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THE SCIENCE OF LIFE
WORTH LIVING.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY,
ON
SUNDAY AFTERNOON, 22nd, FEBRUARY, 1880,
By A. ELLEY FINCH.
London:
PUBLISHED BY THE SUNDAY LECTURE SOCIETY.
1880.
PRICE THEEPENCE.
�The Society’s Leetures by the same Author,
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Can be obtained (on remittance by letter of postage stamps or
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of Lecture: or of Mr. John Bumpus, 158, Oxford Street, W.
�SYLLABUS.
The two theories of the Universe and of Human Life, derived
respectively from Superstition and Science.
1. The theory derived from Superstition stated, with indica
tions of its source.
Biassed belief in this (theological) theory arising from early
training in creeds, catechisms, and sermons, and from the in
fluence of proselyting societies. Illustrations from the Reports
of the Sunday School Union Society; the British and Foreign
Bible Society; the Religious Tract Society.
Our actual condition (or practice) of life shown to be based
upon the theological theory. Illustrations of its overcrowding,
poverty, intemperance, disease, crime, premature death, &c.,
from the Census Population Returns. The Registrar General’s
Returns. Fry’s Royal Guide to the London Charities. Statistics
of Prisons and Lunatic Asylums.
The present attitude of Science in relation to these features of
human existence.
2. The theory of the Universe and of Human Life (physio
logical) derived from Science stated, with indications of its source.
Illustrations from Newton’s Principia. Darwin’s Descent of
Man.
Remarkable absence of Societies for spreading knowledge of
and inducing belief in the theory derived from Science.
Summary of the Natural Law by virtue of which organised
bodies are multiplied in excess of their means of subsistence.
Illustrations of the inexorable operation of this law from
Haeckel’s History of the Creation. Darwin’s Origin of Species.
Walford’s Famines of the World.
The first canon of scientific culture of life involves limitation
of numbers, and the controlling of physical conditions of repro
duction through the application of human intelligence.
How the continuity or similarity of structure and function
between human, animal, and vegetal organisms, enables Science
(through comparative research) to acquire knowledge of the
nature of the constitution of man, and to originate rules for its
right treatment and progressive improvement. Illustrations
from Huxley’s Man’s place in Nature—Galton’s Hereditary
Genius.
Responsibility (taught by Science) in becoming a factor of
posterity.
To what extent, by applying (analogically) to the rearing of
the Human Being the scientific methods that have produced the
exquisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousness, hilarity, and perfection of form,
temper, and disposition of the thorough-bred Animal, the evils
of our present existence might be eliminated, its morality puri
fied and elevated, its course converted into a career of virtuous
enjoyment, and Life practically made worth Living.
��THE
SCIENCE OF LIFE WORTH LIVING.
----- !-----
Iw the arena of European thought there are at the pre
sent time conspicuous two conflicting conceptions or
theories concerning the nature of the Universe, and the
origin and nature of Human Life.
One of these theories is based upon supposed Super
natural Knowledge, and, inasmuch as, from the point of
view of Science, all alleged knowledge of what transcends
Nature relates to the region of the emotional imagination,
I will, for the sake of distinction, designate the concep
tion I am now alluding to as—;the theofy derived from
Superstition.
The other conception is one which has slowly emerged
from the long series of human discoveries that have
gradually brought to light those facts and laws of Nature
upon the truth and experience of which it will be found
to be exclusively based. I will designate it therefore as
—the theory derived from Science.
You all know, more or less, what are the salient points
of these respective theories, having probably learnt them
by rote. I am going to restate them now, because the
argument of the Lecture is founded upon an endeavour
to realise them by our reason, and to reflect upon them
by way of comparison; notwithstanding that it has be
come the intellectual fashion with a certain school to en
courage subtle and plausible attempts to reconcile these
theories—or hopelessly to confuse the separate provinces
of reason and faith.
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Now the prior-mentioned theory may I think be shortly
stated thus—First, with regard to the Universe; that it
came into existence by the fiat of the Will of an Almighty
Power, which, somewhere about six thousand years ago,
created it out of nothing in six days. That the principle
part of this Universe consists of the World our Earth,
which is a fixed plain or vast floor, arched over by a con
cave vault. The Sun and Moon, and the Stars which
stud this vault or firmament, and which move round the
fixed earth, are simply greater and lesser lights created
subordinate to, and called into existence for the purpose
of the earth, and to give light thereon.
Secondly, with respect to the origin and nature of
Man, the theory under consideration is more complex, as
well as of more serious interest, and can only be com
prehended (so far as human reason can comprehend any
thing so mysterious,) by entering into somewhat more
detail.
It is related then that the Almighty Power created
man by forming him out of the dust of the ground, and
breathing into his nostrils the breath of life, whereby
man became a living soul; and the other sex we are told
was created by the causing of a deep sleep to fall upon
the man, and the taking out of one of his ribs, and the
closing up of the flesh instead thereof; and the rib which
was so taken from the man was made into a woman; and
this first-created pair were commanded to be fruitful and
multiply.
The theory then goes on to relate that the man and
woman, thus created pure and sinless, were immediately
tempted into sin by Satan in the form of a serpent. That
this sin of our first parents brought a curse upon the
Earth, and incurred the penalty of death for themselves
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and for all their posterity. That the human race thence
forth became more wicked, so that the Almighty repented
that he had made man, and destroyed by a deluge all the
inhabitants of the Earth, with the exception of eight per
sons who had feared him, chiefly Noah and his sons; who
also were commanded to be fruitful and multiply. This
sweeping purification however was as futile as the origi
nal design, and men became more wicked than ever, and
the final remedy devised by the Almighty for the salva
tion of his human creatures was the incarnation of him
self in the person of his only Son (the second person of a
mysterious trinity). That the death of such only Son
upon the Cross, the innocent for the guilty, was a vi
carious expiation or atonement of the sins of the World;
provided however that all this should be believed; faith
or belief in it being made the condition upon which
alone such salvation is possible.
The theory does not however stop there. It declares
that everything which happens upon the Earth is the
direct effect of the exercise of the Will of this Almighty
Power, so that even a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without his sanction or knowledge, and moreover that the
ills of life are to be remedied by means of prayer or en
treaty directed to him. Man therefore is emphatically
counselled to be constant in prayer; to pray without
ceasing. He is assured that the prayer of a righteous
man availeth much. That the prayer of faith shall save
the sick. That when two or three are gathered in the
name of the Almighty he will grant their requests, and
that whatsoever any man shall ask Him in the name of
Christ (his only son before mentioned) it shall be granted
to him.
Then, as to our state of life; the theory inculcates that
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poverty on Earth is a condition pleasing to the Almighty,
and will be rewarded by riches in Heaven, and that the
aim of our life here should be to qualify ourselves for ob
taining this heavenly reward. That wealth and happiness
on Earth are not therefore the ends in view at all, but are
rather obstacles than otherwise to attaining Life everlast
ing in the Kingdom of Heaven.
That our brief existence in this World is a transitory
state of probation, merely accessory or a passage to an
other, where life will be endless ; eternal bliss in Heaven
to those who have believed in this theory, eternal torment
in Hell to those who have disbelieved in it.
Such, in short compass, is an outline of the one theory
of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of the life
of Man.
Now it is by no means easy to point out the source of
the theory I have been slightly sketching. It is commonly
supposed to be contained in the Bible. Partly no doubt
it is so, partly it is even more ancient, for India and
Egypt share in its origin with Palestine and Syria. As
a whole it is the theory of theology; that is to say, it has
been, in its ultimate shape, elaborated from the metaphy
sical and scholastic subtleties of that remarkable class of
men the Patres et Doctores—the Fathers and Schoolmen
who flourished throughout the early centuries of the
Christian era, and during that period of scientific dark
ness termed the middle ages; and, so potent has been the
indirect influence of their speculative interpretations of
the oriental metaphors of scripture, that it is quite doubt
ful whether any of us now living are capable of reading
the Bible free from the prejudices and preconceptions
that, partly by inheritance, and partly by education, we
have imbibed from such speculations, and which, in the
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&
mystifying form of creeds, catechisms, confessions of
faith, and other ecclesiastical devices, are now found to
stand between man’s unsophisticated reason and the,
unique language of Holy Writ.
We are educated then to believe in this theological
theory, and our belief is not only thus biassed from birth
to manhood, but throughout our whole lives the most
extraordinary pains are taken to retain our understand
ings in its thraldom.
It may surprise some of you to hear that there are in
this metropolis alone upwards of 150 Missionary, Bible,
Beligious Tract, Christian evidence, and other proselyting
Societies applying large funds and exercising wide ranging
influence in spreading the knowledge of, and persuading
to the belief in this theological theory. Some idea may
be gained of the extent of the operations of these societies
if I give you a very few of the published statistics of some
two or three of them.
First I will instance the Sunday School Union Society,
who, in their Annual lieport for last year of what they
term their threefold work of pioneering, extension, and
consolidation, and the overcoming of prejudices, sophisms,
and personal antipathies, state that they have now in
London upwards of 830 schools, 20,000 teachers, and.
231,000 scholars.
I may here very appositely remark in reference gene
rally to the academical system of this country, that there
is not even yet a single one of our great Public Schools
that is presided over by a head master who is not a theo
logian. When therefore we read of a Conference of Head
Masters, such as was held on 22nd of December last, we.
must not be shocked to find that an adequate or more
thorough teaching of Science formed no part of their pro
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gramme, and that they should be largely occupied in
discussing such subjects as “de flagellatione corporis” and
“ de cerevisia potendo ”—that is—concerning the flogging
of the little boys, and stopping the beer of the big ones.
Next I will take a very few facts and figures from the
last Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It
is therein stated that in the year 1878 the Society had
issued and circulated upwards of 3,340,000 copies of the
scriptures in whole or in part. That from the commence
ment of the Society’s operations in the year 1804, upwards
of eighty-five millions of such copies had been circulated,
and they calculate that they have thereby rendered the
Bible available to seven hundred millions of the human
family!
I will lastly turn to the Report of the Religious Tract
Society for the year 1878. There I find it stated that the
total circulation from London alone of the various mis
cellaneous issues of this energetic body had reached the
astounding total of upwards of sixty millions, of which
28,500,000 were religious tracts; so that I think we may
conclude that the community is tolerably saturated with
this species of literature, even if we did not know, what
is probably within the experience of nearly every one
present, viz.: That you cannot walk the streets without
having these publications thrust upon you, and that you
can hardly enter a Railway Station or a room in a Hotel
throughout the Kingdom which is not supplied with the
scriptures gratis, and partly adorned by a display of theo
logical tracts and texts.
We cannot wonder then if we find, as the fact is, that
the actual condition or practice of our lives is based upon
the theological theory, and that whatever may be the
prevalent form of ailment with society or any of its
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members, the sovereign cure suggested by our accredited
teachers is resort to the theological agency of Prayer,
Intercession, or Thanksgiving to the Supernatural Pro
vidence assumed by the theory to be specially regulating
the affairs of life. Things serious and trivial are alike
affected by it.
If bells are to be hung in a Church, they must first be
blessed by the ministers of supernatural grace. If a
vessel of war is to be named, a christening or theological
ceremony must be performed over it. If new colours are
presented to a regiment of soldiers, the approval of the
supernatural must be invoked. If an epidemic prevails,
prayer is to be resorted to to drive it away. If the
weather is such that the crops will not ripen, the super
natural is appealed to to change it. If, notwithstanding
such appeal, the weather continues disastrous, the crops
are destroyed, and the farmer is ruined, so inveterate are
our theological habits that a harvest Thanksgiving to the
supernatural must nevertheless be held 1
Even the sick room is overshadowed by this superstition,
and sometimes becomes converted into the chamber of
death, by reason of the physician’s skill being baffled, not
by the symptoms of the disease but by the patient’s
nervous depression and anxiety resulting from terrified
belief in the theological theory.
And now, if we turn to the characteristics of our life
carried on under the influence of this theory, what do we
find them to be ? I think I do not err if I describe them
as being for the most part divers forms and shapes of
misery, and variety of wretchedness—I am not of course
alluding to the lives of the upper ten thousand, who are
by their special circumstances exceptionally placed in
relation to any theory, but I am referring more particu
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larly to the lives of the masses of those who compose the
middle and lower ranks of society.
In verification of this assertion I will again appeal to
the irrefutable logic of statistics. If we turn to the
Population Census returns we find that whilst, in the
judgment of the Registrar-General (whose conclusion I
may add is confirmed by the reasonings and research of
our friend Dr. Richardson), the fair natural limit of the
life of the human being is stated to be 100 years, yet the
average length of life in this country, taking all of us
together, is only between forty and fifty years, whilst, if
we confine our calculation to those who constitute our
toiling millions, their actual average length of life is only
between twenty and thirty years. It may be literally said
that the natural length of life is ground out of them by
over-work, by overcrowding, by intemperance, by disease,
and by destitution. So short a span of existence can in
deed be to many of them little more than the prolonged
agony of a slow death. “We don’t live,”—said many of
the street folk to Horace Mayhew, when he was enquiring
into the habits of the London poor,—“ We don’t live—
we starve.”
Again, in the Registrar-General’s summary of births,
deaths, and marriages for the year 1878 we find it recorded
that out of the 83,000 deaths that occurred in London in
that year, upwards of 42,000 took place at ages under
twenty years, and it appears as a general inference from
his figures that of the children that are brought into
existence upwards of 40 per cent, of them perish under
five years of age ! "
Now these are very fearful facts, in whatever light we
may view them, and the amount of human misery they
involve can hardly be realised by means of languages
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though if it were necessary to paint with sadder colours
the sorrows of our existence I would refer to Fry’s Royal
Guide to the London Charities, amongst which are enume
rated no less than some seventy Hospitals, having an
annual aggregate of nearly 1,000,000 in-and-out-door
patients 1
All honour indeed to those whose munificence supports
these beneficent Institutions, but, what we are now con
cerned to notice is the appalling mass of disease and
destitution that renders them necessary, and fills to over
flowing their tens of thousands of beds and appliances.
I might7 even still further darken the picture of life if
I summed up, however briefly, the statistics of our habits
of intemperance and the numbers of committals to jails
and of the inmates of lunatic asylums; but I think that
what I have stated may at any rate be regarded as suffi
ciently justifying the Apostle of Superstition, who has
lately been heard to enquire so despairingly—Is Life
worth Living ?
Now, remembering that in obedience to the theological
theory millions of prayers, in every conceivable variety
that the will of man can devise, have been, and are being
continually uttered imploring supernatural relief from
the evils of this world of woe, I think we might well
reply to the above enquiry by asking—Is it not time
seriously to try something else ?
There is no doubt that in one sense enlightened minds
have been for a long time engaged in endeavouring to
lessen the ills of life by the application of the teachings
of Science. Philanthropists have especially sought to
show that in matters relating to health, diseases for
instance, chiefly result from the disregard of certain
natural laws; but, between Superstition and Science there
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is really no ratio, and, whilst the one appeals to super
natural Providence for the cure of evil, and the other
would rouse up the human reason to discover the law of
nature which the presence of evil shows us has been dis
regarded, it is in fact impracticable effectually to graft
the resources of science upon the theological theory, and,
in attempting it, we are only engaged in the delusive
practice of pouring new wine into old bottles. The old
bottles of theology are indeed from time to time burst,
while the new wine of science is mostly spilt and lost.
Not but what a summary of the achievements of science
during even the present century would show us very
remarkable changes bearing upon the progress of our
every day life,—commerce freed from restrictions; trade
monopolies broken down; the necessaries of life cheapened;
important political, economic, and legal reforms effected;
locomotion and the means of communication marvellously
expedited ; vast improvements in the medical art; pain
mitigated, diseases diminished, life itself lengthened.
Yet the conclusion I desire to put to you is, that the
expected beneficial results of these scientific achievements
have been more or less neutralized or impeded through
the influence of the theological theory, by the stimulus
they have thereby been encouraged to impart to the irra
tional and reckless over production of human beings, so
that their most striking effect has been the excessive, that
is, the too rapid increase of our population, especially of
the indigent or wage receiving class, whose miserable
lives and untimely deaths are but too surely vouched for
by those remorseless returns of the Registrar General.
It appears by the published digest of the last census
that the population of England and Wales, which, in the
year 1801 was nine millions, had doubled its numbers by
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the year 1851, and, by the year 1871, had increased to
twenty-three millions I
Then in relation to our education on the theological
basis, the attitude of science is thus humourously de
scribed by Professor Huxley. “The educational tree,” he
remarks, “ seems to have its roots in the air, its leaves
and flowers in the ground, and I confess I should like to
turn it upside down, so that its roots might be solidly
embedded among the facts of nature, and draw thence a
sound nutriment for its foliage and fruit of literature and
of art. I think I do not err in saying that if Science
were made the foundation of education instead of being
at most stuck on as a cornice to the edifice, the present
state of things could not exist.”
Let us now turn to the consideration of the theory of
the Universe, and of the origin an-d nature of Human Life
which we have derived from the discoveries of Science.
When you look up at the sky on a bright cLear night
of course you see the vast apparent dome over your heads
profusely studded with constellations and multitudes of
stars. You observe that the great majority of these
appear to be fixed in their relative positions, always
appearing in their accustomed places, no matter where .
the observer may be, but that with regard to some few of
the-stars, which appear to be larger than the rest, and to
shine with a more brilliant and attractive light, these
you observe to be perpetually shifting their positions,
only some of them appearing together on any particular
night.
,
Now the marvellous discoveries of astronomical science
respecting the stars are shortly this. Those that are
never seen to move out of their relative positions, and
therefore called the fixed stars, are at an enormous,
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practically an incalculable distance from the Earth, and
are of vast size compared with it, many of them being
indeed suns, the centres of systems similar to what is
termed our solar system. They are altogether so removed
from us as to exert no appreciable influence upon the
earth, and they may be dismissed from present considera
tion with the single observation, that they powerfully
impress us with the vastness of the universe according to
the scientific conception of it, far beyond realisation by
the human imagination, and convince us that our earth can
not be the world that the theological theory asserts, but that
it is really only a very minute portion of the vast creation.
To attain anything like a realisable idea of our World
according to Science we must limit our reflections to those
few moving stars whose larger size and softer brilliancy
seem so to fascinate our sight and thoughts, and which are,
relatively to the fixed stars, very near to us. These mov
ing stars then are the planets that circle round our Sun.
The Earth is known by science to be one of such planets,
and to an observer placed upon the surface of any of the
others the earth would appear very much like what they
appear to us, though indeed, as to some of them, the
planet Jupiter for instance with its four satellites or
moons and whose bulk is some 1300 times larger than
that of the Earth, our planet with its one moon would
appear to an inhabitant of Jupiter, if visible at all, as a
very insignificant star indeed.
‘ To comprehend this more clearly we must mentally
separate this planetary system from the rest of the starry
universe, and contemplate it distinctly by itself.
Here you have an ordinary representation of a few of
the chief bodies of the system,* showing the Sun in the
* See diagram on opposite page.
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URANUS'^..
17
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centre and the several principle planets in their respec
tive orbits round the Sun. It tolerably represents what
the eye would see, supposing we were not upon the Earth,
but looking down on the system from a great elevation
on its north side.
Now, of this majestic system Science explains the pro
bable formation. That is to say—It is known, from tele
scopic observations and mathematical calculations, that
the moving bodies in this system are all similar in form,
being globes not quite spherical or round but oblate, that
is, flattened at their poles. ( That they all severally ro
tate upon their axes in the same direction. That they
all move through space in the same common direction
from West to East. That the curve of their respective
orbits is not mathematically circular but elliptical. That
the eccentricity of their orbits is very slight, and the incli
nation of their planes very small in comparison with that
of the Solar Equator, and that all these planetary bodies
revolve round the central Sun in particular periodic
times.
Now these discovered facts, considered in connection
with the known natural laws of gravitation, of motion,
and of heat, and the known laws that rule the human in
tellect in its search after truth, impel our reason towards
certain conclusions, viz.: That the former state of the
solar atmosphere, myriads of ages ago, was that of a vast
zone of nebulous or gaseous matter in a state of extreme
heat, extending to the utmost limits of the system, under
going a gradual process of progressive cooling, contrac
tion, and condensation, and that the present state of the
system is simply the necessary physical result of such
natural process of cooling, contracting, and condensing .
by virtue of which the nebulous mass broke up, or sepa
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rated into its several component moving bodies, at first
liquid, then becoming solid and such as we now see them.
The entire system, which, as you have seen, is but a
fragment of the starry cosmos, is yet of a size almost
beyond the grasp of our understanding. Thus, the central
Sun is a body 883,000 miles in diameter and is at a dis
tance from our Earth of 93 millions of miles. The Sun’s
distance from the planet Jupiter is 496 millions of miles,
and its distance from the planet Neptune is more than
2,800 millions of miles. These figures help to give us
some idea of the immense magnitude of this relatively
small system.
Now the points to which I wish to draw your attention
are that science has further discovered that this system
and every portion of it is governed by, as well as being
the result of the operation of, fixed natural laws, especially
the laws of gravitation, of motion, of light, and of heat.
That these laws operate uniformly and continuously upon
each one of the bodies of this system as a part of the
whole, and that, with regard to some of these laws—the
law of gravitation for example, it could not possibly be
suspended or altered (physically speaking) in reference to
any one of these bodies, without affecting the relation
subsisting between it and all the other bodies of the
system, so as to perturb, probably annihilate its cosmic,
harmony, as we have it mathematically demonstrated in
the immortal “ Principia ” of Sir Isaac Newton.
You need not then be startled to hear that some of the
greatest astronomers the world has seen, men who have
made the laws of this stupendous system their profoundest
study, notably the illustrious Laplace and Lalande, have
declared that they had been unable to detect in the recon
dite mechanism of its invariable order any indication what
ever of the God of theology.
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The system, so far as human knowledge of it extends,
may be described as a realm of Natural invariable law,
Such as we see it now, it has existed through countless
ages, and such it must continue to exist for countless
ages to come!
Therefore, whilst theologians for the last 1800 years
have been perpetually preaching the approaching end of
the World, astronomers have only recently calculated the
coming variations in the eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit
for a million years following the year 1800 I
Hence Science teaches us that the general laws of the
astronomical phenomena of our solar system constitute
the basis of all our real knowledge.
So a venerated philosopher has said—•
“ Two things I contemplate with ceaseles awe;
The Stars of Heaven, and man’s sense of Law.”
Turning now from the system, we must concentrate
our attention upon a very small, but integral portion of
it, a body scarcely 8000 miles in diameter, that globe
which we call the Earth; for obviously we can form no
scientific theory of human existence without knowing the
scientific elements that characterise the planet which is
the home of that existence. The sciences then of As
tronomy and Geology, which together give us the space
scale and the time scale of our world, armed with the
knowledge of the natural laws already referred to, have
been able to trace the formation, the shape, and the his
tory of the Earth for ages before man appeared upon it,
and to tell us that plants and animals came into existence
by slow degrees, and that the condition to which they
had severally attained at the time of man’s appearance
was the result of variation or natural selection progress
ing by means of the physiological interaction of adapta
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
21
tion, and inheritance and survival of the fittest operating
throughout, not six days, but enormously long periods of
time. In fact, as to the progress or change in every
thing taking place on our planet, including the seemingly
capricious phenomena of human actions, and even, (as
Dr. Maudesley put it to us so clearly last Sunday), the
apparent freedom of the will, Science has discovered that
all is regulated by the operation of invariable natural law,
linked together, that is, in a chain of secondary causation,
whose only modification is brought about by the interven
tion of human intelligence.
Thus Science is assured that the law of gravitation
would annihilate in an instant the most pious person in
the kingdom, if he lost his footing on a mountain without
having first placed himself in circumstances to counteract
the inexorable operation of such law, or, that if he inno
cently swallowed what the laws of physiology have shown
to be a fatal dose of prussic acid, not all the prayers of
Christendom could avail to save his life.
We are thus according to Science living under the reign
of invariable natural law, and not according to Theology
under the reign of arbitrary supernatural will, and there
fore the aim of the human mind should be to find out and
to study Natural Law, rather than to keep on seeking by
perpetual entreaty to influence Supernatural Will.
These few facts, which for our present purpose may be
accepted as sufficiently representing an outline of the
theory of the Universe derived from Science, are no longer
questioned by competent minds, and I should hardly think
that anyone capable of giving them unprejudiced con
sideration could fail to perceive, that they are contradictory
to, and incompatible with the theory derived from Super-?
stition, which I commenced by describing.
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The Science of Life Worth Living.
Now, with reference to the first appearance or creation
of man, Science can at present furnish us only with proba
bilities. These are however the logical outcome of an ap
paratus of evidence almost irresistable.
The scientific view of the origin of the human species
is that which has been made more or less familiar to us
by the works of our illustrious countryman Charles Darwin.
The logic of his argument is really very clear, as well as
cogent, and the result of it may, I think, be thus in
telligibly stated. Due regard being had to what is now
known geologically, zoologically, and embryologically of
the ascending gradations of animal life, especially in the
vertebrate series, and regard being also had to the known
continuity of Nature, it is highly probable that man is the
evolution or development of some lower animal form of
the simian or ape species, from the individuals of which
he is found to differ organically less than the higher and
lower apes differ from each other.
Observe—Darwin does not say that Man came from a
monkey. No one capable of comprehending his great
argument would give utterance to such an absurdity; but,
if Darwin’s biological theory embodies the truth, then
there must have been some ancestral link in the pedigree
of man which has not yet been discovered.
Man, observes Darwin, must be included with other
organic beings in any general conclusion respecting the
manner of his appearance on this earth. And Professor
Huxley, in his treatise on Man’s place in Nature, has
clearly shown from exhaustive observation of biological
phenomena, that the mode of origin and the early stages
of the development of man are identical with those of the
animals below him in the scale.
But, be man’s origin what it may, that with which we
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
23
are more immediately concerned is a scientifically estab
lished fact, viz., his unity of organization with the higher
animals, which again are scientifically found to be organi
cally co-ordinated with the entire series of life below them.
So that it may be said all the organisms on our planet are
related through their structural and functional resem
blances—the human being similar to the animal organism,
only higher in degree.
Such then is the conception of the origin and nature of
Human Life derived from the discoveries of Science.
Now it is remarkable that with regard to the scientific
theory of the Universe, and of the origin and nature of
Man, there is an almost total absence of proselyting
societies for diffusing knowledge of the theory and bringing
about belief in it. There is no Sunday Science School
Society. There is no gratuitous distribution of scientific
tracts or texts.
Indeed, with the exception of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science, and the Society under
whose auspices I am now addressing you, I can scarcely
call to mind a single Society whose main object it is to
circulate the knowledge of scientific truth amongst the
people at large, and not only so, but we may call to mind
that on this day of the week at this very hour there are
being delivered from thousands of pulpits exciting exhor
tations to persuade or to frighten men and women (chiefly
I suspect the latter) still to go on, supinely acquiescing
in the theological theory; whilst, with reference to our
Society’s Lectures delivered here, they have, on the part
of the public press, been simply welcomed ■with the con
spiracy of silence.
Yet I do not think the people, if encouraging oppor
tunities were affored them, would be found generally
�24
The Science of Life Worth Living,
indifferent to the acquisition of scientific truth, insensible
to its sublimity, or regardless of its utility.
The Archbishop of York, in his sermon preached on
the occasion of the meeting of the British Association in
August last, declared that “ he did not know how it
would fare with them if none but scientific theories were
to guide them, for ” (said his Grace) “ the great majority
of men did not take an interest in scientific generalisa
tions, they could not appreciate them.” Well, 1 think it
might fairly be replied to these observations that the
majority of men are simply kept in ignorance of science,
and have really at present no available means provided
for their gaining scientific knowledge; but, if they had, I
will venture to say most advisedly that they would soon
be found to prefer Science to Superstition, quickly become
able to distinguish the light of nature from the darkness
of dogma, and eager to guide themselves by scientific
authority.
The scientific theory, having then explained to us the
probable origin, and the physiological nature of man#
proceeds to enlighten us concerning the conditions under
which he is found to increase and multiply.
Now the fundamental natural law discovered by science
in relation to the multiplication of living organisms is
simply this,—that they are everywhere, and under purely
physical conditions, produced in excess of their means of
subsistence. In other words, many more are born than
can possibly survive. Hence the great struggle for exist
ence, so graphically described, especially in relation to
plants and animals, in Haeckel’s “ History of the
Creation,” and in Darwin’s great works.
But this primordial natural law is proved to apply
equally to the production of human beings, and our
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
25
. interest at the present moment is the consideration of the
effect of its operation and consequent struggle for exist
ence on the human race.
If we carry our minds to the populations of the East
we can have no difficulty in realising this problem. In
Cornelius Walford’s instructive book on “the Famines of
the World,” we read accounts of “Nature’s terrible cor
rectives of redundancy ” in all their unmitigated horror.
The recent famine in India has destroyed in one Presidency
alone more than 500,000 people by starvation! and has
thrown a million and a half more upon charity. It has
indeed been recently stated on authority that 1,250,000
persons have perished of this famine. Such is the
appalling result of the people recklessly multiplying
beyond their means of subsistence.
We are blind however to the operation of the law of
population amongst ourselves. We fail to see its working
in the premature deaths of the forty per cent, of all that
are born under five years of age, in the 42,000 deaths
under twenty years of age out of the 83,000 annual
deaths in this metropolis, so blinded are we to the
warnings of Nature through our biassed belief in the
theological theory. Yet the great majority of our un
timely deaths are truly traceable to the very causes that
in uncivilised countries terminate in actual starvation!
The first canon of scientific culture of life therefore
requires that reckless or irrational multiplication should
be restrained, and that man should apply his intelligence
towards controlling the purely physical and mechanical
conditions of reproduction.
We see this canon systematically carried out by the
florist in his culture of flowers. Seeds are sown, but
when they come up they are carefully thinned out, in
�26
The Science of Life Worth Living.
order that, there - being no overcrowding, healthy and
beautiful flowers may be produced by those that are left.
We see the same principle in operation where fine fruit
is desired. The buds are thinned out upon the trees, in
order that the diminished number that are left may attain
perfection of size and maturity. The agriculturist follows
precisely the same course. He is careful, as regards his
stock, that only a limited number of offspring shall be
produced or allowed to survive, and, moreover, that their
parentage shall be the result of careful selection.
Some idea may be gained of the value and importance
of such selective breeding from a case recently decided in
our Law Courts, in which a well known grazier recovered
a sum of =£750 damages for the injury inflicted on his
herd by the fraudulent introduction of an animal with a
false pedigree, but guaranteed, when he purchased it, to
be thorough bred.
Can we doubt what might be the improvement of the
human race, if even the slightest similar care were taken
with our own marriages ?
“ Man’s natural qualities,” observes Francis Gallon, in
his masterly work on Hereditary Genius, “are derived
by inheritance under exactly the same conditions as are
the form and the physical features of the whole organic
world.” “ Man,” says Darwin, “ scans with scrupulous
care the character and pedigree of his horses, cattle, and
dogs before he matches them, but when he comes to his
own marriage, he rarely or never takes any such care.
Yet he might by selection do something, not only for the
bodily constitution and frame of his offspring, but for
their intellectual and moral qualities.”
Now the continuity of structure and function, that
has been traced by biological science to exist between
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
27
human, animal, and vegetal organisms, has enabled
Science by comparative research, that is, by observation
and experiment upon the lower animals, and even upon
individuals of the vegetable kingdom, to acquire remark
ably useful knowledge of the organic nature and constitu
tion of the human being, and, through these means, to
suggest most important rules for its treatment and pro
gressive improvement.
This is no new idea even in this country. Sir Richard
Steele, writing in the “ Tatler ” 150 years ago, told his
readers that “ one might wear any passion out of a family
by culture, as skilful gardeners blot a colour out of a
tulip that hurts its beauty.”
Science in short shows us that the life of man, like
that of all other living organisms on our planet, is
governed by fixed natural laws, and that by the use of his
understanding man can improve his life through the dis
covery of these laws, and by regulating his. conduct in
obedience to their dictates. That all his faculties are
adapted to his existence in this world of Nature; that
they do not inform him of any Super-natural world,
thereby suggesting that prosperity and enjoyment on
earth are the real moral ends to be desired, and that his
noblest aspirations should be transmuted into good and
useful actions for mankind, and not consumed in senseless
supplications addressed to Supernatural Power.
Thus Science shows us that the discovery by man of
the physiological laws will enable him to enjoy health and
good spirits—of the intellectual laws to acquire know
ledge and mental power—of the economic laws to gain
wealth or competency—of the social and moral laws to
practice virtue, to delight in duty, and to attain to
happiness.
�28
The Science of Life Worth Living.
Therefore Science, which yearns to see mankind re
joicing in life and action, counsels us that one great object
of education should be the study of these laws—to in
culcate obedience to them, and to train our understandings
so that we may conform our lives to their unalterable
nature.
In illustration of these propositions I observe, for
example, that Science has established beyond controversy
that the qualities, whether good or bad, of the parent are
transmitted to, or are inherited by the offspring, and that
this result is as certainly true of the human being as it is
of the lower animal. Hence we are taught what grave
responsibility does in reality rest upon us in becoming
the factors of posterity—in other words, in bringing
children into the world, for we are thus shown that the
future of human life will be what we make it. So true is
what our late friend Professor Clifford told us, “ that man
has made himself,” to which therefore let us add, “ man
can make himself better.”
The theological theory indeed assumes a supernatural
mystery in the matter. Its favourite text, “Be fruitful
and multiply,” addressed, you remember, to Noah, when
nearly all the inhabitants of the earth had been destroyed,
is supposed to be applicable to the teeming millions of
the crowded cities of this nineteenth century! and it is
correspondingly asserted by the theological theory that
“ when God sends mouths he sends meat to fill them.”
But Science reads us a very different lesson, and I will
quote, as pointedly expressing its salutary teaching, what
Professor Matthew Arnold, in his remarkable book
“ Culture and Anarchy,” has said upon that subject.
“ A man’s children ” (he declares) “ are not sent any
more than the pictures upon his walls or the-horses in
�The Science of Life Worth Living.
29
his stable are sent, and to bring people into the world
when one cannot afford to keep them and oneself
decently .... or to bring more of them into the world
than one can offord so to keep.... is by no means an
accomplishment of the divine will, or a fulfilment of
Nature’s simplest laws, but is just as wrong, just as con
trary to the will of God, as for a man to have horses, or
carriages, or pictures when he cannot afford them, or to
have more of them than he can afford.”
This extract from Matthew Arnold’s writings, you may
think is very plain speaking, but, as J. Stuart Mill has
remarked, no one would guess from ordinary talk, that
man had any voice or choice in the matter, so complete is
the confusion of ideas on the whole subject, owing to the
mystery in which it is shrouded by a spurious delicacy,
and that the diseases of society can no more than corporal
maladies be prevented or cured without being spoken
about in plain language.
Now I think we may observe amongst our men of
science, especially those whose minds are most free from
the taint of that inherited mental malady Superstition,
a growing tendency towards advocating the application
to the culture of the Human Being of those scientific me
thods that have proved so successful in producing the ex
quisite growth, maturity, and beauty of cultivated Flowers
and Fruit, and the joyousuess, hilarity, and perfection of
form, temper, and disposition of the thorough - bred
Animal.
Such methods can of course only be applied to man by
way of analogy—that is to say, in reference for instance
to overpopulation, human beings cannot, like flowers, be
destroyed after they are once born, nor can they be
treated by mechanical methods as the lower animals are,
�30
The Science of Life Worth Living.
but man’s intelligence can be appealed to in his own
behalf, his reason can be aroused, and his moral senti
ments interested, and the mode by which the reckless
increase of his numbers should be diminished will un
doubtedly be by inducing fewer births, so as to put a stop
to premature deaths, and the diseases by which premature
deaths are ushered in, diseases, which should plainly in
struct us that, somehow the laws of Nature are being
outraged.
Now, if this were to any appreciable extent accomp
lished it can hardly be doubted that a vast amount of
human misery, that, viz., which is scientifically attribu
table to overpopulation, might be gradually eliminated.
Even war could eventually be deprived of its victims, and
the hideous vice that haunts the public places of our
cities, so reproachful to our boasted civilization and the
moral spirit of our age, might to a great extent be got rid
of; so too the large amount of crime that results from
temptation, so sorely pressing upon the indigent, made
indigent by the competition of the overwhelming numbers
that throng the labour market and depress the rate of
wages, would almost disappear; the savagery of personal
assaults especially upon wives, so often traceable to the
irritability arising from overcrowding, and the demora
lising effect of its vitiated atmosphere, would be found to
vanish; and thus in fine our low-toned morality, which is
the despair of the theologian, would in many respects be
purified and elevated, the course of our existence tend to
become converted into a career of virtuous enjoyment, and
earthly Life, whose inborn delight is at present so em
bittered to all of us by its blendings, or surroundings of
suffering, sorrow, and sin, might, not merely in theory,
but really, and practically be made worth Living.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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The science of life worth living: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 22nd February, 1880
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Finch, A. Elley
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 30, [2] p. : ill. (diag.) ; 18 cm
Series: no 29
Notes: Publisher's series list on unnumbered pages at the end. A list of published pamphlets by the same author listed on title page verso.
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Sunday Lecture Society
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1880
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G3427
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (The science of life worth living: a lecture delivered before the Sunday Lecture Society on Sunday afternoon, 22nd February, 1880), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
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application/pdf
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Text
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English
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Science
Religion
Science and Religion