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RELIGION:
ITS PLACE IN HUMAN CULTURE.
A LECTURE,
Delivered in the Freemasons’ Hall, Edinburgh,
On Sunday, May 18, 1873.
BY
JOHN MACLEOD.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SCOTT,
NO. 11 THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1873.
Price. Sixpence.
��RELIGION :
ITS
PLACE
A
IN
HUMAN
CULTURE.
LECTURE,
BY
JOHN
MACLEOD.
��RELIGION:
ITS PLACE IN HUMAN CULTURE..
T is now well-nigh two years since first I stood on
this platform, and although I did not feel then so
hopeful of the immediate success of our undertaking,
yet I felt convinced that our movement contained in
itself all the elements on which true and permanent
success depends. I knew it was not an arbitrary
movement propped up by artificial aids, and appealing
for support to low and vulgar motives, but a free and
spontaneous outcome of the intellectual vigour of our
time—the masculine birth, as it were, of the nine
teenth century. It says very much for the intelligence
and manliness of Edinburgh citizens, that some years
ago there could be found among them several men and
not a few women who broke away from the enervating
influence of orthodox Christianity; scorned that soft
sentiment which languishes and sickens at its ancient
altars, and in spite of the obloquy which invariably
awaits the revelation of great truths, asserted the
divine right of their manhood and womanhood—the
freedom of the human soul. Although only a few
years have elapsed since you left that worse than
Egyptian bondage, yet the influence which your con
duct, and that of your noble-minded leader, Mr Cranbrook, has had on society is incalculable. Ten years
ago, few men would believe that society could so
rapidly advance in intelligence as it has' done; that
the tone of our daily press could rise from faint and
scarcely audible mutterings against spiritual tyranny
to a tone of rolling thunder, loud, heavy, and crushing,
against everything that is hypocritical and false; and
fewer still could believe that nearly every clergyman
who has any pretension to a highly-cultivated intellect
and refined taste in every Christian sect or denomina
I
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Religion :
tion would, in eighteen hundred and seventy-three, be
following in the lead of Bishop Colenso. I cannot say
that I admire the conduct of a man who signs a
document such as the Confession of Faith, or the
Thirty-nine Articles, and pledges himself by a solemn
oath to maintain every proposition therein contained
against all criticism, if, on finding that some of those
propositions do not harmonise with his better judg
ment and more enlightened reason, he seeks to force
his own meaning into them, and then to inter
pret them, not according to the obvious meaning
of the text, but in accordance with the subjectivity
of his own mind, and the false poetic gloss with which
he can invest them. I say I cannot admire the
conduct of these men; it lacks in manhood and
fearless honesty. Christian dogmas have been dead
these many years, and they cannot now be gal
vanised into life; it is against the analogy of
nature, of science, of history. Christian dogmas are
interesting to us only as the fossilized remains of
ancient life; of life which may or may not have been
bright and useful, but which was certainly inferior to
our own in comprehensiveness and breadth of human
sympathy. I know several men in the churches who
believe no more than I do in the literal interpretation
of their own creeds, or indeed in the Biblical authority
which is supposed to establish these creeds; and yet
these men are contented to remain within their respec
tive churches as the paid representatives of orthodox
Christianity, satisfying their conscience with the old
but miserable subterfuge, which was once the glory of
the Jewish philosophers of Alexandria, and of the
early Christian fathers — namely this, that every
passage and even word in Holy Writ contained two
meanings, a primary and a secondary one; in other
words, a literal and a mystical meaning. It has been
said that a coach and six can be driven through any
Act of Parliament; but ecclesiastical acts are still
more elastic, in the opinion of not a few, for they can
�Its Place in Human Culture.
5
be expanded into dimensions which look anything but
orthodox; and immediately on the pressure being
withdrawn, they contract within limits which, from
their narrowness and convenience of manipulation,
might satisfy the most expert advocate for “particular
redemption,” or “ eternal reprobation.”
We say, then, that when a man ceases to believe,
not only in the distinctive dogmas of his Church, but
even in the so-called “ external evidences ” of Chris
tianity itself—prophecies, miracles, &c., that man does
violence to his own nature, to his entire moral and intel
lectual powers, if he still remains a professed believer
in orthodox Christianity, and a paid advocate of it.
Let such a man scorn to sell his birthright for a little
comfort and ease; let him scorn to sacrifice those gifts
with which God endowed him at the gloomy shrines of
a vulgar superstition; let him stand forth as the
champion of truth, of the light of reason and the law
of conscience; and howsoever the hysterical screams
of weak women and sentimental clergymen may annoy
him, he will find higher sympathy and a more serene
intellectual repose in that unclouded atmosphere
which is breathed by the loftiest spirits of our age.
Nay more, posterity will bless him, and call him noblehearted and brave; and he will shine as a benignant
star on the path of many a weary pilgrim to the shrine
of truth. I have no doubt that many remain in the
Churches from higher motives than those of mere ease
and comfort. They hope, perhaps, or fancy they can
“reform” the Church from within, and render it, if
not attractive, at least as little offensive as possible to
the scientific intellect of the day. Such motives might
be ably defended by those who are honestly influenced
by them ; but, in my opinion, that man places himself
in a false position—and all false positions are weak and
untenable—who professes friendship to the Church and
secretly undermines its foundations. The world cannot
much admire a traitor, even if he should betray a false
cause; men cannot make him a hero who is a spy in
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Religion :
his own camp, who reveals to the enemy all the best
modes of attack on a citadel which he pledged himself
to defend. He may do useful work for the world, but
the world will not give him credit for it; his work
lacks all the elements which go to constitute heroism.
Place the grand figure of Luther or of John Knox
beside that of Origen or Pelagius, and say which would
you most admire, that of the dreamy spiritual Reformer,
or that of the terrible Iconoclast and matter-of-fact
denunciator? Surely the latter, for it stands alone,
picturesque, bold, and transfigured by the divine
radiancy of truth, seeking no protection from a Church
which he abhors, uttering no “ uncertain sounds ” for
battle, but a peal which was responded to by thousands
of bewildered and benighted souls, who yearned after
a brighter, freer, and happier life.
We want such men now. There never was a time
in which society would more gladly welcome a true
hero than at the present; never a time in which such
a hero would be more worshipped or adored. We feel
so much oppressed by the conventionalities and un
realities of modern life—by its gross materialism on
the one hand, and its downright spiritual charlatanism
on the other, that we should hail with unbounded
enthusiasm any great Thunderer whose flashes of
genius would clarify our social atmosphere, and
purge it of that fulsome incense which daily rises from
the altars of our little gods. In commercial and poli
tical development we are no doubt daily advancing,
and far be it from us to indulge in the cant phraseology
of the pulpit against material wealth and prosperity;
on the contrary, we regard all these as among the
noblest triumphs and achievements of modern science
in its application to the industrial arts. But the
miserable state of our religious institutions, the effemi
nacy and debilitating effect of the instruction there
obtained on the one hand, and the absurd, antiquated
nature of their dogmas on the other, have well-nigh
killed all spirituality out of us.
�Its Place in Human Culture.
7
To a calm outsider—that is, to a man who is not
accustomed to feel intensely on any of the great prob
lems which concern human happiness—it may appear
very strange that we should make any attacks on the
Church, or charge it with any of the social vices of our
age. But a little reflection can hardly fail to satisfy
even the most unimpassioned intellect that we have
good reasons for the attitude which we bear towards
that venerable institution. The religious emotion or
sentiment which arises from reverence, love, and fear
are at once the weakest and the strongest, as well as
the noblest, elements of our nature. When a man’s
religion is made for him—not made to order, as we say,
but ready-made before he was bom—it arrests the
growth of all his mental powers. If he is an ordinary
man he remains a stinted and timorous soul all his life;
it is only when he has that vitality in him, the develop
ment of which into the highest spirituality cannot be
forecast by theology, it is only when he has snapped
the cords which bound down his growing energies, that
he can realize the intense joy of being free to develop
himself religiously. If, then, pure theological training
is so fatal to the growth and development of the indi
vidual mind, it is clear that it must be so to society at
large. Every branch of human knowledge has certainly
advanced more rapidly in proportion as it disengaged
itself from the influence of theology. All the physical
sciences are now free, and no man of any note mixes
them up with crude theological arguments: and mark
the result. More advance has been made' in these
sciences during the last fifteen years than during all
the centuries which preceded them. Political economy
is also free, although in the practical application of it
in our legislative assemblies it is still encumbered by
religious notions, and trammelled by theological pre
possessions. Nevertheless, we may say that political
science is virtually free; and the result is that we have
advanced rapidly in liberal reform during the last teji
or fifteen years,
�8
Religion:
Now, observe the vast difference between the pre
sent state of these departments of human knowledge
which I have just mentioned, and those which are still
claimed by the Church, and conceded to it as its legiti
mate sphere of operation. I mean the general education
of the country, at least in its more elementary aspect,
with which I may couple all those social questions
which bear on the comfort and happiness of the poorest
part of our population, of those miserable outcasts which
crowd together in the east ends of our large cities, de
prived not only of the light of reason and conscience,
but even of the light of the sun. What has become
of the boasted influence of that Christianity which
has been so often eulogised as the great civilizer of
mankind, when thus we behold its territories lying
waste, stricken with plague and famine, with all kinds
of physical and moral disease? O mockery! tell me
not that we are to stand idly by, and see, without
a murmur, our fellowmen perish for want of truth and
light, while white-robed hypocrisy builds its temples
and synagogues, fares sumptuously, languishes for want
of work, and preaches to the poor the Sermon on the
Mount, or threatens them with phials of the Apoca
lypse. Is this not enough to stir you up to mutiny
and rage, not against our social laws, but against those
who have, or who profess to have, the direction of
them?
But it may be asked, if the progress of intellect is
so great in our age, and the advancement of civiliza
tion so rapid as you represent them to be—in other
words, if men of science are the benefactors of mankind,
and the Church a mere stumbling-block in their way,
why do not scientific men ameliorate the worst aspects
of our social life ? I answer, so they have; and so
they are still doing for all those who have the wisdom
to listen to them. They have purified and ennobled
everything they have yet touched, and when that light
they have shed on man’s nature, and on his relation to
the external universe, shall stream down into the lowest
�Its Place in Human Culture.
9
stratum of society, then we shall see a state of things
for which few men venture to hope. We shall see
wretchedness and crime banished out of the world, and
even war itself slain by the mightiness of its own
weapons; for if men of science have not yet been able
to extinguish the unruly passions of mankind, they
have at least been able to bring the implements of war
to such a degree of perfection that they can only hence
forth be used in defence of the most sacred cause, and
can only be taken up when every other means will have
failed for the maintenance of our freedom, and the pre
servation of truth and justice. We shall see also that
great enemy of human progress and liberty, the Church,
branded with shame, and vanishing like a spectral
shadow into eternal silence; we shall see, in short, all
the civilized nations of our earth living in peace and
human brotherhood.
We often hear it asserted, and nowhere more fre
quently than in the pulpit, that pure intellect is not a
safe guide, that we must not confide too implicitly in
its cool judgments. “Intellect,” it has been said, “can
destroy, but cannot restore life.” Now these state
ments, and many such as these, are absolutely without
meaning. They are simply the wise aphorisms—should
we not rather say sophistries ?—of men who have been
trained in scholastic theology, and who have received
their knowledge of the human mind through the
logic of the schoolmen. Yet these neat epigrammatic
assertions take hold of the popular mind, and pass as
current coin, stamped with the authority of some
“great” man, who could not in the least explain his
own meaning, till half uneducated people begin to think
that there is something wicked in “pure” intellect.
So strongly has this feeling taken hold of the popular
mind that many timorous hearts, even in this en
lightened age, tremble with alarm at the least mani
festation of intellect, either in their own heads or in
those of their neighbours. Hence also the suspicion
with which semi-theological writers, and indeed all
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Religion.
writers who have not attained to a scientific habit of
thought, regard what they call the “destructive school,”
by which they mean those men who expose the fallacies
which permeate all the great religions of the world.
What, “destroy life?” Pure intellect cannot destroy,
it rather creates. As well might you say that Kepler
and Newton destroyed the mechanism of the heavens
when they flung back the astrological and superstitious
veil which hid their grandeur for ages from the intel
lectual vision of mankind; as well might you say that
these master minds destroyed the life of the soul
when they only purified its vision, and revealed to its
awakened consciousness the majesty of those laws
which embrace in one grand universal sweep the whole
of infinite space, as say that the results of modern
science (which are certainly the achievements of pure
intellect), when brought to bear on the creeds of former
ages, will be more detrimental than beneficial, more
degrading than ennobling, to the free spirit of -man.
No. Intellect does not destroy, but constructs; and in
proportion as the intellect is pure and unprejudiced, its
work is more enduring, because more free from error.
“Dry light,” says Bacon, “is always the best.” Dry
light, or light unclouded by the passions and emo
tions of the man, or by the prejudices of early train
ing; that is, pure light, fed by the warmth of a large
human heart. I do not say that the intellectual powers
ought to receive exclusive attention from us, and be
cultivated at the expense of other elements of our
being, such as the moral and religious sentiments; but
I do say that unless the intellectual or rational part of
our nature is supreme, unless it is free to exercise itself
without prejudice on all human problems, we never
can be safe guides to others, for we are ever liable to
be carried away, either by the impulse of excited
emotion or by the whims of an undisciplined imagina
tion. Need I remind you that it was not pure intellect,
but intellect perverted by the undue cultivation of the
religious sentiment, which caused all those frightful
�Its Place in Human Culture,
n
ecclesiastical persecutions and massacres which deluged
Europe with human blood during the Middle Ages ?
Need I remind you of the fact that religion, when not
subordinated to the light of reason, destroys every
vestige of natural love and affection in the heart of
man; that, to use the language of Christianity, it “sets
a man at variance against his father, and the daughter
against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against
her mother-in-law,” and that it makes a man’s enemies
those of his own household1? This one sentiment,
morbidly cultivated, has caused more blood to be shed
in Europe since the establishment of Christianity than
all other passions put together. It nursed the madness
and fury of the Crusaders, it kindled those dismal
funeral piles which consumed the wretched bodies of
thousands of poor women who went by the name of
“witches,” it was at the root of the French Revolution,
and bore its full purple blossom in the massacre of
Saint Bartholomew.
It is clear, therefore, from the experience of the
past, that we need not trust to the power of religion
for the improvement of the individual or the elevation
of the human race. Everything that has hitherto been
done in that direction has been effected, not by means
of religion, but in spite of it—not by the aid of the
Church, but by repudiating her pretensions and ignor
ing her authority. Do we then say that all religions
should be abolished1? By no means. The religious
sentiment is a radical part of our nature, and it is as
natural for a good man to be religious and pious as it
is for a flower to blossom. If great crimes and most
lamentable human sufferings have too frequently fol
lowed in the wake of religious organizations, we must
also admit that there is a kind of inspiring power in re
ligion which gives moral force and character not only
to individuals, but to nations. In the absence of that
mental and moral culture which the higher education
confers, the religious sentiment is the strongest motive
that can influence a man to deeds of self-sacrifice and
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Religion:
noble heroism. Uneducated men cannot appreciate
philosophical arguments, they cannot follow out a train
of thought which involves a logical and analytical
power of reasoning; but they can easily understand
figures and metaphors, and all those personifications of
natural phenomena which assume a bodied form in the
imagination. A child can understand the meaning of
a Sinai in flames, and of a God delivering his laws to
a rebellious world amid thunder and lightning; he can
understand and realise with intense vividness the
Undying torment of those lost souls which are supposed
to bum for ever in fires unquenchable; for the im
agination, which is nothing more or less than the image
of the external world reflected in the mind, is vivid
and in full play long before the reasoning faculty is
called into active exercise. Every uneducated man,
every man who not only has not mastered the elements
of physical science, but who has not the mental capacity
and culture necessary for the appreciation of the results
of philosophical and historical criticism, I say every
such man is, all his life, precisely in the position of a
child. Early impressions, whether he has received
them direct from external nature or from early training,
are to him a part, indeed the whole, of his being. They
are incorporated in his very organization, and sooner
than surrender them he would surrender his life. If
you reflect for a moment how much pain and suffering
are endured by the best minds before they can emanci
pate themselves from the errors of imagination, and
from the bondage of superstition; if you consider
how frequently it happens that the superstitions of
early childhood return in old age when the mind
shows symptoms of decay, you can then appreciate the
enormous difficulties which men of science had to en
counter; you can understand the strength of the motive
power which opposed them; and you will wonder rather
that they should succeed at all, than that their success
should be so slow. We know that when the errors of
imagination are regarded, not as mere “airy nothings”
�Its Place in Human Culture.
13
which, have no foundation in fact, but as the veritable
revelations of Divine truth; when there is no longer
doubt in the religious mind, but faith and profound
conviction, then these errors, or delusions—as we call
them—become so powerful, that their authority over
the reasoning faculty is absolute, and from which there
is no appeal. Now, observe, that it is on faith and
absolute conviction of their Divine authority all reli
gions are founded. Every religion under the sun
claims a “ Divine Authority.” “ God spake these
words and said ” is the fundamental doctrine of them
all; and “ their motive-power over humanity has been
in proportion to the absoluteness of the belief they
commanded,” or in proportion to the conviction and
certainty they inspired. But though we know that
this high claim which is common to them all is itself
a mere delusion, yet such a claim is always necessary
to ensure their success—to unite men together in one
Faith, and to inspire them with enthusiasm for one
great work; for in the unity of one Faith all minor
differences merge and are lost sight of.
But, you may ask, if all religions have hitherto
been founded on false premises, to which of them
would you give the preference—to which of them
would you adhere ?■ I answer in the words of Schiller
—“ To none that thou mightest name. And wherefore
to none 1 For Religion’s sake.” Religion in itself, as
it is commonly understood, is useless, and worse than
useless, unless it is founded on a sound moral basis.
If the ethical part of religion is false, and, as it is in
many cases, revolting to our moral sentiment, then we
ought to abhor it with our whole heart, and to listen
to no fine disquisitions concerning its “ External and
Internal Evidences.” But is not Christianity founded
on a sound moral basis ? By no means. Paul makes
Faith the standard of human virtue, a position which
directly leads to the monstrous principle, that “ What
ever is of Faith is no sin.” How many noble hearts
that single dogma has crushed ! How many has it in
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Religion:
spired with ignorant zeal to perforin deeds of violence
and pitiless inhumanity; and how many, on the other
hand, has it reduced either to absolute despair or to
blasphemous rebellion against everything which hu
manity holds sacred ! I am well aware that, in the
mind of Paul, Faith meant something purer and in
finitely more exalted than it does in the mind of either
an ignorant man who has received but little moral
training, or of a superstitious man who has but mean
and vulgar ideas of God. Faith was to Paul religiously
what pure intellectual contemplation was to Aristotle
philosophically—it was to him the unity and harmony
of all thought, where the mind rests in undisturbed
repose, and enjoys the purest mental pleasure attain
able by man. It was to him, in short, the gravitating
force which unites in everlasting harmony the entire
spirituality of the universe, without distinction of
age or sex, of Greek or Roman, of Jew or Gentile.
But what is Faith in the mouth of the ordinary theo
logian? It is—“.Believe this formula, believe that
dogma; believe our interpretation of all the religions
and philosophies under the sun ; or, without doubt,
thou shalt perish everlastingly !” I need not say, that
to make Faith, in this peculiar acceptation, the standard
of moral virtue, is simply to banish all virtue and
intellect out of the world. We know that Faith
inspired the sublimest virtues, such as in the case of
Paul himself; but alas, we also know how often it has
inspired the most terrible crimes. Indeed if we make
Faith the standard of human virtue (observe that I use
the term in its strict theological sense), if we make it
the fundamental doctrine of religion, we shall find the
purest specimens of religious men among the inmates
of a lunatic asylum. We shall find there men who
believe absolutely and without doubt in all the dogmas
of that religion in which they were originally trained
—men who see visions and hear voices confirmatory of
their belief, and who would willingly go to the stake
as martyrs to their faith. It is indeed a most remark
�Its Place in Human Culture.
15-
able fact that either religious enthusiasm, or religious
despondency is characteristic of almost all forms of
insanity. I cannot afford space to enter upon the
rationale of this singular phenomenon, but I may state
generally that if parents and teachers were more careful
in not filling up the minds of children with “vain
opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imagina
tions, as one would say, and the likeif they could
avoid the teaching of fable, and took more pains to
store the youthful mind with a knowledge of facts, and
to inspire it with a love for Nature and for Art, I
firmly believe that the number of our asylum patients
would soon diminish. What was the cause of so much
insanity in Europe during the earlier part of the Middle
Ages, when nearly all the religious world was dancing
mad with paralysis, epilepsy, St Vitus’ dance, and
other nervous diseases which are generally character
istic of the insane ? Was it not owing to the unnatural
mode of living peculiar to those times ; to the morbid
and vicious habit of dwelling exclusively on the
emotional part of human nature, and to the utter
ignoring of facts, and the profound contempt for
physical nature which such a habit cherishes ? Indeed
all nature was then regarded as a thing accursed, and
the first men who ventured to study her secrets, and
to explain her laws, were either imprisoned for heresy
or burnt for witchcraft. This battle between school
divinity and physical science has not yet ceased; it is
still carried on with a good deal of the old spirit in
some corners of the world. The iniquitous barrier,
however, which the imaginations of men had set up
between God and Nature, between the natural and the
supernatural, has been broken down; the outworks 'of
Christianity itself—its so-called external evidences—
have been levelled to the ground, and although a few
obscure individuals may be seen here and there endea
vouring to rebuild their Zion out of the debris of the
old ruins, yet their labour is in vain. Men of science
look on with infinite pity for such a waste of intellect,
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Religion:
and of misguided ingenuity; literary men smile at them
for the small amount of culture and taste which their
works display; and even our intelligent working men
stand idly by, amused as they would be by the labours
of little children when they build their sand castles in
the face of a returning tide, while every wave from the
great deep, in its own majestic, irresistable manner,
overwhelms and sweeps them away for ever. Nature
is once more restored to her proper place; if we build
anything likely to endure, it must have its foundation
in her—if we wish to be enlightened intellectually and
morally we must live and act according to her eternal
laws. But “ a mixture of a lie,” says Bacon, “ doth
ever add pleasure ;” and it is quite true that men must
live, and cannot help living, on the mere shadows of
thought till they have' learned to begin with first
principles. “ A mixture of a lie doth evei' add plea
sure.” Now, eliminate the lie from our theologies,
apply the scientific method to our orthodox religion,
and the whole thing will shrivel up and vanish like
vapour before the sun. Religions are ■ built on what
Bacon calls a “lie.” Certain things are assumed as
axiomatic truths which not only cannot be proved, but
which are most repugnant to our enlightened reason,
a,nd on these barbarous assumptions our expert meta
physical theologians rear a superstructure of syllogisms
which makes one feel sad to look at. We will not
waste our time in exploding these superstructures,
whether they be Catholicism, Protestantism, Calvinism,
Mahometanism, or Christian Unitarianism. We will
not even turn aside to discuss such childish problems
as these—“Whether the Bible is the Word of God?”
“ Are miracles possible?” “ Can prayer alter the course
of nature?” We need not answer these—Science has
answered them long ago. When men are bewildered
by the conflicting voices of so many churches, when
they see the old mythologies dying out, and every
religion one after another strangled in the grasp of
science, they do not ask, “what are miracles?” or
�Its Place in Human Culture.
17
“ what pi’ophecies are yet to be fulfilled ?” but they fall
back on first principles, and in a kind of half-despairing,
half-defiant spirit, they ask if there is a God at all, and
if Religion is not altogether a great imposture. They
see the intellectual force of the age overwhelming
everything that goes by the name of “God” and “Re
ligion,” and they wonder why any men should be so
foolish as ever to have believed in such a God or in
such a religion. All other questions, except the great
fundamental ones, “ What is God—what is Religion,”
are idle and impertinent. It is my duty, as your
teacher here, to work out these two problems from week
to week to the best of my power. It is my duty, and
it will be my infinite pleasure, to reconcile so far as I
am able the conflicting aspects of human thought, to
explain to you the significance and end of human life,
to throw some light on its dark enigmas, and to make
you feel the happiness and exquisite joy which are the
certain heritage of every man who lives righteously—
true to himself and true to his fellowmen.
I have thus far spoken of religion as a formulated
creed, or as a “ Body of Divinity,” which can be learned
out of books. Religion in this sense is what we com
monly understand by Systematic Theology; it is the
logical arrangement of metaphysical notions which
men have formed of God and of the universe. I say
the logical arrangement, for if we grant the soundness
of the premises which are assumed by theologians,
we have, logically, no fault to find with their “ sys
tems.” But a more liberal education, and a more
intimate acquaintance with the physical laws of
nature—in other words, both culture and science
have long since convinced us of the futility of all
conclusions which are based on mere metaphysical
speculations. Now it is clear to every man who is in
the least acquainted with the inductive mode of
reasoning, that all religions hitherto given to the
world are based on false premises. Let us take
Christianity as that form of religion with which most
�i8
Religion:
of us are best acquainted. First of all, the existence
of a personal God is assumed as an unquestionable
fact, and although we make no objection to this
position, we have no reason whatever to accept as
final and ultimate the psychological analysis which
theologians have given us of His nature and character.
In other words, we have no reason to believe in their
Science of God, for it is really not science but meta
physics. It is again assumed that God has once and
for all given to mankind a Revelation of Himself,
which contains, in the words of the Catechism, all
“that man is to believe concerning God, and what
duty God requires of man.” But we find that this
“ Revelation,” contained in the Bible, contains many
things which no intelligent man can believe con
cerning God, and that it inculcates duties which are
either impracticable in modern society, or simply
barbarous. To make the matter worse, and render
it still more bewildering, this so-called Revelation
contradicts itself on so many important points that
theologians have always found it necessary to write
large folios on the best method of “ reconciling” and
“ harmonising” the more glaringly contradictory pas
sages. And finally, we are gravely asked to believe
all this on the strength of prophecies which were
never meant by their writers to be prophecies at all,
and on the strength of miracles which, if they had
taken place, could only prove that the government of
the world is a mere blunder.
Now all this is theology, that is, the Science of
God, which ecclesiastics have evolved out of their
own imaginations; and we shall have frequent occa
sions to see that it is to theology, and not to religion
properly so-called, physical science is opposed. Nor
is science opposed to the Bible as a religious, any
more than it is opposed to Homer as a poetical, book.
Our position, which I may state in one sentence,
is this:—True culture has outgrown the barbarous
character which theologians ascribe to God. But
�Its Place in Human Culture.
19
theologians say that this character of Him. is revealed
in the Bible; therefore true culture has outgrown the
belief in Revelation. Science has also revealed to us
the majesty and immutability of natural laws. But
theologians say that in some dark periods of human
history, in certain rude ages when men had no con
ception of the grandeur of the universe, or of the
method of its creation and evolution, these laws were
capriciously interfered with by some supernatural
power; therefore scientific men refuse to believe in a
God who would “palter with them in a double sense,”
and reveal himself by what are called “ miracles.”
The question, then, is not between science and
religion, but between science and theology; not
between science and the Bible, but between science
and so-called Revelation.
What, then, is religion ?
Religion has been defined as a “self-surrender of
the soul to God.” This is quite a theological defini
tion, and a very feeble and sentimental one it is. It
proceeds, of course, on a knowledge of the Science of
God which theologians have developed in a cloud of
metaphysics. Matthew Arnold defines religion as
simply “ morality enkindled, or lit up by emotion.”
If this is not the whole truth, it is the nearest to the
truth that has ever been given, and it coincides
exactly with all that I have ever thought on the sub
ject. Morality is the groundwork of refigion, the
very life and soul of religion, and without morality all
religion is a false glare. It is for this reason that I
admire Aristotle more than Plato, because he is more
definite and clear in his rules of conduct. Religion is
to morality as poetry is to prose; and it is curious
that as Aristotle defined poetry to be imitation, so
Thomas a Kempis calls his religious meditations,
Imitations. Poetry has, like all the ideal arts, intellec
tual beauty for its object; religion has moral beauty
or holiness for its object. And both are imitations,
that is, imitations of ideal excellence. If, therefore,
�20
Religion:
religion—I mean true personal religion—be moralitylit up or enkindled by emotion, it is very clear that
the purity of religion must necessarily depend on the
moral enlightenment of society, or, in other words,
that religious development depends on moral develop
ment. This explains again how men are often a great
deal better than their theology; for as theology is
simply the religious experiences of past generations
fossilized in dogma, it is quite inadequate to the
expression of the religious experiences of succeeding
generations, which have far surpassed them in moral
and physical science. Hence it is that the life and
conduct of modern Christians are so very different
from what one would expect to result from their
theology. But the truth is, they have outgrown
Christianity, and they are not aware of it.
Again, we might say that religion, or the religious
sentiment, is one aspect of mental development, or
one phase of the collective thought of mankind. This
aspect is presented to us in bolder relief during a short
period in Jewish history, just as the ideal and fine-art
aspect is presented to us during a short period in
Greek history, and as the positive, and legal or poli
tical, aspect is presented to us in Roman history.
The Semitic race gave to humanity the religious
impulse and aspiration; the Greek and Latin races
gave to it respectively the sense of ideal beauty and
the method of government. Since the revival of
learning, all these elements have been tumultuously
struggling to blend and coalesce in the mind of the
great Indo-European races, and although the effer
vescence caused by the contact of these elements is
gradually settling down, although, in other words,
these various aspects are beginning to look more
approvingly on each other, the gloomy aspect of
Judaism through Christianity still frowns on science,
and its attitude would seem to indicate that many
hard blows will be exchanged between them before
science and so-called religion can understand each
�Its Place in Human Culture.
21
others temperament, and embrace as friends. It will
be part of our duty to reconcile, not science and
theology, for they are irreconcilable, but the scientific
and the religious aspects of thought. It will be our
duty also to show how the religious mind can be scien
tific, and the scientific mind religious; and how the
perfection and completeness of our nature depend,
not on religion alone nor on science alone, nor on
morality alone, but on the completeness by which we
are able to absorb into our very being the spirit of all
the three. It is then only we can be said to live
nobly, and in the front rank of our age, when we open
our souls freely for the reception of all light and
truth, whencesoever they come; it is then only we
can be said to think and act religiously, when we can
radiate that light and truth around us to bless and to
cheer our fellowmen, and to make them feel that life,
when lived truly, is indeed a joyous thing. Already
we see the collective wisdom of mankind rounding
itself into a perfect orb, and we can infer from the
light which it already sheds what shall be the bril
liancy of its full shining. What the destiny of our
race shall be—to what unknown shores the tide of
history rolls—are questions which we reserve for the
last lecture of our course on history. It is enough
for us at present to know that it does roll on, gathering
strength in its course; that it has come down to us
laden with all the wealth of human thought to which
all the nations have been tributaries; that it has
overwhelmed, and buried for ever, everything that
has resisted its progress, and that even now it roars
at the walls of our temples and at the gates of our
palaces; and that we see it pass by us bearing on its
bosom all that we have of real knowledge, of truth
and holiness, to scatter them as seeds for future
harvests in some happier climes, and under purer
heavens.
Smith & Brown, Printers, Edinburgh,
��
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Victorian Blogging
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Religion: its place in human culture.
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Macleod, John
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 21 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: A lecture delivered in Freemasons' Hall, Edinburgh, on Sunday, May 18, 1873. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by Smith and Brown, Edinburgh.
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Thomas Scott
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Text
AN
HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IH SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
its relation to Literature, to Culture, and to Conduct.
LIL". . 1-Illi
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DELIVERED BEFORE THE
’\Z01TJ I’d
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY
ST. GEORGE’S HALL, LANGHAM PLACE,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 28th JANUARY, 1883,
BY
A.
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69'11 J-
ELLEY
FINCHjV.-c
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. ............................ ..
^anbun:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1883.
PRICE THREEPENCE.
j!/. to c' H
�The Society’s Lectures by the same Author, are—on
“Erasmus: his Life, Works, and Influence upon the Spirit of
the Reformation.” (Now out of Print.)
“ Civilization : a Sketch of its Rise and Progress, its Modern
Safe-guards, and Future Prospects.”
“The Influence of Astronomical Discovery in the
Development of the Human Mind.”
“The Principles of Political Economy: their Scientific
Basis, and Practical application to Social Well-being.”
“The English Free-thinkers
tury.”
of the
Eighteenth Cen
“ The Science of Life worth Living.”
“ The Victories of Science
stition.”
in its
Warfare
with
Super
“ An Aspiration of Science : ‘ On Earth Peace, Good-will to
wards Menrescued from the New Testament Revision.”
“An Hour in
ledge.”
a
Library,
in search of
Natural Know
Price of each of the above Lectures 3rf., or post free 3^d.
“ The Inductive Philosophy : including a Parallel between
Lord Bacon and A. Comte as Philosophers.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 100, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
“ The Pursuit of Truth : as Exemplified in the Principles of
Evidence—Theological, Scientific, and Judicial.” With Notes
and Authorities, (pp. 106, cloth 8vo., price 5s., or post free
5s. 3d.)
The Lectures still in print can be obtained (on remittance, by letter
of postage stamps or order payable Porchester Road, w.) of
the Hon. Treas., W. Henry Domville, Esq., 15, Gloucester
Crescent, Hyde Park, W., or at the Hall on the days of
Lecture, or of Mr. J. Bumpus, Bookseller, 350, Oxford Street,
W., or Messrs. Cattell & Co., 84, Fleet Street, E. C.
�SYLLABUS.
Popular division of Knowledge into Natural and Supernatural.
These distinctive terms current in England since the establish
ment of the Royal Society in 1662.
Historically the distinction is traceable in Europe beyond the
fourth century before Christ.
Natural Knowledge is the result of human Observation, Ex
periment, and Reasoning, and is here regarded as embraced by
the Physical, Mental, and Moral Sciences; hence Religions,
Theologies, Metaphysics, and works of mere Imagination, are
excluded from the definition.
Natural Knowledge is primarily derivable, as regards the
Physical Sciences, through work (questioning of Nature) in the
Observatory and Laboratory; as regards the Moral Sciences,
through experience (knowledge of the World) in real life.
Illustrations from Astronomy and the Sky. Chemistry and
the Crucible. Anatomy and the Dissecting Table. Jurispru
dence and the Court of Justice.
Natural Knowledge is secondarily derivable through the ve
hicle of its Literature. To others than Specialists therefore,
a Library is the most available source and depository of such
knowledge.
The companionship and solace of Books.
The Literature of Natural knowledge is distinguished from
other Literature by its logical method. Two such methods dis
cernible, viz.:
Scholastic Logic—allied to authority—purely deductive and
subjective.
Scientific Logic—related to research—mainly inductive and
objective.
Illustrations of the logical method of authority from “ the
Classics,” Theology, and “ the Belles lettres,” e.g., Homer’s Iliad,
Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Illustrations of the logical method of research from the Lite
rature of Science, e.g., Darwin’s Origin of Species and Descent
of Man.
�Natural Knowledge is characterised by lucidity. Tt demon
strates an inverse ratio between Superstition and Science. It
is essential for completing Culture, and conciliating Conduct
into compliance with the established Order of Nature, through
whose invariable laws human life is known to be inexorably
governed.
Man’s position in Nature, his moral constitution, and his
history show, that his progress and happiness are correspondent
to the cultivation of Natural Knowledge, which forms the real
basis of, and security for the prosperity of our Western Civili
zation.
Chronological selection of Books cited in illustration of the
argument of the Lecture.
The Subjective Method of Authority.
Homer’s Iliad—Plato’s Dialogues—Herodotus’s Grecian History
—Livy’s History of Pome—Virgil’s (Eneid—The Works of the
School-men passim—Pearson on the Creed—Milton’s Paradise
Lost—Spinoza’s Ethics—Butler’s Analogy—Paley’s Evidences
—Newman’s Grammar of Assent—Matthew Arnold’s Litera
ture and Dogma.
The Objective Method of Research.
Aristotle’s Organon—Archimedes on the Sphere and Cylinder—
Thucidides’ Grecian History—Lucretius on the Nature of
Things—Galileo’s Dialogues on the Ptolemaic and Copernican
Systems — Bacon’s Novum Organon — Newton’s Principia—
Malthus on the Principle of Population—Comte’s Philosophy
Positive— Mill’s System of Logic—Buckle’s History of Civili
zation—Maudsley’s Physiology of the Mind—Darwin’s Origin
of Species and Descent of Man — Tyndall’s Heat a Mode of
Motion—Lewes’s Study of Psychology—Huxley’s Physiography
—Herbert Spencer’s Study of Sociology — Leslie Stephen’s
Science of Ethics.
Y
I Hit moil ih’p
�AN HOUR IN A LIBRARY,
IN SEARCH OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE.
ITS RELATION TO LITERATURE, TO CULTURE,
AND TO CONDUCT.
------ ♦------
F the simple invitation of our unpretending Society
to come and spend an hour in a Library, on this
Sunday afternoon, even in imagination, can bring to
gether the numerous and expectant audience whom I have
the honour of addressing, we can easily appreciate the
extent of the deprivation inflicted upon thousands of our
fellow subjects, through the persistent resolution of the
Legislature, or municipal authorities, to keep closed against
them on Sundays the Public and Free Libraries established
in the several large Towns throughout the Kingdom.
The reason given for this irrational, and cruel inflic
tion, as said by some, is to diminish, or discourage Sunday
labour. Why, there is probably more Sunday labour em
ployed in taking a Bishop of the Established Church in
his carriage to and fro his devotional services on a Sun
day, than would suffice to keep open, and take care of
the Public, or Peoples’ Library in his Cathedral City,
during the entire day. Others again tell us that the
recreation involved in acquiring the secular information
which a miscellaneous Library affords would, if indulged
I
�6
An Hour in a Library,
in on a Sunday, be irreligious. Not “ seeing,” as Shake
speare told the bigots of his day—
“ Ignorance is the curse of God,
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
What is it, however, that we mean by Knowledge ? In
its largest sense, Knowledge may be defined as human
perception of all that has been said, or done, or has
happened in the World. Knowledge, so widely regarded,
is at once divisible into that which is believed to be Super
natural, and that which is known to be simply Natural.
In the present day we may further say that Super
natural Knowledge is, with unimportant exceptions,
embraced by Religion, whilst Natural Knowledge is
almost synonymous with Science.
This division is however modern, and, until quite
recently, Supernatural Knowledge would have been held
to include such antiquated subjects as Witchcraft, Divina
tion, Exorcism, Sorcery, and Magic—subjects, which, in
our day, have dwindled into the phantom impostures
of Spirit rapping, and Table turning, with practising
which the weak and superstitious minds amongst us still
divert themselves.
It is not many generations ago since it was otherwise ;
and, to so great an extent did the practise of what has
been called ‘ The Black Art ’ prevail in this Country in
the reign of Charles the 2nd, that a few intelligent per
sons were then induced to associate themselves together,
and to found a Society for the purpose of cultivating
those branches of Natural Knowledge that are based
upon Observation and Experiment—what we now term
the Physical Sciences ; and in the year 1662 they were
incorporated by the King under the style and title of
‘ The Royal Societytheir object being, as stated in the
Charter of Incorporation, “ The improvement of Natural
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
7
Knowledge”; and, from that date, we have become
familiar with the distinctive appellations of Supernatural
and Natural Knowledge.
But the distinction itself is far more ancient. It can
be traced in Europe to remote antiquity, and we find it
conspicuous in that age of enlightenment in ancient
Greece, the third and fourth centuries before Christ,
when the supernatural-knowledge-mongers of that day
found themselves in antagonism to the natural reasonings
of such powerful investigators and thinkers as Thales,
Anaxagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Euclid,
Apollonius, Archimedes, and some others.
Natural Knowledge, as we are now viewing it, and as
distinguished from opinion, is purely the result of human
observation of the facts of Nature, aided by experiment,
and perfected by reasoning or reflection thereon. It is
comprehended by the Physical, Mental, and Moral
Sciences, such as Astronomy, Geology, Mineralogy, Che
mistry, Zoology, Physiology, Psychology, and that great
Moral Science Jurisprudence, which erects in civilized
countries a supreme or sovereign standard for regulating
the actions of man towards his fellow man, upon the
basis of general justice, and equal rights before the Law.
We exclude then from our definition Religions, The
ologies, Metaphysics, works of fiction and pure imagi
nation of all kinds, and they are thus precluded from
embarassing or confusing the simplicity (and I hope the
clearness), of my discourse this afternoon.
Now, when we come to look into the nature of the
knowledge which forms the material of the Physical
Sciences, say, for example, Astronomy, Chemistry and
Physiology, we find that it is not primarily derived from
anything that has been simply asserted in speech or
writing by men however eminent or venerable, nor from
anything alleged to be a revelation from a supernatural
�8
An Hour in a Library,
source, but that it consists of natural facts discovered by.
careful observation, or by experiment, which is indeed
only observation artificially assisted by instruments in
vented by human ingenuity for the purpose, so to speak,
of more closely questioning Nature.
To go to physical Astronomy for an illustration. Astro
nomical knowledge is gained primarily by carefully
observing the sky through the Telescope, aided by the
Equatorial, the Transit, the Sextant and other instru
ments, with, clockwork conveniently fixed and, arranged
in the Observatory. By these means the existence, size,
and movements, of the heavenly bodies are accurately
observed, and registered. It is thus that our knowledge
of a comet, for instance, has been derived.
“ The blazing Star,
Threat’ning the World with famine, plague, and war! ”
Verifying a startling theory propounded by Sir Isaac
Newton in his Principia, the illustrious Astronomers
Halley and Clairaut succeeded in discovering that Comets,
appearing to move more slowly or swiftly according to
the position of the Earth, must have an annual parallax,
and belong to the region of the planets—that they are
in truth members of our Solar System, circulating in
conic sections round the Sun in rigid conformity to the
universal law of gravitation, or attractive force varying
directly as the mass, and inversely as the square of the
distance.
Three astronomical observations taken of a Comet on
its passage through space usually suffice for ascertaining
its orbit, or path in the sky, and for calculating its rate
of movement. If its orbit be elliptical then (an ellipse
being a closed curve) the comet’s return can be foretold
and timed. To so great an extent have Astronomers
observed and studied the appearance of Comets, that
upwards of 500 of these wandering visitors have been
�9
in Search of Natural Knowledge.
recorded; of them, the orbits of nearly 300 have been
mathematically calculated ; 19 of such orbits being ellip
tical, and 54 subsequent returns of comets have already
been registered.
Now, through this natural knowledge of comets, the
ancient terrifying superstitions respecting them, that
they were ominous of the wrath of Heaven, the har
bingers of wars and famines, of the dethronement of
Monarchs, and the dissolution of Empires, have been
completely exploded!
If Chemistry be the science under consideration, then
the accurate and exhaustive analysis required to solve
one of its problems can only be completely accomplished
in the laboratory. Looking at Chemistry in its general
sense as the science of the constitution of bodies, ascer
tained through the laws of composition and decomposi
tion, i.e., the modification all substances may undergo in
virtue of their molecular reactions, it has for one of its
chief objects really this—The properties of simple bodies
being given, to find those of all compound bodies that
may be formed from them. The study and practice of
Chemistry therefore is a constant training of our faculties
in the great art of experimentation, carried on in the
furnace, the retort and the crucible, the latter being a
vessel, in which substances may be analysed, dissolved, or
combined, by means of the application of heat.
The invaluable inventions of the science of Chemistry
are sufficiently indicated in alluding to one only of its
many thousand useful discoveries, viz.—hydrogen or in
flammable gas, whose familiar flame is now becoming
eclipsed by the superior splendour of the electric light.
If the science of Physiology is being pursued, then, as
to one branch of it, a correct knowledge of the various
physical constituents of the human being, such as the skin,
the muscles, the veins, the arteries, and the nerves; this
B
�10
An Hour in a .Library,
is obtained through precise and minute anatomy of the
human body, practised in the dissecting room. I will
illustrate this by reference to the serious malady known
as the aneurism of an artery (a tumour formed by its
morbid enlargement).
Until recent times this formidable, and mostly fatal,
disease was very rarely cured, without amputation of the
limb in which the artery was situate ; but now, owing to
an acute discovery made by the consummate anatomist
John Hunter, practically followed up by the great sur
geon Abernethy, a successful operation is performed,
consisting of tying the artery at a distance from the sac of
the aneurism the seat of the disease, instead of cutting
into it, whereby the arterial blood, whose continuous flow
prevents the cure, is diverted into other channels, and,
by this apparently simple expedient, thousands of lives
have been saved. But observe, neither a correct diagnosis
of the disease, nor the successful method of curing it
could have been arrived at otherwise than through that
actual contact of the intelligent sense of man with the
physiological facts of Nature that takes place in the
manual process of dissection.
So far the physical sciences; but the same principle
underlies our knowledge of the mental and moral
sciences.
To take an illustration from that grandest of the moral
sciences, Jurisprudence or the science of Law, the pride
(as it . has been called) of the human intellect, which,
with all its defects, redundances and errors, is the
collected reason of ages, combining the principles of
original justice with the infinite variety of human con
cerns—“ A science in which the greatest powers of under
standing are applied to the greatest number of facts.”
On first impression it would appear that Law is a
science of a purely literary character. A Law library
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
11
would be supposed to comprise all that was necessary to
be known upon the subject. In truth however, it is so
far otherwise, that it would hardly be possible for anyone
correctly to comprehend a single legal treatise, unless he
had been educated to the law ; an essential part of a
legal education consisting in the actual experience derived
from practice in personally attending Courts of justice,
and there becoming familiar with human nature itself, in
that phase of real life, where it must be studied in the
characters, the habits, and peculiarities of Judges, Jury
men, Counsel, and Witnesses.
In that grand epoch of history, when the physical and
moral sciences were experiencing, as it were, a new birth,
that period, when, in our country, we boasted the great
names of Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Harvey, and
Hooker, the revival of the science of the law was not
behindhand, and in the name of Lord Chief Justice Coke
we have one of the most profound and scientific lawyers
of which even this great and free country (where the
certainty and impartiality of the law are rightly reverenced
as the guarantee cf real freedom) is so justly proud.
Lord Coke, in his first Institute, (familiarly known in
legal circles, as ‘ Coke upon Littleton ’) expressly points
out to the law-students that, though law is indeed the
very perfection of reason, “ that must be understood, not
as every man’s undisciplined reason but, as the reason
gotten by long study, observation, and experience, which
will be gained, when he heareth a case vouched and
applied in Westminster Hall, where it is necessary for
him to be a diligent hearer and observer of cases of law.”
Scientific knowledge then we see is primarily derivable
from Nature herself. It is not obtained at first hand from
literature, and no one can become a real specialist in any
science without the faculty or practice of appealing
directly to Nature, and acquiring, through the medium
�12
An Hour in a Library,
of his senses, actual knowledge or touch of those pro
perties of things which are only derivatively learnt
through the medium of language.
Science then, you observe, is a knowledge of things
rather than a knowledge of books.
Now of the indispensable acquisition of such know
ledge towards the perfecting of human life the mere
literary world is apparently, even yet, in a state of un
conscious ignorance.
Professor Matthew Arnold, in the course of his bril
liant Rede Lecture, lately delivered before the University
of Cambridge, told that learned assembly that, his studies
having been almost wholly in letters, his visits to the
field of the Natural Sciences had been very slight and in
adequate, although, he naively observed, those sciences
strongly moved his curiosity. This remarkable utterance
was quite in the spirit of the old classical culture.
I trust that I have been able to place the nature of
scientific knowledge sufficiently before you, even in the
few observations time permits me now to make, as to
impress you with the conviction that the Natural Sciences
are something more than mere matters of curiosity. They
are indeed subjects of the very highest concern to the daily
life of our modern civilization. One would have thought
that their utility or vast practical advantage was by this
time obvious to the merest tyro, as well as their wide in
fluence in strengthening and raising up the intellectual
and moral faculties of our understanding, by emancipating
human existence from the pressure of debasing super
stitions, from whose stupefying terrorism, not the Classics,
nor Letters, nor the finical culture that is bred solely
of them, but, the rise and progress of Natural Knowledge
have now so effectually freed it.
It would however be a sad look out for the world at
large, if no one could hope to obtain Natural Knowledge
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
13
excepting in the Observatory and Laboratory, where com
paratively few can enter, and, in. truth, the diffusion of
such knowledge is really carried on derivatively through
the vehicle of Literature; consisting chiefly of those
treatises on Scientific Knowledge which we owe to the
Men of Science themselves, whose humane desire to en
lighten and benefit their fellow creatures has invariably
led them to seek to disseminate their special knowledge
by writing books about it; and therefore, it is undoubtedly
the fact, that to the intelligent general reader, that is, to
all who are not specialists, and to specialists themselves,
in all branches of Natural Knowledge in which they are
not specialists, a library is the available source and de
pository of such knowledge. And so it has come to pass
that the thirst for knowledge is most usually gratified
through the passion or taste for reading, and books come
to be rightly regarded as the readiest sources of informa
tion. And such is the genuine pleasure arising from ac
quiring knowledge of any sort, that books in all their
variety are by everyone more or less resorted to for
solace or amusement, as well as for instruction, and they'
yield, to the dwellers in cities especially, and to the sons
and daughters of toil, for the most part innocent and
elevating recreation.
“ Books beloved, ye are to me
An unretorting family.
Ye for each day’s irritation,
Always bring a compensation,
Curing all sad perturbations
With your silent inspirations.
How should sadness come, or gloom,
While ye lie about my room,
Or look down from friendly nooks ?
My benison upon ye, Books.”
We now approach a very interesting and instructive
characteristic, which separates, almost by a sharp line, the
literature embodying Natural Knowledge, from literature
�14
i
■
An Hour in a Library,
of every other kind. I am alluding to the intellectual
method upon which it is composed.
Looking at literature or books in the mass, we easily
distinguish two very distinct logical methods of literary
composition—the one method, which I will call the method
of authority, characterises all books which are written on
the principle of taking for granted, or on the authority of
ancient or individual assertion or opinion or belief, the
ultimate premises from which the reasonings and discus
sions contained in them are deduced, and this method
may therefore be described as the deductive method; then,
as the facts and arguments are drawn from the human
mind, rather than from external Nature, the method in
question may also be fitly called subjective.
This deductive and subjective logical method will be
found to underlie more or less all literature, with the
exception of the literature relating to Natural Knowledge.
The other logical method, which I will call the method
of research, is remarkably different from the method of
authority. In the method of research the premises of a
dissertation or discussion are not taken from human
assertion, or opinion or belief, however ancient or vener
able, or from the intuitions of the mind, but, from those
facts of nature which have been derived from the study of
Nature herself, and are traceable to the verification or
.
stamp of truth that has been impressed upon them in the
Observatory or Laboratory; that is, the premises from
which the reasoning proceeds have been obtained by the
process of induction. The method therefore may be
described as the inductive method, and, as the premises
have not been drawn from the human mind, but from the
observation and interrogation of Nature, the method now
being characterised may also be fitly called objective.
Now the opposition I am pointing out, between the
deductive subjective method of authority, and the induc
tive objective method of research, is not simply a dialec
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
15
tical distinction, it is one of substance, and of great
moment; for I may without hesitation assert that, though
the old logic of authority is ever multiplying opinions, it
has never produced any increase of real knowledge, or
brought about the discovery of new truth, nor has it ever
practically resulted in relieving one pang of pain, or in
lifting an ounce of the burden of human misery; whilst,
on the other hand, the modern logic of research has made,
by means of its marvellous discoveries, a considerable
share of material comfort the common heritage of all
civilized men.
I could make this quite plain to you, as well as greatly
increase the interest of the subject, by giving you various
illustrations from almost the entire realm of literature.
You will observe in my syllabus (which is I hope in your
hands) that I have drawn up two lists of books respectively
cited in support of this argument. These lists may per
haps appear to some of you rather formidable, whilst to
others of you, especially those who might be disposed to
dispute my propositions, they may appear altogether too
meagre, whilst there are among you others who would
probably make a somewhat different choice.
Well, you will not forget that we are now supposed to
be assembled in a Library, and that, in the mind’s eye, we
see around us many thousands of volumes, which, being
the depository of the thoughts of mankind, contain much
wisdom, and also many absurdities, some things that are
true, but a great many that are false. Hence it is, that
book knowledge is not always real knowledge. My task
therefore is one of search and of selection, and, bearing in
mind, that I am speaking within the compass of an hour,
such selection is necessarily very restricted, assisted,
though I am, by this admirably classified Catalogue of
the Library of the Royal Institution. I think however
the books cited will be found sufficient in number and
character for my purpose. At any rate they comprise on
�’16
An Hour in a Library,
either side several of the acknowledged masterpieces of
the human mind.
Everyone present is, I feel sure, more or less familiar
with some of them. Who, for instance, has not felt the
stirring strains of old Homer’s Iliad, even through the
medium of a translation ? That exciting episode in the
siege of Troy—
“ Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered ....
That wrath which hurled to Pluto’s gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain.”
Who again has not been moved by Milton’s melodious
muse, which in “ Paradise Lost ” sings so sacredly, (how
ever superstitiously)—
“ Of man’s first disobedience and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, ’till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.”
Probably too, the youngest lad amongst us this day has
had his mind indirectly illuminated, thanks to our Board
Schools, by a knowledge more or less of those trans
cendent truths of Nature, which radiated originally from
the sublime cosmical conception of Copernicus, or the
glorious and immortal Principia of Sir Isaac Newton.
Well then, to save our time I think I may suggest to
you that, without further particular reference to my array
of books, I should be allowed to take them as read, and
so be enabled to proceed to make a few observations upon
one or two of them.
Returning then to the grand epic of Homer, we find
that its exquisite verse, its dramatic force of incident, its
exuberant invention, its marvellously realistic descriptions
of the characters, manners and customs of the ancient
Grecians, and its abounding literary graces are all, from
the point of view of Natural Knowledge, tarnished by
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
17
their intimate association with the false and sensual
mythology of the ancient heathens, a mythology that
strikes our rational minds with astonishment, when we
find it related that battles are encouraged or interfered
with by Gods and Goddesses descending to the Earth,
and ensuring victory or defeat by enveloping the com
batants in clouds, or, sometimes, by dragging them bodily
away from their enemies.
Then again, when we read, that during the Siege of
Troy epidemic fever wasted the Grecian Caiip, the God
Apollo is presumed to have been offended, and the remedy
is sought in some sacerdotal sacrifice to appease him. In
our day, during the Siege of Sebastopol epidemic fever
also wasted the British Camp, but the remedy was sought
in better ventilation and improved drainage. No super
stitious priesthood were implored to propitiate an angry
God, but scientific physicians prescribed that doses of
quinine should be administered to the suffering soldiers.
Turning to the majestic numbers of Milton we find
them for the most part marred in like manner. In the
poem of Paradise Lost we may observe a remarkable
analogy of ideas with the poem of the Iliad. In both
there is the same association of the story and its heroes
with supernatural agencies. In the one, the Iliad, the
supernatural machinery is that of the mythology of
the ancient Greeks. In the other, the Paradise Lost,
the supernatural machinery is that of the mythology
of the semi-barbarous Hebrews.
But, what I desire to call your attention to is, the
different effect produced on our minds by the perusal of
these two magnificent epic poems.
We have been educated to ignore, to despise, and to
laugh at the heathen religions of the ancient Classical
World, and we only smile amused when we read in
Homer’s Iliad that, in the very crisis of the mortal combat
�18
An Hour in a Library,
between Menelaus and Paris, and as the latter is on the
point of being throttled by the former’s grip of his
helmet’s band—
“ Then had his ruin crown’d Atrides’ joy
But Venus trembled for the Prince of Troy.
Unseen she came, and burst the golden band,
And left an empty helmet in his hand.
The Queen of Love her favored champion shrouds
(For Gods can all things) in a veil of clouds.”
On the other hand, we have been brought up from
infancy to believe as positively true the Semitic supersti
tions of the semi-barbarous Hebrews, and those, whose
credulity still compels them to accept such superstitions as
the scheme of a living religion, seriously read in Milton’s
Paradise Lost, without being shocked at its amazing
absurdity, how an imaginary supernatural evil power, an
arch-fiend termed Satan—“Prince and Chief of many
throned Powers, that led the embattled Seraphim to
war”—actually entered, first into the body of a cormorant,
and then, into that of a serpent, in order to tempt Eve
to eat of the forbidden fruit. How she, meditating on
such temptation, -thus reflects—
................... “ In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die.
How dies the Serpent ? He hath eaten, and lives,
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns,
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death invented p Or to us denied
This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
......................... . . This fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,
Of virtue to make wise. What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind ?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she eat!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost! ”
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
19
Now, from this difference in our early training in
respect of the mythologies referred to, the grand poem
of Homer has probably been a source of intelligent
interest, of unalloyed pleasure, and of innocent instruc
tion to its millions of modern readers, whilst the study of
the grand poem of Milton has probably done more to
obstruct the progress of Natural Knowledge, and to
intensify the Mosaic superstitions enshrined in' its har
monious numbers, than all the reading of the book of
Genesis ; the magic influence of its fascinating fable over
whelming the reason of its reader, whilst enchanting his
enraptured and spell-bound imagination.
To the student of Natural Knowledge the respective '
mythologies of the ancient Greeks and the semi-bar
barous Hebrews are, in point of historical credibility,
about on a par, and they are alike by him regarded as
the probable product of that credulous condition of the
emotional faculties of fear and wonder, as they existed in
the dawning intelligence, and dazed imagination of primi
tive barbarian man. Our knowledge of such childhood of
religions is however quite recent, and for much of it we
are indebted to the sceptical and truth-seeking minds of
critical scholars still living amongst us.
When Bishop Colenso, one of the greatest biblical critics
of the present age, published his profound work on the
Pentateuch, he had to deplore the dense prejudices and
superstitions of the half-educated classes in this country,
who seemed to be positively incapable of comprehending
his thorough exposure of the errors, the absurdities, and
the contradictions to science contained in the book of
Genesis, and the other earlier books of the Bible; but, he
remarks in one of the prefaces to his learned work, that
the opposition his views had to encounter was evidently
not derived from any actual knowledge his assailants had
of the Bible itself (which they had never probably read,
�20
An Hour in a Library,
except through the spectacles of their theology) but that
it for the most part proceeded from the fact of their
having been saturated in early youth with the poems of
Milton. We, observed Colenso, literally groan, even in
the present day, under the burden of Milton’s mythology.
Now, the spirit of the remarks I have been making on
the poems of Homer and Milton is really applicable, in
various degree, to all literature that has been composed
and written on the subjective method of authority. That
is to say, so much of it is mere imagination, or is taken
for granted, or is assumed without evidence or due veri
fication through the reason, that you have no guarantee
whatever for its objective truth, and it is in fact all more
or less blended with fictions or fallacies, or irrational be
liefs of one kind or another.
Turning now to the literature of Science, which is the
result of the unprejudiced search into Nature, which
founds its reasonings and inferences exclusively upon the
natural facts that have been arrived at through the obser
vation and questioning of Nature, which assumes nothing,
takes nothing for granted, and declines to adopt human
assertion or belief however venerable or authoritative,
without its having been duly verified by an appeal to
Nature, we shall come upon some very striking differences
from the class of literature we have just been engaged
upon.
As an apposite illustration of such differences, I will,
from my list of books, very briefly direct your attention
to the two principal works of our late illustrious VicePresident, Charles Darwin—‘ The Origin of Species ’ and
‘ The Descent of Man?
These memorable monographs are amongst the finest
examples of scientific literature in our language. Their
superstructure is erected upon a massive foundation of
natural facts, their generalisations are based upon indue
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
21
lions from a vast survey and cross-examination of most
various premises, their reasonings are ethical as well as
logical, that is, they everywhere evince an ardent desire
to arrive at truth, and a conscientious care to distinguish
certainties from probabilities, and never to press the
latter beyond their legitimate weight.
We have all heard and read a great deal about Charles
Darwin since his surprising and impressive funeral in
Westminster Abbey; when the Church, which had so
reviled him whilst living, solemnly recanted at his grave.
With her Cathedral Service sanctifying the truth of his
astonishing discoveries, and in her choral anthem’s
swelling peal, confessing—
“ Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and getteth under
standing.
“ She is more precious than rubies, and all the things thou
canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
“ Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand
riches and honour.
» “ His body is buried in peace, but his name liveth evermore ! ”
Our accomplished Vice-President Dr. Richardson re
cently gave us a most interesting lecture upon Charles
Darwin, but even the capacity of Dr. Richardson could
not exhaust so fertile a theme as the works of Darwin in
a single lecture, and I think that the way in which I
will try to present to you the grand genius and brilliant
discoveries that have encircled the name of Darwin with
the halo of world-wide renown, may have a freshness to
many of you even yet.
Now it is remarkable that there has never been any
great intellectual discovery which, when it came to, be
known, and looked at historically, that is in connection
with the previous knowledge existent at the time of such
discovery, has not appeared to have -been, to a great ex
tent, anticipated by previous discoveries. This has been
the case with respect to Lord Bacon’s Novum Organon ;
�22
An Hour in a Library,
it was so in reference to the startling cosmical conception
of Copernicus; it was so with the discoveries of Gralileo;
with that of the circulation of the blood by William
Harvey; with the discovery of universal gravitation by
Newton; with that of the functions of the brain by Dr.
Grail; and with others I could mention; and it has been
so with regard to the discoveries of Charles Darwin, as we
indeed heard from Dr. Richardson, and as you will pre
sently hear further from me.
The truth would seem to be, that Natural Knowledge,
or the human discovery of new truth, does not proceed by
leaps and bounds, but only by small or graduated steps
throughout the effluxion of time.
The existing state of knowledge and opinion on the
subject of Darwin’s great work ‘ The Origin of Species?
at the time when its appearance took the scientific
world captive by its overpowering force and originality,
may be very briefly stated. I am now of course going to
speak as little in the language of technical science as
possible, and the term ‘ Species,’ so bewildering in its
zoological and botanical variety, may, for our present pur
pose, be taken as meaning, the commonly distinguished
classes of individuals composing the animal and vegetable
kingdoms, i.e., the several kinds of Beasts, Birds, Reptiles,
Dishes, Insects, Plants, and Blowers.
Up to a comparatively recent period all such indivi
duals were supposed to be the-/ac simile descendants or
copies of those of like kind which had been suddenly,
that is within a period of six days, brought into exis
tence at the Creation, as described in the Book of Grenesis,
and subsequently, when the flood came, preserved in
Noah’s Ark. That from such time to the present there
had been no variation in them, and, to those who be
lieved this (chiefly the theological world), the invariability
or fixity of Species was simply a dogma.
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
23
The noble Science of Geology however had very rudely
disturbed this belief, and it had shown, more especially in
the masterly works of our late deceased member Sir
Charles Lyell, that, amongst other matters, millions of
species, altogether different from those now in existence,
had at various times in past ages inhabited this earth, and
that, if they had been created at all, such creation must
have occupied ages in the process, and most certainly did
not take place in the order, any more than in the time,
described in the Book of Genesis—Genesis in brief, from
the point of view of Geological Science, stood absolutely
discredited : and the mind of man, being freed from the
shackles of the Mosaic Cosmogony was left at liberty to in
vestigate when and how all this enormous amount and
apparent waste of life originated.
The most rational scientific hypothesis on the subject,
the credit of which is chiefly due to the illustrious French
naturalist Lamarck, was simply that, existing species
were not copies, but were the modified or transformed
descendants of previous species that had died out, such
modification having arisen by changes singly impercep
tible, but perpetually accumulating throughout the enor
mously long period of time, during which it was proved
by geological monuments that life in its various extinct
forms had existed on this earth. Hence the scientific
world had come firmly to believe in the new doctrine of
the variability or transmutation of Species.Now, in this diverse condition of knowledge and
opinion, the startling effect produced by the publication
of Darwin’s great work was the result of his having not
only thereby confirmed the scientific view of the trans
mutation of species, by the marvellous assemblage of
natural facts which he had collected and classified on the
subject by years of travel, voyage, and intellectual toil,
including most interesting experiments conducted by
�24
An Hour in a Library,
himself in the selective breeding of pigeons (altogether
amounting to a resistless accumulation of proofs), but, by
his having shown with all the clearness of his consummate
genius actually how and why such transmutation must
have taken place.
That is to say, he first pointed attention to the re
markable fact which, if previously known, had not
hitherto been correctly appreciated, viz.—that Nature,
in every species of life, produces a vast number of in
dividuals in excess of those for whom there is or can be
subsistence. That this vast number so produced must
therefore perish—That in fact they do perish, but not
without a struggle or food-scramble—A battle for life
everywhere ensues, in which, Darwin acutely inferred,
the strongest or most capable must conquer and live, whilst
the weakest will be defeated and die. This striking dis
covery Darwin luminously defined as ‘Natural Selection,’
or survival of the fittest. Darwin then drew particular
attention to his sagacious inference that the survivors
must have had superior qualities, as evidenced by their
victory in the battle, and that, in virtue of the known
natural law of hereditary transmission and adaptation,
such superior qualities would be more or less transmitted
to their offspring. In the next ensuing struggle there
would be then a further natural selection amongst these,
and another survival of the fittest of them ; and this
struggle and survival ever repeating itself in the course
of almost endless generations of such transitional forms,
a divergence of superiority or improved modification,
though at first Scarcely perceptible, would become so
augmented by gradual development as to cause the pro
duction, naturally, of all the various species now existing
amongst us, from predecessors so remote as to be utterly
different from them in nearly every conceivable character
istic ; so that, for example, Birds would really be the
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
25
modified or transformed descendants of Reptiles; a con
ception which, however difficult of realisation by our
minds, has now been established as a natural fact through
the original research of Professor Huxley who, guided by
Darwin’s theory, has actually spotted ‘ the missing link ’
in the remains of a creature that was, when living, half a
Bird and half a Reptile !
I will further concisely illustrate the process and
meaning of Natural Selection as discovered by Darwin by
a brief reference to the eye, our organ of sight. In some
of the early struggles for existence occurring ages ago
amongst the low organisms obtaining their food chiefly
by the use of their eyesight, those individuals which had
the best power of vision would be those best enabled to
live, and would naturally be the survivors; and the almost
endless repetition of such struggles occurring in the
course of ages, by successive and minute stages of im
provement in the visual organ would naturally and
inevitably result in the present perfection of the eye.
Now the animal kingdom, aided by geological research,
brings before us a series of creatures, in whom can be
traced by comparative anatomy, a regular, graduated, and
successive improvement in the mechanism, range, and
power of their eyesight, slowly evolved in the lapse of
enormous periods of time; whereby the eye, from being
in the lowest animal a simple spot of pigment incapable
of even reflecting images of external objects, and at most
distinguishing different rays of light, has at length de
veloped into the marvellously complex and exquisitely
perfect apparatus for sight , that we living now possess
and enjoy.
These enormous periods of time I am referring to are,
by some minds, very difficult to realise, and are held to
be obstacles to belief in Darwin’s theories—That is to
say, people do not reflect, that however enormously long
�26
An Hour in a Library,
a lapse of time the human mind would, or can conceive,
it is hut a span in comparison with eternity, which both
precedes and follows it.
My observations on the other great work of Darwin
‘ The Descent of Man ’ need not detain us long. Although
it was not obvious to the popular mind that the facts and
reasonings of the essay on ‘ The Origin of Species ’ must
equally apply to the Origin of Man himself, no scientific
investigator of the subject could have had any doubt about
it; but the publication of ‘ The Descent of Man’ brought
the whole subject home to the general reading public, and
raised a perfect storm of dissent and disapprobation,
showing how little the views of its illustrious author, as
expounded in ‘ The Origin of Species’ had been compre
hended, or reflected upon.
The question raised was simply this—when and how
did Man make his first appearance on our Planet ? It
was proved by Geological research that the Earth, and
animal life upon its surface had existed for ages before
man’s appearance.
The only specific account we have of man’s origin is
that contained in the book of Genesis, which tells us that
he was made from the dust of the Earth. But the scien
tific authority of that book had been, as I have observed,
utterly discredited, and the human mind had been set free
to enquire and reflect upon the matter.
Now, the alternative put forward by Darwin was very
briefly this—Due regard being had to what is known geolo
gically, zoologically, and embryologically of the ascending
gradations of animal life, including especially the develop
mental changes in the embryo of man himself, it is as
certain as reasoning from such premises can make it, that
man is the evolution or development of ’ lower animal
forms. Such evolution or development having taken
place gradually throughout the Succession of a long course
�in Search of Natural Knowledge.
27
of ages, during which such lower animal forms, by the
continued constant struggle for existence and survival of
the fittest, were slowly and gradually acquiring all those
superior attributes, qualities and characteristics, more
especially those we term mental, that at length culminated
in the production of a creature viz., primeval savage
barbarous man; a being distinguishable in degree rather
than in kind from his immediate animal parents, from
whom he probably differed less than he would be found
to differ from his civilized European descendant of the
present day; and that such descent, or, one might say,
ascent, from the lower animal life, was the true natural
pedigree of Man.
I told you just now that you would hear also from me
by whom Darwin’s discoveries had been to some extent
anticipated, and I will single out one who was named by
the modest and candid mind of Darwin himself as having,
in a very remarkable and original work, pointed out to
him the constant fact of the ever continuing struggle or
intense competition for the means of subsistence, owing to
the vastly greater number of individuals Nature, uncon
trolled by human intelligence, brings into existence, than
can possibly be provided for. It is the name of one
whose profound and truthful views have had to contend
against, and have nearly been suppressed by, the pre
judices and superstitions of the age in which he lived;
but I will here describe him as a discoverer who will cer
tainly in due time be recognised as one of the greatest
benefactors of our race. It is to the celebrated Essay
on the Principle of Population in its relation to Human
Happiness, written by the benevolent Malthus, that Darwin
states he was indebted for his knowledge of the principle
underlying the discoveries of his own great works, and I
will venture now to say, that sooner or later it will be
acknowledged that not the least of the services rendered
�28
A n Hour in a Library,
to mankind by the illustrious Darv^n has been his cor
roboration and elucidation of the profound and important
truths enunciated by the scarcely less illustrio.us Malthus
—when it will come to be generally known that the dis
coveries of Malthus and Darwin have in reality effected
for our knowledge of the Order of Nature in the organic
Kingdom, what, in a manner somewhat similar, the dis
coveries of Copernicus and Newton effected for our
knowledge of the Order of Nature in the inorganic
Kingdom.
We are now, I think, in a position to point out several
characteristics of Natural Knowledge. Its most striking
peculiarity in relation to other knowledge is its lucidity.
It is truth,- and truth of the clearest and simplest kind.
Nature, when questioned, answers, not evasively or am
biguously, but in the most direct and positive manner.
She does not express herself with that confusion or
obscurity of ideas and language which are found more or
less pervading the literary lucubrations of man.
Natural Knowledge, as the verified basis of conscien
tious Belief, also exhibits to us the antagonism existing
between Superstition or assumed manifestations of the
Supernatural, and Science, and enables us to formulate as
an axiom—‘ The more Natural Knowledge, the less Super
stition’—No Culture then can be complete without Natural
Knowledge, which is indeed its better part, as seems
obvious on the slightest reflection—For what should we
understand by culture ? It has been defined by its chief
apostle as, “ Knowing (through literature) the best that
has been thought and said in the world.” That is, I
submit to you, an imperfect definition, though it neces
sarily includes some library knowledge of Science, since it
would be difficult to find anything in the world really
better than what Science has revealed to us. For Science
has shown us that Nature is the expression of a definite
�in Search of Natural Knoioledge.
29
order, or invariable succession of phenomena, termed laws
of Nature, with which nothing interferes, and that man,
to exert his full powers, and to live uprightly and happily,
must master that order, and govern himself accordingly ;
and thereby Science has added to the conventional defini
tion of culture, by compelling it to include such a disci
pline of the human mind in scientific method as will teach
it to rise superior to Superstition, and so instruct man
to regard as his highest duty the regulation of his conduct
in obedience to the dictates of the natural moral law.
Natural Knowledge therefore is not a knowledge
merely of physical inorganic Nature, but it comprises
that knowledge which is the result of our enquiries into
the nature of man himself, his moral and social con
stitution, and its relations to his environment; and, if we
turn to the records of the history of civilized communities,
we find, that, separating the actual knowledge men have
possessed from their superstitious beliefs, we are enabled
to trace such happiness and progress as they have enjoyed
to their real source in the cultivation of Natural Know
ledge.
It is the increase and spread of such knowledge, and
the inventions and discoveries that have arisen from
man’s study and interrogation of Nature—the true, the
useful, and the practical—that distinguish, in so remark
able a manner, the modern nations of Europe from the
barbarous and classical nations of antiquity, and there
can be no doubt that Theologies and Metaphysics, with
their endless and confusing jargons and their senseless
beliefs, have decayed and are dying out, in proportion as
the culture of Natural Knowledge has increased and is
increasing; whereby human progress, not only in indi
vidual or selfish happiness, but in the recognition of right
or humanity towards every member of the great human
family, has advanced, has become vivified, and is being
�30
A n Hour in a Library.
practically acted upon; so that the secular moral virtues
Veracity and Justice are at last gradually becoming the
universally accepted criterion of Conduct, the acknow
ledged standard of human actions.
Finally it is this Natural Knowledge that forms the
sure basis of, and affords the most effectual security for
the stability and prosperity of that enlightened and
rationally regulated Liberty, which, in contrast with the
ignorance, the superstition, the slavery, and the inhu
manity of Barbarism, Classicism, Medievalism, and
Orientalism, is so significantly termed—Otjb Westebn
Civilization.
Kenny & Co., Printers, 25, Camden Koad, N.W.
�
Dublin Core
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
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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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An hour in a library, in search of natural knowledge, its relation to literature, to culture, and to conduct. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 28th January, 1883
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Part of Morris Miscellaneous Tracts 5.
Creator
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Finch, A. Elley
Date
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1883
Publisher
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Sunday Lecture Society
Identifier
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G3430
Subject
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Libraries
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 (An hour in a library, in search of natural knowledge, its relation to literature, to culture, and to conduct. A lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society, St George's Hall, Langham Place, on Sunday afternoon, 28th January, 1883), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Culture
Learning
Libraries
Morris Tracts