conversation inter­ vened, during which the spirits became animated. The evening was confessedly a dull one, but matters appeared to brighten towards its close. The spirits were requested to spell the name by �120 LECTURES AND ESSA YS which I was known in the heavenly world. Our host commenced repeating the alphabet, and when he reached the letter “ P ” a knock was heard. He began again, and the spirits knocked at the letter “0.” 1 was puzzled, but waited for'the end. The next letter knocked down was “E.” I laughed, and remarked that the spirits were going to make a poet of me. Admonished for my levity, I was informed that the frame of mind proper for the occasion ought to have been superinduced by a perusal of the Bible immediately before the seance. The spelling, however, went on, and sure enough I came out a poet. But matters did not end here. Our host continued his repetition of the alphabet, and the next letter of the name proved to be “ O.” Here was manifestly an unfinished word ; and the spirits were apparently in their most communicative mood. The knocks came from under the table, but no person present evinced the slightest desire to look under it. I asked whether I might go underneath; the permission was granted ; so I crept under the table. Some tittered; but the candid old A. exclaimed: “ He has a right to look into the very dregs of it, to convince himself.” Having pretty well assured myself that no sound could be produced under the table without its origin being revealed, I requested our host to continue his questions. He did so, but in vain. He adopted a tone of tender entreaty ; but the “dear spirits ” had become dumb dogs, and refused to be entreated. I continued under that table for at least a quarter of an hour, after which, with a feeling of despair as regards the prospects of humanity never before experienced, I regained my chair. Once there, the spirits resumed their loquacity, and dubbed me “ Poet of Science.” This, then, is the result of an attempt made by a scientific man to look into these spiritual phenomena. It is not encouraging ; and for this reason. The present promoters of spiritual pheno­ mena divide themselves into two classes, one of which needs no demonstration, while the other is beyond the reach of proof. The victims like to believe, and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence of this frame of mind. It is, moreover, a state perfectly compatible with extreme intellectual subtlety and a capacity for devising hypotheses which only require the hardihood engendered by strong conviction, or by callous mendacity, to render them impregnable. The logical feebleness of science is not sufficiently borne in mind. It keeps down the weed of superstition, not by logic, but by slowly rendering the mental soil unfit for its cultivation. When science appeals to uniform experience, the spiritualist will retort : “ How do you know that a uniform experience will continue uniform ? You tell me that the sun has risen for six thousand years : that is no proof that it will rise to­ morrow ; within the next twelve hours it may be puffed out by the Almighty.** Taking this ground, a man may maintain the story of “ Jack and the Beanstalk ” in the face of all the science in the world. You urge, in vain, that science has given us all the knowledge of the universe which we now possess, while spiritualism has added nothing to that knowledge. The drugged soul is beyond the reach of reason. It is in vain that impostors are exposed, and the special demon cast out. He has but slightly to change his shape, return to his house, and find it “ empty, swept, and garnished.” Since the time when the foregoing remarks were written I have been more than once among the spirits, at their own invitation. They do not improve on acquaintance. Surely no baser delusion ever obtained dominance over the weak mind of man. �THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LIMITED. Registered Office—Nos. 5 and 6, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. Chairman : EDWARD CLODD. Alfred William Benn Bjornstjerne Bjornson George Brandes Dr. Charles Callaway Dr. Paul Carus Prof. B. H. Chamberlain Dr. Stanton Coit Honorary Associates: Dr. F. J. Furnivall F. J. Gould Prof. Ernst Haeckel Leonard Huxley Prof. Cesare Lombroso Joseph McCabe Eden Phillpotts John M. Robertson Dr. _W. R. Washington Sullivan Prof. Lester F. Ward Prof. Ed. A.Westermarck and Thomas Whittaker A Brief Statement of the Objects and Methods of the Association. The “Spirit of Rationalism.” The prevalence of the “spirit of Rationalism,” as Mr. Lecky has called it, is one of the chief features distinguishing modern from mediaeval thought and life. This spirit has permeated all nations and all classes comprised in the world of Western civilisation. It is not any definite and reasoned doctrine, but simply a sceptical attitude towards magic and miracles, assumptions of occult power and insight on the part of men, and alleged divine interferences. We believe that this spirit of Rationalism is closely connected with the progress of modern science and critical research. The “ spirit ” assumes unconsciously and as a general, practical rule that uniformity of nature which science and research repeatedly prove to exist in particular cases. In other words, it assumes that exceptional occurrences are due to unfamiliar combinations of familiar conditions, and do not require superhuman conscious agency to account for them. But the spirit of Rationalism is, after all, only a mental tendency. As such, it is liable, to exist in the modern mind side by side with the supernaturalism of a pre-scientific age. It does so conspicuously under present-day Protestantism. Most Protestants are Rationalists in their attitude towards contemporary instances of alleged miracle and inspiration. They are Rationalists in their attitude towards the sacred literatures of Buddhists, Brahmans, Parsees, and Mohammedans, and towards the distinctive teachings of the Church of Rome. As regards the narrative and theology contained in the Bible, however, they are not Rationalists, but at best compromisers between traditional reverence and scientific inquiry. Thus, while the spirit of Rationalism is rife, the attempt to raise Rationalism into a consistent rule of the intellectual life is extremely unpopular,, having to face both active opposition and widespread indifference. That, nevertheless, is the aim which the Association keeps steadily in view. �THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited Embodiment of the Rationalistic Spirit. The physical sciences are, within their respective limits, the most consistent embodiments of the spirit of Rationalism. Astronomy, geology, and biology have successively broken away from Biblical tradition. They have become genuine sciences through an exercise of the freest and most serious inquiry, combined with the expectation of discovering natural uniformities where men formerly saw nothing but supernatural mysteries. But the special sciences belong primarily to specialists. What the average thinking man requires is a good synopsis of the object-matter and results of science, an insight into its nature and methods, and a habit of mind which will enable him to form sensible and serviceable judgments as to the many questions which cannot yet (and perhaps never can) be decided with scientific accuracy. Thus the spirit of Rationalism has needed to embody itself, not only in science and exact research, but in certain types of human thought which form, as it were, the atmosphere of science. Among the more highly-cultivated intellects it has given rise to the various schools of modern philosophy. Among the people and certain of their democratic leaders it has given rise to the various parties of modern Freethought. . Philosophy is, on the whole, somewhat conservative, although it is far more anxious to conserve the wide outlook of Plato and Aristotle than the theology of Paul and Augustine. The tendency of popular Freethought is more revolutionary and impatient for a new start in human ideas. With the spread of education and democracy, however, these two types of advanced thought must increasingly coalesce. In coalescing, Freethought should gain breadth of view and lose the “ scoffing ” habit which only hardens foes and alienates many who would otherwise be friends. Philosophy, on the other hand, should gain a certain down­ rightness and relation to practical life which it generally lacks, and at the same time learn to relinquish such speculations as are not even possessed of probability in the light of experience and science. To temper Freethought with philosophy, and to assist in freeing philosophy from all academic trammels and fanciful excrescences, are among the objects for which the R. P. A. has been formed. The Limits of Compromise. The semi-philosophic works which have acquired wide popularity in recent years are those which have set forth some new compromise (or what has really amounted to a compromise) between certain tenets of Christianity and certain views of modem science. We believe that this accommodating spirit, though a long way in advance of the spirit of sheer intolerance, lags equally far behind the philosophic spirit of truth seeking. Compromise is inevitable, and, to a certain extent, salutary, in politics. This is because political measures have to be adjusted to the existing views of the most influential body of citizens, no matter whether those views be sound or the reverse. But the very fact which makes compromise legitimate in politics makes it illegitimate as regards religious and abstract social questions. Thus a consistent Rationalism is the direct antithesis, the uncompromising rejection, of that religious faith which deems it necessary to accept traditional and reputedly sacred opinions, without seriously inquiring into their evidential value. In saying this, we do not, of course, mean that all traditional religious opinions are necessarily to be rejected, nor do we pretend to be in a position to teach the whole philosophy of Rationalism. That is still in the making, and it is that which the R. P. A. must help, directly or indirectly, to make. Our contention is that the appeal to experience and reason must alone decide what elements of traditional Christianity are worthy to be retained, and that theological dogmas and scriptural prejudices must be �THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited allowed no more influence over the philosophic thinker than has the legend of creation contained in the book of Genesis over the present-day astronomer or gwlogist. After careful consideration, aided by the advice of several well-known thinkers, tile following definition of Rationalism has been adopted and embodied in the Memorandum of Association :— 9 “ Rationalism may be defined as the mental attitude which unreservedly accepts the supremacy of reason and aims at establishing a system of philosophy and ethics verifiable by experience and independent of all arbitrary assumptions or authority.” In making direct mention of ethics we wish to accentuate the fact that the philosophy of Rationalism cannot fail to have important bearings on human conduct, which will, we believe, be far more beneficent in the long run than those of traditional theology. The Need of Propaganda. Although the spirit of Rationalism has permeated the Protestant clergy, con­ forming and non-conformist alike, and, in many cases, the preachers are more liberal-minded than their flocks, professional needs naturally make them, as a body, hostile to Rationalism in any consistent shape. They and their lay supporters spare neither pains nor money in promulgating views which, though differing widely according to the church or sect from which they proceed, agree in attributing unique authority and surpassing excellence to the Christian religion, and defending, rather than dispassionately inquiring into, its supposed essentials. Many powerful associations, among which the Religious Tract Society and the Society for Promoting, IChristian Knowledge are perhaps the most widely known, are carried on largely with the object of vindicating Christian tradition against Rationalist criticism. Philosophic Rationalists, on the other hand, have been disposed to trust to the progress of science and the ultimate triumph of truth, and have made comparatively little effort to propagate their opinions. It is believed that the R. P. A. will be a means of arousing and directing the energies of such torpid sympathisers. Concerted action among Rationalists was never more needed than now, in face of the present widespread reaction towards relatively irrational beliefs and practices. This reaction shows itself in the disposition to assert the sufficiency of instinct and sentiment, as well as to magnify the claims of custom, I ritual, and authority, while making light of reason, evading the duty of critical inquiry, and ignoring the need of a broad human and scientific outlook, such as constructive philosophic thought alone can give. The cause of Rationalism cannot be assisted more materially than by promoting the publication and distribution of works which the organised weight of religious prejudice, the stolid indifference of the general public to philosophic inquiry, and the consequent policy of the popular press and the booksellers, all tend to discourage, if not to taboo—provided, of course, that such works have intrinsic value. Publications of the R. P. A., Ltd. Works of a serious, and especially those of a seriously philosophic character, are ■ heavily handicapped in the competition for popular favour. Still more is this the case when such works soberly advocate unpopular views. The notion that the most successful books are the best may be partially true as regards works of imagination. It is very far indeed from being true as regards works of research and reflection. �THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, Limited Thus one of the objects of the Association is to assist in issuing the works of competent authors whose religious heterodoxy places them at a disadvantage in approaching the ordinary publishing firms. Another object, equally important to the cause of Rationalism, and in carrying out which the Association has already met with striking success, is to re-issue, in cheap and convenient form, standard or notable books of a scientific, critical, ethical, or philosophical character. Conditions of Membership. The Rationalist Press Association, Ltd., is “a Company Limited by Guarantee, and not having a Capital divided into shares.” It is a propagandist, not a com­ mercial, undertaking. Each member becomes liable for a sum not exceeding one pound, in the case of the Association being wound up; but even should the necessity for winding up occur (a highly improbable contingency), it is not likely that the members would be called upon for the amount of their guarantee, as the Directors are careful to refrain from embarking on any undertaking for which pecuniary provision has not been made. Any person above the age of twenty-one may, with the consent of the Board, become a member, on payment of an annual subscription of not less than five shillings. The subscription is payable in advance on the first of January of each year. A member may retire from the Association upon giving notice in writing ft) the Secretary. Members are entitled to receive, post free, publications of the Association within the value of their annual subscriptions, and it is usual to send the new publications as issued. Those, however, who prefer to specify “ Books by request ” can make their own selection from the R. P. A. lists which are issued from time to time. Donations and Bequests. It is hoped that all who are in fact Rationalists will give their open support to the Association, and take part so far as possible in its meetings; but sympathisers who do not wish to be incorporated as members, or who prefer to conceal their identity, can aid the funds by informal annual subscriptions or special donations, strict confidence being observed when desired. Donations, no matter hoy small, will be welcome from members who can spare such sums at the present time, but do not care to include them in the amount of their annual subscription. Rationalists and sympathisers with Rationalism should, when making their.wills, bear in mind the work which the Association is doing. As a legally-constituted body, having stringent rules to prevent any possible misapplication of funds, it is eminently fitted to carry out the wishes or instructions of persons who bequeath sums of money for specified objects—-literary, scientific, or educational—which are in accord with its general principles. A suggested form of bequest will be sent to any applicant. For further particulars address the Secretary—Charles E. Hooper, Nos. y and 6, Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C. �List of Publications (Alphabetically Arranged) Issued for the ■(Rationalist (Press association, Uimiteb, BY WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. (For List of Sixpenny Publications see last page of cover.) BENN, A. W.—Modern England. A Record of Opinion and Action from the Time of the French Revolution to the Present Day. xxvL-519 PP-J cloth, 2 vols., 7s. net, by post 7s. 6d. “ A masterly record.......Modern England is a book to keep you up late at night. 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In his Preface the Author states that his object is to inquire carefully who Jesus of Nazareth was, what were his real aims and ideas, what the means .at his command for realising them, and how the great institutions connected with his name originated and grew up. The investigation is conducted in a simple and straightforward, and at the same time scholarly, manner. Mr. Conybeare insists that we must face the problems of our age and adopt the solutions which an enlightened criticism provides. (Highly praised by the Press.) CONWAY, MONCURE D.— Lessons fOF the Day. 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. iod. 232 pp.; cloth, CRANBROOK, the late Rev. James.—The Religious Education Of Children. 16 pp.; 2d., by post 2%d. FORESTER, GEORGE.—The Faith Of an Agnostic; or, First Essays in Rationalism. Cloth, 5s. WATTS ANL) op,, 17, .JOFflVSOl'i’s COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. �R. P. A. LIST OF PUBLICATIONS GODFREY, w. S.—Theism Found Wanting. 2d., by post 2%d. 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All the highest authorities have been carefully consulted, and the book gives the main results of Biblical criticism, together with other valuable matter, in what is, by comparison at least, a nutshell. The First Volume treats of the superstitions of savages and primitive man, and delineates the characteristics of the religions of America, Finland, China, Egypt, Arabia, Chaldaea, Syria, India, Japan, Persia, the Kelts, Greeks, and Romans. The Second Volume takes to pieces the whole of the Old Testament literature, and explains the origin of the various parts. The last chapter describes the Religious Environment of Early Christianity. The Third Voliime traces the growth of the Christian movement, the lives of Paul and Jesus (with due separation of the mythical elements), and affords a Rationalistic analysis of the whole of the New Testament books. ---- The Building of the Bible. 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The work is fully illustrated by Mr. Reginald Jones. - __________________________________ ___________________ ________________________ ;--------------------------- —-------------------1 WATTS AND CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. �R. P. A. LIST OF PUBLICATIONS HAECKEL, Professor ERNST.—The Evolution of Man. In two vols., royal 8vo, 948 pp., 28 plates, 512 illustrations; 42s. net, carnage extra. Abridged edition, cloth, 2s. net, by post 2s. 5d.; in paper cover is. net, by post is. 5d. ___ The Riddle of the Universe. Library Edition, XV.-391 pp., cloth, gilt tops, 4s. 6d. net, by post 4s. iod. HIRD, DENNIS.—A Picture Book Of Evolution. Part I. (Astro­ nomy, Geology, and Zoology), with 182 Illustrations, viii.-201 pp.; cloth, 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. iod. Part II. (Comparative Anatomy and Embryology, and giving the Pedigree of Man), with 194 Illustrations, viii.-219 pp.; cloth, 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. iod. 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Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Lectures and essays (Cullings from "Fragments of Science") Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tyndall, John [1820-1893] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 120, [8] p. ; 22 cm. Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints Series number: No. 10 Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Includes bibliographical references. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Ltd. Printed in double columns. Fragments of science first published in 1871. Brief statement of RPA's objects and methods, and publisher's list on unnumbered pages at the end. Contents: Biographical sketch -- The Belfast address -- Apology for the Belfast address -- Scientific materialism -- Scientific use of the imagination -- Science and man -- Vitality -- Reflections on prayer and natural law -- Miracles and special providences -- On prayer as a form of physical energy -- Science and the "spirits". Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1903 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1800 N647 Subject The topic of the resource Science Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Lectures and essays (Cullings from "Fragments of Science")), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English essays Imagination Lectures Materialism NSS Prayer Psychic phenomena Science Science-Addresses https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/4172a3407c244a3ab1d2f2a561f96605.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=TjRouOG-qPxTe%7EFV5-oQithZK0E%7ELDIQwSXaDYvTJ8YJMpIAOraBKG5QUGgqxydJhjdHtqmpaYp4ZlJpoq84GDOUpTz09ggTRIR9SQ%7E3ACGqKIcdXFwSkBhJLyCj84U2JTEY1FnoRhug21fcPPK1DLFtTVIjnYnZv2TMU3ru3P2s9lBc5e9V4R2Njvn38vyKvYFBY2rregKNgPuL0L9V6HgPRgXQHFn19W-TjYf5OWCFXToViKprPo-1mMRAW9t42FKaFrqLo3t4rYPEbUj1ejr%7EV5X5CFjsk41%7EmZ04osit7sfr4UbO2tXeOw4haasjpYVhuK94LMDTd4QDu898nQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 37adadd5f6e38ce25339370fb0a908e7 PDF Text Text PRICE SIXPENCE & EDUCATION: INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL BY , Herbert Spencer WATTS & Co.,. Jr 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] R.P. A. CHEAP REPRINTS.—No. 6. �A A A. A A A. Jf vou wish to know WHAT THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION (Limited} IS DOING FOR THE Aduancement of Liberty of Thought, WRITE TO THE SECRETARY, if, Johnson! s Court, Fleet Street, London, E.C., »? FOR FULL INFORMATION. A A A. A A A. Monthly, 2d., by post 2^d., or with Supplement (January, April, July, and October) 3d. Annual Subscription, 2s. 8d. post free. THE LITERARY GUIDE AND RATIONALIST REVIEW. In addition to reviews of the best books on Religion, Ethics, Science, and Philosophy, each number of the Literary Guide contains articles expository of Rationalism, frequently from the pens of prominent writers. Some Press The University Magazine says : “ It is no exaggera­ tion if we assert that the articles in the Literary Guide excel in sterling worth those of all its contemporaries; and Rationalists will be proud to possess an independent and fearless literary review cf this kind.” The London Echo states that “anyone who desires to be acquainted with some of the under-currents of modern thought running through an increasing class of new books may with advantage consult the Literary Guide." Opinions: The Weekly Sun remarks that “ we must admit the Literary Guide to be comprehensive and clever, however much we dissent from its opinions or conclusions.” The Literary World’advises its readers that even those who are not Rationalists should be interested in the perusal of the Literary Guide. The London Star also testifies that “ the Literary Guide contains an admirable survey of current literature from the Rationalist standpoint" The whole of the numbers for the past year may be obtained, handsomely bound in cloth, price 4s. 6d., carriage paid. Specimen Copy Post Free. d London: Watts & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C. �^62.0 national secular society EDUCATION f �BY THE SAME AUTHOR A SYSTEM OF SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY FIRST PRINCIPLES, nth Thousand. 6th Thousand, revised 2 vols. PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. and enlarged. 36s. PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. Ditto Ditto 5th Thousand. 2 vols. Vol. I. 4th Thousand. Vol. II. 4th Thousand. Vol. III. PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. Vol. I. Ditto JUSTICE (separately). 16s. Vol. II. 2nd Thousand. 2nd Thousand. 2nd Thousand. 36s. 21s. 18s. 16s. 15s. 2nd Thousand. 12s. 6d. 6s. OTHER WuRKS THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY. 21st Thousand. EDUCATION. 7th Thousand, os. Ditto Cheap Edition. 41st Thousand. 10s. 6d. ESSAYS. 3 vols. 6th Thousand. 2s. 6d. 30s. (Each Volume may be had separately, price 10s.) SOCIAL STATICS and MAN v. STATE. THE MAN v. THE STATE (separately). VARIOUS FRAGMENTS. FACTS AND COMMENTS. 10s. 14th Thousand. Enlarged Edition. 4th Thousand. REASONS FOR DISSENTING FROM OF M. COMTE. 6d. A REJOINDER TO PROF. WEISMANN. WEISMANNISM ONCE MORE. is. 6s. 6s. TIIE PHILOSOPHY 6d. 6d. A detailed Catalogue of the above may be obtained gratis from the publishers, Messrs. Williams & Norgate, 14, Henrietta Street, London, IV. C. �EDUCATION: INTELLECTUAL, MORAL, AND PHYSICAL HERBERT SPENCER If this book is returned to w. A. FOYLE, 65, GRAND PAR'D. harringay, n. WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1903 ��PUBLISHERS’ PREFACE In the preface to the cheap edition of this work, issued in 1878, the author says :—• The growing demand for the original edition of these Chapters on Education has suggested to me the propriety of issuing an edition that shall come within easy reach of a larger public. That the work has had considerable currency in the United States, and that there have been made translations of it into the French, German, Italian, Russian, Hungarian, Dutch, and Danish languages, are facts which have further encouraged me to believe that at home an edition fitted by lower price for wider circulation is called for. No alterations have been made in the text. In the absence of more pressing occupations I should have subjected it to a careful revision; but rather than postpone tasks of greater importance I have refrained. Since then the work has been translated into Spanish, Swedish, Bohemian, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, Sanskrit, Arabic, and Bulgarian. By the consent of Mr. Spencer, the Rationalist Press Association are now able, by issuing this ■verbatim reprint at a still lower price, to extend the circulation of these essays yet further. ��J CONTENTS CHAPTER I. WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? • 9 CHAPTER II. INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION - 40 - 69 CHAPTER III. MORAL EDUCATION .... CHAPTER IV. PHYSICAL EDUCATION 92 i J 1 1 1 �EDUCATION AT ETON, 1842-5 “ Balston, our tutor, was a good scholar after the fashion of the day, and famous for Latin verse; but he was essentially a commonplace don. ‘ Stephen major,’ he once said to my brother, 1 if you do not take more pains, how can you ever expect to write good longs and shorts ? If you do not write good longs and shorts, how can you ever be a man of taste? If you are not a man of taste, how can you ever hope to be of use in the world ?’ ” ( The Life of Sir Tames Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., by his brother, Leslie Stephen, pp. 80-1.) �EDUCATION CHAPTER I. WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH ? It has been truly remarked that, in order of time, decoration precedes dress. Among people who submit to great physi­ cal suffering that they may have themselves handsomely tattooed, extremes of tempera­ ture are borne with but little attempt at mitigation. Humboldt tells us that an Orinoco Indian, though quite regardless of bodily comfort, will yet labour for a fortnight to purchase pigment wherewith to make himself admired; and that the same woman who would not hesitate to leave her hut without a fragment of clothing on, would not dare to commit such a breach of decorum as to go out unpainted. Voyagers find that coloured beads and trinkets are much more prized by wild tribes, than are calicoes or broadcloths. And the anecdotes we have of the ways in which, when shirts and coats are given, savages turn them to some ludicrous display, show how com­ pletely the idea of ornament predominates over that of use. Nay, there are still more extreme illustrations : witness the fact narrated by Capt. Speke of his African attendants, who strutted about in their goat-skin mantles when the weather was fine, but when it was wet, took them off, folded them up, and went about naked, shivering in the rain! Indeed, the facts of aboriginal life seem to indicate that dress is developed out of decorations. And when we remember that even among ourselves most think more about the fineness of the fabric than its warmth, and more about the cut than the convenience—when we see that the function is still in great measure subordinated to the appearance — we have further reason for inferring such an origin. It is curious that the like relations hold with the mind. Among mental as among bodily acquisitions, the orna­ mental comes before the useful. Not only in times past, but almost as much in our own era, that knowledge which conduces to personal well-being has been postponed to that which brings applause. In the Greek schools, music, poetry, rhetoric, and a philosophy which, until Socrates taught, had but little bearing upon action, were the dominant subjects ; while knowledge aiding the arts of life had a very subordinate place. And in our own universities and schools at the present moment, the like antithesis holds. We are guilty of something like a plati­ tude when we say that throughout his after-career, a boy, in nine cases out of ten, applies his Latin and Greek to no practical purposes. The remark is trite that in his shop, or his office, in managing - his estate or his family, in playing his part as director of a bank or a railway, he is very little aided by this knowledge he took so many years to acquire—so �IO EDUCATION little, that generally the greater part of it drops out of his memory; and if he occasionally vents a Latin quotation, or alludes to some Greek myth, it is less to throw light on the topic in hand than for the sake of effect. If we inquire what is the real motive for giving boys a classical education, we find it to be simply conformity to public opinion. Men dress their children’s minds as they do their bodies, in the prevailing fashion. As the Orinoco Indian puts on paint before leaving his hut, not with a view to any direct benefit, but because he would be ashamed to be seen without it; so, a boy’s drilling in Latin and Greek is insisted on, not because of their intrinsic value, but that he may not be disgraced by being found ignorant of them—that he may have “the education of a gentleman ”—the badge marking a certain social position, and bringing a consequent respect. This parallel is still more clearly displayed in the case of the other sex. In the treatment of both mind and body, the decorative element has continued to predominate in a greater degree among women than among men. Originally, personal adornment occupied the atten­ tion of both sexes equally. In these latter days of civilisation, however, we see that in the dress of men the regard for appearance has in a considerable degree yielded to the regard for comfort; while in their education the useful has of late been trenching on the ornamental. In neither direction has this change gone so far with women. The wearing of ear-rings, finger-rings, bracelets; the elaborate dressings of the hair; the still occasional use of paint; the immense labour bestowed in making habiliments sufficiently attractive; and the great discomfort that will be sub­ mitted to for the sake of conformity; show how greatly, in the attiring of women, the desire of approbation over­ rides the desire for warmth and con­ venience. And similarly in their educa­ tion, the immense preponderance of “ accomplishments ” proves how here, too, use is subordinated to display. Dancing, deportment, the piano, singing, drawing—what a large space do these occupy 1 If you ask why Italian and German are learnt, you will find that, under all the sham reasons given, the real reason is, that a knowledge of those tongues is thought ladylike. It is not that the books written in them may be utilised, which they scarcely ever are ; but that Italian and German songs may be sung, and that the extent of attainment may bring whispered admiration. The births, deaths, and marriages of kings, and other like historic trivialities, are committed to memory, not because of any direct benefits that can possibly result from knowing them ; but because society considers them parts of a good education—because the absence of such knowledge may bring the contempt of others. When we have named reading, writing, spelling, grammar, arithmetic, and sewing, we have named about all the things a girl is taught with a view to their actual uses in life; and even some of these have more reference to the good opinion of others than to immediate personal welfare. Thoroughly to realise the truth that with the mind as with the body the ornamental precedes the useful, it is requisite to glance at its rationale. This lies in the fact that, from the far past down even to the present, social needs have subordinated individual needs, and that the chief social need has been the control of individuals. It is not, as we commonly suppose, that there are no governments but those of monarchs, and �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? parliaments, and constituted authorities. These acknowledged governments are supplemented by other unacknowledged ones, that grow up in all circles, in which every man or woman strives to be king or queen or lesser dignitary. To get above some and be reverenced by them, and to propitiate those who are above us, is the universal struggle in which the chief energies of life are expended. By the accumulation of wealth, by style of living, by beauty of dress, by display of knowledge of intellect, each tries to subjugate others; and so aids in weaving that ramified network of restraints by which society is kept in order. It is not the savage chief only, who, in formidable war-paint, with scalps at his belt, aims to strike awe into his inferiors; it is not only the belle who, by elaborate toilet, polished manners, and numerous accom­ plishments, strives to “make conquests ”; but the scholar, the historian, the philo­ sopher, use their acquirements to the same end. We are none of us content with quietly unfolding our own indivi­ dualities to the full in all directions; but have a restless craving to impress our individualities upon others, and in some way subordinate them. And this it is which determines the character of our education. Not what knowledge is of most real worth, is the consideration; but what will bring most applause, honour, respect—what will most conduce to social position and influence—what will be most imposing. As, throughout life, not what we are, but what we shall be thought, is the question; so in education, the question is, not the intrinsic value of knowledge, so much as its extrinsic effects on others. And this being our dominant idea, direct utility is scarcely more regarded than by the barbarian when filing his teeth and staining his nails. ii If there requires further evidence of the rude, undeveloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the comparative worths of different kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed — much less discussed in a methodic way with definite results. Not only is it that no standard of relative values has yet been agreed upon; but the existence of any such standard has not been conceived in a clear manner. And not only is it that the existence of such a standard has not been clearly conceived : but the need for it seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read books on this topic, and attend lectures on that; decide that their children shall be instructed in these branches of knowledge, and shall not be instructed in those; and all under the guidance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice; without ever considering the enormous importance of determining in some rational way what things are really most worth learning. It is true that in all circles we hear occasional remarks on the importance of this or the other order of information. But whether the degree of its importance justifies the expenditure of the time needed to acquire it; and whether there are not things of more importance to which such time might be better devoted; are queries which, if raised at all, are dis­ posed of quite summarily, according to personal predilections. It is true also, that now and then, we hear revived the standing controversy respecting the com­ parative merits of classics and mathe­ matics. This controversy, however, is carried on in an empirical manner, with no reference to an ascertained criterion; and the question at issue is insignificant when compared with the general question of which it is part. To suppose that �12 EDUCATION deciding whether a mathematical or a classical education is the best, is deciding what is the proper curriculum, is much the same thing as to suppose that the whole of dietetics lies in ascertaining whether or not bread is more nutritive than potatoes! The question which we contend is of such transcendent moment, is, not whether such or such knowledge is of worth, but what is its relative worth? When they have named certain advan­ tages which a given course of study has secured them, persons are apt to assume that they have justified themselves : quite forgetting that the adequateness of the advantages is the point to be judged. There is, perhaps, not a subject to which men devote attention that has not some value. A year diligently spent in getting up heraldry, would very possibly give a little further insight into ancient manners and morals. Any one who should learn the distances between all the towns in England, might, in the course of his life, find one or two of the thousand facts he had acquired of some slight service when arranging a journey. Gathering together all the small gossip of a county, profitless occupation as it would be, might yet occasionally help to establish some useful fact—say, a good example of hereditary transmission. But in these cases, every one would admit that there was no proportion between the required labour and the probable benefit. No one would tolerate the proposal to devote some years of a boy’s time to getting such information, at the cost of much more valuable information which he might else have got. And if here the test of relative value is appealed to and held conclusive, then should it be appealed to and held conclusive through­ out. Had we time to master all subjects we need not be particular. To quote the old song Could a man be secure That his days would endure As of old, for a thousand long years, What things might he know ! What deeds might he do ! And all without hurry or care. “But we that have but span-long lives” must ever bear in mind our limited time for acquisition. And remembering how narrowly this time is limited, not only by the shortness of life, but also still more by the business of life, we ought to be especially solicitous to employ what time we have to the greatest advantage. Before devoting years to some subject which fashion or fancy suggests, it is surely wise to weigh with great care the worth of the results, as compared with the worth of various alternative results which the same years might bring if otherwise applied. In education, then, this is the question of questions, which it is high time we discussed in some methodic way. The first in importance, though the last to be considered, is the problem—how to decide among the conflicting claims of various subjects on our attention. Before there can be a rational curriculum, we must settle which things it most concerns us to know; or, to use a word of Bacon’s, now unfortunately obsolete—we must determine the relative values of know­ ledges. To this end, a measure of value is the first requisite. And happily, respecting the true measure of value, as expressed in general terms, there can be no dispute. Everyone, in contending for the worth of any particular order of information, does so by showing its bearing upon some part of life. In reply to the question—“ Of what use is it ?” the mathematician, linguist, naturalist, or philosopher, ex­ plains the way in which his learning beneficially influences action—saves from �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? evil or secures good—conduces to happi­ ness. When the teacher of writing has pointed out how great an aid writing is to success in business—that is, to the obtainment of sustenance—that is, to satisfactory living; he is held to have proved his case. And when the collector of dead facts (say a numismatist) fails to make clear any appreciable effects which these facts can produce on human welfare, he is obliged to admit that they are comparatively valueless. All then, either directly or by implication, appeal to this as the ultimate test. How to live ?—that is the essential question for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which comprehends every special problem is—the right ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage our affairs ; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilise those sources of happiness which nature supplies—how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others—how to live completely ? And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to dis­ charge ; and the only rational mode of judging of an educational course is, to judge in what degree it discharges such function. • This test, never used in its entirety, but rarely even partially used, and used then in a vague, half conscious way, has to be applied consciously, methodically, and throughout all cases. It behoves us to set before ourselves, and ever to keep clearly in view, complete living as the 13 end to be achieved; so that in bringing up our children we may choose subjects and methods of instruction, with deli­ berate reference to this end. Not only ought we to cease from the mere unthink­ ing adoption of the current fashion in education, which has no better warrant than any other fashion; but we must also rise above that rude, empirical style of judging displayed by those more intel­ ligent people who do bestow some care in overseeing the cultivation of their children’s minds. It must not suffice simply to think that such or such infor­ mation will be useful in after life, or that this kind of knowledge is of more prac­ tical value than that; but we must seek out some process of estimating their respective values, so that as far as possible we may positively know which are most deserving of attention. Doubtless the task is difficult—perhaps never to be more than approximately achieved. But, considering the vastness of the interests at stake, its difficulty is no reason for pusillanimously passing it by; but rather for devoting every energy to its mastery. And if we only proceed systematically, we may very soon get at results of no small moment. Our first step must obviously be to classify, in the order of their importance, the leading kinds of activity which con­ stitute human life. They may be naturally arranged into :—1. those activities which directly minister to self-preservation; 2. those activities which, by securing the necessaries of life, indirectly minister to self-preservation; 3. those activities which have for their end the rearing and dis­ cipline of offspring; 4. those activities which are involved in the maintenance of proper social and political relations; 5. those miscellaneous activities which fill up the leisure part of life, devoted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings. �14 EDUCATION That these stand in something like their true order of subordination, it needs no long consideration to show. The actions and precautions by which, from moment to moment, we secure personal safety, must clearly take precedence of all others. Could there be a man, ignorant as an infant of surrounding objects and movements, or how to guide himself among them, he would pretty certainly lose his life the first time he went into the street; notwithstanding any amount of learning he might have on other matters. And as entire ignorance in all other directions would be less promptly fatal than entire ignorance in this direc­ tion, it must be admitted that knowledge immediately conducive to self-preserva­ tion is of primary importance. That next after direct self-preservation comes the indirect self-preservation which consists in acquiring the means of living, none will question. That a man’s indus­ trial functions must be considered before his parental ones, is manifest from the fact that, speaking generally, the dis­ charge of the parental functions is made possible only by the previous discharge of the industrial ones. The power of self-maintenance necessarily preceding the power of maintaining offspring, it follows that knowledge needful for self­ maintenance has stronger claims than knowledge needful for family welfare— is second in value to none save know­ ledge needful for immediate self-preser­ vation. As the family comes before the State in order of time—as the bringing up of children is possible before the State exists, or when it has ceased to be, whereas the State is rendered possible only by the bringing up of children; it follows that the duties of the parent demanti closer attention than those of the citizen. Or, to use a further argu­ ment—since the goodness of a society ultimately depends on the nature of its citizens; and since the nature of its citizens is more modifiable by early train­ ing than by anything else; we must conclude that the welfare of the family underlies the welfare of society. And hence knowledge directly conducing to the first, must take precedence of know­ ledge directly conducing to the last. Those various forms of pleasurable occupation which fill up the leisure left by graver occupations—the enjoyments of music, poetry, painting, etc.—mani­ festly imply a pre-existing society. Not only is a considerable development of them impossible without a long-estab­ lished social union; but their very sub­ ject-matter consists in great part of social sentiments and sympathies. Not only does society supply the conditions to their growth; but also the ideas and sentiments they express. And, conse­ quently, that part of human conduct which constitutes good citizenship, is of more moment than that which goes out in accomplishments or exercise of the tastes; and, in education, preparation for the one must rank before preparation for the other. Such then, we repeat, is something like the rational order of subordination:— That education which prepares for direct self-preservation; that which prepares for indirect self-preservation; that which prepares for parenthood; that which pre­ pares for citizenship ; that which prepares for the miscellaneous refinements of life. We do not mean to say that these divisions are definitely separable. We do not deny that they are intricately entangled with each other, in such way that there can be no training for any that is not in some measure a training for all. Nor do we question that of each division there are portions more important than �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? certain portions of the preceding divi­ sions : that, for instance, a man of much skill in business but little other faculty, may fall further below the standard of complete living than one of but moderate ability in money-getting but great judg­ ment as a parent; or that exhaustive information bearing on right social action, joined with entire want of general culture in literature and the fine arts, is less desirable than a more moderate share of the one joined with some of the other. But, after making due qualifica­ tions, there still remain these broadlymarked divisions; and it still continues substantially true that these divisions subordinate one another in the foregoing order, because the corresponding divi­ sions of life make one another possible in that order. Of course the ideal of education is— complete preparation in all these divi­ sions. But failing this ideal, as in our phase of civilisation every one must do more or less, the aim should be to main­ tain a due proportion between the degrees of preparation in each. Not exhaustive cultivation in any one, supremely impor­ tant though it may be—not even an ex­ clusive attention to the two, three, or four divisions of greatest importance; but an attention to all;—greatest where the value is greatest; less where the value is less; least where the value is least. For the average man (not to forget the cases in which peculiar apti­ tude for some one department of know­ ledge, rightly makes pursuit of that one the bread-winning occupation)—for the average man, we say, the desideratum is, a training that approaches nearest to perfection in the things which most sub­ serve complete living, and falls more and more below perfection in the things that have more and more remote bearings on complete living. 15 In regulating education by this stan­ dard, there are some general considera­ tions that should be ever present to us. The worth of any kind of culture, as aiding complete living, may be ‘either necessary or more or less contingent. There is knowledge of intrinsic value; knowledge of quasi-intrinsic value ; and knowledge of conventional value. Such facts as that sensations of numbness and tingling commonly precede paralysis, that the resistance of water to a body moving through it varies as the square of the velocity, that chlorine is a disinfec­ tant—these, and the truths of Science in general, are of intrinsic value; they will bear on human conduct ten thousand years hence as they do now. The extra knowledge of our own language, which is given by an acquaintance with Latin and Greek, may be considered to have a value that is quasi-intrinsic: it must exist for us and for other races whose lan­ guages owe much to these sources; but will last only as long as our languages last. While that kind of information which, in our schools, usurps the name History—the mere tissue ci names and dates and dead unmeaning events—has a conventional value only : it has not the remotest bearing on any of our actions; and is of use only for the avoid­ ance of those unpleasant criticisms which current opinion passes upon its absence. Of course, as those facts which concern all mankind throughout all time must be held of greater moment than those which concern only a portion of them during a limited era, and of far greater moment than those which con­ cern only a portion of them during the continuance of a fashion; it follows that in a rational estimate, knowledge of intrinsic worth must, other things equal, take pre­ cedence of knowledge, that is of quasiintrinsic or conventional worth. �i6 EDUCATION One further preliminary. Acquirement of every kind has two values—value as knowledge and value as discipline. Besides its use for guiding conduct, the acqui­ sition of each order of facts has also its use as mental exercise; and its effects as a preparative for complete living have to be considered under both these heads. These, then, are the general ideas with which we must set out in discussing a curriculum:—Life as divided into several kinds of activity of successively decreas­ ing importance; the worth of each order of facts as regulating these several kinds of activity, intrinsically, quasi-intrinsically, and conventionally ; and their regulative influences estimated both as knowledge and discipline. these, and various other pieces of infor­ mation needful for the avoidance of death or accident, it is ever learning. And when, a few years later, the energies go out in running, climbing, and jump­ ing, in games of strength and games of skill, we see in all these actions by which the muscles are developed, the percep­ tions sharpened, and the judgment quickened, a preparation for the safe conduct of the body among surrounding objects and movements; and for meeting those greater dangers that occasionally occur in the lives of all. Being thus, as we say, so well cared for by Nature, this fundamental education needs com­ paratively little care from us. What we are chiefly called upon to see, is, that there shall be free scope for gaining this Happily, that all-important part of experience and receiving this discipline education "which goes to secure direct —that there shall be no such thwarting self-preservation, is in great part already of Nature as that by which stupid school­ provided for. Too momentous to be left mistresses commonly prevent the girls in to our blundering, Nature takes it into their charge from the spontaneous physi­ her own hands. While yet in its nurse’s cal activities they would indulge in; and arms, the infant, by hiding its face and so render them comparatively incapable crying at the sight of a stranger, shows of taking care of themselves in circum­ the dawning instinct to attain safety by stances of peril. flying from that which is unknown and This, however, is by no means all that may be dangerous; and when it can is comprehended in the education that walk, the terror it manifests if an un­ prepares for direct self-preservation. familiar dog comes near, or the screams Besides guarding the body against with which it runs to its mother, after mechanical damage or destruction, it any startling sight or sound, shows this has to be guarded against injury from instinct further developed. Moreover, other causes—against the disease and knowledge subserving direct self-preser­ death that follow breaches of physiologic vation is that which it is chiefly busied law. For complete living it is necessary, in acquiring from hour to hour. How not only that sudden annihilations of to balance its body; how to control its life shall be warded off; but also that movements so as to avoid collisions : there shall be escaped the incapacities what objects are hard, and will hurt if and the slow annihilation which unwise struck; what objects are heavy, and in­ habits entail. As, without health and jure if they fall on the limbs; which energy, the industrial, the parental, the things will bear the weight of the body, social, and all other activities become and which not; the pains inflicted by more or less impossible ; it is clear fire, by missiles, by sharp instruments— that this secondary kind of direct self­ �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? preservation is only less important than the primary kind; and that knowledge tending to secure it should rank very high. It is true that here, too, guidance is in some measure ready supplied. By our various physical sensations and desires, Nature has insured a tolerable conformity to the chief requirements. Fortunately for us, want of food, great heat, extreme cold, produce promptings too peremptory to be disregarded. And would men habitually obey these and all like promptings when less strong, com­ paratively few evils would arise. If fatigue of body or brain were in every case followed by desistance; if the oppression produced by a close atmos­ phere always led to ventilation ; if there were no eating without hunger, or drink­ ing without thirst; then would the system be but seldom out of working order. But so profound an ignorance is there of the laws of life, that men do not even know that their sensations are their natural guides, and (when not rendered morbid by long-continued disobedience) their trustworthy guides. So that though, to speak teleologically, Nature has pro­ vided efficient safeguards to health, lack of knowledge makes them in a great measure useless. If any one doubts the importance of an acquaintance with the principles of physiology,as a means to complete living, let him look around and see how many men and women he can find in middle or later life who are thoroughly well. Only occasionally do we meet with an example of vigorous health continued to old age; hourly we meet with examples of acute disorder, chronic ailment, general debility, premature ‘decrepitude. Scarcely is there one to whom you put the question, who has not, in the course of his life, brought 17 upon himself illnesses which a little in­ formation would have saved him from. Here is a case of heart-disease consequent on a rheumatic fever that followed reck­ less exposure. There is a case of eyes spoiled for life by over-study. Yesterday the account was of one whose longenduring lameness was brought on by continuing, spite of the pain, to use a knee after it had been slightly injured. And to-day we are told of another who has had to lie by for years, because he did not know that the palpitation he suffered under resulted from overtaxed brain. Now we hear of an irremediable injury which followed some silly feat of strength; and, again, of a constitution that has never recovered from the effects of excessive work needlessly undertaken. While on every side we see the perpetual minor ailments which accompany feeble­ ness. Not to dwell on the pain, the weariness, the gloom, the waste of time and money thus entailed, only consider how greatly ill-health hinders the dis­ charge of all duties—makes business often impossible, and always more diffi­ cult ; produces an irritability fatal to the right management of children; puts the functions of citizenship out of the question; and makes amusement a bore. Is it not clear that the physical sins— partly our forefathers’ and partly our own —which produce this ill-health, deduct more from complete living than anything else ? and to a great extent make life a failure and a burden instead of a bene­ faction and a pleasure ? Nor is this all. Life, besides being thus immensely deteriorated, is also cut short. It is not true, as we commonly suppose, that after a disorder or disease from which we have recovered, we are as before. No disturbance of the normal course of the functions can pass away and leave things exactly as they were. �ï8 EDUCATION A permanent damage is done—not immediately appreciable, it may be, but still there; and along with other such items which Nature in her strict account­ keeping never drops, it will tell against us to the inevitable shortening of our days. Through the accumulation of small injuries it is that constitutions are commonly undermined, and break down, long before their time. And if we call to mind how far the average .duration of life falls below the possible duration, we see how immense is the loss. When, to the numerous partial deductions which bad health entails, we add this great final deduction, it results that ordinarily one-half of life is thrown away. Hence, knowledge which subserves direct self-preservation by preventing this loss of health, is of primary import­ ance. We do not contend that possession of such knowledge would by any means wholly remedy the evil. It is clear that in our present phase of civilisation, men’s necessities often compel them to trans­ gress. And it is further clear that, even in the absence of such compulsion, their inclinations would frequently lead them, spite of their convictions, to sacrifice future good to present gratification. But we do contend that the right knowledge impressed in the right way would effect much ; and we further contend that as the laws of health must be recognised before they can be fully conformed to, the imparting of such knowledge must precede a more rational living—come when that may. We infer that as vigorous health and its accompanying high spirits are larger elements of happiness than any other things whatever, the teaching how to maintain them is a teaching that yields in moment to no other whatever. And therefore we assert that such a course of physiology as is needful for the compre­ hension of its general truths, and their bearings on daily conduct, is an all­ essential part of a rational education. Strange that the assertion should need making! Stranger still that it should need defending! Yet are there not a few by whom such a proposition will be received with something approaching to derision. Men who would blush if caught saying Iphigenia instead of Iphigenia, or would resent as an insult any imputation of ignorance respecting the fabled labours of a fabled demi-god, show not the slightest shame in confess­ ing that they do not know where the Eustachian tubes are, what are the actions of the spinal cord, what is the normal rate of pulsation, or how the lungs are inflated. While anxious that their sons should be well up in the superstitions of two thousand years ago, they care not that they should be taught anything about the structure and func­ tions of their own bodies—nay, even wish them not to be so taught. So overwhelm­ ing is the influence of established routine ! So terribly in our education does the ornamental over-ride the useful 1 We need not insist on the value of that knowledge which aids indirect self­ preservation by facilitating the gaining of a livelihood. This is admitted by all; and, indeed, by the mass is perhaps too exclusively regarded as the end of education. But while every one is ready to endorse the abstract proposition that instruction fitting youths for the bus'ness of life is of high importance, or even to consider it of supreme importance; yet scarcely any inquire what instruction will so fit them. It is true that reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught with an intelligent appreciation of their uses. But when we have said this we have said nearly all. While the great bulk of what else is acquired has no bearing on the industrial activities, an immensity of �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OE MOST WORTH? information that has a direct bearing on the industrial activities is entirely passed over. For, leaving out only some very small classes, what are all men employed in ? They are employed in the production, preparation and distribution of com­ modities. And on what does efficiency in the production, preparation, and dis tribution of commodities depend ? It depends on the use of methods fitted to the respective natures of these com­ modities ; it depends on an adequate acquaintance with their physical, chemi­ cal, and vital properties, as the case may be ; that is, it depends on Science. This order of knowledge which is in great part ignored in our school-courses, is the order of knowledge underlying the right performance of those processes by which civilised life is made possible. Undeni­ able as is this truth, there seems to be no living consciousness of it: its very familiarity makes it unregarded. To give due weight to our argument, we must, therefore, realise this truth to the reader by a rapid review of the facts. Passing over the most abstract science, Logic, on the due guidance by which, however, the large producer or distributor depends, knowingly or unknowingly, for success in his business-forecasts, we come first to Mathematics. Of this, the most general division, dealing with number, guides all industrial activities : be they those by which processes are adjusted, or estimates framed, or commodities bought and sold, or accounts kept. No one needs to have the value of this division of abstract science insisted upon. For the higher arts of construction, some acquaintance with the more special division of Mathematics is indispensable. The village carpenter, who lays out his work by empirical rules, equally with the builder of a Britannia Bridge, makes I? hourly reference to the laws of space­ relations. The surveyor who measures the land purchased; the architect in designing a mansion to be built on it; the builder when laying out the founda­ tions ; the masons in cutting the stones ; and the various artizans who put up the fittings ; are all guided by geometrical truths. Railway-making is regulated from beginning to end by geometry ; alike in the preparation of plans and sections ; in staking out the line ; in the mensuration of cuttings and embankments ; in the designing and building of bridges, culverts, viaducts, tunnels, stations. Similarly with the harbours, docks, piers, and various engineering and architectural works that fringe the coasts and overspread the country, as -well as the mines that run underneath it. And now-a-days, even the farmer, for the correct laying-out of his drains, has recourse to the level—that is, to geometrical principles. Turn next to the Abstract-Concrete sciences. On the application of the simplest of these, Mechanics, depends the success of modem manufactures. The properties of the lever, the wheeland-axle, etc., are recognised in every machine, and to machinery in these times we owe all production. Trace the history of the breakfast-roll. The soil out of which it came was drained with machine-made tiles; the surface was turned over by a machine ; the wheat was reaped, thrashed, and winnowed by machines ; by machinery it was ground and bolted ; and had the flour been sent to Gosport, it might have been made into biscuits by a machine. Look round the room in which you sit. If modern, probably the bricks in its walls were machine-made ; and by machinery the flooring was sawn and planed, the mantel-shelf sawn and polished, the �2Cf EDUCATION paper-hangings made and printed. The veneer on the table, the turned legs of the chairs, the carpet, the curtains, are all products of machinery. Your clothing —plain, figured, or printed—is it not wholly woven, nay, perhaps even sewed, by machinery ? And the volume you are reading—are not its leaves fabricated by one machine and covered with these words by another ? Add to which that for the means of distribution over both land and sea, we are similarly indebted. And then observe that according as knowledge of mechanics is well or ill applied to these ends, comes success or failure. The engineer who miscalculates the strength of materials, builds a bridge that breaks down. The manufacturer who uses a bad machine cannot compete with another whose machine wastes less in friction and inertia. The ship-builder adhering to the old model, is outsailed by one who builds on the mechanicallyjustified wave-line principle. And as the ability of a nation to hold its own against other nations, depends on the skilled activity of its units, we see that on mechanical knowledge may turn the national fate. On ascending from the divisions of Abstract-Concrete science dealing with molar forces, to those divisions of it which deal with molecular forces, we come to another vast series of applica­ tions. To this group of sciences joined with the preceding groups we owe the steam-engine, which does the work of millions of labourers. That section of physics which formulates the laws of heat, has taught us how to economise fuel in various industries : how to increase the produce of smelting furnaces by substituting the hot for the cold blast ; how to ventilate mines ; how to prevent explosions by using the safety-lamp ; and, through the thermometer, how to regulate innumerable processes. That section which has the phenomena of light for its subject, gives eyes to the old and the myopic; aids through the microscope in detecting diseases and adulterations; and, by improved lighthouses, prevents shipwrecks. Researches in electricity and magnetism have saved innumerable lives and incalculable property through the compass ; have subserved many arts by the electrotype; and now, in the telegraph, have supplied us with an agency by which, for the future, mercan­ tile transactions will be regulated and political intercourse carried on. While in the details of indoor life, from the improved kitchen-range up to the stereo­ scope on the drawing-room table, the applications of advanced physics under­ lie our comforts and gratifications. Still more numerous are the applica­ tions of Chemistry. The bleacher, the dyer, the calico-printer, are severally occupied in processes that are well or ill done according as they do or do not conform to chemical laws. Smelting of copper, tin, zinc, lead, silver, iron, must be guided by chemistry. Sugar-refining, gas-making, soap-boiling, gunpowder­ manufacture, are operations all partly chemical, as are likewise those which produce glass and porcelain. Whether the distiller’s wort stops at the alcoholic fermentation or passes into the acetous, is a chemical question on which hangs his profit or loss; and the brewer, if his business is extensive, finds it pay to keep a chemist on his premises. Indeed, there is now scarcely any manufacture over some part of which chemistry does not preside. Nay, in these times even agri­ culture, to be profitably carried on, must have like guidance. The analysis of manures and soils; the disclosure of their respective adaptations; the use of gypsum or other substances for fixing �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? ammonia; the utilisation of coprolites; the production of artificial manures—all these are boons of chemistry which it behoves the farmer to acquaint himself with. Be it in the lucifer match, or in disinfected sewage, or in photographs— in bread made without fermentation, or perfumes extracted from refuse, we may perceive that chemistry affects all our industries; and that, therefore, knowledge of it concerns every one who is directly or indirectly connected with our industries. Of the Concrete sciences, we come first to Astronomy. Out of this has grown that art of navigation which has made possible the enormous foreign commerce that supports a large part of our popula­ tion, while supplying us with many neces­ saries and most of our luxuries. Geology, again, is a science knowledge of which greatly aids industrial success. Now that iron ores are so large a source of wealth ; now that the duration of our coal-supply has become a question of great interest; now that we have a College of Mines and a Geological Survey , it is scarcely needful to enlarge on the truth that the study of the Earth’s crust is important to our material welfare. And then the science of life—Biology: does not this, too, bear fundamentally on these processes of indirect self-preserva­ tion ? With what we ordinarily call manufactures, it has, indeed, little con­ nection ; but with the all-essential manu­ facture—that of food—it is inseparably connected. As agriculture must conform its methods to the phenomena of vegetal and animal life, it follows that the science of these phenomena is the rational basis of agriculture. Various biological truths have indeed been empirically established and acted upon by farmers, while yet there has been no conception of them as science; such as that particular manures are suited to particular plants; that crops 21 of certain kinds unfit the soil for other crops ; that horses cannot do good work on poor food ; that such and such diseases of cattle and sheep are caused by such and such conditions. These, and the every-day knowledge which the agri­ culturist gains by experience respecting the management of plants and animals, constitute his stock of biological facts ; on the largeness of which greatly depends his success. And as these biological facts, scanty, indefinite, rudimentary, though they are, aid him so essentially ; judge what must be the value to him of such facts when they become positive, definite, and exhaustive. Indeed, even now we may see the benefits that rational biology is conferring on him. The truth that the production of animal heat implies waste of substance, and that, therefore, preventing loss of heat prevents the need for extra food—a purely theoretical con­ clusion—now guides the fattening of cattle : it is found that by keeping cattle warm, fodder is saved. Similarly with respect to variety of food. The experi­ ments of physiologists have shown that not only is change of diet beneficial, but that digestion is facilitated by a mixture of ingredients in each meal. The dis­ covery that a disorder known as “ the staggers,” of which many thousands of sheep have died annually, is caused by an entozoon which presses on the brain, and that if the creature is extracted through the softened place in the skull which marks its position, the sheep usually recovers, is another debt which agriculture owes to biology. Yet one more science have we to note as bearing directly on industrial success —the Science of Society. Men who daily look at the state of the moneymarket ; glance over prices current ; dis­ cuss the probable crops of corn, cotton, sugar, wool, silk ; weigh the chances of �22 EDUCATION war; and from these data decide on their mercantile operations; are students of social science ; empirical and blunder­ ing students it may be; but still, students who gain the prizes or are plucked of their profits, according as they do or do not reach the right conclusion. Not only the manufacturer and the merchant must guide their transactions by calculations of supply and demand, based on numerous facts, and tacitly recognising sundry general principles of social action ; but even the retailer must do the like; his prosperity very greatly depending upon the correctness of his judgments respect­ ing the future wholesale prices and the future rates of consumption. Manifestly, whoever takes part in the entangled commercial activities of a community, is vitally interested in understanding the laws according to which those activities vary. Thus, to all such as are occupied in the production, exchange, or distribution of commodities, acquaintance with Science in some of its departments, is of fundamental importance. Each man who is immediately or remotely impli­ cated in any form of industry, (and few are not,) has in some way to deal with the mathematical, physical, and chemical properties of things; perhaps, also, has a direct interest in biology ; and certainly has in sociology. Whether he does or does not succeed well in that indirect self-preservation which we call getting a good livelihood, depends in a great degree on his knowledge of one or more of these sciences: not, it may be, a rational knowledge; but still a know­ ledge, though empirical. For what we call learning a business, really implies learning the science involved in it; though not perhaps under the name of science. And hence a grounding in science is of great importance, both because it prepares for all this, and because rational knowledge has an im­ mense superiority over empirical know­ ledge. Moreover, not only is scientific culture requisite for each, that he may understand the how and the why of the things and processes with which he is concerned as maker or distributor; but it is often of much moment that he should understand the how and the why of various other things and processes. In this age of joint-stock undertakings, nearly every man above the labourer is interested as capitalist in some other occupation than his own ; and, as thus interested, his profit or loss depends on his knowledge of the sciences bearing on this other occupation. Here is a mine, in the sinking of which many shareholders ruined themselves, from not knowing that a certain fossil belonged to the old red sand stone, below which no coal is found. Numerous attempts have been made to construct perpetual-motion engines in the hope of superseding steam ; but had those who supplied the money, under­ stood the general law of the conservation and equivalence of forces, they might have had better balances at their bankers. Daily are men induced to aid in carrying Out inventions which a mere tyro in science could show to be futile. Scarcely a locality but has its history of fortunes thrown away over some impossible pro­ ject. And if already the loss from want of science is so frequent and so great, still greater and more frequent will it be to those who hereafter lack science. Just as fast as productive processes become more scientific, which competition will inevitably make them do; and just as fast as joint-stock undertakings spread, which they certainly will; so fast must scientific knowledge grow necessary to every one. That which our school-courses �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? leave almost entirely out, we thus find to be that which most nearly concerns the business of life. Our industries would cease, were it not for the information which men begin to acquire, as they best may, after their education is said to be finished. And were it not for the infor­ mation, from age to age accumulated and spread by unofficial means, these industries would never have existed. Had there been no teaching but such as goes on in our public schools, England would now be what it was in feudal times. That increasing acquaintance with the laws of phenomena, which has through successive ages enabled us to subjugate Nature to our needs, and in these days gives the common labourer comforts which a few centuries ago kings could not purchase, is scarcely in any degree owed to the appointed means of instructing our youth. The vital know­ ledge—that by which we have grown as a nation to what we are, and which now underlies our whole existence, is a know­ ledge that has got itself taught in nooks and corners; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been mumbling little else but dead formulas. We come now to the third great divi­ sion of human activities—a division for which no preparation whatever is made. If by some strange chance not a vestige of us descended to the remote future save a pile of our school-books or some college examination-papers, we may imagine how puzzled an antiquary of the period would be on finding in them no sign that the learners were ever likely to be parents. “ This must have been the curriculum for their celibates,” we may fancy him concluding. “ I perceive here an elaborate preparation for many things; especially for reading the books of extinct nations and of co-existing 23 nations (from which indeed it seems clear that these people had very little worth reading in their own tongue); but I find no reference whatever to the bringing up of children. They could not have been so absurd as to omit all training for this gravest of responsibilities. Evidently then, this was the school­ course of one of their monastic orders.” Seriously, is it not an astonishing fact, that though on the treatment of offspring depend their lives or deaths, and their moral welfare or ruin ; yet not one word of instruction on the treatment of off­ spring is ever given to those who will by and by be parents ? Is it not monstrous that the fate of a new generation should be left to the chances of unreasoning custom, impulse, fancy—joined with the suggestions of ignorant nurses and the prejudiced counsel of grandmothers ? If a merchant commenced business with­ out any knowledge of arithmetic and book-keeping, we should exclaim at his folly, and look for disastrous conse­ quences. Or if, before studying anatomy, a man set up as a surgical operator, we should wonder at his audacity and pity his patients. But that parents should begin the difficult task of rearing children without ever having given a thought to the principles—physical, moral, or in­ tellectual—which ought to guide them, excites neither surprise at the actors nor pity for their victims. To tens of thousands that are killed, add hundreds of thousands that survive with feeble constitutions, and millions that grow up with constitutions not so strong as they should be; and you will have some idea of the curse inflicted on their offspring by parents ignorant of the laws of life. Do but consider for a moment that the regimen to which children are subject, is hourly telling upon them to their life-long injury or �24 EDUCATION benefit; and that there are twenty ways of going wrong to one way of going right; and you will get some idea of the enormous mischief that is almost every­ where inflicted by the thoughtless, hap­ hazard system in common use. Is it decided that a boy shall be clothed in some flimsy short dress, and be allowed to go playing about with limbs reddened by cold ? The decision will tell on his whole future existence—either in ill­ nesses ; or in stunted growth; or in deficient energy; or in a maturity less vigorous than it ought to have been, and in consequent hindrances to success and happiness. Are children doomed to a monotonous dietary, or a dietary that is deficient in nutritiveness ? Their ultimate physical power and their efficiency as men and women, will in­ evitably be more or less diminished by it. Are they forbidden vociferous play, or (being too ill-clothed to bear exposure) are they kept in-doors in cold weather ? They are certain to fall below that measure of health and strength to which they would else have attained. When sons and daughters grow up sickly and feeble, parents commonly regard the event as a misfortune—as a visitation of Providence. Thinking after the prevalent chaotic fashion, they assume that these evils come without causes; or that the causes are supernatural. Nothing of the kind. In some cases the causes are doubtless inherited; but in most cases foolish regulations are the causes. Very generally, parents themselves are respon­ sible for all this pain, this debility, this depression, this misery. They have undertaken to control the lives of their offspring from hour to hour; with cruel carelessness they have neglected to learn anything about these vital processes which they are unceasingly affecting by their commands and prohibitions; in utter ignorance of the simplest physiologic laws, they have been year by year under­ mining the constitutions of their children; and have so inflicted disease and pre­ mature death, not only on them but on their descendants. Equally great are the ignorance and the consequent injury, when we turn from physical training to moral training. Consider the young mother and her nursery-legislation. But a few years ago she was at school, where her memory was crammed with words, and names, and dates, and her reflective faculties scarcely in the slightest degree exercised —where not one idea was given her respecting the methods of dealing with the opening mind of childhood; and where her discipline did not in the least fit her for thinking out methods of her own. The intervening years have been passed in practising music, in fancy-work, in novel-reading, and in party-going : no thought having yet been given to the grave responsibilities of maternity; and scarcely any of that solid intellectual culture obtained which would be some preparation for such responsibilities. And now see her with an unfolding human character committed to her charge—see her profoundly ignorant of the pheno­ mena with which she has to deal, under­ taking to do that which can be done but imperfectly even with the aid of the profoundest knowledge. She knows nothing about the nature of the emotions, their order of evolution, their functions, or where use ends and abuse begins. She is under the impression that some of the feelings are wholly bad, which is not true of any one of them; and that others are good however far they may be carried, which is also not true of any one of them. And then, ignorant as she is of the structure she has to deal with, she is equally ignorant of the effects produced �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? on it by this or that treatment. What ran be more inevitable than the disas­ trous results we see hourly arising ? lacking knowledge of mental pheno­ mena, with their cause and consequences, her interference is frequently more mischievous than absolute passivity would have been. This and that kind of action, which are quite normal and beneficial, she perpetually thwarts; and so dimin­ ishes the child’s happiness and profit, injures its temper and her own, and pro­ duces estrangement. Deeds which she thinks it desirable to encourage, she gets performed by threats and bribes, or by exciting a desire for applause : consider­ ing little what the inward motive may be, so long as the outward conduct con­ forms ; and thus cultivating hypocrisy, and fear, and selfishness, in place of good feeling. While insisting on truthfulness, she constantly sets an example of untruth, by threatening penalties which she does not inflict. While inculcating self-con­ trol, she hourly visits on her little ones, angry scoldings for acts undeserving of them. She has not the remotest idea that in the nursery, as in the world, that alone is the truly salutary discipline which visits on all conduct, good and bad, the natural consequences—the con­ sequences, pleasurable or painful, which in the nature of things such conduct tends to bring. Being thus without theoretic guidance, and quite incapable of guiding herself by tracing the mental processes going on in her children, her rule is impulsive, inconsistent, mis­ chievous ; and would indeed be generally ruinous, were it not that the overwhelm­ ing tendency of the growing mind to assume the moral type of the race, usually subordinates all minor influences. And then the culture of the intellect— is not this, too, mismanaged in a similar manner ? Grant that the phenomena of 25 intelligence conform to laws; grant that the evolution of intelligence in a child also conforms to laws; and it follows inevitably that education cannot be rightly guided without a knowledge of these laws. To suppose that you can properly regulate this process of forming and accumulating ideas, without under­ standing the nature of the process, is absurd. How widely, then, must teach­ ing as it is, differ from teaching as it should be; when hardly any parents, and but few tutors, know anything about psychology. As might be expected, the established system is grievously at fault, alike in matter and in manner. While the right class of facts is withheld, the wrong class is forcibly administered in the wrong way and in the wrong order. Under that common limited idea of education which confines it to knowledge gained from books, parents thrust primers into the hands of their little ones years too soon, to their great injury.. Not recognising the truth that the function of books is supplementary—that they form an indirect means to knowledge when direct means fail—a means of seeing through other men what you cannot see for yourself; teachers are eager to give second­ hand facts in place of first-hand facts. Not perceiving the enormous value of that spontaneous education which goes on in early years—not perceiving that a child’s restless observation, instead of being ignored or checked, should be diligently ministered to, and made as accurate and complete as possible; they insist on occupying its eyes and thoughts with things that are, for the time being, incomprehensible and repugnant. Possessed by a superstition which worships the symbols of know­ ledge instead of knowledge itself, they do not see that only when his acquain­ tance with the objects and processes of �26 EDUCATION the household, the streets, and the fields, is becoming tolerably exhaustive—only then should a child be introduced to the new sources of information which books supply: and this, not only because immediate cognition is of far greater value than mediate cognition; but also, because the words contained in books can be rightly interpreted into ideas, only in proportion to the antecedent experience of things. Observe next, that this formal instruction, far too soon commenced, is carried on with but little reference to the laws of mental develop­ ment. Intellectual progress is of necessity from the concrete to the abstract. But regardless of this, highly abstract studies, such as grammar, which should come quite late, are begun quite early. Political geography, dead and uninteresting to a child, and which should be an appendage of sociological studies, is commenced betimes; while physical geography, com­ prehensible and comparatively attractive to a child, is in great part passed over. Nearly every subject dealt with is arranged in abnormal order : definitions and rules and principles being put first, instead of being disclosed, as they are in the order of nature, through the study of cases. And then, pervading the whole, is .the vicious system of rote learning—a system of sacrificing the spirit to the letter. See the results. What with perceptions unnaturally dulled by early thwarting, and a coerced attention to books—what with the mental confusion produced by teaching subjects before they can be understood, and in each of them giving generalisations before the facts of which they are the generalisations—what with making the pupil a mere passive recipient of others’ ideas, and not in the least leading him to be an active inquirer or self-instructor—and what with taxing the faculties to excess ; there are very few minds that become as efficient as they might be. Examinations being once passed, books are laid aside ; the greater part of what has been acquired, being unorganised, soon drops out of recollec­ tion ; what remains is mostly inert—the art of applying knowledge not having been cultivated; and there is but little power either of accurate observation or independent thinking. To all which add, that while much of the information gained is of relatively small value, an immense mass of information of trans­ cendent value is entirely passed over. Thus we find the facts to be such as might have been inferred a priori. The training of children—physical, moral, and intellectual—is dreadfully defective. And in great measure it is so, because parents are devoid of that knowledge by which this training can alone be rightly guided. What is to be expected when one of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by those who have given scarcely a thought to the principles on which its solution depends? For shoe-making or house-building, for the management of a ship or a loco­ motive engine, a long apprenticeship is needful. Is it, then, that the unfolding of a human being in body and mind, is so comparatively simple a process, that any one may superintend and regulate it with no preparation whatever ? If not —if the process is, with one exception, more complex than any in Nature, and the task of ministering to it one of surpassing difficulty; is it not madness to make no provision for such a task ? Better sacrifice accomplishments than omit this all-essential instruction. When a father, acting on false dogmas adopted without examination, has alienated his sons, driven them into rebellion by his harsh treatment, ruined them, and made himself miserable ; he might reflect that �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? the study of Ethology would have been worth pursuing, even at the cost of knowing nothing about Asschylus. When a mother is mourning over a first-born that has sunk under the sequelae of scarlet-fever—when perhaps a candid medical man has confirmed her suspicion that her child would have recovered had not its system been enfeebled by over­ study—when she is prostrate under the pangs of combined grief and remorse; it is but small consolation that she can read Dante in the original. Thus we see that for regulating the third great division of human activities, a knowledge of the laws of life is the one thing needful. Some acquaintance with the first principles of physiology and the elementary truths of psychology, is indis­ pensable for the right bringing up of children.; We doubt not that many will read this assertion with a smile. That parents in general should be ex­ pected to acquire a knowledge of subjects so abstruse, will seem to them an absur­ dity. And if we proposed that an exhaustive knowledge of these subjects should be obtained by all fathers and mothers, the absurdity would indeed be glaring enough. But we do not. General principles only, accompanied by such illustrations as may be needed to make them understood, would suffice. And these might be readily taught—if not rationally, then dogmatically. Be this as it may, however, here are the indispu­ table facts:—that the development of children in mind and body follows certain laws; that unless these laws are in some degree conformed to by parents, death is inevitable; that unless they are in a great degree conformed to, there must result serious physical and mental defects; and that only when they are completely conformed to, can a perfect maturity he reached. Judge, then, 27 whether all who may one day be parents, should not strive with some anxiety to learn what these laws are. From the parental functions let us pass now to the functions of the citizen. We have here to inquire what knowledge fits a man for the discharge of these functions. It cannot be alleged that the need of knowledge fitting him for these functions is wholly overlooked; for our school-courses contain certain studies which, nominally at least, bear upon political and social duties. Of these the only one that occupies a prominent place is History. But, as already hinted, the information commonly given under this head, is almost valueless for purposes of gui­ dance. Scarcely any of the facts set down in our school-histories, and very few of those contained in the more elaborate works written for adults, illustrate the right principles of political action. The biographies of monarchs (and our children learn little else) throw scarcely any light upon the science of society. Familiarity with court intrigues, plots, usurpations, or the like, and with all the personalities accompanying them, aids very little in elucidating the causes of national progress. We read of some squabble for power, that it led to a pitched battle ; that such and such were the names of the generals and their leading subordinates; that they had each so many thousand infantry and cavalry, and so many cannon : that they arranged their forces in this and that order; that they manoeuvred, attacked, and fell back in certain ways; that at this part of the day such disasters were sustained, and at that such advantages gained ; that in one particular movement some leading officer fell, while in another a certain regiment was decimated; that �28 EDUCATION after all the changing fortunes of the fight, the victory was gained by this or that army ; and that so many were killed and wounded on each side, and so many captured by the conquerors. And now, out of the accumulated details making up the narrative, say which it is that helps you in deciding on your conduct as a citizen. Supposing even that you diligently read, not only “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,” but accounts of all other battles that history mentions; how much more judicious would your vote be at the next election ? “But these are facts—interesting facts,” you say. Without doubt they are facts (such, at least, as are not wholly or partially fictions); and to many they may be interesting facts. But this by no means implies that they are valuable. Factitious or morbid opinion often gives seeming value to things that have scarcely any. A tulipomaniac will not part with a choice bulb for its weight in gold. To another man an ugly piece of cracked old china seems his most desirable possession. And there are those who give high prices for relics of celebrated murderers. Will it be contended that these tastes are any measure of value in the things that gratify them ? If not, then it must be admitted that the liking felt for certain classes of historical facts is no proof of their worth; and that we must test their worth, as we test the worth of other facts, by asking to what uses they are applicable. Were some one to tell you that your neighbour’s cat kittened yesterday, you would say the information was valueless. Fact though it may be, you would call it an utterly useless fact—a fact that could in no way influence your actions in life—a fact that would not help you in learning how to live completely. Well, apply the same test to the great mass of historical facts, and you will get the same result. They are facts from which no conclusions can be drawn — unorganisable facts; and therefore facts of no service in establishing principles of conduct, which is the chief use of facts. Read them, if you like, for amusement; but do not flatter yourself they are instructive. That which constitutes History, properly so called, is in great part omitted from works on the subject. Only of late years have historians com­ menced giving us, in any considerable quantity, the truly valuable information. As in past ages the king was everything and the people nothing; so, in past histories the doings of the king fill the entire picture, to which the national life forms but an obscure background. While only now, when the welfare of nations rather than the rulers is becoming the dominant idea, are historians beginning to occupy themselves with the phenomena of social progress. The thing it really concerns us to know, is the natural history of society. We want all facts which help us to understand how a nation has grown and organised itself. Among these, let us of course have an account of its government; with as little as may be of gossip about the men who officered it, and as much as possible about the structure, principles, methods, prejudices, corruptions, etc., which it exhibited; and let this account include not only the nature and actions of the central government, but also those of local governments, down to their minutest ramifications. Let us of course also have a parallel description of the ecclesiastical government—its organisation, its con­ duct, its power, its relations to the State; and accompanying this, the ceremonial, creed, and religious ideas—not only those nominally believed, but those really believed and acted upon. Let us �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? at the same time be informed of the Control exercised by class over class, as displayed in social observances—in titles, ¡Salutations, and forms of address. Let us know, too, what were all the other customs which regulated the popular life out of doors and in-doors ; including those concerning the relations of the sexes, and the relations of parents to children. The superstitions, also, from the more important myths down to the charms in common use, should be indicated. Next should cornea delinea­ tion of the industrial system : showing to what extent the division of labour was carried ; how trades were regulated, whether by caste, guilds, or otherwise; what was the connection between employers and employed; what were the agencies for distributing commo­ dities; what were the means of com­ munication ; what was the circulating medium. Accompanying all which should be given an account of the industrial arts technically considered : stating the processes in use, and the quality of the products. Further, the intellectual con­ dition of the nation in its various grades should be depicted ; not only with respect to the kind and amount of education, but with respect to the progress made in science, and the pre­ vailing manner of thinking. The degree of æsthetic culture, as displayed in architecture, sculpture, painting, dress, music, poetry, and fiction, should be described. Nor should there be omitted a sketch of the daily lives of the people— their food, their homes, and their amuse­ ments. And lastly, to connect the whole, should be exhibited the morals, theo­ retical and practical, of all classes : as indicated in their laws, habits, proverbs, deeds. * hese facts, given with as much T brevity as consists with clearness and accuracy, should be so grouped and 29 arranged that they may be comprehended in their ensemble, and contemplated as mutually-dependent parts of one great whole. The aim should be so to present them that men may readily trace the consensus subsisting among them; with the view of learning what social phenomena co-exist with what others. And then the corresponding delineations of succeeding ages should be so managed as to show how each belief, institution, custom, and arrangement was modified; and how the consensus of preceding structures and functions was developed into the consensus of succeeding ones. Such alone is the kind of information respecting past times, which can be of service to the citizen for the regulation of his conduct. The only history that is of practical value, is what may be called Descriptive Sociology. And the highest office which the historian can discharge, is that of so narrating the lives of nations, as to furnish materials for a Comparative Sociology; and for the subsequent determination of the ultimate laws to which social phenomena con­ form. But now mark, that even supposing an adequate stock of this truly valuable historical knowledge has been acquired, it is of comparatively little use without the key. And the key is to be found only in Science. In the absence of the generalisations of biology and psychology, rational interpretation of social pheno­ mena is impossible. Only in proportion as men draw certain rude, empirical inferences respecting human nature, are they enabled to understand even the simplest facts of social life: as, for instance, the relation between supply and demand. And if the most elementary truths of sociology cannot be reached until some knowledge is obtained of how men generally think, feel, and act under �3© EDUCATION given circumstances; then it is manifest that there can oe nothing like a wide comprehension of sociology, unless through a competent acquaintance with man in all his faculties, bodily and mental. Consider the matter in the . abstract, and this conclusion is selfevident. Thus :—Society is made up of individuals; ail that is done in society is done by the combined actions of indi­ viduals ; and therefore, in individual actions only can be found the solutions of social phenomena. But the actions of individuals depend on the laws of their natures; and their actions cannot be understood until these laws are under­ stood. These laws, however, when reduced to their simplest expressions, prove to be corollaries from the laws of body and mind in general. Hence it follows, that biology and psychology are indispensable as interpreters of sociology. Or, to state the conclusions still more simply : — all social phenomena are phenomena of life—are the most com­ plex manifestations of life—must con­ form to the laws of life—and can be understood only when the laws of life are understood. Thus, then, for the regulation of this fourth division of human activities, »we are, as before, dependent on Science. Of the know­ ledge commonly imparted in educational courses, very little is of service for guiding a man in his conduct as a citizen. Only a small part of the history he reads is of practical value; and of this small part he is not prepared to make proper use. He lacks not only the materials for, but the very conception of, descriptive sociology; and he also lacks those generalisations of the organic sciences, without which even descriptive sociology can give him but small aid. And now we come to that remaining division of human life which includes the relaxations and amusements filling leisure hours. After considering what training best fits for self-preservation, for the obtainment of sustenance, for the dis­ charge of parental duties, and for the regulation of social and political conduct; we have now to consider what training best fits for the miscellaneous ends n6t included in these—for the enjoyments of Nature, of Literature, and of the Fine Arts, in all their forms. Postponing them as we do to things that bear more vitally upon human welfare; and bringing everything, as we have, to the test of actual value ; it will perhaps be inferred that we are inclined to slight these less essential things. No greater mistake could be made, however. We yield to none in the value we attach to aesthetic culture and its pleasures. Without painting, sculpture, music, poetry, and the emotions produced by natural beauty of every kind, life would lose half its charm. So far from regarding the training and gratification of the tastes as unimportant, we believe that in time to come they will occupy a much larger share of human life than now. When the forces of Nature have been fully cojiquered to man’s use—when the means of produc­ tion have been brought to perfection— when labour has been economised to the highest degree—when education has been so systematised that a preparation for the more essential activities may be made with comparative rapidity—and when, consequently, there is a great increase of spare time; then will the beautiful, both in Art and Nature, rightly fill a large space in the minds of all. But it is one thing to approve of aesthetic culture as largely conducive to human happiness; and another thing to admit that it is a fundamental requisite to human happiness. However important �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? it may be, it must yield precedence to those kinds of culture which bear directly upon daily duties. As before hinted, literature and the fine arts are made possible by those activities which make individual and social life possible ; and manifestly, that which is made possible, must be postponed to that which makes it possible. A florist cultivates a plant for the sake of its flower ; and regards the roots and leaves as of value, chiefly because they are instrumental in producing the flower. But while, as an ultimate product, the flower is the thing to which everything else is subordinate, the florist has learnt that the root and leaves ase intrinsically of greater importance ; because on them the evolution of the flower depends. He bestows every care in rearing a healthy plant; and knows it would be folly if, in his anxiety to obtain the flower, he were to neglect the plant. Similarly in thé case before us. Architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry, may truly be called the efflorescence of civilised life. But even supposing they are of such transcendent worth as to subordinatethe civilised life out of which they grow^vhich can hardly be asserted), it will still be admitted that the produc­ tion of a healthy civilised life must be the first condition ; and that culture subserving this must occupy the highest place. And here we see most distinctly the vice of our educational system. It neglects the plant for the sake of the flower. In anxiety for elegance, it forgets substance. While it gives no knowledge conducive to self-preservation —while of knowledge that facilitates gaining a livelihood it gives but the rudiments, and leaves the greater part to be picked up any how in after life— while for the discharge'of parental func­ 31 tions it makes not the slightest provision —and while for the duties of citizenship it prepares by imparting a mass of facts, most of which are irrelevant, and the rest without a key; it is diligent in teaching whatever adds to refinement, polish, éclat. Fully as we may admit that ex­ tensive acquaintance with modern lan­ guages is a valuable accomplishment, which, through reading, conversation, and travel, aids in giving a certain finish; it by no means follows that this result is rightly purchased at the cost of the vitally important knowledge sacrificed to it. Supposing it true that classical edu­ cation conduces to elegance and correct­ ness of style; it cannot be said that elegance and correctness of style are comparable in importance to a familiarity with the principles that should guide the rearing of children. Grant that the taste may be improved by reading the poetry written in extinct languages; yet it is not to be inferred that such im­ provement of taste is equivalent in value to an acquaintance with the laws of health. Accomplishments, the fine arts, belles-lettres, and all those things which, as we say, constitute the efflorescence of civilisation, should be wholly subordi­ nate to that instruction and discipline on which civilisation rests. As they occupy the leisure part of life, so should they occupy the leisure part of education. Recognising thus the true position of aesthetics, and holding that while the cultivation of them should form a part of education from its commencement, such cultivation should be subsidiary; we have now to inquire what knowledge is of most use to this end—what know­ ledge best fits for this remaining sphere of activity ? To this question the answer is still the same as heretofore. Unex­ pected though the assertion may be, it is nevertheless true, that the highest Art of �32 EDUCATION every kind is based on Science—that without Science there can be neither perfect production nor full appreciation. Science, in that limited acceptation current in society, may not have been possessed by various artists of high repute; but acute observers as such artists have been, they have always possessed a stock of those empirical generalisations which constitute science in its lowest phase; and they have habitually fallen far below perfection, partly because their generalisations were comparatively few and inaccurate. That science necessarily underlies the fine arts, becomes manifest, a priori, when we remember that art products are all more or less representative of objective or sub­ jective phenomena; that they can be good only in proportion as they conform to the laws of these phenomena; and that before they can thus conform, the artist must know what these laws are. That this a priori conclusion tallies with experience, we shall soon see. Youths preparing for the practice of sculpture, have to acquaint themselves with the bones and muscles of the human frame in their distribution, attachments, and movements. This is a portion of science; and it has been found needful to impart it for the prevention of those many errors which sculptors who do not possess it commit. A knowledge of mechanical principles is also requisite; and such knowledge not being usually possessed, grave mechanical mistakes are frequently made. Take an instance. For the stability of a figure it is needful that the perpendicular from the centre of gravity—“ the line of direction,” as it is called—should fall within the base of support; and hence it happens, that when a man assumes the attitude known as “ standing at ease,” in which one leg is straightened and the other relaxed, the line of direction falls within the foot of the straightened leg. But sculptors un- I familiar with the theory of equilibrium, not uncommonly so represent this atti- i tude, that the line of direction falls mid- 1 way between the feet. Ignorance of the law of momentum leads to analogous blunders : as witness the admired Dis- | cobolus, which, as it is posed, must inevit­ ably fall forward the moment the quoit is delivered. In painting, the necessity for scientific information, empirical if not rational, is still more conspicuous. What gives the grotesqueness to Chinese pictures, unless their utter disregard of the laws of appearances^|heir absurd linear per­ spective, and their want of aerial per­ spective ? In what are the drawings of a child so faulty, if not in a similar absence of truth—an absence arising, in great part, from ignorance of the way in f which the aspects of things vary with the conditions? Do but remember the books 2 and lectures by which students are in­ structed; or consider the criticisms of If Ruskin; or look at the doings of the Pre- £ Raffaelites; and you will see that pro­ gress in painting implies ¡increasing knowledge of how effects in Mture are a: produced. The most diligent observa­ tion, if unaided by science, fails to pre­ serve from error. Every painter will I Hi endorse the assertion that unless it is known what appearances must exist under given circumstances, they often 03 will not be perceived; and to know what appearances must exist is, in so far, to if understand the science of appearances. : .236 From want of science Mr. J. Lewis, careful painter as he is, casts the shadow of a lattice-window in sharply-defined baii lines upon an opposite wall; which he would not have done, had he been familiar with the phenomena of penum­ -friii brae. From want of science, Mr. Rosetti, 1 �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? catching sight of a peculiar iridescence displayed by certain hairy surfaces under particular lights (an iridescence caused by the diffraction of light in passing the hairs), commits the error of showing this iridescence on surfaces and in positions where it could not occur. To say that music, too, has need of scientific aid will cause still more sur­ prise. Yet it may be shown that music is but an idealisation of the natural lan­ guage of emotion; and that consequently, music must be good or bad according as it conforms to the laws of this natural language. The various inflections of voice which accompany feelings of dif­ ferent kinds and intensities, are the germs out of which music is developed. It is demonstrable that these inflections and cadences are not accidental or arbi­ trary ; but that they are determined by certain general principles of vital action; and that their expressiveness depends on this. Whence it follows that musical phrases and the melodies built of them, can be effective only when they are in harmony with these general principles. It is difficult here properly to illustrate this position. But perhaps it will suffice to instance the swarms of worthless ballads that infest arawing-rooms, as composi­ tions which science would forbid. They sin against science by setting to music, ideas that are not emotional enough to prompt musical expression; and they also sin against science by using musical phrases that have no natural relations to the ideas expressed : even where these are emotional. They are bad because they are untrue. And to say they are untrue, is to say they are unscientific. Even in poetry the same thing holds. Like music, poetry has its root in those natural modes of expression which accompany deep feeling. Its rhythm, its strong and numerous metaphors, its 33 hyperboles, its violent inversions, are simply exaggerations of the traits of excited speech. To be good, therefore, poetry must pay attention to those laws of nervous action which excited speech obeys. In intensifying and combining the traits of excited speech, it must have due regard to proportion—must not use its appliances without restriction ; but, where the ideas are least emotional, must use the forms of poetical expression sparingly ; must use them more freely as the emotion rises ; and must carry them to their greatest extent, only where the emotion reaches a climax. The entire contravention of these principles results in bombast or doggerel. The insufficient respect for them is seen in didactic poetry. And it is because they are rarely fully obeyed, that so much poetry is inartistic. Not only is it that the artist, of what­ ever kind, cannot produce a truthful work without he understands the laws of the phenomena he represents ; but it is that he must also understand how the minds of spectators or listeners will be affected by the several peculiarities of his work—a question in psychology. What impression any art-product generates, manifestly depends upon the mental natures of those to whom it is presented; and as all mental natures have certain characteristics in common, there must result certain corresponding general prin­ ciples on which alone art-products can be successfully framed. These general principles cannot be fully understood and applied, unless the artist sees how they follow from the laws of mind. To ask whether the composition of a picture is good, is really to ask how the percep­ tions and feelkjgs of observers will be: affected by it. To ask whether a drama, is well constructed, is to ask whether its situations are so arranged as duly to» �34 ÉDUCATION consult the power of attention of an audi­ ence and duly to avoid overtaxing any one class of feelings. Equally in arrang­ ing the leading divisions of a poem or fiction, and in combining the words of a single sentence, the goodness of the effect depends upon the skill with which the mental energies and susceptibilities of the reader are economised. Every artist, in the course of his education and after-life, accumulates a stock of maxims by which his practice is regulated. Trace such maxims to their roots, and they inevitably lead you down to psychological principles. And only when the artist understands these psychological principles and their various corollaries, can he work in harmony with them. We do not for a moment believe that science will make an artist. While we contend that the leading laws both of objective and subjective phenomena must be understood by him, we by no means contend that knowledge of such laws will serve in place of natural per­ ception. Not the poet only, but the artist of every type, is born, not made. What we assert is, that innate faculty cannot dispense with the aid of organised knowledge. Intuition will do much, but it will not do all. Only when Genius is married to Science can the highest results be produced. As we have above asserted, Science is necessary not only for the most success­ ful production, but also for the full appreciation, of the fine arts. In what consists the greater ability of a man than of a child to perceive the beauties of a picture; unless it is in his more extended knowledge of those truths in nature or life which the picture renders? How happens the cultivated gentleman to enjoy a fine poem so much more than a boor does; if it is not because his wider acquaintance with objects and actions enables him to see in the poem much that the boor cannot see ? And if, as is here so obvious, there must be some familiarity with the things represented, before the representation can be appre­ ciated ; then the representation can be completely appreciated, only when the things represented are completely understood. The fact is, that every additional truth which a work of art expresses, gives an additional pleasure to the percipient mind—a pleasure that is missed by those ignorant of this truth. The more realities an artist indicates in any given amount of work, the more faculties does he appeal to; the more numerous ideas does he suggest; the more gratification does he afford. But to receive this gratification the spectator, listener, or reader, must know the realities which the artist has indicated; and to know these realities is to have that much science. And now let us not overlook the further great fact, that not only does science underlie sculpture, painting, music, poetry, but that science is itself poetic. The current opinion that science and poetry are opposed, is it delusion. It is doubtless true that as states of consciousness, cognition and emotion tend to exclude each other. And it is doubtless also true that an extreme activity of the reflective powers tends to deaden the feelings; while an extreme activity of the feelings tends to deaden the reflective powers: in which sense, indeed, all orders of activity are antagonistic to each other. But it is not true that the facts of science are unpoetical; or that the cultivation of science is necessarily unfriendly to the exercise of imagination and the love of the beautiful. On the contrary, science opens up realms of poetry where to the unscientific all is a blank. Those �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? engaged in scientific researches constantly show us that they realise not less vividly, but more vividly, than others, the poetry of their subjects. Whoso will dip into Hugh Miller’s works on geology, or read Mr. Lewes’s Seaside Studies, will per­ ceive that science excites poetry rather than extinguishes it. And he who con­ templates the life of Goethe, must see that the poet and the man of science can co-exist in equal activity. Is it not, indeed, an absurd and almost a sacri­ legious belief, that the more a man studies Nature the less he reveres it? Think you that a drop of water, which to the vulgar eye is but a drop of water, loses anything in the eye of the physicist who knows that its elements are held together by a force which, if suddenly liberated, would produce a flash of lightning ? Think you that what is carelessly looked upon by the uninitiated as a mere snow­ flake, does not suggest higher associations to one who has seen through a micro­ scope the wondrously-varied and elegant forms of snow-crystals ? Think you that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches, calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of a geolo­ gist who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million years ago ? The truth is, that those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits are blind to most of the poetry by which they are surrounded. Whoever has not in youth collected plants and insects, knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedge-rows can assume. Whoever has not sought for fossils, has little idea of the poetical associations that surround the places where imbedded treasures were found. Whoever at the seaside has not had a microscope and aquarium, has yet to learn what the highest pleasures of the seaside are. Sad, indeed, is it to see how men occupy themselves with 35 trivialities, and are indifferent to the grandest phenomena—care not to under­ stand the architecture of the Heavens, but are deeply interested in some con­ temptible controversy about the intrigues of Mary Queen of Scots !—are learnedly critical over a Greek ode, and pass by without a glance that grand epic written by the finger of God upon the strata of the Earth ! We find, then, that even for this remaining division of human activities, scientific culture is the proper prepara­ tion. We find that aesthetics in general are necessarily based upon scientific principles; and can be pursued with com­ plete success only through an acquain­ tance with these principles. We find that for the criticism and due apprecia­ tion of works of art, a knowledge of the constitution of things, or in other words, a knowledge of science, is requi­ site. And we not only find that science is the handmaid to all forms of art and poetry, but that, rightly regarded, science is itself poetic. Thus far our question has been, the worth of knowledge of this or that kind for purposes of guidance. We have now to judge the relative values of different kinds of knowledge for purposes of discipline. This division of our subject we are obliged to treat with comparative brevity; and happily, no very lengthened treatment of it is needed. Having found what is best for the one end, we have by implication found what is best for the other. We may be quite sure that the acquirement of those classes of facts which are most useful for regulating conduct, involves a mental exercise best fitted for strengthening the faculties. It would be utterly contrary to the beautiful economy of Nature, if one kind of culture were needed for the gaining of information �36 EDUCATION and another kind were needed as a mental gymnastic. Everywhere through­ out creation we find faculties developed through the performance of those func­ tions which it is their office to perform; not through the performance of artificial exercises devised to fit them for those functions. The Red Indian acquires the swiftness and agility which make him a successful hunter, by the actual pursuit of animals; and through the miscel­ laneous activities of his life, he gains a better balance of physical powers than gymnastics ever give. That skill in tracking enemies and prey which he has reached after long practice, implies a subtlety of perception far exceeding any­ thing produced by artificial training. And similarly in all cases. From the Bushman whose eye, habitually employed in identifying distant objects that are to be pursued or fled from, has acquired a telescopic range, to the accountant whose daily practice enables him to add up several columns of figures simultaneously; we find that the highest power of a faculty results from the discharge of those duties which the conditions of life require it to discharge. And we may be certain, a priori, that the same law holds through­ out education. The education of most value for guidance, must at the same time be the education of most value for discipline. Let us consider the evidence. One advantage claimed for that devo­ tion to language-learning which forms so prominent a feature in the ordinary curriculum, is, that the memory is thereby strengthened. This is assumed to be an advantage peculiar to the study of words. But the truth is, that the sciences afford far wider fields for the exercise of memory. It is no slight task to remember everything about our solar system; much more to remember all that is known concerning the structure of our galaxy. The number of compound substances, to which chemistry daily adds, is so great that few, save professors, can enumerate them; and to recollect the atomic constitutions and affinities of all these compounds, is scarcely possible without making chemistry the occupation of life. In the enormous mass of phenomena presented by the Earth’s crust, and in the still more enormous mass of phenomena presented by the fossils it contains, there is matter which it takes the geological student years of application to master. Each leading division of physics—sound, heat, light, electricity — includes facts numerous enough to alarm any one proposing to learn them all. And when we pass to the organic sciences, the effort of memory required becomes still greater. In human anatomy alone, the quantity of detail is so great, that the young surgeon has commonly to get it up half-a-dozen times before he can permanently retain it. The number of species of plants which botanists distinguish, amounts to some 320,000; while the varied forms of animal life with which the zoologist deals, are estimated at some 2,000,000. So vast is the accumulation of facts which men of science have before them, that only by dividing and subdividing their labours can they deal with it. To a detailed knowledge of his own division, each adds but a general knowledge of the allied ones ; joined perhaps to a rudi­ mentary acquaintance with some others. Surely, then, science, cultivated even to a very moderate extent, affords adequate exercise for memory. To say the very least, it involves quite as good a dis­ cipline for this faculty as language does. But now mark that while, for the training of mere memory, science is as good as, if not better than, language, it has an immense superiority in the kind �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? of memory it trains. In the acquire­ ment of a language, the connections of ideas to be established in the mind correspond to facts that are in great measure accidental ; whereas, in the acquirement of science, the connections of ideas to be established in the mind correspond to facts that are mostly necessary. It is true that the relations of words to their meanings are in one sense natural; that the genesis of these relations may be traced back a certain distance, though rarely to the beginning; and that the laws of this genesis form a branch of mental science—the science of philology. But since it will not be contended that in the acquisition of languages, as ordinarily carried on, these natural relations between words and their meanings are habitually traced, and their laws explained; it must be admitted that they are commonly learned as fortuitous relations. On the other hand, the relations which science pre­ sents are causal relations; and, when properly taught, are understood as such. While language familiarises with nonrational relations, science familiarises with rational relations. While the one exercises memory only, the other exer­ cises both memory and understanding. Observe next, that a great superiority of science over language as a means of discipline, is, that it cultivates the judg­ ment. As, in a lecture on mental edu­ cation delivered at the Royal Institution, Professor Faraday well remarks, the most common intellectual fault is deficiency of judgment. “Society, speaking generally,” he says, “ is not only ignorant as respects education of the judgment, but it is also ignorant of its ignorance.” And the cause to which he ascribes this state, is want of scientific culture. The truth of his conclusion is obvious. Correct judg­ ment with regard to surrounding objects, 37 events, and consequences, becomes pos­ sible only through knowledge of the way in which surrounding phenomena depend on each other. No extent of acquain­ tance with the meanings of words, will guarantee correct inferences respecting causes and effects. The habit of drawing conclusions from data, and then of verify­ ing those conclusions by observation and experiment, can alone give the power of judging correctly. And that it necessitates this habit is one of the immense advantages of science. Not only, however, for intellectual discipline is science the best; but also for moral discipline. The learning of languages tends, if anything, further to increase the already undue respect for authority. Such and such are the meanings of these words, says the teacher or the dictionary. So and so is the rule in this case, says the grammar. By the pupil these dicta are received as un­ questionable. His constant attitude of mind is that of submission to dogmatic teaching. And a necessary result is a tendency to accept without inquiry what­ ever is established. Quite opposite is the mental tone generated by the culti­ vation of science. Science makes con­ stant appeal to individual reason. Its truths are not accepted on authority alone; but all are at liberty to test them —nay, in many cases, the pupil is required to think out his own conclu­ sions. Every step in a scientific investi­ gation is submitted to his judgment. He is not asked to admit it without seeing it to be true. And the trust in his own powers thus produced, is further increased by the uniformity with which Nature justifies his inferences when they are correctly drawn. From all which there flows that independence which is a most valuable element in character. Nor is this the only moral benefit �38 EDUCATION bequeathed by scientific culture. When carried on, as it should always be, as much as possible under the form of original research, it exercises perseverance and sincerity. As says Professor Tyndall of inductive inquiry, “it requires patient industry, and an humble and conscien­ tious acceptance of what Nature reveals. The first condition of success is an honest receptivity and a willingness to abandon all preconceived notions, how­ ever cherished, if they be found to con­ tradict the truth. Believe me, a selfrenunciation which has something noble in it, and of which the world never hears, is often enacted in the private experience of the true votary of science.” Lastly we have to assert—and the assertion will, we doubt not, cause extreme surprise—that the discipline of science is superior to that of our ordinary education, because of the religious culture that it gives. Of course we do not here use the words scientific and religious in their ordinary limited acceptations ; but in their widest and highest acceptations. Doubtless, to the superstitions that pass under the name of religion, science is antagonistic; but not to the essential religion which these superstitions merely hide. Doubtless, too, in much of the science that is current, there is a pervad­ ing spirit of irreligion; but not in that true science which has passed beyond the superficial into the profound. “ True science and true religion,” says Pro­ fessor Huxley at the close of a recent course of lectures, “ are twin-sisters, and the separation of either from the other is sure to prove the death of both. Science prospers exactly in pro­ portion as it is religious ; and religion flourishes in exact proportion to the scientific depth and firmness of its basis. The great deeds of philosophers have been less the fruit of their intellect than of the direction of that intellect by an eminently religious tone of mind. Truth has yielded herself rather to their patience, their love, their single-heartedness and their self­ denial, than to their logical acumen.” So far from science being irreligious, as many think, it is the neglect of science that is irreligious—it is the refusal to study the surrounding creation that is irreligious. Take a humble simile. Suppose, a writer were daily saluted with praises couched in superlative language. Suppose the wisdom, the grandeur, the beauty of his works, were the constant topics of the eulogies addressed to him. Suppose those who unceasingly uttered these eulogies on his works were content with looking at the outsides of them; and had never opened them, much less tried to understand them. What value should we put upon their praises ? What should we think of their sincerity ? Yet, com­ paring small things to great, such is the conduct of mankind in general, in reference to the Universe and its Cause. Nay, it is worse. Not only do they pass by without study, these things which they daily proclaim to be so wonderful; but very frequently they condemn as mere triflers those who give time to the observation of Nature—they actually scorn those who show any active interest in these marvels. We repeat, then, that not science, but the neglect of science, is irreligious. Devotion to science, is a tacit worship—a tacit recognition of worth in the things studied; and by implication in their Cause. It is not a mere lip-homage, but a homage expressed in actions—not a mere professed respect, but a respect proved by the sacrifice of time, thought, and labour. Nor is it thus only that true science is essentially religious. It is religious, too, inasmuch as it generates a profound respect for, and an implicit faith in, those uniformities of action which all things disclose. By accumulated experi­ ences the man of science acquires a �WHAT KNOWLEDGE IS OF MOST WORTH? thorough belief in the unchanging rela­ tions of phenomena—in the invariable connection of cause and consequence— in the necessity of good or evil results. Instead of the rewards and punishments of traditional belief, which people vaguely hope they may gain, or escape, spite of their disobedience ; he finds that there are rewards and punishments in the ordained constitution of things ; and that the evil results of disobedience are inevitable. He sees that the laws to which we must submit are both inexor­ able and beneficent. He sees that in conforming to them, the process of things is ever towards a greater perfec­ tion and a higher happiness. Hence he is led constantly to insist on them, and is indignant when they are disregarded. And thus does he, by asserting the eternal principles of things and the necessity of obeying them, prove himself intrinsically religious. And lastly the further religious aspect of science, that it alone, can give us true conceptions of ourselves and our rela­ tion to the mysteries of existence. At the same time that it shows us all which can be known, it shows us the limits beyond which we can know nothing. Not by dogmatic assertion, does it teach the impossibility of comprehending the Ultimate Cause of things ; but it leads us clearly to recognise this impossibility by bringing us in. every direction to boundaries we cannot cross. It realises to us in a way which nothing else can, the littleness of human intelligence in the face of that which transcends human intelligence. While towards the tradi­ tions and authorities of men its attitude may be proud, before the impenetrable veil which hides the Absolute its attitude is humble—a true pride and a true humility. Only the sincere man of science (and by this title we do not 39 mean the mere calculator of distances, or analyser of compounds, or labeller of species; but him who through lower truths seeks higher, and eventually the highest)—only the genuine man of science, we say, can truly know how utterly beyond, not only human know­ ledge but human conception, is the Universal Power of which Nature, and Life, and Thought are manifestations. We conclude, then, that for discipline, as well as for guidance, science is of chiefest value. In all its effects, learning the meanings of things, is better than learning the meanings of words. Whether for intellectual, moral, or religious train­ ing, the study of surrounding phenomena is immensely superior to the study of grammars and lexicons. Thus to the question we set out with —What knowledge is of most worth ?— the uniform reply is—Science. This is the verdict on all the counts. For direct self-preservation, or the maintenance of life and health, the all-important know­ ledge is—Science. For that indirect self-preservation which we call gaining a livelihood, the knowledge of greatest value is—Science. For the due dis­ charge of parental functions, the proper guidance is to be found only in—Science. For that interpretation of national life, past and present, without which the citizen cannot rightly regulate his con­ duct, the indispensable key is—Science. Alike for the most perfect production and present enjoyment of art in all its forms, the needful preparation is still— Science, and for purposes of discipline —intellectual, moral, religious—the most efficient study is, once more—Science. The question which at first seemed so perplexed, has become, in the course of our inquiry, comparatively simple. We have not to estimate the degrees of �40 EDUCATION importance of different orders of human conceived, or could have believed, yet is activity, and different studies as severally this kind of knowledge only now receiving fitting us for them; since we find that a grudging recognition in our highest the study of Science, in its most com­ educational institutions. To the slowly prehensive meaning, is the best prepara­ growing acquaintance with the uniform tion for all these orders of activity. We co-existences and sequences of phe­ have not to decide between the claims nomena—to the establishment of invari­ of knowledge of great though conven­ able laws, we owe our emancipation from tional value, and knowledge of less the grossest superstitions. But for though intrinsic value; seeing that the science we should be still worshipping knowledge which proves to be of most fetishes ; or, with hecatombs of victims, value in all other respects, is intrinsically propitiating diabolical deities. And yet most valuable: its worth is not dependent this science, which, in place of the most upon opinion, but is as fixed as is the degrading conceptions of things, has relation of man to the surrounding world. given us some insight into the grandeurs Necessary and eternal as are its truths, of creation, is written against in our theo­ all Science concerns all mankind for all logies and frowned upon from our pulpits. time. Equally at present and in the Paraphrasing an Eastern fable, we remotest future, must it be of incalculable may say that in the family of knowledges, importance for the regulation of their Science is the household drudge, who, in conduct, that men should understand obscurity, hides unrecognised perfections. the science of life, physical, mental, and To her has been committed all the work ; social; and that they should understand by her skill, intelligence, and devotion, all other science as a key to the science have all conveniences and gratifications of life. been obtained ; and while ceaselessly And yet this study immensely tran­ ministering to the rest, she has been scending all other in importance, is that kept in the background, that her haughty which, in an age of boasted education, sisters might flaunt their fripperies in the receives the least attention. While what eyes of the world. The parallel holds we call civilisation could never have yet further. For we are fast coming to arisen had it not been for science; the dénouement, when the positions will science forms scarcely an appreciable be changed ; and while these haughty element in our so-called civilised training. sisters sink into merited neglect, Science, Though to the progress of science we proclaimed as highest alike in worth and owe it, that millions find support where beauty, will reign supreme. once there was food only for thousands; yet of these millions but a few thousands pay any respect to that which has made their existence possible. Though in­ creasing knowledge of the properties CHAPTER II. and relations of things has not only enabled wandering tribes to grow into INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION populous nations, but has given to the There cannot fail to be a relationship countless members of these populous between the successive systems of edu­ nations, comforts and pleasures which their few naked ancestors never even cation, and the successive social states �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION with which they have co-existed. Having a common origin in the national mind, the institutions of each epoch, whatever be their special functions, must have a family likeness. When men received . their creed and its interpretations from ' an infallible authority deigning no expla­ nations, it was natural that the teaching of children should be purely dogmatic. While “believe and ask no questions ” was the maxim of the Church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely, /now that Protestantism has gained for adults a right of private judgment and established the practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony in the change that has made juvenile instruction a process of exposition addressed to the A. understanding. Along with political despotism, stern in its commands, ruling by force of terror, visiting trifling crimes with death, and implacableinits vengeance on the disloyal, there necessarily grew up academic discipline similarly harsh—a discipline of multiplied injunctions and blows for every breach of them — a discipline of unlimited autocracy upheld by rods, and ferules, and the black-hole. On the other hand, the increase of political liberty, the abolition of laws restricting individual action, and the amelioration of the criminal code, have been accompanied by a kindred progress towards non-coercive education: the pupil is hampered by fewer restraints, and other means than punishments are used to govern him. In those ascetic days when men, acting on the greatest-misery principle, held that the more gratifications they denied themselves the more virtuous they were, they, as a matter of course, considered that the best education which most thwarted the wishes of their children, and cut short all spontaneous activity with—“You mustn’t do so.” While, on the contrary, now that happiness is 41 coming to be regarded as a legitimate aim—now that hours of labour are beine; shortened and popular recreations pro­ vided; parents and teachers are beginning to see that most childish desires may rightly be gratified, that childish sports should be encouraged, and that the tendencies of the growing mind are not altogether so diabolical as was supposed. The age in which all believed that trades must be established by bounties and prohibitions ; that manufacturers needed their materials and qualities and prices to be prescribed ; and that the value of money could be determined by law; was an age which unavoidably cherished the notions that a child’s mind could be made to order ; that its powers were to be imparted by the schoolmaster; that it was a receptacle into which knowledge was to be put, and there built up after the teacher’s ideal. In this free-trade era, however, when we are learning that there is much more self-regulation ' in things than was supposed ; that labour, and commerce, and agriculture, and navigation, can do better without manage­ ment than with it ; that political govern­ ments, to be efficient, must grow up from within and not be imposed from without ; we are also being taught that there is a natural process of mental evolution which is not to be disturbed without injury; that we may not force on the unfolding mind our artificial forms ; but that psychology, also, discloses to us a law of supply and demand, to which, if we would not do harm, we must conform. Thus, alike in its oracular dogmatism, in its harsh discipline, in its multiplied restrictions, in its professed asceticism, and in its faith in the devices of men, the old educational regime was akin to the social systems with which it was contemporaneous ; and similarly in the reverse of these characteristics, our modern �42 EDUCATION Erodes of culture correspond to our more liberal religious and political institutions. But there remain further parallelisms to which we have not yet adverted : that, namely, between the processes by which these respective changes have been wrought out; and that between the several states of heterogeneous opinion to which they have led. Some centuries ago there was uniformity of belief —religious, political, and educational. All men were Romanists, all were Monarchists, all were disciples of Aristotle; and no one thought of calling in question that grammar-school routine under which all were brought up. The same agency has in each case replaced this uniformity by a constantly-increasing diversity. That tendency towards asser­ tion of the individuality, which, after contributing to produce the great Pro­ testant movement, has since gone on to produce an ever-increasing number of sects — that tendency which initiated political parties, and out of the two primary ones has, in these modern days, evolved a multiplicity to which every year adds—that tendency which led to the Baconian rebellion against the schools, and has since originated here and abroad, sundry new systems of thought—is a tendency which, in education also, has caused divisions and the accumulation of methods. As external consequences of the same internal change, these processes have necessarily been more or less simultaneous. The decline of authority, whether papal, philosophic, kingly, or tutoral, is essentially one phenomenon; in each of its aspects a leaning towards free action is seen alike in the working out of the change itself, and in the new forms of theory and prac­ tice to which the change has given birth. While many will regret this multiplica­ tion of schemes of juvenile culture, the catholic observer will discern in it a means of ensuring the final establishment of a rational system. Whatever may be thought of theological dissent, it is clear that dissent in education results in facilitating inquiry by the division in labour. Were we in possession of the true method, divergence from it would, of course, be prejudicial; but the true method having to be found, the efforts of numerous independent seekers carrying out their researches in different directions, constitute a better agency for finding it than any that could be devised. Each of them struck by some new thought which probably contains more or less of basis in facts—each of them zealous on behalf of his plan, fertile in expedients to test its correctness, and untiring in his efforts to make known its success— each of them merciless in his criticism on the rest; there cannot fail, by compo­ sition of forces, to be a gradual approxi­ mation of all towards the right course. Whatever portion of the normal method any one has discovered, must, by the constant exhibition of its results, force itself into adoption; whatever wrong practices he has joined with it must, by repeated experiment and failure, be exploded. And by this aggregation of truths and elimination of errors, there must eventually be developed a correct and complete body of doctrine. Of the three phases through which human opinion passes—the unanimity of the ignorant, the disagreement of the in­ quiring, and the unanimity of the wise— it is manifest that the second is the parent of the third. They are not se­ quences in time only, they are sequences in causation. However impatiently, therefore, we may witness the present conflict of educational systems, and how­ ever much we may regret its accompany­ ing evils, we must recognise it as a �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION ' transition stage needful to be passed through, and beneficent in its ultimate effects. Meanwhile, may we not advantageously take stock of our progress ? After fifty years of discussion, experiment, and comparison of results, may we not expect a few steps towards the goal to be already made good? Some old methods must by this time have fallen out of use; some new ones must have become established; and many others must be in process of general abandonment' or adoption. Probably we may see in these various changes, when put side by side, similar characteristics—may find in them a common tendency; and so, by inference, may get a clue to the direction in which experience is leading us, and gather hints how we may achieve yet further improvements. Let us then, as a pre­ liminary to a deeper consideration of the matter, glance at the leading contrasts between the education of the past and that of the present. The suppression of every error is commonly followed by a temporary ascendency of the contrary one ; and so it happened, that after the ages when physical development alone was aimed at, there came an age when culture of the mind was the sole solicitude—when children had lesson-books put before them at between two and three years old, and the getting of knowledge was thought the one thing needful. As, further, it usually happens that after one of these reactions the next advance is achieved by co-ordinating the antagonist errors, and perceiving that they are opposite sides of one truth; so, we are now coming to the conviction that body and mind must both be cared for, and the whole being unfolded. The forcing­ system has been by many given up; and 43 precocity is discouraged. People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal. The best brain is found of little service, if there be not enough vital energy to work it; and hence to obtain the one by sacrificing the source of the other, is now considered a folly—a folly which the eventual failure of juvenile prodigies constantly illustrates. Thus we are discovering the wisdom of the saying, that one secret in education is “ to know how wisely to lose time.” The once universal practice of learning by rote is daily falling into discredit. All modern authorities condemn the old mechanical way of teaching the alphabet. The multiplication table is now frequently taught experimentally. In the acquirement of languages, the grammar-school plan is being superseded by plans based on the spontaneous process followed by the child in gaining its mother tongue. Describing the methods there used, the Reports on the Training School at Battersea say :— “The instruction in the whole pre­ paratory course is chiefly oral, and is illustrated as much as possible by appeals to nature.” And so throughout. The rote-system, like all other systems of its age, made more of the forms and symbols than of the things symbolised. To repeat the words correctly was every­ thing ; to understand their meaning, nothing; and thus the spirit was sacrificed to the letter. It is at length perceived that, in this case as in others, such a result is not accidental but necessary— that in proportion as there is attention to the signs, there must be inattention to the things signified; or that, as Montaigne long ago said—S^avoir par coeur n’est pas s^avoir. Along with rote-teaching, is declining also the nearly-allied teaching by rules. �44 EDUCATION The particulars first, and then the generalisations, is the new method—a method, as the Battersea School Reports remark, which, though “the reverse of the method usually followed, which con­ sists in giving the pupil the rule first,” is yet proved by experience to be the right one. Rule-teaching is now condemned as imparting a merely empirical know­ ledge—as producing an appearance of understanding without the reality. To give the net product of inquiry, without the inquiry that leads to it, is found to be both enervating and inefficient. General truths to be of due and per­ manent use, must be earned. “ Easy come easy go,” is a saying as applicable to knowledge as to wealth. While rules, lying isolated in the mind—not joined to its other contents as out-growths from them—are continually forgotten; the principles which those rules express piecemeal, become, when once reached by the understanding, enduring posses­ sions. While the rule-taught youth is at sea when beyond his rules, the youth instructed in principles solves a new case as readily as an old one. Between a mind of rules and a mind of principles, there exists a difference such as that between a confused heap of materials, and the same materials organised into a complete whole, with all its parts bound together. Of which types this last has not only the advantage that its con­ stituent parts are better retained, but the much greater advantage that it forms an efficient agent for inquiry, for indepen­ dent thought, for discovery—ends for which the first is useless. Nor let it be supposed that this is a simile only : it is the literal truth. The union of facts into generalisations is the organisation of knowledge, whether considered as an objective phenomenon or a subjective one; and the mental grasp may be measured by the extent to which this organisation is carried. From the substitution of principles for rules, and the necessarily co-ordinate practice of leaving abstractions untaught till the mind has been familiarised with the facts from which they are abstracted, has resulted the postponement of some once early studies to a late period. This is exemplified in the abandonment of that intensely stupid custom, the teach­ ing of grammar to children. As M. Marcel says :—“ It may without hesita­ tion be affirmed that grammar is not the stepping-stone, but the finishing instrument.” As Mr. Wyse argues:— “Grammar and Syntax are a collection of laws and rules. Rules are gathered from practice; they are the results of induction to which we come by long observation and comparison of facts. It is, in fine, the science, the philosophy of language. In following the process of nature, neither individuals nor nations ever arrive at the science first. A language is spoken, and poetry written, many years before either a grammar or prosody is even thought of. Men did not wait till Aristotle had constructed his logic, to reason.” In short, as grammar was made after language, so ought it to be taught after language : an inference which all who recognise the relationship between the evolution of the race and that of the individual, will see to be unavoidable. Of new practices that have grown up during the decline of these old ones, the most important is the systematic culture of the powers of observation. After long ages of blindness, men are at last seeing that the spontaneous activity of the observing faculties in children, has a meaning and a use. What was once thought mere purposeless action, or play, or mischief, as the case might be, is now �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION recognised as the process of acquiring a knowledge on which all after-knowledge is based. Hence the well-conceived but ill-conducted system of object-lessons. The saying of Bacon, that physics is the mother of the sciences, has come to have a meaning in education. Without an accurate acquaintance with the visible and tangible properties of things, our conceptions must be erroneous, our inferences fallacious, and our operations unsuccessful. “ The education of the senses neglected, all after education partakes of a drowsiness, a haziness, an insufficiency which it is impossible to cure.” Indeed, if we consider it, we shall find that exhaustive observation is an element in all great success. It is not to artists, naturalists, and men of science only, that it is needful; it is not only that the physician depends on it for the correctness of his diagnosis, and that to the engineer it is so important that some years in the workshop are pre­ scribed to him ; but we may see that the philosopher, also, is fundamentally one who observes relationships of things which others had overlooked, and that the poet, too, is one who sees the fine facts in nature which all recognise when pointed out, but did not before remark. Nothing requires more to be insisted on than that vivid and complete impressions are all-essential. No sound fabric of wisdom can be woven out of a rotten raw material. While the old method of presenting • truths in the abstract has been falling out of use, there has been a correspond­ ing adoption of the new method of presenting them in the concrete. The rudimentary facts of exact science are now being learnt by direct intuition, as textures, and tastes, and colours are learnt. Employing the ball-frame for first lessons in arithmetic, exemplifies 45 this. It is well illustrated, too, in Pro­ fessor De Morgan’s mode of explaining the decimal notation. M. Marcel, rightly repudiating the old system of tables, teaches weights and measures by refer­ ring to the actual yard and foot, pound and ounce, gallon and quart; and lets the discovery of their relationships be experimental. The use of geographical models and models of the regular bodies, etc., as introductory to geography and geometry respectively, are facts of the same class. Manifestly, a common trait of these methods is, that they carry each child’s mind through a process like that which the mind of humanity at large has gone through. The truths of number, of form, of relationship in position, were all originally drawn from objects; and to present these truths to the child in the concrete, is to let him learn them as the race learnt them. By and by, perhaps, it will be seen that he cannot possibly learn them in any other way; for that if he is made to repeat them as abstrac­ tions, the abstractions can have no meaning for him, until he finds that they are simply statements of what he intui­ tively discerns. But of all the changes taking place, the most significant is the growing desire to make the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than painful—a desire based on the more or less distinct per­ ception, that at each age the intellectual action which a child likes is a healthy one for it; and conversely. There is a spreading opinion that the rise of an appetite for any kind of information, implies that the unfolding mind has become fit to assimilate it, and needs it for purposes of growth ; and that, on the other hand, the disgust felt towards such information is a sign either that it is prematurely presented, or that it is pre­ sented in an indigestible form. Hence �46 EDUCATION the efforts to make early education amusing, and all education interesting. Hence the lectures on the value of play. Hence the defence of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Daily we more and more conform our plans to juvenile opinion. Does the child like this or that kind kind of teaching?—does he take to it ? we constantly ask. “ His natural desire of variety should be in­ dulged,” says M. Marcel; “and the grati­ fication of his curiosity should be com­ bined with his improvement.” “Lessons,” he again remarks, “should cease before the child evinces symptoms of weariness.” And so with later education. Short breaks during school-hours, excursions into the country, amusing lectures, choral songs—in these and many like traits, the change may be discerned. Asceti­ cism is disappearing out of education as out of life; and the usual test of political legislation—its tendency to promote happiness—is beginning to be, in a great degree, the test of legislation for the school and the nursery. What now is the common characteristic of these several changes ? Is it not an increas­ ing conformity to the methods of Nature ? The relinquishment of early forcing, against which Nature rebels, and the leaving of the first years for exercise of the limbs and senses, show this. The superseding of rote-learnt lessons by lessons orally and experimentally given, like those of the field and play­ ground, shows this. The disuse of rule­ teaching, and the adoption of teaching by principles—that is, the leaving of generalisations until there are particulars to base them on—show this. The sys­ tem of object-lessons shows this. The teaching of the rudiments of science in the concrete instead of the abstract, shows this. And above all, this ten­ dency is shown in the variously-directed efforts to present knowledge in attractive forms, and so to make the acquirement of it pleasurable. For, as it is the order of Nature in all creatures that the grati­ fication accompanying the fulfilment of needful functions serves as a stimulus to their fulfilment—as, during the self-edu­ cation of the young child, the delight taken in the biting of corals and the pulling to pieces of toys, becomes the prompter to actions which teach it the properties of matter; it follows that, in choosing the succession of subjects and the modes of instruction which most interest the pupil, we are fulfilling Nature’s behests, adjusting our proceed ings to the laws of life. Thus, then, we are on the highway towards the doctrine long ago enunciated by Pestalozzi, that alike in its order and its methods, education must conform to the natural process of mental evolution —that there is a certain sequence in which the faculties spontaneously develop, and a certain kind of knowledge which each requires during its development; and that it is for us to ascertain this sequence, and supply this knowledge. All the improvements above alluded to are partial applications of this general principle. A nebulous perception of it now prevails among teachers; and it is daily more insisted on in educational works. “ The method of nature is the archetype of all methods,” says M. Marcel. “ The vital principle in the pursuit is to enable the pupil rightly to instruct himself,” writes Mr. Wyse. The more science familiarises us with the constitution of things, the more do we see in them an inherent self-sufficingness. A higher knowledge tends continually to limit our interference with the processes of life. As in medicine the old “ heroic treatment ” has given place to mild treat­ ment, and often no treatment save a �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION normal regimen—as we have found that it is not needful to mould bodies of babes by bandaging them in papoosefashiun or otherwise—as in gaols it is being discovered that no cunninglydevised discipline of ours is so efficient in producing reformation as the natural discipline of self-maintenance by produc­ tive labour ; so in education, we are finding that success is to be achieved only by making our measures subservient to that spontaneous unfolding which all minds go through in their progress to maturity. Of course, this fundamental principle of tuition, that the arrangement of matter and method must correspond with the order of evolution and mode of activity of the faculties—a principle so obviously true, that once stated it seems almost self-evident—has never been wholly dis­ regarded. Teachers have unavoidably made their school-courses coincide with it in some degree, for the simple reason that education is possible only on that condition. Boys were never taught the rule-of-three until they had learnt addi­ tion. They were not set to write exercises before they had got into their copy-books. Conic sections have always been preceded by Euclid. But the error of the old methods consists in this, that they do not recognise in detail what they are obliged to recognise in general. Yet the principle applies throughout. If from the time when a child is able to conceive two things as related in position, years must elapse before it can form a true concept of the Earth, as a sphere made up of land and sea, covered with mountains, forests, rivers, and cities, revolving on its axis, and sweeping round the Sun—if it gets from the one concept to the other by degrees—if the inter­ mediate concepts which it forms are consecutively larger and more compli­ 47 cated ; is it not manifest that there is a general succession through which alone it can pass; that each larger concept is made by the combination of smaller ones, and presupposes them ; and that to present any of these compound con­ cepts before the child is in possession of its constituent ones, is only less absurd than to present the final concept of the series before the initial one. In the mastering of every subject some course of increasingly complex ideas has to be gone through. The evolution of the corresponding faculties consists in the assimilation of these; which, in any true sense, is impossible without they are put into the mind in the normal order. And when this order is not followed, the result is, that they are received with apathy or disgust; and that unless the pupil is intelligent enough eventually to fill up the gaps himself, they lie in his memory as dead facts, capable of being turned to little or no use. “ But why trouble ourselves about any curriculum at all ?” it may be asked. “ If it be true that the mind like the body has a predetermined course of evolution —if it unfolds spontaneously—if its successive desires for this or that kind of information arise when these are severally required for its nutrition—if there thus exists in itself a prompter to the right species of activity at the right time; why interfere in any way ? Why not leave children wholly to the discipline of nature?—why not remain quite pas­ sive and let them get knowledge as they best can ?—why not be consistent throughout ?” This is an awkwardlooking question. Plausibly implying as it does, that a system of complete laissez-faire is the logical outcome of the doctrines set forth, it seems to furnish a disproof of them by reductio ad absurdum. �48 EDUCATION In truth, however, they do not, when rightly understood, commit us to any such untenable position. A glance at the physical analogies will clearly show this. It is a general law of life tha the t * more complex the organism to be pro­ duced, the longer the period during which it is dependent on a parent organism for food and protection. The difference between the minute, rapidlyformed, and self-moving spore of a conferva, and the slowly-developed seed of a tree, with its multiplied envelopes and large stock of nutriment laid by to nourish the germ during its first stages of growth, illustrates this law in its application to the vegetal world. Among anirrials we may trace it in a series of contrasts from the monad whose spon­ taneously-divided halves are as selfsufficing the moment after their separa­ tion as was the original whole; up to man, whose offspring not only passes through a protracted gestation, and subsequently long depends on the breast for sustenance; but after that must have its food artificially administered; must, when it has learned to feed itself, con­ tinue to have bread, clothing, and shelter provided; and does not acquire the power of complete self-support until a time varying from fifteen to twenty years after its birth. Now this law applies to the mind as to the body. For mental pabulum also, every higher creature, and especially man, is at first dependent on adult aid. Lacking the ability to move about, the babe is almost as powerless to get materials on which to exercise its perceptions as it is to get supplies for its stomach. Unable to prepare its own food, it is in like manner unable to reduce many kinds of knowledge to a fit form for assimilation. The language through which all higher truths are to be gained, it wholly derives from those surrounding it. And we see in such an example as the Wild Boy of Aveyron, the arrest of development that results when no help is received from parents and nurses. Thus, in providing from day to day the right kind of facts, prepared in the right manner, and giving them in due abun­ dance at appropriate intervals, there is as much scope for active ministration to a child’s mind as to its body. In either case, it is the chief function of parents to see that the conditions requisite to growth are maintained. And as, in supplying aliment, and clothing, and shelter, they may fulfil this function without at all interfering with the spon­ taneous development of the limbs and viscera, either in their order or mode; so, they may supply sounds for imitation, objects for examination, books for read­ ing, problems for solution, and, if they use neither direct nor indirect coercion, may do this without in any way disturbing the normal process of mental evolution; or rather, may greatly facilitate that process. Hence the admission of the doctrines enunciated does not, as some might argue, involve the abandonment of teaching; but leaves ample room for an active and elabcrate course of culture. Passing from generalities to special considerations, it is to be remarked that in practice, the Pestalozzian system seems scarcely to have fulfilled the promise of its theory. We hear of children not at all interested in its lessons,—disgusted with them rather ; and, so far as we can gather, the Pesta­ lozzian schools have not turned out any unusual proportion of distinguished men: if even they have reached the average. We are not surprised at this. The success of every appliance depends mainly upon the intelligence with which �INTELLECTUAL ED UCA TION it is used, it is a trite remark that, having the choicest tools, an unskilled artisan will botch his work; and bad teachers will fail even with the best methods. Indeed, the goodness of the method becomes in such case a cause of failure; as, to continue the simile, the perfection of the tool becomes in undisciplined hands a source of imper­ fection in results. A simple, unchanging, almost mechanical routine of tuition, may be carried out by the commonest intellects, with such small beneficial effect as it is capable of producing; but a complete system—a system as hetero­ geneous in its appliances as the mind in its faculties—a system proposing a special means for each special end, demands for its right employment powers such as few teachers possess. The mistress of a dame-school can hear spelling-lessons ; and any hedge-schoolmaster can drill boys in the multiplication table. But to teach spelling rightly, by using the powers of the letters instead of their names, or to instruct in numerical com­ binations by experimental synthesis, a modicum of understanding is needful; and to pursue a like rational course throughout the entire range of studies, asks an amount of judgment, of invention, of intellectual sympathy, of analytical faculty, which we shall never see applied to it while the tutorial office is held in such small esteem. Tjue education is practicable only by a true philosopher. J udge then, what prospect a philosophical method now has of being acted out! Knowing so little as we yet do of psycho­ logy, and ignorant as our teachers are of that little, what chance has a system which requires psychology for its basis ? Further hindrance and discouragement has arisen from confounding the Pestalozzian principle with the forms in which it has been embodied. Because particular 49 plans have not answered expectation, discredit has been cast upon the doctrine associated with them : no inquiry being made whether these plans truly conform to the doctrine. Judging as usual by the concrete rather than the abstract, men have blamed the theory for the bunglings of the practice. It is as though the first futile attempt to construct a steam-engine had been held to prove that steam could not be used as a motive power. Let it be constantly borne in mind that while right in his fundamental ideas, Pestalozzi was not therefore right in all his applications of them. As described even by his admirers, Pesta­ lozzi was a man of partial intuitions—a man who had occasional flashes of insight; rather than a man of systematic thought. His first great success at Stantz was achieved when he had no books or appliances of ordinary teaching, and when “ the only object of his atten­ tion was to find out at each moment what instruction his children stood pecu­ liarly in need of, and what was the best manner of connecting it with the know­ ledge they already possessed.” Much of his power was due, not to calmly reasoned-out plans of culture, but to his profound sympathy, which gave him a quick perception of childish needs and difficulties. He lacked the ability logically to co-ordinate and develop the truths which he thus from time to time laid hold of; and had in great measure to leave this to his assistants, Kruesi, Tobler, Buss, Niederer, and Schmid. The result is, that in their details his own plans, and those vicariously devised, contain numerous crudities and incon­ sistencies. His nursery-method, described in The Mother’s Manual, beginning as it does with a nomenclature of the different parts of the body, and pro­ ceeding next to specify their relative �50 EDUCATION positions, and next their connections, . may be proved not at all in accordance with the initial stages of mental evolu­ tion. His process of teaching the mother-tongue by formal exercises in the meanings of words in the construc­ tion of sentences, is quite needless, and must entail on the pupil loss of time, labour and happiness. His proposed lessons in geography are utterly unpesta$ lozzian. And often where his plans are essentially sound, they are either incom­ plete or vitiated by some remnant of the old regime. While, therefore, we would defend in its entire extent the general doctrine which Pestalozzi inaugu­ rated, we think great evil likely to result from an uncritical reception of his specific methods. That tendency, con­ stantly exhibited by mankind, to canonise the forms and practices along with which any great truth has been bequeathed to them—their liability to prostrate their intellects before the prophet, and swear by his every word—their proneness to mistake the clothing of the idea for the idea itself ; renders it ne'edful to insist strongly upon the distinction between the fundamental principle of the Pestalozzian system, and the set of expedients devised for its practice ; and to suggest that while the one may be considered as established, the other is probably nothing but an adumbration of the normal course. Indeed, on looking at the state of our knowledge, we may be quite sure that this is the case. Before educational methods can be made to harmonise in character and arrangement with the faculties in their mode and order of unfolding, it is first needful that we ascertain with some completeness how the faculties do unfold. At present we have acquired, on this point, only a few general notions. These general notions must be developed in detail—must be transformed into a multitude of specific propositions, before we can be said to possess that science on which the art of education must be based. And then, when we have definitely made out in what succession and in what combina­ tions the mental powers become active, it remains to choose out of the many possible- ways of exercising each of them, that which best conforms to its natural mode of action. Evidently, therefore, it is not to be supposed that even our most advanced modes of teaching are the right ones, or nearly the right ones. Bearing in mind then this distinction between the principle and the practice of Pestalozzi, and inferring from the grounds assigned that the last must necessarily be very defective, the reader will rate at its true worth the dissatisfac­ tion with the system which some have expressed; and will see that the realisa­ tion of the Pestalozzian idea remains to be achieved. Should he argue, however, from what has just been said, that no such realisation is at present practicable, and that all effort ought to be devoted to the preliminary inquiry; we reply, that though it is not possible for a scheme of culture to be perfected either in matter or form until a rational psycho­ logy has been established, it is possible, with the aid of certain guiding prin­ ciples, to make empirical approximations towards a perfect scheme. To prepare the way for further research we will now specify these principles. Some of them have been more or less distinctly implied in the foregoing pages; but it will be well here to state them all in logical order. i. That in education we should pro­ ceed from the simple to the complex, is a truth which has always been to some �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION extent acted upon : not professedly, indeed, nor by any means consistently. The mind develops. Like all things that develop it progresses from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous ; and a normal training system, being an objective counterpart of this subjective process, must exhibit a like progression. Moreover thus interpreting it, we may see that this formula has much wider applications than at first appears. For its rationale involves, not only that we should proceed from the single to the combined in the teaching of each branch of knowledge; but that we should do the like with knowledge as a whole. As the mind, consisting at first of but few active faculties, has its later-completed faculties successively brought into play, and ultimately comes to have all its faculties in simultaneous action; it follows that our teaching should begin with but few subjects at once, and suc­ cessively adding to these, should finally carry on all subjects abreast. Not only in its details should education proceed from the simple to the complex, but in its ensemble also. 2.The development of the mind, as all other development, is an advance from the indefinite to the definite. In common with the rest of the organism, the brain reaches its finished structure only at maturity; and in proportion as its structure is unfinished, its actions are wanting in precision. Hence like the first movements and the first attempts at speech, the first perceptions and thoughts are extremely vague. As from a rudimentary eye, discerning only the difference between light and darkness, the progress is to an eye that distinguishes kinds and gradations of colour, and details of form, with the greatest exact­ ness ; so, the intellect as a whole and in each faculty, beginning with the rudest discriminations among objects and actions, advances towards discrimina­ tions of increasing nicety and distinct­ ness. To this general law our educa­ tional course and methods must conform. It is not practicable, nor would it be desirable if practicable, to put precise ideas into the undeveloped mind. We may indeed at an early age communicate the verbal forms in which such ideas are wrapped up; and teachers, who habitually do this, suppose that when the verbal forms have been correctly learnt, the ideas which should fill them have been acquired. But a brief cross-examination of the pupil proves the contrary. It turns out either that the words have been committed to memory with little or no thought about their meaning, or else that the perception of their meaning which has been gained is a very cloudy one. Only as the multiplication of experiences gives materials for definite conceptions—only as observation year by year discloses the less conspicuous attributes which distinguish things and processes previously confounded together —only as each class of co-enstences and sequences becomes familiar through the recurrence of cases coming under it —only as the various classes of relations get accurately marked off from each other by mutual limitation; can the exact definitions of advanced knowledge become truly comprehensible. Thus in education we must be content to set out with crude notions. These we must aim to make gradually clearer by facilitating the acquisition of experiences such as will correct, first their greatest errors, and afterwards their successively less marked errors. And the scientific formulae must be given only as fast as the conceptions are perfected. 3. To say that our lessons ought to start from the concrete and end in the �52 EDUCATION abstract, may be considered as in part a repetition of the first of the foregoing principles. Nevertheless it is a maxim that must be stated: if with no other view, then with the view of showing in certain cases what are truly the simple and the complex. For unfortunately there has been much misunderstanding on this point. General formulas which men have devised to express groups of details, and which have severally simpli­ fied their conceptions by uniting many facts into one fact, they have supposed must simplify the conceptions of a child also. They have forgotten that a generalisation is simple only in com­ parison with the whole mass of particular truths it comprehends—that it is more complex than any one of these truths taken singly—that only after many of these single truths have been acquired, does the generalisation ease the memory and help the reason—and that to a mind not possessing these single truths it is necessarily a mystery. Thus confounding two kinds of simplification, teachers have constantly erred by setting out with “first principles”: a proceeding essentially, though not apparently, at variance with the primary rule; which implies that the mind should be intro­ duced to principles through the medium of examples, and so should be led from the particular to the general—from the concrete to the abstract. 4. The education of the child must accord both in mode and arrangement with the education of mankind, con­ sidered historically. In other words, the genesis of knowledge in the individual, must follow the same course as the genesis of knowledge in the race. In strictness, this principle may be con­ sidered as already expressed by implica­ tion ; since both being processes of evolution, must conform to those same general laws of evolution above insisted on, and must therefore agree with each other. Nevertheless this particular parallelism is of value for the specific guidance it affords. To M. Comte we believe society owes the enunciation of it; and we may accept this item of his philosophy without at all committing ourselves to the rest. This doctrine may be upheld by two reasons, quite independent of any abstract theory; and either of them sufficient to establish it. One is deducible from the law of hereditary transmission as considered in its wider consequences. For if it be true that men exhibit likeness to ancestry, both in aspect and character— if it be true that certain mental mani­ festations, as insanity, occur in successive members of the same family at the same age—if, passing from individual cases in which the traits of many dead ancestors mixing with those of a few living ones greatly obscure the law, we turn to national types, and remark how the con­ trasts between them are persistent from age to age—if we remember that these respective types came from a common stock, and that hence the present marked differences between them must have arisen from the action of modifying circumstances upon successive genera­ tions who severally transmitted the accumulated effects to their descendants —if we find the differences to be now organic, so that a French child grows into a French man even when brought up among strangers—and if the general fact thus illustrated is true of the whole nature, intellect inclusive; then it follows that if there be an order in which the human race has mastered its various kinds of knowledge, there will arise in every child an aptitude to acquire these kinds of knowledge in the same order. So that even were the order intrinsically �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION indifferent, it would facilitate education to lead the individual mind through the steps traversed by the general mind. But the order is not intrinsically indifferent; and hence the fundamental reason why education should be a repetition of civilisation in little. It is provable both that the historical sequence was, in its main outlines, a necessary one; and that the causes which determined it apply to the child as to. the race. Not to specify these causes in detail, it will suffice here to point out that as the mind of humanity placed in the midst of phenomena and striving to comprehend them, has, after endless comparisons, speculations, experi­ ments, and theories, reached its present knowledge of each subject by a specific route; it may rationally be inferred that the relationship between mind and phe­ nomena is such as to prevent this know­ ledge from being reached by any other route; and that as each child’s mind stands in this same relationship to phe­ nomena, they can be accessible to it oply through the same route. Hence in deciding upon the right method of edu­ cation, an inquiry into the method of civilisation will help to guide us. 5. One of the conclusions to which such an inquiry leads, is, that in each branch of instruction we should proceed from the empirical to the rational. During human progress, every science is evolved out of its corresponding art. It results from the necessity we are under, both individually and as a race, of reaching the abstract by way of the concrete, that there must be practice and an accruing experience with its empirical generalisations, before there can be science. Science is organised knowledge; and before knowledge can be organised, some of it must be pos­ sessed. Every study, therefore, should have a purely experimental introduction ; 53 and only after an ample fund of observa­ tions has been accumulated, should reasoning begin. As illustrative appli­ cations of this rule, we may instance the modern course of placing grammar, not before language, but after it; or the ordinary custom of prefacing perspec­ tive by practical drawing. By and by further applications of it will be indi­ cated. 6. A second corollary from the fore­ going general principle, and one which cannot be too strenuously insisted on, is, that in education the process of self­ development should be encouraged to the uttermost. Children should be led to make their own investigations, and to draw their own inferences. They should be told as little as possible, and induced to discover as much as possible. Humanity has progressed solely by self­ instruction ; and that to achieve the best results, each mind must progress somewhat after the same fashion, is con­ tinually proved by the marked success of self-made men. Those who have been brought up under the ordinary school-drill, and have carried away with them the idea that education is prac­ ticable only in that style, will think it hopeless to make children their own teachers. If, however, they will consider that the all-important knowledge of sur­ rounding objects which a child gets in its early years, is got without help—if they will remember that the child is selftaught in the use of its mother tongue— if they will estimate the amount of that experience of life, that out-of-school wisdom, which every boy gathers for himself—if they will mark the unusual intelligence of the uncared-for London gamin, as shown in whatever directions his faculties have been tasked—if, further, they will think how many minds have struggled up unaided, not only through �54 ■ EDUCATION the mysteries of our irrationally-planned curriculum, but through hosts of other obstacles besides; they will find it a not unreasonable conclusion, that if the subjects be put before him in right order and right form, any pupil of ordinary capacity will surmount his suc­ cessive difficulties with but little assis­ tance. Who indeed can watch the cease­ less observation, and inquiry, and infer­ ence going on in a child’s mind, or listen to its acute remarks on matters within the range of its faculties, without perceiving that these powers it manifests, if brought to bear systematically upon studies within the same range, would readily master them without help ? This need for per­ petual telling results from our stupidity, not from the child’s. We drag it away from the facts in which it is interested, and which it is actively assimilating of itself. We put before it facts far too complex for it to understand; and there­ fore distasteful to it. Finding that it will not voluntarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind by force of threats and punishment. By thus denying the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of its faculties; and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general. And when, as a result partly of the stolid indolence we have brought on, and partly of stillcontinued unfitness in its studies, the child can understand nothing without explanation, and becomes a mere passive recipient of our instruction, we infer that education must necessarily be carried on thus. Having by our method induced helplessness, we make the help­ lessness a reason for our method. Clearly then, the experience of pedagogues cannot rationally be quoted against the system we are advocating. And who­ ever sees this, will see that we may safely follow the discipline of Nature through­ out may, by a skilful ministration, make the mind as self-developing in its latter stages as it is in its earlier ones ; and that only by doing this can we pro­ duce the highest power and activity. 7. As a final test by which to judge any plan of culture, should come the question,—Does it create a pleasurable excitement in the pupils ? When in doubt whether a particular mode or arrangement is or is not more in harmony with the foregoing principles than some other, we may safely abide by this cri­ terion. Even when, as considered theoretically, the proposed course seems the best, yet if it produces no interest, or less interest than some other course, we should relinquish it; for a child’s intellectual instincts are more trustworthy than our reasonings. In respect to the knowing-faculties, we may confidently trust in the general law, that under normal conditions, healthful action is pleasurable, while action which gives pain is not healthful. Though at present very incompletely conformed to by the emotional nature, yet by the intellectual nature, or at least by those parts of it which the child exhibits, this law is almost wholly conformed to. The re­ pugnances to this and that study which vex the ordinary teacher, are not innate, but result from his unwise system. Fellenberg says, “ Experience has taught me that indolence in young persons is so directly opposite to their natural dispo­ sition to activity, that unless it is the consequence of bad education, it is almost invariably connected with some constitutional defect.” And the spon­ taneous activity to which children are thus prone, is simply the pursuit of those pleasures which the healthful exercise of the faculties gives. It is true that some of the higher mental powers, as yet but �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION little developed in the race, and congeni­ tally possessed in any considerable degree only by the most advanced, are indis­ posed to the amount of exertion required of them.. But these, in virtue of their very complexity, will, in a normal course of culture, come last into exercise ; and will therefore have no demands made on them until the pupil has arrived at an age when ulterior motives can be brought into play, and an indirect pleasure made to counterbalance a direct displeasure. With all faculties lower than these, how­ ever, the immediate gratification conse­ quent on activity, is the normal stimulus ; and under good management the only needful stimulus. When we have to fall back on some other, we must take the fact as evidence that we are on the wrong track. Experience is daily showing with greater clearness, that there is always a method to be found productive of interest —even of delight; and it ever turns out that this is the method proved by all other tests to be the right one. With most, these guiding principles will weigh but'little if left in this abstract form. Partly, therefore, to exemplify their application, and partly with a view of making sundry specific suggestions, we propose now to pass from the theory of education to the practice of it. 55 of unseen planets, the invention of calcu­ lating engines, the production of great paintings, or the composition of sym­ phonies and operas. This activity of the faculties from the very first, being spontaneous and inevitable, the question is whether we shall supply in due variety the materials on which they may exer­ cise themselves; and to the question so put, none but an affirmative answer can be given. As before said, however, agreement with Pestalozzi’s theory does not involve agreement with his practice ; and here occurs a case in point. Treating of instruction in spelling he says : The spelling-book ought, therefore, to con­ tain all the sounds of the language, and these ought to be taught in every family from the earliest infancy. The child who learns his spelling-book ought to repeat them to the infant in the cradle, before it is able to pronounce even one of them, so that they may be deeply im­ pressed upon its mind by frequent repetition. Joining this with the suggestions for “ a nursery method,” set down in his Mother’s Manual, in which he makes the names, positions, connections, numbers, properties, and uses of the limbs and body his first lessons, it becomes clear that Pestalozzi’s notions on early mental development were too crude to enable him to devise judicious plans. Let us consider the course which Psychology dictates. The earliest impressions which the It was the opinion of Pestalozzi, and one which has ever since his day been mind can assimilate, are the undecomgaining ground, that education of some posable sensations produced by resis­ kind should begin from the cradle. tance, light, sound, etc. Manifestly, Whoever has watched with any discern­ decomposable states of consciousness ment, the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at cannot exist before the states of con­ surrounding objects, knows very well that sciousness out of which they are com­ education does begin thus early, whether posed. There can be no idea of form we intend it or not; and that these until some familiarity with light in its fingerings and suckings of everything it gradations and qualities, or resistance in can lay hold of, these open-mouthed its different intensities, has been acquired; listenings to every sound, are first steps for, as has been long known, we recognise in the series which ends in the discovery visible form by means of varieties of light, �56 EDUCATION and tangible form by means of varieties of Nor let us omit the fact, that both resistance. Similarly, no articulate sound temper and health will be improved is cognisable until the inarticulate sounds by the continual gratification resulting which go to make it up have been learned. from a due supply of these impressions And thus must it be in every other case. which every child so greedily assimilates. Following, therefore, the necessary law Space, could it be spared, might here be of progression from the simple to the well filled by some suggestions towards complex, we should provide for the a more systematic ministration to those infant a sufficiency of objects presenting simplest of the perceptions. But it different degrees and kinds of resistance, must suffice to point out that any such a sufficiency of objects reflecting different ministration, recognising the general law amounts and qualities of light, and a of evolution from the indefinite to the sufficiency of sounds contrasted in their definite, should proceed upon the corol­ loudness, their pitch and their timbre. lary that in the development of every How fully this à priori conclusion is faculty, markedly contrasted impressions confirmed by infantile instincts, all will are the first to be distinguished; that see on being reminded of the delight hence sounds greatly differing in loud­ which every young child has in biting its ness and pitch, colours very remote from toys, in feeling its brother’s bright jacket­ each other, and substances widely unlike buttons, and pulling papa’s whiskers— in hardness or texture, should be the first how absorbed it becomes in gazing at supplied; and that in each case the any gaudily-painted object, to which it progression must be by slow degrees to applies the word “ pretty,” when it can impressions more nearly allied. pronounce it, wholly because of the bright Passing on to object-lessons, which colours and how its face broadens into manifestly form a natural continuation a laugh at the tattlings of its nurse, the of this primary culture of the senses, it snapping of a visitor’s fingers, or any is to be remarked, that the system com­ - sound which it has not before heard. monly pursued is wholly at variance with Fortunately, the ordinary practices of the the method of Nature, as exhibited alike nursery fulfil these early requirements in infancy, in adult life, and in the course . of education to a considerable degree. of civilisation. “The child,” says M. Much, however, remains to be done; Marcel, “ must be shown how all the and it is of more importance that it parts of an object are connected, etc.”; should be done than at first appears. and the various manuals of these objectEvery faculty during that spontaneous lessons severally contain lists of the facts activity which accompanies its evolution, which the child is to be told respecting is capable of receiving more vivid im­ each of the things put before it. Now it pressions than at any other period. needs but a glance at the daily life of the Moreover, as these simplest elements infant to see that all the knowledge of have to be mastered, and as the mastery things which is gained before the acquire­ of them whenever achieved must take ment of speech, is self-gained—that the time, it becomes an economy of time to qualities of hardness and weight asso­ occupy this first stage of childhood, ciated with certain appearances, the pos­ during which no other intellectual action session of particular forms and colours is possible, in gaining a complete famili­ by particular persons, the production of arity with them in all their modifications. special sounds by animals of special �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION aspects, are phenomena which it observes for itself. In manhood too, when there are no longer teachers at hand, the obser­ vations and inferences hourly required for guidance, must be made unhelped ; and success in life depends upon the accuracy and completeness with which they are made. Is it probable then, that while the process displayed in the evolu­ tion of humanity at large, is repeated alike by the infant and the man, a reverse process must be followed during the period between infancy and man­ hood ? and that too, even in so simple a thing as learning the properties of objects? Is it not obvious, on the contrary, that one method must be pursued throughout ? And is not Nature perpetually thrusting this method upon us, if we had but the wit to see it, and the humility to adopt it? What can be more manifest than the desire of children for intellectual sympathy ? Mark how the infant sitting on your knee thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you may look at it. See when it makes a creak with its wet finger on the table, how it turns and looks at you ; does it again, and again looks at you ; thus saying as clearly as it can'—“ Hear this new sound.” Watch the elder children coming into the room exclaiming—“ Mamma, see what a curious thing,” “ Mamma, look at this,” “ Mamma, look at that ” : a habit which they would continue, did not the silly mamma tell them not to tease her. Observe that, when out with the nursemaid, each little one runs up to her with the new flower it has gathered, to show her how pretty it is, and to get her also, to say it is pretty. Listen to the eager volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he has been to see ; if only he can find some one who will attend with any interest. Does not the induction lie on the surface ? Is it 57 not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts—that we must just systematise the natural process—that we must listen to all the child has to tell us about each object ; must induce it to say everything it can think of about suchobject; must occasion­ ally draw its attention to facts it has not yet observed, with the view of leading it to notice them itself whenever they recur; and must go on by and by to indicate or supply new series of things for a like exhaustive examination ? Note the way in which, on this method, the intelligent mother conducts her lessons. Step by step she familiarises her little boy with the names of the simpler attributes, hardness, softness, colour, taste, size : in doing which she finds him eagerly help by bringing this to show her that it is red, and the other to make her feel that it is hard, as fast as she gives him words for these properties. Each addi­ tional property, as she draws his atten­ tion to it in some fresh thing which he brings her, she takes care to mention in connection with those he already knows ; so that by the natural tendency to imitate, he may get into the habit of repeating them one after another. Grad­ ually as there occur cases in which he omits to name one or more of the pro­ perties he has become acquainted with, she introduces the practice of asking him whether there is not something more that he can tell her about the thing he has got. Probably he does not under­ stand. After letting him puzzle a while she tells him ; perhaps laughing at him a little for his failure. A few recurrences of this and he perceives what is to be done. When next she says she knows something more about the object than he has told her, his pride is roused ; he looks at it intently ; he thinks over all that he has heard ; and �58 EDUCATION the problem being easy, presently finds it with the intellectual appetites their out. He is full of glee at his success, natural adjuncts—amour propre and the and she sympathises with him. In desire for sympathy; to induce by the common with every child, he delights in union of all these an intensity of atten­ the discovery of his powers. He wishes tion which insures perceptions both vivid for more victories, and goes in quest of and complete; and to habituate the more things about which to tell her. As mind from the beginning to that practice his faculties unfold she adds quality after of self-help which it must ultimately quality to his list: progressing from follow. hardness and softness to roughness and Object-lessons should not only be smoothness, from colour to polish, from carried on after quite a different fashion simple bodies to composite ones—thus from that commonly pursued, but should constantly complicating the problem as be extended to a range of things far he gains competence, constantly taxing wider, and continued to a period far his attention and memory to a greater later, than now. They should not be extent, constantly maintaining his inte­ limited to the contents of the house; rest by supplying him with new impres­ but should include those of the fields sions such as his mind can assimilate, and the hedges, the quarry and the sea­ and constantly gratifying him by con­ shore. They should not cease with early quests over such small difficulties as he childhood; but should be so kept up can master. In doing this she is mani­ during youth, as insensibly to merge into festly but following out that spontaneous the investigations of the naturalist and process which was going on during a still the man of science. Here again we earlier period—simply aiding self-evolu­ have but to follow Nature’s leadings. tion; and is aiding it in the mode Where can be seen an intenser delight suggested by the boy’s instinctive be­ than that of children picking up new haviour to her. Manifestly, too, the flowers and watching new insects; or course she is adopting is the one best hoarding pebbles and shells ? And who calculated to establish a habit of exhaus­ is there but perceives that by sympa­ tive observation ; which is the professed thising with them they may be led on to aim of these lessons. To tell a child any extent of inquiry into the qualities this and to show it the other, is not and structures of these things? Every to teach it how to observe, but to make botanist who has had children with him it a mere recipient of another’s obser­ in the woods and lanes must have vations : a proceeding which weakens noticed how eagerly they joined in his rather than strengthens its powers of pursuits, how keenly they searched out self-instruction—which deprives it of the plants for him, how intently they watched pleasures resulting from successful activity while he examined them, how they over­ —which presents this all-attractive know­ whelmed him with questions. The con-. ledge under the aspect of formal tuition sistent follower of Bacon—the “servant —and which thus generates that indif­ and interpreter of nature,” will see that ference and even disgust not unfrequently we ought modestly to adopt the course Having felt towards these object-lessons. On of culture thus indicated. the other hand, to pursue the course become familiar with the simpler pro­ above described is simply tc guide the perties of inorganic objects, the child should by the same process be led on to intellect to its appropriate food; to join �INTELLECTUAL EDUCA TION an exhaustive examination of the things it picks up in its daily walks—the less complex facts they present being alone noticed at first: in plants, the colours, numbers, and forms of the petals, and shapes of the stalks and leaves; in Insects, the numbers of the wings, legs, and antennae, and their colours. As these become fully appreciated and invariably observed, further facts may be successively introduced : in the one case, the numbers of stamens and pistils, the forms of the flowers, whether radial or bilateral in symmetry, the arrangement and character of the leaves, whether opposite or alternate, stalked or sessile, smooth or hairy, serrated, toothed, or crenate; in the other, the divisions of the body, the segments of the abdomen, the markings of the wings, the number of joints in the legs, and the forms of the smaller organs—the system pursued throughout, being that of making it the child’s ambition to say respecting every­ thing it finds, all that can be said. Then when a fit age has been reached, the means of preserving these plants, which have become so interesting in virtue of the knowledge obtained of them, may as a great favour be supplied; and eventually, as a still greater favour, may also be supplied the apparatus needful for keeping the larvae of our common butterflies and moths through their trans­ formations—a practice which, as we can personally testify, yields the highest gratification; is continued with ardour for years; when joined with the entomo­ logical collection, adds immense interest to Saturday-afternoon rambles; and forms an admirable introduction to the study of physiology. We are quite prepared to hear from many that all this is throwing away time and energy ; and that children would be much better occupied in writing their 59 copies or learning their pence-tables, and so fitting themselves for the business of life. We regret that such crude ideas of what constitutes education, and such a narrow conception of utility, should still be prevalent. Saying nothing on the need for a systematic culture of the per­ ceptions and the value of the practices above inculcated as subserving that need, we are prepared to defend them even on the score of the knowledge gained. If men are to be mere cits, mere porers over ledgers, with no ideas beyond their trades—if it is well that they should be as the cockney whose conception of rural pleasures extends no further than sitting in a tea-garden smoking pipes and drinking porter; or as the squire who thinks of woods as places for shooting in, of uncultivated plants as nothing but weeds, and who classifies animals into game, vermin, and stock—then indeed it is needless to learn any thing that does not directly help to replenish the till and fill the larder. But if there is a more worthy aim for us than to be drudges— if there are other uses in the things around us than their power to bring money—if there are higher faculties to be exercised than acquisitive and sensual ones—if the pleasures which poetry and art and science and philosophy can bring are of any moment; then is it desirable that the instinctive inclination which every child shows to observe natural beauties and investigate natural phe­ nomena, should be encouraged. But this gross utilitarianism which is content to come into the world and quit it again without knowing what kind of a world it is or what it contains, may be met on its own ground. It will by and by be found that a knowledge of the laws of life is more important than any other know­ ledge whatever—that the laws of life underlie not only all bodily and mental �6o EDUCATION processes, but by implication all the transactions of the house and the street, all commerce, all politics, all morals— and that therefore without a comprehen­ sion of them, neither personal nor social conduct can be rightly regulated. It will eventually be seen to, that the laws of life are essentially the same through­ out the whole organic creation; and further, that they cannot be properly understood in their complex manifesta­ tions until they have been studied in their simpler ones. And when this is seen, it will be also seen that in aiding the child to acquire the out-of-door information for which it shows so great an avidity, and in encouraging the acquisition of such information through­ out youth, we are simply inducing it to store up the raw material of future organisation—the facts that will one day bring home to it with due force, those great generalisations of science by which actions may be rightly guided. The spreading recognition of drawing as an element of education, is one among many signs of the more rational views on mental culture now beginning to prevail. Once more it may be remarked that teachers are at length adopting the course which Nature has perpetually been pressing on their notice. The spontaneous attempts made by children to represent the men, houses, trees, and animals around them —on a slate if they can get nothing better, or with lead-pencil on paper if they can beg them—are familiar to all. To be shown through a picture-book is one of their highest gratifications; and as usual, their strong imitative tendency presently generates in them the ambition to make pictures themselves also. This effort to depict the striking things they see, is a further instinctive exercise of the perceptions—a means whereby still greater accuracy and completeness of observation are induced. And alike by trying to interest us in their discoveries of the sensible properties of things, and by their endeavours to draw, they solicit from us just that kind of culture which they most need. Had teachers been guided by Nature’s hints, not only in making drawing a part of education but in choosing modes of teaching it, they would have done still better than they have done. What is that the child first tries to represent ? Things that are large, things that are attractive in colour, things round which its pleasurable associations most cluster —human beings from whom it has received so many emotions; cows and dogs which interest by the many phe­ nomena they present; houses that are hourly visible and strike by their size and contrast of parts. And which of the processes of representation gives it most delight? Colouring. Paper and pencil are good in default of something better; but a box of paints and a brush —these are the treasures. The drawing of outlines immediately becomes sec­ ondary to colouring—-is gone through mainly with a view to the colouring; and if leave can be got to colour a book of prints, how great is the favour! Now, ridiculous as such a position will seem to drawing-masters, who postpone colouring and who teach form by a dreary discipline of copying lines, we believe that the course of culture thus indicated is the right one. The priority of colour to form, which, as already pointed out, has a psychological basis, should be recognised from the beginning; and from the beginning also, the things imitated should be real. That greater delight m colour which is not only conspicuous in children but persists in most persons throughout life, should be �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION continuously employed as the natural stimulus to the mastery of the com­ paratively difficult and unattractive form : the pleasure of the subsequent tinting, should be the prospective reward for the labour of delineation. And these efforts to represent interesting actualities, should be encouraged; in the conviction that as, by a widening experience, simpler and more practicable objects become interesting, they too will be attempted; and that so a gradual approximation will be made towards imitations having some resemblance to the realities. The extreme indeiiniteness which, in con­ formity with the law of evolution, these first attempts exhibit, is anything but a reason for ignoring them. No matter how grotesque the shapes produced; no matter how daubed and glaring the colours. The question is not whether the child is producing good drawings. The question is, whether it is developing its faculties. It has first to gain some command over its fingers, some crude notions of likeness; and this practice is better than any other for these ends, since it is the spontaneous and interest­ ing one. During early childhood no formal drawing-lessons are possible. Shall we therefore repress, or neglect to aid, these efforts of self-culture ? or shall we encourage and guide them as normal exercises of the perceptions and the powers of manipulation ? If by furnish­ ing cheap woodcuts to be painted, and simple contour-maps to have their boun­ dary lines tinted, we can not only plea­ surably draw out the faculty of colour, but can incidentally produce some fami­ liarity with the outlines of things and countries, and some ability to move the brush steadily; and if by the supply of tempting objects we can keep up the instinctive practice of making repre­ sentations, however rough; it must hap­ 6j pen that when the age for lessons in drawing is reached, there will exist a facility that would else have been absent. Time will have been gained ; and trouble both to teacher and pupil, saved. From what has been said, it may be readily inferred that we condemn the practice of drawing from copies; and still more so that formal discipline in making straight lines and curved lines and compound lines, with which it is the fashion of some teachers to begin. We regret that the Society of Arts has re­ cently, in its series of manuals on “ Ru­ dimentary Art-Instruction,” given its countenance to an elementary drawing­ book, which is the most vicious in prin­ ciple that we have seen. We refer to the “ Outline from Outline, or from the Flat,” by John Bell, sculptor. As ex­ plained in the prefatory note, this pub­ lication proposes “ to place before the student a simple, yet logical mode of instruction”; and to this end sets out with a number of definitions thus :— “ A simple line in drawing is a thin mark drawn from one point to another. “ Lines may be divided, as to their nature in drawing, into two classes: “ i. Straight, which are marks that go the shortest road between two points, as A B. “ 2. Or Curved, which are marks which do not go the shortest road between two points, as C D.” And so the introduction progresses to horizontal lines, perpendicular lines, oblique lines, angles of the several kinds, and the various figures which lines and angles make up. The work is, in short, a grammar of form, with exercises. And thus the system of commencing with a dry analysis of elements, which, in the teaching of language, has been exploded, is to be re-instituted in the teaching of drawing. We are to set out with the definite, instead of with the indefinite. The abstract is to be preliminary to the �62 EDUCATION concrete. Scientific conceptions are to precede empirical experiences. That this is an inversion of the normal order, we need scarcely repeat. It has been well said concerning the custom of pre­ facing the art of speaking any tongue by a drilling in the parts of speech and their functions, that it is about as reasonable as prefacing the art of walking by a course of lessons on the bones, muscles, and nerves of the legs; and much the same thing may be said of the proposal to preface the art of representing objects, by a nomenclature and definitions of the lines which they yield on analysis. These technicalities are alike repulsive and needless. They render the study dis­ tasteful at the very outset; and all with the view of teaching that which, in the course of practice, will be learnt uncon­ sciously. Just as the child incidentally gathers the meanings of ordinary words from the conversations going on around it, without the help of dictionaries; so, from the remarks on objects, pictures, and its own drawings, will it presently acquire, not only without effort but even pleasurably, those same scientific terms which, when taught at first, are a mystery and a weariness. If any dependence is to be placed on the general principles of education that have been laid down, the process of learning to draw should be throughout continuous with those efforts of early childhood, described above as so worthy of encouragement. By the time that the voluntary practice thus initiated has given some steadiness of hand, and some tolerable ideas of proportion, there will have arisen a vague notion of body as presenting its three dimensions in per­ spective. And when, after sundry abor­ tive, Chinese-like attempts to render this appearance on paper, there has grown up a pretty clear perception of the thing to be done, and a desire to do it, a first lesson in empirical perspective may be given by means of the apparatus occa­ sionally used in explaining perspective as a science. This sounds alarming; but the experiment is both comprehensible and interesting to any boy or girl of ordinary intelligence. A.plate of glass so framed as to stand vertically on the table, being placed before the pupil, and a book or like simple object laid on the other side of it, he is requested, while keeping the eye in one position, to make ink-dots on the glass, so that they may coincide with, or hide, the comers of this object. He is next told to join these dots by lines; on doing which he perceives that the lines he makes hide, or coincide with, the outlines of the object. And then by putting a sheet of paper on the other side of the glass, it is made manifest to him that the lines he has thus drawn represent the object as he saw it. They not only look like it, but he perceives that they must be like it, because he made them agree with its outlines; and by removing the paper he can convince himself that they do agree with its outlines. The fact is new and striking; and serves him as an experi­ mental demonstration, that lines of certain lengths, placed in certain direc­ tions on a plane, can represent lines of other lengths, and having other direc­ tions, in space. By gradually changing the position of the object, he may be led to observe how some lines shorten and disappear, while others come into sight and lengthen. The convergence of parallel lines, and, indeed, all the leading facts of perspective, may, from time to time, be similarly illustrated to him. If he has been duly accustomed to self-help, he will gladly, when it is suggested, attempt to draw one of these outlines on paper, by the eye only; and �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION it may soon be made an exciting aim to produce unas^sted, a representation as like as he can to one subsequently sketched on the glass. Thus without the unintelligent, mechanical practice of copying other drawings, but by a method at once simple and attractive—rational, yet not abstract,—a familiarity with the linear appearances of things, and a faculty of rendering them, may be step by step acquired. To which advantages add these :—that even thus early the pupil learns, almost unconsciously, the true theory of a picture (namely, that it is a delineation of objects as they appear when projected on a plane placed between them and the eye); and that when he reaches a fit age for commencing scientific perspective, he is already thoroughly acquainted with the facts which form its logical basis. As exhibiting a rational mode of con­ veying primary conceptions in geometry, we cannot do better than quote the following passage from Mr. Wyse :— A child has been in the habit of using cubes for arithmetic; let him use them also for the elements of geometry. I would begin with solids, the reverse of the usual plan. It saves all the difficulty of absurd definitions, and bad explanations on points, lines, and surfaces, which are nothing but abstractions....... A cube presents many of the principal elements of geometry; it at once exhibits points, straight lines, parallel lines, angels, parallelograms, &c., &c. These cubes are divisible into various parts. The pupil has already been familiarised with such divisions in numeration, and he now pro­ ceeds to a comparison of their several parts, and of the relation of these parts to each other. ....... From thence he advances to globes, which furnish him with elementary notions of the circle, of curves generally, &c., &c. Being tolerably familiar with solids, he may now substitute planes. The transition may be made very easy. Let the cube, for instance, be cut into thin divisions, and placed on paper ; he will then see as many plane rectangles as he has divisions ; so with all the others. Globes may be treated in the same manner ; he will thus see 6.3 how surfaces really are generated, and be enabled to abstract them with facility in every solid. He has thus acquired the alphabet and reading of geometry. He now proceeds to write it. The simplest operation, and therefore the firstj is merely to place these planes on a piece of paper, and pass the pencil round them. When this has been frequently done, the plane may be put at a little distance, and the child required to copy it, and so on. * A stock of geometrical conceptions having been obtained, in some such manner as this recommended by Mr. Wyse, a further step may be taken, by introducing the practice of testing the correctness of figures drawn by eye: thus both exciting an ambition to make them exact, and continually illustrating the difficulty of fulfilling that ambition. There can be little doubt that geometry had its origin (as, indeed, the word implies) in the methods discovered by artizans and others, of making accurate measurements for the foundations of buildings, areas of enclosures, and the like; and that its truths came to be treacured up, merely with a view to their immediate utility. They should be im troduced to the pupil under analogous relationships. In cutting out pieces for his card-houses, in drawing ornamental diagrams for colouring, and in those various instructive occupations which an inventive teacher will lead him into, he may for a length of time be advantage­ ously left, like the primitive builder, to tentative processes; and so will learn through experience the difficulty of achieving his aims by the unaided senses. When, having meanwhile undergone a valuable discipline of the perceptions, he has reached a fit age for using a pair of compasses, he will, while duly appre­ ciating these as enabling him to verify his ocular guesses, be still hindered by the imperfections of the approximative method. In this stage he may be left �64 EDUCATION for a further period : partly as being yet of these triangles may be drawn with too young for anything higher; partly perfect correctness and without guessing; because it is desirable that he should be and after his failure he will value the made to feel still more strongly the want information. Having thus helped him of systematic contrivances. If the acqui­ to the solution of the first problem, with sition of knowledge is to be made con­ the view of illustrating the nature of tinuously interesting; and if, in the early geometrical methods, he is in future to civilisation of the child, as in the early be left to solve the questions put to him civilisation of the race, science is valued as best he can. To bisect a line, to only as ministering to art; it is manifest erect a perpendicular, to describe a that the proper preliminary to geometry, square, to bisect an angle, to draw a line is a long practice in those constructive parallel to a given line, to describe a processes, which geometry will facilitate. hexagon, are problems which a little Observe that here, too, Nature points patience will enable him to find out. the way. Children show a strong pro­ And from these he may be led on step pensity to cut out things in paper, to by step to more complex questions : all make, to build—a propensity which, if of which, under judicious management, encouraged and directed, will not only he will puzzle through unhelped. Doubt­ prepare the way for scientific conceptions, less, many of those brought up under but will develop those powers of mani­ the old régime, will look upon this pulation in which most people are so assertion sceptically. We speak from deficient. facts, however; and those neither few When the observing and inventive nor special. We have seen a class of faculties have attained the requisite boys become so interested in making power, the pupil may be introduced to out solutions to such problems, as to empirical geometry; that is—geometry look forward to their geometry-lesson as dealing with methodical solutions, but a chief event of the week. Within the not with the demonstrations of them. last month, we have heard of one girls’ Like all other transitions in education, school, in which some of the young this should be made not formally but ladies voluntarily occupy themselves with incidentally; and the relationship to geometrical questions out of schoolconstructive art should still be main­ hours ; and of another, where they not tained. To make, out of cardboard, a only do this, but where one of them is tetrahedron like one given to him, is a begging for problems to find out during problem which will interest the pupil, the holidays : both which facts we state and serve as a convenient starting-point. on the authority of the teacher. Strong In attempting this, he finds it needful to proofs, these, of the practicability and draw four equilateral triangles arranged the immense advantage of self-develop­ in special positions. Being unable in ment ! A branch of knowledge which,the absence of an exact method to do as commonly taught, is dry and even this accurately, he discovers on putting repulsive, is thus, by following the the triangles into their respective posi­ method of Nature, made extremely tions, that he cannot make their sides interesting and profoundly beneficial.fit; and that their angles do not meet at We say profoundly beneficial, because the apex. He may now be shown how, the effects are riot confined to the gain­ by describing a couple of circles, each ing of geometrical facts, but often �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION 65 revolutionise the whole state of mind. It has repeatedly occurred that those who have been stupefied by the ordinary school-drill—by its abstract formulas, its wearisome tasks, its cramming—have suddenly had their intellects roused by thus ceasing to make them passive recipients, and inducing them to become active discoverers. The discouragement caused by bad teaching having been diminished by a little sympathy, and sufficient perseverance excited to achieve a first success, there arises a revulsion of feeling affecting the whole nature. They no longer find themselves incompetent; they, too, can do something. And gradually as success follows success, the incubus of despair disappears, and they attack the difficulties of their other studies with a courage insuring conquest. A few weeks after the foregoing re­ marks were originally published, Pro­ fessor Tyndall, in a lecture at the Royal Institution “ On the Importance of the study of Physics as a Branch of Educa­ tion,” gave some conclusive evidence to the same effect. His testimony, based on personal observation, is of such great value that we cannot refrain from quoting it. Here it is. stated something to be impossible, never to use that stupid word again. Thus cheered, he has returned to his task with a smile, which perhaps had something of doubt in it, but which, never­ theless, evinced a resolution to try again. I have seen the boy’s eye brighten, and at length, with a pleasure of which the ecstasy of Archi­ medes was but a simple expansion, heard him exclaim, “ I have it, sir.” The consciousness of self-power, thus awakened, was of immense value; and animated by it the progress of the class was truly astonishing. It was often my custom to give the boys their choice of pursuing their propositions in the book, or of trying their strength at others not to be found there. Never in a single instance have I known the book to be chosen. I was ever ready to assist when I deemed help needful, but my offers of assistance were habitually declined. The boys had tasted the sweets of intellectual conquest and demanded victories of their own. I have seen their diagrams scratched on the walls, cut into the beams upon their play-ground, and numberless other illustrations of the living interest they took in the subject. For my own part, as far as experience in teaching goes, I was a mere fledgling: I knew nothing of the rules of pedagogics, as the Germans name it; but I adhered to the spirit indicated at the commence­ ment of this discourse, and endeavoured to make geometry a means and not a branch of education. The experiment was successful, and some of the most delightful hours of my existence have been spent in marking the vigorous and cheerful expansion of mental power, when appealed to in the manner I have described. One of the duties which fell to my share, during the period to which I have referred, was the instruction of a class in mathematics, and I usually found that Euclid and the ancient geometry generally, when addressed to the understanding, formed a very attractive study for youth. But it was my habitual practice to withdraw the boys from the routine of the book, and to appeal to their self-power in the treat­ ment of questions not comprehended in that routine. At first, the change from the beaten track usually excited a little aversion : the youth felt like a child amid strangers ; but in no single instance have I found this aversion to continue. When utterly disheartened, I have encouraged the boy by that anecdote of Newton, where he attributes the difference between him and other men, mainly to his own patience ; or of Mira­ beau, when he ordered his servant, who had | This empirical geometry which pre­ sents an endless series of problems, should be continued along with other studies for years; and may throughout be advantageously accompanied by those concrete applications of its principles which serve as its preliminary. After the cube, the octahedron, and the vari­ ous forms of pyramid and prism have been mastered, may come the more complex regular bodies—the dodecahe­ dron and icosahedron—to construct which out of single pieces of cardboard, requires considerable ingenuity. From these, the transition may naturally be made to such modified forms of the c �66 EDUCATION regular bodies as are met with in crystals—the truncated cube, the cube with its dihedral as well as its solid angles truncated, the octahedron and the various prisms as similarly modified : in imitating which numerous forms assumed by different metals and salts, an acquaintance with the leading facts of mineralogy will be incidentally gained. * After long continuance in exercises of this kind, rational geometry, as may be supposed, presents no obstacles. Habit­ uated to contemplate relationships of form and quantity, and vaguely per­ ceiving from time to time the necessity of certain results as reached by certain means, the pupil comes to regard the demonstrations of Euclid as the missing supplemeuts to his familiar problems. His well-disciplined faculties enable him easily to master its successive proposi­ tions, and to appreciate their value; and he has the occasional gratification of finding some of his own methods proved to be true. Thus he enjoys what is to the unprepared a dreary task. It only remains to add, that his mind will pre­ sently arrive at a fit condition for that most valuable of all exercises for the reflective faculties—the making of origi­ nal demonstrations. Such theorems as those appended to the successive books of the Messrs. Chambers’s Euclid, will soon become practicable to him; and in proving them, the process of self-develop­ ment will be not intellectual only, but moral. To continue these suggestions much further, would be to write a detailed treatise on education, which we do not purpose. The foregoing outlines of plans for exercising the perceptions in early * Those who seek aid in carrying out the system of culture above described, will find in it a little work entitled “Inventional Geometry”; published by Messrs. Williams & Norgate. childhood, for conducting object-lessons, for teaching drawing and geometry, must be considered simply as illustrations of the method dictated by the general principles previously specified. We believe that on examination they will be found not only to progress from the simple to the complex, from the indefinite to the definite, from the concrete to the abstract, from the empirical to the rational; but to satisfy the further requirements, that education shall be a repetition of civilisation in little, that it shall be as much as possible a process of self-evolution, and that it shall be as pleasurable. The fulfilment of all these conditions by one type of method, tends alike to verify the conditions, and to prove that type of method the right one. Mark too, that this method is the logical outcome of the tendency characterising all modern improvements in tuition—• that it is but an adoption in full of the natural system which they adopt partially —that it displays this complete adoption of the natural system, both by conform­ ing to the above principles, and by following the suggestions which the unfolding mind itself gives : facilitating its spontaneous activities, and so aiding the developments which Nature is busy with. Thus there seems abundant reason to conclude, that the mode of procedure above exemplified, closely approximates to the true one. A few paragraphs must be added in further inculcation of the two general principles, that are alike the most impor­ tant and the least attended to : namely, the principle that throughout youth, as in early childhood and in maturity, the process shall be one of self-instruction; and the obverse principle, that the mental action induced shall be throughout in­ trinsically grateful. If progression from �INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION simple to complex, from indefinite to definite, and from concrete to abstract, be considered the essential requirements as dictated by abstract psychology ; then do the requirements that knowledge shall be self-mastered, and pleasurably mastered, become tests by which we may judge whether the dictates of abstract psycho­ logy are being obeyed. If the first embody the leading generalisations of the science of mental growth, the last are the chief canons of the art of fostering mental growth. For manifestly, if the steps in our curriculum are so arranged that they can be successively ascended by the pupil himself with little or no help, they must correspond with the stages of evolution in his faculties ; and manifestly, if the successive achievements of these steps are intrinsically gratifying to him, it follows that they require no more than a normal exercise of his powers. But making education a process of self-evolution, has other advantages than this of keeping our lessons in the right order. In the first place, it guarantees a vividness and permanency of impression which the usual methods can never pro­ duce. Any piece of knowledge which the pupil has himself acquired — any problem which he has himself solved, becomes, by virtue of the conquest, much more thoroughly his than it could else be. The preliminary activity of mind which his success implies, the concentra­ tion of thought necessary to it, and the excitement consequent on his triumph, conspire to register the facts in his memory in a way that no mere informa­ tion heard from a teacher, or read in a school-book, can be registered. Even if he fails, the tension to which his faculties have been wound up, insures his remem­ brance of the solution when given to him, better than half-a-dozen repetitions would. Observe, again, that this disci­ 67 pline necessitates a continuous organisa­ tion of the knowledge he acquires. It is in the very nature of facts and inferences assimilated in this normal manner, that they successively become the premises of further conclusions—the means of solving further questions. The solution of yesterday’s problem helps the pupil in mastering to-day’s. Thus the knowledge is turned into faculty as soon as it is taken in, and forthwith aids in the general function of thinking—does not lie merely written on the pages of an internal library, as when rote-learnt. Mark further, the moral culture which this constant self-help involves. Courage in attacking difficulties, patient concen­ tration of the attention, perseverance through failures—these are characteristics which after-life specially requires; and these are characteristics which this system of making the mind work for ’ts food specially produces. That it is thoroughly practicable to carry out instruction after this fashion, we can ourselves testify; having been in youth thus led to solve the comparatively complex problems of perspective. And that leading teachers have been tending in this direction, is indicated alike in the saying of Fellenberg, that “the individual, independent activity of the pupil is of much greater importance than the ordinary busy officiousness of many who assume the office of educators”; in the opinion of Horace Mann, that “ unfortunately education amongst us at present consists too much in telling, not in training”; and in the remark of M. Marcel, that “ what the learner discovers by mental exertion is better known than what is told to him.” Similarly with the correlative require­ ment, that the method of culture pursued shall be one productive of an intrinsically happy activity,—an activity not happy because of intrinsic rewards to be obtained, �68 EDUCATION but because of its own healthfulness. Conformity to this requirement, besides preventing us from thwarting the normal process of evolution, incidentally secures positive benefits of importance. Unless we are to return to an ascetic morality (or rather /¡w-morality) the maintenance of youthful happiness must be considered as in itself a worthy aim. Not to dwell upon this, however, we go on to remark that a pleasurable state of feeling is far more favourable to intellectual action than a state of indifference or disgust. Every one knows that things read, heard, or seen with interest, are better remem­ bered than things read, heard, or seen with apathy. In the one case the facul­ ties appealed to are actively occupied with the subject presented; in the other they are inactively occupied with it, and the attention is continually drawn away by more attractive thoughts. Hence the impressions are respectively strong and weak. Moreover, to the intellectual listlessness which a pupil’s lack of interest in any study involves, must be added the paralysing fear of consequences. This, by distracting his attention, increases the difficulty he finds in bringing his faculties to bear upon facts that are repugnant to them. Clearly, therefore, the efficiency of tuition will, other things equal, be proportionate to the gratification with which tasks are performed. It should be considered also, that grave moral consequences depend upon the habitual pleasure or pain which daily lessons produce. No one.can compare the faces and manners of two boys—theone made happy by mastering interesting subjects, and the other made miserable by disgust with his studies, by consequent inability, by cold looks, by threats, by punishment — without seeing that the disposition of the one is being benefited, and that of the other injured. Whoever has marked the effects of success and failure upon the mind, and the power of the mind over the body; will see that in the one case both temper and health are favourably affected, while in the other there is danger of permanent moroseness, of permanent timidity, and even of per­ manent constitutional depression. There remains yet another indirect result of no small moment. The relationship between teachers and their pupils is, other things equal, rendered friendly and influential, or antagonistic and powerless, according as the system of culture produces happi­ ness or misery. Human beings are at the mercy of their associated ideas. A daily minister of pain cannot fail to be regarded with secret dislike; and if he causes no emotions but painful ones, will inevitably be hated. Conversely, he who constantly aids children to their ends, hourly provides them with the satisfac­ tions of conquest, hourly encourages them through their difficulties and sympa­ thises in their successes, will be liked; nay, if his behaviour is consistent throughout, must be loved. And when we remember how efficient and benign is the control of a master who is felt to be a friend, when compared with the control of one who is looked upon with aversion, or at best indifference, we may infer that the indirect advantages of conducting education on the happiness­ principle do not fall far short of the direct ones. To all who question the possibility of acting out the system here advocated, we reply as before, that not only does theory point to it, but experience commends it. To the many verdicts of distinguished teachers who since Pestalozzi’s time have testified this, may be here added that of Professor Pillans, who asserts that “ where young, people are taught as they ought to be, they are quite as happy in school as at play, �MORAL EDUCATION seldom less delighted, nay, often more, with the well-directed exercise of their mental energies, than with that of their muscular powers.” As suggesting a final reason for making education a process of self-instruction, and by consequence a process of pleasur­ able instruction, we may advert to the fact that, in proportion as it is made so, is there a probability that it will not cease when school-days end. As long as the acquisition of knowledge is rendered habitually repugnant, so long will there be a prevailing tendency to discontinue it when free from the coer­ cion of parents and masters. And when the acquisition of knowledge has been rendered habitually gratifying, then there will be as prevailing a tendency to con­ tinue, without superintendence, that self­ culture previously carried on under super­ intendence. These results are inevitable. While the laws of mental association remain true—while men dislike the things and places that suggest painful recollections, and delight in those which call to mind by-gone pleasures—painful lessons will make knowledge repulsive, and pleasurable lessons will make it attractive. The men to whom in boyhood information came m dreary tasks along with threats of punishment, and who were never led into habits of inde­ pendent inquiry, are unlikely to be students in after years ; while those to whom it came in the natural forms, at the proper times, and who remember its facts as not only interesting in them­ selves, but as the occasions of a long series of gratifying successes, are likely to continue through life that self­ instruction commenced in youth. CHAPTER III. MORAL EDUCATION The greatest defect in our programmes of education is entirely overlooked. While much is being done in the detailed improvement of our systems in respect both of matter and manner, the most pressing desideratum- has not yet been even recognised as a desideratum. To prepare the young for the duties of life, is tacitly admitted to be the end which parents and schoolmasters should have in view; and happily, the value of the things taught, and the goodness of the methods followed in teaching them, are now ostensibly judged by their fitness to this end. The propriety of substi­ tuting for an exclusively classical training, a training in which the modern languages shall have a share, is argued on this ground. The necessity of increasing the amount of science is urged for like reasons. But though some care is taken to fit youth of both sexes for society and citizenship, no care whatever is taken to fit them for the position of parents. While it is seen that for the purpose of gaining a livelihood, an elaborate pre­ paration is needed, it appears to be thought that for the bringing up of children, no preparation whatever is needed. While many years are spent by a boy in gaining knowledge of which the chief value is that it constitutes “ the education of a gentleman”; and while many years are spent by a girl in those decorative acquirements which fit her for evening parties ; not an hour is spent by either in preparation for that gravest of all responsibilities—the management of a family. Is it that this responsibility is but a remote contingency? On the contrary, it is sure to devolve on nine �7o EDUCATION out of ten. Is it that the discharge of it is easy? Certainly not: of all functions which the adult has to fulfil, this is the most difficult. Is it that each may be trusted by self-instruction to fit himself, or herself, for the office of parent ? No : not only is the need for such self-instruc­ tion unrecognised, but the complexity of the subject renders it the one of all others in which self-instruction is least likely to succeed. No rational plea can be put forward for leaving the Art of Education out of our curriculum. Whether as bearing on the happiness of parents themselves, or whether as affecting the characters and lives of their children and remote descendants, we must admit that a knowledge of the right methods of juvenile culture, physical, intellectual, and moral, is a knowledge of extreme importance. This topic should be the final one in the course of instruction passed through by each man and woman. As physical maturity is marked by the ability to produce offspring; so, mental maturity is marked by the ability to train those offspring. The subject which involves all other subjects, and therefore the subject in which education should culminate, is the Theory and Practice of Education. In the absence of this preparation, the management of children, and more espe­ cially the moral management, is lament­ ably bad. Parents either never think about the matter at all, or else their con­ clusions are crude and inconsistent. In most cases, and especially on the part of mothers, the treatment adopted on every occasion is that which the impulse of the moment prompts : it springs not from any reasoned-out conviction as to what will most benefit the child, but merely expresses the dominant parental feelings, whether good or ill; and varies from hour to hour as these feelings vary. Or if the dictates of passion are supple­ mented by any definite doctrines and methods, they are those handed down from the past, or those suggested by the remembrances of childhood, or those adopted from nurses and servants— methods devised not by the enlighten­ ment, but by the ignorance, of the time. Commenting on the chaotic state oí opinion and practice relative to selfgovernment, Richter writes:— If the secret variances of a large class of ordinary fathers were brought to light, and laid down as a plan of studies and reading, cata­ logued for a moral education, they would run somewhat after this fashion :—In the first hour “pure morality must be read to the child, either by myself or the tutor ”; in the second “mixed morality, or that which may be applied to one’s own advantage in the third, “ do you not see that your father does so and so?”; in the fourth, “you are little, and this is only fit for grown-up people ”; in the fifth, “ the chief matter is that you should succeed in the world, and become something in the state”; in the sixth, “not the temporary, but the eternal, determines the worth of a man”; in the seventh, “therefore rather suffer injustice, and be kind ”; in the eighth, “ but defend yourself bravely if any one attack you ”; in the ninth, “ do not make a noise, dear child ”; in the tenth, “a boy must not sit so quiet”; in the eleventh, “you must obey your parents better”; in the twelfth, “and educate yourself.” So by the hourly change of his principles, the father conceals their untenableness and onesided­ ness. As for his wife, she is neither like him, nor yet like that harlequin who came on to the stage with a bundle of papers under each arm, and answered to the inquiry, what he had under his right arm, “orders,” and to what he had under his left arm, “ counter-orders.” But the mother might be much better compared to a giant Briareus, who had a hundred arms, and a bundle of papers under each. This state of things is not to be readily changed. Generations must pass before a great amelioration of it can be expected. Like political institutions, educational systems are not made, but grow; and within brief periods growth is insensible. Slow, however, as must be any improve­ �MORAL EDUCATION ment, even that improvement implies the use of means ; and among the means is discussion. We are not among those who believe in Lord Palmerston’s dogma, that “ all children are born good.” On the whole, the opposite dogma, untenable as it is, seems to us less wide of the truth. Nor do we agree with those who think that, by skilful discipline, children may be made altogether what they should be. Con­ trariwise, we are satisfied that, though imperfections of nature may be dimin­ ished by wise management, they cannot be removed by it. The notion that an ideal humanity might be forthwith pro­ duced by a perfect system of education,, is near akin to that implied in the poems of Shelley, that would mankind give up their old institutions and prejudices, all the evils in the world would at once disappear : neither notion being accep­ table to such as have dispassionately studied human affairs. Nevertheless, we may fitly sympathise with those who entertain these too sanguine hopes. Enthusiasm, pushed even to fanaticism, is a useful motive­ power—perhaps an indispensable one. It is clear that the ardent politician would never undergo the labours and make the sacrifices he does, did he not believe that the reform he fights for is the one thing needful. But for his con­ viction that drunkenness is the root of ■all social evils, the teetotaller would •agitate far less energetically. In philan­ thropy, as in other things, great advan­ tage results from division of labour; and that there may be division of labour, each class of philanthropists must be more or less subordinated to its function —must have an exaggerated faith in its work. Hence, of those who regard ■education, intellectual or moral, as the 7i panacea, we may say that their undue expectations are not without use ; and that perhaps it is part of the beneficent order of things that their confidence cannot be shaken. Even were it true, however, that by some possible system of moral control, children could be moulded into the desired form, and even could every parent be indoctrinated with this system; we should still be far from achieving the object in view. It is forgotten that the carrying out of any such system pre­ supposes, on the part of adults, a degree of intelligence, of goodness, of self­ control, possessed by no one. The error made by those who discuss ques­ tions of domestic discipline, lies in ascribing all the faults and difficulties to the children, and none to the parents. The current assumption respecting family government, as respecting na­ tional government, is, that the virtues are with the rulers and the vices with the ruled. Judging by educational theories, men and women are entirely transfigured in their relations to offspring. The citizens we do business with, the people we meet in the world, we know to be very imperfect creatures. In the daily scandals, in the quarrels of friends, in bankruptcy disclosures, in lawsuits, in police reports, we have constantly thrust before us the pervading selfishness, dis­ honesty, brutality. Yet when we criti­ cise nursery-management and canvass the misbehaviour of juveniles, we habitu­ ally take for granted that these culpable persons are free from moral delinquency in the treatment of their boys and girls ! So far is this from the truth, that we do not hesitate to blame parental miscon­ duct for a great part of the domestic disorder commonly ascribed to the per­ versity of children. We do not assert this of the more sympathetic and self­ �72 EDUCATION restrained, among whom we hope most of our readers may be classed; but we assert it of the mass. What kind of moral culture is to be expected from a mother who, time after time, angrily shakes her infant because it will not suck ; which we once saw a mother do ? How much sense of justice is likely to be instilled by a father who, on having his attention drawn by a scream to the fact that his child’s finger is jammed between the window-sash and the sill, begins to beat the child instead of re­ leasing it ? Yet that there are such fathers is testified to us by an eye­ witness. Or, to take a still stronger case, also vouched for by direct testi­ mony—what are the educational pros­ pects of the boy who, on being taken home with a dislocated thigh, is saluted with a castigation ? It is true that these are extreme instances—instances exhibit­ ing in human beings that blind instinct which impels brutes to destroy the weakly and injured of their own race. But extreme though they are, they typify feelings and conduct daily observ­ able in many families. Who has not repeatedly seen a child slapped by nurse or parent for a fretfulness probably re­ sulting from bodily derangement ? Who, when watching a mother snatch up a fallen little one, has not often traced, both in the rough manner and in the sharply - uttered exclamation — “ You stupid little thing 1”—an irascibility fore­ telling endless future squabbles ? Is there not in the harsh tones in which a father bids his children be quiet, evi­ dence of a deficient fellow-feeling with them ? Are not the constant, and often quite needless, thwartings that the young experience—the injunctions to sit still, which an active child cannot obey with­ out suffering great nervous irritation, the commands not to look out of the window when travelling by railway, which on a child of any intelligence entails serious deprivation—are not these thwartings, we ask, signs of a terrible lack of sym­ pathy ? The truth is, that the difficulties of moral education are necessarily of dual origin—necessarily result from the combined faults of parents and children. If hereditary transmission is a law of nature, as every naturalist knows it to be, and as our daily remarks and current proverbs admit it to be; then, on the average of cases, the defects of children mirror the defects of their parents ; —on the average of cases, we say, because, complicated as the results are by the transmitted traits of remoter ancestors, the correspondence is not special but only general. And if, on the average of cases, this inheritance of defects exists, then the evil passions which parents have to check in their children, imply like evil passions in themselves : hidden, it may be, from the public eye; or per­ haps obscured by other feelings; but still there. Evidently, therefore, the general practice of any ideal system of discipline is hopeless: parents are not good enough. Moreover, even were there methods by which the desired end could be at once effected ; and even had fathers and mothers sufficient insight, sympathy, and self-command to employ these methods consistently; it might still be contended that it would be of no use to reform family-government faster than other things are reformed. What is it that we aim to do ? Is it not that education of whatever kind, has for its proximate end to prepare a child for the business of life—to produce a citizen who, while he is well conducted, is also able to make his way in the world ? And does not making his way in the world (by which we mean, not the acquirement of wealth, �MORAL EDUCATION but of the funds requisite for bringing up a family)—does not this imply a - certain fitness for the world as it now is ? And if by any system of culture an ideal human being could be produced, is it not doubtful whether he would be fit for the world as it now is? May we not, on the contrary, suspect that his too keen sense of rectitude, and too elevated standard of conduct, would make life intolerable or even impossible ? And how­ ever admirable the result might be, con­ sidered individually, would it not be selfdefeating in so far as society and posterity are concerned ? There is much reason for thinking that as in a nation so in a family, the kind of government is, on the whole, about as good as the general state of human nature permits it to be. We may argue that in the one case, as in the other, the average character of the people determines the quality of the control exercised. In both cases it may be inferred that amelioration of the average character leads to an ameliora­ tion of system ; and further, that were it possible to ameliorate the system with­ out the average character being first ameliorated, evil rather than good would follow. Such degree of harshness as children now experience from their parents and teachers, may be regarded as but a preparation for that greater harshness which they will meet with on entering the world. And it may be urged that were it possible for parents and teachers to treat them with perfect equity and entire sympathy, it would but intensify the sufferings which the selfishness of men must, in after life, inflict on them.1 1 Of this nature is the plea put in by some for the rough treatment experienced by boys at our public schools; where, as it is said, they are introduced to a miniature world whose hardships prepare them for those of the real world. It 73 “But does not this prove too much?” some one will ask. “ If no system of moral training can forthwith make children what they should be; if, even were there a system that would do this, existing parents are too imperfect to carry it out; and if even could such a system be successfully carried out, its results would be disastrously incongruous with the present state of society; does it not follow that to reform the system now in use, is neither practicable nor desir­ able?” No. It merely follows that reform in domestic government must go on, pari passu, with other reforms. It merely follows that methods of discipline neither can be nor should be ameliorated, except by instalments. It merely follows that the dictates of abstract rectitude will, in practice, inevitably be subordi­ nated by the present state of human nature—by the imperfections alike of children, of parents, and of society; and can only be better fulfilled as the general character becomes better. “At any rate, then,” may rejoin our critic, “it is clearly useless to set up any ideal standard of family discipline. There can be no advantage in elabora­ ting and recommending methods that are in advance of the time.” Again we must be admitted that the plea has some force ; but it is a very insufficient plea. For whereas domestic and school discipline, though they should not be much better than the discipline of adult life, should be somewhat better ; the disci­ pline which boys meet with at Eton, Winchester, Harrow, etc., is worse than that adult life—more unjust and cruel. Instead of being an aid to human progress which all culture should be, the culture of our public schools, by accustoming boys to a despotic form of government and an intercourse regulated by brute force, tends to fit them for a lower state of society than that which exists. And chiefly recruited as our legislature is from among those who are brought up at such schools, this barbarising influence becomes a hindrance to national progress. �74 EDUCATION contend for the contrary. Just as in the case of political government, though pure rectitude may be at present impracticable, it is requisite to know where the right lies, in order that the changes we make may be iowards the right instead of away from it; so, in the case of domestic govern­ ment, an ideal must be upheld, that there may be gradual approximations to it. We need fear no evil consequences from the maintenance of such an ideal. On the average the constitutional con­ servatism of mankind is strong enough to prevent too rapid a change. Things are so organised that until men have grown up to the level of a higher belief, they cannot receive it: nominally, they may hold it, but not virtually. And even when the truth gets recognised, the obstacles to conformity with it are so persistent as to outlive the patience of philanthropists and even of philosophers. We may be sure, therefore, that the difficulties in the way of a normal government of children, will always put an adequate check upon the efforts to realise it. With these preliminary explanations, let us go on to consider the true aims and methods of moral education. After a few pages devoted to the settlement of general principles, during the perusal of which we bespeak the reader’s patience, we shall aim by illustrations to make clear the right methods of parental behaviour in the hourly occurring difficulties of family government. When a child falls, or runs its head against the table, it suffers a pain, the remembrance of which tends to make it more careful; and by repetition of such experiences, it is eventually disciplined into proper guidance of its movements. If it lays hold of the fire-bars, thrusts its hand into a candle-flame, or spills boiling water on any part of its skin, the result­ ing burn or scald is a lesson not easily forgotten. So deep an impression is produced by one or two events of this kind, that no persuasion will afterwards induce it thus to disregard the laws of its constitution. Now in these cases, Nature illustrates to us in the simplest way, the true theory and practice of moral discipline—a theory and practice which, however much they may seem to the superficial like those commonly received, we shall find on examination to differ from them very widely. Observe, first, that in bodily injuries and their penalties we have misconduct and its consequences reduced to their simplest forms. Though, according to their popular acceptations, right and wrong are words scarcely applicable to actions that have none but direct bodily effects j yet whoever considers the matter will see that such actions must be as much classifiable under these heads as any other actions. From whatever assumption they start, all theories of morality agree that conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are beneficial, is good conduct; while conduct whose total results, immediate and remote, are injurious, is bad conduct. The ultimate standards by which all men judge of behaviour, are the resulting happiness or misery. We consider drunkenness wrong because of the physical degeneracy and accom­ panying moral evils entailed on the drunkard and his dependents. Did theft give pleasure both to taker and loser, we should not find it in our cata­ logue of sins. Were it conceivable that kind actions multiplied human sufferings, we should condemn them—should not consider them kind. It needs but to �MokAl education read the first newspaper-leader, or listen to any conversation on social affairs, to see that acts of parliament, political movements, philanthropic agitations, in common with the doings of individuals are judged by their anticipated results in augmenting the pleasures or pains of men. And if on analysing all secondary, superinduced ideas, we find these to be our final tests of right and wrong, we cannot refuse to class bodily conduct as right or wrong according to the bene­ ficial or detrimental results produced. Note, in the second place, the char­ acter of the punishments by which these physical transgressions are prevented. Punishments, we call them, in the absence of a better word: for they are not punishments in the literal sense. They are not artificial and unnecessary inflictions of pain; but are simply the beneficent checks to actions that are essentially at variance with bodily wel­ fare—checks in the absence of which life would be quickly destroyed by bodily injuries. It is the peculiarity of these penalties, if we must so call them, that they are simply the unavoidable conse­ quences of the deeds which they follow : they are nothing more than the inevitable reactions entailed by the child’s actions. Let it be further borne in mind that these painful reactions are proportionate to the transgressions. A slight accident brings a slight pain ; a more serious one, a severer pain. It is not ordained that the urchin who tumbles over the door­ step, shall suffer in excess of the amount necessary; with the view of making it still more cautious than the necessary suffering will make it. But from its daily experience it is left to learn the greater or less errors; and to behave accord­ ingly. And then mark, lastly, that these natural reactions which follow the child’s wrong actions, are constant, direct, unhesitating, and not to be escaped. No threats; but a silent, rigorous per­ formance. If a child runs a pin into its finger, pain follows. If it does it again, there is again the same result: and so on perpetually. In all its dealings with inorganic Nature it finds this un­ swerving persistence, which listens to no excuse, and from which there is no appeal; and very soon recognising this stern though beneficent discipline, it becomes extremely careful not to trans­ gress. Still more significant will these general truths appear, when we remember that they hold throughout adult life as well as throughout infantine life. It is by an experimentally-gained knowledge of the natural consequences, that men and women are checked when they go wrong. After home education has ceased, and when there are no longer parents and teachers to forbid this or that kind of conduct, there comes into play a disci­ pline like that by which the young child is trained to self-guidance. If the youth ~ entering on the business of life idles away his time and fulfils slowly or unskil­ fully the duties entrusted to him, there by-and-by follows the natural penalty : he is discharged, and left to suffer for awhile the evils of a relative poverty, On the unpunctual man, ever missing his appointments of business and pleasure, there continually fall the consequent inconveniences, losses, and deprivations. The tradesman who charges too high a rate of profit, loses his customers, and so is checked in his greediness. Diminish­ ing practice teaches the inattentive doctor to bestow more trouble on his patients. The too credulous creditor and the over-sanguine speculator, alike learn by the difficulties which rashness entails on them, the necessity of being �76 EDUCATION more cautious in their engagements. And so throughout the life of every citizen. In the quotation so often made apropos of such cases—“The burnt child dreads the fire ”—we see not only that the analogy between this social discipline and Nature’s early discipline of infants is universally recognised; but we also see an implied conviction that this disci­ pline is of the most efficient kind. Nay indeed, this conviction is more than implied ; it is distinctly stated. Every one has heard others confess that only by “ dearly bought experience ” had they been induced to give up some bad or foolish course of conduct formerly pursued. Every one has heard, in the criticisms passed on the doings of this spendthrift or the other schemer, the remark that advice was useless, and that nothing but “bitter experience ” would produce any effect : nothing, that is, but suffering the unavoidable consequences. And if further proof be needed that the natural reaction is not only the most efficient penalty, but that no humanlydevised penalty can replace it, we have such further proof in the notorious illsuccess of our various penal systems. Out of the many methods of criminal discipline that have been proposed and legally enforced, none have answered the expectations of their advocates. Artificial punishments have failed to produce reformation ; and have in many cases increased the criminality. The only suc­ cessful reformatories are those privatelyestablished ones which approximate their régime to the method of Nature—which do little more than administer the natural consequences of criminal conduct : diminishing the criminal’s liberty of action as much as is needful for the safety of society, and requiring him to maintain himself while living under this restraint. Thus we see, both that the discipline by which the young child is taught to regulate its movements is the discipline by which the great mass of adults are kept in order, and more or less improved; and that the discipline humanly-devised for the worst adults, fails when it diverges from this divinelyordained discipline, and begins to succeed on approximating to it. Have we not here, then, the guiding principle of moral education ? Must we not infer that the system so beneficent in its effects during infancy and maturity, will be equally beneficent throughout youth? Can any one believe that the method which answers so well in the first and the last divisions of life, will not answer in the intermediate division ? Is it not manifest that as “ ministers and interpreters of Nature ” it is the function of parents to see that their children habitually experience the true conse­ quences of their conduct—the natural reactions; neither warding them off, nor intensifying them, nor putting artificial consequences in place of them? No unprejudiced reader will hesitate in his assent. Probably, however, not a few will con­ tend that already most parents do this— that the punishments they inflict are, in the majority of cases, the true conse­ quences of ill-conduct—that parental anger, venting itself in harsh words and deeds, is the result of a child’s transgres­ sion—and that, in the suffering, physical or moral, which the child is subject to, it experiences the natural reaction of its misbehaviour. Along with much error this assertion contains some truth. It is unquestionable that the displeasure of fathers and mothers is a true conse­ quence of juvenile delinquency; and that the manifestation of it is a normal check upon such delinquency. The scoldings, �MORAL EDUCATION and threats, and blows, which a passionate parent visits on offending little ones, are doubtless effects actually drawn from such a parent by their offences ; and so are, in some sort, to be considered as among the natural reactions of their wrong actions. Nor are we prepared to say that these modes of treatment are not relatively right—right, that is, in relation to the uncontrollable children of ill-controlled adults; and right in relation to a state of society in which such illcontrolled adults make up the mass of the, people. As already suggested, educational systems, like political and other institutions, are generally as good as the state of human nature permits. The barbarous children of barbarous parents are probably only to be re­ strained by the barbarous methods which such parents spontaneously employ; while submission to these barbarous methods is perhaps the best preparation such children can have for the barbarous society in which they are presently to play a part. Conversely, the civilised members of a civilised society will spon­ taneously manifest their displeasure in less violent ways—will spontaneously use milder measures: measures strong enough for their better-natured children. Thus it is true that, in so far as the expression of parental feeling is con­ cerned, the principle of the natural reaction is always more or less followed. The system of domestic government gravitates towards its right form. But now observe two important facts. The first fact is that, in states of rapid transition like ours, which witness a continuous battle between old and new theories and old and new practices, the educational methods in use are apt to be considerably out of harmony with the times. In deference to dogmas fit only for the ages that uttered them, many 77 parents inflict punishments that do violence to their own feelings, and so visit on their children unnatural reactions; while other parents, enthusiastic in their hopes of immediate perfection, rush to the opposite extreme. The second fact is, that the discipline of chief value is not the experience of parental approba­ tion or disapprobation; but it is the experience of those results which would ultimately flow from the conduct in the absence of parental opinion or interfer­ ence. The truly instructive and salutary consequences are not those inflicted by parents when they take upon themselves to be Nature’s proxies; but they are those inflicted by Nature herself. We will endeavour to make this distinction clear by a few illustrations, which, while they show what we mean by natural reactions as contrasted with artificial ones, will afford some practical sugges­ tions. In every family where there are young children there daily occur cases of what mothers and servants call “making a litter.” A child has had out its box of toys, and leaves them scattered about the floor. Or a handful of flowers, brought in from a morning walk, is presently seen dispersed over tables and chairs. Or, a little girl, making doll’s clothes, disfigures the room with shreds. In most cases the trouble of rectifying this disorder falls anywhere but where it should. Occurring in the nursery, the nurse herself, with many grumblings about “ tiresome little things,” under­ takes the task; if below-stairs, the task usually devolves either on one of the elder children or on the housemaid : the transgressor being visited with nothing more than a scolding. In this very simple case, however, there are many parents wise enough to follow out, more or less consistently, the normal course— �78 EDUCATION that of making the child itself collect the toys or shreds. The labour of putting things in order, is the true consequence of having put them in disorder. Every trader in his office, every wife in her household, has daily experience of this fact. And if education be a preparation for the business of life, then every child should also, from the begin­ ning, have daily experience of this fact. If the natural penalty be met by refractory behaviour (which it may per­ haps be where the system of moral disci­ pline previously pursued has been bad), then the proper course is to let the child feel the ulterior reaction caused by its disobedience. Having refused or neg­ lected to pick up and put away the things it has scattered about, and having thereby entailed the trouble of doing this on some one else, the child should, on subsequent occasions, be denied the means of giving this trouble. When next it petitions for its toy-box, the reply of its mamma should be—“ The last time you had your toys you left them lying on the floor, and Jane had to pick them up. Jane is too busy to pick up every day the things you leave about; and I cannot do it myself. So that, as you will not put away your toys when you have done with them, I cannot let you have them.” This is obviously a natural consequence, neither increased nor lessened ; and must be so recognised by a child. The penalty comes, too, at the moment when it is most keenly felt. A new-born desire is balked at the moment of anticipated gratification ; and the strong impression so produced can scarcely fail to have an effect on the future conduct: an effect which, by consistent repetition, will do whatever can be done in curing the fault. Add to which, that, by this method, a child is early taught the lesson which cannot be learnt too soon, that in this world of ours pleasures are rightly to be obtained only by labour. Take another case. Not long since we had frequently to hear the repri­ mands visited on a little girl who was scarcely ever ready in time for the daily walk. Of eager disposition, and apt to become absorbed in the occupation of the moment, Constance never thought of putting on her things till the rest were ready. The governess and the other children had almost invariably to wait; and from the mamma there almost invariably came the same scolding. Utterly as this system failed, it never occurred to the mamma to let Constance experience the natural penalty. Nor, indeed, would she try it when it was suggested to her. In the world, un­ readiness entails the loss of some advantage that would else have been gained : the train is gone ; or the steam­ boat is just leaving its moorings ; or the best things in the market are sold; or all the good seats in the concert-room are filled. And every one, in cases per­ petually occurring, may see that it is the prospective deprivations which prevent people from being too late. Is not the inference obvious ? Should not the pro­ spective deprivations control a child’s conduct also ? If Constance is not ready at the appointed time, the natural result is that of being left behind, and losing her walk. And after having once or twice remained at home while the rest were enjoying themselves in the fields— after having felt that this loss of a muchprized gratification was solely due to want of promptitude; amendment would in all probability take place. At any rate, the measure would be more effective than that perpetual scolding which ends only in producing callousness. Again, when children, with more than �MORAL EDUCATION usual carelessness, break or lose the things given to them, the natural penalty —the penalty which makes grown-up persons more careful—is the consequent inconvenience. The lack of the lost or damaged article, and the cost of re­ placing it, are the experiences by which men and women are disciplined in these matters; and the experiences of children should be as much as possible assimilated to theirs. We do not refer to that early period at which toys are pulled to pieces in the process of learning their physical properties, and at which the results of carelessness cannot be understood; but to a later period, when the meaning and advantages of property are perceived. When a boy, old enough to possess a penknife, uses it so roughly as to snap the blade, or leaves it in the grass by some hedge-side where he was cutting a stick, a thoughtless parent, or some in­ dulgent relative, will commonly forthwith buy him another ; not seeing that, by doing this, a valuable lesson is prevented. In such a case, a father may properly explain that penknives cost money, and that to get money requires labour; that ne cannot afford to purchase new pen­ knives for one who loses or breaks them ; and that until he sees evidence of greater carefulness he must decline to make good the loss. A parallel discipline will serve to check extravagance. These few familiar instances, here chosen because of the simplicity with which they illustrate our point, will make clear to every one the distinction between those natural penalties which we contend are the truly efficient ones, and those artificial penalties commonly substituted for them. Before going on to exhibit the higher and subtler applica­ tions of the principle exemplified, let us note its many and great superiorities over the principle, or rather the empirical 79 practice, which prevails in most families. One superiority is that the pursuance of it generates right conceptions of cause and effect; which by frequent and con­ sistent experience are eventually rendered definite and complete. Proper conduct in life is much better guaranteed when the good and evil consequences of actions are understood, than when they are merely believed on authority. A child who finds that disordliness entails the trouble of putting things in order, or who misses a gratification from dilatori­ ness, or whose carelessness is followed by the want of some much-prized posses­ sion, not only suffers a keenly-felt con­ sequence, but gains a knowledge of causation: both the one and the other being just like those which adult life will bring. Whereas a child who in such cases receives a reprimand, or some factitious penalty, not only experiences a consequence for which it often cares very little, but misses that instruction respecting the essential natures of good and evil conduct, which it would else have gathered. It is a vice of the common system of artificial rewards and punishments, long since noticed by the clear-sighted, that by substituting for the natural results of misbehaviour certain tasks or castigations, it produces a radically wrong moral standard. Having throughout infancy and boyhood always regarded parental or tutorial displeasure as the chief result of a forbidden action, the youth has gained an established association of ideas between such action and such displeasure, as cause and effect. Hence when parents and tutors have abdicated, and their displeasure is not to be feared, the restraints on forbidden actions are in great measure removed: the true restraints, the natural reactions, having yet to be learnt by sad experience. As writes one who has had personal �8o EDUCATION knowledge of this short-sighted system :— “Young men let loose from school, par­ ticularly those whose parents have neglected to exert their influence, plunge into every description of extravagance; they know no rule of action—they are ignorant of the reasons for moral conduct —they have no foundation to rest upon —and until they have been severely disciplined by the world are extremely dangerous members of society.” Another great advantage of this natural discipline is, that it is a discipline of pure justice; and will be recognised as such by every child. Whoso suffers nothing more than the evil which in the order of nature results from his own misbehaviour, is much less likely to think himself wrongly treated than if he suffers an artificially inflicted evil; and this will hold of children as of men. Take the case of a boy who is habitually reckless of his clothes—scrambles through hedges without caution, or is utterly regardless of mud. If he is beaten, or sent to bed, he is apt to con­ sider himself ill-used; and is more likely to brood over his injuries than to repent of his transgressions. But suppose he is required to rectify as far as possible the harm he has done—to clean off the mud with which he has covered himself, or to mend the tear as well as he can. Will he not feel that the evil is one of his own producing ? Will he not while paying this penalty be continuously conscious of the connection between it and its cause ? And will he not, spite of his irritation, recognise more or less clearly the justice of the arrangement ? If several lessons of this kind fail to produce amendment—if suits ff clothes are prematurely spoiled—if the father, pursuing this same system of discipline, declines to spend money for new ones until the ordinary time has elapsed—and if meanwhile, there occur occasions on which, having no decent clothes to go in, the boy is debarred from joining the rest of the family on holiday excursions and fete days, it is manifest that while he will keenly feel the punishment, he can scarcely fail to trace the chain of causation, and to perceive that his own carelessness is the origin of it. And seeing this he will not have any such sense of injustice as if there were no obvious connection between the transgression and its penalty. Again, the tempers both of parents and children are much less liable to be ruffled under this system than under the ordinary system. When, instead of letting children experience the painful results which naturally follow from wrong conduct, parents themselves inflict cer­ tain other painful results, they produce double mischief. Making, as they do, multiplied family laws; and identifying their own supremacy and dignity with the maintenance of these laws; every trans­ gression is regarded as an offence against themselves, and a cause of anger on their part. And then come the further vexa­ tions which result from taking upon themselves, in the shape of extra labour or cost, those evil consequences which should have been allowed to fall on the wrong-doers. Similarly with the children. Penalties which the necessary reaction of things brings round upon them— penalties which are inflicted by imper­ sonal agency, produce an irritation that is comparatively slight and transient; whereas penalties voluntarily inflicted by a parent, and afterwards thought of as caused by him or her, produce an irrita­ tion both greater and more continued. Just consider how disastrous would be the result if this empirical method wrere pursued from the beginning. Suppose �MORAL EDUCATION it were possible for parents to take upon themselves the physical sufferings en­ tailed on their children by ignorance and awkwardness; and that while bearing these evil consequences they visited on their children certain other evil conse­ quences, with the view of teaching them the impropriety of their conduct. Sup­ pose that when a child, who had been forbidden to meddle with the kettle, spilt boiling water on its foot, the mother vicariously assumed the scald and gave a blow in place of it; and similarly in all other cases. Would not the daily mishaps be sources of far more anger than now ? Would there not be chronic ill-temper on both sides ? Yet an exactly parallel policy is pursued in after­ years. A father who beats his boy for carelessly or wilfully breaking a sister’s toy, and then himself pays for a new toy, does substantially the same thing— inflicts an artificial penalty on the trans­ gressor, and takes the natural penalty on himself: his own feelings and those of the transgressor being alike needlessly irritated. Did he simply require restitu­ tion to be made, he would produce far less heart-burning. If he told the boy that a new toy must be bought at his, the boy’s cost; and that his supply of pocket-money must be withheld to the needful extent; there would be much less disturbance of temper on either side : while in the deprivation afterwards felt, the boy would experience the equitable and salutary consequence. In brief, the system of discipline by natural reactions is less injurious to temper, both because it is perceived to be nothing more than pure justice, and because it in great part substitutes the impersonal agency of Nature for the personal agency of parents. Whence also follows the manifest corol­ lary, that under this system the parental 81 and filial relation, being a more friendly, will be a more influential one. Whether in parent or child, anger, however caused, and to whomsoever directed, is detrimental. But anger in a parent towards a child, and in a child towards a parent, is especially detrimental; because it weakens that bond of sym­ pathy which is essential to beneficent control. From the law of association of ideas, it inevitably results, both in young and old, that dislike is contracted towards things which in experience are habitually connected with disagreeable feelings. Or where attachment originally existed, it is diminished, or turned into repugnance, according to the quantity of painful impressions received. Parental wrath, venting itself in reprimands and castigations, cannot fail, if often repeated, to produce filial alienation; while the resentment and sulkiness of children cannot fail to weaken the affection felt for them, and may even end in destroy­ ing it. Hence the numerous cases in which parents (and especially fathers, who are commonly deputed to inflict the punishment) are regarded with indiffer­ ence, if not with aversion; and hence the equally numerous cases in which children are looked upon as inflictions. Seeing then, as all must do, that estrangement of this kind is fatal to a salutary moral culture, it follows that parents cannot be too solicitous in avoiding occasions of direct antagonism with their children. And therefore they cannot too anxiously avail themselves of this discipline of natural consequences; which, by relieving them from penal functions, prevents mutual exasperations and estrangements. The method of moral culture by experience of the normal reactions, which is the divinely-ordained method alike for infancy and for adult life, we thus �82 EDUCATION find to be equally applicable during the intermediate childhood and youth. Among the advantages of this method we see:—First; that it gives that rational knowledge of right and wrong conduct which results from personal experience of their good and bad con­ sequences. Second; that the child, suffering nothing more than the painful effects of its own wrong actions, must recognise more or less clearly the justice of the penalties. Third; that recognising the justice of the penalties, and receiving them through the working of things rather than at the hands of an individual, its temper is less disturbed; while the parent, fulfilling the comparatively passive duty of letting the natural penalties be felt, preserves a comparative equanimity. Fourth ; that mutual exasperations being thus prevented, a much happier, and a more influential relation, will exist between parent and child. “ But what is to be done in cases of more serious misconduct ?” some will ask. “ How is this plan to be carried out when a petty theft has been com­ mitted ? or when a lie has been told ? or when some younger brother or sister has been ill-used ?” Before replying to these questions, let us consider the bearings of a few illus­ trative facts. Living in the family of his brother-inlaw, a friend of ours had undertaken the education of his little nephew and niece. This he had conducted, more perhaps from natural sympathy than from reasoned-out conclusions, in the spirit of the method above set forth. The two children were in-doors his pupils and out-of-doors his companions. They daily joined him in walks and botanising excursions, eagerly sought plants for him, looked on while he examined and identified them, and in this and other ways were ever gaining pleasure and instruction in his society. In short, morally considered, he stood to them much more in the position of parent than either their father or mother did. Describing to us the results of this policy, he gave, among other instances, the following. One evening, having need for some article lying in another part of the house, he asked his nephew to fetch it. Interested as the boy was in some amusement of the moment, he, contrary to his wont, either exhibited great reluc­ tance or refused, we forget which. His uncle, disapproving of a coercive course, went himself for that which he wanted : merely exhibiting by his manner the annoyance this ill-behaviour gave him. And when, later in the evening, the boy made overtures for the usual play, they were gravely repelled—the uncle mani­ fested just that coldness naturally pro­ duced in him; and so let the boy feel the necessary consequences of his con­ duct. Next morning at the usual time for rising, our friend heard a new voice at the door, and in walked his little nephew with the hot water. Peering about the room to see what else could be done, the boy then exclaimed, “ Oh ! you want your boots and forthwith rushed down-stairs to fetch them. In this and other ways he showed a true penitence for his misconduct. He endeavoured by unusual services to make up for the service he had refused. His better feelings had made a real conquest over his lower ones; and acquired strength by the victory. And having felt what it was to be without it, he valued more than before the friendship he thus regained. This gentleman is now himself a father; acts on the same system; and finds it answer completely. He makes himself �MORAL EDUCATION thoroughly his children’s friend. The evening is longed for by them because he will be at home; and they especially enjoy Sunday because he is with them all day. Thus possessing their perfect confidence and affection, he finds that the simple display of his approbation or disapprobation gives him abundant power of control. If, on his return home, he hears that one of his boys has been naughty, he behaves towards him with that coolness which the consciousness of the boy’s misconduct naturally produces ; and he finds this a most efficient punish­ ment. The mere withholding of the usual caresses, is a source of much distress—produces a more prolonged fit of crying than a beating would do. And the dread of this purely moral penalty is, he says, ever present during his absence : so much so, that frequently during the day his children ask their mamma how they have behaved, and whether the report will be good. Recently the eldest, an active urchin of five, in one of those bursts of animal spirits common in healthy children, committed sundry extravagances during his mamma’s absence—cut off part of his brother’s hair and wounded himself with a razor taken from his father’s dressing-case. Hearing of these occurrences on his return, the father did not speak to the boy either that night or next morning. Besides the immediate tribulation the effect was, that when, a few days after, the mamma was about to go out, she was entreated by the boy not to do so; and on inquiry, it appeared his fear was that he might again transgress in her absence. We have introduced these facts before replying to the question—“ What is to be done with the graver offences ?” for the purpose of first exhibiting the rela­ tion that may and ought to be estab­ 83 lished between parents and children; for on the existence of this relation depends the successful treatment of these graver offences. And as a further pre­ liminary, we must now point out that the establishment of this relation will result from adopting the system here advocated. Already we have shown that by simply letting a child experience the painful reactions of its own wrong actions, a parent avoids antagonism and escapes being regarded as an enemy; but it remains to be shown that where this course has been consistently pursued from the beginning, a feeling of active friendship will be generated. At present, mothers and fathers are mostly considered by their offspring as friend-enemies. Determined as the im­ pressions of children inevitably are by the treatment they receive; and oscil­ lating as that treatment does between bribery and thwarting, between petting and scolding, between gentleness and castigation ; they necessarily acquire con­ flicting beliefs respecting the parental character. A mother commonly thinks it sufficient to tell her little boy that she is his best friend; and assuming that he ought to believe her, concludes that he will do so. “ It is all for your good ”; “ I know what is proper for you better than you do yourself”; “You are not old enough to understand it now, but when you grow up you will thank me for doing what I do”;—these, and like assertions, are daily reiterated. Mean­ while the boy is daily suffering positive penalties; and is hourly forbidden to do this, that, and the other, which he wishes to do. By words he hears that his happiness is the end in view; but from the accompanying deeds he habitu­ ally receives more or less pain. Incom­ petent as he is to understand that future which his mother has in view, or how �84 EDUCATION this treatment conduces to the happiness of that future, he judges by the results he feels; and finding such results anything but pleasurable, he becomes sceptical respecting her professions of friendship. And is it not folly to expect any other issue ? Must not the child reason from the evidence he has got ? and does not this evidence seem to warrant his con­ clusion ? The mother would reason in just the same way if similarly placed. If, among her acquaintance, she found some one who was constantly thwarting her wishes, uttering sharp reprimands, and occasionally inflicting actual penal­ ties on her, she would pay small atten­ tion to any professions of anxiety for her welfare which accompanied these acts. Why, then, does she suppose that her boy will do otherwise ? But now observe how different will be the results if the system we contend for be consistently pursued—if the mother not only avoids becoming the instru­ ment of punishment, but plays' the part of a friend, by warning her boy of the pun.’shment which Nature will inflict. Take a case; and that it may illustrate the mode in which this policy is to be early initiated, let it be one of the simplest cases. Suppose that, prompted by the experimental spirit so conspicuous in children, whose proceedings instinc­ tively conform to the inductive method of inquiry—suppose that so prompted, the boy is amusing himself by lighting pieces of paper in the candle and watch­ ing them burn. A mother of the ordinary unreflective stamp, will either, on the plea of keeping him “ out of mischief,” or from fear that he will burn himself, command him to desist; and in case of non-compliance will snatch the paper from him. But should he be fortu­ nate enough to have a mother of some rationality, who knows that this interest with which he is watching the paper burn, results from a healthy inquisitiveness, and who has also the wisdom to consider the results of interference, she will reason thus:—“If I put a stop to this I shall prevent the acquirement of a certain amount of knowledge. It is true that I may save the child from a burn but what then ? He is sure to burn himself some time; and it is quite essential to his safety in life that he should learn by experience the properties of flame. If I forbid him from running this present risk, he will certainly here­ after run the same or a greater risk when no one is present toprevent him; whereas, should he have an accident now that I am by, I can save him from any great injury. Moreover, were I to make him desist, I should thwart him in the pursuit of what is in itself a purely harmless, and indeed, instructive gratification; and he would regard me with more or less illfeeling. Ignorant as he is of the pain from which I would save him, and feeling only the pain of a baulked desire, he could not fail to look on me as the cause of that pain. To save him from a hurt which he cannot conceive, and which has therefore no existence for him, I hurt him in a way which he feels keenly enough; and so become, from his point of view, a minister of evil. My best course, then, is simply to warn him of the danger, and to be ready to prevent any serious damage.” And following out this conclusion, she says to the child —“ I fear you will hurt yourself if you do that.” Suppose, now, that the boy, persevering as he will probably do, ends by burning his hand. What are the results ? In the first place he has gained an experience which he must gain eventually, and which, for his own safety, he cannot gain too soon. And in the second place, he has found that his �MORAL EDUCATION mother’s disapproval or warning was meant for his welfare : he has a further positive experience of her benevolence a further reason for placing confidence in her judgment and kindness—a further reason for loving her. Of course, in those occasional hazards where there is a risk of broken limbs or other serious injury, forcible prevention is called for. But leaving out extreme cases, the system pursued should be, not that of guarding a child from the small risks which it daily runs, but that of advising and warning it against them. And by pursuing this course, a much stronger filial affection will be generated than commonly exists. If here, as else­ where, the discipline of the natural reactions is allowed to come into play if in those out-door scrambling and in­ door experiments, by which children are liable to injure themselves, they are allowed to persist, subject only to dis­ suasion more or less earnest according to the danger, there cannot fail to arise an ever-increasing faith in the parental friendship and guidance. Not only, as before shown, does the adoption of this course enable fathers and mothers to avoid the odium which attaches to the infliction of positive punishment; but, as we here see, it enables them to avoid the odium which attaches to constant thwartings j and even to turn those incidents that commonly cause squabbles into a means of strengthening the mutual good feeling. Instead of being told in words, which deeds seem to contradict, that their parents are their best friends, children will learn this truth by a con­ sistent daily experience; and so learning it, will acquire a degree of trust and attachment which nothing else can give. And now, having indicated the more sympathetic relation which must result from the habitual use of this method, 85 let us return to the question above put —How is this method to be applied to the graver offences ? Note, in the first place, that these graver offences are likely to be both less frequent and less grave under the régime we have described than under the ordi­ nary régime. The ill-behaviour of many children is in itself a consequence of that chronic irritation in which they are kept by bad management. The state of isolation and antagonism produced by frequent punishment, necessarily deadens the sympathies ; necessarily, therefore, opens the way to those transgressions which the sympathies check. That harsh treatment which children of the same family inflict on each other is often, in great measure, a reflex of the harsh treatment they receive from adults partly suggested by direct example, and partly generated by the ill-temper and the tendency to vicarious retaliation, which follow chastisements and scoldings. It cannot be questioned that the greater activity of the affections and happier state of feeling, maintained in children by the discipline we have described, must prevent them from sinning against each other so gravely and so frequently. The still more reprehensible offences, as lies and petty thefts, will, by the same causes, be diminished. Domestic estrange­ ment is a fruitful source of such trans­ gressions. It is a law of human nature, visible enough to all who observe, that those who are debarred the higher grati­ fications fall back upon the lower ; those who have no sympathetic pleasures seek selfish ones ; and hence, conversely, the maintenance of happier relations between parents and children is calculated to diminish the number of those offences of which selfishness is the origin. When, however, such offences are committed, as they will occasionally be �86 EDUCATION even under the best system, the discipline of consequences may still be resorted to; and if there exists that bond of con­ fidence and affection above described, this discipline will be efficient. For what are the natural consequences, say, of a theft ? They are of two kinds— direct and indirect. The direct conse­ quence, as dictated by pure equity, is that of making restitution. A just ruler (and every parent should aim to be one) will demand that, when possible, a wrong act shall be undone by a right one; and in the case of theft this implies either the restoration of the thing stolen, or, if it is consumed, the giving of an equiva­ lent : which, in the case of a child, may be effected out of its pocket-money. The indirect and more serious conse­ quence is the grave displeasure of parents —a consequence which inevitably follows among all peoples civilised enough to regard theft as a crime. “ But,” it will' be said, “ the manifestation of parental displeasure, either in words or blows, is the ordinary course in these cases : the method leads here to nothing new.” Very true. Already we have admitted that, in some directions, this method is spontaneously pursued. Already we have shown that there is a tendency for educational systems to gravitate towards the true system. And here we may remark, as before, that the intensity of this natural reaction will, in the beneficent order of things, adjust itself to the requirements—that this parental dis­ pleasure will vent itself in violent measures during comparatively barbarous times, when children are also compara­ tively barbarous; and will express itself less cruelly in those more advanced social states in which, by implication, the children are amenable to milder treatment. But what it chiefly concerns us here to observe is, that the manifesta­ tion of strong parental displeasure, pro­ duced by one of these graver offences, will be potent for good, just in proportion to the warmth of the attachment existing between parent and child. Just in pro­ portion as the discipline of natural con­ sequences has been consistently pursued in other cases, will it be efficient in this case. Proof is within the experience of all, if they will look for it. For does not every one know that when he has offended another, the amount of regret he feels (of course, leaving worldly considerations out of the question) varies with the degree of sympathy he has for that other ? Is he not conscious that when the person offended is an enemy, the having given him annoyance is apt to be a source rather of secret satisfaction than of sorrow ? Does he not remember that where umbrage has been taken by some total stranger, he has felt much less con­ cern than he would have done had such umbrage been taken by one with whom he was intimate ? While, conversely, has not the anger of an admired and cherished friend been regarded by him as a serious misfortune, long and keenly regretted ? Well, the effects of parental displeasure on children must similarly vary with the pre-existing relationship. Where there is an established alienation, the feeling of a child who has trans­ gressed is a purely selfish fear of the impending physical penalties or depriva­ tions ; and after these have been inflicted, the injurious antagonism and dislike which result, add to the alienation. On the contrary, where there exists a warm filial affection produced by a consistent parental friendship, the state of mind caused by parental displeasure is not only a salutary check to future miscon­ duct of like kind, but is intrinsically salutary. The moral pain consequent �MORAL EDUCATION on having, for the time being, lost so loved a friend, stands in place of the physical pain usually inflicted, and proves equally, if not more, efficient. While instead of the fear and vindictive­ ness excited by the one course, there are excited by the other a sympathy with parental sorrow, a genuine regret for having caused it, and a desire, by some atonement, to re-establish the friendly relationship. Instead of bringing into play those egotistic feelings whose pre­ dominance is the cause of criminal acts, there are brought into play those altruistic feelings which check criminal acts, fl hus the discipline of natural consequences is applicable to grave as well as trivial faults; and the practice of it conduces not simply to the repression, but to the eradication of such faults. In brief, the truth is that savageness begets savageness, and gentleness begets gentleness. Children who are unsympa­ thetically treated become unsympathetic; whereas treating them with due fellowfeeling is a means of cultivating their fellow-feeling. With family governments as with political ones, a harsh despotism itself generates a great part of the crimes it has to repress; while on the other hand a mild and liberal rule both avoids many causes of dissension, and so ameliorates the tone of feeling as to diminish the tendency to transgression. As John Locke long since remarked, “Great severity of punishment does but very little good, nay, great harm, in education; and I believe it will be found that, cceteris paribus, those children who have been most chastised seldom make the best men.” In confirmation of which opinion we may cite the fact not long since made public by Mr. Rogers, Chaplain of the Pentonville Prison, that those juvenile criminals who have been whipped are those who most frequently 87 return to prison. Conversely, the bene­ ficial effects of a kinder treatment, are well illustrated in a fact stated to us by a French lady, in whose house we recently stayed in Paris. Apologising for the dis­ turbance daily caused by a little boy who was unmanageable both at home and at school, she expressed her fear that there was no remedy save that which had succeeded in the case of an elder brother; namely, sending him to an English school. She explained that at various schools in Paris this elder brother had proved utterly untractable; that in despair they had followed the advice to send him to England; and that on his return home he was as good as he had before been bad. This remarkable change she ascribed entirely to the comparative mildness of the English discipline. After the foregoing exposition of principles, our remaining space may best be occupied by a few of the chief maxims and rules deducible from them; and with a view to brevity we will put these in a hortatory form. Do not expect from a child any great amount of moral goodness. During early years every civilised man passes through that phase of character exhibited by the barbarous race from which he is descended. As the child’s features— flat nose, forward-opening nostrils, large lips, wide-apart eyes, absent frontal sinus, &c.—resemble for a time those of the savage, so, too, do his instincts. Hence the tendencies to cruelty, to thieving, to lying, so general among children— tendencies which, even without the aid of discipline, will become more or less modified just as the features do. The popular idea that children are “innocent,” while it is true with respect to evil know­ ledge, is totally false with respect to evil impulses; as half an hour’s observation �88 EDUCATION in the nursery will prove to any one. Boys when left to themselves, as at public schools, treat each other more brutally than men do; and were they left to themselves at an earlier age their brutality would be still more con­ spicuous. Not only is it unwise to set up a high standard of good conduct for children, but it is even unwise to use very urgent incitements to good conduct. Already most people recognise the detrimental results of intellectual precocity; but there remains to be recognised the fact that moral precocity also has detrimental results. Our higher moral faculties, like our higher intellectual ones, are com­ paratively complex. By consequence both are comparatively late in their evolution. And with the one as with the other, an early activity produced by stimulation will be at the expense of the future character. Hence the not un­ common anomaly that those who during childhood were models of juvenile good­ ness, by-and-by undergo a seemingly inexplicable change for the worse, and end by being not above but below par; while relatively exemplary men are often the issue of a childhood by no means promising. Be content, therefore, with moderate measures and moderate results. Bear in mind that a higher morality, like a higher intelligence, must be reached by slow growth; and you will then have patience with those imperfections which your child hourly displays. You will be less prone to that constant scolding, and threatening, and forbidding, by which many parents induce a chronic domestic irritation, in the foolish hope that they will thus make their children what they should be. This liberal form of domestic govern­ ment, which does not seek despotically to regulate all the details of a child’s conduct, necessarily results from the system we advocate. Satisfy yourself with seeing that your child always suffers the natural consequences of his actions, and you will avoid that excess of control in which so many parents err. Leave him wherever you can to the discipline of experience, and you will save him from that hot-house virtue which over-regulation produces in yielding natures, or that demoralising antagonism which it produces in inde­ pendent ones. By aiming in all cases to insure the natural reactions to your child’s actions, you will put an advantageous check on your own temper. The method of moral education pursued by many, we fear by most, parents, is little else than that of venting their anger in the way that first suggests itself. The slaps, and rough shakings, and sharp words, with which a mother commonly visits her offspring’s small offences (many of them not offences considered intrinsically), are generally but the manifestations of her ill-controlled feelings—result much more from the promptings of those feelings than from a wish to benefit the offenders. But by pausing in each case of trans­ gression to consider what is the normal consequence, and how it may best be brought home to the transgressor, some little time is obtained for the mastery of yourself; the mere blind anger first aroused settles down into a less vehement feeling, and one not so likely to mislead you. Do not, however, seek to behave as a passionless instrument. Remember that besides the natural reactions to your child’s actions which the working of things tends to bring round on him, your own approbation or disapprobation is also a natural reaction, and one of the �MORAL EDUCATION ordained agencies for guiding him. The error we have been combating is that of substituting parental displeasure and its artificial penalties for the penalties which Nature has established. But while it should not be substituted for these natural penalties, we by no means argue that it should not accompany them. Though the secondary kind of punish­ ment should not usurp the place of the primary kind; it may, in moderation, rightly supplement the primary kind. Such amount of sorrow or indignation as you feel, should be expressed in words or manner : subject, of course, to the approval of your judgment. The kind and degree of feeling produced in you, will necessarily depend on your own character; and it is therefore useless to say it should be this or that. Neverthe­ less you may endeavour to modify the feeling into that which you believe ought to be entertained. Beware, how­ ever, of the two extremes ; not only in respect of the intensity, but in respect of the duration, of your displeasure. On the one hand, avoid that weak impul­ siveness, so general among mothers, which scolds and forgives almost in the same breath. On the other hand, do not unduly continue to show estrange­ ment of feeling, lest you accustom your child to do without your friendship, and so lose your influence over him. The moral reactions called forth from you by your child’s actions, you should as much as possible assimilate to those which you conceive would be called forth from a parent of perfect nature. Be sparing of commands. Command only when other means are inexplicable, or have failed. “ In frequent orders the parents’ advantage is more considered than the child’s,” says Richter. As in primitive societies a breach of law is punished, not so much because it is 89 intrinsically wrong as because it is a disregard of the king’s authority—a rebellion against him; so in many families, the penalty visited on a trans­ gressor is prompted less by reprobation of the offence than by anger at the dis obedience. Listen to the ordinary speeches—“ How dare you disobey me ?” “ I tell you I’ll make you do it, sir “ I’ll soon teach you who is master ”— and then consider what the words, the tone, and the manner imply. A deter­ mination to subjugate is far more con­ spicuous in them than anxiety for the child’s welfare. For the time being the attitude of mind differs but little from that of a despot bent on punishing a recalcitrant subject. The right-feeling parent, however, like the philanthropic legislator, will rejoice not in coercion, but in dispensing with coercion. He will do without law wherever other modes of regulating conduct can be successfully employed; and he will regret the having recourse to law when law is necessary. As Richter remarks— “ The best rule in politics is said to be 1 pas trop gouverner’: it is also true in education.” And in spontaneous con­ formity with this maxim, parents whose lust of dominion is restrained by a true sense of duty, will aim to make their children control themselves as much as possible, and will fall back upon abso­ lutism only as a last resort. But whenever you do command, com­ mand with decision and consistency. If the case is one which really cannot be otherwise dealt with, then issue your fiat, and having issued it, never afterwards swerve from it. Consider well what you are going to do; weigh all the conse­ quences ; think whether you have adequate firmness of purpose; and then, if you finally make the law, enforce obedience at whatever cost. Let your �90 EDUCATION penalties be like the penalties inflicted by inanimate Nature—inevitable. The hot cinder burns a child the first time he seizes it; it burns him the second time ; it burns him the third time; it burns him every time; and he very soon learns not to touch the hot cinder. If you are equally consistent—if the consequences which you tell your child will follow specified acts, follow with like uniformity, he will soon come to respect your laws as he does those of Nature. And this respect once established, will prevent endless domestic evils. Of errors in education one of the worst is incon­ sistency. As in a community, crimes multiply when there is no certain administration of justice; so in a family, an immense increase of transgressions results from a hesitating or irregular infliction of punishments. A weak mother, who perpetually threatens and rarely performs—who makes rules in haste and repents of them at leisure— who treats the same offence now with severity and now with leniency, as the passing humour dictates, is laying up miseries for herself and her children. She is making herself contemptible in their eyes; she is setting them an example of uncontrolled feelipgs; she is encouraging them to transgress by the prospect of probable impunity; she is entailing endless squabbles and accom­ panying damage to her own temper and the tempers of her little ones; she is reducing their minds to a moral chaos, which after-years of bitter experience will with difficulty bring into order. Better even a barbarous form of domestic government carried out consistently than a humane one inconsistently carried out. Again we say, avoid coercive measures wherever it is possible to do so; but when you find despotism really neces­ sary, be despotic in good earnest. Remember that the aim of your discipline should be to produce a selfgoverning being; not to produce a being to be governed by others. Were your children fated to pass their lives as slaves, you could not too much accustom them to slavery during their childhood; but as they are by-and-by to be free men, with no one to control their daily con­ duct, you cannot too much accustom them to self-control while they are still under your eye. This it is which makes the system of discipline by natural con­ sequences, so especially appropriate tothe social state which we in England have now reached. In feudal times,, when one of the chief evils the citizen had to fear was the anger of his superiors, it was well that during childhood, parental vengeance should be a chief means of government. But now that the citizen has little to fear from any one—now that the good or evil which he experiences is mainly that which in the order of things results from his own conduct, he should from his first years begin to learn, experi­ mentally, the good or evil consequences which naturally follow this or that con­ duct. Aim, therefore, to diminish the parental government, as fast as you can substitute for it in your child’s mind that self-government arising from a foresight of results. During infancy a considerable amount of absolutism is necessary. A three-year old urchin playing with an open razor, cannot be allowed to learn by this discipline of consequences; for the consequences may be too serious. But as intelligence increases, the number of peremptory interferences may be, and should be, diminished; with the view of gradually ending them as maturity is approached. All transitions aredangerous ; and the most dangerousis the transition from the restraint of the family circle to the non-restraint of �MORAL EDUCATION the world. Hence the importance of pursuing the policy we advocate; which, by cultivating a boy’s faculty of self­ restraint, by continually increasing the degree in which he is left to his self­ restraint, and by so bringing him, step by step, to a state of unaided self-restraint, obliterates the ordinary sudden and hazardous change from externallygoverned youth to internally-governed maturity. Let the history of your domestic rule typify, in little, the history of our political rule: at the outset, autocratic control, where control is really needful; by-and-by an incipient consti­ tutionalism, in which the liberty of the subject gains some express recognition; successive extensions of this liberty of the subject; gradually ending in parental abdication. Do not regret the display of consider­ able self-will on the part of your children. It is the correlative of that diminished coerciveness so conspicuous in modern education. The greater tendency to assert freedom of action on the one side, corresponds to the smaller tendency to tyrannise on the other. They both indicate an approach to the system of discipline we contend for, under which children will be more and more led to rule themselves by the experience of natural consequences; and they are both accompaniments of our more advanced social state. The independent English boy is the father of the independent English man; and you cannot have the last without the first. German teachers say that they had rather manage a dozen German boys than one English one. Shall we, therefore, wish that our boys had the manageableness of German ones, and with it the submissiveness and political serfdom of adult Germans ? Or shall we not rather tolerate in our boys those feelings which make them free men, and modify our methods accordingly ? Lastly, always recollect that to edu­ cate rightly is not a simple and easy thing, but a complex and extremely difficult thing, the hardest task which devolves on adult life. The rough and ready style of domestic government is indeed practicable by the meanest and most uncultivated intellects. Slaps and sharp words are penalties that suggest themselves alike to the least reclaimed barbarian and the stolidest peasant. Even brutes can use this method of discipline; as you may see in the growl and half-bite with which a bitch will check a too-exigeant puppy- But if you would carry out with success a rational' and civilised system, you must be pre­ pared for considerable mental exertion—■ for some study, some ingenuity, some patience, some self-control. You will have habitually to consider what are the results which in adult life follow certain kinds of acts; and you must then devise methods by which parallel results shall be entailed on the parallel acts of your children. It will daily be needful to analyse the motives of juvenile conduct —to distinguish between acts that are really good and those which, though simulating them, proceed from inferior impulses; while you will have to be ever on your guard against the cruel mistake not unfrequently made, of translating neutral acts into transgressions, or ascribing worse feelings than were enter­ tained. You must more or less modify your method to suit the disposition of each child; and must be prepared to make further modifications as each child’s disposition enters on a new phase. Your faith will often be taxed to main­ tain the requisite perseverance in a course which seems to produce little or no effect. Especially if you are dealing �92 EDUCATION with children who have been wrongly treated, you must be prepared for a lengthened trial of patience before suc­ ceeding with better methods; since that which is not easy even where a right state of feeling has been established from the beginning, becomes doubly difficult when a wrong state of feeling has to be set right. Not only will you have constantly to analyse the motives of your children, but you will have to analyse your own motives—to discrimi­ nate between those internal suggestions springing from a true parental solicitude and those which spring from your own selfishness, your love of ease, your lust of dominion. And then, more trying still, you will have not only to detect, but to curb these baser impulses. In brief, you will have to carry on your own higher education at the same time that you are educating your children. Intel­ lectually you must cultivate to good purpose that most complex of subjects— human nature and its laws, as exhibited in your children, in yourself, and in the world. Morally, you must keep in con­ stant exercise your higher feelings, and restrain your lower. It is a truth yet remaining to be recognised, that the last stage in the mental development of each man and woman is to be reached only through a proper discharge of the parental duties. And when this truth is recognised, it will be seen how admirable is the arrangement through which human beings are led by their strongest affec­ tions to subject themselves to a discipline that they would else elude. While some will regard this concep­ tion of education as it should be, with doubt and discouragement, others will, we think, perceive in the exalted ideal which it involves, evidence of its truth. That it cannot be realised by the impul­ sive, the unsympathetic, and the short­ sighted, but demands the higher attri­ butes of human nature, they will see to be evidence of its fitness for the more advanced state of humanity. Though it calls for much labour and self-sacrifice, they will see that it promises an abundant return of happiness, immediate and remote. They will see that while in its injurious effects on both parent and child a bad system is twice cursed, a good system is twice blessed—it blesses him that trains and him that’s trained. CHAPTER IV. PHYSICAL EDUCATION Equally at the squire’s table after the withdrawal of the ladies, at the farmers’ market ordinary, and at the village ale­ house, the topic which, after the political question of the day, excites the most general interest, is the management of animals. Riding home from hunting, the conversation usually gravitates towards horse-breeding, and pedigrees, and com­ ments on this or that “good point”; while a day on the moors is very unlikely to end without something being said on the treatment of dogs. When crossing the fields together from church, the tenants of adjacent farms are apt to pass from criticisms on the sermon to criticisms on the weather, the crops, and the stock; and thence to slide into discussions on the various kinds of fodder and their feeding qualities. Hodge and Giles, after comparing notes over their respective pig-styes, show by their remarks that they have been observant of their masters’ beasts and sheep ; and of the effects produced on them by this or that kind of treatment. Nor is it only among the �PHYSICAL EDUCATION rural population that the regulations of the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, and the sheep-pen, are favourite subjects. In towns, too, the numerous artizans who keep dogs, the young men who are rich enough to now and then indulge their sporting tendencies, and their more staid seniors who talk over agricultural progress or read Mr. Mechi’s annual reports and Mr. Caird’s letters to the Times, form, when added together, a large portion of the inhabitants. Take the adult males throughout the kingdom, and a great majority will be found to show some interest in the breeding, rearing, or training of animals of one kind or other. But, during after-dinner conversations, or at other times of like intercourse, who hears anything said about the rearing of children ? When the country gentleman has paid his daily visit to the stable, and personally inspected the condition and treatment of his horses ; when he has glanced at his minor live stock, and given directions about them; how often does he go up to the nursery and examine into its dietary, its hours, its ventilation ? On his library-shelves may be found White’s Farriery, Stephens’s Book of the Farm, Nimrod On the Condition of Hunters-, and with the con­ tents of these he is more or less familiar; but how many books has he read on the management of infancy and childhood ? The fattening properties of oil-cake, the relative values of hay and chopped straw, the dangers of unlimited clover, are points bn which every landlord, farmer, and peasant has some knowledge ; but what percentage of them inquire whether the food they give their children is adapted to the constitutional needs of growing boys and girls ? Perhaps the business­ interests of these classes will be assigned as accounting for this anomaly. The 93 explanation is inadequate, however; seeing that the same contrast holds among other classes. Of a score of townspeople, few, if any, would prove ignorant of the fact that it is undesirable to work a horse soon after it has eaten ; and yet, of this same score, supposing them all to be fathers, probably not one would be found who had considered whether the time elapsing between his children’s dinner and their resumption of lessons was sufficient. Indeed, on cross-examination, nearly every man would disclose the latent opinion that the regimen of the nursery was no concern of his. “ Oh, I leave all those things to the women,” would probably be the reply. And in most cases the tone of this reply would convey the implication, that such cares are not consistent with masculine dignity. Regarded from any but a conventional point of view, the fact seems strange that while the raising of first-rate bullocks is an occupation on which educated men willingly bestow much time and thought, the bringing up of fine human beings is an occupation tacitly voted unworthy of their attention. Mammas who have been taught little but languages, music, and accomplishments, aided by nurses full of antiquated prejudices, are held competent regulators of the food, clothing, and exercise of children. Meanwhile the fathers read books and periodicals, attend agricultural meetings, try experiments, and engage in discussions, all with the view of discovering how to fatten prize pigs ! We see infinite pains taken to produce a racer that shall win the Derby : none to produce a modern athlete. Had Gulliver narrated of the Laputans that the men vied with each other in learning how best to rear the offspring of other creatures, and were careless of learning how best to rear their own offspring, he �94 EDUCATION would have paralleled any of the other absurdities he ascribes to them. The matter is a serious one, however. Ludicrous as is the antithesis, the fact it expresses is not less disastrous. As remarks a suggestive writer, the first requisite to success in life is “to be a good animal and to be a nation of good animals is the first condition to national prosperity. Not only is it that the event of a war often turns on the strength and hardiness of soldiers; but it is that the contests of commerce are in part determined by the bodily endu­ rance of producers. Thus far we have found no reason to fear trials of strength with other races in either of these fields. But there are not wanting signs that our powers will presently be taxed to the uttermost. The competition of modern life is so keen, that few can bear the required application without injury. Already thousands break down under the high pressure they are subject to. If this pressure continues to increase, as it seems likely to do, it will try severely even the soundest constitutions. Hence it is becoming of especial importance that the training of children should be so carried on, as not only to fit them mentally for the struggle before them, but also to make them physi­ cally fit to bear its excessive wear and tear. Happily the matter is beginning to attract attention. The writings of Mr. Kingsley indicate a reaction against over­ culture ; carried perhaps, as reactions usually are, somewhat too far. Occasional letters and leaders in the newspapers have shown an awakening interest in physical training. And the formation of a school, significantly nicknamed that of “ muscular Christianity,” implies a growing opinion that our present methods of bringing up children do not sufficiently regard the welfare of the body. The topic is evidently ripe for discussion. To conform the regimen of the nursery and the school to the established truths of modern science —this is the desideratum. It is time that the benefits which our sheep and oxen are deriving from the investigations of the laboratory, should be participated in by our children. Without calling in question the great importance of horse-training and pig­ feeding, we would suggest that, as the rearing of well-grown men and women is also of some moment, these conclusions which theory indicates and practice indorses, ought to be acted on in the last case as in the first. Probably not a few will be startled—perhaps offended —by this collocation of ideas. But it is a fact not to be disputed, and to which we must reconcile ourselves, that man is subject to the same organic laws as inferior creatures. No anatomist, no physiologist, no chemist, will for a moment hesitate to assert, that the general principles which are true of the vital processes in animals are equally true of the vital processes in man. And a candid admission of this fact is not without its reward: namely, that the generalisations established by observation and experiment on brutes, become avail­ able for human guidance. Rudimentary as is the Science of Life, it has already attained to certain fundamental principles underlying the development of all organisms, the human included. That which has now to be done, and that which we shall endeavour in some measure to do, is to trace the bearings of these fundamental principles on the physical training of childhood and youth. The rhythmical tendency which is traceable in all departments of social �PHYSICAL EDUCATION 95 life—which is illustrated in the access of easily corrected, that those of inanition.”1 despotism after revolution, or, among Besides, where there has been no ourselves, in the alternation of reforming injudicious interference, repletion seldom epochs and conservative epochs—which, occurs. “ Excess is the vice rather of after a dissolute age, brings an age of adults than of the young, who are rarely asceticism, and conversely,—which, in either gourmands or epicures, unless commerce, produces the recurring infla­ through the fault of those who rear tions and panics—which carries the them.”2 This system of restriction devotees of fashion from one absurd which many parents think so necessary, extreme to the opposite one :— this is based upon inadequate observation, rhythmical tendency affects also our and erroneous reasoning. There is an table-habits, and by implication, the over-legislation in the nursery, as well as dietary of the young. After a period an over-legislation in the State ; and one distinguished by hard drinking and hard of the most injurious forms of it is this eating, has come a period of comparative limitation in the quantity of food. “ But are children to be allowed to sobriety, which, in teetotalism and vegetarianism, exhibits extreme forms surfeit themselves ? Shall they be suffere d of protest against the riotous living of to take their fill of dainties and make the past. And along with this change themselves ill, as they certainly will do ?” in the regimen of adults, has come a As thus put, the question admits of but parallel change in the regimen for boys one reply. But as thus put, it assumes and girls. In past generations the the point at issue. We contend that, belief was, that the more a child could as appetite is a good guide to all the be induced to eat the better; and even lower creation—as it is a good guide to now, among farmers and in remote the infant—as it is a good guide to the districts, where traditional ideas most invalid—as it is a good guide to the linger, parents may be found who tempt differently-placed races of men—and as their children into repletion. But among it is a good guide for every adult who the educated classes, who chiefly display leads a healthful life ; it may safely be this reaction towards abstemiousness, inferred that it is a good guide for child­ there may be seen a decided leaning hood. It would be strange indeed were to the under-feeding, rather than the it here alone untrustworthy. Perhaps some will read this reply with over-feeding of children. Indeed their disgust for by-gone animalism, is more impatience; being able, as they think, clearly shown in the treatment of their to cite facts totally at variance with it. offspring than in the treatment of them­ It may appear absurd if we deny the selves; for while their disguised asceticism relevancy of these facts. And yet the is, in so far as their personal conduct is paradox is quite defensible. The truth concerned, kept in check by their appe­ is, that the instances of excess which tites, it has full play in legislating for such persons have in mind, are usually the consequences of the restrictive system juveniles. That over-feeding and under-feeding they seem to justify. They are the are both bad, is a truism. Of the two, sensual reactions caused by an ascetic They illustrate on a small however, the last is the worst. As writes regimen. a high authority, “ the effects of casual 1 Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine. 3 lb. repletion are less prejudicial, and more �96 EDUCATION scale that commonly-remarked truth, that those who during youth have been subject to the most, rigorous discipline, are apt afterwards to rush into the wildest extravagances. They are analogous to those frightful phenomena, once not uncommon in convents, where nuns suddenly lapsed from the extremest austerities into an almost demoniac wickedness. They simply exhibit the uncontrollable vehemence of long-denied desires. Consider the ordinary tastes and the ordinary treatment of children. The love of sweets is conspicuous and almost universal among them. Probably ninety-nine people in a hundred presume that there is nothing more in this than gratification of the palate; and that, in common with other sensual desires, it should be discouraged. The physiolo­ gist, however, whose discoveries lead him to an ever-increasing reverence for the arrangements of things, suspects something more in this love of sweets than is currently supposed ; and inquiry confirms the suspicion. He finds that sugar plays an important part in the vital processes. Both saccharine and fatty matters are eventually oxidised in the body; and there is an accompanying evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to which sundry other compounds have to be reduced before they are available as heat-making food; and this formation of sugar is carried on in the body. Not only is starch changed into sugar in the course of digestion, but it has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the liver is a factory in which other con­ stituents of food are transformed into sugar: the need for sugar being so imperative that it is even thus produced from nitrogenous substances when no others are given. Now, when to the fact that children have a marked desire for this valuable heat-food, we join the fact that they have usually a marked dislike to that food which gives out the greatest amount of heat during oxidation (namely, fat), we have reason for think­ ing that excess of the one compensates for defect of the other—that the organism demands more sugar because it cannot deal with much fat. Again, children are fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of all kinds are their delight; and, in the absence of anything better, they will devour unripe gooseberries and the sourest of crabs. Now not only are vegetable acids, in common with mineral ones, very good tonics, and beneficial as such when taken in moderation, but they have, when administered in their natural forms, other advantages. “ Ripe fruit,” says Dr. Andrew Combe, “ is more freely given on the Continent than in this country; and, particularly when the bowels act imperfectly, it is often very useful.” See, then, the discord between the instinctive wants of children and their habitual treatment. Here are two dominant desires, which in all probability express certain needs of the child’s constitution ; and not only are they ignored in the nursery-regimen, but there is a general tendency to forbid the gratification of them. Bread-andmilk in the morning, tea and bread-andbutter at night, or some dietary equally insipid, is rigidly adhered to ; and any ministration to the palate is thought needless, or rather, wrong. What is the consequence ? When, on fête-days, there is unlimited access to good things —when a gift of pocket-money brings the contents of the confectioner’s window within reach, or when by some accident the free run of a fruit-garden is obtained; then the long-denied, and therefore intense, desires lead to great excesses. There is an impromptu carnival, due partly to release from past restraints, and �PHYSICAL EDUCATION partly to the consciousness that a long Lent will begin on the morrow. And then, when the evils of repletion display themselves, it is argued that children must not be left to the guidance of their appetites ! These disastrous results of artificial restrictions, are themselves cited as proving the need for further restric­ tions ! We contend therefore, that the reasoning used to justify this system of interference is vicious. We contend that, were children allowed daily to partake of these more sapid edibles, for which there is a physiological require­ ment, they would rarely exceed, as they now mostly do when they have the opportunity: were fruit, as Dr. Combe recommends, “ to constitute a part of the regular food ” (given, as he advises, not between meals, but along with them), there would be none of that craving which prompts the devouring of crabs and sloes. And similarly in other cases. Not only is it that the a priori reasons for trusting the appetites of children are strong; and that the reasons assigned for distrusting them are invalid; but it is that no other guidance is worthy of confidence. What is the value of this parental judgment, set up as an alterna­ tive regulator ? When to “ Oliver asking for more,” the mamma or governess says “ No,” on what data does she proceed ? She thinks he has had enough. But where are her grounds for so thinking? Has she some secret understanding with the boy’s stomach—some clairvoyant power enabling her to discern the needs of his body ? If not, how can she safely decide ? Does she not know that the demand of the system for food is deter­ mined by numerous and involved causes •—varies with the temperature, with the hygrometric state of the air, with the electric state of the air—varies also according to the exercise taken, accord­ 97 ing to the kind and quantity of food eaten at the last meal, and according to the rapidity with which the last meal was digested? How can she calculate the result of such a combination of causes ? As we heard said by the father of a fiveyears-old boy, who stands a head taller than most of his age, and is propor­ tionately robust, rosy, and active :—“ I can see no artificial standard by which to mete out his food. If I say, ‘ this much is enough,’ it is a mere guess ; and the guess is as likely to be wrong as right. Consequently, having no faith in guesses, I let him eat his fill.” And, certainly, any one judging of his policy by its effects, would be constrained to admit its wisdom. In truth, this con­ fidence, with which most persons legislate for the stomachs of their children, proves their unacquaintance with physiology: if they knew more, they would be more modest. “The pride of science is humble when compared with the pride of ignorance.” If any one would learn how little faith is to be placed, in human judgments, and how much in the preestablished arrangement of things, let him compare the rashness of the inex­ perienced physician with the caution of the most advanced; or let him dip into Sir John Forbes’s work, On Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease ; and he will see that, in proportion as men gain knowledge of the laws of life, they come to have less confidence in themselves, and more in Nature. Turning from the question of quantity of food to that of quality, we may discern the same ascetic tendency. Not simply a restricted diet, but a comparatively low diet, is thought proper for children. The current opinion is, that they should have but little animal food. Among the less wealthy classes, economy seems to have dictated this opinion—the wish has been �98 EDUCATION father to the thought. Parents not affording to buy much meat, answer the petitions of juveniles with—“Meat is not good for little boys and girls ”; and this, at first probably nothing but a con­ venient excuse, has by repetition grown into an article of faith. While the classes with whom cost is no consideration, have been swayed partly by the example of the majority, partly by the influence of nurses drawn from thp lower classes, and in some measure by the reaction against past animalism. If, however, we inquire for the basis of this opinion, we find little or none. It is a dogma repeated and received without proof, like that which, for thou­ sands of years, insisted on swaddlingclothes. Very probably for the infant’s stomach, not yet endowed with much muscular power, meat, which requires considerable trituration before it can be made into chyme, is an unfit aliment. But this objection does not tell against animal food from which the fibrous part has been extracted; nor does it apply when, after the lapse of two or three years, considerable muscular vigour has been acquired. And while the evidence in support of this dogma, partially valid in the case of very young children, is not valid in the case of older children, who are, nevertheless, ordinarily treated in conformity with it, the adverse evidence is abundant and conclusive. The verdict of science is exactly opposite to the popular opinion. We have put the question to two of our leading physicians, and to several of the most distinguished physiologists, and they uniformly agree in the conclusion, that children should have a diet not less nutritive, but, if anything, more nutritive than that of adults. I The grounds for this conclusion are j obvious, and the reasoning simple. It | needs but to compare the vital processes of a man with those of a boy, to see that the demand for sustenance is rela­ tively greater in the boy than in the man. What are the ends for which a man requires food ? Each day his body undergoes more or less wear—wear through muscular exertion, wear of the nervous system through mental actions, wear of the viscera in carrying on the functions of life; and the tissue thuswasted has to be renewed. Each day, too, by radiation, his body loses a large amount of heat; and as, for the continu­ ance of the vital actions, the temperature of the body must be maintained, this loss has to be compensated by a constant production of heat: to which end certain constituents of the body are ever under­ going oxidation. To make up for the day’s waste, and to supply fuel for the day’s expenditure of heat, are, then, the sole purposes for which the adult requires food. Consider now, the case of the boy. He, too, wastes the substance of his body by action; and it needs but to note his restless activity to see that, in proportion to his bulk, he probably wastes as much as a man. He, too, loses heat by radiation; and, as his body exposes a greater surface in pro­ portion to its mass than does that of a man, and therefore loses heat more rapidly, the quantity of heat-food he requires is, bulk for bulk, greater than that required by a man. So that even had the boy no other vital processes to carry on than the man has, he would need, relatively to his size, a somewhat larger supply of nutriment. But, besides repairing his body and maintaining its heat, the boy has to make new tissue— to grow. After waste and thermal loss have been provided for, such surplus of nutriment as remains, goes to the further building up of the frame; and only in �PHYSICAL EDUCATION virtue of this surplus is normal growth possible j the growth that sometimes takes place in the absence of it, causing a manifest prostration consequent upon defective repair. It is true that because of a certain mechanical law which can­ not be here explained, a small organism has an advantage over a large one in the ratio between the sustaining and destroying forces—an advantage, indeed, to which the very possibility of growth is owing. But this admission only makes it the more obvious that though much adverse treatment may be borne without this excess of vitality being quite out-balanced; yet any adverse treatment, by diminishing it, must diminish the size or structural perfection reached. How peremptory is the demand of the unfolding organism for materials, is seen alike in that “ school-boy hunger,” which after-life rarely parallels in intensity, and in the comparatively quick return of appetite. And if there needs further evidence of this extra necessity for nutriment, we have it in the fact that, during the famines following shipwrecks and other disasters, the children are the first to die. This relatively greater need for nutri­ ment being admitted, as it must be, the question that remains is—shall we meet it by giving an excessive quantity of what may be called dilute food, or a more moderate quantity of concentrated food ? The nutriment obtainable from a given weight of meat is obtainable only from a larger weight of bread, or from a still larger weight of potatoes, and so on. To fulfil the requirement, the quantity must be increased as the nutritiveness is diminished. Shall we, then, respond to the extra wants of the growing child by giving an adequate quantity of food as good as that of adults ? Or, regardless of the fact that its stomach has to dispose 99 of a relatively larger quantity even of this good food, shall we further tax it By giving an inferior food in still greater quantity? The answer is tolerably obvious. The more the labour of digestion is econo­ mised, the more energy is left for the purpose of growth and action. The functions of the stomach and intestines cannot be performed without a large supply of blood and nervous power ; and in the comparative lassitude that follows a hearty meal, every adult has proof that this supply of blood and nervous power is at the expense of the system at large. If the requisite nutriment is obtained from a great quantity of innutritious food, more work is entailed on the viscera than when it is obtained from a moderate quantity of nutritous food. This extra work is so much loss—a loss which in children shows itself either in diminished energy, or in smaller growth, or in both. The inference is, then, that they should have a diet which combines, as much as possible, nutritive­ ness and digestibility. It is doubtless true that boys and girls may be reared upon an exclusively, or almost exclusively, vegetable diet. Among the upper classes are to be found children to whom comparatively little meat is given; and who, neverthe­ less, grow and appear in good health. Animal food is scarcely tasted by the offspring of labouring people, and yet they reach a healthy maturity. But these seemingly adverse facts have by no means the weight commonly supposed. In the first place, it does not follow that those who in early years flourish on bread and potatoes, will eventually reach a fine development; and a comparison between the agricultural labourers and the gentry, in England, or between the middle and lower classes in France, �•TOO EDUCATION is by no means in favour of vegetable locomotive energy and considerable feeders. In the second place, the ques­ vivacity. If, again, we contrast the tion is not simply a question of bulk, but stolid inactivity of the graminivorous also a question of quality. A soft, flabby sheep with the liveliness of the dog, flesh makes as good a show as a firm subsisting on flesh or farinaceous matters, one; but though to the careless eye, a or a mixture of the two, we see a differ­ child of full, flaccid tissue may appear ence similar in kind, but still greater in the equal of one whose fibres are well degree. And after walking through the toned, a trial of strength will prove the Zoological Gardens, and noting the rest­ difference. Obesity in adults is often a lessness with which the carnivorous sign of feebleness. Men lose weight in animals pace up and down their cages, it training. Hence the appearance of these needs but to remember that none of the low-fed children is far from conclusive. herbivorous animals habitually display In the third place, besides size we have this superfluous energy, to see how clear to consider energy. Between children of is the relation between concentration of the meat-eating classes and those of the food and degree of activity. bread-and-potato-eating classes, there is That these differences are not directly a marked contrast in this respect. Both consequent on differences of constitu­ in mental and physical vivacity the tion, as some may argue; but are directly peasant-boy is greatly inferior to the consequent on differences in the food son of a gentleman. which the creatures are constituted to If we compare different kinds of subsist on; is proved by the fact, that animals, or different races of men, or they are observable between different the same animals or men when differently divisions of the same species. The fed, we find still more distinct proof that varieties of the horse furnish an illustra­ the degree of energy essentially depends on tion. Compare the big-bellied, inactive, the nutritiveness of the food. spiritless cart-horse with a racer or In a cow, subsisting on so innutritive hunter, small in the flanks and full of a food as grass, we see that the immense energy; and then call to mind how quantity required necessitates an enor­ much less nutritive is the diet of the one mous digestive system ; that the limbs, than that of the other. Or take the small in comparison with the body, are case of mankind. Australians, Bushmen, burdened by its weight; that in carrying ' and others of the lowest savages who about this heavy body and digesting this live on roots and berries, varied by excessive quantity of food, much force is . larvae of insects and the like meagre expended; and that, having but little i fare, are comparatively puny in stature, remaining, the creature is sluggish. have large abdomens, soft and unde­ Compare with the cow a horse — an ! veloped muscles, and are quite unable to animal of nearly allied structure, but i cope with Europeans, either in a struggle habituated to a more concentrated diet, j. or in prolonged exertion. Count up the Here the body, and more especially its I wild races who are well grown, strong abdominal region, bears a smaller ratio i and active, as the Kaffirs, North-Amerito the limbs; the powers are not taxed j can Indians, and Patagonians, and you by the support of such massive viscera ' find them large consumers of flesh. The nor the digestion of so bulky a food; ' ill-fed Hindoo goes down before the and, as a consequence, there is greater ' Englishman fed on more nutritive food, �PHYSICAL EDUCATION to whom he is as inferior in mental as in physical energy. And generally, we think, the history of the world shows that the well-fed races have been the energetic and dominant races. Still stronger, however, becomes the argument, when we find that the same individual animal is capable of more or less exertion according as its food is more or less nutritious. This has been demonstrated in the case of the horse. Though flesh may be gained by a grazing horse, strength is lost; as putting him to hard work proves. “The consequence of turning horses out to grass is relaxa­ tion of the muscular system.” “Grass is a very good preparation for a bullock for Smithfield market, but a very bad one for a hunter.” It was well known of old that, after passing the summer in the fields, hunters required some months of stable-feeding before becoming able to follow the hounds; and that they did not get into good condition till the beginning of the next spring. And the modern practice is that insisted on by Mr. Apperley—“Never to give a hunter what is called ‘ a summer’s run at grass,’ and, except under particular and very favourable circumstances, never to turn him out at all.” That is to say, never give him poor food: great energy and endurance are to be obtained only by the continued use of nutritive food. So true is this that, as proved by Mr. Apperley, prolonged high-feeding enables a middling horse to equal, in his per­ formances, a first-rate horse fed in the ordinary way. To which various evidences add the familiar fact that, when a horse is required to do double duty, it is the practice to give him beans—a food con­ taining a larger proportion of nitrogenous, or flesh-making material, than his habitual Oats. Once more, in the case of individual IOI men the truth has been illustrated with equal, or still greater, clearness. We do not refer to men in training for feats of strength, whose regimen, however, thoroughly conforms to the doctrine. We refer to the experience of railway contractors and their labourers. It has been for years a well-established fact that an English navvy, eating largely of flesh, is far more efficient than a Conti­ nental navvy living on farinaceous food ; so much more efficient, that English contractors for Continental railways found it pay to take their labourers with them. That difference of diet and not difference of race caused this superiority, has been of late distinctly shown. For it has turned out, that when the Continental navvies live in the same style as their English competitors, they presently rise, more or less nearly, to a par with them in efficiency. And to this fact, let us here add the converse one, to which we can give personal testimony based upon six months’ experience of vegetarianism, that abstinence from meat entails diminished energy of both body and mind. Do not these various evidences endorse our argument respecting the feeding of children ? Do they not imply that, even supposing the same stature and bulk to be attained on an innutritive as on a nutritive diet, the quantity of tissue is greatly inferior ? Do they not establish the position that, where energy as well as growth has to be maintained, it can only be done by high feeding ? Do they not confirm the a priori conclusion that, though a child of whom little is expected in the way of bodily or mental activity, may thrive tolerably well on farinaceous substances, a child who is daily required, not only to form the due amount of new tissue, but to supply the waste consequent on great muscular action, and the further waste consequent on hard exercise of �102 EDUCATION brain, must live on substances containing a larger ratio of nutritive matter ? And is it not an obvious corollary, that denial of this better food will be at the expense either of growth, or of bodily activity, or of mental activity; as constitution and circumstances determine? We believe no logical intellect will question it. To think otherwise is to entertain in a disguised form the old fallacy of the perpetual-motion schemers—that it is possible to get power out of nothing. Before leaving the question of food, ■a few words must be said on another requisite—variety. In this respect the dietary of the young is very faulty. If not, like our soldiers, condemned to “ twenty years of boiled beef,” our children have mostly to bear a monotony which, though less extreme and less lasting, is quite as clearly at variance with the laws of health. At dinner, it is true, they usually have food that is more or less mixed, and that is changed day by day. But week after week, month after month, year after year, comes the same breakfast of bread-and-milk, or, it may be, oatmeal-porridge. And with like persistence the day is closed, perhaps with a second edition of the bread-andmilk, perhaps with tea and bread-andbutter. This practice is opposed to the dictates of physiology. The satiety produced by an oft-repeated dish, and the gratification caused by one long a stranger to the palate, are not meaningless, as people carelessly assume; but they are the incentives to a wholesome diversity of diet. It is a fact, established by numerous experiments, that there is scarcely any one food, however good, which supplies in due proportions or right forms all the elements required for carrying on the vital processes in a normal manner • whence it follows that frequent change of food is desirable to balance the supplies of all the elements. It is a further fact, known to physiologists, that the enjoyment given by a much-liked food is a nervous stimulus, which, by increasing the action of the heart and so propelling the blood with increased vigour, aids in the subsequent digestion. And these truths are in harmony with the maxims of modern cattle-feeding, which dictate a rotation of diet. Not only, however, is periodic change of food very desirable; but, for the same reasons, it is very desirable that a mixture of food should be taken at each meal. The better balance of ingredients, and the greater nervous stimulation, are advantages which hold here as before. If facts are asked for, we may name as one, the comparative ease with which the stomach disposes of a French dinner, enormous in quantity but extremely varied in materials. Few will contend that an equal weight of one kind of food, how­ ever well cooked, could be digested with as much facility. If any desire further facts, they may find them in every modern book on the management of animals. Animals thrive best when each meal is made up of several things. The experiments of Goss and Stark “afford the most decisive proof of the advantage, or rather the necessity, of a mixture of substances, in order to produce the com­ pound which is the best adapted for the action of the stomach.”1 Should any object, as probably many will, that a rotating dietary for children, and one which also requires a mixture of food at each meal, would entail too much trouble; we reply, that no trouble is thought too great which conduces to the mental development of children, and that for their future welfare, good bodily 1 Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology. �PHYSICAL EDUCATION 103 There is a current theory, vaguely enter­ tained if not put into a definite formula, that the sensations are to be disregarded. They do not exist for our guidance, but to mislead us, seems to be the prevalent belief reduced to its naked form. It is a grave error: we are much more bene­ ficently constituted. It is not obedience to the sensations, but disobedience to them, which is the habitual cause of bodily evils. It is not the eating when hungry, but the eating in the absence of hunger, which is bad. It is not drinking when thirsty, but continuing to drink when thirst has ceased, that is the vice. Harm does not result from breathing that fresh air which every healthy person enjoys ; but from breathing foul air, spite of the-protest of the lungs. Harm does not result from taking that active exercise which, as every child shows us, Nature strongly prompts ; but from a persistent disregard of Nature’s promptings. Not that mental activity which is spontaneous and enjoyable does the mischief; but that which is preserved in after a hot or aching head commands desistance. Not that bodily exertion which is pleasant or indifferent, does injury; but that which is continued when exhaustion forbids. It is true that, in those who have long led unhealthy lives, the sensations are not trustworthy guides. People who have for years been almost constantly in-doors, who have exercised their brains very much and their bodies scarcely at all, who in eating have obeyed their clocks without consulting their stomachs, may very likely be misled by their vitiated feelings. But their abnormal state is itself the result of transgressing their With clothing as with food, the usual feelings. Had they from childhood tendency is towards an improper scanti­ never disobeyed what we may term the ness. Here, too, asceticism peeps out. physical conscience, it would not have been seared, but would have remained a faithful monitor. 1 Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture. development is of still higher importance. Moreover, it seems alike sad and strange that a trouble which is cheerfully taken in the fattening of pigs, should be thought too great in the rearing of children. One more paragraph, with the view of warning those who may propose to adopt the regimen indicated. The change must not be made suddenly ; for con­ tinued low-feeding so enfeebles the system, as to disable it from at once dealing with a high diet. Deficient nutrition is itself a cause of dyspepsia. This is true even of animals. “When calves are fed with skimmed milk, or whey, or other poor food, they are liable to indigestion.”1 Hence, therefore, where the energies are low, the transition to a generous diet must be gradual: each increment of strength gained, justifying a fresh addition of nutriment. Further, it should be borne in mind that the con­ centration of nutriment may be carried too far. A bulk sufficient to fill the stomach is one requisite of a proper meal; and this requisite negatives a diet deficient in those matters which give adequate mass. Though the size of the digestive organs is less in the well-fed civilised races than in the ill-fed savage ones ; and though their size may even­ tually diminish still further; yet, for the time being, the bulk of the ingesta must be determined by the existing capacity. But, paying due regard to these two qualifications, our conclusions are—that the food of children should be highly nutritive; that it should be varied at each meal and at successive meals ; and that it should be abundant. �104 EDUCATION Among the sensations serving for our guidance are those of heat and cold: and a clothing for children which does not carefully consult these sensations, is to be condemned. The common notion about “ hardening ” is a grievous delusion. Not a few children are “hardened” out of the world ; and those who survive, permanently suffer either in growth or constitution. “Their delicate appear­ ance furnishes ample indication of the mischief thus produced, and their frequent attacks of illness might prove a warning even to unreflecting parents,” says Dr. Combe. The reasoning on which this hardening theory rests is extremely superficial. Wealthy parents, seeing little peasant boys and girls playing about in the open-air only half­ clothed, and joining with this fact the general healthiness of labouring people, draw the unwarrantable conclusion that the healthiness is the result of the exposure, and resolve to keep their own offspring scantily covered! It is forgotten that these urchins who gambol upon village-greens are in many respects favourably circumstanced — that their lives are spent in almost perpetual play; that they are all day breathing fresh air; and that their systems are not disturbed by over-taxed brains. For aught that appears to the contrary, their good health may be maintained, not in consequence of, but in spite of, their deficient clothing. This alternative conclusion we believe to be the true one; and that an inevitable detriment results from the loss of animal heat to which they are subject. For when, the constitution being sound enough to bear it, the exposure does produce hardness, it does so at the expense of growth. This truth is displayed alike in animals and in man. Shetland ponies bear greater inclemencies than the horses of the south, but are dwarfed. Highland sheep and cattle, living in a colder climate, are stunted in comparison with English breeds. In both the arctic and antarctic regions the human race falls much below its ordinary height: the Laplander and Esquimaux are very short; and the Terra del Fuegians, who go naked in a wintry land, are described by Darwin as so stunted and hideous, that “ one can hardly make one’s-self believe they are fellow-creatures. ” Science explains this dwarfishness pro­ duced by great abstraction of heat; showing that, food and other things being equal, it unavoidably results. For as before pointed out, to make up for that cooling by radiation which the body is ever undergoing, there must be a constant oxidation of certain matters forming part of the food. And in pro­ portion as the thermal loss is great, must the quantity of these matters required for oxidation be great. But the power of the digestive organs is limited. Con­ sequently, when they have to prepare a large quantity of this material needful for maintaining the temperature, they can prepare but a small quantity of the material which goes to build up the frame. Excessive expenditure for fuel entails diminished means for other purposes. Wherefore there necessarily results a body small in size, or inferior in texture, or both. Hence the great importance of clothing. As Liebig says :—“ Our clothing is, in reference to the temperature of the body, merely an equivalent for a certain amount of food.” By diminishing the loss of heat, it diminishes the amount of fuel needful for maintaining the heat; and when the stomach has less to do in preparing fuel, it can do more in preparing other materials. This deduc­ tion is confirmed by the experience �PHYSICAL EDUCATION io5 of those who manage animals. Cold acid given off varies with tolerable can be borne by animals only at an accuracy as the quantity of heat pro­ expense of fat, or muscle, or growth, as duced. And thus we see that in children the case may be. “If fattening cattle are the system, even when not placed at a exposed to a low temperature, either disadvantage, is called upon to provide their progress must be retarded or a nearly double the proportion of material great additional expenditure of food for generating heat. See, then, the extreme folly of clothing incurred.”1 Mr. Apperley insists strongly that, to bring hunters into good con­ the young scantily. What father, fulldition, it is necessary that the stable grown though he is, losing heat less should be kept warm. And among rapidly as he does, and having no those who rear racers, it is an established physiological necessity but to supply the waste of each day—what father, we ask, doctrine that exposure is to be avoided. The scientific truth thus illustrated by would think it salutary to go about with ethnology, and recognised by agricul­ bare legs, bare arms, and bare neck? turists and sportsmen, applies with Yet this tax on the system, from which double force to children. In proportion he would shrink, he inflicts on his little to their smallness and the rapidity of ones, who are so much less able to bear their growth is the injury from cold it! or, if he does not inflict it, sees great. In France, new-born infants often it inflicted without protest. Let him die in winter from being carried to the remember that every ounce of nutriment office of the maire for registration. needlessly expended for the maintenance “M. Quetelet has pointed out, that in of temperature, is so much deducted from Belgium two infants die in January for the nutriment going to build up the one that dies in July.” And in Russia frame; and that even when colds, con­ the infant mortality is something enor­ gestions, or other consequent disorders mous. Even when near maturity, the are escaped, diminished growth or less undeveloped frame is comparatively perfect structure is inevitable. “The rule is, therefore, not to dress unable to bear exposure : as witness the in an invariable way in all cases, but to quickness with which young soldiers succumb in a trying campaign. The put on clothing in kind and quantity rationale is obvious. We have already sufficient in the individual case to protect adverted to the fact that, in consequence the body effectually from an abiding of the varying relation between surface sensation of cold, however slight! This and bulk, a child loses a relatively larger rule, the importance cf which Dr. Combe amount of heat than an adult; and here indicates by the italics, is one in which we must point out that the disadvantage men of science and practitioners agree. under which the child thus labours is We have met with none competent to very great. Lehmann says:—“If the form a judgment on the matter, who do carbonic acid excreted by children or not strongly condemn the exposure of young animals is calculated for an equal children’s limbs. If there is one point bodily weight, it results that children above others in which “pestilent custom” produce nearly twice as much acid as should be ignored, it is this. Lamentable, indeed, is it to see mothers adults.” Now the quantity of carbonic seriously damaging the constitutions of their children out of compliance with an 1 Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture. �EDUCATION irrational fashion. It is bad enough that they should themselves conform to every folly which our Gallic neighbours please to initiate ; but that they should clothe their children in any mountebank dress which Le petit Courrier des Dames indi­ cates, regardless of its insufficiency and unfitness, is monstrous. Discomfort, more or less great, is inflicted; frequent disorders are entailed; growth is checked or stamina undermined; premature death not uncommonly caused; and all because it is thought needful to make frocks of a size and material dictated by French caprice. Not only is it that for the sake of conformity, mothers thus punish and injure their little ones by scantiness of covering; but it is that from an allied motive they impose a style of dress which forbids healthful activity. To please the eye, colours and fabrics are chosen totally unfit to bear that rough usage which unrestrained play involves : and then to prevent damage the unrestrained play is interdicted. “ Get up this moment: you will soil your clean frock,” is the mandate issued to some urchin creeping about on the floor. “ Come back : you will dirty your stockings,” calls out the governess to one of her charges, who has left the footpath to scramble up a bank. Thus is the evil doubled. That they may come up to their mamma’s standard of prettiness, and be admired by her visitors, children must have habiliments deficient in quantity and unfit in texture; and that these easily-damaged habiliments may be kept clean and uninjured, the restless activity so natural and needful for the young, is restrained. The exercise which becomes doubly requisite when the clothing is insufficient, is cut short, lest it should deface the clothing. Would that the terrible cruelty of this system could be seen by those who maintain it! We do not hesitate to say that, through enfeebled health, defective energies, and consequent non-success in life, thousands are annually doomed to unhappiness by this unscrupulous regard for appearances : even when they are not, by early death, literally sacrificed to the Moloch of maternal vanity. We are reluctant to counsel strong measures, but really the evils are so great as to justify, or even to demand, a peremptory interference on the part of fathers. Our conclusions are, then—that, while the clothing of children should never be in such excess as to create oppressive warmth, it should always be sufficient to prevent any general feeling of cold; * that instead of the flimsy cotton, linen, or mixed fabrics commonly used, it should be made of some good non­ conductor, such as coarse woollen cloth ; that it should be so strong as to receive little damage from the hard wear and tear which childish sports will give it; and that its colours should be such as will not soon suffer from use and expo­ sure. To the importance of bodily exercise most people are in some degree awake. Perhaps less needs saying on this requisite of physical education than on most others : at any rate, in so far as boys are concerned. Public schools and private schools alike furnish tolerably adequate playgrounds; and there is usually a fair 1 It is needful to remark that children whose legs and arms have been from the beginning habitually without covering, cease to be conscious that the exposed surfaces are cold ; just as by use we have all ceased to be conscious that our faces are cold, even when out of doors. But though in such children the sensations no longer protest, it does not follow that the system escapes injury; any more than it follows that the Fuegian is undamaged by exposure, because he bears with indifference the melting of the falling snow on his naked body. �PHYSICAL EDUCATION share of time for out-door games, and a recognition of them as needful. In this, if in no other direction, it seems admitted that the promptings of boyish instinct may advantageously be followed; and, indeed, in the modern practice of breaking the prolonged morning’s and afternoon’s lessons by a few minutes’ open-air recrea­ tion, we see an increasing tendency to conform school-regulations to the bodily sensations of the pupils. Here, then, little need be said in the way of expostu­ lation or suggestion. But we have been obliged to qualify this admission by inserting the clause “in so far as boys are concerned.” Un­ fortunately, the fact is quite otherwise with girls. It chances, somewhat strangely, that we have daily opportunity of drawing a comparison. We have both a boys’ school and a girls’ school within view; and the contrast between them is remarkable. In the one case, nearly the whole of a large garden is turned into an open, gravelled space, affording ample scope for games, and supplied with poles and horizontal bars for gymnastic exercises. Every day before breakfast, again towards eleven o’clock, again at mid-day, again in the afternoon, and once more after school is over, the neighbourhood is awakened by a chorus of shouts and laughter as the boys rush out to play; and for as long as they remain, both eyes and ears give proof that they are absorbed in that enjoyable activity which makes the pulse bound and ensures the healthful activity of every organ. How unlike is the picture offered by the “ Establishment for Young Ladies”! Until the fact was pointed out, we actually did not know that we had a girls’ school as close to us as the school for boys. The garden, equally large with the other, affords no sign whatever of any provision for juvenile 107 recreation; but is entirely laid out with prim grass-plots, gravel-walks, shrubs, and flowers, after the usual suburban style. During five months we ha.ve not once had our attention drawn to the premises by a shout or a laugh. Occasionally girls may be observed sauntering along the paths with their lesson-books in their hands, or else walking arm-in-arm. Once, indeed, we saw one chase another round the garden; but, with this exception, nothing like vigorous exertion has been visible. Why this astonishing difference? Is it that the constitution of a girl differs so entirely from that of a boy as not to need these active exercises ? Is it that a girl has none of the promptings to vociferous play by which boys are impelled ? Or is it that, while in boys these promptings are to be regarded as stimuli to a bodily activity without which there cannot be adequate development, to their sisters, Nature has given them for no purpose whatever—unless it be for the vexation of school-mistresses ? Perhaps, however, we mistake the aim of those who train the gentler sex. We have a vague suspicion that to produce a robust physique is thought undesirable ; that rude health and abundant vigour are considered somewhat plebeian; that a certain delicacy, a strength not com­ petent to more than a mile or two’s walk, an appetite fastidious and easily satisfied, joined with that timidity which commonly accompanies feebleness, are held more lady-like. We do not expect that any would distinctly avow this; but we fancy the governess-mind is haunted by an ideal young lady bearing not a little resemblance to this type. If so, it must be admitted that the established system is admirably calculated to realise this ideal. But to suppose that such is the ideal of the opposite sex is a profound �108 EDUCATION mistake. That men are not commonly drawn towards masculine women, is doubtless true. That such relative weakness as asks the protection of superior strength, is an element of attraction, we quite admit. But the difference thus responded to by the feelings of men, is the natural, preestablished difference, which will assert itself without artificial appliances. And when, by artificial appliances, the degree of this difference is increased, it becomes an element of repulsion rather than of attraction. “Then girls should be allowed to run wild—to become as rude as boys, and grow up into romps and hoydens !” exclaims some defender of the pro­ prieties. This, we presume, is the ever­ present dread of school-mistresses. It appears, on inquiry, that at “ Establish­ ments for Young Ladies ” noisy play like that daily indulged in by boys, is a punishable offence; and we infer that it is forbidden, lest unlady-like habits should be formed. The fear is quite groundless, however. For if the sportive activity allowed to boys does not prevent them from growing up into gentlemen; why should a like sportive activity prevent girls from growing up into ladies ? Rough as may have been their play­ ground frolics, youths who have left school do not indulge in leap-frog in the street, or marbles in the drawing-room. Abandoning their jackets, they abandon at the same time boyish games; and display an anxiety—often a ludicrous anxiety—to avoid whatever is not manly. If now, on arriving at the due age, this feeling of masculine dignity puts so efficient a restraint on the sports of boy­ hood, will not the feeling of feminine modesty, gradually strengthening as maturity is approached, put an efficient restraint on the like snorts of girlhood ? Have not women even a greater regard for appearances than men ? and will there not consequently arise in them even a stronger check to whatever is rough or boisterous ? How absurd is the supposi­ tion that the womanly instincts would not assert themselves but for the rigorous discipline of school-mistresses! In this, as in other cases, to remedy the evils of one artificiality, another artificiality has been introduced. The natural, spontaneous exercise having been forbidden, and the bad conse­ quences of no exercise having become conspicuous, there has been adopted a system of factitious exercise—gymnastics. That this is better than nothing we admit; but that it is an adequate sub­ stitute for play we deny. The defects are both positive and negative. In the first place, these formal, muscular motions, necessarily less varied than those accompanying juvenile sports, do not secure so equable a distribution of action to all parts of the body; whence it results that the exertion, falling on special parts, produces fatigue sooner than it would else have done: to which, in passing, let us add, that if constantly repeated, this exertion of special parts leads to a disproportionate development. Again, the quantity of exercise thus taken will be deficient, not only in consequence of uneven distribution; but there will be a further deficiency in consequence of lack of interest. Even when not made repulsive, as they sometimes are, by assuming the shape of appointed lessons, these monotonous movements are sure to become wearisome from the absence of amusement. Competition, it is true, serves as a stimulus; but it is not a lasting stimulus, like that enjoyment which accompanies varied play. The weightiest objection, however, still remains. Besides being inferior in �PHYSICAL EDUCATION respect of the quantity of muscular exertion which they secure, gymnastics are still more inferior in respect of the quality., This comparative want of enjoyment which we have named as a cause of early desistance from artificial exercises, is also a cause of inferiority in the effects they produce on the system. The common assumption that, so long as the amount of bodily action is the same, it matters not whether it be pleasurable or otherwise, is a grave mistake. An agreeable mental excite­ ment has a highly invigorating influence. See the effect produced upon an invalid by good news, or by the visit of an old friend. Mark how careful medical men are to recommend lively society to debilitated patients. Remember how beneficial to health is the gratification produced by change of scene. The truth is that happiness is the most powerful of tonics. By accelerating the circulation of the blood, it facilitates the performance of every function; and so tends alike to increase health when it exists, and to restore it when it has been lost. Hence the intrinsic superiority of play to gymnastics. The extreme interest felt by children in their games, and the riotous glee with which they carry on their rougher frolics, are of as much importance as the accompanying exertion. And as not supplying these mental stimuli, gymnastics must be radically defective. Granting then, as we do, that formal exercises of the limbs are better than nothing—granting, further, that they may be used with advantage as supplementary aids; we yet contend that they can never serve in place of the exercises prompted by Nature. For girls, as well as boys, the sportive activities to which the instincts impel, are essential to bodily welfare. Whoever forbids them, forbids 109 the divinely-appointed means to physical development. A topic still remains—one perhaps more urgently demanding consideration than any of the foregoing. It is asserted by not a few, that among the educated classes the younger adults and those who are verging on maturity, are neither so well grown nor so strong as their seniors. On first hearing this assertion, we were inclined to class it as one of the many manifestations of the old tendency to exalt the past at the expense of the present. Calling to mind the facts that, as measured by ancient armour, modern men are proved to be larger than ancient men; and that the tables of mortality show no diminution, but rather an increase, in the duration of life; we paid little attention to what seemed a groundless belief. Detailed observation, however, has shaken our opinion. Omitting from the comparison the labouring classes, we have noticed a majority of cases in which the children do not reach the stature of their parents; and, in massiveness, making due allow­ ance for difference of age, there seems a like inferiority. Medical men say that now-a-days people cannot bear nearly so much depletion as in times gone by. Premature baldness is far more common than it used to be. And an early decay of teeth occurs in the rising generation with startling frequency. In general vigour the contrast appears equally strik­ ing. Men of past generations, living riotously as they did, could bear more than men of the present generation, who live soberly, can bear. Though they drank hard, kept irregular hours, were regardless of fresh air, and thought little of cleanliness, our recent ancestors were capable of prolonged application without injury, even to a ripe old age: witness �I IO EDUCATION the annals of the bench and the bar. Yet we who think much about our bodily welfare; who eat with moderation, and do not drink to excess; who attend to ventilation, and use frequent ablutions who make annual excursions, and have the benefit of greater medical knowledge; —we are continually breaking down under our work. Paying considerable attention to the laws of health, we seem to be weaker than our grandfathers, who, in many respects, defied the laws of health. And, judging from the appear­ ance and frequent ailments of the rising generation, they are likely to be even less robust than ourselves. What is the meaning of this ? Is it that past over-feeding, alike of adults and children, was less injurious than the under-feeding to which we have adverted as now so general? Is it that the deficient clothing which this delusive hardening-theory has encouraged, is to blame ? Is it that the greater or less discouragement of juvenile sports, in deference to a false refinement, is the cause ? From our reasonings it may be inferred that each of these has probably had a share in producing the evil.1 But there has been yet another detrimental influence at work, perhaps more potent 1 We are not certain that the propagation of subdued forms of constitutional disease through the agency of vaccination is not a part-cause. Sundry facts in pathology suggest the inference, that when the system of a vaccinated child is excreting the vaccine virus by means of pustules, it will tend also to excrete through such pustules other morbific matters; especially if these morbific matters are of a kind ordinarily got rid of by the skin, as are some of the worst of them. Hence it is very possible—probable even -—that a child with a constitutional taint, too slight to show itself in visible disease, may, through the medium of vitiated vaccine lymph taken from it, convey a like constitutional taint to other children, and these to others. than any of the others : we mean—excess of mental application. On old and young, the pressure of modern life puts a still-increasing strain. In all businesses and professions, intenser competition taxes the energies and abilities of every adult; and to fit the young to hold their places under this intenser competition, they are subject to severer discipline than heretofore. The damage is thus doubled. Fathers, who find themselves run hard by their multi­ plying competitors, and, while labouring under this disadvantage, have to maintain a more expensive style of living, are all the year round obliged to work early and late, taking little exercise and getting but short holidays. The constitutions shaken by this continued over-application, they bequeath to their children. And then these comparatively feeble children, pre­ disposed to break down even under ordinary strains on their energies, are required to go through a curriculum much more extended than that prescribed for the unenfeebled children of past generations. The disastrous consequences that might be anticipated, are everywhere visible. Go where you will, and before long there come under your notice cases of children or youths, of either sex, more or less injured by undue study. Here, to recover from a state of debility thus produced, a year’s rustication has been found necessary. There you find a chronic congestion of the brain, that has already lasted many months, and threatens to last much longer. Now you hear of a fever that resulted from the over-excitement in some way brought on at school. And again, the instance is that of a youth who has already had once to desist from his studies, and who, since his return to them, is frequently taken out of his class in a fainting fit. �PHYSICAL EDUCATION 11 î We state facts—facts not sought for, but | is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating which have been thrust on our observa­ —cases where there is frequent derange­ ment of the functions, attributed to this tion during the last two years ; and that, too, within a very limited range. Nor or that special cause, or to constitutional have we by any means exhausted the delicacy; cases where there is retarda­ tion and premature arrest of bodily list. Quite recently we had the oppor­ tunity of marking how the evil becomes growth ; cases where a latent tendency hereditary : the case being that of a lady to consumption is brought out and of robust parentage, whose system was established; cases where a predisposition so injured by the régime of a Scotch is given to that now common cerebral boarding-school, where she was under­ disorder brought on by the labour oi adult life. How commonly health is fed and over-worked, that she invariably suffers from vertigo on rising in the thus undermined, will be clear to all morning ; and whose children, inheriting who, after noting the frequent ailments this enfeebled brain, are several of them of hard-worked professional and mercan­ unable to bear even a moderate amount tile men, will reflect on the much worse of study without headache or giddiness. effects which undue application must produce on the undeveloped systems of At the present time we have daily under children. The young can bear neither our eyes a young lady whose system so much hardship, nor so much physical has been damaged for life by the college­ exertion, nor so much mental exertion, course through which she has passed. as the full grown. Judge then, if the Taxed as she was to such an extent that she had no energy left for exercise, she is, full grown manifestly suffer from the excessive mental exertion required of now that she has finished her education, a constant complainant. Appetite small them, how great must be the damage which a mental exertion, often equally and very capricious, mostly refusing meat; extremities perpetually cold, even when excessive, inflicts on the young 1 Indeed, when we examine the merciless the weather is warm ; a feebleness which forbids anything but the slowest walking, school drill frequently enforced, the and that only for a short time ; palpita­ wonder is, not that it does extreme injury, but that it can be borne at all. tion on going upstairs ; greatly impaired vision—these, joined with checked Take the instance given by Sir John Forbes, from personal knowledge; and growth and lax tissue, are among the which he asserts, after much inquiry, to results entailed. And to her case we may add that of her friend and fellow­ be an average sample of the middle­ class girls’-school system throughout student ; who is similarly weak ; who is England. Omitting detailed divisions liable to faint even under the excitement of time, we quote the summary of the of a quiet party of friends ; and who has at length been obliged by her medical twenty-four hours. hours attendant to desist from study entirely. ........................................ ••• 9 If injuries so conspicuous are thus In bed (the younger io hours) frequent, how very general must be the In school, at their studies and tasks ... 9 smaller and inconspicuous injuries ! To In school, or in the house, the elder at one case where positive illness is trace­ optional studies or work, the younger able to over-application, there are probably at play ... ... ... ••• ••• 3$ (the younger 2^ hours) at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil �IT2 At meals........................................ Exercise in the open air, in the shape of a formal walk, often with lesson-books in hand, and even this only when the weather is fine at the appointed time ... EDUCATION hours i 24 And what are the results of this “astounding regimen,” as Sir John Forbes terms it? Of course, feebleness, pallor, want of spirits, general ill-health. But he describes something more. This utter disregard of physical welfare, out of extreme anxiety to cultivate the mind this prolonged exercise of brain and deficient exercise of limbs,—he found to be habitually followed, not only by disordered functions but by malformation. He says :—“ We lately visited, in a large town, a boarding-school containing forty girls; and we learnt, on close and accurate inquiry, that there was not one of the girls who had been at the school two years (and the majority had been as long) that was not more or less crooked 1 ”1 It may be that since 1833, when this was written, some improvement has taken place. We hope it has. But that the system is still common—nay, that it is in some cases carried to a greater extreme than ever; we can personally testify. We recently went over a training-college for young men: one of those instituted of late years for the purpose of supplying schools with well-disciplined teachers. Here, under official supervision, where something better than the judgment of private school-mistresses might have been looked for, we found the daily routine to be as follows :— At 6 o’clock the students are called, ,, 7 to 8 studies, ’ Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, vol. i., pp. 697, 698. At 8 to 9 scripture-reading, prayers, and break­ fast, ,, 9 to 12 studies, ” 12 to leisure, nominally devoted to walk­ ing or other exercise, but often spent ia study, ” Ii to 2 dinner, the meal commonly occupying twenty-minutes, j, 2 to 5 studies, ,, 5 to 6 tea and relaxation, ,, 6 to 8J studies, ,, 8J to 9J private studies in preparing lessons for the next day, J, 10 to bed. Thus, out of the twenty-four hours, eight are devoted to sleep; four and a quarter are occupied in dressing, prayers, meals, and the brief periods of rest accompanying them; ten and a half are given to study; and one and a quarter to exercise, which is optional and often avoided. Not only, however, are the ten-and-a-half hours of recognised study frequently increased to eleven-and-a-half by devoting to books the time set apart for exercise; but some of the students get up at four o’clock in the morning to prepare their lessons; and are actually encouraged by their teachers to do this ! The course to be passed through in a given time is so extensive; and the teachers, whose credit is at stake in getting their pupils well through the examinations, are so urgent; that pupils are not uncommonly induced to spend twelve and thirteen hours a day in mental labour 1 It needs no prophet to see that the bodily injury inflicted must be great. As we were told by one of the inmates, those who arrive with fresh complexions quickly become blanched. Illness is frequent: there are always some on the sick-list. Failure of appetite and indiges­ tion are very common. Diarrhoea is a prevalent disorder: not uncommonly a third of the whole number of students suffering under it at the same time. �PHYSICAL EDUCATION Headache is generally complained of; and by some is borne almost daily for months. While a certain percentage break down entirely and go away. That this should be the regimen of •what is in some sort a model institution, established and superintended by the embodied enlightenment of the age, is a startling fact. That the severe examina­ tions, joined with the short period assigned for preparation, should compel recourse to a system which inevitably undermines the health of all who pass through it, is proof, if not of cruelty, then of woful ignorance. The case is no doubt in a great degree exceptional—perhaps to be paralleled only in other institutions of the same class. But that cases so extreme should exist at all, goes far to show that the minds of the rising generation are greatly over-taxed. Expressing as they do the ideas of the educated community, the requirements of these training colleges, even in the absence of other evidence, would imply a prevailing tendency to an unduly urgent system of culture. It seems strange that there should be so little consciousness of the dangers of over-education during youth, when there is so general a consciousness of the dangers of over-education during child­ hood. Most parents are partially aware of the evil consequences that follow infant-precocity. In every society may t>6 heard reprobation of those who too early stimulate the minds of their little ones. And the dread of this early Stimulation is great in proportion as there h adequate knowledge of the effects; witness the implied opinion of one of our most distinguished professors of physiology, who told us that he did not intend his little boy to learn any lessons until he was eight years old. But while to all it is a familiar truth that a forced «3 development of intelligence in childhood} entails either physical feebleness, or ulti­ mate stupidity, or early death; it appears not to be perceived that throughout youth the same truth holds. Yet it unquestionably does so. There is a given order in which, and a given rate at which, the faculties unfold. If the course of education conforms itself to that order and rate, well. If not—if the higher faculties are early taxed by presenting an order of knowledge more complex and abstract than can be readily assimilated; or if, by excess of culture, the intellect in general is developed to a degree beyond that which is natural to its age; the abnormal advantage gained will inevitably be accompanied by some equivalent, or more than equivalent, evil. For Nature is a strict accountant; and if you demand of her in one direc­ tion more than she is prepared to lay out, she balances the account by making a deduction elsewhere. If you will let her follow her own course, taking care to supply, in right quantities and kinds, the raw materials of bodily and mental growth required at each age, she will eventually produce an individual more or less evenly developed. If, however, you insist on premature or undue growth of any one part, she will, with more or less protest, concede the point; but that she may do your extra work, she must leave some of her more important work undone. Let it never be forgotten that the amount of vital energy which the body at any moment possesses, is limited; and that, being limited, it is impossible to get from it more than a fixed quantity of results. In a child or youth the demands upon this vital energy are various and urgent. As before pointed out, the waste consequent on the day’s bodily exercise has to be met; the wear of brain entailed by the day’s study has to be made good; �114 EDUCATION a certain additional growth of body has in mental labour exceeds that which to be provided for; and also a certain Nature has provided for; the expendi­ additional growth of brain: to which ture for other purposes falls below what must be added the amount of energy it should have been; and evils of one absorbed in digesting the large quantity kind or other are inevitably entailed. of food required for meeting these many Let us briefly consider these evils. Supposing the over-activity of brain to demands. Now, that to divert an excess of energy into any one of these exceed the normal activity only in a channels is to abstract it from the others, moderate degree, there will be nothing is both manifest a priori, and proved a more than some slight reaction on the posteriori, by the experience of every development of the body: the stature one. Every one knows, for instance, falling a little below that which it would that the digestion of a heavy meal else have reached; or the bulk being makes such a demand on the system less than it would have been; or the as to produce lassitude of mind and body, quality of tissue not being so good. One frequently ending in sleep. Every one or more of these effects must necessarily knows, too, that excess of bodily exercise occur. The extra quantity of blood diminishes the power of thought—that supplied to the brain during mental the temporary prostration following any exertion, and during the subsequent sudden exertion, or the fatigue produced period in which the waste of cerebral by a thirty miles’ walk, is accompanied substance is being made good, is blood by a disinclination to mental effort; that, that would else have been circulating after a month’s pedestrian tour, the through the limbs and viscera ; and the mental inertia is such that some days are growth or repair for which that blood required to overcome it; and that in would have supplied materials, is lost. peasants who spend their lives in This physical reaction being certain, the muscular labour the activity of mind is question is, whether the gain resulting very small. Again, it is a familiar truth from the extra culture is equivalent to that during those fits of rapid growth the loss ? — whether defect of bodily which sometimes occur in childhood, the growth, or the want of that structural great abstraction of energy is shown in an perfection which gives vigour and endu­ attendant prostration, bodily and mental. rance, is compensated by the additional Once more, the facts that violent muscular knowledge acquired ? When the excess of mental exertion is exertion after eating, will stop digestion; greater, there follow results far more and that children who are early put to hard labour become stunted; similarly serious; telling not only against bodily exhibit the antagonism—similarly imply perfection, but against the perfection of that excess of activity in one direction the brain itself. It is a physiological involves deficiency of it in other direc­ law, first pointed out by M Isidor St. tions. Now, the law which is thus Hilaire, and to which attention has been manifest in extreme cases, holds in all drawn by Mr. Lewes in his essay on cases. These injurious abstractions of “ Dwarfs and Giants,” that there is an energy as certainly take place when the antagonism between growth and develop­ undue demands are slight and constant, ment. By growth, as used in this anti­ as when they are great and sudden. thetical sense, is to be understood Hence, if during youth the expenditure increase of size; by development, increase �PHYSICAL EDUCATION of structure. And the law is, that great activity in either of these processes involves retardation or arrest of the other. A familiar example is furnished by the cases of the caterpillar and the chrysalis. In the caterpillar there is extremely rapid augmentation of bulk ; but the structure is scarcely at all more complex when the caterpillar is full-grown than when it is small. In the chrysalis the bulk does not increase; on the contrary, weight is lost during this stage of the creature’s life ; but the elaboration of a more com­ plex structure goes on with great activity. The antagonism, here so clear, is less traceable in higher creatures, because the two processes are carried on together. But we see it pretty well illustrated among ourselves when we contrast the sexes. A girl developes in body and mind rapidly, and ceases to grow compara­ tively early. A boy’s bodily and mental development is slower, and his growth greater. At the age when the one is mature, finished, and having all faculties in full play, the other, whose vital energies have been more directed towards increase of size, is relatively incomplete in struc­ ture ; and shows it in a comparative awkwardness, bodily and mental. Now this law is true of each separate part of the organism, as well as of the whole. The abnormally rapid advance of any organ in respect of structure, involves premature arrest of its growth; and this happens with the organ of the mind as certainly as with any other organ. The brain, which during early years is rela­ tively large in mass but imperfect in structure, will, if required to perform its functions with undue activity, undergo a structural advance greater than is appropriate to its age; but the ultimate effect will be a falling short of the size and power that would else have been attained. And this is a part-cause— 115 probably the chief cause—why precocious children, and youths who up to a certain time were carrying all before them, so often stop short and disappoint the high hopes of their parents. But these results of over-education, disastrous as they are, are perhaps less disastrous than the effects produced on the health—the undermined constitu­ tion, the enfeebled energies, the morbid feelings. Recent discoveries in physiology have shown how immense is the influence of the brain over the functions of the body. Digestion, circulation, and through these all the organic processes, are profoundly affected by cerebral excite­ ment. Whoever has seen repeated, as we have, the experiment first performed by Weber, showing the consequence of irritating the vagus nerve, which connects the brain with the viscera—whoever has seen the action of the heart suddenly arrested by irritating this nerve; slowly recommencing when the irritation is suspended; and again arrested the moment it is renewed; will have a vivid conception of the depressing influence which an overwrought brain exercises on the body. The effects thus physio­ logically explained, are indeed exemplified in ordinary experience. There is no one but has felt the palpitation accompanying hope, fear, anger, joy—no one but has observed how laboured becomes the action of the heart when these feelings are violent. And though there are many who have never suffered that extreme emotional excitement which is followed by arrest of the heart’s action and fainting; yet every one knows these to be cause and effect. It is a familiar fact, too, that disturbance of the stomach results from mental excitement exceeding a certain intensity. Loss of appetite is a common consequence alike of very pleasurable and very painful states of �EDUCATION mind. When the event producing a pleasurable or painful state of mind occurs shortly after a meal, it not unfrequently happens either that the stomach rejects what has been eaten, or digests it with great difficulty and under protest. And as every one who taxes his brain much can testify, even purely intellectual action will, when excessive, produce analogous effects. Now the relation between brain and body which is so manifest in these extreme cases, holds equally in ordinary, less-marked cases. Just as these violent but temporary cerebral excitements produce violent but temporary disturbances of the viscera; so do the less violent but chronic cerebral excitements produce less violent but chronic visceral disturbances. This is not simply an inference:—it is a truth to which every medical man can bear witness; .and it is one to which a long and sad experience enables us to give personal testimony. Various degrees and forms of bodily derangement, often taking years of enforced idleness to set partially right, result from this prolonged over­ exertion of mind. Sometimes the heart is chiefly affected : habitual palpitations; a pulse much enfeebled; and very generally a diminution in the number of beats from seventy-two to sixty, or even fewer. Sometimes the conspicuous disorder is of the stomach: a dyspepsia which makes life a burden, and is amenable to no remedy but time. In many cases both heart and stomach are implicated. Mostly the sleep is short and broken. And very generally there is more or less mental depression. Consider, then, how great must be the damage inflicted by undue mental excite­ ment on children and youths. More or less of this constitutional disturbance will inevitably follow an exertion of brain beyond the normal amount; and when not so excessive as to produce absolute illness, is sure to entail a slowly accumulating degeneracy of physique. With a small and fastidious appetite, an imperfect digestion, and an enfeebled circulation, how can the developing body flourish? The due performance of every vital process depends on an adequate supply of good blood. Without enough good blood, no gland can secrete properly, no viscus can fully discharge its office. Without enough good blood, no nerve, muscle, membrane, or other tissue can be efficiently repaired. Without enough good blood, growth will be neither sound nor ■ sufficient. Judge, then, how bad must be the consequences when to a growing body the weakened stomach supplies blood that is deficient in quantity and poor in quality; while the debilitated heart propels this poor and scanty blood with unnatural slowness. And if, as all who investigate the matter must admit, physical degeneracy is a consequence of excessive study, how grave is the condemnation to be passed on this cramming-system above exempli­ fied. It is a terrible mistake, from whatever point of view regarded. It is a mistake in so far as the mere acquire­ ment of knowledge is concerned. For the mind, like the body, cannot assimilate beyond a certain rate; and if you ply it with facts faster than it can assimilate them, they are soon rejected again: instead of being built into the intellectual fabric, they fall out of recollection after the passing of the examination for which they were got up. It is a mistake, too, because it tends to make study distasteful. Either through the painful associations produced by ceaseless mental toil, or through the abnormal state of brain it leaves behind, it often generates an aversion to books; and, instead of that subsequent self-culture induced by �PHYSICAL EDUCATION rational education, there comes continued retrogression. It is a mistake, also, inasmuch as it assumes that the acquisi­ tion of knowledge is everything; and forgets that a much more important thing is the organisation of knowledge, for which time and spontaneous thinking are requisite. As Humboldt remarks respecting the progress of intelligence in general, that “ the interpretation of Nature is obscured when the description languishes under too great an accumula­ tion of insulated facts ”; so, it may be remarked respecting the progress of indi­ vidual intelligence, that the mind is over­ burdened and hampered by an excess of ill-digested information. It is not the knowledge stored up as intellectual fat which is of value; but that which is turned into intellectual muscle. The mistake goes still deeper however. Even were the system good as producing intellectual efficiency, which it is not; it would still be bad, because, as we have shown, it is fatal to that vigour of physique needful to make intellectual training available in the struggle of life. Those who, in eagerness to cultivate their pupils’ minds, are reckless of their bodies, do not remember that success in the world depends more on energy than on infor­ mation ; and that a policy which in cramming with information undermines energy, is self-defeating. The strong will and untiring activity due to abundant animal vigour, go far to compensate even great defects of education; and when joined with that quite adequate education which may be obtained without sacrificing health, they ensure an easy victory over competitors enfeebled by excessive study : prodigies of learning though they may be. A comparatively small and ill-made engine, worked at high pressure, will do more than a large and well-finished one worked at low pressure. What folly is 117 it, then, while finishing the engine, so to damage the boiler that it will not generate steam ! Once more, the system is a mistake, as involving a false estimate of welfare in life. Even supposing it were a means to worldly success, instead of a means to worldly failure, yet, in the entailed ill-health, it would inflict a more than equivalent curse. What boots it to have attained wealth, if the wealth is accompanied by ceaseless ailments ? What is the worth of distinction, if it has brought hypochondria with it ? Surely no one needs telling that a good digestion, a bounding pulse, and high spirits, are elements of happiness which no external advantages can out-balance. Chronic bodily disorder casts a gloom over the brightest prospects ; while the vivacity of strong health gilds even misfortune. We contend, then, that this over-education is vicious in every way—vicious, as giving knowledge that will soon be forgotten ; vicious, as producing a disgust for knowledge; vicious, as neglecting that organisation of knowledge which is more important than its acquisition; vicious, as weakening or destroying that energy without which a trained intellect is useless; vicious, as entailing that illhealth for which even success would not compensate, and which makes failure doubly bitter. On women the effects of this forcing system are, if possible, even more injurious than on men. Being in great measure debarred from those vigorous and en­ joyable exercises of body by which boys mitigate the evils of excessive study, girls feel these evils in their full intensity. Hence, the much smaller proportion of them who grow up well-made and healthy. In the pale, angular, flat-chested young ladies, so abundant in London drawing­ rooms, we see the effect of merciless application, unrelieved by youthful sports ; �EDUCATION and this physical degeneracy hinders their welfare far more than their many accomplishments aid it. Mammas anxious to make their daughters attractive, could scarcely choose a course more fatal than this, which sacrifices the body to the mind. Either they disregard the tastes of the opposite sex, or else their concep­ tion of those tastes is erroneous. Men care little for erudition in women; but very much for physical beauty, good nature, and sound sense. How many conquests does the blue-stocking * ake m through her extensive knowledge of history ? What man ever fell in love with a woman because she understood Italian ? Where is the Edwin who was brought to Angelina’s feet by her German? But rosy cheeks and laughing eyes are great attractions. A finely-rounded figure draws admiring glances. The liveliness and good humour that overflowing health produces, go a great way towards estab­ lishing attachments. Every one knows cases where bodily perfections, in the absence of all other recommendations, have incited a passion that carried all before it; but scarcely any one can point to a case where intellectual acquirements, apart from moral or physical attributes, have aroused such a feeling. The truth is, that out of the many elements uniting in various proportions to produce in a man’s breast the complex emotion we call love, the strongest are those produced by physical attractions; the next in order of strength are those produced by moral attractions; the weakest are those pro­ duced by intellectual attractions; and even these are dependent less on acquired knowledge than on natural faculty — quickness, wit, insight. If any think the assertion a derogatory one, and inveigh against the masculine character for being thus swayed; we reply that they little know what they say when they thus call in question the Divine ordinations. Even were there no obvious meaning in the arrangement, we might be sure that some important end was subserved. But the meaning is quite obvious to those who examine. When we remember that one of Nature’s ends, or rather her supreme end, is the welfare of posterity; further that, in so far as posterity are concerned, a cultivated intelligence based on a bad physique is of little worth, since its descen­ dants will die out in a generation or two ; and conversely that a good physique, however poor the accompanying mental endowments, is worth preserving, because, throughout future generations, the mental endowments may be indefinitely de­ veloped ; we perceive how important is the balance of instincts above described. But, advantage apart, the instincts being thus balanced, it is folly to persist in a system which undermines a girl’s constitu­ tion that it may overload her memory. Educate as highly as possible—the higher the better—provided no bodily injury is entailed (and we may remark, in passing, that a sufficiently high standard might be reached were the parrot-faculty cultivated less, and the human faculty more, and were the discipline extended over that now wasted period between leaving school and being married). But to educate in such manner, or to such extent, as to produce physical degeneracy, is to defeat the chief end for which the toil and cost and anxiety are submitted to. By sub­ jecting their daughters to this highpressure system, parents frequently ruin their prospects in life. Besides inflicting on them enfeebled health, with all its pains and disabilities and gloom ; they not unfrequently doom them to celibacy. The physical education of children is thus, in various ways, seriously faulty. It errs in deficient feeding ; in deficient �PHYSICAL EDUCATION clothing ; in deficient exercise (among girls at least); and in excessive mental application. Considering the régime as a whole, its tendency is too exacting : it asks too much and gives too little. In the extent to which it taxes the vital energies, it makes the juvenile life far more like the adult life than it should be. It overlooks the truth that, as in the foetus the entire vitality is expended in growth—as in the infant, the expenditure of vitality in growth is so great as to leave extremely little for either physical or mental action ; so throughout childhood and youth, growth is the dominant requirement to which all others must be subordinated : a requirement which dictates the giving of much and the taking away of little — a requirement which, therefore, restricts the exertion of body and mind in proportion to the rapidity of growth—a requirement which permits the mental and physical activities to increase only as fast as the rate of growth diminishes. The rationale of this high-pressure education is that it results from our passing phase of civilisation. In primitive times, when aggression and defence were the leading social activities, bodily vigour with its accompanying courage were the desiderata ; and then education was almost wholly physical: mental cultivation was little cared for, and indeed, as in feudal ages, was often treated with con­ tempt. But now that our state is relatively peaceful—now that muscular power is of use for little else than manual labour, while social success of nearly every kind 119 depends very much on mental power; our education has become almost exclu­ sively mental. Instead of respecting the body and ignoring the mind, we now respect the mind and ignore the body. Both these attitudes are wrong. We do not yet realise the truth that as, in this life of ours, the physical underlies the mental, the mental must not be developed at the expense of the physical. The ancient and modem conceptions must be combined. Perhaps nothing will so much hasten the time when body and mind will both be adequately cared for, as a diffusion of the belief that the preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality. Men’s habitual words and acts imply the idea that they are at liberty to treat their bodies as they please. Disorders entailed by disobedience to Nature’s dictates, they regard simply as grievances : not as the effects of a conduct more or less flagitious. Though the evil consequences inflicted on their dependents, and on future generations, are often as great as those caused by crime; yet they do not think themselves in any degree criminal. It is true that, in the case of drunkenness, the viciousness of a bodily transgression is recognised : but none appear to infer that, if this bodily transgression is vicious, so too is every bodily transgression. The fact is, that all breaches of the laws of health are physical sins. When this is generally seen, then, and perhaps not till then, will the physical training of the young receive the attention it deserves. THE END. �INDEX [For this Index the author is indebted to F. H. Collins, Esq., of Edgbaston, Birmingham, who very kindly volunteered to prepare it for him.] A. Abstract-Sciences and their industrial appli­ cations, 19 ; those of the abstract-concrete, 19 “ Accomplishments, the,” in a lady’s education, 10 Accountant, the facility acquired by one, 36 ; Nature, a strict, 113-115 Activities, classification of the, 13 Æsthetic culture, the value of, 30-31 Agriculture, aided by Chemistry, 20, and by Biology, 21 Amusements and Relaxations, the knowledge aiding the, 30-35 . Anatomy and Botany as cultivating the memory, 36 Ancestors, their vigour compared with our own, no “ Animal, a good,” the necessity to be, 43, 94 Animals, their rearing studied more than that of children, 93 ; their vital processes allied to man’s, 94 ; their energies dependent upon their kinds of food, 100 Apperley, Mr., on hunters, 101-105 Applause, the general desire for, 11 Arithmetical Truths should be taught in the concrete, 45 Asceticism and its Relation to Educational Systems, 41 Astronomy, its industrial application, 21 Aveyron, the Wild Boy of, 48 B. Bacon—“ The relative values ofknowledges,” 12 Battles, history is largely composed of their descriptions, 27-28 Beauty, physical, in women is more attractive than erudition, 18 Beliefs, the growing diversity in, 42 Bernard, M. Claude, on the functions of the liver, 96 Biology, its application to agriculture, 21 Bodily Exercise, as needful for girls as boys, 106-109 ! in excess, diminishes thought, 114 Body, the cost of mental achievement to the, 114-117. Books, their educational value over-rated, 25 Botany, its interest to Children, 58 Bread and Butter ; its too great frequency, 96, 103 Brain reacts upon the body, the, 114-117 Breakfast Roll, its history, 19 Burns, the lesson taught by, 84-90 Butterflies, their collection and keeping cultivate the powers of observation, 59 C. Candle, the penalty for playing with a lighted, 84 Cardboard, figures cut in, 64 Carelessness ; its natural penalty, 78-80 Caterpillar as an example of growth, 115 Centre of gravity in Sculpture, 32 Chemistry; its industrial value, 20 Children, prevalent ignorance concerning the rearing of, 23-27 ; is harshness to children a preparation for their after-life ? 73 ; moral precocity equally detrimental with intellectual, 88; their love of fruits and sweets justified, 95-97 Chrysalis, as an example of Development, 115 Citizen, the knowledge which aids the functions of the, 27-30 Civilisation ; its order, and that of education should be similar, 52, 53 Classics, Public Opinion the motive for teaching them, 9 ; and Mathematics form an insignifi­ cant part of a proper Curriculum, 11-12 Clothing is a development of decoration, 9-11 ; the natural penalty for its reckless treatment, 80; should suffice to prevent an abiding sensation of cold, 103-106 Coal-mining, its Failure, from lack of geological knowledge, 22 Cold, its ill-effects on the development of children, 24, 103-106 Colours ; children’s delight in painting, 60 Combe, Dr. Andrew, on the advantages of Fruit in Diet, 96, 97; on the importance of sufficient Clothing, 105 Commands, Parents should give few, 89 ; but when given they should be decisive and con­ sistent, 89 Comte, M.—The Education of the Child should accord with th it of mankind, considered historically, 52 �INDEX Concrete Sciences, and their industrial applica­ tions, the, 19 Conduct, the right ruling of, in all divisions, the aim of education, 13 ; of Society, Parents, and Children relatively considered, 71-74 ; the definitions of good and bad, 74 “Could a Man be Secure,” 12 Cramming Systems, their mischievous results, HÔ-118 Culture, the desirableness of general, 15 ; the present value of the Æsthetic, and its probable future increase, 30-32 D. HANTS, a knowledge of, a small consolation in trouble, 27 Decision should be used by Parents in commands, 89 Decoration in Primitive Societies precedes dress, 9-11 Degenerating, are we ? no Despotism in the State induces Despotism in Education, 41 Development ; its long duration in Children, 48; of the mind, 50-55 > an increase of structure retards increase of size, 115 Discobolus, illustrates ignorance of the law of momentum, the, 32 Diet. {See Food.) Digestion, chemical changes in, 96 ; the organs of, smaller in civilised than in savage races, 103, productive of lassitudes 114 Discipline ; Science superior to language for cultivating the judgment and for moral dis.dpline, 35-39 ; of nature not wholly sufficient for education, 47 ; of unavoidable consequences or the penalties of Nature, 74-87 ; failure of artificial criminal codes, 76 ; English school discipline less severe than the French, 87 ; the aim of, should be to produce a selfgoverning being, 90 Disease, the permanent damage done by, 17 ■Drawing, when and how to teach, 60-63 > apparatus for teaching perspective, 62 Dress. {See Clothing. ) Drinking without Thirst, its evils, 17, 103 Drunkenness, accompanied by physical de­ generacy, 74, 119 E. Eating without hunger, its evils, 17, 103 Education at the present time a matter of custom and prejudice, 11. The ideal, a training in each subject proportionate to its value, 15. The omissions and vices of our present system, 31 ; and its relation to the contemporary social . state, 40-43, 72-74- The past and present systems compared, 43-48. It should conform with the evolution of the faculties, 47-48. Should be a repetition in little of civilisation, 53, 66 : and should commence in infancy with object lessons, 55 Electricity and its industrial applications, 20 Emotions, the prevailing ignorance of their nature» 24 121 Empirical should precede the rational in educa­ tion, 53 Employers and employed ; their relations should be noted in history, 29 Energy in well-fed races is greater than that in ill-fed, 99-101 English and German Boys ; their relative charac­ ters, 91 English and Foreign Labourers compared, 101 Error, suppression of one, followed by the ascendency of another, 43 Euclid, an attractive study when addressed to the understanding, 65 Evolution of the faculties should be the basis of education, the, 47-48. The laws of mental evolution, 50-55 Examinations cause the acquirement ot un­ organised knowledge, which is soon forgotten, 26 Exercise, bodily, as needful for girls as boys, 106-109 > in excess diminishes thought, 114 Eye, an instance of faculty developed through function, 36 ,F. Faculties are developed by the performance of their functions, 36 Family, prevalent ignorance concerning the rearing of a, 23-27 ; and its management, 69 Family _ Government, Richter on the present chaotic state in, 70 Faraday, Professor, on the deficiency of judg­ ment in society, 37 & Fatigue of body or brain should be followed by desistance, 17 Features of young children resemble those of a savage, 87 Feelings react upon the reflective powers, the, 34 Fellenberg—Indolence is not natural to children, 54 J the importance of individual activity in children, 67 Food, to be beneficial should be varied, 21, 103 ; sufficient in quantity--appetite being a natural guide, 95-97 ; and for children highly nutritious, 97-103 ; the easy digestibility of a French dinner, 102 ; food as well as clothing is necessary for maintaining the heat of the body, 104-106. Forbes, Sir John, on the present division of time in girls’ schools, III Fruit, children’s love for, also its digestibility, 96 Friendship, between parents and children, should be cultivated, 83-87 G. Games of children develop the system and pre­ pare it for after life, 16 Genius as well as science necessary to attain the highest results, 34 Geography, in teaching, physical, should precede political, 26 Geology : its industrial applications, 21 ; a knowledge of increases the poetry of nature, 34 Geometry: its industrial uses, 19 ; its lessons �INDEX 122 should commence empirically with models, and afterwards proceed to the rational with Euclid, 63-66 ; Inventional Geometry, 66; Professor Tyndall, on rendering it attractive, 65 Grammar coming after language historically, should be taught after it, 44 Growth is affected by the food consumed, 97100; and by the temperature experienced, 104; an increase of size retards increase of structure, 115 H. Happiness, regarded as a legitimate aim, 41 ; favourable to physical and mental action, 54, 66-68, 109 Hardening Theory, its ill effects on children’s health, 104 Health, its importance for all activities, 17-18, 109, 117 ; some causes and effects of ill-health, 17, 104, no; affected by over-study, 110-118; its preservation a duty, 119 Heart, influences affecting its action, 115 Heat, its science and industrial applications, 20 Heredity and the transmission of defects, 52, 72; likewise of those caused by over-study, 111 History, considered part of a good education, 10 ; its worthlessness as now taught, 15, 27 ; as it should be taught, 28-30 Huxley, Professor, on true science and religion, 38 I. Ignorance, the various effects produced by parental, 23 Impulsiveness should be avoided by parents, 89 Indefinite in education should precede the defi­ nite, the, 51 Indolence in children is unnatural—Fellenberg, 54 ■ • , ■ Insects, their collection and keeping cultivate the powers of observation, 58 Instincts of an infant, self-preservative, 16. They show that progression should be from the simple to the complex, 56 Interest, the advantages of doing work with, 67 Inventional Geometry, 66 K. Kingsley, Mr., his writings against over­ culture, 94 Knowledge, the importance of knowing its rela­ tive value, 12; and Discipline form the two values of an acquirement, 16; Rational superior to Empirical, 22 ; it should be orga­ nised, and not merely acquired, 116 L. Labourers, English and Foreign compared, 101 Language inferior to Science for cultivating the judgment and the memory, 36 Learning by rote inferior to Self-instruction, 26 ; and now falling into disuse, 43 Lehman, on the quantity of Carbonic Acid excreted by Children and Adults, 105 Leisure, the occupations of, 12, 30 Liebig—Clothing is an equivalent for a certain amount of food, 104 Life, its present, falls below its possible dura­ tion, 17 ; the Tables of Mortality show its in­ creased length, 109 Light, the science of, and its industrial applica­ tions, 20 Livelihood, gaining a (indirect self-preservation), the knowledge which best aids, 19-23 Locke, John, on the futility of very severe punishment, 87 M. Machinery, its all-prevailing use, 19 Mann, Horace—“ Education consists too much at present in telling, and not training” 67 Marcel, M.—“ Grammar is not a stepping-stone, but the finishing instrument,” 44 ; Weights and Measures should be taught by the use of models, 45 ; the Child should be shown the relation of the parts of an object, 56 ; for the Mind, it is better to discover than be told, 67 Mathematics indispensable for the arts of con­ struction, 19; and Classics form an insignificant part of a proper curriculum, 11-12 Maxims, of Art are related to psychologic prin­ ciples, 34; and Rules for parental guidance, 87-92 Memory and Judgment cultivated by science, the, 36-37 Mirabeau and the word “ impossible,” 65 Modern life, its increasing strain necessitates a sound constitution, 94, no Moderation to be used and moderate results expected, 88 Montaigne—Sqavoir par cceurn'estpas st;avoir, 43 Mortality, and the effects of cold on infants abroad, 105; Tables of, show an increased length of life, 109 Multiplication Table should be taught experi­ mentally, 43 Music based on science, 33 N. Natural History trains the powers of observa­ tion in children, and should be encouraged, 58, 82 . . r Navigation an industrial application of astro­ nomy, 21 Neatness inculcated by the natural penalties for untidiness, 77-78 Nerve, the effects on the heart of irritating the vagus, 115 Newton, an example of patience, 65 Nursery, one of the evils of over legislation in the, 95 O. Object Lessons, their importance in commenc­ ing education, 45, 56-66 Observation, important tocultivate the powers of, 44 �INDEX Opinions, the various revolutions affecting, 4043 Ornament in dress predominates over use among savages, 9-11 Over-study, some instances of, and injuries brought on by, 110-118 P. Painting, based on science, 32 ; children’s delight in should be made an incentive to drawing, 60 Palmerston’s, Lord, “All Children are born Good,” 71 Paper, children’s powers of manipulation increase by cutting objects in, 64 Parents, their duties precede those of the citizen, 14; the knowledge which aids them in rearing children, 23-27 ; their conduct and children’s relatively considered, 71-74, 76, 80-82 ; their conduct, and not children’s perversity, a fre­ quent cause of disorder, 71; mostly considered as “friend-enemies,” 83; maxims and rules for their guidance, 87-92 Particulars in education should precede the generalisation, 44, 52 Penalties, the natural, considered for the lighter offences, 74-82 J and for the more serious, 82-87 Perspective, when and how to teach it, 62 ; its practicability, 67 Pestalozzi—Education should conform to mental evolution, 46; his practice did not conform to the principles of his system, 48-50 ; education should begin in infancy, 55 Physiology, ignorance of its principles is pro­ ductive of ill-health, 17-18 ; a knowledge of it is necessary for bringing up children, 26 Picture, its true theory is that of objects projected on a plane, 63 Pillans, Professor — Children when properly taught as happy as wh- n at play, 68 Poetry, scientific principles necessary to true, 33; science is itself poetic, 34 Precocity, intellectual should be discouraged, 43 ; likewise moral precocity, 88; its ultimate effect is a falling short in size and power, 114 Promptings of nature should be obeyed, 17 Psychology, its guidance needed by parents and teachers, 25, 26, 49 ; its principles underlie the maxims of art, 34 Public Schools and their Teaching, 23 ; their discipline, 73, 87 Punctuality, to be instilled by the use of its natural penalty, 79 R. Railway making regulated by Geometry, 19; children’s restlessness in travelling by, 72 Relaxations and Amusements, the knowledge which aids the, 30-35 Religion and Science, Professor Huxley on, .38-9 Richter, his description of the chaotic state of moral education, 70; Pas trop gouverner, 89 123 S. Sçavoir par cœur n‘est pas sçavoir—Montaigne, 43 Schools, the Public and their teaching, 23 ; their discipline, 73, 87 ; English and Foreign com­ pared, 91 ; the division of time in various, 111-112 Sculpture based on the principles of science, 32. Science, its truths are of intrinsic value, 15 ; of society and its industrial uses, 21 ; underlies art> 3r—35 î is poetic, 34; cultivates the memory and the judgment, 36-37 ; and fosters religion, 38-39 ; the universal need for, 39 ; the Cinderella of knowledge, 40 ; evolves from its corresponding art, 53 Self-control, needful to parents, 89 Self-governed, the aim of education is to produce a being, 90 Self-instruction to be encouraged, 53, 66 ; its lasting advantages, 67-9 Self-preservation is primarily important, 13 ; the knowledge which aids Direct, 16-18 ; and Indirect, or gaining a livelihood, 18-23 Self-renunciation necessary to scientific men, Professor Tyndall on the, 38 Self-will in Children not to be regretted, 91 Simple in Education should precede the com­ plex, the, 50 Social Observances should be noted in History, 28 ; Social Phenomena are the phenomena of life, 30 Society, its goodness is dependent on the nature of its citizens, 14, 30; “Is ignorant of its own ignorance”—Professor Faraday, 37 Species, their number in Botany and in Zoology, 36 . . Sugar, its importance as Food, 96 Sympathy, children’s desire for, 55-58 ; the regret for offending varies with the amount of, 86 T. Theft, why catalogued as a sin, 74 ; its natural penalty, 86 Time, Systematised Education will increase the amount of Leisure, 30 ; its division at various schools, Hi-112 Tyndall, Professor, on Inductive Inquiry, 38 ; on teaching Geometry attractively, 65 V. Vaccination, a possible cause of degeneration, 110 Vegetarianism entails diminished energy, 99-102 W. Whipping Juvenile Criminals not preventive of crime, 87 Wyse, Mr., On the rational method of teaching geometry, 63 0 �No. 7 of the R. P. A. Cheap Reprints will be Mr. Grant Allens 11Evolution of the Idea of Godd revised and slightly abridged by Mr. Franklin T. Richards, M.A. This will be followed by Mr. Samuel Laings “Human Origins," thoroughly revised and brought up to date by Mr. Edward Clodd. Fifth and Enlarged Edition, Representing the Philosophy as Completed and Revised. Demy 8vo, cloth, 21s. 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Menzies, of Edinburgh ; Messrs. C. Scribner & Sons, New York, or through any bookseller or library. Publishers— The Leadenhall Press,. 50, Leadenhall Street, E.C.; Charles Scribner & Sons, New York. NOTICE.—In due course will be published, in book form, I cnl o • Op’ THE DISINHERITED- in Young Oxford in serial form. } which has been running The Shareholder, New York, says : “ Isola is the most daring drama ever written, and shows masterful power ot expression and extraordinary originality of thought.” JUST PUBLISHED, 8vo, 3s. 6d. net. X /A ITih A IT Al ORAL NERVE AND THE ERROR OF LITERARY VERDICTS. By FURNEAUX JORDAN, F.R.C.S., Sometime Professor ofAnatomy to the Birmingham Royal Society ofArtists, Author of “ Character as Seen in Body and Parentage” All the incidents of intelligent life are the outcome of living.nerve-matter. .With the ascent of weight and complication in the nerve-structures throughout animal life there is a corresponding ascent of intelligence, morals, and emotions. A dog’s brain determines a dog s character ; a man s brain determines a man’s character ; Danish character is based on Danish nerve ; Spanish.character on Spanish nerve. Endowments, propensities, temperaments, and so forth, are properties ot the brain—not of mind, which is merely the action of the brain. If, for example, there is no poetry­ matter, or eloquence-matter, or music-matter in the brain, there is no poetry, or eloquence, or music in the character. If moral nerve-matter is inadequate, the moral character will be inadequate. 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Huxley’s Essays & Lectures L I r The Pioneers of Evolution, . i . 1 SLeCtUreS °D “-The Physical to the Miraculous—AgnosticiSmUPThat^11Sra~The Value of Witness to *** ^ityJ^S S“ t^dWo” ” *°° ^ [ Modern Science and Modern Thought. I ,r . BiograpMcafIntro:xeteby ^^1 up to date-j L Literature and Dogma: 1 I 3 edw an essay towards a better apprehension of the bible By MATTHEW AKSOLD. Riddle of the Universe. I I. ■ ™s great work, already laurous on 7 ’ life-long and well-known sdeZresearches'”“8^“O" *e sition, both from the nhilnc« k. arches. Jt is a unique expo- ■ j T °f 1 nineteehth-century thought on^ " “ WATTS & mTS FORJHS RATIONALIST ™ assocxatxox, limited: _WATT£& CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT,/FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. »aXNT« by watts 4 co.t IJr> johnso^ coort> w g c � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Education : intellectual, moral, and physical Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Spencer, Herbert [1820-1903] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 126, [2] p. ; 22 cm. Series title: R.P.A. Cheap Reprints Series number: No. 6 Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Index compiled by F.H. Collins of Edgbaston [and it's very good - cataloguer's note]. Bust of Spencer on front cover. Publisher's advertisements on last two numbered pages and unnumbered pages at the end. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. First published London: Williams & Norgate, 1861. The cheap edition of the work first published 1878. Stamp on title page "2d given. If this book is returned to W.A. Foyle, 65 Grand Parade, Harringay". Includes bibliographical references and index. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1903 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1241 N620 Subject The topic of the resource Education Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Education : intellectual, moral, and physical), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Education Moral Education NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/3d24d215674d341485c65cb0bba4af32.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=O8cKeOZ-knw7vyyn65u7v0ahCxFpKXvV1DvDtd4QZlHQZ-L4iAALe1Vu4X006SxwLCVb8GlQyEkKtH-2qFx2xj%7EzaZPhLirADyrlGiNDBGCRrptocJHwyhy88txYbw3hPm%7EYkUobagpaY24bzKhKGarUoSi3rHbM0Wl58gAj-gsELI9Z%7E1ni7RBifwrtkbF43mih3RodlM%7ETeo7YTDsxA-xtlABDA1G0%7EuJ0pqhfXBIfe8H8o4HiywPGAl0oQ7IAG9g18gvkOrap2e1uJ6GhepZmdbtJLb8T2C72dKaPOXMa%7EU8MkzMgV8vPlD7YwSr8P1y8PzWD28zMQOi6ghpmMQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM da0d89f81e22459ce3c2559517331801 PDF Text Text ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ethical religion Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Salter, William Mackintire Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 128 p. : ill. (front port.) ; 22 cm. Series title: R.P.A. Extra Series Series number: 9 Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1905 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA1158 RA1632 RA1821 E342 N603 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Coit, Stanton [1857-1944] Subject The topic of the resource Religion Ethics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Ethical religion), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Ethics NSS Religion and Ethics https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/d12c7b52e743976e8024e85a736ce062.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=ZgEYlF1I4tOF61dJ8EfoeX1IxtlXotFVeDfV7dT9X-Iw4c1epmSqbxlccLQo7qqPawJ4MBKk5h%7E675ys3NjZL7QlX56gIHAIG61VFMsk2oFFqxRoFkJE5ALk5zNnjGwvDVbSRU1DPFyuYU9SsHdq7f6fxQ0Xx7W7aRwxCfSox2kTc3BheVucwEKYFsq9uM9q039caiB9qELjBLzpTZW902ZHswuQEe4wc794aaukRBC2uqZnzgLxbVuKOzT-nlQQmbUSkAteok4O6DF3qB3Fs7Svd-%7EG9fX9LBA0RhhSFHVrzTOg-7yd1X8NcI-rDQBxKisXZEEkEo7oy8fWK1CAzw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b370e2b7bfef54971f88a8e5fa7052fd PDF Text Text St&ies of feature Society. NATURAL ETHICS IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. J X Kk • -’M' J...';? l BMMpEpyP? ■'.<-- . » ■ Qxkraets from TSfjree J&eetures given for tfje jK Ethics of Nature Society, '■'■< BY C. W. SALEEBY, M.D., F.R.S.E. ., WATTS & Co., 17, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London. 1912. > PRICE 2d. �the ethics of nature SOCIETY is an Association for the Harmonious Development of Life through the practice of Ethics based on the Laws of Nature, and for the Propagation of the truth that the history of Life in its evolution provides a complete justification for asserting that there is such a thing as the Ethics of Nature. Morality therefore has natural sanction and natural criteria. �B.3II ) NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY ETHICS OF NATURE SOCIETY. Natural Ethics IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. Extracts from Three Lectures given for the ETHICS OF NATURE SOCIETY BY C. W. SALEEBY, M.D., F.R.S.E. WATTS & Co.) ty, Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, London 1912. ��THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY. [Reprinted from the Ethics of Nature Review.] Before turning to- his subject for the evening, Dr. Saleeby spoke of the three delusions which are prevalent as to the origin of Morality—delusions which arise in part from a mis­ understanding of the word Morality. Of these three, the first and oldest is that Morality finds its basis either in some kind of authoritative power or definite law from on High (the Mosaic laws, the Koran, etc.), or in persons representative of someone to whom that power was given (the “divine right of Kings,” the clergy, etc.). Accord­ ing to this delusion, Morality has no natural criterion, and cannot be judged by its effects, but by an authorised code of conduct only. The second delusion is that Morality has arisen without any definite cause or purpose, through Cus­ tom; and the third and most important, which is the common assertion of ecclesiasticism, is that there is no natural, spontaneous, inherent Morality in Man. Even John Stuart Mill, in his “Utilitarianism,” lays it down that morals are not born in a man, but are acquired characteristics imposed on the individual by his surroundings, and having no root in his own nature—that man’s is a purely selfish nature, acting by means of external pressure. It may be taken as an indication of the progress of the last five and twenty years, that this delusion is so rapidly dying out. In turning to the true conception of the Origin of Morality, Dr. Saleeby gave a definition of the term which coincides en­ tirely (as did indeed his lecture from first to last) with the views of the Ethics of Nature Society, not only in senti­ ment, but in actual expression. “Morality is that which makes for more life as against less, and for higher life as against lower.” The definition grows clearest- when we under­ stand what Nature means by “higher” life. Having definitely defined Morality in terms of life, we must turn for its history to the History of Life, which is purely �4 evolutionary. Past historians, past the history of churches, past human dogmas, we come down to the beginnings of Life as it must somehow have arisen on our planet. Already in the vegetable world, the; marvellous structures devisied by Nature for the nurture of the young plant, point to- Morality, according to our definition, since they make for life. Pass­ ing to the animal world, as Herbert Spencer once said, in discussing the subject, even when the first single cell divided itself into two, there was the rude foreshadowing of Moral action—here was a being not wholly selfish. Morality has thus its origin of origins in that great necessity of Life to reproduce itself—a necessity which arose in the presence and irrevocability of Death. The arrangements made in Nature for reproduction are connected from the' first with Morality, and the sacrifices involved in the process- in­ crease steadily as the scale of life ascends. Through the animal world, past the invertebrates-, past the lower forms of vertebrates (fish-, amphibia-, birds) to the- mam­ malia, from the duckmole and the kangaroo up to- the remark­ able monkey tribes, a-nd thence to Human-kind, the scale of progress may be said to be uninterrupted. In due sequence with the general trend, the amount of care, labour, and life devoted by the parents (and especially by the mother) to the young, grows ever greater. More and more stress is laid on Morality, because there is more and more, need for it. From the historical level, we come to the level of positive interpretations, being confronted at the first with the query whether this Mora-lit-y, which is an ever increasing thing in the history of Evolution, has arisen through a particular in­ clination of nature in that- direction; and we conclude that this is undoubtedly not the case, since the na-t-ural law isi uni­ versally the Darwinian law of the survival of the- fittest—of those best suited to their particular time, environment, and circumstances. Yet, though we see that Nature is strictly impartial, a-nd will indifferently choose teeth and claws with murderous in­ tent, or the most delicate o-f reproductive organs imposing absolute self-abnegation and personal risk, it is always in so far as one or other makes for Life and Higher Life. Nature’s bias is vital, and Morality has consequently den �5 veloped in Nature because of its superior survival value. Not­ withstanding that Morality was handicapped from the first, it has won through by that value alone. In order to appreciate what Morality has done for man, let us consider by what means a man survives in the world; not indeed by means of a defensive armour, nor by any offensive weapons, nor by reason of his strength or of his fleetness, but because of his Intellect, that great instrument of adaptabilityAnd this instrument comes to him through Morality, since an intelligent being can only develop, under maternal care, and will develop only as Morality continues to increase. Morality is no invention of men, or of priests, or of amiable enthusiasts; it is the maker of man, and is as necessary to all further development as it has been necessary from the first to natural Evolution. Having existed from all time, being far older than mankind, and older in consequence than all churches and dogmas and creeds-—Morality will doubtless survive1 them all. �G NATURE AND ETHICS. The subject is too large to be dealt with at all completely, and I propose expressing only my own attitude as a student of Nature, from the standpoint of the biologist. The subject, taken more narrowly, lies between Ethics and Biology, the Science of Life. The biologist finds more particularly in the history of life, in its evolution, complete justification for asserting that there is such a thing asi an Ethics of Nature; that Morality has natural sanction and natural criteria. For Moral Education we generally have recourse to the method of former generations ; we refer thei questioning child, not to any ultimate sanction, but to1 an all-seeing and all­ judging power; and in order to make our own commands complied with, we offer the old alternative of punishment and reward. So long as the right people are ruling, and so long as there isi sufficient faith in the authoritative source which they plead, the problem is simple enough. But at such a time as this, when doubt is expressed not only as to what is right and what wrong, but even as to the actual existence of Right and Wrong at all, the matter of Moral Education and the moral basis is entirely changed, and become extremely complicated. We no longer believe in the Fall of Man; we are beginning to understand the Ascent of Man. The fact isi, we are clearly living in a moral interregnum; the original and older sano tions of morality have broken down; those who still profess them will be found to be acting in accordance with what we call “right," simply through their own nature, or custom and public opinion, and not by a real belief in the sanction which they assert. We all know that there is a distinction between Right and Wrong; there are certain sentiments or instincts which do tell us, in crucial instances, how we should act, irrespective of rewards, irrespective of any sanction, irrespective of any thing outside ourselves. But this is not sufficient for all needs; we ask what moral anchorage there can be—• not only what is right, but why it is right. �7 It is to meet this demand, to which Herbert Spencer gave expression in his “Data of Ethics,” that some come forward to-day with what may be termed. “Ethics of Life”-—with what Ellen Key calls the Religion of Life. Her books are well worth reading; for hers is no mystic confession or creed, she simply lays down certain ideas, certain plans, for personal and universal conduct; which she refers to> as the Religion of Life. She believes, as the Ethics of Nature Society does, that in Life and its laws are detailed information and direc­ tion as to what is right and wrong. Professor Bergson’s Philosophy of Life strengthens this theory immeasurably. He has, from his standpoint asi a student of Biology, a clear feeling that in the very facts of Life are to be found certain data on which to build a moral code. It is extremely difficult to refer to facts of Nature without seeming to give implication of design, purpose, or intent. Looking at the facts of the living world (in both low and high forms of life), there is distinctly a “thrust” or impetus (as Bergson has it, an “elan vital”} which seeks to achieve more life. This seems to me a perfectly just statement. Whether Life is to be considered as an almost conscious Entity, striving to realise its o-wn partly idealised purposes, as our individual lives do, we can hardly say. But it certainly does appear so. Life is, above all, says Prof. Bergson, “ a tendency to act cn inert matter”—reminding one of certain biologists who have argued that life looks as if it were seeking to turn as much lifeless matter as possible into living matter. This argument of Bergson reminds one also- of two passages in Shelley,s “Adonais”: “Through wood. and. stream and field and hill and ocean A quickening life from the Earth’s heart has bursit.” . . . “the one Spirit’s plastic stress Sweeps through the dull dense world, compelling there All new successions to the forms they wear.” It is as though Life were something behind Matter, striving to express itself; it isi as if that plan which Tennyson sums up aS “More Life and fuller” were the purpose of living Nature. Above all, this may be seen in contemplating the history of Life. First of all we see no life at all, then we find traces of very simple life; and finally life as we know it to-day; through all the process there seems an almost irresist­ �8 ible desire of Life to multiply, to magnify, to intensify itself. This is shown not only in the life of the individual, but in those ulterior purposes for which more and more the individ­ ual appears' to be designed, and to which more, and more he is devoted. We are- all acquainted with the great paradox of Weismann­ ism, that the individual exists only for the race, to be the host of the immortal germ-plasm, so- that all bodies are simply designed for the making of more life in the future, for parent­ hood, for the enhancement of life, and, above all, for its in­ tensive culture—the making of forms- less numerous, but with greater intensity of what may be called the living flame. This view, which is more and more justified, is the biological statement of the functions of the individual a® designed (if 1 may use the word) throughout all the process' of evolution less for its own life’s sake than for the making of more- life, widespread. Of that age-long process we; are the1 product. What, then, of that aspect of living Nature which has been regarded as nearly murderous, not only a-s non-moral, but actually as anti-moral? John Stuart Mill spoke of living Nature- as a- “slaughter house”; Tennyson pictured Nature “red in tooth and claw” We are all a-ware of the destruction of life, full-grown or immature, in the processes of Nature; many forms of life are designed to- do murder, are ruthless1 instruments for death. Can the proposition of Nature’s desire for Life and Morality be compatible with the enormous- amount of futile death we see on all hands, and with the construction of creatures de­ signed to give death ? Certainly it can ! In the first place, when we point to the destruction and worse than wast-e- amongst the immature (animals, fish, seeds, etc.), we forget that- those who are destroyed serve for the food and life of other—largely of higher—formsThe waste is only apparent. We should first- have looked to the causes of death before we- called it so. If a fish produces- one- mil­ lion eggs yearly, and perhaps only two reach maturity to replace their parents, it- does not follow that there has- been meaningless, fut-ile murders of the others; for they have- gone to serve Nature in another way, by giving food to other species. �9 Nature sets out to make more life and fuller; not to de­ stroy. Animals that hunt and kill for their food possess teeth and claws which, though instruments of murder on the one hand, on closer inspection prove' to be instruments1 for life, since by them life is sustained. This comment may to some extent remove the existing doubt whether Nature affords a sanction for moral conduct. Moral conduct is that which makes for more life; and since Life is to be measured in terms of quality as well as in terms of quantity, we must make the further proviso' that Nature works for intenser (we may safely say for higher) forms; that is, for more life confined in a. narrower space. The ten­ dency to subsist for that belief, to evolve, from that, and to move upon that, forms the basis of the. Ethics of Nature Society. Moral conduct on these' lines will be either that which makes for more life as against less, or that which makes for higher life as against lower1. Lack of time prevents, me from attempting, this evening, to meet, or even to name, all the, difficulties which the subject brings up; they will be dealt, with at, future lectures; but, I do want to repeat that if any of you think this is; a thing to look into, you should read Bergson’s “Creative Evolution,” and Ellen Key’s “Love- and Marriage” (the book has an un­ fortunate title, but the moral and social conduct, which she derives from that theory which it is difficult to avoid calling the Purpose of Life,, isi extremely valuable). These books' I recommend to be read in association with M. Deshumbert’s “The Ethics of Nature,” which is entirely devoted to the statement of our present thesis. The, new theory of Morality, and of the nature of Morality, is based more and more on Biology, relying greatly upon the facts of our natural instincts, especially the parental instinct, and their function. Thus Dr- Mercier, of the Charing Cross Hospital, in his new book, “Conduct and its Disorders,” has come to look at conduct from, the, point of view of Biology, and to controvert the old, wildly delusive doctrine that in man the instincts' have disappeared, and that in place of instincts he has intelligence. Intelligence is not a motor, it is a pilot, and if we really had lost our instincts we should sit like Job motionlessly contemplating life, instead of which �10 we move and do1. The springs of our conduct are those, very instincts which a few years ago, we were said not to possess. On all this subject, Dr. McDougall is the master and pioneer, in his “Social Psychology.” We possess just such instincts as animals in their essential nature, and they underlie all our emotions. Thus the emotion of wonder is the subjective side of what we call the instinct of curiosity. The parental instinct is correlative in us, with “tender emotion.” The more you examine the parental in­ stinct, whether it be exhibited in actual, or foster, or non­ parents, tire more you see that it is the source of all the actions which, consciously or unconsciously, you and I call moral, or good, or right. You find it in the mother who lives, and if need be dies, for her child; you find it in the old maid with her cats; you find it in the doctor with his patient. Psy­ chologists have argued that parental instinct is what I may call anticipatory gratitude; it is nothing of the kind. It is an instinctive feeling for life which is young' or is in need, and which we can help; and it is by no means confined to our own species (where reward in some form might be antici­ pated), but is shown in other species, not self-conscious, which cannot anticipate future repayment. There is good, reason to suppose that if you fuse this instinct, with, others; in o-ur nature; you will produce those qualities which we call moral. The ultimate justification for believing that these acts are moral, is that somehow or other they serve (or will, or can serve) the general life; we recognise in them, at least, an ele­ ment of life-saving. It may be only serving an idea, it may be serving only one particular class. My particular cause for existence is to serve Eugenics, on the theory that we can do most for the general life by devoting our energies to the life that is still unborn. A final question arises if one, desires to make converts either for Eugenics or for the Ethics of Nature Society: the old question of “What has posterity done for me?” or, in the words of Shylock: “On what compulsion must I; tell me that.” There is, of course, no obvious profit, and no obvious reason, but what does the astronomer ask, who, spends his life in amassing stellar data which, in perhaps five hundred years or so; but not, till then, will be of immense cosmological value ? �11 We cannot promise on this theory any direct reward to< be gained, but it will, nevertheless, be involved in the truth that virtue is its own reward. That is to say, if there be in any one of us a native, ineradicable instinct which is essentially parental, a vital instinct, a desire to serve life, we will get out of it just that same satisfaction which follows when we yield to the prompting of any other instincts, whose satisfaction satisfies themJust as in the1 case1 of the astronomer, the labour given and the knowledge one day to be gained—so here, the life one day to be made or saved—these are the in­ volved reward. Beyond such reward as this, the Religion of Life or the Ethics of Nature has none to, offer. But has any ci her Religion or Creed the warrant to offer more; and is not this enou.Q'h ? �12 NATURAL ETHICS AND EUGENICS. Reprinted from the Ethics of Nature Review.] The object of this lecture was to show that the* practical principles of Eugenics are* not only compatible with, but are the actual outcome of the moral evolution described in the first lecture, and to explain the theory and practice of Eugenics in their relation to human life. “By Eugenics I understaind the project of making the highest human beings possible.” The chief factors in this process, as especially named by Sir Francis Galton are “Nature and Nurture.” The Eugenics which concerns itself with the natural or hereditary causes, is called by Dr. Saleeby the primary factor- The nurtural or environmental takes the place of secondary factor. This is inverting the* customary order, where environment is generally represented as answer­ ing most, if not the whole of the question. But although neither of the factors could stand without the other, Eugenists on biological grounds insist that environment is distinctly secondary. Primary Eugenics must again be separately defined and sub­ divided. From the point of view of heredity it is evident that'—assuming the existence of this fact—parenthood must be encouraged on the part of the worthy. This is the first aim of the Eugenist, and goes by the name of Positive Eugenics. Secondly, it is quite evident that the converse of Positive Eugenics must be to discourage' parenthood on the part of the unworthy. This is known as Negative Eugenics. And thirdly, the Eugenics which stands between healthy stocks* and those prime causes of degeneration generally understood to-day under the name of racial poisons, the Eugenics, in short, which strives to keep the worthy worthy, is termed Preventive Eugenics. Now as regards the relation of Eugenics to the theory and practice of Natural Ethics, Positive Eugenics, in the first place, is a process evidently approved by Nature, being simply the process of natural selection by which those beings who �are capable of reproducing their species survive and multiply. Only one point arises here, which has to be met: there are some Eugenists (and Mr. Bernard Shaw is amongst the num­ ber) who propose that this business of encouraging parent­ hood oni the part of the1 worthy should be- carried out by the abolition of marriage. Marriage—and more especially monogamous marriagei—is strictly in keeping with the prin­ ciples of the Ethics of Nature Society, being conducive, not to most life as concerns a high birth-rate, but certainly to most life as concerns a low death-rate. Also', marriage makes the father responsible psychologically and socially for his chil­ dren; this aspect of monogamy has to be considered. Posi­ tive Eugenics will endeavour to work through marriage, which is a natural institution far older than any decree^ or church, and to improve it for the Eugenic purpose. The chief method of Positive Eugenics to-day, is education for parenthood. The education of the young should be from the very start a pre­ paration for parenthood, and should not cease, as it now most commonly does, at that time when it is most needed; namely, at the age of adolescence. Negative Eugenics certainly has a natural sanction. Natural selection might with equal truth be called. Natural rejection. Now the question arises, are we to apply the- prin­ ciple of Natural Rejection to mankind, with the object of preventing the parenthood of the unworthy ? It would cer­ tainly appear to be a natural proceeding. But here- the Ethics of Nature Society says: We are not to kill, on the contrary, we are to fight for those who- cannot fight1 for them­ selves; whereas Nature says these' are- to be exterminated. This apparent opposition between the natural and the moral course of action was dwelt upon at some length by Huxley, in his Romanes Lecture, on “Evolution and Ethics. In this lecture he describes cosmic evolution as being a ruthless process where life advances by means of a general slaughter, and where it is merely a case of “each for himself and the devil take the hindmost,.” Moral evolution, hei said, is the, absolute antithesis to the natural; Moral evolution is the care of the hindmost, and necessitates at all times a course- exactly o-ppo site to the model we have in Nature. There are different opinions as to- Huxley’s reasons for expressing himself in this �14 unjustifiable manner on a subject which he was obviously viewing at the time in a totally false light. And perhaps the simplest and clearest of all explanations is that this very Leer ture was written at a period of unfortunate estrangement between Herbert Spencer and Huxley, and may have been meant deliberately to set at defiance the principles and tenets of Herbert Spencer, who maintained that “ there is a natural evolutionary basis for Ethics?’ Darwin, in his Origin of Species, confesses that we keep alive numbers of persons who, by natural selection, would certainly have been exterminated; but, he adds, in, this case we cannot follow the natural model. And there Darwin left it; there was this antinomy between the “natural” course and man s higher nature, and although it was obviously a wrong thing to let the degenerate multiply, Darwin felt that we must be content to let him multiply, because we are under a. moral obligation to keep him alive. There are Eugenists when want us to, throw moral evolution overboard, as being mere sentimentalism, and to go straight for the destruction of the unfit by means of exposing degen­ erate babies, as the Spartans did, by means of lethal chambers, and by reverting to all the horrors, of our grandfathers’ time, the gallows, chains, and death by starvation for the feeble­ minded- These are: the Eugenistsi who take the sacred name of Eugenics in vain. Eugenics has nothing to do with kill­ ing anybody at any stage of life whatever. Human life, such as it may be, is a, sacred thing, and cannot, be1 treated with contempt at any stage whatever of its development. What the Eugenist may do; however, is> this; he, may distin­ guish between the right to live and the right to become a parent. And this is the simple solution which both Huxley and Darwin missedIn this simple solution the antinomy which both Huxley and Darwin saw between cosmic and moral evolution disappears. Negative Eugenics is going to proceed, first of all, along the lines of killing nobody, and secondly, of taking' care of the unfit under the best possible conditions. The distinction between the process of natural selection and the process advo­ cated by Eugenists, might bei put thus: Eugenics replaces a selective death-rate by a selective birth-rate. Erom the �15 point of view of philosophy and the Ethics of Nature Society, this course of action furnishes thei solution of the apparent antinomy between cosmic and natural evolution. Passing to the third division of Eugenics, it seems that whilst we try to encourage parenthood on the part of the worthy, and to discourage it on the part of the unworthy, we must be prepared also to oppose the degradation of healthy stocks through contact with, or as a result of, racial poisons. Of these poisonous agencies, there are some which we are certain of; how many there may be that are yet unknown remains to be proved. Alcohol, lead, arsenic, phosphorus, and one or two diseases are decidedly transmissible to the future, commonly by direct transference from parent to off­ spring. These are the poisons which Eugenists must fight against, and they are false to their creed and to' their great mission, if they fail to do all they can to root them out. The chief, most urgent, most important task seems to be to inter­ fere with maternal alcoholism. Eugenics has nothing to do with decrying attempts to im­ prove environment. But unfortunately many Eugenists have merely taken it up as an alternative programme to social re­ form; also, in. these same hands, it has become a new instru­ ment for the resurrection of snobbery, on the totally unwar­ ranted view that certain classes, sections, or sets of society are biologically or innately superior to others. No one has yet adduced evidence to prove that what we call the “better” classes are naturally better, though they certainly are better looking, better fed, better rested. Nor has it yet been ascer­ tained what would be the results of giving the food and sleep of the better, to the lower class children. Nurtural advantages are responsible for most of, if not all, the physical superiority of the upper as against the lower classes. As to psychological superiority, evidence is absolutely nil. It is said that a man’s way of spending his leisure gives the man in his true light; and judging by the way in which the “upper” classes spend their spare time, there is certainly no indication of superiority. Eugenics must not be taken as an alternative' to providing the needful factors for a child, bom or unborn. Only that society is truly moral and well organised which makes �16 provision for every child. Adequate provision and adequate nurture for every child, would be no great tax on our purses, for it would bring as a natural consequence the abolition of many prisons, hospitals, and asylums. It is curious that, whilst it is not Socialism to spend money on hospitals for the care of tuberculous, rickety, or otherwise diseased children, it is Socialism to spend a fraction of this money on those children at an earlier stage of their lives; though it is obviously much cleaner, cheaper, and pleasanter to follow this method, than to continue in cur present method of vainly attempting to1 cure what might and should have been prevented. In closing, Dr. Saleeby added that he considered the Eugenic programme to consort completely with the canons' of the Ethics of Nature Society. Printed at tlie “Croydon Guardian11 Offices 145 and 147, North End Croyddii; � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Natural ethics in theory and practice : extracts from three lectures given for the Ethics of Nature Society Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Saleeby, Caleb Williams Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: Reprinted in part from Ethics of Nature Review. "The Ethics of Nature Society is an association for the harmonious development of life through the practice of ethics based on the laws of nature..." -- Inside front cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Please note that this pamphlet contains language and ideas that may be upsetting to readers. These reflect the time in which the pamphlet was written and the ideologies of the author. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1912 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N602 Subject The topic of the resource Ethics Eugenics Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Natural ethics in theory and practice : extracts from three lectures given for the Ethics of Nature Society), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Ethics Eugenics NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b5560d5671a18987d73351661be8b27d.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=BLDMBku3LQB%7ERxuWDtPJYiGlS-w0ljqISgDHgOZNFbnTqbVirUMPosE%7E3SgeRgNsoUUyjmnVtWF5a-BmxSDULLCXcO8eYCP10WAFkd2xTUCSADuSZcRrVB3iO1DLfOVahfmaWmHW6a98l4FXUUKSDWcpM%7Ec5-PFBT1NE92xbHlWn0FAxtoFVb4iKUAn6CSaF8QpExyoXu9Yc1VCFYcEKvdpUmpw8vmLNTAbWS2kzaOs%7ErrXre0Qhip3boR1e71O03mCDqIfoywzwZrir27WWU45n8lg6taQiQGmo1dVxSVeFfepxFxC43zOFMYBNOHepri6hmqBn-%7ESfyZgRZJhZ8w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM d2f72c927c744e7d443ae7f7a12dc4f5 PDF Text Text VHAT T© READ ggestions for the Better Utilisation of Publio Libraries a Substance of an address delivered before the TYNESIDE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY JOHN M. ROBERTSON [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] WATTS & CO., JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. ' 1904 •■Sr*» - ■£ V-.-..'“‘?5Price Fourpence ;..........r ��N5 6* NATIONALSECULARSOCIETY WHAT TO READ SUGGESTIONS FOR THE BETTER UTILISATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES THE SUBSTANCE OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE TYNESIDE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY BY JOHN AL ROBERTSON [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C. 1904 ��WHAT TO READ: SUGGESTIONS FOR THE BETTER UTILISATION OF PUBLIC LIBRARIES I. A good many years ago I was one of a band of amateur assistants to the librarians of the People’s Palace in East London, upon one Sunday afternoon, when there was tried the experiment of throwing open the reading-room to the general public, with miscella­ neous lots of books placed on all the tables. The business of the assistants was to try to gather from the visitors their preferences as to reading, and to supply them with something to their taste. As was to be expected, most comers wanted stories, and of these the supply was abundant. At my table a few read steadily for an hour or two, but no one, I think, the whole after­ noon; and the majority kept their places for only a short time. To have a book was- one thing, to read it was another. How the plan thus started has fared since I know not; but I then received a strong impression of the need for some more systematic and continuous guidance to the great majority of the readers. A rich treasury lay at their disposal; but they needed some steady help to enable them to develop a sufficiently enduring desire to •enjoy it. For the most part they were as sheep without a shepherd. Many librarians, I do not doubt, give much of the needed assistance day by day to many readers; and in populations less restless than those of East London 3 �4 WHAT TO READ public libraries are probably better used than by those in the ordinary course of things ; but my conviction remains that in general they are not nearly as much utilised as they might be, and it is on that view that I want to offer some suggestions, on the one hand to any young people who may care to listen, and on the other hand to those elders who may accept my view and be desirous of giving guidance to the young people of their circle. I would begin by planning for a boy or girl who has just left school, about thirteen or fourteen, and who may have, as all ought to have, some hours of leisure every day—leisure that is apt to be either wasted or devoted too exclusively to amusement. To all such, with access to a public library, there is open in some degree the possibility of becoming fairly well informed, and no less cultured (as the phrase goes) than the majority of middle-class people, whose schooling usually lasts a good deal longer than that of working folks. Young people of the working-class must not suppose that, because they do not get a college education, they can never be well educated. It is only too easy for a youth to go through an English public school and university without being well educated. Not only do the majority never really learn the dead languages on which they spend so much time ; they do not have their minds well opened to the knowledge and the entertainment that is possible to them in their own language. And what they miss may in large measure be attained by poorer people outside of universities. Remember the saying of Carlyle : “ The true univer­ sity of these days is a library of printed books.” Carlyle said that what his own university did for him was to teach him to read in various languages; and as a matter of fact the languages through which he did most of his work (French and German) were not in his univer­ sity curriculum. You will not suppose me to deny that a. �WHAT TO READ 5 good university—-or even a faulty university such as Oxford or Cambridge—may do a great deal for a youth who takes an interest in his studies. And you will not suppose me, on the other hand, to be satisfied with the education given in our ordinary popular schools, or with the social state of things in which young people have to begin (as I began) to work for a living at thirteen, or with the amount of leisure that is thus far possible to the mass of the workers at any age. I am far from being content on any of these points. But what I seek to do now is to help some to make more use of the limited possibilities that do exist, even for working folks’ children. II. Taking the ordinary boy or girl of thirteen, then, and assuming only an ordinary degree of intelligence, I would try to set up a habit of reading by offering stories. That is the natural way for ninety-nine out of a hundred: you must operate on curiosity, and you must first take it as you find it. The great thing is to set up the simple sense of pleasure in reading. Let the stories be as juvenile as you please ; let them even be school-boy serials, so long as they are not mere romances of high­ way robbery, such as some traders are not ashamed to put in the way of poor boys. I do not know much about present-day literature for the young ; but in my own early boyhood I spent many happy hours in reading the books of the late R. M. Ballantyne, and I should think these cannot yet be superseded. They are for many reasons much to be preferred to some later literature in which the young idea is in a disastrously literal sense taught to shoot, and to think of bloodshed as the most admirable of human activities. Ballantyne’s books have for young people both interest and informa­ tion : they recount both adventures and facts, giving them a fairly true idea of some aspects of actual life—the �6 WHAT TO READ life of explorers, hunters, firemen, railway-men, and so forth—with enough of episode and excitement to keep them enthralled. I still keep an affectionate recollection, too, of a certain work of the last century entitled The Swiss Family Robinson. It tells how a Swiss pastor and his family were wrecked on an island—one much better stocked than that of Robinson Crusoe ; and the life they lived, as I recollect it, came as near the level of Paradise as a healthy boy or girl wants to reach. They found everything they wanted, in the light of the father’s amazing knowledge—meat and drink, sago in a fallen sago-palm, natural lemonade in the green cocoanuts (which they tempted the monkeys to throw down at them), turtles, bread fruit, material for clothing, for housing, for luxury ; every day brought a new dis­ covery ; and when, after years of this boundless happi­ ness, the eldest son of that family discovered a neigh­ bouring island on which there was a shipwrecked young lady, and left his Paradise to go and get married and settle down in Europe, no words could express my juvenile contempt for his bad taste. Well, after a boy has read such a book as that he is better fitted to appreciate our own Robinson Crusoe, which is really a much greater book, going deeper into human character, and, what is very important, written in finer English than the other, which is an ordinary translation. I doubt whether this sense of literary quality can be too soon appealed to in young people—at least, after thirteen. As soon as the boy reader can be got away from stories like Fenimore Cooper’s and W. G. Kingston’s and Mayne Reed’s and Henty’s, and the girl reader from her equivalent pleasures, let them try, or try them with, the works of Dickens—first the more amusing, later the more serious. I admit—though I am not at all a. Dickens-worshipper—that a boy or girl of fifteen cannot properly appreciate the power of Dickens ; but I do say �WHAT TO READ 7 that when they can be brought under his spell they have begun to taste of the fountains of the higher litera­ ture ; they begin to undergo a strictly literary effect; they begin to be concerned with character rather than with incident, to brood on life, to realise to some extent what society is. I can remember comparing notes, about the age of fifteen, with a fellow clerk, on the subject of Dickens. Our verdict was: “He makes you think”; and we used to quote his phrases, appreciating their dexterity, their humour, their quaintness. And if a boy does not take to Dickens, he may take to Kingsley ; and that will serve. But above all, the sense of style, which is the choicest of all the joys of reading, is to be cultivated through the reading of poetry. Here, again, we must begin with the simple, the easy. Let it be stories in verse—always rhyme for the beginner—ballads, patriotic songs, any­ thing that will take the youthful palate. But a boy or girl of fourteen or fifteen can appreciate the clear charm of a great deal of Longfellow, or the vigorous tramp of verse like Scott’s Mannion, or his Lady of the Lake, or Lay of the Last Minstrel; and gradually, when the ear has come to delight habitually in cadence, a higher order of pleasure will be found in the greater poets. Tennyson and Mrs. Browning are perhaps more readily enjoyed —at least as regards their rhymed verse—than Shelley ; but any young taster of poetry will soon take delight in such a poem as Shelley’s Cloud; and if you thereafter get him or her to perceive the mastery and the glamour of Keats and Coleridge, you have made a lover of poetry who is not likely to be unfaithful. After that, give the young reader his head in poetry : set him at Milton, Spenser, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Browning, Wordsworth, Arnold : so long as you start with modern verse, and enlist the natural appetite, you are nearly safe. And though some people fear to interest young readers much in poetry, you will in all �I L.-.1X4 JI 8 WHAT TO READ likelihood find that it makes them not less but more con­ cerned for education of a more utilitarian kind. All fine poetry promotes at once imagination and thought; and the sense of the delightfulness of beautiful speech is sure to extend itself to fine prose. Certainly we must guard against limiting culture to the aesthetic side, to the elements of form, style, cadence, and vocabulary ; on this I shall have something to say later ; but let us first and foremost insist on the need to cultivate imagination, even for the purpose of training the critical and scientific intelligence. So practical a thinker as Buckle has gone so far as to say that the poets are among the best trainers of the scientific intelligence ; and you will remember that so distinguished a man of science as Tyndall has to a great extent corroborated him. Even that, however, is not the final “defence of poetry.” Its great vindication is that for all of us it may be a life-long ministry of refined enjoyment, an inward music that can transfigure jarring circumstance and lighten sombre hours as nothing else can ; a music that the poor man can command when he has no access to the other joy of actual sound. I believe that, if you were to ask Mr. Thomas Burt—-whose whole life does honour to the countryside to which he belongs—what it is in books that he has valued most since he began to read them, he would tell you that it is poetry. And I leave you to judge whether his love of poetry has made him unpractical, or inexact, or careless about the working side of life. He could get pleasure from remembered poetry in the coal-pit, and through taking such pleasure he was the sooner qualified to leave the coal-pit and to work with his brain for his fellows in the council-chamber of his country. �WHAT TO READ 9 III. Even then, on the side of pure enjoyment, books can be highly and truly educative ; and if the young reader be so hard worked that he or she does not readily take to what we call dry reading, let not the elders be dis­ couraged. To mothers in particular I would say, do not fret if your daughter in her spare hours shows a passion for novels. If you can only lead her taste upwards on that path—and the best plan is always to travel that way yourself—she will grow wiser and better, not more flighty and indolent. A great novel is a piece of education ; and even some that are hardly great, such as the Little Women of Louisa Alcott, can do much to stimulate the intellect of young people. But those who have read Mrs. Oliphant and Charlotte Bronte and Jane Austen and George Eliot, have gained some real serious insight into life, and are better fitted to live it. And when readers of either sex are able to appreciate the work of the greatest masters of fiction—Thackeray or Hawthorne or Meredith in England, Balzac in France, or any of the great Russians (and they are perhaps the greatest of all) in translation, they have acquired some really vital culture—the kind of culture that deepens character and adds new meaning to all experience. But there are some people, we know, who go on reading little else than novels all their lives—reading them indiscriminately, of course, for no one with a good taste can read new novels all the time ; and even if our taste be not very good, it is well to be warned against that sort of thing. It is a finding of delight in mere dissipation. Let the ingenuous young reader, then, be warned to mix “serious” reading with his literary pleasures as often as he can bring his mind to the effort. If he have a spontaneous taste for science, so much the better; such a taste is a rich possession, making rela­ �TO WHAT TO READ tively easy the attainment of kinds of knowledge that to most people is hard of acquirement. But let not the grown-up guide be distressed if the youngster does not readily take to science. I can remember my father reproaching me, when I was about twelve, for not reading such a book as Hugh Miller’s Old Red Sand­ stone in the time I was spending on Robinson Crusoe. I am not at all sure that he was very deep in the Old Red Sandstone himself, and the title certainly did not allure me to geology. In a great many minds, as in mine, the scientific interest is late to awaken. A common and easy way of advance, however, is to pass from literature, as such, to history. A mind that has been interested by the novel is open to the historical novel—Dumas, say, to begin with, or Scott, or Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities, or George Eliot’s Romola—and from the historical novel to the history is an easy step. At first the young reader will care chiefly for the romance of history—I remember being intensely interested as a boy by Prescott’s Conqzcest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru—and from such beginnings a boy may read history till he begins to realise that conquest is not the noblest side of it. Every boy, of course, should be taught the history of his own country ; and as the ordinary school­ books do little in that direction, set him as soon as may be to read John Richard Green’s Short History of the English People. It is not so very short, but it is none the worse for being as long as two big novels ; and though it has plenty of faults from a scientific point of view, it is still the most alive history of England that you can put in a young reader’s hands. After that, let him try, with Freeman’s General Sketch for a finger­ post—or better, if he can follow it, Mr. Bryce’s Holy Roman Empire—to get an idea of the historical develop­ ment of Europe ; and thereafter let him read all he can of the history of the great nations, extending his know­ ledge of later British history through Macaulay, whose �WHAT TO READ 11 Essays, further, will be found among the best appetisers for European history in general. If he have a strong historic taste, he will turn with pleasure to Hallam for English constitutional history, and for his general Fzhw of Europe in the Middle Ages; but not all will take to the subject so kindly. The essential thing is that the reader be interested. If he is not concerned about history on a larger scale, try him with Carlyle’s French Revolution. It will not exactly make him under­ stand the Revolution, but it will set his mind and imagination to work ; and political comprehension can come later. If interest be once thus roused, history may be made a much more interesting thing than it usually is by taking large views of it. When you have got past the stage of reading it for its romance, you are not neces­ sarily prepared to read with close attention the ordinary chronological narrative, in which kings and queens and generals and statesmen still count for so much, and the masses of men and women for so little. If you feel like this, let me counsel you to go to my early master, Buckle, for the most rousing stimulus that is yet avail­ able to the beginner in historical studies. From his Introduction to the History of Civilisation in England you will learn that there are large meanings in history ; that the broad movement of civilisation can become as fascinating as any story of conquest ; that the welter of historic events, which looks like a great chaos or measureless sea, has its laws, its intelligible sequences, as truly as any department of nature ; and that as you begin to understand these laws the events themselves become newly interesting, even as all plants or forms of life or landscapes do when once you have got a grasp of botany, or biology, or geology. And Buckle has this further merit, that he interests you in the natural sciences in the act of interesting you in the science of human affairs, were it only because he �12 WI-IAT TO READ is himself so intensely interested in them all. For him history is not a mere series of battles and conquests, of kings and dynasties, and religious or political quarrels ; it is also a series of advances in knowledge, of appearances of wise men, of thrilling discoveries, great inventions, aye, and of great books. And when once he has held you with his glittering eye, his glitter­ ing rhetoric, it is only lack of time that will withhold you from trying to follow him on all the paths he has so eagerly trodden. He is steeped in literature as such ; he delights in poetry ; he cannot contain himself when he writes of Shakespeare ; and all the while he is closely intent on the progress of the sciences, which he follows in every detail. IV. Let us not count too hopefully, however, on the deepening of our young reader’s tastes ; or, rather, let us allow reasonable time for his growth in seriousness. After all, the young mind, as a rule, turns more spontaneously to the artistic than to the scientific side of things ; and our concern should be not to have things otherwise, but to see to it that the normal line of move­ ment is followed in a progressive fashion. If the young reader cares specially for the charm of literature, for poetry, for drama, for romance, for style, let him be helped to get the best from all these. Show him, to begin with, that they can be studied critically, and with exactitude. What marks the scholarly study of any subject is just painstaking, the making sure of understanding all the details ; and to that end the young reader, after first getting his enjoyment from the poetry as such, should read his Shakespeare, his Milton, his Chaucer, in the annotated editions that are now common, mastering the obscure allusions, the peculiar idioms, the special uses of words, the archaisms. In this fashion he can give himself, with no great strain, a v �what to read 13 good deal of the kind of discipline that is undergone by careful students at the universities. If, further, he is to get the best from literature, he will do well to read the good critics. Quite young readers can get much stimulus from the essays of Hazlitt. Later, they will get an abundance of both stimulus and guidance from the essays of James Russell Lowell, from those of Matthew Arnold, from the Hours in a Library of Sir Leslie Stephen, from the volumes of the late Professor Minto, and last, but not least, from the History of English Literature by the distinguished Frenchman Taine. I rather think that Taine and the American Lowell make English literature more vividly interesting than do any of our own critics and his­ torians. And as all good criticism is a criticism of life as well as of books and styles, the young reader is in this way also led to the deeper meanings of things. He will go to Emerson as literature, and he will find bracing counsel for life : seeking fine writing he will get great precepts, and the atmosphere of a noble spirit—the best thinking that has yet been yielded by the life of the New World. It is not exactly a coherent philosophy, but it is something nearly as great—an example in consistent magnanimity, incomparably stimulating to young minds. And Emerson gives a kind of introduction to literature that no one else supplies—an introduction to its spirit rather than to its forms, which leaves a sense of special intimacy of appreciation. No man, of course, is an efficient guide on all paths ; and in some directions Emerson is a little narrow, so that you would not learn from him to value Goethe or Gibbon or some other great masters. The young student, accordingly, must learn to give his attention to different prompters, and to care as much as he can for all literatures. If he will learn a foreign language or two, so much the better ; it is no very hard undertaking, and in all large towns there are facilities for it. It is a much �14 WHAT TO READ simpler thing to learn French or German, or even Latin or Greek, than to become a master of the violin or the piano ; and many men spend on billiards an amount of attention and effort that would in a year or two give them fluency in Sanskrit. I might add that a command of foreign languages ought to be, in our country, a means of commercial advancement, for we are nationally deficient in that matter, though we have special need to be proficient. But I limit my appeal, at present, to the interests of the intellectual life, urging simply that the power to read in other languages is an opening of new windows upon life, and a means to mental pleasures that are otherwise hardly attainable. Poetry, in particular, hardly bears translation ; there is a fragrance that evaporates, a beauty that vanishes ; they must be found in the original tongue, if at all. Many excellent books, besides, do not get translated ; it is well worth while, in such a case, to be independent of help. But whether you are so or not, make it a part of your aspiration to know something of other literatures than your own ; and whether or not you master the classic dead languages, make it a point to know something of the classics, and to realise how men thought and felt in other ages, with other beliefs and sanctities, under other skies. There is no great danger, I think, that the ordinary unscholarly man who rises above mere novel-reading will in this way be led to care unduly for what we call belleslettres, fine letters, and to see culture solely in the knowledge of that. Such miscalculation is the mistake, mainly, of literary men and university dons ; the ordinary citizen is usually withheld from such one­ sidedness. If, however, our young reader should chance to be specially biassed to the purely literary view of things, let him be warned that even that is, after all, an ignorant view ; and that literary men who know only poetry and artistic or entertaining prose, or at most the literature of unscientific human experience, �WHAT TO READ r5 are simply ill-educated men. There can be no sound culture in these days without some connected knowledge of the subject-matter of the natural sciences ; just as, on the other hand, there can be no truly scientific thinking on social and political matters without a good knowledge of “ humane letters ”—the lore of feeling and aspiration —as well as of history. In both directions we see many men miscarry. Some, versed only in poetry and fiction, the literature of taste and feeling, passionately seek to impose their essentially ignorant ideals upon the world of politics, where they are only more refined specimens of the average man of passion. A poet who, by force of natural nobleness, transcends that average, is a great aider of civilisation ; a poet who merely turns into song the passions of commonplace men is but a blind guide of the blind. But when a cultivator of the physical sciences in turn thinks to rank as a guide in problems of public conduct on the mere strength of his knowledge of physics, he is no better accredited. There is far more of true political wisdom in a Shelley, with all his vagaries, than in a Tyndall, with all his science. The science of civic life is to be mastered only from the side of civics ; though every science may indeed help to the mastery of every other. It is by bringing to bear on civic problems the temper, the patience, and above all the veracity which builds up the natural sciences, that the gains of modern “ science ” in general are to be socially reaped. Human society, the crown or flower of animal life, is to be understood not by interpreting it in terms of the special laws of the lower grades of evolution, but by learning to see it as a further evolution, for every step of which the laws have to be newly generalised. Sociology is not simple “Darwinism”; and Darwin is only partially a sociologist. He even miscarried through assuming that his generalisation of the conditions of formation of species yielded a final prescription for the control of the �i6 WHAT TO READ human species. But if our politicians, who are by way of being the specialists of social science, would but bring to their problems a moiety of the vigilant patience with which Darwin surveyed his own field, to say nothing of the benign temper in which he worked, they would be on the way to a signal betterment of public action. And towards such progress the disinterested study of science is potentially a precious discipline. V. Nor is this all. No man of fair intelligence and strength of character can reach manhood without spend­ ing some thought on the ultimate problems of life— those which are stated on the one hand through religion and on the other hand through philosophy. To be indifferent on the great issues of life and death is to be wanting in the essential seriousness which is needed to make a human being either good or wise ; and some of the special force of the words “ religion ” and “reli­ gious ” in the past has come from the feeling that mere indifference on these matters implies shallowness. Now, if there is anything made clear by the discussions of the past century, it is that the standing debate on religious questions can be efficiently entered on only on a basis of knowledge of the generalisations of the sciences—the “ human,” that is, as well as the natural. To this con­ clusion all the capable disputants come. Orthodox religion is latterly being defended, not by rejecting the sciences, but by seeking to found on them ; and that lately evolved science in particular which we broadly term Anthropology is being included in the orthodox purview no less than the sciences of Biology and Physics. To know something of Tylor and Lubbock and Spencer and Frazer, or of what they have estab­ lished, is becoming an acknowledged need on all hands, �WHAT TO READ 17 even as it has long been an acknowledged need to know the drift of Darwinism. To have religious or philosophical opinions worth mentioning, then, we must found on some scientific knowledge of those aspects of life and nature which first moved men to frame religions and philosophies. Begin­ ning in this way, the young student will haply stick to the true path of inquiry, which is the historical; that is to say, he will look always to the historical evolution of beliefs in order to shape aright his assent or dissent. And in that way, there is cause to hope, he will best learn the great lesson of tolerance. One thing becomes, I think, quite certain to all students who in any degree proceed upon critical reason—that on each side in every great intellectual strife there has been some error. Whichever side may be relatively right, it has some “blind spot,” some misbelief; and sometimes, looking back, it is much easier to see error on both sides than truth on either. To realise this is to feel, surely, that absolute rightness is no more attainable than absolute happiness, and that the working ideal for thoughtful men is simply that of loyalty to reason, which means constant concern to avoid the snares of prejudice that beset us all, and willingness to admit that, as the best general is said to be merely the one who makes fewest blunders, so the truest thinker is the one who takes most precaution against error. He who has learned this lesson will not readily become a persecutor; and to abstain steadfastly from persecution is a great part of civic wisdom and virtue. VI. In getting knowledge and broadening his mind, then, •our young reader is preparing not only to make the best of life for himself, but to better it somewhat for others. For no culture is truly sound, scientifically �i8 WHAT TO READ speaking, that does not tend to make men and women better citizens. Of what ultimate avail are individual culture and book knowledge if they do not save or further civilisation ? What profits it men in general if they gain their own souls, so to speak, and lose their world ? As I put it before, the problem of civic or corporate well-being is as truly matter of science as any subject­ matter commonly so-called. The trouble is that this,, the very science of sciences, the ultimate practical problem for men, is so seldom studiously approached. You must spend tedious years in exact study, and give proof of having learned something in them, before you are permitted by law to prescribe medicines for the troubles of the mere individual body. But for the immensely complicated “body politic,” so hard to anatomise and understand, every elector is as it were a chartered physician. How many men ever doubt their own fitness to doctor it? How many men take any pains to know scientifically the nature of the frame they pre­ scribe for? In any one of the principal political disputes of the day, how many deem it necessary to make a careful study before they form an opinion and cast a vote ? To take the principal issue of the present moment, how many on either side of the fiscal controversy have felt the necessity of carefully studying economics before coming to their conclusions ? I fear they are but a small percentage. Yet for an industrial State such as ours, economics, ‘‘ political economy,” is plainly the key science. Every elector should try to get some grasp of it. I am not. going in this case to prescribe manuals : it it well to read more than one, comparing one with another; and if you should begin with the splendid rhetoric of Ruskin, who teaches rather as a prophet than as a man of science, there is no harm, provided you remember that eloquence is not necessarily truth, and that it is well to- �WHAT TO READ I9' take further counsel. As to the different economic schools, guidance can best be given otherwise ; but I will offer the suggestion, which I have in some measure tested in teaching, that the young reader should try to take up his economics with his history. Here Buckle will help him. Let him remember that economics is the science of how things actually happen in industry and commerce, in the production and the distribution of wealth, in the creation of riches and poverty. To’ understand these things is a main part of the interest of history ; and the true understanding of them works out as economics. Political economy, in fact, to be worthy of its name, should be a comprehension of some of the main forces which are shaping the history of our own day. And to do this all round, I need hardly say, is the practical end of the science which we call Sociology— that which I have already called the science of sciences—on the practical or human side, even as philosophy is the science of all the sciences on the cosmic side. The young listener or reader may perhaps smile if I call this a fascinating science ; and I do not expect him to be allured to it all at once, though he will find such a book as Spencer’s Study of Sociology surprisingly interest­ ing ; but I promise him—and her—that the day comes when it grows to be fascinating for all who really take any happiness in thinking. And to take happiness in thinking is the gain that comes to all who have been concerned to make any worthy use of that great heritage of books. You may attain it, of course, in other ways as well—in looking on the face of Nature ; in studying flower and rock and tree and cloud ; in watching the pageant of the stars. All of these things, however, you will see better with the help of books ; and if you grow, as we all should, equally on the side of thought and feeling, of heart and head, you will find in the troublous drama of the human life around you your most lasting practical concern. You will care more and �.20 WHAT TO READ more to mend matters, to succour the feeble and the wretched, to bring it about that there shall be less of wretchedness and more of joy. And the scientific way of going about that task—the way of the trained physician as against that of the ignorant amateur or the ■quack—lies in thoroughly understanding how the social body is constituted, how civilisation grows, how States •and races prosper or wane. Such knowledge is sociology. VII. When all is said, however, the good of life to ourselves is to be had in the living of it; and while the desire to better the world for the sake of others is the most sustaining of aspirations, it would hardly be so if in cherishing it we did not find our own inner lives made better for us by the effort. And here it is that the attempt to grasp and master the science of human affairs, the science of society, yields to us that personal reward which is the peculiar ministry of all good literature. It is one of the ways in which we can best triumph over life’s frustrations. Of these there is an abundant supply for all of us; but when you look reflectively in the face of frustration, you realise that it stands for the mere coincidence of things as well as for your own miscalculation ; and against that blind and purposeless face of fortune you have in yourselves the resource of mind, which must prevail, if only you decline to surrender. Thus, for him or her who will use it, literature is a heritage which nothing can take away. The great French writer Montesquieu, who in his •chief works did so much towards the scientific interpre­ tation of social development, has left to us the declara­ tion that he never in his life had a chagrin which half an hour’s reading would not put away. It is to be feared that he was not a very sensitive soul ; he must have been a good deal at his ease in Zion, and he can hardly �WHAT TO READ 21 have been much given to caring about other people’s sorrows. And, indeed, however insensitive he was, he must have been exaggerating somewhat in that assertion: we cannot go through life, any of us, on such easy terms. But, after due deductions have been made, Montesquieu’s, avowal remains for us the revelation of a precious secret. He has pointed to one of the great anodynes for the pains of the mind. And this anodyne, remember, is not a thing purchas­ able by wealth ; it is the treasure of the poor, if they will steadfastly claim it. I have read that a distinguished American millionaire has recently declared that he would give a million dollars for a new stomach. Well, that too is a point at which millions of poor men have the better of him ; but possibly his million may buy him relief. The doctors can do wonders with our stomachs now ; lately, I read of their taking a man’s stomach out and somehow mending it or making him develop a new one ; and happily they can help us by less extreme measures also. Of another American millionaire it is told that, finding himself growing blind, he has offered a million dollars to anyone who will save his eyesight for him ; and here again, though the case is more nearly desperate, wealth may one day buy what would now seem a miracle, such astonishing advances do our oculists make in their mastery of their mystery. But I am very sure that, if a millionaire should offer all his fortune for a new mind, there is no human skill that can supply him ; for the making of a mind that is to be worth having in old age must be the work of all our preceding years. He might buy condensed information, or an assortment of ready-made opinions ; but what he cannot buy is the thinking and judging faculty, the power to enjoy the stores of wisdom and beauty treasured up in books. It is only the perverse, or those who cannot appreciate what they disparage, who make light of books ; either �.22 WHAT TO READ they are ungratefully ignoring what books have done for themselves, or they have not the patience to compass the boon they depreciate. Consider what a library is. It contains so many thousand books, many written merely to entertain, many merely to make money, many by dull people, but also many written by the wise and the witty, the good and the learned, with the purpose of making permanent their best thoughts and their happiest fancies. Sift down your store to these, and what do you possess ? The best thinking and the most felicitous utterance of the people best worth knowing ; living with them, you live in “the best of all good company.” All that they have is yours. Turning your back on the noise and ■emptiness which makes up so much of daily life, you can ■dwell with them in an enchanted air. While the storm blows outside you can sit with the curtains drawn, and be led by Gibbon, at your own will, through the tremen­ dous drama of the ancient world, or by Darwin, through the far vaster vistas of those dim ages in which the human world took its rise. Shelley will sing for you ; Keats will pipe on his Grecian flutes ; and Milton will roll forth for you the strains of his great organ. If the fancy take you, you can be in Mayfair with Thackeray ; in the New England woods with Hawthorne ; or in the mapless Europe of Shakspere, behind whose magic •curtain there goes on forever a transfigured life, which is that of humanity turned into poetry. You may chop logic with Mill, and argue your fill with Herbert Spencer ; and you have this comfort all round, that when you dispute with the writer you read, whether you be right or wrong, he will always leave you the last word. Nay, believe me, it is no fairy tale I am telling you. The fairy gold, in the stories, turns into dead leaves ; but those dead leaves of books reverse the magic, and pay you spiritual gold everytime you have faith to draw. All you need is to care about it. It is given to few of us to save much money ; but it is open to the poorest to �WHAT TO READ 23 save a.great deal of time. You do it by turning time into knowledge, a deposit of which no fraud or com­ mercial disaster can deprive you. And if you still shake your head, and say that fine words butter no parsnips, let me ask you in final challenge how you expect the world’s parsnips are ever to be buttered better than now if men do not attain to a better comprehension of their own existence ? And how are they to rise to that unless they read more, remember more, and think more? Whatever the nations of the world have too little of, there is one thing they all have in superfluity : be their population dense or thin, growing or dwindling, they all have too many blockheads to the square mile. And I notice that on one point the politicians of all our parties are agreed. Whatever they advocate or oppose, what­ ever they say of each other, they all admit that in high places and in low we want more of what they call “efficiency.” And whatever end they may have in view, we may be certain of this, that higher efficiency means more knowledge, more study, more comprehen­ sion, more intelligence, more brains. Then let us all do what we can, each for himself, to get some. �PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., 17, Johnson’s court, fleet street, London, e.c- ��IN THE PRESS. Courses of StudC By J. M. ROBERTSON. This work is expected to extend to between four and five huh J pages. It is an attempt to provide some systematic guidance to pi ' students on all the main lines of book-knowledge. The scheme originated over a dozen years ago from the frequent requests mat the editor of the National Reformer—which post Mr. Robertson held after Mr. Bradlaugh, until the cessation of the journal—for advi* a lines of reading. Such requests seemed to show a commonly fev r. ' and it was partly met by a series of “ Courses ” published from tin * time in the journal in question. About the same period this need recognised by the publication of Messrs. Sargant & Whishaw Book to Books and the first of Mr. Swan Sonnenschein’s bibliographies; but it has been felt that the original plan of “ Cotu^M^gj is worth reviving.. Those published have accordingly been Care^ revised, and expanded by inclusion of the latest literature of impoiand a much larger number of entirely new courses has been uAJS completing the undertaking. The book does not claim to be a. Wii3! complete bibliographies for specialists, but by its aid any diligent. who has access to a fair public library can so follow up his studifiM the main branches of knowledge as to attain competence therein, -y Courses, cover anthropology, mythology, hierology (with special cofirS^^^^ on Judaism and Christianity), mental and moral philosophy, psycholr logic, philology, aesthetics, history (in a series of separate corn • I political economy, sociology, histories of literatures, and the n</’ sciences. ■; fljl w III w ggg&_ AGENTS FOR THE RATIONALIST PRESS ASSOCIATION, LTD.: WATTS & GO., 17,JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, LONDON^W � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource What to read : suggestions for the better utilisation of public libraries Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon) [1856-1933] Description An account of the resource Place of publication: London Collation: 23 p. ; 22 cm. Notes: Substance of an address delivered before the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1904 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context N564 Subject The topic of the resource Libraries Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What to read : suggestions for the better utilisation of public libraries), 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> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bibliography Books and Reading Libraries NSS https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/b0f4d5b5b9a2a3cd600b46d689297a43.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=bsw7sA265YbE%7EJpkla4DhH1f5uwfrgdXRtbQJyI5oUB9l9UkWoIyQMKhnl3U38OLdPzte0Sr-MsPG1G0lySPuZ0gkXxfE4EKoo6wuRe17yweSADuOwsEpVkdRdta8WUjLS5ujJ4hFDKnAPDyQq11lYcT4kOQ483VgjT3jrxcVVn9wOx-6f7cVpz10saDKa46wYV0%7ErE0WRVy7QiVo3YmnMhzY-ZVFGAT1NtFfVgj6es1uWCiIykCw4MhlNBUAFiyQr%7EmntwUkftaRCP6RM6NI0ikXaS7sIYQ%7Eb8v4FdV3h3aRxp%7E4Kte8YcWCalYQX38dKsUl%7E0kgRNmNO2Mt8ngIw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 11200ea062c08e571f2712e4643af829 PDF Text Text NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL A QUESTION OF ETHICS NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE COMING EDUCATION BILL BY J. ALLANSON PICTON, M.A. (Formerly M.P. for Leicester and a Member of the first School Boardfor London) [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] London: WATTS & CO., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. ��CONTENTS - PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION - ■ v - - xv THE BIBLE SPHINX............................................................... i RELIGIOUS EQUALITY............................................................... 9 THE NEW CHURCH RATE .... 16 NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES ... 23 MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS - - - 34 THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN - - 43 THE WRONG TO THE NATION ... 56 CONCLUSION..........................................................................62 INDEX- 77 ��PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION In the arena of education the most significant event since the first issue of this Essay has been the production and withdrawal of TMr. Birrell’s Bill. I do not mention the Act of 1902, because it has appeared to me significant of little but the illimitable evils occasioned by passionate blunders in patriotism. It was the inevitable effect of a “ khaki election.” But the Bill of 1906 was an attempt to correct, so far as education was concerned, that mistake—with what results we know. If, however, our belief in the continuity of progress be sound, it is incon­ ceivable that the reactionary law of 1902 can remain much longer in force. Such a notion would be as simple as that of the child who fancies that an exceptionally long receding ripple indicates the turn of the advancing tide. But if a new Education Bill is introduced, as we are assured it will be, all highest interests demand that it shall not be drawn on lines which will ensure its delivery into the hands of its sectarian foes. In other words, no loophole must be left for associating the public authority, whether imperial or local, with the teaching of dogmas that divide us. A nation which sets to its Government an impossible task ought not to be captious in criticism of failure. Now the task appointed by a reputed majority of English people to successive Ministers of Education has been the establishment of religious equality in the schools, together with security for “ simple Bible teaching.” And this latter phrase practically means, as is abundantly proved in the following pages, the ordinary Scriptural instruction common to the Sunday-schools of the great evangelical sects—Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and all Wcsleyans. But this common belief of those influential sects is, after all, not the belief of the whole nation. For the Church of England, through the voices of her most •zealous and self-sacrificing clergy and most devout laity, denounces that common belief as not only insufficient, but misleading. The Roman Catholics, as a matter of course, protest. It is matter of common fame, to which I shall refer again, that a rapidly The Educa­ tion Bill of 1906. A failure, and the reason why. �vi The prefer­ ence of undenominationalism fatal to religious equality. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION increasing number of Nonconformists themselves have surrendered most important elements of that once common belief. And outside of all these is a dim, uncounted, but formidable host, who utterly deny all miraculous revelation, and who insist, as they have always done, but more loudly than ever now, that their rejection of revelation does not in the least invalidate their claim to full citizenship, including religious equality. What the reputed majority demand, then, amounts to this: that in a nation notoriously divided as to forms1 of religious belief a delusive attempt must be made to establish as “undenominational” one particular form of belief that happens to be shared by certain great and influential sects. Such a position reminds us of what is said of the Emperor Julian by Mr. T. R. Glover in his Life and Letters in the Fourth Century: “A zealot whose principle is the equality of all sects and the preference of one stands in slippery places.” In our times we have to do, not with an individual zealot, but with a congregate or multi-personal zealot, constituted by an alliance of the great evangelical denominations. The principle enunciated by Mr. Glover is, however, quite as applicable in the twentieth century as in the fourth. And the story of the Education Bill of 1906 cruelly exposes the fate of the modern zealot “whose principle is the equality of all sects and the preference of one.” Perhaps I may fairly claim that this painful and wasteful episode in the struggle for national education is a glaring illustration of the main thesis of the following pages. For that thesis, in few words, is simply this: that to teach in the schools of the nation, and by authority of the nation, a transcendental subject on which the nation is for the present irrecon­ cilably divided in opinion is worse than impracticable. It is not only a waste of time and money: it is a perennial source of strife, a deadly injury to citizen education, a cause of hypocrisy, falsehood, and all the forms of immorality inevitably propagated by these vices. Yet hardly once in the course of the Parliamentary debates on that misbegotten Bill was this essential issue fairly faced. With certain happy exceptions, especially among the Labour Members, the prevalent assumption was that we are all agreed on “simple Bible teaching,” though not one champion of a lost cause attempted an articulate explanation of what 1 I say forms because one of my deepest convictions is that the division is super­ ficial only. But the actual realities feebly represented by those forms were earnestly taught in a strictly “ secular” school which I attended for six years of my boyhood. �PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION vii that teaching is. And nearly all ignored the patent fact that this effete assumption has been long drummed out of existence by the discordant sectarian bands who drowned by their noise all the more practical educational issues at School Board elections. Nor has the abolition of School Boards cured the mischief. For it has simply transferred the battle of the Bible to municipal elections, and especially to the choice of “ co-opted members ” on Education Committees. But other signs of the times have portentously risen on the horizon ; Theology?’ and perhaps most significant among them is what is called “the New Theology.” With that I have nothing whatever to do except to insist that, however incorrectly the epithet “ new ” may be otherwise applied, the movement is a novel and, I might even add, a startling illustration of the main positions maintained in this Essay. For, instead of the supposed unanimity of a reputed majority of the nation about the “simple Bible teaching ” of which samples are given in the following pages, we find even among the evangelical Nonconformists themselves an outbreak of the most discordant opinions touching the origin, nature, infallibility, and authority of the very Book whose exclusion from the schools, they tell us, would be sacrilege. Now I am perfectly aware that such dis­ cordance of opinion would be no sufficient objection to the inclusion of the Bible as a “ classic ” in the school curriculum, always provided that it could be treated as schoolmasters treat any other classic, and that every teacher could be really freed from theological bondage. But, as an old School Board hand and present member of a county education committee, I know that these premises are at present simply impossible. For the Bible is in the schools, not as a “ classic,” but as “ the word of God.” Yet now the advocates of the New Theology, from their dis­ tinguished leader the Rev. R. J. Campbell downwards, have practically repudiated every intelligible sense in which the Book could be honestly called the word of God. I must dwell for a moment on this point, because, unfortunately, the theological habits slowly formed during two millenniums impose on good and honest men, I will not say a slippery, but certainly a subtle, use of words which pleases the eye or ear, but leaves the reason befogged. It is therefore necessary here to particularise the new forms which the old problem of the Bible in school has assumed. For when we are told that there is nothing in the new views held by so many Nonconformists at all inconsistent with their advocacy of the old use of �viii Contrast of the new views with ‘ * simple Bible teaching." PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION the Bible as a class-book, it is surely needful to get a clear idea of those new views, and also to remind ourselves of what the old use of the Bible in school was and is. I will dismiss the latter first, because it is only necessary to refer readers to the later pages of this book,1 which, after six years, remain substantially, and indeed for the most pait exactly, true of present practice. In sum, the ancient and present usage amounts to this : That the Bible is presented to the children as the very word of God, as “ God’s letter to mankind,” and bearing everywhere the stamp of divine authority, which it is wicked to doubt. But, of course, the time spirit is too strong for uniform insistence on the old rigid literal interpretation. Thus there is often an attempt on the part of the more intelligent teachers in municipal schools to evade the difficulties of the Creation story, the Fall, and the Tower of Babel, or perhaps of the Almighty’s visit to Abraham’s tent, by feeble suggestions of “ allegory,” always with the reservation that all is the “ word of God.” In this view of contem­ porary Bible-teaching I am generally confirmed by Mr. Nevinson’s recent most interesting letters to the Westminster Gazette on visits which he paid to various elementary schools during the hour of religious instruction. His remarks on the evident anxiety of Council school teachers to avoid any suspicion of heresy were suggestive and painful. Now let us note the contrast between the established usage in public elementary schools—even those called “ undenominational ”— and the ideas so rapidly spreading among Nonconformist supporters of the Bible in school.23 To the “ New Theology,” as expounded by its leader, the Bible has just as much authority as each individual mind feels impelled to assign to it. But its claim to be “ the word of God ” is gone. The first books of the Bible—so constantly prescribed by Council “ syllabuses ” for the religious inspiration of infant minds—are a collection of myths mainly of Babylonian origin. “ The Fall theory is not only impossible in face of the findings of modern science; it is a real hindrance to religion.” The Incarnation, as understood by all recognised 1 See pp. 29 and following. 2 It is.only just to the Rev. R. J. Campbell to note that he at least is consistent, and has joined the Secular Education I.eague. It is only what I should expect of a man with a single eye to veracity. 3 Rev. R. J. Campbell, in The New Theology, p. 64. The italics are my own. But the words are well worth emphasising in view of the constancy with which this old myth is taught to young children as the starting-point of genuine religious history. �PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION ix doctors of theology, whether Catholic or Protestant, is explained away. Not that the divinity of Christ is denied. But it is regarded only as a resplendent illustration of the divinity partly expressed, partly latent, in every other man.1 It is true that, with expansive tolerance, Mr. Campbell thinks “ even the Athanasian Creed is a magnificent piece of work, if only the Churches would consent to understand it in terms of the oldest theology of all”! The date and authority of this “oldest theology ” are not given ; and it is not my business to conjecture the author’s meaning. For my sole purpose in alluding to the book at all is to show how far it shatters the persistent assumption that there is such a thing as “simple Bible teaching” on which the dominant sects are agreed. And the book proves my point, because it is written by the most popular Nonconformist preacher of the day, occupying a sort of episcopal pre-eminence in the central temple of Evangelical Noncon­ formity, and because the book has attained a circulation rarely accorded even to works of fiction. Take up any syllabus23of religious instruction approved by local Education Authorities, and note how impossible its prescription must be to an honest teacher holding the “new theology.” For the greater number of such documents—in fact, almost all—prescribe the story of the Fall for the edification of the youngest children, together with the narrative of the Deluge and the adventures of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of which the mythical characters are clearly involved, though not expressly stated, in the New Theology. Further, the New Testament does not remain intact. For though Mr. Campbell is quite willing that his adherents should believe the story of the Virgin-Birth if they can, he is himself of opinion that it was “ unknown to the primitive Church that it is an unauthorised addition to the earliest Gospels; and that the reference in Matthew i. 23 to the supposed prophecy of such a portent in Isaiah vii. 14 is due to the Evangelist’s ignorance of Hebrews Anyone who observes what a prominent place the story of Bethlehem takes in municipal religion as taught in Council schools can judge of the cruel position into which the New Theology forces any of its adherents who happen to be undenominational school 1 The New Theology, chap. v. 2 The character of these syllabuses, in which th? Act of 1902 has caused no change whatever, is indicated in Chapter IV» 3 New Theology, p. 98. Syllabuses of Bible teaching. �X “Canye not discern the signs of this time ?” PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION teachers. Are they to tell the children what they themselves in the new light believe to be false, or are they to resign their places ? I need not pursue the subject; or I might show that in regard to such fundamental doctrines as the Trinity, the Atonement, Apostolic authority, and the nature of the kingdom of God, followers of this new and popular teaching must find it impossible without hypocrisy to work up to the pattern set before them in the syllabuses adopted by the various education authorities. What, then, is the hope of those who still support such a system ? Do they really think in their heart of hearts that the adherents of the New Theology are a few aberrant and exceptional persons who are negligible in any great question of the national conscience? But in the following pages evidence is given that these ideas prevailed to a large extent among elementary teachers before ever Mr. Campbell was heard of. Are their numbers likely to be lessened now ? I will quote an authority for which I have a more rational reverence than any have who think that religion can be served by blindness to staring facts. For one feature of the character of Jesus does, I think, shine clearly upon us through all the mists breathed by imaginative affection; and that is his splendid veracity. It-was shown, as all the Gospels tell us, in his treatment of the Sabbatarian superstition in his day. It was shown in his exposure of Pharisaism at the peril of his life. It was shown in his daring to cast aside the asceticism of John the Baptist and to rejoice with the sons of men. And it seems to me it was his sense of outraged veracity which gave a tone of anger to his retort upon those who wanted a sign of what could never come, while they were blind to the plain tokens of what was coming. “ O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky. But can ye not discern the signs of this time?” It can scarcely be too often repeated that my argument does not involve any judgment one way or the other on the theological points at issue between the different schools of thought above noticed. My sole object is to expose the hollowness of the pretence that the great majority of the nation are substantially agreed about the Bible, and that they all mean the same thing by “ simple Bible teaching.” Whether the old theologians or the new are right is a question that makes no difference to my argument. At any rate, they disagree. They differ about the dates, authority, and historicity of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, and most �PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xi of the other Old Testament books. They are at variance about the Fall, the meaning of Jewish sacrifices, the Messianic prophecies, the Atonement, the divinity of Christ, the extent of the inspiration of St. Paul, the historical value of the Gospels, and especially of “St. John’s.” But whatever may be the amount of truth attained by any of the contending parties, it is only one party that has the advantage of having its opinions established and endowed in the schools; and that is the rapidly lessening section which holds to the old beliefs common to Nonconformity and Low Church in the year 1871, and then stereotyped once for all by the “ Compromise ” of the Right Hon. W. H. Smith. Yet another sign of the times is the awakening of many earnest Churchmen to the fact that the establishment and endowment of religion, at least in the schools, involves humiliating conditions such as cancel the value both of privilege and money. Thus it was interesting to read in an editorial article of the Church Times on June 14th, 1907, the following endorsement of the practical conclusion which the ensuing pages were written to enforce : “ It is clear that under the conditions of religious disunion prevailing in our country the appro­ priation of public money in payment for religious teaching is a mistake. It would not be impossible to make an equitable provision for all religions alike; but the difficulties are great, and the fanaticism of a small minority can make them insuperable. The only reasonable alternative is to leave the provision of religious teaching entirely to voluntary effort.” This practical conclusion is, of course, reached by a very different course of thought from that of the following essay. And for “ the fanaticism of a small minority ” I would substitute “ the common sense of most.” But the value of the omen is its suggestion that the possessors of a living faith, as distinguished from mere formalists, are beginning to see that they dishonour their faith by allying it with injustice and falsehood. If this sentiment spreads, the wrong will cease.1 1 It is curious to contrast the above High Church frank acknowledgment of obvious justice with the eloquent plea for privileged Puritanism uttered by one of the ablest and most practical statesmen of the day. At Pontypridd, on July 20th, 1907, as reported in the Manchester Guardian, the Right Hon. D. Lloyd-George rightly denounced the system which has given the Church of England millions of public money “for the purpose of conducting little missionary schools throughout the country.” But in eulogising with well-justified patriotism “a race whose intelligence had been cultivated and strengthened and developed by a century of Puritan theology,” he perhaps naturally overlooked the fact that church people have just as good a right to object to a system which gives public money to pay for “ missionary One variety of opinion alone estab­ lished and endowed. The position of Church­ men. �xii New Regu­ lations for Training Colleges. Inconsis­ tency of M inisters of the Crown. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION Yet another sign of the times is to be found in the new “ Regula­ tions for the Training of Teachers,” issued while I write. These regula­ tions provide that no candidate for admission to any training college may under any circumstances be rejected on the ground of religious faith, “or by reason of his refusal to undertake to attend or abstain from attending any place of religious worship, or any religious obser­ vance or instruction in religious subjects in the college or elsewhere."1 The last words, which I have italicised, are obviously incompatible with the requirement of any religious belief whatever in candidates for admission. They clearly leave it open to the intending student to decline any Bible instruction or any lectures in “divinity.” But, of course, the wise men of the Board of Education are quite aware of the facility with which such a regulation may be evaded in already estab­ lished training colleges. They therefore add another regulation, that after August ist, 1907, no new sectarian training college shall be recognised, nor any new hostel, unless connected with an unsectarian institution. Moreover, to ensure compliance with these regulations, as far as possible, the Board will prohibit the examination of candidates by college authorities as a condition of admission. . Other means, of course, will be taken to secure the necessary intellectual fitness of candidates. But the colleges are to be left under no temptation to favour their own theological persuasion. Now, surely, if such regula­ tions are consistently carried out, they will of themselves, without any new Education Bill, make the future use of the Bible in school impos­ sible. For no student can be compelled to receive any instruction therein either in his college “or elsewhere.” Now, if under such circumstances any would desire still to have the Bible in school, they neither love nor honour the book as I do. Unfortunately, however, this does not appear to be admitted by the Ministers of the Crown who are responsible for the new regulations. And a brief note of the attitude they assumed towards an important and influential deputation of Church dignitaries who, on July 20th, schools” of that Puritan theology propagated under the form of “simple Bible teaching.” . But even if the new Educational Bill should deny them the legal right, the moral right will remain. I am well aware that Mr. Lloyd-George would repudiate with honest indignation any idea of maintaining Puritan privilege. But to Church­ men “ simple Bible teaching” is Puritanism. So it is to Catholics and to Unitarians and Rationalists. And I think it is in the course of these pages proved to be really so. 1 Regulations for the Training of Teachers, 8 (d). �PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION xiii 1907, protested against those regulations, may well find a place among the signs of this time. It is only due to the high ecclesiastics, headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who represented Church opinion, to acknowledge that they argued their case with moderation and with the inevitability of conviction necessarily involved in their view of life. On the other hand, the chief merit of the response made by the Prime Minister and Mr. McKenna was their emphatic distinction between the denominational and the national point of view. They did not deny that if teachers were to give instruction in Anglican doctrine they must receive Anglican training. But they did deny that this was a purpose for which public money could be fairly ear-marked. So far as statutes and prescription guaranteed for the present the existence of training colleges with a “ denominational atmosphere,” they admitted the legality of privilege. But so far as statutes and prescription left the Board of Education a free hand in administering grants of public money for individual students, they insisted that national and not denominational interests must determine their action. But one cannot help regretting that they gave their whole case away by needless deprecation of “the secular solution.” For surely, if a teacher requires Anglican training before he can give Anglican instruction, he must also require Biblical training before he can give “ simple Bible teaching ”—all the more, indeed, if he is to make it really simple. But, so far as the regulations show, no student is obliged to receive such training. The Government abjures all responsibility for such things, but will not allow a student to be rejected by any college on account of his refusal to “attend any place of religious worship, or any religious observance, or instruction in religious subjects, in the college or elsewhere.” Indeed, to put the matter plainly, the only forces on which religious people can rely to get these young people trained for simple Bible teaching are church or chapel opinion, under­ hand preferences, spiritual espionage, and in the last issue the social boycott. Now, if by deprecating the “secular solution” our statesmen mean only that they desire a cultivation of right feeling and pure emotion, of reverence, brotherly love, and loyalty to the real order of the universe, I imagine that everyone must agree with them. But there is usually more than this connoted by language of that kind. For the idea seems to be that something very simple and obvious to common humanity is Ambiguity of the phrase “ secular solution.” �xiv PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION offered instead of ecclesiastical mysteries. But surely, when we remember that “simple Bible teaching” includes Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, the conquest of Canaan, God’s delight in David the man of blood, the Virgin-Birth, the Resurrection and the Ascension, we can hardly help feeling that the concomitant rejection of the Church Catechism is rather like “straining out the gnat and swallowing the camel.” Thus much by way of new Preface has been necessary to indicate some signs of the times that have risen above the horizon since the first edition was issued, and in view of which I have considerably altered and enlarged the scope of the work. But for the sake of historical continuity the Preface to the first edition is reprinted here, and the story of the strange lapse of Nonconformity from its former consistency is repeated, because it is at least of some importance to keep on record the fact that objection to the “Compromise” of 1871 did not originate with unbelievers in the Christian revelation, but with lovers of the Bible. For a similar reason a considerable part of the earlier chapters has been preserved in the original form, because it is of still greater importance to remember that long before 1871 the first promoters of “secular” schools were not “infidels,” but religious men. J. A. P. August, 1907. �PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION Thirty years ago, in 1871, when the first School Board for London accepted, with a close approach to unanimity, the well-known resolution proposed by the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, M.P., in favour of Bible­ teaching in the schools, there was a small minority of three who recorded their votes against it. Not one of these three was insensible of the value and importance of the Bible in the education of humanity. On the contrary, they had a reverence for it which was certainly not shared by some of those who voted for the motion. Indeed, two of them had devoted their whole energies up to that date to the work of religious instruction. The first of the three was the Rev. Benjamin Waugh, whose name is now known and honoured throughout the world for the salvation he has brought to tens of thousands of suffering children. The second was the late Mr. Chatfeild Clarke, a sincerely religious Unitarian. The third was the writer of the following pages. Few, if any, would like to confess that they have passed through thirty years of experience without changing an opinion; and I hope I have changed many opinions for the better. But all that I have observed in the course of many imperfect labours in the field of education has only confirmed the conviction expressed by that vote; the conviction that we should have better served the interests of religion as well as of education if we had acted on the judgment of the older Nonconformists, that the Bible is not a proper subject for State patronage and control. In so doing we should only have followed the example set us by those States of Greater Britain whose eyes discern the future more surely than ours. J. A. P. October, 1901. XV �*** In the following pages I mean by “ State schools ” all schools supported by rates and taxes and subject to the Board of Education. By “ municipal schools ” I mean schools provided, managed, and partly supported by County or Town Councils. By “transcendental" religion or doctrines I mean religious beliefs or dogmas that transcend or go beyond the sort of experience or evidence usually required for justice or legislation, and which are also outside the practical necessities of citizen life. �THE BIBLE IN SCHOOL I. THE BIBLE SPHINX The problem of the right use of the Bible in the nation’s schools is a question of morality quite as much as of religion. Yes, say the advocates of its indiscriminate use, it is a question of morality, because you can have no morality without religion, and no religion without the Bible. Without stopping now to argue either of the points thus raised, I may remind the holders of such opinions that some noteworthy men of their persuasion have made these very points a reason for objecting to the indiscriminate use of the Bible in the schools; and by the phrase “indiscriminate use” I mean placing it in the hands of every teacher, whether Catholic, Evangelical, or Rationalist, to give to the children of believers and unbelievers alike explanations and instruction therefrom in the principles of the Christian religion and of morality. The once-honoured name of Edward Miall represents now, I suppose, an extinct species of Nonconformity. Yet, whatever may have been the defects of adaptability which made the sectarian struggle for existence fatal to it, that obsolete type of Nonconformity at least commanded respect by its moral consistency. For when it proposed “the Liberation of Religion from State Patronage and Control” it meant all that it said; and was just as much averse to “State Patronage and Control” in the school as in the Church. And therefore, from the time of Sir James Graham’s Bill, which dates my earliest recollection of the struggle for national education, the majority of English Noncon­ formists stood out against any statutory system of State schools.1 This attitude was for many years impersonated in Edward Miall, who held that under such a system it would be impossible to exclude the Bible, and that the Bible could not be properly taught by unspiritual, still less by unsympathetic or unbelieving, persons. Thus, precisely because in their view no morality was possible without religion, and religion meant to them the Bible as a divine revelation, they insisted that the Book was too sacred a thing for indiscriminate use in the sense defined above; 1 The weaker brethren supported the British and Foreign School Society, which accepted Government grants. But they vainly thought that this did not commit them to the principle of a statutory system of schools. D I The Miallites �2 Devout Secularists. Speech of Sir James A. Picton in 1850. THE BIBLE SPHINX and, therefore, they dreaded the merging of their Voluntary schools in a State system. The next step in the development of Nonconformist opinion on the question is, I fear, entirely forgotten by a younger generation, who think of “ secularists ” in regard to national education as Secularists in belief. Now, among the many historical mistakes for which ambiguity of language, and especially of party epithets, is responsible, few are more absurd than this perversion of recent fact. For just before and after the middle of last century the prophetic eye that is sometimes a gift of earnest religion began to discern not only the inevitability, but the moral and intellectual necessity, of a statutory system of elementary schools. And then some of the most earnestly religious among the Nonconformists—such as the Rev. Edward Baynes and the late Dr. Samuel Davidson—suggested that the difficulty might be evaded by confining State or municipal schools to “ secular ” subjects, and leaving to the Churches the responsibility for supplementing by religious instruction this confessedly imperfect training. I do not know that I can give a better illustration of the views then held by many of the most devout Nonconformists than a quotation from a speech delivered in 1850 by my father, the late Sir James A. Picton, who was born and brought up among the Wesleyans, and was thoroughly evangelical in his belief. At a meeting summoned by several influential men in Liverpool, to petition Parliament in favour of secular education, he moved the following resolution : “That, in order that the rights of conscience may be effectually secured, it should be a fundamental rule that nothing should be taught in any of the schools which favours the peculiar tenets of any religious sect or denomination.” But the speaker did not see in these words any suggestion of the future “ compromise.” He believed that to avoid tenets peculiar to a part only of the nation it would be necessary to confine instruction to secular subjects. At the outset he referred to an article in the Nonconformist newspaper, then conducted by Edward Miall, and strongly opposed to any rate-aided system of schools. He then proceeded as follows :— The gist of the argument is this : that because there are some things in which it would be wrong for the community or State to interfere, therefore the community should interfere in none, but should leave everything to be effected by voluntary effort...... Is the illumination of our streets to be considered all-important, and is the lighting-up of the lamp of knowledge in the souls of darkened millions to be deemed matter of no concern to the community as such?...... If it be right to provide a library, it cannot be wrong to teach to read ; if it be just in principle for the State to provide the means of intellectual gratification, it cannot be unjust to afford the necessary preparation for its enjoyment. ...... The object to be attained is the communication of that knowledge which shall fit a man to understand his social duties and duly to perform his part in relation to this world. This is common ground on which all �THE BIBLE SPHINX 3 can meet, and beyond this the community has no right to proceed. Religious liberty should be absolute, or it is worthless. There cannot justly exist any modification of it. The rights of conscience must be held paramount to all mere human laws...... The practicability of the system of education which we advocate has already been proved with the most complete success in the New England States of America...... But this system is called irreligious, godless, and inimical to religion. Could I bring my mind to this conclusion, I should regard the system with the utmost abhorrence. I have been engaged as a Sunday-school teacher for the last twenty-five years, in attempting to communicate religious instruction to the young, and sooner would I consent to this right arm being severed from my body than it should be upheld in the support of any project adverse to religious truth. It is because I consider this system most favourable to religious teaching that I give it my warmest support. Let us look at the question fairly...... A news­ paper is not of necessity irreligious unless it contain a theological treatise or a sermon. The utmost that can fairly be said is that secular teaching is incomplete ; but it is good as far as it goes. Now what have religious teachers principally to contend with?...... Not so much, I will take upon myself to say, the actual prevalence of vice in the young as a degree of mental apathy or brutal ignorance, to remove which (in Sunday-schools) often involves a most serious waste of time and labour. ...... A system, therefore, which should remove this obstacle, so far from being unfriendly to religion, ought to be looked on as its most powerful auxiliary. But, again, the communication of religious instruction1 requires a different mode of treatment from secular instruction. In the latter some degree of coercion is absolutely necessary, and the attempt to combine the two in simultaneous instruction is too often nominal rather than real, a profession rather than a practice. The element of religion should be love ; its teaching should be the voluntary effusion of a devoted heart. The affections of the young should be called into play, and everything should partake of the gentle and healing influences of Him who “ spake as never man spake.” In thus enlightening the minds of the young, and fitting them for the reception of religious truth, I believe we are acting in accordance with the precepts of the divine Redeemer, who instructed His disciples to “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” No patriotic mind can look abroad on the heaving masses of life around us increasing daily in consciousness of strength, without some degree of apprehension arising, not from the character of our country­ men’s hearts, but from the ignorance and darkness of their minds. The heart of the Englishman still swells with the same generous and manly emotions as it has ever done. The same hatred of oppression, the same love of order, the same sense of justice and right, still form the leading features of his character. But he is dark and longs for light. 1 What the speaker had in his mind was not the teaching of Jewish history, which of course, if sincerity were allowed, might be communicated as easily as Greek or Roman myths, but rather the conveyance of “grace and truth.” I am aware that the distinction sounds antiquated now. And I cordially agree that, since character and conduct are the highest educational end, every teacher, whether in so-called “secular” schools or Sunday-schools, ought to be privileged to convey grace and truth if he can. But in the nation’s schools the exercise of this high prerogative must needs be subject to two essential conditions : (i) That he shall not wound the religious susceptibilities of parents ; (2) that he shall never be faced with the dilemma of hypocrisy or resignation if he should happen to differ from the religion of the majority. And under resignation I include surrender of moral teaching. �I 4 THE BIBLE SPHINX Shall it not be given him ? He thirsts for knowledge. Shall not its refreshing streams be poured into his soul? Justice, kindness, safety, patriotism, all answer yes! “Wisdom and knowledge must be the stability of our times ; then may we hope that the fear of the Lord will be our treasure.” Plausible but fallacious criticism of the "secular solution.” Three courses con­ ceivable ; but only one possible. Justice and patriotism may have answered “Yes,” but sectarianism answered “No.” And in the sequel it was seen that the latter voice was, unfortunately, more potent than was expected by such guileless prophets as the speaker. Of course, such a proposal as the above was open to obvious criticism, on account of its suggested separation of things inseparable. But many advocates of so-called “ secular ” schools were quite as well aware as their critics that the distinction between things sacred and secular is purely arbitrary. They knew that a religion of daily life—of reverence, of devotion, of enthusiasm for good—was worth more than all the rules of arithmetic, but that it might, and would, be taught, or rather inspired, by a good man or good woman even in the process of teaching those rules. They could not, however, quite see how it was possible for such a religion of daily life to be naturally or effectively taught in a course of Bible lessons wherein the good man or good woman was forced to tell lies. And this they held must be the result in a good many instances if teachers were accepted without any profes­ sion of creed, but were expected to teach the average creed of the nation, whether they believed it or not. Now, this difficulty might be avoided in one of three ways—either by allowing every teacher to use the Bible just as he would any other book, and to say of it precisely what he felt, just as he would about the Pilgrim's Progress or Paradise Lost; or, secondly, by allowing only the use of an authorised selection of Bible extracts illustrating the beauty of goodness; or, finally, as suggested by the so-called “ secu­ larists,” by keeping the Bible out altogether. The first solution is, of course, abstractly the right one, and in a hundred years will probably be adopted. But, so long as any considerable section of the people regard the Bible as miraculous and infallible, that solution is impos­ sible. And this should be remembered by liberal thinkers, who talk about the Bible as a “ classic,” which it would be vandalism to exclude from the schools. Nor am I convinced by Dr. Frank Hayward’s urgent and able plea that the Bible, treated on Herbartian principles, leads the child through “historical culture-steps”1—is, in fact, savage with the young barbarian, mythological with the boyish dreamer, while it dramatises the evolution of despotic law and then of responsible 1 Reform of Moral and Biblical Education on the Lines of Herbartianism, Critical Thought, and the Ethical Needs of the Present Day. (Swan Sonnenschein and Co. ; 1902.) �THE BIBLE SPHINX 5 freedom. For it seems to me that the writer gives up the whole case when he admits that Jowett’s suggestion to “treat the Bible like any other book ” is an impossible one. But the freedom of exposition which Dr. Hayward himself advocates would be generally regarded as compliance with Jowett’s suggestion, and would therefore be equally impracticable. To say nothing of denominational State schools, which are still very numerous, the local education committees, selected largely for religious reasons, would not allow it. And if any teacher dared to treat the stories of the Patriarchs, or Joseph, or David, or still more the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke, in accordance with the modern criticism approved by Dr. Hayward, the debates of the local authority would have a special value for the local Press. The second solution, the selection of non-controversial passages, was advocated by the late Professor Huxley. But when he realised his failure, and saw what came of it, he was candid enough to own that the third solution would have worked practically better than his.1 Those who advocate this solution quite share the regret of liberal religionists that most of our great colonies and the United States have found it necessary generally to exclude or severely to limit in their primary schools the use of so precious an inheritance from great times of old. They would even agree that the expedient is a humiliating one. But, then, they do not think that the humiliation attaches to those who would treat the Bible like any other book. They rather think it falls on those who persist in investing it with unreal attributes, such as forbid truth and sincerity in using it. The idea of a book absolutely without an error is now generally, even by most of the religious sects, regarded as a figment of the ages of ignorance. But, while the possibility of error is allowed, the admission of its actual presence is guarded and limited by considerations which have no relation whatever to evidence. It is, I believe, common now for schoolmasters who know anything of geology to explain to their pupils that in the Mosaic account of creation the word “ day ” does not mean twenty-four hours, but an indefinite period of time. Yet those teachers whose culture enables them to estimate the force of congruity in determining the meaning of words, whether in literature or law, must feel sure that the six-times repeated refrain, “The evening and the morning were the ------ day,” determines beyond question the intention of the writer to picture an ordinary day of twenty-four hours. 1 In a conversation with myself. The plan was never adopted, except in the sense that, as even fanatics would not insist on having every word of the Bible read in the schools, some selection was inevitable. But it was not made on Professor Huxley’s lines. It kept always in view the dogmas common to the evangelical denominations. Prof. Huxley's proposal. An inf lllible book recog­ nised no­ where but in school. �6 The teacher and Genesis. The inquisi­ torial rate­ payer. THE BIBLE SPHINX Such teachers may know that various ancient commentators have felt the need of a larger space of time for so majestic a work. But this does not affect the impression made on their common sense that when a man of Hebrew race wrote “ evening and morning ” he must certainly have had in his mind the ordinary Jewish mode of reckoning from sunset to sunset. If, therefore, he tells his young students of truth that the sacred writer meant thousands of ages when he wrote “ days,” this teacher knows in his heart of hearts that he is not speaking the truth required at the moment. It does not in the least matter whether the view here taken as to the significance of “ evening and morning” be correct or not. The point is that it is conscientiously held by a large number of educated teachers who are required to teach the. Bible to children as “the word of God.” And, of course, this special detail as to the meaning of the six days is only fixed upon for distinctness of illustration. But let us leave that detail, or suppose it obscured in a haze of generalities about the undeniable dignity and occasional sublimity of the Bible story of Creation. From the “ Broad Church ” point of view we are told that, whatever may be the sacred writer’s errors in science, no ancient myth, no poetic imagination of uninspired men, ever so nearly approximated to the actual facts of the earth’s origin and development as recorded in the rocks. Be it so—at least, for the purpose of our present argument. Then let the teacher be free to tell this to his pupils; and, if he is a man who happens to know where the narrative came from, let him be free to tell his pupils further that it is a revised and improved edition of a story found inscribed on clay tablets among the ruins of Babylon. Certainly, if he were allowed to take this course, he would be saved from much humiliating prevarication about the “ firmament in the midst of the waters,” “ dividing the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament,” and about the grass and herbs and fruit-trees which brought forth seeds and fruit before the sun was made, and about the creation of birds before the “ creeping thing and beast of the earth.” He might most honestly tell the children that, with all its mistakes, the first chapter of Genesis is a most precious and touching record of some devout soul’s effort to find the secret of the world in God. But the requirement that he shall set it forth as a direct revelation from the Creator of what he did before there was any man to see it is surely a sore strain on any morality in which truth has its proper place. The conservators of a decaying creed, however, demur to any such freedom on the part of teachers. “ We pay our rates and taxes,” they say, “ to have the Bible taught in its simplicity as the word of God. It would be an outrage on our conscience if teachers were allowed to treat �TIIE BIBLE SPHINX 7 it as a human book.” And the advocates of a rate-aided Gospel in municipal schools would add that it is not sectarian religion they want —not, for instance, the Independent theory of Church government, nor Presbyterianism, nor Infant Baptism, nor any such high matters -but only the simple truths of the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Atone­ ment, and Immortality in heaven or hell, and Salvation by the blood of Jesus. A good man whose notion of catholic comprehension is embodied in the Union of the Evangelical Free Churches cannot conceive that there is any touch of sectarianism in State-school religion as thus defined. Perhaps he never meets with anyone who does not hold the simple gospel composed of those doctrines. And if he hears that such eccentric heretics really do exist, he waves them out of sight with such phrases as “entirely exceptional” and “negligible minority.” Whether that answer to the conscientious plea raised by these heretics is in accordance with fact will be a question for our consideration later, though I may remark, in passing, that the first years of the twentieth century have already exposed the arrogance of any such assumption. For the “ New Theology ” movement—already mentioned in the Preface to the present edition of this Essay—has certainly not caused, but only revealed, the widespread scepticism pervading the outwardly orthodox majority. Meantime, I would only observe that the “Nonconformist con- Change in^ science ” has not always been content to measure its own rights by the formist consize of the minority it represented. I am old enough to remember times when the existence of even ten righteous men conscientiously objecting to pay their parish church rates, though there might be five hundred anxious to pay, was thought by good Nonconformists quite a sufficient reason for resistance, even at the cost of distraint or imprisonment. While freely granting that in this preliminary statement of the issue there are involved many incidental points on which I can have no hope of sympathy from the majority, yet, if the substance of it be summarised, I do not see how it can be denied without contradiction of patent facts notorious to all. Who will dispute that on the relations of religion to moral instruction, and of the Bible to religion, discordant and irrecon­ cilable opinions are held with equal intensity of conviction by many of the worthiest members of the commonwealth ? But those differences are more than merely intellectual divergences. They touch on deepest faiths and inspiring hopes and infinite fears. They are the clash of mutually contradictory oracles held by opponents in the debate to be the divinest utterance of their deepest and most real being. Indeed, the differences are such that, if the opinions of any one group are adopted as the law of the people’s schools, all other citizens must suffer painful �8 The only way. TI1E TITLE SPHINX and dishonourable disabilities. No matter what may be the selection made, whether the opinions of Conformists or Nonconformists, of Catholics or Protestants, of Rationalists or of “unsectarian” Evan­ gelicals, all the rest must endure what they regard as the perversion of the State’s authority and resources to mischievous and demoralising uses. As ratepayers they must support out of their wages or wealth the propagation into the new age of doctrines which they detest. As teachers they must either play the hypocrite or take an inferior position. As parents they must either acquiesce in the instillation into their children’s tender minds of what to their parental affection seems dangerous poison, or, by availing themselves of the “ Conscience Clause,” they must inflict on their families the fate of little pariahs during all their school hours. As citizens they must submit to have the whole moral energy of the land they love devoted to immortalising errors which, according to their point of view, may seem superstitious or godless, loose and latitudinarian or promotive of priestcraft, but at any rate offensive to some dearly cherished faith. Under such circumstances I cannot see how the conclusion is to be avoided, that the only way of treating the Bible honestly and reverently in our educational system is to leave it to the voluntary action of Churches, Sunday schools, and other religious organisations, to which its popularity has been much more due than to State patronage and control. In this conclusion I am supported by the invariable acknow­ ledgment of reasonable religious people that such a course is the only logical one, though persistent sentiment resists it. But there are some cases in which English contempt for logic in legislation is obviously mischievous and misplaced. And those are cases in which not merely a rough adjustment to an average expediency is required, but an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of some moral right. Of this instances might be found in the history of religious toleration, the slave trade, and slavery itself. Or if we come down to our own times, the story of the opium trade with China—nay, also of Chinese labour in the d ransvaal—proves abundantly that where the dictates of logic establish moral claims the plea of expediency is always in the end overborne. Some ingenious and plausible objections to the sovereignty of justice in this case will be best treated later on. But if the Bible has to stand like a mysterious and fatal Sphinx, with its unanswered questions and its dire penalties at the gates of knowledge, that is not the fault of the so-called secularists, but rather of the religionists, who refuse to national school teachers unfettered freedom in the interpretation of the Book. �II. RELIGIOUS EQUALITY “ Religious equality ” has too often been interpreted to mean equality of privilege for Christian sects. We have not yet entirely outgrown the feeble tolerance of kindly Commonwealth Puritans who would extend the protection of the law to Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and even Quakers, but who would bore with a hot iron the tongue of a man who should outrage their “ fundamental ” beliefs. Modern sentiment, indeed, protects us from too close an imitation of seventeenth­ century practice in this respect. But in the assumption that the claim to religious equality before the law is morally invalid in the case of Unitarians, Rationalists, Pantheists,1 and Agnostics, the germ of the old cruelty still survives. Now that is just the assumption which has underlain all nineteenth-century discussion by liberal Christians of the rights of “ultra-Rationalists,” or disbelievers in any revelation made by a personal God. The “ Broad Churchman ” repudiates with honest indignation any lingering desire to subject even the “ Infidel ” to secular pains and penalties on account of his unbelief. But he retains an equally honest conviction that the “ Infidel,” by his alleged voluntary alienation from the spiritual life of the Commonwealth, has forfeited any claim to equal consideration with Christians on any question affecting the establishment, endowment, or other public expression of the national religion. This description of the attitude of liberal Christians towards ultra-Rationalists can hardly be accused of exaggeration. Indeed, there are not a few among the former whose objection to the unrestricted citizenship of the “Infidel” is much more distinct. They say that he dishonours their God and Saviour, and that, though they hope his invincible ignorance may be leniently considered by the Supreme 1 If I do not mention “Atheists,” it is because I do not recognise the term as properly applicable to any actual form of belief or unbelief. I never met, nor do I expect ever to meet, a man who would deny that being is eternal. All the self-styled “Atheists” I have ever known have simply denied that my idea of God, or any other idea of God, answers to their notion of eternal being. I am bound to respect their negative attitude. But I should call it Agnosticism, not Atheism. When I find a man who positively denies that there is anything eternal, or, in other words, who thinks that at one moment—so to speak—in the infinite past there was nothing, and at the next moment there was everything, or “the promise and potency” of everything, I will allow him the name of Atheist. But I shall not feel bound to respect his intellect. 9 Limited notions of religious equality. �IO At least it should in­ volve the abolition of compulsory or merce­ nary sacri­ lege. Strain on conscience sometimes involved in “ simple Bible teach­ ing.” RELIGIOUS EOUA LI T\ Judge, yet they cannot consent to involve the nation in moral peril by extending to him a “religious equality” inapplicable to irreligion. It may be readily acknowledged that from this point of view the problem of religious equality raises issues far too vast to be adequately treated in connection with the right use of the Bible in the nation’s schools. But it will presently be seen that, though we cannot help indicating those larger issues, we do not need to lose ourselves in them. For even if we grant, what I, for one, absolutely decline to do, that for the public expression or recognition of the nation’s religious life the legal recognition of the Bible is desirable—as, for instance, in the Coronation service, and in swearing witnesses—yet everyone must surely acknowledge that if any particular public use of the Bible involves hypocrisy and lying, that use becomes a sacrilege, because, in theological language, it desecrates the vessels of the Temple by devoting them to the service of Satan. Now, precisely this is actually involved in the use of the Bible in schools according to the great Smith “Compromise.” Such an objection can only be met by asserting that the desecration is not inherent in the legal usage of the book, but in the infidelity or extreme Rationalism of those who cannot use it aright. And this necessarily involves the corollary that none who are unable honestly to use the Bible in accordance with prevalent opinion ought to accept any office in which such use is required. Now that means practically the exclusion of all who cannot accept the residuum of Biblical belief common to Anglicans, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, and Methodists. The full justification of this assertion must be reserved for a later stage of the argument, when we come to discuss more particularly the position of teachers under the present order of things. Meanwhile I only assume that, if this be so, it raises the question of religious equality for Rationalists in a practical and limited form, such as need not carry us very far into the vast issues suggested above. We need not, for instance, discuss the Broad Church idea that individual alienation from the spiritual life of the Commonwealth may justify the exclusion of that individual from entire religious equality. For obviously we have to do here not with the spiritual life of the nation, but with the Biblical theories which a national school teacher is, as a matter of course, expected to hold and enforce. It is all very well to say that “ theories ” are not expected, but practical teaching. Yet if the practical point be the historical truth of the six days’ creation, or of the conversation of Eve and the Serpent, or of the argument of Balaam’s ass with its master, or the three days’ lodging of Jonah in the belly of a whale, or the Virgin Birth, or the feeding of five thousand people with five loaves and two fishes, or the bodily �RELIGIOUS EQUALITY ii resurrection of Jesus guarded by angels, it is difficult to see how the conscience of the teacher can avoid the issue of fiction or fact. Either the teacher holds that the accuracy of such narratives is guaranteed by an authority independent of historical evidence, or he does not. If he holds the former theory, he can, of course, honestly teach these stories as narratives of fact. But if he does not hold it, even the chance hints occasionally let fall in the secular history lectures of a training college are enough to suggest to him that for such stories historical evidence of the sort required for secular events is not forthcoming. And unless he have a mind exceptionally impervious to the echoes of criticism in the air, he feels in his inmost soul that, however useful as parables or otherwise those old-world tales may be, they have no claim to be treated as historically true. We are not, however, at this point concerned with the special diffi­ culties of intelligent teachers. I have referred to the effect of historical lessons in training colleges only as suggestive of the far more pronounced scepticism pervading the wider circles of moderately-educated people, who are under less temptation to a biassed judgment. And if I use the word “scepticism,” I take it in its proper and original sense of an inquiring spirit. I do not say, and I do not believe, that more than one-fifth, if so many, of English-speaking people reject entirely the idea of a divine revelation given them in the Bible. But I do maintain, because the tone of our current literature of social conversation proves it, that the old matter-of-course assumption of the divinely-guaranteed historic accuracy of the Hexateuch, and the books of Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, - has entirely disappeared from all circles of tolerably well-educated society. No literary aspirant to the pages of our most eminently respectable monthly magazines has now the slightest hesitation in treating the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a figment of the Great Sanhedrim, or of unsupported tradition. The popularity of the late Professor Huxley’s controversial essays cannot be wholly explained by their brightness and vigour. Admiring readers might not go all lengths with him in his negative conclusions. But they were not revolted by his claim to treat the Bible on the common-sense principles that he applied to science; and even this extent of acquiescence involved an immense shifting of the foundations on which their ideas of cosmic and human origins, as well as of Judaism and Christianity, had hitherto rested. Reference to one recent publication alone may save us a good deal of detail. Surely none but bigots can rejoice over the financial diffi­ culties that prevented the completion of the “ Polychrome Bible.” But if there should be any so unsusceptible to the real “powers of the world to come ” as to imagine an interposition of a watchful Providence Sceptical attitude of the ^eneraj public. The “Poly­ chrome Bible.” �12 Religious position of its editors. EELIGIO US EQUALITY in this case, let them look at the volumes issued; let them note the list of contributing scholars, nearly all belonging to churches reckoned as orthodox; let them think of the amount of money sunk in a commer­ cially unsuccessful, but magnificently prophetic, enterprise, and they will be compelled to own that it indicates a flowing tide of new opinion about the Bible. To describe it shortly, it is an incomplete edition of the Hebrew Scriptures with a new translation, accompanied by brief pregnant notes and a very few pictorial illustrations. The feature from which the Polychrome Bible derived its name is the variegated colouring of the pages designed to show at a glance the various documents from which the Hebrew Scriptures, as we have them, are believed by the editors to have been compiled. The treatment is entirely and unreservedly free—as much so as if the subject were the Vedas or the Zendavesta. It is at the same time profoundly reverential, as is indeed most becoming whenever or wherever we study genuine records of man’s struggle upwards from the passions of the brute to the eternal life. The result, however, is a version subversive of many, or indeed most, of our traditional ideas of the Bible. The translation, if it is correct, which, so far as my knowledge goes, I believe it generally is, would often make the evangelical interpretation of crucial passages obviously impossible.1 The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is so entirely rejected that the earliest documents therein of any length and importance are attributed to the latter part of the ninth century B.c., while the narrative of creation in Genesis i. and Levitical regulations, long defended as Mosaic, if nothing else was, are regarded as the work of exiled Jews in Babylon about 500 b.c. The Prophecies of Isaiah are assigned to a number of sacred bards, among whom the Isaiah of former evangelical divines occupies a limited though luminous space. The Psalms are “ the hymn-book of the second Temple.” We are told that “it is not a question whether there be any post-Exilic Psalms, but rather whether the Psalms contain any poems written before the Exile.” My point, however, is not the amount of importance to be attributed to the scholarly judgment of the learned men responsible for this great work, but rather their representative position in the world of religious thought. Had they been condemned heretics, “ aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel,” it might be said that their views are excep­ tional and eccentric, at any rate of no value as evidence of the trend of opinion. But so far is this from being a correct description that the editors are all of them men of high position and some of distinguished fame in English, American, or German Universities, and in communion 1 E.g., Isaiah vii. 14, where for “virgin” we read “young woman.” �RELIGIOUS EQUALITY i3 with national churches or other great and respected Christian denomi­ nations. The chief editor was Dr. Paul Haupt, Professor of Hebrew and the cognate languages in the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and until 1889 Professor Extraordinarius of Assyriology in the University of Gottingen, Hanover. Isaiah has been edited by Dr. T. K. Cheyne, Canon of Rochester, and Oriel Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture at Oxford. Exodus has been treated by Dr. Herbert E. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of Divinity and President of King’s College, Cambridge; the Book of Numbers by Dr. J. A. Paterson, Professor at the Theological Seminary, Edinburgh ; and Deuteronomy by Dr. George A. Smith, Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament Exegesis at the Free Church College, Glasgow. There is no need to give the rest of the thirty-eight names. With the exception of one Unitarian gentle­ man and two Jewish scholars, the three editors of two minor books, all of them would be recognised as official representatives of moderate orthodoxy in religion. Another proof of the revolution in opinion about the Bible is the Encyclopedia Biblica, of which only one volume had appeared when the first edition of the present Essay was published. This great and scholarly work, though involving large expenditure, could hardly demand the vast sum which would have been needed to carry out the original idea of the Polychrome Bible with its Hebrew text, and English trans­ lation, laboriously assigned to various older documents distinguished by different colours. But in any case it must have been a costly work, and the very fact of its completion in four large volumes suggests a popular demand which could not have been found in Great Britain or America fifty years ago. Not that there was less interest then in the Bible. But the demand was almost exclusively for works which would prove the Bible true. Now this is neither the motive nor the burden of the Encyclo­ pedia Biblica. The one purpose is to ascertain the real facts and state them. Nor does such a purpose in the least involve a negative or iconoclastic zeal. For if the Bible were not a valuable inheritance of mankind, such a work as this would not, morally or intellectually, have repaid the enormous labour involved. And, like the parts of the Polychrome Bible, it owes its existence, not to hesitant sceptics, still less to “ blatant infidels,” but to clergymen and others, who are, many of them, shining lights in reputedly orthodox churches. Of the conclusions affirmed it may be said, generally, that while the various writers differ considerably, there is scarcely one of them who can be conceived as endorsing the idea of the Bible implied in the syllabuses of scriptural instruction for public elementary schools. The elaborate and searching article on the Gospels, running to 198 columns, is by two well-known authors—the Rev. Dr. Abbott, late Head Similar case of the En­ cyclopedia Biblica, �T4 Thus ** simple Bible teach­ ing ” be­ comes a theological test. Limitations of the argument. RELIGIOUS EQUALITY Master of the City of London School, and Professor P. W. Schmiedel, holding the Chair of New Testament Exegesis at Zurich. They are not agreed, and the latter is much more “radical ” than the former. It must not be assumed that I agree with him. For, if I point to the fact that he allows only nine brief passages in the Gospels to be “absolutely credible,”1 it is by no means for the purpose of endorsing any such conclusion, but only to emphasise my main point here, that the dif­ ferences of opinion among religious people are enormously great. From which it follows that no education authority has a moral right to expect all young teachers, fresh from the higher instruction now open to them, to give, as a matter of course, such “ simple Bible teaching” as assumes the historicity of the Gospels. And to exclude the increasing number of those who cannot conscientiously do so would be a gross violation of religious equality. The inference I draw from such signs of the times as I have mentioned is not an extravagant one. It is not that the majority of the people in England or America have been converted to pure Rationalism, but only that it is unjust and absurd to say that the rejectors of the historical accuracy of the Bible are a negligible quantity, eccentric heretics, aliens from the spiritual life of their race, and therefore rightly subjected to religious disabilities where questions of national education are concerned. Probably many of my liberal religious readers will think that I have taken a great deal of unnecessary trouble to arrive at an obvious con­ clusion. Of course that is so, they will say; but where are the religious disabilities ? My answer is that those disabilities are twofold—first, denial of the just rights of conscience ; secondly, exclusion from honest and self-respecting service of the nation as teachers in its public schools. I grant that, if disbelievers in Bible history can consent to a colourable hypocrisy, they are not excluded ; but if anyone holds that eligibility to appointment under such a condition constitutes religious equality, with him I will not argue. I was brought up in a different school, and I think it is a loss to the passing generation that the principles of that school are, for the moment, out of fashion. The argument of this chapter necessarily presupposes, as a condition of its practical application, the stage of religious evolution reached by England in our own age. But it would have been manifestly inap­ plicable in any practical way of statesmanship to Wycliffe’s England or even to Oliver Cromwell’s, as that great ruler was obliged sadly to acknowledge. Further, if there are now nations whose prevalent religious feeling is mediaeval rather than modern, the argument would be practically inapplicable also to them. But it does not in the least 1 Encyclopedia Blblica, s.v. “Gospels,” paragraphs 139-40. �RELIGIOUS EQUALITY 15 follow that there is no such thing as eternal right. For, as I have said elsewhere, the only intelligible sense in which moral truth can be called eternal is this : “That whenever and wherever the same conditions occur the same moral truth holds good.” 1 Thus, where the right of private judgment on things religious has been popularly and authoritatively affirmed, justice requires that each man should allow to all others the same unreserved freedom of conscience which he claims for himself. But where the right of private judgment is both popularly and authori­ tatively denied, as it was in the Middle Ages, each man may feel bound to be almost as watchful over his neighbour’s obedience to Church authority as he is over his own. And when the alternative was ever­ lasting hell-fire or heaven I can well conceive that the golden rule of doing unto others as you would they should do unto you might well suggest denunciation of the heretic for the salvation of his soul, or at any rate for the prevention of the spread of his damnable errors. The rule was the same; but the prevalence of superstition made the conditions different, and therefore the practical application was different from what seems right to us. But, at any rate, under mediaeval con­ ditions compulsory uniformity of belief, so far as it could be practically enforced, was perfectly defensible. There is nothing in this acknow­ ledgment to detract in the least from our admiration of the martyrs for individual conviction. Indeed, there is much to enhance our admira­ tion. For they had to contend, not only against brute force, but against the universal convention which confounded ecclesiastical obedience with moral duty—just as, at the present day, acquiescence in “ simple Bible teaching ” is regarded by many as a dictate of the moral law. Yet surely England as a whole, England apart from Scotland or Ireland, England of two or three hundred sects, England of a free Press and free speech and “ liberty of prophesying,” England which has boldly inaugu­ rated of late new programmes of free thought and of free religious organisation, belongs to the twentieth century, not to the fourteenth, and cannot, with any decency, longer maintain that religious equality in the schools should be confined to Low Church and Nonconformist sects. 1 Spinoza: A Handbook to the Ethics, p. 156 «• �III. THE NEW CHURCH RATE b°fmit3th Before the year 1870 the Nonconformists held that it is wrong, unjust, Compromise and even cruel, to make a man pay for the maintenance and spread of and after. N conformist theones of functions. what he holds tQ be religioUS error. j old.fashioned enough fo be of the same opinion still, unless we happen to live in a community that still belongs to the Middle Ages. The sentimental generalities of “ Broad Churchmen,” which appear singularly attractive to Noncon­ formist “ perverts’’—like the late Right Hon. W. E. Forster1—have on this subject blurred the boundary lines of right and wrong in the minds of many influential men of Puritan traditions. With much plausibility they say that men like the late Edward Miall were wrong in assuming that there is a clear and straight-cut dividing-line between things sacied and “secular.” They were wrong, also, in assuming that a national or municipal government ought of right to confine itself to a policy of gas and water, of sewage and sanitation. They were wrong, agaill; in conceiving of government as a corporate policeman, whose only duty is to keep individual citizens from wronging each other. If the life of a man should be treated as a whole, and not as a mosaic of religion, morality, business, and politics, so ought the life of a nation to be treated as a whole. From that point ot view the business of a Government is to foster and co-ordinate all healthy forms of the national energy, w’hether ticketed as religious or secular, social or commercial, aesthetic or practical, individual or collective. Nor is this reaction against administrative nihilism ” confined to Broad Churchmen and Nonconformists. It has generally the support of the Ethical Societies and their organs, among whose aims the substitution of non-theological ethics for religious instruction in the nation’s schools is prominent. I do not understand, however, that the supporters of the Ethical Move­ ment desire to make the denial of revelation a part of our school teaching, still less to extort rates from the pockets of devout evangelicals for the support of such teaching. . ’ Though of limited outlook, Mr. Forster was a very shrewd man. The saying attributed to him, that he “ would get over the religious difficulty in a canter,” at least suggests his knowledge of Nonconformity in his day. He knew that if the sturdy opponents of State patronage and control ” were allowed to have the “ simple Bible teaching of their Sunday-schools patronised and endowed, their consciences would be satisfied ; and they would not be able to conceive any reasonable objection on grounds ot conscience by anyone else. b 16 �THE NEW CHURCH RATE 17 It is at this point that I find a limit to the generous theories of the State’s function, which have so largely superseded that of the corporate policeman. There are, I believe, other limits; for many methods of social action derive all their charm and effectiveness from voluntary impulse, and are practically paralysed if this be superseded by law. But we are concerned at present only with the particular limit that comes into view when religion is touched. It was from this point of view only that the Nonconformist opponents of church rates could be justified. In extorting from them by force the support of transcendental1 doctrines that they condemned, an indefensible wrong was done to their con­ scientious convictions. This has now been conceded to them. But most of the survivors of that struggle appear strangely blind to the bearing of their own arguments on the education rate, so far as it is spent on the present Bible teaching. I am one of a school till lately “everywhere spoken against,” who, just because we prize the Bible highly, regret very much to see the venerable Book misused as it is in our schools. Its value to us consists, not in any revelation or any otherwise inaccessible information supposed to be found in its pages, but in the unrivalled power of spiritual and moral inspiration inherent in its noblest utterances. Through all our changes of opinion, surviving all denials forced on us by evidence and honesty, rising triumphantly from the scientific grave to which a dead creed has been committed, that power seems to us indestructible, immortal. We do not think of the Bible less ; we think far more of it than when we believed in Eve’s apple and Balaam’s ass. For then it represented to us a series of violent dislocations of the order of nature. But now the Bible is to us an age-long vision of truth disentangling itself from error, of right slowly conquering wrong, of the emergence through the illusions and lies and sufferings and struggles and passions and aspirations of mankind of that more perfect state which, if the earth last long enough, must bless some future generation, and which, by its consummation of past, present, and future in one consciousness, may well be called the eternal life, or even “ the fullness of the godhead bodily.” We think such a Book degraded to low uses when it is enthroned as a fetish, before which judgment and reason grovel in the dust of super­ stition. And we protest against being made to pay for such sacrilege. Indeed, the wrong done to conscience in our case is much more offen­ sive than anything that could be alleged by our predecessors under church rates. For, after all, our evangelical fathers and grandfathers 1 As explained in a preliminary note, I use this epithet to describe doctrines going beyond the sort of evidence usually required for justice or legislation, and also outside the practical necessities of citizen life. Limits to such theories. Real value of the Bible. Degrada­ tion of the Bible. �i8 Possible limits to the rights of conscience. Where its claims are indefeasible. THE NEW CHURCH RATE agreed almost entirely with the religious and moral teaching of the Established Church. Their points of difference touched only eccle­ siastical order and sacraments, which, however important in their view, could hardly be said to affect fundamental morality. But we, in these times, are forced to support a system which we not only suspect, but know by experience, to be utterly inconsistent with a cultivation of that “ truth in the inward parts ” which in the Bible itself the Eternal is said to require. I am not so foolish as to hold that legal compulsion is necessarily barred the moment any plea of individual conscience is raised. I fully acknowledge also the difficulty of drawing a clear line between legitimate and illegitimate pleas of conscience. Nor is it essential to attempt it here. I confine myself to one class of cases in which it seems unjust and cruel to reject the plea. But I will offer one or two suggestions on the general question. In matters on which public opinion is much divided by differences depending on sentiment rather than on evidence it is always dangerous for authority to be intolerant of conscience in recusants. Further, if the differences concern transcendental questions, with no immediate or obvious bearing on the practical life of the commonwealth, such intolerance is more than dangerous; it is wrong. For one need not be a fanatical “individualist” to hold that some inner sources of individual character and will are of priceless worth to the community, and should be held sacred in every man. Among these we may surely count the individual feeling of solitary responsibility to eternal Power for personal loyalty to its rule. Without this, indeed, we have no true common­ wealth at all. For any group of creatures who fulfil only by instinct, and unconsciously, separate functions of convergent advantage to the whole of that group, are more on the level of a hive than of a common­ wealth. To this latter some intelligent consciousness of subordination to a common end is necessary, and this cannot be permanently secured without individual loyalty to a control higher than institutions and more comprehensive than the State. It was an inarticulate feeling of this truth which led the ancients to insist so much on religion as the sanction of patriotism. This also was what St. Paul had in mind when he said, perhaps too indiscriminately: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God : the powers that be are ordained of God....... Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but for conscience’ sake.” But when the loyalties clashed St. Paul resolutely obeyed the higher. It has taken the rulers of this world a long time to find out that it is precisely such men who, if only their conscience be respected, make the best citizens. In fact, records of our own time—such as some of the proceedings under the �THE NEW CHURCH RATE i9 so-called Blasphemy Laws, and also under the Church Discipline Acts —show that the lesson has not even yet been perfectly learned. But we have surely got so far that, if any wrong done to conscience is clearly made out, public opinion will insist on finding a remedy, lest so precious an inspiration as that of individual loyalty to truth and right should suffer sacrilege. My plea is that such a wrong is done by the present system of Bible instruction in public schools, because it forces every citizen, whatever his belief or unbelief, to pay for the propaga­ tion of transcendental doctrines having no necessary bearing whatever upon citizenship; and even though he may conscientiously think some of those doctrines not only false, but immoral, still he must pay. Before leaving this part of the subject, however, let me try to show how such reasonable claims of the religious conscience as are here raised may be distinguished from perverse individual revolts against salutary State regulations. I will take the case of the self-styled “Peculiar People,” a case by no means easy to deal with, but one which an advocate of conscience-rights ought not to shirk. If I under stand the position of these people rightly, it is their conscientious conviction that the Bible requires them in cases of sickness to depend on direct divine healing, without the intervention of a human physician. I am not competent to discuss the legal difficulties which thus arise. How far any man, whether a “ Peculiar ” brother or not, can be com­ pelled to ask and act on medical advice for his child, just as he is compelled to obtain “ efficient instruction ” for that child, I am not lawyer enough to say. He is not compelled to go to the schoolmaster for his child’s instruction if he can ensure it in some other manner. It might be plausibly asked : Why, then, should he be compelled to go to the physician for medical aid if he can obtain it in«some other manner? But “ there is much virtue in an ‘ if.’ ” The legal view, or, at any rate, the common-sense view—which lawyers tell me is the same thing—is that the “if” here does in many cases introduce an impossible, and therefore unreal, alternative. What the law requires is that the parent shall do all within his power to prevent unnecessary suffering to his child, and still more to save its life. Whether he be rich or poor, it is within his power to obtain medical aid, and there are cases in which legal evidence can prove that medical aid, so far as human judgment can discern, would make all the difference between life and death. In such cases “conscientious” objection to medical aid does not come under the conditions laid down above as defining the rights of con­ science.1 It may be, indeed, a case of false sentiment, but it is still more a stolid refusal of evidence. Transcendental doctrine may, 1 See p. 18. Spurious claims. The “ Peculiar People." �20 Difference of the case of the objec­ tor to vaccination. THE NE W CHURCH RA TE perhaps, be involved, and on that the parent may keep his own opinion. But sickness and healing are matters of physiology rather than of mysticism. They have a palpable and immediate bearing on the practical life of the commonwealth. Where this is the case, and where the requirement of medical aid is based upon an overwhelming con­ sensus of experience and opinion, the community is abundantly justified in telling the recalcitrant parent to keep his scruples for the kingdom of heaven, and to render his due obedience to the kingdom of this world. The conscientious objector to vaccination may claim to be in a different and stronger position, not because his conscience is more sacred than that of the “ Peculiar ” person, but simply because there is not the same overwhelming consensus of experience and opinion to support compulsory vaccination as there is to support compulsory recourse to medical aid for serious illness. If experience had con­ firmed Jenner’s assertion that one good vaccination would make the patient insusceptible to small-pox for the remainder of his life, the probability is that the question of compulsion would never have arisen. The popularity at one time of the system of inoculation shows how anxious people were to protect themselves. It is improbable that, if no cases of small-pox after vaccination had been known, such a marvellous preventive would have needed enforcement by fine or imprisonment. But if, contrary to probability, resistance had been encountered similar in its eccentricity to the attitude of the “ Peculiar People,” a claim to exemption on conscientious grounds would have had small chance of sympathy in the face of such overwhelming proof of a palpable and obvious benefit to the practical life of the community. Even to the plea that a man might well be allowed to leave his own children unvaccinated, seeing that all others could, if they chose, be guaranteed by this infallible antidote against danger from his neglect, it might perhaps have been justly replied that he would be exposing his own children to unnecessary danger and suffering, contrary to the spirit of modern law. But all such arguments are annulled by the now notorious fact that the vaccinated sufferers from small-pox outnumber the unvaccinated in about the same proportion as the vaccinated bear to the unvaccinated in the whole population.1 If a man draws from this fact the conclusion that the alleged preventive makes no difference, but practically leaves things just as they would be were vaccination entirely abolished, I do not say that he would be unanswerable ; but I do say that it is unjust to treat him as an obstinate fanatic or a traitor to society. This, in 1 See Report of the Dissentient Commissioners, annexed to that of the Royal Commission on Vaccination, 1901. The “ Conscience Clause ” unanimously recom­ mended on the motion of the late Lord Herschell would never have been suggested if vaccination had accomplished what Jenner declared it would. �THE NEW CHURCH RATE 21 fact, is just what the recent law has recognised by excusing from compulsion all who, in proper form, make a declaration of conscientious objection. In other words, the case is authoritatively pronounced to be one in which the plea of conscience cannot justly be ignored. Quakers and I will take yet another case to elucidate the principle suggested war taxes. above as a test of the rights of conscience. The other day I observed in the newspapers the report of a sale by legal order of certain goods belonging to a worthy Quaker who had refused to pay his taxes because of the South African War. He would not voluntarily support bloodshed, and therefore took joyfully the spoiling of his goods. But, with all respect for one who is clearly a man of high character and strong individuality, I hold his plea to be entirely illegitimate. The main­ tenance of peace and the making of war both belong to the practical, material life of the commonwealth. In such matters, if it is to act at all, it must act as a whole. There may be, and there nearly always is, division of opinion. But the majority determines the action, and it is carried out as the action of the whole. On no other conceivable plan could a commonwealth exist at all. This action as a whole, however, is only secured by the subordination of the wills and opinions of the minority to those of the majority. After doing all they can to secure that right counsels should prevail, the minority are no longer responsible in foro conscientice. To refuse at least passive obedience to the general voice in a matter strictly within the functions of a commonwealth would be to invalidate social order. Of course, social custom or law may sometimes be so bad that it ought to be resisted. And in that case chaos must be endured for a while that a better order may succeed. But such extreme crises are very exceptional, and perhaps they never arise unless the common­ wealth, or those who usurp its powers, have exceeded its functions of organising the practical, earthly (or, if we may use the word, secular) life. This happened in the seventeenth century in England, and it is the chronic state of things in Russia. But to say that the act of the community in making external war can justify those who object to it in refusing to pay taxes would be to declare any commonwealth impossible, and to assert the principle of anarchism. The conscientious objection felt by an increasing number of English Strength of the case people to be made to pay for the present Bible-teaching in the nation’s against the Bible rate. schools is not open to any such condemnation. Such teaching cannot fairly be described as one of those public functions in which the commonwealth, if it act at all, must act as a whole. Indeed, so far as public elementary schools are concerned, such an assumption has been solemnly repudiated by Parliament in the Act of 1870. That Act does, indeed, forbid any “ creed or formulary distinctive of any �22 THE NEW CHURCH RATE particular denomination ”—a prohibition found perfectly consistent with strongly dogmatic teaching. But it does not require that there shall be any religious teaching at all. It throws the odium of persecution on the local authority. Even in the elementary schools of the “ National Society ” the State now declines any responsibility for religion except so far as concerns the maintenance of the “ Conscience Clause.” It does not examine in religion, and it does not “inspect” religious instruction. It is clear, therefore, that in modern statecraft the support of religious teaching is not placed on a par with the maintenance of war, or with the provision of secular instruction as the duty of the whole commonwealth acting together. Further, it cannot reasonably be said in defence of municipal school practice that the infallibility of the Bible or its historic accuracy, or the transcendental doctrines taught from it, have a palpable or necessary bearing on the practical life of the nation. If, therefore, any Rationalist were moved by his conscience to refuse to pay his school rate on the ground that it is applied to propagate “free church ” dogmas, his conduct would certainly not be open to the same criticism as that of the conscientious Quaker mentioned above. And if the evangelical Nonconformists were right, as I presume they still think they were, in objecting to pay church rates, they ought to realise the gross inconsistency of which they are guilty in compelling rejectors of their creed to pay for teaching it. This is in flagrant contradiction to the doctrine of religious equality which, with stammering tongues, they still assert. Survivors, if there are any, of the noble army of “church-rate martyrs ” might ask why Rationalist nonconformity does not prove its sincerity by a similar martyrdom. It is a question of proportion. Unbelievers in supernatural religion have often gone to prison, or suffered odious wrong in law courts, rather than play the hypocrite But the devotion of part of a rate to a purpose they disapprove, while they heartily applaud the use of the greater part of it, hardly seems to them to justify martyrdom. The church rate was devoted wholly to church uses. It would be scarcely becoming in the advocates of religious equality as the right of a free-born Englishman to urge that a man must have his goods distrained before he can fairly claim that right. �IV. NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES Religious equality is also outraged by the exclusion of non-Evangelical ^ouki^ Nonconformists from honest and self-respecting service of the nation in belief ex... l-i r i r t elude from its public schools. This is a wrong which cannot, ot course, be felt so the nation’s widely as the last, because, naturally, those born with an imperious service vocation to teaching are a small minority. But where this particular form of injustice strikes it is felt with a special bitterness. And the number whom it affects is rapidly increasing. I do not mean merely that the number of silent protestants against the doctrinal residuum constituting “undenominational religion” is increasing, but that the number among them who find either open or tacit hypocrisy intolerable is rapidly growing. In proportion as the impossibility of retaining the old beliefs becomes more widely felt, the demand for relief from any pretence of believing them becomes more urgent. There was a great change in the theology of the middle classes during the later years of the nineteenth century. Even so recently as the School Board era of 1870, the sharpness of ^j^ons the issue between the creed of the Evangelical Alliance and actual fact question is . . 0 . . more urgent was not generally realised with anything like the same distinctness as now than in now. The significance of Assyrian and Egyptian records had not been grasped except by a very few profound scholars. The Tell-el-Amarna Tablets, with their revelation of the condition of Palestine about the time assigned to the Mosaic exodus, had not been discovered. The Polychrome Bible had not presented its rainbow spectre of Bible origins. The Encyclopedia Biblica had not appeared. Even the “ Moabite Stone,” though discovered in 1868, was not generally known, nor for years afterwards fully appreciated. The inscription of Menephthah, recording a victory over certain “ Israhili ” in North Palestine, about the date when he was supposed to have been drowned in a mad pursuit of Israel through the Red Sea, was as yet unknown. The enormous antiquity of the human race, and even of civilisation and organised religion, was as yet entirely under-estimated, but has since been enlarged beyond the dreams of old-fashioned anthropologists by recent excavations in Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and Crete. So far as the spade had then recovered the past of sacred lands, it was believed that the correspondence of Egyptian, Assyrian, and Chaldean ceremonies and forms of worship with Biblical references confirmed the Scripture 23 �24 Suspense judgment then more possible than now. Acknow­ ledgments of a Free Church Council. NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES record; while the actual occurrence in inscriptions of names mentioned m the Old Testament was thought to have finally settled the question of its historical veracity. It is true that the epoch-making book of Darwin had been published eleven years before. But even among scientific men there was considerable hesitation in applying the theory of natural selection to man. And religious liberals who toyed with edged tools dwelt fondly on the absence of the “ missing link.” While such was the state of popular knowledge and opinion, it was not difficult for conscientious teachers of the young to find relief in suspense of judgment. Members of a profession largely under clerical influence, and charged quite as much with the moral as with the intellectual training of their pupils, were naturally predisposed to believe that it was their duty in the meantime to go on teaching “divinity” as it had been taught to them. Comfort was found in the reflection that God’s voice in nature and God’s word in the Bible could not possibly contradict each other; and the meaning given to both terms remained so very vague that there was ample scope for temporary accommodation. Even in cases where inconveniently definite questions were asked, it was always possible for instruction to disappear in a haze of reverence. “Do you think, sir, that we must take this literally?” asked a boy in a class studying the ass’s argument with Balaam. “Such an occurrence,” replied the master, “is so very remarkable, and, indeed, unparalleled, that in the present state of our knowledge I would rather not give an opinion. Perhaps there is some explanation of which we are not at present aware.” So long as this kind of mental attitude remained possible the disabilities of doubt were not acutely felt. The supposed foundations of morality could be accepted as they stood, with an acknowledgment that their relation to the foundations of knowledge was an unsolved question. But the state of things is very different now. The surrender of the historic accuracy of a large part of the Old Testament is so general that a very considerable number of teachers are conscious of a clear contradiction between what they are expected to teach and what they themselves believe. It is difficult to understand how an honest man can accept a position like that. In March, 1901, the “National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches,” in its meetings at Cardiff, heard some plain speaking on this point from the Rev. Dr. Monro Gibson. It is true that his subject was that of Sunday-school teaching. But the principles he laid down are plainly applicable to all national schools in which the Bible is taught as a divine revelation.1 And, 1 The analogy between undenominational State schools and Nonconformist Sunday-schools, so far as concerns religious instruction, is far closer than is commonly supposed. The effect of Mr. W. H. Smith’s resolution of 1871 was practically to �REIV RELIGIO US DISA BILITIES 25 although no Board-school teacher is called upon to sign a creed or to make any profession of faith, he would not be allowed to give religious instruction if he did not assume this view of the Bible in all his lessons.1 So far as the Bible is concerned, then, the words of Dr. Gibson have a clear bearing upon the position of municipal school teachers. He fully admitted that “ within recent years difficulties had arisen on account of the change of view brought about in the minds of many Christians by the results, or supposed results, of recent investigations.” He was quite willing to allow to Sunday-school teachers a latitude which experience shows to be impossible in State elementary schools. The sectarian equilibrium in the management of the latter is so exceedingly delicate that it can only be preserved by excluding from the lessons everything but what is held in common by the most conservative and orthodox sections of each evangelical denomination represented. On the other hand, liberal clergymen, like Dr. Gibson, can often secure a great deal of freedom to the teachers within their own communion. This must be remembered in applying the following observations to the case of municipal schools, and accordingly the warnings must be interpreted more stringently. The italics are my own :— They were confronted (said Dr. Gibson) with the difficult and delicate question as to what must be the attitude of our Sunday-schools towards this burning question of the day. It should be laid down as an axiom to start with that only those who firmly believed in the divine authority of both Testaments had the right to be Sunday-school teachers at all. (Cheers.) A man who had no message of God to declare, but only doubts of his own to ventilate, was quite out of place in the pulpit or in the chair of a teacher. Those who were themselves wandering in mist and dark­ ness were no proper guides for others—least of all for the children. Most intelligent people, indeed, had doubts and difficulties in minor matters, so they could not expect their teachers to be all-round introduce into nearly all the Board schools under Mr. Forster’s Act precisely the evangelical teaching given in common by very low Churchmen, Wesleyans, Presby­ terians, Independents, and Baptists. So far was this carried that for some time the Catechism approved by representatives of the Evangelical Free Churches was actually used by the School Board for Liverpool in its schools. 1 The experience of Mr. F. J. Gould, the author of an excellent manual of Ethical teaching, and formerly an assistant master under the London Board, is decisive on this point. Being exceptionally conscientious, he could not reconcile it with his sense of right to teach a “syllabus” implying doctrines which he no longer believed. True, he was generously relieved of the duty while still retained on the staff. But he became a marked man, and the promotion deserved by his uncommon abilities was barred. He naturally left the profession. But he has since written handbooks of moral instruction valued even by the orthodox clergy, and is prominent as a leader in the beneficent movement for the reform of moral teaching in our schools. This is the sort of man whom our “tests” involved in “simple Bible teaching” banish to the ranks of aggressive secularism. He is at this present time of writing the honoured “minister”—if I may use the title—of the Leicester Secularist Society. If anyone supposes that Mr. Gould’s case is peculiar, except in regard to his unusual punctiliousness of conscience—well, such an one does not know as much us I do of the working of ‘ ‘ simple Bible teaching. ” Testimony Gibson, �26 NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES dogmatists, though even in the minor matters they should be careful not to parade their doubts. But if their doubts touched the great question whether God had really spoken to man and given himself for our salva­ tion, then must the doubter be silent; or, if he must speak, let it be under the banner of infidelity, not under the flag of Christ. (Hear, hear.) The teacher must be honest. If a teacher believed that the Pentateuch was a composite production, he must not teach his scholars that Moses wrote it all as his own original composition. He took this as a simple illustration, which was none the worse in that it suggested the remark that a good Sunday-school teacher was likely to find something much better to do than to occupy his time with a matter which was of no spiritual value when there were so many urgent themes pressing for attention. (Cheers.) A man must either teach what he believed or not teach at all. (Hear, hear.) In the great majority of the lessons in the Old Testament, as well as the New, there need be no occasion whatever for raising any of these questions. One of the greatest dangers of our time was making far too much of the letter of Scripture and far too little of the spirit. What of those cases where a difficult question was sprung upon them ? In that case he should consider it to be the teacher’s duty to state what he considered to be the truth on the matter, but at the same time to intimate that this was a subject on which good Christians differed, and therefore it was a matter which was not essential, on which a person might think either this way or that without serious harm. It should, in fact, be treated as an open question. It was the dogmatism that did the mischief on both sides. Suppose he had the story of Eden to deal with, and had reached the record of the Fall, and a smart boy popped the question, “Was that a real serpent, teacher ?” Now he maintained that, in the present state of opinion among good critics, it would be a grave fault to say either “yes ” or “ no.” He should answer : “ Some say yes, others say no ; but it does not matter in the smallest degree to our great lesson of to-day which of them is right.” But some might ask: “ If you leave stick questions open, do you not unsettle the mind of the scholar ? ” His answer was that their minds ought to be unsettled on questions which were unsettled. (Hear, hear.) The settling of the mind on a question which was unsettled was most mischievous and in the highest degree dangerous for the future. Who could tell, for example, what dire mischief was done in the childhood of Professor Huxley by those who succeeded in settling in his mind that the Bible must teach science with the rigorous position of the nineteenth century or be utterly discredited ? Noone could read intelligently Huxley’s anti-Christian writings without seeing that his fierce antagonism to Christianity was determined by the fact that he was taught in his youth to regard as settled questions those which all intelligent Christians now treated as open or as settled in the opposite way. What had been rubbed into him from his earliest days was the mischievous dogma that, if there was a solitary inaccuracy in any reference which touched the domain of science in any of the books which made up the Bible, it was impossible to accept the Scripture as from God. If only the minds of men like Huxley and Tyndall had been unsettled on the question of the relation between science and inspiration, how different might the history of Christian thought have been in the last fifty years. He did not say they would have become Christians ; that was not the result of an intellectual process, but the work of the Spirit. But they certainly would not have spent their strength in sowing broadcast the seeds of unbelief, and if they had not accepted Christ themselves they would, at all events, have looked with favour, and not with deadly hostility, on the truth. In guiding the steps of the young they should see to it first that they were leading them up, and not down, �NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES 27 and next that the steps were made easy to them, so that they might not stumble as they climbed.1 It must be a very prejudiced mind which would fail to recognise and respect the moral and intellectual courage shown in these words from the occupant of an orthodox pulpit. But the conclusion of the report from which the above is an extract is even more instructive:— Professor Rendel Harris (University lecturer in Palaeography at Cambridge) opened the discussion. He said he thought that Dr. Gibson was a little in danger of sailing down the channel of “ no meaning ” between “yes” and “no.” As to the serpent mentioned in the Eden story, if he were asked he should at once say that it was mythical, and should be treated as such. (Oh.) When they were dealing with the educated sense of mankind they should not hesitate to speak out bravely and face the question, and say : “ Man is older than we thought him to be at one time.” He asked them to appeal from the smaller Bible to the larger Bible of nature. They learnt from Genesis that Adam sewed together fig leaves. Well, the only fact they got there was that primitive man could sew. (Laughter.) If, however, they went into Kent’s Cavern at Torquay, they would find the actual needle used by primitive man. That was much more convincing than any story, and he pressed upon them the importance of studying the Bible by the light of nature and not nature by the light of the Bible. During Professor Harris’s speech many present dissented from his views. Having exhausted his time-limit, a vote was taken as to whether he should continue his speech. Several delegates voted against the motion, and Professor Harris said he had no intention to break the time rule. (Laughter.) The Rev. P. Williams (Derby) thought that Dr. Gibson ought to have dwelt longer on some of the important points, and not have passed over them by using catch phrases. They would like to have had a definition of the “Divine Authority of Scripture” and the “human element in the Bible.” They knew both were there, but still they wanted the matter defined so that other people might know they were there. (Cheers.) Dr. Gibson, in reply, said he was bound by a time-limit, and could not, of course, deal with all questions in a single paper. The six years elapsed since that Free Church Council was held have not lessened, but, so far, have rather increased, the moral difficulties so frankly acknowledged. Now, if in a conference of “ Free Churches,” with no fear of ratepayers before their eyes, and no sacred “compromise” to maintain, it is so difficult to obtain a sanction for honesty in teaching the Bible, how much harder, indeed how impossible, must it be to secure it for teachers in rate-supported schools whose directors represent a carefully-schemed balance of sectarian jealousies ! The only possible expedient for maintaining an unreal appearance of agreement is to adhere strictly to such explanations as are not likely to be challenged by any section of evangelical believers. A paradoxical state of things thus arises. For, while the liberty of teaching is necessarily much narrower 1 Manchester Guardian, March 14th, 1901. Professor Rendel Harris. Aggrava­ tion of the difficulty in Public Ele­ mentary Schools. �28 NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES in rate-supported schools than in Sunday-schools under the liberal influence of clergymen like Dr. Monro Gibson, the area from which the teachers are, or may be, drawn is much wider in the former schools than in the latter, and nominally there is no imposition of any creed whatever. The moral Is this anomaly favourable to the honesty so earnestly insisted upon in the above extract? Honest and self-respecting service in Board schools under the present system is obviously made impossible to consistent Rationalists—nay, more, it is impossible to young men trained under liberal Christian influences and encouraged to accept the results of modern research, so far as these may appear consistent with the retention of belief in revelation. Suppose a young teacher entering school life with the teaching of Professor Rendel Harris fresh in his mind, and impressed with Dr. Gibson’s manly exhortation not to teach what he does not believe. There is handed to him a “ syllabus ” of religious instruction in which “ The Life of Abraham ” is mentioned as a subject. To the younger children he may teach it as a story without saying whether he thinks it historical or not. Yet he cannot but be aware that his little pupils receive it as actual fact. That it would be possible to teach it otherwise is known to him by his ofoidTes- exPerience of the effect produced when he indulges them with a fairy tament tale such as Little Snowdrop or The Kins: of the Golden River. The stones as ... mythology children are as much interested in these stories as though he had assured them they were actual facts. Yet they know quite well that it is not so. The stories belong to that wonderland where historic criticism never intrudes. But when he relates to them “The Life of Abraham,” including the divine demand for a human sacrifice, he is aware that they receive it as a statement of solemn fact, while at the same time he does not believe that it is so. With the higher standards, containing children from twelve to fifteen years of age, the difficulty is much more serious. Encouraged by the liberty allowed him by clergymen such as Dr. Monro Gibson, he has yielded to arguments which convince him that the records of Abraham’s life in Genesis are a composite production, showing an unsuccessful attempt to piece together a consistent whole out of discordant materials. Warned against dishonesty in teaching, he cannot tell his pupils that the narrative is guaranteed by the authorship of Moses. If among his bTty of’ scholars a prize-winner in the examinations of the Sunday School Union answering should ask how it is that a precisely similar incident, arising out of a falsequestions. hood about a wife, is related twice of Abraham and once of Isaac, the same king being concerned at a considerable interval of time in two of the stories, what shall this honest follower of Dr. Monro Gibson say ? If he says what in his own conviction is the truth, that the confusion arises through the unskilful patching of different materials, all of which are �NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES 29 largely, if not wholly, mythical, there will be a disturbance at the local Education Committee, and the teacher’s career will be at an end. If he prevaricates, and says that it really does not matter, that in any case the moral lesson is the same, it is very doubtful whether even this would satisfy the weak brethren of the Education Authority; but it would certainly be fatal to the teacher’s own self-respect. These observations are not in the least invalidated by the suggestion that the opinions adopted by the teacher are possibly incorrect. From the point of view of religious equality in the nation’s schools, such a suggestion is entirely inept. The consideration of importance is that even Christian opinion, as represented by men like Dr. Monro Gibson, has now got the length of encouraging young people not to feel guilty of mortal sin if their reading convinces them of the composite and imperfect nature of “ The Life of Abraham.” And yet if they act on the declara­ tion above quoted, that “ a man must either teach what he believes or cruel not teach at all,” the second alternative alone is open to them. Even The form ­of lest religious though they should have the genius of a Pestalozzi or a Froebel, they inequality. are excluded from the nation’s schools, except on condition of open or tacit hypocrisy. If this is not religious inequality, and inequality of a shameful and odious kind, I do not know what can deserve the name. Readers who keep pace with the times in matters of opinion, but are unfamiliar with the working of the elementary school system, may pehaps be incredulous as to the existence of such a state of things as is here described. Is not the teaching “unsectarian”? they ask. The reply is that it is only so in the sense of teaching all that the “Evangelical Free Churches” hold in common. “Is not Bible­ teaching confined to necessary explanations in grammar, geography, and archaeology?” No, it is not, as.is clearly proved by the adoption, for a time, of the Free Church catechism by the Liverpool School Board.1 By the Shrewsbury School Board the teaching of the Apostles, Creed was ordered, and, by the courtesy of the Town Clerk, I am informed it is to this day continued by the local Education Committee under the Act of 1902. But as this point of the amount of disputed dogma possible under the Cowper-Temple clause is very important, and is also the subject of very general misunderstanding, I will give more detailed evidence. And as most of this was previously given in the former edition, I shall first show cause why it cannot be considered out of date. Indeed, it will never be out of date as long as the creed common to certain 1 It is no answer to say that the answers on sacraments and Church order were omitted. Of course they were. But to Nonconformists they are unimportant, com­ pared with the body of divinity contained in the other answers. �3° The Presi­ dent of the Board of Education on the “ CowperTemple Clause." NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES influential sects and rejected by all the rest of the nation continues to be legally treated as “ undenominational.” The Times of June 26th, 1907, gave a brief but significant report of the reception on the previous day by Mr. McKenna, President of the Board of Education, of a joint deputation of educational and Non­ conformist bodies on the question of the enforcement of the CowperTemple clause.1 The deputation, which included the Rev. Dr. Clifford and the Rev. J. Hirst Hollowell, complained that the clause was being interpreted in such an elastic manner that it practically gave no protection to the evangelical Nonconformist conscience. I quote the report of part of Mr. McKenna’s reply :— He distinguished very considerably between what was the view of the Board as to the law on this question and what its view was as to policv. He had to deal with Acts of Parliament as they were. He did not approve them, and he did not defend them. As regards the construction which had been put upon the Cowper-Temple clause as to its value, he was heartily in sympathy with everyone who had spoken. But when he was asked whether they were to-day where they used to be between the period 1879 and 1902, he was bound to answer that they were not. The Act of 1902 made a very serious difference in the law. He had no longer the power finally to determine whether or not the Cowper-Temple clause was being contravened. He had been told that section 16 of the Act of 1902 did not give him power to determine whether there had been a breach of the clause, but, if there had been a breach, it gave him power to enforce the law. There, again, it was a question of law ; it was not a question for the layman. It was a question of the strict construction of section 16 of the Act of 1902. Section 16 of the Act of 1902 enabled the Board of Education to compel an authority to fulfil their duty by proceeding in the Courts of Law on an action of mandamus. A local authority was under no obligation to compile a syllabus of religious instruction at all, and was under no obligation to give religious instruction in schools. Therefore, if a local authority did not compile a syllabus or did not give religious instruction at all, they had not failed to fulfil a duty. (Hear, hear.) He had no power under the Acts of Parliament alone to enforce the Cowper-Temple clause by withholding the grant. He could only deal with the Code at this moment as it existed. The rest of the reply dealt partly with a hypothetical future Bill, and partly with the wrongs of religious Nonconformists in Preston, who, it appears, suffer specially in that town the form of injustice which Nonconformists themselves are quite ready to inflict on those who believe less than they do. But what I have quoted is sufficient to prove that, in the opinion of a Minister of Education with all sources of official information at his command, the interpretation of the Cowper-Temple clause, so far from being more just and rigorous, is x I.e., Clause 14 of the Act of 1870 prohibiting in Board schools the use of any “ religious catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination.” �NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES 3» more favourable to sectarian dogma than when this essay first appeared. I am perfectly justified, therefore, in once more calling attention to the report of the Royal Commission on Education issued in 1888. And I may say that not one fact adduced by me in 1901 has been disputed. Among a great variety of interesting information the Report included an account of the religious instruction given in the elementary schools. I learn from this Report that Pulliblank’s Teachers' Handbook io the Bible and Mr. M. F. Lloyd’s Abridged Bible Catechism were being used in Board schools with the apparent approval of the Education Department. This fact shows what is meant by “unsec­ tarian ” teaching. Of Mr. Pulliblank’s book I desire to say no more than that it assumes throughout the literal historical accuracy of the Old Testament, even of the early chapters of Genesis. Mr. Lloyd’s Catechism, on the other hand, is an ingenious scheme to set forth the whole evangelical doctrine of the plan of salvation by contriving to furnish in the exact words of the Bible the answers to a number of leading questions. Thus, to the question, “ What promise of a Saviour was made to our first parents?” the answer is: “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” It is unnecessary to quote further. The assumption that the serpent-myth is actual history, that the serpent was Satan and the seed Christ, sufficiently shows how the plea of the Bible, and the Bible alone, may be made to support the teaching under the name of unsectarian religion, of beliefs abandoned by educated people and condemned by the spirit of the age. This should be borne in mind when we note the selections of Scripture made by School Boards and their successors for the teaching of children. It appears that at the date of the Report—and I can find no evidence of any change—the Bible narratives of the Creation, of the Fall, of the Flood, and of Noah’s exploits were considered to be specially suitable for the moral instruction of infants. 'They were prescribed for this purpose by the School Boards for Bolton, Manchester, Rochdale, Newport, with St. Moollos, and many others. In Liverpool the Book of Genesis was taken for the first year’s course; but whether that included babies docs not clearly appear. The School Board for London does not seem to have regarded those narratives as milk for babes, and its selections were much above the ordinary level. But in its prescription of the “lives” of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as subjects for study, it certainly intended that they should be treated as historical, and this all teachers understand. The same remark may be made wherever a particular book or section of Scripture is prescribed Illustration of “ simple Bible teach­ ing' ” under the C.-T. Clause. �32 Lessons in Massacre. Divine im­ morality. The case of the New Testament. NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES by this or any other Board. Thus, under the Wanstead Board, the higher standards were set to study Joshua and Judges. It would be difficult to find in all literature two books more full of bloodshed, murder, massacre, and savagery. I can appreciate as well as anyone the gleams of a higher life that flash from their pages here and there. And even the most shocking pictures they give of the ancient alliance between superstition and cruelty might conceivably be used by a teacher entrusted with perfect “ liberty of prophesying ” to illustrate the depths out of which the evolution of reason and morality has raised us. But that is not allowed to municipal school teachers any more than to “sectarian” teachers. Indeed, the former are more tightly bound by the “ Compromise.” The Book says that God over­ threw the walls of Jericho by a miracle, and that by his express and particular command the Israelites “utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and ass, with the edge of the sword.” Now, if any teacher were to tell his pupils that the massacre might be historical, but that the allegation of a divine command was clearly false, there would undoubtedly be trouble at the next Education Committee meeting, and probably at many others to follow. The same may be said of the slaughter of Achan and his family, of the murder of the five kings at Makkedah, of the assassination of Eglon, of the treachery to Sisera, and a dozen other sanguinary deeds which, in reading Joshua and Judges, children are taught to regard as excepted by divine command from ordinary rules of morality. How can any educated man or woman read these sanguinary legends with their innocent pupils without hastening to assure the children that these are no words of God ? It is not a case in which silence can appease the conscience. The absence of explanation or denial confirms the misbelief in young hearts that are forming their faith for life. If the truth cannot be told, at least let such horrible narratives be banished from the schools.1 In dealing with the New Testament it might be thought that the course is clearer. When we find selections from the life of Christ, or the story of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, ordered to be taught, or the Acts, or St. Paul’s Epistles, it might be thought that here at least the plan of “ unsectarian ” instruction can meet with no difficulty. I am not so sure of that. It is notorious that what is called “the Higher 1 I do not speak without experience. I taught Bible classes for many years. I don’t think I ever took the Book of Joshua. But I did try to make Hebrew folklore interesting. I remember I was specially pleased with the written reproduction, by a boy of twelve, of my story of the Deluge. He concluded thus : “ All this sounds very terrible ; but it would be still more terrible if it were true.” �NEW RELIGIOUS DISABILITIES 33 Criticism” has no more spared the New Testament than the Old. Moreover, the acceptance of the results of that criticism is not confined to “Secularist” lecturers, nor even to Unitarians. We have only to glance at the list of contributors to the new Encyclopedia Biblica, and at the opinions they support, to see that many scholarly Churchmen have entirely abandoned the literal truth of New Testament history, together with the authenticity of several epistles. I do not urge their ecclesiastical authority as conclusive against the Bible-instruction rate. But at least it helps to refute the arrogant assumption of Nonconformist perverts and others that School-board religion represents the views of all but an eccentric and negligible group of ratepayers. The rational desire to treat the New as well as the Old Testament like any other book is now supported by clergymen of the Church of England who repudiate even a literal belief in the physical resurrection of Christ. No one with an eye for the signs of this time can doubt that these clergymen represent the theology of the future. Nevertheless, any teacher who is now of that opinion can only gain employment in a public elementary school on condition of playing the hypocrite. Let it be clearly understood that what I am urging is not the permission to teach such opinions in the schools, but only the exclusion of a subject of instruction which, in the present chaotic condition of belief, imposes on many of the best candidates for the office of teacher the cruel alternative of insincerity or proscription. If it be asked how such a paradoxical state of things as above described can have been established in the entire absence of any authoritative “ creed or formulary,” the explanation lies, as previously explained,1 in the great renunciation of principle by Nonconformists in 1870. In consequence of that and the great Smith compromise the creed of School Boards and of the later committees came to be, like the creed of the Free Churches, the consensus, undefined in words, but very rigid in substance, of the supposed opinions of the majority. “ And why not?” cry some. “Surely true democracy consists in the rule of the majority.” Well, in our time the democracy stands for Caesar. And Nonconformists before 1870 used to be very eloquent on a certain text in the Gospels reserving “the things of God” from Caesar’s control. They, too, perhaps, are touched by the rationalism of the age, and now explain that text away. But they cannot explain away facts; and it is surely a shameful fact that, however clearly a young man is marked out as a born teacher, his adhesion to the views of Robertson Smith, Driver, and Cheyne on the Old Testament, and of Dr. Abbott or Professor Schmiedel on the Gospels, excludes him from the freedom of the profession except on one condition—that he shall speak or act a lie. 1 Tp. 16, 17, ante. D �V. MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS On July 15th, 1907, there appeared in the Times an interesting and impressive letter from Dr. T. J. Macnamara, M.P. This letter was evoked by Mr. A. J. Balfour’s attack' on the new regulations governing the admission of students to residential training colleges—an attack supported by many fierce articles in the ecclesiastical press. To the regulations themselves I have already referred in the Preface to this edition. But the letter made special reference to the demoralising effect of theological tests, and certain words which I shall quote from it may very appropriately open the argument of this chapter. Thus, after explaining how a “ King’s Scholarship ” gives the successful candidate “a considerable Government grant in aid of a course of college training,” Dr. Macnamara proceeded :— Roughly, about 5,000 young people win this training “scholarship” year by year ; but, when they seek to utilise it at a residential training college, they find that about 4,300 of the 5,000 residential places open to them are strictly reserved for students who are willing—over and above their success in the Government examination—to subscribe to a pretty rigid denominational test. As a matter of fact, the majority of these 4,300 residential places are open only to members of the Established Church. What is the result ? If the student be a Nonconformist, he must take a very high place indeed in the Government examination if he is to secure admission to one of the very few undenominational residential colleges. Because not only are the places open to him very few, but they are open also to members of the Church of England. Failing to secure entrance to an undenominational college, he telegraphs right and left to the other training colleges, and is promptly told that he will be admitted with pleasure if he is a member of the Church of England. A number of young people, to my certain knowledge, succumb to the temptation, and are admitted to the Church solely for the purpose of utilising their dearly won Government "'scholarship.” Others very properly decline to conform, and go on as ex-pupil teachers, and, having been at this critical stage thrown off the track, never afterwards succeed in completing the course for the teachers’ certificate. The grievous hardship of all this is the fact that the Church colleges take in year after year students who are far less meritorious and able than many of those who are shut out. This is not only unfair to the apprentice ; it devotes the State grant to the training of inferior material. The italics are, of course, my own, and are intended to mark the moral considerations with which I am about to deal. For, notwith­ standing the idiosyncrasies of exceptional latitudinarians, ordinary people, I believe, still regard a profession of faith as a moral or an 34 �MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS 35 immoral act according as it is made truly or falsely. Now, I suppose, evangelical Nonconformists, almost without exception, have heartily approved the above letter. For very many of them have known cases of bright boys and girls, devoted Sunday scholars and welcome additions to Church membership, who have been subjected to precisely the temptation described in the letter. News of their passing the King’s Scholarship examination was eagerly welcomed by the chapel circle, and a happy career was predicted for them in which “simple Bible teaching,” unpolluted by catechism or formulary, was to be a con­ spicuous feature. Then came the check, the change, the fall. For, though they had done very well in the examination, their success was not so exceptional as to enable them to command one of the very small number of places available in Nonconformist or undenomina­ tional colleges. But their success had been quite sufficient to make them desirable candidates elsewhere. And as the vast majority of available places were elsewhere, the painful alternative arose of taking a permanently inferior standing as teachers or of changing their profes­ sion of faith. Dr. Macnamara deals very gently with the occasional or perhaps frequent result. But, he says, “a number of young people, to my certain knowledge, succumb to the temptation.” He seems to be paraphrasing a very old account of the same transition : “ They give up all religion and go to church.” That is not my judgment. Heaven forbid! But if we talk of “ succumbing to temptation,” it is implied that there is something morally wrong. And so, no doubt, thought the pastors and the deacons and the Sunday-school superintendents of the various chapels to which these perverts had belonged. But I can imagine—nay, I have known—strictly analogous cases which the same religious people would not see at all in the same light. For in these days of “New Theology” and “re-statements” of doctrine there is an ever-increasing number of young people with the teacher’s gift and enthusiasm who do not, and cannot if they are to be true to themselves, pretend to accept that view of the Bible which is implied or presupposed in what is called “ simple Bible teaching.” That is, there are very few narratives of either the Old or the New Testament which they can conscientiously teach as historic fact; and very much of the morality they think to be interesting rather as a record of ethical evolu­ tion than as “ revelation.” Now, the crisis in the moral and spiritual development of such young people may not occur so early as the time of the King’s scholarship examination. Up to that period they have accepted, almost as a matter of course, the Bible as “the word of God,” and as an infallible revelation. But either towards the close of their - college career or afterwards the rational spirit, which at the present day A Moral dilemma. �36 Are the rights of conscience a monopoly of the advo­ cates of “ simple Bible teaching” ? MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS is more or less immanent in all forms of literature and learning, stirs in them a questioning mood. They read Mr. R. J. Campbell’s New Theology, and, their appetite for hitherto forbidden knowledge being quickened, they look up the Encyclopedia Biblica in a public library, and next are led to translations of Haeckel’s Riddle of the Universe; and then, with a hunger for more spiritual food, they apply to the public library again for the works of the various Anglican and Presbyterian divines who have re-stated in once startling, but now familiar, forms the theory of revelation. The end of it is that at a period when they are expecting to become head teachers they find that their views of both the Old and the New Testament have so fundamentally changed that they can no longer give “ simple Bible teaching ” with sincerity. They cannot, without doing violence to their convictions, teach as fact “ the life of Abraham ” or of Jacob as set down in the syllabus. They cannot sincerely teach the Ten Commandments as laws written by the finger of God, because they are now quite sure that they are nothing of the kind. Even the Gospels they now regard as, to a large extent, legendary; and they are as certain as they can be of anything that the Fourth Gospel was not written by Zebedee’s son. What are they to do ? If they frankly avow their position, they will probably be treated with courtesy, and something will be said in praise of their honesty. But they will soon experience the bitter truth uttered by Juvenal: “Probitas laudatur et alget.” For they will be relieved of giving Scripture instruction, and their prospects of promotion permanently barred. It would be trifling with common sense and notorious facts to pretend ignorance that there are large numbers of young teachers, both men and women, in that very position at the present time. Here, then, is a moral dilemma precisely analogous to that sympathetically described in Dr. Macnamara’s letter to the Times. For these young men and women must either prematurely blight their prospects of promotion or they must set their teeth and put a strain on conscience such as will be a life-long burden. But where now is the Nonconformist sympathy so eagerly extended to the young chapel-folk whom Dr. Macnamara described as “ succumbing to the temptation ” to go over to the Church ? I am afraid it is sadly lacking. But why ? Surely the two cases are on all fours in principle. Unless, indeed, Nonconformists would draw the line at their own “ simple Bible ” views, and maintain that, while it is perfectly right to doubt or deny any other religion, it is wicked to doubt or deny theirs. One almost despairs of getting even good and kindly and otherwise fair-minded people to see straight where the Bible is concerned. But sometimes, when the plainest proof of injustice fails of access to �MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS 37 the conscience through the ear, the ugly consequences of the wrong may become so repulsive as to enforce conviction. And if I can only show what the consequences are in this case both to teachers and children, I do not despair of success. Indeed, I venture to think that, if Dr. Macnamara could only realise how the moral difficulty he has pointed out is necessarily involved in the retention of the Bible in school, he would refuse to endorse any new Education Bill that should transgress beyond secular lines. The last words of the preceding chapter may by some be thought too strong. But I shall establish their literal truth. It will be remem­ bered that, in introducing the subject of the religious disabilities set up by School Boards, and continued by local Education Authorities under the Act of 1892, I have carefully refrained from asserting that the barriers are absolutely impassable. All I allege is that the tests implied, though not avowed, exclude Rationalists, whether Christian or non­ Christian, from “ honest and self-respecting service as teachers in the nation’s schools.” But they are, of course, not excluded from service of a different kind. As an illustration of the sort of service which latitudinarians or heretics are allowed to give, take the following extract from a letter printed in Democracy^ of February 23rd, 1901. The occasion of it was a previous letter from a Board-school teacher, com­ plaining of the odious task of teaching what he did not believe. Whereupon “Another Board-School Teacher” addressed the editor thus :— Sir,—The state of feeling disclosed by the remark of the “ Board-school Licensed hypocrisy. Teacher” anent the pressure put upon him to teach “ Scripture” against his wish is, 1 am afraid, common to many others of that class of the community. One docs lose a certain amount of self-respect in standing before a class and teaching for truth what one believes to be false. But under somewhat similar circumstances I ask myself: Why be honest ? Why trouble at all about the matter ? The Scripture lessons occupy little time, after all, and the harm done cannot amount to much. In view of the facts that all the work done in school may be described as an attempt to enable the children to conform to the canons of Christian or commercial morality (sic), and that no degree of conformity to those of either cult will abate the ills or conduce to the welfare of humanity, I feel that more harm is done in the ordinary school work than in the time set apart for religious instruction. But one must get a living somehow ; so I, personally, comply with the terms of my agreement with my employers, and let conscience go hang. I will not do any body of teachers the injustice of accepting this gentleman as a fair representative of their moral tone. But my own experience, and a fairly extensive intercourse with them during many years, assures me that the first sentence in the above extract is substantially correct. The discontent, however, is caused not by “ the 1 Since become The Ethical World. Significance of the above letter. �38 A dangerous position. MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS pressure put upon them to teach ‘Scripture,’” but by the necessity imposed upon them to teach it in a fashion inconsistent with their own convictions. I will undertake to say that, if permission to teach honestly what they believe about the Bible were given to school teachers, three-fourths of them, at the very least, would tell the children that the greater part of the Hexateuch must be regarded in the same light as a series of fairy tales ; that the story of Jonah is a moral fable, very impressive in its way, but probably destitute of even a basis of fact; that the Book of Daniel is a romance, and that of Esther a political apologue. I believe, also, that, if they dared, the same propor­ tion of teachers would treat all the miracles of the Old Testament as originating in the imagination of Jewish patriots and poets, rather than in actual fact. Even if I put the proportion numerically too high, the most sanguine believer in the evangelical fervour inspired by our training colleges must surely feel that the letter above quoted is indicative of considerable mental unrest. Let the extent of Rationalism among teachers be minimised to the utmost possible degree consistent with notorious facts, still it will remain true that a large number are forced into teaching what they do not believe. Now, this is a sort of fact of which the moral import is not dependent on statistics. If only twenty per cent, of the men and women who stand before their classes with the life of Abraham, or the account of the Deluge, or the story of the Virgin Birth, or of the Resurrection, m their hands as the basis of moral instruction, hold these parts of the Bible to be unhistorical, while they are obliged to treat them as solemn facts, it seems too like taking “ a lie in their right hand ” for the inculcation of truth. The misdirected satire of Jean Ingelow in ridiculing a theory of spiritual evolution which she did not understand would be much more applicable to the case of these teachers :— Gracious deceivers who have lifted us Out of the slough where passed our unknown youth ; Beneficent liars who have gifted us With sacred love of truth. Human nature is too complex and unfathomable to allow of any sweeping affirmation of demoralising consequences in such a case. I was once asked by one of the best men I ever knew, himself an Anglican clergyman, why I did not seek orders in the Established Church. I replied that “ for one reason I had never, up to that moment, seen any creed that I could sign.” “ Indeed !” he responded ; “never seen the creed you could sign, hav’n’t you ? Well, now, / have never seen the creed I couldn’t sign.” Making all allowance for my friend’s love of paradox, I yet could not but feel that between his notion of responsibility for assenting to a creed and mine there was an �MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS 39 impassable difference. Yet I knew him to be in all other relations a man of unimpeachable honour and courageously truthful.1 I should be very loth, therefore, to deny the possibility that analogous instances, of personal paradox may be found among teachers who believe one thing and teach another. But the letter I have quoted above is sufficient proof that the position is a dangerous one. Let it be granted that the moral degeneracy exhibited in that letter ofthe is an extreme and exceptional instance of the working of the system. teachers, Let it further be conceded that at the other end of the scale there are a number of sincere and devout Evangelical teachers whose Biblical creed is an inspiration to them. There will remain the large majority who belong neither to one class nor to the other. Pledged to no creed, possessed of culture enough to appreciate the revolution in educated opinion on the origins and authority of the Bible, they yet feel no special impulse to any independent study of such questions, and ordinary prudence warns them against any precipitancy in adopting ideas which would create a daily consciousness of discord between duty and conviction. The result is an attitude of conventional acquiescence which guards their mental comfort, but empties their Scriptural teaching of all reality. Some of the more studious among them, while shy of reading distinctly Rationalistic books, find much edification in the works of a contemporary school which suggest that after all there is nothing exactly true, and it does not much matter. Mr. A. J. Balfour’s elegant disquisition on the duty of believing with the majority, Professor Percy Gardner’s charming explanation in his Exploratio Evangeltca of the possibility that a creed may be both true and false at the same time, have great attractions for honest men in such circumstances. Pretending to their own consciences to adopt, though without legitimate authority or open avowal, a freedom which I have above suggested as their due if they are to teach the Bible at all, they tell the stories of the Old Testament without any pretence of discriminating fact from fiction even in their own minds. What does it matter ? they ask. If they were telling the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, they would not feel it necessary to warn their infant hearers that beans do not, as a rule, produce stalks reaching up to heaven. The attitude of the child’s mind towards such a narrative is, they well know, neither that of belief nor that of unbelief. It is simply that of interest and wonder at an unfold­ ing vision. Why should the case be different with the story of Eve and the Serpent ? 1 There can be no harm now in stating that the clergyman was the late Rev. John Rodgers, Vicar of St. Thomas Charterhouse—not “hang theology Rogers,” but his successor in that cure—and for some time Vice-Chairman of the School Board for London. Of his courage various education campaigns in London afforded ample proof. �40 The moral difficulty is that Bible History is tacitly accepted in school as divine and infallible. MORA L EFFECT ON TEA CIIERS It is not for me to answer that question. The point of my whole argument is that, if Hebrew myth or legend is to be treated at all in State schools, they should be treated precisely in that manner. What I complain of is that they are not so treated, but rather as parts of a divine and infallible history. And the position is such that they cannot be otherwise treated, unless the children under instruction are expressly told so. This would be quite possible in Sunday-schools, even of orthodox churches, if liberal influences like those of Dr. Monro Gibson or Professor Rendel Harris happened to prevail there. But in no Board school is it at all possible, because the attempt would lead to theological discussion on the Board, and revive the religious difficulty in its most obnoxious form. The result is that teachers have to treat as solemn fact every Hebrew legend or impossible miracle read as a Scripture lesson. Those whom I have described above as receptive of modern dissolving views, wherein historic falsehood shades off into spiritual truth, may flatter themselves that they are only giving a moral lesson through a parable. But the illusion is dissipated the moment that any intelligent pupil asks such critical questions as occur to precocious children. “ Mother,” asked a four-year-old enfant terrible whom I once knew, “ what does God sit down on when he’s tired ? ” “ O, my dear,” said the mother, “ God is never tired.” “ But,” retorted the child, “you said he rested on the seventh day.” Now, critical questions of children are of no disadvantage whatever, if suggested by the inconsistencies of an avowed parable or fable. But any question of the kind may rudely dispel the rationalising teacher’s notion that he can use Hebrew myths as he uses JEsop’s Fables with­ out letting his pupils know it. If it be said that as a matter of fact such questions are rarely or never asked in school, so much the worse for the system. For the absence of any such sign of intelligent interest shows that the whole lesson is regarded as a ceremonial observance having no relation to realities. Besides, there are many cases in which an intel­ ligent and rational teacher, who was really free, would anticipate such questions for the sake of the spiritual impression he is seeking to make. If, for instance, he is using the infatuated Pharaoh of the Exodus as a type of earthly power, scornful of spiritual verities, and eventually crushed by a might that it cannot understand, he must needs deny the literal truth of the assertion that “ God hardened Pharaoh’s heart ” ; or, otherwise, all modern analogies fail. To explain the arrogant contempt of George III. and his court for the new-born American patriotism, by asserting that God hardened that monarch’s heart, would not be tolerated even by literal believers of what is said about Pharaoh. It is, therefore, impossible for the teacher to make any obviously fair application of the ancient example to the modern instance. �MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS 41 Records Take, again, the alleged command given by Jahweh to Moses, early of Hebrew Joshua, and Israel at large to smite the nations of old Palestine, and savagery. “utterly to destroy them,” to “ make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.” Either this command is accepted as historical or it is not. In the former case the teacher has an unenviable task in “justifying the ways of God to men.” In the latter case a conscientious teacher would almost give all his hopes of preferment to be allowed to say that the statement was a false and blasphemous pretence of the Israelites. But even here the recipients of dissolving views may find an issue. It may not be true that any personal Deity gave such a command. Yet the doctrine of the gradual selection of higher races through the survival of the fittest in each generation’s struggle for life is, in one form or another, generally accepted; and, probably, the application of such a doctrine to the resettlement of ancient Palestine would not stir up “ the religious difficulty ” even on School Boards. But such an interpretation is estopped by the conditions under which the lesson is given. The “ compromise ” involves a tacit undertaking to assume, if not the infallibility, at least the historical accuracy, of the Bible, especially where it narrates the successive steps in the progress of the alleged revelation to which all the compromising sects are at least officially committed. One of those steps is the establishment of the chosen people in Palestine, and the suppression of the earlier inhabitants by order of a personal divine ruler in order to make room for the former. This divine ruler speaks with human speech, expresses emotions of anger and jealousy indistinguishable from human feeling. He issues orders like an earthly sovereign who has a policy of conquest to carry out. It is not Fate, or the Unknowable, who is here acting and speaking. It is an intensely personal Being, whose mercy elsewhere is said to endure for ever, and whose “ compassions fail not.” How is it possible for any honest Christian, with the words of Jesus murmuring in his heart, to tell children that such a Being ordered these massacres? Yet no Elemen­ tary schoolmaster would be supported by his Committee in treating as fictitious the terrible command above-mentioned.1 What reality can there be in the teaching of the Bible under such In such a case limitations by any man or woman touched by the spirit of the age ? “ simple Bible The possibility of simplicity and straightforwardness is confined to that teaching ” needs small minority of teachers who still hold the whole Bible to be literally devout true. Unconscious of any incongruity between modern thought and simpletons as teachers. the “ plan of salvation ” taught to them in their childhood, they are also 1 Of course, this general assertion, based on nearly forty years’ experience, must be taken for what it is worth. But it is to be remembered that even school managers, who themselves disbelieve any such divine command, would fear the “talk” of the neighbourhood and possible offence to religious ministers. �42 The intoler­ able strain on enlight­ ened teachers. MORAL EFFECT ON TEACHERS untroubled by any inconsistency between Old Testament fables and the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount. They tell, with such fervour as a cooling faith allows, of man’s first disobedience, of the curse thereby entailed on all posterity, and of the elaborate process of miracle and prophecy, of type and sacrifice, of commandments and law and ceremony, by which a divine Being laboriously prepared the coming of the sacred victim whose death and resurrection open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers. Such a course of instruction amid all the array of theo­ logical dreams it unfolds has, undoubtedly, lucid intervals in which moving appeals may be made to the heart. The loss of Eden, the passion of Cain, the aspirations of Enoch, the faith of Abraham, the story of Joseph, David’s heart-broken sorrow for Absalom—all, even when taken literally, give the opportunity of contrasting the meanness of self-will with loyalty of soul to a divine ideal. But the possibility of this does'not in the least palliate the wrong spoken of in previous pages, the injustice done to dissenting ratepayers and less orthodox teachers who object to do evil that good may come. They protest against being made aiders and abettors in the perpetuation of what they think falsehood, even though some moral truths may occasionally glimmer through it. But, outside the minority who can with their whole hearts “teach the Bible ” in the sense intended by “ the compromise,” teachers are exposed to degrees of strain varying from the abject surrender to hypocrisy quoted above, to casuistical ingenuities and non-natural interpretation of obvious duty. “ Obvious duty ” because neither by authority of ratepayers, nor by orders of a School Board, nor even at the request-of parents, is any man justified in teaching to his pupils as truth what he himself believes to be a lie. “ Parable,” “ allegory,” “ fable,” and such like, are not the words to describe the method of one who himself accepts a Bible story in one sense and takes care that the children shall under­ stand him in another. To talk about a dispensation of “ illusion ” is right enough when we are groping after an increasing purpose running through the ages of faith. In those times everyone believed the illusion, and there was no dishonesty. But when a man tells of a universal deluge or of the overthrow of Jericho’s walls by sound of trumpet, or of Joshua’s arrest of the sun, in such a manner as to make the impression that he believes them as facts when he does not believe them, this is not an economy of illusion ; it is a lie—or at least if would be so to any unsophisticated conscience, �VI. THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN At the risk of needless reiteration, I must again disclaim any inclination to deny the educational value of the Bible, if properly used. The ques­ tion here raised is, What has actually been the ethical value of the Bible as taught under the conditions already described ? After thirty-seven years of daily text-grinding in the people’s schools, or rather after a hundred years of it if we take into consideration the previous work of voluntary associations, the question of Browning’s Pope seems very pertinent:— “Well, is the thing we see salvation ?” Is the language in our streets much purer or less profane and coarse than it was in 1870 ? More than one local Council, in grief at the coarse, foul, and disgusting words constantly used in its streets, has desired the law to be strengthened. We have had practically universal and professedly com­ pulsory education for nearly six generations of school children1—and yet we have to ask the magistrates to supplement the moral work of the schoolmaster in a matter like this. The following paragraph from the Westminster Gazette, of September 6th, 1901, is very suggestive, and unfortunately is not yet irrelevant to present manners. The italics are my own :— We would gladly see the resolution passed by the East Ham Council to stop offensive language on tram-cars adopted by other local autho­ rities. The use of language of this sort is disagreeable enough to many, wherever heard ; it is particularly so on public conveyances where other passengers are compelled to listen to it. The strange thing is that those who indulge in it are, as a rule, quite unconscious of giving any cause of offence. They are so accustomed among their fellows to express them­ selves in such a way that they go on doing so wherever they may be. It will, no doubt, be possible to curb the nuisance by measures of the kind referred to ; but, as the use of objectionable language anywhere is an offence at law, it might be well, perhaps, if the law were put in motion more frequently than it is. Persons passing along the streets often have their ears assailed with foul expressions, which a few prosecu­ tions might make less common. Is it not a scandal that elementary schools should be so powerless to mould the manners of children who have attended them for six, eight, 1 For the greater part of the period compulsory attendance has begun at five years of age and ended after thirteen. 43 The voca­ bulary of the streets. �44 I ack of moral inspi­ ration in the schools. THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN or ten years?1 All these foul-mouthed people, who “are so accus­ tomed among their fellows to express themselves in such a way,” have passed through some elementary school in which the Bible, or even the Catechism, has been taught, and “ explanations have been given there­ from in the principles of the Christian religion and morality.” And yet they have not been saved from coarseness, profanity, and indecency in speech. Is the effect of cheap literature quite what we hoped and expected ? When opening our first Board schools, did we forebode that in the twentieth century the cry of “All the winners ” would sell more papers than the most thrilling announcements of scientific or archaeological discovery, or even of the most exciting political events ? If the English translation of the Bible is, as some incongruously say, a “ British classic,” should not its incessant reading have raised the intellectual tone of the people above the level where it remains ? In our incessant whining for clumsy methods of force to put down betting, bribery, and impurity, is there not a manifest despair of moral remedies? Yet I should not be at all surprised to find that the hysterical people who continually write letters to the Press urging methods of barbarism, such as the “ cat,” as infallible moral restoratives, have no less fervently throughout their lives insisted on Bible drill. And when this con­ spicuously fails, the natural conclusion, that there must have been some lack of moral inspiration in the method, does not seem to occur to them. The fine old Christian saying that “ force is not God’s way ”2 loses its significance when the Bible becomes a fetish; and “ Bible and beer ” has to be supplemented by Bible and birch. The good humour of an English mob is proverbial, and was a character acquired long before “ simple Bible teaching,” under the Cowper-Temple clause, was invented. But such good humour does not prevent outbreaks of rudeness, coarseness, and disregard for the rights of others which here and there make Bank Holidays odious. Now, if moral training in public Elementary schools is good for any­ thing, it ought surely to secure compliance with the precept, “ All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even so to them.” But the constant recurrence of cases in which private parks, by courtesy 1 Take, for instance, the objectionable and even dangerous habit of promiscuous and continual spitting. Of late public authorities have been obliged, on hygienic grounds, to interfere. But until doctors decided that disease may be spread thereby, mere decency had no chance of consideration. I did my humble best as Board School manager in London from 1871 onwards to secure attention to the subject, but in vain. Yet if morals include “ manners,” as surely they ought, the doctors should have been anticipated by the teachers. 2 “ Bia yap ou irphaevri r<p Gecp.” It occurs in the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus of uncertain but very early date (cap. vii.), and also in Irenaeus (contra Hcereses, lib. iv., cap. xxxvii. 1). �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 45 opened to the public, have had to be closed because of the abuse of such courtesy, proves that the lesson has not been successfully impressed.1 I gladly acknowledge that juvenile crime, in the sense of offences punished by sentence of magistrates or judges, has largely diminished. But this has been brought about by improvements in the law rather than in juvenile manners. Children who would, in a more barbarous though recent age, have been sent to prison are now sent to Industrial schools or Reformatories. That, however, is quite consistent with a persistently low standard of juvenile morality, and of this there is too much evidence. Of such evidence I will give a specimen forced upon my attention An illustra­ tive case. on the very day when these lines are penned. Its value must, of course, depend on the extent to which it corresponds with the experience of my readers. But I scarcely think that many will say that it is an unusual case. This morning, then (July, 1907), I was one of a bench of magis­ trates before whom eight boys, of ages varying from twelve to seventeen, were accused, some of them of stealing, and others of malicious damage, involving, as was proved, serious danger to human life. The little robbers had made a raid on certain “penny-in-the-slot” machines, by means of tin discs, which, as it turned out, worked quite as well as the penny with His Majesty’s image and superscription. Some of us thought—and many may share our opinion—that machines making theft so easy constitute an unfair temptation to our child citizens under our present feeble and futile systems of moral training. But perhaps I was alone in thinking that it was the moral training quite as much as this imperfect “ penny-in-the-slot ” system that was to blame. For, what­ ever may be the attractions of illicit chocolates and cigarettes, boys from twelve to seventeen years old ought to have—and would have under efficient moral training—sufficient feeling of the meanness of theft and of its disastrous consequences to social order to enable them to resist. There were also three accusations of malicious damage, one of the accused youngsters being a defendant also in the previous case. In a neighbouring mountain quarry the stones are run down tramways having an incline steeper than a high-pitched roof. Now, on a Saturday half­ holiday, when there was no one about, these adventurous boys, finding 1 In the former edition I gave certain then recent and notorious instances of the kind, in one of which two Sunday-school teachers in charge of a children’s excursion were concerned. I have no reason to believe that the evil is much abated since then. And I have had special opportunities during these years of not'.ng how vain are the efforts of the, Selboine Society to preserve picturesque places of resort from desecration. Picnickers seem to imagine that it is not of the least consequence in what state of filthy untidiness they leave nature’s beauties. �46 THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN a waggon securely “scotched” at the top of one of these steep The moral instruction of such juveniles, tramways, removed the “ scotch ” and started the waggon off. It was good fun, no doubt; but, as several deaths have occurred through incautious trespassing on these tramways, it was highly perilous fun, and the boys were quite old enough to know it. Compared with this danger to life, it seemed to me that the smashing of the company’s waggon was trivial. In old times these peccant children would have been sent to swell the number of juvenile criminals. But, of course, no such consequence followed in this case; and as the same just and rational leniency is now exercised in thousands of similar cases, this amply accounts for the apparently satisfactory change in the statistics of juvenile crime. Yet is it so satisfactory when we learn the real reason of the change? These latter frolicking boys, though accused of “ malicious damage,” were, I believe, not capable of malignity. No; but neither they nor the pilferers had such sense as they ought to have had at their age of their duty to their neighbour, or of their moral relations to the community which assures their safety and their prospects in life. Now, if anyone thinks this is too much to expect from boys of twelve to seventeen, let him watch them at their games of “ marbles,” or follow them to the cricket-field and the football-ground. There he will find that cheating is held in contempt, that any youth who tries to “ sneak ” an advantage from his fellows is not only pummelled, but “ boycotted.” Why should it be different when the “ game ” to be played is that of society ? But it happened that an official visit which I paid to an “ undenomi­ national” school1 at an hour earlier than the petty sessions suggested an explanation. For there I found the “religious instruction ” going on. The school was divided for this purpose into two classes, senior and junior. The elder were studying the beginning of the romance of Joseph in Genesis xxxvii. The points on which questions were asked were the reasons for Jacob’s partiality to Joseph, the delights of a “coat of many colours,” the filial obedience of Joseph—which, according to the chapter before the children, seems very questionable—the signifi­ cance of Joseph’s dreams, and the unreasonableness of his brethren and father in objecting to them. The junior children were being instructed in Matthew ii., especially the “ massacre of the innocents.” The lady teacher was particularly anxious that the children should appreciate the inferiority of Herod’s claim to be King of the Jews as compared with that of Jesus. She was also careful to explain the wiles by which that 1 Lest it should be supposed that “denominational” schools would have done better, I may as well mention that all the accused youths attended, or had attended, a Church school. �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 47 child-slayer would have cheated the innocent Magi had it not been for the intervention of the deity. And this was moral instruction ! Let it not be said that these instances are unfair because excep­ tionally inept. The contrary is the case. I have myself known teachers who realise that the practical problem is to awaken an effective moral sense, and who try to bend “simple Bible-teaching” to its solution. But it is they that are exceptional, not the type I have described. And those exceptional teachers are usually earnest in pleading for more freedom in treating the Bible and in extending the scope of moral instruction beyond it. Nor let it be supposed that I am here assuming the possibility of eliminating by any means whatever the dangers attendant on exuberance of animal life in youth. But I do say that the only way of minimising them is to develop as early as possible a sense of comradeship, fellowship, responsibility to and for society, which shall inspire the child to be as faithful to the surrounding community as he is now to the narrower circle of his playfellows in games. And I maintain that to look for any such results from a talk about Joseph’s dreams and destinies, or about the rival regal claims of Herod and Jesus, is to expect grapes from thorns and figs from thistles.1 It may be said that our failure to improve morals as fast as we increase knowledge condemns the churches as well as the schools. That is so. But in regard to the possibilities of amendment in the two cases there is this difference. The churches are much more free than the schools are to adapt their moral teaching to the needs of the time. Theological Articles scheduled in an Act of Parliament, and even Trust Deeds deposited in a denominational Muniment Room, are no more effective than the handcuffs and bonds imposed on professors of the “box-trick,” where there is the will to get rid of them. But the watchful jealousy of a majority on an Educational Committee elected for the purpose of guarding the sacred compromise is not to be eluded. As a matter of fact, it is notorious that the Churches are, to a very considerable extent, changing their methods of teaching. I have already given illustrations of the freer spirit which is gradually inspiring even Evangelical Sunday-schools. We may well hope, therefore, that, in accordance with historic precedent, the Churches will insensibly shift the standard of orthodoxy. And, meanwhile, there is little temptation to insincerity. Whatever may be the case with ministers—among whom there is a great deal more moral heroism than is commonly supposed—Sunday-school teachers, at any rate, have no temptation to 1 Anyone who supposes such an argument to imply materialism is quite mistaken. It points to a universal religion, which involves, absorbs, and transforms all the sectarian religions that have ever been conceived. Schools more stereo typed than churches. �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN continue their work of Bible teaching for a single day after they find out that they cannot do so honestly. Besides, Sunday-schools do not compel us to pay rates for their support. They have no national or municipal authority at their back. They do not involve us as citizens in responsibility for their teaching or moral influence. Whatever may be said about the lingering fiction of a “ national ” Church, its Sundayschools are entirely voluntary and unofficial. The case of public elementary day schools is very different. Attendance at one or other of them is compulsory on some eighty-four per cent, of our children. We are forced to pay for their support Every through taxes and rates. It is by the national or municipal authority, spon^Mefor or both, that every lesson in them is given. We are, therefore, responineffiXncy sible for them; and if they are allowed to demoralise the commonschools. wealth of the future, it is our fault. Or, if they are maintained on a system proved to be inefficient in attaining the highest ends of educa­ tion, every citizen is to blame. Further, the position of the elementary teacher is a much more difficult one than that of the Sunday-school teacher. To the former his work is also his livelihood. He cannot abandon it with a light heart the moment he is required to offend his conscience. Nor is there the slightest prospect at present of obtaining for him an honourable “liberty of prophesying.” This would imperil that sacred ark of the covenant, “ the compromise.” The result is that the Bible teaching in public elementary, and especially in municipal schools, is inevitably more demoralising than that of Sunday-schools. In the latter the worst evil to be feared is that of ignorance, or, perhaps, honest bigotry. But in the former the tendency of the system is to make dishonesty a necessity of life. Or if dishonesty be, considering all things, too hard a word to use, the least evil that is possible is the prevalence of a lifeless formalism in i precisely that part of school teaching which most of all requires the energy of an eternal spirit. Now, by this last phrase I mean the moral fervour which persists from age to age only on condition that it shall continually change its modes of expression into accordance with the new actualities of the times. Only use and wont can account for the indifference with which the majority of electors look on while the springs of morality are poisoned before their eyes. What does it matter? ask some. If the teaching is false, it means as little to the children as the drone of a beetle, and meantime the religious difficulty is avoided. It seems never to occur to such people that they are thus consenting parties to the waste of nearly one-fifth of a child’s school time. How can such a system be anything but demoralising ? Even the children from decent and respectable homes want waking up on moral subjects. Let �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 49 it be granted that such children hear nothing but good at home. They hear it, however, in the form of kindly platitudes about “behaving” and doing as they are told, and “honesty as the best policy”—which platitudes are neither stimulative nor impressive. They require to be made to feel that the matter of conduct is interesting, and they will never be made to feel that by a teacher who explains the grammar and geography and archaeology of a Bible story which he does not himself believe. The fate of those children—alas, too many—who have no decent homes to echo the platitudes of morality is far worse. It is simply shocking to hear little victims of society’s crimes rattling off pious phrases and shrieking saintly hymns to which they obviously attach no meaning whatever. And if their teacher is compelled by his engagements to add to the falsehoods and unrealities of their young lives a lesson on a supernatural revelation which he does not himself believe, he becomes, like the parent, to Christ inconceivable, who, instead of a fish, "would give to his child a serpent. Perhaps one reason for persistence in the present system is that its most devout supporters do not regard morality as teachable, but expect it rather to be inspired by a miracle of divine grace. The instrument for the accomplishment of this opus operatum is the word of God, and the word of God is identified wuth the Bible. A magic charm is thought to lie in the syllables of the sacred text, like the influence once attri­ buted to written spells—a charm altogether apart from any significance of the "words. Or if that be thought too strong an expression, I will try to defend it. There are scattered through Shakespeare’s works very many gems of moral truth quite clear and limpid enough to appeal to children in the upper standards of elementary schools. Thus Portia’s exquisite description of “ the quality of mercy” does not depend much upon the context for its appeal to the heart. And detached sayings, such as “Truth hath a quiet breast,” “Love’s best habit is a soothing tongue,” “ Never anything can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it,” easily stick in the memory, and under free moral instruction would become pregnant with connotations which would return whenever the saying was remembered. But then no one attributes to such words any supernatural authority, and they are, therefore, not recog­ nised as “the word of God,” though in a clear sense they are so, as being the inevitable outcome of human experience, which is a partial expression of God. But the absence of a supernatural sanction is thought to unfit such words for the purposes of religious instruction; whereas when similar lessons are read from the Bible the supernatural sanction is assumed, and therein lies their value. In other words, it is not the moral contents, not self-evident truth, that counts, but only the E The Bible as magic. Not the truth but the sanction valued. �5o How far morality is teachable. Grace, its meaning. Communi­ cated through human in­ tercourse. THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN supernatural sanction. And this is what I meant above by saying that the Bible is valued for some supposed magic charm, akin to that of written spells. The same fond delusion which induces some well-meaning people to hang up texts in railway waiting-rooms, or to employ sandwich-men to carry texts on their backs, is also at the root of much zeal for text­ grinding in schools. If the Genesis story of the Fall of Man, or of the Flood, had been first given to the modern world by some learned excavator of cuneiform records, we should certainly have considered it extremely interesting, and in many ways suggestive of the attitude of early ages towards the mystery of life. As fables they might even have been recognised as useful for combining entertainment with instruction in the teaching of children. But no one would have dreamed of making them a formal basis of moral lessons. What is it, then, which gives such narratives their sacred and even awful importance ? It is the feeling that they are parts of a divine “plan of salvation” which must stand or fall as a whole, and of which every separate part is essential to the miraculous power of the whole. The moral significance is not the point of importance, but rather the impact of a divine word. Now there is certainly a grain of truth in the religious assumption that morality is not teachable in the same way as, for instance, arith­ metic is teachable. When, in the latter case, the main relations of the digit numbers are fixed in the memory, the rest is mere matter of com­ bination, requiring only attention. But no amount of memory work or of combination of maxims will give morality. Here the working of the sympathies and the will are absolutely essential. How is this to be ensured ? The Evangelical people, who are the lifeguard of the system, hold that it depends on a miracle of grace, and a miraculous Bible is, in their view, the best, indeed the only means for evoking that. Now, I am not going to assert that, as regards this miracle of grace, they are fundamentally wrong. At any rate, I hold they are not so wrong as those who treat of human nature as though it were wholly and utterly isolated from and independent of the divine Whole in which it lives and moves and has its being. But this expectation of grace from the mere repetition of sacred spells is unworthy of the spiritual aspirations with which it is too often associated. No; grace comes through human intercourse, and the more vivid, the more intimate, the more natural that intercourse is, the more probable is the transmission of grace. Apply this to teacher and pupils. The former is rightly expected to be the medium of a grace that touches the sympathies and moulds the wills of his pupils. But he can only discharge this function through free intercourse of mind and heart. How is that possible to him in the course of lessons which require him to pretend �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 5i a mental attitude wholly alien to his real life ? It is of no use to say that it ought not to be alien to his real life, or that he ought to be a sincere believer. There is nothing whatever in the engagement of a municipal school teacher to bind him to that, and, even if there were, the ideas of the most sincere “believers” about the Bible are now very often, indeed, identical with those held by eminent unbelievers fifty years ago. But the “ compromise ” makes no allowance for this change. And the result is that really only a minority—and, I suspect, a very small minority—of such teachers feel entirely at ease and natural in giving a Scripture lesson. How can a teacher, touched by the spirit of the age, feel at ease in teaching the life of Jesus to his class? He has, perhaps, been reading with sympathy and resistless conviction the article “Gospels” in the new Encyclopedia Biblica, edited as we have seen and largely written by eminent clergymen of the Church of England. He finds that in the judgment of the writers of this particular article—a judgment founded on evidence he cannot resist—the Gospels are a growth, rather than the work of the men whose names they bear. For the reality of the miracu­ lous events, including the resurrection, there seems to him now to be no evidence whatever of the nature usually demanded by modern historical science. And, indeed, nothing is left to him but a vision of transcendent beauty floating between earth and heaven, too pure for material solidity, and yet impossible of invention by any such minds as are reflected in the New Testament canon. The result probably is that he still keeps and still worships the Vision, as a transfiguration of a supreme manhood too great to be understood or rightly reported by disciples. I am not writing a polemic, nor yet an eirenicon. I am not, there­ fore, called upon to defend such a mental attitude as is here described. I only say that, in these times, it is one very natural to many who desire to keep both reason and emotion true. And those who go through this experience, if they have the teaching faculty, are likely to be specially quickened by that experience. The very anxieties and “searchings of heart ” they have suffered make them more sympathetic; and the spiritual heroism which prompts them to refuse the consolations of pretence gives a ring of sincerity to their utterance that tells upon children no less than on adults. But imagine such a man or woman set to give a lesson, according to the “compromise,” on the alleged birth in Bethlehem, or the feeding of the five thousand, or the walking on the sea! He must treat such things as historic facts, and is afraid lest by any chance word he should betray his real position.1 He must 1 See preface, p. viii , where reference is macle to Mr. Nevinson’s observations on this fear in his articles contributed to the Westminster Gazette. The ration­ alist teacher and the lite ot' Christ. Bondage to the letter. �52 Disappear­ ance of the spirit. To restore it get rid of insincerity. Natural morality more easily illustrated by modern instances. THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN expound the “ fulfilments of prophecy ” asserted by Matthew or Luke. He must explain away the words of Mary to the child Jesus, when she said: “Thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” If questioned on the precise mode of multiplication of the baked bread and cooked fishes that fed the five thousand, he can only reply feebly that these things are a mystery, when he holds them to be fiction. The great immeasurable soul of whom he has glimpses through the preternatural transfiguration wrought by the Gospels is reduced in his inevitable teaching to an itinerant wonder-monger, who puzzled the world by a sort of holy magic. Is it strange that religion, taught after such a fashion, should be morally barren ? It may be asked, How would the position be improved by excluding the Bible ? One answer is that the moral atmosphere in many schools would be purified by the elimination of unreality and insincerity. That such evils accompany the use of the Bible in school is not the fault of the Book. It is a consequence of the conventional superstition with which it is treated. But, so long as half the population regard it as divine and infallible, while the other half believe it to be a collection of human documents, each to be taken on its merits, it is impossible to ensure sincerity and honesty in its use. If ever a time comes when it can be used with the same sort of intelligent discrimination and freedom as is claimed by university professors in teaching Cicero’s De Officiis or Plato’s Republic, it will become an exceedingly valuable handbook. But that time does not seem to be within a measurable distance now. Another answer to the above question is that if morality were taught as a part of our natural life, dependent on human experience and not on a miraculous revelation, the teacher would be more likely to bring his lessons home to the every-day life of his pupils. Which is the more likely to inspire a wholesome fear of lying—the story of Gehazi, or the account of a plague of small-pox which might have been stopped by the isolation of the first cases but for the lying denials of their relatives that there was anything wrong ? In my time it was usual to tell children that “ Don’t-care ” met a lion, and was eaten up. The warning had not much influence; but the true story of a child who walked unwarily, and fell headlong down a flight of steps, induced, at any rate for a short time, some alertness in looking to the path before us. It is no aspersion on the Bible to say that it cannot supply the place of systematic instruction in the morals of daily life. Listening to the “ explanations given therefrom in the Christian religion and morality ” by even the best elementary teachers, one cannot but feel that the knowledge of Scripture is one thing and morality another. Both teacher and taught are for the moment affecting to live in another world entirely different from this, conducted on a different method, actuated �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 53 by impossible motives, and continually corrected by miracle. The stories, the maxims, the doctrines, are items to be remembered for examinations. But they are none of them on the same plane as the child’s daily life. The notion of any practical application rarely occurs, except as a preparation for death or a key to the dream-world of heaven. In former years, when I was still a member of the School Board for Ineffectual effort to London, and much nearer in creed to the Evangelical Free Churches secure moral training’ than I am now, I was so impressed with the practical absence of under the late School systematic moral teaching from the schools that I called attention to the Board for London. subject, and obtained the appointment of a small committee to consider the question. One of the members was the late Rev. John Rodgers, Vicar of St. Thomas’s, Charterhouse, and at that time Vice-Chairman of the Board. My proposal was that a course of lessons should be based upon the summary of practical morality given by the Church Catechism in answer to the question, “ What is thy duty towards thy neighbour ? ” I thought then, as I do still, that the summary is a very good one.1 The highest classes in elementary schools are perhaps capable of receiving more definite instruction on the origin, nature, and obligations of social relationships. But for children from seven to twelve years of age it contains just the sort of practical summary of duty, in the form of a “categorical imperative,” that is adapted to their needs. Drawn out into a series of detailed lessons with ample illustrations, it would form an admirable basis for a course of moral instruction and exhorta­ tion likely to affect the life. In this conviction I went so far as to sketch the outline of such a course of lessons, which, I suppose, exists still somewhere in the archives of the extinct Board. And, as it was grounded on the Catechism, I thought myself secure of support from Evangelical Churchmen. I am glad to remember that the Rev. John Rodgers supported me. But I was sadly disappointed in the more pronounced Evangelical laymen. One of them, a most excellent man in all social and business relations, though belonging to the straitest sect of “ Low ” Churchmen, and elected to the Board entirely on account of his religiousness, declared vehemently that “ it left out everything that a Churchman cared for.” It was useless to suggest that “ everything a Churchman cared for ” could be supplied in a Churchman s own Sunday schools. The very appearance of teaching morality for its own sake, apart from the magic, symbols, and formulas of theology, was considered suspicious, and the project had to be dropped. 1 Among those who never learned this Catechism a very curious mistake is prevalent. It is supposed to urge contentment with “that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call” us, whereas, of course, the words are, “to which it shall please God to call me.” Also the word “ betters ” has been quite gratuitously taken to refer exclusively to social rank, whereas it refers just as naturally to moral worth. �54 Attempt by the Moral Instruction League to assert the rights of parents. Defeated by undenomi­ national bigotry. THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN The decision was regrettable ; but, from the point of view fixed by the “compromise,” it was perhaps inevitable. For both Churchmen and Nonconformists, having once established and endowed the Bible— and practically their common interpretation of the Bible—as the one sanction of morality recognised by the School Board, were naturally loth to imperil that settlement by any admission of merely natural ethics. But, however that may be, surely the later refusal of the same Board to allow children to be withdrawn in accordance with the Conscience Clause from Biblical instruction to receive moral lessons instead is indefensible. The facts are as follows :— A society known as the Moral Instruction League was formed before the end of last century to stimulate attention to moral teaching in schools, and to suggest what the members held to be better methods. Using a right which is presumably within the limits of the British Constitution, to influence their fellow-citizens by conversation, they visited the homes of parents having children in attendance at Board schools, and explained their ideas. They showed that by law the children could not be compelled to receive the regulation Bible teaching. They pointed to the article in the School Board Code which directs that “ during the time of religious teaching or religious observ­ ance any children withdrawn from such teaching or observance shall receive separate instruction in secular subjects.” They then suggested that the parents, if they preferred non-theological moral teaching, should withdraw their children from the Bible lessons, and at the same time request that they should, during the time of those lessons, receive separate teaching in morality. The suggestions were received by the parents with an unexpected amount of favour. As many as a hundred children, or more, were withdrawn from theological teaching in each of several schools. But so threatening a schism was met with prompt measures by the alarmed devotees of the Compromise. In the first place, separate moral instruction was refused to the children withdrawn. Instead of that, they were set to toil apart at ordinary school drudgery. Now, this appears to have been a rather hard, and even cruel, interpretation of the School Board rule; for it virtually refuses to recognise ethics as a “secular subject,” and it forces upon unwilling parents the alternative of Bible or nothing. Under such circumstances, it is easy to understand the success of the next step taken by zealots for the Compromise. The parents were visited in their homes, and the difficulty and unpleasantness of the situation created for their children were vigorously explained. The result was that the children returned to the Bible lessons; and this has probably been adduced as evidence of the unanimous desire of parents of all creeds and none to have their children taught the common faith of �THE EFFECT ON SCHOOL CHILDREN 55 Evangelical Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Independents. It would have been more generous, and equally in accord with their existing School Board regulations, if the Board had consented to regard natural ethics as a “secular subject,” and detailed teachers—who could easily have been found—to give the lessons to the children for whom they were asked. The refusal to do so suggests that the authorities were afraid of the experiment. Perhaps, like the authorities of Jewish orthodoxy at the first feeble beginnings of Christianity, “they doubted whereunto this would grow.” But, after all, they are ministers of law, not of their own theological views; and I cannot for a moment suppose that their legal advisers would have told them that a concession to these parents would be contrary to the law. There are some, especially among the clergy, who boldly maintain the right of every parent to have his children taught his own creed at the public expense. It is noteworthy that these extremists belong to a Church which formerly resisted fiercely the imposition of a conscience clause, and which also refused to believe that any schools were necessary except her own. But, though the new policy of the priesthood is certainly more charitable than their former action, it has the misfortune to be imprac­ ticable. Our sects are too many to allow this sort of liberality.1 But if ever there was a case in which parents were justified in asking to have their own views of moral instruction carried out, it is surely the case I have described. For they did not presume to ask that any peculiar notions of theirs on transcendental subjects should be taught to their children, nor yet any eccentricities of morality. They would probably have been quite satisfied with the practical principles of conduct set forth in the Church Catechism, as above quoted. If Bible teaching can claim to be “unsectarian,” how much more justly can the title be claimed for doctrines of morality from which not one in a million of the population would dissent! The refusal of their request was unreasonable, unjust, and ungenerous. That it would be sustained by a majority of electors zealous for the Bible even to persecution may, unhappily, be true. But it was not in the true interest of morality. It is of a piece with the policy which sets unbelievers to teach belief, and counts the conscience and heart of the teacher nothing so long as he speaks by the Book. 1 Besides, it is absurd to say that a parent has a right to have his individual opinions on transcendental subjects taught by his fellow ratepayers, and taxpayeis to his children. For what the Commonwealth seeks by its education policy is good citizens of this world, not of any unknown world. But when a parent asks that his child shall be taught at the public expense such a doctrine, for instance, as priestly absolution, he is asking not that his child shall be made a good citizen, but that he shall be taught how to secure the safety of his soul in an unknown world. „ Such, a claim is simply preposterous. If valid, it would give the “ Peculiar People a claim to have their children taught at the public expense the sinfulness of calling in a doctor. Bogus rights of parents. �VII. THE WRONG TO THE NATION Contrast of kindred States where the religious difficulty is excluded. Second in importance to the disastrous effects of a hollow compromise on the teaching of morality is its injurious influence on the development of the national intellect. In the United States, and in our own greatest Colonies, there has been an almost complete elimination of the religious question. It is true that in the older settlements of Canada friction is kept up by the survival of Catholic claims and influence. It is true also that in the United States and in Australia occasional efforts have been made by devout sectaries to disturb the settlement effected by dropping theology. We know, likewise, that in many common schools of the United States the old custom is still kept up of reading from the teacher’s desk at the commencement of school a few verses from the Bible “ without note or comment.” I am one of those who think that this comment of silence is worse than almost any other. The custom is a tribute to the survival of Puritan traditions in America. But the fact that, in spite of these traditions, the Americans have substantially left the teaching of the Bible and Christianity to the Churches is all the more creditable to their spiritual courage. At any rate, their practice affords no support whatever to the evangelical compromise in England. But these modifications of pure “secularism” have been almost a negligible quantity. It is substantially—and excluding Catholic Canada —almost exactly true that the educational policy of Greater AngloSaxondom1 has been determined solely by educational interests, and not by sectarian rivalry. I recognise, of course, that other advantages besides this blessed peace have favoured our kinsmen beyond the seas, and especially in the United States. The absence of an Established Church, the more prevalent sense of equality, and, in the great Republic, the system of common schools, which merges all class interests in the one national and patriotic interest, have, of course, conduced to the same end. But even these happy features of the new commonwealths would have been ineffectual if the religious difficulty had not been excluded. 1 This, of course, excludes the Anglo-Dutch States of South Africa. At the time of writing, the religious question in education appears to be in process of settlement for the Transvaal by the adoption of a Bill securing two and a half hours’ instruction per weekin “Bible history.” The population there has apparently not yet become as much interested in historical criticism as are the people of England. Contrasting the two populations, we may find a fresh pathos in Koheleth’s words : “ He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.” 55 �iwj&i THE WRONG TO THE NA TION 57 These commonwealths have not had to balance the claims of jealous sects. They have not had to repress the enterprise of heterodox schoc? managers lest they should attract more scholars than the orthodox. They have not been tempted to minimise the number of school places needed in a district lest they should disturb sectarian monopolists who could not raise the money for enlargement. They have been privileged to consider two questions only—how many children required education, and what were the best methods of intellectual and moral culture. Whatever criticisms may be passed by our old-world scholars on the rawness of American culture, witnesses of indisputable competence—as, for instance, the correspondents commissioned to gather information for the Times newspaper on American machine manufacture—are emphatic in their testimony that the commercial and scientific progress of the States is very largely owing to the facilities for education offered from the common schools upwards. No ecclesiastical traditions, no balancing of sect against sect, not even “ pious founders,” have stood between the people and their intellectual aspirations. And this is not in the least because the American people are less bigoted than we. So far as we can judge, the Puritanical traditions of the Pilgrim Fathers still exercise a widespread and enduring influence on American religion. But, whatever may be their various beliefs, they drop them at the school door, and ignore them in their educational counsels. How different has been our experience in the old country! In 1807 ^sh^1' the then Archbishop of Canterbury stamped out Mr. Samuel Whitbread’s veto, precocious scheme of national education with a pious appeal to prejudice, pleading for Christianity in the words of a heathen poet:— Hac casti maneant in relligione nepotes. This sanctimonious, but infamous, veto1 by a titled priest against the education of a people is often quoted; but the oftener the better. Those who have studied Mr. Whitbread’s scheme know that, though it was of course far too indulgent to the Established Church, it drew the lines of a really national education. And though it would not have exorcised the demon of sectarianism any more than did the Act of 1870, yet it would have practically anticipated by sixty-three years the estab­ lishment of approximately universal elementary education. And when we think of all that the nation has lost through that long delay, it is hard to repress an indignation which, considering the sort of training received by the clergy at the very beginning of last century, may perhaps be misplaced. From that day to this the decisive consideration in every education ^nd^orlis crisis has been not how to give our children the best possible training, ^ordibut how to 17 protect first the Established Church, and next the Bible. If Church and Bible. 1 The Bill had passed the Commons, and would almost certainly have passed the Lords if the Archbishop would have allowed it. �5* Failure of Mr. Bal­ four’s Act. A lesson for the future. THE WRONG TO THE NATION the Nonconformists had not been false to their professed principles in 1870, a great part of the nation might then have adopted a wider policy which must ultimately have attracted the whole people. But at the golden opportunity their spiritual courage failed them. They dared not trust religion to the “voluntary principle” which they had invoked against the Established Church. They accepted State patronage and control for religion in the schools. After that great betrayal every School Board election became a theological battle. Questions of education were quite secondary. How many candidates gave an hour during their canvass to the best methods of teaching to read, or the most interesting modes of presenting the problems of arithmetic? The retention of the Bible, and the interpretation of “ unsectarianism,” or rather “ intersectarianism,” so as to include all evangelical doctrine, have been the two notes to which every platform has echoed. Nor has the Act of 1902 successfully evaded the difficulty as the ingenious and subtle-minded Premier of that day supposed it would. For sectarian strife has been simply transferred to County Council elections; and the balance of sects is considered more important than educational knowledge in the selection of co-opted members of the local Education Committees. In the battle of progress it is always good to fix upon some definite assertion of principle to be maintained at all costs. Supposing that principle to be chosen, as a successful general selects his point of attack, because it commands the field, victory on that point means a good deal more than the achievement of one item in a political programme. The success leavens the national mind with a new temper that suggests consequential steps of further advance. When Cobden and his associates in the Anti-Corn Law League fixed on the bread tax as their objective point of attack, they were wise in their generation. The movement was the more speedily successful because concentrated on the least defensible position of Protectionists. But when once that point was yielded, the whole case for Protection in general was practically given away; and the doctrine of customs dues for revenue alone was triumphant. In 1870 the Nonconformists had it in their power to do for the emancipation of education what Cobden and Bright accomplished for freedom of trade in 1846. The experience of religious Dissenters since the beginning of the nineteenth century might have taught them that sectarian domination, or sectarian rivalry, was hopelessly irreconcileable with freedom of educational development. Common sense dictated that the only effective way of removing the obstacle was to eliminate theology entirely from public elementary schools, and to relegate it to the free action of the Churches in accordance with the principles up to that date held by Nonconformists. The notion of any danger to religion �THE WRONG TO THE NATION L F s ’ 59 from such a policy ought to have been dissipated by the splendid examples in the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. So obvious seemed the inference from such palpable facts that Mr. Gladstone himself anticipated a Nonconformist demand for a “secular” system.1 Unfortunately, he gave them credit for more faith in their own principles than they possessed. But if they had been courageous enough for consistency, tens of thousands of the generation then coming into the world would have been saved from the sectarian curse which has since - blighted their education. Let us observe what would have been gained by the exclusion of theology. In the first place, there would have been a clear and definite assertion of religious equality in the schools. Where education is carried on under State patronage and control there are only two alterna­ tive methods of maintaining religious equality in the schools. The one is to teach every creed, and the other is to teach none. In a country where a very few great denominations hold the field, as in Germany2 or Austria, the former plan is possible, or at least plausible, though even in such cases there are fragmentary sects who suffer wrong. De minimis non curat lex. In Scotland also practically the same system is possible, for Presbyterianism of one form or another is professed by nearly the whole population. In Ireland the bad traditions of Protestant supremacy have survived disestablishment: and education remains a battle-field. Now I am dealing with the case of England and Wales, not with that of Scotland or of Ireland. But, lest it should be supposed that I shirk the question of the latter country, I will say at once that, Ireland being still medieeval in religion, it would be ridiculous to try to solve the problem of either school or university education on twentieth­ century principles. Therefore no solution can possibly be found by 1 This is now too well established to need confirmation. He did not, indeed, characterise “ simple Bible teaching ” as “ a monstrosity.” But he did characterise as such the pretence of any municipal body to define what “ simple Bible teaching ” is. 2 We are sometimes pointed to the free, unhindered development of education in Germany as a proof of at least the harmlessness of a denominational, system. But between Germany and England there are very pregnant differences which make any parallel impossible. Speaking generally, religious belief is not so much a matter of individual conviction among average Germans as with us. Not that they are. less religious in sentiment. Possibly they are even more so, because of their conventional indifference about creeds. But they have not generally that idea of the duty of individual conviction which generates our innumerable sects. Their confirmations and first communions are very much a matter of social routine, like the “coming out” of girls, or the assumption of the modern substitute for the toga mnlis by boys. To such a state of feeling rate-supported catechism and scripture are of no consequence, and this indifference makes sectarianism powerless for harm to the schools. Bismarck had some trouble with Catholic obscurantists; but he gave them short shrift. Who ever heard of a German district being stinted of school places to soothe the jealousy of the Lutheran or the Reformed or the Evangelical Church ; or of a school generation being allowed to grow up in ignorance in order that the Catholics might have time to supply the needed school places ? The two alternatives. Exceptional case of Ireland. �6o Working- of the Smith compro­ mise. THE WRONG TO THE NATION ignoring the obvious fact that the Roman Church dominates the consciences of three-fourths of the people as no Church or sect whatever can claim to dominate the people of England and Wales. To insist on “simple Bible teaching” in Irish elementary schools, or on undenomi­ national universities, only adds insult to injury. The treatment must be such as is adapted to a community less advanced in religious thought than England; and “concurrent endowment” of educational institutions is inevitable. The attempt to teach the creeds of all is never satisfactory, even under the most favourable circumstances. But those cases in which it seems to be compatible with some freedom of educational development are explained by the fact that there is no desire for religious equality and no intersectarian jealousy—at least so far as the schools are concerned. They are cases of denominational supremacy by consent, in the sense that social equilibrium is found, as in Germany, to be practically secured by the recognition of a very few predominant sects in whose influence the people placidly acquiesce.1 The champions of different creeds do not fight each other over the starved minds and souls of children. In England, however, the attempt to teach the creeds of all is obviously hopeless. And those Englands beyond sea which have most fully inherited the conscientious sectarianism of the Motherland have wisely adopted the other alternative, and teach the creed of none. Let us note the consequences of our perverse attempt at an impossibility. Although the so-called “compromise”2 was devised and carried by a Churchman, he was what in the vulgar language of controversy is called a “Low Evangelical,” and, though one of the excellent of the earth, he was considered in high ecclesiastical circles as little better than a Dissenter. His evident desire to have evangelical Sunday-school teaching introduced into Board schools appealed to the weak brethren among Nonconformists. They thus gained the doubtful advantage of endowment for their common gospel. But they inflicted a grievance on Churchmen which it is impossible to explain away. For the genuine Anglican view of Christianity differs from the united Nonconformist view. And it differs from it in such a way that, if you teach the Non­ conformist view, you necessarily prejudice the pupils against the Church 1 There is nothing at all in the above passage inconsistent with what I have previously said concerning the conscience rights of minorities in a population that religiously lives up to the twentieth century. When I visited Rome under Papal government I had no scruple about conventionally “bowing my head in the House of Rimmon.” And were I to live in Ireland, which is, as I have said, mediaeval in religion, I should pay with cheerfulness either rate or tax for Catholic, Protestant, Episcopal, or Presbyterian schools or colleges. But I must repeat that there is no Chuich or denomination in England which has any colourable pretence to the position which the Roman Church holds in Ireland. 2 The resolution of the late Mr. W. II. Smith was adopted with slight modifica­ tions by so many School Boards that the case of London is typical of all. �THE WRONG TO THE NATION 61 view, although you may say nothing about it. Nonconformists are content with the Bible, and the Bible alone. Churchmen desire, also, the catechism authorised by their Church. Nonconformists are satisfied A if such explanations of Scripture are given as will set forth “the plan m. of salvation,” meaning thereby the evangelical view of the Fall, the types of Christ in Jewish history and ritual, the Incarnation, the Atonement, and justification by faith. Churchmen, on the other hand, attach great importance to the creeds and sacraments, and are naturally jealous of any teaching which tends to represent the former as sufficient without the latter. That this is actually the tendency of “ School Board religion ” can hardly with fairness be denied. 1 think, then, that Churchmen had, and still have, a grievance under local education authorities with their “ simple Bible teaching.” But the policy pursued by Churchmen to secure its removal or diminution has been a blight on the education of the country. They have resisted the building of Board schools that were urgently needed. They have insisted on keeping children in crowded and stifling rooms rather than allow the relief which would have been given by undenominational schools. They have stigmatised as “ unfair competition ” the endeavour of School Boards or municipal authorities to spend their larger resources on giving the children of ratepayers a higher education than the sects could give them. They resisted low fees, and still more free schools) as long as they could ; and when their opposition was bought out by the fee grant they managed to retain a power of exacting special fees in addition, and railed against every attempt of Liberals to rid education of such vexatious hindrances. Their influence with Parliament is enormous, and must continue to be so while the choice of electors is practically limited to a small class of moneyed men naturally susceptible to social glamour. Indeed, that influence is resistless except during the brief moments when what Edward Miall used to call “ some great blazing principle ” concentrates popular attention. Such a principle was victorious when Church rates were abolished, and when the Protestant Episcopal Church in Ireland was disestablished. Such a principle might have been found in a real religious equality for the schools. But the endowment of the united evangelical sects provided nothing of the kind. It made all Non­ conformist appeals to justice hollow and feeble, while it put a weapon into the hands of Churchmen which they would not otherwise have possessed. The result has been a course of reactionary legislation, the purpose of which has been to restore, or at least maintain, eccle­ siastical control, while its inevitable effect has been to obstruct and blight educational progress. Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum. �VIII. CONCLUSION The next Education Bill. Should secure moral training. Objection i Material­ istic, etc. Human experience certainly spiritual, but not admittedly super­ natural. No wrong done to the orthodox conscience. In the Preface to this edition I referred to the failure of Mr. Birrell’s Education Bill, and in these concluding words I shall venture to utter a warning as to the fate of any future Bill which may be framed on the same or similar, or even analogous, lines. “Weak counsels and weak actings ”—to use Cromwell’s phrase—have brought things to this pass : that morals are the worst taught subject in our elementary schools, while by “ undenominationalists ” character and conduct, our chief educational ends, are vainly supposed to be secured by a sort of Bible teaching which Churchmen condemn, which Rationalists reject, which a large proportion of our teachers cannot sincerely give, and discussion of which even Nonconformists deprecate with a shrug. The first and essential purpose of any new Education Bill, then, should be to make obligatory in all State-aided schools a course of systematic moral train­ ing independent of any supernatural reference, and based on the experience of man. There are not so many now as there used to be who would say that this is sheer materialism and base utilitarianism. For surely human experience is not all materialistic. Indeed, “love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance,” belong as truly to human experience as does the desire to buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest. It is for the wise teacher to select the elements of human experience on which moral training is to be based. And if he selects the worse elements instead of the better, he is not fit for his post. Now, if anyone should say to me, “You have quoted the words of an Apostle; why not include them in the ordinary school lessons ?” my reply is, I am certainly most anxious to include such words as those if you will only allow them to be treated as expressions of human experience, and not of miraculous revelation. For the moment you introduce miracle or supernaturalism you let loose all the winds of controversy with which we have been buffeted in the previous pages. Nor can it be pleaded that the pious evangelical teacher would violate his conscience by treating the highest New Testament morals as matters of human experience. For, whatever they may have been in addition to that, they were at least realised in human souls and found by human experience to be the highest good. Indeed, a great deal of pulpit eloquence at the present day, and all the best Sunday-school teaching, is an appeal to common sense to try, by practising it, the 62 �CONCLUSION 63 value of Christian morals. There can therefore be no hardship what­ ever in forbidding the Christian teacher to go beyond human experience while giving moral instruction in State schools. Or, if it be rejoined that to the Christian teacher miracle and revelation are actual facts well within human experience, the reply is, firstly, that Christian teachers are so much disagreed as to the extent and interpretation of those alleged facts that no denomination can any longer claim to represent the Christianity of the nation; and, secondly, that all belief in miraculous revelation is now so widely surrendered that religious equality, nay, common justice, is impossible unless such questions are kept out of State schools. But we are told that such a scheme is impracticable. In this case, however, it is not we, but the objectors, who refuse to look facts in the face. For this so-called “impracticable” system is being actually worked with the best results by English-speaking people who, in the aggregate, number some hundred millions.1 To persist, therefore, in dogged denial of practicability is only to prove that a certain stolid attitude known as non possumus is not absolutely peculiar to Popes. Or, if it be said that the circumstances and habits of the great Republic and of our newest colonies are too different from those of the old country to allow of our adopting their practice in this case, here again the objection quietly ignores palpable fact. For we do actually during four-fifths2 of our school-time adopt the very rule that is so often said to be unEnglish, and therefore impossible. That is to say, the State makes it an essential condition of any money grant that during each half-daily session of the school there shall be two continuous hours3 devoted exclusively to “ secular ” instruction. And during these two hours, according to any strict interpretation of the law, it is illegal to devote a single moment to any religious observance, exhortation, or lesson. Now, if it is found so easy even in old English schools to give exclu­ sively secular instruction during four-fifths of school hours in all State schools of the land, why on earth should it be “ impracticable ” to do the same thing during the whole time for which public authority is responsible ? 1 The population of the United States of America is now more than eighty millions. Add New Zealand, Victoria (Australia), South Australia, together with a large part of Canada, the sum will not be far short of the figure given ; and if there should be some deficiency, every year is filling it up. The case of India is different; but it also illustrates the fact that among a population of very various, religious beliefs secular training (exclusive of morals) affords the only practicable solution of the education problem. 2 Where—if anywhere—advantage is taken of the legal permission to have religious observances, etc., at the beginning and also at the end of each school attendance, the proportion of time given to religious teaching may be slightly more. But the custom is so infrequent that the figure given above is substantially accurate. 3 It may be one hour and a half for infants ; but that does not affect the principle. Objection 2 Impractica­ bility. Solvitur anibulando. Even in England. �64 Encourage­ ment given by present system to an unreal division between things secular and sacred. Personal experience of a " secular” school. Case ot children neglected or not reached by the Churches. Repudiation in 1870 of any claim on the State. CONCL USION At this point I will make bold to say that the present arbitrary, forced, and unnatural system of a sharp time-table division does more to foster a false distinction between things secular and sacred than any State system of purely intellectual and moral training. For in New England or New Zealand the children of three equally religious neigh­ bours belonging to the Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian communions go to school together and sit in class together without ever having the false division of things sacred and secular obtruded upon them. Having had the good fortune myself, from seven years of age to thirteen, to attend a so-called “secular” school, I know by experience what I am saying. For that exceptional school, like the “common schools”across the ocean, was frequented, even in Liverpool, by some Roman Catholics of the middle class, and I think by almost every other Christian sect, in addition to Jews. I myself, having been brought up in the strictest sect of the Methodists, may perhaps be credited with having had even at that early age some sense both of religion and morals; and I declare that the moral and even religious tone of that “ secular ” school was on the whole higher than in a clergyman’s school to which I was afterwards sent. I remember at the former school being quizzed as a “ Methody,” but it was in a very good-humoured tone; whereas, at the clergyman’s, a Jew school-fellow, being quick to resent insult to his religion, felt in honour bound on one occasion to “ demand satisfaction ” from a stronger class-fellow on that account, and got, unfortunately, rather more than he wanted. In the “secular” school—and the same thing, according to all evidence, may be said of similar schools in the New World—the fact of religious division very rarely emerged, whereas in the clerical school they were the subject of constant wrangle. To arguments such as the above, especially when based on personal reminiscences, a superficial reply is easy, but not effective, because it ignores the main question at issue. “ It is all very well,” we are told, “ for children brought up in Christian homes to hear nothing of the Bible in school. For they hear it read, and perhaps explained, morning and evening by their father. They also attend a place of worship regularly, and probably Sunday school as well. But what of the thousands of children who come from homes which have no Bible at all, or at least where it is never read?” The reply is obvious and conclusive: Caveat Ecclesia. Let those who regard the Bible as “the word of God” look to it. For the nation has distinctly and formally declared by Act of Parliament that, so far as public elementary education is concerned, it denies all responsibility for any teaching of the kind. By no statute in force is Bible reading or teaching required in the public elementary schools, although it is permitted under certain restrictions —on the express condition that no grant of money is made for it �CONCLUSION 65 out of Parliamentary funds. Not only so, but the nation emphasises its renunciation of responsibility by refusing to allow its inspectors to examine or report on the results of Biblical teaching. The plea, therefore, that, if any part of the children of the State are without Bible-teaching from voluntary sources, the State must step in and provide it, is legally estopped by the fact that the State has, for thirty-seven years past, formally repudiated any such claim. The arrangement that actually exists is an unprincipled compromise unknown anywhere else on earth, and perhaps impossible to any but the dear old land possessed by so pathetic a faith in “ muddling through.” For the teaching of the Bible is entirely voluntary: only the voluntari­ ness is a privilege not of individual ratepayers, or of individual teachers, nor yet of individual parents—for the Conscience Clause is a shamz— but only of County Councils or their Education Committees. Now, notwithstanding the awakening of thought indicated by the literature and organisations above alluded to,2 I readily acknowledge that still surviving social custom and tradition ensure at least some majority on County Councils in favour of the apparently safe generality of “simple Bible teaching.” But scarcely a ratepayer who votes for it knows what he means by it. And the interpretation has to be, not fought out—for it never is—but meanly thrown upon the teachers, with the tacit under­ standing that if, in their explanations, they offend the beliefs or super­ stitions favoured by the County Council majority, that majority will want to know the reason why. Such an arrangement may be cunning, may be “expedient ” in the very basest sense. But the Churches who think that by such a dishonest compromise they are doing their duty to neglected children, or teaching “ truth in the inward parts,” reflect shame on the faith they profess. In all reverence, I say that their nominal Lord—if I have ever understood him—would rebuke them with the words, “ Ye know not what spirit ye are of.” To such arguments I know of no reply but the ignoble plea that the “ compromise ” hushes strife, or, in other words, that it plasters over the open sore of religious schism, “saying Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” But surely those who know and feel what is at stake—the moral culture, the character and conduct of the English people—will no longer accept this feeble excuse for the neglect of national duty. To them the hush of theological debate—though welcome enough—will 1 This was well known to the rejectors of Mr. Birrell’s real and effective clause in 1906. That clause, in its original form, excepted from the law of compulsory attend­ ance the time during which religious instruction is given. Mr. Birrell supported this by his own experience as a Nonconformist school boy at a Church school. He “ flatly refused ” to claim exemption from Catechism, not because he differed from his father, a distinguished Baptist minister, but because he preferred to take the lesson rather than be exceptional. {Hansard, April 9th, 1906.) a See Preface to the new edition, and also pp. 5, 11—13, 54F The teach­ ing of the Bible is now voluntary; but not so as to save the rights of conscience. The policy of “ flushing up ” �66 involves the paralysis of moral teaching. Recognition of the fact by Educa­ tion Com­ mittees. The only way. National morals would gain by the “ secular ’’ system. CONCLUSION afford no sufficient compensation for the criminal neglect of our children’s training in the moral essentials of social life. For while Calvinistic and Arminian, Baptist and Low Churchman, blandly agree on “simple stories from the Old Testament,” the result is that Jacob, who impersonated nearly all the later vices of the Jews with none of their virtues, is exhibited as a type to be imitated by English children if they would please God. There are, however, signs of an awakening of the public conscience on this subject, and a considerable number of local Education Authori­ ties1 are providing for systematic moral teaching in addition to, and in many cases at a separate time from, “simple Bible teaching.” What does this mean ? It means that the Scripture lessons, as given tinder the Com­ promise, have been found inadequate for the moral ends desired. And if the truth were known, its inadequacy is the direct result of the condi­ tions under which they are given. If, therefore, the above plea be true, that the compromise hushes up controversy, the hollow truce is purchased by the exclusion from the teaching of everything that could rouse or inspire. But, indeed, the plea is not true. For Catholics of all shades cannot be, and ought not to be, satisfied with the com­ promise. And if it be retorted that neither will they be satisfied with “ secular education,” no one asks them to be satisfied with it. All they are asked to do is to accept—as they do now—some four hours daily of secular instruction from the State, and to supplement it at their own cost by their own teachers with the theological training they desire. But if objections on the ground of materialistic tendencies and of impracticability and of the sacredness of a hollow truce are proved to be futile, much more are the fears mentioned in the first words of this Essay shown to be not only groundless, but opposed to the moral and religious interests for which they are professedly concerned. For the facts adduced in Chapters V. and VI. defy contradiction. These facts, moreover, are the inevitable consequences of the moral incongruities of an educational system involving the social, political, and religious wrongs detailed in the earlier Chapters, II. to IV. Now, of those who say “ Let us do evil that good may come,” St. Paul made the severe remark, “whose damnation is just.” And, whatever the condemnation may signify, it is surely incurred by those who would encourage lying to promote truth, or who fancy that forced insincerity in the teacher can inspire “the simplicity that is in Christ.” No, no; the very first and most essential condition of improved and efficient moral training in the 1 Among these authorities are ten county councils, twenty-one borough councils, and seven urban district councils. The Education Authorities for the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Devonshire, and Surrey have a syllabus of moral and civic instruction substantially similar to that of the Moral Instruction League. �CONCLUSION 67 nation’s schools is the relegation of all doctrine transcending human experience to the custodians of the various phases of the faith. This does not necessarily mean “ clericalism ”; for Nonconformist Sunday schools are certainly not clerical. And if any portion of our fellow­ citizens prefer clericalism, they have a perfect right to exercise their choice, provided they do not make it either a pecuniary or a moral burden on the State. Rid of such a burden, the State would be free to use all its resources, both pecuniary and moral, as it has never done yet, for the training of its children in the duties of a citizen. My argument, therefore, holds good that, so far from being a guarantee for moral training, the present permissive and quasi-voluntary system of Bible teaching in State schools actually prevents it. There is, I believe, only one other objection, which I need mention, to the proposed relegation of Bible teaching to those who believe in it, and that is the supposed overwhelming consensus of popular feeling against any such a plan. Well, the next Minister of Education who introduces a Bill may possibly have his eyes opened as to the hollowness of this assumption. My own experience suggests that as everyone is said to believe all men mortal except himself, so in this case each sensible person thinks everyone to be devoted to the great Smith compromise except himself. For over and over again have I been assured by more members of School Boards and Education Committees than memory can count that not only do they regard the present system as illogical, but they think it unfair and inconsistent with religious equality. They do not usually add that it is dishonest. For if they realised that, I will do them the justice to say that they would become “ Secularists ” at once. But they always add : “You must know that you and I are almost alone in such an opinion, and you can never carry your scheme.” Well, we shall see. But this I know, that in the evolution of heterodoxy into orthodoxy there come moments when suddenly the vast majority of people discover that they always held the hitherto discredited opinion, and on this question that moment cannot be far off. One sign of the coming change is the rapidly spreading recognition of the utter impossibility of the task we have been setting since 1870 to our Ministers of Education. And so long as the teaching of transcendental doctrines, whether supposed to be drawn from the Bible or from Church tradition, is made one of the duties of the State school teacher, the solution of the problem is far and away more difficult than that of the Sphinx’s riddle, while the consequences of failure are now likely to be, at least to the Minister of Education, analogous to the fate of the monster’s victims. The thing has always been impossible since the Toleration Act. But as misguided genius would persist in trying to square the circle long after it was mathematically shown to be an Supposed popular opposition. Growing; recognition of the im­ possibility of any other settlement. �68 Inevitable failure of any new Bill on the lines of 1906. Recent spread of rational religion. CONCLUSION irrational problem, so, notwithstanding the long-drawn agonies of the Forster Act with its reactionary amendment by Lord Sandon, and the cynical exposure by Mr. Balfour in 1902 of the real meaning of State meddling in religion, and the collapse of the final desperate effort in 1906 to secure a principle in name by surrendering it in substance, it is still possible that temporising converts, from Miallism to CowperTempleism, may beguile some unhappy Minister of Education into a fresh enactment of “ yea and nay ” in regard to religious equality in the schools. But the failure of such an attempt is as certain as that yea and nay are contradictory and mutually destructive. It may pass the House of Commons. It may even, by threats of revolution, be forced through the House of Lords. But any such settlement must be almost as shortlived as the bungle of 1902. For as that was doomed from the first by its failure to realise what is meant by religious equality among Christian sects, so any new “ compromise ” will be doomed if it stops short of extending unreserved religious equality to non-Christian people. But such religious equality will be accorded only when Parliament awakes to the fact that in passing from the nineteenth century to the twentieth we have left the domination of supernaturalism behind, and have entered upon the age of reason. If any book known to the last generation was confidently regarded as a book of facts, it was the Bible. Neither Churchmen nor educated Nonconformists are by any means agreed in so regarding it now. It is indeed a fallacy to say that they have on that account surrendered the Bible as the story of a revelation. But they have learned that the facts to which it bears witness are moral and spiritual in a much greater degree than they are historical. They are learning to treat it as a vision of spiritual evolution exhibiting not only the verities of human expe­ rience, but its illusions and unrealities as well. It is prized for its humanity rather than for its supernatural portents. In a word, it is now valued for qualities which would be impossible to an infallible book. Yet even those who take these intelligent views of the Bible are by no means agreed as to their application.1 And those who do not take such liberal views would be horrified by a proposal to trust “ simple Bible teaching,” except under the strictest safeguards, to one of their misguided brethren. But while fully conscious of this vast change, and of the controversies it stirs, we are asked to maintain, and perhaps under a new Bill to renew and continue, in State schools a system of religious instruction essentially based on the recognition of the Bible as an infallible book both of history and doctrine. 1 Of course, the so-called new views are most of them old enough. What is new is partly the fresh support found for them by recent research, and partly their acceptance to so large an extent by religious men. �CONCLUSION The result is that a large and growing number of masters and mistresses are required to teach what they do not themselves believe. Now, whether the opponents of the evangelical doctrines deduced from an infallible Bible are justified or not in stigmatising some of those doctrines as demoralising, at any rate it must be admitted that to teach to children as sacred truth what you regard as falsehood is certainly demoralising both to teacher and taught. To this, as I have insisted, is very largely due the paralysis that enfeebles moral teaching in the schools, and keeps the habits and manners of our population practically at the same level from generation to generation. The sanctimonious pretence of simple Bible belief required of teachers in all positions of the sliding scale of “ the New 1 heology ” demands either a self-con­ scious art of balancing like that of the tight-rope dancer, or a resigna­ tion to mechanical procedure by rote. In either case inspiration is impossible. Meantime this formalism or dutiful dissimulation excludes serious moral teaching in accordance with the advanced experience and needs of the age. Of course, none but a pedant would think of giving to school children a series of abstracts from scientific writers on morality. But the sense of scientific relation and proportion acquired by the teacher in his own studies may very well furnish the invisible skeleton on which his parabolic and attractive lessons on daily life are fiamed. It is not an unreasonable presumption that such lessons would be likely to bear more directly and effectively on truthfulness, cleanliness, industry, and consideration for others, than a study of Gehazi, or Ananias and Sapphira, or Mosaic camp rules, or Solomons reference to the sluggard and the ant. With regard to the last point of consideration for others, I do not dispute that a fine illustration may be found in the story of the young prophet and the borrowed axe in the Book of Kings. But it would not be morally safe unless the teacher, if he thought the floating of the axe to be fabulous, were allowed to say so. But the danger of overlooking moral flaws in beautiful Bible stories —a danger by which all we lovers of the old Book are beset—-is veil illustrated by Dr. Frank Hayward’s unreserved eulogy on the story of Joseph. “I admit,” he writes, “that the secularist should keep his eyes open, and steadily protest against the teaching of stories such as Joseph the ‘ Blagues of Egypt.’ But the objection to this story is not that it is mythological, but that it is morally pernicious. The Joseph story may be mythological, but it is morally priceless.” Is it ? Well, I admire it very much. It is—as I once heard a distinguished newspaper editor say of the Gospel narratives—“such good copy.” But when I am told that it is “ morally priceless,” I cannot forego some mild criticism. For instance, was it an amiable trait in a favourite son to be so �7o CONCLUSION Some points eager to relate the divine omens of p;s future greatness to his less morality. regarded brethren? A teacher whom—as mentioned on a previous page—I heard dealing with this point, suggested that “Joseph could not help having dreams.” True; but he could have avoided making them offensive to others. I am well aware of the absurdity of dealing thus with a relic of ancient folk-lore. But if we are seriously asked to take it as “morally priceless,” we must deal with it thus. I also heard the same teacher fumbling to find some moral element in the boy Joseph’s character to account for his divine election. But he could not find anything except “obedience to his father,” of which the evidence is Ifthe wn- scant- The one heroic moment in the story of Joseph is his resistance dent”0*' tO -P°hP^ar’s wife- And I am far from denying that, carefully related to children nearing the age of danger, the incident may be advantageously used. The reasons for his resistance concluding, “ How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ?” are perfectly admirable. But unless the little hearers are plainly told that the whole narrative is legendary, the impression they get from it of the direction of human destiny by dreams and capricious interferences of heavenly powers, and knowledge of the future given by special favour to an arbitrary king, is not quite “morally priceless.” corneHn Again, it was no doubt astute policy in a tyrant’s vizier to take com. advantage of the seven prosperous years in order to prepare a “corner” in corn against the coming famine. But is the example “morally priceless”? “And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan fainted by reason of the famine.” What then? A ruler whose example, on thlects was “ morallY priceless ” would surely have pitied the suffering people, people. and fed them on the most liberal terms from the king’s stored-up wealth of corn. But not so. The incomparable Joseph thought much more of dynastic interests than of the people’s welfare. Accordingly, by the interest's0 r°}al monoP°ly he first “gathered up all the money”; “and when supreme. money failed in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan,” “Joseph said, ‘Give your cattle, and I will give you for your cattle if money fail’”; and after the cattle were all made royal property, he pressed the desperate people’s need to the bitter end by compelling them to sell themselves and their wives and children into serfdom to escape starva­ tion. Was this action “morally priceless”? Hy toMsro' On the other fiancL much is made of Joseph’s wonderful magnanimity brethren. to his cruel brothers who had sold him to the Midianites. His kindness was somewhat severe in the mental tortures it inflicted not only upon them, but upon their aged father, by the detention of Reuben and the enforced adventure of Benjamin. But when all possible credit has been allowed to his family feeling and his tears, the imagination of the �CONCLUSION child who reads the story is more fired by the exultation Joseph must have felt in the fulfilment of his dreams, and in the discovery of himself to his brothers as “ ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.” No one feels more acutely than I the incongruity of such criticism as applied to an ancient and charming myth. But when we are told that; whether mythological or not, it is “morally priceless,” the incongruity must be endured fora moment, in order that the more dangerous absurdity may be exposed. . But, after all, if the truth must be spoken, it is not really the moi al, st^utes but rather the religious, character of Joseph that is valued for purposes ^act-on? of “ simple Bible teaching.” Here was a boy from childhood chosen by God and favoured with dreams of the honour divinely intended for him. It is always supposed, though the Hebrew story does not say so, that Joseph was a very pious boy, envied by his elders not only foi his coat, but for his goodness.1 At every crisis in the narrative Joseph s good fortune is accounted for by the special providence of God. 1 bus Divmc * Potiphar “saw that the Lord2 was with him, and that the Lord made all -ward for that he did to prosper in his hand.” The narrative adds: ‘‘And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field.” It may very well be that by thus insisting on the “immanence” of God in Joseph and his fortunes the Jheprob-^ two writers out of whose versions of tradition the tale as we have it was compiled were using the best expressions provided by their language writers. for skill, integrity, and business enterprise. For we know that, according to Mosaic ideas, the handicraftsmen such as Bezaleel—and surely there is beauty in the belief—had all their skill in cunning works, in gold, and in silver, and in brass only because they were. “ filled with the spirit of God in wisdom and in understanding and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship.”3 But, unfortunately, as I think, and as ever-increasing numbers, are Modernmisthinking now, that is not the form taken by Joseph’s religion as explained tion. by teachers imbued with the evangelical traditions common to Low Church Presbyterians, Wesleyans, Independents, and Baptists. No; they inevitably describe Joseph as of the Young Mens Christian 1 There is perhaps some colour given to this—though no justification in Stephen s noble speech (Acts vii. 9). , , 2 Of course, the original word here is “ Jaliweh ; and it makes a diffeicnce, but it is not for me to point out what that difference is. I deal only with the authorised version which is used in schools. The Hebrew idea of Jahweh was not exactly the teacher’s idea of “ the Lord.” . a If rightly interpreted, this was Spinoza’s idea likewise, only with a transcendent y truer conception of God. �IN­ Its unreality. Bearing- of such con­ siderations on the coming Education Bill. Such views not irreli­ gious. CONCLUSION Association type—a very good type so far as it goes, but a recent birth of time—as pious and prayerful, and always consistent in his profession, and diligent in all religious observances. The now well-known sensi­ tiveness of the Egyptians to pollution by foreign religions is never thought of as presenting any difficulty in the way of Joseph’s court life. Nay, his “ divining cup ” and his marriage to a heathen priest’s daughter who would certainly bring her idolatries with her into his house do not seem to suggest the slightest incongruity with the Young Men’s Christian Association type. All such difficulties are ignored or explained away in order to transmute this delightful relic of old Hebrew folk-lore into a sort of ante-dated Christian biography of a pious young man, who prospered immensely because, on account of his piety, “ the Lord was with him.” It is this unreal aspect of the story, and not any “moral pricelessness,” which makes it attractive to the adherents of “the compromise.” Now, no future Education Bill permitting the seal of public authority to be attached to any such interpretations or misinterpretations of the Bible can have any chance of permanence. It matters not whether the sign of public authority be the use of local rates to pay for such teaching or whether it be the employment of a national servant, the schoolmaster, to give it; or whether it take the odious form of compulsory presence in the school during the time of such teaching under the mockery of a conscience clause, so humorously exposed by Mr. Birrell. However indirectly given, or however ingeniously concealed, the stamp of public authority on effete religious ideas condemned, or at least surrendered, by a rapidly-increasing proportion of the public is a forgery of the great seal of common consent. For the common consent does not exist, and any law that assumes it is incongruous with fact. Not only does the chaos of opinion contradict it, but the undeniable advance of knowledge condemns it. The doctrine of evolution is against such a law. Historical criticism is against it. The resurrection of Egyptian and Assyrian life confronts and rebukes it. The common sense of a generation better informed than their fathers rebels against it. And all that any good-natured Liberal Minister with a weakness for futile compromise can gain by it is a brief reprieve for an already sentenced system, and the prolongation of the infamy of a country which sacrifices its children’s intellects to the ghost of a superstition about their souls. Now, if any reader who has followed my argument from the beginning of this Essay should be able, in sincerity of conscience, to condemn these last words as the blind judgment of a materialist, I can only regret that in earlier pages I must have expressed myself badly. For it is not the judgment of a “ materialist.” It is the heartfelt conviction of one who, during a long �CONCLUSION 73 life, has cared more for religion than for anything else, and who is per­ suaded that religion cannot long survive the prevalence of insincerity and hypocrisy in the nation’s schools. If we would but faithfully apply our historic conscience to the moral utterances of the Hebrew prophets, their words would be much more valuable than they are. Certainly, considering the base expediencies, the hollow pretences, that sustain the Smith compromise, and the flagrant contradictions it impudently gives to both the spiritual and the scientific facts of contemporary life, we should tremble at the rebuke of Jeremiah: “ The prophets prophesy The Public Authority to be abso­ lutely neutral. falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so ; and what will ye do in the end thereofI” But I cannot leave the subject without observing, finally, that the present position of the Bible in the schools is typical of the general relation of religion to contemporary life and opinion. Not that I have any wish whatever for State patronage and control of any new theology. On the contrary, I have been urging all along that State and munici­ palities alike should keep out of the steam of the Medean cauldron into which the scattered limbs of old beliefs have been plunged in the expectation that they will emerge “ re-stated ”—not reinstated, but transformed. The words that I add now are only intended as an additional illustration of the absurdity of interference by either Board of Education or County Councils in the struggle for the new Reforma­ tion. For, whether their interference be on the Liberal or on the Conservative side of controversies that affect every page of the Bible as a school book, in either case they do nothing but mischief by meddling in a movement that must be spontaneous. For, again, as the old Christians said, “Force is not God’s way.” The story of Uzzah and his fate is a savage one. But it has its application to the fate of all vain­ glorious rulers, from Nero to Mr. Balfour’s late Government, who have sought to steady with rude hands the ark of transcendental religion. And if ever there was one age in which such meddling was more perilous than in any other, it must be surely our own. For, though I yield to no Archbishop, nor even to the venerable General Booth, in my conviction of the deathlessness of religion while the human race endures, its position at present is paradoxical and beyond all statecraft. The real nature of its permanent value requires some spiritual courage for its recognition; while its doubtful accidents have become idols to the superstitious. And, as always happens when form supplants substance, frank discussion is feared lest the superficiality of belief should be betrayed. Just as a guarantee against theological strife in Education Committees is sought by agreeing to treat the Bible as something which we all know it not to be, so a social eirenicon is found in a conventional acknowledgment of infallible revelation. In either Present chaos of religious opinion. �74 Makes Bible teaching' by democratic authority immoral. The New Testament and the New Theology. CONCLUSION case, acquiescence is impossible unless either by an incapacity or a deliberate refusal to recognise patent facts. Yet, so far as most of the public functions of religion are concerned, in vain, apparently, do Reverend Canons and Very Reverend Deans assure us that every book in the Old Testament, except certain of the Prophets, is of unknown authorship and compiled from ill-harmonised documents of disputable dates. In vain do they treat as mythical, fabulous, or but loosely historical every alleged fact down to the death of David, as well as every miraculous narrative that follows. Even in the pulpits, which should be first to feel the influences of these dignitaries of the Church, the Fall, the Deluge, the miraculous exodus through the Red Sea, the theophany on Sinai, and the divinely ordered massacres in Canaan, are still solemnly discussed as parts of an infallible revelation. Yet there is scarcely an intelligent, well-read man or woman among the hearers who does not know that this stolid adherence to tradition requires such defiance of the laws of evidence as would not be tolerated in regard to the disputed ownership of half-acrown. Nor do our scholarly divines offer us any better guarantee for New Testament history.1 The new Christianity does not insist on the literal historical truth of the nativity of Jesus, or of his miracles, or resurrection, or ascension. It follows the author of the Fourth Gospel, to whom the idea was more than the fact. In like manner the new reformers think they lose nothing if they keep the idea of victory by self-sacrifice as it shines out from the Gospel story. But, if I under­ stand them aright, they do not pretend that such an idea was anything new to man. They only think that in the reminiscences, part memory, part imagination, of the earliest Christians, the idea took a form which touched the common people as it had never touched them before. To the faith of the neo-Christian, therefore, it matters little that the details of the life and death of Jesus are imperfectly reported, and that of the music of his speech only a few sweet and pregnant phrases can be distinctly recalled. The evangelists, whoever they were, wTere neither magicians nor creators, and their -work is absolutely inexplicable, unless there survived through Christianity’s golden age the memory of a strong and beautiful and adorable manhood which made beholders, when they saw and heard him, think of eternal love and life and truth. To the neo-Christian the value of a spiritual vision, or of an inspiring tradition, or a combination of both, depends more upon its suggestiveness than 1 See The New Theology, by the Rev. R. J. Campbell, especially the chapter on the Incarnation of the Son of God. I expressly disclaim any intention of imputing to him more than an acknowledgment that the New Testament history is fallible, and, as regards some important events, probably erroneous. See particularly pp. 101-4 in the above-mentioned work. �CONCLUSION 75 on its correspondence with material fact. He is not, therefore, robbed of his gospel by the victory of German learning and research over oldfashioned Anglicanism. He had long ceased to look for salvation through any opus operatum of supernatural beings. He is assured of that if he is loyal to the laws of evolution by which the eternal All works out the human ideal. But he is quickened in hope and faith and practice by every concentration of moral truth in an inspiring vision. And that vision of the “ Son of Man ” which shines, though so patheti cally marred, through the pages of the New Testament like some noble but ill-kept work of genius in an ancient cathedral window, is with him always, and will be when the last fibre of dogma has been dissolved away. This digression may be pardoned if only because of a desire to show that this Essay has not been prompted by any alienation of sympathy from the spirit of the New Testament. I believe that the book will always be a source of inspiration to mankind, and that the prime origin of that inspiration lay in the personality of Jesus of Nazareth. I am aware that only a small minority of religious people, as yet, are able to acquiesce in so entire a surrender of evangelical theory as that to which the learned doctors above referred to have seen their way. But, at any rate, it is notorious that the conventional view of the Bible as an infallible or absolutely authoritative book is now confined to ccremonia. services, hypocritical social intercourse, and adherents of the great Smith compromise. How much we lose by this discord between appearance and reality will only be apparent to future generations. We talk piously about the Prince of Peace, and we glorify war. We prattle about Darwin’s ideas of evolution, and we wax emotioned over a great statesman’s tribute to the “Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture.” We look wise when scientific lecturers explain to us the uniformity of natural law ; but when the Church thinks the season too dry it prays for a miraculous gift of rain, and when it thinks we are getting too much of that it prays for a stoppage of the gift. We read with eagerness of discoveries that carry back the arts and triumphs of civilisation at least seven millenniums before the Christian era, and then pretend to acquiesce in prayers and sermons that imply a four or five thousand year period for the whole “ plan of salvation.” Between our pious pretences and our real convictions there is a discontinuity which cuts off practical life from the real sources of inspiration still open in unwrested truth and the facts of the world’s order. And, meantime, to ensure the reign of hypocrisy in the coming age, we compel our teachers every day to instruct the rising generation in beliefs which we no longer hold ourselves. ��INDEX Churchmen’s contempt for mere morals, 53 ----- grievance a real one, xi n, 60-1 Church Times, the, consistency of, xi Civilisation, antiquity of, 23 Commonwealth, meaning and rights of, 21 Compromise of 1871, xi, xv, 10, 24 M, 41, 47, 48, 51, 54, 60, 65 ----- impossible in the future, 72 Concurrent endowment, when justifiable, 60 Conscience Clause a sham, 65, 72 Conscience, limit to its claims, 18 ----- no monopoly of “ undenomination­ alists,” 36 Conventional acquiescence stifles moral Balaam's ass, schoolmaster on, 24 inspiration, 39, 41 Balfour, Right Hon. A. J., 39, 58 Bank-holidays and moral training, 44, 45^. Cowper-Temple clause, its recent inter pretations, 30 Belief of to-day the unbelief of the past, 51 Creation, as a school lesson, 5, 6 Bezaleel, 71 Crime, juvenile, diminution of, 45 Bible, as a “classic,” vii, 44 ----- as a fetish, 44, 49 Daniel, Book of, 38 ----- and birch, 44 Democracy (now Ethical World}, letter ----- degradation by insincere use, 17, 42 ----- history necessarily, in State schools, to> 37. Disabilities, religious, 14 taught as fact, 40 Dissenters, other than orthodox, 23, 42 ----- its true value, 17, 68, 75 ----- more difficult to use in State schools Duty to my neighbour, 53 than in voluntary, 48 Education Bills, 1902, 1906, i ----- not imposed now by statute, 65 Education Bill, coming, i, 62, 68, 72 ----- rate, case against, 21 Encyclopaedia. Biblica, 13, 23 ----- see Simple ----- valued not for mere truth, but for Enfant terrible, 40 Equality, see Religious supernatural sanction, 49 ----- word of God, how far considered so Ethical Societies, 16 Evangelical Alliance, 23 now, viii, 68 Evangelical Free Churches, National Bigotry of “ undenominationalists,” 54 Council of, 24 Birrell, the Right lion. A., his Education Bill, v, vi “Fall, the,” abandonment of, viii ----- on the Conscience Clause, 65 ------------ retention of in “ syllabuses,” ix Broad Church, intolerance of, 9 Force no remedy, 44, 73 C/ESAR, things of, Nonconformists on, 33 Forster, Right lion. W. E., 16 Campbell, Rev. R. J., vii, viii »., ix, Free Church Catechism, 29 ------------ Council, 24 36, 74 n. Canada, 56 Gardner, Professor Percy, 39 Cases of conscience, ix, 5, 6, 36 Gehazi, 52, 69 “ Categorical imperative,” 53 Germany, false analogy of, 59 n. Chaos of religious opinion, 73, 74 Gibson, Rev. Dr. Monro, 24, 25 Church Catechism, its moral value, 53 Gladstone, the late Right Hon. VV. E., 59 Churches freer than State schools, 47-8 Churchmen, scholarly, Biblical criticism Glover, T. R., on spurious religious equality, vi by, 33 Abraiiam, “life of,” 28, 29, 31 Act of 1902, its significance, i, and failure, 59 Administrative nihilism, reaction against, 16 All the winners ! 44 Ananias, 69 Anti-Corn-Law League, lesson from, 58 Archbishop's, an, veto on education, 57 Athanasian Creed, Rev. R. J. Campbell on, ix Atheism, 9 n. Australia, 56, 59 77 �MORAL INSTRUCTION UNDER THE NEW EDUCATION CODE. “‘Moral Instruction’ should form an important part of every school curriculum.”—From the Board of Education's “ Code of Regulations for Public Elementary Schools ” figo6). “Gbe Cbilbren’s Booh of fiboral lessons,” by F. J. GOULD, will be found to be of tne greatest service to teachers. It is already in use in some thousands of Public Elementary Schools, and is giving the greatest satisfaction on all hands. THE THREE SERIES. First Series: “ Self-Control ” and “Truthfulness.” With Frontispiece by Walter Crane. 128 pp., medium 8vo, paper covers, 6d.; cloth, is. Second Series: “Kindness” and “Work and Duty.” 204 pp., cr. 8vo, cloth, 2S. Third Series: “The Family,” “People of Other Lands,” “History of Industry, Art, Science, and Religion.” 203 pp., cr. 8vo, cloth, 2s. By THE SAME AUTHOR. “Gbe Gbilbren’s plutardx” With Six Full-page Illustrations by Walter Crane. Cloth, 300 pp., 2s. 6d. net. Press Opinions: “ The work has been thoroughly well done, and should be largely used in the school, and also in the home.”—Leicester Chronicle. “ Published with a moral aim, for the illustration of which no author could be better chosen.”—Outlook. “As a gift book The Children's Plutarch would be admirable. Plutarch's Lives is a literary classic; as presented by Mr. Gould to the young people the work remains a classic.”—Midland Free Press. “ Better than any commendation of the book that I can give was the verdict of a thirteen-year-old boy to whom I gave it. He read it through at a sitting and pronounced it ‘first rate.’”—W. T. Stead, in ‘‘'‘The Review of Reviews." London: WATTS & Co., 17, JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Victorian Blogging Description An account of the resource A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library &amp; Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span> Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Conway Hall Library & Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Conway Hall Ethical Society Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data Pamphlet Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Bible in school : a question of ethics ... with special reference to the coming Education Bill Description An account of the resource Edition: New ed., rev. & enl. Place of publication: London Collation: xv,79, [1] p. ; 22 cm. Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued for the Rationalist Press Association, Limited. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Picton, J. Allanson (James Allanson) [1832-1910] Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Watts & Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1907 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA993 N539 Subject The topic of the resource Bible Education Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Bible in school : a question of ethics ... with special reference to the coming Education Bill), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Language A language of the resource English Bible NSS Religion in the public schools Religious Education-Great Britain https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/217c4e688993e1b54eea985ec2c738aa.pdf?Expires=1773878400&Signature=IfPYCpykjZ52QcBxM1BDDOOpIuMSeVcBVDKdUTrdSQJMsBJh52AWHPjZ9prluPGXX8GO-AIbTl040bGcF-NUZnOKgqq9NqGWrDeBQoJX8VP7HWxgKxf7jXycLJOCo4fQxGgji3JAFn%7Em42mwHQHiOcBkbBwR1hKk2uWpAFOvKc%7Ea6EJpJJHdpxzOGfNVirz3IxqCp0bCuCBdDFZ8nGmqYV31pw6B5keZxzYt%7ELkMiFUboI2Tz7KVzN%7El8DTY%7EOPBxeYHmglH7NNpD4vytat4BH1WvDTC-T5uw9e%7ECHHjJLF%7ESKN37vQlhftXwXMxH0rsOaOavVZkDm6esCZFiC8IJw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 4176c090c29eb02cc7b1170f5a8cf0f8 PDF Text Text 1 t tv. AND 'f: Thought Transference: THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY M. EDEN PAUL, M.D. [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] London * WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C. Price Threepence ��NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE: THEIR MEANING AND RECENT HISTORY BY M. EDEN PAUL, M.D. [issued for the rationalist press association, limited] London: WATTS & CO., 17 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C 1911 ��Psychical Research and Thought Transference NT EARLY thirty years have elapsed since the foundation, 1 in 1882, of the Society for Psychical Research, whose purpose it was, as stated in its first manifesto, to make “ an organised and systematic attempt to investigate that large group of debatable phenomena designated by such terms as ‘mesmeric,’ ‘psychical,’ and ‘spiritualistic.’” Six committees were appointed to deal with different sections of the inquiry; the references to these committees will be given in the sequel. The “ occult ” phenomena for whose study the Society was founded exhibit a relationship and to some degree a historic continuity with three others that have played a great part in certain stages of human history—viz., magic, witchcraft, and miracle. The belief in all three of these latter still persists in many parts of the world ; in Western Europe a belief in magic and miracle was dominant throughout the period known as the Dark Ages ; the belief in witchcraft—which is but another form of the other beliefs —was widely prevalent in Europe during the two centuries that followed the Protestant Reformation, and will be found lingering in out-of-the-way corners even in our own day. (In the Island of Alderney, where I lived from 1903 to 1905, the belief in witchcraft was certainly still maintained among those belonging to the old island families, and occasionally gave rise to scandals ; but the people were shy of exposing their credulity to strangers.) Among the half-educated peasantry of Southern Europe a belief in the power of the Evil Eye is said to be still almost universal. With the spread of Rationalism, and the gradual growth of a reasoned belief, based on positive science,in a universe subject to invariable laws, the belief in the occult powers of magicians, witches, and miracle-mongers gradually declined. 3 �4 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH Ghosts, frequently seen as long as people believed in their existence, seemed to wither and vanish before the chill blasts of incredulity. But, notwithstanding the general decay of belief in the occult, revivals have from time to time occurred, displaying all the vigour and expansive energy of new religious faiths. It will suffice to mention three of these, (i) Mesmer (1734-1815), an inspired charlatan, discovered or rediscovered certain obscure powers and peculiarities of the human mind ; and his work, notwithstanding all the follies, delusions, and impostures with which “mesmerism” has been associated, was the starting-point of the science now known as hypnotism, and of the practical methods of healing which we shall subsequently consider under the name of “psychotherapeutics.” (2) In 1848, at Rochester, New York State, were living certain girls named Fox, in whose presence there occurred curious rapping noises, widely known at the time as the “Rochester knockings.” “From this small beginning,” writes Mr. Podmore, in his Studies in Psychical Research, “ the occurrence of mysterious raps betraying an intelligent source, and referred by some to the agency of spirits, by others to supernormal powers exercised uncon­ sciously by the ‘mediums,’ and by a few scientific men who investigated the occurrences at the time to voluntary ‘cracking’ (i.e., partial dislocation) of the knee-joints on the part of the girls concerned, arose the whole movement of modern Spiritualism.” (3) Finally, the last twenty-five years have witnessed the origination, also in the United States of America, of the latest of that country’s numerous new religious faiths, “ Christian Science ” (so called, apparently, on the lucus a non lucendo principle, because it attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable—Christianity and science—without having anything to do with either). The historical continuity with mesmerism of this strange creed—whose founder, Mrs. Eddy, died only a short time ago—has been lucidly traced by Mr. Podmore in his work on Mesmerism and Christian Science. In an article on “ Mysticism and the Reputed Reaction from Naturalism,” published in the Literary Gttnde for March, 1911, the present writer endeavoured to show how �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 5 the very spread of Rationalism, which has led to the over­ throw of the earlier forms of occultism—magic, witchcraft, and thaumaturgy, or miracle-mongering — and has at the same time undermined the faith of many in the olderestablished religious beliefs, is, in a sense, responsible for the appearance of the luxuriant crop of neo-occultisms and neo-religions for which the nineteenth century will be memorable in the history of human error. Their aim has been, either to restore the belief in immortality, which had been associated with a belief in the dogmas of one of the older religious creeds, but which had been shaken in con­ sequence of a loss of faith in these dogmas ; or else, to find some means of curing or preventing disease more speedy and certain than the methods of ordinary medical science. I shall hope to show that, while the primary object of search has in neither case been attained, yet, as often happens, a by-result of the search will prove of greater interest and perhaps of greater value to humanity than the original aim. Now let us ask what was the general attitude of able men whose minds had been rigorously trained to a belief in what is called “ the uniformity of nature ” by means of the prolonged study of science, and especially of physical science, towards the phenomena which the Society for Psychical Research set itself to investigate. It was, as a rule, one of rather obstinate incredulity. And there was no small justification for such an attitude. Professional mediums, persons who gained a live­ lihood by means of the demonstration to the credulous of such phenomena as those exhibited by the above-mentioned Fox Sisters, of Rochester, U.S.A., had again and again been detected in gross frauds ; and yet these proved cheats never failed to find ardent defenders and fresh victims. To the physicist, as to Robert Browning, they were all in the same class with “Mr. Sludge, the Medium.” As regards the amateur experimentalists, playing at the fashionable game of “table­ turning” in their drawing-rooms after dinner, when Faraday came with a cleverly-devised “ indicator ” and proved beyond the possibility of reasonable doubt that the motion of the table was solely due to the unconscious muscular action of the per­ formers, many of the table-turners refused to accept the proof. �6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH “ Faraday may have proved,” said A, “that B and his circle moved the table with their hands ; but we know that we do not." Yet, when A was asked to test the value of his belief by the use of the same indicator, he declined to do so, for he would not be so “ irreverent” as to show any “distrust ” of the source of the wonderful “spirit-communications” his table had rapped out (see Carpenter’s Mental Physiology, 4th ed., pp. 293-6). It is hardly surprising that such a man as Tyndall, after attending a spiritualistic sitting and detect­ ing what to him was satisfactory evidence of conscious or unconscious fraud, should write {Lectures and Essays— “ Science and the ‘ Spirits ’ ”) : “ The victims like to believe, and they do not like to be undeceived. Science is perfectly powerless in the presence of this frame of mind......... Surely no baser delusion ever obtained dominance over the weak mind of man.” A psychologist like Carpenter, one of the first scientific elucidators of the activity of the sub conscious mind, having made a detailed study of the phenomena of mesmerism and spiritualism, naturally took a more cautious and less dogmatic view than a pure physicist such as Tyndall. Witness, for example, Carpenter’s admirable summary of the various mental attitudes towards the phenomena in question {Mental Physiology, p. 611 et seq.} :— Some persist in the determination to disbelieve in the genuineness of all the asserted facts, designating them as “all humbug,” and maintaining that none but fools or knaves could uphold such non­ sense......... Others, again, admit such of the facts as seem to them the least repugnant to common-sense ; but, without attempting to give any rational explanation of these, consider they have sufficiently dis­ posed of them by characterising them as “ all imagination.”....... The members of the medical profession have too generally satisfied them­ selves with the phrase “ all hysterical ”—a reply which affords no real information......... Then there is a class of partial believers, who admit there is “ something in it ”—they cannot exactly tell what......... And the ascending series is terminated by that assemblage of thorough­ going believers who find nothing too hard for “ spiritual ” agency, nothing improbable (much less impossible) in any of its reputed per­ formances......... It is a phenomenon of no small interest to the student of human nature that from the first of these classes the transition should often be immediate and abrupt to the last. It is, in fact, from the very same disposition to jump at important conclusions without �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 7 due examination....... that a large proportion of mankind become utter sceptics on the one hand, or thoroughgoing believers on the other. A feather’s weight will often turn the scale when it is vibrating between these two states. Referring to the class of cases in which a number of more or less credible witnesses combine to testify to some apparently incredible occurrence—such as the “ levitation ” of the human body ; that is, the raising of a human being from the ground without any evident or adequate physical means—Carpenter shows that similar occurrences were reported in connection with witchcraft. “Thus” (p. 634), “ in 1657, Richard Jones, a sprightly lad of twelve years old, living at Shepton Mallet, was bewitched by one Jane Brooks. He was seen to rise in the air, and pass over a garden wall some thirty yards ; and at other times was found in a room with his hands flat against a beam at the top of the room, and his body two or three feet from the ground, nine people at a time seeing him in this position. Jane Brooks was accordingly condemned and executed at Chard Assizes, in March, 1658.” Before we dismiss this brilliant and original writer (Dr. Carpenter), let us study the canons he laid down for investigations in this obscure and debatable field of inquiry. He considered that reports of occult phenomena which appear to conflict with the generally accepted acquirements of positive science must all be rejected, “save those” (p. 626) “which shall have been carefully, sagaciously, and perseveringly investigated, by observers fully qualified for the task, by habits of philosophical discrimination, by entire freedom from prejudice, and by a full acquaintance with the numerous and varied sources of fallacy which attend this particular department of inquiry. These being the rules of other branches of scientific research, there is no reason why they should be departed from in one which so pre-eminently needs a constant reference to the canons of sound philo­ sophy.” Now, it must be noted that it is precisely on the lines thus wisely and carefully formulated that the Societies for Psychical Research in England and America have, during the last thirty years, conducted their investigations ; and it is �8 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH to this fact that they owe the attainment of certain results of enduring value. Let us consider some of these results. The first committee of the English S. P. R. was appointed to examine “the nature and extent of any influence which may be exerted by one mind upon another, apart from any generally recognised mode of perception.” This has been one of the most fruitful branches of inquiry, and, in conjunction with several of the other lines of research, it has led, in the opinion of many of the most cautious and unprejudiced members of the Society, to the adequate proof of the existence of the faculty of thought-transference or “telepathy.” This will be discussed in some detail presently. The second committee was appointed for “ the study of hypnotism, and the forms of the so-called mesmeric trance, with its alleged insensibility to pain ; clairvoyance, and other allied phenomena.” At the date of the foundation of the Society, notwithstanding the work of Elliotson, Esdaile, Braid (all Englishmen), and other early students of “animal magnetism,” hypnotism was in England a neglected branch of psychic inquiry. On the Continent also, owing to the early association of “mesmerism” with charlatanry, the subject had fallen into disrepute. But in the last thirty years the science of hypnotism has been placed on a sure foundation ; its study has greatly increased our knowledge of the workings alike of the normal and of the abnormal mind ; and psycho­ therapeutics has become an accredited branch of the healing art. The advance of knowledge has thus taken the study of hypnotic manifestations largely out of the hands of the Society for Psychical Research ; and all that is necessary here is to detail briefly the historic lines of development of mesmerism or animal magnetism. “Trance,” apart from hypnotism, will be considered later. Through its appeal, on the one hand to the perennial interest in healing of a suffering humanity, and on the other hand to the love of the marvellous of a bored and inquisitive humanity, mesmerism became the historic parent of two divergent tendencies. The love of the marvellous and the development of the more occult aspect of mesmerism gave birth to modern spiritualism ; the desire for a better means of �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 9 treatment of numerous chronic and apparently incurable diseases gave rise to “mental healing,” “faith-healing, “Christian Science,” and on the scientific side to psycho­ therapeutics. The mental healers, mind curers, etc., fastened from the first upon the psychical side of mesmerism. Had the medical profession not been so slow to adopt “ suggestion (always a large unconscious element in the physician’s success) as a recognised part of the medical art, it is likely that such faith-healing shrines as Lourdes and such new quasi-religious cults as Christian Science might have been less successful. But the profession is slow to move out of its old grooves, and therefore deserves to suffer at the hands of its rivals. Whatever the causes of the success of Christian Science, that success is greatly to be regretted—more to be regretted than the growth of most other superstitions, evil as they all are. For the disciples of Mrs. Eddy are taught to believe in what is called “ malicious animal magnetism ; and this involves, in effect, a revival of the belief in witch­ craft, of which our race has rid itself with so much difficulty. In the second place, the Christian Scientists do much harm by the application of their doctrine that “ disease is a delusion ” to illnesses in which the psychic element is slight—as, for instance, to broken legs and typhoid fever. Finally, it is assuredly a distressing fact that in our day, and among a people claiming to lead the van of civilisation, a new creed should gain millions of adherents, when that creed is utterly devoid, as is Christian Science, of all humanist enthusiasm. The third committee was appointed for the study of “sensitives,” and to ascertain if they have any “powers of perception other than a highly exalted sensibility of the recognised sensory organs.” Here, also, the work of the Society has tended to convince its members of the reality of thought-transference. The same is true of their study of what is called “clairvoyance,” or “ second-sight ” (a sub­ section of the work of the second committee). In so far as alleged cases of clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, and the like, are not due to misrepresentation, illusion, or deliberate fraud, the results of this inquiry tend to strengthen the evidence in favour of a belief in the reality of thought-transference. �IO PSYCHICAL RESEARCH The fourth committee was to undertake “a careful investigation of....... reports........ regarding apparitions at the moment of death, or otherwise, or regarding disturbances in houses reputed to be haunted.” As regards “haunted” houses, of which I shall write very briefly, the Society has examined a large mass of evidence, much of it of little true evidential value. Some of the residual evidence, after the most thorough sifting, would appear to demand for its explanation the existence of some hitherto unknown or “occult” force—if not “haunting” by a demon or dis­ embodied spirit, at least the occurrence of telepathic hallucina­ tions. “ Rats ” and “ lies ” will not explain all the evidence in this department 1 As regards the accounts of “death-visions” or “ phantasms of the dying,” there are few who have not heard some such story, at least at third or fourth hand. I will give here an example of the kind of case of which an enormous number have been reported to the Society ; choosing this case, not because it is what is called a “strong ” one, but because it is rather typical, and because I have first-hand knowledge of the facts. “ On Friday, December 8, 1893, an English lady, living in Japan, woke with a start at 11.5 p.m., after a very brief sleep, saying she had seen her father fall dead in a shop. She thinks he had just gone in, but is not clear what gave her this impression ; she saw him clutch the counter, stand in this position for a short time, and then fall dead. It was a very real image, a vision rather than an ordinary dream, and frightened her very much. But she admits that it is most likely all nonsense.” (The above is a transcription of the actual note, written down thirty minutes after the awakening from the “vision” by someone who was present when it took place—not by the person who had the vision.) Now at this time Mrs. X. had no definite knowledge that her father was dangerously ill ; nor had she any knowledge of his death (other than that conveyed by the vision) until she received a letter towards the end of January, 1894, telling her that he had died in Glasgow at 4 a.m. on Saturday, December 9, 1893. This is the sort of material �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE 11 out of which most of these “ death-visions ” are constructed. They are common enough ; what is rather exceptional about this “ vision ” is that we have a precise record made at the time of the occurrence, and that the record is corroborated to some extent by further knowledge of the facts. In the absence of such a record, and in the hands of uncritical lovers of the marvellous, discrepancies would have been forgotten, and that there had been a highly dramatic vision of the actual death at the actual time of its occurrence would have become a legendary belief in the families of those * concerned. As a matter of fact, Mrs. X.’s vision occurred, by Greenwich time, about nine hours earlier than the time stated above. That is to say, when the vision occurred in Japan at 11.5 p.m., it was, in Glasgow, 1.45 p.m. on the same day, Friday, Decembers. The father died at 4 a.m. on the Saturday morning, fourteen hours later. Moreover, as the hour suggests, he was not in a shop, but in bed, when he died, and he had been in bed, profoundly unconscious, since the previous Sunday. The vision may have been suggested by thought-transference from someone at the bedside of the dying man ; but it is to be noted, first, that Mrs. X., before she had the vision, was aware that her father suffered from chronic heart-disease, and that she had had several recent letters indicating increasing anxiety about his health ; secondly, that some years before, when Mrs. X. was in a hairdresser’s shop in Glasgow, in a room off the main shop, a man came into the latter, and suddenly dropped dead while standing at the counter. It seems more probable that her vision was constructed out of a combination of her apprehensions for her father with memories of this earlier experience than that there was any telepathic communication. In this way many of the stories of “death-visions” in which there is a precise and trustworthy record (and no others have any evidential value) prove, on close scrutiny, to be explicable without recourse to any “occult” influences * Such was, in fact, the belief of the lady herself, when spoken to about the matter a few days ago, and the production of the contemporary record was necessary to convince her that her 11 mythopceic faculty” had been at work ! �12 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH whatever. But there are others among the large number studied by the Society which, provided there is neither deliberate nor unconscious misrepresentation, can be ex­ plained only by thought-transference—either from the dying, or else (especially in those cases in which the vision occurs shortly after the death) from those who have stood beside the death-bed. Unless, indeed, to account for manifesta­ tions of the latter order, we prefer the hypothesis (which to me seems to involve far greater difficulties) of the influence— telepathic or other—of a disembodied spirit. Besides dealing with visions of the dying, the S. P. R. undertook an investigation of the very numerous cases in which visions, simultaneous or deferred, of living persons at a distance were perceived ; in some cases these are stated to have been experimentally produced—i.e., the experimenter deliberately willed to appear in a vision before some absent friend, and succeeded in doing so. Evidentially, the most valuable cases of the last-named kind are, of couse, those in which the vision is produced unexpectedly, in the entire absence of pre-arrangement. A number of these “telepathic hallucinations,” as they are termed, have been published in the well-known volumes by Gurney and others, Phantasms of the Living. It need hardly be said that telepathic hallu­ cinations, when accurately recorded, and when the good faith of the experimenters and percipients is beyond question, afford the strongest possible evidence of the reality of the alleged faculty of telepathy. The fifth committee of the S. P. R. was formed to under­ take “ an inquiry into the various physical phenomena commonly called spiritualistic, and to attempt to discover their causes and general laws.” In the introduction to the last work finished by Mr. Podmore before his death, The Newer Spiritualism, the author points out that prior to the days of Swedenborg the “ spirits ” with whom people believed themselves to hold converse were spirits sent by God or by the powers of darkness, and that Swedenborg appears to have been the first to claim that he held intercourse with pvyal in the sense of Homer—with the souls or spirits of the departed. This is a point of the first importance, for the following �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE i3 reason. In his brilliant volume on The Churches and Modern Thought, Mr. Vivian quotes Mr. Lowes Dickinson upon the subject of religious “ conversions,” based upon direct personal revelation, as follows :— The truth supposed to be revealed at the moment of conversion is commonly, if not invariably, the reflection of the doctrine or theory with which the subject, whether or no he has accepted it, has hitherto been most familiar. I have never heard, for example, of a case in which a Mohammedan or a Hindoo, without having ever heard ot Christianity, has had a revelation of Christian truth. Conversion, in fact, it would seem, is not the communication of a new truth ; it is a presentation of ideas already familiar in such a way that they are accompanied by an irresistible certainty that they aie true. There is a strong analogy here with the supposed com­ munications with extra-human intelligences. In the Middle Ages, when people had a vivid belief in the existence of angels and devils, it was with angels and devils that they held communion. Martin Luther not only saw the devil, but even threw an inkpot at him (perhaps a better use than he ordinarily made of his writing materials). Japanese and Chinese peasant girls, who have a firm belief, in evil spirits in the form of foxes, will talk freely to hallucinatory demon foxes. Similarly, Swedenborg and his spiritualistic followers communicate with the spirits of the kind they believe in the souls of the departed. Communications are occasionally made at spiritualistic sittings which appear at first sight to involve a preternatural knowledge on the part of the medium ; but of such communications few will bear strict criticism, and of those that do the great majority, if not all, find their readiest explanation by the hypothesis of thought-transference. The trance-personality (for the medium, when not a vulgar cheat, is commonly entranced when such communications are made) would appear at times to have an exceptionally powerful telepathic faculty. But most of the mysteries at the ordinary spiritualistic sitting would appear to be explicable by the extreme credulousness and by the unwitting self-deception of those who take part in them. Hodgson, of the American S. P. R-, has laid especial stress on this fact, and has pointed out that the medium’s art, like the conjurer’s, consists in �PSYCHICAL RESEARCH diverting the sitter’s attention at critical moments in such a manner that he himself remains unaware of the momentarylapse. This “dissociation of consciousness,” or “unrealised break in attention,” explains much that would otherwise be puzzling. It is often maintained that there must be a great deal more in spiritualism than is commonly admitted, because of the attention paid to spiritualistic phenomena by such leading men of science as Wallace, Lombroso, Richet, Crookes, and Lodge—men accustomed to precise observation. .Those who take this line forget that neither in biological nor in physical experimentation is unremitting attention required, and that the men I have named can be as easily deceived by a clever conjurer as anyone else (as Sir Oliver Lodge himself would probably be the first to admit). Of the mediums producing “ the physical phenomena of spiritualism, the one who in recent years has attracted most attention is the Italian peasant woman, Eusapia Palladino. After an exhaustive study of the records of her sittings, Mr. Podmore comes to the conclusion that to explain her results it is only necessary to assume on the part of the sitters hallucination of the sense of touch and occasional lapses of attention. Apart altogether from the question of “spirit agency,” these assumptions are surely simpler than the assumption of the quasi-spiritualists, that the “ physical phenomena ” of spiritualism are “ manifestations of a new and unknown force of nature.” As long ago as 1874 Crookes pointed out that, to establish the existence of such a hypo­ thetical “new force,” all that would be necessary would be (under test conditions) (1) to deposit no more than tWt of a grain of matter in the pan of a locked balance, or (2) to carry tAt of a grain of arsenic into the interior of a sealed tube. No such evidence has ever been obtained. Eusapia has actually been detected in deliberate trickery ; and although this perhaps cannot be said of all “ professional mediums,”* Mr. Podmore’s conclusion is that, “as the case stands, it may fairly be claimed that the occurrence of physical phenomena is frima facie evidence—I had almost said of fraud, but the Daniel Dung'las Home appears to be the solitary exception. �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE *5 word does not fit the facts—of the production of things which are other than they seem.” Mr. Podmore makes this reservation (as to the use of the word “ fraud ”) for an important reason related to the peculiarities of the trance personality. Sometimes in con­ nection with the production of physical phenomena, but above all in connection with automatic writing (by means of which the famous—non-professional—medium, Mrs. Piper, produces her often mysterious revelations), the medium is apt to pass into a trance state, allied to, but perhaps not identical with, the hypnotic trance. Now this is one of the cases in which the direct study of hypnotism has thrown much light on the phenomena. The medium in the waking state may be a person whose honesty is above suspicion ; but the trance state is one of what is called “ secondary consciousness,” which may be very different from the primary or waking consciousness ; and “ the presumption of honesty based on the character and conduct of waking life counts for nothing in the case of a medium who is liable to pass into spontaneous trances.” The secondary consciousness is generally a maimed and mutilated form of the primary consciousness which is our friend ; it is commonly non-moral, so that it does not respect what is, and still less what ought to be. It has few scruples, and does not distinguish between fact and fiction ; it has a strong dramatic faculty, being inclined to cultivate “ art for art’s sake it cannot say “ I don’t know it is very cunning, and at the same time it probably possesses exalted sensory and perceptive powers—powers altogether in excess of those possessed by the same person in the primary or waking state ; and “ in many cases we have proof of a faculty by which this uncanny monster can on occasion read secret thoughts.” To sum up, in addition to its increased sensory and perceptive powers and to its endowment with a mysterious telepathic faculty upon which no certain limits can be placed, the secondary personality is “an actor whose mimicry is as subtle as it is unscrupulous ”; and at the same time it is not a social being, so that it cannot be relied upon to observe the ordinary social and moral conventions in respect of truth and honesty. �i6 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH Before passing to the consideration of some of the latest evidence, and to the final discussion of the bearings of all the evidence, a few words may be given to the literature of the subject. Few will have access to, and only the enthusiast is likely to struggle through, the vast bulk of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research. The most valuable summaries of the evidence and critical discussions of its interpretation are to be found in the writings of Mr. Podmore; and to read all even of these, interesting as they are, is no mean labour. Mr. Podmore, accidentally drowned last year, was a member of the Society from the early days; he approached the matter from the first in a scientific, dispas­ sionate, and truly critical spirit; and it is most interesting to trace his growing conviction that, while many of the phenomena cannot be explained without invoking the power of thought-transference, the need for any really “occult” explanation (in the “spiritualistic” sense) does not exist. Most of his principal works have already been mentioned ; they are, Studies in Psychical Research, Apparitions and Thought-Transference, Mesmerism and Christian Science, and The Newer Spiritualism. The works of Gurney, Myers, and Lodge are also of great value, and are all written in the scientific spirit, though the two last-mentioned authors incline rather to accept the view that the mundane activity of dis­ embodied spirits has been established by the evidence. Essays in Psychical Research, by Miss Goodrich-Freer (the “ Miss X ” of the S. P. R.), is also useful. There are works by more fervent believers in the spiritist theory, too numerous to mention, which those who wish to make an exhaustive study of the subject will do well to read. Anyone with access to a good library of fiction will find in The Tyranny of the Dark, by Hamlin Garland, a talented American writer, a novel which presents the facts and problems of the newer spiritualism as fairly and picturesquely as Howell’s The Undiscovered Country presented those of the spiritualism of an earlier day. The main fruits of the work of the S. P. R. have been twofold. In the first place, the Society’s study of abnormal psychic manifestations, in conjunction with the scientific �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE i7 study of hypnotism altogether apart from the work of the S. P. R., has thrown much light upon the nature of human consciousness. To the newer experimental psychology, as Mr. Podmore says, the “ unity of consciousness ” is an illusion ; like the elementary nature of air, fire, earth, and water, it is the fruit of youthful ignorance. The laboratory and the alienist’s clinic show that consciousness, in the last analysis, is but the casual and transitory co-ordination of countless ill-defined and variable elements. And, he continues, “to found an argument for the survival of the soul on the supposed unity and indissolubility of this shifting aggregation must seem, indeed, the building of a house upon the sand.” In the second place, we owe to the Society the rescue from the hands of charlatans of the mysterious faculty of telepathy. But before passing to our final conclusions on the subject of thought-transference, let us consider some of the latest evidence, obtained largely from the automatic writings of Mrs. Piper, but also from several other automatic writers— Mrs. Holland, Mrs. Verrail, etc.—who have been engaged in a lengthy series of experiments. The most remarkable features of these experiments have been what are termed “cross correspondences.” From November, 1906, to June, 1907, Mrs. Piper was in England, and gave a number of sittings, producing large quantities of automatic writings. During the same period Mrs. Holland was in India, knowing nothing then about the Piper sittings being held simul­ taneously in England, but conducting independent experi­ ments in automatic writing. Mrs. Verrail, at the same time, was practising automatic writing. Now, when these various automatic scripts are collated, certain correspondences appear in their subject-matter; and, what is still more extraordinary, the different writings contain certain allusions which, when studied separately, seem unmeaning, but which become explic­ able by the light they throw each upon the others ; just as if— as, indeed, the trance personality of Mrs. Piper maintains to be the case—some disembodied consciousness, independent ot our limitations of space and time, were endeavouring to demonstrate its reality by this means. It is not possible here �i8 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH to give details, but I have carefully studied Mr. Podmore’s collation of the evidence. As he says, there are coincidences of thought and expression much too numerous to be accounted for by chance. There is something extraordinary to be explained. It may ultimately be proved that there is no indication of disembodied spiritual agency ; but to prove that it is necessary to assume the action of living minds upon one another of an altogether unprecedented kind. In the present state of the evidence it is not possible to dogmatise as to its bearing. Provisionally, those who examine it will accept a working hypothesis coincident with their general opinions regarding the existence or non­ existence of disembodied intelligences, and the probable powers and occupations of these if they do exist. For example, the late William James, the great American psychologist, speaking of the whole record of spirit posses­ sion in human history, writes: “The notion that so many men and women, in all other respects honest enough, should have this preposterous monkeying self annexed to their per­ sonality seems to me so weird that the spirit theory takes on a more possible appearance.” But, then, the existence of this “monkeying” secondary self is proved by hypnotic data ; and the faculty of telepathy must apparently be assumed to exist in order to explain many of the obscurer manifestations of psychical activity. Is it not, then, better to accept the explanation which these two hypotheses afford, without superadding the enormous im­ probabilities involved in the claim that “spirit-control” is a reality? Entia non sint multiplicanda prceter necessitatem. It must be remembered that the sympathies of the trance personality are usually on the side of the “occult”; that, in the search for “spirit communications,” the history of the subject shows that demand creates supply ; and that “ distant telepathy by a disembodied spirit is just as improbable as distant telepathy from the mind of a living person, with the superadded gross improbability that the disembodied spirit exists at all 1 I, at any rate, agree with the view taken by Mi. Podmore. He holds that the results of the “ cross correspondence experiments add considerably to the strength �AND THOUGHT TRANSFERENCE i9 of the case for the existence of supernormal faculty of some kind, more especially because the other experimental evidence indicates that telepathic influences act most freely in the sphere of the automatic or dream consciousness. These experiments furnish us, in fact, with yet another illustration of the readiness of our mysterious inner self to meet any demands that may be made on its dramatic powers. So far,” concludes Mr. Podmore, “as my analysis of the complex cases of cross correspondence has gone, there has been no coincidence of thought and expression not adequately explained by the natural association of ideas in minds occupied by the same themes, aided by occasional telepathic interaction among the automatists themselves. Thus the work of the S. P. R. seems, in a sense, to have been justified by results. If it has not provided the scientific proof (for which some have hoped, though to me it appears extremely undesirable) of the reality of conscious life after death, it has thrown much light on the dark places of psychology, and it seems to render necessary at least a provisional belief in the reality of thought transference. Of the physical or physiological basis of thought trans­ ference we know nothing at present; for to speak of “ brain waves,” or “etheric thought waves,” is to speak of that of which we know absolutely nothing. But from another point of view it is permissible to ask what is the nature of the faculty. Is it, as some suppose, the germ of a developing faculty destined to play a great part in the future of the race? Or is it merely the decayed vestige of a primitive faculty of communication which has been superseded by the develop­ ment of articulate speech? To me, indeed, the latter view seems far more probable. There is considerable evidence suggesting that a faculty of the nature of telepathy exists among some of the lower animals. AVatch, for example, a flight of pigeons wheeling in the sunlight; do they not seem to turn, now in one direction, now in another—not as if following a leader, but rather as if in obedience to an impulse communicated simultaneously to the nervous systems of all the birds? In the present state of our knowledge the matter must be left open ; and I will conclude by saying that, if �20 PSYCHICAL RESEARCH thought transference is a developing instead of a decaying faculty, there are obvious inconveniences, as George Eliot has shown, attached to this notion of “The Lifted Veil ” 1 But in this matter our descendants will have to bear their own burden, if it should ultimately be placed upon their shoulders. PRINTED BY WATTS AND CO., court, fleet street, e.c. Johnson’s ��OVER 800,000 SOLD. R.P.A. Cl>eap (WITH PORTRAIT IN L HUXLEY’S LECTURES AND ESSAYS. (A Selection.) With 11. THE By C Autobiography. 2. THE PIONEERS OF EVO­ LUTION. By EDWARD CLODD. tion 3. MODERN SCIENCE AND 13. ON MODERN THOUGHT. By SAMUEL LAING. With Illustrations. 14. 4. LITERATURE AND DOGMA. By MATTHEW ARNOLD. 15. AN LO 5. THE RIDDLE OF THE UNI­ VERSE. By. Professor ERNST HAECKEL. 6. EDUCATION : Moral, and Intellectual, Physical. By .HERBERT SPENCER. >. THE EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD. By GRANT 17. A A 18. ALLEN. 8. HUMAN ORIGINS. LAING. By SAMUEL 9. THE SERVICE OF MAN. J. COTTER MORISON. By 20. 10. TYNDALL’S LECTURES AND ESSAYS. (A Selection.) 6d. each, by post 8d.; Nos. 1 to Nos. 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, post is. 3d.; or the. 17 post paid, 17s. R. P. A, EXTRA 1. JESUS CHRIST i His Apostles and Disciples in the Twentieth; .jCentury. By Count CAMILLE DE RENESSE. 2. HAECKEL’S CRITICS AN­ SWERED. By JOSEPH McCABE. 3 SCIENCE AND SPECULA­ TION- By G. H. 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