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CT &
i'ctturc
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY
LECTURE
SOCIETY,
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 6th APRIL, 1879,
By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D.,
Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
[Reprinted, from the “ Fortnightly Review,” by kind permission of the
Editor.]
llonhon:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1879.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
�SYLLABUS.
The doctrines of Materialism and Spiritualism.
Why Materialism is looked upon as inferior and degrading.
Every function of mind dependent upon organization.
Milton an avowed Materialist.
Materialism not inconsistent with the belief of a future life, but incon
sistent with the doctrine of a contempt of the body.
The human body the last and greatest product of organic development.
Differences of size and development between the brain of the lowest savage
and that of an ordinary European.
Corresponding differences of intellectual and moral capacities.
The reign of law in human evolution.
The reign of law in human degeneracy.
Morality the essential condition of complex social development.
Intellectual and moral lessons of Materialism.
�LESSONS OF MATERIALISM.
T is well known that from an early period of speculative thought
two doctrines have been held with regard to the sort of
connection which exists between a man’s mind and his body. On
the one hand, there are those who maintain that mind is an
outcome and function of matter in a certain state of organization,
coming with it, growing with it, decaying with it, inseparable
from it: they are the so-called materialists. On the other hand,
there are those who hold that mind is an independent spiritual
essence which has entered into the body as its dwelling-place for
a time, which makes use of it as its mortal instrument, and which
will take on its independent life when the body, worn out by the
operation of natural decay, returns to the earth of which it is made :
they are the spiritualists. Without entering into a discussion as
to which is the true doctrine, it will be sufficient in this lecture to
accept, and proceed from the basis of, the generally admitted fact
that all the manifestations of mind which we have to do with in
this world are connected with organization, dependent upon it,
whether as cause or instrument; that they are never met with
apart from it any more than electricity or any other natural force
is met with apart from matter ; that higher organization must
go along with higher mental function. What is the state of things
in another world—whether the disembodied or celestially embodied
spirits of the countless myriads of the human race that have come
and gone through countless ages are now living higher lives—I do
not venture to inquire. One hope and one certitude in the matter
every one may be allowed to have and to express—the hope that
if they are living now, it is a higher life than they lived upon
earth ; the certitude that if they are living the higher life, most of
them must have had a vast deal to unlearn.
Many persons who readily admit in general terms the depend
ence of mental function on cerebral structure are inclined, when
brought to the particular test, to make an exception in favour of
the moral feeling or conscience. They are content to rest in the
uncertain position which satisfied Dr. Abercrombie, the dis
tinguished author of the well-known Inquiry concerning the In
tellectual Powers, who, having pointed out plainly the dependence
of mental function on organization, and, as a matter of fact which
I
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Lessons of Materialism.
cannot be denied, that there are individuals in whom every correct
feeling in regard to moral relations is obliterated, while the
judgment is unimpaired in all other relations, stops there, without
attempting to prosecute inquiry into the cause of the remarkable
fact which he justly emphasises. “ That this power,” he says,
“ should so completely lose its sway, while reason remains un
impaired, is a point in the moral constitution of man which it does
not belong to the physician to investigate. The fact is unquestion
able ; the solution is to be sought in the records of eternal truth.”
And with this lame and somewhat melancholy conclusion he leaves
his readers impotent before a problem, which is not only of deep
scientific interest, but of momentous practical importance. The
observation which makes plain the fact does not, however,
leave us entirely without information concerning the cause of it,
when we pursue it faithfully, since it reveals as distinct a depen
dence of moral faculty upon organization as of any other faculty.
Many instructive examples of the pervading mental effects of
physical injury of the brain might be quoted, but two or three,
recently recorded, will suffice. An American medical man was
called one day to see a youth, aged eighteen, who had been struck
down insensible by the kick of a horse. There was a depressed
fracture of the skull a little above the left temple. The skull was
trephined, and the loose fragments of bone that pressed upon the
brain were removed, whereupon the patient came to his senses.
The doctor thought it a good opportunity to make an experiment,
as there was a hole in the skull through which he could easily
make pressure upon the brain. He asked the boy a question, and
before there was time to answer it he pressed firmly with his finger
upon the exposed brain. As long as the pressure was kept up the
boy was mute, but the instant it was removed he made a reply,
never suspecting that he had not answered at once. The experi
ment was repeated several times with precisely the same result,
the boy’s thoughts being stopped and started again on each
occasion as easily and certainly as the engineer stops and starts
his locomotive.
On another occasion the same doctor was called to see a groom
who had been kicked on the head by a mare called Dolly, and
whom he found quite insensible. There was a fracture of the
skull, with depression of bone at the upper part of the forehead.
As soon as the portion of bone which was pressing upon the brain
was removed the patient called out with great energy, “Whoa,
Dolly! ” and then stared about him in blank amazement, asking,
�Lessons of Materialism.
5
“Where is the mare?” “Where am I?” Three hours had
passed since the accident, during which the words which he was
just going to utter when it happened had remained locked up, as
they might have been locked up in the phonograph, to be let go
the moment the obstructing pressure was removed. The patient
did not remember, when he came to himself, that the mare had
kicked him ; the last thing before he was insensible which he did
remember was, that she wheeled her heels round and laid back her
ears viciously.
Cases of this kind show how entirely dependent every function
of mind is upon a sound state of the mechanism of the brain.
Just as we can, by pressing firmly upon the sensory nerve of the
arm, prevent an impression made upon the finger being carried to
the brain and felt there, so by pressing upon the brain we can as
certainly stop a thought or a volition. In both cases a good
recovery presently followed the removal of the pressure upon the
brain ; but it would be of no little medical interest to have the
after-histories of the persons, since it happens sometimes after a
serious injury to the head that, despite an immediate recovery,
slow degenerative changes are set up in the brain months or years
afterwards, which go on to cause a gradual weakening, and perhaps
eventual destruction, of mind. Now the instructive matter in this
case is that the moral character is usually impaired first, and some
times is completely perverted, without a corresponding deterior
ation of the understanding; the person is a thoroughly changed
character for the worse. The injury has produced disorder in the
most delicate part of the mental organization, that which is
separated from actual contact with the skull only by the thin
investing membranes of the brain: and, once damaged, it is
seldom that it is ever restored completely to its former state of
soundness. However, happy recoveries are now and then made
from mental derangement caused by physical injury of the brain.
Some years ago a miner was sent to the Ayrshire District Asylum
who, four years before, had been struck to the ground insensible
by a mass of falling coal, which fractured his skull. He lay
unconscious for four days after the accident, then came gradually
to himself, and was able in four weeks to resume his work in the
pit. But his wife noticed a steadily increasing change for the
worse in his character and habits ; whereas he had formerly been
cheerful, sociable, and good-natured, always kind and affectionate
to her and his children, he now became irritable, moody, surly,
suspicious, shunning the company of his fellow-workmen, and
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Lessons of Materialism.
impatient with her and the children. This bad state increased•
he was often excited, used threats of violence to his wife and
others, finally became quite maniacal, attempted to kill them, had
a succession of epileptic fits, and was sent to the asylum as a
dangerous lunatic. There he showed himself extremely suspicious
and surly, entertained a fixed delusion that he was the'victim of a
conspiracy on the part of his wife and others, and displayed bitter
and resentful feelings. At the place where the skull had been
fractured there was a well-marked depression of bone, and the
depressed portion was eventually removed by the trephine. From
that time an improvement took place in his disposition, his old self
coming gradually back; he became cheerful again, active and
obliging, regained and displayed all his former affection for his
wife and children, and was at last discharged recovered. No
plainer example could be wished to show the direct connection
ot cause and effect—the great deterioration of moral character
produced by the physical injury of the supreme nerve-centres of
the brain: when the cause was taken away the effect went also.
. Going a step further, let me point out that disease will some
times do as plain and positive damage to moral character as any
which direct injury of the brain will do. A fever has sometimes
deranged it as deeply as a blow on the head ; a child’s conscience
has been clean effaced by a succession of epileptic convulsions, just
as the memory is sometimes effaced; and those who see much of
epilepsy know well the extreme but passing moral transformations
which occur in connection with its seizures. The person may be
as unlike himself as possible when he is threatened with a fit;
although naturally cheerful, good-tempered, sociable and obliging,
he becomes irritable, surly, and morose, very suspicious, takes
offence at the most innocent remark or act, and is apt to resent
imaginary offences with great violence. The change might be
compared well with that which happens when a clear and cloudless
sky is overcast suddenly with dark and threatening thunder-clouds;
and just as the darkly clouded sky is cleared by the thunderstorm
which it portends, so the gloomy moral perturbation is discharged
and the mental atmosphere cleared by an epileptic fit or a succes
sion of such fits. In a few remarkable cases, however, the patient
does not come to himself immediately after the fit, but is left by it
in a peculiar state of quasi-somnambulism, during which he acts
like an automaton, doing strange, absurd, and sometimes even
criminal things, without knowing apparently at the time what he
is doing, and certainly without remembering in the least what he
�Lessons of Materialism.
T
has done when he comes to himself. Of excellent moral character
habitually, he may turn thief in one of these states, or perpetrate
some other criminal offence by which he gets himself into trouble
with the police.
There are other diseases which, in like manner, play havoc with
moral feeling. Almost every sort of mental derangement begins
with a moral alienation, slight, perhaps, at the outset, but soon so
great that a prudent, temperate, chaste, and truthful person shall
be changed to exactly the opposite of what he was. This alienation
of character continues throughout the course of the disease, and
is frequently found to last for a while after all disorder of intelli
gence has gone. Indeed, the experienced physician never feels
confident that the recovery is stable and sure, until the person is
restored to his natural sentiments and affections. Thus it appears
that when mind undergoes decadence, the moral feeling is the first
to suffer ; the highest acquisition of mental evolution, it is the first
to witness to mental degeneracy. One form of mental disease,
known as general paralysis, is usually accompanied with a singu
larly complete paralysis of the moral sense from the outset; and a
not uncommon feature of it, very striking in some cases, is a
persistent tendency to steal, the person stealing in a weak-minded
manner what he has no particular need of, and makes no use of
when he has stolen it.
The victim of this fatal disease is
frequently sent to prison and treated as a common criminal in the
first instance, notwithstanding that a medical man who knows his
business might be able to say with entire certitude that the
supposed criminal was suffering from organic disease of the brain,
which had destroyed moral sense at the outset, which would go on
to destroy all the other faculties of his mind in succession, and
which in the end would destroy life itself. There is no question in
such case of moral guilt; it is not sin but disease that we are con
fronted with: and after the victim’s death we find the plainest
evidence of disease of brain which has gone along with the decay
of mind. Had the holiest saint in the calendar been afflicted as he
was, he could not have helped doing as he did.
I need not dwell any longer upon the morality-sapping effects of
particular diseases, but shall simply call to mind the profound
deterioration of moral sense and will which is produced by the
long-continued and excessive use of alcohol and opium. There is
nowhere a more miserable specimen of degradation of moral feeling
and of impotence of will, than the debauchee who has made
himself the abject slave of either of these pernicious excesses.
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Lessons of Materialism.
Insensible to the interests of his family, to his personal responsi
bilities, to the obligations of duty, he is utterly untruthful and
untrustworthy, and in the worst end there is not a meanness of
pretence or of conduct that he will not descend to, not a lie he will
not tell, in order to gain the means to gratify his overruling
craving. It is not merely that passion is strengthened and will
weakened by indulgence as a moral effect, but the alcohol or opium
which is absorbed into his blood is carried by it to the brain and
acts injuriously upon its tissues : the chemist will, indeed, extract
alcohol from the besotted brain of the worst drunkard, as he will
detect morphia in the secretions of a person who is taking large
doses of opium. Seldom, therefore, is it of the least use to
preach reformation to these people, until they have been restrained
forcibly from their besetting indulgence for a long enough period
to allow the brain to get rid of the poison, and its tissues to regain
a healthier tone. Too often it is of little use then; the tissues
have been damaged beyond the possibility of complete restoration.
Moreover, observation has shown that the drink-craving is often
times hereditary, so that a taste for the poison is ingrained in the
tissues, and is quickly kindled by gratification into uncontrollable
desire.
Thus far it appears, then, that moral feeling may be impaired or
destroyed by direct injury of the brain, by the disorganizing action
of disease, and by the chemical action of certain substances which,
when taken in excess, are poisons to the nervous system. When
we look sincerely at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it is
just as closely dependent upon organization as is the meanest
function of mind; that there is not an argument to prove the
so-called materialism of one part of mind which does not apply
with equal force to the whole mind. Seeing that we know
no more essentially what matter is than what mind is, being
unable in either case to go beyond the phenomena of which we
have experience, it is of interest to ask why the spiritualist
considers his theory to be of so much higher and intellectual and
moral order than materialism, and looks down with undisguised
pity and contempt on the latter as inferior, degrading, and even
dangerous ; why the materialist should be deemed guilty, not of
intellectual error only, but of something like moral guilt. His
philosophy has been lately denounced as a “ philosophy of dirt.”
An eminent prelate of the English Church, in an outburst of moral
indignation, once described him as possibly “ the most odious and
ridiculous being in all the multiform creation; ” and a recent writer
�Lessons of Materialism.
9
in a French philosophical journal uses still stronger language of
abhorrance—“ I abhor them,” he says, “ with all the force of my
soul. ... I detest and abominate them from the bottom of
my heart, and I feel an invincible repugnance and horror when
they dare to reduce psychology and ethics to their bestial phy
siology—that is, in short, to make of man a brute, of the brute a
plant, of the plant a machine. . . . This school is a living
and crying negation of humanity.” The question is, what there is
in materialism to warrant the sincere feeling and earnest expression
of so great a horror of it. Is the abhorrence well founded, or is
it, perhaps, that the doctrine is hated, as the individual oftentimes
is, because misunderstood?
This must certainly be allowed to be a fair inquiry by those who
reflect that no less eminent a person and good a Christian than
Milton was a decided materialist. Several scattered passages in
Paradise Lost plainly betray his opinions ; but it is not necessary
to lay any stress upon them, because in his Treatise on Christian
Doctrine he sets them forth in the most plain and uncompromising
way, and supports them with an elaborate detail of argument. He
is particularly earnest to prove that the common doctrine that the
spirit of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a
perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere
said in Scripture, and is at variance both with nature and reason ;
and he declares that “ man is a living being, intrinsically and
properly one and individual, not compound and separable, not,
according to the common opinion, made up and framed of two
distinct parts, as of soul and body.” Another illustrious instance
of a good Christian who, for a great part of his life, avowed his
belief that “ the nature of man is simple and uniform, and that the
thinking power and faculties are the result of a certain organization
of matter,” was the eloquent preacher and writer, Robert Hall.
It is true that he abandoned this opinion at a later period of his
life; indeed, his biographer tells us with much satisfaction that
“ he buried materialism in his father’s grave ; ” and a theological
professor in American college has in a recent article exultantly
claimed this fact as triumphant proof that the materialist’s “ gloomy
and unnatural creed ” cannot stand before such a sad feeling as
grief at a father’s death. One may be excused, perhaps, for not
seeing quite so clearly as these gentlemen the soundness of the
logic of the connection. On the whole, logic is usually sounder
and stronger when it is not under the pressure of great feeling.
The truth is that a great many people have the deeply-rooted
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Lessons of Materialism.
feeling that materialism is destructive of the hope of immortality,
and dread and detest it for that reason. When they watch the
body decay and die, considering furthermore that after its death it
is surely resolved into the simple elements from which all matter is
formed, and know that these released elements go in turn to build
up other bodies, so that the material is used over and over again,
being compounded and decompounded incessantly in the long
stream, of life, they cannot realise the possibility of a resurrection
of the individual body. They cannot conceive how matter which
has thus been used over and over again can remake so many
distinct bodies, and they think that to uphold a bodily resurrection
is to give up practically the doctrine of a future life. It is a
natural, but not a necessary conclusion, as the examples of Milton
and Robert Hall prove, since they, though materialists, were
devout believers in a resurrection of the dead. Moreover, there
are many vehement antagonists of materialism, who readily admit
that it is not inconsistent with the belief in a life after death.
Indeed, they could not well do otherwise, when they recollect
what the Apostle Paul said in his very energetic way, addressing
the objector to a bodily resurrection as “ Thou fool,” and what
happened to the rich man who died and was buried; for it is told
of him that “ in hell he lifted up his eyes, and cried and said,
Rather Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he
may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I
am tormented in this flame.” Now if he had eyes to lift up and a
tongue to be cooled, it is plain that he had a body of some kind in
hell; and if Lazarus, who was in another place, had a finger to dip
in water, he also must have had a body of some kind there.
Leaving this matter, however, without attempting to explain the
mystery of the body celestial, I go on to mention a second reason
why materialism is considered to be bad doctrine. It is this : that
with the rise and growth of Christianity there came in the fashion
of looking down on the body with contempt as the vile and
despicable part of man, the seat of those fleshly lusts which warred
against the higher aspirations of the soul. It was held to be the
favourite province of the devil, who, having intrenched himself
there, lay in wait to entice or to betray to sin ; the wiles of Satan
and the lusts of the flesh were spoken of in the same breath, as in
the service of the English Church prayer is made for “ whatsoever
has been decayed by the fraud and malice of the devil, or by his
own carnal will and frailness ; ” and all men are taught to look
forward to the time when “ he shall change this vile body and make
�Lessons of Materialism.
11
it like unto his glorious body.” It was the extreme but logical
outcome of this manner of despising the body to subject it to all
the penances, and to treat it with all the rigour, of the most rigid
asceticism—to neglect it, to starve it, to scourge it, to mortify it in
every possible way. One holy ascetic would never wash himself,
or cut his toe-nails, or wipe his nose; another suffered maggots
to burrow unchecked into the neglected ulcers of his emaciated
body; others, like St. Francis, stripped themselves naked and
appeared in public without clothes. St. Macarius threw away his
clothes and remained naked for six months in a marsh, exposed to
the bite of every insect; St. Simeon Stylites spent thirty years on
the top of a column which had been gradually raised to a height of
sixty feet, passing a great part of his time in bending his
meagre body successively with his head towards his feet, and so
industriously that a curious spectator, after counting one thousand
two hundred and forty-four repetitions, desisted counting from
weariness. And for these things—these insanities of conduct may
we not call them—they were accounted most holy, and received
the honours of saintship. Contrast this unworthy view of the
body with that which the ancient Greeks took of it. They found
no other object in nature which satisfied so well their sensejof
proportion and manly strength, of attractive grace and beauty : and
their reproductions of it in marble we preserve now as priceless
treasures of art, albeit we still babble the despicable doctrine of
contempt of it. The more strange, since it is a matter of sober
scientific truth that the human body is the highest and most
wonderful work in nature, the last and best achievement of her
creative skill; it is a most complex and admirably constructed
organism, “ fearfully and wonderfully made,” which contains, as it
were in a microcosm, all the ingenuity and harmony and beauty
of the macrocosm. And it is this supreme product of evolution
that fanatics have gained the honour of saintship by disfiguring
and torturing!
These, then, are two great reasons of the repugnance which is
felt to materialism, namely, the notion that it is destructive of the
hope of a resurrection, and the contempt of the body which has
been inculcated as a religious duty. And yet on these very points
materialism seems fitted to teach the spiritualist lessons of humility
and reverence, for it teaches him, in the first place, not to despise
and call unclean the last and best work of his Creator’s hand; and,
secondly, not impiously to circumscribe supernatural power by the
narrow limits of his understanding, but to bethink himself that it
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were just as easy in the beginning, or now, or at any time, for the
omnipotent Creator of matter and its properties to make it think
as to make mind think.
Passing from these incidental lessons of humility and reverence,
I go now to show that materialism has it moral lessons, and that
these, rightly apprehended, are not at all of a low intellectual and
moral order, but, on the contrary, in some respects more elevating
than the moral lessons of spiritualism. I shall content myself
with two or three of these lessons, not because there are not more
of them, but because they will be enough to occupy the time at mv
disposal.
. It is a pretty . well accepted scientific doctrine that our fardistant prehistoric ancestors were a very much lower order of
beings than we are, even if they did not inherit directly from the
monkey; that they were very much like, in conformation, habits,
intelligence, and moral feeling, the lowest existing savages ; and
that we have risen to our present level of being by a slow process
of evolution which has been going on gradually through untold
generations. Whether or not “ through the ages one increasing
purpose runs,” as the poet has it, it is certainly true that “ the
,thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.” Now
when we examine the brain of the lowest savage, whom we need
not be too proud to look upon as our ancestor in the flesh—say a
native Australian or a Bushman—we find it to be considerably
smaller than an ordinary European brain ; its convolutions, which
are the highest nerve-centres of mind, are decidedly fewer in
number, more simple in character, and more symmetrical in
arrangement. These are marks of inferiority, for in those things
in which it differs from the ordinary European brain it gets nearer
in structure to the still much inferior brain of the monkey ; it
represents, we may say, a stage of development in the long distance which has been traversed between the two. A comparison
of the relative brain-weights will give a rude notion of the
differences : the brain-weight of an average European male is
49 oz.; that of a Bushman is, I believe, about 33 oz.; and that of
a Negro, who comes between them in brain-size, as in intelligence,
is 44 oz. The small brain-weight of the Bushman is indeed
equaled among civilised nations by that of a small-headed or socalled microcephalic idiot. There can be no doubt, then, of a
great difference of development between the highest and the lowest
existing human brain.
There can be no doubt, furthermore, that the gross differences
�Lessons of Materialism.
13
which there are between the size and development of the brain of
a low savage and of an average European, go along with as great
differences of intellectual and moral capacities—that lower mental
function answers to lower cerebral structure. It is a well-known
fact that many savages cannot count beyond five, and that they
have no words in their vocabulary for the higher qualities of
human nature, such as virtue, justice, humanity, and their
Opposites, vice, injustice, and cruelty, or for the more abstract
ideas. The native Australian, for example, who is in this case,
having no words for justice, love, mercy, and the like, would not
in the least know what remorse meant; if any one showed it in
his presence, he would think probably that he had got a bad
bellyache. He has no words to express the higher sentiments and
thoughts because he has never felt and thought them, and has
never had, therefore, the need to express them ; he has not in his
inferior brain the nervous substrata which should minister to such
sentiments and thoughts, and cannot have them in his present
state of social evolution, any more than he could make a particular
movement of his body if the proper muscles were wanting. Nor
could any amount of training in the world, we may be sure, ever
make him equal in this respect to the average European, any more
than it could add substance to the brain of a small-headed idiot
and raise it to the ordinary level. Were any one, indeed, to make
the experiment of taking the young child of an Australian savage
and of bringing it up side by side with an average European child,
taking great pains to give them exactly the same education in
every respect, he would certainly have widely different results in
the end : in the one case he would have to do with a well-organized
instrument, ready to give out good intellectual notes and a fine
harmony of moral feeling when properly handled; in the other
case, an imperfectly organized instrument, from which it would be
out of the power of the most patient and skilful touch to elicit more
than a few feeble intellectual notes and a very rude and primitive
sort of moral feeling. A little better feeling, certainly, than that
of its fathers, but still most primitive ; for many savages regard as
virtues most of the big vices and crimes, such as theft, rape,
murder, at any rate when they are practised at the expense of
neighbouring tribes. Their moral feeling, such as it is, is extremely
circumscribed, being limited in application to the tribe. In Europe
we have happily got further than that, since we are not, as savages
are and our forefathers probably were, divided into a multitude of
tribes eager to injure and even extirpate one another from motives •
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Lessons of Materialism.
o£ tribal patriotism; but mankind seems to be far off the goal of
its high calling so long as, divided into jealous and hostile nations,
it suffers national divisions to limit the application of moral feeling,
counts it a high virtue to violate it under the profaned name of
patriotism, and uses the words “ humanitarianism” and “cosmo
politanism ” as crushing names of reproach. There is plainly room
yet for a wider expansion of moral feeling.
Now what do the discoveries of science warrant us to conclude
respecting the larger and more complex brain of the civilised man
and its higher capacities of thought and feeling ? They teach us
this : that it has reached its higher level not by any sudden and
big creative act, nor by a succession of small creative acts, but by
the slow and gradual operation of processes of natural evolution
going on through countless ages. Each new insight into natural
phenomena on the part of man, each act of wiser doing founded
on truer insight, each bettered feeling which has been developed
from wiser conduct, has tended to determine by degrees a corre
sponding structual change of the brain, which has been transmitted
as an innate endowment to succeeding generations, just as the
acquired habit of a parent animal becomes sometimes the instinct
of its offspring; and the accumulated results of these slow and
minute gains, transmitted by hereditary action, have culminated in
the higher cerebral organization, in which they are now, as it
were, capitalised. Thus the added structure embodies in itself the
superior intellectual and moral capacities of abstract reasoning and
moral feeling which have been the slow acquisitions of the ages,
and it gives them out again in its functions when it discharges its
functions rightly. If we were to have a person born in this
country with a brain of no higher development than that of the
low savage—destitute, that is, of the higher nervons substrata of
thought and feeling—if, in fact, our far remote prehistoric ancestor
were to come to life among us now—we should have more or
less of an imbecile, who could not compete on equal terms with
other persons, but must perish, unless charitably cared for, just as
the native Australian perishes when he comes into contact and
competition with the white man. The only way in which the
native Australian could be raised to the level of civilised feeling
and thought would be by cultivation continued through many
generations—by a process of evolution similar to that which lies
back between our savage ancestors and us.
That is one aspect of the operation of natural law in human
events—the operation of the law of heredity in development, in
�Lessons oj Materialism.
15
carrying mankind forward, that is, to a higher level of being. It
teaches us plainly enough that the highest qualities of mind bear
witness to the reign of law in nature as certainly as do the lowest
properties of matter, and that if we are to go on progressing in
time to come it must be by observation of, and obedience to, the
laws of development. But there is another vastly important
aspect of the law of heredity which it concerns us to bear sincerely
in mind—its operation in working out human degeneracy, in
carrying mankind downwards, that is, to a lower level of being.
It is certain that man may degenerate as well as develop ; that he
has been doing so both as nation and individual ever since we have
records of his doings on earth. There is a broad and easy way of
dissolution, national, social, or individual, which is the opposite of
the steep and narrow way of evolution. Now what it behoves us
to realise distinctly is that there is not anything more miraculous
about the degeneracy and extinction of a nation or of a family
than there is about its rise and development; that both are the
work of natural law. A nation does not sink into decadence, I
presume, so long as it keeps fresh those virtues of character
through which it became great among nations ; it is when it suffers
them to be eaten away by luxury, corruption, and other enervating
vices, that it undergoes that degeneration of character which
prepares and makes easy its over-throw. In like manner a family,
reckless of the laws of physical and moral hygiene, may go through
a process of degeneracy until it becomes extinct. It was no mere
dream of prophetic frenzy that when the fathers have eaten
sour grapes, the children’s teeth are set on edge, nor was it a
meaningless menace that the sins of the fathers shall be visited
upon the children unto the third and fourth generations ; it was
an actual insight into the natural law by which degeneracy increases
through generations—by which one generation reaps the wrong
which its fathers have sown, as its children in turn will reap the
wrong which it has sown. What we call insanity or mental
derangement is truly, in most cases, a form of human degeneracy,
a phase in the working out of it; and if we were to suffer this
degeneracy to take it course unchecked through generations, the
natural termination would be sterile idiocy and extinction of the
family. A curious despot would find it impossible, were he to
make the experiment, to breed and propagate a race of insane
people; nature, unwilling to continue a morbid variety of the
human kind, would bring his experiment to an end by the
production of sterile idiocy. If man will but make himself the
�16
Lessons of Materialism.
subject of serious scientific study, he shall find that this working
out of degeneracy through generations affords him a rational
explanation of most of those evil impulses of the heart which he
has been content to attribute to the wiles and instigations of the
devil; that the evil spirit which has taken possession of the
wicked man is often the legacy of parental or ancestral error,
misfortune, or wrong-doing. It will be made plain to him that
insanity, idiocy, and every other form of human degeneracy is not
casualty, but defect which comes by cause ; that it is just as much
the definite consequent of definite antecedents as any other event
in nature; and that these antecedents many times are within human
controul, being the palpable outcome of ignorance or of neglect of
the laws of moral and physical hygiene. Let me illustrate by an
example the nature and bearing of this scientific study.
I will take for this purpose a case which every physician who
has had much experience must have been asked some time or
other to consider and advise about: a quite young child, which is
causing its parents alarm and distress by the precocious display
of vicious desires and tendencies of all sorts, that are quite out of
keeping with its tender years, and by the utter failure of either
precept, or example, or punishment to imbue it with good feeling
and with the desire to do right. It may not be notably deficient
in intelligence; on the contrary, it may be capable of learning
quickly when it likes, and extremely cunning in lying, in stealing,
in gratifying other perverse inclinations; and it cannot be said
not to know right from wrong, since it invariably eschews the
right and chooses the wrong, showing an amazing acuteness in
escaping detection and the punishment which follows detection.
It is, in truth, congenitally conscienceless, by nature destitute of
moral sense and actively imbued with an immoral sense. Now
this unfortunate creature is of so tender an age that the theory of
Satanic agency is not thought to offer an adequate explanation of
its evil impulses ; in the end everybody who has to do with it feels
that it is not responsible for its vicious conduct, perceives that
punishment does not and cannot in the least reform it, and is
persuaded that there is some native defect of mind which renders
it a proper case for medical advice. Where, then, is the fault that
a human being is born into the world who will go wrong, nay, who
must go wrong, in virtue of a bad organization ? The fault lies
somewhere in its hereditary antecedents. We can seldom find
the exact cause and trace definitely the mode of its operation—the
study is much too complex and difficult for such exactness at
�Lessons of Materialism.
17
present—but we shall not fail to discover the broad fact of the
frequency of insanity or other mental degeneracy in the direct line
of the child’s inheritance. The experienced physician seldom feels
any doubt of that when he meets with a case of the kind. It is
indeed most certain that men are not bred well or ill by accident
any more than the animals are; but while most persons are ready
to acknowledge this fact in a general way, very few pursue the
admission to its exact and rigorous consequences, and fewer still
suffer it to influence their conduct.
It may be set down, then, as a fact of observation that mental
degeneracy in one generation is sometimes the evident cause of an
innate deficiency or absence of moral sense in the next generation.
The child bears the burden of its ancestral infirmities or wrong
doings. Here then and in this relation may be noted the in
structive fact, that just as moral feeling was the first function to
be affected at the beginning of mental derangement in the
individual, so now the defect or absence of it is seen to mark the
way of degeneracy through generations. It was the latest
acquisition of mental evolution; it is the first to go in mental
dissolution.
A second fact of observation may be set down as worthy of con
sideration, if not of immediate acceptation, namely, that an absence
of moral feeling in one generation, as shown by a mean, selfish,
and persistent disregard of moral action in the conduct of life, may
be the cause of mental derangement in the next generation. In
fact, a person may succeed in manufacturing insanity in his
progeny by a persistent disuse of moral feeling, and a persistent
exercise, throughout his life, of those selfish, mean, and anti-social
tendencies which are a negation of the highest moral relations of
mankind. He does not ever exercise the nervous substrata which
minister to moral functions, wherefore they undergo atrophy in
him, and he runs the risk of transmitting them to his progeny in
So imperfect a state, that they are incapable of full development of
function in them ; just as the instinct of the animal which is not
exercised for many generations on account of changed conditions
of life, becomes less distinct by degrees and in the end, perhaps,
extinct. People are apt to talk as if they believed that insanity
might be got rid of were only sufficient care taken to prevent its
direct propagation by the marriages of those who had suffered it
or were like to do so. A vain imagination assuredly ! Were all the
insanity in the world at the present time clean sweptaway to-morrow,
men would breed it afresh before to-morrow’s to-morrow by their
�18
Lessons of Materialism.
errors, their excesses, their wrong-doings of all sorts. Rightly,
then, may the scientific inquirer echo the words of the preacher,
that however prosperous a man may have seemed in his life, judge
him not blessed before his death : for he shall be known in his
children: they shall not have the confidence of their good descent.
In sober truth, the lessons of morality which were proclaimed by
the prophets of old, as indispensable to the stability and well-being
of families and nations, were not mere visions of vague fancy ;
founded upon actual observation and intuition of the laws of
nature working in human events, they were insights into the
eternal truths of human evolution.
Whether, then, man goes upwards or downwards, undergoes
development or degeneration, we have equally to do with matters
of stern law. Provision has been made for both ways ; it has been
left to him to find out and determine which way he shall take. And
it is plain that he must find the right path of evolution, and avoid the
wrong path of degeneracy, by observation and experience, pursuing
the same method of positive inquiry which has served him so w7ell
in the different sciences. Being pre-eminently and essentially a
social being, each one the member of one body—the unit, that is,
in a social organism—the laws which he has to observe and obey
are not the physical laws of nature only, but also those higher laws
which govern the relations of individuals in the social state. If
he make his observations sincerely and adequately in this way, he
cannot fail to perceive that the laws of morality were not really
miraculous revelations from heaven any more than was the •
discovery of the law of gravitation, but that they were the essential
conditions of social evolution, and were learned practicallv by the
stern lessons of experience. He has learnt his duty to his
neighbour as he has learnt his duty to nature ; it is implicit in
the constitution of a complex society of men dwelling together in
peace and unity, and has been revealed explicitly by the intuition
of a few extraordinary men of sublime moral genius.
As it is not a true, it cannot be a useful, notion to foster, that
morality was the special gift to man, or is the special property, of
any theological system, and that its vitality is in the least bound
up with the life of any such creed. Whether men believed in
Heaven and Hell or not, in Jupiter or in Jehovah, in Buddha or in
Jesus, they could not fail to find out that some obedience to moral
law is essential to social evolution. The golden rule of morals
itself—“ Do unto others as ye would have others do unto you”—
was perceived and proclaimed long before it received its highest
/
�Lessons of Materialism.
19
Christian expression.* We ought to be just and to confess
the truth: there were good Christians in the world before
Christ. It is not, indeed, religious creed which has invented
and been the basis of morality, but morality which has been the
bulwark of religions. And as a matter of fact it is too true that
morality has suffered many times not a little from its connection
with theological creeds; that its truths have been laid hands on
and used to support demoralising supersitions which were no part
of it; that doctrines essentially immoral have been even taught in
the name of religion; and that religious systems in their struggles
to establish their supremacy have oftentimes shown small respect
to the claims of morality. Had religion been true to its nature and
function, had it beenas wide as morality and humanity, it should have
been the bond of unity to hold mankind together in one brother
hood, linking them in good feeling, good-will, and good work
towards one another ; but it has in reality been that which has most
divided men, and the cause of more hatreds, more disorders, more
persecutions, more bloodshed, more cruelties than most other
causes put together. In order to maintain peace and order, there
fore, the State in modern times has been compelled to hold itself
practically aloof from religion, and to leave to each hostile sect
liberty to do as it likes so long as it meddles not by its tenets and
ceremonials with the interests of civil government. That is the
present outcome of a religion of peace on earth and goodwill
among men ! On the whole it may be thought to be fortunate for
the interests of morality that it is not bound up essentially with
any form of religious creed, but that it survives when creeds die,
having its more secure foundations in the hard-won experience of
mankind.
The inquiry which, taking a sincere survey of the facts, finds
the basis and sanction of morality in experience, by no means
* There appears to be no doubt that Confucius, among others, has the
clearest apprehension of it and expressly taught it; and the Buddhist
religion of perfection is certainly founded upon self-conquest and self
sacrifice. They are its very corner-stone: the purification of the mind
from unholy desires and passions, and a devotion to the good of others,
which rises to an enthusiasm for humanity, in order to escape from the
miseries of this life and to attain to a perfect moral repose. “ Let all the
sins that have been committed fall upon me, in order that the world may
be delivered,” Buddha says. And of the son or disciple of Buddha it is
said, “ When reviled he revileth not again; when smitten he bears the
blow without resentment; when treated with anger and passion he returns
love and good-will; when threatened with death he bears no malice.”
�20
Lessons of Materialism.
arrives in the end at easy lessons of self-indulgence for the
individual and the race, but, on the contrary, at the hardest
lessons of self-renunciation. Disclosing to man the stern and
uniform reign of law in nature, even in the evolution and
degeneracy of his own nature, it takes from him the comfortable
but demoralising doctrine that he or others can escape the penalty
of his ignorance, error, or wrong-doings either by penitence or
prayer, and holds him to the strictest account for them. Dis
carding the notion that the observed uniformity of nature is but a
uniformity of sequence at will which may be interrupted whenever
its interruption is earnestly enough asked for—a notion which,
were it more than lip-doctrine, must necessarily deprive him of his
most urgent motive to study patiently the laws of nature in order
to conform to them—it enforces a stern feeling of responsibility
to search out painfully the right path of obedience and to follow it,
inexorably laying upon man the responsibility of the future of his
race. If it be most certain, as it is, that all disobedience of natural
law, whether physical or moral, is avenged inexorably in its conse
quences on earth, eithei’ upon the individual himself, or more often,
perhaps, upon others—that the violated law cannot be bribed to
stay its arm by burnt-offerings nor placated by prayers—it is a
harmful doctrine, as tending directly to undermine understanding
and to weaken will, to teach that either prayer or sacrifice will
obviate the consequences of want of foresight or want of self
discipline, or that reliance on supernatural aid will make amends
for lack of intelligent will. We still pray half-heartedly in our
churches, as our forefathers prayed with their whole hearts, when
we are afflicted with a plague or pestilence, that God will “ accept
of an atonement and command the destroying angel to cease from
punishing ; ” and when we are suffering from too much rain we
ask him to send fine weather “ although we for our iniquities have
worthily deserved a plague of rain and water.” Is there a person
of sincere understanding who, uttering that prayer, now believes
it in his heart to be the successful way to stay a fever, plague, or
pestilence ? He knows well that, if it is to be answered, he must
clean away dirt, purify drains, disinfect houses, and put in force
those other sanitary measures which experience has proved to be
efficacious, and that the aid vouchsafed to the prayer will only be
given when, these being by themselves successful, the prayer is
superfluous. Had men gone on believing, as they once believed,
that prayer would stay disease, they would never have learned and
adopted sanitary measures, any more than the savage of Africa,
�Lessons of Materialism.
21
who prays to his fetish to cure disease, does now. To get rid of
the notion of supernatural interposition was the essential condition
of true knowledge and self-help in that matter.
Looking at the matter in the light of scientific knowledge, it is
hard to see how any one can think otherwise. However, one may
easily overrate the depth to which such knowledge goes in the
general mind: at best it is but a thin surface-dressing. Only a
few days ago, on opening a book at random, I hit on the following
extract from a sermon on the Miracles of Prayer, by a well-known
clergyman :—
“ But we have prayed, and not been heard, at least in the present visita
tion. Have we deserved to be heard? In former visitations it was
observed commonly how the cholera lessened from the day of public
humiliation. When we dreaded famine from a long-continued drought
on the morning of our prayers the heaven over our head was of brass ; the
clear burning sky showed no token of change. Men looked with awe on
its unmitigated clearness. In the evening was a cloud like a man’s hand •
the relief was come.”
’
This is from a sermon preached by no mean citizen of no mean
city; it was preached at Oxford, in 1866, and the preacher was
Dr. Pusey, who goes on to say that it describes what he himself
saw on the Sunday morning in Oxford, on returning from the
early communion at St. Mary’s, at eight. The change occurred in
the evening. A good instance, one would be apt to say, of a very
common fallacy of observation and reasoning—the fallacy that an
event which happens after another necessarily happens in conse
quence of it! But what I would point out is, that if Dr. Pusey’s
interpretation of the matter be true, all our scientific knowledge of
the order of nature has no stable foundation; it is no better than
a baseless fabric, which has come like wind and like wind may go.
And most certain it is that if such views were universal, the result
would be to carry us back straight to the ignorance and barbarism
which prevailed in Europe before the Reformation and the dawn
of modern science. Consider how much it means, that a man of
Dr. Pusey’s culture and eminence should so little apprehend the
fundamental principles of modern science, should be so blind to
the conception of the reign of law in nature ; consider again how
the great majority of the people are in his case, and that the torch
of modern science is after all really carried by some hundred men
or so in Europe and America, and would be pretty nigh extin
guished by their simultaneous deaths ; and consider, lastly, that
we have everywhere in our midst a most complete and powerful
Organisation which, holding that all truth has been given into
�22
Lessons of Materialism.
the keeping of the church from the beginning, and cannot be
either added to or taken from, is truly a gigantic and unsleeping
conspiracy against the human intellect;—consider these things
fairly, I say, and then ask yourselves soberly whether modern pro
gress is so stable and assured a thing as we are apt to take it for
granted it is. For my part, I would not give much for it if the
Roman Catholic Church had its way for fifty or a hundred years.
In all ages of the world, I make no doubt, there have been a few
persons with too much insight to accept the fables which have
satisfied the vulgar, but who dared not utter their thoughts, or,
uttering them, were quickly extinguished; the torch of knowledge
has been again and again lit and again and again put out; and
truth never will be made secure until it has been driven down
into the hearts of the masses of the people by a right method of
education from generation to generation.
Many persons who could not confidently express their belief in
the power of prayer to stop a plague or a deluge of rain, or who
actually disbelieve it, still have a sincere hold of the belief of its
miraculous power in the moral or spiritual world. Nevertheless, if
the matter be made one simply of scientific observation, it must be
confessed that all the evidence goes to prove that the events of
the moral world are matters of law and order equally with those
of the physical world, and that supernatural interpositions have no
more place in the one than in the other; that he who prays for
the creation of a clean heart and the renewal of a right spirit
within him, if he gets at last what he prays for, gets it by the
operation of the ordinary laws of moral growth and development,
in consequence of painstaking watchfulness over himself and the
continual exercise of good resolves. Only when he gets it in that
way will he get the benefit of supernatural aid ; and if it rests in
the belief of supernatural aid, without taking pains to get it
entirely in that way, he will do himself moral harm ; for if he
cannot rely upon special interpositions in the moral any more than
in the physical world, if he has to do entirely with those
secondary laws of nature through which alone the supernatural is
made natural, the invisible visible, it needs no demonstration that
the opposite belief cannot strengthen, but must weaken, the under
standing and will. It is plain that true moral hygiene is as
impossible to the person who relies upon his fetish to change his
heart in answer to prayer, as sanitary science is impossible to the
savage who relies upon his fetish to stay a pestilence in answer to
prayer.
�Lessons of Materialism.
23
So far from materialism being a menace to morality, when it is
properly understood, it not only sets before man a higher intellec
tual aim than he is ever likely to reach by spiritual paths, but it
even raises a more self-sacrificing moral standard. For when all
has been said, it is not the most elevated or the most healthy
business for a person to be occupied continually with anxieties and
apprehensions and cares about the salvation of his own soul, and
to be earnest to do well in this life in order that he may escape
eternal suffering and gain eternal happiness in a life to come. The
disbeliever might find room to argue that here was an instance
showing how theology has taken possession of the moral instinct and
vitiated it. Having set before man a selfish instead of an altruistic
end as the prime motive of well-doing—his own good rather than the
good of others—it is in no little danger of taking away his strongest
motive to do uprightly, if so be the dead rise not. Indeed, it
makes the question of the apostle a most natural one : “ If, after
the manner of man, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what
advantageth it me if the dead rise not ? ” Materialism cannot
hesitate in the least to declare that it is best for a man’s self and
best for his kind to have fought with the beasts of unrighteousness,
at Ephesus or elsewhere, even if the dead rise not. Perceiving
and teaching that he is essentially a social being, that all the
mental faculties by which he so much excels the animals below
him, and even the language in which he expresses his mental func
tions, have been progressive developments of his social relations,
it enforces the plain and inevitable conclusion that it is the true
scientific function, and at the same time the highest development,
of the individual, to promote the well-being of the social organiza
tion—that is, to make his life subserve the good of his kind. It
is no new morality, indeed, which it teaches ; it simply brings men
back to that which has been the central lesson and the real stay
of the great religions of the world, and which is implicit in the
constitution of society; but it does this by a way which promises
to bring the understanding into entire harmony with moral
feeling, and so to promote by a close and consistent interaction
their accordant growth and development; and it strips morality
of the livery of superstition in which theological creeds have
dressed and disfigured it, presenting it to the adoration of mankind
in its natural purity and strength.
�“ The Pathology Of Mind.” By H. MAUDSLEY, M.D. Being the Third
Edition of the Seeond Part of the “Physiology and Pathology of
Mind,” recast, much enlarged and re-written. In 8vo, price 18s.
By the same Author.
“ The Physiology of Mind.” Being the First Part of a Third Edition
revised, enlarged, and re-written, of “ The Physiology and Pathology
of Mind.” Crown 8vo, 10s. 6d.
“Body and Mind An Inquiry into their Connection and Mutual Influ
ence, specially with reference to Mental Disorders. Second Edition,
enlarged and revised, with Psychological Essays added. Crown 8vo.,
6s. 6d.
Macmillan & Co., London.
SUNDAY LECTURE
SOCIETY,
To provide for the delivery on Sundays in the Metropolis, and to encourage
the delivery elsewhere, of Lectures on Science, —physical, intellectual,
and moral,—History, Literature, and Art; especially in their bearing
upon the improvement and social well-being of mankind.
President.—W. B. Carpenter, C.B., LL.D., M.D., F.R.S., &c.
Vice-Presidents.
Professor Alexander Bain.
Sir Arthur Hobhouse, K.C.S.I.
James Booth, Esq., C.B.
Thomas Henry Huxley, Esq., LL.D.,
Charles Darwin, Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S.
F.R.S., F.L.S.
Edward Frankland, Esq., D.C.L., Herbert Spencer, Esq.
W. Spottiswoode, Esq., LL.D., P.R.S.
Ph.D., F.R.S.
James Heywood, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A. John Tyndall, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S.
THE SOCIETY’S LECTURES
ABE DELIVERED AT
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
On SUNDAY Afternoons, at FOUR o’clock precisely.
(Annually—from November to May).
Twenty-four Lectures (in three series), commencing Sunday, the 2nd
of November, 1879, will be given.
Members’ £1 subscription entitles them to an annual ticket, transferable
(and admitting to the reserved seats), and to eight single reserved-seat
tickets, available for any lecture. .
For tickets, and for the Lectures published by the Society, of which lists
can be obtained on application, apply (by letter enclosing cheques, post
office orders or postage stamps) to the Hon. Treasurer, Wm. Henry
Domville, Esq., lb, Gloucester Crescent, Hyde Park, W. The Lectures
can also be obtained of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 158, Oxford Street, W.
Payment at the door:—One Penny; —Sixpence;—and (Reserved
Seats) One Shilling.
Kenny & Oo., Printers, 25, Camden Road, London, N.W.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Lessons of materialism : a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St. George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 6th April, 1879
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Maudsley, Henry [1835-1918]
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 23, [1] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Presented in Memory of Dr. Moncure D. Conway by his children, July Nineteen hundred & eight. List of the Society's Sunday Lectures on unnumbered page at the end. From Fortnightly Review (August 1879). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway and part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5. Reprinted from the 'Fortnightly Review' [Title page]. The author is Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, University College, London.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1879
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N478
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G3422
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Materialism
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Conway Tracts
Materialism
Morris Tracts
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ON THE
MATERIALISM OF MODERN SCIENCE ;
OPENING
ADDRESS,
READ BEFORE
THE
LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF LIVERPOOL,
October 5th, 1871.
BY
ALBERT
J.
MOTT,
President.
��ON THE MATERIALISM OF MODERN SCIENCE.
The time is near at hand, if we may judge our age by its
tendencies, when the pursuit of science will have to justify
itself anew to the reason of mankind. It is not a matter of
course that human beings should spend the hours which
remain to them, after the necessities of life have been pro
vided for, in exploring the mysteries of Nature or unravel
ing the threads of history. That great happiness may
co-exist with little knowledge is a fact of daily observation.
That it increases in this world in the ratio of our intellectual
acquirements has never been proved, and is far from pro
bable. We know how often the lives of learned men are
melancholy lives. Health injured in the laboratory ; eye
sight dimmed behind the telescope; strength exhausted in
toiling over hills and deserts; time, which never returns,
spent in the severities of study or the languor of overwork ;
all these are the common incidents of scientific research, and
must continue to be so while human nature remains the
same. And although there are some men in all ages who
devote themselves to science by an irresistible impulse, which
requires no stimulus, asks for no reason and defies all
possible discouragement, this fact, instead of recommending
such studies to mankind at large, removes one powerful
motive to their general pursuit. For nature will in any case
be continually explored by these, her natural devotees ; the
main truths discoverable at any given period will be dis
covered by them; the rest will receive whatever practical
benefit arises from such discoveries without any effort of
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president’s address.
their own, and the utilitarian purposes of science are in this
way sure to be attained, at all events to a considerable
degree.
The grounds on which the acquisition of knowledge
through laborious study, not forced upon us by immediate
wants or special instincts, can be seriously advocated,
belong altogether to our conception of human life itself, its
destiny, its purposes and its proper aims, and these being
themselves among the subjects of scientific research, our
conclusions concerning them are the most important and
fundamental of its products ; the elements by which alone
we can determine whether its further prosecution can be
worth the time and pains it must demand.
Now we are accustomed to take for granted that it is of
course worth this time and pains, and the reason is very
obvious. We belong to a race which as such has never
doubted the immortality of the human soul, and the special
form in which this is the belief of Christendom at once
determines our views of the nature and ends of life. Mental
powers which are to be used, not for fifty years but for ever,
are of course worth cultivating for their own sakes here. To
fit ourselves for future and endless occupations, not to make
an ephemeral life as pleasant as may be while its lasts, is the
work suited to our present condition. Nothing in the
universe can be uninteresting to us whom the universe itself
cannot outlive. No acquisition of knowledge can possibly
satisfy our proper wish for it, when the field and the time
before us are both of them recognised as infinite. These,
which are the mere aphorisms of common sense, are raised
into the axioms of philosophy by that conception of higher
natures and Power diviner than our own, which is the neces
sary adjunct of a belief in human immortality in any form ;
and this belief gives a final reason for unlimited effort
�president’s address.
3
towards our own mental progress, by altogether freeing us
from the fear, which would otherwise be overwhelming, that
life may slip away for ever while we are only preparing the
ground on which no harvest can ripen, and where our labour
will have been in vain.
It is this philosophy, deeply planted in all civilised
nations of modern times, that causes an intuitive assent to
be given to the wisdom of laborious study and of present
sacrifice, for the sake of mental growth. It is of course in
perfect harmony with Christianity itself, inasmuch as all the
reasons that are valid in seeking our own improvement are,
from the Christian point of view, still more so if we seek the
improvement of others.
But modern science has been coming to some momentous
conclusions, which are in their essence destructive of every
philosophy of this kind, and if these are true we have no
right to take for granted on the existing grounds that the
advancement of knowledge must be good for us. The
philosophy on which all our habits of thought are founded
assumes as its first postulate that two different kinds of being
actually exist, and are apprehended by us as existing. Wc
call them matter and mind; body and spirit; the material
and the immaterial. We never question the fact that in
using these words we are naming two orders of things essen
tially unlike each other, or that their existence and their
difference are intelligible to us. One of the most essential
points of difference is in their relation to human life.
Human life, so far as it depends on the existence of our
bodies, depends on that which is in its nature transitory.
The elements of which our bodies are composed appear
themselves to be indestructible, but they exhibit none of
the phenomena of human life unless combined in this com
plicated and unstable form. And since different living bodies
are successively formed by the combination of the same
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president’s address.
particles of matter, no power can reconstruct them so that
all should exist again at the same time. A living body is
not in fact, but only in appearance, the same being from day
to day. If we watch a moving crowd at such a distance that
we can see no movement, but only see that the same points
are always occupied by similar forms, those forms seem
permanent in those positions, and that which changes at
every moment may appear unaltered for any length of time.
But as in a crowd like this, so in our bodily frames, if each
successive particle or union of particles possessed a con
sciousness of its own, they would have no notion of identity
with those which preceded them. Such a notion can only
be entertained by a looker-on, and by him only through
imperfect observation.
On the other hand, our mental nature constantly asserts
its own permanent identity, and while perfectly aware that
thoughts, feelings, and all mental operations or states suc
ceed each other, and form a series and a process, it main
tains always that these do not constitute a mental being any
more than motion constitutes a material particle, and that
the being who feels and acts continues the same being, as
strictly as the moving particle continues to be the same.
All the explanations of what we mean by mental identity
either admit this or else they are arguments to prove that
successive thoughts and feelings give rise to one permanent
thought or feeling, which we call the consciousness of
identity; and that the notion thus embodied is untrue.
The notion, however, is ineradicable, and forms a necessary
part of the philosophy I am considering.
Now the bearing of this part of our philosophy upon the
question of human immortality is very clear. To think of
a dead body as simply restored to life, and as being then the
same living person as before, is easy enough in a certain
�president’s address.
5
stage of ignorance, but becomes quite impossible as soon as
we notice what happens to the body after death. This has
been everywhere perceived, and the literal identity of bodily
forms in a future life does not, I suppose, form part of any
theory on the subject. The identity with which we all feel
concerned is mental identity. We change our bodies con
stantly in the present world, and can imagine ourselves
inhabiting any sort of external form. But the very forms
we now stand in would cease instantly, not only to be our
selves, but in any way to belong to us, if our minds left
them and other minds took possession of them.
Now if my mental identity does in fact depend on the
existence of my present body, that is, if it depends on the
maintenance of this organic form by the constant succession
of material particles, replacing each other in one unbroken
series, it must follow that when this body goes to pieces in
such a way that it cannot be reconstructed, I myself must
perish with it altogether and for ever. Anothei being,
*
exactly like me, might be made, and thoughts and feelings
like my own might possibly be given him. But the simple
fact would still only be that two individuals precisely similar
to each other had lived, and that one of them was dead ; not
that the dead one was alive again. My existence has no
concern in, and no influence upon, the existence of my dupli
cate. What is really necessary to my continued existence
hereafter is that my mental identity should depend on
something which does not go to pieces as the body does, or
which, if this should happen, does not become the material
out of which other beings are made, and which, therefore, it
is not impossible to put together again. If the material
body constitutes the whole of the living being, this indis
pensable condition can never be fulfilled, except by the
grotesque theory, sometimes adopted, which supposes that
the living principle resides in some small, and of course
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president’s address.
undiscovered, portion of the body, which in fact is never
decomposed.
But if mental existence is a different thing from material
existence, that is, if the fundamental postulate of our com
mon philosophy is true, this difficulty never can arise.
Whatever the essence of mind may be, we have no ground
for thinking that dead minds, like dead bodies, are used up
again in the construction of living ones. There is no such
reason, therefore, why consciousness may not be restored to
the mind which has lost it. The identity of the being is not
destroyed by the mere fact that it has ceased to think and
feel. The destruction occurs only when the being itself is
divided into parts, and these parts become portions of other
beings. You may keep a seed for centuries without a sign
of animation, yet able to revive and continue the life it had
before. But if you once break it up, and let its elements
become the elements of other seeds, revival is of course out
of the question.
When any doctrine of a future life is presented to us,
whether as the inference of reason, or the teaching of autho
rity, or both, the reception we give to it as rational beings
must evidently depend on the view we take of this funda
mental question. If there is no preliminary objection to the
fact asserted, on general grounds, we can weigh the evidence
without prejudice, and judge according to its cogency ; while
if our philosophical views have already placed it among impos
sible things, we are obliged either to reject all evidence in its
favour as necessarily faulty, or else to affirm that there are
two kinds of truth while we deny that there are two kinds of
being, and to admit that what we see to be impossible may
nevertheless take place. The latter view is doubtless held at
present by many men of high scientific attainments, but
there are no elements of stability in it. When our faith and
�president’s address.
7
our philosophy mutually support each other, there is no
reason to fear that either will be overturned; but when they
contradict each other, the ultimate destruction of one or both
is already certain.
It is this all but universal philosophy which, by asserting
two kinds of existence, has made the continued life of the
human soul a thing probable in itself, and therefore suscep
tible of proof by ordinary evidence, and which has thus
become the true foundation of our general view of life, its
objects, and therefore its motives, and through these its
maxims, and the common standards by which we estimate
the value of its pursuits; it is this philosophy with all its
consequences which is now assailed by the theories of
modern physical science, as they are accepted and taught by
many of its leaders, and probably by the majority of its
younger students.
These theories assert that the only
existing things known to us are material things, and that if
anything of a different nature does in fact exist, we have no
faculties by which it can be apprehended. The facts con
cerning material bodies, their properties and their changes,
are therefore the only facts within the reach of human intel
ligence ; the search after anything else is a vain and useless
search, and any fancied knowledge on such subjects is fancy
only. These views are supported by considering the sources
of human knowledge. We become acquainted with things
around us only by the action of the physical organs of sense.
That action itself is only physical change, and is only
brought about by the physical changes of other bodies. All
that is thus communicated to us, therefore, is in fact nothing
but physical change, and this alone is the substance of all
our knowledge.
The full result of these theories is not indeed generally
appreciated, is often kept out of sight, and is believed by
many to be cancelled by certain explanations, the soundness
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president’s address.
of which is vaguely hoped for, but is not vigorously put to
the test. But it is clear that, on this materialistic view of
things, any belief in human immortality must be founded on
the supposition that its inherent difficulties can be got over
in some way which is unintelligible to ourselves. But why,
then, should we make this supposition ? In what manner
could we come to know that it is justified ? The question is
a crucial one, and the inevitable answer is, that the suppo
sition could not be justified.
„
For if our only sources of knowledge are only able to
make us acquainted with the facts of material change, our
ignorance of all other facts is necessarily absolute, and no
supposition concerning them can have anything to rest upon.
Knowledge, like the senses which supply it, is on this
theory only a name for material change, and what, then, is
meant by knowledge of anything besides ? Yet the suppo
sition must be that we do come to know that there is some
thing else, and that this justifies a belief in immortality.
That is to say, that, being ourselves purely material, and in
relation only with matter and its changes, we yet come to
know a fact which material changes not only cannot account
for, but cannot so much as render possible in itself. This is
the climax of self-contradiction.
Let me recapitulate a little. Our desire for the advance
ment of knowledge, and our conviction that a great part of
life should be devoted to intellectual pursuits, are the result
not of a universal and irresistible impulse, but of a reason
able judgment, founded on our general view of human life
itself, as expressed by our common maxims concerning it,
which are the axioms of thought in this direction. But
these themselves are founded on and derived from the
assumption that human life is not related to this world only,
and that it is not ended with the grave. And this assump
tion of immortality itself depends on the belief that there are
�president’s address.
9
two kinds of existence, and that the human soul is not the
same thing as the human body.
If the fact is otherwise, the doctrine of continued life
becomes incredible, or can only be held in defiance of all
the inferences of reason. If life is thus shortened to a few
brief years, our whole view of it with all its objects must, if
we are rational beings, be utterly changed. If it is thus
changed, the maxims which serve as guides, and the conduct
based upon them, cease to be reasonable since they lose their
foundation. The entire theory of life must be re-considered,
and, as I began by saying, the pursuit of science will have to
justify itself anew to the reason of mankind.
There are philosophers of the purely materialistic school
who will not shrink from accepting this challenge, and will
undertake to prove that sufficient reason can be given for
intellectual and moral culture, even on the supposition that
our conscious identity expires with our latest breath. I
believe their arguments are futile, and their efforts neces
sarily vain, but I postpone the discussion of that question.
That it is of infinite importance no one will dispute. My
object so far has been to show that the question is neces
sarily raised, if the materialistic doctrine is accepted, and I
shall now endeavour to point out to you what I conceive to
be the general fallacy of the reasoning which leads to its
acceptance by the students of physical science.
On the threshold of the inquiry we are met by the fact
that a belief in two kinds of existence, material and imma
terial, has been nearly universal everywhere. It is necessary
to the materialistic philosophy that this fact should be
accounted for, and the task has been undertaken by Mr.
Tylor, in those remarkable chapters on Animism which
occupy more than four hundred pages in his book on Primi
tive Culture. Very few, I believe, have read these chapters
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president’s address.
carefully. It is a work of considerable labour ; and even the
sense in which Mr. Tylor uses the word Animism is perhaps
unknown to many. He means by it the doctrine of spiritual
beings generally; the belief, that is, in some kind of exist
ence which is not material. He shows by an enormous
accumulation of details that this belief is not a product of
recent civilisation, but is universal among all savage tribes.
Adopting the savage theory as to the origin of existing races,
he assumes that civilised man has inherited this belief from
his rude ancestors, and that the grounds on which they
acquired it are therefore the grounds on which it really rests.
He then considers in what way the lowest races can have
acquired it, and he finds an answer to this question in the
effect of dreams upon the imagination of savages. Dreams
are common to all men. The beings we seem to meet in
them appear to us to be really present. But we find their
bodily forms have not been really present. Hence an inference
that they have a second form which is independent of the
body. The excitement of fever leads to similar results.
The inference is supported also by imaginary forms which
we often think we see in dim light; by the shadows of
objects, and by their reflection in water. In all these cases,
what appear to us to be material beings are found in fact to
have no objective existence.
This constant experience,
according to Mr. Tylor, has produced in the minds of savages
generally a belief in the double nature of all visible things;
in a material body which can be touched, and in an immaterial body which cannot be touched.
From this settled conviction, originating in the lowest
tribes and handed down to other races, Mr. Tylor supposes
the belief in spiritual beings to have been derived. It is, I
think, the only attempt that has been made to give a reason
able account of the universality of this belief on purely
physical grounds. It is extremely interesting in itself, and
�president’s address.
11
it has at first sight a very plausible appearance, but it will
not bear close examination.
You will see at once that the savage origin of mankind
must be assumed before the reasoning can have any force
whatever. But in fact it has no force even on that assump
tion. If savages believe in spirits because they cannot
otherwise account for dreams and optical illusions, it is
certain that cultured races do nothing of the kind. It is
soon perceived that shadows and reflections have no separate
existence, and that the general phenomena of dreams are
like those of fancy and of memory. If in special cases
communication with spiritual beings is ever believed to occur
in sleep, among ourselves, it is because we already believe
that there are such beings who might thus address us; not
because the evidence of this is furnished by our dreams.
This is not a case of a belief received traditionally and
accepted carelessly, without considering the grounds on
which it rests. The validity of its evidence has occupied the
profoundest thought of the greatest thinkers for an unknown
length of time, and the reasons suggested by Mr. Tylor have
had no influence upon minds like these. It is in moral and
intellectual evidence, not in the evidence of the senses, that
the great leaders of cultivated thought in all ages have found
the proof of spiritual existence ; and there is no reason in
the world to think that the effect of this evidence upon the
minds of the higher races has anything to do with the con
clusions drawn by savages from facts of a totally different
kind.
In all departments of thought different men support the
same beliefs, both true and false, by different and independent
reasonings, and it is remarkable how often that which could
never be really anything more than confirmatory evidence in
favour of an opinion is mistaken for the actual source of it.
What, for example, can be more striking than the difference
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president’s address.
among the reasons given for general obedience to human
governments. All races, savage or civilised, in which
governments exist, are agreed as to the obligation; but some
found it on the divine right of kings, some on the natural
rights of majorities, some on the precepts of religious
teachers, some on vague superstitious fears, some on notions
of inherited rank, some on general expediency. The last of
these is doubtless the effective reason in all cases. The
practical advantage of having a government and of submit
ting to it is universally felt; and the other reasons are
really only reasons for submission to particular forms of it,
the necessity for some form or other being taken for granted.
It is precisely so with the belief in spiritual existence.
Certain mental facts, of which all men are conscious, pro
duce in most men the belief that soul and body are different
things, and the various arguments which in different states
of culture are brought forward in support of this, are only
the grounds on which particular conceptions of the fact, and
not our assurance of the fact itself, are founded.
And since it is certain that civilised races hold their
belief in spiritual existence for reasons which are not those
suggested by Mr. Tylor as the cause of savage opinion on
the subject, it is impossible to prove and unreasonable to
imagine that savage opinion has really been formed in this way.
Without discussing here the question of a real savage
origin for the human race, I must point out how vast an
error is committed when it is supposed, even as a possible
truth, that the existing savage races can have remained
isolated and unaffected by the ideas of civilised men from
what are called primeval times. The tacit assumption that
this has been or may be the case is, I think, the most
serious fallacy in the whole modern theory on this subject.
�president’s address.
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For consider the ascertained facts. We know that
powerful and civilised nations existed four thousand years
ago; that for at least that length of time the great bulk of
the world’s population has been under the influence of such
thought as is expressed in the ancient literature of Egypt,
Assyria, Judea, Persia, India, and China; that war, com
merce and adventure have been hurrying men to and fro
upon the earth during the whole of that long period. What
part of the world can we suppose to have remained altogether
unvisited by either the armies, the emigrants, the merchants,
or the travellers of its civilised states ? We mistake the
absence of remembered intercourse and present knowledge
for evidence of a permanent isolation, which is quite impos
sible in a world full of living and restless beings. Every
nation has next door neighbours who receive some influence
from it, and convey this again to those beyond. Every
nation has individual stragglers who pass in all directions
beyond its boundaries and never return. Even in the ocean,
in the course of many centuries, all islands are visited by
strangers either through accident or design. Actual proof of
these facts, though really needless, is abundant everywhere.
Stone implements are frequently found, made of materials
that must have come from a distance. Metal work gives
evidence of the same kind. Special resemblances in the arts
of life; the wide diffusion of languages and races; the
frequent legends concerning the advent of strangers; all
•show us, as might be expected beforehand, that on this earth,
where there are only fifty million square miles of dry land,
and a thousand million human beings to live upon it, an
interchange of thought goes on perpetually and reaches to
every part. This is so simple a question of common sense,
.that it seems only necessary to state it in plain words in
order to command assent. Yet it has been entirely over
looked, though it strikes at the root of the whole evolution
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president’s address.
theory as applied to the development of human thought.
For it is clear that the knowledge and the arts of savage life
tell us nothing about an earlier condition of human nature,
unless they have been really self-developed, and have not
been suggested by intercourse with higher races. But we
can never know this to be the fact unless we know that higher
races cannot have had any influence over them, and this,
instead of being probable in any case, is manifestly impossible
in almost all. A single straggler from a higher race into
the midst of a lower one is certain to introduce a whole set
of new ideas, and forty centuries are more than sufficient to
convey this influence to the ends of the earth. Mr. Tylor is
so fully aware of the rapidity with which savage ideas are
modified by any intercourse with civilised men, that he very
properly rejects as doubtful examples of purely savage
thought the legends of a later date than the period when
such intercourse is known to have been established. But he
falls into the common error of supposing an absolute isola
tion to have existed previously.
The fact that a belief in two kinds of existence is almost
universal among mankind, in all shapes of culture, still
remains, therefore, to be accounted for. But that there
should be any difficulty in accounting for it arises, I think,
from a cardinal defect in that doctrine of Experience on
which the materialistic philosophy supposes itself to stand.
That doctrine appears to take the following form. Expe
rience includes all our successive states of consciousness,
or at least all that can be remembered. Every state of
consciousness depends on changes in the condition of our
material organism. Those changes are brought about by
contact with the material universe, through the organs
of sense, external or internal. The changes themselves,
therefore, are only such as one material thing can produce in
another. Knowledge, being one form of consciousness,
�president’s address.
15
depends on these very changes, and cannot therefore relate
to anything that is not material. When we speak of imma
terial existence, therefore, we speak of something about
which nothing can be known, because there is no avenue of
sense by which it can affect us.
The defect of this view, and of the materialistic doctrine
generally, is that it confounds the physical conditions of
experience with experience itself, which is nothing but
mental change; and that it tacitly assumes, in defiance
of the evidence, that consciousness depends on nothing but
physical change.
Now this could only be proved by showing that conscious
ness consists of nothing else but physical change, and the
fallacy discloses itself the moment we use these words. For
if our words have any meaning, physical change and con
sciousness are the names of two different things, not of one
and the same thing. It is not possible for us to understand
by any physical state or motion what we understand by
consciousness. If I see an object, certain molecules vibrate
in my brain. If they do not vibrate, I do not see; but the
vibration and the seeing are not only not the same thing,
they are totally dissimilar, and are quite as incomparable as
a colour is with a number, or a clock with the hour of the
day.
This is admitted as a fact, but is very imperfectly appre
hended. Professor Tyndall, for example, adopts the mis
leading statement that, when we see, what we are really
conscious of is an affection of our own retina.
*
An affection
of the retina is one of the external conditions of sight, but
we are no more conscious of it than of the ethereal move
ments by which it is affected, or of their remotest physical
causes. Consciousness knows nothing about a retina, or
• Tyndall, Belfast Address, 1874, p. 29.
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president’s address.
any of its changes. Our own bodies are as much external
objects to ourselves as any other material things; and this is
especially and unreservedly true concerning the brain and
the nervous system, the very existence of which is only
known to most of us through a series of inferences drawn
from other men’s observation.
The absolute difference between a conscious state and a
physical condition is felt where its consequences are not
acknowledged; and we generally find consciousness spoken
of, not as physical change itself, but as the product
of it.
But, then, what is a product? Unless it is a new creation
it is something which in fact existed before, but is now in an
altered state. If we say that consciousness is a product of
physical change alone, we can only mean that the physical
substance which has undergone a change has at the same
time become conscious. What, then, is our notion of con
sciousness as a condition or quality of a physical substance,
and by which of our senses do we apprehend it as such ? If
I say a thing is hard, I appeal to the sense of touch ; if red,
to the eye; if sweet, to the palate; if noisy, to the ear; if
fragrant, to the nose; if heavy, to the muscles or the nerves.
These are all avenues of sense by which I believe that
external things affect me. From the mode in which I am
thus affected, I infer the existence and the qualities of those
external things, and I call them material objects. But when
I say of anything that it is conscious, what sense am I
appealing to ? In what way does it affect me by being
conscious ? Clearly, in no way whatever. I have no avenue
of sense by which the fact can be made known to me as the
facts concerning material objects are made known. Your
bodily forms and movements affect me as I address you, and
make your bodily presence known; but how can I know your
�president’s address.
17
thoughts by any such means ? or how can I conceive it
possible so to know them? All my knowledge of physical
facts comes to me through my physical senses, but none of
my knowledge of mental facts is attained in that way. I do
not know what they are by inference from my sensations ;
I know it by direct knowledge of myself as a mental being
alone.
The mistaken idea, that what can be verified by the
physical senses is worth attending to, but that what cannot
be thus verified can never be known, requires a few more
words of examination.
Absolute unconditional knowledge is only possible con- .
cerning our inward selves. We are conscious, and we know
the facts of our own present consciousness; and this know
ledge is absolute. To be conscious, and to know the facts of
consciousness, are not identical states, but they are both
states the existence of which we are always able to affirm
unconditionally.
Some of the facts of consciousness, which we call the
impressions of the senses, make us infer the existence of
material things. This inference we also call knowledge, but
it is never absolute or unconditional; it is knowledge of
another kind. We cannot affirm that a material object
exists and affects our consciousness, in the way in which we
affirm that we exist and are conscious.
But the absolute knowledge we have of ourselves extends
to nothing beyond ourselves, and is therefore of very limited
interest to us as living beings. To know our own states
of consciousness is not to satisfy our natural desires, which
turn continually from the feelings we experience to the infe
rences we draw, and find their proper exercise and pleasure
in doing so. The inferences drawn directly from our sensa
tions constitute the most perfect kind of knowledge we are
B
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president’s address.
able to acquire concerning things external to ourselves.
Experience assures us that within certain limits such infe
rences may be relied upon, that expectations raised by them
will be fulfilled, that wishes guided by them will be gratified,
that our confidence in their general truth is never shaken,
and that the more carefully we examine them the more
correct our conception of external facts appears to be. These
inferences thus form the largest portion of human know
ledge, and especially of scientific knowledge, in which the
desire for exact conclusions, which can be verified again
and again without difficulty, finds the fullest satisfaction.
Now the reason why an inquiry into anything beyond
these direct inferences from what is called the evidence
of the senses is discouraged by scientific men in the present
day, is supposed to be because no real evidence exists by
which Buch an inquiry can be answered. The truth, how
ever, is that the evidence is the same as that on which
modern science itself relies, but that the conclusion has to be
arrived at by a double inference instead of a single one. It
is, in consequence, far more difficult, and far more liable
to mistake, and it requires corresponding diligence, patience,
and caution.
In considering the growth of a tree, for example, we have
first to infer the physical facts from our own sensations
of sight and touch, and then, from this first inference, to
draw a second, as to those causes of growth which cannot be
inferred directly from our sensations.
But the basis of all other knowledge is the knowledge of
ourselves as beings who can think and feel. This is not the
knowledge of any physical fact, all that we know of physical
facts being inference founded on it.
Now when something is known to us which cannot be
intelligibly accounted for by the elements supposed to be
present, the natural and the strictly scientific inference
�president’s address.
19
is that some other element is also there. A new line in the
spectrum suggests the existence of a new material. The
radiation of light and heat through an apparent vacuum
determines our belief in an all-pervading ether. The move
ments of a magnetic needle convince us that the needle
is controlled by other sources of energy. The facts of
gravitation between bodies at a 'distance satisfy men of all
schools that something besides the gravitating bodies is
concerned in them.
Nor is there much disposition to assume that matter
itself is only of one kind. The difficulty of supposing
all the known elements to consist of precisely similar atoms,
differing only in their grouping, is very great. Nor can any
reason be given why only one kind of thing should be
in existence, or why there should not be mutual relations
between different kinds. When, therefore, we see the facts
of life associated with certain material arrangements which
cannot in themselves account for them, we ought, as sound
philosophers, to conclude at once that there is something
here besides these material arrangements.
A serious error of conception on one particular point has
much to do with the prevailing materialism of scientific
thinkers. We are asked whether, when we speak of “ living
powers,” or “ ourselves,” we can form a mental picture
of any one of these apart from the organism through which
it is supposed to act.
*
The question inverts the whole
mental process. It is not from a consciousness of the
organism that we infer the existence of ourselves and our
living powers ; it is from a knowledge of ourselves as exist
ing, and of our powers as living, that we infer the existence
of the organism. How do I know that this hand, this head,
or this brain are actual realities ? I know it only inferen* Tyndall, Belfast Address, 1874, p. 13.
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tially, and only because I first know, not inferentially but
absolutely, the fact that I myself exist, not as a material
organism, but as a conscious being. The mental picture I
form of myself is of a being using its living powers; and as
my conception of the external world, and, of course, of every
organism, is all derived from my knowledge of what happens
to myself when those living powers are used, the mental
picture of myself necessarily includes my relations to out
ward things as I conceive them, and the outward things
themselves are necessarily thought of when I form the
picture.
But mental existence, not physical existence, is the one
thing absolutely known to us, and though this absolute
knowledge of it is limited to ourselves, it enables us to draw
inferences concerning the existence of other immaterial
beings as valid in their nature as any inference about
physical things. All we have to remember is, that any facts
concerning other immaterial beings can only be known to us
through a double inference, so far as things external to
ourselves only affect us through our physical senses. What
is possible in mental existence we may know from our
own self-knowledge, but what is really the fact beyond
ourselves can only be learned by patient observation and the
judgment of reason upon its results.
And here I think we may take a final and conclusive step
in this important argument.
When a man addresses a single word to a fellow-creature,
believing that it will be understood, he virtually abandons
the materialistic doctrine, and admits that he himself
possesses knowledge which the physical senses can never
give. He assumes that his neighbour thinks and feels ; but
on what ground does he assume this? That a material
object of this particular shape is there; that it moves, and
speaks, and feeds; that certain acts of his own and certain
�PRESIDENT 8 ADDRESS.
21
conditions in surrounding things are followed by certain
changes in this object, including all the sensible pheno
mena of what we call human life in others; all this is
conveyed to him by his physical senses. But they tell him
nothing at all about thought and feeling in the object before
him; and in assuming that these exist, he cuts off the very
root of the materialistic philosophy, for he takes for granted
that he knows something concerning objects external to
himself, which it is not and could not be possible under any
circumstances to verify by any appeal to physical experience.
The thoughts of his neighbours, if they have any
thoughts, cannot possibly be made evident to himself in any
single case whatever, and the canon of Materialism demands
that under such circumstances he should have no opinion as
to their existence, and should content himself with observing
and recording the laws by which the outward actions of the
human forms about him are governed, without pretending to
know anything as to their unseen causes.
Yet we are all aware that there is no fact external to
ourselves of which we have a more absolute assurance than
the fact that our fellow-men do think and feel. What can
the materialist say to this ? He knows their forms and
movements through his own favourite means; he learns
them directly through the evidence of his physical senses.
He sees their faces with his eyes; hears their voices with
his ears; touches them with his fingers; knows that they
offer resistance to his muscular sense. But his senses tell
him no more about their thoughts than they do about the
cause of gravitation.
If he should say he believes his neighbours have minds
like his own, because he knows they have bodies like his
own, I shall tell him he deceives himself. The bodily form
does not give him this belief if the acts are idiotic ; and he
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president’s address.
would attribute a human intelligence to any form whatever
if it gave practical evidence of human motives and purposes.
I should tell him also that the co-existence of his own mind
with his own body is not known to him as a necessary
co-existence. He cannot learn from experience whether his
mind could exist without his body, or whether similar bodies
must always have similar minds.
And lastly, since experience in any case can never be
conceived of as verifying the fact of thought and feeling in
his neighbours, but only as verifying other facts from which
this is inferred, the inference according to his principles can
be nothing better than a working hypothesis, useful only so
far as it enables him to predict results.
And yet in what respect does this hypothesis differ from
the actual knowledge of material things, supposed to be
derived directly from experience itself? That knowledge
rests entirely on a similar hypothesis. It rests on our belief
in the trustworthiness of memory, which is what we refer to
when we speak of experience, and which is verified only as
we verify our belief in the intelligence of other men ; by the
judgment of a living soul.
The conception of memory by the modern physical school
is so important, and I think so irrational, that having here
referred to it in this way I shall ask you to consider the
matter parenthetically for a few moments.
Every sensation or other mental change is supposed by
this school to be dependent on molecular alteration of nerv
ous matter. This matter is conceived of as composed of an
almost infinite number of connected threads, each of which
is a channel of sensibility. To feel anything is to have one
of these channels altered. This alteration is either perma
nent or not. If it is permanent, the feeling may be recalled
in memory by again stimulating the same nervous channel.
�president’s address.
23
Now on physical grounds the whole theory appears irra
tional. Firstly, because all organic substance is constantly
changing, so that there is nothing permanent about it.
Secondly, because to admit the idea of permanent change is
to deny that memory consists in a repetition of what
occurred before in the nervous substance, for this could only
happen if the substance remained as before. If a stimulus
passing through A, B, C, changes it into A, C, B, another
stimulus through A, C, B will not be a repetition of the
first through A, B, C. Yet if there is no permanent change,
what is the physical fact of memory ?
Still more important is it to consider that memory does
not consist in the reproduction of former mental states, but
in the recognition of the fact that they are thus reproduced ;
that the thing now thought of has been thought of before.
And this is a totally different affair.
Sights, sounds,
thoughts, and feelings are really repeated day by day in our
consciousness without the slightest memory attending the
repetition. Memory depends on our perception of Time;
on our conscious knowledge of a past existence; and to
attempt to explain it by any physical conditions, which
necessarily represent the present only, is a symptom of a
false philosophy, and a science which forgets its own founda
tions.
Happily our practice is often wiser than our theories, and
there is no reason to fear that we shall ever doubt the
mental existence of our friends. And, till we doubt it, a
permanent materialism is impossible. For if one thing can
be known to us which is beyond the reach of sensible expe
rience, other things of a like nature may also be known ; and
if we can justly infer the presence of a living soul in a
human body, we may with equal reason infer the presence of
a Divine Spirit in the universe.
There is one particular idea, commonly connected with
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the conception of mental or spiritual beings, as dis
tinct from material beings, which has been, I believe, a
very serious impediment to sound views upon the sub
ject. It is taken for granted that a human soul, if it
has a separate existence, must also have a conscious exist
ence independently of a human body.
If you examine
the argument used by Professor Tyndall, in his Belfast
address, in opposition to Butler’s reasoning, you will find
that all its force depends upon this assumption.
*
The
reply put into Bishop Butler’s mouth is based on the same
conception, as I dare say it would have been by Butler him
self. But it is in consequence an insufficient and unsatis
factory reply. The true answer would be that a human soul
does not require a body in order to exist, but does require a
body in order to be conscious. We have no more ground for
thinking that our souls could feel as they do without the
help of an organised body, than we have for thinking that
our bodies could act as they do without the guidance of a
living soul. The facts concerning automatic action, so finely
brought forward by Professor Huxley, do not affect this
question.^ If a frog’s body accommodates itself to certain
circumstances after its brain is removed, and if we really
know, which however is extremely doubtful, that no con
scious volition is concerned in it, the fact only furnishes one
more example of involuntary action which is like voluntary
action. The cases are very numerous. Nay, it is probable
that everything we do of a physical kind may be done
involuntarily at certain times; and habits which we are
perfectly aware have been formed by the action of our own
will, appear often to be like the winding up of machinery,
which, being thus wound up, will carry out our purposes for
a given period whether we know it or not. Habits of self♦ Tyndall, Belfast Address, 1874, p, 14.
f Belfast Lecture, lb74.
�president’s address.
25
preservation are expressly of this kind. We are quite
ignorant of the nature of the machinery, and are likely to be
so till we discover why or how it is that bodily movements
take place at all. But that our own will has a distinct
relation to them, and that we understand enough of this to
determine whether other men have wills and are using them,
by observing their bodily movements, will,. I suppose, be
admitted ; though we may be mistaken with regard to any
one of them, if we form our opinion on too narrow a basis of
observation.
The effect of bodily disease upon the mind and character
is great, but all it amounts to is the well-known fact that all
our conscious states are influenced by physical conditions.
It does not affect the question of our own permanent
identity, which does not even depend on our own recognition
of it. We forget our existence every night, and our
characters, by which we mean the relative force of many
inclinations, vary more or less every day. But we do not
cease to be the same individuals on this account.
The direct power of a human mind over the movements
of matter is undoubtedly extremely small in amount, and is
confined within very narrow limits of possible action. And
no portion of matter is under mental control to the exclusion
of other forces, so that all the movements of which it
is capable may be produced by other means as well. Thus,
after an ordinary involuntary inspiration, I can, by the
exercise of my will, draw in more breath, which would not
have been drawn involuntarily. My will in this case has
caused a sort of movement which is usually caused by other
means. And going to the bottom of this movement, as far
as we are able, it seems probable at present that the only
material substance over which any one human mind has
direct control is the nervous organism of one human body.
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president’s address.
And in exercising this control we are not ourselves aware of
the substance on which we are acting. We are only aware
that by some means our will is obeyed. In this respect we
are not unlike the clerks in a telegraph office, who know
by experience that if they do certain acts themselves a
distant hand will move, though they have no real knowledge
of the agency by which this is effected.
But however small the mental power over material move
ment may be, it is quite sufficient for its purpose. We are
surrounded by infinite forces, acting or ready to act in
all directions, and all we need is ability to guide a certain
number of them to a certain extent. The mind, acting as a
cause of change in the nervous system, is, to refer to a
familiar illustration, precisely like the driver of a locomotive,
who is only able himself to move the steam valve and
the break lever, and who can only move even these through a
very small space — a space which may be indefinitely reduced
by perfect mechanical arrangements till the actual movement
and the actual force employed may be inappreciable to sense.
Yet this is quite sufficient. There is physical force enough
in the steam and in the friction. He does not want to add
anything to it; he supplies nothing out of his own strength
to the forces by which the wheels are moved or stopped. He
only wants to determine the direction in which those forces
act, for by determining their direction he controls their
effect. And those delicate movements which his own
strength does bring about may also be brought about by
other causes, the difference being, however, that the whole
combination and series of effects which really distinguish
the action of human intelligence will not be produced with
out it.
This seems to me the common sense explanation of
voluntary activity. We may discover hereafter that even the
�president’s address.
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nervous organism is only indirectly affected by the mind, or
that mental power is only able to determine the direction in
which static forces can become active ones; or we may learn,
on the other hand, that all force is mental, and that either
small forces are partial manifestations of great ones, or that
great forces are the accumulated result of small ones.
These are questions of method only.
That defective psychology, which has not distinguished
between the fact of spiritual existence and the power of
mental consciousness, has had its origin in unscientific
times, and has led to much extravagance of thought. We
owe to it, for example, the notion that in sleep we are always
dreaming, and that nothing once known to us can be really
forgotten. Such views are only examples of the kind of
thought which makes the physicist so impatient of the meta
physician, and gives Materialism an undue advantage in
many discussions. They are obviously based on fancy only,
and not on knowledge of any kind.
But we do know that mental existence and consciousness
are not the same things as material existence and motion ;
and as they are not the same things, we are justified in
concluding that the universe contains at least two different
kinds of being, and that we, as human creatures, are made
of these two kinds united. We know our bodies as a
succession of moving particles, which come and go, and are
never at any moment what they were the moment before.
We know our living selves as permanent beings, not coming
and going; changing in power and in knowledge, but remain
ing in identity the same from day to day. Our bodies give
us knowledge of the world without, and all the consciousness
we can remember is dependent on their assistance. Con
tinually while we live, and finally when we die, these bodies
go entirely to pieces, and are used up again and again
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president’s address.
in other forms; but our mental nature being different, there
are no grounds for thinking that it is either broken up
or changed by death; and since it has already inhabited
a body continually changing, there is no reason why some
other body may not be its dwelling hereafter, giving it again
the means of consciousness, and of outward communication
with the universe.
Such a view accounts for all the facts known to us,
in accordance with our entire experience, which Materialism
can never do; and it leaves before us the prospect of a
conscious life to come, as in its nature probable on strictly
scientific grounds.
That science should recognise this, and .teach it, appears
to me absolutely essential to its own continued hold upon
human interest; for consider again, What are the real conse
quences of the opposite view ? Suppose we were agreed that
only one kind of thing has real and permanent existence, and
that this one kind of thing is matter. It follows, from the
nature of organisation, that no organised being is a perma
nent being, any more than the water in a running stream
to-day is the water that was there yesterday. The water
may appear to be the same to others, but it could not appear
so to itself if it were a sentient thing. No one will deny
that one material atom cannot transfer its own identity
to another, or that twTo different atoms, doing similar things,
can never be one atom doing the same thing twice; or
that, when we speak of ourselves as continuing to exist,
we are not speaking of other beings; or that the question
in which we feel a personal interest is, whether we our
selves shall continue to exist, and not whether other
people exactly like us will exist after us. The very word
“identity” would otherwise be without a meaning, and all
knowledge would be illusion. And it follows that, on the
theory of Materialism, to continue or to restore the lives of
�president’s address.
29
human beings after their bodies have been dissolved and
used again, is impossible. This world then, and the short
period of our present lives, could alone be of any real
concern to us; and I ask, What are the reasons by which
scientific studies, and the general culture of the intellect, are
in such a case to be recommended to our choice ? If we
choose them by nature, in preference to anything else, well
and good; but if our natural choice is for other things, what
is to induce us to alter it ?
A man knows by the tables of mortality what his average
chance of life in this world amounts to. He knows that,
although he may happen to exceed the average, he may also
happen to be one of those who die to-morrow. We cannot
help looking before and after. We find ourselves, when
we begin to think for ourselves, with tastes and dispositions
already formed. We cannot act at all without a motive, and
all our motives are either present impulse or reasonable
purpose. What reasonable purpose can be set before our
minds to make us undertake the slow labours of study,
the hardships of self-sacrifice, the risk of losing all by dying
while nothing is accomplished ?
The question, you must remember, is not whether we
should do these things if it happens that we wish to do them,
but whether other wishes should be changed to these, and
what is to change them. For this is the educational problem
of every age. The natural desire of most men, if left
to themselves, is to lead easy lives, and to enjoy present
pleasures. This desire is disturbed by thoughts of a future
life, or of a Divine Presence; but if these thoughts can be
discarded, still more if their whole foundation can be
disbelieved, what is there in the ordinary course of life
to bring about a similar disturbance ? Self-interest could
never do it with the majority of men. The gifts and oppor
tunities of the majority are comparatively very small, and if
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president’s address.
the object is to make this life, while it lasts, a pleasant one,
their safest way is to take things easily, and make sure
of the pleasure that lies nearest. A selfish Epicureanism
becomes at once the highest wisdom.
c And the reasonableness of an unselfish life on such
a theory .cannot be successfully maintained.
No doubt there is in every human being a power of
loving and desiring, for its own sake only, whatever
is pure and noble and disinterested.
No doubt there
are many in whom this power asserts itself so strongly that
it must be exercised ; who of their own free choice prefer
the happiness of others, and the moral elevation of their
own characters, to anything else that is set before them. No
doubt, also, the voice of conscience is universally heard, and
is always impelling us in the same direction. But why are
we to encourage these feelings when they are not naturally
strong ? Why are we to say to the men of lower tastes and
habits, You are degrading your nature ; you are wasting
your opportunities ; you are sinning against right and duty;
jf our nature, our opportunities, our conscience, are all the
mayflies of an hour, and our own concern in them will end for
ever when the hour is past ? It is not true that the pleasure
of this life is known to be increased by cultivating either the
heart or the intellect. Its nature is known to be changed by
such cultivation, and those who have experienced this change
can no longer content themselves without it. But prior
to such experience, most men can very easily content them
selves without it; and who is to measure degrees of satisfac
tion, or show the actual balance between pleasures of
different kinds ? There are many savage tribes in whom the
enjoyment of life is far more unmixed than ours, and what
are the reasons by which Materialism would induce us
to disturb their present state, and raise them, as we esteem
it, into civilised beings ? To store the mind with knowledge,
�president’s
.
to quicken and purify the affections
this world can never satisfy. It is
flower in an English garden, where wi
before it has time to blossom. It is liL
the sun, certain as we are that the earth v
And I must for a moment call your sp>
the fact that the physical theories in which Mu
its chief support are really speculations of the 1
kind, resting on the narrowest possible basis o±
truths.
What Mr. Darwin has discovered, for example, is that,
the present world, filled with life as we find it, the
process of natural selection will account for continued change
in the specific characters of living things.
What we know about evolution generally is that, within
the limits of our observation, there is, in the common order
of change, a very frequent resemblance to the process which
we call development in the growth of living things.
What we know about the dissipation of heat is, that
bodies like the earth and sun are cooling, unless there
is some external source, not at present understood, from which
internal heat can be supplied.
These are most important additions to human knowledge,
but they are utterly insufficient to justify the theories now
derived from them concerning the origin of life and the
history of the universe; and science, in the meantime, while
adopting these theories with dogmatic faith, is hiding, under
the name of Energy, its own inability to account for the
facts relating to the material world, without the help of that
which is immaterial. For energy, like consciousness, is not
cognisable outside ourselves by any physical sense. We
know what we mean by it, but that is because we ourselves
possess it, and can infer its external presence by reason of
this internal knowledge.
�.t’s
address.
>0 impress upon you as strongly as
belief in two kinds of being has been
4; that all the maxims of human conrmed under its influence; and that in
_ie cultivation of the human intellect is a
j in itself, and in the highest degree, we are
.aoms which have been thus produced, and for
.ere is at least no other obvious justification. If
mndamental belief is overturned, all its consequences go
.th it, and it rests with the lovers of science to show by
some new method of their own why study of any kind is
worth pursuing. And before replying to this challenge it is
necessary to consider another and not a smaller difficulty.
If there is really no such thing as immortality, and if the
study of science destroys the belief in it, it leads us then to
sacrifice a glorious and beneficent illusion for the sake of a
painful and depressing truth. Why should we make this
sacrifice ? Why is it well for us in such a case to know the
truth ? I think we may be sure of one thing ; that mankind
generally would decide that it is not well. Whatever we do,
our real knowledge of truth is very limited and most imper
fect, and the only ground we have for wishing to know as
much of it as possible is the assurance, not only that it
cannot be altered, but that it is in harmony with our highest
and most permanent desires. This assurance is strongly
rooted in all Christian nations, but, I believe, in them
alone; and it is clear that it must depend on the general
view we take of our position in the universe. Science
assumes that natural Truth ought to be loved for its own
sake, and forgets that it owes this idea entirely to religious
trust; to the conviction that all things are governed by
infinite wisdom and absolute goodness, and therefore that to
know what is true is to know what is best. This conviction
�president’s
.
has become so much a habit of tho<_
we forget what it rests upon, and
needs no support. Yet who does no
the lower animals, concerning death t
happy ignorance ? And who does not
ourselves, it is good to find some thing
impenetrable veil ? To draw such a veil over .
knowledge of which could only destroy human
without bringing any compensation, is only commo,
ness to others and common prudence for ourselves,
know by the long experience of the past how fully immor
tality can be believed in and trusted to, under the ordinary
conditions of human knowledge, and how perfectly it is
fitted to satisfy and purify the desires of our hearts ; and if
it were a fact that it could never be enjoyed, our wisest
course would be to retain the happiness of that belief, and
for this purpose to prevent, if not for ourselves at least for
our children, the pursuit of studies which led to its rejec
tion. Thus it is, happily as I think, that Materialism will
always defeat itself, by turning men away from any form of
science which evidently involves the acceptance of its
doctrine. And it is therefore in the supreme interest of
science itself that I recommend its present tendencies to
your earnest consideration. It is a matter on which the
leaders of science should speak their whole minds without
hesitation. It will not do to say, as is so generally said, We
study the physical world, and leave other matters to other
men, unless it is plainly shown that these other matters are
not affected by the results of physical research. And when,
on the contrary, those results as interpreted by science are
seen by every one to have the most direct and momentous
bearing upon the deepest interests of human nature, there is
a cold and forbidding cruelty in the science that will calmly
dig about the foundations of our dearest hopes, will lead us
�t’s address.
je or nothing left to stand on, and
.aking no pains to learn whether the
nether it has been necessary.
science is alone to blame in this matter.
Jy with theology. It was the constant
^ans, a few years ago, to deny the truth of
. been verified, while they assumed the truth of
3 that could not be verified. The human mind
posed to be capable of deciding correctly, by a kind
.xStinct, whether particular events had happened or par
ticular words were spoken in ancient times; and decisions
arrived at in this way were held to have a higher validity
than inferences drawn from the patient observation of exist
ing facts. Against such habits of thought the scientific
spirit is necessarily and always absolutely opposed, but they
are equally inconsistent with the religious spirit, which
desires to know the truth as earnestly as science does, and
is even more deeply interested in avoiding the pitfalls of
false reasoning. But theology, which, in needless alarm,
had closed its gates at first against what seemed to be a host
of enemies, is opening them again to the reinforcements of
its truest friends ; and the present danger is that science
will remain outside, in a position of cold antagonism, sacri
ficing its own best interests to the materialistic idea.
Science in other days has held a noble and sacred office,
strengthening and elevating by its discoveries the conviction
of a divine presence in the universe, and of an immortal
future for ourselves ; exposing many errors, correcting many
prejudices, teaching modesty, tolerance, and patience to our
reasoning powers, but maintaining always the essential truth
that there are two kinds of Being, and the fact that, while
our own mental existence is absolutely known to us, the
presence of any bodily organs can only be inferred. If
this conception is abandoned, we stand indeed upon one
�president’s address.
35
bright spot of life; but there is an abyss of endless darkness
into which, within a few short years, every one of us must
take his final plunge. The universe becomes dreadful in
the presence of that yawning gulph, and he is wisest who
sees the least of it, and who can hide the future in a golden
haze of present pleasure till the moment when he drops
away. Not such, however, is the true teaching of science in
a world like this. It is the closing of our eyes, not the
keenness of our vision, that brings such phantoms into view;
and the first fresh flower, the first sparkling dew-drop, the
first smile of a friend or a little child will take us back to
the grand realities of nature, if we look at them in the light
of a sound philosophy, and see them as they really are.
�_
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On the materialism of modern science; opening address read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, October 5th, 1871
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Mott, Albert J.
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: 35 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Inscription on front page: Sir Charles Lyell with the author's kind regards. The top right corners of pages 31/32-33/34 have been torn out; text missing.
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Conway Tracts
Materialism
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RELIGION
AS AFFECTED BY
MODERN MATERIALISM:
AN
ADDRESS
DELIVERED IN
MANCHESTER NEW COLLEGE, LONDON,
At
the
Opening of
its
89th Session,
On TUESDAY, Oct. 6th, 1874.
by
JAMES MARTINEAU, LE.D.
PRINCIPAL.
WILLIAMS AND NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON;
And 20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1874.
�PREFACE.
The following Address, published by desire of my College, was
much curtailed in oral delivery.
As somewhat more patience may
be hoped for in a reader than in a hearer, it now appears in full.
The position assumed in it, of resistance to some speculative tenden
cies of modern physical research, is far from congenial to me : for it
seems to place me in the wrong camp. But the exclusive pretension,
long set up by Theology, to dominate the whole field of knowledge,
seems now to have simply passed over to the material Sciences ;—
with the effect of inverting, rather than removing, a mischievous
intellectual confusion, and shifting the darkness from outward Nature
to Morals and Religion.
I cannot admit that these are conquered
provinces : and to re-affirm their independence, and protest against
their absorption in a universal material empire, appears to me a
pressing need alike for true philosophy and for the future of human
character and society.
London, Oct. 12, 18
7
*4.
�RELIGION AS AFFECTED BY MODERN
MATERIALISM.
The College which places me here to-day professes to
select and qualify suitable men for the Nonconformist
Ministry; that is, the headship of societies voluntarily
formed for the promotion of the Christian life. In carrying
out its work, two rules have been invariably observed:
(1) the Special Studies which deal with our sources of
religious faith—whether in the scrutiny of nature or in
the interpretation of sacred books—have been left open to
the play of all new lights of thought and knowledge, and
have promptly reflected every well-grounded intellectual
change; and (2) the General Studies which give the balanced
aptitudes of a cultivated mind have been made as extensive
and thorough as the years at disposal would allow. In
both these rules there is apparent an eager thirst for a
right apprehension of things,—a contempt for the dangers
of possible discovery, a persuasion that in the mind most
large and luminous the springs of religion have the freshest
and the fullest flow; together with the idea that the
Preacher, instead of being the organ of a given theology,
should himself, by the natural influence of mental supe
riority, pass to the front and take the lead in a regulated
growth of opinion.
A2
�There have never been wanting prophets of ill who dis
trusted this method as rash. So much open air does not
suit the closet divine; such liability to change disappoints
the fixed idea of the partisan; and the “ practical man”
does not want his preacher’s head made heavy with too
much learning, or his faith attenuated in the vacuum of
metaphysics. At the present moment these partial dis
trusts are superseded by a deeper and more comprehensive
misgiving, affecting not the method simply, but the aim
and function of our Institution. Side by side with the
literary pursuits of the scholar, the study of external nature
has always had a place of honour in our traditions and our
estimates of a manly education; and there is scarcely a
special science which has not some brilliant names that
range not far from the lines of our history; and from the
favourite shelf of all our libraries, the Principia of Newton,
the Essays of Franklin, the Papers of Priestley and Dalton,
the “Principles” of Lyell, the Biological Treatises of South
wood Smith and Carpenter, and the records of Botanical
research by Sir James Smith and the Hookers, look down
upon us with something of a personal interest. The suc
cessive enlargements given by these skilled interpreters to
our earlier picture of the world,—the widening Space, the
deepening vistas of Time, the new groups of chemical ele
ments and the precision of their combinations, the detected
marvels of physiological structure, and the rapid filling-in
of missing links in the chain of organic life,—have been
eagerly welcomed as adding a glory to the realities around,
and, by the erection of fresh shrines and cloisters, turning
the simple temple in which we once stood into a clustered
magnificence. Thus it was, so long as discoveries came
upon us one by one; nor did any Biblical chronology or
Apocalypse interfere with their proper evidence for an hour.
�5
But now—must we not confess it ?—certain shadows of
anxiety seem to steal forth and mingle with the advancing
light of natural knowledge, and temper it to a less genial
warmth. It comes on, no longer in the simple form of
pulse after pulse of positive and limited discovery, but with
the ambitious sweep of a universal theory, in which facts
given by observation, laws gathered by induction, and con
ceptions furnished by the mind itself, are all wrought up
together as if of homogeneous validity. A report is thus
framed of the Genesis of things, made up indeed of many
true chapters of science, but systematized by the terms and
assumptions of a questionable if not an untenable philo
sophy. To the inexpert reader this report seems to be all
of one piece; and he is disturbed to find an account appa
rently complete of the “ Whence and the Whither” of all
things without recourse to aught that is Divine; to see the
refinements of organism and exactitudes of adaptation dis
enchanted of their wonder; to watch the beauty of the
flower fade into a necessity; to learn that Man was never
intended for his place upon this scene, and has no commis
sion to fulfil, but is simply flung hither by the competitive
passions of the most gifted brutes; and to be assured that
the elite beings that tenant the earth tread each upon an
infinite series of failures, and survive as trophies of im
measurable misery and death. Thus an apprehension has
become widely spread, that Natural History and Science
are destined to give the coup de grdce to all theology, and
discharge the religious phenomena from human life, that
churches and their symbols must disappear like the witches’
chamber .and the astrologists’ tower; and that, as every
thing above our nature is dark and void, those who affect
to lift it lead it nowhither, and must take themselves away
as “ blind leaders of the blind.” Whether this apprehension
�6
is well founded or not is a very grave question for society
in many relations; and is emphatically urgent for those
who educate men as spiritual guides to others, and who
can invest them with no directing power except the native
force of a mind at one with the truth of things and a heart
of quickened sympathies. Hitherto, they have been trained
under the assumptions that the Universe which includes
us and folds us round is the Life-dwelling of an Eternal
Mind; that the World of our abode is the scene of a Moral
Government incipient but not yet complete; and that the
upper zones of Human Affection, above the clouds of self
and passion, take us into the sphere of a Divine Communion. Into this over-arching scene it is that growing thought
and enthusiasm have expanded to catch their light and
fire. And if “ the new faith” is to carry in it the contra
dictories of these positions,—if it leaves us to make what
we can of a simply molecular universe, and a pessimist
world, and an unappeasable battle of life,—it will require
another sort of Apostolate, and would make such a differ
ence in the studies which it is reasonable to pursue, that
it might be wisest for us to disband, and let the new Future
preach its own gospel, and devise, if it can, the means of
making the tidings “glad.” Better at once to own our
occupation gone than to linger on sentimental sufferance,
and accept the indulgent assurance that, though there is
no longer any truth in religion, there is some nice feeling
in it; and that while, for all we have to teach, we might
shut up to-morrow, we may harmlessly keep open still, as
a nursery of “Emotion.”* I trust that, when “emotion”
proves empty, we shall stamp it out, and get rid of it.
Though, however, no partnership between the physicist
* See Professor Tyndall’s Address before the British Association ;
with Additions, p. 61.
�7
and the theologian can be formed on these terms of assign
ing the intellect to the one and the feelings to the other,
may it not be that, in the flurry of exultation and of panic,
they misconstrue their real position ? and that their rela
tions, when calmly surveyed, may not be in such a state
of tension as each is ready to believe ? Looking on their
respective contentions from the external position of logical
observation, and without presuming to call in question the
received inductions of the naturalist, I believe that both
parties mistake the bearing of those inductions upon reli
gion; and that, although this bearing is in some aspects
serious, it is neither of the quality nor of the magnitude
frequently ascribed to it. I venture to affirm that the
essence of religion, summed up in the three assumptions
already enumerated, is independent of any possible results
of the natural sciences, and stands fast through the various
readings of the genesis of things.
The unpractised mind of simple times goes out, it is
true, upon everything en masse, and indeterminately feels
and thinks about itself and the field of its existence, the
inner and the outer, the transient and the permanent, the
visible and the invisible: its knowledge and its worship,
the pictures of its fancy and the intuitions of its faith,
are as yet a single tissue, of which every broken thread
rends and deforms the whole. Hence the oldest sacred
traditions run into stories of world-building; and the ear
liest attempts at a systematic interpretation of nature, in
which physical ideas were clothed in mythical garb, are
regarded by Aristotle as “ theological.” It must be ad-r
mitted that our own age has not yet emerged from this
confusion. And in so far as Church belief is still com
mitted to a given kosmogony and natural history of Man,
it lies open to scientific refutation, and has already re
�8
ceived from it many a wound under which it visibly pines
away. It is needless to say that the new “ book of Genesis,”
which resorts to Lucretius for its “ first beginnings,” to
protoplasm for its fifth day, to “ natural selection ” for its
Adam and Eve, and to evolution for all the rest, con
tradicts the old book at every point; and inasmuch as
it dissipates the dream of Paradise, and removes the tra
gedy of the Fall, cancels at once the need and the scheme
of Redemption, and so leaves the historical churches of
Europe crumbling away from their very foundations. If
any one would know how utterly unproducible in modern
daylight is the theology of the symbolical books, how
absolutely alien from the real springs of our life, let him
follow for a few hours the newest m ivement of ecclesiasti
cal reform, and listen to the reported conferences at Bonn
on the remedies for a divided Christendom. Scarcely
could the personal re-appearance of Athanasius or Cyril on
the floor of the council-hall be more startling, or the cries
of anathema from the voices of the ancient dead have a
more wondrous sound, than the reproduction as hopes of
the future, by men of Munich, of Chester, of Pittsburg,
and of the Eastern Church, of formulas without meaning
for the present, the eager discussion of subtle varieties of
falsehood, and the anxious masking of their differences by
opaque phrases under which everybody manages to look.
Such signs of strange intellectual anachronism excuse the
aversion with which many a thoughtful man, with a heart
still full of reverence, turns away from all religious asso
ciation, and lives without a church. It has been the in
fatuation of ecclesiastics to miss the inner divine spirit
that breathes through the sources of their faith, and to
seize, as the materials of their system, the perishable con
ceptions and unverified predictions of more fervent but
�9
darker times; so that, in the structure they have raised,
all that is most questionable in the legacy of the past,—
obsolete Physics, mythical History, Messianic Mythology,
Apocalyptic prognostications,—have been built into the
very walls, if not made the corner-stone, and now by
their inevitable decay threaten the whole with ruin.
Why indeed should I charge this infatuation on councils
and divines alone ? It is not professional but human; it
is a delusion which affects us all. We are for ever shaping
our representations of invisible tilings, in comparison with
other men’s notions, into forms of definite opinion, and
throwing them to the front, as if they were the photo
graphic equivalent of our real faith. Yet somehow the
essence of our religion never finds its way into these frames
of theory; as we put them together it slips away, and, if
we turn to pursue it, still retreats behind; ever ready to
work with the will, to unbind and sweeten the affections,
and bathe the life with reverence ; but refusing to be seen,
or to pass from a divine hue of thinking into a human
pattern of thought. The effects of this infatuation in the
founders of our civilization are disastrous on both sides,
—not only to the Churches whose system is undermined,
but to the spirit of the Science which undermines it.
It turns out that, with the sun and moon and stars, and
in and on the earth both before and after the appear
ance of our race, quite other things have happened than
those which the consecrated kosmogony recites : especially
Man, instead of falling from a higher state, has risen from
a lower, and inherits, instead of a uniform corruption, a
law of perpetual improvement; so that the real process has
the effect, not only of an enormous magnifier, but of an
inverting mirror, on the theological picture. Yet, notwith
standing the deplorable appearance to which that picture
�10
is thus reduced, it is exhibited afresh every week to mil
lions still taught to regard it as Divine. This is the mis
chief on the Theologic side. On the other hand, Science,
in executing this merited punishment, has borrowed from
its opponents one of their worst errors, in identifying the
anomalous or lawless with the divine, and assuming that
whatever falls within the province of nature drops thereby
out of relation to God. As the old story of Creation called
in the Supreme Power only by way of supernatural parox
ysm, to gain some fresh start beyond the resources of the
natural order, so the new inquirers, on getting rid of these
crises, fancy that the Agent who had been invoked for
them is gone, and proclaim at once that Matter without
Thought is competent to all. In thus confounding the idea
of the Divine Mind with that of miracle-worker, they do
but go over to the theological camp, and snatch thence its
oldest and bluntest weapon, which in modern conflict can
only burden the hand that wields it. How runs the his
tory of their alleged negative discovery ? The Naturalist
was told in his youth that at certain intervals—at the
joints, for instance, between successive species of organ
isms—acts of sudden creation summoned fresh groups of
creatures out of nothing. These epochs he attacks with
riper knowledge; he finds a series of intermediary forms,
and fragmentary lines of suggestion for others; and when
the affinities are fairly complete, and the chasm in the
order of production is filled up, he turns upon us and says,
‘ See, there is no break in the chain of origination, how
ever far back you trace it; we no more want a Divine
Agent there, and then than here and now.' Be it so; but
it is precisely here and now that He is needed, to be
the fountain of orderly power, and to render the tissue of
Laws intelligible by his presence; his witness is found not
�11
only in the gaps, but in the continuity of being,—not in
the suspense, but in the everlasting flow of change; for,
the universe as known, being throughout a system of
Thought-relations, can subsist only in an eternal Mind
that thinks it.
The whole history of the Genesis of things Eeligion
must unconditionally surrender to the Sciences. Not in
deed that it is without share in the great question of
Causality; but its concern with it is totally different from
theirs; for it asks only about the ‘ Whence, ’ of all pheno
mena, while they concentrate their scrutiny upon the ‘How:
by which I mean that their end is accomplished as soon
as it has been found in what groups phenomena regularly
cluster, and on what threads of succession they are strung,
and into what classification their resemblances throw them.
These are matters of fact, directly or circuitously ascertain
able by perception, and remaining the same, be their origin
ating power what it may. On that ulterior question the
Sciences have nothing to say. And, on the other hand,
when Eeligion here takes up her word and insists that
the phenomena thus reduced to system are the product of
Mind, she in no way prejudges the modus operandi, but
is ready to accept whatever affinities of aspect, whatever
adjustments of order, the skill of observers may reveal.
On these investigations she has nothing to say. If indeed
you could ever show that the method of the universe is
one along which no Mind could move—that it is absolutely
incoherent and unideal—you would destroy the possibility
of Eeligion as a doctrine of Causality: only, however, by
simultaneously discovering the impossibility of Science,—
which wholly consists in organizing the phenomena of the
world into an intellectual scheme reflecting the struc
ture of its archetype. That those who labour to render
�12
the universe intelligible should call in question its relation
to intelligence, is one of those curious inconsistencies to
which the ablest specialists are often the most liable when
meditating in foreign fields. If it takes mind to construe
the world, how can it require the negation of mind to con
stitute it?
It is not in the history of Superstition alone that the
human mind may be found struggling in the grasp of some
mere Nightmare of its own creation : a philosophical hypo
thesis may sit upon the breast with a weight not less
oppressive and not more real; till a friendly touch or a
dawning light breaks the spell, and reveals the quiet morn
ing and the bed of rest. Is there, for instance, no logical
illusion in the Materialist doctrine which in our time is
proclaimed with so much pomp and resisted with so much
passion ? ‘ Matter is all I want,’ says the Physicist: ‘ give
me its atoms alone, and I will explain the universe.’
‘ Good; take as many of them as you please: see, they
have all that is requisite to Body, being homogeneous
extended solids.’ ‘That is not enough,’ he replies; ‘it
might do for Democritus and the mathematicians, but I
must have considerably more: the atoms must be not only
in motion and of various shapes, but also of as many kinds
as there may be chemical elements; for how could I ever
get water, if I had only hydrogen molecules to work with ?’
‘ So be it,’ we shall say; ‘ only this is a considerable en
largement of your specified datum,—in fact, a conversion
of it into several; yet, even at the cost of its monism, your
scheme seems hardly to gain its end; for by what manipu
lation of your resources will you, for example, educe con
sciousness? No organism can ever show you more than
matter moved; and, as Dubois-Reymond observes, there is
an impassable chasm “ between definite movements of defi
�13
nite cerebral atoms and the primary facts which I can
neither define nor deny,—I fed pain or pleasure, I taste
a sweetness, smell a rose-scent, hear an organ tone, see red,
together with the no less immediate assurance they give,
therefore I exist“ it remains,” he adds, “ entirely and
for ever inconceivable that it should signify a jot to a
number of carbon and hydrogen and nitrogen and oxygen
and other atoms how they lie and move“ in no way can
one see how from their concurrence consciousness can
arise/’* What say you to this problem?’ ‘It does not
daunt me at all,’ he declares: ‘ of course you understand
that my atoms have all along been affected by gravitation
and polarity; and now I have only to insist, with Lechner,f
on a difference among molecules; there are the inorganic,
which can change only their place, like the particles in an
undulation; and there are the organic, which can change
them order, as in a globule that turns itself inside out.
With an adequate number of these, our problem will be
manageable.’ ‘ Likely enough,’ we may say, ‘ seeing how
careful you are to provide for all emergencies; and if any
hitch should occur at the next step, where you will have to
pass from mere sentiency to Thought and Will, you can
■again look in upon your atoms, and fling among them a
handful of Leibnitz’s monads, to serve as souls in little, and
be ready, in a latent form, with that Vorstellungsfahigkeit
which our picturesque interpreters of nature so much prize.
* “ Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens,” p. 29. Compare p. 20.
“ I will now prove, as I believe in a very cogent way, not only that,
in the present state of our knowledge, Consciousness cannot be ex
plained by its material conditions,—which perhaps every one allows,—
but that from the very nature of things it never will admit of expla
nation by these conditions.”
+ Einige Ideen zur Schopfungs-und Entwickelungsgeschichte der
Organismen, §§ i. ii.
*
�14
But surely you must observe how this “ Matter” of yours
alters its style with every change of service: starting as a
beggar, with scarce a rag of “property” to cover its bones,
it turns up as a Prince, when large undertakings are wanted,
loaded with investments, and within an inch of a plenipo
tentiary. In short, you give it precisely what you require
to take from it; and when your definition has made it
“ pregnant with all the future,” there is no wonder if from
it all the future might be born?
“We must radically change our notions of Matter,” says
Professor Tyndall; and then, he ventures to believe, it will
answer all demands, carrying “the promise and potency
of all terrestrial life.”* If the measure of the required
“ change in our notions” had been specified, the proposition
would have had a real meaning, and been susceptible of a
test. Without this precision, it only tells us, “ Charge the
word potentially with your quaesita, and I will promise to
elicit them explicitly.” It is easy travelling through the
stages of such an hypothesis; you deposit at your bank a
round sum ere you start; and drawing on it piecemeal at
every pause, complete your grand tour without a debt. ■
Words, however, ere they can hold such richness of prero
gative, will be found to have emerged from their physical
meaning, and to be truly #eo</>6pa ovo/zara,—terms that bear
God in them, and thus dissolve the very theory which they
represent. Such extremely clever Matter,—matter that is
up to everything, even to writing Hamlet, and finding out
its own evolution, and substituting a molecular plebiscite
for a divine monarchy of the world, may fairly be regarded
* Address before the British Association; with Additions, pp. 54,55.
Compare the statement, by Dubois-Reymond, of the opposite opinion,
quoted supra, p. 13, note.
�15
as a little too modest in its disclaimer of the attributes of
Mind.
Nor is the fallacy escaped by splitting our datum into
two, and instead of crowding all requisites into Matter,
leaving it on its old slender footing, and assuming along
with it Force as a distinct entity. The two postulates will
perform their promise, just like the one, on condition that
you secrete within them in the germ all that you are to
develop from them as their fruit; and in this case the word
“ Force'’ is the magical seed-vessel which is to surprise us
with the affluence of its contents. The surprise is due to
one or two nimble-witted substitutions, of which a conjuror
■might be proud, whereby unequals are shown to be equals,
and out of an acorn you hatch a chicken. First, the noun
Force is sent into the plural (which of course is only itself
in another form), and so we get provided with several of
them. Next, as there is now a class, the members must be
distinguishable; and, as they are all of them activities,
they will be known one from another by the sort of work
they do : one will be a mechanician,—another a chemist,—
a third will be a swift runner along the tracks of life,—
a fourth will find out all the rest,—will do our reasoning
about them, and get up all our examinations for us. The
last of these, every one must own—at least every one who
has graduated—is much more dignified than the others ;
and all through we rise, at every step, from ruder to more
refined accomplishment. With things thus settled, we
seem to have found Plato’s ideal State, in which every
order minds its own business, and no element presumes to
cross the line and become something else. Not so, how
ever; for, after thus differencing the forces and keeping
them under separate covers, the next step is to unify them,
and show them all as the homogeneous contents of a single
�16
receptacle. The forces, we are assured, are interchange
able, and relieve each other; when one has carried its mes
sage, it hands the torch to another, and the light is never
quenched or the race arrested, but runs an eternal round.
But why then, you will say, divide them first, only to unite
them afterwards ? Follow our logical wonder-worker one
move further, and you will see. He has now, we may say,
his four vessels standing on the table; the contents of the
whole are to be whisked into one ; having them all, he has
more ways than one of working out their equivalence; and
it remains at his option, which he shall lift to let the mouse
run out. For some reason, best known to himself, he
never thinks of choosing the last; indeed it is pretty much
to avoid this, and obtain other receptacles empty of thought,
that he broke down the original unity. If he be a circum
spect physiologist, he will probably prefer the third, and
exhibit the universal principle as in some sense living; if
he be a daring physicist, he will lay hold of the first,
and pronounce mechanical dynamics good enough for the
kosmos.
Am I asked to indicate the precise seat of fallacy in the
hypothesis which I have ventured to criticise ? The alleged
division of forces, considered as something over and above
the phenomena ascribed to them, is absolutely without
ground; each of them, as apart from any other, has a
purely ideal existence, without the slightest claim to objec
tive reality. Science, dividing its labours, has to break
down phenomena into sets according to their resemblances
and the affinities of their conditions; it disposes them thus
into natural provinces, the laws of which, when ascertained,
give us the rules by which the phenomena assort them
selves or successively arise,— lut nothing more. But what
ever field we survey, we carry into it the belief, inherent
�17
in the constitution of the intellect itself, of a Causal Power
as the source of every change: we believe it for each, we
believe it for all: it repeats itself identically with every
instance; and when a multitude of instances are tied up
together in virtue of their similarity and made into a class,
this constantly recurring reference, this identity of relation
to a power behind, is marked by giving that power a sin
gular name ; as the phenomena of weight are labelled with
the title Gravitation, expressing unity in their causal rela
tion. Were we closeted with this group of facts alone, this
unity would live in our minds without a rival, and we
should have no numerical distinction in our account of
force. But, meanwhile, other observers have been going
through a like experience in some separate field; have
gleaned and bound into a sheaf its scattered mass of homo
geneous growths, and denoted them by another name—say,
Electricity—carrying in it the same haunting reference to
a source for them all. Now why is this a new name ? Is
it that we have found a new power ? Have we carried our
observation behind the phenomena, so as, in either instance,
to find any power at all ? Are the two cases differenced
by anything else than the dissimilarity of their phenomena ?
Run over these distinctions, and, when you have exhausted
them, is there anything left by which you can compare
and set apart from each other the respective producing
forces ? All these questions must be answered in the nega
tive ; the differentiations lie only in the effects ; the causal
power is not observed, but thought; and that thought is the
same, not only from instance to instance, but from field to
field; and by this sameness it cancels plurality from Force,
and reduces the story of their transmigration into a scien
tific mythology. The distinctive names therefore mark only
differences in the sets of phenomena; they are simply in
B
�18
struments of classification for noticeable changes in nature,
and carry no partitions into the mysterious depths behind
the scenes. The dynamic catalogue being thus left empty
and cut down to a single term, do we talk nonsense when
we attach qualifying epithets to the word Force, and speak
of ‘electric force,’ of ‘nerve force’ of ‘ polar force,’ &c. ? Not
so; provided we mean by those phrases, simply, Force,
quantum sufficit, now for one set of phenomena, now for
another, without implication of other difference than that
of the seat and conditions and aspect of the manifestations.
But the moment we step across this restriction, we are in
the land of myths.
Power then is one and undivided. As external causal
ity, it is not an object of knowledge but an element given
in the relations of knowledge, a condition of our thinking
of phenomena at all. Were this all, our necessary belief
in it would be unattended by any representation of it;
it would remain an intellectual notion (Begriff), and we
could no more bring it before the mind under any definite
type than we can the meaning of such words as “sub
stance ” and " possibility.” In one field, however, and no
more, it falls into coincidence with our experience; for
we ourselves put forth power in the exercise of Will and
are personally conscious of Causality; and this sample
of immediate knowledge because seZ/-knowledge supplies
us with the means of representing to ourselves what else
we should have to think without a type. Here accord
ingly we reach, I venture to affirm, what we really mean,
and what alone saves us from the mere empty form of
meaning, whenever we assent to the axiom of causality.
It is very true that the exercise of Will, having more or
less of complication, itself admits of analysis ; intention
may play a larger or smaller part, may leave less or more
�19
for the share of automatic or impulsive activity; and by
letting the former withdraw into the background of our
conception, we may come to think of causation apart from
purpose,—which, I suppose, is the idea of Force. But this
is a bare fiction of abstraction, shamming an integral real
ity;—an old soldier pensioned off from actual duty, but
allowed to wear his uniform and look like what he was.
Since we have to assume causality for all things, and the
only causality we know is that of living Mind, that type
has no legitimate competitor. Even if it had, its sole
adequacy would leave it in possession of the field. For
among the products to be accounted for is the whole class
and hierarchy of minds ; and unless there is to be more in
the effect than in the cause, nothing less than Mind is
competent to realize a scheme of being whose ranks ascend
so high. As for the plea,—which has unhappily passed
into a commonplace,—that, even if it be so, that transcen
dent object is beyond all cognizance,—I will only say that
this doctrine of Nescience stands in exactly the same rela
tion to causal power, whether you construe it as Material
Force or as Divine Agency. Neither can be observed; one
or the other must be assumed. If you admit to the category
of knowledge only what we learn by observation, particular
or generalized, then is Force unknown; if you extend the
word to what is imported by the intellect itself into our
cognitive acts, to make them such, then is God known.
This comment on current hypotheses refers to them only
so far as they overstep the limits of Science, and aspire to
the seat of judgment on ulterior questions of Philosophy.
So long as they simply descend upon this or that realm of
nature, and try their strength there in simplifying its laws
or rendering them deducible,—or, passing from province to
province, labour to formulate equations available for several
b 2
�20
or for all,—they must be respectfully left to pursue their
work; and whenever their authors present their demon
strated “ system of the world/’ all reasonable men will learn
it from them, whatever it may be, as scholars from a master.
In the investigation of the genetic order of things, Theology
is an intruder, and must stand aside. Religion first reaches
its true ground, when, leaving the problem of what has
happened, it takes its stand on what for ever is. I do not
say that it absolutely matters not to us how antecedent
ages have been filled, and have brought up the march with
which we fall into step to-day; for we are beings of large
perspective, concentrating in us many lines of distance and
images between the eye and the horizon. But still, if the
light were all turned off from the Past, and on facing it we
looked only into the Night, the reality for us is not there,
but here, where it is Day. However the present may have
come about, I find myself in it: in whatever way my facul
ties may have been determined, faculties they are, and they
give me insight into my duty and outlook on my position:
however the world, of Nature and of Society, may have
grown to what it is, its scene contains me, its relations
twine around me, its physiognomy appeals to me with a
meaning from behind itself. If these data do not suffice
to show me my kinship with what is above, below, around
me, and find my moral and spiritual place, I shall not be
greatly helped by discovering how many ages my constitu
tion has been upon the stocks, and its antecedents been
upon the way. The beings that touch me with their look
and draw me out of myself, the duties that press upon my
heart and hand, are on the spot, speaking to me while the
clock ticks; and to love them aright, to serve them faith
fully, and construct with them a true harmony of life, is
the same task, whether I bear within me the inheritance of
�21
a million years, or, with all my surroundings, issued this
morning from the dark.
Remaining then at home, and consulting the nature
which we have and which we see, we find that, far from
being self-inclosed, or related only to its visible depen
dences, it turns a face, on more than one side, right towards
the Infinite, and, often to the disregard of nearer things,
moves hither or thither as if shrinking from a shadow ad
vancing thence, or drawn by a light that wins it forward.
We are constantly,—even the most practical of us,—seeing
what is invisible and hearing what is inaudible, and per
mitting them to send us on our way. Not left, like the
mere animal, to be the passive resultant of forces without
and instincts within, but invested with an alternative
power, we are conscious partners in the architecture of our
own character, and know ourselves to be the bearers of a
trust; and this fiduciary life takes us at once across the
boundary which separates nature from what transcends it.
Seducing appetites and turbulent passions and ignoble ease
never gain our undivided ear; while we bend to them,
there are pleading voices which distract us, and which,
if they do not save us, follow us with an expostulating
shame. Nor, if ever we wake up and kindle at the appeal
of misery and the cry of wrong, or with the spontaneous
fire of disinterested affection or devotion to the true and
good, can we construe them into anything less than a Divine
claim upon us : we know their right over us at a glance; we
feel on us their look of Authority in reply : if, to our care
less fancy, we were ever our own, we can be so no more.
Once stirred by the higher springs of character, and pos
sessed by the yearning for the perfect mind, we are aware
that to live out of these is our supreme obligation, and that
for us nothing short of this is holy. To have seen the vision
�22
of the best and possible and not bo pursue it, is to mar the
true idea of our nature, and to fall from its heaven as a
rebel and an outcast. This inner life of Conscience and
ideal aspiration supplies the elements and sphere of Reli
gion ; and the discovery of Duty is as distinctly relative to
an Objective Righteousness as the perception of Form to
an external Space: it is a bondage, with superficial reluc
tance but with deeper consent, to an invisible Highest;
and both moral Fear and moral Love stand before the face
of an Authority which is the eternal Reality of the holy,
just, and true. On the first view, you might expect that
the stronger the enthusiasm for goodness, and the surer the
recoil from in, so much the fitter would the mind be to
stand alone in its self-adequacy; yet it is precisely at such
elevation that it most trusts in a Supreme Perfection to
which it only faintly responds, and leans for support on
that everlasting stay. The life of aspiration, attempting to
nurse itself, soon pines and dies; it must breathe a diviner
air and take its thirst to unwasting springs; and wherever
it settles into a quiet tension of the will and an upturned
look of the affections, it is sustained by habitual access to
the Fountain of sanctity, and by the consciousness of an
Infinite sympathy. Are not both the need and the exist
ence of this objective sustaining power acknowledged by
Mr. Matthew Arnold himself, when he insists on that
strange entity, “ That, not ourselves, which makes for right
eousness” ? By an abstraction, however, such a function
cannot be discharged; nothing ever “ makes for righteous
ness” but One who is righteous. To support and raise the
less, there must be a Greater; and that which does not
think and will and love, whatever the drift of its blind
power, may indeed be larger, but is not greater, than the
sinning soul that longs for purity.
�23
Now so long as the devotee of Goodness is possessed by
a faith, not only in his own aspirations, but in an Infinite
Mind which fosters and secures them as counterparts of
the highest reality, it is of little moment ethically what
theory he adopts of their mode of origin within him.
Whether he takes them as intuitive data of his Under
standing, or, with Hartley, as a transfiguration of sensible
interests into a disinterested glory, or, with Darwin and
Spencer, as the latest refinement of animal instinct and
discipline after percolating through uncounted generations,
•—that which he has reached,—be it first or last,—is at all
events the truth of things, the primordial and everlasting
certainty, in comparison with which all prior stages of
training, if such there were, give but dim gropings and
transient illusions. In Hartley himself, accordingly, a
doctrine essentially materialistic and carrying in it the
whole principle of Evolution, so far as it could be epitomized
in the individual’s life, easily blended with moral fervour
and even a mystic piety; and, in Priestley, with a noble
heroism of veracity and an unswerving confidence in the
perfect government of the universe. But what if the pro
cess of atomic development be taken as the Substitute for
God, not as His method ? if you withdraw from the begin
ning all Idea of what is to come out at the end,—all Model
or Archetype to control and direct the procedure, and re
strain the possible from running off indefinitely into the
false and wrong ? Do you suppose that the ethical results
can be still the same ? The inevitable difference, I think,
few considerate persons will deny; and without attempt to
measure its amount, its chief feature may be readily defined.
It was often said by both James and John Stuart Mill,
that you do not alter, much less destroy, a feeling or senti
ment by giving its history: from whatever unexpected
�24
sources its constituents may be gathered, when once their
confluence is complete the current they form runs on the
same, whether you know them or not. How true this may
he is exemplified by the younger Mill himself; who, while
resolving the moral sentiments into simple pleasure and
pain, and moral obligation into a balance of happiness, yet
nobly protested that he would rather plunge into eternal
anguish than falsely bend before an unrighteous power. If
so it be, then one in whom benevolence, honour, purity, had
reached their greatest refinement and most decisive clear
ness would suffer no change of moral consciousness, on
becoming convinced that it is a “poetic thrill” of his
“ ganglia”* induced by the long breaking-in through which
his progenitors have passed, in conformity with the system
of organic modification that has deprived him of his fur and
his tail. In spite of the apparent incongruity, let us grant
that his higher affections will speak to him exactly as
before, and make their claims felt by the same tones of
sacred authority, so that they continue to subdue him in
reverence or lift him as with inspiration. The surrender to
them of heart and will under these conditions, the vow to
abide by them and live in them, may still deserve acknow
ledgment as Religion; but, inasmuch as they have shrunk
into mere unaccredited subjective susceptibilities, they have
lost all support from Omniscient approval, and all presum
able accordance with the reality of things. For what are
these moral intensities of his nature, seen under his new
lights ? Whence is their message ? With what right do
they deliver it to him in that imperative voice ? and, if it
be slighted, prostrate him with unspeakable compunction ?
Are they an influx of Righteousness and Love from the
* Professor Tyndall’s Address, p. 49.
�25
life of the universe ? Do they report the insight of beings
more august and. pure ? No ; they are capitalized “ expe
riences of utility” and social coercion, the record of ancestral
fears and satisfactions stored in his brain, and re-appearing
with divine pretensions, only because their animal origin
is forgotten; or, under another aspect, they are the newest
advantage won by gregarious creatures in “ the struggle for
existence.” From such an origin it is impossible to extract
credentials for any elevated claim: so that although low
beginnings may lead, in the natural order, to what is better
than themselves,—as a Julia may be the mother of an
Agrippina,—yet in such case the superiority lies in new
endowment, which is not contained in the inheritance. For
such new endowment as we gain in the ascent from interest
to conscience the theory of transmission cannot provide;
if the coarse and turbid springs of barbarous life, filtered
through innumerable organisms, flow limpid and sparkling
at last, the element is still the same, though the sediment
is left behind; and as it would need a diviner power to
turn the water into wine, so Prudence run however fine,
social Conformity however swift and spontaneous, can never
convert themselves into Obligation. Hence arises, I think,
an inevitable contradiction between the scientific hypo
thesis and the personal characteristics of a high-souled
disciple of the modern negative doctrine. For his supreme
affections no adequate Object and no corresponding Source
is offered in the universe: if they look back for their cradle,
they see through the forest the cabin of the savage or the
lair of the brute; if they look forth for their justifying
Reality and end, they fling vain arms aloft and embrace a
vacancy. They cannot defend, yet cannot relinquish, their
own enthusiasm: they bear him forward upon heroic lines
that sweep wide of his own theory; and, transcending their
�26
own reputed origin and environment, they float upon vapours
and are empty, self-poised hy their own heat. One or two
instances will illustrate the way in which what is best in
our humanity is left, in the current doctrine, unsupported
by the real constitution of the world.
Compassion—the instinctive response to the spectacle of
misery—has a twofold expressiveness: it is in us a pro
testing vote against the sufferings we see; and a sign of
faith that they are not ultimate but remediable. Its singu
larity is, to be not one of these alone, but both. Were it
a simple repugnance, it would drive us from its object;
but it is an aversion which attracts: it snatches us with a
bound to the very thing we hate, and not with hostile
rush, but with softened tread and gentle words and up
lifting hand. And what is the secret of this transfigura
tion of horror into love ? It could never be but for the
implicit assurance that for these wounds there is healing
possible, if the nursing care does not. delay. Should we
not say then, if we trusted its own word about itself, that
this principle, so deep and intense in our unfolded nature,
is an evident provision for a world of hopeful sorrow ? It
is distinctly relative to pain, and would be out of place in
a scene laid out for happiness alone; yet treats it as tran
sient, and on passing into the cloud already sees the open
ing through. It enters the infirmary of human ills with
the tender and cheerful trust of the young sister of mercy,
who binds herself to the perpetual presence of human
maladies, that she may be for ever giving them their dis
charge. Compassion institutes a strange order of servitude:
it sets the strong to obey the weak, the man and woman
to wait upon the child, and youth and beauty to kneel and
bend before decrepitude and deformity. How then do the
drift and faith of this instinct agree with the method of
�27
the outer world as now interpreted ? Do they copy it
exactly, and find encouragement from the great example ?
On the contrary, Nature, it is customary to say, is pitiless,
and, while ever moving on, makes no step but by crushing
a thousand-fold more sentient life than she ultimately sets
up, and sets up none that does not devour what is already
there. The battle of existence rages through all time and
in every field; and its rule is to give no quarter,—to de
spatch the maimed, to overtake the halt, to trip up the
blind, and drive the fugitive host over the precipice into
the sea. Nature is fond of the mighty, and kicks the
feeble; and, while for ever multiplying wretchedness, has
no patience with it when it looks up and moans. And so
all-pervading is this rule, that evil, we- are told, cannot
really be put down, but only masked and diverted; if you
suppress it here, it will break out there ; the fire of anguish
still rolls below and has alternate vents; when you stop up
/Etna,, it will blot out Sodom and Gomorrha, and bury the
cities of the plain. Who can deny that such teachings as
these set the outer universe and our inner nature at its
best at hopeless variance with one another ? Do they not
depress the moral power to which we owe the most human
izing features of our civilization ? We have not to go far
for a practical answer. Within a few weeks the question
has been raised whether the recent flow of commiseration
towards the famine-stricken districts of India does not
offend against the Law of Nature for reducing a superfluous
population ; and whether there were not advantages in the
old method of taking no notice of these things, and letting
Death pass freely over his threshing-floor and bury the
human chaff quietly out of the way. Moral enthusiasm
makes many a mischievous mistake in its haste and blind
ness, and greatly needs the guidance of wiser thought; but
�28
this tone of moral scepticism, which disparages the very
springs of generous labour, and treats them as follies laughed
at by the cynicism of Nature, is a thousand-fold more deso
lating. For it carries poison to the very roots of good. It
is as the bursting out of salt-springs in a valley of fruits;
it soaks through the prolific soil of all the virtues, and
turns the promise of Eden into a Dead Sea shore.
Beyond the range of the merely compassionate impulse,
Self-forgetfulness in love for others has a foremost place in
our ideal of character, and our deep homage as representing
the true end of our humanity. We exact it from ourselves,
and the poor answer we make to the demand costs us
many a sigh; and till we can break the bonds that hold
us to our own centre, and lose our self-care in constant
sacrifice, a shadow of silent reproach lies upon our heart.
Who is so faultless, or so obtuse, as to be ignorant what
shame there is, not only in snatched advantages and ease
retained to others’ loss, but in ungentle words, in wronging
judgment within our private thoughts alone; nay, in simple
blindness to what is passing in another’s mind ? Who
does not upbraid himself for his slowness in those sym
pathies which are as a multiplying mirror to the joys of
life, reflecting them in endless play? And the grace so
imperfect in ourselves wins our instant veneration when
realized in others. The historical admirations of men are
often, indeed, drawn to a very different type of character:
for Genius and Will have their magnificence as well as
Goodness its beauty: but before the eye of a purified re
verence, neither the giants of force nor the recluses of
saintly austerity stand on so high a pedestal as the devoted
benefactors of mankind. The heroes of honour are great;
but the heroes of service are greater; nor does any appeal
speak more home to us than a true story of life risked,
�29
of ambitions dropped, of repose surrendered, of temper
moulded, of all things serenely endured,—perhaps un
noticed and in exile,—at some call of sweet or high affec
tion. Is then this religion of Self-sacrifice the counterpart
of the behaviour of the objective world ? Is the same
principle to be found dominating on that great scale ? Far
from it. There, we are informed, the only rule is selfassertion: the all-determining Law is relentless competition
for superior advantage; the condition of obeying which is,
that you are to forego nothing, and never to miss an oppor
tunity of pushing a rival over, and seizing the prey before
he is on his feet again. We look without, and see the
irresistible fact of selfish scramble: we look within, and
find the irresistible faith of unselfish abnegation. So here,
again, Morals are unnatural, and Nature is unmoral; and
if, beyond Nature, there is nothing supreme in both rela
tions to determine the subordination and resolve the con
tradiction, he who would be loyal to the higher call must
be so without ground of trust; if he will not betray his
secret ideal, he must follow it unverified, as a mystic en
chantment of his own mind.
Once more; the Sense of Duty enforces the suggestions of
these and other affections by an authority which we recog
nise as at once within us and over us, and making them
more than impulses, more than ideals, and establishing them
in binding relations with our Will. The rudest self-know
ledge must own that the consciousness of Moral Obligation
is an experience sui generis, separated by deep distinctions
from outward necessity on the one hand and inward desire
upon the other; and the only psychology which can bridge
over these distinctions is that which escapes with its
analysis into prehistoric ages, and finds it easy to grow
vision out of touch, and read back all differentiation into
�30
sameness. No one would carry off the problem into that
darkness who could deal with it in the present daylight:
so, we may take it as confessed, that to us the suasion of
Eight speaks with a voice which no charming of pleasure
and no chorus of opinion can ever learn to mimic. To
disregard them is a simple matter of courage; we defy them,
and are free : but if from it we turn away, we hear pursuing
feet behind; and should we stop our ears, we feel upon us
the grasp of an awful hand. Moral good would, in our
apprehension, cease to be what it is, were it constituted by
any natural good, or related to it otherwise than as its
superior. It is not a personal end—one among the many
satisfactions assigned to the separate activities of our con
stitution : else, it would be at our disposal, and we might
forego it. Others are our partners in it: for it sets up
JRiglits as counterparts to Duties, and widens by its reci
procity into a common element of Humanity. Is that then
its native home ? Have men created it, as an expression
of their general wish,—a concentrated code of civic police ?
We cannot rest in this : for no aggregate of wills, no public
meeting of mankind, though it got together all generations
and all contemporary tribes, could by vote make perfidy a
virtue and turn pity into a crime. Moral Eight is thus no
local essence; but by its centrifugal force, relatively to our
abode, slips off the earth and assumes an absolute univer
sality as the law of all free agency. That it should present
itself to us in this transcendent aspect is intelligible enough,
if it be identified with the Universal Mind, and thence
imparted to dependent natures permitted to be like Him :
for, in that case, the related feelings and convictions are
true; in the order of reality, Eighteousness is prior to the
pains and pleasures of our particular faculties and the
natural exigencies of our collective life; and our allegiance
�31
is due to an eternal Perfection which penetrates .the moral
structure of all worlds. How then does this intuitive faith
of our responsible will, this worship of an eternally Holy,
stand with the kosmical conceptions now tyrannizing over
the imaginations of men ? It encounters the shock of con
temptuous contradiction. Ethically, we are assured, the
known world culminates in us. Before us, there was
nothing morally good: over us, there is nothing morally
better: Man himself is here the supreme being in the
universe. In the just, the beneficent, the true, there is no
pre-existence : they are not the roots of reality, but the last
blossoms of the human phenomena. And even there, the
fair show which gives them their repute of an ethereal
beauty is but the play of an ideal light upon coarse mate
rials j—rude pleasures and ruder constraints are all that
remain when the increments of fancy have fallen away.
The real world provides interests alone; which, when ade
quately masked, call themselves virtues and pass for some
thing new: and, duped by this illusion, we dream of a realm
of authoritative Duty, in which the earth is but a province
of a supramundane moral empire. And so, we must
conclude, the Conscience which lives on this sublime but
empty vision has transcended the tuition of Nature, and,
in growing wiser than its teacher, has lost its foothold on
Reality, only to lean on a phantom of Divine support.
On the hypothesis of a Mindless universe, such is the
fatal breach between the highest inward life of man and
his picture of the outer world. All that is subjectively
noblest turns out to be the objectively hollo west; and the
ideal, whether in life and character, or in the beauty of the
earth and heaven, which he had taken to be the secret
meaning of the Real, is repudiated by it, and floats through
space as a homeless outcast. Even in this its desolation a
�32
devoted disciple will say, ‘I will follow thee whithersoever
thou goest;’ but how heavy the cross which he will have
to bear ! Religion, under such conditions, is a defiance of
inexorable material laws in favour of a better which they
have created but cannot sustain,—a reaction of man against
Nature, which he has transcended,—a withdrawal of the
Self which a resistless force pushes to the front,—a preser
vation of the weak whom Necessity crushes, a sympathy
with sufferings which life relentlessly sets up,—a recogni
tion of authoritative Duty which cannot be. Or will you
perhaps insist that, in this contrariety between thought and
fact, Religion must take the other side, discharge the Oeta
ovetpara as illusory, and in her homage hold fast to the
solid world ? This might perhaps in some sense be, if you
only gave us a world which it was possible to respect.
But, by a curious though intelligible affinity, the modern
doctrine allies itself with an unflinching pessimism; it plays
the cynic to the universe,—penetrates behind its grand and
gracious airs, and detects its manifold blunders and impos
tures : what skill it has it cannot help; and the only faults
and horrors that are not in it are those which are too bad to
live. Human life, which is the summit that has been won,
is pronounced but a poor affair at best; and the scene
which spreads below and around is but as a battle-field at
night-fall, with a few victors taking their faint shout away,
and leaving the plain crowded with wounds and vocal with
agony. Existence itself, insists Hartmann, is an evil, in
proportion as its range is larger and you know it more, and
that of cultivated men is worst of all; and the constitu
*
tion of the world (so stupidly does it work) would be an
unpardonable crime, did it issue from a power that knew
* Philosophic cles Unbewussten, c. xii. p. 598.
�33
what it was about.
*
How can these malcontents find any
Religion in obeying such a power ? Can they approach it
with contumely at one moment, and with devotion at the
next ? If they think so ill of Nature, there can be no
reverence in their service of her laws : on the contrary, they
abandon what they revere to bend before what they revile.
To this humiliation the more magnanimous spirits will
never stoop; they will find some excuse for still clinging to
the ideal forms they cannot verify; will go apart with them
with a high-toned love which stops short of faith but is
full of faithfulness; will linger near the springs of poetry
and art, and there forget awhile the disenchanted Actual;
and will wonder perhaps whether this half-consecrated
ground may not suffice, when the temples are gone, to give
an asylum to the worshippers. Such loyalty of heart towards
the harmonies that ought to prevail, with disaffection towards
the discords that do prevail, may indeed lift the character
of a man to an elevation half-divine; and in his presence,
Nature, were she not blind, might start to see that she
had produced a god. But, for all that, she is not going
to succumb to him; she can call up her lower brood to
suppress him, or monsters to chain him to her rock. He
contends with the lower forces, believing them to be the
stronger, and fights his losing battle against hordes of infe
riors ever swarming to overwhelm what is too good for
the world. Such religion as remains to him is a religion
of despair,—a pathetic defiance of an eternal baser power,
And if there be anything tragic in earth or heaven, it is
the proud desolation of a mind which has to regard itself
as Highest, to know itself the seat of some love and justice
and devotion to the good, and to look upon the system of
* Ap. Strauss ; der alte and der neue Glaube, p. 223.
0
�34
the Universe as cruel, ugly, stupid and mean. The most
touching episodes of history are perhaps those which dis
close the life of genius and virtue under some capricious
and ignoble tyranny,—asserting itself in the ostracism of
an Aristides, the hemlock-cup of Socrates, the blood-bath
of Thrasea; and no other than this is the life of every man
who, walking only by his purest inner lights, finds that
they illumine no nature but his own, and are baffled and
quenched by the outer darkness.
It cannot be denied that there does exist this contrariety
between the modern materialistic philosophy and religious
faith. It cannot be believed that this contrariety is charge
able on any mutual contradiction among the human facul
ties themselves. Were we really placed between two in
formants that said ‘ Yes ’ at the right ear and ‘ No' at the
left, we should simply be without cognitive endowment at
all, and all the pulsations of thought would cancel each
other and die. Can we end the strife by separating the
provinces of the two opposites, and saying that the func
tion of the one is to know, of the other to create ? Cer
*
tainly, “ creative ” power is something grand, and Theology
should perhaps feel honoured to be invested with it. But,
alas ! a known materialism and a created God presents
a combination which thought repudiates and reverence
abhors; and the suggestion of which must be met with the
counter affirmations, that the atomic hypothesis is a thing
not known but created, while God is not created but known.
The only possible basis for a treaty of alliance between the
tendencies now in conflict is not in lodging the one in the
Reason and the other in the Imagination, in order to keep
them from quarrelling, but in recognizing a Duality in the
* Professor Tyndall’s Address, p. 64.
�35
functions of Reason itself, according as it deals with phe
nomena or their ground, with law or with causality, with
material consecution or with moral alternatives, with the
definite relations of space and time and motion, or with
the indefinite intensities of beauty and values of affection
which bear us to the infinitely Good. When once this
adjustment of functions has been considerately made, the
disturbed equilibrium of minds will be reinstated, the panic
a.nd the arrogance of our time will disappear, and the pro
gress of the intellect will no longer shake the soul from her
everlasting rest.
C. Green & Son, Printers, 178, Strand.
��
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Religion as affected by modern materialism: an address delivered in Manchester New College, London, at the opening of the 89th session on Tuesday, Oct. 6th, 1874
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������NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
ETHICS
AND THE
MATERIALIST CONCEPTfON
OF HISTORY.
�I
�— ethics —
and the
materialist Conception
of Bistorp.
By
KARL KAUTSKY
(Author of " The Social Revolution and on the Morrow
of the Social Revolution,” &-c.).
Translated by J. B. ASKEW.
THE
LONDON:
TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESS, LIMITED
(Trade Union and 48 Hours),
37A and 38, Clerkenwell Green, E.C.
��CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAP
Preface
I.
II.
III.
....
...
...
...
...
...
Ancient and Christian Ethics
The Ethical Systems of
of the Enlightenment
The Ethics
of
Kant
...
the
vii
i
Period
...
...
n
...
...
20
1. —The Criticism of Knowledge.
2. —The Moral Law
3. —Freedom and Necessity.
4. —The Philosophy of Reconciliation.
IV.
The Ethics
of
Darwinism
...
...
41
1. —The Struggle for Existence.
2. —Self-movement and Intelligence.
3. —The Motives of Self-maintenance and Propagation
4. —The Social Instinct.
V.
The Ethics
of
Marxism..........................
63
1.—The Roots of the Materialist Conception of History.
2—The Organisation of Human Society.
3. —The Changes in the Strength of the Social Instinct,
4. —The Influence of the Social Instincts.
5. —The Tenets of Morality.
�I
�PREFACE.
Like so many other of the principal Marxist publica
tions, the present one owes its origin to a special
occasion—it arose out of a controversy. The polemic
in which I was involved last autumn with the editors
of “Vorwaerts,” brought me to touch on the question of
their ethical tendencies. What I said, however, on
this point was so often misunderstood by one side, and
on the other brought me so many requests to give a
more thorough and systematic exposition of my ideas
on Ethics, that I felt constrained to attempt to give
at least a short sketch of the development of Ethics
on the basis of the Materialist Conception of History.
I take as my starting point, consequently, that
materialist philosophy which was founded on one side
by Marx and Engels, on the other, in the same spirit,
by Joseph Dietzgen. For the results at which I have
arrived, I alone am responsible.
My original intention was to write an article for the
“ Neue Zeit ” on the subject. But never had I so
miscalculated the plan of a work as this ; and not
only in respect of its scope. I had begun the work in
�viii
PREFACE.
October, because I thought there were going to be a
few months of quiet for the party, which might be
devoted to theoretical work. The Jena Congress had
run harmoniously, so that I did not expect to see a
conflict in our party so soon. On the other hand, it
looked at the beginning of October as if there had come
in the Russian Revolution a pause for gathering to
gether and organising the revolutionary forces.
As is well known, however, everything turned out
quite differently. An unimportant personal question
was the occasion of a sharp discussion, which, indeed,
did not for a moment disturb the party, but all the
same cost the party officials, and especially those in
Berlin, a considerable amount of time, worry and
energy.
What, however, certainly demanded even
more time and energy was the Russian Revolution,
which unexpectedly, in the course of that very October,
received a powerful impetus, and regained its previous
height. That glorious movement naturally absorbed,
even outside of Russia, all the interest of thinking
people. It was a magnificent time, but it was not a time
to write a book on Ethics. However, the subject had
captivated me, and I could not free myself, and so I
concluded my work, despite the many distractions and
interruptions which the Berlin storm in a tea cup and
the hurricane on the Russian ocean brought with them.
It is to be hoped that this little work does not bear too
obviously on its face the marks of its stormy birth.
When, however, I had brought it to a conclusion,
another question arose. Far beyond the limits of an
article had it grown, and yet was hardly fitted for a
�PREFACE.
ix
book. It contents itself with giving a general idea of
my thought, and gives very few references to facts and
arguments to prove or illustrate what has been brought
forward.
I asked myself whether I ought not to reconstruct
and enlarge my work by the addition of such argu
ments and facts. If, however, that had to be done, it
would mean delaying the publication of the work for
an indefinite period ; because to carry out this work I
should require two years quiet, undisturbed labour.
We are, however, coming to a time when for every
Social-Democrat quiet and undisturbed work will be
impossible—when our work will be continual fighting.
Neither did I desire that the publication should be put
off for too long a time, in view of the influence which
has been gained in our ranks by the Ethics of Kant, and
I, consequently, hold it necessary to show the relations
which exist between the Materialist Conception of
History and Ethics.
Consequently, I have resolved to allow the little book
to appear. In order, however, to show that with this
not all is said which I might have said on Ethics, and
that I hold myself in reserve to deal with the subject
more fully in a period of greater calm, I call the pre
sent work simply an attempt—an essay.
Certainly,
when these quieter times will come is not discernible at
present, as I have already remarked. At this very time
the myrmidons of the Czar are zealously at work to
rival the deeds of the Albas and Tillys during the
religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries—not irt
�X
PREFACE.
military achievements, but in brutal destruction. The
West European champions of culture and order
regard that with enthusiasm as the restoration of legal
conditions. But just as little as the hirelings of the
Hapsburgs succeeded, despite temporary successes in
conquering North Germany and Holland for Catholi
cism, will the Cossacks of the Romanoffs succeed in
restoring the rule of Absolutism. This has only suffi
cient strength remaining to lay its country waste, not
to rule it.
In any case the Russian Revolution is not by any
means at an end—it cannot close so long as the
peasants are not appeased. The longer it lasts so
much the greater will be the disturbance in the ranks of
the West European proletariat, so much the nearer
financial catastrophes, so much the more probable
that, even in W’est Europe, there should set in a period
of class struggle.
This is not a time which calls for the theoretical
labours of revolutionary writers. But this drawback for
our theoretical labours, which will be probably felt in the
next few years, we need not lament. The Materialist
Conception of History is not only important because it
allows us to explain history better than has been done
up to now, but also because it enables us to make
history better than has been hitherto done. And the
latter is more important than the former. From the
progress of the practice our theoretical knowledge
grows, and in the progress of the practice our theoreti
cal knowledge is proved. No world conception has
�PREFACE.
Xi
been in so high a degree a philosophy of deeds as the
dialectical materialism. Not only upon research but
upon deeds do we rely to show the superiority of our
philosophy.
Even the book before us has not to serve for con
templative knowledge, but for the fight—a fight in
which we have to develop the highest ethical strength
as well as the greatest clearness of knowledge if we are
to win.
K. Kautsky.
Berlin, Friednau, January, 1906.
��Ethics and the Materialist
Conception of History.
CHAPTER I.
Ancient And Christian Ethics.
In the history of philosophy the question of Ethics
comes to the fore soon after the Persian War. The
fact of having successfully repelled the great Persian
despotism had had a similar effqpt on the tiny Hellenic
people to that made by the defeat of the Russian
despotism on the Japanese.
At one blow they
became a world power, in command of the sea
which surrounded them, and with that its trade. And
if now in Japan an era of great industry is being
inaugurated on a scale the extent of which they them
selves are hardly yet fully aware, so after the Persian
Wars Greece, and Athens in particular, became the
headquarters of the world commerce of that time,
commercial capitalism embraced the entire people,
and . dissolved all the traditional relations and con
ceptions which had hitherto ruled the individual and
regulated his dealings. The individual found himself
suddenly transplanted into a new society, in which he
missed all the traditional supports on which he had
relied ; and, indeed, the more so the higher he stood
socially ; thus he found himself left wholly to himself.
And yet, despite all this seeming Anarchy, everyone
B
�2
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
felt not only a need for distinct rules of conduct, but
he found more or less clearly that in his own inner
being there worked a force which controlled his action
and allowed him to decide between good and bad, to
aim for the good and avoid the bad.
This force
revealed itself as a highly mysterious power. Granted
that it controlled the actions of many men, that its
decisions between good and bad were given without' the
least delay and asserted themselves with all decision,
if anyone asked what was the actual nature of this
force, and on what foundation it built its judgments,
it was then seen that both this force as well as the
judgments, which appeared so natural and self-evident,
were phenomena which were harder to understand than
any other phenomena in the world.
So we see then that since the Persian Wars, Ethics,
or the investigation of the mysterious regulator of
human action—the moral law—comes to the front in
Greek philosophy. Up to this time Greek philosophy
had been more or less natural philosophy. It made
it its duty to investigate and explain the laws which
hold in the world of nature. Now nature lost interest
with the philosophers even more and more. Man, or
the ethical nature of humanity, became the central point
of their investigations. Natural philosophy ceased to
make further progress, the natural sciences were
divided from philosophy ; all progress of the ancient
philosophy came now from the study of the spiritual
nature of man and his morality.
The Sophists had already begun to despise the know
ledge of nature.
Socrates went still further, being
of opinion that he could learn nothing from the trees,
but much from the human beings in the town.
Plato looked on natural philosophy as play. With
that, however, the method of philosophy changed.
Natural philosophy is necessarily bound to rely on the
observation of nature. On the other hand, how is the
moral nature of man to be observed with more cer
tainty than through the observation of our own per
sonality ? The senses can deceive us ; other men can
deceive us ; but we ourselves do not lie to ourselves
�3
ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
when we wish to be truthful. Thus, finally, that alone
was recognised as certain knowledge which man pro
duced from himself.
But not alone the subject and the method but also
the object of philosophy was different. Natural philo
sophy aimed at the examination of the necessary con
nection of cause and effect. Its point of view was that
of causality. Ethics, on the other hand, dealt with the
will and duty of man, with ends and aims which he
strives for. Thus its point of view is that of a con
scious aim or teleology.
Now these two conceptions do not always reveal
themselves with equal sharpness in all the various
schools of thought.
. There are two methods of explaining the moral law
within us.
We can search for its roots in the obvious forces of
human action, and, as a result, appeared the pursuit of
happiness or pleasure. With commodity production,
when goods are produced by private producers indepen
dently of each other, happiness and pleasure, and the
conditions necessary thereto, become a private matter.
Consequently, men came to look for the foundation of
the moral law in the individual need for happiness or
pleasure. That is good which makes for the individual
pleasure and increases his happiness, and evil is that
which produces the contrary. How is it then possible
that not everybody under all circumstances has a desire
for the good ? That is explained by the fact that there
are various kinds of pleasure and happiness. Evil
arises when we choose a lower kind of pleasure, or
happiness in preference to a higher, or sacrifice a
lasting pleasure to a momentary and fleeting one.
lhus it arises from ignorance or short sightedness.
Accordingly, Epicurus looked on the intellectual plea
sures as higher than the physical because they last
longer and give unalloyed satisfaction. He considers
the pleasure of repose greater than the pleasure of
action. Spiritual peace seems to him the greatest
pleasure. In consequence all excess in any pleasure is
to be rejected; and even selfish action is bad, since
B2
�q
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
respect, love, and the help of my neighbour, as well as
the prosperity of the community to which I belong,
are factors which are necessary to my own prosperity,
which, however, I cannot attain if I only look out for
myself without any scruples.
This view of Ethics had the advantage that it ap
peared quite natural and that it was very easy to
reconcile it with the needs of those who were content
to regard the knowledge which our senses give us of the
knowable world as real, and to whom human existence
itself formed only a part of this world. On the other
hand, this view of Ethics was bound to produce in
its turn that materialist view of the world.
A
theory which founded Ethics on the longing for
pleasure or happiness of the individual, or on egoism,
and the materialist world-concept conditioned and lent
each other mutual support. The connection of both
elements comes most completely to expression in
Epicurus (341-270 b.c.). His materialist philosophy of
nature is founded with a distinctly ethical aim. The
materialist view of nature is in his view alone in the
position to free us from the fears which a foolish
superstition awakens in us, and to give us that peace
of soul without which true happiness is impossible.
On the other hand, all those elements who were
opposed to this philosophy were obliged to reject this
ethics and vice versa : those who were not satisfied
with his ethics were not satisfied with the materialism
either. And the Ethic of Egoism, or the pursuit of
individual happiness, gave ample opportunity for
attack. In the first place it did not explain how the
moral law arose as a binding moral force, as the duty
to do the right, and not simply as advice to prefer the
more rational kind of pleasure to the less rational.
And the speedy, decisive moral judgments on good
and bad are quite different from the balancing up
between different kinds of pleasures or utilities. Finally
also, it is possible to feel a moral sense of duty even
in cases where the most generous interpretation, can
find no pleasure or ability from which the pursuit of
this duty can be deduced. If I refuse to lie, although
�ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
5
I by that means stir up public opinion for ever against
me, if I put my existence at stake or even bring on
myself the penalty of death, there can be no talk of
even the more remote pleasure or happiness which
could transform the discomfort or pain of the moment
into its opposite.
But what could the critics bring forward to explain
this phenomenon ? In reality, nothing—even, if accord
ing to their own view, a great deal. Since they were
unable to explain the moral law by natural means it
became to them the surest and most unanswerable
proof that man lived not only a natural life, but also
outside of nature, that in him supernatural and extra
natural forces work, that his spirit is something super
natural. Thus arose from this view the Ethic of Philo
sophic Idealism and Monotheism, the new belief in
God.
This belief in God was quite different to the old Poly
theism ; it differed from the latter not only in the num
ber of the gods, and it did not arise from the fact that
many were reduced to one.
Polytheism was an at
tempt to explain the processes of nature. Its gods
were personifications of the forces of nature; they
were thus not over nature, and not outside of nature,
but in her, and formed a part of her. Natural philo
sophy superseded them in the degree in which it dis
covered other than personal causation in the processes
of nature, and developed the idea of the necessary con
nection of cause and effect. The gods might here and
there maintain a traditional existence for a time even
in the philosophy, but only as a kind of superman who
no longer played any active part. Even for Epicurus,
despite his materialism, the gods were not dead but
they were changed into passive spectators.
Even the non-materialist ethical school of philosophy,
such as was most completely represented by Plato
(427-347 b.c.), and whose mystical side was far more
clearly developed by the Neo-Platonists, especially by
Plotinus (204-270 a.d.), even this school did not find
the gods necessary to explain nature, and they dealt
with the latter no differently to the materialists. Their
�6
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
idea of God did not spring out of the need to explain
the natural world around us but the ethical and spiri
tual nature of man. For that they required to assume
a spiritual being standing outside of and over nature,
thus outside of time and space, a spiritual being which
formed the quintessence of all morality, and who ruled
the material nature just as the aristocrats ruled the
crowd who worked with their hands. And just as the
former conceived themselves as noble and the latter
appeared to them common and vulgar, so did nature
become mean and bad, the spirit, on the other hand,
elevated and good.
Man was unlucky enough to
belong to both worlds : those of matter and spirit.
Thus he is half animal and half angel, and oscillates
between good and evil. But just as God rules nature,
has the moral in man the force to overcome the natural,
the desires of the flesh, and to triumph over them.
Complete happiness is, nevertheless, impossible for
man so long as he dwells in this vale of tears, where
he is condemned to bear the burden of his flesh. Only
then, when he is free from this and his spirit has
returned to its original source, to God, can he enjoy
unlimited happiness.
Thus it will be seen that God plays a very different
rdle to what He does in the original Polytheism. This
one god is no personification of an appearance of the
outer nature, but the assumption for itself of an inde
pendent existence on the part of the spiritual (or intel
lectual) nature of man. Just as this is a unity, so can
the Godhead be no multiplicity. And its most complete
philosophic form, the one god, has no other function
than of accounting for the moral law. To interfere in
the course of this world in the manner of the ancient
gods is not his business, but, at least, for philosophers
the assumption of binding force in the natural law of
cause and effect suffices.
Certainly the more this view became popular and
grew into the religion of the people, the more did the
highest, the all-embracing and all-ruling spirit take on
again personal characteristics ; the more did he take
part in human affairs, and the more did the old gods
�ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
7
smuggle themselves in. They came in as intermedia
tors between God and man, as saints and angels. But
even in this form the contempt for nature held good,
as well as the view that the spiritual, and especially the
ethical nature of man, was of supernatural origin and
afforded an infallible proof of the existence of a super
natural world.
Between the two extremes, Plato and Epjcurus,
there were many intermediary positions possible.
Among these the most important was the Stoic philo
sophy, founded by Zeno (341-270 B.c). Just like the
Platonic philosophy, it attached those who sought to
derive the moral law from the pleasure or egoism of
the individual; it recognised in him a higher power
standing over the individual which can drive man to
action, and which brings him pain and grief, nay, even
to death. But different to Plato, it saw in the. moral
law nothing supernatural, only a product of nature.
Virtue arises from the knowledge of nature; happiness
is arrived at when man acts in accordance with nature,
that is, in accordance with the universe, or universal
reason. To know nature and act in accordance with
her reasonably, which is the same as virtuously, and
voluntarily to submit to her necessity, disregarding
individual pleasure and pain, that is the way to happi
ness which we will go. The study of nature is, how
ever, only a means to the study of virtue. And nature
itself is explained from a moral point of view. The
practical result of the Stoic Ethics is not the pursuit
of happiness but the contempt for pleasure and the
good things of the world. But this contempt for the
world was finally to serve the same end : that which
appeared to Zeno as well as Epicurus as the highest,
viz., a state of repose for the individual soul. Both
systems of philosophy arose out of the need for rest.
The intermediary position of the Stoic Ethics be
tween the Platonic and the Epicurean corresponded to
the view of the universe which Stoicism drew up. The
explanation of nature is by no means without import
ance to them, but nature appeared to them as a greater
view of monotheistic materialism, which assumes a
�8
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
divine original force from which even the human soul
springs. But this original force, the original fire, is
bodily, it exists within and not without nature, and the
soul is not immortal, even if it survives the human
body. Finally it will be consumed by the original fire.
Stoicism and Platonism finally became elements of
Christianity, and overcame in this form the materialist
Epicureanism. This latter materialism could only prove
satisfactory to a social class which was satisfied with
things as they were, which found in them its pleasure
and happiness, and had no need for another state of
affairs.
It was necessarily rejected by those classes to whom
the world as it was seemed bad and full of pain ; to the
decaying class of old aristocracy as well as the ex
ploited classes for whom present and future in this
world could only be equally hopeless, when the
material world, that is, the world of experience, was
the only one, and no reliance was to be placed on an
almighty spirit who had it in his power to bring this
world to destruction. Finally, materialism was bound
to be rejected by the whole society so soon as this had
so far degenerated that even the ruling classes suffered
under the state of affairs, when even these came to
the opinion that no good could come out of the existing
world, but only evil. To despise the world with the
Stoics, or to look for a Redeemer from another world
with the Christians, became the only alternative.
A new element was brought into Christianity with the
invasions of the barbarians, in that the old and decrepit
Roman society with its antiquated system of produc
tion and decadent views of life had now combined
with a youthful German society, organised on the basis
of the mark—a people of simple thought and content
to enjoy life ; these elements combined to produce a
strange new formation.
The Christian Church became the law which held
the new State together. Here, again, the theory is
apparently confirmed that the spirit is stronger than
matter, and the intelligence of the Christian priest
hood showed itself strong enough to tame the brute
�ANCIENT AND CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
9
force of the German barbarians. And, moreover,
this brute force springing out of the material world,
appeared to the representatives of Christianity
as the source of all evil, when it was not ruled by
spirit and held in check by the spirit; while, on the
other hand, they saw in the spirit the source of all good.
Thus the new social situation only contributed to
strengthening the philosophic foundation of Christianity
and its system of Ethics. But, on the other hand, there
came through this new situation the joy in life and a
feeling of self-confidence into society which had been
lacking at the time of the rise of Christendom. Even
to the Christian clergy, at least in the mass, the world
no longer appeared as a vale of tears, and they acquired
a capacity for enjoyment, a happy Epicureanism,
though certainly a coarser form and one which had
little in common with ancient philosophy. Never
theless the Christian priesthood was obliged to main
tain the Christian Ethic, no longer as the ex
pression of their own moral feeling, but as a
means of maintaining their rule over the people.
And everything forced them to recognise more
and more the philosophic foundation of this system
of Ethics, namely, the mastery of the spirit over
the real world. Thus the new social situation produced
on the one hand a tendency to a Materialist system of
Ethics ; while, on the other, a series of reasons arose
to strengthen the traditional Christian Ethic. Thus
arose that dual morality which became a characteristic
of Christianity, the formal recognition of a system of
Ethics, which is only partially the expression of our
moral feeling and will, and consequently of that which
controls our action. In other words, moral hypocrisy
became a standing social institution which was never so
widely spread as under Christianity.
Ethics and religion appeared now as inseparably
bound together. Certainly the moral law was the logi
cal creator of the new god ; but in Christianity the new
god appeared as the creator of the moral law. With
out belief in God, without religion, no morality. Every
ethical question became* a theological one, and as the
�IO
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
most original and simple form of social indignation is
the moral—the feeling of moral indignation, the feeling
of the immorality of the existing institutions—so did
every social uprising commence in the form of theo
logical criticism, in which undeniably came, as an addi
tional factor, the circumstance that the Church was
played as the foremost means of class rule, and the
Roman priesthood the worst exploiters in the Middle
Ages, so that all rebellion against any form of exploita
tion always affected the Church in the first place.
Even after the Renaissance, at a time when philo
sophic thought had again revived, questions of Ethics
remained for a very long time questions of theology.
�TUB PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
II
CHAPTER II.
The Ethical Systems of the Period of the
Enlightenment.
After the Renaissance the study of Nature again
began to arouse interest, and with it also philosophy,
which from then until well into the 18th century be
came principally natural philosophy, and, as such,
raised our knowledge of the world to far above the
level reached in the ancient world ; they set out from
the progress which the Arabs had made in Natural
Science during the Middle Ages over the Greeks. The
high-water mark of this development is certainly to be
found in the theory of Spinoza (1632-1677).
With these thinkers Ethics occupied a secondary
place. They were subordinated to Natural Science, of
which they formed a part. But they came again to the
front so soon as the rapid development of capitalism in
Western Europe in the 18th century had created a
similar situation to that which had been created by the
economic awakening which followed on the Persian wars
in Greece. Then began, to speak in modern language, a
re-valuing of all values, and therewith a zealous think
ing out and investigation into the foundation and
essence of all morality. With that commenced an
eager research into the nature of the new method of
production.
Simultaneously with the appearance of
Ethics arose a science of which the ancients had been
Ignorant, the special child of the capitalist system
of production, whose explanation it serves—Political
Economy.
In Ethics, however, we find three schools of thought
side by side, which often run parallel to the three
systems of the Ancients—the Platonic, the Epicurean,
and the Stoic. An anti-materialist one, the traditional
Christian position; the materialist one ; and finally a
�12
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
middle system between the two. The optimism and
joy of life in the rising bourgeoisie—at least in their
progressive elements, especially among their intellec
tuals—felt itself strong enough to come forth openly
and to throw aside all the hypocritical masks which the
ruling Christianity had hitherto enforced. . And miser
able though frequently the present might be, the rising
bourgeoisie felt that the best part of reality, the future,
belonged to them, and they felt themselves capable of
changing this Vale of 'I ears into a Paradise, in which
each could follow his inclinations. In reality, and in the
natural impulses of man, their thinkers saw the source
of all good and not of all evil.
This new school of
thought found a thankful public, not only among the
more progressive elements in the bourgeoisie, but also
in the Court nobility, who at that period had
acquired such a power that even they thought that
they could dispense with all Christian hypocrisy
in their life of pleasure, all the more as they
were divided by a deep chasm from the life of the
people.
They looked on citizens and peasants as
beings of a lower order to whom their philosophy was
incomprehensible, so that they could freely and undis
turbedly develop it without fear of shaking their own
means of rule—the Christian Religion and Ethics.
The conditions of the new life and Ethics developed
most vigorously in France. There they came most
clearly and courageously to expression. Just as in
the case of the ancient Epicureanism so in the new
enlightenment philosophy of Lamettrie (1709-1751),
Holbach (1723-1789), Helvetius (1715-1771), the ethic
of egoism, of utility or pleasure stood in the closest
connection with a Materialist view of the universe.
The world, as experience presents it to us, appeared
the only one which could be taken into account by us.
The causes of this new Epicureanism had great simi
larity with the ancient one, as well as the results at
which both arrived. Nevertheless they differed in one
very essential point. The old Epicureanism had not
arisen as the disturber of the traditional religious views,
it had understood how to accommodate itself to them.
�THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
13
It was not the theory of a revolutionary class ; it did
not preach war but contemplative enjoyment. Platonic
Idealism and Theism represented far more the over
throw of the traditional religious views—a theory of
the discontented classes.
But with the Philosophy of Enlightenment it was
otherwise. Though certainly even this has a conserva
tive root; it regarded contemplative enjoyment as
happiness, that is, so far as it served the needs of the
Court nobility, which drew its living from the existing
absolutist State. But in the main it was the philosophy
of the most intelligent and most developed as well as
the most courageous elements in the bourgeoisie. It
gave them a revolutionary character. Standing from
the very beginning in the most absolute opposition to
the traditional religion and Ethics, these classes ac
quired—in proportion as the bourgeoisie increased in
strength and class consciousness—the conception of a
fight—a conception quite foreign to the old Epicureans
—a fight against priests and tyrants, a fight for the
new ideals.
The nature and method of the moral views and
the height of the moral passions are, according to
human life, and especially by the constitution of the
French Materialists, determined by the conditions of
State, as well as by education. It is always self-interest
that determines man ; this can, however, become a very
social interest, if society is so organised that the indi
vidual interest coincides with the interest of the com
munity, so that the passions of men serve the common
welfare. True virtue consists in the care for the com
monweal ; it can only flourish where the commonwealth
at the same time advances the interests of the indivi
dual, where he cannot damage the commonwealth
without damaging himself .
It is incapacity to perceive the more durable interests
of mankind, ignorance as to the best form of govern
ment, society, and education which renders a state of
affairs possible, which of necessity brings the individual
interest into conflict with that of the community. It
only remains to make an end to this ignorance to find
�14
ethics and the materialist conception of history.
StHte’ rOciety’ a.nd education corresponding
nL? <!en?a"dS °f rSason ln order to establish happi?
ness and virtue on a firm and eternal foundation. Here
we arrive at the revolutionary essence of the French
Materialism, which indicts the existing State as the
source of immorality. With that it raises itself above
the level of Epicureanism ; but, at the same time it
weakens the position of its own Ethics.
’
fnrm°rq.uestion of inventing the best
form of State and society.
These have got to be
fought for , the powers that be must be confronted and
overthrown in order to establish an empire of virtue.
fl”at ,requircs’ however, great moral zeal, and where is
;t° COme
lf !he existing society is so bad
?Pr™erl alt°Sethf:r the growth of morality or
th T6’
n°* morahty be already there in order
rtat L g
*rise? Is if not necessary
that the moral should be alive in us before the moral
order can become a fact? But how is a moral ideal to
be evolved from a vicious world?
To that we obtain no satisfactory answer.
In very different fashion to the French did the
Englishmen of the i8th century endeavour to explain
the. moral law. They showed themselves in general
less bold and more inclined to compromise, in character
with the history of England until the Reformation,
their insular position was especially favourable to
their economic development during this period. Thev
were driven thereby to make sea voyages, which in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, owing to the
Co omal system formed the quickest road to a fortune.
It kept England free from all the burdens and ravages
of wars on land, such as exhausted the Europin
Bowers. Thus in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies England acquired more wealth than all the
Powers of Europe, and placed herself, so far as econo
mic position was concerned, at their head. But when
new classes and new class antagonisms, and with them
new social problems arise in a country at an earlier
date than elsewhere, the new classes attain only a small
degree of class-consciousness, and still remain, to a
�THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
Ig
large degree, imprisoned in the old methods of thought,
so that the class antagonisms appear in a very un
developed form. Thus in such countries it does not at
once come to a final and decisive struggle in the class
war; it comes to no decisive overthrow of the old
classes, who here continue to rule without any limit,
and in all the neighbouring countries remain at the
height of their power. The new classes are still in
capable of taking on the government because they do
not realise their own position in society, and alarmed
by the novelty of their own endeavour, themselves
seek for support and points of contact in the traditional
relations.
It would thus seem to be a general law of social
development that countries which are pioneers in the
economic development are tempted to great compro
mises in the place of radical solutions.
For example, France in the Middle Ages stood by
the side of Italy at the head of the economic develop
ment of Europe. She came more and more into oppo
sition with the Papacy—their Government first rebelled
against Rome. But just because she opened the way in
this direction, she never succeeded in founding a
national Church, and was only able to force the Papacy
to a compromise which, with unimportant interrup
tions, has lasted up to the present. On the other hand,
the most radical champions against the 'Papal power
were the two States which were economically the most
backward—Scotland and Sweden.
Since the Reformation, England, together with Scot
land, has taken the place of France and Italy, the
pioneers of her economic development, and thus com
promise became for both these countries the form of
the solution of their class struggles. Just because in
England in the seventeeth century capital acquired
power more rapidly than elsewhere, because there
earlier than in other countries did it come to a struggle
with the feudal aristocracy, this fight has ended with
a compromise, which accounts for the fact that the
feudal system of landed property is stronger in England
even to-day than in any other country of Europe—
�l6
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
Austro-Hungary alone, perhaps, excepted. For the
same reason—that of her rapid economic development
—the class war between proletariat and bourgeoisie
first blazed up in England, of all countries in the
world. But it was before the proletariat and industrial
capitalists had yet got over the small bourgeois method
of thought, when many, and even clear-sighted ob
servers, confused the two classes together as
the industrial class, and when the type of the
proletariat, class-conscious and confident in the future
of his own class as well as that of the industrial capi
talist, autocrat and unlimited ruler in the State, had
not yet developed.
Thus the struggle of the two
classes landed, after a short and stormy flare-up, in a
compromise, which gave the bourgeoisie for many
years to come more unlimited power than in any other
land with the modern system of production.
Naturally the effects of this law, just as that of any
other, can be disturbed by unfavourable currents and
advanced by favourable ones. But in any case it is so
far efficacious that it is necessary to be on our guard
against the crude popular interpretation of the material
ism of history, as if it meant that that land which leads
in the economic development will always bring the
corresponding forms of the class-war to the most
decisive expression.
Even Materialism and Atheism, as well as Ethics,
were subject to the spirit of compromise, as it has
ruled since the sixteenth century.
The fight of the
democratic and rising class against a governing power
independent of the bourgeoisie, and subject to the
feudal aristocracy, with their court nobility and their
State Church, commenced in England more than a cen
tury before France, at a time when but few had sur
passed the Christian form of thought. Wherein France
the fight against the State Church had become a fight
between Christianity and atheistic Materialism, in Eng
land it had become merely a struggle between special
democratic Christian sects and the State as an organ
ised sect. And while in France in the period of en
lightenment the majority of the intelligence and the
�THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
17
classes that came under its influence thought as Mate
rialists and Atheists ; the English intelligence searched
for a compromise between Materialism and Christianity.
Certainly it was in England that Materialism found its
first public expression in the theory of Thomas Hobbes
(1588-1679) ; there certainly were to be found thinkers
on ethical questions, whose courage surpassed that of
the most courageous Frenchmen, who, like Mandeville
(1670-1733), declared morality to be a means of rule,
a discovery to keep the workers in subjection, and who
regarded vice as the root of all social good. But such
ideas had little influence on the thought of the many.
A Christian profession remained the sign of respecta
bility, and the pretence of this, even where not really
felt, became the duty of every man of learning who did
not wish to come into conflict with society.
Thus Englishmen remained very sceptical of the
Materialistic Ethics which wished to found the moral
law on self-love, or on the pleasure and utility of the
individual.
Certainly the intellectual circles of the
rising bourgeoisie sought even in England to explain
the moral law as a natural phenomenon, but they saw
that its compulsion was not to be explained from simple
considerations of utility, and that the combinations
were too artificial which were required to unite the com
mands of morality with the motives of utility—still less
to think of making out of the latter an energetic motive
force of the former. Thus they distinguished very nicely
between the sympathetic and the egoistic instincts in
man, recognised a moral sense which drives man to be
active for the good of his fellows. After the Irishman
Hutcheson (1694-1747), the most distinguished repre
sentative of this theory was Adam Smith (1723-1790).
In his two principal works he investigated the two
main springs of human action. In the “Theory of
Moral Sentiments” (1759) he started out from sym
pathy as the most important law of human society ;
while his “ Wealth of Nations ” assumes the egoism—
the. material interest of the individual—to be the main
spring of human action. That book appeared in 1776,
but the principles which it contained were enunciated
c
�l8
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
by the author in Glasgow as early as 1752 or 1753.
His theory of Egoism and his theory of Sympathy were
not mutually exclusive, but were complementary one of
the other.
This placing in contrast of egoism and moral sense
by Englishmen, was as compared to the Materialists
an approach to Platonism and Christianity. Neverthe
less their views remained very different from these.
While, according to Christianity, man is bad by nature,
and according to the Platonic theory our natural im
pulses are the source of evil in us, so for the English
school of the eighteenth century the moral sense was
opposed certainly to egoism, but was just as much as
the latter a natural impulse. Even egoism appeared
here not as a bad but as a justifiable impulse which was
as necessary for the welfare of society as sympathy with
others. The moral sense was a sense just as any other
human sense, and to a certain extent a sixth sense.
Certainly with this assumption, as in the case of the
French Materialists, the difficulty was only postponed,
not solved. To the question whence comes this pecu
liar sense in man the Englisnman had no answer. It
was given by Nature to man. That might suffice for
those who traded in a creator of the universe, but it did
not make this assumption superfluous.
The task for the farther scientific development of
Ethics appeared clear in this state of the question. The
French, as well as the English school, had achieved
much for the psychological and historical explanation
of the moral feelings and views. But neither the one
nor the other could succeed in making quite clear that
morality was the outcome of causes which lie in the
realm of experience. The English school had to be sur
passed and the causes of the moral sense investigated.
It was necessary to go beyond the French school and
to lay bare the causes of the moral ideal.
But the development moves in no straight but in a
dialectical line. It moves in contradictions. So the next
step of ethical philosophy did not go in this direction,
but in the contrary. Instead of investigating the ethi
cal nature of man in order to bring it more strictly than
�THE PERIOD OF ENLIGHTENMENT.
jg
ever under the general laws of nature, it came to quite
other conclusions.
This step was achieved by German philosophy, with
Kant (1724-1804). Certain people like to cry now,
“Back to Kant!” But those meaning by that the
Kantian Ethic might just as well cry, “ Back to
Plato! ”
�20
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
CHAPTER III.
The Ethics of Kant.
i.—The Criticism of Knowledge.
Kant took the same ground as the Materialists. He
recognised that the world outside of us is real, and
that the starting-point of all knowledge is the experience
of the senses. But the knowledge which we acquire
from experience is partly composed of that which we
acquire through the sense impressions and partly from
that which our own intellectual powers supply from
themselves ; in other words, our knowledge of the world
is conditioned not simply by the nature of the external
world but also by that of our organs of knowledge.
For a knowledge of the world therefore the investi
gation of our own intellectual powers is as necessary
as that of the external world. The investigation of the
first is, however, the duty of philosophy ; while the
second is the science of science.
In this there is nothing contained that every Mate
rialist could not subscribe to, or that, perhaps with
the exception of the last sentence, had not also been
previously said by Materialists. But certainly only in
the way in which certain sentences from the Materialist
Conception of History had already been expressed be
fore Marx, as conceptions which had not borne fruit.
It was Kant who first made them the foundation of his
entire theory. Through him did philosophy first become
the science of science, whose duty it is not to teach a
distinct philosophy but how to philosophise, the process
of knowing, methodical thinking, and that by way of
a critique of knowledge.
But Kant went farther than this, and his great philo
sophical achievement, the investigation of the faculties
of knowledge, became itself his philosophical stumbling
block.
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
21
Since our sensual experience does not reveal to us
the world as it is in itself, but only as it is for us—as it
appears to us—thanks to the peculiar constitution of
our faculties of knowledge, so the world as it is in
itself must be different to that which appears to us.
Consequently Kant distinguishes between the world of
phenomena, of appearances, and the world of things
in themselves, the “noumena,” or the intelligible
world. This latter is for us unknowable, it lies out
side of cur experience, so that there is no need to
deal with it; one might simply take it as a method
of designating the fact that our knowledge of the
world is always limited by the nature of our intellectual
faculties, is always relative : that for us there can only
be relative and no absolute truths, not a final and com
plete knowledge, but an endless process of knowing.
But Kant was not content with that. He felt an
unquenchable longing to get a glimpse into that un
known and inexplorable world of things in themselves,
in order to acquire at least a notion of it.
And indeed he got so far as to say quite distinct
things about it. The way to this he saw in the critique
•of our powers of thought. These latter, by separating
from experience that which comes from the senses,
must arrive at the point of describing the forms of
knowledge and perception as they originally and d
priori, previous to all experience, are contained in our
“feelings.” In this manner he discovered the ideality
of time and space. According to him, these are not
conceptions which are won from experience, but simply
the forms of our conception of the world, which are
embedded in our faculties of knowledge. Only under
the form of conceptions in time and space can we recog’
nise the world. But outside of our faculties of know
ledge there is no space and no time. Thus Kant got
so far as to say about the world of things in themselves,
that completely unknowable world, something very dis
tinct, namely, that it is timeless and spaceless.
Without doubt this logical development is one of the
most daring achievements of the human mind. That
�22
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
does not say by any means that it is not open to criti
cism. On the contrary, there is a great deal to be said
against it, and, in fact, they are very, very weighty
objections which have been brought against it. The
assumption of the ideality of space and time in the
Kantian sense led to inextricable contradictions.
There can certainly be no doubt that our conceptions
of time and space are conditioned by the constitution
of our faculties of knowledge, but I should have
thought that that would only necessarily amount to say
ing that only those connections of events in the
universe can be recognised which are of such a
nature as to call forth in our intellectual faculties the
concepts of space and time. The ideality of time and
space would then imply, just as the thing itself, no
more and no less than a limit to our powers of know
ing. Relations of a kind which cannot take the form
of space or time concepts—even if such really exist,
which we do not know—are for us inconceivable, just
as much as the ultra-violet and ultra-red rays are imper
ceptible to our powers of vision.
But this was by no means the sense in which it
was understood by Kant. Because space and time
provide the forms in which alone our faculties of know
ledge can recognise the world, he takes for granted
that time and space are forms which are only to be
found in our faculty of knowledge, and correspond to
no sort of connection in the real world. In his “ Pro
legomena to every future Metaphysic,” Kant com
pares in one place the concept of space with the
concept of colour. This comparison appears to us
very apt; it by no means, however, proves what Kant
wants to prove. If cinnabar appears red to me, that
is certainly conditioned by the peculiarity of my
visual organs. Outside them there is no colour.
What appears to me as colour is called forth by waves
of ether, of a distinct length, which affect my eye.
Should anyone wish to treat these waves in relation to
the colour as the thing in itself, which in reality they
are not, then our power of vision would not be a power
to see the things as they are but power to see them as
�TIIE ETHICS OF KANT.
23
they are not; not a capacity of knowledge, but of
illusion.
But it is quite another matter when we look not at
one colour alone but take several colours together and
distinguish them from one another. Each of them is
called forth by distinct ether waves of different lengths.
To the distinctions in the colours there correspond
differences in the length of the ether waves. These
distinctions do not exist in my organ of vision, but have
their ground in the external world.
My organs of
vision only have the functions of making me conscious
of this difference in a certain form, that of colour. As
a means to a recognition of this distinction it is a power
of real knowledge and not of illusion. These distinc
tions are no mere appearances. The fact that I see
green, red, and white has its ground in my organ of
sight. But that the green should differ from the red,
testifies to something that lies outside of me, to a real
difference between the things.
Moreover, the peculiarity of my organ has the
effect that by its means I can only recognise the motions
of the ether. No other communication from the outer
world can reach me through that medium.
Just as with the power of vision, in particular, so is
it with the organs of knowledge in general. They can
only convey to me space and time conceptions, that is,
they can only show me those relations of the things
which can call forth time and space conceptions in my
head. To impressions of another kind, if there are
any, they cannot react, and my faculty of knowledge
renders it possible for me to obtain any impressions
in a particular way. So far the categories of space and
time are founded in the construction of my faculty of
knowledge.
But the relations and distinctions of the things them
selves, which are shown to me by means of the individul space and time concepts, so that the different
things appear to me as big and small, near and far,
sooner or later, are real relations and distinctions of the
external world, which are not conditioned through the
nature of my faculty of knowledge.
�24
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
Therefore, even if we are not in a position to recog
nise a single thing by itself, if our faculties of know
ledge are in respect to that faculties of ignorance, we
can yet recognise the real differences between things.
These distinctions are no mere appearances, even if
our conception of them is conveyed to us by means of
appearances, they exist outside of us, and can be
recognised by us, though only under certain forms.
. Kant, on the other hand, was of opinion that not
simply are space and time forms of conception for us,
but that even the temporal and spacial differences of
phenomena spring solely from our heads, and notify
nothing real. If that were really so, then would all
phenomena spring simply from our heads, since they
all take the form of temporal and spacial differences,
then we could know absolutely nothing about the world
outside of us, not even that it existed. Given that
a world outside of us exists then, owing to the ideality
of space and time, our faculty of knowledge would be
not an imperfect, one-sided mechanism which com
municated to us only a one-sided knowledge of the
world, but, of its kind, a complete mechanism, namely,
one to which nothing was lacking to cut us off from all
knowledge of the world. Certainly a mechanism which
can hardly be described as a “ faculty of knowledge.”
Thus in spite of Kant’s energetic attack on the
mystical idealism of Berkeley, which he had hoped
to replace by his own critical idealism, his criticism
took a turn which nullified his own assumption that
the world is real and only to be known through experi
ence, and thus mysticism, cast out from the one side,
found on the other a wide, triumphal doorway open,
through which it can enter with a flourish of trumpets.
2.—The Moral Law.
Kant assumed as his starting-point that the world is
really external to us, and does not simply exist in our own
heads, and that knowledge about it is only to be attained
through experience.
His philosophical achievement
was to be the examination of the conditions of experi
ence, of the boundaries of our knowledge. But just
�TtHE ETHICS OF KANT.
25
this very examination became for him an incitement to
surmount this barrier and to discover an unknowable
world, of which he actually knew that it was of quite
another nature than the world of appearances, that it
was completely timeless and spaceless, and therefore
causeless as well.
But why this break-neck leap over the boundaries of
knowledge which cut away all firm ground beneath
his feet? The position could not be a logical one,
since through this leap he landed on contradictions
which nullified his own assumptions. It was an his
torical reason which awakened in him the need for the
assumption of a supersensuous world—a need which
he must satisfy at any price.
If, in the eighteenth century, France was a hundred
years behind England, just so much was Germany
behind France. If the English bourgeoisie no longer
needed Materialism, since without it, and on reli
gious grounds, they had got rid of the feudalistic State
and its Church, the German bourgeoisie did not yet
feel strong enough to take up openly the fight against
the State and its Church. They, therefore, withdrew in
fear from Materialism. This came in the eighteenth
■century to Germany, just as to Russia : not as the philo
sophy of the fight but of pleasure, in a form suitable to
the needs of the “enlightened” despotism. It grew
within the princely courts, side by side with the
narrowest orthodoxy.
In the bourgeoisie there re
mained, however, even in its boldest and most inde
pendent pioneers, as a rule, a relic of Christian belief
hanging to them, from which they could not emanci
pate themselves.
All this made the English philosophy appeal specially
to German philosophers.
In fact, its influence on
Kant was very great. I cannot remember ever to have
found in his writings any mention of a French
Materialist of the eighteenth century.
On the
-other hand, he quoted with preference Englishmen of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries—Lock, Hume,
Berkeley, and Priestley.
�26
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
But between the German and English philosophy
there was a great difference. The English philoso
phised at a time of great practical advance, of great
practical struggles.
The practical captured their entire intellectual force ;
even their philosophy was entirely ruled by practical
considerations.
Their philosophers were greater in
their achievements in economics, politics, and natural
science, than in philosophy.
The German thinkers found no practicality which
could prevent them from concentrating their entire
mental power on the deepest and most abstract problems
of science. They were therefore in this respect without
their like outside of Germany. This was not owing
to any race quality of the Germans but to the circum
stances of the time. In the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries the deepest philosophic thinkers were to be
found in Italy, France, Holland, England, and not in
Germany. The quiet that came over German political
life in the century following the Thirty Years’ War
first gave Germany the lead in philosophy, just as
Marx’s “Capital” had its origin in the period of
reaction following on 1848.
Kant, despite his sympathy for the English, could
not find satisfaction in their philosophy. He was just
as critical towards it as towards Materialism.
. The weakest point in both cases was bound to strike
him—-the Ethics. It seemed to him quite impossible
to. bring the moral law into a necessary connection
with nature, that is, with the world of phenomena. Its
explanation required another world, a timeless and
spaceless world of pure spirit, a world of freedom in
contrast to the world of appearances (phenomena),
which is ruled by the necessary chain of cause and
effect. On the other hand, his Christian feelings, the
outcome of a pious education, were bound to awaken
the need for the recognition of a world in which God
and immortality were possible.
*
* As a curiosity it may be mentioned here that it is possible to
confront Bernstein’s witty remark “ Kant against Cant " with the
fact that Kant himself was Cant. “ His ancestors came from
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
27
As Kant had to allow that God and immortality were
completely superfluous in the world of our experience,
he was obliged to look for a world “ beyond experi
ence for them, and thus the spaceless and timeless
world of things in themselves corresponded exactly
to his needs.
.
The best proof for the existence of God and immor
tality in this world of the “ beyond ” Kant obtained
from the moral law. Thus we find with him, as with
Plato, that the repudiation of the naturalist explanation
and the belief in a special world of spirits, or, if it be
preferred, a world of spirits lending each other mutual
support, render it necessary.
How, however, did Kant manage to obtain further
insight into this spirit world? The “ Critique of Pure
Reason ” only allowed him to say of it that it was
timeless and spaceless. Now this spacelessness has to
be filled up with a content. Even for that Kant has an
idea.
The unknowable world of things in themselves be
comes at least partly knowable directly one succeeds in
getting hold of a thing in itself. And this Kant finds
in the personality of man. I am for myself at once
phenomenon and thing in itself. My pure reason is
a thing in itself. As a part of the sensuous world I
am subject to the chain of cause and effect, therefore
to necessity, as a thing in itself I am free, that is, my
actions are not determined by the causes of the .world
of the senses, but by the moral law dwelling within me,
which springs from the pure reason and calls out to
Scotland............ The father a saddler by profession, maintained
in his name the Scottish spelling Cant; the Philosopher first
changed the letters to prevent the false pronounciation as Zant.
(Kuno Fischer, “History of Modern Philosophy” Vol. III., page
5 2, German Ed.). His family were very religious and this influence
Kant never got over. Not less than Kant is Cant related to
puritan piety.
The word signified first the puritan method of singing, then
the puritan, the religious, and finally the customary thoughtless
oft-repeated phrases to which men submit themselves. Bernstein
appealed in his assumption of Socialism for a Kant as an ally
against the materialist “ Party-Cant”
�28
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
me not “Thou must,” but “Thou shalt.” If I were
not free this “ shall ” would be an absurdity if there
did not correspond to it a “can.”
The moral freedom of man is certainly a complicated
question, carrying with it no less contradictions than
the ideality of time and space. Since this freedom
comes to expression in actions which belong to the
chain of cause and effect they are necessary. The same
world of phenomena, as such falling beneath the
actions are at the same time free and necessary.
Moreover,, freedom arises in the timeless, intelligible
world, while cause and effect always fall in a particular
time. The same time-determined action has thus a
time as well as a cause in time.
But what is now the moral law which from the world
of things in themselves, the “World of the Under
standing,” extends its working right into the world of
appearances, the world of the “senses,” and subor
dinates these to itself? Since it springs from the world
of the understanding, its determining ground can only
be in pure reason. It must be of purely formal nature,
because it must remain fully free from all rela
tion to the world of the senses, which would at once
involve a relation of cause and effect, a determinin°r
ground of the will which would at once annihilate its
freedom.
“There is, however,” says Kant, in his “Critique
of Practical Reason, ” .“ besides the matter of the law,
nothing further contained than the law-giving form.
Thus the law-giving form, so far as it is contained in
the maxim, and that alone, can constitute a deter
mining ground of free will.”
From that he draws the following “ Fundamental
Law of Pure Practical Reason ” :—
Act so that the maxim of thy action may be a prin
ciple of universal legislation.”
This principle is by no means startlingly new. It
forms only the philosophic translation of the ancient
precept, to do unto others as we would be done by.
This is. only the declaration that this precept forms a
revelation of an intelligible world ; a revelation which
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
20
with the greatest application of philosophic insight was
to be discovered as a principle which applied not only
for humanity ‘ ‘ but for all finite beings who possess
reason and will, nay, even including the infinite being
as the highest intelligence.”
Unluckily, the proof for this law which was to apply
even to the supreme intelligence has a very serious flaw
to show. It ought to be ‘‘independent of all conditions
pertaining to the world of the senses,” but that is
easier said than fulfilled. Just as little as it is possible
with the air-pump to create a completely airless space ;
just as it must always contain air, though it be in so
refined a degree that it is no more to be recognised
by us, in the same way we cannot possibly grasp a
thought, which is independent of all conditions apper
taining to the world of senses. Even the moral law
does not escape this fate.
The moral law already includes conditions which
belong to the world of the senses. It is not a law of
the ‘‘pure will” in itself, but a law of the control of
my will or thought in contact with my fellow man. It
assumes this ; for me, however, these are appearances
from the world of the senses.
And still more is assumed, however, by the conception
of the moral law : ‘ ‘ Act so that the maxim of thy action
may be a principle of universal legislation.” This as
sumes not only men outside of me, but also the wish
that these fellow men should behave themselves in a
particular manner. They are to behave themselves as
the moral law prescribes me to act.
Here not only society, but also a distinct form of
social conditions are assumed as possible and desirable.
That, in fact, the need for such is concealed in the
ground of his “ Practical Reason,” and determines his
spaceless and timeless moral law, Kant himself
betrays in his 11 Critique of Practical Reason” in a
polemic against the deduction of the moral law out of
happiness :
“ It is, therefore, surprising that intelligent men
should have thought of calling the desire for happiness a
universal practical law on the ground that the desire is
�30
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
universal, and, therefore, also the maxim by which
everyone makes this desire determine his will. For,
whereas in other cases a universal law of nature makes
everything harmonious, here, on the contrary, if we
attribute to the maxim the universality of a law, the
extreme opposite of harmony will follow the greatest
opposition, and the complete destruction of the maxim
itself, and its purpose. For, in that case, the will of
all has not one and the same object, but everyone has
his own (his private welfare), which may accidentally
accord with the purposes of others which are equally
selfish, but which is far from sufficing for a law, because
the occasional exceptions which one is permitted to
make are endless, and cannot be definitely embraced in
one universal rule. In this manner, then, results a
harmony like a married couple bent on going to ruin,
‘ O marvellous harmony, what he wishes she wishes
also,’ or, like what is said of the pledge of Francis I.
to the Emperor Charles V., ‘ What my brother
Charles wishes, that I wish also’ (viz., Milan). Em
pirical principles of determination are not fit for any
universal external legislation, but just as little for in
ternal, for each man makes his own subject the founda
tion of his inclination, and in the same subject some
times one inclination, sometimes another, has the pre
ponderance. To discover a law which would govern
them all under this condition, bringing them all into
harmony, is quite impossible.”*
Thus pleasure is not to be a maxim which can serve
as a principle of universal legislation, and that because
it can call forth social disharmonies. The moral law
has thus to create a harmonious society, and such must
be possible, otherwise it would be absurd to wish to
create it.
The Kantian moral law assumes thus in the first
place a harmonious society as desirable and possible.
But it also assumes that the moral law is the means
*Kant’s “ Critique of Practical Reason,” translated by T. W.
Abbott, fourth editon revised, London, 1839. Section IV.
Theorem III., pp. 115-6.
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
31
to create such a society, that this result can be achieved
through a rule which the individual sets to himself.
We see how thoroughly Kant was deceived when he
thought that his moral law was independent of all
conditions appertaining to the world of sense, and that
it formed thus a principle which would apply to all
timeless and spaceless spirits including God Almighty
himself.
In reality Kant’s moral law is the result of very con
crete social needs. Naturally, since it springs from
the wish for an harmonious society, it fs possible to
deduce from it the ideal of an harmonious society, and
thus it has been possible to stamp Kant as a founder of
Socialism. Cohen repeats this again also in his latest
work, “Ethic of the Pure Will” (Ethik des reinen
Willens), 1905.
In reality, however, Kant is much
farther removed from Socialism than the French
Materialism of the eighteenth century. While, accord
ing to these, the moral lawr was determined by the
condition of the State and society, so that the reform
of morality rendered necessary, in the first place, the
reform of the State and society, so that the fight
against immorality widened itself into a fight against
the ruling powers, according to Kant the society which
exists in time and space is determined bv a moral law
standing outside of time and space, which directs its
commands to the individual, not to society.
Is the
morality of the individual imperfect? One must not
lay the blame for that on the State and society, but in
the fact that man is not entirely an angel, but half
animal and, consequently, always being drawn down
by his animal nature, against which he can only
fight through the raising and the purifying of this own
inner man.. The individual must improve himself if
the society is to be improved.
It is clear Socialism takes peculair forms if we are to
look on Kant as its founder. This peculiarity will be in
no way diminished when we observe the further develop
ment of the moral law by him. From the moral law
springs the consciousness of personality and the dignity
of man, and the phrase: “ Act so that you as well in
�32
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
your own person as in the person of every other at all
times look on man as an end and never simply as a
means. ’ ’
“ In those words,” says Cohen (pp. 303-4), “ is the
deepest and most far-reaching sense of the categoric
imperative brought to expression ; they contain the
moral programme of the new time and the entire
world history. The idea of the final (or end) advantage
of humanity becomes thereby transformed into the idea
of Socialism, by which every man is defined as a final
end, as an end in itself.”
The programme of the ‘‘entire future world his
tory ” is conceived in somewhat narrow fashion. The
“ timeless moral law, that man ought to be an end,
and at no time simply a means,” has itself only an
“ end ” in a society where men are used by other men
as simple means to their ends. In a communist
society, this possibility will disappear, and with it the
necessity of the Kantian programme for the “ entire
future world history.” What then is to become'of this?
We have then in the future either no Socialism or no
world history to expect.
The Kantian moral law was a protest against the
very concrete feudal society with its personal relations
of dependency. The so-called “Socialist” principle
which fixes the personality and works of men is, accord
ingly just as consistent with Liberalism or Anarchism
as with Socialism, and contains, in no greater degree
any new idea than the one already quoted of the uni
versal legislation.
It amounts to the philosophical
fotmula for the idea of “ Freedom, Equality, and
Fraternity ” then already developed by Rousseau, and
which was also to be found in primitive Christianity.
Kant only imparted the form in which this principle is
proved.
The dignity of personality is derived from the fact
that it here forms part of a super-sensuous world,
that as a moral being it stands outside nature and
over nature. Personality is “ freedom and independ
ence from the mechanism of the entire natural world,”
so that “ the person as belonging to the world of sense
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
33
is subordinate to its own personality as far as it belongs
to the world of intelligence.” Thus it is not then to
be wondered if man, as belonging to both worlds, is
obliged to look on his own being, with regard to its
second and highest qualification, not otherwise than
with respect, and to conceive the greatest respect for
the laws of the same.
And with that we could congratulate ourselves on
having got back to the early Christian argument for
the equality of man, which is based on the fact that we
are all children of God.
3.—Freedom and Necessity.
Meanwhile, reject, as we must, the assumption of
the two worlds to which, according to Plato and Kant,
man belongs, it is nevertheless true that man lives at
the same time in two worlds, and that the moral law in
habits one of them, which is not the world of experi
ence. But all the same, even this world is no supersensuous one.
The two worlds in which man lives are the Past and
the Future. The Present forms the boundary of the
two. His whole experience lies in the past, all ex
perience being as such necessarily of the past, and
all the connecting links which past experience shows
him lie with inevitable necessity before, or rather,
behind him. In these there is nothing more left to
alter ; he can do nothing more in regard to them than
recognise their necessity. Thus is the world of expe
rience the world of knowing, and the world of necessity.
It is otherwise with the Future. Of this I cannot
have the smallest experience. Apparently free, it lies
before me as the world which I do not explore as one
knowing it, but in which I have to assert myself as an
active agent. Certainly I can extend the experience of
the past into the future ; certainly I can conclude that
these will be even so necessarily determined as those ;
but even if I can only recognise the world on the
assumption of necessity, yet I shall only be able to act
in it on the assumption of a certain freedom. Even if
a compulsion is exercised over my actions, there still
D
�34
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
remains to me the choice whether I shall yield to it or
not; there remains even as a last resort the possi
bility of withdrawing myself by a voluntary death.
Action implies continual choice between various possi
bilities, and be it only that of doing or not doing, it
means accepting or rejecting, defending or opposing.
Choice, however, assumes, in advance, the possibility
of choice, just as much as the distinction between
the acceptable and inacceptable, the good and the
bad. The moral judgment, which is an absurdity
in the world of the past—the world of experience, in
which there is nothing to choose, where iron necessity
reigns—is unavoidable in the world of the unknown
future—of freedom.
And not only the feeling of freedom is assumed
by action, but also certain aims. Does there rule in
the world of the past the sequence of cause and effect
(causality), so in that of action, of the future, rules the
thought of aim (teleology). For action the feeling of
freedom is an indispensable psychological necessity,
which is not to be got rid of by any degree of know
ledge. Even the sternest Fatalism, the deepest convic
tion that man is a necessary product of his circum
stances, cannot make us cease to love and hate, to
defend and attack.
But all that is no monopoly of man, but holds also
of the animals. Even these have freedom of the will,
in the sense that man has, namely, as a subjective,
inevitable feeling of freedom, which springs from
ignorance of the future, and the necessity of exer
cising a direct influence on it.
And just in the same way they have command of a
certain insight into the connection of cause and effect.
Finally the conception of an end is not quite strange to
them. In respect of insight into the past, and the
necessity of nature on the one hand, and on the other
in respect of the power of foreseeing the future, and
the setting up of aims for their action the lowest
specimens of humanity are distinguished far less from
the animals than from civilised men.
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
35
The setting up of aims is not, however, anything
which exists outside the sphere of necessity, of cause
and effect. Even though I set up aims for myself only
in the future, in the sphere of apparent freedom, yet
the act of setting up aims itself, from the very moment
when I set up the aim, belongs to the past, and can
thus in its necessity be recognised as the result of dis
tinct causes. That is not in any way altered by the
fact that the attainment of the end is still in the future,
in the sphere of uncertainty, thus in this sense in that
of freedom. Let the attainment of the end be assumed
as ever so far distant, the setting up of the aim itself
lies in the past. In the sphere of freedom there lie
only those aims which are not yet set up, of which we
do not even know anything as yet.
The world of conscious aims is thus not the world of
freedom in opposition to that of necessity. For each
of the aims which we set ourselves, just as for each
one of the means which we apply to its attainment, the
causes are already given, and are, under certain circum
stances, recognisable as those which brought about the
setting up of these aims and determined the wav in
which that was to be achieved.
It is impossible, however, to distinguish the realm
of necessity and of freedom simply as past and
future ; their distinction often coincides also with that
o nature and society, or, to be more exact, of society,
and that other nature from which the former displays
only one particular and peculiar portion.
If we look at nature in the narrower sense as apart
from society, and then at both in their relation to the
future, we find at once a serious difference.
The
natural conditions change much slower than the social.
And the latter at the period when men commenced to
philosophise, at the period of the production of wares,
had become extremely complicated, whereas in nature
there are a large number of simple processes, whose
subjection to law can be relatively easily perceived.
The consequence is, that despite our'apparent free
dom of action m the future, this action, nevertheless,
as tar as nature is concerned, comes to be looked on
D2
�36
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
as determined at an early period. Dark as the future
lies before me, I know of a certainty that summer will
follow winter, that to-morrow the sun will rise, that
to-morrow I shall have hunger and thirst, that in
winter the need for warming myself will occur to me,
and that my action will never be directed to escaping
these natural necessities, but exercised with the idea of
satisfying them. Thus I recognise, despite all apparent
freedom, that in face of nature my action is necessarily
conditioned. The constitution of nature external to us,
and of my own body, produce necessities which force
on me a certain willing and acting which, being given
according to experience, can be reckoned with in
advance.
It is quite otherwise with my conduct to my fellow
men, my social actions. In this case the external and
internal causes, which necessarily determine my action,
are not so easy to recognise. Here I meet with no
overpowering forces of nature, to which I am obliged
to submit myself, but with factors on a level with
myself, men like myself, who by nature have no more
strength than I have. Over against these I feel myself
to be free, but they also appear to me to be free in
their relations to their fellow men. Towards them I
feel love and hate, and on them and my relations to
them I make moral judgments.
Although the world of freedom and of the moral law
is thus certainly another than that of recognised neces
sity, it is not a timeless, spaceless and supersensual
world, but a particular portion of the world of sense
seen from a particular point of view. It is the. world
as seen in its approach to us ; the world on which we
have to work, which we have to rearrange above all.
But what is to-day the future will be to-morrow the past;
thus what to-day is felt to be free action will be recog
nised to-morow as necesary action. The moral law. in
us, which regulates this action, ceases,, however, with
that to appear as an uncaused cause; it falls into the
sphere of experience, and can be recognised as the
necessary effect of a cause. And only as such are
we at all able to recognise it, or can it become an
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
37
object of science. Thus in transferring the moral from
the “this side’’—the sensual world—to the “other
side”—the supersensual world—Kant did not advance
the scientific knowledge of it, but has instead closed
all ways to it. This obstacle must be got rid of before
everything else ; we must rise above Kant if we are
to bring the problem of the moral law nearer to its
solution.
4.—The Philosophy of Reconciliation.
It is the ethic which forms the weakest side of the
Kantian Philosophy. And yet it is just through the
ethic that its greatest success was achieved, because it
met very powerful needs of the time.
French Materialism had been a philosophy of the
battle against the traditional methods of thought, and
consequently against the institutions which ruled them.
An irreconcilable hatred against Christianity made it
the watchword not only of the fight against the Church,
but of that against all the social and political forces
which were bound up with it.
Kant’s “ Critique of Pure Reason ” equally drives
Christianity from out of the Temple; but the discovery
of the origin of the moral law, which is brought about
by the “ Critique of the Practical Reason,” opens for it
again the door with all due respect. Thus through
Kant, Philosophy became, instead of a weapon of the
fight against the existing methods of thought and
institutions, a means of reconciling the antagonisms.
But the way of development being that of struggle,
the reconciliation of antagonisms implies the arrest of
development. Thus the Kantian Philosophy became a
conservative factor.
Naturally, Theology was the greatest gainer by this.
It served to emancipate the traditional belief from the
quandary into which it had been forced by the develop
ment of science, in rendering the reconciliation of
science and religion possible.
“ No other science,” says Zeller, “experienced the
influence of the Kantian Philosophy in a higher degree
�38
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
than Theology.
Here Kant found the soil best
prepared for his principles ; with that, however, he
brought to the traditional methods of thought a reform
and an increase in depth, which it was badly in need
of.”
(Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic, 1873,
P- 5I9-)
Just after the outbreak of the French Revolution
arose a specially strong need for a Theology which
was in a position to hold its own against Materialism,
and to drive it out of the field, among the educated
people. Zeller writes then further—
“ Kant’s religious views corresponded exactly to both
the moral and intellectual need of the time ; it recom
mended itself to the enlightened by its reasonableness,
its independence of the positive, its purely practical
tendency ; to the religious by its moral severity and
its lofty conceptions of Christianity and its founder.
German Theology from now on took Kant as their
authority.
His ‘ Moral Theology ’ became after a
few years the foundation on which Protestant Theology
in Germany, almost without exception, and even the
Catholic one to a very large extent, was built up. The
Kantian Philosophy, exercised for that reason—and the
majority of German Theologians for close on fifty
years took their start from it—a highly permanent and
far-reaching influence on the general education.”
Voslander quotes in this “ History of Philosophy
(Leipzig, 1903) the word of a modern German Theo
logian, Ritschl, who declared :—
“ Thus the development of the method of knowledge
by Kant implied at the same time a practical rebirth
of Protestantism” (Vol. II., p. 476).
The great revolution created the soil for the influence
of Kant, which was wrought in the two decades after
the Terror. Then this influence began to wane. The
bourgeoisie acquired after the thirties, even in Ger
many, strength and courage for more decisive struggles
against the existing forms of State and thought, and
to an unconditional recognition of the world of the
senses as the only reality. Thus through the Hegelian
dialectic there arose new forms of Materialism, and
�THE ETHICS OF KANT.
39
in the most vigorous form in Germany, for the very
reason that their bourgeoisie was still behind that
of France and England, because they had not con
quered the existing State machine, because they had
that still to overturn ; thus they required a fighting
philosophy, and not one of reconciliation.
In the last decades, however, their desire to fight
has greatly diminished. Within these, although they
have not attained all that they desired, yet they had
all which was necessary for their development. Fur
ther struggles on a large scale, or fights against the
existing order, must be of much less use to them than
to their great enemy, the proletariat, whose strength
was increasing in a most menacing fashion, and who
now for its part required a fighting philosophy. It was
so much the more susceptible to the influence of Mate
rialism the more the development of the world of the
senses showed the absurdity of the existing order and
the necessity of its victory.
The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, became more
and more susceptible to a philosophy of reconciliation,
and thus Kantism was aroused to a fresh life. This
resurrection was prepared in the reactionary period
after 1848 by the then commencing influence of
Schopenhauer.
But in the last decade the influence of Kant has
forced its way into Economics and Socialism. Since
the laws of bourgeois society, which were discovered
by the classical economists, showed themselves more
clearly as laws which made the class war and the dis
appearance of the capitalist order necessary, the bour
geois economists took refuge in the Kantian Moral
Code, which, being independent of time and space,
must be in a position to reconcile the class antagonisms
and prevent the revolutions which take place in space
and time.
Side by side with the ethical school in economics we
got an ethical Socialism, when endeavours were made
in our ranks to modify the class antagonisms, and to
meet at least a section of the bourgeoisie half way.
This policy of reconciliation also began with the cry :
�ZJ.O
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
‘ ‘ Back to Kant! ’ ’ and with a repudiation of Material
ism, since it denies the freedom of the will. Despite
the categoric imperative which the Kantian Ethic cries
to the individual, its historical and social tendency
from the very beginning on till to-day has been that of
toning down, of reconciling antagonisms, not of over
coming them through struggle.
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
41
CHAPTER IV.
The Ethics
of
Darwinism.
1.—The Struggle for Existence.
Kant, like Plato, had divided mankind into two sides :
into natural and supernatural, animal and angelic.
But the strong desire to bring the entire world, includ
ing our intellectual functions, under a unitary concep
tion and to exclude all factors beside the natural from
it; or, in other words, the Materialist method of
thought was too deeply grounded in the circumstances
for Kant to be able to paralyse it for any length of
time. And the splendid progress made by the material
sciences, which began just at the very time of Kant’s
death to make a spurt forwards, brought a series of
new discoveries, which more and more filled up the gap
between men and the rest of nature, which among
other things revealed the fact that the apparently
angelic in man was also to be seen in the animal world,
and thus was of animal nature.
All the same, the Materialist Ethics of the nineteenth
century, so far as it was dominated by the conceptions
of natural science, as much in the bold and outspoken
form which it took in Germany as in the more
retiring and modest English and, even now, French
version, did not get beyond that which the eighteenth
century had taught. Feuerbach founded morality on
the desire for happiness ; while Auguste Comte, the
founder of Positivism, took, on the other hand, from the
English the distinction between the moral or altruistic
feelings and the egoistical feelings, both of which are
equally rooted in human nature.
The first great and decided advance over this position
was made by Darwin, who proved, in his book on the
“ Descent of Man,” that the altruistic feelings formed
no peculiarity of man, that they are also to be found
in the animal world, and that there, as here, they spring
�42
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
from causes which are in essence identical, and which
have called forth and developed all the faculties of
beings endowed with the power of moving themselves.
With that almost the last barrier between man and
animal was torn down. Darwin did not follow up his
discoveries any further, and yet they belong to the
greatest and most fruitful of the human intellect, and
enable us to develop a new critique of knowledge.
When we study the organic world it reveals to us
one very striking peculiarity as compared with the in
organic ; we find in it adaptation to end. All organised
beings are constructed and endowed more or less with
a view to an end. The end which they serve is, never
theless, not one which lies outside of them. The world
as a whole has no aim. The aim lies in the individuals
themselves : its parts are so arranged and fitted out
that they serve the individual, the whole. Purpose and
division of labour arise together. The essence of the
organism is the division of labour just as much as
adaption to end. One is the condition of the other.
The division of labour distinguishes the organism from
inorganic individuals, for example, crystals.
Even
crystals are distinct individuals, with a distinct form ;
they grow when they find the necessary material for
their formation, under the requisite conditions; but
they are through and through symmetrical. On the
other hand, the lowest organism is a vesicle, much less
visible and less complicated than a crystal; but a vesicle
whose external side is different, and has different
functions from the inner.
That the division of labour should be that one which
is suitable for the purpose, that is, one which is useful
to the individual, that which renders his existence pos
sible, or even ameliorates it, seems wonderful. But it
would be still more wonderful if individuals maintained
themselves and procreated with a division of labour
which was not suitable for the purpose, wrhich rendered
their existence difficult or even impossible.
But what is the work which the organs of the organ
ism have to accomplish? This work is the struggle
for life, that is, not the struggle with other organisms
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
43
of the same kind, as the word is occasionally used, but
the struggle with the whole of nature. Nature is in con
tinual movement, and is always changing her forms,
hence only such individuals are able to maintain their
form for any period of time in this eternal change who
are in a position to develop particular organs against
those external influences which threaten the existence of
the individual, as well as to supply the places of those
parts which it is obliged to give up continually to the
external world. Quickest and best will those individuals
and groups assert themselves whose weapons of defence
and instruments for obtaining food are the best adapted
to their end, that is, best adapted to the external world :
to avoid its dangers and to capture the sources of food.
This uninterrupted process of adaptation and. selec
tion of the fittest by means of the struggle for existence
produces, under such circumstances as usually form
themselves on the earth since it has borne organised
beings, an increasing division of labour. In fact,, the
more developed the division of labour is in a society,
the more advanced does that society appear to us.
The continual process of rendering the organic world
more perfect is thus the result of the struggle for exist
ence in it, and probably for a long time to come will
be its future result, as long as the conditions of our
planet do not essentially alter. Certainly we have no
right to look on this process as a necessary law for all
time. That would amount to imputing to the world
an end which is not to be found in it.
The development need not always proceed at the
same rate. From time to time periods can come when
the various organisms, each in its way, arrive at the
highest possible degree of adaptation to the existing
conditions, that is, are in the most complete harmony
with their surroundings. So long as these conditions
endure they will develop no farther, but the form which
has been arrived at will develop into a fixed type, which
procreates itself unchanged. A further development
will only then occur when the surroundings undergo a
considerable alteration : if when the inorganic nature is
subject to changes which disturb the balance of the
�44
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
organic. Such changes, however, take place from time
to time, either single, sudden, and violent, or numerous
and unnoticed, the sum total and effect of which, how
ever, equally brings on new situations, as, for example,
alterations in the ocean currents, in the surface of the
earth, perhaps even in the position of the planet in the
universe, which bring about climatic changes, trans
form thick forests into deserts of sand, cover tropical
landscapes with icebergs, and vice versa.
These
alterations render new adaptations to the changed con
ditions necessary ; they produce migrations which like
wise bring the organisms into new surroundings, and
produce fresh struggles for life between the old inhabi
tants and the new incomers, exterminate the badlyadapted and the unadaptable individuals and types, and
create new divisions of labour, new functions and new
organs, or transform the old. It is not always the
highest developed organisms which best assert them
selves by this new adaptation. Every division of labour
implies a certain one-sidedness. Highly-developed or
gans, which are specially adapted for a particular
method of life, are for another far less useful than
organs which are less developed, and in that particular
method of life less effective, but more many-sided and
more easily adaptable.
Thus we see often higherdeveloped kinds of animals and plants die out, and
lower kinds take over the further development of fresh
higher organisms. Probably man is not sprung from
the highest type of apes, the man-apes, which are tend
ing to die out, but from a lower species of four-handed
animals.
2.—Self-movement and Intelligence.
At an early period the organisms divided themselves
into two great groups : those which developed the
organs of self-motion, and those which lacked it;
animals and plants. It is clear that the power of self
movement is a mighty weapon in the struggle for life.
It enables it to follow its food, to avoid dangers, to
bring its young into places where they will be best
secured from danger, and which are best provided with
food.
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
45
Self-motion, however, necesarily implies an intelli
gence and vice versa. One of these factors with
out the other is absolutely useless. Only in combina
tion do they become a weapon in the struggle for lite.
The power of self-movement is completely useless
when it is not combined with a power to recognise the
world in which I have to move myself. What use
would the legs be to the stag if he had not the power
to recognise his enemies and his feeding places? On
the other hand, for a plant intelligence of any kind
would be useless. Were the blade of grass able to see,
hear or smell the approaching cow that would not in
the least help it to avoid being eaten.
Self-movement and intelligence thus necessarily go
together, one without the other is useless. Wherever
these faculties may spring from, they invariably come
up together and develop themselves jointly. There is
no self-movement without intelligence, and no intelli
gence without self-movement. And together they serve
the same ends : the securing and alleviation of the indi
vidual existence.
As a means to that they and their organs are devel
oped and perfected by the struggle for life, but only as
a means thereto. Even the most highly-developed in
telligence has no capacities which would not be of use
as weapons in the struggle for existence. . Thus isexplained the onesidedness and the peculiarity of our
intelligence.
To recognise things in themselves may appear to
many philosophers an important task ; for our existence
it is highly indifferent, whatever we have to understand'
by the theory in itself. On the other hand, for every
being endowed with power of movement it is of the
greatest importance to rightly distinguish the things
and to recognise their relations to one another. The
sharper his intelligence in this respect the better service
will it do him. For the existence of the singing bird
it is quite indifferent what those things may be in
themselves which appear to it as berries, hawks, or
a thunder-cloud. But indispensable is it for its exist
ence to distinguish exactly berries, hawks, and clouds-
�46
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
from the other things among his surroundings, since
that alone puts him in a position to find his food, to
escape the enemy, and to reach shelter in time. It is
thus inevitable that the intelligence of the animal should
be a power of distinguishing in space.
But just as indispensable is it to recognise the
sequence of the things in time, and indeed this neces
sary sequence as cause and effect. Since the move
ment as cause can only then bring as a universal result
the maintenance of existence, if it aims at special, more
immediate, or remoter effects which are so much the
more easily to be achieved, the better the individual
has got to learn these effects with their causes. To
repeat the above example of a bird : it is not sufficient
that it should know how to distinguish berries, hawks
and thunder-clouds from the other things in space, it
must also know, that the enjoyment of the berries has
the effect of satisfying its hunger, that the appearance
of the hawk will have the effect that the first small
bird which it can grasp will serve it as food, and that
the rising thunder-clouds produce storm, rain and hail
as results.
Even the lower animal, so soon as it possesses a
trace of ability to distinguish and self-movement, developes a suspicion of causality. If the earth shakes that
is a sign for the worm that danger threatens and an
incentive to flight.
. Thus if the intelligence is to be of use to the animal
in its movements it must be organised so that it is in
a position to show it the distinctions in time and
space as well as the casual connections.
But it must do even more. All the parts of the bodv
serve only one individual, only one end—the mainten
ance of the individual. The division of labour must
never go so far that the individual parts become inde
pendent, because that would lead to the dismember
ment of the individual. They will work so much the
more efficiently the tighter the parts are held together,
and the more uniform the word of command. From
this follows the necessary unity of the consciousness.
If every part of the body had its own intellectual
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
47
organs or did each of the scenes which convey to us
a knowledge of the outer world produce its own con
sciousness, then would all knowledge of the world in
such a case and the co-operation of the various mem
bers of the body be much impeded, the advantages of
the division of labour would be abolished, or changed
into disadvantages, the support which the senses or the
organs of movement mutually give to each other would
cease, and there would come instead mutual hindrance.
Finally, however, the intelligence must possess, in
addition, the power to gather experiences and to com
pare. To return once more to our singing bird : he has
two ways open to him to find out where food is the
best for him, and where it is easiest to be found ; what
enemies are dangerous for him, and how to escape
them. One his own experience, the other the observa
tion of other and older birds, who have already had
experience. No master is, as is well known, born.
Every individual can so much the easier maintain him
self in the struggle for life the greater his experiences
and the better arranged they are ; to that, however,
belongs the gift of memory and the capacity to com
pare former impressions with later ones, and to extract
from them the common and the universal element, to
separate the essential from the inessential—that is, to
think. Does observation, the particular factor through
the senses, communicate to us the differences, so
does thinking tell us the common factor, the universal
element in the things.
“ The universal,” says Dietzgen, “ is the content of
all concepts, of all knowledge, of all science, of all
acts of thought. Therewith the analysis of the organs
of thought show the latter as the power to investigate
the universal in the particular.”
All these qualities of the intellectual powers we find
developed in the animal world, even if not in so high
a degree as with men, and if often for us very difficult
to recognise, since it is not always easy to distinguish
conscious actions springing from intelligence from the
involuntary and unconscious actions—simple reflex
�48
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
actions and instinctive movements which even in men
play a great rdle.
If we find all these qualities of the intellectual
faculties to be a necessary concomitant of the power of
self-movement already in the animal world, so do we,
on the other hand, find in the same qualities also the
same limitations which even the most embracing and
most penetrating understanding of the highly-developed
civilised man cannot surmount.
Forces and capacities which were acquired as
weapons in the battle for existence can naturally be
made available for other purposes as well as
those of rendering existence secure when the organism
has brought its power of self-movement and its in
telligence as well as its instincts, of which we will speak
later, to a high enough degree of development. The
individual can employ the muscles, which were de
veloped in it for the purpose of snatching its booty or
warding off the foe, as well for dancing and playing.
But their particular character is obtained by these
powers and capacities all the same only from the
struggle for life which developed them.
Play and
dance develop no particular muscles.
That holds good also of the intellectual powers and
faculties as a necessary supplement to the power of
self-movement in the struggle for life ; developed in
order to render possible to the organism the most suit
able movement in the surrounding world for its own
preservation, yet it could, all the same, be made to
serve other purposes. To these belong also pure know
ing without any practical thoughts in the background,
without regard for the practical consequences which
it can bring about. But our intellectual powers have
not been developed by the struggle for existence to
become an organ of pure knowledge, but only to be an
organ which regulates our movements in conformity
with their purpose. So completely does it function in
respect of the latter, so incomplete is it in the first.
From the very beginning most intimately connected
with the power of self-movement, it develops itself
completely only in mutual dependence on the power
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
49
of self-movement, and can only be brought to perfec
tion in this connection. Also the power of the human
faculties of cognition and human knowledge is most
intimately bound up with human practice, as we shall
see.
The practice it is, however, which guarantees to us
the certainty of our knowledge. So soon as my know
ledge enables me to bring about distinct effects the
production of which lies in my power, the relation of
cause and effect ceases for me to be simply chance or
simple appearance, or simple forms of knowledge such
as the pure contemplation and thought might well
describe them. The knowledge of this relation becomes
through the practice a knowledge of something real, and
is thus raised to certain knowledge.
The boundaries of practice show certainly the boun
daries of our certain knowledge. That theory and
practice are dependent on one another, and only
through the mutual permeation of the one by the other
can at any time the highest results attainable be arrived
at, is only an outcome of the fact that movement and
intellectual powers from their earliest beginnings were
bound to go together. In the course of the develop
ment of human society the duration of labour has
brought it about that the natural unity of these two
factors should be destroyed, and created classes to
whom principally the movement, and others to whom
principally the knowing, fell.
We have already
pointed out how this was reflected in philosophy
through the creation of two worlds, a higher or intel
lectual and a lower or bodily. But naturally in no
individual were the two functions ever to be wholly
divided, and the proletariat movement of to-day is
directing its energies with good effect to abolishing this
distinction, and with it also the dualist philosophy, the
philosophy of pure knowledge. Even the deepest, most
abstract, knowledge, which apparently is farthest
removed from the practical, influence this, and are in
fluenced by it, and to bring in us this influence to
consciousness becomes the duty of 3. critique of
human knowledge. As before, knowledge remains in
�5°
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
the last resort always a weapon in the struggle for
existence, a means to give to our movements, be they
movements in nature or society, the most suitable forms
and directions.
‘ ‘ Philosophers have only interpreted the world differ
ently,” said Marx. “The great thing, however, is to
change it.”
—The Motives of Self-Maintenance and Propagation.
Both the powers of self-movement and of knowing
belong thus inseparably together as weapons in the
struggle for existence. The one developed itself along
with the other, and in the degree in which these weapons
gain in importance in the organism, others, more primi
tive, lose, being less necessary, as, for example, that of
fruitfulness and of vital force. On the other hand, to
the degree that these diminish must the importance of
’the first-named factors for the struggle for life increase,
and it must call forth their greater development.
But self-movement and knowledge by no means form
by themselves a sufficient weapon in the struggle.
What use are to me in this struggle the strongest
muscles, the most agile joints, the sharpest senses, the
greatest understanding, if I do not feel in me . the
impulse to employ them to my preservation; if the sight
of food or the knowledge of danger leaves me in
different and awakens no emotion in me? Self-move
ment and intellectual capacity first then . become
weapons in the struggle for existence, if with them
there arises a longing for the self-preservation of the
organism ; which brings it about that all knowledge
which is of importance for its existence at once pro
duces the will to carry out the movement necessary for
its existence, and therewith calls forth the same.
Self-movement and intellectual powers have no
importance for the existence of the individual without
this instinct of self-preservation, just as this latter again
is of no importance without both the former factors.
All the three are most intimately bound up with each
other. The instinct of self-preservation is the most
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
51
primitive of the animal instincts, and the most indis
pensable. . Without it no animal species endowed in any
degree with the power of self-movement and a faculty
of intelligence could maintain itself even a short time
It rules the entire life of the animal. The same social
development which ascribes the care of the intellectual
faculties to particular classes and the practical move
ment to others, and produces in the first an elevation
of the ‘‘spirit” over the coarse ‘‘matter,” goes so
tar in the process of isolating the intellectual faculties
that the latter, out of contempt for the “ mechanical ”
action which serves for the maintenance of life, comes
to despise life itself. But this kind of knowledge has
never as yet been able to overcome the instinct of self
preservation, and to paralyse the ‘‘action” which
serves for the maintenance of life. Nay, even a suicide
may be philosophically grounded ; we always in every
practical act of the denial of life finally meet with
disease or ddsperate social circumstances as the cause
but not a philosophical theory. Mere philosophising
cannot overcome the instinct of self-preservation.
But if this is the most primitive and widely-spread of
all instincts, so is it not the only one. It serves only
tor the maintenance of the individual. However lone
this may endure, finally it disappears without leaving
any trace of its individuality behind, if it has not
reproduced itself. Only those species of organisms
will assert themselves in the struggle for existence who
leave a progeny behind them.
Now with the plants and the lower animals the
reproduction is a process which demands no power of
self-movement and no faculty of intelligence.
That
c anges, however, with the animals so soon as the
reproduction becomes sexual, in which two indi
viduals are concerned, who have to unite in order to
e^s ,and sperm on the same spot outside of
We body or to incorporate the sperm in the body of the
individual carrying the eggs.
J
f^Tha^dem^-dt a wiI1’ an imPuIse to find each other,
i W1fhout that the non-sexual propagation
cannot take place ; the stronger it is in the periods
E2
�r2
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
favourable for reproduction, so much the sooner will it
take place, so much the better will be the prospects of
a progeny for the maintenance of the species. On the
other hand, there is little prospect for those individuals
and species in whom the impulse for self-reproduction is
weakly developed. Consequently, from a given degree
of the devlopment, natural selection must develop,
through the struggle for life, an outspoken impulse
to reproduction in the animal world, and evermore
strengthen it. But it does not always suffice to the
attainment of a numerous progeny.
We have seen
that in the degree in which self-movement and intel
lectual powers grow, the number of the germs which
the individual produces, as well as its vitality, have a
tendency to diminish. Also, the greater the. division
of labour, the more complicated the organism, the
longer the period which is requisite for its develop
ment and its attainment to maturity. If a part of
this period is passed in the maternal body, that has
its limits.
Even from consideration of space this
body is not in a position to bear an organism as big
as itself; it must expel the young body previously
to that. In the young animals, however, the capaci
ties for self-movement and intelligence are the latest
achieved, and they are mostly very weakly developed
as they leave the protecting cover of the egg or the
maternal body. The egg expelled by the mother
is completely without motion and intelligence, lhen
the care for the progeny becomes an important func
tion of the mother : the hiding and defence of the eggs
and of the young, the feeding of the latter, etc. As
with the impulse for reproduction, so is it with the love
for the young ; especially in the animal world the
maternal love is developed as an indispensable means,
from a certain stage of the development on, tO' secure
the perpetuation of the species. With the impulse
towards individual self-preservation these impulses
have nothing to do ; they often come into conflict with
it, and they can be so strong that they overcome it.
It is clear that under otherwise equal conditions those
individuals and species have the best prospect of repro-
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
53
ducing themselves and handing on their qualities and
impulses - in whom the impulse of self-maintenance is
not able to diminish the impulse to reproduce and
protect the progeny.
4.—The Social Instinct.
Beside these instincts which are peculiar to the
higher animals, the struggle for life develops in par
ticular kinds of animals still others, which are special
and conditioned by the peculiarity of their method of
life ; for example, the migratory instinct, which we will
not further study. Here we are interested in another
kind of instinct, which is of very great importance for
our subject: the social instinct.
The co-operation of similar organisms in larger
crowds is a phenomenon which we can discover quite
in their earliest stages in the microbes. It is explained
alone . by the simple fact of reproduction.
If the
organisms have no self-movement, the progeny will,
consequently, gather round the producer, if they are
not by any chance borne away by the movements of the
external world matter : currents, winds, and phenomena
of that sort. The apple falls, as is well known, not
far from the stem, and when it is not eaten, and falls
on fruitful soil, there grow from its pips young trees,
which keep the old tree company.
But even in
animals with power of self-movement it is very natural
that the young should remain with the old if no
external circumstances supply a ground for them to
remove themselves. The living together of individuals
•of the same species, the most primitive form of social
life, is also the most primitive form of life itself. The
division of organisms, having common origin is a
later act.
. The separation can be brought about by the most
diverse causes. The most obvious, and certainly the
most effective, is the lack of sustenance.
Each
locality can only yield a certain quantity of food. If
a certain species of animals multiplies over the limits
of their food supply, the superfluous ones must either
�54
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
emigrate or starve. Beyond a certain number the
number of organisms living in one place cannot go.
But there are certain species of animals for whom
the isolation, the division in individuals or pairs who
live only for themselves, is the form of living which
affords an advantage in the struggle for existence.
Thus, for example, the cat species, which lie in wait for
their booty, and take it with an unexpected spring.
This method of acquiring their sustenance would be
made more difficult, if not impossible, did they circulate
in bigger herds. The first spring on the booty would
drive all the game away for all the others.
For
wolves, which do not come unexpectedly on their prey,
but worry it to death, the foregathering in herds affords
an advantage; one hunts the game to the other, which
blocks the way for it. The cat hunts most success
fully alone.
Again, there are animals who choose
isolation because thus they are less conspicuous, and
can most easily hide themselves, and soonest escape the
foe. The traps set by men have, for example, had
the effect that many animals which formerly lived in
societies are now only to be found isolated, such as
the beavers in Europe. That is the only way for them
to remain unnoticed.
On the other hand, however, there are numerous
animals which draw advantage from their social life.
They are seldom beasts of prey. We have mentioned
the wolf above. But even they only hunt in bands
when food is scarce in winter ; in summer, when it is
easier to get, they live in pairs.
The nature of the
beast of prey is always inclined to fighting and violence,
and, consequently, does not agree well with its equals.
The herbivora are more peaceful from the very manner
in which they obtain their food. That very fact in
itself renders it easier for them to herd together, or to
remain together, because they are more defencless ;
they will, however, through their greater numbers,
need weapons in the struggle for life. The union of
many weak forces to common action can produce a
new and greater force.
Then, through union, the
greater strength of certain individuals is for the good
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
55
of all. Unless the stronger ones fight now for them
selves, they fight for the good of the weaker ; when the
more experienced look out for their own safety, find
out for themselves feeding grounds, they do it also for
the inexperienced. It then becomes possible to intro
duce a division of labour among the united individuals,
which, fleeting though it be, yet increases their strength
and their safety. It is impossible to watch the neigh
bourhood with the most complete attention and at the
same time to feed peacefully. Naturally, during sleep,
all observation of any kind comes to an end. But in
unity one watcher suffices to render the others safe
during sleep or while eating.
Through the division of labour the union of indi
viduals becomes a body with different organs to co
operate to a given end, and this end is the maintenance
of the collective body—it becomes an organism. With
that is by no means implied that the new organism or
society is a body in the same way as an animal or a
plant, but it is an organism of its own kind, which is
far more widely distinguished from these two than the
animal from the plant. Both are made up from cells
without power of self-motion and without conscious
ness of their own ; society, on the other hand, from
individuals with their own power of self-movement and
consciousness. If, however, the animal organism has
as a whole a power of self-motion and consciousness,
they are lacking, nevertheless, to society as well as
to the plants. But the individuals which form the
society can entrust individuals among their members
with functions through which the social forces are
Submitted to a uniform will, and uniform movements in
the society are produced.
On the other hand the individual and society are
much more loosely connected than the cell and the whole
organism in both plant and animal. The individual
can separate itself from one society and join another,
as emigration proves. That is impossible for a cell;
for it the separation from the whole is death, if
we leave certain cells of a particular kind out of
account, such as the sperma and eggs, in the pro-
�56
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
creation processes. Again society can forthwith im
pose on new individuals any change of form without
any change of substance, which is impossible for an
animal body. Finally, the individuals who form society
can, under circumstances, change the organs and
organisation of society, while anything of that kind is
quite impossible in an animal or vegetable organism.
If, therefore, society is an organism, it is no animal
organism, and to attempt to explain any phenomena
peculiar to society from the laws of the animal
organism is not less absurd than when the attempt is
made to deduce peculiarities of the animal organism and
self-movement and consciousness from the laws of the
vegetable being. Naturally this does not imply that
there is not also something common to the various
kinds of organisms.
As the animal so also the social organism survives
so much the better in the struggle for existence
the more unitary its movements, the stronger the
binding forces, the greater the harmony of the parts.
But society has no fixed skeleton which supports the
weaker parts, no skin which covers in the whole, no
circulation of the blood which nourishes all the parts,
no. heart which regulates it, no brain which makes a
unity out of its knowing, its willing, and its move
ments.
Its unity and harmony, as well as its
coherence, can only arise from the actions and will of
its members. This unitary will, however, will be so
much the more assured the more it springs from a
strong impulse.
Among species of animals, in whom the social bond
becomes a weapon in the struggle for life, social im
pulses become encouraged which, in many species and
many individuals, grow to an extraordinary strength,
so that they can overcome the impulse of self-preserva
tion and reproduction when they come in conflict with
the same.
The commencement of the social impulse we can well
look for in the interest which the simple fact of living
together in society produces in the individual for his
fellows, to whose society he is used from youth on.
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
57
On the other hand, reproduction and care for the pro
geny already render longer or shorter relations of a
more intimate kind necessary between different indi
viduals of the same species ; and just as these rela
tions have formed the starting point for the formation
of societies, so could the corresponding impulses well
give the point of departure for the development of the
social impulses.
These impulses themselves can vary according to
the varying conditions of the various species, but a
row of impulses form the requisite conditions for the
success of any kind of society. In the first place,
naturally, altruism—self-sacrifice for the whole. Then
bravery in the defence of the common interests ; fidelity
to the community ; submission to the will of society,
thus obedience and discipline ; truthfulness to society,
whose security is endangered, or whose energies are
wasted, when they are misled in any way by false
signals. Finally ambition, the sensibility to the praise
and blame of society. These are all social impulses
which we find expressed already among animal
societies, many of them in a high degree.
These social impulses are, nevertheless, nothing less
than the highest virtues ; they sum up the entire moral
code. At the most they lack the love for justice, that is
the impulse towards equality. For its development
there certainly is no place in the animal societies,
because they only know natural and individual in
equality, and not those called forth by social relations,
the social inequalities. The lofty moral law that the
comrade ought never to be merely a means to an end—
which the Kantians look on as the most wonderful
achievement of Kant’s genius, as the moral programme
of the modern era, and as essential to the entire future
history of the world—is in the animal world a common
place. The development of human society first created
a state of affairs in which the companion became a
simple tool of others.
What appeared to Kant as the creation of a higher
world of spirits is a product of the animal world.
How closely the social impulses have grown up with
�58
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
the fight for existence . and to what an extent they
originally were useful in the preservation of species
can be seen from the fact that their effect often limits
itself to individuals whose maintenance is advantageous
for the species. Quite a number of animals which
risk their lives to save younger or weaker comrades
kill without a scruple sick or aged comrades that are
superfluous for the preservation of the race, and are
become a burden to society. The “moral sense,”
sympathy,” does not extend to these elements. Even
many savages behave in this manner.
The moral law is an animal impulse, and nothing
else. Thence its mysterious nature, this voice in us
which has no connection with any external impulse or
any apparent interest; this demon or god, which, since
Socrates and Plato, has been found in themselves by
those moralists who refused to deduce morality from
self-love or pleasure. Certainly a mysterious impulse,
but not more mysterious than sexual love, maternal
love, the instinct of self-preservation, the being of the
organism itself, and so many other things, which only
belong to the world of phenomena, and which no one
looks on as products of a supersensuous world.
Because the moral law is an animal instinct of equal
force to the instinct of self-preservation and reproduc
tion, thence its force, thence its power which we obey
without thought, thence our rapid decisions, in par
ticular cases, whether an action is good or bad,
virtuous or vicious ; thence the energy and decision of
our moral judgment, and thence the difficulty to prove
it when reason begins to analyse its grounds. Thence,
finally, we find that to comprehend all means to pardon
all, that everything is necessary, that nothing is good
or bad.
Not from our organs of knowing but from our
impulses come the moral law and the moral judgment,
as well as the feeling of duty and the conscience.
In many kinds of animals the social impulses attain
such a strength that they become stronger than all the
rest. When the former come in conflict with the latter,
they then confront the latter with overpowering
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM
59
strength as commands of duty. Nevertheless, that
does not hinder in such a case a special impulse, say
of self-preservation or of reproduction, being tempo
rarily stronger than the social impulse and overcoming
it. But as the danger passes the strength of the
self-preserving impulse or the reproductive instinct
diminishes, just as that of reproduction after the
completion of the act. The social instinct remains,
however, existing in the old force, regains the dominion
over the individual, and works now in him as the
voice of conscience and of repentance.
Nothing is
more mistaken than to see in conscience the voice of
fear of his fellows, their opinion, or even their power
of physical compulsion. It has effect even in respect to
acts which no one has heard of, even acts which
may appear to those nearest as very praiseworthy ; it
can even act as repugnance to acts which have been
undertaken from fear of his fellows and their public
opinion.
Public opinion, praise and blame, are certainly very
influential factors. But their effect assumes in advance
a certain social impulse—namely, ambition—they are
not capable of producing the social impulses.
We have no reason to assume that conscience is
Confined to man. It would be difficult to discover even
in men if everyone did not feel its effect on him
self. Conscience is certainly a force which does not
obviously and openly show itself, but works only in the
innermost being.
But, nevertheless, many investi
gators have gone so far as to point, even in animals,
to a kind of conscience. Darwin says in his book,
“ The Descent of Man ” :—
“ Besides love and sympathy, the animals show
Other qualities connected with the social instincts
which we should call moral in men ; and I agree with
Agassiz that dogs have something very like a con
science. Dogs certainly have a certain power of self
control, and this does not appear to be altogether a
consequence of fear. As Braubach remarks, ‘ A dog
will restrain itself from stealing food in the absence of
its master.’ ”
�6o
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
If conscience and feeling of duty are a consequence
of the lasting predominance of the social impulses in
many species of animals, if these impulses are those
through which the individuals of such species are the
most constantly and most enduringly determined, while
the force of the other impulses is subject to great oscil
lations, yet the force of the social impulse is not free
from all oscillations. One of the most peculiar pheno
mena is this : that social animals when united in
greater numbers also feel stronger social impulses. It
is, for example, a well-known fact that an entirely
different spirit reigns in a well-filled meeting than in a
small one ; that the bigger crowd has in itself alone an
inspiring effect on the speaker. In a crowd the indivi
duals are not only more brave—that could be explained
through the greater support which each believes he will
get from his fellows—they are also more unselfish,
more self-sacrificing, more enthusiastic. Certainly only
too often so much the more calculating, cowardly and
selfish when they find themselves alone.
And that
applies not only to men, but also to the social animals.
Thus Espinas in his book, “The Animal Societies,’’
quotes an observation of Forel. The latter found :—
“The courage of every ant, by the same form, in
creases in exact proportion to the number of its com
panions or friends, and decreases in exact proportion
the more isolated it is from its companions.
Every
inhabitant of a very populous ant heap is much more
courageous than are similar ones from a small popula
tion. The same female worker which would allow her
self to be killed ten times in the midst of her companions,
will show herself extraordinarily timid, avoid the least
danger, fly before even a much weaker ant, so soon
as she finds herself twenty yards from her own home.’’
With the stronger social feeling there need not be
necessarily bound up a higher faculty of intelligence.
It is probable that, in general, every instinct has the
effect of somewhat obscuring the exact observation of the
external world. What we wish, that we readily believe ;
but what we fear, that we easily exaggerate. The in
stincts can very easily produce the effect that many
�THE ETHICS OF DARWINISM.
6l
things appear disproportionately big or near, while
others are overlooked. How blind and deaf the instinct
for reproduction can render many animals at times is
well known. The social instincts which do not show
themselves as a rule so acutely and intensively, gener
ally obscure much less the intellectual faculties ; they
can, however, influence them very considerably on occa
sion. Think, for instance, of the influence of faith
fulness and discipline upon sheep, who follow their
leading sheep blindly wherever it may go.
The moral law in us can lead our intellect astray
just as any other impulse, being itself neither a pro
ducer nor a product of wisdom. What is apparently
the most devoted and divine in us is essentially
the same as that which we look on as the commonest
and most devilish. The moral law is of the same
nature as the instinct for reproduction.
Nothing is
more ridiculous than when the former is put on a
pedestal and the latter is turned away from with loath
ing and contempt. But no less false is it to infer that
man can, and ought, to give way to his impulses with
out check. That is only so far true as it is impossible
to condemn any one of these as such. But that by no
means implies that they cannot come to cross purposes.
It is simply impossible that anyone should follow all
his instincts without restraint, because they restrain
one another. Which, however, at a given moment
wins, and what consequences this victory may bring to
the individual and his society with it, neither the ethic
of pleasure nor those of a moral law standing outside
of space and time afford us any help to divine.
If, however, the moral law were recognised as a
social instinct which, like all the instincts, is called
out in us by the struggle for life, then the supersensuous world has lost a strong support in human
thought. The simple gods of Polytheism were already
dethroned by natural philosophy. If, nevertheless, a
new philosophy could arise which not only revealed the
belief in God and a supersensuous world, but put it
more firmly in a higher form, as was done in ancient
times by Plato and on the eve of the French Revolu-
�62
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
tion by Kant, the cause lay in the fact that the problem
of the moral law, to whose explanation neither its
deduction from pleasure nor from the moral sense
sufficed—while it yet offered the only “ natural ” causal
explanation which seemed possible. Darwinism was
the first to make an end to the division of man, which
this rendered necessary, into a natural and animal
being on the one hand and a supernatural and heavenly
one on the other.
But with that the entire ethical problem was not yet
solved. Were it attempted to explain moral impulse,
duty, and conscience as well as the ground type of the
virtues from the social impulse, yet this breaks down
when it is a question of explaining the moral ideal. Of
that there is not the least sign in the animal world ; only
man can set himself ideals and follow them. Whence
come these? Are they prescribed to the human race
from the beginning of time as an irrevocable demand
of nature, or an eternal reason—as commands which
man does not produce, but which confront man
as a ruling force and show him the aims to which he
has ever more and more to strive after? That was, in
the main, the view of all thinkers of the eighteenth
century, Atheists as well as Theists, Materialists and
Idealists. This view took, even in the mouth of the
boldest Materialism, the tendency to assume a super
natural providence, which indeed had nothing more to
do in nature, but still hovers over human society. The
evolution idea which recognised the descent of man
from the animal world made this trend of idealism
absurd in a Materialist mouth.
All the same, before Darwin founded his epochmaking work, that theory had arisen which revealed the
secret of the moral ideal. This was the theory of Marx
and Engels.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
63
CHAPTER V.
The Ethics
of
Marxism.
1.—The Roots of the Materialist Conception of History.
The rapid progress of the natural sciences since the
French Revolution is intimately connected with the
expansion of capitalism from that time on. The great
capitalist industry depended more and more on the
application of science, and, consequently, had every
reason to supply it with men and means. Modern tech
nique gives to science not only new objects of activity,
but also new tools and new methods. Finally inter
national communication brought a mass of new
material. Thus was acquired strength and means to
carry the idea of evolution successfully through.
But even more than for natural science was the
French Revolution an epoch of importance for the
science of society, the so-called mental sciences. Be
cause in natural science the idea of evolution had
already given a great stimulus to many thinkers. In
mental science, on the other hand, it was only to be
found in the most rudimentary attempts. Only after
the French Revolution could it develop in them.
The mental sciences—Philosophy, Law, History,
Political Economy—had been for the rising bourgeoisie
before the French Revolution, in the first place, a
means of fighting the ruling powers, social and political,
which opposed them, and had their roots in the past.
To discredit the past, and to paint the new and coming,
in contrast to it, as the only good and useful, formed
the principal occupation of these sciences.
That has altered since the Revolution. This gave
the bourgeoisie the essence of what they wanted. It
revealed to them, however, social forces which wanted
to go further than themselves. These new forces began
to be more dangerous than the relics of the deposed
�64
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
old. To come to an agreement with the latter became
merely a requirement of political sagacity on the part of
the bourgeoisie. With that, however, their opinion on
the past was bound also to grow milder.
On the other hand the Revolution had brought a
great disillusionment to the Idealogues themselves.
Great as were its achievements for the bourgeoisie,
they are not yet up to the expectations of an harmonious
empire of
morality,” general well-being, and happi
ness, such as had been looked for from the overthrow
of the old. No one dared to build hopes on the new ;
the more unsatisfactory the present, so much the more
terrifying were the reminiscences of the most recent
past which the present had brought to a head, so much
the more bright did the farther past appear. That
produced, as is well.known, Romanticism in art. But
it produced also similar movements in the mental
sciences. Men began to study the past, not in order
to condemn it, but to understand it; not to show up its
absurdity, but to understand its reasonableness.
But the Revolution had done its work too thoroughly
for men to dream of re-establishing what had been
set aside. Had the past been rational, so it was neces
sary to show that it had become irrational. The socially
necessary and reasonable ceased with that to appear
as an unchangeable conception. Thus arose the view
of a social evolution.
That 'applied first to the knowledge of German his
tory.
In Germany the above-described process was
most markedly to be seen ; there the revolutionary
method of thought had not penetrated so deeply, had
never struck such deep roots as in France; there the
work of the Revolution had not been so complete, the
forces and opinions of the past had been shaken in a
less degree, and finally had appeared on the scene more
as a disturbing than an emancipating element.
But to the study of the German past there asso
ciated itself the investigation of similar periods. In
America the young community of the United States
was already so far advanced that a separate class
of the intellectuals had been able to develop a real
�65
THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
American literature and science. What specially dis
tinguished America from Europe was, however, the
close contact of the capitalist civilisation of the white
man with Indian barbarism. That was the object
which especially attracted literature and science. Soon
after the German Romanticism there arose the Ameri
can-Indian novel, and soon after the rise of the histori
cal school of law, the revival of the old fancy tales and
the world of legends, and the comparative philological
research in Germany, and the scientific theory of the
social and linguistic conditions of the Indians in America.
At an earlier period, however, the settlement of the
English in India had afforded the possibility, nay the
necessity of a study of the languages, the customs, and
the laws of these territories. As far as Germany there
had penetrated, at the commencement of the nineteenth
century, the knowledge of Sanskrit, which laid the
foundation for the comparative study of languages,
which in its turn afforded the most valuable insight into
the life of the Indo-Germanic peoples in primitive times.
All this rendered it possible to treat the accounts
given by civilised observers of primitive peoples, as well
as the discoveries of weapons and tools of vanished
races, differently from formerly, when they had been
simply looked on as curiosities. They now became
material by which to extend the partly-revealed chain of
human development still further into the past, and to
close up many of the gaps.
In this entire historical work there was lacking,
however, the object which had, up to then, ruled the
entire writing of history—the great man theory. In
the written sources, from which formerly the know
ledge of human history was exclusively culled, only the
extraordinary had been related, because it was that
only which seemed noteworthy to the chronicler of the
events of his time. To describe everyday occurrences,
that which everybody knew, was by no means his task.
The extraordinary man, the extraordinary event, such
as wars and revolutions, only seemed worth relating.
Thus it was that for the traditional historians, who
never got beyond writing up from the sources handed
F
�66
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
down to them with more or less criticism, the big man
was the motive power in history—in the Feudal period
the king, the military commander, the religious founder,
and the priest. In the eighteenth century there were
very many men branded by the bourgeois intellectuals
as the authors of all the evil in the world, and the
philosophers, on the other hand, as legislators and
teachers, as the only real instruments of progress. But
all progress appeared to be only external, a simple
change of clothes. That period in which the sources
of historical writing began to flow more abundantly,
the time of the victory of the Greeks over the Persian
invasion, was the culminating period of the social deve
lopment. From that time on society in the lands round
the Mediterranean began to decay ; it went down and
down till the Barbarian Immigration. Only slowly
have the peoples of Europe since then developed them
selves again to a higher level socially, and even in the
eighteenth century they had not risen far above the
level of classical antiquity, so that in many points of
politics, of philosophy, and especially of art, the latter
could rank as a pattern.
History, as a whole, appeared simply as a rise and
fall, a repetition of the same circle, and just as the
simple individual can set himself continually higher
aims than he arrives at, because as a rule he fails, so
did this circle appear as a horrible tragi-comedy in
which all that was most elevated and strongest was
doomed to play wretched parts.
Quite otherwise was it with primitive history. That,
with its individual departments, history of law, com
parative philology, ethnology, found in the material
which these worked up, not the extraordinary and the
individual, but the everyday and common-place de
scribed. But for this very reason primitive history can
trace with certainty a line of continuous development.
And the more the material increases the more it is pos
sible to compare like with like, the more it is discovered
that this development is no chance, but according to
law. The material which is at our disposal is, on the one
side, facts of the technical arrangements of life, on the
�g?
THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
•other, of law, custom and religion. To show the law
controlling this, means nothing else than to bring
technics into a causal connection with the legal, moral,
■and religious conceptions without the help of extra
ordinary individuals or events.
. This connection was, however, discovered almost
■simultaneously from another side, namely statistics.
So long as the parish was the most important econo
mic institution statistics were hardly required.
In
the parish it was easy to get a view of the state of
^affairs. But even if statistics were made then, they
■could scarcely suggest scientific observations, as with
such small figures the law had no chance of showing
itself. That was bound to alter as the capitalist method
of production created the modern states, which were
not, like the earlier ones, simple groups of communes or
parishes and provinces, but unitary bodies with im
portant economic functions.
Besides that, however, the capitalist method of pro
duction developed not simply the inner market but,
in addition, cieated the world market. This produced
highly complicated connections which could not be
controlled without the means of statistics. Founded
lor the practical purpose of tax-gathering and raising
of recruits, for customs, and finally for the insurance
societies, it gradually embraced wider and wider
spheres, and produced a mass of observations on a
large scale, revealing laws which were bound to impress
themselves on observant workers-up of the material. In
England they had already, towards the end of the
seventeenth century, since Petty, arrived at a political
arithmetic^ in which, however, “estimates” played a
very big rdle. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen
tury the method of statistical inquiries was so com
plete and its sphere so varied that it was possible to
discover with the greatest certainty the laws governing
the actions of great masses of men.
The Belgian
Guelelet made an attempt, in the thirties, to describe
in this manner the physiology of human society.
It was seen that the determining element in the
alterations of human action was always a material, as a
F2
�68
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
rule, an economic change. Thus was the decrease and
increase of crime, of suicide, and of marriages shown
to be dependent on the price of corn.
Not as if, for instance, economic motives were the
sole cause that marriages were made at all. Nobody
would declare the sexual passion to be an economic
motive. But the alteration in the annual number of
marriages is called forth by changes in the economic
situation.
Besides all these new sciences, there is finally to be
mentioned a change in the character of the modern
writing of history. The French Revolution came to
the fore so clearly as a class struggle, that not only its
historian must recognise that, but a number of thehistorians were inspired to investigate in other periods
of history the r61e of the class wars, and to see in them
the motive forces of human development. The classes
are, however, again a product of the economic structure
of society, and from this spring the antagonisms, there
fore the struggles of the classes. What holds every
class together, what divides them from other classes,
and determines their opposition to these, are the par
ticular class interests, a new kind of interests, of which
no moralist of the eighteenth century, whatever school
he might belong to, had had any idea.
With all these advances and discoveries, which cer
tainly often enough were only piecemeal and by no
means quite clear by the time of the forties in the nine
teenth century, all the essential elements of the
Materialist Conception of History had been supplied.
They only waited for the master who should bring
them under control and unify them. That was done by
Engels and Marx.
Only to deep thinkers such as they were was an
achievement of that nature possible. In so far that
was their personal work.
But no Engels, no Marx
could have achieved it in the eighteenth century, before
all the new sciences had produced a sufficient mass of
new results. On the other hand, a man of the genius
of a Kant or a Helvetius could also have discovered
the Materialist Conception of History if at their time
�TIIE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
69
the requisite scientific conditions had been to hand.
And on the other hand, even Engels and Marx, despite
their genius, and despite the preparatory work which
the new sciences had achieved, would not have been able,
even in the time of the forties in the nineteenth century,
to discover it, if they had not stood on the standpoint
«of the proletariat, and were thus Socialists. That also
was absolutely necessary to the discovery of this Con
ception of History.
In this sense it is a proletarian
philosophy, and the opposing views are bourgeois
philosophies.
The rise of the idea of evolution took place during a
period of reaction, when no immediate further develop
ment of society was in question. I he conception, con
sequently, only served for the explanation of the pre
vious development, and thereby only in a certain sense
—that of a justification ; nay, at times, more a glorifi
cation of the past. Just as through Romanticism and
the historical school of jurisprudence there goes
through the entire study of early times, even through
Sanskrit study—I may point to the example of
Schopenhauer’s Buddhism—in the first decades of the
last century, a reactionary trait. So was it with that
philosophy which made the evolutionary idea of that
period the centre of its system—the Hegelian. Even
that was only intended to be a panegyric on the pre
vious development, which had now found its close in
the monarchy by the will of God.
As reactionary
philosophy, this philosophy of the development was
bound to be an idealist philosohpy, since the present,
the reality, was in too great a contradiction with its
reactionary tendencies.
As soon as reality—that is, the capitalist society—
had got so far as to be able to make itself felt in face
of these tendencies, the idealist conception of evolution
became impossible. It was superseded by a more or
less open Materialism. But only from the proletariat
point of view was it possible to translate the social
development into a Materialistic one—in other words, to
recognise in the present an evolution of society pro«ceeding according to natural laws. The bourgeoisie
�JQ
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
was obliged to close its eyes to all idea of a further
social evolution, and repudiate every philosophy of
evolution, which did not simply investigate the develop
ment of the past to understand this, and also in order
to understand the tendencies of the new society of the
future, and to hammer out weapons for the struggle of
the present, which is destined to bring about this form
of society of the future.
Although this period of intellectual reaction after
the great Revolution had been overcome, and the bourgeoisie, which had regained self-respect and power,
had made an end to all artistic and philosophic romanti
cism in order to proclaim Materialism, they could not,
all the same, get as far as the historic Materialism.
Deeply founded as this was in the circumstances of the
time, it was no less in the nature of the circumstances
that this (the latest form of materialism) could only be
a. philosophy of the proletariat ; that it should be repu
diated by science so far as this came under the influence
of the bourgeoisie, repudiated to such an extent that
even the Socialist author of “ The History of
Materialism,” Albert Lange, only mentions Karl Marx
in that work as an economist, and not as a philosopher.
The idea . of evolution, generally accepted for the
material sciences, even fruitful for certain special'
branches of mental science, has remained a dead letter
for the scientific point of view7, as interpreted by7 the
bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie could not even get far
ther than Hegel in their philosophy. Thev fell back
into a Materialism which stands considerably below
that of the eighteenth century, because it is purely
natural philosophy and has no theory of society to
show. And when this narrow7 Materialism no longer
suited them they turned to the old Kantianism, purified'
fi om the defects which had been superseded by science
in the meantime, but not emancipated from its Ethic,
which was now the buhvark which w7as to be brought
against the Materialist theory of Social Evolution.
In the economic sciences the bourgeoisie hovered
between an historic conception, w7hich certainly7 acknow7ledges an evolution of society but denies necessary
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
71
laws of this development, and a view which recognises
necessary laws of society but denies the. social develop
ment, and believes it possible to discover in the
psychology of primitive man all the economic cate
gories of modern society. To these conceptions there
was added naturalism (or scientific naturalism) which
tries to reduce the laws of society to laws of biology—
that is, to the laws of animal and plant organisms—
and really amounts to nothing short of a denial of
social development.
Since the bourgeoisie has grown conservative, only
from the proletarian standpoint is a Materialist view
of social development possible.
It is true that the dialectical materialism is a
materialism of its own kind, which is quite different
from the materialism of natural science (naturalism).
Many friends have wished, accordingly, in order to
avoid misunderstandings, to substitute another word
for the word Materialism.
But if Marx and Engels retained the word Material
ism, it was on the same ground as the refusal to
re-christen their manifesto of the Communists as the
manifesto of the Socialists. The word Socialism
covers to-day such various wares, among them some
really worthless, Christian and national Socialisms of
all kinds ; the word Communism, on the other hand,
describes unmistakably and clearly the aims of a
proletariat fighting a revolutionary fight for its emanci
pation.
So, also, by a designation of the dialectical material
ism as dialectical “monism,” or “criticism,” or
“ realism,” the entire sense of opposition to the bour
geois world is lost. The word “ Materialism,” on the
other hand, has signified since the victory of Christianity
a philosophy of the fight against the ruling powers.
Therefore, has it come into disrepute with the bour
geoisie, but for that very reason we followers of the
proletarian philosophy have the right to hold fast to
this very name, which also can be justified in fact.
And a conception of Ethics which rises from this
philosophy can rank as a Materialistic one.
�72
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
2*—The Organisation of Human Society.
(a) The Technical Development.
. If we regard man, from the standpoint of the Mate
rialist. Conception of History, at the stage at which we
left him in the last chapter—at the boundary which
divided him from the rest of the animal world—what is
it that raises him above it ? Does there exist between
him and them only gradual differences, or is there also
an essential difference? Neither as thinking nor as
moral being is man essentially different from the
animals. Does not the difference perhaps lie in the
fact that he produces—that is, adapts material found
in nature by means of change of form or of place to
his purposes ? This activity is, however, also found
in the animal world. To leave out of account many
insects, such as bees and ants, we find among many
warm-blooded animals, even among many fishes,
species of productive activity, namely, the production
of refuges and dwellings, nests, underground build
ings, and so on. And however much of this produc
tive. activity is also the product and result of inherited
instincts and dispositions, they are often so suitably
adapted to various circumstances that consciousness,
the knowledge of causal connections, must also play
a part thereby.
Or is it the use of tools which raises man above the
animals? Also not that. Among animals we find at
least the beginnings of the application of tools, of
branches of trees for defence, of stones for cracking
nuts, and so on. Their intelligence, as well as the
development of the feet into hands, enables the apes to
do that.
Thus neither the production of means of consump
tion nor the use of tools distinguishes man from the
animals. What, however, alone distinguishes him is
the production of tools, which serve for production
and defence or attack. The animal can at the most
find the tool in nature ; it is not capable of invent
ing such. It may produce things for its immediate
use, prepare dwellings, collect provisions, but it does
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
73
not think so far as to produce things which will not
serve for direct consumption, but for the production of
the means of consumption.
With the production of the means of production, the
animal man begins to become the human man ; with
that he breaks away from the animal world to found
his own empire, an empire with its own kind of
development, which is wholly unknown to the rest of
nature, in which nothing similar is to be found.
So long as the animal only produces with the organs
provided by nature, or only uses tools which nature
gives him, it cannot rise above the means thus pro
vided for him by nature. Its development only pro
ceeds in the manner that its own organism develops
itself ; the organs alter themselves, the brain included—
a slow and unconscious process carried on by means
of the struggle for life, which the animal can in no
way hurry on by its conscious activity.
On the other hand the discovery and production of
the tool—the word employed in the widest sense—
means that man consciously and purposely gives him
self new organs, or strengthens or lengthens his
natural organs, so that he can still better or easier
produce the same that these organs produced ; but
besides that he is in a position to arrive at results which
were formerly quite unattainable by him. But as man
is not simply an animal endowed with higher intelli
gence and hands—the necessary assumption of the
application and production of tools—but also must have
been, from the very beginning, a social animal, the
discovery and production of a tool did not get lost with
the death of the specially-gifted individual who had
found it—a Marx or Kant or Aristotle inhabiting the
trees of the primitive tropical forests. His herd took
up the invention and carried it on, won with it an ad
vantage in the struggle for life, so that their de
scendants could flourish better than the other members
of their kind. But the further perspicacity which this
fostered in the herd served the purpose for the future
of rendering the discovery so complete as to further
the invention of fresh tools.
�74
ethics and the materialist conception of history.
Even if a certain degree of intelligence and the
development of the hand forms the necessary condition
for the discovery and production of tools, yet it was
the social character of man which offered the conditions
for the continual addition of new and the improvement
of old discoveries, thus for a continual development of
the technique. The slow and unconscious process of the
development of the individuals through the struggle
for life, as it ruled the entire remaining organic world,
gives way more and more in the human world in
favour of the conscious transformation, adaptation
and improvement of the organs ; a development which
in its beginning, measured by modern standards, is
even then very long and difficult to observe, but which,
all the same, goes much quicker than the natural selec
tion. The technical progress forms for the future the
foundation of the entire development of man. On that
and not on any special divine spark rests all by which
man is distinguished from the animals.
Every single step forward on this path of technical
development is a conscious and intentional one. Each
arises from the endeavour to increase the powers of
man over the limits set by nature. But each of these
technical advances brings also, of necessity, effects
with it, which were not intended by its authors, and
could not be, because they were not in a position even
to suspect them—effects which, just as much as natural
selection, could be called adaptation to the surround
ings ; surroundings, however, which men had artificially
modified. In these adaptations there plays, however,
consciousness, the knowledge of the new surroundings
and its requirements ; again, a r61e ; this, nevertheless,
is not that of an independent directing force.
(b) Technic and Method of Life.
Let us seek, in order to get a clearer idea of what
has been said, to give ourselves an idea what conse
quences it was bound to have when primitive man
arrived at the first tool; where he joined the stone anti
the stick, which the age had already used, to make a
hammer, an axe or a spear. Naturally, the description
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
75
which here follows can only be a hypothetical one, as
we have no witness of the whole process ; but it is not
to serve as a proof, only as an illustration. We make
it as simple as possible, disregarding, for example, the
influence which ^fishing could have had on primitive
man.
So soon as primitive man possessed the spear he
found himself in a position to hunt still bigger animals.
His food was, up to then, derived principally from fruits
and insects, as well as, probably, little birds and young^
birds ; now he could kill even bigger animals ; meat
became, henceforth, more important for his food.
The majority of the bigger animals, however, live on
the earth, not in the trees ; hunting thus drew him
from his airy regions down to the earth. And further,
the animals most chaseable, the ruminants, were but
seldom to be found in the primitive forest. The more
man became a hunter the more could he emerge from
the forest in which primitive man was bred.
This account, as I have said, is purely hypothetical.
The process of evolution may have been the reverse.
Equally as the discovery of the tool and the weapon
may have driven man out of the primitive forest to
come forth into open grass land where the trees were
farther apart, just as much might forces which drove
primitive man from his original abode have been the
spur to the discovery of weapons and tools. Let us
assume, for instance, that the number of men increased
beyond their means of subsistence ; or that a glacial
period, say the glacier of the central Asiatic mountain
range sunk low down, and forced the inhabitants from
their forests into the grass plains which bordered it; or
that an increasing dryness of the climate even more and
more cleared the forest, and caused more and more
grass land to come up in it. In all these cases primi
tive man would have been obliged to give up his tree
life, and to move about on the earth ; he was obliged
from now on to seek for animal food, and could no
longer in the same degree feed himself from tree fruits.
The new method of life induced him to the frequent
�76
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
•employment of stones and sticks, and brought him
nearer to the discovery of the first tools and weapons.
Whatever development we accept, the first or the
second—and both could have taken place independent
of each other at different points—from both of them’
we see clearly the close connection which exists be
tween new means of production, new methods of
life and new needs. Each of these factors necessarily
produces the other ; each becomes necessarily the cause
of changes, which in their turn hide fresh changes in
their bosom.
Thus every discovery produces inevit
able changes, which give rise to other discoveries,
and therewith bring new needs and methods of life,
which again call forth new discoveries, and so on—a
chain of endless development which becomes so much
more rapid and more complicated the farther it proceeds
and the more the possibility and facility of new dis
coveries advance.
Let us consider the consequences which the rise of
hunting, as a source of food for man, and his emer
gence from the primitive forest was bound to draw
with it.
Besides the meat man took, in place of the tree fruits,
roots and fruits of the grasses, corn and maize into
his bill of fare. In the primitive forest a cultivation
of plants is impossible, and to clear the primitive forest
is beyond the power of primitive man. The latter,
however, could not even have evolved this idea. He
lived from tree fruits ; to plant fruit trees which would
first bear fruit after many years assumes that already
a high degree of culture and settlement has been
attained. On the other hand, the planting of grasses
in meadows and steppes is much easier than in the
primitive forest, and can be brought about with much
simpler tools. The thought of planting grasses, which
often bear fruits after only a few weeks, is, moreover,
easier to conceive than that of planting trees. Cause
and effect are so nearly connected in this case that their
dependence is easier to see, and even the unsettled
primitive man might expect to exist during the period
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
77
between seed time and harvest in the neighbourhood of
the cultivated ground.
Again, man so soon as he left the primitive forest
was far more at the mercy of climatic changes than
in his primitive home.
In the thick forest the
changes of temperature between day and night
were much less than on the open plain, on which
during the day a burning sun rules, and by night a
powerful radiation and loss of heat. Storms are also
less noticeable in the forest than in a woodless terri
tory, and against rain and hail this latter offers much
less protection than the almost impenetrable foliage of
the first. Thus man forced on to the plains was
bound to feel a need for shelter and clothing which the
primitive man in the tropical lorest nevei felt. If t e
male apes had already built themselves formal nests for
the night’s repose he was bound to go farther and
build walls and roofs for protection, or to seek shelter
in caves or holes. On the other hand, it was no great
step to clothe himself in the skins of animals which
remained over after the flesh had been taken out of
them. It was certainly the need for protection against
cold which caused mankind to aspire for the pos
session of fire.
Its tecnmcal utility he could only
gradually learn after he had used it a long time. The
warmth which it gave out was, naturally, at once
evident.
How man came to the use of fire will,
perhaps, never be certainly known ; but it is certain
that man in the primitive forest had no need for it as
a source of heat, and would not have been able amid.the
continual damp to maintain it. Only in a drier region,
where greater quantities of dry fire materials were to
be found at intervals-—moss, leaves, brushwood—could
fires arise, which made man acquainted with fire ; per
haps through lightning, or more likely from the sparks
of a flint, the first tool of primitive man, or from the heat
which arose from boring holes in hard wood.
We see how the entire life of man, his needs, his
dwelling, his means of sustenance were changed ; hoy
one discovery brought numerous others in its train
so soon as it was once made, so soon as the making
�78
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
of a spear or an axe had been achieved. In all
ese transformations consciousness played a p-reat
part, but the consciousness of other generations^than
those which had discovered the spear orthe axe And
the
WhlCh -W€re Presented to the consciousness of
thev arL5eberatlOn
nOt S6t by that of the f°rmer ;
feZry\“dye. and SpOntaneOUS* “ s°°" winnTn^ef thefchan^e of dwelling, of the need of the
theTffgf f fsuJten^nc€» of the entire method of life,
the effects of the discovery are not exhausted.
(c) Animal and Social Organism.
The division of labour among the organs in the
organisation has certain limits, since they are
hide-bound to the animal organism, cannot be changed
at pleasure, and their number is limited.
There is
also a limit set for the variety of the functions which
an animal organism is capable of performing. It is
for instance, impossible that the same limb should
serve equally well for holding things, for running and
nying, not to speak of other specialisations.
The tool, on the other hand, can be changed by man.
c
Kdapt 11 *° a sinSle definite purpose. This
ulfilled, he puts it on one side ; it does not hinder
-im in other work for which he requires quite other
tools. If the number of his limbs are limited, his tools
are innumerable.
But not simply the number of the organs of the
animal organism is limited, but also the force by
which any of them can be moved. It can be in no
case greater than the strength of the individual him
self to whom they belong; it must always be less
since it has to nourish all its organs besides the one in
motion
On the other hand, the force which moves a
tool is by no means confined to one individual. So
soon as it is separated from the human individual many
individuals can unite to move it, nay, they can use
■other than human forces for the purpose—beasts of
burden, and again, water, wind or steam.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
79
Thus in contrast to the animal organism the develop
ment of the artificial organs of man is unlimited,
at least, as measured by human ideas. 'They find their
limit only in the mass of the moving forces which Sun
and Earth place at the disposal of man.
The separation of the artificial organs of man from
his personality has, however, still other effects. If the
whole organs of the animal organism are bound up with
it, that means that every individual has the same
organs at his disposal. The sole exception is formed
by the organs of reproduction. Only in this region is
a division of labour to be found among the higher
organisms.
Every other division of labour in the
animal organism rests on the simple fact that certain
individuals take over certain functions for a certain
period—for example, the sentry duty, as leaders, etc.—
without requiring for the purpose organs which are
different from those of other individuals.
The discovery of the tool, on the other hand, made
it possible that in a society certain individuals should
exclusively use certain tools, or, so much oftener in
proportion as they understand their uses better than any
one else. Thus we come to a form of division of
labour in human society which is of quite another kind
from the modest beginnings of such in the animal
societies. In the latter there remains, with all the
division of labour, a being by itself, which possesses
all the organs which it requires for its support. In
human society this is less the case the further the
division of labour advances in it. The more developed
is this latter, so much the greater the number of the
organs which society has at its disposal for the gaining
of their sustenance and the maintenance of their
method of life, but so much the greater, also, the
number of the organs which are required, and so much
the more dependent the organs over which the indi
vidual has command. So much the greater the power of
society over nature, but so much the more helpless the
individual outside of society, so much the more de
pendent upon it. The animal society which arose as a
natural growth can never raise its members above
�80
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
nature. On the other hand, human society forms for
the human individual a nature which is a quite peculiar
world and apart from the rest; a world which apparently
interferes with its being much more than nature, with
which latter it imagines itself the better able to cope
the more the division of labour increases.
And the latter is practically just as unlimited as the
possible progress of technique itself ; it finds its limits
only in the limits to the expansion of the human race.
If we said above that the animal society is an organ
ism of a peculiar kind, different from the plant and
animal, so we now find that human society forms a
peculiar organism, not only differing again from the
plant and animal individual, but is essentially different
from that composed of animals.
Before all there come two distinguishing features
into account. We have seen that the animal organism
itself possesses all the organs which it requires for its
own existence, while the human individual under the
advanced division of labour cannot live by .itself with
out society. The Robinson Crusoes who without any
means produce everything for themselves are only to
be found in children’s story books and the so-called
scientific works of bourgeois economists, who believe
that the best way to discover the laws of society is to
completely ignore them. Man is in his whole nature
dependent, on society ; it rules him ; only through the
peculiar nature of this is he to be understood.
The peculiar nature of society is, however, in a con
tinual state of change, because human society, in dis
tinction to the animal one, is always subject to develop
ment in consequence of the technical advance. Animal
society develops itself, probably, only in the same
degree as the animal species which forms it.
Far
faster does the process of development proceed' in
human society. But at the same time nothing can be
more erroneous than to conceive it as the same as the
development of the individual, and distinguish the
stages of youth, of maturity, of decay and death in it.
So long as the sources of force hold out over which the
earth has command, therefore so long as the foundation
�81
THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
of technical progress does not disappear, we have no
decay and death of human society to expect. This,
with the development of technique, must ever more and
more advance, and is in this sense immortal.
Every society is modelled by the technical apparatus
at its command and the people who set it going, for
which purpose they enter into the complicated social
relations. So long as this technical apparatus keeps
on improving, and the people who move it neither
diminish in number nor in mental nor physical strength,
there can be no talk of a dying out of society.
That state of things has never occurred as a per
manent condition in any society as yet. Temporarily,
certainly, it occurs, in consequence of peculiarities with
which we will make acquaintance later on, that the
social relations which sprang from social needs, get
petrified and hinder the technical apparatus and the
growth of the members of society in number and in
intellectual and physical force, nay even give rise to a
reactionary movement. That can, however, historic
ally speaking, never last long ; sooner or later these
fetters of society are burst, either by internal move
ments, revolutions, or—and that is oftener the case—
by impulse from without, by wars.
Again, society
changes from time to time a part of its members, its
boundaries or its names, and it looks to the observer
as if the society had shown traces of old age, and
was now dead. In reality, however, if we want to
take a simile from the animal organism, it has only
been suffering from a disease from which it has
emerged with renewed strength. Thus, for instance,
the society of the Roman Imperial times did not
die, but, rejuvenated through German blood, it began,
after the migrations of the peoples, with partially new
people to improve and build up their technical
apparatus.
G
�82
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
3.—The Changes tn the Strength of the Social
Instincts.
(a) Language.
Human society, in contrast to those of animals, is
continually changing, and for that very reason the
people in it must continually be doing the same. The
alteration in the conditions of life must react on the
nature of man; the division of labour necessarily develops
some of his natural organs in a greater degree, and
transforms many. Thus, for instance, the development
of the human ape from a fruit tree eater into a devourer
of animals and plants which are to be found on the
ground, was bound to be connected with a transfor
mation of the hind pair of hands into feet. On the
other hand, since the discovery of the tool, no animal
has been subjected to such manifold and rapid changes
in his surroundings as man, and no animal confronted
with such tremendous and increasing problems of adap
tation to his environment as he, and hence none had to
use its intellect to the same degree as he. Already at
the beginning of that career, which was opened up by
the discovery of the first tool, superior to the rest of the
animals by reason of his adaptability and his intellec
tual powers, he was forced in the course of his history
to. develop both qualities in the highest degree.
If the changes in society are able to transform
the organism of man, his hands, his feet, his brain,
how much the more, and how much greater, to change
his consciousness, his views of that which was useful
and harmful, good and bad, possible and impossible.
If man begins his rise above the animals with the
discovery of the tool, he has no need to first create a
social compact as was believed in the eighteenth cen
tury, and, as many theoretical jurists still believe, in
the twentieth. He enters on his human development
as a social animal with strong social impulses. The
first ethical result of them on society could only be to
influence the force of these impulses. According to the
character of society these impulses will be either
strengthened or weakened. There is nothing more
�83
THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
false than the idea that the social impulses are bound
to be continually strengthened as society develops.
At the beginning of human society that certainly
will be found true. The impulses, which in the animal
world had already developed the social impulses,
human society permits to remain in full strength ; it
■adds further to that—co-operation in work. This co
operation itself must have made a new instrument of
intercourse, of social understanding, necessary—
language. The social animals could correspond with
few means of mutual understanding, cries of per
suasion, joy, fright, alarm, anger and sensational
noises.
Every individual is with them a whole,
which can exist for itself alone.
But sensational
noises do not, however, suffice if there is to be
common labour, or if different tasks are to be allotted,
or different products divided. They do not suffice for
individuals who are helpless without the help of other
individuals. Division of labour is impossible without
-a language which describes not merely sensations, but
also things and processes. It can only develop in the
'degree to which language is perfected, and this, for its
part, brings with it the need for the former.
In language itself the description of activities, and
especially the human, is the most primitive ; that of
things, the later. The verbs are older than the nouns,
the former forming the roots from which these latter are
'derived.
Thus declares Lazarus Geiger :—
“ When we ask ourselves why light and colour were
not nameable objects in the first stage of language,
but the painting of the colours, the answer lies in this :
that man first described only his own actions or those of
his kind ; he noticed only what happened to himself or in
the immediate and, to him, directly interesting neigh
bourhood, at a period when he had for such things as
light and dark, shining objects, and lightning no sense
and no power of conception. If we take as examples
from the great number which we have already passed
under review (in the book) ; they go back in their
beginnings to an extremely limited circle of human
G2
�84
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
movements. For this reason the conception of natural
objects evolve in such a remarkably roundabout manner
from the conception of some human activity, which in
one way or other called attention to them, and often
brings something that is only a distant approximation
to them. So the tree is something stripped of its bark,
the earth something ground, the corn which grows on
it something without the husk. Thus earth and sea,
nay, even the clouds, the heavens themselves, emerge
from the same root concept of something ground (“ Der
Ursprung der Sprache,” pp. 151-3).
This course of the development of language is not
astonishing if we grasp the fact that the first duty
of language was the mutual understanding of men
in common activities and common movements. This
rdle of language as a help in the process of
production makes it clear why language had origi
nally so few descriptions of colour.
Gladstone and
others have concluded from that that the Homeric
Greeks and other primitive peoples could only distin
guish few colours. Nothing would be more fallacious.
Experiments have shown that barbarian peoples have
a very highly developed sense of colour. But their
colour technic is only slightly developed, the number of
colours which they can produce is small, and thence
the number of their descriptions of colour is small.
“ When man gets so far as to apply a colouring
material then the name of this colouring material, easily
takes on an adjectival character for him. In this way
arises the first names of colours.” (Grant Allen, “ The
Colour Sum,” p. 254.)
Grant Allen points to the fact that even to-day the
names of colours increase as the technique of colour
grows. The names of the colours serve first the pur
pose of technic and not that of describing nature.
The development of language is not to be understood
without the development of the method of production.
From this latter it depends whether a language is to
remain the dialect of a tiny tribe or become a world
language, spoken by a hundred million men.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
85
With the development of language a very powerful
means of social cohesion is gained, an enormous
strengthening and a clear consciousness of the social
impetus. But at the same time it certainly produced
quite other effects ; it is the most effectual means of
retaining acquired knowledge, of spreading it, and
handing it on to later generations ; it first makes it pos
sible to form concepts, to think scientifically, and thus
it starts the development of science, and with that
brings about the conquest of nature by science.
Now man acquires a mastery over Nature and also
an apparent independence of her external influences
which arouse in him the idea of freedom. On this 1
must be allowed a short deviation.
Schopenhauer very rightly says: “ The animal
has only visual presentations, and consequently
■only motives which it can visualise: the depen
dence of its acts of will on the motives is thus
clear. In man this is no less the case, and men are
impelled (always taking the individual character into
account) by the motives with the strictest necessity :
only these are not for the most part visual but abstract
presentations, that is, conceptions, thoughts which are
nevertheless the result of previous views, thus of im
pressions from without. That gives to man a certain
freedom in comparison with the animals. Because
he is not, like the animal, determined by the visual
surroundings present before him but by his thoughts
■drawn from previous experiences or transmitted to
him through teaching. Hence the motive which neces
sarily moves him is not at once clear to the observer
when the deed happens ; but it remains concealed
within his mind. That gives not only to his actions
taken as a whole, but to all his movements, an obvi
ously different character from those of the animal: he
is at the same time drawn by finer invisible wires.
Thus all his movements bear the impress of being
guided by principles and intentions, which gives them
the appearance of independence, and obviously distin
guishes them from those of the animal. A.11 these great
distinctions depend, however, entirely on the capacity
�86
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
for abstract presentations—conceptions.” (“ Preisschrift ueber die Grundlage der Moral,” i860, p. 148.)
The capacity for abstract presentations depends
again on language. Probably it was a deficiency in
language which caused the first concept to be formed.
In Nature there are only single things ; language is,
however, too poor to be able to describe every single
thing. Man must consequently describe all things
which are similar to each other with the same word;
but with this he undertakes unconsciously a scientific
work, the collection of the similar, the separation of the
unlike. Language is then not simply an organ of mutual
understanding of different men with each other, but has
become an organ of thought. Even when we do not
speak to others, but think to ourselves only, the
thoughts must be clothed in certain words.
Does language, however, give to man a certain free
dom in contrast to the animals, this, all the same,
only develops on a higher plane what the formation of
the brain had already begun.
In the lower animals the nerves of motion are
directly connected with the nerves of sensation; here
every external impression at once releases a movement.
Gradually, however, there developes a bundle of nerves
to a central point of the entire nervous system, which
receives all the impressions and is not obliged to
transmit all to the motor nerves, but can store them up
and work them off. The higher animal gathers expe
riences which it can utilise, and impulses which even
under certain circumstances it can hand on to its
descendants.
,
Thus through the medium of the brain the connec
tion between the external impression and the movement
is obscured. Through the language, which renders
possible the communication of ideas to others, as well
as abstract conceptions, scientific knowledge, and con
victions, the connection between sensation and move
ment becomes in many cases completely unrecognis
able.
A very similar thing happens in Economics. The most
primitive form of the circulation of wares is that of
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
87
barter of commodities, of products which serve the
personal or productive consumption. Here from both
sides an article of consumption is given and received.
The object of the exchange is clear.
That alters with the rise of an element to facilitate
circulation—money. Now it is easy to sell without at
once buying, just as the brain makes it possible that
impressions should work on the organism without at
once releasing' a movement.
As this renders pos
sible a storing up of experiences and impulses, which
can even be transmitted to descendants, so notori
ously can a treasury be collected from gold. And as the
collection of that treasury of experiences and impulses
under the necessary social conditions finally renders
possible the development of science and the conquest
of nature by science, so does the collection of money
treasure render possible, when certain social conditions
are also there, the transformation of money into
capital, which raises the productivity of human labour
to the highest degree and revolutionises the world
within a few centuries to a greater degree than formerly
occurred in hundreds of thousands of years.
And so just as there are philosophers who believe
that the elements, brain and language, . intellectual
powers and ideas which form the connection between
sensation and movement are not simply means to
arrange this connection more conveniently for the indi
vidual and society, and thus apparently to increase their
strength, but that they are of themselves sprung from
independent sources of power, starting even from the
Creator of the world : so there are economists who
imagine that money brings about the circulation of
goods, and that as capital renders it possible to develop
human production enormously, it is this which is the
author of this circulation, the creator of these forces,
the producer of all values which are produced over and
above the product of the primitive handwork.
The theory of the productivity of capital rests on
a process of thought which is very similar to that of
the freedom of the will and the assumption of a moral
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ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
law, independent of time and space, which regulates
our action in time and space.
It was just as logical when Marx combated the one
process of thought as the other.
(b) War and Property.
A further means besides community in work and
language to strengthen the social impulses is formed
by the social development through the rise of war.
We have no reason to suppose that primitive man
was a warlike being. Herds of ape-men who gathered
together in the branches of trees with copious sources
of food may have squabbled and driven each other
away.. That this got so far as killing their opponents,
there is no example among the living apes of to-day.
Of male gorillas it is reported that they occasionally
fight each other with such fury that one kills the other,
but that is a fight for a wife not a fight for feeding
grounds.
That changes so soon as man becomes a hunter, who
has command of tools which are directed to killing,
and who has grown accustomed to killing, to the shed
ding of strange blood. Also another factor comes into
account, which Engels has already pointed out, to
explain the cannibalism which often comes up at this
period : the uncertainty of the sources of food. Vege
table food is. in the tropical forests in abundance; on
the grass plains, on the other hand, roots and fruits are
not always to be found, the capture of game is, more
over, for the most part a matter of chance. The
beasts of prey have thus acquired the capacity of being
able to fast for incredibly long periods. The human
stomach has not such powers of endurance. Thus
necessity easily forces a tribe of savages to a fight for
life or death with another neighbouring tribe, which
has got a good hunting territory.; then the passions
aroused by the fight and agonising hunger finally
drive them not simply to kill the foe but also to eat him.
In this way technical progress lets loose struggles
which the ape-man did not know; fights not with
animals of other kinds but with the members of his
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
89
own kind themselves : struggles, often more bloody
than those’ with the leopard and the panther, which at
least the bigger apes understand very well how to
defend themselves against when united in greater
numbers.
Nothing is more fallacious than the idea that the pro
gress of culture and increase of knowledge necessarily
bring also higher humanity with them. We could far
better say, the ape is more human, therefore more human
than man. Murder and slaughter of members of his
species from economic notions are products of culture ■
of technic in arms. And up to now the perfection of
these has ranked as a great part of the intellectual,,
labour of mankind.
Only under special circumstances and in special
classes will there be produced in the farther progress
of culture what we call the refinement of manners. The
progress in division of labour ascribes the task of
killing animals and men to certain ctesses—hunters,
butchers, executioners, soldiers, etc.—who then occupy
themselves with brutality or cruelty either as a sport
or as a business within the boundaries of civilisation.
Other classes are entirely relieved of the necessity, nay,
even the possibility of shedding blood. As, for in
stance, the vegetarian peasants in the river valleys of
India, who are prevented by nature from keeping great
herds of animals, and for whom the ox is too costly
as a beast of burden, or the cow as the giver of milk,
for them to be in a position to kill them. Even the
majority of the town inhabitants of the European
States, since the decay of the town republics and the
rise of paid armies as well as the rise of a special
class of butchers, are relieved of the necessity to take
life. Especially the intellectuals have been for cen
turies unused to the spilling of blood, which they
ascribe to their higher intelligence, which roused milder
feelings in them. But in the last century the increased
military service has become again a general institution
of most European States, and wars have again become
the wars of peoples, and with that the refinement of
manners among our intellectuals has reached its end.
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ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
They have become since then considerably more brutal;
the death penalty, which even in the last fifty years of
last century was generally condemned, meets with no
opposition any longer, and the cruelties of colonial wars,,
which fifty years ago, at least in Germany, would have
made their authors impossible, are excused to-day—
even glorified.
In any case, war among modern peoples ceases to
play the r61e it did among the nomadic pastoral and
hunting tribes. But if it produces cruelty and blood
thirstiness on the one hand, it shows itself on the other
as a powerful weapon to strengthen the bonds within
the family or society. The greater the dangers which
threaten the individual, so much the more dependent
does he feel himself upon his society, his family, his
class, who alone with their joint forces can protect
him. So much the greater the respect enjoyed by the
virtues of unselfishness or a bravery which will risk
life for the society. The more bloody the wars between
tribe and tribe, the more will the system of selection
have effect among them ; those tribes will assert them
selves best who have not only the strongest but also
the cleverest, the bravest, the most self-sacrificing and
best disciplined members to show. Thus war works in
primitive times in the most various manners to
strengthen the social instincts in men.
War, however, in the course of the social evolution
alters its forms : also its causes change.
Its first cause, the uncertainty of the sources of food,
ceases as soon as agriculture and the breeding of
animals are more developed. But then begins a new
cause of war : the possession of wealth. Not private
property, but the tribal property. Side by side with
tribes in fruitful regions we find others in unfruitful
ones; adjoining nomadic, water-searching and poor
shepherds, settled peasants to whom water had no
longer value, whose farming produced plentiful sur
pluses, etc. War now becomes robbery and defence
against robbery, and
has remained in essence the
same till to-day.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM
91
Even this kind of war has a strengthening effect on
the social instincts so long as the property in the tribe
is in the main communal. On the other hand, war seems
to strengthen the social instincts the more classes are
formed in the community, and becomes more and
more a simple affair of the ruling classes, whose en
deavours are aimed towards an increase in their sphere
of exploitation, or to put themselves in the place of
another ruling class on a neighbouring land. For the
subject classes in such wars it is often enough not
a question of their existence, and, occasionally, not
even a question of a better or worse standard of
life for them, but only who is to be their lord. The
army becomes either an aristocratic army, in which,
the mass of the people have no part, or when they
co-operate it becomes a paid or compulsory army,
which is commanded by the ruling classes, and they
must put their lives at stake not for their own pro
perty, their own wives and children, but to champion
the interests of others, often hostile interests. The
bond which holds such armies together is no longer
that of social interests, but solely fright of a remorse
lessly cruel penal code. They are divided by the hate
of the mass against the leaders, by the indifference,
even the mistrust of the latter against their subor
dinates.
At this stage war ceases to be for the mass of the
people a school of social feelings. In the ruling, war
rior classes it becomes a school of haughty, overbear
ing demeanour towards the governed classes, because
it teaches the ruling classes to treat the former just as
they do the common soldiers in the army, to degrade
them to blind subordination to an absolute commander,
and to dispose of their forces, nay, even their lives,
without any scruples.
This development of war is, as we have already said,
a consequence of the development of property, which
again arises from the technical development.
Every object which is produced in society, or by
means of which production is carried on in it, must be
at the disposal of someone, and either a group or a
�Q2
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
single individual can dispose of it, or the entire society.
The nature of this disposal is determined in the first
place by the nature of the things, the nature of the
method of production, and that of the producer, who
made and used his weapons himself, just as he pre
pared himself a garment or an ornament; while on
the. other hand, it was equally natural that the house
which was built by the common labour of the tribe
should be inhabited in common by them. The various
kinds of enjoyment of the various things for utility were
always allowed, and, being repeated from generation to
generation, became the fixed customs.
Thus arose a law of custom, which was then ex
tended still further in this way, that as often as quarrels
arose over this method of use, or about persons who
had this right to use, the assembled members of the
tribe decided. Law did not arise from any thought-out
legislation or social compact, but from a custom resting
on the technical conditions, and where these did not
suffice, on individual decisions of the society, which
decided each case by itself. Thus arose, little by little,
a complicated right of property in the various means
of production and products of society.
Common property, however, preponderated in the
beginning, especially in the means of production—a soil
worked in . common, water apparatus, houses, also
herds of animals and other things besides. Even this
small degree of communism was bound to very largely
strengthen the social impulses, the interest in the com
mon good, and also increase the subordination to the
same and the dependence on the same.
Very differently did the private property of single
families or individuals work out, so soon as it arrived
at such a pitch that it began to usurp the place of
common property. That began when, in consequence
of the growing division of labour, the various branches
of hand work began to separate themselves from agri
culture, in which they had hitherto found a large
employment; when they became more and more inde
pendent and separated into branches.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
93
This development meant an extension of the sphere
of society through the division of labour—an extension
of the number of those men who thereby form a society
because they work for each other, and thus are materi
ally dependent for their existence on each other. But
this extension of the social labour does not develop
OH the lines of an extension of work in common, but
towards a separation of individuals from the common
work and to making their work the private work of
independent producers, who produce that which they
themselves do not consume, and obtain in return the
products of other branches to consume them.
Thus at this stage the common production and
common property in the means of production of socie
ties, each in the main satisfying its own wants, for
example, the mark or at least the home community,
was bound to give way before the individual production
and property of single individuals, or married couples
With children, who produced commodities, not for their
own use but for the market.
With that there arose side by side with private pro
perty, which had already existed at an earlier period,
even if not to so great an extent, an entirely new
element in society : the competitive struggle of the
different producers of the same kind, who struggle
against each other for their share of the market..
War and competition are often regarded as the only
forms of the struggle for existence in the entire natural
world. In reality, both arise from the technical prog
ress of mankind, and belong to its special peculiarity.
■Both are distinguished from the struggle for existence
of the animal world in that the latter is a struggle
of individuals or entire societies against the surround
ing nature ; a fight against living and inanimate forces
of nature in which those best fitted for the particular
circumstances can best maintain themselves and
reproduce their kind. But it is not a fight for life or
death against other individuals of the same kind, with
the exception of a few beasts of prey, even with
whom the last kind of struggle plays only a second
ary part in the struggle for life, with the exception
�<94
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
•of the struggle for sexual natural selection. With
men alone, thanks to the perfection of their tools, the
struggle against individuals of the same kind to main
tain themselves in the struggle for life is developed.
But even then there is a great distinction between
wars and the struggle for existence.
The first is
■a struggle which breaks out between two- different
societies ; it means an interruption of production, and
thus can never be a permanent institution. But at the
same time it necessitates, at least where no great class
antagonisms exist, the strongest social cohesion, and
thus encourages in the highest degree the social in
stincts. Competition, on the other hand, is a struggle
between individuals, and indeed between individuals
of the same society. This struggle is a regulator—
although certainly a most peculiar one—which keeps the
social co-operation of the various individuals going, and
arranges that in the last resort these private producers
shall always produce what is socially necessary, that is,
what is under the given social conditions necessary.
If war forms an occasional interruption of production,
so does the struggle for life form its constant and neces
sary companion in the production of wares.
Just as war so does competition mean a tremendous
waste of force, but it has been at the same time a means
by which to extort the highest degree of tension of
all the productive forces and their most rapid improve
ment.
It has consequently had a great economic
importance, and has created such gigantic produc
tive forces that the framework of commodity produc
tion becomes too narrow, as at one time the frame
work of the primitive social or co-operative, production
became too narrow for the growing division of labour.
But over-production, no less than the artificial limita
tion of production by employers’ associations, shows
that the time is past when competition as a spur to
production helps on social evolution.
But it has always done even this only because it
drove it on to the greatest possible expansion of
production.
On the other hand, the competitive
struggle between individuals of the same society has
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
95
under all circumstances an absolutely deadly effect on
the social instincts. Since in this struggle each one
asserts himself so much the better the less he allows
himself to be led by social considerations, the more
exclusively he has his own interest in view. For men
under a developed system of production of commodities
it seems only too clear that egoism is the only natural
impulse in man, and that the social impulses are only
a refined egoism, or an invention of priests to get
mastery over man, or to be regarded as a supernatural
mystery. If in the society of to-day the social impulses
have kept any strength, it is only due to the circum
stance that general commodity production is quite a
young phenomenon, hardly ioo years old, and that in
the degree in which the primitive democratic com
munism disappears, and therewith war ceases to be a
source of social impulses, a new source of the same
breaks forth so much the stronger—the class war of
the forward-struggling exploited classes of the people ;
a war not by paid soldiers, not by conscripts, but by
volunteers—not for other people’s interests, but fought
in the interests of their own class.
4-—The Influence of
the
Social Instincts.
(a) Internationalism.
The sphere in which the social instincts develop
changes at a far quicker rate than the degree of
strength of these instincts themselves. The traditional
Ethics looked on the moral law as the force which
regulates the relations of man to man. Since this view
sets out from the individual and not from society, it
entirely overlooks the fact that the moral law does
not regulate the intercourse of men with every other
man, but simply with men of the same society. That
it only holds good for these will be comprehensible
when we recollect the origin of the social instincts.
They are a means to increase the social cohesion, to
add to the strength of society. The animal has social
instincts only for the members of his own herd, the
other herds are more or less indifferent to him. Among
�96
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
social beasts of prey we find direct hostility to the
members of other herds. Thus the pariah dogs of
Constantinople in every street look very carefully out
that no other dog comes into the district. It would be
at once chased away, or even torn to pieces.
At a similar relation do the human herds arrive so
soon as hunting and war rise in their midst. One of
the most important forms of the struggle for exist
ence is now for them the struggle of the herd against
other herds of the same kind. The man who is not a
member of the same society becomes a direct enemy.
The social impulses not only do not hold good for him
but directly oppose him. The stronger they are so much
the better does the tribe hold together against the
common foe, so much the more energetically do they
fight the latter. The social virtues, mutual help, self
sacrifice, love of truth, etc., apply only to fellow-tribes
men, not to the members of another society. It excited
much resentment against me when I stated these facts
in the “ Neue Zeit,” and my statement was interpreted
as if I had attempted to establish a special Social Demo
cratic principle in opposition to the principles of the
eternal moral law, which demands unconditional truth
fulness to all men. In reality I have only stated that
which has existed as the moral law within our breasts
from the time when our forefathers became men,
viz., that over against the enemy the social virtues are
not required. There is no need, however, on that
account that anybody should be especially indignant
with the Social-Democracy, because there is no party
which interprets the idea of society more widely than
they, the party of Internationalism, which draws all
nations, all races into the sphere of their solidarity. If
the moral law applies only to members of our own
society, the extent of the latter is still by no means fixed
once for all. Rather does it increase in proportion to
the degree in which the division of labour progresses ;
the productivity of human labour increases as do
the means of human intercourse improve.
The
number of people increase whom a certain ter
ritory can support, who are bound to work in a
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
gy
certain territory for one another and with one another,
and who thus are socially bound together. But also the
number of the territories increase whose inhabitants
live in connection with each other, in order to work for
each other and form one social union. Finally, the
range of the territories entering into fixed social
dependence on each other and forming a perma<nent
social organisation with a common language, common
customs, common laws, extends also.
After the death of Alexander of Macedon, the peoples
of the Eastern Mediterranean had formed already an
international circle, with an international language__
Greek.
After the rise of the Romans all the lands
round the Mediterranean became a still wider inter
national circle, in which the national distinctions
disappeared, and who held themselves to be the repre
sentatives of humanity.
The new religion of the circle which took the place
of the old national religions was, from the very begina world religion with one God, who embraced the
entire world, and before whom all men were equal.
1 his religion applied itself to all religions, and declared
them all to be children of one God, all workers.
But in fact the moral law held good even here only
for the members of their own circle of culture—for
“Christians,” for “believers.” And the centre of
gravity in Christianity came ever more and more to
wards the North and West during the migration of the
peoples. In the South and East there formed itself a
new circle of culture with its own morality—that of
Islam which forced its way forward in Asia and
Africa, as the Christian one had done in Europe.
Now, however, this last expanded itself, thanks to
capitalism, ever more and more to a universal civilisa
tion which embraced Buddhists, Moslems, Parsees,
Brahmins, as well as Christians, who more and more
ceased to be real Christians.
Thus becomes formed a foundation for the final
lealisation of that moral conception already expressed
by Christianity, although too prematurely to be able
to be realised itself for the majority of Christians, for
H
�g8
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
whom it in consequence became a mere phrase ; this
was the conception of the equality of men, the
view that the social instincts, the moral vir
tues are to be exercised towards all men in
equal fashion. The foundation of a general human
morality is being formed not by a moral improvement
of humanity, whatever we are to understand by that,
but by the development of the productive forms of man,
by the extension of the social division of human labour,
the perfection of the means of intercourse. This new
morality is, however, even to-day, far from being a
morality of all men, even in the economically progressive
countries. It is in essence, even to-day, the morality
of the class-conscious proletariat ; that part of the pro
letariat which in its feeling and thinking has emanci
pated itself from the rest of the people, and has formed
its own morality in opposition to that of the bour
geoisie.
Certainly it is capital which creates the material
foundation for a general human morality, but. it only
creates the foundation by treading this morality con
tinually under its feet. The capitalist nations of the
circle of European Society spread this by widening
their sphere of exploitation, which is only possible by
means of force. They thus create the foundations of a
future world peace by war ; the foundations of the
universal solidarity of the nations by a universal exploi
tation of all nations, and those of the drawing in of all
colonial lands into the circle of European culture by the
oppression of all colonial lands with the worst and
most forcible weapons of a most brutal barbarism.
The proletariat alone, who have no share in the capi
talist exploitation, fight it, and must fight it, and
they will, on the foundation laid down by capital of
world intercourse and world commerce, create a form
of society, in which the equality of man before the
moral law will—instead of a mere pious wish—become
reality.
(b) The Class Division.
But if the economic development thus tends to
widen the circle of society within which the social
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
99
impulses and virtues have effect till it embraces finally
the whole of humanity, it at the same time creates not
only private interests within society which are capable
of considerably diminishing the effect of these social
impulses for the time, but also special classes of society,
which, while within their own narrow circle greatly
intensifying the strength of the social instincts and
virtues, at the same time, however, can materially
injure their value for the other members of the entire
society, or at least for the opposing sections or classes.
The formation of classes is also a product of the
division of labour. Even the animal is no homogene
ous formation. Among them there are already various
groups which have a different importance in and for
the community. Yet the group formation still rests on
the natural distinctions. There are, in the first place,
those of sex and of age. Then there are the groups
of the children, the youths of both sexes, the adults,
and, finally, the aged. The discovery of the tool has at
first the. effect of emphasising still more the separation
o certain of these groups. Thus it came about that
unting and war fell to the men, who were more easily
able to get about than the women, who are continually
burdened with children. That, and not any inferior
power of self-defence, it was, probably, which made
hunting and fighting a monopoly of man. Wherever in
history and fable we come across female huntresses and
warriors, they are always the unmarried. Women do
not lack in strength, endurance, or courage, but
maternity is not easily to be reconciled with the in
secure life of the hunter and warrior. As, however
motherhood drives the women rather to continually
stay in one place, those duties fall to her which require
a settled life, the planting of field fruits, the main
tenance of the family hearth, etc.
According to the importance which hunting and war,
or, on the other side, agriculture and domestic life’
attain for society, and according to the part which
each of the two sexes play in either, the importance
and relative respect paid to the man and woman
in the social life also changes. But even the importH2
�IOO
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
ance of the various ages depends on the method of pro
duction. Does hunting preponderate, which renders the
sources of food very precarious and from time to time
necessitates great migrations, the old people become
easily a burden to the society. They are often killed,
sometimes even eaten. It is different when the people
are settled ; the breeding of animals and agriculture
produce a more plentiful return. Now the old people
can remain at home, and there is no lack of food for
them. There is, however, at the same time a great
sum of experiences and knowledge stored up, whose
guardians, so long as writing was not discovered or
become the common property of the people, are the old
folk. They are the handers down of what might be
called the beginning of science. Thus they are not
now looked on as a painful burden, but honoured as the
bearers of a higher wisdom.
Writing and printing
deprives the old people of the privilege to incorporate
in their persons the sum of all experiences and tradi
tions of the society. The continual revolutionising of
all experience, which is the characteristic feature of
the modern system of production, makes the old tradi
tions even hostile to the new. The latter counts, with
out any further ado, as the better : the old as antiquated,
and hence bad. The old only receives sympathy ; it
enjoys no longer any prestige. There is now no higher
praise for an old man, than that he is still young and
still capable of taking in new ideas.
As with the respect paid to the sexes, so does the
respect paid to the various ages alter in society with the
various methods of production.
The progressive division of labour carries them
further ; distinctions appear within each sex, but chiefly
among the men. The woman is, in the first place,
more and more tied to the household, whose range
diminishes instead of growing, as more and more
branches of production break away from it, becoming
independent and a domain of the men.
Technical
progress, division of labour, the separation into trades
were up till last century almost exclusively restricted to
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
IOI
men; only a few reflections from that affected the
household and, consequently, woman’s work.
The more this separation into different professions
advances, the more complicated does the social organ
ism become, whose organs they form. The nature and
method of their co-operation in the fundamental social
process, in other words, the method of production,
has nothing of chance about it. It is quite independent
of the will of the individuals, and is necessarily deter
mined by the given material conditions. Among these
the technical factor is again the most important, and
whose development causes that of the method of pro
duction. But it is not the only one.
Let us take an example. The materialist conception
of history has been often understood as if certain techni
cal conditions of themselves meant a certain method of
production, nay even certain social and political forms.
As that, however, is not exact, since the same tools
are to be found in various states of society ; there
fore, it is argued, the materialist conception of his
tory must be false, and the social relations are not
determined by the technical conditions. The objection
is right, but it does not hit the materialist conception
of history, but its caricature, by a confusion of techni
cal conditions and method of production.
It has been said, for instance, the plough forms the
foundation of the peasant economy. But manifold are
the social circumstances in which this appears ’
Certainly. But let us look a little more closely.
What brings about the deviations of the various forms
of society which arise on the peasant foundations ?
Let us take, for example a peasantry which lives on
the banks of a great tropical or sub-tropical river,
which periodically floods its banks, bringing either
decay or fruitfulness to the soil. Water dams, etc.,
will be required to keep the water back here, and to
guide it there. The single village is not able to carry
out such works by itself. A number of them must co
operate, and supply labourers ; common officials must
be appointed, with a commission to set the labour going
for making and maintaining the works. The bigger
�102
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
the undertaking the more villages must take a part; the
greater the number of the forced labourers the greater
the special knowledge required to conduct such works,
so- much the greater the power and knowledge of the
leading officials compared with the rest of the popula
tion. Then there grows on the foundation of a peasant
economy a priest or official class, as in the river plains
of the Nile, the Euphrates, or the Whang-Ho.
Another species of development we find there : where
a flourishing peasant economy has settled in fruitful,
accessible lands in the neighbourhood of robbers—
nomadic tribes. The necessity of guarding themselves
against these nomads forces the peasants to form a
force of guards, which can be done in various ways.
Either a part of the peasantry applies itself to the trade
of arms and separates itself from the others who yield
them services in return, or the robber neighbours are
induced by payment of a tribute to keep the peace and
to protect their new proteges from other robbers, or,
finally, the robbers conquer the land and remain as
lords over the peasantry, on whom they levy a tribute,
for which, . however, they provide a protective force.
The result is always the same—the rise of a new feudal
nobility which rules and exploits the peasants.
Occasionally the first and second methods of develop
ment unite, then we have, besides a priest and official
class, a warrior caste.
Again, quite differently does the peasantry develop
on a sea with good harbours, which favour sea voyages,
and bring them closer to other coasts with well-to-do
populations. By the side of agriculture, fishing arises ;
fishing which soon passes over into war-piracy and sea
commerce.
At a particularly suitable spot for a
harbour is gathered together plunder and merchants*
goods, and there is formed a town of rich merchants.
Here the peasant finds a market for his goods ; now
arise for him money receipts, and also the expenditure
of money, money obligations, debts. Soon he is the
debtor of the money owners in the town.
Sea piracy and sea commerce, as well as sea war,
bring, however, a plentiful supply of slaves into the
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
103
country. ■ The town money owners, instead of exploit
ing their peasant debtors any further, go to work to
drive them from their possessions, to unite into great
plantations, and to introduce slave work for the
peasant, without any change being required in the tools
and instruments of agriculture.
Finally, we see a fourth type of peasant development
in inaccessible mountain regions. The soil there is
poor and difficult to cultivate. By the side of agricul
ture, the breeding of stock retains the preponderance.
Nevertheless, both are not sufficient to sustain a
great increase of population. At the foot of the
mountains, fruitful, well-tilled lands tempt them. The
mountain peasants will make the attempt to conquer
and exploit them, or, where they meet with resist
ance, to hire out their superfluous population as paid
soldiers. Their experience in war, in combination with
the poverty and inaccessibility of their land, serves to
guard it against foreign invaders, to whom in any
case its poverty offers no great temptation.
There
the old peasant democracy still exists, when all around
the peasantry have long become dependent on feudal
lords, priests, merchants and usurers. Occasionally
a primitive democracy of that kind tyrannises and ex
ploits a neighbouring country which they have con
quered, in marked contradiction to their own highlyvalued liberty. Thus the old cantons of the fatherland
of William Tell exercised through their bailiffs in Tessin
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a rule, whose
crushing weight could compare with that of the tyran
nical Geisler.
It will be seen that very different methods of pro
duction are compatible with the peasant economy.
How are these differences to be explained?
The
opponents of the materialist conception of history trace
them back to force, or again to the difference of the
ideas which form themselves at various periods in the
various peoples.
Now it is certain that in the erection of all these
methods of production force played a great part, and
Marx called it the midwife of every new society. But
�104
ETHICS
and the materialist conception of history.
whence comes this monopoly of force? How does it
come that one section of the people conquers with it
and the other not, and that the force produces this and
not other results? To all these question^the for«
theory has no answer to give. And equally by the
heory of ideas does it remain a mystery where the
clTntrv
f™™wh!ch. Iead to freedom in the mountain
c untry, to priest rule in the river valley land, to money
and slave economy on the shores of the sea, and in hilly
undulating countries to feudal serfdom.
7
We have seen that these differences in the develop
ment of the same peasant system rest on differences in the
natural and social surroundings in which this system is
placed. According to the nature of the land, according
to the description of its neighbours will the peasant
system of economy be the foundation of very different
social forms. These special social forms become, then
side by side with the natural factors, further founda
tions, which give a peculiar form to the development
based on them. Thus the Germans found when they
burst in on the Roman Empire during the migration of
the peoples, the Imperial Government with its bureau
cracy, the municipal system, the Christian Church, as
social conditions, and these, as well as they could, they
incorporated into their system.
All these geographical and historical conditions have
to be studied if the particular method of production in
a land at a particular time is to be understood. The
knowledge of its technical conditions aloqe does not
suffice.
It will be seen that the materialist conception of his
tory is not such a simple formula as its critics usually
conceive it to be. The examples here given show us,
however, also, how class differences and class antag
onisms are produced by the economic development.
Differences not simply between individuals, but also
between individual groups within the society, existed
already in the animal world, as we have remarked
already distinctions in the strength, the reputation,
perhaps even of the material position of individuals and
groups. Such distinctions are natural, and will be
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
hardly likely to disappear even in a Socialist society.
The discovery of tools, the division of labour and its
consequences—in short, the economic development con
tributes still further to increase such difference, or even
to create new.
In any case, they cannot exceed a
certain narrow limit, so long as the social labour does
not yield a surplus over that necessary to the main
tenance of the members of the society. As long as that
is not the case, no idlers can be maintained at the cost
of society, none can get considerably more in social
products than the other. At the same time, however,
there arise at this very stage, owing to the increasing
enmity of the tribes to each other and the bloody
method of settling their differences, as well as through
the common labour and the common property, so many
new factors through which the social instincts are
strengthened that the small jealousies and differences
.arising between the families, the different degrees of
age, or the various callings can just as little bring a
split in the community as that between individuals.
Despite the beginnings of division of labour which are
to be found there, human society was never more
closely bound up together, or more in unison than at
the time of the primitive Gentile co-operative society,
which preceded the beginning of class antagonisms.
Things, however, alter so soon as social labour
begins, in consequence of its necessary productivity,
to produce a surplus. Now it becomes possible for
single individuals and professions to secure for them
selves permanently a greater sh^re in the social product
than the others can secure. Single individuals, only
seldom, temporarily, and as a matter of exception, will
be able to achieve that for themselves alone ; on the
-other hand, it is very obvious that any classes specially
favoured in any particular manner by the circum
stances—for example, such as are conferred by special
knowledge or special powers of self-defence, can
acquire the strength to permanently appropriate the
social surplus for themselves. Property in the products
is narrowly bound up with property in the means of
production ; who possesses the latter can dispose of the
�106
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
former.
The endeavours to monopolise the social
surplus by the privileged class produces in it the desire
to monopolise and take sole possession of the means of
production. The forms of this monopoly can be very
diverse, either common ownership of the ruling class
or caste, or private property of the individual families
or individuals of this class.
In one way or another the mass of the workings
people become disinherited, degraded to slaves, serfs,
wage labourers ; and with the loss of common property
in the means of production and their use in common is
the strongest bond torn asunder which held primitive
society together.
And if the social distinctions which managed to form
themselves within primitive society were kept within
narrow limits, now the class distinctions, which can form
themselves, have practically no limit. They can grow
on the one side through the technical progress which
increases the surplus of the product of the social labour
over the amount necessary to the simple maintenance
of society ; on the other hand, through the expansion
of the community, while the number of the exploiters
remains the same or even decreases, the number of
those working and producing surplus for each ex
ploiter grows. In this way the class distinctions can
enormously increase, and with them grow the social
antagonisms.
In the degree in which thife development advances,
society grows more and more divided, the class war be
comes the principal, most general and continuous form
of the struggle of the individuals for life in human
society ; in the same degree the social instincts lose
strength, but they become so much the stronger within
that class whose welfare is on the whole always more
and more identical with that of the commonweal.
It is, however, specially the exploited, oppressed,
and uprising classes in whom the class war strengthens
thus the social instincts and virtues ; and that because
they are obliged to put their whole personality into this
with much more intensity than the ruling classes, whoare often in a position to leave their defence, be it with
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
IO~
the weapons of war, or with the weapons of the
intellect, to hirelings.
Besides that, however, the
ruling classes are often internally deeply divided
through the struggles between themselves for the social
surplus, and over the means of production. One of the
strongest causes of that kind of division we have
learned in the battle of competition.
All these factors, which work against the social in
stincts, find no, or little, soil in the exploited classes.
The smaller this soil, the less property that the strug
gling classes have, the more they are forced back on
their own strength, the stronger do their members feel
their solidarity against the ruling classes, and the
stronger do their own social feelings towards their own
class grow.
5.—The Tenets of Morality.
(a) Custom and Convention.
We have seen that the economic development intro
duces into the moral factors transmitted from the
animal world an element of pronounced mutability, in
that it gives a varying degree of force to the social
instincts and virtues at different times, and also at the
Same time in different classes; that it, however, in*
addition, widens, and then again narrows down the
scope within which the social impulses have effect ; on
the one side expanding its influence from the tiny tribe
till it embraces the entire humanity, on the other side
limiting it to a certain class within the society.
But the same economic development creates in addi
tion a special moral factor, which did not exist at all in
the animal world, and is the most changeable of all,
since not only its strength, but also its contents are
subject to far-reaching change. These are the tenets
of morality.
In the animal world we find only strong moral feel
ings, but no distinct moral precepts which are ad
dressed to the individual.
That assumes that a
language has been formed, which can describe not only
impressions but also things, or at least actions ; a
language for whose existence in the animal world all!
�108
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
signs fail, for which also a need first arises with the
common work. Then is it possible to address distinct
-demands to the individual. If these demands arise
from individual and exceptional needs, then they will
again disappear with the individual exceptional case.
If on the other hand they have their origin in the social
relations, they will recur again and again, so long as
these relations last; and in the beginnings of society,
where the development is very slow, one can allow
hundreds of thousands of years for the endurance of
particular social conditions. The social demands on
the individual repeat themselves so often and so regularly, that they become a habit, to which the tendency
is finally inherited, as the tendency to peculiar kinds of
hunting by the sporting dogs, so that certain sugges
tions suffice to arouse the habit in the descendants as
well; also, for instance, the feeling of shame, the habit
of covering certain portions of the body whose nude
state appears immoral.
Thus arise demands on the individual from society
which are more numerous the more complicated is
society, and these demands, finally by force of habit,
become, without any further ado, recognised as moral
commands.
From this customary character many materialist
ethical writers have concluded that the entire being of
morals rests alone on custom. With that it is, never
theless, by no means exhausted. In the first place
only such views become, through habit, moral com
mands, which favour the consideration of the individual
for the society, and regulate his conduct to other men.
It may be brought against this, that there are individual
vices which count as immoral, yet their original con
demnation was certainly also in the interest of society.
Thus, for example, masturbation, if general, must pre
judice the chance of securing a numerous progeny—
and such a progeny appeared then, when Malthus had
not yet spoken, as one of the weightiest foundations of
the well-being and progress of society.
In the Bible (Genesis XXXVIII.) Onan was killed by
Jehovah because he allowed his spermatozoa to fall to
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
IOC/
the ground instead of attending to his duty and having
intercourse with the wife of his dead brother, so as to
raise up seed for the latter.
The moral rules could only for this reason become
customs because they met deep-lying, ever-recurring
social needs. Finally, however, a simple custom can
not explain the force of the feeling of duty, which often
shows itself more powerful than all the demands of self
preservation. The customary element in morals only
has the effect that certain rules are forthwith recognised
as moral, but it does not produce the social instincts
which compel the performance of demands recognised
as moral laws.
Thus, for example, it is a matter of habit that counts
it as disreputable when a girl shows herself in her
nightgown to a man, even when this garment goes
down to the feet, and takes in the neck, while it is no
way improper if a girl appears in the evening with a
much uncovered bosom at a ball before all the world,
or if she, in a watering-place, in a wet bathing-dress
exposes herself to the lecherous gaze of men of the
world. But only the force of the social instincts can
bring it about that a sternly moral girl should at no
price submit to that which convention, fashion, custom
—in short, society—has once stamped as shameless
ness, and that she should occasionally even prefer death
itself to that which she regards as shame.
Other moralists have carried the idea of the moral
regulations as simple customs still farther, and de
scribed them as simple conventional fashions, basing
this on the phenomena that every nation, nay each
class has its own particular moral conceptions which,
often stand in absolute contradiction to others, that,
consequently, an absolute moral law has no validity.
It has been concluded from that that morality is only
a changing fashion, which only the thoughtless philis
tine crowd respect, but which the superman can and
must raise himself above as things that appertain to
the ordinary throng.
But not only are the social instincts something abso
lutely not conventional, but something deeply grounded
�HO
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
in human nature—the nature of man as a social animal ;
even the moral tenets are nothing arbitrary, but arise
from social needs.
It is certainly not possible in every case to fix the
condition between certain moral conceptions and the
social relations from which they arose. The individual
takes moral precepts from his social surroundings with
out being aware of their social causes. The moral law
becomes, then, habit to him, and appears to him as an
emanation of his own spiritual being, a priori given to
him, without any practical root. Only scientific in
vestigation can gradually show up in a series of laws
the relations between particular forms of society and
particular moral precepts, and then much remains dark.
The social forms from which moral principles arose, and
which still hold good at a later period, often lie far
back, in very primitive times. Besides that, to under
stand a moral law, not only the social need must be
understood which called it forth, but also the peculiar
thought of the society which created it.
Every
method of production is connected not only with par
ticular tools and particular social relations, but also
with the particular content of knowledge, with par
ticular powers of intelligence, a particular view of cause
and effect, a particular logic—in short, a particular
form of thought.
To understand earlier modes of
thought is, however, uncommonly difficult, much more
difficult than to understand the needs of another or his
own society.
All the same, however, the connection between the
tenets of morals and the social needs has been already
proved by so many practical examples that we can
accept it as a general rule. If, however, this connection
exists, then, an alteration of society must necessitate an
alteration in many moral precepts. Their change is
thus not only nothing strange, it would be much more
strange if with the change of the cause the effect did
not also change.
These changes are necessary for
that very reason, because every form of society requires
certain moral precepts suited for its condition.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
Ill
How diverse and changing are the moral rules is well
known.
Hence one example suffices to illustrate a
morality differing from the present-day European.
Fridtjof Nansen gives us in the tenth chapter of his
” Eskimo Life,” a very fascinating picture of Eskimo
morals, from which I take a few passages.
“ One of the most beautiful and marked features in
the character of the Eskimo is certainly his honourable
ness. .... For the Eskimo it has especial value
that he should be able to rely on his fellows and neigh
bours. In order, however, that this mutual confidence,
without which common action in the battle for life is
impossible, should continue, it is necessary that he
should act honourably to others as well. ... For the
same reasons they do not lie readily to each other, espe
cially the men. A touching proof of that is the following
feature related by Dalajer : ‘ If they have to describe to
each other anything, they are very careful not to paint
it more beautiful than it deserves.
Nay, if anyone
wants to buy anything which he has not seen, the seller
describes the thing, however much he may wish to sell
it, always as something less good than it is.’ ”
The morals of advertising are unknown for the
Eskimos as yet. Certainly that applies to their inter
course with each other. To strangers they are less
strict.
“ Fisticuff fights and that sort of ruffianism is not to
be seen among them.” Murder is also a great rarity,
“ and where it happens is not a consequence of econo
mic quarrels but of love affairs.” They consider it
dreadful to kill a fellow man. War is, hence, quite
incomprehensible to them, and abominable; their
language has not even a word for it; and soldiers and
officers who have been trained to the calling of killing
people are to them simply butchers of men.'
“ One of the commandments against which the
Greenlanders oftenest sin is the seventh. Virtue and
chastity do not stand in great esteem in Greenland.
Many look on it (on the West Coast) as no great shame
if an unmarried girl has children. While we were in
Gothard two girls there were pregnant, but they in
�112
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
no way concealed it, and seemed, from the evident
proof that they were not looked down on, to be
almost proud. But even of the South Coast Holm says
that it is there no shame if an unmarried crirl has
children.
&
Egede also says that the women look on it as an
especial bit of luck and a great honour to have intimate
connection with an Angekok—that is, one of their
prophets and wise men and adds : Even many men are
glad, and will pay the Angekok for sleeping with
their wives, especially if they themselves cannot have
children by them.”
“ The freedom of Eskimo women is thus very different
to that appertaining to the Germanic woman.
The
reason certainly lies in the fact that while the main
tenance of the inheritance of the race and family has
always played a great r61e with the Germans, this has
no importance for the Eskimo, because he has nothing
to inherit, and for him the main point is to have
children.
“ We naturally look on this morality as bad. That,
however, is by no means to say that it is so for the
Eskimos. We must absolutely guard against con
demning from our standpoint views which have been
developed through many generations and after long
experience by a people, however much they contradict
our own. The views of good and bad are extraordi
narily different on this earth. As an example, I might
quote that when Mr. Egede had spoken to an Eskimo
girl of love of God and our neighbour, she said, ‘ I
have proved that I love my neighbour, because an old
woman who was ill and could not die, begged me that
I would take her, for a payment, to the steep cliff from
which those always are thrown who can live no more.
And,. because I love my people, I took her there for
nothing, and threw her down from the rocks.’
“ Egede thought that this was a bad act, and said
that she had murdered a human being. She said no, she
had had great sympathy with the old woman, and had
wept as she fell. Are we to call this a good or bad act ?
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
113
“We have seen that the necessity of killing old and
sick members of society very easily arises with a
limited food supply, and this killing becomes, then,
signalised as a moral act.
“ When the same Egede said that God punished the
wicked, an Eskimo said to him he also belonged to
those who punished the wicked since he had killed three
■old women who were witches.
“ The same difference in the conception of good and
bad is to be seen in regard to the Seventh Command
ment. The Eskimo puts the commandment, ‘ Be fruit
ful and multiply ’ higher that chastity. He has every
reason for that as his race is by nature less prolific.”
Finally, a quotation from a letter sent by a converted
Eskimo to Paul Egede, who worked in the middle of
the eighteenth century in Greenland as a missionary,
and found the Eskimo morals almost untouched by
European influence.
This Eskimo had heard of the
Colonial wars between the English and Dutch, and
expresses his horror over this inhumanity.
“ If we have only so much food that we can satisfy
our hunger, and get enough skin to keep out the cold,
we are contented, and thou thyself knowest that we
let the next day look after itself. We would not on
that account carry war on the sea, even if we could.
.... We can say the sea that washes our coasts
belongs to us as well as the walruses, whales, seals
and salmon swimming in it, still we have no objection
when others take what they require from the great
supply, as they require it. We have the great luck
not to be so greedy by nature as them............. It is
really astonishing, my dear Paul! Your people know
that there is a God, the ruler and guider of all things,
that after this life they will be either happy or damned,
according as they have behaved themselves, and yet
they live as though they had been ordered to be wicked,
and as if sin would bring them advantage and honour.
My countrymen know nothing either of God or Devil,
and yet they behave respectably, deal kindly and
friendly with each other, tell each other everything, and
’create their means of existence in common.”
I
�1 14
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
It is the opposition of the morality of a primitive
communism to capitalist morality which appears here.
But still another distinction arises. In the Eskimo,
society the theory and practice of morality agree with
one another ; in capitalist society a division exists be
tween the two. The ground for that we will soon
learn.
(b) The System of Production and Its Superstructure.
The moral rules alter with the society, yet not unin
terruptedly, and not in the same fashion and degree as
the social needs. They become promptly recognised
and felt as rules of conduct because they have become
habitual. Once they have taken root as such, they can
then for a long time lead an independent life, while
technical progress advances, and therewith the develop
ment of the method of production and the transforma
tion of the social needs goes on.
It is with the principles of morality as with the rest
of the complicated sociological superstructure which
raises itself on the method of production, it can break
away from its foundation and lead an independent life
for a time.
The discovery of this fact has relieved all those
elements who could not escape the influence of the
Marxian thought, but to whom nevertheless the con
sequences of the economic development are extremely
awkward, and who in the manner of Kant would like to
smuggle in the spirit as an independent driving power
in the development of the social organism. . To these
the discovery of the fact that the intellectual factors
of society can temporarily work independently in it was
very convenient. With that they hoped to have finally
found the wished-for reciprocal action—the economic
factor working on the spirit and the spirit on the econo
mic factor. Both were to rule the social development ;
either in the manner that at one period the economic
factor, at another, again, the spiritual force drives the
society forward, or in the manner that both together
and side by side produce a common result, that, in
other words, our will and wishes can at least occa-
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
IX5
sionally break through the hard economic necessity of
their own strength, and can change it.
Undoubtedly there is a reciprocal action between the
economic basis and its spiritual superstructure—
morality, religion, art, etc. We do not speak here of
the intellectual influence of inventions, that belongs to
the technical conditions in which the spirit plays a part
ultimately by the side of the tool ; technic is the con
scious discovery and application of tools by thinking
men.
Like the other ideological factors morality can also
advance the economic and social development. Just in
this lies its social importance.
Since certain social
rules arise from certain social needs, they will render
the social co-operation so much the more easy the
better they are adapted to the society which makes
them.
Morality thus reacts on the social life. But that
only holds good so long as it is dependent upon the
latter, as it meets the social needs from which it
sprang.
As soon as morality begins to lead a life independent
of society, as soon as it is no longer controlled by the
latter, the reaction takes on another character. The
further it is now developed the more is that develop
ment purely logical and formal. As soon as it is cut
off from the influence of the outer world it can create
no more new conceptions but only arrange those
already attained, so that the contradictions disappear
from them. Getting rid of the contradictions, winning
a . unitary conception, solving all problems which,
arise from the contradictions, that is the work of the
thinking spirit.
With that it can, however, only
secure the intellectual superstructure already set up,
not rise superior to itself. Only the appearance of new
contradictions, new problems, can affect a new develop
ment. . The human spirit does not, however, create
contradictions from its own inner being ; they are pro
duced in it only by the impress of the surrounding world
on it.
12
�Il6
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
As soon as the moral principles grow independent,
they cease to be, in consequence, an element of social
progress.
They ossify, become a conservative ele
ment, an obstacle to progress. Thus can that happen
in the human society which is impossible in the animal,
morality can become, instead of an indispensable social
bond, the means of an intolerable restraint on social
life. That is also a reciprocal action, but not one in
the sense of our anti-materialist moralists.
The contradictions between distinct moral principles
and distinct social needs can arrive at a certain degree
of intensity in primitive society ; they then become,
however, still greater with the appearance of class
antagonism.
If in the society without classes
the adherence to particular moral principles is
only a matter of habit, it only requires for
them supervision that the force of habit be over
come.
From now on the maintenance of par
ticular moral principles becomes a matter of interest,
often of a very powerful interest. And now appear,
also weapons of force, of physical compulsion to keep
down the exploited classes, and this means of compul
sion is placed also at the service of ‘ ‘ morality, ’ ’ to
secure obedience to moral principles which are in the
interest of the ruling classes.
The classless society needs no such compulsory
weapons. Certainly, even in it the social instincts do
not always suffice to achieve the observance by every
individual of the moral code; the strength of the social
impulses is very different in the different individuals,
and just as different to that of the other instincts : those
of self-maintenance and reproduction. The first do not
always win the upper hand. But as a means of com
pulsion, of punishment for others, public opinion—the
opinion of the society—suffices in such cases for the
classless society. It does not create in us the moral
law, the feeling of duty. Conscience works in us when
no one sees us, and the power of public opinion is
entirely excluded ; it can even, under circumstances,
in a society filled with class antagonisms and contra
dictory moral codes, force us to defy public opinion.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
117
But public opinion works in a classless society as a
sufficient weapon of police, of the public obedience to
moral codes. The individual is so small compared to
society that he has not the strength to defy their
unanimous voice. This has so crushing an effect that
it needs no further means of compulsion or punishment
to secure the undisturbed course of the social life.
Even to-day in the class society we see that the public
opinion of their own class, or, where that has been
abandoned, of the class or party which they join, is
more powerful that the compulsory weapons of the
State. Prison, poverty and death are preferred by
people to shame.
But the public opinion of one class does not work
on the opposite class. Certainly society can, so long
as there are no class antagonisms in it, hold the indi
vidual in check through the power of its opinion, and
force obedience to its laws, when the social instincts in
the breast of the individual do not suffice. But public
opinion fails where it is not the individual against
society, but class against class. Then the ruling class
must apply other weapons of compulsion if they are to
prevail ; means of superior physical or economic might,
of superior organisation, or even of superior intelli
gence.. To the soldiers, police, and judges are joined
the priests as an additional means of rule, and it is
just the ecclesiastical organisation to whom the special
task falls of conserving the traditional morality. This
connection between religion and morality is achieved
so much easier as the new religions which appear at
the time of the decay of the primitive communism and
the Gentile society stand in strong opposition to the
ancient nature religions, whose roots reach back to
the old classless perio*d, and which know no special
priest caste. In the old religions Divinity and Ethics
are not joined together. The new religions, on the
other hand, grow on the soil of that philosophy in
which Ethics and the belief in God are most intimately
bound up together ; the one factor supporting the other. Since then religion and ethics have been intimately
bound up together as a weapon of rule. Certainly the
�Il8
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
moral law is a product of the social nature of man ;
certainly the moral code of a time is the product of
particular social needs ; certainly have neither the one
nor the other anything to do with religion. But that
code of morals, which must be maintained for the
people in the interests of the ruling class, requires
religion badly, and the entire ecclesiastical organism
for its support. Without this it would soon go to
pieces.
(c) Old and New.
The longer, however, the outlived moral standards
remain in force, while the economic development ad
vances and creates new social needs, which demand
new moral needs, so much the greater will be the
contradiction between the ruling morals of society and
the life and action of its members.
But this contradiction shows itself in the different
classes in different manners. The conservative classes,
those whose existence rest on the old social con
ditions, cling firmly to the old morality. But only in
theory.
In actual practice they cannot escape the
influence of the new social conditions.
The wellknown contradiction between moral theory and practice
begins here.
It seems to many a natural law of
morals, whose demands seem as something desirable
but unrealisable. Here again, however, the contradic
tion between theory and practice in morality can
take two forms.
Classes and indivduals, full of a
sense of their own strength, ride roughshod over the
demands of the traditional morality, whose necessity
they certainly recognise for others. Classes and indi
viduals who feel themselves weak transgress secretly
against the moral code which they publicly preach.
Thus this phase leads, according to the historical situa
tion of the decaying classes, either to cynicism or
hypocrisy.
At the same time, however, there dis
appears very easily, as we have seen, in this very class,
the power of the social interests in consequence of the
growth of private interests, as well as the possibility of
allowing their place in the coming battles to be taken
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
Iig
by hirelings, whereby they avoid entering personally
into the fray.
All these produce in conservative or ruling classes
those phenomena which we sum up as immorality.
Materialist moralists, to whom the moral codes are
simple conventional fashions, deny the possibility of an
immorality of that kind as a social phenomenon. As
all morality is relative, is that which is called immorality
simply a deviating kind of morality ?
On the other hand, idealist moralists conclude from
the fact that there are entire immoral classes and
societies that there must be a moral code eternal and
independent of time and space ; a standard independent
of the changing social conditions on which we can
measure the morals of every society and class.
Unfortunately, however, that element of hitman
morality which, if not independent of time and space,
is yet older than the changing social relations, the
social instinct, is just that which the human morality
has in common with the animal. What, however, is
specifically human in morality, the moral codes, is
subject to continual change. That does not prove, all
the same, that a class or a social group cannot be im
moral ; it proves simply that so far at least as the moral
standards are concerned, there is just as little abso
lute morality as absolute immorality.
Even the
immorality is in this respect a relative idea, as abso
lute immorality is to be regarded only as a lack of
those social impulses and virtues which man has in
herited from the social animals.
If we look, on the other hand, on immorality as an
offence against the laws of morality, then it implies
no longer the divergence from a distinct standard
holding good for all times and places, but the contra
diction of the moral practice to its own moral principles;
it implies the transgression against moral laws which
people themselves recognise and put forward as neces
sary. It is thus nonsense to declare particular moral
principles of any people or class, which are recognised
as such, to be immoral simply because they contradict
our moral code. Immorality can never be more than
�120
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
a deviation from our own moral code, never from a
strange one.
The same phenomenon, say, of free
sexual intercourse or of indifference to property can in
one case be the product of moral depravity, in a society
where a strict monogamy and the sacredness of pro
perty are recognised as necessary ; in another case it
can be the highly moral product of a healthy social
organism which requires for its social needs neither the
fixed property in a particular woman, nor that in par
ticular means of conservation and production.
(d) The Moral Ideal.
If, however, the growing contradiction between the
changing social conditions and the weakening hold of
morality in the ruling classes tend to growing im
morality, and shows itself in an increase of
hypocrisy and cynicism, which often goes hand
in hand with a weakening of the social im
pulses, so does it lead to quite other results in the
rising and exploited class. Their interests are in com
plete antagonism to the social foundation which created
the ruling morality.
They have not the smallest
reason to accept it, they have every ground to oppose
it. The more conscious they become of their antagon
isms to the ruling social order the more will their
moral indignation grow as well, the more will they
oppose to the old traditional morality a new morality,
which they are about to make the morality of society as
a whole. Thus arises in the uprising classes a moral
ideal, which grows ever bolder the more they gain in
strength.
At the same time, as we have already
seen, the power of the social instincts in the same
classes will be especially developed by means of the
class war, so that with the daring of the new moral
ideal the enthusiasm for the same also increases. Thus
the same evolution which produces in conservative or
decaying classes increasing immorality, produces in
the rising classes a mass of phenomena which we sum
up under the name of ethical idealism, which is not,
however, to be confused with philosophical idealism.
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
I2T
The very uprising classes are, indeed, often inclined to
philosophical materialism, which the declining classes,
oppose from the moment when they become conscious
that reality has passed the sentence of death upon them,
and feel that they can only look for salvation from
Supernatural powers—divine or ethical.
The content of the new moral ideal is not always,
very clear.
It does not emerge from any scientific
knowledge of the social organism, which is often
enough quite unknown to the authors of the ideal, but
from a deep social need, a burning desire, an energetic
will for something other than the existing, for some
thing which is the opposite of the existing ; and thus,
also, this moral ideal is in reality only something
purely negative, nothing more1 than opposition to the
existing hypocrisy.
So long as class rule has existed, the ruling morality
guards ; wherever a sharp class antagonism has been
formed, slavery, inequality, exploitation.
Thus the
moral ideal of the uprising classes in historical times
has always had the same appearance, always that
which the French Revolution summed up with the
words, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. It would seem
MS if this were the ideal implanted in every human
breast, independent of time and space, as if it were
the task of the human race to strive from its beginning
for the same moral ideal, as if the evolution of man
consisted in the gradual approach to this ideal which
continually looms before him.
But if we examine more closely, we find that the
agreement of the moral ideal of the various historical
epochs is only very superficial, and that behind these
lie great differences of social aims, which correspond
to the differences of the social situation at the time.
If we compare Christianity, the French Revolution,
and the Social-Democracy to-day, we find that Liberty
and Equality for all meant something quite different,
according to their attitude towards property and pro
duction. The primeval Christian demanded equality of
property in the manner that they asked for its equal
division for purposes of consumption for all, and
�122
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
under freedom they understood the emancipation from
all work as is the lot of the lilies of the field who
neither toil nor spin and yet enjoy their life.
The French Revolution again understood by equality
the equality of property rights. Private property was
declared to be sacred. And true freedom was for it
the freedom to apply property in economic life, accord
ing to pleasure, in the most profitable manner.
Finally, the Social-Democracy neither swears by
private property nor does it demand its division. It
demands its socialisation, and the equality which it
strives for is the equal right of all to the products of
social labour. Again, the social freedom which it asks
for is neither freedom to dispose arbitrarily of the
means , of production and to produce at will, but the
limitation of the necessary labour through the gather
ing in of those capable of working and through the
most extended application of labour-saving machinery
and methods. In this way the necessary labour which
cannot be free, but must be socially regulated, can be
reduced to a minimum for all, and to all a sufficient
time assured of freedom, for free artistic and scientific
activity, for free enjoyment of life. Social freedom—
we do not speak here of political—through the greatest
possible shortening of the period of necessary labour :
that is freedom as meant by the Social-Democracy.
It will be seen that the same moral ideal of Free
dom and Equality can embrace very different social
ideals. The external agreement of the moral ideals of
different times and countries is, however, not the result
of a moral law independent of time and space which
springs up in man from a supernatural world, but only
the consequence of the fact that despite all social
■differences the main outlines of class rule in human
society have always been the same.
All the same, a new moral ideal cannot simply arise
from the class antagonism. Even within the conserva
tive classes there may be individuals who develop with
their class socially only loose ties and are without class
consciousness. With that, however, they possess
strong social instincts and virtues, which makes them
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
123
hate all hypocrisy and cynicism, and, being highly
intelligent, they see clearly the contradiction between
the traditional moral code and the social needs.
Such individuals are bound also, to come to the point
of setting up the new moral ideal. But whether their
new ideal shall obtain social force depends upon
whether they result in class ideals or not. Only the
motive power of the class war can work fruitfully on
the moral ideal, because only the class war, and
not the single-handed endeavours of self-interested
people, possesses the strength to develop society farther
and to meet the needs of the higher developed method
of production. And, so far as the moral ideal can in
any degree be realised, is only to be attained through
an alteration of society.
A peculiar fatality has ruled hitherto that the moral
ideal should never be reached.
That will be easily
understood when we consider its origin. The moral
ideal is nothing else than the complex of wishes and
endeavours which are called forth by the opposition to
the existing state of affairs. As the motive power of
the class war, as a means to collect the forces of the
uprising classes to the struggle against the existing,
and to spur them on, it is a powerful lever in the over
turning of this.
But the new social conditions,
which come in the place of the old, do not depend on
the form of the moral ideal, but upon the given natural
conditions : the technical conditions, the natural milieu,
the nature of the neighbours and predecessors of the
existing society, etc.
A new society can thus easily diverge a considerable
distance from the moral ideal of those who brought it
about, and so much the more the less the moral indig
nation was allied with knowledge of the material
conditions. Thus the ideal ended continually in dis
illusionment ; proving itself to be an illusion after it had
done its historical duty and had worked as an inspirer
in the destruction of the old.
We have seen above how in the conservative classes
the opposition between moral theory and practice
arises, so that morality appears to them as that which
�124 ETHICS
and the materialist conception of history.
■everybody demands but nobody practises—something1
which is beyond our strength, which is only given to
supernatural powers to carry out. Here we see in the
revolutionary classes a different kind of antagonism
arise between moral theory and practice, the antagon
ism between the moral ideal and the reality created by
the social revolution.
Here, again, morality appears as something which
Everybody strives for but nobody attains—as, in fact,
the unattainable for earthly beings.
No wonder
then the moralists think that morality has a super
natural origin, and that our animal being which clings
to the earth is responsible for the fact that we can
only gaze wistfully at its picture from afar without
being able to arrive at it.
From this heavenly height morality is drawn down
to earth by historical materialism.
We make
acquaintance with its animal origin, and see how its
changes in human society are conditioned by the
changes which this has gone through, driven on by the
development of the technic. And the moral ideal is
revealed in its purely negative character as opposed
to the existing moral order, and its importance is
recognised as the motive power of the class and as a
means to collect and inspire the forces of the revolu
tionary classes. At the same time, however, the moral
ideal will be deprived of its power to direct their policy.
Not from our moral ideal, but from distinct material
conditions does the policy depend which the social de
velopment takes.
These material conditions have
already at earlier periods, to a certain extent, deter
mined the moral will, the social aims of the uprising
classes, but for the most part unconsciously. Or if a
conscious . directing social knowledge was already to
hand, as in the eighteenth century, it worked, all the
same, unsystematically, and not consistently, at the
formation of the social aims.
It was the materialist conception of history which
first completely deposed the moral ideal as the directing
factor of the social evolution, and which taught us to
deduce our social aims solely from the knowledge of the
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
125
material foundations. And at the same time it has
shown how we can ensure that the new reality resulting
from the Revolution shall come up to the ideal, how
illusions and disappointments are to be avoided.
Whether they can be really avoided depends upon the
deg ree of the insight acquired into the laws of develop
ment, and of the movement of the social organism, its
forces and organs.
With that the moral ideal will not be deprived of its
influence on society ; this influence will simply be re
duced to its proper dimensions. Like the social and
the moral instinct the moral ideal is not an aim, but
a force or a weapon in the social struggle for life1.. The
moral ideal is a special weapon for the peculiar circum
stances of the class war.
Even the Social-Democracy, as the organisation of the
proletariat in its class war, cannot do without the moral
ideal, the moral indignation against exploitation and
class rule. But this ideal has nothing to' find in scien
tific Socialism, which is the scientific examination of
the laws of the development and movement of the
social organism, for the purpose of knowing the neces
sary tendencies and aims of the proletarian class war.
Certainly in Socialism the student is always a fighter
as well, and no man can artificially cut himself in two
parts, of which the one has nothing to do with the
Other. Thus even with Marx in his scientific research
there occasionally breaks through the influence of
a moral ideal. But he always endeavours, and rightly,
to banish it where he can. Because the moral ideal
becomes a source of error in science, when it takes
on itself to point out to it its aims. Science has only
to do with the recognition of the necessary. It can
certainly arrive at prescribing a “ shall,” but this dare
only come up as a consequence of the insight into the
necessary.
It must decline to discover a “shall”
which is not to be recognised as a necessity founded in
the world of phenomena. The Ethic must alwrays be
only an object of science ; this has to study the moral
instincts as well as the moral ideals, and explain them ;
it cannot take advice from them as to the results at
�126
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY,
which it is to arrive. Science stands above Ethics, its
results are just as little moral or immoral as necessity
is moral or immoral.
All the same, even in the winning and making known
of scientific knowledge, morality is not got rid of. New
scientific knowledge implies often the upsetting of
traditional and deeply-rooted conceptions w’hich had
grown to a fixed habit.
In societies which include
class antagonisms, new scientific knowledge, especially
that of social conditions, implies, for the most part
however, damage to the interests of particular classes.
To discover and propagate scientific knowledge which
is incompatible with the interests of the ruling classes,
is to declare war on these. It assumes not simply a
high degree of intelligence, but also ability and willing
ness to fight, as well as independence from the ruling
classes, and, before all, a strong moral feeling, strong
social instincts, a ruthless striving for knowledge, and
to spread the truth with a warm desire to help the
oppressed', uprising classes.
But even this last desire is likely to mislead if it
does not play a simple negative part, as repudiation
of the validity of the ideas of the ruling classes, and
as a spur to overcoming the obstacles which the oppos
ing class interests bring against the social development,
but aspires to rise above that, and to take the direction,
laying down certain aims which have to be attained
through social study.
Even though the conscious aim of the class war in
scientific Socialism has been transformed from a moral
into an economic aim, it loses none of its greatness.
Since that which appeared to all social renovators hither
to as a moral ideal, which could not be attained by them ;
for that the economic conditions are at length given,
that ideal we can now recognise for the first time in
the history of the world as a necessary result of the
economic development, viz., the abolition of class,
not the abolition of all professional distinctions, not
the abolition of division of labour, but certainly the
abolition of all social distinctions and antagonisms
which arise from private property in the means of
�THE ETHICS OF MARXISM.
127
production and from the exclusive chaining down of
the mass of the people to the function of material pro
duction. The means of production have become so
enormous, that they burst to-day the frame of private
property. The productivity of labour is grown so huge
that to-day already a considerable diminution of the
labour time is possible for all workers. Thus grow the
foundations for the abolition, not of the division of
labour, not of the professions, but of the antagonism
of rich and poor, exploiters and exploited, ignorant and
wise.
At the same time, however, the division of labour is
so far developed as to embrace that territory which
remained so many thousands of years closed to it—(the
family hearth. The woman is torn from it, and drawn
into the realm of division of labour, so long a monopoly
of the men. With that, naturally, the natural distinc
tions which exist between the sexes do not disappear,
it can also allow many social distinctions, as well as
many a distinction in the moral demands which are
made on them, to continue to exist or even revive such,
but it will certainly cause all those distinctions to dis
appear from State and society which arise out of the
fact that the woman is tied down to the private house
hold duties, and excluded from the callings of the
divided labour. In this sense we shall see not simply
the abolition of the exploitation of one class by another,
but the abolition of the subjection of woman to man.
And at the same time the world commerce attains such
dimensions, the international economic relations are
drawn so close that therewith the foundation is laid for
superseding private property in the means of produc
tion, the overcoming of natural antagonisms, the end
of war and armaments, and for the possibility of per
manent peace between the nations.
Where is a moral idea which opens such splendid
vistas? And yet they are won from sober, economic
considerations, and not from intoxication through the
moral ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity,
justice, humanity !
�128
ETHICS AND THE MATERIALIST CONCEPTION OF HISTORY.
And these outlooks are no mere expectations of con
ditions which only ought to come, which we simply
wish and will, but outlooks on conditions which must
come, which are necessary. Certainly not necessary
in the fatalist sense, that a higher power will present
them to us of itself, but necessary, unavoidable, in the
sense that the inventors improve technic, and the capi
talists, in their desire for profit, revolutionise the whole
economic life, as it is also inevitable that the workers
aim for shorter hours of labour and higher wages, that
they organise themselves, that they fight the capitalist
class and its state, as it is inevitable that they aim for
the conquest of political power and the overthrow of
capitalist ruling. Socialism is inevitable because the
class war and the victory of the proletariat is inevitable.
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Ethics and the materialist conception of history
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Kautsky, Karl [1854-1938]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: xi, 128 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of the NSS pamphlet collection. Publisher's advertisements for Justice (weekly), The Social democrat (monthly), and Social democracy, a lecture by H.M. Hyndman, on back cover.
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[1906]
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N424
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Askew, J.B. (tr)
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Ethics
Materialism
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Ethics
History-Philosophy
Materialism
NSS
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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
BEN
E L M Y.
LONDON:
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
CHAPTER I.
THE
DAWN OF LIFE.
All things on this earth may be roughly divided into two
classes : things which have motion, and things which have
not; in other words, things which are living, and things
which are dead. The first constitute the animal and vege
table kingdoms, and the mineral kingdom contains all the
inanimate class. Motion and life seem at once to be in
timately connected ; we recognise the vitality of any living
thing, animal or vegetable, by its power of motion; whether
from place to place, as in an animal, or in simple changes of
form or aspect, as in both animal and vegetable.
Yet we must not confound motion and life. We see
motion in even the class of inanimate things. Steam will
rise in the air, a stone will fall to the ground ; both these
are instances of motion, yet even a child scarcely considers
them as any sign of life. I propose to myself the project
of pondering how far life and motion may be assumed to be
indeed one and the same element, though they may differ in
degree as much or more than a man differs from a jelly-fish.
It will be necessary first to think what phases of motion are
readily perceptible to our senses, and then to follow up that
chain till we approach forms of motion almost as little to be
rendered account of to our senses as is the ultimate mystery,
life itself. We may at any rate prove that there is a path
advancing step by step into the unknown; we may even go
along some part of the road, and we may form a just notion
as to where that road will ultimately lead us.
I have already instanced the simplest form of motion with
which we are acquainted—the falling of a stone or other
body towards the earth. This action or motion is so gene
ral or, as it were, natural, that countless generations of men
had witnessed it and it did not even occur to them to think
of rendering a reason for it. Some of the old Greek phi
losophers gave a feeble consideration to the matter, but did
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
not or could not follow the question out; and there it rested till
an English philosopher, Isaac Newton, had the remembrance
of their difficulties brought to his mind by observing an
apple fall from a tree, and set himself to think why the .
apple should fall to the earth, and whether that motion
was in the apple or in the earth. The result of longthought and calculation on his part was the ascertained,
truth that every substance in the universe is attracted, or
drawn towards, or seeks to approach every other substance *
and that it will so approach if there be not forces acting in
other directions to prevent it. This attraction is called the
force of gravitation, or weight-force; and it is so called
because it is greater in proportion to the weight and density
of the body exercising that attraction.
It is this same force that accounts for the second form of
motion that I mentioned—the rising of steam through the.
air; for the particles of steam are lighter in proportion to
their size or bulk than the particles of the air; the particles
of the air are, therefore, more forcibly attracted to the earth,
and squeeze out of place or force away the steam higher up. '
into the air, i.e., farther away from the earth.
If instead of air we take water for an example, we shall
see the same series of motions repeated, for a piece of iron
will sink or drop through the water, because iron is heavier
or denser, bulk for bulk, than water; and a bubble of air or
a piece of cork will rise through water (just as steam does
through the air) because both air and cork are lighter or
less dense, bulk for bulk, than water. And now, if instead
of water we take mercury, which is also a fluid, we shall find
that a piece of gold will sink in it, but a piece of iron will
float in it; and this again for the same reason, because gold
is denser than mercury, and iron is not so dense as
mercury.
Here we may learn two things : firstly, that some solids
may be less dense than other fluids; and, secondly, that
density is after all but a comparative and conditional term,
and is proportional to the medium or atmosphere in which
the action takes place, for both iron and gold will sink in
water, or drop through the air, yet only one of them will
sink in mercury.
We all know that what is called an empty bucket, that is,
a bucket full of air, is not so heavy as a bucket full of water,
and that this again is not so heavy as a lump of iron the
same size, and this lump of iron will not be so heavy as a
�THE DAWN OF LIFE.
3
bucket full of mercury, nor this again so heavy as a similar
mass of gold.
Now the real meaning of the weight or heaviness of all
these is simply the greater or less force with which they are
•attracted towards the earth ; that force being in exact pro
portion to their density as compared with their bulk. For
'the earth is the great mass towards which all substances on
the earth are attracted, and as far as earthly things are con
sidered we may call it the centre of gravitation. It is our
. greatest and heaviest mass, and hence all earthly things pro
gress or fall towards it when not prevented by other forces
■ or obstacles. It is true that what we call celestial objects
have also an attraction for each other and the earth, and for
.all things on the earth; but distance is also an element in
..the calculation of gravitation, and the earth is so much nearer
that a stone let go at the distance of 1000 or 100,000 feet
.-.above the earth is attracted more powerfully by the earth
which is near than by the sun which is so far off, though the
sun is 1,300,000 times larger than the earth, and its attrac
tion proportionately great.
And the planets and our earth and the sun would all rush
^together but for their motion in their orbits—a circular motion
•which they have that counterbalances this attraction or
motion of gravitation and keeps them hovering at a distance.
What is the secret or cause of this circular or orbital motion
may be discovered by another Newton, but it will certainly
• be found to be but a phase of this universal force of
gravitation.
Indeed all motions and conditions seem to be but phases
or consequences of phases of this universal law. Next in
order to gravitation as generally defined, we might place
what is called the attraction of cohesion—an attraction that
does not seem quite so dependent on density, and that might
be defined as the greater attraction that substances of the
same nature have for each other under favourable circum
stances than for substances of a dissimilar nature. It is this
^attraction that causes the homogeneousness or consistency
• of t metals, or stone, or wood, &c. This attraction gives
. as its evidence the two qualities known as hardness and
tenacity. It may be exemplified by the cutting of a piece
of wood or lead with a steel knife, whereas a piece of steel
could not be cut with a wooden or leaden knife. The
mechanical explanation of this fact is that the particles of
steel have a greater attraction Of cohesion for each other
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
than have the particles of wood or lead; the particles off
wood or lead may be easily separated, but the particles of
steel are separable with difficulty.
This attraction of cohesion may seem to be but a passiveor defensive attraction, while gravitation is an active or
offensive power; yet the seemingly passive force of cohesion
is always really in action, for it must not be forgotten that
it is this force which at every instant holds bodies together
in resistance to the active force of gravitation which might
otherwise cause an indiscriminate mingling of their atoms,
with those of all the other bodies composing the mass of'
the earth. And some phases of this form of attraction are
palpably active, for under this head may be classed the
force of chemical affinity, and the force which produces and.
guides crystallization.
The force, chemical affinity, bears a very close resemblance?
to the attraction of cohesion, and may be roughly defined,
as the attraction which the particles of one clearly defined,
chemical clement or substance have for another of those
elements. At present these elements are known to have
certain affinities or combining powers with each other, and.
these attractions or affinities vary in each case, so that an.
element will leave one with which it is already combined to
join another for which it has a greater affinity, and will
again leave that, if one for which it has a still greater affinity
be presented to it.
And now we come to the force of crystallization, and must
give our earnest attention to this force ; for we get here the
first glimpse of a force or motion that in some of its actionsclosely resembles life. For we have here introduced de
fined growth towards a defined form. Crystals are of vary
ing sizes and shapes according to their substance, the same
substance generally following fixed and certain rules as to form. .
The growth of crystals is sometimes so rapid or vivid that
with some substances, and a strong magnifying glass, the
crystals may be seen forming themselves. In some instancesthis action of growth might well be mistaken for some part,
of the action that is seen in vegetable life. On ancient:
flint implements accretions of iron and manganese havebeen found which bear more than a casual resemblance to
various cryptogamous plants, mosses, lichens, and algae orseaweed. An example familiar to us all is that of the moss
like appearance of a frozen window-pane, the “ moss ” being,
simply water in a state of crystallization..
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
5
This last example brings us face to face with another
series of forces or attractions; the force by which bodies
may be brought to, and held in, any one of the three con
ditions : the solid, the fluid, and the gaseous—in a word,
how water may exist as ice, water, or steam, each of the
three conditions giving powers of combination, or altered
force, which would not be possible in any other condition.
As far as we know, all elements are capable of these conditions
under given circumstances, and there is, as just said, a con
siderable intrinsic difference in the conditions. Fluids seem
only compressible with intense force, while solids have a con
siderable and gases an excessive amount of compressibility.
Fluids and solids, again, have the attraction of cohesion, so
that solids retain their form, and fluids their equilibrium; yet
in gases the force of cohesion seems to be almost, if not
altogether, absent. A pound of any solid substance, or a
pint of any fluid, would retain their simple appearance in
a vacuum; but it would seem that the same measure of gas
would permeate and fill up (though in a rarefied or attenu
ated form) any vacuum however great.
Now, each of these conditions is distinctly defined and
separate, and the change from one to another seems to be
effected by some form of the most living force we have yet
spoken of—heat. And as we consider this force of heat we
find it to be as universal as gravitation, every substance
having specific, or intrinsic, or self-contained heat, just as
it has specific or self-contained weight. And specific heat
varies in different bodies just in a similar manner to what
specific weight or gravity does. And just as we may not
perceive the weight of a body till some displacement occurs
which allows the force of gravitation to come into perceptible
action, so specific heat may only become manifest or percep
tible when certain changes are brought about in the condition
of the substance containing it. When heat is thus manifest
or active, it does to the evidence of our senses change some
substances from the solid into the fluid state, and from that
again into the gaseous state, and a deprivation of heat will
act in just the reverse direction.
Chemical action or affinity, which has already been
spoken of, is very frequently attended by the evolution or
absorption of heat, and for the reason already given, z>., a
disturbance in the molecular conditions of elements which
makes manifest their specific heat. Chemical action, indeed,
is the main source of the heat with which we are acquainted,
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for the heat of the sun itself is but the result of chemical
action or combustion in or on the sun.
As with the other forms of force or motion or attraction
spoken of, heat is but a comparative condition, and our ex
perience of it on this earth has but a very limited range.
We may readily imagine a planet or world where the heat
was so great that water was only known in a gaseous state,
and their rivers might be of molten metal; or, on the other
hand, one so cold that ice might be their usual building
material, roofed with sheets of hydrogen, an element that we
only know in a gaseous state. And any bodily organism of
living creatures would have to be proportionately altered ;
yet there is nothing repugnant to the idea of a similar con
dition to mind, or soul, or life, call it what we will, existing
under the changed circumstances.
And I think this may be taken as a probable solution of
the question whether there is life on other planets or worlds;
for wherever there exist the forces that we have knowledge of
on this earth, there will life follow as a natural consequence.
I spoke just now of combustion. This word simply means
chemical action or combination so intense that heat and
light result. And in light we have reached almost the last
of the series of forces of which we have yet any clear con
ception. We have seen by now that the word force is to be
used in a somewhat different sense from that generally as
cribed to it. It is too generally confounded with “strength”
or “motion yet we see it may be existing where we have
only pictured inactivity, or rest, or death. We may see a
soldier standing “at ease.” He too is resting, yet the
muscles of his legs and back are all in action, or the man
would fall to the earth. And in speaking of light as a force
it might be thought that I was applying a false word. In
giving an instance or two of the power of light, we may
recognize that it is literally a force.
We know that a plant in comparative darkness will
hardly grow, and will at best be but pale and sickly. It is
light that gives the green colour to all vegetation, simply
because it is the initial force which gives the chemical
elements in vegetation the impulse to unite and form
healthy green flesh necessary for the plant’s full life. Again,
light is the force that draws all our photographic pictures.
In taking those pictures, where the light falls strongest the
chemical salts are destroyed or decomposed ; where the
light does not fall those salts are left untouched.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
7
It must need force to do this, and light is that force,
light is certainly the initial force of a vast amount of
chemical action, and again it seems sometimes to be the
conseqtience of chemical action ; as with heat, which is in
turn the origin or result of such action. Some time we may
have knowledge of latent or specific light as well as of
specific heat or specific gravity.
As yet we know but little of the vast force involved in light.
George Stephenson said that a railway engine was driven by
the rays of bottled sunshine contained in the coals that fed the
furnace, and there seems no doubt that he was correct.
Coal is the buried vegetation of forests of millions of years ago.
The sun shone on those trees and on their leaves and branches
day by day in their growth, the light and warmth was
effective in working the chemical change that formed their
vegetable tissue, and when the trees fell, century by century,
their dead bodies contained and preserved the results of this
action ; this absorbed or latent light and heat lay buried in
them, is in them when they are mined and dug up, and when
they are put into the fire-box of the engine. The fire is lit,
and by combustion, the bottled sunbeams, developed into
the form of heat, are transmitted to the water in the boiler,
this heat turns the water from fluid into the gaseous state of
steam; the steam occupies vastly more space than water, and
in endeavouring to get room to spread itself to its natural
bulk is allowed to force out a piston, this piston moves a
crank which turns the wheel on which the engine rests, and
the whole engine moves on.
In this brief story we see what permutations or
changes may take place in the same force; now it appears
to us as light, now as heat, now as chemical action, now as
mechanical motion overcoming the attraction of gravitation.
Indeed there seems but one force, and the changes in it are
but changes in that they are more clearly perceived by some
one of our imperfect senses than by the others.
I have used the words initial force once or twice and
shall need to explain this somewhat, for the ultimate pur
poses of our argument. Initial force, then, is the impulse
which once given to matter or force is carried on in the
matter or force itself without need for repetition of the original
impulse. For instance, the mechanical action involved in
the striking of a match is the initial force which gives rise to
its combustion, and this combustion may be conveyed to
things innumerable without need for any repetition of
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
mechanical action. With a slight knowledge of chemistry,
we may remember where a single drop of sulphuric acid is
capable of initializing the same process of combustion.
In some cases the force of crystallization maybe initialized
in a similar way. A mass of salts may be in a condition
ready for crystallization, and continue in that preparatory
stage till some tiny initial mechanical impulse, such as even
the prick of a needle, is given, when the mass will at once
rush into crystals. We all know too that nitro-glycerine
may. by a slight mechanical force be driven into gas, and
possibly a frightful explosion ensue.
Any slight amount
of one kind of force may, under favourable circumstances,
be the initializer of a vastly increased mass of some widely
different phase.
And now I will only call attention to one other form of
force before endeavouring to show how all these forces, or
some combination of them, may have given the initial impulse
to the wondrous force of life. This last force to which I shall
draw attention is electricity, a force of whose knowledge we
are but yet in the infancy; and a force that seems, even as
far as our present knowledge goes, to be capable of a con
siderable number of phases. This is the force by which, to
give a simple example, a man’s words may be conveyed
almost without lapse of time from one place to another (the
electric telegraph) ; it is also the force that causes the
attraction of a magnet for iron.
Whether electricity be the cause of some of the various forms
of force already named, or simply a resultant of them, is
more than can be said at present: it sometimes appears in
the one character and sometimes in the other. It seems in
this way to add greater strength to the presumption that all
force is but some different and convertible phase of some
great and ultimate property:—the very property of being or
existing; for existence and movement or force are inalienable
and interchangeable terms. But be electricity what it may,
it is already known that all things are subject to its influence,
and that it is therefore presumably as universal and great in
its results as gravitation itself.
With all this well weighed and considered—bearing in mind the different possibilities of matter in its known con
ditions of solid, fluid, and gaseous—bearing in mind the
powers of chemical combination and the novel substances
engendered thereby—bearing in mind the power of definite
form and growth of which the force of crystallisation is an
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
9
.example—bearing in mind that an initial impulse however
slight, once communicated, may give rise to a condition so
widely differing from itself that the change is to our present
powers utterly inexplicable; and that this condition will be
perpetuated as long as there is matter favourably situated to
be affected by it—bearing in mind all this, I ask if there
is anything very inconceivable in the idea that matter has been
so acted upon by some initial impulse that has given rise to
the phase of force which we call life, with all its attendant
phenomena ?
For, after all, what is life ? Animated beings may be
traced down to a type wherein they seem little more than
inert masses of matter—masses of gelatinous substance,
or of vegetable growth scarce differing from rust—and with
little more than the power of growth or assimilation of
similar matter to that of their own substance, which they
have in common with many substances that we hold to be
but minerals with the chemical properties of cohesion and
combination.
To such a view as this the continual objection made is :
“Yes, but you never show us what is the initial force by
which inanimate matter is endowed with the property of
life.” To this I can but say: Can we yet explain any initial
impulse ? And why do you call rtvzy matter inanimate ? Is
not chemical Action itself a phase of life, just as we reason
ably presume all these other forces to be but phases of some
universal ruling principle ? And indeed to me thefe seems a
less distance between the crudest forms of living organisms
and simple chemical action, than between those same
organisnjjjRind intellectual man. This difference and pro
gress I shall make an attempt to follow in my next study,
the “ Dawn of Humanity.” And as to the question of defin
ing or pointing out the initial force which institutes the
beginning of life, that initial force is just as easy or as
difficult to point out as any other initial force of which I
have spoken : we see the results, and it is a simple matter
of comparative result on which we have arbitrarily made the
distinction of calling one phenomenon animate action, while
we stigmatize the other as inanimate.
■ Yes : the greater our power of observation, the less do wfe
see to be the distinction between life and death, between
force and matter ; death (f.e. inanimation} is but hidden life,
matter is but hidden force. Change, or rather motion, is
the one constant rule of all things; and as our senses grow,
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
and fresh capacities or organs of sensibility are developed, ,
we shall grasp at higher and still more intangible phenomena..
It is not that Nature’s workings are so mysterious, but that:
our own faculties are so small, our own eyesight so dim.
Yet if we will carefully consult and ever strive to improvethe faculties we have, and follow out and strengthen in ourbeing the perceptions of justice and truth which Nature- everywhere shows us, we shall grow to know her better, and.
to have fuller, stronger sight—we shall be worthy to know
more of the at present mysterious meaning of life. When
we are so worthy the knowledge cannot be hidden from us,.
we may become intelligent co-operators in Nature’s work
and with power in our eyes and love in our hearts weshall fulfil the poet’s golden prophecy, and become in very
deed
“ the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge ; under whose command
Is earth and earth’s, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book.”
CHAPTER II.
THE
DAWN
OF
HUMANITY.
In the previous study, I have presumed or asserted that:
matter, under certain conditions, may become a living
organism, such active life being the sequence of an initial
impulse which we may hope eventually to trace and solve..
I have further asserted that matter to which such an im
pulse has been once conveyed, may continue or even
increase that impulse under suitable conditions. . Theseassertions cover two of the most advanced theories yet
deduced from our knowledge of to-day—viz., Spontaneous.
Generation, and the Development or Origin of Species. In
plain words, the theory of Spontaneous Generation declares,
that, under certain conditions of matter, life will be initiated
and living organisms will be evolved or spontaneously geneja.ted ; and the theory of Development is that these
organisms once evolved will not only have the power of
continuing the impulse, i.e. of propagating themselves, but
also of developing further and higher capabilities under
favouring conditions, and thereby of becoming higher
organisms—organisms, in fact, such that we could no longer
j
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II
'readily accept the supposition of their being in that condition
-spontaneously generated.
The theory of Spontaneous Generation has as yet but a
'limited acceptance, owing to the difficulty at present of
producing positive argument and irrefutable experiment in
its support, and owing, moreover, to its entire antagonism
to any biblical or other revelation, or to belief in any super
natural power. But it seems to me that the position may be
conclusively proved and justified even by negative argument;
,and it may be useful so to justify it before going further.
Evidently all primary generation (or initiation of life)
must either be spontaneous, or else the act of some creative
power foreign to the organism itself. In other words, life
is either the natural, innate, and inevitable result of certain
• conditions of matter, or it is the act of a creator external to
■ the matter. Such a presumed creator is usually styled God,
.-.and we may therefore conveniently use this term in the
1 sense specified. Nor shall we in so using the word be
-doing any wrong to the somewhat numerous class who seem
disinclined to accept the theory of spontaneity of life, while
yet rejecting the inconsistencies which become every day
more palpable in the theory of God and his creation of life.
For indeed there is no logical halting-place between the
■ two conclusions. Either all phenomena (life included) are
attributable to certain natural properties and sequences, or
■ they are due to an extra-natural power, a God.
Let us shift our questioning, then, from matter to its pre■sumed “Creator.” .Let us inquire into the origin of God.
How came he into existence? Did he' create himself? If
. so, we have a notable instance of the spontaneous generation
which his believers deny. Had God himself a creator
outside himself? If so, we may apply the same questioning
as to his creator. We only get the elephant and tortoise
fable over again.
There is but one resource left, and that is the assertion
- that God has existed for ever. This is but a begging of the
question, for no proof is given of the truth 6f the assertion ;
. and being unverified and unverifiable, it has not the least
: tangible claim to assent from our intellect.
The God theory is then placed in this dilemma: that it
' must either acknowledge spontaneity of life (which renders
i the God theory itself unnecessary), or take refuge in an
unverified assertion utterly beyond the ken of our senses
• and intellect.
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
Against such a course of argument as this the constant,
objection of Theists or supernaturalists is, that there are
more things existent than can be brought to the evidence of
our senses ; but on that perfectly allowable position they
base the startling affirmation that therefore we must not
reason about God, or, at any rate, must not accept any con
clusion of our reason which leads to his rejection ! Yet in all
the assertions that they make in support of the God theory,
it is to these very senses of ours that they ultimately appeal
they have recourse with confidence to our senses and our
reason for acknowledgment of what they call the works of a
God, and thereby of a God himself, and yet they deny t(A
our senses and reason any right to evidence of, or faculty tocriticise, the hypothetical being whom they expect our reason j
to recognise !
The words reason and senses may in this connection ho
used as of the same meaning, for reason is but the collected
and developed experience of our senses. Now, if thisreason and these senses may be safely appealed to, and.
their evidence be received in the case of results, materialists
hold that the questionings of reason may be and must be
extended to causes, and that indeed the conclusions of'
reason are the only ones that can validly be accepted by the
organism that has given birth to it, and, as it were, dele
gated to it the care and power of the guidance and govern- ment of the organism.
It is to this reason and to these senses that Materialism ,
appeals, for it sees in man’s being no evidence of any
higher tribunal. Nor need it care to do so, since it also ■<
sees in the reason and the senses, and the self-responsibility of man, a faculty of development, of power, and of harmony
with nature, far beyond the feeble dreams and dulcet
cajoleries of any God theory, ancient or modern.
And Materialism claims for itself and for its evidence a ■
higher character and a greater worth of acceptance than it
holds due to any religious or supernatural or ultra-intel
lectual theory And this on several grounds. For Mate
rialism appeals to no select few, but to senses and faculties
which all possess. It does not recognise that any special
clique or class of man has received a supernatural revelation
of things in which all men have a joint and equal concern.
Its evidences are facts which have been gathered with careand painstaking by close observers and lovers of nature, not
dark fancies evolved from the tortured and ascetic brains of ‘
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
13
men who have begun their system with the assumption that
nature is an abhorrent and unholy thing. Materialism
claims the higher character, because it comes into the light
and courts the examination and aid of all, not shrouding
and hiding itself in impenetrable unintelligibleness, and
hurling threats and cursings and thunderings at those who
shall dare to deny its infallibility, analyse its inconsistency,
or despise its degrading sycophancy and terrorism.
Though I have spoken of Spontaneous Generation as not
having been to the consent of all irrefutably proved, it must
not be forgotten that there are men who decisively affirm
that they have to the evidence of the senses produced organic
life where it was previously non-existent.
The evidence
of Bastian and others is convincing that living organisms
are constantly evolved in liquids which have been her
metically sealed in flasks while boiling, or submitted to still
greater heat, and carefully preserved from all extraneous
influence of the atmosphere.
The arguments used by opponents to explain or contra
dict these experiments, is what is known as the “ germ '*
theory—an assertion that there are countless seeds of living
organisms floating in the air, and ever ready to develop
themselves into active life when favourable conditions of
matter are presented. It is true that these germs may be
invisible in even the most powerful microscope, and so im
perceptible as to elude the subtlest chemical test, yet the
theory has the convenient property of continuing to refer the
initiation of life to some primary act on the part of a creator. ’
It is to such germs, also, that many forms of disease, epi
demic or otherwise, are attributed ; so that if the theory of
the creation of germs be correct, it will follow that the ap
pearance of certain new and previously unknown forms of
disease, such as diphtheria or rinderpest, is an evidence that
the creation was not an act once accomplished and done'
with, but that the Creator still busies himself from time to
time with doubtful benefits to his creatures.
Let it be understood that Materialists do not deny that low,
organisms may propagate themselves by germs, as well as byj
other means more clearly visible to our senses. Materialism,
simply denies any extra-natural creation or origin of these'
germs, and the materialistic explanation of a new form of
parasitic disease would be that certain novel conditions of
matter had evolved or developed into a new form some low,
type of organism, which, once generated, might propagate.
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STUDIES IN MATERIALISM. .
itself either by cell-growth or by germs. The Germ theorists
would say, that if all the germs or spprules of small-pox,
typhoid fever, &c., could once be destroyed, we should never
see those diseases more ; the Evolutionist says that similar
unsanitary conditions to those that now exist where those dis
eases are rife, would again evolve them.
It must not be forgotten that it would be no refutation of
spontaneous generation even if men had not yet succeeded
in producing it. It is the action of nature that is in ques
tion, rather than man’s power, to evoke that action. And
certainly, whether by spontaneous generation or other
wise primitive and extremely simple organisms are,
under favourable circumstances, everywhere readily and
plentifully generated, and in an ascending scale from them
we have a series of ever higher developments.
As instances of fairly lowr (though not the lowest) animal
and vegetable organisms, I may take the amoeba and the
algae, previously referred to as “masses of gelatinous sub
stance, or of vegetable growth, scarce differing from rust.”
The amoeba is but a floating speck of jelly that absorbs or
covers other floating particles of matter which can afford
sustenance to it. It has no defined organs of nutrition, or
of any other function ; it simply lets the floating particle
sink into its jelly-like substance, and then, by a process no
more vital than chemical affinity, or even simple attraction
4|f cohesion, it absorbs what there may be in the floating
particles analogous to its own substance, and lets the re
mainder Jgain sink or drop through. Its action seems no
more a living one than is the action of the isinglass used in
“ fining ” beer. The isinglass that is there introduced falls
gradually to the bottom of the cask, enfolding in its own
substance, and bearing down with it, every floating speck of
turbid matter, and leaving the beer clear. And, undoubt
edly, any particle of isinglass or other gelatinous matter
that might previously have existed in the floating specks
would be absorbed from out them into the homogeneous
mass of the isinglass itself. Why this action of the isinglass
is to be set down as mechanical action, while that of the
amceba is to be exalted to the dignity of living action, it is
not for me to say, since I do not believer in the dis
tinction.
Some forms of the alga, are a sort of grey-green mould or
rust : they “ vegetate exclusively in water or in damp situa
tions ; they I cquire no nutriment, but such as is supplied by
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
“water and the air dissolved in it, which they absorb equally
by every part of their surface.'” These are the words of one
•of the most strenuous advocates of the God theory. Yet if
' for alga we substitute the word rust, how perfect a descrip
tion we get of .the action of moisture or water on iron. And
what is the difference between the two actions ? As far as
I can see, it is simply this, that the alga form a compound
•of three lements, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, while the
iron merely absorbs oxygen from the air or water, and so
forms a compound of only two elements, oxygen and iron.
No one disputes the spontaneous evolution of rust, that is,
■ of a compound of iron and oxygen : strange that men should
find it so hard to credit the spontaneous evolution of a
• compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen !
Two objections may here be raised : firstly, that rust will
• only appear or propagate itself where there is iron or some
other metal to feed it; and, secondly, that the action of
algae, or, at any rate, of other living organisms, is more vivid
than that of rust. To the first objection it is a sufficient
^answer that neither will algae nor any other organisms appear
■or propagate themselves where there is not suitable food for
them; and to the second, I would reply that I am not
asserting an equal degree of vital action in both the cases,
but simply that both instances are but different degrees of
the same natural and spontaneous action ; the dragging of
•one stick across another may seem to be action remote
-enough from that of combustion, yet we know that combus
tion is but an enhanced form of such action, and is, under
given circumstances, educible thereby.
In the lower living organisms, the distinction between
animal and vegetable is frequently so confused as to render
the organisms incapable of being classified with certainty;
■some motionless and apparently vegetable growths having
■ other well-defined animal properties, whilst some actively
moving organisms are, in other respects, as undoubtedly
1 vegetable. One would almost say, that on the threshold of
life the organisms are debating and undecided as to which
1 -of the two great channels they will follow. When this
choice is made, the same indecision seems extended again
somewhat to choice of species ; the mass of the primitive
■ organisms being involved in a hazy mist, to which only a
•very self-confident man could venture to assign defined
•limits and arbitrary classifications.
In these lower forms of life, the methods of extension or
�iU
STUDIES IN MATEfWCCTSSt
spreading, or repetition of both animal and vegetable,
organisms are, as might be presumed, identical; and are
visibly effected by either gemmation, or fissure, or both.
Gemmation is only another word for budding; buds form
on the original organism, which break off and become inde
pendent organisms. Fissure means that the original organ
ism, when grown, splits into two or more independent,
organisms. Some of the lowest organisms are asserted to
consist of single cells of animated organic matter, and it is,
of course, the development of further cells that renders,
practicable either gemmation or fissure. Yet we may soon
find organisms with a considerable accretion of cells not.
separating from each other, but remaining with the parent
organism, and, as it were, helping in the mutual and better
development of each; and we then begin to find special
groupings of these cells fulfilling certain definite functions,
in the economy of the organism, becoming, in point of fact,,
the organs for the support and growth and propagation of
the organism.
Here, too, we begin to come on clearer distinctions
between animal and vegetable; whose main difference has
been roughly, but fairly well-defined in the observation,
that with a vegetable the food is mainly applied to con
tinually increasing its fabric throughout its life, whereas,
with the animal, the food is only applied to growth till the
adult form is attained, and is then simply used to maintain,
that condition in efficiency.
We then go on to find special and peculiar formations,
and growths of cells for various purposes in the structure of
the organism; so that, eventually, we have cells whose
special purpose is to form the tissue or flesh of a plant,,
while others of different structure form the bark or fruit;.
and in animals we have cells which form the fibres of the
muscle, somewhat different ones forming the bone, and
others yet different forming the brain or nerve matter,.
&c., &c.
This development of different cells and functions is but
one form of the variations which are taking place, of which,
perhaps, the most important is the adaptation of the organisms
themselves to altered circumstances in which they may find
it convenient or necessary to live, and the development of
varied forms and poweis which will render that life more
acceptable and enjoyable to them. And it may fairly
be said that this variation or development is a fact in which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
"7
»aZZ classes of observers agree, though not all are willing to
lallow to it the same great ultimate results. It is the reason
ing out of such of these results as we have undoubted
cognizance of to their possible and logical conclusions, and
the acceptance of those conclusions, that constitutes the
theory already referred to of development or origin of
species.
In the lower forms of organisms this development or
variation is, as I have previously intimated, very conspicuous,
so that fructification or generation has frequently to be
waited for and observed before the organisms can with any
certainty be assigned to a definite class. And this question
of fructification or generation brings us to one of the most
vexed and evaded questions in the whole history of physio
logy or development—that of alternate generation, which
will be presently discussed.
For a further phenomenon has manifested itself in the
< course of these developments—the difference of sexes ; and to
this I shall need to draw your careful attention, since in his
• own case man has based on that difference a series of arti
ficial and arbitrary, and therefore unjust, distinctions which
. have done more than any other act to retard the progress
. and hinder the happiness of the human race.
We noticed that in the extension or propagation of the
lower forms of life, the growth or birth of further cells was
■followed by a constant budding or splitting off from the
•parent organism, but that in somewhat higher forms we find
' cells remaining and allotting themselves to various special
functions, and forming special organs for those purposes.
As might naturally be supposed, a substitute is at once pro
vided for the superseded actions of gemmation or fissure ;
-so that among the first definite organs we find those for
the extension or propagation of the species, and with such a
• specialized function we also find, as we might anticipate, a
-more methodical manner of fulfilling that function. The cells
•or germs which will form the infant organisms are no longer
■indiscriminately severed as soon as formed ; but are stored in
■• •assigned receptacles to await what shall seem to the organism
. a fitting time for their evolvement and extrusion. To con■wey this fitness and impulse for extrusion is the function of
a further organ, which in its turn has secreted special cells.
In these two sets of organs and their difference of cells
;-We have the first glimpse of separate male and female func
tions. To distinguish the two classes of cells, the latter are
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
usually called germ cells, and the former sperm cells. Thesecretion of sperm cells, and their application, in due time,
to the germ cells, is the function of the male organs ; the
secretion of the germ cells, and the care of their develop
ment after impregnation, is the female function. For a
long time we find both these organs existing in the same
creature ; and this arrangement is very general throughout
vegetable life, from the lowest forms to the very highest. It
also extends into some fairly high grades of animal life, the
oyster being a notable instance of hermaphroditism, as this
union of the two organs in one being is termed.
At first, too, both these functions may be performed
within the one being without any extraneous aid; but pre
sently it would seem that a better result is attained by some
intermingling of possible slight variations, and we find two
individual organisms uniting in a mutual and utterly reciprocatory act of parentage, each being having fulfilled the
functions of father, and accepted the responsibilities of
mother, to an ensuing progeny. But this intermingling
does not seem an inevitable necessity, for there is evidence
that many such organisms have the capacity of both self and
reciprocal impregnation. Here, too, the strange fact may’
be noted that in some organisms the co-operation of threeindividuals is necessary to effect the generative act.
The change from gemmation to sexual generation is by
no means an invariable or fixed one, for we have here inter* vening the strange phenomenon of alternate generation just,
referred to. Various organisms may propagate a progeny by
means of sexual organs, and the members of this progenywill be of a totally different type to their parents in nature,,
appearance, and capabilities, and having no sexual organs,
but giving birth to their progeny by the primitive methods,
of gemmation or fissure; yet this further progeny will befully developed like the first set of parents, having sexual
organs, yet giving birth in turn to organisms that differ in
type, and only propagate by gemmation. It is, as it were,
an inheritance from grandparent to grandchild, with an in
tervening generation of an utterly different and inferiororganism. In some instances this descent seems to run.
through three forms of organisms before reverting to the
original type.
This phenomenon is affected to be made somewhat light
of and readily explained away by the holders of the God.
theory; apparently because it militates somewhat against.
�STUDIES in mateulwism,
I?
their idea of a creation, and is equally strong evidence in
&VOUr of the materialistic theory of development or origin
of species. If, as is the case, a stationary and, in so far,
vegetable-like polyp can give birth to an independent and
totally different swimming creature (a form of medusa),
which lives its life and gives birth again to stationary polyps,
it is easy enough to say that the one is but a latent or inter
vening form of the other; but this does not explain the
difference, nor destroy the evident fact that some organisms
under certain circumstances do evolve an utterly different
form of being. It were perhaps to “consider too curiously
to ask the God theorists which of the types was the one
originally created, and whence came the other ?
It is too much the habit of the God theorists to play fast
and loose with species ; holding, when it suits their purpose,,
to the idea of the special creation of each individual species,
and dropping that idea when the conclusions become at all
inconvenient. Yet there are only two possible ways of
accounting for species. Either they are the results of the
development of accidental or beneficial natural variations ;
or they must be the result of distinct creative acts. In the
first case the materialistic theory of development must be
accepted with all its consequent inductions (summarized
towards the end of this paper); in the second case all the
logical consequences of special creation must be accepted,,
of which consequences we may readily find an exemplifica
tion.
It is a definite and accepted fact, for instance, that
there are various species of entozoa or internal parasites find
ing a congenial habitat in the flesh and organs of special
animals and incapable of existence elsewhere. There are
also varied species of external parasites which make their
dwelling-place on the skin of animals, and live by extract
ing the grateful juices from within, nor can they exist on
other than specified animals. In the case of man, we may
instance psoriasis (as the itch is technically called), the
presence of exceedingly small but irritating animalculse,.
without troubling to refer to larger easily remembered in
sects. With the creation theory, or with the germ theory as.
propounded by non-evolutionists, we must accept the conclu
sion that the first man and animals had within and without
them all the various types of the parasitic organisms with which
their descendants are still troubled.
�20
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II.--- THE DAWN OF HUMANITY.
Surely, none but a fabled God, the dark imagination of
•an ignorant and uncultured mind, could look upon poor
Adam or any other man, afflicted inwardly with tcenia and
ascarides, busied externally with the prolific pediculi that
enliven the solitude of the primitive savage, and having
the monotony of his consequent reflections diversified by
the chigo of the West Indies and the guinea-worm of torrid
Africa; could look too upon the sheep with a diseased liver,
owing to the fasciolae or “ flukes” therein existent; could gaze
on the pig evincing more than a suspicion of trichinae or
“ measles,” and upon the potato for the food of the same
pig already bearing the germs of the dreaded “disease,”
and pronounce such a sample of his creative powers as
“ very good 1”
Let it not be thought that these conclusions are only
ludicrous ; they are very serious indeed—for Bibliolaters
and the germ theorists. Nor let it be said that I am speak
ing of repulsive things : the man who believes that God
made all these things and called them good, must also
believe that God made what repulsiveness they have ; and it
is not my fault if the theory of creation is capable of a
reductio ad absurdam.
To return to the gradations and developments of func
tions, we find, at the stage at which we had just arrived,
individual organisms with only one set of generative organs
and functions—those of the male or those of the female
respectively; though, again, it does not follow that this is
an instant and unvarying result, since we may find forms of
the same organisms in which some individuals have only
male or female organs or functions, while others have both,
powerfully developed. This is even the case in some of the
orchids, plants bearing a very high rank in vegetable life.
In some species of gregarious insects, as ants or bees, we
find a further variation, for there are a very small number
with female organs, a larger number with male organs, and
a vast majority without any sexual organs at all; yet the
grubs, which would otherwise have become non-sexual in
sects or working bees, can be, in case of need, developed
by the other working bees themselves into perfect females or
queens.
Difference of sex is, as we all know, the rule in the
higher grades of animal life. We find, too, an increasing
�STUDIES IN MATKKIJIXIKI.
21
importance and responsibility attaching to the female func
tions. In some cases, as in fishes (which are classed very
high in animal life, being vertebrated}, the functions of both
male and female may continue to be as simple or even more
simple than in some of the primitive forms already men
tioned ; for with most fishes no congress of the sexes is
needed for the act of generation. The ova of the female
are simply extruded in some convenient locality, and the
secretion of the male is extruded in the water near by.
But with birds, and with the mammalia upwards to man,
the maternal function is one of increasing burden and
responsibility; no longer limited to the simple formation
and extrusion of germs or ova containing, as it were, latent
life, but now nourishing and cherishing the impregnated
cell or cells within their own body or otherwise, till even
tually an almost perfectly developed progeny is put forth
into the world. In this natural function and adaptability
we have a link which stretches through all remaining types
of life, in very deed “ one touch of nature ” that “ makes
the whole world kin;for in the system of development
that I have roughly sketched we have, in the incident of
separation of sex, arrived at or passed through all the phases
of living organisms of which we have any knowledge—the
lowest organisms as well as articulata, crustacese, insects,
fishes, reptiles, birds and mammalia—all therein included.
At the head of these as intelligent beings may be probably
placed the insect the ant, and the mammal zwzw.
I cannot attempt to explain in brief words all the evidence
that is adduced by materialists in favour of the assertion
that man has been eventually developed by simple natural
laws from lower organisms somewhat such as now surround
us. I will only draw attention to two inevitable conclu
sions : firstly, that if we verify any one instance in an
organism of development or adaptation to an altered con
dition of surroundings, there is no logical bar to such a
series of developments as would eventually result in man,
and might through him go on to still higher beings; and
secondly, that if we concede the spontaneous generation of
any one living organism we at once lay a sufficient basis for
such a series of developments as is just suggested.
Both these conclusions are antagonistic to and utterly do
away with any necessity for recourse to imaginary forces
outside the natural properties of matter. And this is, in brief,
the essential point of Materialism. In matter, ?.<?., in that which
�22
BTUbllS in MATERIALISM.
is perceptible to our senses, we find the basis of, and the
potentiality for, all of which those senses and their resultant
reason can give us any knowledge. We find, for example,
in the fact of man’s mind or intellect, simply a high instance
of this potentiality of matter; mind or intellect being but an
empty phrase, without the existence of brain and reason
{i.e., experience of the senses) to evolve and contain it.
Materialism does not, as is falsely assumed, degrade the
vital forces of life and thought to the level of the inert and
inanimate conditions usually attributed to matter; on the
contrary it elevates ignorantly despised matter to the capa
bilities and possibilities of the highest existence and most
subtle energies; materialism is no adding of death unto
death, but a resurrection of all things unto life. It does not
hold matter as alien or foreign to spirit, it sees in the one
but a capacity or phase of the other ; it does not say
matter is a vice, it finds no vice resultant anywhere but from
the want of knowledge of the laws of matter; it does not
look on matter as a foe to virtue and high intelligence, it sees
in matter the noble mother of all living.
I have wronged my argument somewhat by seeming to
assume that an hypothesis was necessary for the first of the
conclusions given above. But development is already more
than a theory, it has established itself in the region of in
disputable fact.
One of the most recent observations on
this point is that concerning the axolotl, a Mexican lizard,
furnished with gills, and living only in the water; but which
by accidental natural circumstances, or by such circumstances
artificially imitated, may be developed into a perfect land
salamander (hitherto considered of an entirely different genus,
which is a greater distinction than a species), breathing only
by lungs and being incapable of a life in the water; its gills
having disappeared together with the tail-fin, dorsal ridge and
other especially aquatic adaptations, and corresponding
capacities for a life on land having been developed.
Now if the variation from a life only possible in water to
one only possible in air,—if such a variation or adaptation
or development can be brought about during the brief period
of existence of one little reptile, who shall dare to assign a
limit to the variations and developments that may be
evolved in untold myriads of years ? This factor of time
is one of the most difficult to realize and grasp the full
import of, since we have but such a tiny experience of it
in our own life, or even in all the centuries during which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
23
man has left any written or graven record of his life and
.acts. Thirty or forty centuries would seem to be the limit
of the period during which we have anything like historical
record of man, though we may grasp that there were then
many and diverse races of men, some of which had at
tained a high state of civilization. Nor does there seem to
be any indubitable change traceable in the actual bodily
framework of man during that time. But sufficient expla: nations of this at once suggest themselves. In the first
place, that, as has been already noticed, it is in the lowest
and simplest organisms that cardinal changes are most
readily evolved, and we may expect in the case of so high
.an organism as man that many generations may pass away
before any distinct and palpable development may have
manifested itself; and that indeed no change would be neces. sitated in such organs as had, during all that period, been, suffi
ciently adapted to the circumstances ; secondly, that in tracing
the record of man through prehistoric times, in such evi
dence as is afforded us by fossil implements and bones of
man himself, we do get irrefutable evidence of development
since that more distant period ; and, lastly, that if we will
consider the case of organs or faculties which have ?z<7/been
.sufficiently adapted to the circumstances, we shall get here,
too, distinct and indubitable evidence of development.
Somewhat of such development it will be my effort to
trace in the next study—the Progress of Civilization ; the
■development of the faculties by which we have reached
from the material into that which has been usually, and, we
hold, incorrectly, styled and considered the immaterial.
With more highly developed faculties we may find how all
things are material : i.e., ultimately reducible to the cogni.zance of the senses; we shall find in materialism the even
tual explanation of all that lay outside the ken of duller
senses, and was therefore attributed to ultra-intelligible and
extra-natural agency; we shall find in materialism the sure
basis and touchstone for both the outward and inward
conduct of- man—all true work, all true science, all true
morality being therefrom deducible and provable. Nought
of despondency, nought of untrust is there in Materialism,
no dark, cold, fanciful belief, but simple knowledge, full of
Nature’s warmth and life and light. Not ours
“to seek
If any golden harbour be for men
In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt,”
�24
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for to us Doubt is not sunless, it is the very bright and'
bracing air in which we grow ever more strong, more
humble, more confident,—and we trouble about no poetical
fictions as to Death ; for we hold that, as far as man is con
cerned, Death is but the condition of non-existence, and it
is manifestly absurd to endow the sheer absence of existence
with either charms or terrors.
in.—THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION.
In tracing the progress of man from a simple animal condi
tion to one of high intellectual power or civilisation, twomethods of inquiry are available; firstly, such historical
record as is afforded by writings and monuments, together
with what pre-historic evidence we may gather from fossil
bones or implements, or other evidences of man; and,
secondly, such knowledge as we may deduce from the con
ditions and characteristics of existing uncivilised races. To
my mind the evidence resultant from the comparison of
present existing conditions is less open to difference of
opinion than the historic or pre-historic source. It is on this
account that I have preferred to exemplify the development
theory by reference to now existing types and conditions
from the lowest organisms up to man, and by showing a
power and action of development in those which infer a
previous course of development ere reaching their present
condition, rather than to base my position more specially on
fossil forms and types which indubitably establish such
development, according to some observers, whilst others
dispute the conclusions thus arrived at. In man, however,
with both these sources of inquiry at our command we may
adduce evidence of development which it is impossible to
controvert, and I think we may further prove that such pro
gressive development has been incessant, and will, under
given circumstances, continue to be so.
In considering man and the higher organisms by com
parison with the lower and primitive types, we may take the
greatest acquired difference as that of sex. And for this
diversity of sex the Materialist may find a ready and natural
explanation. In the lowest types of life, as we have already
seen, the beings have the powers and functions of both sexes
(?.<?., impregnation and conception) united in one body, and
these functions may presently be exercised either indepen
dently of another being, or reciprocally with another being.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
2$
Now, it is a natural fact, and resultant from obvious reasons,
that liability to conception may and does exist before the
power of impregnation is existent. For impregnation can
only be effected by an animal already arrived at puberty,
while the capacity for reception and retention of the sperm
cells exists, and may come into operation before the actual
capacity for conception, which is also an attribute of puberty.
If, therefore, we presume a double-sexed animal at just
this stage of its existence taking part with, or being forced
to submit to an older and fully developed animal in what
should virtually be a reciprocal act, we shall find as the result
that the immature animal will receive and retain sperm cells,
with which its germ cells will in due time be vivified, while
the mature animal will have received no sperm cells from,
its partner, and its own germ cells will, therefore, remain
unimpregnated and unvivified. In plain words the first
animal will have found exercise for its female organs alone,
and the second for its male organs alone. And, supposing
no further intercourse or exercise of the organs to take place,
it is evident that the one animal will have fulfilled the func
tion of a mother only, and the other that of a father only.
It will also be seen, and I call special attention to this fact,,
that an animal might be forced or coaxed into the position
of maternity before its own impulses or capabilities would,
have prompted any such responsibility.
Another singular natural feature now comes into play.
Where an act is susceptible of repetition, the use of the
necessary organ has a tendency to cause an increased ability,
of that organ ; and the disuse of an organ has a corre
sponding tendency to produce debility or atrophy of that
organ. So that in the next acts of intercourse of the two
individuals we have presumed, there will be a tendency to?the uni-sexual function alone being exercised. Taught by
experience, too, the older individual may have learnt that by
being careful always to select young and scarcely mature
individuals it may secure what amount of gratification is
afforded by the sexual act, without any resultant burden or
incommodity of maternity to itself. It might, in fact, readily
act as a male being, with the tendency to masculinity con
tinually increasing throughout its life. And some of its progeny would inherit this tendency to be of the male sex
only; as also others of the progeny would, from the mother's
induced habit, have a corresponding tendency to be of the
female sex only. With these tendencies once developed into.-
�26
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
■fixed habits, and they certainly will so develop, the fact of
•division into separate sexes is accomplished.
Upon thp incidents mentioned in the earlier part of the
preceding paragraph two others follow almost as corollaries;
firstly, that with the idea of the evasion of the incommodity of
maternity once conceded, it would need the exercise or develop
ment of but a very slight amount of cunning or instinct to lead
an experienced mature animal to evade the maternal function
when trafficking with even a matured animal of less experi
ence ; and, secondly, that in addition to the induced
femininity of the younger animal, there would be developed
and perpetuated a sort of habit of juvenility which might
explain the seeming secondariness of development or immatury in some aspects of females generally; and further, the
general earlier capacity of parentage on the part of the female
than of the male which is now existent.
And I think it may easily be shown that maternity is an
incommodity sufficiently great to prompt to its evasion in
the manner I have suggested. For in even the lowest or
ganisms the fact of the organism being gravid, or heavy
with young, will necessarily restrain its liberty of action or
locomotion, and yet will entail on it a necessity for increased
action in order to find the extra food for the formation of its
• coming progeny.
The habit of unisexuality on the part of either male or
female, would be further established by the fact that with
many of the lower types, both of animals and vegetables, the
act of fructification once fulfilled the being dies. Those of my
readers who have kept silkworms may have noticed how the
male moth will live even for several days, should not a female
moth be present, but that the sexual act once accomplished
the male forthwith dies. And the fact of the female receiv
ing and retaining the male secretion may be well seen in the
female moth who does not begin laying eggs till two or three
days afterwards, and who has within her body, in common
with many other insects, a special cavity, called the sper■motheca, for the storing up till time of need of the secretion
received from the male. In the ant also, the instant death
of the male after the sexual act, and the long-continued
impregnation of the female, is a prominent example of this
phenomenon.
I instance these things to show that I am not drawing on
hypothesis alone, but also on facts and parallels for the
theory as to origin of sex. I hope, at least, to have shown
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
27
that there may be a perfectly intelligible and natural way of
accounting for difference in sex, and of refuting the super
natural fiction that “ male and female created he them.”
It is but one contradiction the more of the fable of creation
that primitive and even some advanced forms of animal life
are not of divided sex.
Among the evidences that can be adduced in proof of the
some time general hermaphroditism of the progenitors of
animals that are now of clearly defined sexes, is the fact that
the rudiments or survivals of the organs and characteristics
of either sex are found in animals of the opposite sex;
rudiments of specially male organs or characteristics being
traceable in every woman, as are likewise rudiments
of the female organs in every man. Man, with other
male mammals, has nipples, and there are known cases
in which a perfectly developed man has given milk in
sufficient quantity to suckle a child. It would even seem
from recent observations in Germany that this faculty and
power may be somewhat readily called into activity. In
women, when the specially female functions have lapsed
through age, the male characteristics more or less assert
themselves; there is a distinct tendency to a more masculine
type in feature, voice, &c., and not unfrequently some ap
pearance of hair on the lips or chin. In the domestic fowl,
a hen past laying will acquire spurs and comb like the male,
and the habit of crowing. Again in the human being, if
accidentally or purposely the specially sexual organs are
removed, there is an instant and persistent tendency to the
development of the stirviving organs and characteristics of
the opposite sex (as though these organs had only been
kept in a state of dormancy by the predominances of the
previous set) ; thus male eunuchs are beardless, their
muscles less firm in texture, and their breasts grow and
soften; and, conversely, in women from whom the ovaries
have been removed, the breasts shrink and disappear, and
masculinity of voice and bearing supervene.
A still stronger exemplification of this survival of double
sexuality remains. As it is in the generative organs that the
main departure from the stage of hermaphroditism has
been made, so also is it there that we must be prepared to
furnish crucial proofs if we would maintain a still existing
identity of being in male and female; such an identity, I
mean, as should do away with all distinctions other than those
really existing in Nature. And it is precisely in those organs
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
that survival can most clearly be evidenced, most celebrated
anatomists and physiologists asserting that precise analogues
or rudiments of every portion of the female economy are
to be found in the man, and vice versa.
I am calling attention at this length to the present and
real identities and differences of male and female, becau-se
in the case of the human being the natural difference has
been very much over-rated, and, as I have already said, man
has based a series of artificial and arbitrary and unjust distinc
tions on that difference. I wish it to be clearly understood
that I am but relating what seems to me a very probable
history of the origin of sex. Whether my theory be alto
gether correct or not, we shall undoubtedly, by searching,
■eventually find out that division of sex has been as simply
and naturally induced as any other phenomenon which was
at one time a mystery, but is now clear. Such a mode of
natural action as I have suggested would go far to account
for all the good and evil of existing civilisation. For the
difference of sex is certainly at the very base of civilisation
as far as man is concerned : from this difference (as I shall
-endeavour to show) have arisen all the conditions of social
and political life, all the working of men together for mutual
and common interests, all the good that has been en
gendered by reciprocity of action and sharing of benefits,
and all the social evil from which the world still groans,
and which is but the resultant of selfishness or non
reciprocity.
For I take civilisation* to mean the banding of many to
gether to do that which could not be done by one, and the more
entirely mutual and reciprocal the benefits received from
such union are, the higher and truer is the civilisation. It is
the custom to credit man alone with being civilised, but it
will be seen that under the definition I have adopted many
other animals may be included, some sorts of ants, bees
and wasps among insects, while perhaps the beaver is the
only other among mammals. It will be seen that intelligence
alone does not imply civilisation, for though the elephant, the
dog, and other animals have a high degree of intelligence,
yet the cases are rare in which they seem to combine for a
general good. And when such instances do occur, they
seem but temporary and transitory conditions, whereas, in the
beaver and the insects named the union is a permanent
one, insomuch that fixed habitations are erected for the
general welfare of the community. Indeed the word civis
�STUD IE S IN MATERIALISM.
29
means a denizen of a city or State, and in all the animals I
have classed as civilised the construction of cities or com
monwealths is an essential feature. Yet the art of building
.alone does not constitute civilisation: birds, squirrels, and
.sticklebacks build nests, though generally only for temporary
purposes ; moles dig passages and chambers, spiders make
webs, and catapillars spin cocoons.
It is in the fact of community that we find civilisation ; it
.is in what tends to and ensures the general benefit of that
community that we find the good of civilisation : it is where
the personal acts or interests of an individual are selfish,
.and, therefore, irrelevant or inimical to the general well
being that we have evil resultant. I know it is asserted by
some sophists that all actions of man spring from a selfish
motive, but we need not trouble much about such a defini
tion ; it will be sufficient for our purpose to distinguish
.between the acts in which a man may believe that his own
well-being or happiness will be an eventual result of benefitting others, and the acts in which he seeks a personal
advantage utterly irrespective of any evil consequences of
such acts to others. Few of my readers will hesitate to
call the former acts good and unselfish, and the latter
.selfish and evil.
Now, it would seem that the class of actions confined to
•.self-interest alone had their origin as a natural consequence
■ of the primitive unisexual and self-sufficient condition, and
that the wider class of feelings and actions have been the
eventual outcome of separation into sex—i.e., of the render,
ing each individual reciprocally helpful to, and more or less
•dependent on, the well-being and full life of some other.
For in looking for the primitive origin of man’s power of
feeling, passion, idea, thought, and reason, we must be ready
to recognize and accept beginnings utterly small and infini
tesimal as compared with his present powers; we must be
prepared to find that the love of a mother for her child had
.as rudimentary and material an origin as the breast and the
milk with which she suckles the babe. As we may already
.ascribe back the wondrous delicacy of finger of a Benve
nuto Cellini or a Michael Angelo to slow development
from such power as lies in the vague changes of form of the
amoeba, so may we look for the birthplace of all the pas
sions that a Shakespeare pourtrays, of all the wisdom with
* which a Socrates and a Bacon enrich the world, in the
^cravings of hunger and the sensations of heat and cold on
�the unisexual being, and then, with wonderfully increased'
impetus, in the fresh set of feelings evolved when quest for
love was added to the quest for food. For many of the
capabilities evolved and developed in either quest would
become of avail in the other, the mutual action and reaction
giving to the organs an acceleration and extent of develop
ment which they might not otherwise have attained.
In speaking of sensations of heat, cold, and hunger in the
lowest organisms, no further intellectual action is implied on
their part than is involved in the simple chemical, or even
mechanical, effects of heat and cold, moisture and dryness
some such action, for instance, as is seen in the rotifer, a
fairly advanced organism, which, in the absence of moisture,
dries up, and will lie, to all intents and purposes, as dead
matter, even for years, but will instantly revive and resume
full activity with the advent of a few drops of water.
A distinct tendency of animated matter is to accept suchconditions as are favourable to animation, the distinguishing
power of locomotion being developed and constantly exerted
to this end. Nor can it be doubted that constantly
recurring experiences of things inimical to the organism’s
well-being will cause even a mechanical tendency to the
avoidance of such evil things, and will develop a pro
vision from the remembrances of experiences, which is the step
ping-stone to an intellect. We see the pimpernel flowerclose itself when rain is coming, that its pollen may not be
injured by the moisture. Doubtless the mechanical causeof this is that some condition of the atmosphere previous
to rain causes a relaxation, and therefore a closing, as in sleep,,
of the flower. We see men and women, when rain is coming,
take an umbrella, that their clothes or their health may not
be injured. They are warned by some evidence of theirsenses: a dark cloud in the sky causes a mechanical relaxation,
in the retina of their eye analogous to the relaxation of the
corolla of the pimpernel, or they see a change in that furthermechanical contrivance, the barometer. Why are we to call,
the carrying of an umbrella an intellectual act, and the closing
ota flower a mechanical act ? Men only use a further de
veloped set of experiences and remembrances and mecha
nisms ; the base of the action and the resultant are essen
tially the same, the avoidance of a condition hurtful to thewell-being of the organism. Man’s intellectual chain may
be longer than that of the pimpernel, but the links are forged,
of the same metal.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
31
The fact is that every experience of an organism is in
some way duly registered in the organism, just as truly as
every touch of a sculptor’s chisel has its effect in the image
he produces. One result of this law—a result that will at
some time be as clear to our understanding as it is now in
many instances to our vision—is that the accretion of experi
ences produces, as might be expected, some definite change
or growth in the organism itself, such change being, in point
of fact, an organ ; and so truly is this the case that it is by
examining the organs of any living thing that we arrive at
the knowledge of the conditions and experiences of its life.
Indeed, we should not greatly err in calling organs materi
alized experiences. In such a way we may not only clearly
explain the necessarily slow progress of development, but
we may also show the very how and why of its existence.
And so the varied necessities of food and love induced
the gradual evolution and development of the organs and
faculties of touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste, locomotion,
prehension, speech; and from the experiences and remem
brances attendant on their continual use arose by similar
slow evolution all the powers that we call intelligence, or
mind, or soul. For we may find a fully sufficient basis for
mind and all its phenomena in such experiences and
remembrances, such impressions, inherited or acquiredimpressions inherited from countless ages of progenitors as
unconsciously, but just as tangibly, as our limbs are in
herited—impressions from our own smaller experiences—-im
pressions which we acquire from others by living converse,
or by bookly intercourse with the mighty dead.
It is the quest for food and the quest for love that are at
the bottom of the two laws so clearly enunciated by Charles
Darwin—Sexual Selection and the Survival of the Fittest.
It must be borne in mind that this survival of the fittest
simply means the survival of the types or animals best
capable of living under certain conditions and contingencies ;
it does not mean the survival of the animals which man
might have considered the most fitting denizens of the earth
as far as his ideas were concerned. For further considera
tion as to these two laws, I must refer the reader to the
works of the author just mentioned. I simply wish here to
note that the quest for food, coincident with the survival of
the fittest, and the quest for love, which evolved the prin
ciple of sexual selection, opened out two separate and widely
varying vistas of impulse and action.
�32
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
As already estimated, the quest of food involved feelings
mainly concerning the self of the organism, and affecting
only the inward personality of the individual; while from
the quest for love, for intercourse and companionship with
fellow-beings, have arisen the feelings concerning the larger
world outside the individual—the feelings which have their
outcome in parental affection, social relations, and civilisation.
And in the commingling and interaction of these inward and'
outer interests we may find the source of all intellectual action.
For, indeed, the reaction of these two sets of feelings on
each other has been so incessant and so multitudinous that
it is difficult, if not impossible, now to classify some of the
many varied passions of man according to their original
incentive. And the organs naturally bear evidence to this
intermingling of causes and events, for the gentle murmur
ing of words of love is as delicious to the lips and tongue as
is the most delicate fruit, and “ the warmth of hand in hand
is more tender and delightful than the sunniest glow of
summer skies.
In man, as in the male of many other animals, this inter
changeability of usage of the organs has been temporarily
used to evil ends, for the organs of prehension acquired in
the quest for food have been in some instances developed
by the quest for love into instruments of outrage; so that, as
already said, the young of the opposite sex have continually
had enforced on them the function of maternity before their
own strength or inclination would have suggested any such
burden or responsibility. In looking at the means of pre
hension used for amatory purposes by male animals gene
rally, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the maternal
office has been a matter of compulsion rather than of equal
and voluntary acceptance. In some beetles, the cruellooking specially-developed organs of prehension are repul
sively suggestive of the idea that conquest and not endear
ment is their purpose, and that it must have been a great re
pugnance on the part of the female which has necessitated
such implements of brute force in the male.
It is true that in the course of time a habit of tolerance,
or even of perfect acquiescence, has been acquired by some
females, yet the habit is far from universal, and, perhaps,
never will be so, so long as the female remains exposed to
the capacity of having maternity forced upon her despite
her own will, while the male is incapable of having the office
of paternity enforced by outrage on him.
�TUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
33;
In the primitive and savage condition of mankind we
have such evidence of the abominable treatment and out
rage of the young females as to leave us without wonder
that the result has been to make woman of a generally
more feeble type than man, and to have induced in her an
utterly abnormal and unnatural phenomenon from which
men and even female animals are exempt. At the first
glance it is pitiful to reflect that man’s vaunted superiority
over the brute, the greater activity of his brain, and thesubtler cunning of his hand have for so long lent them
selves to the oppression that has resulted in such pernicious,
consequences and in the still existent slavery, social and
physical, of the female of his own species. The function
of child-bearing has been exaggerated to an utterly dispropor
tionate degree in her life; it has been made her almost sole
claim to existence. Yet it is not the true purpose of any
intellectual organism to live solely to give birth to succeed
ing organisms; its duty is also to live for its own happiness
and well-being. Indeed, in so doing, it will be acting in
one of the most certain ways to ensure that faculty and
possession of happiness that it aims to secure for its pro
geny. But up to the present woman has scarcely been
treated as an intellectual being. In earlier history her fate
was entirely subordinated to the passions of man, nor has
our civilization yet sufficiently advanced to leave her to
choose her own life, or to develop the powers, the inclina
tions, or the individuality which lie within her nature; and
in our still feeble intellectual powers, in our narrow sym
pathies, and in our stunted capacities, we men are reaping
the natural consequences of our blindness and injustice.
Truly the tale of man’s ignorant injustice will be a bitter
one when unfolded; yet there is the bright hope and con
fidence that to know the wrong will be to redress it. And
it is by intelligent materialistic research that we can alone
assure such knowledge, and by the destruction of all reli
gions and priestcrafts. For a main basis and element in
the constitution of these is the subjugation of woman,
enunciated in tacit and open assumptions and assertions of'
her inferiority and secondariness to man, or in hideous and
insulting fables proclamatory of her innate baseness, and
exculpatory of the condition to which the wrong and selfish
ness of man has alone reduced her.
Further and very conclusive evidence in favour of develop
ment by interaction of these sets of motives and quests is.
�34
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
offered by the nervous system in organised beings. This
system comprises the organs of intellect and of action, and
divides into two main conditions having these specific func
tions. In the lowest organisms little evidence of nervous
structure is presented beyond disjected filaments, but with
■organisms of more experiences (and, therefore, develop
ment) the nervous system becomes an apparatus of filaments
combined with knots or ganglia. And with division into
sets we have the accession of a cephalic ganglion or brain,
at any rate in the more advanced organisms. The minute
ness of many intelligent organisms (such as ants, bees,
wasps, beetles, &c.) throws greater difficulty in the way of
obtaining precise statistics concerning their nervous struc
ture, but in the vertebrata we have greater facilities. That
the brain seems to be a special outcome of wider experiences
■and motives is evidenced by its greater bulk in proportion to
Average Proportion of Weight of Brain to Body :
Fishes ........................... I to 5568
Reptiles ........................ 1 ,, 1321
Birds ........................... 1 ,, 212
Mammals....................... I ,, 186
Man............................... I „ 35
The spinal system, which we are assuming to be more
-specially developed by, and connected with, the narrower
series of motives implicated in self-preservation alone, offers
a similar confirmatory result in its proportion to the amount
of brain, as in the ensuing fairly accurate table :—
Proportion of Weight of Brain to Spinal Marrow :
Fishes ............. • i£, or 2 to 1
Reptiles ......... • 2, „ 2% „ 1
Birds .............
,, 1
Mammals......... • 3> „ 4 „ 1
Man ................. • 23, >, 24 „ 1
This proportion ot brain or mental power to spinal or
active power shall be noted with the coincident sexual,
parental, and social conditions, as follows :—
Fishes.—In general there is no approach of the sexes,
and no indication of parental feeling, except in very rare
instances.
Reptiles.—Approach of the sexes, and sometimes (as in
the viper) fairly developed parental care.
Birds.—In general a greatly increased degree of parental
care, with, in some cases, a steady companionship of two
individuals of opposite sex, which may even endure through
out life.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
35
Mammals.—Parental, or rather maternal, care has here
evolved a special organ, affording food to the young; the
degrees and conditions of parentage, and of sexual affection
and companionship, vary greatly. In many birds and mam- .
mals a power of affection, outside sexual or parental feeling,
has been developed. In animals which have been much
cared for by man, and become domesticated, this affection
may be so prominent as sometimes to override both the
quest for food, and sexual or parental affection. Instances
are not rare o*f the dog or the horse who willingly refuses a
meal in order to be with his master, or who will leave puppy
or colt at the sound of the same dear voice.
Man.—The office and issues of parentage have been ex
tended through simple paternal brute force, with subjugation
of wife and child; patriarchism, with attendant slavery ■
autocracy, with attendant servitude; limited monarchy, with
attendant subjection; to Republicanism, with recognition of
equality of individual right. And from some phase of these
have arisen the vast majority of the existent relations
between man and man. These form the subject of the
further science of materialism called Sociology, and to that
branch of the subject we must leave them, as also the wider
discussion of the development of love in man to its grand
phases of conjugal love, parental and filial affection,
patriotism, and general humanity.
I need only draw attention to one further incident before
bringing these papers to a close ; the fact that the superiority
of man’s primitive culture over that of animals is mainly
evidenced in three things—agriculture, the use of tools, and
the use of fire, each of these having contributed its quota to
the development of man’s intellect. Agriculture would seem
to be an outcome of the habit, common to many animals, of
hiding a superfluity of food till a time of need, though there
is, of course, a vast distance between the simple hiding of
food and the sowing of seeds and the preparing of land for
the purpose, yet it is not difficult to imagine that the acci
dental growth of a store of nuts or roots hidden in the
ground gave to man the idea of providing for food in that
manner.
Evidence of the origin of the use of tools is to be found
in the habit of some birds in carrying to a height and
dropping shell-fish which they have not the strength to
break or open ; monkeys, too, are known to break cocoa-nuts
by dropping them. In these cases the earth itself is used as
�36
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
a hammer, and the unintentional dropping of a shell or a
cocoa-nut offers an easy solution for the origin of the habit,
which would readily spread by imitation and inheritance.
The next step in the scale of mechanical progress is evi
denced in some monkeys, who use a stone as a hammer, or
a stick as a lever. Then follows man, with the adaptation
of the lever (or handle) to the stone, and the use of sharp-edged stones (knives and axes), and with the advent of fire
•and the smelting of metals we gradually arrive at the whole
series of tools and machines that may be found in an inter
national exhibition.
There seems no glimpse of any approach to the creation
■of fire in any animal but man, though many animals willingly
accept its artificial warmth, and prefer the food that is
cooked by its aid. In primitive times the chipping of his
flint implements must have afforded man many instances of
sparks of fire, and possibly of undesigned conflagration, with
•attendant flame and heat. The observation of this may
well have led some thoughtful man to turn the unexpected
discovery to profit and to imitate it; and the evolution by
friction of a heat similar to that caused by fire might suggest
to him or to others the continuance and increase of that
friction till flame would be the reward of their curiosity and
perseverance. And all this would be the consequence of as
clear and simple a train of reasoning as that which led
Columbus to discover land to the west of the Atlantic, or
James Watt to foresee that the force which could raise the
lid of a teakettle could also drive mighty engines.
We do not now dignify either of these men with the title
■of gods, or suppose that they stole their knowledge from
heaven, our times are already too materialistic for that; yet in
n preceding age we have the invention of fire attributed to
■such agency, and the shrewd and patient woman who
evolved the primitive art of the culture of corn and fruit
figured as a goddess, whose name we still use when
speaking of our cereal productions.
Yet, though we no longer dream of referring such inven
tions or knowledge to supernatural power, though we no
longer place faith in fictions of the divinity of the inventors,
we, as a majority, present the pitiable spectacle of still
accepting such primitive and infantile explanations of all the
phenomena that man’s intellect has not yet had the per
severance or the opportunity to solve. The inquisitiveness
and habit of research evolved in man’s natural quests have
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
led him to continually inquire into the origin and sequence
-of all the circumstances that he sees around him, and, where
-want of true knowledge has supervened there have not been
wanting those who have offered all sorts of fictitious and
baneful explanations. It is the evil of all religions, from
that of Confucius to that of Comte, that they are, in the
main, a compound of unverified assertions concerning man’s
physical and social condition, together with a series of selfstyled moral aphorisms deduced from such assertions. It is
only when the spirit of materialistic inquiry shall be carried
into the region of ethics, when every action and idea and
sequence of man’s intellect and mind shall be accredited
solely on the same terms as any other physical fact, that we
shall arrive at any true morality, at any assured knowledge
■of living to the best for ourselves and for each other. Pro
ceeding in this way we shall find that man’s intellect will
have power to find the solution of all that that intellect can
suggest, and to speak of anything further is simply to speak
■of what is for man non-existent.
It has been my purpose to indicate somewhat of the line
.and method of thought which 'may be available in this
further research, but each man must be left to travel by
himself along that road. Sect and name-following can find
no place there; open eyes for Nature’s facts, open hearts
for Nature’s love, these will be our unerring guides to the
■ever-increasing knowledge, the ever-growing happiness, the
-ever-higher potentiality of life, and love, and humanity.
Farewell.
��
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Studies in materialism
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Text
LIFE
AND
MIND:
THEIR
UNITY AND MATERIALITY.
•
BY
EOBERT LEWINS, M.D. '
x
“ If it be possible to perfect mankind, the means of doing so will be found
in the Medical Sciences.”
Descartes.
“ For that which befalls men befalls beasts ; as the one dies so does the
other; they have all one breath; all go unto one place; all are of the dust, and
all turn to dust again.”
Ecclesiastes, 3rd Chap., Verses 18, 19.
GEO. P. BACON, STEAM PRINTING OFFICES.
1873.
��LIFE
AND
MIND:
THEIR UNITY AND MATERIALITY.
By Robert Lewins, M.D.
The design of this short contribution to the philosophy of
Modern Science is one, the execution of which I have felt for
many years past, ever since the collapse of the European
equilibrium signalized by the outbreak of the Erench revolu
tion of 1848, to be a great desideratum in the current distracted
state of public opinion, especially in Great Britain, as to
the claims upon our belief of Divine Revelation at the existing
standpoint of science.
*
My present purpose is to attempt,
in quite popular and intelligible language, divested of all
technicality which is not familiar to all fairly educated persons,
to ascertain the verdict of modern physiology and pathology
on the real nature of life. Upon this physical basis, disre
garding all metaphysical systems, from Plato to Comte, as so
many ignesfatui, which have only served during thousands of
years of misdirected activity, to perplex and mislead the
human mind, I propose to formulate, in a few sentences, a
consistent and rational theory of human existence, in which
everything super-natural and exceptional to familiar, every
day observation and experience, is removed from the domain
of sense and fact into that of fancy and fable.f
I have chiefly at heart to bring to bear, in a purely scientific
and judicial spirit, on the so-called inspiration and infallibility
of our own Bible, one single, well-established physiological
canon, the non-existence of a vital or spiritual principle as an
entity apart from the inherent energy of the material organism.
* Volumes could not better illustrate the irreconcilable antagonism between
Revelation and Science, than the statement of so thoughtful a scholar as the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in his sermon on the text “Jesus wept,” at Tam,
beth Church on Hospital Sunday, 15th June, 1873, respecting Death. His Grace
seriously advocated.the untenable hypothesis now so thoroughly refuted by
Paleontology and Biology, that “ Death was a frightful thing, the memento
of Sin, for Sin gave it birth,” evidently under the conviction that the myth
in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Creation and Fall of Adam is a matter of fact.
t No dcubt both the poetical and metaphysical faculties are most essential
and important elements in human nature, but the legitimate end of imagination and philosophical speculation is to lead us to the possession of positive
facts practically useful in vulgar life. All records of intellectual processes
that stop short of this result, are—except during the brief period of our
education—impediments of right conduct, and only serve to cheat and beonile
us of our time. Action, not contemplation, is the true vocation of Man,
�4
This one fact alone, I am fully satisfied in my own mind,
proves conclusively that all super-naturalism, alike “ sacred
and profane,” is explicable by quite familiar phenomena of
deranged cerebration and innervation, and that, as a corollary,
the pretended “ fundamental truths of Christianity ” are pal
pable fallacies, ill-analysed and mis-interpreted signs of disordered functions of the brain and cranial nerve-centres, of no
more authority or claim to especial sanctity than analogous
pretensions in the case of the Koran, or other extinct or extant
idolatry. Mahomet, indeed, from being subject to epilepsy,
must be considered by modern pathology as labouring, during
his whole public career, which was much more extended than
that of the Prophet of Nazareth, under actual organic brain
disease, and the wide-spread religion of Islam may therefore be
dismissed at once, as a purely medical question, from the serious
notice of all who are not Pathologists. The Grecian Oracles,
also reverenced by the most civilized nation of antiquity as
superhuman utterances of Divine Wisdom, were merely the
ravings of women temporarily insane from the inhalation of
gases which disturbed, by poisoning the blood, their cerebral
functions. Insanity and Idiocy, to this day, are still venerated
in the native lands of Jesus and Mahomet as the manifestation
of divine inspiration.
*
Christianity will thus be found, when
examinedby the light of the 19th, to be simply what the impar
tial Greeks and Romans described it in the 1st century—a
Syrian superstition. Syria, the “ Holy Land” of the Bible and
Koran (as if in sound philosophy any one place or thing can
be holier than another) seems in all ages—doubtless from
geological and meteorological peculiarities!—to have been
notorious for the mysticism of its inhabitants ; by which term
I mean such excess of the idealising over the reflective faculties
that sober reason and observation, the seeing things as they
are in the open day-light of fact and nature, become quite
disguised and obscured by the phantasmagoria of illusion.
This radical defect, which necessitates the intellect to revolve
perpetually in a vieious circle, fatal to all real progress, is
characteristic of the human mind throughout all the East,
* Epilepsy, doubtless from its striking and imposing physiological symp
toms, was in ancient times regarded as the “Holy Disease,” par excellence.
Hippocrates no doubt incurred the odium attached to “Impiety,” when he
taught that no disease was more or less holy than another—all being alike
the result of impaired bodily organs.
f The scenery round Jerusalem and through the wilderness of Judea to
wards the Jordan, is exceedingly weird and hideous, well fitted to be the
nursery of an ascetic creed, “ whose Kingdom is not of this World.”
�5
as every impartial traveller perceives on a very cursory ac
quaintance.
An Oriental must mystify and “ fable/’ not necessarily by
intention, but because, from the structural arrangement of his
intellectual organs, exaggeration, hyperbole, and the prefer
ence of fiction to fact, is his natural element. To him Lord
Bacon’s aphorism is peculiarly applicable, “ A mixture of
a lie doth ever add pleasure.” In the whole texture of his
mind he displays the impulsive, visionary imaginativeness and
incapacity for patient and sustained impersonal research of
women and children, swayed by every fluctuating breath of
sentiment and passion. To minds of this class plain truth ap
pears insipid, displeasing, and unsatisfactory,in direct contrast
with that disciplined virile European intellect, which, in com
paratively recent times, by strict adherence to the investiga
tion of what really exists, has so immeasurably extended, for the
benefit of mankind, the range of mental vision. In the signal
triumphs of civilization during the last two centuries the
Orient, and the traditional methods of the Orient, have no part
whatever.
To return from this digression to my more immediate pur
pose. The single and simple cardinal principle of modern
science, above italicised, to which I would direct atten
tion, and to which I shall confine myself on the present
occasion—as subversive of all spiritualism and mysticism
whatever—is a plant of English growth, and cannot pro
perly be considered older, in its definite shape, than the
publication of Newton’s “ Principles of Natural Philosophy,”
the year before the revolution of 1688, though in a vague, in
definite form its spirit was awake in Europe from the time of
the Reformation. Our Royal Society was established, as
stated in its charter, at the Restoration of Charles II., as a
protest against “ supernatural ” methods, the Puritan Revolt
being the last sincere and earnest abortive attempt to govern
mankind on Christian principles, or to take au serieux in
political life, the truth of the Jewish Dispensation. Modern
Physical and Mental Science, dating from the English Revo
lution—the era of Newton and Locke—may thus justly be
considered the real Anti-Christ.
This radical principle of true knowledge, which the
human mind has only reached after persevering for
thousands of years in false methods, is the confidence,
based on fixed scientific data, and not merely on conjec
ture, in the all-sufficiency of Matter to carry on its own
operations, and the consequent absurdity, uselessness, non
�6
necessity of any hypothesis which assumes, that from outside
the sphere of sensible, material phenomena, there intrudes
an immaterial, spiritual, or supernatural factor, to perform
functions, which Matter, by virtue of its own in-dwelling
energy, really performs for and by itself. I confidently sub
mit to the judgment of my readers the assertion that the
whole hypothesis of Immaterialism, of an over-ruling of matter
by “ Spirit” (in the transcendental, not etymological sense of
the word), the former the passive instrument, the latter the
active agent, received its death-blow on the fall of the Car
tesian, and establishment of the Newtonian, Philosophy.
Our great English astronomer, by his discovery of universal
gravitation, was the real founder, in Christian times, of scien
tific, common sense materialism, though, from prejudices of his
own education in the scholastic methods of his age, he himself
failed to carry out his own data, to their legitimate conclu
sions, in the domain of Biology. The tremendous revolution in
European thought, at the close of the 17th century, can even yet
be well appreciated by comparing the mystical idealism of
Milton’s “ Paradise Lost” with the common sense realism of
Pope’s “Essay on Man.” Erom the awe-struck manner in which
the intellectual representative of Puritanism hails Light as
too sacred even to be named, we recognise the fatal tendency
of that primeval mysticism which renders free thought, free
investigation, and real progress, an impossibility. There is no
room for doubt, from his cosmological and psychological stand
point, that had Milton been aware of the prismatic exjferiments and cosmical demonstrations of Newton, he would have
turned from them with abhorrence and proud contempt.
*
To
* Socrates, who has been considered by not a few orthodox • authorities to
have had a quasi Divine Mission, as a forerunner of Christ, protested against
the impudence and profanity of Anaxagoras, when he degraded the divine
Helios and Selene into a Sun and Moon of calculable motions and magni
tudes. Astronomy was pronounced by him to be among the “ Divine Mys
teries,” which it was impossible to understand and madness to investigate, as
the above-named physicist had presumptuously pretended to do. He held,
indeed, that the Gods did not intend that man should pry into cosmical
arrangements, that they managed such things so as to be beyond bis ken,
and therefore logically discarded General Physics, or the study of Nature al
together as impious madness. “ Moral Philosophy ” he considered alone fit
for Humanity. Natural Science he taught to be Celestial Arcana, that would
for ever remain inscrutable secrets to mankind. And, as far as we can see,
that remained the mediaeval standpoint only fully displaced, spite of the ad
mirable but incomplete labours of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and
Galileo, by the discovery of Universal Gravitation. Both Bacon and Milton,
scholars at the high water mark of the knowledge of their respective epochs,
disbelieved the true system of the universe.—See Grote’s “ History of Greece,”
chap. Ixviii.
�us, at all events, a century and a half later, it seems perfectly
patent, whatever may have been the doubts and quibbles of
Newton, Locke, and their learned and unlearned contemporaries, that as soon as it became a demonstrated fact thatMatter
was active, not passive, and that its every particle was in
motion itself, and the cause of motion in every other particle
—the belief in an energising principle as a separate entity,
apart and distinct from Matter itself, became an untenable
fallacy. The whole fabric of Immaterialism, the idea of the
necessity of supernatural influence in inorganic matter, was
annihilated at once.
And the generalization cannot be restricted to “brute”
matter, but is equally applicable to the organic kingdom
of nature, to plants, animals, and man. Sensibility and
voluntary motion (animal life), just as in the case of the selfacting cosmos, is not the outcome of a vital or senso-motor
principle, spiritual or immaterial—animating, vivifying or
vitalising the material organization, but just as in the simpler,
though not less wonderful (for in an infinite scale there are
no absolute degrees) case of inanimate matter—animal vitality
or conscious existence, with all its marvellous and complicated
processes of body and mind, is merely the active expression of
the material machinery of the microcosm. In this microcosm
special anatomical structures or tissues manifest special func
tions, one of them being consciousness—egoistic and altruistic
— of which mentation or cerebration is only a mode. Thought
and Moral Feeling is thus only localised sensation, the special
life of the hemispheres of the brain, organs familiarly known
to be exceptionally developed in the human, as compared with
all other animals. Modern physiology, just as in the case of
modern physics, has been compelled entirely to discard the
Oriental, classical, mediaeval, metaphysical, ante-Newtonian
speculation that organic function has for its factor a spiritual
or immaterial entity or soul. The question of the anima
mundi and anima humana (using the term in the sense of
soul) is at bottom one and the same. The speculation, ex
plicable and excusable even so late as the prevalence of the
Cartesian system, while the erroneous idea of the inertness of
matter vitiated Philosophy, had no longer a locus standi after
its refutation by Newton. If matter acts by means of its own
vis insita, and depends on no extraneous “influx” or im
pulse, the whole problem of Immaterialism and Materialism
is solved in favour of the latter. No modern physiologist has
any difficulty in realising what seemed so insuperable a
stumbling block to the Ancients and Locke—that sensation
�8
and thought is due to matter (nerve substance). The whole
difficulty seems to us purely imaginary, depending on precon
ceived fancies as to the twofold existence of spirit and
matter in the universe, and the inferiority of the latter to
the former — ideas of no greater value than the old
prejudice of mathematicians as to the “ perfection” of the
circle, so mischievous in astronomical discovery—or the fanci
ful notion of peculiar sanctity attached to the numbers 3 and
7. We know nerves feel or sensate. We know equally well,
both from physiology and pathology, that a special portion of
the nervous system (the hemispheres of the brain) thinks. From
*
the medical or natural stand-point, the metaphysical notion
that man is a dual being, compounded of soul and body, is in
reality only the last lingering relic of the vicious, obsolete
School-Physiology—the parent of occult therapeutical prac
tice in the middle ages, and familiar in medical literature as
the system of Van Helmont, a Flemish physician, who died
about the time of Sir Isaac Newton’s birth. This system was
based on the fallacy of the essential passivity of matter,
and pre-supposed that in every organ of the body there is an
Archeus, a ruling spirit, an Eu-demon in health, a kako-demon
in disease—the active agent in function, whose sole raison
d'etre is the presumed incapacity of matter, “ living or dead,”
to exhibit, proprio motu, energy of any kind. This theory,
* “ That the hemispheres of the Brain are the seats of the intellectual
faculties—viz., Emotion, Passion, Volition, and at the same time essential
to Consciousness—may be considered proved by these established facts:—
(1.) In the Animal Kingdom a correspondence is observed between the
quantity of grey matter, the depth of the convolutions, and the sagacity of
the animal.
(2.) At birth the grey matter in those parts is very defective, the convolu
tions being only superficial fissures confined to the surface of the Brain; and
as the grey matter increases intelligence develops.
(3.) Vivisection shows that on slicing away the Brain the animal becomes
more dull and stupid in proportion to the quantity of grey matter removed.
(4.) Clinical experience points out that in cases where disease has been
found to commence at the circumference of the Brain (that is at the hemi
spherical convolutions) and proceeds towards the centre, the mental faculties
are affected first; whereas in those diseases which commence at the central
parts and proceed towards the circumference, the mental faculties are affected
last.”—See Dr. Aitkin’s “Science and Practice of Medicine.”
To my mind the whole question at issue between Spiritualism and
Materialism, is solved in favour of Hylozoism, by the fact stated in No. 3 of
the a bove quotation from Dr. Aitkin’s invaluable Text Book of Medicine.
Slicing the hemispherical ganglia of the Encephalon induces insensibility
and stupidity, which is equivalent to stating it impairs the mind and moral
feelings. No physical pain, no paralysis is the result, a fact dwelt on by early
vivisectors with astonishment; only a purely mental one, which surely de
monstrates that the organ injured is the primary seat of the mind—the “ Dome
of Thought, the Palace of the Soul.” We should certainly conclude that such
was the case from similar experimental results in any other organ.—R. L.
�9
identical with that of Divine and Demoniac possession in the
Bible, which is quite incompatible with rational, theoretical
and practical Physic, has long since fallen even into popular
contempt as regards every other organ or series of organs
in the body, except the Sensorium.
*
The radical antithesis between the old dual doctrine of
Body animated by Spirit and modern Physiology, may be well
illustrated by reference to the different views as to the
rationale of “ suspended animation” in the two systems. In
the one, where matter is held to be essentially inert—a vital
principle—an animating spirit—must be assumed, which in
syncope, asphyxia, &c., deserts its material tenement to
emigrate as an indestructible, veritable entity elsewhere. In
*
the other modern scientific one we have with complete reason,
and on sufficient grounds, abandoned this separation of soul
and body, this emigration, during periods of insensibility and
immobility, of the former to other spheres of activity. We now
know, as certainly as we know any other demonstrated fact of
science, to mention no other grounds for our certainty than
the mechanical means of treatment successfully employed for
the restoration of the apparently dead, that life resides in
tissue as an immanent energy, with its corollary, that suspen
sion of life is the consequence of the derangement, the arrest
of those material conditions (the ultimate link in the chain of
which is the contact of the oxygen of the atmosphere through
the arterial circulation with the tissues), exactly as takes
place in the case of a watch which ceases to “ go” from
derangement of its works.f
The bearing of this unity, and not duality of nature in man
on what are called the “ fundamental truths of Divine Revela
tion,” must be apparent at a glance. What has been mistaken
for supernatural interference resolves itself into Hypereesthesia or Anaesthesia, dependent on increased or diminished
nervous and cerebral action. It is quite unnecessary, from
this physiological vantage ground, to allude seriously to the
portents, miracles, prophecies, &c., claimed by mystagogues,
successful or unsuccessful, which sanction their pretensions, as
exceptionally privileged beings, to dictate authoritatively to
their fellow creatures the behests of Heaven, from Moses to
* Error dies hard. In a modified form this old fallacy again reared its
head, during the chloroform controversy in 1848.—See Dfemoir of Sir James Y.
Simpson, by Professor Puns, P.D. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1873.
f The discredit into which Exorcism has fallen shows, that even in the un
scientific mind, material force has been substituted for “ vagrant spirit,”
now “in” now “ out of the body,” as the active agent in vitality.
�10
Pius IX., and the author of the Book of Mormon. All such
must be uncompromisingly negatived by science in the 19th
century as impostures—conscious or unconscious—the pro
mulgator of an untruth not being, of course, less an im
postor from being his own first dupe, even though he be
the victim of circumstances beyond his own direct control.
It were an impertinence in the present state of physiology
and physics, to argue in refutation of the incredible assertion
that human beings can arrest the motions of sun and moon,
change water into wine, lay the winds and waves by a word,
cure old standing or congenital organic disease or deformity
instantaneously by a touch, by the invocation of any name
under Heaven, or in any other way alter or suspend the re
gular order of the universe by means corresponding with the
idea of a miracle in theology. When we eliminate from matter
the vital principle we nullify entirely the venerable hypothesis
of Divine or diabolic inspiration and possession, and give
scientific sanction to the Sadducean doctrine that all reported
visions of angels and spirits, good or evil, are spectral appear
ances—-symptoms of disturbed bodily function of organs with
in the skull, “ coinages of the brain, bodiless creations,” like
the apparition in Hamlet and apparitions everywhere else.
Such assumed supernatural visitations as the “ descent of
the Holy Ghost” at Pentecost, and the conversion of Paul, to
whom, and not directly to Jesus Christ or any of his immediate companions and disciples, Protestantism is chiefly
indebted for its Evangelical doctrines, on his journey to
Damascus—phenomena lying at the very root of the alleged
Divine origin of Christianity—belong to the very alphabet of
medical science, and may be confidently diagnosed as not pre
ternatural occurrences at all, but merely symptoms of over
excitement—the result either of Anaemia or Hyperaemia—of the
nervous centres in the head. “ The sound from Heaven as of
a rushing, mighty wind, the cloven tongues of fire,” are symp
toms familiar to every clinical tyro of morbid action in the en
cephalic sensory ganglia connected with the auditory and
optic nerves, and are, indeed, only exaggerations of that
“ singing in the ears” and “ floating of motes” before the
eyes, which every one who reads this must have himself ex
perienced from the most trifling derangement, centric or
eccentric, of the circulation of the blood within the brain, or
from over-tension of the brain, eye, or ear nerve-tissue itself.
The exaltation of the faculty of speech—a parallel case to
which is well known as the Irvingite epidemic of “ Unknown
tongues”—is also the external sign of excited function at the
�origin in the brain of another cranial nerve, the lingual or
motor nerve of the tongue. The mental tumult, panic, and
metamorphosis of ideas, feelings, and character, are also quite
ordinary symptoms consequent on the participation of the
cerebral hemispheres—seat of the moral feelings, ideas, and
character—in the excited condition of the adjacent sensory
ganglia. Identical symptoms, affecting both the organs of
sense and the mental and moral faculties, are now quite
familiar to us as exhibited by fanatics in “ camp meetings,”
a,nd religious revivals, not uncommon since Whitfield and
Wesley’s time, in Great Britain, North America, and Protes
tant Ireland. All such occurrences, whether they happened
1800 years ago in Palestine, or yesterday at our own doors,
have no connection whatever with supra-mundane agency,
but are simply the usual, constantly recurring, every-day
indications of abnormal states of the sensorium.
The conversion of Paul falls under the same category, and
resolves itself into an apoplectiform attack of the nature of
sun-stroke with temporary amaurosis—a very common sequel
to protracted cerebral tension and excitement, the probable
proximate cause of the paroxysm, the active symptoms of
which only lasted three days, though, as often happens in
illness of this character, it revolutionized the whole future
life of the sufferer, being exposure to the noon-day blaze of an
Eastern sun. Such instances of mistaken diagnosis merit as
little notice, other than professional, from contemporary
medicine, as do the tales of witchcraft in former ages, or the
shameful spiritualistic delusion of to-day. All such supposed
evidences of supernatural power are merely indications of
natural bodily infirmity.
*
* The conversion of Colonel Gardiner, a well known cavalry officer, killed
at the battle of Preston Pans, described by Dr. Doddridge, is another instance
of the same kind, identical in its leading features with that of Paul. It was
attended by similar ocular and acoustic hallucinations, and instantaneous
life-long change of character and conduct, clearly traceable to recent con
cussion of the brain from an accident—a fall from his horse. It may also be
mentioned that two famous mystagogues who have recently aspired to found
new religions, Swedenborg and Comte, were in like manner the subjects of
Brain affection. The case of the former has been most exhaustively treated by
Dr. Maudsley in the “ Journal of Mental Science,” in a series of articles, which
I have vainly attempted to induce him to make more accessible to the general
public than they can be in the pages of a professional journal. The medical
history of Swedenborg is, wiutatis mutandis, that of all successful
“ Madmen who have made men mad
By their contagion; Conquerors and Kings,
Pounders of Sects and Systems.”
Comte’s natural history is still a desideratum. Ordinary biographies of the
founder of the “ Religion of Humanity,” with all its extravagances and anach
ronisms, lacking physiological and pathological elucidation, are worthless
and misleading.
�12
As a necessary part of my argument, however, lam anxious
to bring to bear upon the doctrine of a personal immortality—
a doctrine which still seems to flourish amid the present
wreck (at least on the Continents of Europe and America,
and to a greater extent even in Great Britain than easy
going people and their supporters, either from sentiment or
interest), of time-honoured creeds are willing to allow—the
above fact of the unity, and not duality of nature in man.
This belief, from the premises that there is in the human
being, just as in inorganic and the lower animal creation, no
such thing as a soul at all, must be dismissed to the limbo
of other exploded superstitions. No doubt every mind capable
of abstract thought has within itself, as the reflex, minister
and interpreter of nature, which is in itself endless and
eternal, the sense or feeling of immortality, of endlessness in
time and space. Without that feeling we should be, indeed,
strangers and aliens on this planet, itself only an atom in
the infinite abyss of Immensity. Time and space are, in
deed, not natural verities at all, but merely artificial, braincreated segments and analyses of eternity and immensity.
Nature herself ignores all such limitations. Her only realities
and syntheses are eternity as regards time, and immensity as
regards space. All that has been said or sung, in prescientific ages, of God or Gods, may be predicated in this our
age of the material universe, beyond which it is impossible for
the human mind to range. Higher than himself no man can
think. And this idea, this sensation of endless duration in
time and extension in space—a sensation never absent
for weal or woe in minds capable of high abstract power
—but in the average mind only paroxysmally present—forced,
too often horribly, on the attention in moments of exalted
feeling, pain, terror, suspense, actual or anticipated tor
ture, sleeplessness, dreams, nightmare, or under the
action of certain narcotics, as opium, haschiz, and al
cohol, has been confounded by precipitate theorists with
the literal idea of resurrection from the dead, and a
future eternal life of happiness or misery, apart from our
present bodies, or with those bodies in a “ glorified” form. '
*
* I need surely waste no words, at the present day, in pointing out the fatal
fallacies and inconsistencies contained in the apology for this theory, in the
15th chap. 1st Corinthians, and elsewhere in the New Testament. No doubt
it is a beautiful dream, looked at from the elect point of view, as there
represented; but the truth is more beautiful still. Fruition is better than
expectation, performance than promise, actual experience than faith or
hope.
�13
The apparently different ideas of ante-natal existence which.
I forms part of most Oriental creeds, and is known to Occi
dental scholars a.s the Pythagorean doctrine of the Me
tempsychosis, and the modern Christian one of a post-mortem
individual immortality, are really one and the same chimerical
notion. Both are relegated, by sober, scientific analysis, from
the domain of the actual into th it of the ideal. Both are
alike the ill-analysed, empirical conception, the cerebral
function, untrained by scientific discipline, frames to itself of
the infinite, the eternal—in the one case as applied to the
past, in the other to the future. An actual, veritable im
mortality is perfectly superfluous, seeing we have already, in
our present state of being, an ideal one in the sense of it.
“ Heirs of immortality’’ we certainly are, but not in the
theological sense of the phrase. Only in so far as during
every pulse beat between the cradle and the grave our minds
have an instinctive sense, more or less definite, of endless
duration and extension. Man, then, as a sentient being, is
launched into eternity, not when he dies, for at death he
returns to the same condition of nothingness, as far as
consciousness is concerned, as was the case prior to his
embryonic existence, but when the first stirrings of life,
including the life of the brain or ideation, begin. Healthy
sensation, or perfect life in every organ, including the cerebral
hemispheres, is thus our only heaven, morbid sensation, vary
ing as it does from ennui or general malaise to mental and
corporeal agony and anguish, our only hell. Earth is paradise,
if the healthy operation of every anatomical structure could be
preserved ; perpetual sunshine of body and mind is the blessed
result— a beatitude implied in the physiological aphorism, “ the
normal exercise of every organic function is pleasurable.”
Wherever, therefore, malaise of body or mind is present, its
cause must be sought for in deranged bodily function, and in
no “ higher ” or more recondite region. All that is fabled
by poets, saints, martyrs, founders of sects and systems',
under the term Saturnian or Golden Age, Kingdom of
Heaven, Paradise, &c., is comprehended in that supreme
bien aise which results from the equilibrium of the bodily
functions. That state, and that alone, in which, as in
healthy infancy, no portion of the nervous system, indicating
loss of general balance of the organism, obtrudes itself
on our attention, is the true palingenesia, whether of
mythology, philosophy, or Christianity. To attain and
preserve that state of normal and material well being—
�14
discarding all more transcendental aspirations as a mis
chievous and vainglorious Utopia and fool’.s paradise, •
ought all our efforts to be exclusively directed. It will be
found, on experience, to have nothing in common with the
“ Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ” principle of
the degenerate Epicurean, but to require for its attainment
and preservation Herculean labours, taxing to their utmost
legitimate limits, the vaunted intellectual and moral capacity
of our race.
The following twelve theses—partly taken from the German
—summarise the chief points contended for in this paper:—
1st. The genuine disciple of Nature and Life, which are one and in
divisible, takes nothing on trust, but only believes what is known
with positive certainty—that is, on data which can be universally
verified.
2nd. Doubt is not, as Fiction pretends, the herald of dismay and
despair, but the necessary preliminary of all order and progress ; as
without it there cannot be any inquiry, clear insight, or settled
convictions whatever.
3rd. Natural Science is bound in conscience to divulge all her
results, however much they may conflict with contemporary prejudices,
in order to satisfy the human mind and leave it free for the further
pursuit and enjoyment of truth. Mental Reservation and Prevarica
tion, as habitually practised by contemporary English thinkers and
savans, is disloyalty to humanity | and reason; dangerous alike to their
*
country, and to the cause of civilization throughout the world.
4th. Natural Philosophy in recent times has rendered trite the
axiom, that everything in the universe proceeds by unalterable law.
5th. The sum total of Natural Law constitutes the system of the
world (axiomatic truths of logic and mathematics).
6th. The world is from eternity to eternity. Nothing is ever
created, nothing lost. Beginning or ending there is alike none. Only
the form and condition of things is perishable. Everything that exists
dates from eternity.
7th. The Universeis boundless in space and time. The divisibility
* England, as represented by her influential and cultured classes, from her
pre-eminent adherence to the obsolete cause of traditional Supernaturalism,
and consequent inaccessibility to the new order of ideas resulting from the
light thrown on Nature and Human Nature by Science—presents in the 19th
century a striking analogy to the brandy of Spain during the struggles of
the Reformation. Lord Shaftesbury’s inhuman dictum at Exeter Hall, on the
30th June, as chairman of the meeting, convened by the Church Association,
to protest against the confessional in the English Church: “ Perish all things
so that Christ be magnified,” is identical in spirit with that of the Grand
InquisitiZffe'in “Don Carlos:” “The voice of Nature avails not over Faith.”
Truly, as Milton says: “ Presbyter is only Priest writ large.” Absit omen.
�15
of matter is infinite. The Universe can have no limits, eternity in
time and immensity in space being correlative.
Sth. As the logical inference from the above, millions and millions
of millennia are before ns, in which new worlds and systems of worlds
shall flourish and decay ; at their lapse the Universe can be no nearer
its dissolution than at the present or any former period.
9th. Cosmical space is not a vacuum. Our atmosphere has no
limits. The first living being had its germ in eternity, which is equi
valent to negativing Creation altogether. The present human being
is only a link in an endless series—the goal of a past—the startingpoint of a future developmental form in the Animal Kingdom,
10th. The so-called “ Personal God ” is merely an idol of the
human brain—a pseudo-organism of pre-scientific man endowed with
man’s attributes and passions, a remnant of Fetichism. Jehovah,
Jove, or the “ Lord and Father” of the New Testament, are alike
anthropomorphic inventions. Absolute Atheism is, however, no pos
tulate of Science, which does not venture to impugn the evidence of
Cosmical Design, or the existence of an unknown, inconceivable, in
telligent First Cause, of whose Eternal Mind, the Eternal Universe
may be a hypostasis. Some such belief is indeed a necessity during the
earlier stages of our life, while, even in the soundest intellect, imagmation is dominant over judgment.
11th. The further development of our race in intellect and moral
feeling depends chiefly on education—the disuse of a priori, in
tuitive methods, and the systematic practice of rational habits of
thought based on actual experience. At bottom this is equivalent to
saying, superior enlightenment depends on proper exercise, in every
possible direction, of the cerebral hemispheres.
12th. No satisfactory progress in virtue or happiness can he hoped
for till the present supernatural theory of existence is overthrown,
and the docile study of the great Book of Nature and Life, with its
invariable sequences of cause and effect, supersedes the arbitrary, anarchic authority of falsely called “ Divine Revelation.”
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Life and mind: their unity and materiality
Creator
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Lewins, Robert
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Lewes
Collation: 15 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extensive footnotes.
Publisher
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Geo. P. Bacon, printers
Date
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1873
Identifier
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G5360
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Life and mind: their unity and materiality), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Subject
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Materialism
Philosophy
Conway Tracts
Materialism
Philosophy and Science