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WITH SOME REMARKS ON
PROFESSOR TYNDALL’S ADDRESS AT BELFAST.
BY
CHARLES BRAY,
Author of ‘ The Philosophy of Necessity' ‘A Manual of Anthropology or
Science of Man,' ‘ The Education of the Feelings,' Ac.
“ Things are to each man according as they seem to him.”—Anaxagoras.
“ The eye sees only what it brings the power to see.”— T. Carlyle.
PUBLISHED BY THOMAS SOOTT,
NO. II THE TERRACE, FARQUHAR ROAD, UPPER NORWOOD,
LONDON, S.E.
1875.
Price Ninepence.
�- LONDON:
PRINTED DY C. W., RBYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY STREET,
HAYMARKET, IV.
�'*.-*«*
*
TOLERATION.-*'
“"[JI VERY man,” says t>r. Johnson, “has a right
P J to his own opinion, and^fevery Ong else »has a
right to knock him down for it.” * <1 do nofc know %
whether this is the meaning he gives »to Toleration in
his dictionary, but it pretty correctly expresses both
its theory and practice in his day. Witness the brute
who knocked down Shelley. The^toet one day in Italy
was asking for his letters at the post-office, and gave in ,
his name—“ What! ” said an Englishman present,11 are ,
you that d—d Atheist Shelley ? ” an$. knocked him down, .
endangering his life ; no doubt understanding toleration in the above Johnsonian sense. I need not say that
such an outrage would not be permitted in the present
day, neither could it take place if it would, not so much
from any alteration of theory or opinion on the subject .
as from an entire alteration of, feeling; and it is- our
feelings, not the intellect, that rule us. The instincts
of the multitude are often in advance of the reason,t
and it is the imperceptible growth of the moral sense
and not the intellect that determines conduct. ‘It would,
be impossible in the present day to re-light the fires of
Smithfield or to burn a Witch; and yet there can be no
doubt that, from an intellectual point of view, both the
Inquisition and the Witch burners were only acting
consistently in accordance with their creed. It is the
moral judgment of the world that has condemned the
creed; logically it is as sound as ever.
It is true the age does not notv admit of persecution;
or, if it does, only in a very restrained and modified
sense. People are avoided or sent to Coventry for
certain opinions, that are supposed to militate against
�6
Toleration: ‘with Some Remarks on
what is now considered “ good society; ” but i( the
naughty man, who does not believe in anything,” is
well received. In this, however, there is no thought of
toleration; few know even the meaning of the word.
Let us then inquire what is toleration, and if it be
really a virtue or not ?
Religiozcs Toleration.
Toleration in a dictionary sense is bearing, enduring,
allowance of what is not approved, liberty to teach
religious opinions different to the Established Church.
It is in the latter sense—in a religious sense—that
toleration is best known to the Dissenters, because they
have suffered legally from the want of it. But is
religious toleration a virtue—i.e., is it right or wrong ?
From the Boman Catholic point of view it must be
wrong ; from the Protestant it is right. The Roman
Catholic, as we are told by Archbishop Manning in the
June number of the Contemporary Review, not only
believes in the moral and divine certainty of his reve
lation—i.e., the Christian revelation—but he also
believes that a necessary provision has been made for
the safe custody, the proper interpretation, and full
understanding of this revelation in his own church,
“ divinely founded, divinely preserved from error, and
divinely assisted in the declaration of the truth.” He
believes that the voice of the living Church at this hour
is no other than the voice of the Holy Spirit. That
the decrees of the nineteen General Councils, by which
the present Canon and other fundamental dogmas have
been established, are also undoubtedly the voice of the
Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church, whether
dispersed or gathered in one CEcumenical Council, is
pronounced to be infallible ; and every one who shall
deny such a Council to be (Ecumenical is excommuni
cated—i.e., damned to all eternity, Now, how any one
who believes that God has not only given us a revela-
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast.
7
tion, but his Spirit also to guard and interpret it, can
consistently tolerate any other doctrine, I cannot con
ceive. But the authority of the Roman Catholic Church
and of its (Ecumenical Councils have been profanely
denied by the Protestants, who say that, inasmuch as
the members of these Councils differed in opinion, they
could not all have the Holy Ghost, and to say that it
dwelt with the majority is a pure assumption. (See
Article 21 of the Church of England.)
But it is not the Catholics only who have persecuted
and who have burnt people to death in order to inspire
them with a proper faith. Protestants also have done
so ; “ and if he that believeth shall be saved, and he that
believeth not shall be damned,” and if belief is in our
own power, I cannot see how we can be justified in not
taking every step, even the most extreme, to promote
that faith which alone leads to salvation. For what is
the suffering of an hour or two here at the stake com
pared to an eternity of such burning in hell with the
devil and his angels ? Intolerance, therefore, is a virtue
in a Roman Catholic and in all who believe that they
have infallible truth, and that all men can believe that
truth if they are so disposed. But it has been dis
covered that slow burning at the stake, even with green
wood, which gives more time for faith and repentance,
does not tend to clear the judgment and enable people
to see what they could not see before. The error, how
ever, both of Catholic and Protestant, was not in the
want of toleration, but in the dogma that belief is in
our own power, and that we can believe what we like,
whereas we cannot believe that to be black which
appears to us to be white, or in any of the various steps
between, although we should be burned for it both here
and hereafter. Persecution may make hypocrites, but
it cannot make us believe that which appears to us to
be incredible. It has been the gradual perception and
recognition of this truth by the wise that has given the
tone to society, and made the foolish—i.e.-, the multi
�8
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
tude—more tolerant. Protestantism proclaimed the right
of private judgment; and when people really took the
liberty to think for themselves, and did not leave it to
their church or chapel, the consequences were exactly
what might have been expected—viz., that no two people
ever do think alike. This was more manifest among
the Scotch—reasoning and theological people—than
among the English. A small band of Presbyterians had
seceded from a small body that had itself seceded from
the National Church. The suffering remnant, we are
told, dwindled away until it was composed but of two
persons, an old man and an old woman. “ I suppose,
Janet,” said a scoffer to the dame, “that you believe
yourself and John to be now the only true members of
Christ’s Kirk.” “Weel mon,” she replied, “I’m nae
so sure of John.” It is this tendency to divide—the
right of private judgment having been conceded—that
makes toleration almost a necessity in religion.
The altered tone of Society as illustrated in Professor
Tyndall’s late Address at Belfast.
The last meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science furnishes a complete illustra
tion of this. Galileo was imprisoned and Giordano
Bruno burnt for much less heresy than that displayed
by the President of the Association in the Annual
Address. The Spectator is a clever journal, but it
admits no science that cannot be strained through its
rather old and narrow theological sieve, and it says :—■
“ Professor Tyndall will be much less persecuted for
denying the existence of God than he would be for
denying the value of Monarchy, and may defend Atheists
with much less abuse than communists or oligarchs.
English ‘ society ’ nowadays holds two things to be
divine, Property and the Usual.”
But is Professor Tyndall’s Address Atheism or a
defence of Atheists ? In the Spectator's view it may
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast.
9
be, with others it may be only a step towards a more
complete understanding of the character of God. The
anthropomorphic view must give place to one in which
God must be “All in All,” and not a part only of
nature or the universe ; “ for,” as St. Paul says, “ there
are diversities of operation, but the same God worketh
all in all.” “ God,” as Victor Cousin says, “must be
everything or nothing.” A priori, we must feel that
the Infinite must contain everything; and science, a pos
teriori, is now only beginning to recognise this view.
Professor Tyndall says, “Is there not a temptation to
close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms
that ‘ Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of
herself, without the meddling of the Gods ? ’ or with
Bruno, when he declares that Matter is not ‘ that mere
empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to
be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things
as the fruit of her own womb ? ’ ” “ Abandoning,” he
says, “ all disguise, the confession I feel bound to make
before you is that I prolong the vision backward across
the boundary of the experimental evidence, and discern
in that Matter, which we in our ignorance, notwith
standing our professed reverence for its Creator, have
hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and
potency of every form and quality of life.” “The
teaching of the whole lecture is,” says the Spectator,
“ that, so far as science can ascertain, Matter—expanding
that word to include Force as one of its attributes—is
the Final Causeand it says “ that the result of such
a philosophy, if universally accepted, would be evil, or
rather, to avoid theological terminology, would be
injurious to human progress, we have no doubt.” Then
why tolerate it ? “ Because,” says the Spectator, “ that,
if it be true, the injury is no argument against its
diffusion ; for the injury, whatever its amount, is less
than that which must proceed from the deliberate lying
of the wise, or from the existence of that double creed,
an exoteric and esoteric one, which is the invariable
�io
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
result of their silence or their limitation of speech to a
circle of the initiated.” But the question is, -if true,
can it possibly be evil, or injurious to human progress ?
I think not; and the result of this philosophy appears
to me to lead, not only to the destruction of much that
now stands in the way of real religion, and that tends
to Atheism, but it would also lead to the most important
of all truths. Thus what is “Lucretius denying God
and deifying nature ” but saying with Pope that—
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.
and that this body and soul, as far as we can see, are
inseparable. It is the recognition of the fact, not of a
God in Nature, but that God is Nature and Nature is
God, and that the government of the Universe by a
separate Being is altogether untenable. The Spectator
says that it is Professor Tyndall’s opinion “ that the
Unknown and the Unknowable is discovered, and is
‘ Matter,’ ” and that this Matter “ is the ultimate source
of all things, and its own first cause.” In this I think
the Spectator does not truly represent the Professor.
Both Matter and Spirit are mere phenomena, that is,
modes of manifestation of the Great Unknown and
Unknowable. As Professor Huxley says, “For, after
all, what do we know of this terrible ‘ Matter,’ except as
a name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states
of our own consciousness ? And what do we know of
that ‘ Spirit ’ over whose threatened extinction by Matter
a great lamentation is arising like that which was heard
at the death of Pan, except that it is also a name for an
unknown and hypothetical cause, or condition, of states
of consciousness ? In other words, matter and spirit are
only names for the imaginary substrata of groups of
natural phenomena.” * There is no reason to suppose
that Tyndall disagrees on this subject with his brother
Professor. Elsewhere than in his Address he tells us
* ‘On the Physical Basis of Life. ’
�Professor Tyndall’s Address at Belfast. 11
that Matter is “ essentially mystical and transcendental.”
And this is true, for what do we really know about it
that enables us to say that it differs essentially from
Spirit ? We know only our own consciousness, that is,
to know and to be conscious are the same things, and
this consciousness tells us nothing of Matter but as the
cause of our varied consciousness ; as Mill tells us, these
groups of external natural phenomena, of which Matter
is the supposed substratum, are mere “ possibilities of
sensation.” Tyndall admits with Spencer that, “ Our
states of consciousness are mere symbols of an outside
entity which produces them and determines the order of
their succession, but the real nature of which we can
never know.” Both Matter and Mind are phenomenal,
and are the mere modes of action of the common “ sub
stance ”—the Great Unknown which underlies both.
When we talk of material and immaterial as indicating
a difference, per se, we are talking of what we know
nothing ; Matter is known to us only in its modes of
action, and Mind as consciousness.
The Spectator (in “The Stronghold of Materialism )
says that, “whatever Matter may be, it is at bottom the
fruit rather than the germ of mind.” But to set up the
rival claims of Spiritualism and Materialism under such
conditions of our knowledge is simply absurd—it is talk
ing of that of which we really know nothing certain. All
we know is that we never find Matter without Force, or
Life without Matter, or Mind without Matter. Tyndall
says, “ Man the object is separated by an impassable gulf
from man the subject.” Is it not rather the fact that
the active and passive principle—the body and soul of
Nature—are one and inseparable. God is the Universe,
and the Universe is God. In the Church of the Latter
Days, says St. Simon, man is to feel and realise the
divinity of his whole nature, material as well as spiritua .
And what is the important truth to which this
absorption of Nature into God, or the deification o
Nature points ? Why, that not only the moral laws,
�12
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
or man’s relation to his fellow man, are divine, but that
the physical laws are so also; for man’s relation to
Nature is his relation to God, and his well-being will be
assured in proportion as he studies these divine laws of
Nature, and acts in complete conformity and harmony
with their invariable sequence. Follow Nature, that is,
obey God. Professor Tyndall’s Address, when carried
out to its legitimate consequences, does not land us in
Atheism, but just the reverse; it leads through Nature
up to Nature’s God, or, rather, to the fact that God and
Nature are One; that God is All in All. If the per
petual changes in the combination of Molecules are
enough by themselves to produce all the varying forms
of inanimate and animate existence, God is the source
of all power and cause of all change. It is not Force
that is persistent, but His Will, consciously or auto
matically displayed. The argument, which I have used
elsewhere, put briefly is this. We know of Mind or
Consciousness only as a Force, and we know of that
which acts upon Mind, and of which it is the correlative,
only as Force, and as all these forces—of Heat, Light,
Magnetism, Electricity, Attraction, Repulsion, Chemical
Affinity, Life 'and Mind—so-called separate forces for
the sake of convenience in classification—all change
into each other, there is therefore but One, and as this
tends always to a given purpose, or acts with design, it
must be intelligent; and, if intelligent, conscious or
automatic, i.e., originally conscious ; and the conscious
action of Power or Force is Will. All Power is, there
fore, or was, Will Power, and 11 Causation the Will, Crea
tion the Act of God; ” that is, the Act of that which
underlies all Force, or of which it is the Force, variously
named Noumenon, Substance, Life, Being, the Very God.
The only knowledge we have of Force, or Power, or
Causation is that exercised by our own minds which we
call Will Power; and the connection between that
power and what it effects is one of purpose—a purely
mental one. In mind joined with structure—and we
�Professor TyndalPs Address at Belfast. 13
know of no other mind, for the mind of the universe is
inseparable from the structure of the universe, both
being equally an evolution or emanation from God : or
rather being God Himself—mental acts frequently re
peated pass from the conscious to the unconscious state ;
the original purpose is continued in the act, and the act
repeated without the sense or consciousness of it. Judg
ing by analogy, and of great things by small, this is
probably the source of General Causation. We find in
variable sequence only, and no reason why this sequence
should take place in the recognised order than in any
other. We can trace no necessary connection between
cause and effect; and the great probability is that it
was originally established and is maintained to effect a
given purpose, as in the action of our own wills, and
that this originally conscious action has passed in the
ages into the unconscious or automatic. Specific pur
poses have passed into general laws, and it is thus :
The Universal Cause
Acts not by partial but by general laws.*
What we call the Laws of Nature are nothing more
than unconscious or automatic Will Power.
In trying, then, to comprehend the mystery of what
is called “Evil”—i.e., pain, in all its different degrees,
both mental and bodily—we must take into considera
tion not only this automatic or unconscious action of
law, but also that it is not the partial but the general—
not man, but humanity—we have to consider. As the
innumerable cells of which the body is composed are to
man, so is man to the great body of humanity. As
each cell in the body gives up its life to another, and
the rapidity with which it does so increases the vitality
of the individual man, so it is in the great body of
humanity. But man is only the last and most perfect
form of enjoyment; we have to consider the whole of
* See “Note on Professors Huxley and Clifford,” at the
end.
�14
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
the animal creation spreading a fine network of nerve
over the whole world. The natural function of nerve is
pleasurable sensibility, and pain is the exception, not
the law : the pains not being as one in a hundred to the
pleasures. The aggregate of pleasurable sensations con
stitutes happiness. The difference between the optimist
and pessimist is one, therefore, of the simplest rule in
arithmetic. We cannot look upon this question from the
individual point of view. Individuals are only indi
viduals to our forms of thought. Underneath the whole
of sensitive existence lies one common force or “ sub
stance,” and life—all life—is only a form or mode of
this. The lilies that spread themselves over the surface
of the water, each in its separate existence so beautiful
a development, have under the water but one common
root.
The pains, of which individually so much is
made, are as much swallowed up in the happiness of
the whole as in the pain or “ sacrifice ” we are all called
upon to make of our lower nature to the highest pur
poses of existence. As increased fineness of nervous
texture seems necessary to the increase of sensibility, so
pain would seem to be the only guardian to so wonder
fully complicated a structure. Man quarrelling with
pain is like a child quarrelling with its nurse for keeping
it out of the fire, or a schoolboy with his schoolmaster,
for pain is a better teacher than pleasure.
There can be no exception to general laws, as both
instinct—which is organised experience—and reason
depend upon the uniformity and invariableness of such
laws, and all men’s actions depend upon his knowledge
of, and adaptation to, this uniformity. Exceptions,,
like eleemosynary charity, would sap the springs of
self-reliance and self-dependence, the foundation of all
manhood. •
There is another mystery also upon which the above;
views of the automatic action of mind throws some light.
The evolution of Mind from Matter, “ the passage,”
says Professor Tyndall, “ from the physics of the brain
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 15
to the corresponding facts of consciousness, is unthink
able.” Physical Force is Automatic Mind, and when
under the molecular action of the brain, or other condi
tions, at present not well known to us, it resumes its
consciousness, no inexplicable gulf is passed of Mind
from Matter, but Mind has simply passed from the
automatic state to its originally conscious state. There
is no such thing as blind force or a Mindless Universe,
only a Soul of Nature and its body, like our own, acting
automatically in its physical functions. Mind, under
the action of the brain, not only resumes its conscious
ness, but takes a specific character which we call Intel
ligence and Feeling—forms of thought and impulses to
action which fit us as individuals to do our part in the
world in which we live. Intelligence, as known to us,
is thus a mere form which Universal Mind takes for
specific purposes, and we have no right whatever to
assume that what we call Intelligence exists in the
Universal Mind in the form in which it is known
to us.
This subject illustrates more forcibly than any other
the necessity for Toleration, and the folly of dogma
tising. The question has many sides, all leading to the
Unknown. The Materialist and the Positivist stop far
short of the deductions which I think I have drawn
legitimately, and the Theist makes a god after his own
image, with his own feelings, passions, and modes of
thought or intelligence : both, in my opinion, are
equally wrong, and we require the utmost limit of free
thought and full toleration on a subject on which we
all know so little; but it is well said that controversy
is to truth what the polish is to the diamond—it makes
it shine the brighter.
Not only this most difficult of all subjects, but most
questions appear simple to him only who knows little
about them. All are many-sided and appear clearest
to him who sees but one side, or, at least, but few; and
dogmatism and intolerance are, generally, in proportion
�16
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
to the extent, not of a person’s knowledge, but of his
ignorance.
The Eye sees only what it brings the power to see.
It used to be thought that the mind was a tabula
rasa, upon which anything could be written by educa
tion ; no allowance was made for difference in natural
faculty; but now it is pretty generally acknowledged
that, although things without us may be the same to all
people, they are seen and apprehended in proportion to
the greater or less perfection of our instrument of
thought. If a man is blind we do not expect him to
see, but if he is equally blind in some of his mental
faculties, we expect him to see with them just the same.
This blindness is recognised in those who cannot dis
tinguish colours, but notin any other of our perceptions.
Sir David Brewster found that one in eighty-nine were
colour blind, and this was thought to be an imperfection
in the organ of sight—the eye; but this is a mistake,
the defect is in the brain—in the absence or deficiency of
the part upon which the sense of colour depends. This
may be seen by any one who chooses to look. The same
absence of brain may cause equal blindness in all our
other mental powers, both perceptive and reflective.
The consequence is that all people necessarily see things
differently according to their natural powers of appre
hending. The worst of it is that we are seldom or ever
aware of our deficiencies; a specialist and physicist,
with great perceptive power, may see further into a mill
stone than most other people, but he may be utterly
deficient in the reasoning power • and a metaphysician
may have great reasoning power, but may reason in
correctly from want of power to collect and appreciate
correct data to reason upon. Experience has shown the
folly of believing that because a person is clever in one
department, his judgment may be equally trusted out of
his special department. Specialists, in physical science
especially, are but too often both narrow and intolerant.
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 17
In all departments the focus of people’s mental eyes
differs : some can perceive only details, others only gene
rals, while others look only at the inner nature of all
they see. Consequently the evidence of such diverse
observers is as contradictory as their diverse mental
powers. I have known persons with a wonderful memory,
well stored in scientific facts, and in facts of Natural
History and History, with great power of language, and
great orators, but blind or almost blind in the reasoning
power, and therefore utterly without Judgment. The
world seldom recognises such deficiencies, if a man is a
clever talker, still seldomer does the man himself. “ It
would cost me,” says Lord Lytton, in his Speeches just
published, “ immense labour to acquire the ready, cool
trick of words with little knowledge and no heart in
them, which is necessary for a Parliamentary debater.”
And yet it is such clever Parliamentary debaters, such
heaven-born ministers I with “ little knowledge and no
heart in them,” to whom we entrust the power to
govern the world. “ The World embraces,” says Profes
sor Tyndall in his Address, “ not only a Newton, but a
Shakespeare—not only a Boyle, but a Raphael—not
only a Kant, but a Beethoven—not only a Darwin, but a
Carlyle.” It is these differences, dependent upon the
difference in the development of brain, recognised at
a glance by those who have made cerebral physiology
their study, that make us feel that Toleration is a
necessity, and that all that a wise man will be justified
in doing will be to try to make another see a thing in
the light he sees it, and if he fails he will bear it, that
is, tolerate it. It was almost a generation before the
savans on the Continent could see things as Sir I. New
ton saw them. If the wise man likes to console him
self with the reflection suggested to us by Carlyle, viz.,
“ that Great Britain consists of twenty-one millions of
inhabitants—mostly fools,” he can do so, but he had
better keep that opinion to himself, as to give expression
to it is a mode of intolerance not much more justifi
able than knocking a man down a la Dr. Johnson.
B
�18
Toleration : with Some Remarks on
It is difficult, however, to prevent this mode of con
solation suggesting itself when we consider how Gall’s
Great Discoveries are treated by the Physiologists of
the present day. They appear to be utterly ignored by
them, or quite forgotten, and yet they have given to
the world the only intelligible and practical system of
mental and moral philosophy it has yet known. At
the British Association Meeting at Belfast, in Section D
for Anatomy and Physiology, the leading Physiologists,
in opposition to Dr. Byrne, Dean of Clonfert, declared
that the cerebrum is a single organ, with no more
separation of function in its lobes than is the case with
the lobes of the liver; so that the long life of Gall, a
man superior in every way to any of them, was spent in
vain, and all that his followers have seen and discovered
since, for nearly one hundred years now, of the functions
of the brain, is all a delusion. Among the “Problems
of Life and Mind,” there is, perhaps, nothing more
wonderful than this. Either the leading men of science
in all departments, who filled Combe’s book of Testi
monials in 1836 in favour of Phrenology, were either
grossly ignorant, or the physiologists of the present day
must be so. To say that Phrenology is not a certain
science, that mind cannot be weighed and measured, or
as yet given in foot-pounds, is quite beside the mark,
for as much is known of the functions of the brain as of
any other organ. The brain of the civilised man ex
ceeds that of the savage by thirty cubic inches—thirty
cubic inches more of organised experience—of instinct
or feeling, of intuition or intelligence, and yet all this,
we are told, is contained in a single organ, with, of
course, a single function. There is no such case of
“ reversion,” or of a return to ignorance on record as this,
and there is no excuse for it, as every one who has eyes
may, if he pleases, compare the functions of the brain
with its development. There are few people who do
not know, or who may not discover upon inquiry, some
one who is colour blind, and they will always find in
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 19
the centre of the eyebrow a deficiency of brain as
compared with others who can distinguish colours. The
connection between other faculties and organs are not
S3 easy to discriminate, but they may be found with
care and patience. Huxley, who ought to be our great
leader in this matter, speaks of an organ of consciousness
as if it were generally admitted, whereas the vividness
of consciousness is always in proportion to the size of
the organ with which each separate faculty and feeling
is found to be connected. There may be, and probably
is, an organ that gives us the intuition of the “I,” or
feeling of identity. What is called self-consciousness
or reflection on consciousness, depends upon the reason
ing faculties, which the brutes do not appear to
possess; they possess, however, most of the other in
tellectual faculties that man has, and some of them in
even a greater degree, and are as much capable of a
train of thought as he is, and of communicating it, as
it is very evident they have a language of their own.
Huxley, however, admits that as, “ in other cases,
function and organ are proportional, so we have a
right to conclude it in with the brain.” He does not,
however, appear yet to have compared function and
organ in the brain ; if he had, perhaps, he would be able
to tell the Phrenologists where they are wrong, and how
it is that the lives of several generations of clever men
have been quite thrown away. Dr. Carpenter, however,
is not so reticent; he has examined, and has come to
the conviction that if the intellect is in the brain at all,
i.e,. in the cerebrum, it is in the back of the head and
not in the front. He appears to think that Dr. Ferrier
has put us into the right road at last, and that, as by
taking off the skull, and other altogether abnormal con
ditions, a dog may be made to wag his tail and roll his
eyeballs, and show other such-like wonderful special
indications of intellect and feeling when parts, of the
brain are artificially stimulated, we are justified in
assuming, from this admirable mode of proceeding, that
�20
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
this intellect is in the back of the head, and not in the
front or forehead; and it was this original discovery of
his, he tells us, now twenty-five years ago, that com
pletely smashed phrenology and phrenologists !
It is not the Intellect that determines judgment so
much as Feeling, and it is not what we Imow but what
we feel that ordinarily determines conduct. A man
generally tells you what he feels rather than what he
thinks upon important subjects.
Indeed, very few
people think at all—they absorb their opinions from
the mental and moral atmosphere around them, and
speculative opinions are accepted, not from the argu
ments on which they rest, but from a predisposition to
receive them. We think according to the mode of this
age and country, and we dress our minds as we dress
our bodies in the fashion of the period. Tyndall’s
Address would not have been received twenty-five years
ago.
The extent to which feeling influences judgment is
well known and acknowledged in certain familiar cases,
but it is less recognised in others, where not quite
so potent.
The lover’s feeling for his mistress, for instance, and
the tendency he has to transfer all the best qualities
of his own mind to the object of his affections; the
perfection which the mother sees in her little fluffy,
squabby infant darling, and all its pretty ways, each one
believing there never was such a baby before; and
singular enough every woman sees every woman’s
folly but her own. We can all see, and laugh up our
sleeves at such follies, unless, indeed, we are too greatly
the victims, and then it is no laughing matter, par
ticularly if we are expected to qualify to nurse as well
as to admire.
All our feelings are liable to deceive us in the same
way in proportion to their strength ; our fears as well as
our hopes, our hates as well as our loves, all influence
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 21
and warp the judgment, and tend to make us intolerant.
A man feels justly or kindly, not in proportion to his
familiarity with the truths of Christianity, but in pro
portion as his conscientious or benevolent feelings are
strong or weak; and his feeling towards his religion is
very much like a child’s for its doll: he makes an idol of
it, however wooden it is, and loves it all the better if it
has no brains, or has lost an eye or even its head, or all
its body has branned away. Religious people thus
clothe their god in all the gorgeous imagery of an
Eastern despotic monarch, sitting on a throne in some
spot in this Infinite Universe of suns and stars, which
they call Heaven, invested with passions like their own,
angry, jealous, partial, greedy of praise, creating all
things for his own glory, doing what is right and kind
towards his creatures only when he is bothered into it by
repeated importunity, and when you refuse to acknow
ledge and to bow down to this their god,—to this
image which they have set up, they call you an Atheist,
and you are committed to the fiery furnace of their
wrath. This is the worst and narrowest phase of dog
matism, fanaticism, and intolerance, and yet it is much
too common. It is this, our dependence upon feeling,
and often upon good feeling, rather than upon intellect,
that makes Toleration so difficult to practise—a man
may have nothing to give in support of his views but his
feeling on the subject, and as he knows that the feeling
is a good one, he looks upon any attack upon his
opinions as a personal attack upon himself. It was thus,
as Thackeray tells us in his “ Lectures on the Georges,
with good old stupid George the Third. This was how
he reasoned: “ I wish nothing but good, therefore every
man who does not agree with me is a traitor and a
scoundrel,” and as far as he was able he treated them as
such. It was for him to command, “ In this way you
shall trade, in this way you shall think ; these neigh
bours shall be your allies whom you shall help, these
others your enemies whom you shall slay at my orders ,
�'Ll
rl deration : with Some Remarks on
in this way you shall worship God.” Who can wonder
that under such guidance, aided by the Tories and a
“ heaven-born ” Minister with a head about the size of
a pin’s, we should have spent 1,200 millions in trying to
stay the march of Progress and in putting the Holy
Alliance in its place.
The conscientious bigot, James the Second, thought
that to differ from him in opinion was to doubt his word
and call him a liar, and, although unexpressed, this is
too frequently the tone of people generally—particu
larly of good and shallow people. They reason in this
way, as illustrated above: “You differ from me; I know
I mean well, you cannot therefore mean well as you
differ from me, and you must therefore be a scoundrel,”
—confounding feeling and intellect. If, therefore, you
differ from them on any point whatever, but especially
on Theological grounds, they regard the fact of your
differing from them as proof, not merely that you are
intellectually stupid, but that you are morally depraved.
This kind of intolerance is certainly less than it was
some twenty years since, when the slightest tendency to
free thought was represented as a wish to free yourself
from the restraints of Religion ; and the belief that an
Almighty and Infinitely Benevolent Creator of Hell was
a contradiction could only be held by those who were
afraid that they should go there.
The wise are always tolerant, and the ignorant are
intolerant, generally in proportion to their ignorance.
The whole history, not only of Religion but of Science,
shows the necessity for Toleration. In Religion, the
sphere of the occult and transcendental, we have good
and wise men on all sides; and in Science, prejudice
very much obscures the eyesight. The study of Human
Nature shows us that the power to form a correct
opinion depends 'upon natural capacity, and the degree
of cultivation such powers have received; upon how
people feel as well as think, and that people cannot be
made to think and feel alike. “ To submit our conclu-
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 23
sions,” says Lewes, “to the rigorous test of evidence,
and to seek the truth, irrespective of our preconcep
tions, is the rarest and most difficult of intellectual
virtues.” (Problems of Life and Mind, p. 472). A
dogmatic manner is therefore felt to be not only
unwise but ungentlemanly, and the custom now of
good society is shortly to give an opinion, without
defending it, and we have little controversy.
The
Pall Mall Gazette, October 28, 1874, saysThe
modern peculiarity known as 'many-sidedness’ is
strictly in harmony with the characteristics of an age
in which much that has been hitherto regarded as
certain is proved to be questionable, while no certainty
of any kind is brought forward to supply the place of
that which is destroyed. Not long since, the ability to
see more than one side of a question, and the candour
which confesses to so doing, would have been branded
as half-heartedness. Now, these attributes are reckoned
as valuable as they are amiable.” Is there, however,
really nothing to fear from “ half-heartedness,” and
may not this suppression of all feeling lead to indiffer
ence towards truth itself ? The highest feeling we have,
and the most desirable to cultivate, is the love of truth
and light, and are we ever to be indifferent, or ever
appear to be indifferent, to it? “Fiat justitia, ruat
ccelum,” should be our motto.
And yet it is certain that at the present time, where
the general tendency is not towards indifference,. it is
towards intolerance and even persecution. This is the
natural feeling, only to be overcome by cultivation. It
is natural—1st. Because, in difference of opinion, if
others are right we are wrong, unless, which few sus
pect, another side’of the same question is seen. . 2n .
Because, we think we raise ourselves by depreciating or
depressing others, and certainly relatively we appear
taller. 3rd. As members of the human family we
cannot avoid being responsible for others’ errors, an as
the end of persecution is, in our opinion, to pu own
error, it has the appearance of standing up for ru .
�24
Toleration: with Some Remarks on
Full and complete Toleration is only to be found with,
the highest culture and the wisdom that that culture
ought to bring, but does not always. Knowledge inva
riably shows so many sides to every question that it
cannot but make people tolerant, and truth, when
divested of feeling and quietly expressed, has always the
best chance of acceptance. Truth has always a natural
advantage, but this is destroyed immediately force or
any element of persecution is introduced. We are
bound to listen quietly and respectfully to all earnest
opinion, feeling certain that if we differ from good and
clever men, that there is some side of the question we
have not yet seen. “ Whatever retards a spirit of inquiry
is favourable to error, and whatever promotes it is
favourable to truth,” says the Rev. Robert Hall.
Although, therefore, we are bound to stand up for what
we consider to be the truth, regardless of consequences,
yet the conviction is forced on us that the interests
of truth are best promoted by complete Toleration.
Full, and free, and open discussion must be allowed on
all subjects, and perfect toleration for all opinions, as
long as they remain opinions, but when opinions turn to
practice, then toleration ceases to be a duty, and the
■community has a right to step in and insist that such
action or practice shall be in accordance with its sup
posed interests ; and whether any action is so or not can
only be determined by the voice of the majority. Every
one, then, has the right to his opinion as long as it
remains opinion, but when a man proceeds to put his
opinion into practice he must accept what the majority,
not what he, thinks right, and Compromise thus becomes
the law of progress. There can, however, be no com
promise in opinion, which must be left perfectly free to
make the minority the majority by argument; to cut
off the heads of the minority, which is the prevailing
custom in a neighbouring country, can scarcely be said to
be giving it a fair chance of getting that acceptance
for the truth which is generally at first in a minority.
�Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast. 2 5
In fact the government of a country by the majority is
only safe when the rights and interests of the minority
are protected by a Constitution.
The indictment under which Socrates was con
demned at Athens, as reported by Zenophon at the
commencement of the Memorabilia, ran thus:—“ Socrates
is guilty of crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in
those gods in which the city believes, but introduces other
novelties in regard to the gods; he is guilty also, inas
much as he corrupts the youth.” We have laid down
the axiom that Socrates had a perfect right to believe
in whatever gods he liked; with respect to the cor
ruption of the youth by the spread of his opinions, I
hold that truth must never be judged by its supposed
consequences, and that the inferred “Corruption ” could
only be dealt with when it showed itself in actions
opposed to the good of the community. Every one
must not only have full toleration for his opinions but
full liberty to spread whatever he believes to be true, or
otherwise full, free, and open discussion, by which truth
is tested, would be impossible. “Freedom of thought
and expression,” says Dr. J. W. Draper, “is to me the
first of all earthly things.” Error is best met in
open daylight and not when driven into dark corners.
We cannot give too wide scope to our conviction that
“ Magna est veritas et prevalebit.”
�NOTE ON
PROFESSORS HUXLEY AND CLIFFORD.
Professor Huxley, in his Lecture “ On the Hypothesis
that Animals are Automata,” published in the Fort
nightly Review for November, lays down these proposi
tions, that:—
I. “ The brain is the organ of sensation, thought,
and emotion, that is to say, some change in the condition
of the matter of this organ is the invariable antecedent
of the state of consciousness to which each of these terms
is applied.”
II. “The movements of animals are due to the
change of form of the muscles, which shorten and
become thicker; and this change of form in a muscle
arises from a motion of the substance contained within
the nerves which go to the muscle.”
III. “ The sensations of animals are due to the motion
of the substance of the nerves which connect the sensory
organs with the brain.”
IV. “ The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve
may be transmitted through the brain to motor nerves,
and thereby give rise to a contraction of the muscles
to which these motor nerves are distributed ; and this
reflection of motion from a sensory into a motor nerve
may take place without volition, or even contrary to it.”
Here everything is made to arise from, and to be
due to, motion, but motion is nothing in itself; it is the
mere transference of a body from one point of space to
another, and is inseparable from the thing moving.
How, then, can it be the cause of anything, or be trans
mitted ? How can you pass on nothing, or a condition,
inseparable from the thing of which it is the condition ?
You cannot transmit motion without transmitting the
thing moving with it. It is the cause of motion that is
transferred. That which causes motion in one body is
transmitted, and causes motion in another. This cause
�Note.
27
or active principle we call Force, and is the force of
some entity unknown, but is as measurable and as in
destructible as Matter itself. It is regarded as a
mere abstraction, but it is an abstraction only so
far as it is the force or power of some thing or entity
unknown. It is this loose mode of speaking by
nearly all physicists — of transmitting motion, &c.,
that leads to all sorts of confusion, both in physics and
metaphysics; it obscures the active principle (spirit),
and gives undue prominence and importance to the
passive (matter), whereas matter never originates any
thing, but merely conditions or determines the specific
mode of action of the active principle, Force. We have
an illustration of this kind of confusion in Professor
Clifford’s “ Body and Mind,” in the December Fort
nightly. He says, “ it is not a right thing to say that
the mind is force, because if the mind were a force we
should be able to perceive it.” Now no force is ever
perceived by us, it is known to us in physics only as
a mode of motion ; but when physical force is sub
jected to the molecular action of the brain and becomes
conscious force or mind, it is known to us then
directly as consciousness, and not secondarily as a
mode of motion; but it is not the less persistent
or known to us from what it does. Thus Professor
Clifford himself tells us:—“In voluntary action what
takes place is that a certain sensation is manipu
lated by the mind, and conclusions are drawn from it,
and then a message is sent out which causes certain
motions to take place. Now the character of the person
is evidently determined by the nature of this manipula
tion.” If the mind can manipulate, it must possess
power or force to do it. How he reconciles this with
the assertion afterwards “ that if anybody says that the
will influences matter, the statement is not untrue, but
it is nonsense. The will is not a material thing, it is
not a mode of material motion. Such an assertion
belongs to the crude materialism of the savage. Now
the only thing which influences matter is the position
�28
Note.
of surrounding matter or the motion of surrounding
matter.” He is evidently here in the usual muddle of
the physicists and materialists about motion being trans
mitted instead of the cause of motion. Huxley also
says, “ there is no proof that any state of consciousness
is the cause of change in the motion of the matter of
the organism.” Now the Will and Motives are states of
consciousness, and however high the authority, although
myself a Necessitarian, I am not prepared to admit that
the Will has no power over a man’s body, and that the
Will itself is not governed by motives. The mental
states are, with me, links in the chain of causation, and
I do not see that this is inconsistent with the fact that
consciousness is dependent upon molecular action.
Surely the volitional centres consciously put other parts
of the brain in motion. Whence is Memory but from
the conscious effort to put the brain in motion, and
thus recall other mental states ? If a man receives
an insult and, in a passion, knocks another down,
surely the consciousness of the insult and the passion
must have something to do with “the motion of the
matter of the organism.” Professor Huxley does not
mean to assert, I suppose, that exactly the same
motion could be made to take place automatically,
by the mere stimulation of the organs, without the aid
of consciousness ? The brain contains an enormous
amount of potential energy which is put in motion by
the Will, and becomes conscious by the Will setting the
brain in motion—th'e Will, of course, being subject to
the law of persistent force. In this sense we are auto
mata, being worked by the same force or spiritual
power, which everywhere else is working to purpose.
Should the Professor take to_ the study of Mesmerism,
in which, of late, he appears to have shown some slight
interest, he will ascertain with more correctness the
power that conscious Will can exercise, not only upon our
organisations but upon that of others, silently, at con
siderable distances, and without any apparent medium
of communication.
�Note.
29
When we say the Mind is Force we mean, not that it
is any of the recognised physical forces, but is composed
of that unknown something which is the active cause of
all things.
Herbert Spencer says :—“ That no idea or feeling arises,
save as the result of some physical force expended in
producing it, is fast becoming a commonplace of science.”
I think this will not be disputed, as we are all more or
less conscious of the extent to which mental effort, or
strong emotion, draws upon the physical forces of the
body. Each idea or feeling consumes or absorbs a cer
tain amount of physical force, which, as consciousness, is
no longer attended by a mode of motion, but it is not
the less persistent.
But Professor Clifford does not appear to be always
quite consistent. Thus in one place (p. 724, ’ ortnightly
F
Review) he tells us “ he is speaking of voluntary actions—
those actions in which the person is consulted, and
which are not done by his body without his leave,” and
yet in another he says, “ we are to regard the body as a
physical machine, which goes by itself according to a
physical law, that is to say, is automatic.” It can have
no voluntary action then. And he consequently tells
us “ that the mind is to be regarded as a stream of
feelings which runs parallel to, and simultaneous with,
a certain part of the action of the body, that is to say,
that particular part of the action of the brain in which
the cerebrum and the sensory tract are excited.” But we
are told that it is wrong to say the mind is a force;
of what then is the mind, regarded as a stream of
feeling, composed ? “ The actual reality,” the Professor
tells us, “ which underlies what we call matter is not the
same thing as the mind, is not the same thing as our
perception, but it is made of the same stuff. To use
the words of the old disputants, we may say that matter
is not of the same substance as mind, not homoousion,
but it is of like substance, it is made of similar stu
differently compacted together, Tiomoi-ousion.
But the question is, What becomes of “this stream of
�3°
Note.
feelings” which, runs parallel to, and simultaneous with,
the action of the brain ? Where does it come from, and
where does it go to ? As to the former, the Professor
says ‘‘the reality which we perceive as matter is that
same stuff which, being compounded together in a par
ticular way, produces mind.” The “ stream of feelings ”
then comes, we presume, from the body, compounded
by the molecular action of the brain. As thought or
feeling, then, is something—an entity, as much as mat
ter is—the question is, What becomes of it ? Upon
this most interesting question the Professor attempts to
throw no light. The mind is not force, he says, and it
is not therefore persistent as force; and he does not
seem to think any answer is required, although, if it
is the same stuff as matter, it must be equally inde
structible. A materialistic friend of mine, of some
note, from whom I have just heard on this subject, is
more consistent, if more wrong. He says, “Huxley is
quite right, thoughts are not things; matter thinks,
but does not think things, but of things : the conscious
ness in a will or effort is not a thing nor a power, but
the mere sense accompaniment of the physical action.”
This is a curious inversion of the real state of things,
as coming from a Philosopher. We know “ thoughts,”
but we know nothing of “ things ” until things become
thoughts. Thus, as Professor Huxley tells us, “ The
great fact insisted upon by Descartes, that no likeness
of external things is, or can be, transmitted to the mind
by the sensory organs, but that between the external
cause of a sensation and the sensation there is in
terposed a mode of motion of nervous matter, of
which the state of consciousness is no likeness, but a
mere symbol, is of the profoundest importance. It is
the physiological foundation of the doctrine of the
relativity of knowledge, and a more or less complete
idealism is a necessary consequence of it.” But what is
this “ sense accompaniment ” of the physical action to
which my friend alludes ? It must be something or
nothing. Professor Clifford seems to think it is some-
�Note.
31
thing as to -where it comes from, but nothing as to
where it goes to. When we come to consider where
thoughts and feelings go to, then we shall come to
occupy that ground of which the Spiritualists now make
such superstitious uses. Professor Clifford says, “We
are obliged to assume that along with every motion of
matter, whether organic or inorganic, there is some fact
which corresponds to the mental fact in ourselves. The
mental fact in ourselves is an exceedingly complex
thing: so also our brain is an exceedingly complex
thing. We may assume that the quasi-mental fact
which corresponds and which goes along with the motion
of every particle of matter is of such inconceivable sim
plicity, as compared with our own mental fact, with
our consciousness, as the motion of a molecule of mat
ter is of inconceivable simplicity when compared with
motion in our brain.”
“ This doctrine is not merely a speculation, but a
result to which all the greatest minds that have studied
this question in the right way have gradually been
approximating for a long time.”
This presence of Universal Mind, as an accompani
ment and cause of motion, I have endeavoured to
teach in my own way. I have endeavoured to show
that body—whatever that may be—and mind, from the
lowest form to the highest, are inseparable. The
Religious World has allied itself with the Spiritual only,
but the Physical must be taken equally into account.
We shall no more succeed in putting Spiritualism above
Materialism than Materialism above Spiritualism. They
must go together; some common ground must be found
on which both can meet. It is the opinion, Roden
Noel tells us, of both Schelling and Hegel that con
sciousness and matter are not absolutely divorced, but
radically identical, although superficially diverse.
PRINTED BY C. NT. REYNELL, LITTLE PULTENEY-STREET, HAYMARKET; 77.
�
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Toleration: with some remarks on Professor Tyndall's Address at Belfast
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Bray, Charles [1811-1884]
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 31 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes six pages of Notes on Professors Huxley and Clifford.
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Thomas Scott
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1875
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CT129
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Religious toleration
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Conway Tracts
John Tyndall
Toleration