{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_19610/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_19610","id":"gutenberg_19610","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19610","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","English literature -- 19th century -- Miscellanea","Romanes, George John, 1848-1894. Mental evolution in animals"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1884 Trubner & Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM PREVIOUS WORKS\n\n\n_WITH REMARKS ON MR. G. J. ROMANES'_ \"_MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS_\"\nAND\nA PSALM OF MONTREAL\n\nBY\nSAMUEL BUTLER\n\n\"The course of true science, like that of true love, never did run\nsmooth.\"\nPROFESSOR TYNDALL, _Pall Mall Gazette_, Oct 30, 1883.\n\n(OP. 7)\n\nLONDON\nTRUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL\n1884\n[_All rights reserved_]\n\nBallantyne Press\nBALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.\nEDINBURGH AND LONDON\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nI delayed these pages some weeks in order to give Mr. Romanes an\nopportunity of explaining his statement that Canon Kingsley wrote about\ninstinct and inherited memory in _Nature_, Jan. 18, 1867. {iii}  I wrote\nto the _Athenaeum_ (Jan. 26, 1884) and pointed out that _Nature_ did not\nbegin to appear till nearly three years after the date given by Mr.\nRomanes, and that there was nothing from Canon Kingsley on the subject of\ninstinct and inherited memory in any number of _Nature_ up to the date of\nCanon Kingsley's death.  I also asked for the correct reference.\n\nThis Mr. Romanes has not thought it incumbent upon him to give.  I am\ntold I ought not to have expected him to give it, inasmuch as it is no\nlonger usual for men of any but the lowest scientific standing to correct\ntheir misstatements when they are brought to book.  Science is made for\nFellows of the Royal Society, and for no one else, not Fellows of the\nRoyal Society for science; and if the having achieved a certain position\nshould still involve being obliged to be as scrupulous and accurate as\nother people, what is the good of the position?  This view of the matter\nis practical, but I regret that Mr. Romanes should have taken it, for his\nhaving done so has prevented my being able to tell the reader what Canon\nKingsley said about memory and instinct, and this he might have been glad\nto know.\n\nI suspect, however, that what Canon Kingsley said was after all not very\nimportant.  If it had been, Mr. Romanes would have probably told us what\nit was in his own book.  I should think it possible that Mr. Romanes--not\nfinding Canon Kingsley's words important enough to be quoted, or even\nreferred to correctly, or never having seen them himself and not knowing\nexactly what they were, yet being anxious to give every one, and more\nparticularly Canon Kingsley, his due--felt that this was an occasion on\nwhich he might fairly take advantage of his position and say at large\nwhatever he was in the humour for saying at the moment.\n\nI should not have thought this possible if I had not ere now had reason\nto set Mr. Romanes down as one who was not likely to be squeamish about\ntrifles.  Nevertheless, on this present occasion I certainly did think\nthat he had only made a slip such as we all make sometimes, and such as\nhe would gladly take the earliest opportunity to correct.  As it is, I do\nnot know what to think, except that D.C.L.'s and F.R.S.'s seem to be made\nof much the same frail materials as we ordinary mortals are.\n\nAs regards the extracts from my previous books given in this volume, I\nshould say that I have revised and corrected the original text\nthroughout, and introduced a sentence or two here and there, but have\nnowhere made any important alteration.  I regret greatly that want of\nspace has prevented me from being able to give the chapters from Life and\nHabit on \"The Abeyance of Memory,\" and \"What we should expect to find if\nDifferentiations of Structure and Instinct are mainly due to Memory;\" it\nis in these chapters that an explanation of many phenomena is given, of\nwhich, so far as I know, no explanation of any kind had been previously\nattempted, and in which phenomena having apparently so little connection\nas the sterility of hybrids, the principle underlying longevity, the\nresumption of feral characteristics, the sterility of many animals under\nconfinement, are not only made intelligible but are shown to be all part\nand parcel of the same story--all being explicable as soon as Memory is\nmade the main factor of heredity.\n\n_Feb._ 16, 1884.\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM EREWHON. {1}\n\n\n_CURRENT OPINIONS_.  (CHAPTER X. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nThis is what I gathered.  That in that country if a man falls into ill\nhealth, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he is\nseventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and if\nconvicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less severely\nas the case may be.  There are subdivisions of illnesses into crimes and\nmisdemeanours as with offences amongst ourselves--a man being punished\nvery heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or hearing in one\nover sixty-five who has had good health hitherto is dealt with by fine\nonly, or imprisonment in default of payment.\n\nBut if a man forges a cheque, sets his house on fire, robs with violence\nfrom the person, or does any other such things as are criminal in our own\ncountry, he is either taken to a hospital and most carefully tended at\nthe public expense, or if he is in good circumstances, he lets it be\nknown to all his friends that he is suffering from a severe fit of\nimmorality, just as we do when we are ill, and they come and visit him\nwith great solicitude, and inquire with interest how it all came about,\nwhat symptoms first showed themselves, and so forth,--questions which he\nwill answer with perfect unreserve; for bad conduct, though considered no\nless deplorable than illness with ourselves, and as unquestionably\nindicating something wrong with the individual who misbehaves, is\nnevertheless held to be the result of either pre-natal or post-natal\nmisfortune.  I should add that under certain circumstances poverty and\nill luck are also considered criminal.\n\nAccordingly, there exists a class of men trained in soul-craft, whom they\ncall straighteners, as nearly as I can translate a word which literally\nmeans \"one who bendeth back the crooked.\"  These men practise much as\nmedical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious fee on every\nvisit.  They are treated with the same unreserve and obeyed just as\nreadily as our own doctors--that is to say, on the whole\nsufficiently--because people know that it is their interest to get well\nas soon as they can, and that they will not be scouted as they would be\nif their bodies were out of order, even though they may have to undergo a\nvery painful course of treatment.\n\nWhen I say that they will not be scouted, I do not mean that an\nErewhonian offender will suffer no social inconvenience.  Friends will\nfall away from him because of his being less pleasant company, just as we\nourselves are disclined to make companions of those who are either poor\nor poorly.  No one with a due sense of self-respect will place himself on\nan equality in the matter of affection with those who are less lucky than\nhimself in birth, health, money, good looks, capacity, or anything else.\nIndeed, that dislike and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate for\nthe unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered to\nhave met with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is\nnot only natural, but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute;\nwhat progress either of body or soul had been otherwise possible?  The\nfact therefore that the Erewhonians attach none of that guilt to crime\nwhich they do to physical ailments, does not prevent the more selfish\namong them from neglecting a friend who has robbed a bank, for instance,\ntill he has fully recovered; but it does prevent them from even thinking\nof treating criminals with that contemptuous tone which would seem to\nsay, \"I, if I were you, should be a better man than you are,\" a tone\nwhich is held quite reasonable in regard to physical ailment.\n\nHence, though they conceal ill health by every kind of cunning, they are\nquite open about even the most flagrant mental diseases, should they\nhappen to exist, which to do the people justice is not often.  Indeed,\nthere are some who, so to speak, are spiritual valetudinarians, and who\nmake themselves exceedingly ridiculous by their nervous supposition that\nthey are wicked, while they are very tolerable people all the time.  This\nhowever is exceptional; and on the whole they use much the same reserve\nor unreserve about the state of their moral welfare as we do about our\nhealth.\n\nIt has followed that all the ordinary greetings among ourselves, such as,\nHow do you do? and the like, are considered signs of gross ill-breeding;\nnor do the politer classes tolerate even such a common complimentary\nremark as telling a man that he was looking well.  They salute each other\nwith, \"I hope you are good this morning;\" or \"I hope you have recovered\nfrom the snappishness from which you were suffering when I last saw you;\"\nand if the person saluted has not been good, or is still snappish, he\nsays so, and is condoled with accordingly.  Nay, the straighteners have\ngone so far as to give names from the hypothetical language (as taught at\nthe Colleges of Unreason) to all known forms of mental indisposition, and\nhave classified them according to a system of their own, which, though I\ncould not understand it, seemed to work well in practice, for they are\nalways able to tell a man what is the matter with him as soon as they\nhave heard his story, and their familiarity with the long names assures\nhim that they thoroughly understand his case.\n\n* * * * *\n\nWe in England rarely shrink from telling our doctor what is the matter\nwith us merely through the fear that he will hurt us.  We let him do his\nworst upon us, and stand it without a murmur, because we are not scouted\nfor being ill, and because we know the doctor is doing his best to cure\nus, and can judge of our case better than we can; but we should conceal\nall illness if we were treated as the Erewhonians are when they have\nanything the matter with them; we should do as we do with our moral and\nintellectual diseases,--we should feign health with the most consummate\nart, till we were found out, and should hate a single flogging given by\nway of mere punishment more than the amputation of a limb, if it were\nkindly and courteously performed from a wish to help us out of our\ndifficulty, and with the full consciousness on the part of the doctor\nthat it was only by an accident of constitution that he was not in the\nlike plight himself.  So the Erewhonians take a flogging once a week, and\na diet of bread and water for two or three months together, whenever\ntheir straightener recommends it.\n\nI do not suppose that even my host, on having swindled a confiding widow\nout of the whole of her property, was put to more actual suffering than a\nman will readily undergo at the hands of an English doctor.  And yet he\nmust have had a very bad time of it.  The sounds I heard were sufficient\nto show that his pain was exquisite, but he never shrank from undergoing\nit.  He was quite sure that it did him good; and I think he was right.  I\ncannot believe that that man will ever embezzle money again.  He may--but\nit will be a long time before he does so.\n\nDuring my confinement in prison, and on my journey, I had discovered much\nof the above; but it still seemed new and strange, and I was in constant\nfear of committing some rudeness from my inability to look at things from\nthe same stand-point as my neighbours; but after a few weeks' stay with\nthe Nosnibors I got to understand things better, especially on having\nheard all about my host's illness, of which he told me fully and\nrepeatedly.\n\nIt seemed he had been on the Stock Exchange of the city for many years\nand had amassed enormous wealth, without exceeding the limits of what was\ngenerally considered justifiable or at any rate permissible dealing; but\nat length on several occasions he had become aware of a desire to make\nmoney by fraudulent representations, and had actually dealt with two or\nthree sums in a way which had made him rather uncomfortable.  He had\nunfortunately made light of it and pooh-poohed the ailment, until\ncircumstances eventually presented themselves which enabled him to cheat\nupon a very considerable scale;--he told me what they were, and they were\nabout as bad as anything could be, but I need not detail them;--he seized\nthe opportunity, and became aware when it was too late that he must be\nseriously out of order.  He had neglected himself too long.\n\nHe drove home at once, broke the news to his wife and daughters as gently\nas he could, and sent off for one of the most celebrated straighteners of\nthe kingdom to a consultation with the family practitioner, for the case\nwas plainly serious.  On the arrival of the straightener he told his\nstory, and expressed his fear that his morals must be permanently\nimpaired.\n\nThe eminent man reassured him with a few cheering words, and then\nproceeded to make a more careful diagnosis of the case.  He inquired\nconcerning Mr. Nosnibor's parents--had their moral health been good?  He\nwas answered that there had not been anything seriously amiss with them,\nbut that his maternal grandfather, whom he was supposed to resemble\nsomewhat in person, had been a consummate scoundrel and had ended his\ndays in a hospital,--while a brother of his father's, after having led a\nmost flagitious life for many years, had been at last cured by a\nphilosopher of a new school, which as far as I could understand it bore\nmuch the same relation to the old as homoeopathy to allopathy.  The\nstraightener shook his head at this, and laughingly replied that the cure\nmust have been due to nature.  After a few more questions he wrote a\nprescription and departed.\n\nI saw the prescription.  It ordered a fine to the State of double the\nmoney embezzled; no food but bread and milk for six months, and a severe\nflogging once a month for twelve.  He had received his eleventh flogging\non the day of my arrival.  I saw him later on the same afternoon, and he\nwas still twinged; but even though he had been minded to do so (which he\nshowed no sign of being), there would have been no escape from following\nout the straightener's prescription, for the so-called sanitary laws of\nErewhon are very rigorous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that\nhis orders had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a\nhospital (as the poor are), and would have been much worse off.  Such at\nleast is the law, but it is never necessary to enforce it.\n\nOn a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview between Mr.\nNosnibor and the family straightener, who was considered competent to\nwatch the completion of the cure.  I was struck with the delicacy with\nwhich he avoided even the remotest semblance of inquiry after the\nphysical well-being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness\nabout my host's eyes which argued a bilious habit of body.  To have taken\nnotice of this would have been a gross breach of professional etiquette.\nI am told that a straightener sometimes thinks it right to glance at the\npossibility of some slight physical disorder if he finds it important in\norder to assist him in his diagnosis; but the answers which he gets are\ngenerally untrue or evasive, and he forms his own conclusions upon the\nmatter as well as he can.\n\nSensible men have been known to say that the straightener should in\nstrict confidence be told of every physical ailment that is likely to\nbear upon the case; but people are naturally shy of doing this, for they\ndo not like lowering themselves in the opinion of the straightener, and\nhis ignorance of medical science is supreme.  I heard of one lady however\nwho had the hardihood to confess that a furious outbreak of ill-humour\nand extravagant fancies for which she was seeking advice was possibly the\nresult of indisposition.  \"You should resist that,\" said the\nstraightener, in a kind, but grave voice; \"we can do nothing for the\nbodies of our patients; such matters are beyond our province, and I\ndesire that I may hear no further particulars.\"  The lady burst into\ntears, promised faithfully that she would never be unwell again, and kept\nher word.\n\nTo return however to Mr. Nosnibor.  As the afternoon wore on many\ncarriages drove up with callers to inquire how he had stood his flogging.\nIt had been very severe, but the kind inquiries upon every side gave him\ngreat pleasure, and he assured me that he felt almost tempted to do wrong\nagain by the solicitude with which his friends had treated him during his\nrecovery: in this I need hardly say that he was not serious.\n\nDuring the remainder of my stay in the country Mr. Nosnibor was\nconstantly attentive to his business, and largely increased his already\ngreat possessions; but I never heard a whisper to the effect of his\nhaving been indisposed a second time, or made money by other than the\nmost strictly honourable means.  I did hear afterwards in confidence that\nthere had been reason to believe that his health had been not a little\naffected by the straightener's treatment, but his friends did not choose\nto be over curious upon the subject, and on his return to his affairs it\nwas by common consent passed over as hardly criminal in one who was\notherwise so much afflicted.  For they regard bodily ailments as the more\nvenial in proportion as they have been produced by causes independent of\nthe constitution.  Thus if a person ruin his health by excessive\nindulgence at the table, or by drinking, they count it to be almost a\npart of the mental disease which brought it about and so it goes for\nlittle, but they have no mercy on such illnesses as fevers or catarrhs or\nlung diseases, which to us appear to be beyond the control of the\nindividual.  They are only more lenient towards the diseases of the\nyoung--such as measles, which they think to be like sowing one's wild\noats--and look over them as pardonable indiscretions if they have not\nbeen too serious, and if they are atoned for by complete subsequent\nrecovery.\n\n\n\nAN EREWHONIAN TRIAL.  (CHAPTER XI. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nI shall best convey to the reader an idea of the entire perversion of\nthought which exists among this extraordinary people, by describing the\npublic trial of a man who was accused of pulmonary consumption--an\noffence which was punished with death until quite recently.  The trial\ndid not take place till I had been some months in the country, and I am\ndeviating from chronological order in giving an account of it here; but I\nhad perhaps better do so in order to exhaust this subject before\nproceeding with others.\n\nThe prisoner was placed in the dock, and the jury were sworn much as in\nEurope; almost all our own modes of procedure were reproduced, even to\nthe requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or not guilty.  He pleaded not\nguilty and the case proceeded.  The evidence for the prosecution was very\nstrong, but I must do the court the justice to observe that the trial was\nabsolutely impartial.  Counsel for the prisoner was allowed to urge\neverything that could be said in his defence.\n\nThe line taken was that the prisoner was simulating consumption in order\nto defraud an insurance company, from which he was about to buy an\nannuity, and that he hoped thus to obtain it on more advantageous terms.\nIf this could have been shown to be the case he would have escaped\ncriminal prosecution, and been sent to a hospital as for moral ailment.\nThe view however was one which could not be reasonably sustained, in\nspite of all the ingenuity and eloquence of one of the most celebrated\nadvocates of the country.  The case was only too clear, for the prisoner\nwas almost at the point of death, and it was astonishing that he had not\nbeen tried and convicted long previously.  His coughing was incessant\nduring the whole trial, and it was all that the two jailers in charge of\nhim could do to keep him on his legs until it was over.\n\nThe summing up of the judge was admirable.  He dwelt upon every point\nthat could be construed in favour of the prisoner, but as he proceeded it\nbecame clear that the evidence was too convincing to admit of doubt, and\nthere was but one opinion in the court as to the impending verdict when\nthe jury retired from the box.  They were absent for about ten minutes,\nand on their return the foreman pronounced the prisoner guilty.  There\nwas a faint murmur of applause but it was instantly repressed.  The judge\nthen proceeded to pronounce sentence in words which I can never forget,\nand which I copied out into a note-book next day from the report that was\npublished in the leading newspaper.  I must condense it somewhat, and\nnothing which I could say would give more than a faint idea of the\nsolemn, not to say majestic, severity with which it was delivered.  The\nsentence was as follows:--\n\n\"Prisoner at the bar, you have been accused of the great crime of\nlabouring under pulmonary consumption, and after an impartial trial\nbefore a jury of your countrymen, you have been found guilty.  Against\nthe justice of the verdict I can say nothing: the evidence against you\nwas conclusive, and it only remains for me to pass such a sentence upon\nyou, as shall satisfy the ends of the law.  That sentence must be a very\nsevere one.  It pains me much to see one who is yet so young, and whose\nprospects in life were otherwise so excellent, brought to this\ndistressing condition by a constitution which I can only regard as\nradically vicious; but yours is no case for compassion: this is not your\nfirst offence: you have led a career of crime, and have only profited by\nthe leniency shown you upon past occasions, to offend yet more seriously\nagainst the laws and institutions of your country.  You were convicted of\naggravated bronchitis last year: and I find that though you are now only\ntwenty-three years old, you have been imprisoned on no less than fourteen\noccasions for illnesses of a more or less hateful character; in fact, it\nis not too much to say that you have spent the greater part of your life\nin a jail.\n\n\"It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy parents,\nand had a severe accident in your childhood which permanently undermined\nyour constitution; excuses such as these are the ordinary refuge of the\ncriminal; but they cannot for one moment be listened to by the ear of\njustice.  I am not here to enter upon curious metaphysical questions as\nto the origin of this or that--questions to which there would be no end\nwere their introduction once tolerated, and which would result in\nthrowing the only guilt on the primordial cell, or perhaps even on the\nelementary gases.  There is no question of how you came to be wicked, but\nonly this--namely, are you wicked or not?  This has been decided in the\naffirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say that it\nhas been decided justly.  You are a bad and dangerous person, and stand\nbranded in the eyes of your fellow-countrymen with one of the most\nheinous known offences.\n\n\"It is not my business to justify the law: the law may in some cases have\nits inevitable hardships, and I may feel regret at times that I have not\nthe option of passing a less severe sentence than I am compelled to do.\nBut yours is no such case; on the contrary, had not the capital\npunishment for consumption been abolished, I should certainly inflict it\nnow.\n\n\"It is intolerable that an example of such terrible enormity should be\nallowed to go at large unpunished.  Your presence in the society of\nrespectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightly\nof all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that you should have\nthe chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you.\nThe unborn must not be allowed to come near you: and this not so much for\ntheir protection (for they are our natural enemies), as for our own; for\nsince they will not be utterly gainsaid, it must be seen to that they\nshall be quartered upon those who are least likely to corrupt them.\n\n\"But independently of this consideration, and independently of the\nphysical guilt which attaches itself to a crime so great as yours, there\nis yet another reason why we should be unable to show you mercy, even if\nwe are inclined to do so.  I refer to the existence of a class of men who\nlie hidden among us, and who are called physicians.  Were the severity of\nthe law or the current feeling of the country to be relaxed never so\nslightly, these abandoned persons, who are now compelled to practise\nsecretly, and who can be consulted only at the greatest risk, would\nbecome frequent visitors in every household; their organisation and their\nintimate acquaintance with all family secrets would give them a power,\nboth social and political, which nothing could resist.  The head of the\nhousehold would become subordinate to the family doctor, who would\ninterfere between man and wife, between master and servant, until the\ndoctors should be the only depositaries of power in the nation, and have\nall that we hold precious at their mercy.  A time of universal\ndephysicalisation would ensue; medicine-vendors of all kinds would abound\nin our streets and advertise in all our newspapers.  There is one remedy\nfor this, and one only.  It is that which the laws of this country have\nlong received and acted upon, and consists in the sternest repression of\nall diseases whatsoever, as soon as their existence is made manifest to\nthe eye of the law.  Would that that eye were far more piercing than it\nis.\n\n\"But I will enlarge no further upon things that are themselves so\nobvious.  You may say that it is not your fault.  The answer is ready\nenough at hand, and it amounts to this--that if you had been born of\nhealthy and well-to-do parents, and been well taken care of when you were\na child, you would never have offended against the laws of your country,\nnor found yourself in your present disgraceful position.  If you tell me\nthat you had no hand in your parentage and education, and that it is\ntherefore unjust to lay these things to your charge, I answer that\nwhether your being in a consumption is your fault or no, it is a fault in\nyou, and it is my duty to see that against such faults as this the\ncommonwealth shall be protected.  You may say that it is your misfortune\nto be criminal; I answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate.\n\n\"I do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment, with hard\nlabour, for the rest of your miserable existence.  During that period I\nwould earnestly entreat you to repent of these wrongs you have done\nalready, and to entirely reform the constitution of your whole body.  I\nentertain but little hope that you will pay attention to my advice; you\nare already far too abandoned.  Did it rest with myself, I should add\nnothing in mitigation of the sentence which I have passed, but it is the\nmerciful provision of the law that even the most hardened criminal shall\nbe allowed some one of the three official remedies, which is to be\nprescribed at the time of his conviction.  I shall therefore order that\nyou receive two tablespoonfuls of castor-oil daily, until the pleasure of\nthe court be further known.\"\n\nWhen the sentence was concluded, the prisoner acknowledged in a few\nscarcely audible words that he was justly punished, and that he had had a\nfair trial.  He was then removed to the prison from which he was never to\nreturn.  There was a second attempt at applause when the judge had\nfinished speaking, but as before it was at once repressed; and though the\nfeeling of the court was strongly against the prisoner, there was no show\nof any violence against him, if one may except a little hooting from the\nbystanders when he was being removed in the prisoners' van.  Indeed,\nnothing struck me more during my whole sojourn in the country, than the\ngeneral respect for law and order.\n\n\n\nMALCONTENTS.  (PART OF CHAPTER XII. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nI write with great diffidence, but it seems to me that there is no\nunfairness in punishing people for their misfortunes, or rewarding them\nfor their sheer good luck: it is the normal condition of human life that\nthis should be done, and no right-minded person will complain at being\nsubjected to the common treatment.  There is no alternative open to us.\nIt is idle to say that men are not responsible for their misfortunes.\nWhat is responsibility?  Surely to be responsible means to be liable to\nhave to give an answer should it be demanded, and all things which live\nare responsible for their lives and actions should society see fit to\nquestion them through the mouth of its authorised agent.\n\nWhat is the offence of a lamb that we should rear it, and tend it, and\nlull it into security, for the express purpose of killing it?  Its\noffence is the misfortune of being something which society wants to eat,\nand which cannot defend itself.  This is ample.  Who shall limit the\nright of society except society itself?  And what consideration for the\nindividual is tolerable unless society be the gainer thereby?  Wherefore\nshould a man be so richly rewarded for having been son to a millionaire,\nwere it not clearly provable that the common welfare is thus better\nfurthered?  We cannot seriously detract from a man's merit in having been\nthe son of a rich father without imperilling our own tenure of things\nwhich we do not wish to jeopardise; if this were otherwise we should not\nlet him keep his money for a single hour; we would have it ourselves at\nonce.  For property _is_ robbery, but then we are all robbers or would-be\nrobbers together, and have found it expedient to organise our thieving,\nas we have found it to organise our lust and our revenge.  Property,\nmarriage, the law; as the bed to the river, so rule and convention to the\ninstinct.\n\nBut to return.  Even in England a man on board a ship with yellow fever\nis held responsible for his mischance, no matter what his being kept in\nquarantine may cost him.  He may catch the fever and die; we cannot help\nit; he must take his chance as other people do; but surely it would be\ndesperate unkindness to add contumely to our self-protection, unless,\nindeed, we believe that contumely is one of our best means of\nself-protection.  Again, take the case of maniacs.  We say that they are\nirresponsible for their actions, but we take good care, or ought to take\ngood care, that they shall answer to us for their insanity, and we\nimprison them in what we call an asylum (that modern sanctuary!) if we do\nnot like their answers.  This is a strange kind of irresponsibility.  What\nwe ought to say is that we can afford to be satisfied with a less\nsatisfactory answer from a lunatic than from one who is not mad, because\nlunacy is less infectious than crime.\n\nWe kill a serpent if we go in danger by it, simply for being such and\nsuch a serpent in such and such a place; but we never say that the\nserpent has only itself to blame for not having been a harmless creature.\nIts crime is that of being the thing which it is: but this is a capital\noffence, and we are right in killing it out of the way, unless we think\nit more dangerous to do so than to let it escape; nevertheless we pity\nthe creature, even though we kill it.\n\nBut in the case of him whose trial I have described above, it was\nimpossible that any one in the court should not have known that it was\nbut by an accident of birth and circumstances that he was not himself\nalso in a consumption; and yet none thought that it disgraced them to\nhear the judge give vent to the most cruel truisms about him.  The judge\nhimself was a kind and thoughtful person.  He was a man of magnificent\nand benign presence.  He was evidently of an iron constitution, and his\nface wore an expression of the maturest wisdom and experience; yet for\nall this, old and learned as he was, he could not see things which one\nwould have thought would have been apparent even to a child.  He could\nnot emancipate himself from, nay, it did not even occur to him to feel,\nthe bondage of the ideas in which he had been born and bred.  So was it\nwith the jury and bystanders; and--most wonderful of all--so was it even\nwith the prisoner.  Throughout he seemed fully impressed with the notion\nthat he was being dealt with justly: he saw nothing wanton in his being\ntold by the judge that he was to be punished, not so much as a necessary\nprotection to society (although this was not entirely lost sight of), as\nbecause he had not been better born and bred than he was.  But this led\nme to hope that he suffered less than he would have done if he had seen\nthe matter in the same light that I did.  And, after all, justice is\nrelative.\n\nI may here mention that only a few years before my arrival in the\ncountry, the treatment of all convicted invalids had been much more\nbarbarous than now; for no physical remedy was provided, and prisoners\nwere put to the severest labour in all sorts of weather, so that most of\nthem soon succumbed to the extreme hardships which they suffered; this\nwas supposed to be beneficial in some ways, inasmuch as it put the\ncountry to less expense for the maintenance of its criminal class; but\nthe growth of luxury had induced a relaxation of the old severity, and a\nsensitive age would no longer tolerate what appeared to be an excess of\nrigour, even towards the most guilty; moreover, it was found that juries\nwere less willing to convict, and justice was often cheated because there\nwas no alternative between virtually condemning a man to death and\nletting him go free; it was also held that the country paid in\nrecommittals for its overseverity; for those who had been imprisoned even\nfor trifling ailments were often permanently disabled by their\nimprisonment; and when a man has been once convicted, it was probable he\nwould never afterwards be long off the hands of the country.\n\nThese evils had long been apparent and recognised; yet people were too\nindolent, and too indifferent to suffering not their own, to bestir\nthemselves about putting an end to them, until at last a benevolent\nreformer devoted his whole life to effecting the necessary changes.  He\ndivided illnesses into three classes--those affecting the head, the\ntrunk, and the lower limbs--and obtained an enactment that all diseases\nof the head, whether internal or external, should be treated with\nlaudanum, those of the body with castor-oil, and those of the lower limbs\nwith an embrocation of strong sulphuric acid and water.  It may be said\nthat the classification was not sufficiently careful, and that the\nremedies were ill chosen; but it is a hard thing to initiate any reform,\nand it was necessary to familiarise the public mind with the principle,\nby inserting the thin end of the wedge first: it is not therefore to be\nwondered at that among so practical a people there should still be some\nroom for improvement.  The mass of the nation are well pleased with\nexisting arrangements, and believe that their treatment of criminals\nleaves little or nothing to be desired; but there is an energetic\nminority who hold what are considered to be extreme opinions, and who are\nnot at all disposed to rest contented until the principle lately admitted\nhas been carried further.\n\n\n\nTHE MUSICAL BANKS.  (CHAPTER XIV. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nOn my return to the drawing-room, I found the ladies were just putting\naway their work and preparing to go out.  I asked them where they were\ngoing.  They answered with a certain air of reserve that they were going\nto the bank to get some money.\n\nNow I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the\nErewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; I\nhad however gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinct\ncommercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to the\nimagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuch\nas the banks conducted upon this system were decorated in the most\nprofuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied with\nmusic, so that they were called musical banks though the music was\nhideous to a European ear.\n\nAs for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so now:\nthey have a code in connection with it, which I have no doubt they\nthemselves understand, but no foreigner can hope to do so.  One rule runs\ninto and against another as in a most complicated grammar, or as in\nChinese pronunciation, wherein I am told the slightest change in\naccentuation or tone of voice alters the meaning of a whole sentence.\nWhatever is incoherent in my description must be referred to the fact of\nmy never having attained to a full comprehension of the subject.\n\nSo far however as I could collect anything certain, they appeared to have\ntwo entirely distinct currencies, each under the control of its own banks\nand mercantile codes.  The one of them (the one with the musical banks)\nwas supposed to be _the_ system, and to give out the currency in which\nall monetary transactions should be carried on.  As far as I could see,\nall who wished to be considered respectable, did keep a certain amount of\nthis currency at these banks; nevertheless, if there is one thing of\nwhich I am more sure than another it is that the amount so kept was but a\nvery small part of their possessions.  I think they took the money, put\nit into the bank, and then drew it out again, repeating the process day\nby day, and keeping a certain amount of currency for this purpose and no\nother, while they paid the expenses of the bank with the other coinage.  I\nam sure the managers and cashiers of the musical banks were not paid in\ntheir own currency.  Mr. Nosnibor used to go to these musical banks, or\nrather to the great mother bank of the city, sometimes but not very\noften.  He was a pillar of one of the other kind of banks, though he held\nsome minor office also in these.  The ladies generally went alone; as\nindeed was the case in most families, except on some few great annual\noccasions.\n\nI had long wanted to know more of this strange system, and had the\ngreatest desire to accompany my hostess and her daughters.  I had seen\nthem go out almost every morning since my arrival, and had noticed that\nthey carried their purses in their hands, not exactly ostentatiously, yet\njust so as that those who met them should see whither they were going.  I\nhad never yet been asked to go with them myself.\n\nIt is not easy to convey a person's manner by words, and I can hardly\ngive any idea of the peculiar feeling which came upon me whenever I saw\nthe ladies in the hall, with their purses in their hands, and on the\npoint of starting for the bank.  There was a something of regret, a\nsomething as though they would wish to take me with them, but did not\nlike to ask me, and yet as though I were hardly to ask to be taken.  I\nwas determined however to bring matters to an issue with my hostess about\nmy going with them, and after a little parleying and many inquiries as to\nwhether I was perfectly sure that I myself wished to go, it was decided\nthat I might do so.\n\nWe passed through several streets of more or less considerable houses,\nand at last turning round a corner we came upon a large piazza, at the\nend of which was a magnificent building, of a strange but noble\narchitecture and of great antiquity.  It did not open directly on to the\npiazza, there being a screen, through which was an archway, between the\npiazza and the actual precincts of the bank.  On passing under the\narchway we found ourselves upon a green sward, round which there ran an\narcade or cloister, while in front of us uprose the majestic towers of\nthe bank and its venerable front, which was divided into three deep\nrecesses and adorned with all sorts of marbles and many sculptures.  On\neither side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by\nthe hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly\ncomfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and\ngardens, and gave me an impression of great peace and plenty.\n\nIndeed it had been no error to say that this building was one which\nappealed to the imagination; it did more--it carried both imagination and\njudgment by storm.  It was an epic in stone and marble; neither had I\never seen anything in the least comparable to it.  I was completely\ncharmed and melted.  I felt more conscious of the existence of a remote\npast.  One knows of this always, but the knowledge is never so living as\nin the actual presence of some witness to the life of bygone ages.  I\nfelt how short a space of human life was the period of our own existence.\nI was more impressed with my own littleness, and much more inclinable to\nbelieve that the people whose sense of the fitness of things was equal to\nthe upraising of so serene a handiwork, were hardly likely to be wrong in\nthe conclusions they might come to upon any subject.  My feeling\ncertainly was that the currency of this bank must be the right one.\n\nWe crossed the sward and entered the building.  If the outside had been\nimpressive the inside was even more so.  It was very lofty and divided\ninto several parts by walls which rested upon massive pillars; the\nwindows were filled with glass, on which had been painted the principal\ncommercial incidents of the bank for many ages.  In a remote part of the\nbuilding there were men and boys singing; this was the only disturbing\nfeature, for as the gamut was still unknown, there was no music in the\ncountry which could be agreeable to a European ear.  The singers seemed\nto have derived their inspirations from the songs of birds and the\nwailing of the wind, which last they tried to imitate in melancholy\ncadences which at times degenerated into a howl.  To my thinking the\nnoise was hideous, but it produced a great effect upon my companions, who\nprofessed themselves much moved.  As soon as the singing was over the\nladies requested me to stay where I was, while they went inside the place\nfrom which it had seemed to come.\n\nDuring their absence certain reflections forced themselves upon me.\n\nIn the first place, it struck me as strange that the building should be\nso nearly empty; I was almost alone, and the few besides myself had been\nled by curiosity, and had no intention of doing business with the bank.\nBut there might be more inside.  I stole up to the curtain, and ventured\nto draw the extreme edge of it on one side.  No, there was hardly any one\nthere.  I saw a large number of cashiers, all at their desks ready to pay\ncheques, and one or two who seemed to be the managing partners.  I also\nsaw my hostess and her daughters and two or three other ladies; also\nthree or four old women and the boys from one of the neighbouring\nColleges of Unreason; but there was no one else.  This did not look as\nthough the bank was doing a very large business; and yet I had always\nbeen told that every one in the city dealt with this establishment.\n\nI cannot describe all that took place in these inner precincts, for a\nsinister-looking person in a black gown came and made unpleasant gestures\nat me for peeping.  I happened to have in my pocket one of the musical\nbank pieces, which had been given me by Mrs. Nosnibor, so I tried to tip\nhim with it; but having seen what it was, he became so angry that it was\nall I could do to pacify him.  When he was gone I ventured to take a\nsecond look, and saw Zulora in the very act of giving a piece of paper\nwhich looked like a cheque to one of the cashiers.  He did not examine\nit, but putting his hand into an antique coffer hard by, he pulled out a\nquantity of dull-looking metal pieces apparently at random, and handed\nthem over without counting them; neither did Zulora count them, but put\nthem into her purse and departed.  It seemed a very singular proceeding,\nbut I supposed that they knew their own business best, at any rate Zulora\nseemed quite satisfied, thanked him for the money, and began making\ntowards the curtain: on this I let it drop and retreated to a reasonable\ndistance.\n\nMrs. Nosnibor and her daughters soon joined me.  For some few minutes we\nall kept silence, but at last I ventured to remark that the bank was not\nso busy to-day as it probably often was.  On this Mrs. Nosnibor said that\nit was indeed melancholy to see what little heed people paid to the most\nprecious of all institutions.  I could say nothing in reply, but I have\never been of opinion that the greater part of mankind do approximately\nknow where they get that which does them good.  Mrs. Nosnibor went on to\nsay that I must not imagine there was any want of confidence in the bank\nbecause I had seen so few people there; the heart of the country was\nthoroughly devoted to these establishments, and any sign of their being\nin danger would bring in support from the most unexpected quarters.  It\nwas only because people knew them to be so very safe, that in some cases\n(as she lamented to say in Mr. Nosnibor's) they felt that their support\nwas unnecessary.  Moreover these institutions never departed from the\nsafest and most approved banking principles.  Thus they never allowed\ninterest on deposit, a thing now frequently done by certain bubble\ncompanies, which by doing an illegitimate trade had drawn many customers\naway; and even the shareholders were fewer than formerly, owing to the\ninnovations of these unscrupulous persons.\n\nIt came out by and by that the musical banks paid little or no dividend,\nbut divided their profits by way of bonus on the original shares once in\nevery three hundred and fifty years; and as it was now only two hundred\nyears since there had been one of these distributions, people felt that\nthey could not hope for another in their own time and preferred\ninvestments whereby they got some more tangible return; all which, she\nsaid, was very melancholy to think of.\n\nHaving made these last admissions, she returned to her original\nstatement, namely, that every one in the country really supported the\nbank.  As to the fewness of the people, and the absence of the\nable-bodied, she pointed out to me with some justice that this was\nexactly what we ought to expect.  The men who were most conversant about\nthe stability of human institutions, such as the lawyers, men of science,\ndoctors, statesmen, painters, and the like, were just those who were most\nlikely to be misled by their own fancied accomplishments, and to be made\nunduly suspicious by their licentious desire for greater present return,\nwhich was at the root of nine-tenths of the opposition, by their vanity,\nwhich would prompt them to affect superiority to the prejudices of the\nvulgar, and by the stings of their own conscience, which was constantly\nupbraiding them in the most cruel manner on account of their bodies,\nwhich were generally diseased; let a person's intellect be never so\nsound, unless his body were in absolute health, he could form no judgment\nworth having on matters of this kind.  The body was everything: it need\nnot perhaps be such a _strong_ body (she said this because she saw I was\nthinking of the old and infirm-looking folks whom I had seen in the\nbank), but it must be in perfect health; in this case, the less active\nstrength it had the more free would be the working of the intellect, and\ntherefore the sounder the conclusion.  The people, then, whom I had seen\nat the bank were in reality the very ones whose opinions were most worth\nhaving; they declared its advantages to be incalculable, and even\nprofessed to consider the immediate return to be far larger than they\nwere entitled to; and so she ran on, nor did she leave off till we had\ngot back to the house.\n\nShe might say what she pleased, but her manner was not one that carried\nmuch conviction; and later on I saw signs of general indifference to\nthese banks that were not to be mistaken.  Their supporters often denied\nit, but the denial was generally so couched as to add another proof of\nits existence.  In commercial panics, and in times of general distress,\nthe people as a mass did not so much as even think of turning to these\nbanks.  A few individuals might do so, some from habit and early\ntraining, some from hope of gain, but few from a genuine belief that the\nmoney was good; the masses turned instinctively to the other currency.  In\na conversation with one of the musical bank managers I ventured to hint\nthis as plainly as politeness would allow.  He said that it had been more\nor less true till lately; but that now they had put fresh stained glass\nwindows into all the banks in the country, and repaired the buildings,\nand enlarged the organs, and taken to talking nicely to the people in the\nstreets, and to remembering the ages of their children and giving them\nthings when they were ill, so that all would henceforth go smoothly.\n\n\"But haven't you done anything to the money itself?\" said I timidly.\n\nTo this day I do not know exactly what the bank-manager said, but it came\nto this in the end--that I had better not meddle with things that I did\nnot understand.\n\nOn reviewing the whole matter, I can be certain of this much only, that\nthe money given out at the musical banks is not the current coin of the\nrealm.  It is not the money with which the people do as a general rule\nbuy their bread, meat, and clothing.  It is like it; some coins very like\nit; and it is not counterfeit.  It is not, take it all round, a spurious\narticle made of base metal in imitation of the money which is in daily\nuse; but it is a distinct coinage which, though I do not suppose it ever\nactually superseded the ordinary gold, silver, and copper, was probably\nissued by authority, and was intended to supplant those metals.  Some of\nthe pieces were really of exquisite beauty; and some were, I do verily\nbelieve, nothing but the ordinary currency, only that there was another\nhead and name in place of that of the commonwealth.  And here was one of\nthe great marvels; for those who were most strongly in favour of this\ncoinage maintained, and even grew more excited if they were opposed here\nthan on any other matter, that the very self-same coin with the head of\nthe commonwealth upon it was of little if any value, while it became\nexceedingly precious it stamped with the other image.\n\nSome of the coins were plainly bad; of these last there were not many;\nstill there were enough for them to be not uncommon.  These were entirely\ncomposed of alloy; they would bend easily, would melt away to nothing\nwith a little heat, and were quite unsuited for a currency.  Yet there\nwere few of the wealthier classes who did not maintain that even these\ncoins were genuine good money, though they were chary of taking them.\nEvery one knew this, so they were seldom offered; but all thought it\nincumbent upon them to retain a good many in their possession, and to let\nthem be seen from time to time in their hands and purses.  Of course\npeople knew their real value exceedingly well; but few, if any, dared to\nsay what that value was; or if they did, it would be only in certain\ncompanies or in writing in the newspapers anonymously.  Strange! there\nwas hardly any insinuation against this coinage which they would not\ntolerate and even applaud in their daily papers; and yet, if the same\nthing were said without ambiguity to their faces--nominative case verb\nand accusative being all in their right places, and doubt impossible--they\nwould consider themselves very seriously and justly outraged, and accuse\nthe speaker of being unwell.\n\nI never could understand, neither can I do so now, why a single currency\nshould not suffice them; it would seem to me as though all their dealings\nwould have been thus greatly simplified; but I was met with a look of\nhorror if ever I dared to hint at it.  Even those who to my certain\nknowledge kept only just enough money at the musical banks to swear by,\nwould call the other banks (where their securities really lay) cold,\ndeadening, paralysing, and the like.  I noticed another thing moreover\nwhich struck me greatly.  I was taken to the opening of one of these\nbanks in a neighbouring town, and saw a large assemblage of cashiers and\nmanagers.  I sat opposite them and scanned their faces attentively.  They\ndid not please me; they lacked, with a few exceptions, the true\nErewhonian frankness; and an equal number from any other class would have\nlooked happier and better men.  When I met them in the streets they did\nnot seem like other people, but had, as a general rule, a cramped\nexpression upon their faces which pained and depressed me.\n\nThose who came from the country were better; they seemed to have lived\nless as a separate class, and to be freer and healthier; but in spite of\nmy seeing not a few whose looks were benign and noble, I could not help\nasking myself concerning the greater number of those whom I met, whether\nErewhon would be a better country if their expression were to be\ntransferred to the people in general.  I answered myself emphatically,\nno.  A man's expression is his sacrament; it is the outward and visible\nsign of his inward and spiritual grace, or, want of grace; and as I\nlooked at the majority of these men, I could not help feeling that there\nmust be a something in their lives which had stunted their natural\ndevelopment, and that they would have been more healthily-minded in any\nother profession.\n\nI was always sorry for them, for in nine cases out of ten they were well-\nmeaning persons; they were in the main very poorly paid; their\nconstitutions were as a rule above suspicion; and there were recorded\nnumberless instances of their self-sacrifice and generosity; but they had\nhad the misfortune to have been betrayed into a false position at an age\nfor the most part when their judgment was not matured, and after having\nbeen kept in studied ignorance of the real difficulties of the system.\nBut this did not make their position the less a false one, and its bad\neffects upon themselves were unmistakable.\n\nFew people would speak quite openly and freely before them, which struck\nme as a very bad sign.  When they were in the room every one would talk\nas though all currency save that of the musical banks should be\nabolished; and yet they knew perfectly well that even the cashiers\nthemselves hardly used the musical bank money more than other people.  It\nwas expected of them that they should appear to do so, but this was all.\nThe less thoughtful of them did not seem particularly unhappy, but many\nwere plainly sick at heart, though perhaps they hardly knew it, and would\nnot have owned to being so.  Some few were opponents of the whole system;\nbut these were liable to be dismissed from their employment at any\nmoment, and this rendered them very careful, for a man who had once been\ncashier at a musical bank was out of the field for other employment, and\nwas generally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treatment which\nwas commonly called his education.  In fact it was a career from which\nretreat was virtually impossible, and into which young men were generally\ninduced to enter before they could be reasonably expected, considering\ntheir training, to have formed any opinions of their own.  Few indeed\nwere those who had the courage to insist on seeing both sides of the\nquestion before they committed themselves to either.  One would have\nthought that this was an elementary principle,--one of the first things\nthat an honourable man would teach his boy to do; but in practice it was\nnot so.\n\nI even saw cases in which parents bought the right of presenting to the\noffice of cashier at one of these banks, with the fixed determination\nthat some one of their sons (perhaps a mere child) should fill it.  There\nwas the lad himself--growing up with every promise of becoming a good and\nhonourable man--but utterly without warning concerning the iron shoe\nwhich his natural protector was providing for him.  Who could say that\nthe whole thing would not end in a life-long lie, and vain chafing to\nescape?\n\nI confess that there were few things in Erewhon which shocked me more\nthan this.\n\n\n\nBIRTH FORMULAE.  (CHAPTER XVII. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nI heard what follows not from Arowhena, but from Mr. Nosnibor and some of\nthe gentlemen who occasionally dined at the house: they told me that the\nErewhonians believe in pre-existence; and not only this (of which I will\nwrite more fully in the next chapter), but they believe that it is of\ntheir own free act and deed in a previous state that people come to be\nborn into this world at all.\n\nThey hold that the unborn are perpetually plaguing and tormenting the\nmarried (and sometimes even the unmarried) of both sexes, fluttering\nabout them incessantly, and giving them no peace either of mind or body\nuntil they have consented to take them under their protection.  If this\nwere not so--this is at least what they urge--it would be a monstrous\nfreedom for one man to take with another, to say that he should undergo\nthe chances and changes of this mortal life without any option in the\nmatter.  No man would have any right to get married at all, inasmuch as\nhe can never tell what misery his doing so may entail forcibly upon his\nchildren who cannot be unhappy as long as they remain unborn.  They feel\nthis so strongly that they are resolved to shift the blame on to other\nshoulders; they have therefore invented a long mythology as to the world\nin which the unborn people live, what they do, and the arts and\nmachinations to which they have recourse in order to get themselves into\nour own world.\n\nI cannot think they seriously believe in this mythology concerning pre-\nexistence; they do and they do not; they do not know themselves what they\nbelieve; all they know is that it is a disease not to believe as they do.\nThe only thing of which they are quite sure is that it is the pestering\nof the unborn, which causes them to be brought into this world, and that\nthey would not be here if they would only let peaceable people alone.\n\nIt would be hard to disprove this position, and they might have a good\ncase if they would only leave it as it stands.  But this they will not\ndo; they must have assurance doubly sure; they must have the written word\nof the child itself as soon as it is born, giving the parents indemnity\nfrom all responsibility on the score of its birth, and asserting its own\npre-existence.  They have therefore devised something which they call a\nbirth formula--a document which varies in words according to the caution\nof parents, but is much the same practically in all cases; for it has\nbeen the business of the Erewhonian lawyers during many ages to exercise\ntheir skill in perfecting it and providing for every contingency.\n\nThese formulae are printed on common paper at a moderate cost for the\npoor; but the rich have them written on parchment and handsomely bound,\nso that the getting up of a person's birth formula is a test of his\nsocial position.  They commence by setting forth, That whereas A. B. was\na member of the kingdom of the unborn, where he was well provided for in\nevery way, and had no cause of discontent, &c. &c., he did of his own\nwanton restlessness conceive a desire to enter into this present world;\nthat thereon having taken the necessary steps as set forth in laws of the\nunborn kingdom, he set himself with malice aforethought to plague and\npester two unfortunate people who had never wronged him, and who were\nquite contented until he conceived this base design against their peace;\nfor which wrong he now humbly entreats their pardon.  He acknowledges\nthat he is responsible for all physical blemishes and deficiencies which\nmay render him answerable to the laws of his country; that his parents\nhave nothing whatever to do with any of these things; and that they have\na right to kill him at once if they be so minded, though he entreats them\nto show their marvellous goodness and clemency towards him by sparing his\nlife.  If they will do this he promises to be their most abject creature\nduring his earlier years, and indeed unto his life's end, unless they\nshould see fit in their abundant generosity to remit some portion of his\nservice hereafter.  And so the formula continues, going sometimes into\nvery minute details, according to the fancies of family lawyers, who will\nnot make it any shorter than they can help.\n\nThe deed being thus prepared, on the third or fourth day after the birth\nof the child, or as they call it, the \"final importunity,\" the friends\ngather together, and there is a feast held, where they are all very\nmelancholy--as a general rule, I believe quite truly so--and make\npresents to the father and mother of the child in order to console them\nfor the injury which has just been done them by the unborn.  By and by\nthe child himself is brought down by his nurse, and the company begin to\nrail upon him, upbraiding him for his impertinence and asking him what\namends he proposes to make for the wrong that he has committed, and how\nhe can look for care and nourishment from those who have perhaps already\nbeen injured by the unborn on some ten or twelve occasions; for they say\nof people with large families, that they have suffered terrible injuries\nfrom the unborn; till at last, when this has been carried far enough,\nsome one suggests the formula, which is brought forth and solemnly read\nto the child by the family straightener.  This gentleman is always\ninvited on these occasions, for the very fact of intrusion into a\npeaceful family shows a depravity on the part of the child which requires\nhis professional services.\n\nOn being teased by the reading and tweaked by the nurse, the child will\ncommonly fall a-crying, which is reckoned a good sign as showing a\nconsciousness of guilt.  He is thereon asked, Does he assent to the\nformula? on which, as he still continues crying and can obviously make no\nanswer, some one of the friends comes forward and undertakes to sign the\ndocument on his behalf, feeling sure (so he says) that the child would do\nit if he only knew how, and that he will release the present signer from\nhis engagement on arriving at maturity.  The friend then inscribes the\nsignature of the child at the foot of the parchment, which is held to\nbind the child as much as though he had signed it himself.  Even this,\nhowever, does not fully content them, for they feel a little uneasy until\nthey have got the child's own signature after all.  So when he is about\nfourteen these good people partly bribe him by promises of greater\nliberty and good things, and partly intimidate him through their great\npower of making themselves passively unpleasant to him, so that though\nthere is a show of freedom made, there is really none, and partly they\nuse the offices of the teachers in the Colleges of Unreason, till at\nlast, in one way or another, they take very good care that he shall sign\nthe paper by which he professes to have been a free agent in coming into\nthe world, and to take all the responsibility of having done so on to his\nown shoulders.  And yet, though this document is in theory the most\nimportant which any one can sign in his whole life, they will have him\ncommit himself to it at an age when neither they nor the law will for\nmany a year allow any one else to bind him to the smallest obligation, no\nmatter how righteously he may owe it, because they hold him too young to\nknow what he is about.\n\nI thought this seemed rather hard, and not of a piece with the many\nadmirable institutions existing among them.  I once ventured to say a\npart of what I thought about it to one of the Professors of Unreason.  I\nasked him whether he did not think it would do serious harm to a lad's\nprinciples, and weaken his sense of the sanctity of his word, and of\ntruth generally, that he should be led into entering upon an engagement\nwhich it was so plainly impossible he should keep even for a single day\nwith tolerable integrity--whether, in fact, the teachers who so led him,\nor who taught anything as a certainty of which they were themselves\nuncertain, were not earning their living by impairing the truth-sense of\ntheir pupils.  The professor, who was a delightful person, seemed\nsurprised at the view I took, and gave me to understand, perhaps justly\nenough, that I ought not to make so much fuss about a trifle.  No one, he\nsaid, expected that the boy either would or could do all that he\nundertook; but the world was full of compromises; and there was hardly\nany engagement which would bear being interpreted literally.  Human\nlanguage was too gross a vehicle of thought--thought being incapable of\nabsolute translation.  He added, that as there can be no translation from\none language into another which shall not scant the meaning somewhat, or\nenlarge upon it, so there is no language which can render thought without\na jarring and a harshness somewhere--and so forth; all of which seemed to\ncome to this in the end, that it was the custom of the country, and that\nthe Erewhonians were a conservative people; that the boy would have to\nbegin compromising sooner or later, and this was part of his education in\nthe art.  It was perhaps to be regretted that compromise should be as\nnecessary as it was; still it was necessary, and the sooner the boy got\nto understand it the better for himself.  But they never tell this to the\nboy.\n\nFrom the book of their mythology about the unborn I made the extracts\nwhich will form the following chapter.\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD OF THE UNBORN.  (PART OF CHAPTER XVII. OF EREWHON.)\n\n\nThe Erewhonians say it was by chance only that the earth and stars and\nall the heavenly worlds began to roll from east to west, and not from\nwest to east, and in like manner they say it is by chance that man is\ndrawn through life with his face to the past instead of to the future.\nFor the future is there as much as the past, only that we may not see it.\nIs it not in the loins of the past, and must not the past alter before\nthe future can do so?\n\nThey have a fable that there was a race of men tried upon the earth once,\nwho knew the future better than the past, but that they died in a\ntwelvemonth from the misery which their knowledge caused them.  They say\nthat if any were to be born too prescient now, he would die miserably,\nbefore he had time to transmit so peace-destroying a faculty to\ndescendants.\n\nStrange fate for man!  He must perish if he get that, which he must\nperish if he strive not after.  If he strive not after it he is no better\nthan the brutes, if he get it he is more miserable than the devils.\n\nHaving waded through many chapters like the above, I came at last to the\nunborn themselves, and found that they were held to be souls pure and\nsimple, having no actual bodies, but living in a sort of gaseous yet more\nor less anthropomorphic existence, like that of a ghost; they have thus\nneither flesh nor blood nor warmth.  Nevertheless they are supposed to\nhave local habitations and cities wherein they dwell, though these are as\nunsubstantial as their inhabitants; they are even thought to eat and\ndrink some thin ambrosial sustenance, and generally to be capable of\ndoing whatever mankind can do, only after a visionary ghostly fashion, as\nin a dream.  On the other hand, as long as they remain where they are\nthey never die--the only form of death in the unborn world being the\nleaving it for our own.  They are believed to be extremely numerous, far\nmore so than mankind.  They arrive from unknown planets, full grown, in\nlarge batches at a time; but they can only leave the unborn world by\ntaking the steps necessary for their arrival here--which is, in fact, by\nsuicide.\n\nThey ought to be a happy people, for they have no extremes of good or ill\nfortune; never marrying, but living in a state much like that fabled by\nthe poets as the primitive condition of mankind.  In spite of this,\nhowever, they are incessantly complaining; they know that we in this\nworld have bodies, and indeed they know everything else about us, for\nthey move among us whithersoever they will, and can read our thoughts, as\nwell as survey our actions at pleasure.  One would think that this should\nbe enough for them; and indeed most of them are alive to the desperate\nrisk which they will run by indulging themselves in that body with\n\"sensible warm motion\" which they so much desire; nevertheless, there are\nsome to whom the _ennui_ of a disembodied existence is so intolerable\nthat they will venture anything for a change; so they resolve to quit.\nThe conditions which they must accept are so uncertain, that none but the\nmost foolish of the unborn will consent to take them; and it is from\nthese and these only that our own ranks are recruited.\n\nWhen they have finally made up their minds to leave, they must go before\nthe magistrate of the nearest town and sign an affidavit of their desire\nto quit their then existence.  On their having done this, the magistrate\nreads them the conditions which they must accept, and which are so long\nthat I can only extract some of the principal points, which are mainly\nthe following:--\n\nFirst, they must take a potion which will destroy their memory and sense\nof identity; they must go into the world helpless, and without a will of\ntheir own; they must draw lots for their dispositions before they go, and\ntake it, such as it is, for better or worse--neither are they to be\nallowed any choice in the matter of the body which they so much desire;\nthey are simply allotted by chance, and without appeal, to two people\nwhom it is their business to find and pester until they adopt them.  Who\nthese are to be, whether rich or poor, kind or unkind, healthy or\ndiseased, there is no knowing; they have, in fact, to entrust themselves\nfor many years to the care of those for whose good constitution and good\nsense they have no sort of guarantee.\n\nIt is curious to read the lectures which the wiser heads give to those\nwho are meditating a change.  They talk with them as we talk with a\nspendthrift, and with about as much success.\n\n\"To be born,\" they say, \"is a felony--it is a capital crime, for which\nsentence may be executed at any moment after the commission of the\noffence.  You may perhaps happen to live for some seventy or eighty\nyears, but what is that, in comparison with the eternity which you now\nenjoy?  And even though the sentence were commuted, and you were allowed\nto live for ever, you would in time become so terribly weary of life that\nexecution would be the greatest mercy to you.  Consider the infinite\nrisk; to be born of wicked parents and trained in vice! to be born of\nsilly parents, and trained to unrealities! of parents who regard you as a\nsort of chattel or property, belonging more to them than to yourself!\nAgain, you may draw utterly unsympathetic parents, who will never be able\nto understand you, and who will thwart you as long as they can to the\nutmost of their power (as a hen when she has hatched a duckling), and\nthen call you ungrateful because you do not love them, or parents who may\nlook upon you as a thing to be cowed while it is still young, lest it\nshould give them trouble hereafter by having wishes and feelings of its\nown.\n\n\"In later life, when you have been finally allowed to pass muster as a\nfull member of the world, you will yourself become liable to the\npesterings of the unborn--and a very happy life you may be led in\nconsequence!  For we solicit so strongly that a few only--nor these the\nbest--can refuse us; and yet not to refuse is much the same as going into\npartnership with half a dozen different people about whom one can know\nabsolutely nothing beforehand--not even whether one is going into\npartnership with men or women, nor with how many of either.  Delude not\nyourself with thinking that you will be wiser than your parents.  You may\nbe an age in advance of _them_, but unless you are one of the great ones\n(and if you are one of the great ones, woe betide you), you will still be\nan age behind your children.\n\n\"Imagine what it must be to have an unborn quartered upon you, who is of\na different temperament to your own; nay, half a dozen such, who will not\nlove you though you may tell them that you have stinted yourself in a\nthousand ways to provide for their well-being,--who will forget all that\nself-sacrifice of which you are yourself so conscious, and of whom you\nmay never be sure that they are not bearing a grudge against you for\nerrors of judgment into which you may have fallen, but which you had\nhoped had been long since atoned for.  Ingratitude such as this is not\nuncommon, yet fancy what it must be to bear!  It is hard upon the\nduckling to have been hatched by a hen, but is it not also hard upon the\nhen to have hatched the duckling?\n\n\"Consider it again, we pray you, not for our sake but for your own.  Your\ninitial character you must draw by lot; but whatever it is, it can only\ncome to a tolerably successful development after long training; remember\nthat over that training you will have no control.  It is possible, and\neven probable, that whatever you may get in after life which is of real\npleasure and service to you, will have to be won in spite of, rather than\nby the help of, those whom you are now about to pester, and that you will\nonly win your freedom after years of a painful struggle, in which it will\nbe hard to say whether you have suffered most injury, or inflicted it.\n\n\"Remember also, that if you go into the world you will have free will;\nthat you will be obliged to have it, that there is no escaping it, that\nyou will be fettered to it during your whole life, and must on every\noccasion do that which on the whole seems best to you at any given time,\nno matter whether you are right or wrong in choosing it.  Your mind will\nbe a balance for considerations, and your action will go with the heavier\nscale.  How it shall fall will depend upon the kind of scales which you\nmay have drawn at birth, the bias which they will have obtained by use,\nand the weight of the immediate considerations.  If the scales were good\nto start with, and if they have not been outrageously tampered with in\nchildhood, and if the combinations into which you enter are average ones,\nyou may come off well; but there are too many \"ifs\" in this, and with the\nfailure of any one of them your misery is assured.  Reflect on this, and\nremember that should the ill come upon you, you will have yourself to\nthank, for it is your own choice to be born, and there is no compulsion\nin the matter.\n\n\"Not that we deny the existence of pleasures among mankind; there is a\ncertain show of sundry phases of contentment which may even amount to\nvery considerable happiness; but mark how they are distributed over a\nman's life, belonging, all the keenest of them, to the fore part, and few\nindeed to the after.  Can there be any pleasure worth purchasing with the\nmiseries of a decrepit age?  If you are good, strong, and handsome, you\nhave a fine fortune indeed at twenty, but how much of it will be left at\nsixty?  For you must live on your capital; there is no investing your\npowers so that you may get a small annuity of life for ever: you must eat\nup your principal bit by bit and be tortured by seeing it grow\ncontinually smaller and smaller, even though you happen to escape being\nrudely robbed of it by crime or casualty.  Remember, too, that there\nnever yet was a man of forty who would not come back into the world of\nthe unborn if he could do so with decency and honour.  Being in the\nworld, he will as a general rule stay till he is forced to go; but do you\nthink that he would consent to be born again, and re-live his life, if he\nhad the offer of doing so?  Do not think it.  If he could so alter the\npast as that he should never have come into being at all, do you not\nthink that he would do it very gladly?  What was it that one of their own\npoets meant, if it was not this, when he cried out upon the day in which\nhe was born, and the night in which it was said there is a man child\nconceived?  'For now,' he says, 'I should have lain still and been quiet,\nI should have slept; then had I been at rest with kings and counsellors\nof the earth, which built desolate places for themselves; or with princes\nthat had gold, who filled their houses with silver; or as an hidden\nuntimely birth, I had not been; as infants which never saw light.  There\nthe wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.'  Be very\nsure that the guilt of being born carries this punishment at times to all\nmen; but how can they ask for pity, or complain of any mischief that may\nbefall them, having entered open-eyed into the snare?\n\n\"One word more and we have done.  If any faint remembrance, as of a\ndream, flit in some puzzled moment across your brain, and you shall feel\nthat the potion which is to be given you shall not have done its work,\nand the memory of this existence which you are leaving endeavours vainly\nto return; we say in such a moment, when you clutch at the dream but it\neludes your grasp, and you watch it, as Orpheus watched Eurydice, gliding\nback again into the twilight kingdom, fly--fly--if you can remember the\nadvice--to the haven of your present and immediate duty, taking shelter\nincessantly in the work which you have in hand.  This much you may\nperhaps recall; and this, if you will imprint it deeply upon your every\nfaculty, will be most likely to bring you safely and honourably home\nthrough the trials that are before you.\" {47}\n\nThis is the fashion in which they reason with those who would be for\nleaving them, but it is seldom that they do much good, for none but the\nunquiet and unreasonable ever think of being born, and those who are\nfoolish enough to think of it are generally foolish enough to do it.\nFinding therefore that they can do no more, the friends follow weeping to\nthe courthouse of the chief magistrate, where the one who wishes to be\nborn declares solemnly and openly that he accepts the conditions attached\nto his decision.  On this he is presented with the potion, which\nimmediately destroys his memory and sense of identity, and dissipates the\nthin gaseous tenement which he has inhabited: he becomes a bare vital\nprinciple, not to be perceived by human senses, nor appreciated by any\nchemical test.  He has but one instinct, which is that he is to go to\nsuch and such a place, where he will find two persons whom he is to\nimportune till they consent to undertake him; but whether he is to find\nthese persons among the race of Chowbok or the Erewhonians themselves is\nnot for him to choose.\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM THE FAIR HAVEN.\n\n\nMEMOIR OF THE LATE JOHN PICKARD OWEN.  (CHAPTER I. OF THE FAIR HAVEN.)\n{48}\n\n\nThe subject of this memoir, and author of the work which follows it, was\nborn in Goodge Street, Tottenham Court Road, London, on the 5th of\nFebruary 1832.  He was my elder brother by about eighteen months.  Our\nfather and mother had once been rich, but through a succession of\nunavoidable misfortunes they were left with but a slender income when my\nbrother and myself were about three and four years old.  My father died\nsome five or six years afterwards, and we only recollected him as a\nsingularly gentle and humorous playmate who doted upon us both and never\nspoke unkindly.\n\nThe charm of such a recollection can never be dispelled; both my brother\nand myself returned his love with interest, and cherished his memory with\nthe most affectionate regret, from the day on which he left us till the\ntime came that the one of us was again to see him face to face.  So sweet\nand winning was his nature that his slightest wish was our law--and\nwhenever we pleased him, no matter how little, he never failed to thank\nus as though we had done him a service which we should have had a perfect\nright to withhold.  How proud were we upon any of these occasions, and\nhow we courted the opportunity of being thanked!  He did indeed well know\nthe art of becoming idolised by his children, and dearly did he prize the\nresults of his own proficiency; yet truly there was no art about it; all\narose spontaneously from the well-spring of a sympathetic nature which\nwas quick to feel as others felt, whether old or young, rich or poor,\nwise or foolish.  On one point alone did he neglect us--I refer to our\nreligious education.  On all other matters he was the kindest and most\ncareful teacher in the world.  Love and gratitude be to his memory!\n\nMy mother loved us no less ardently than my father, but she was of a\nquicker temper, and less adept at conciliating affection.  She must have\nbeen exceedingly handsome when she was young, and was still comely when\nwe first remembered her; she was also highly accomplished, but she felt\nmy father's loss of fortune more keenly than my father himself, and it\npreyed upon her mind, though rather for our sake than for her own.  Had\nwe not known my father we should have loved her better than any one in\nthe world, but affection goes by comparison, and my father spoiled us for\nany one but himself; indeed, in after life, I remember my mother's\ntelling me, with many tears, how jealous she had often been of the love\nwe bore him, and how mean she had thought it of him to entrust all\nscolding or repression to her, so that he might have more than his due\nshare of our affection.  Not that I believe my father did this\nconsciously; still, he so greatly hated scolding that I dare say we might\noften have got off scot-free when we really deserved reproof had not my\nmother undertaken the _onus_ of scolding us herself.  We therefore\nnaturally feared her more than my father, and fearing more we loved less.\nFor as love casteth out fear, so fear love.\n\nThis must have been hard to bear, and my mother scarcely knew the way to\nbear it.  She tried to upbraid us, in little ways, into loving her as\nmuch as my father; the more she tried this, the less we could succeed in\ndoing it; and so on and so on in a fashion which need not be detailed.\nNot but what we really loved her deeply, while her affection for us was\ninsurpassable; still we loved her less than we loved my father, and this\nwas the grievance.\n\nMy father entrusted our religious education entirely to my mother.  He\nwas himself, I am assured, of a deeply religious turn of mind, and a\nthoroughly consistent member of the Church of England; but he conceived,\nand perhaps rightly, that it is the mother who should first teach her\nchildren to lift their hands in prayer, and impart to them a knowledge of\nthe One in whom we live and move and have our being.  My mother accepted\nthe task gladly, for in spite of a certain narrowness of view--the\nnatural but deplorable result of her earlier surroundings--she was one of\nthe most truly pious women whom I have ever known; unfortunately for\nherself and us she had been trained in the lowest school of Evangelical\nliteralism--a school which in after life both my brother and myself came\nto regard as the main obstacle to the complete overthrow of unbelief; we\ntherefore looked upon it with something stronger than aversion, and for\nmy own part I still deem it perhaps the most insidious enemy which the\ncause of Christ has ever encountered.  But of this more hereafter.\n\nMy mother, as I said, threw her whole soul into the work of our religious\neducation.  Whatever she believed she believed literally, and, if I may\nsay so, with a harshness of realisation which left little scope for\nimagination or mystery.  Her ideas concerning heaven and her solutions of\nlife's enigmas were clear and simple, but they could only be reconciled\nwith certain obvious facts--such as the omnipotence and all-goodness of\nGod--by leaving many things absolutely out of sight.  And this my mother\nsucceeded effectually in doing.  She never doubted that her opinions\ncomprised the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; she\ntherefore made haste to sow the good seed in our tender minds, and so far\nsucceeded that when my brother was four years old he could repeat the\nApostles' Creed, the general confession, and the Lord's Prayer without a\nblunder.  My mother made herself believe that he delighted in them; but,\nalas! it was far otherwise; for strange as it may appear concerning one\nwhose later life was a continual prayer, in childhood he detested nothing\nso much as being made to pray, and to learn his catechism.  In this I am\nsorry to say we were both heartily of a mind.  As for Sunday the less\nsaid the better.\n\nI have already hinted (but as a warning to other parents had better,\nperhaps, express myself more plainly) that this aversion was probably the\nresult of my mother's undue eagerness to reap an artificial fruit of lip-\nservice, which could have little meaning to the heart of one so young.  I\nbelieve that the severe check which the natural growth of faith\nexperienced in my brother's case was due almost entirely to this cause,\nand to the school of literalism in which he had been trained; but,\nhowever this may be, we both of us hated being made to say our prayers.\nMorning and evening it was our one bugbear, and we would avoid it, as\nindeed children generally will, by every artifice which we could employ.\n\nThus we were in the habit of feigning to be asleep shortly before prayer\ntime, and would gratefully hear my father tell my mother that it was a\nshame to wake us; whereon he would carry us up to bed in a state\napparently of the profoundest slumber when we were really wide awake and\nin great fear of detection.  For we knew how to pretend to be asleep, but\nwe did not know how we ought to wake again; there was nothing for it\ntherefore when we were once committed, but to go on sleeping till we were\nfairly undressed and put to bed, and could wake up safely in the dark.\nBut deceit is never long successful, and we were at last ignominiously\nexposed.\n\nIt happened one evening that my mother suspected my brother John, and\ntried to open his little hands which were lying clasped in front of him.\nNow my brother was as yet very crude and inconsistent in his theories\nconcerning sleep, and had no conception what a real sleeper would do\nunder these circumstances.  Fear deprived him of his powers of\nreflection, and he thus unfortunately concluded that because sleepers, so\nfar as he had observed them, were always motionless, therefore they must\nbe rigid and incapable of motion; and indeed that any movement, under any\ncircumstances (for from his earliest childhood he liked to carry his\ntheories to their legitimate conclusion), would be physically impossible\nfor one who was really sleeping; forgetful, oh! unhappy one, of the\nflexibility of his own body on being carried up stairs, and, more unhappy\nstill, ignorant of the art of waking.  He therefore clenched his fingers\nharder and harder as he felt my mother trying to unfold them, while his\nhead hung listless, and his eyes were closed as though he were sleeping\nsweetly.  It is needless to detail the agony of shame that followed.  My\nmother begged my father to box his ears, which my father flatly refused\nto do.  Then she boxed them herself, and there followed a scene, and a\nday or two of disgrace for both of us.\n\nShortly after this there happened another misadventure.  A lady came to\nstay with my mother, and was to sleep in a bed that had been brought into\nour nursery, for my father's fortunes had already failed, and we were\nliving in a humble way.  We were still but four and five years old, so\nthe arrangement was not unnatural, and it was assumed that we should be\nasleep before the lady went to bed, and be down stairs before she would\nget up in the morning.  But the arrival of this lady and her being put to\nsleep in the nursery were great events to us in those days, and being\nparticularly wanted to go to sleep, we of course sat up in bed talking\nand keeping ourselves awake till she should come up stairs.  Perhaps we\nhad fancied that she would give us something, but if so we were\ndisappointed.  However, whether this was the case or not, we were wide\nawake when our visitor came to bed, and having no particular object to\ngain, we made no pretence of sleeping.  The lady kissed us both, told us\nto lie still and go to sleep like good children, and then began doing her\nhair.\n\nI remember this was the occasion on which my brother discovered a good\nmany things in connection with the fair sex which had hitherto been\nbeyond his ken; more especially that the mass of petticoats and clothes\nwhich envelop the female form were not, as he expressed it to me, \"all\nsolid woman,\" but that women were not in reality more substantially built\nthan men, and had legs as much as he had--a fact which he had never yet\nrealised.  On this he for a long time considered them as impostors, who\nhad wronged him by leading him to suppose that they had far more \"body in\nthem\" (so he said) than he now found they had.\n\nThis was a sort of thing which he regarded with stern moral reprobation.\nIf he had been old enough to have a solicitor I believe he would have put\nthe matter into his hands, as well as certain other things which had\nlately troubled him.  For but recently my mother had bought a fowl, and\nhe had seen it plucked, and the inside taken out; his irritation had been\nextreme on discovering that fowls were not all solid flesh, but that\ntheir insides--and these formed, as it appeared to him, an enormous\npercentage of the bird--were perfectly useless.  He was now beginning to\nunderstand that sheep and cows were also hollow as far as good meat was\nconcerned; the flesh they had was only a mouthful in comparison with what\nthey ought to have considering their apparent bulk: insignificant, mere\nskin and bone covering a cavern.  What right had they, or anything else,\nto assert themselves as so big, and prove so empty?  And now this\ndiscovery of woman's falsehood was quite too much for him.  The world\nitself was hollow, made up of shams and delusions, full of sound and fury\nsignifying nothing.\n\nTruly a prosaic young gentleman enough.  Everything with him was to be\nexactly in all its parts what it appeared on the face of it, and\neverything was to go on doing exactly what it had been doing hitherto.  If\na thing looked solid, it was to be very solid; if hollow, very hollow;\nnothing was to be half and half, and nothing was to change unless he had\nhimself already become accustomed to its times and manners of changing;\nthere were to be no exceptions and no contradictions; all things were to\nbe perfectly consistent, and all premisses to be carried with extremest\nrigour to their legitimate conclusions.  Heaven was to be very neat (for\nhe was always tidy himself), and free from sudden shocks to the nervous\nsystem, such as those caused by dogs barking at him, or cows driven in\nthe streets.  God was to resemble my father, and the Holy Spirit to bear\nsome sort of indistinct analogy to my mother.\n\nSuch were the ideal theories of his childhood--unconsciously formed, but\nvery firmly believed in.  As he grew up he made such modifications as\nwere forced upon him by enlarged perceptions, but every modification was\nan effort to him, in spite of a continual and successful resistance to\nwhat he recognised as his initial mental defect.\n\nI may perhaps be allowed to say here, in reference to a remark in the\npreceding paragraph, that both my brother and myself used to notice it as\nan almost invariable rule that children's earliest ideas of God are\nmodelled upon the character of their father--if they have one.  Should\nthe father be kind, considerate, full of the warmest love, fond of\nshowing it, and reserved only about his displeasure, the child, having\nlearned to look upon God as his Heavenly Father through the Lord's Prayer\nand our Church Services, will feel towards God as he does towards his own\nfather; this conception will stick to a man for years and years after he\nhas attained manhood--probably it will never leave him.  On the other\nhand, if a man has found his earthly father harsh and uncongenial, his\nconception of his Heavenly Parent will be painful.  He will begin by\nseeing God as an exaggerated likeness of his father.  He will therefore\nshrink from Him.  The rottenness of still-born love in the heart of a\nchild poisons the blood of the soul, and hence, later, crime.\n\nTo return, however, to the lady.  When she had put on her night-gown, she\nknelt down by her bed-side and, to our consternation, began to say her\nprayers.  This was a cruel blow to both of us; we had always been under\nthe impression that grown-up people were not made to say their prayers,\nand the idea of any one saying them of his or her own accord had never\noccurred to us as possible.  Of course the lady would not say her prayers\nif she were not obliged; and yet she did say them; therefore she must be\nobliged to say them; therefore we should be obliged to say them, and this\nwas a great disappointment.  Awe-struck and open-mouthed we listened\nwhile the lady prayed aloud and with a good deal of pathos for many\nvirtues and blessings which I do not now remember, and finally for my\nfather and mother and for both of us--shortly afterwards she rose, blew\nout the light and got into bed.  Every word that she said had confirmed\nour worst apprehensions: it was just what we had been taught to say\nourselves.\n\nNext morning we compared notes and drew some painful inferences; but in\nthe course of the day our spirits rallied.  We agreed that there were\nmany mysteries in connection with life and things which it was high time\nto unravel, and that an opportunity was now afforded us which might not\nreadily occur again.  All we had to do was to be true to ourselves and\nequal to the occasion.  We laid our plans with great astuteness.  We\nwould be fast asleep when the lady came up to bed, but our heads should\nbe turned in the direction of her bed, and covered with clothes, all but\na single peep-hole.  My brother, as the eldest, had clearly a right to be\nnearest the lady, but I could see sufficiently, and could depend on his\nreporting faithfully whatever should escape me.\n\nThere was no chance of her giving us anything--if she had meant to do so\nshe would have done it sooner; she might, indeed, consider the moment of\nher departure as the most auspicious for this purpose, but then she was\nnot going yet, and the interval was at our own disposal.  We spent the\nafternoon in trying to learn to snore, but we were not certain about it,\nand in the end concluded that as snoring was not _de rigueur_ we had\nbetter dispense with it.\n\nWe were put to bed; the light was taken away; we were told to go to\nsleep, and promised faithfully that we would do so; the tongue indeed\nswore, but the mind was unsworn.  It was agreed that we should keep\npinching one another to prevent our going to sleep.  We did so at\nfrequent intervals; at last our patience was rewarded with the heavy\ncreak, as of a stout elderly lady labouring up the stairs, and presently\nour victim entered.\n\nTo cut a long story short, the lady on satisfying herself that we were\nasleep, never said her prayers at all; during the remainder of her visit\nwhenever she found us awake she always said them, but when she thought we\nwere asleep, she never prayed.  I should perhaps say that we had the\nmatter out with her before she left, and that the consequences were\nunpleasant for all parties; they added to the troubles in which we were\nalready involved as to our prayers, and were indirectly among the\nearliest causes which led my brother to look with scepticism upon\nreligion.\n\nFor awhile, however, all went on as though nothing had happened.  An\neffect of distrust, indeed, remained after the cause had been forgotten,\nbut my brother was still too young to oppose anything that my mother told\nhim, and to all outward appearance he grew in grace no less rapidly than\nin stature.\n\nFor years we led a quiet and eventless life, broken only by the one great\nsorrow of our father's death.  Shortly after this we were sent to a day\nschool in Bloomsbury.  We were neither of us very happy there, but my\nbrother, who always took kindly to his books, picked up a fair knowledge\nof Latin and Greek; he also learned to draw, and to exercise himself a\nlittle in English composition.  When I was about fourteen my mother\ncapitalised a part of her income and started me off to America, where she\nhad friends who could give me a helping hand; by their kindness I was\nenabled, after an absence of twenty years, to return with a handsome\nincome, but not, alas! before the death of my mother.\n\nUp to the time of my departure my mother continued to read the Bible with\nus and explain it.  She had become enamoured of those millenarian\nopinions which laid hold of so many some twenty-five or thirty years ago.\nThe Apocalypse was perhaps her favourite book in the Bible, and she was\nimbued with a conviction that all the many and varied horrors with which\nit teems were upon the eve of their accomplishment.  The year eighteen\nhundred and forty-eight was to be (as indeed it was) a time of general\nbloodshed and confusion, while in eighteen hundred and sixty-six, should\nit please God to spare her, her eyes would be gladdened by the visible\ndescent of the Son of Man with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel,\nwith the trump of God, and the dead in Christ should rise first; then\nshe, as one of them that were alive, would be caught up with other saints\ninto the air, and would possibly receive while rising some distinguishing\ntoken of confidence and approbation which should fall with due\nimpressiveness upon the surrounding multitude; then would come the\nconsummation of all things, and she would be ever with the Lord.  She\ndied peaceably in her bed before she could know that a commercial panic\nwas the nearest approach to the fulfilment of prophecy which the year\neighteen hundred and sixty-six brought forth.\n\nThese opinions of my mother's injured her naturally healthy and vigorous\nmind by leading her to indulge in all manner of dreamy and fanciful\ninterpretations of Scripture, which any but the most narrow literalist\nwould feel at once to be untenable.  Thus several times she expressed to\nus her conviction that my brother and myself were to be the two witnesses\nmentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Book of Revelation, and dilated\nupon the gratification she should experience upon finding that we had\nindeed been reserved for a position of such distinction.  We were as yet\nmere children, and naturally took all for granted that our mother told\nus; we therefore made a careful examination of the passage which threw\nlight upon our future.  On finding that the prospect was gloomy and full\nof bloodshed we protested against the honours which were intended for us,\nmore especially when we reflected that the mother of the two witnesses\nwas not menaced in Scripture with any particular discomfort.  If we were\nto be martyrs, my mother ought to wish to be a martyr too, whereas\nnothing was farther from her intention.  Her notion clearly was that we\nwere to be massacred somewhere in the streets of London, in consequence\nof the anti-Christian machinations of the Pope; that after lying about\nunburied for three days and a half we were to come to life again; and\nfinally, that we should conspicuously ascend to heaven, in front,\nperhaps, of the Foundling Hospital.\n\nShe was not herself indeed to share either our martyrdom or our\nglorification, but was to survive us many years on earth, living in an\nodour of great sanctity and reflected splendour, as the central and most\naugust figure in a select society.  She would perhaps be able indirectly,\nthrough her sons' influence with the Almighty, to have a voice in most of\nthe arrangements both of this world and of the next.  If all this were to\ncome true (and things seemed very like it), those friends who had\nneglected us in our adversity would not find it too easy to be restored\nto favour, however greatly they might desire it--that is to say, they\nwould not have found it too easy in the case of one less magnanimous and\nspiritually-minded than herself.  My mother said but little of the above\ndirectly, but the fragments which occasionally escaped her were pregnant,\nand on looking back it is easy to perceive that she must have been\nbuilding one of the most stupendous aerial fabrics that have ever been\nreared.\n\nI have given the above in its more amusing aspect, and am half afraid\nthat I may appear to be making a jest of weakness on the part of one of\nthe most devotedly unselfish mothers who have ever existed.  But one can\nlove while smiling, and the very wildness of my mother's dream serves to\nshow how entirely her whole soul was occupied with the things which are\nabove.  To her, religion was all in all; the earth was but a place of\npilgrimage--only so far important as it was a possible road to heaven.\nShe impressed this upon both of us by every word and action--instant in\nseason and out of season, so that she might but fill us more deeply with\na sense of the things belonging to our peace.\n\nBut the inevitable consequences happened; my mother had aimed too high\nand had overshot her mark.  The influence indeed of her guileless and\nunworldly nature remained impressed upon my brother even during the time\nof his extremest unbelief (perhaps his ultimate safety is in the main\nreferable to this cause, and to the happy memories of my father, which\nhad predisposed him to love God), but my mother had insisted on the most\nminute verbal accuracy of every part of the Bible; she had also dwelt\nupon the duty of independent research, and on the necessity of giving up\neverything rather than assent to things which our conscience did not\nassent to.  No one could have more effectually taught us to try _to\nthink_ the truth, and we had taken her at her word because our hearts\ntold us that she was right.  But she required three incompatible things.\nWhen my brother grew older he came to feel that independent and\nunflinching examination, with a determination to abide by the results,\nwould lead him to reject the point which to my mother was more important\nthan any other--I mean the absolute accuracy of the Gospel records.  My\nmother was inexpressibly shocked at hearing my brother doubt the\nauthenticity of the Epistle to the Hebrews; and then, as it appeared to\nhim, she tried to make him violate the duties of examination and candour\nwhich he had learnt too thoroughly to unlearn.  Thereon came pain and an\nestrangement which was none the less profound for being mutually\nconcealed.  It seemed to my mother that he would not give up the\nwilfulness of his own opinions for her and for his Redeemer's sake.  To\nhim it seemed that he was ready to give up not only his mother but Christ\nHimself for Christ's sake.\n\nThis estrangement was the gradual work of some five or six years, during\nwhich my brother was between eleven and seventeen years old.  At\nseventeen, I am told that he was remarkably well informed and clever.  His\nmanners were, like my father's, singularly genial, and his appearance\nvery prepossessing.  He had as yet no doubt concerning the soundness of\nany fundamental Christian doctrine, but his mind was already too active\nto allow of his being contented with my mother's childlike faith.  There\nwere points on which he did not indeed doubt, but which it would none the\nless be interesting to consider; such for example as the perfectibility\nof the regenerate Christian, and the meaning of the mysterious central\nchapters of the Epistle to the Romans.  He was engaged in these\nresearches though still only a boy, when an event occurred which gave the\nfirst real shock to his faith.\n\nHe was accustomed to teach in a school for the poorest children every\nSunday afternoon, a task for which his patience and good temper well\nfitted him.  On one occasion, however, while he was explaining the effect\nof baptism to one of his favourite pupils, he discovered to his great\nsurprise that the boy had never been baptized.  He pushed his inquiries\nfurther, and found that out of the fifteen boys in his class only five\nhad been baptized, and, not only so, but that no difference in\ndisposition or conduct could be discovered between the regenerate boys\nand the unregenerate.  The good and bad boys were distributed in\nproportions equal to the respective numbers of the baptized and\nunbaptized.  In spite of a certain impetuosity of natural character, he\nwas also of a matter-of-fact and experimental turn of mind; he therefore\nwent through the whole school, which numbered about a hundred boys, and\nfound out who had been baptized and who had not.  The same results\nappeared.  The majority had not been baptized; yet the good and bad\ndispositions were so distributed as to preclude all possibility of\nmaintaining that the baptized boys were better than the unbaptized.\n\nThe reader may smile at the idea of any one's faith being troubled by a\nfact of which the explanation is so obvious, but as a matter of fact my\nbrother was seriously and painfully shocked.  The teacher to whom he\napplied for a solution of the difficulty was not a man of any real power,\nand reported my brother to the rector for having disturbed the school by\nhis inquiries.  The rector was old and self-opinionated; the difficulty,\nindeed, was plainly as new to him as it had been to my brother, but\ninstead of saying so at once, and referring to any recognised theological\nauthority, he tried to put him off with words which seemed intended to\nsilence him rather than to satisfy him; finally he lost his temper, and\nmy brother fell under suspicion of unorthodoxy.\n\nThis kind of treatment did not answer with my brother.  He alludes to it\nresentfully in the introductory chapter of his book.  He became\nsuspicious that a preconceived opinion was being defended at the expense\nof honest scrutiny, and was thus driven upon his own unaided\ninvestigation.  The result may be guessed: he began to go astray, and\nstrayed further and further.  The children of God, he reasoned, the\nmembers of Christ and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, were no more\nspiritually minded than the children of the world and the devil.  Was\nthen the grace of God a gift which left no trace whatever upon those who\nwere possessed of it?  A thing the presence or absence of which might be\nascertained by consulting the parish registry, but was not discernible in\nconduct?  The grace of man was more clearly perceptible than this.\nAssuredly there must be a screw loose somewhere, which, for aught he\nknew, might be jeopardising the salvation of all Christendom.  Where then\nwas this loose screw to be found?\n\nHe concluded after some months of reflection that the mischief was caused\nby the system of sponsors and by infant baptism.  He, therefore, to my\nmother's inexpressible grief, joined the Baptists, and was immersed in a\npond near Dorking.  With the Baptists he remained quiet about three\nmonths, and then began to quarrel with his instructors as to their\ndoctrine of predestination.  Shortly afterwards he came accidentally upon\na fascinating stranger who was no less struck with my brother than my\nbrother with him, and this gentleman, who turned out to be a Roman\nCatholic missionary, landed him in the Church of Rome, where he felt sure\nthat he had now found rest for his soul.  But here, too, he was mistaken;\nafter about two years he rebelled against the stifling of all free\ninquiry; on this rebellion the flood-gates of scepticism were opened, and\nhe was soon battling with unbelief.  He then fell in with one who was a\npure Deist, and was shorn of every shred of dogma which he had ever held,\nexcept a belief in the personality and providence of the Creator.\n\nOn reviewing his letters written to me about this time, I am painfully\nstruck with the manner in which they show that all these pitiable\nvagaries were to be traced to a single cause--a cause which still exists\nto the misleading of hundreds of thousands, and which, I fear, seems\nlikely to continue in full force for many a year to come--I mean, to a\nfalse system of training which teaches people to regard Christianity as a\nthing one and indivisible, to be accepted entirely in the strictest\nreading of the letter, or to be rejected as absolutely untrue.  The fact\nis, that all permanent truth is as one of those coal measures, a seam of\nwhich lies near the surface, and even crops up above the ground, but\nwhich is generally of an inferior quality and soon worked out; beneath it\nthere comes a labour of sand and clay, and then at last the true seam of\nprecious quality, and in virtually inexhaustible supply.  The truth which\nis on the surface is rarely the whole truth.  It is seldom until this has\nbeen worked out and done with--as in the case of the apparent flatness of\nthe earth--that unchangeable truth is discovered.  It is the glory of the\nLord to conceal a matter: it is the glory of the king to find it out.  If\nmy brother, from whom I have taken the above illustration, had had some\njudicious and wide-minded friend, to correct and supplement the mainly\nadmirable principles which had been instilled into him by my mother, he\nwould have been saved years of spiritual wandering; but, as it was, he\nfell in with one after another, each in his own way as literal and\nunspiritual as the other--each impressed with one aspect of religious\ntruth, and with one only.  In the end he became perhaps the widest-minded\nand most original thinker whom I have ever met; but no one from his early\nmanhood could have augured this result; on the contrary, he showed every\nsign of being likely to develop into one of those who can never see more\nthan one side of a question at a time, in spite of their seeing that side\nwith singular clearness of mental vision.  In after life, he often met\nwith mere lads who seemed to him to be years and years in advance of what\nhe had been at their age, and would say, smiling, \"With a great sum\nobtained I this freedom; but thou wast free-born.\"\n\nYet when one comes to think of it, a late development and laborious\ngrowth are generally more fruitful than those which are over early\nluxuriant.  Drawing an illustration from the art of painting, with which\nhe was well acquainted, my brother used to say that all the greatest\npainters had begun with a hard and precise manner, from which they had\nonly broken after several years of effort; and that in like manner all\nthe early schools were founded upon definiteness of outline to the\nexclusion of truth of effect.  This may be true; but in my brother's case\nthere was something even more unpromising than this; there was a\ncommonness, so to speak, of mental execution, from which no one could\nhave foreseen his after-emancipation.  Yet in the course of time he was\nindeed emancipated to the very uttermost, while his bonds will, I firmly\ntrust, be found to have been of inestimable service to the whole human\nrace.\n\nFor although it was so many years before he was enabled to see the\nChristian scheme _as a whole_, or even to conceive the idea that there\nwas any whole at all, other than each one of the stages of opinion\nthrough which he was at the time passing; yet when the idea was at length\npresented to him by one whom I must not name, the discarded fragments of\nhis faith assumed shape, and formed themselves into a consistently\norganised scheme.  Then became apparent the value of his knowledge of the\ndetails of so many different sides of Christian verity.  Buried in the\ndetails, he had hitherto ignored the fact that they were only the\nunessential developments of certain component parts.  Awakening to the\nperception of the whole after an intimate acquaintance with the details,\nhe was able to realise the position and meaning of all that he had\nhitherto experienced in a way which has been vouchsafed to few, if any\nothers.  Thus he became truly a broad Churchman.  Not broad in the\nordinary and ill-considered use of the term (for the broad Churchman is\nas little able to sympathise with Romanists, extreme High Churchmen and\nDissenters, as these are with himself--he is only one of a sect which is\ncalled by the name of broad, though it is no broader than its own base),\nbut in the true sense of being able to believe in the naturalness,\nlegitimacy, and truth _qua_ Christianity even of those doctrines which\nseem to stand most widely and irreconcilably asunder.\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM LIFE AND HABIT.\n\n\nON CERTAIN ACQUIRED HABITS.  (FROM CHAPTER I. OF LIFE AND HABIT.) {68}\n\n\nIt will be our business in the following chapters to consider whether the\nunconsciousness, or quasi-unconsciousness, with which we perform certain\nacquired actions, throws any light upon Embryology and inherited\ninstincts, and otherwise to follow the train of thought which the class\nof actions above mentioned may suggest.  More especially I propose to\nconsider them in so far as they bear upon the origin of species and the\ncontinuation of life by successive generations, whether in the animal or\nvegetable kingdoms.\n\nTaking then, the art of playing the piano as an example of the kind of\naction we are in search of, we observe that a practised player will\nperform very difficult pieces apparently without effort, often, indeed,\nwhile thinking and talking of something quite other than his music; yet\nhe will play accurately and, possibly, with much expression.  If he has\nbeen playing a fugue, say in four parts, he will have kept each part well\ndistinct, in such a manner as to prove that his mind was not prevented,\nby its other occupations, from consciously or unconsciously following\nfour distinct trains of musical thought at the same time, nor from making\nhis fingers act in exactly the required manner as regards each note of\neach part.\n\nIt commonly happens that in the course of four or five minutes a player\nmay have struck four or five thousand notes.  If we take into\nconsideration the rests, dotted notes, accidentals, variations of time,\n&c., we shall find his attention must have been exercised on many more\noccasions than when he was actually striking notes: so that it may not be\ntoo much to say that the attention of a first-rate player has been\nexercised--to an infinitesimally small extent--but still truly\nexercised--on as many as ten thousand occasions within the space of five\nminutes, for no note can be struck nor point attended to without a\ncertain amount of attention, no matter how rapidly or unconsciously\ngiven.\n\nMoreover, each act of attention has been followed by an act of volition,\nand each act of volition by a muscular action, which is composed of many\nminor actions; some so small that we can no more follow them than the\nplayer himself can perceive them; nevertheless, it may have been\nperfectly plain that the player was not attending to what he was doing,\nbut was listening to conversation on some other subject, not to say\njoining in it himself.  If he has been playing the violin, he may have\ndone all the above, and may also have been walking about.  Herr Joachim\nwould unquestionably be able to do all that has here been described.\n\nSo complete may be the player's unconsciousness of the attention he is\ngiving, and the brain power he is exerting, that we may find it difficult\nto awaken his attention to any particular part of his performance without\nputting him out.  Indeed we cannot do so.  We observe that he finds it\nhardly less difficult to compass a voluntary consciousness of what he has\nonce learnt so thoroughly that it has passed, so to speak, into the\ndomain of unconsciousness, than he found it to learn the note or passage\nin the first instance.  The effort after a second consciousness of detail\nbaffles him--compels him to turn to his music or play slowly.  In fact it\nseems as though he knows the piece too well to be able to know that he\nknows it, and is only conscious of knowing those passages which he does\nnot know so thoroughly.\n\nAt the end of his performance, his power of recollecting appears to be no\nless annihilated than was his consciousness of attention and volition.\nFor of the thousands of acts requiring the exercise of both the one and\nthe other, which he has done during the five minutes, we will say, of his\nperformance, he will remember hardly one when it is over.  If he calls to\nmind anything beyond the main fact that he has played such and such a\npiece, it will probably be some passage which he has found more difficult\nthan the others, and with the like of which he has not been so long\nfamiliar.  All the rest he will forget as completely as the breath which\nhe has drawn while playing.\n\nHe finds it difficult to remember even the difficulties he experienced in\nlearning to play.  A few may have so impressed him that they remain with\nhim, but the greater part will have escaped him as completely as the\nremembrance of what he ate, or how he put on his clothes, this day ten\nyears ago; nevertheless, it is plain he does in reality remember more\nthan he remembers remembering, for he avoids mistakes which he made at\none time, and his performance proves that all the notes are in his\nmemory, though if called upon to play such and such a bar at random from\nthe middle of the piece, and neither more nor less, he will probably say\nthat he cannot remember it unless he begins from the beginning of the\nphrase which leads to it.\n\nIn spite, however, of the performer's present proficiency, our experience\nof the manner in which proficiency is usually acquired warrants us in\nassuming that there must have been a time when what is now so easy as to\nbe done without conscious effort of the brain was only done by means of\nbrain work which was very keenly perceived, even to fatigue and positive\ndistress.  Even now, if the player is playing something the like of which\nhe has not met before, we observe he pauses and becomes immediately\nconscious of attention.\n\nWe draw the inference, therefore, as regards pianoforte or violin\nplaying, that the more the familiarity or knowledge of the art, the less\nis there consciousness of such knowledge; even so far as that there\nshould be almost as much difficulty in awakening consciousness which has\nbecome, so to speak, latent,--a consciousness of that which is known too\nwell to admit of recognised self-analysis while the knowledge is being\nexercised--as in creating a consciousness of that which is not yet well\nenough known to be properly designated as known at all.  On the other\nhand, we observe that the less the familiarity or knowledge, the greater\nthe consciousness of whatever knowledge there is.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTo sum up, then, briefly.  It would appear as though perfect knowledge\nand perfect ignorance were extremes which meet and become\nindistinguishable from one another; so also perfect volition and perfect\nabsence of volition, perfect memory and perfect forgetfulness; for we are\nunconscious of knowing, willing, or remembering, either from not yet\nhaving known or willed, or from knowing and willing so well and so\nintensely as to be no longer conscious of either.  Conscious knowledge\nand volition are of attention; attention is of suspense; suspense is of\ndoubt; doubt is of uncertainty; uncertainty is of ignorance; so that the\nmere fact of conscious knowing or willing implies the presence of more or\nless novelty and doubt.\n\nIt would also appear as a general principle on a superficial view of the\nforegoing instances (and the reader may readily supply himself with\nothers which are perhaps more to the purpose), that unconscious knowledge\nand unconscious volition are never acquired otherwise than as the result\nof experience, familiarity, or habit; so that whenever we observe a\nperson able to do any complicated action unconsciously, we may assume\nboth that he must have done it very often before he could acquire so\ngreat proficiency, and also that there must have been a time when he did\nnot know how to do it at all.\n\nWe may assume that there was a time when he was yet so nearly on the\npoint of neither knowing nor willing perfectly, that he was quite alive\nto whatever knowledge or volition he could exert; going further back, we\nshall find him still more keenly alive to a less perfect knowledge;\nearlier still, we find him well aware that he does not know nor will\ncorrectly, but trying hard to do both the one and the other; and so on,\nback and back, till both difficulty and consciousness become little more\nthan \"a sound of going,\" as it were, in the brain, a flitting to and fro\nof something barely recognisable as the desire to will or know at\nall--much less as the desire to know or will definitely this or that.\nFinally they retreat beyond our ken into the repose--the inorganic\nkingdom--of as yet unawakened interest.\n\nIn either case--the repose of perfect ignorance or of perfect\nknowledge--disturbance is troublesome.  When first starting on an\nAtlantic steamer, our rest is hindered by the screw; after a short time,\nit is hindered if the screw stops.  A uniform impression is practically\nno impression.  One cannot either learn or unlearn without pains or pain.\n\n\n\nCONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS KNOWERS THE LAW AND GRACE.  (FROM CHAPTER II.\nOF LIFE AND HABIT.)\n\n\nCertain it is that we know best what we are least conscious of knowing,\nor at any rate least able to prove; as, for example, our own existence,\nor that there is a country England.  If any one asks us for proof on\nmatters of this sort, we have none ready, and are justly annoyed at being\ncalled to consider what we regard as settled questions.  Again, there is\nhardly anything which so much affects our actions as the centre of the\nearth (unless, perhaps, it be that still hotter and more unprofitable\nspot the centre of the universe), for we are incessantly trying to get as\nnear it as circumstances will allow, or to avoid getting nearer than is\nfor the time being convenient.  Walking, running, standing, sitting,\nlying, waking, or sleeping, from birth till death it is a paramount\nobject with us; even after death--if it be not fanciful to say so--it is\none of the few things of which what is left of us can still feel the\ninfluence; yet what can engross less of our attention than this dark and\ndistant spot so many thousands of miles away?\n\nThe air we breathe, so long as it is neither too hot nor cold, nor rough,\nnor full of smoke--that is to say, so long as it is in that state with\nwhich we are best acquainted--seldom enters into our thoughts; yet there\nis hardly anything with which we are more incessantly occupied night and\nday.\n\nIndeed, it is not too much to say that we have no really profound\nknowledge upon any subject--no knowledge on the strength of which we are\nready to act at moments unhesitatingly without either preparation or\nafter-thought--till we have left off feeling conscious of the possession\nof such knowledge, and of the grounds on which it rests.  A lesson\nthoroughly learned must be like the air which feels so light, though\npressing so heavily against us, because every pore of our skin is\nsaturated, so to speak, with it on all sides equally.  This perfection of\nknowledge sometimes extends to positive disbelief in the thing known, so\nthat the most thorough knower shall believe himself altogether ignorant.\nNo thief, for example, is such an utter thief--so _good_ a thief--as the\nkleptomaniac.  Until he has become a kleptomaniac, and can steal a horse\nas it were by a reflex action, he is still but half a thief, with many\nunthievish notions still clinging to him.  Yet the kleptomaniac is\nprobably unaware that he can steal at all, much less that he can steal so\nwell.  He would be shocked if he were to know the truth.  So again, no\nman is a great hypocrite until he has left off knowing that he is a\nhypocrite.  The great hypocrites of the world are almost invariably under\nthe impression that they are among the very few really honest people to\nbe found; and, as we must all have observed, it is rare to find any one\nstrongly under this impression without ourselves having good reason to\ndiffer from him.\n\nAgain, it has been often and very truly said that it is not the conscious\nand self-styled sceptic, as Shelley, for example, who is the true\nunbeliever.  Such a man as Shelley will, as indeed his life abundantly\nproves, have more in common than not with the true unselfconscious\nbeliever.  Gallio again, whose indifference to religious animosities has\nwon him the cheapest immortality which, so far as I can remember, was\never yet won, was probably, if the truth were known, a person of the\nsincerest piety.  It is the unconscious unbeliever who is the true\ninfidel, however greatly he would be surprised to know the truth.  Mr.\nSpurgeon was reported as having asked God to remove Lord Beaconsfield\nfrom office \"_as soon as possible_.\"  There lurks a more profound\ndistrust of God's power in these words than in almost any open denial of\nHis existence.\n\nIn like manner, the most perfect humour and irony is generally quite\nunconscious.  Examples of both are frequently given by men whom the world\nconsiders as deficient in humour; it is more probably true that these\npersons are unconscious of their own delightful power through the very\nmastery and perfection with which they hold it.  There is a play, for\ninstance, of genuine fun in some of the more serious scientific and\ntheological journals which for some time past we have looked for in vain\nin \"---\"\n\nThe following extract, from a journal which I will not advertise, may\nserve as an example:\n\n\"Lycurgus, when they had abandoned to his revenge him who had put out his\neyes, took him home, and the punishment he inflicted upon him was\nsedulous instructions to virtue.\"  Yet this truly comic paper does not\nprobably know that it is comic, any more than the kleptomaniac knows that\nhe steals, or than John Milton knew he was a humorist when he wrote a\nhymn upon the circumcision, and spent his honeymoon in composing a\ntreatise on divorce.  No more again did Goethe know how exquisitely\nhumorous he was when he wrote, in his Wilhelm Meister, that a beautiful\ntear glistened in Theresa's right eye, and then went on to explain that\nit glistened in her right eye and not in her left, because she had had a\nwart on her left which had been removed--and successfully.  Goethe\nprobably wrote this without a chuckle; he believed what a good many\npeople who have never read Wilhelm Meister believe still, namely, that it\nwas a work full of pathos--of fine and tender feeling; yet a less\nconsummate humorist must have felt that there was scarcely a paragraph in\nit from first to last the chief merit of which did not lie in its\nabsurdity.\n\nBut enough has perhaps been said.  As the fish in the sea, or the bird in\nthe air, so unreasoningly and inarticulately safe must a man feel before\nhe can be said to know.  It is only those who are ignorant and\nuncultivated who can know anything at all in a proper sense of the words.\nCultivation will breed in any man a certainty of the uncertainty even of\nhis most assured convictions.  It is perhaps fortunate for our comfort\nthat we can none of us be cultivated upon very many subjects, so that\nconsiderable scope for assurance will still remain to us; but however\nthis may be, we certainly observe it as a fact that those are the\ngreatest men who are most uncertain in spite of certainty, and at the\nsame time most certain in spite of uncertainty, and who are thus best\nable to feel that there is nothing in such complete harmony with itself\nas a flat contradiction in terms.  For nature hates that any principle\nshould breed, so to speak, hermaphroditically, but will give to each an\nhelp meet for it which shall cross it and be the undoing of it; as in the\ncase of descent with modification, of which the essence is that every\noffspring resembles its parents, and yet, at the same time, that no\noffspring resembles its parents.  But for the slightly irritating\nstimulant of this perpetual crossing, we should pass our lives\nunconsciously as though in slumber.\n\nUntil we have got to understand that though black is not white, yet it\nmay be whiter than white itself (and any painter will readily paint that\nwhich shall show obviously as black, yet it shall be whiter than that\nwhich shall show no less obviously as white), we may be good logicians,\nbut we are still poor reasoners.  Knowledge is in an inchoate state as\nlong as it is capable of logical treatment; it must be transmuted into\nthat sense or instinct which rises altogether above the sphere in which\nwords can have being at all, otherwise it is not yet incarnate.  For\nsense is to knowledge what conscience is to reasoning about light and\nwrong; the reasoning must be so rapid as to defy conscious reference to\nfirst principles, and even at times to be apparently subversive of them\naltogether, or the action will halt.  It must become automatic before we\nare safe with it.  While we are fumbling for the grounds of our\nconviction, our conviction is prone to fall, as Peter for lack of faith\nsinking into the waves of Galilee; so that the very power to prove at all\nis an _a priori_ argument against the truth--or at any rate the practical\nimportance to the vast majority of mankind--of all that is supported by\ndemonstration.  For the power to prove implies a sense of the need of\nproof, and things which the majority of mankind find practically\nimportant are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred above proof.  The\nneed of proof becomes as obsolete in the case of assured knowledge, as\nthe practice of fortifying towns in the middle of an old and long-settled\ncountry.  Who builds defences for that which is impregnable or little\nlikely to be assailed?  The answer is ready, that unless the defences had\nbeen built in former times it would be impossible to do without them now;\nbut this does not touch the argument, which is not that demonstration is\nunwise but that as long as a demonstration is still felt necessary, and\ntherefore kept ready to hand, the subject of such demonstration is not\nyet securely known.  _Qui s'excuse_, _s'accuse_; and unless a matter can\nhold its own without the brag and self-assertion of continual\ndemonstration, it is still more or less of a parvenu, which we shall not\nlose much by neglecting till it has less occasion to blow its own\ntrumpet.  The only alternative is that it is an error in process of\ndetection, for if evidence concerning any opinion has long been deemed\nsuperfluous, and ever after this comes to be again felt necessary, we\nknow that the opinion is doomed.\n\nIf there is any truth in the above, it follows that our conception of the\nwords \"science\" and \"scientific\" must undergo some modification.  Not\nthat we should speak slightingly of science, but that we should recognise\nmore than we do, that there are two distinct classes of scientific\npeople, corresponding not inaptly with the two main parties into which\nthe political world is divided.  The one class is deeply versed in those\nsciences which have already become the common property of mankind;\nenjoying, enforcing, perpetuating, and engraining still more deeply into\nthe mind of man acquisitions already approved by common experience, but\nsomewhat careless about extension of empire, or at any rate disinclined,\nfor the most part, to active effort on their own part for the sake of\nsuch extension--neither progressive, in fact, nor aggressive--but quiet,\npeaceable people, who wish to live and let live, as their fathers before\nthem; while the other class is chiefly intent upon pushing forward the\nboundaries of science, and is comparatively indifferent to what is known\nalready save in so far as necessary for purposes of extension.  These\nlast are called pioneers of science, and to them alone is the title\n\"scientific\" commonly accorded; but pioneers, important to an army as\nthey are, are still not the army itself, which can get on better without\nthe pioneers than the pioneers without the army.  Surely the class which\nknows thoroughly well what it knows, and which adjudicates upon the value\nof the discoveries made by the pioneers--surely this class has as good a\nright or better to be called scientific than the pioneers themselves.\n\nThese two classes above described blend into one another with every shade\nof gradation.  Some are admirably proficient in the well-known\nsciences--that is to say, they have good health, good looks, good temper,\ncommon sense, and energy, and they hold all these good things in such\nperfection as to be altogether without introspection--to be not under the\nlaw, but so entirely under grace that every one who sees them likes them.\nBut such may, and perhaps more commonly will, have very little\ninclination to extend the boundaries of human knowledge; their aim is in\nanother direction altogether.  Of the pioneers, on the other hand, some\nare agreeable people, well versed in the older sciences, though still\nmore eminent as pioneers, while others, whose services in this last\ncapacity have been of inestimable value, are noticeably ignorant of the\nsciences which have already become current with the larger part of\nmankind--in other words, they are ugly, rude, and disagreeable people,\nvery progressive, it may be, but very aggressive to boot.\n\nThe main difference between these two classes lies in the fact that the\nknowledge of the one, so far as it is new, is known consciously, while\nthat of the other is unconscious, consisting of sense and instinct rather\nthan of recognised knowledge.  So long as a man has these, and of the\nsame kind as the more powerful body of his fellow-countrymen, he is a man\nof science though he can hardly read or write.  As my great namesake said\nso well, \"He knows what's what, and that's as high as metaphysic wit can\nfly.\"  As is usual in cases of great proficiency, these true and thorough\nknowers do not know that they are scientific, and can seldom give a\nreason for the faith that is in them.  They believe themselves to be\nignorant, uncultured men, nor can even the professors whom they sometimes\noutwit in their own professorial domain perceive that they have been\noutwitted by men of superior scientific attainments to their own.  The\nfollowing passage from Dr. Carpenter's \"Mesmerism, Spiritualism,\" &c.,\nmay serve as an illustration:--\n\n\"It is well known that persons who are conversant with the geological\nstructure of a district are often able to indicate with considerable\ncertainty in what spot and at what depth water will be found; and men _of\nless scientific knowledge_, _but of considerable practical\nexperience_\"--(so that in Dr. Carpenter's mind there seems to be some\nsort of contrast or difference in kind between the knowledge which is\nderived from observation of facts and scientific knowledge)--\"frequently\narrive at a true conclusion upon this point without being able to assign\nreasons for their opinions.\"\n\n\"Exactly the same may be said in regard to the mineral structure of a\nmining district; the course of a metallic vein being often correctly\nindicated by the shrewd guess of an _observant_ workman, when _the\nscientific reasoning_ of the mining engineer altogether fails.\"\n\nPrecisely.  Here we have exactly the kind of thing we are in search of:\nthe man who has observed and observed till the facts are so thoroughly in\nhis head that through familiarity he has lost sight both of them and of\nthe processes whereby he deduced his conclusions from them--is apparently\nnot considered scientific, though he knows how to solve the problem\nbefore him; the mining engineer, on the other hand, who reasons\nscientifically--that is to say, with a knowledge of his own knowledge--is\nfound not to know, and to fail in discovering the mineral.\n\n\"It is an experience we are continually encountering in other walks of\nlife,\" continues Dr. Carpenter, \"that particular persons are guided--some\napparently by an original and others by _an acquired intuition_--to\nconclusions for which they can give no adequate reason, but which\nsubsequent events prove to have been correct.\"  And this, I take it,\nimplies what I have been above insisting on, namely, that on becoming\nintense, knowledge seems also to become unaware of the grounds on which\nit rests, or that it has or requires grounds at all, or indeed even\nexists.  The only issue between myself and Dr. Carpenter would appear to\nbe that Dr. Carpenter, himself an acknowledged leader in the scientific\nworld, restricts the term \"scientific\" to the people who know that they\nknow, but are beaten by those who are not so conscious of their own\nknowledge; while I say that the term \"scientific\" should be applied (only\nthat they would not like it) to the nice sensible people who know what's\nwhat rather than to the professorial classes.\n\nAnd this is easily understood when we remember that the pioneer cannot\nhope to acquire any of the new sciences in a single lifetime so perfectly\nas to become unaware of his own knowledge.  As a general rule, we observe\nhim to be still in a state of active consciousness concerning whatever\nparticular science he is extending, and as long as he is in this state he\ncannot know utterly.  It is, as I have already so often insisted, those\nwho do not know that they know so much who have the firmest grip of their\nknowledge: the best class, for example, of our English youth, who live\nmuch in the open air, and, as Lord Beaconsfield finely said, never read.\nThese are the people who know best those things which are best worth\nknowing--that is to say, they are the most truly scientific.\n\nUnfortunately, the apparatus necessary for this kind of science is so\ncostly as to be within the reach of few, involving, as it does, an\nexperience in the use of it for some preceding generations.  Even those\nwho are born with the means within their reach must take no less pains,\nand exercise no less self-control, before they can attain the perfect\nunconscious use of them, than would go to the making of a James Watt or a\nStephenson; it is vain, therefore, to hope that this best kind of science\ncan ever be put within the reach of the many; nevertheless it may be\nsafely said that all the other and more generally recognised kinds of\nscience are valueless except in so far as they minister to this the\nhighest kind.  They have no _raison d'etre_ unless they tend to do away\nwith the necessity for work, and to diffuse good health, and that good\nsense which is above self-consciousness.  They are to be encouraged\nbecause they have rendered the most fortunate kind of modern European\npossible, and because they tend to make possible a still more fortunate\nkind than any now existing.  But the man who devotes himself to science\ncannot--with the rarest, if any, exceptions--belong to this most\nfortunate class himself.  He occupies a lower place, both scientifically\nand morally, for it is not possible but that his drudgery should somewhat\nsoil him both in mind and health of body, or, if this be denied, surely\nit must let him and hinder him in running the race for unconsciousness.\nWe do not feel that it increases the glory of a king or great nobleman\nthat he should excel in what is commonly called science.  Certainly he\nshould not go further than Prince Rupert's drops.  Nor should he excel in\nmusic, art, literature, or theology--all which things are more or less\nparts of science.  He should be above them all, save in so far as he can\nwithout effort reap renown from the labours of others.  It is a _lache_\nin him that he should write music or books, or paint pictures at all; but\nif he must do so, his work should be at best contemptible.  Much as we\nmust condemn Marcus Aurelius, we condemn James I. even more severely.\n\nIt is a pity there should exist so general a confusion of thought upon\nthis subject, for it may be asserted without fear of contradiction that\nthere is hardly any form of immorality now rife which produces more\ndisastrous effects upon those who give themselves up to it, and upon\nsociety in general, than the so-called science of those who know that\nthey know too well to be able to know truly.  With very clever people--the\npeople who know that they know--it is much as with the members of the\nearly Corinthian Church, to whom St. Paul wrote, that if they looked\ntheir numbers over, they would not find many wise, nor powerful, nor well-\nborn people among them.  Dog-fanciers tell us that performing dogs never\ncarry their tails; such dogs have eaten of the tree of knowledge, and are\nconvinced of sin accordingly--they know that they know things, in respect\nof which, therefore, they are no longer under grace, but under the law,\nand they have yet so much grace left as to be ashamed.  So with the human\nclever dog; he may speak with the tongues of men and angels, but so long\nas he knows that he knows, his tail will droop.\n\nMore especially does this hold in the case of those who are born to\nwealth and of old family.  We must all feel that a rich young nobleman\nwith a taste for science and principles is rarely a pleasant object.  We\ndo not understand the rich young man in the Bible who wanted to inherit\neternal life, unless, indeed, he merely wanted to know whether there was\nnot some way by which he could avoid dying, and even so he is hardly\nworth considering.  Principles are like logic, which never yet made a\ngood reasoner of a bad one, but might still be occasionally useful if\nthey did not invariably contradict each other whenever there is any\ntemptation to appeal to them.  They are like fire, good servants but bad\nmasters.  As many people or more have been wrecked on principle as from\nwant of principle.  They are, as their name implies, of an elementary\ncharacter, suitable for beginners only, and he who has so little mastered\nthem as to have occasion to refer to them consciously, is out of place in\nthe society of well-educated people.  The truly scientific invariably\nhate him, and, for the most part, the more profoundly in proportion to\nthe unconsciousness with which they do so.\n\nIf the reader hesitates, let him go down into the streets and look in the\nshop-windows at the photographs of eminent men, whether literary,\nartistic, or scientific, and note the work which the consciousness of\nknowledge has wrought on nine out of every ten of them; then let him go\nto the masterpieces of Greek and Italian art, the truest preachers of the\ntruest gospel of grace; let him look at the Venus of Milo, the\nDiscobolus, the St. George of Donatello.  If it had pleased these people\nto wish to study, there was no lack of brains to do it with; but imagine\n\"what a deal of scorn\" would \"look beautiful in the contempt and anger\"\nof the Venus of Milo's lip if it were suggested to her that she should\nlearn to read.  Which, think you, knows most, the Theseus, or any modern\nprofessor taken at random?  True, learning must have a great share in the\nadvancement of beauty, inasmuch as beauty is but knowledge perfected and\nincarnate--but with the pioneers it is _sic vos non vobis_; the grace is\nnot for them, but for those who come after.  Science is like offences.  It\nmust needs come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes; for there\ncannot be much beauty where there is consciousness of knowledge, and\nwhile knowledge is still new it must in the nature of things involve much\nconsciousness.\n\nIt is not knowledge, then, that is incompatible with beauty; there cannot\nbe too much knowledge, but it must have passed through many people who it\nis to be feared must be both ugly and disagreeable, before beauty or\ngrace will have anything to say to it; it must be so diffused throughout\na man's whole being that he shall not be aware of it, or he will bear\nhimself under it constrainedly as one under the law, and not as one under\ngrace.\n\nAnd grace is best, for where grace is, love is not distant.  Grace! the\nold Pagan ideal whose charm even unlovely Paul could not withstand, but,\nas the legend tells us, his soul fainted within him, his heart misgave\nhim, and, standing alone on the seashore at dusk, he \"troubled deaf\nheaven with his bootless cries,\" his thin voice pleading for grace after\nthe flesh.\n\nThe waves came in one after another, the sea-gulls cried together after\ntheir kind, the wind rustled among the dried canes upon the sandbanks,\nand there came a voice from heaven saying, \"Let My grace be sufficient\nfor thee.\"  Whereon, failing of the thing itself, he stole the word and\nstrove to crush its meaning to the measure of his own limitations.  But\nthe true grace, with her groves and high places, and troops of young men\nand maidens crowned with flowers, and singing of love and youth and\nwine--the true grace he drove out into the wilderness--high up, it may\nbe, into Piora, and into such-like places.  Happy they who harboured her\nin her ill report.\n\nIt is common to hear men wonder what new faith will be adopted by mankind\nif disbelief in the Christian religion should become general.  They seem\nto expect that some new theological or quasi-theological system will\narise, which, _mutatis mutandis_, shall be Christianity over again.  It\nis a frequent reproach against those who maintain that the supernatural\nelement of Christianity is without foundation, that they bring forward no\nsuch system of their own.  They pull down but cannot build.  We sometimes\nhear even those who have come to the same conclusions as the destroyers\nsay, that having nothing new to set up, they will not attack the old.  But\nhow can people set up a new superstition, knowing it to be a\nsuperstition?  Without faith in their own platform, a faith as intense as\nthat manifested by the early Christians, how can they preach?  A new\nsuperstition will come, but it is in the very essence of things that its\napostles should have no suspicion of its real nature; that they should no\nmore recognise the common element between the new and the old than the\nearly Christians recognised it between their faith and Paganism.  If they\ndid, they would be paralysed.  Others say that the new fabric may be seen\nrising on every side, and that the coming religion is science.  Certainly\nits apostles preach it without misgiving, but it is not on that account\nless possible that it may prove only to be the coming superstition--like\nChristianity, true to its true votaries, and, like Christianity, false to\nthose who follow it introspectively.\n\nIt may well be we shall find we have escaped from one set of taskmasters\nto fall into the hands of others far more ruthless.  The tyranny of the\nChurch is light in comparison with that which future generations may have\nto undergo at the hands of the doctrinaires.  The Church did uphold a\ngrace of some sort as the _summum bonum_, in comparison with which all so-\ncalled earthly knowledge--knowledge, that is to say, which had not passed\nthrough so many people as to have become living and incarnate--was\nunimportant.  Do what we may, we are still drawn to the unspoken teaching\nof her less introspective ages with a force which no falsehood could\ncommand.  Her buildings, her music, her architecture, touch us as none\nother on the whole can do; when she speaks there are many of us who think\nthat she denies the deeper truths of her own profounder mind, and\nunfortunately her tendency is now towards more rather than less\nintrospection.  The more she gives way to this--the more she becomes\nconscious of knowing--the less she will know.  But still her ideal is in\ngrace.\n\nThe so-called man of science, on the other hand, seems now generally\ninclined to make light of all knowledge, save of the pioneer character.\nHis ideal is in self-conscious knowledge.  Let us have no more Lo, here,\nwith the professor; he very rarely knows what he says he knows; no sooner\nhas he misled the world for a sufficient time with a great flourish of\ntrumpets than he is toppled over by one more plausible than himself.  He\nis but medicine-man, augur, priest, in its latest development; useful it\nmay be, but requiring to be well watched by those who value freedom.  Wait\ntill he has become more powerful, and note the vagaries which his conceit\nof knowledge will indulge in.  The Church did not persecute while she was\nstill weak.  Of course every system has had, and will have, its heroes,\nbut, as we all very well know, the heroism of the hero is but remotely\ndue to system; it is due not to arguments, nor reasoning, nor to any\nconsciously recognised perceptions, but to those deeper sciences which\nlie far beyond the reach of self-analysis, and for the study of which\nthere is but one schooling--to have had good forefathers for many\ngenerations.\n\nAbove all things let no unwary reader do me the injustice of believing in\n_me_.  In that I write at all I am among the damned.  If he must believe\nin anything, let him believe in the music of Handel, the painting of\nGiovanni Bellini, and in the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul's First\nEpistle to the Corinthians.\n\nBut to return.  Whenever we find people knowing that they know this or\nthat, we have the same story over and over again.  They do not yet know\nit perfectly.\n\nWe come, therefore, to the conclusion that our knowledge and reasonings\nthereupon, only become perfect, assured, unhesitating, when they have\nbecome automatic, and are thus exercised without further conscious effort\nof the mind, much in the same way as we cannot walk nor read nor write\nperfectly till we can do so automatically.\n\n\n\nAPPLICATION OF FOREGOING CHAPTERS TO CERTAIN HABITS ACQUIRED AFTER BIRTH\nWHICH ARE COMMONLY CONSIDERED INSTINCTIVE.  (CHAPTER III. OF LIFE AND\nHABIT.)\n\n\nWhat is true of knowing is also true of willing.  The more intensely we\nwill, the less is our will deliberate and capable of being recognised as\nwill at all.  So that it is common to hear men declare under certain\ncircumstances that they had no will, but were forced into their own\naction under stress of passion or temptation.  But in the more ordinary\nactions of life, we observe, as in walking or breathing, that we do not\nwill anything utterly and without remnant of hesitation, till we have\nlost sight of the fact that we are exercising our will.\n\nThe question, therefore, is forced upon us, how far this principle\nextends, and whether there may not be unheeded examples of its operation\nwhich, if we consider them, will land us in rather unexpected\nconclusions.  If it be granted that consciousness of knowledge and of\nvolition vanishes when the knowledge and the volition have become intense\nand perfect, may it not be possible that many actions which we do without\nknowing how we do them, and without any conscious exercise of the\nwill--actions which we certainly could not do if we tried to do them, nor\nrefrain from doing if for any reason we wished to do so--are done so\neasily and so unconsciously owing to excess of knowledge or experience\nrather than deficiency, we having done them too often, knowing how to do\nthem too well, and having too little hesitation as to the method of\nprocedure, to be capable of following our own action, without the\nderangement of such action altogether; or, in other cases, because we\nhave so long settled the question that we have stowed away the whole\napparatus with which we work in corners of our system which we cannot now\nconveniently reach?\n\nIt may be interesting to see whether we can find any class or classes of\nactions which link actions which for some time after birth we could not\ndo at all, and in which our proficiency has reached the stage of\nunconscious performance obviously through repeated effort and failure,\nand through this only, with actions which we could do as soon as we were\nborn, and concerning which it would at first sight appear absurd to say\nthat they can have been acquired by any process in the least analogous to\nwhat we commonly call experience, inasmuch as the creature itself which\ndoes them has only just begun to exist, and cannot, therefore, in the\nvery nature of things, have had experience.\n\nCan we see that actions, for the acquisition of which experience is such\nan obvious necessity, that whenever we see the acquisition we assume the\nexperience, gradate away imperceptibly into actions which seem, according\nto all reasonable analogy, to necessitate experience--of which, however,\nthe time and place are so obscure, that they are not now commonly\nsupposed to have any connection with _bona fide_ experience at all.\n\nEating and drinking appear to be such actions.  The new-born child cannot\neat, and cannot drink, but he can swallow as soon as he is born; and\nswallowing appears (as we may remark in passing) to have been an earlier\nfaculty of animal life than that of eating with teeth.  The ease and\nunconsciousness with which we eat and drink is clearly attributable to\npractice; but a very little practice seems to go a long way--a\nsuspiciously small amount of practice--as though somewhere or at some\nother time there must have been more practice than we can account for.  We\ncan very readily stop eating or drinking, and can follow our own action\nwithout difficulty in either process; but as regards swallowing, which is\nthe earlier habit, we have less power of self-analysis and control: when\nwe have once committed ourselves beyond a certain point to swallowing, we\nmust finish doing so,--that is to say, our control over the operation\nceases.  Also, a still smaller experience seems necessary for the\nacquisition of the power to swallow than appeared necessary in the case\nof eating; and if we get into a difficulty we choke, and are more at a\nloss how to become introspective than we are about eating and drinking.\n\nWhy should a baby be able to swallow--which one would have said was the\nmore complicated process of the two--with so much less practice than it\ntakes him to learn to eat?  How comes it that he exhibits in the case of\nthe more difficult operation all the phenomena which ordinarily accompany\na more complete mastery and longer practice?  Analogy points in the\ndirection of thinking that the necessary experience cannot have been\nwanting, and that, too, not in such a quibbling sort as when people talk\nabout inherited habit or the experience of the race, which, without\nexplanation, is to plain-speaking persons very much the same, in regard\nto the individual, as no experience at all, but _bona fide_ in the\nchild's own person.\n\nBreathing, again, is an action acquired after birth, generally with some\nlittle hesitation and difficulty, but still acquired in a time seldom\nlonger, as I am informed, than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.  For\nan art which has to be acquired at all, there seems here, as in the case\nof eating, to be a disproportion between, on the one hand, the intricacy\nof the process performed, and on the other, the shortness of the time\ntaken to acquire the practice, and the ease and unconsciousness with\nwhich its exercise is continued from the moment of acquisition.\n\nWe observe that in later life much less difficult and intricate\noperations than breathing require much longer practice before they can be\nmastered to the extent of unconscious performance.  We observe also that\nthe phenomena attendant on the learning by an infant to breathe are\nextremely like those attendant upon the repetition of some performance by\none who has done it very often before, but who requires just a little\nprompting to set him off, on getting which, the whole familiar routine\npresents itself before him, and he repeats his task by rote.  Surely then\nwe are justified in suspecting that there must have been more _bona fide_\npersonal recollection and experience, with more effort and failure on the\npart of the infant itself, than meet the eye.\n\nIt should be noticed, also that our control over breathing is very\nlimited.  We can hold our breath a little, or breathe a little faster for\na short time, but we cannot do this for long, and after having gone\nwithout air for a certain time we must breathe.\n\nSeeing and hearing require some practice before their free use is\nmastered, but not very much.  They are so far within our control that we\ncan see more by looking harder, and hear more by listening\nattentively--but they are beyond our control in so far as that we must\nsee and hear the greater part of what presents itself to us as near, and\nat the same time unfamiliar, unless we turn away or shut our eyes, or\nstop our ears by a mechanical process; and when we do this it is a sign\nthat we have already involuntarily seen or heard more than we wished.  The\nfamiliar, whether sight or sound, very commonly escapes us.\n\nTake again the processes of digestion, the action of the heart, and the\noxygenisation of the blood--processes of extreme intricacy, done almost\nentirely unconsciously, and quite beyond the control of our volition.\n\nIs it possible that our unconsciousness concerning our own performance of\nall these processes arises from over-experience?\n\nIs there anything in digestion or the oxygenisation of the blood\ndifferent in kind to the rapid unconscious action of a man playing a\ndifficult piece of music on the piano?  There may be in degree, but as a\nman who sits down to play what he well knows, plays on when once started,\nalmost, as we say, mechanically, so, having eaten his dinner, he digests\nit as a matter of course, unless it has been in some way unfamiliar to\nhim or he to it, owing to some derangement or occurrence with which he is\nunfamiliar, and under which therefore he is at a loss how to comport\nhimself, as a player would be at a loss how to play with gloves on, or\nwith gout in his fingers, or if set to play music upside down.\n\nCan we show that all the acquired actions of childhood and after-life,\nwhich we now do unconsciously, or without conscious exercise of the will,\nare familiar acts--acts which we have already done a very great number of\ntimes?\n\nCan we also show that there are no acquired actions which we can perform\nin this automatic manner which were not at one time difficult, requiring\nattention, and liable to repeated failure, our volition failing to\ncommand obedience from the members which should carry its purposes into\nexecution?\n\nIf so, analogy will point in the direction of thinking that other acts\nwhich we do even more unconsciously may only escape our power of self-\nexamination and control because they are even more familiar--because we\nhave done them oftener; and we may imagine that if there were a\nmicroscope which could show us the minutest atoms of consciousness and\nvolition, we should find that even the apparently most automatic actions\nwere yet done in due course, upon a balance of considerations, and under\nthe deliberate exercise of the will.\n\nWe should also incline to think that even such an action as the\noxygenisation of its blood by an infant of ten minutes' old, can only be\ndone so well and so unconsciously, after repeated failures on the part of\nthe infant itself.\n\nTrue, as has been already implied, we do not immediately see when the\nbaby could have made the necessary mistakes and acquired that infinite\npractice without which it could never go through such complex processes\nsatisfactorily; we have therefore invented the word \"heredity,\" and\nconsider it as accounting for the phenomena; but a little reflection will\nshow that though this word may be a very good way of stating the\ndifficulty, it does nothing whatever towards removing it. {96}\n\nWhy should heredity enable a creature to dispense with the experience\nwhich we see to be necessary in all other cases before difficult\noperations can be performed successfully?\n\nWhat is this talk that is made about the experience _of the race_, as\nthough the experience of one man could profit another who knows nothing\nabout him?  If a man eats his dinner, it nourishes _him_ and not his\nneighbour; if he learns a difficult art, it is _he_ that can do it and\nnot his neighbour.  Yet, practically, we see that the vicarious\nexperience, which seems so contrary to our common observation, does\nnevertheless appear to hold good in the case of creatures and their\ndescendants.  Is there, then, any way of bringing these apparently\nconflicting phenomena under the operation of one law?  Is there any way\nof showing that this experience of the race, of which so much is said\nwithout the least attempt to show in what way it may or does become the\nexperience of the individual, is in sober seriousness the experience of\none single being only, repeating in a great many different ways certain\nperformances with which it has become exceedingly familiar?\n\nIt comes to this--that we must either suppose the conditions of\nexperience to differ during the earlier stages of life from those which\nwe observe them to become during the heyday of any existence--and this\nwould appear very gratuitous, tolerable only as a suggestion because the\nbeginnings of life are so obscure, that in such twilight we may do pretty\nmuch whatever we please without fear of being found out--or that we must\nsuppose continuity of life and sameness between living beings, whether\nplants or animals, and their descendants, to be far closer than we have\nhitherto believed; so that the experience of one person is not enjoyed by\nhis successor, so much as that the successor is _bona fide_ an elongation\nof the life of his progenitors, imbued with their memories, profiting by\ntheir experiences--which are, in fact, his own until he leaves their\nbodies--and only unconscious of the extent of these memories and\nexperiences owing to their vastness and already infinite repetition.\n\nCertainly it presents itself to us as a singular coincidence--\n\nI.  That we are _most conscious of_, _and have most control over_, such\nhabits as speech, the upright position, the arts and sciences--which are\nacquisitions peculiar to the human race, always acquired after birth, and\nnot common to ourselves and any ancestor who had not become entirely\nhuman.\n\nII.  That we are _less conscious of_, _and have less control over_, the\nuse of teeth, swallowing, breathing, seeing and hearing--which were\nacquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for which we had provided\nourselves with all the necessary apparatus before we saw light, but which\nare still, geologically speaking, recent, or comparatively recent.\n\nill.  That we are _most unconscious of_, _and have least control over_,\nour digestion, which we have in common even with our invertebrate\nancestry, and which is a habit of extreme antiquity.\n\nThere is something too like method in this for it to be taken as the\nresult of mere chance--chance again being but another illustration of\nNature's love of a contradiction in terms; for everything is chance, and\nnothing is chance.  And you may take it that all is chance or nothing\nchance, according as you please, but you must not have half chance and\nhalf not chance--which, however, in practice is just what you _must_\nhave.\n\nDoes it not seem as though the older and more confirmed the habit, the\nmore unquestioning the act of volition, till, in the case of the oldest\nhabits, the practice of succeeding existences has so formulated the\nprocedure, that, on being once committed to such and such a line beyond a\ncertain point, the subsequent course is so clear as to be open to no\nfurther doubt, and admit of no alternative, till the very power of\nquestioning is gone, and even the consciousness of volition?  And this\ntoo upon matters which, in earlier stages of a man's existence, admitted\nof passionate argument and anxious deliberation whether to resolve them\nthus or thus, with heroic hazard and experiment, which on the losing side\nproved to be vice, and on the winning virtue.  For there was passionate\nargument once what shape a man's teeth should be, nor can the colour of\nhis hair be considered as even yet settled, or likely to be settled for a\nvery long time.\n\nIt is one against legion when a creature tries to differ from his own\npast selves.  He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so as to\nlack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, or not to gratify them.\nIt is more righteous in a man that he should \"eat strange food,\" and that\nhis cheek should \"so much as lank not,\" than that he should starve if the\nstrange food be at his command.  His past selves are living in unruly\nhordes within him at this moment and overmastering him.  \"Do this, this,\nthis, which we too have done, and found our profit in it,\" cry the souls\nof his forefathers within him.  Faint are the far ones, coming and going\nas the sound of bells wafted on to a high mountain; loud and clear are\nthe near ones, urgent as an alarm of fire.  \"Withhold,\" cry some.  \"Go on\nboldly,\" cry others.  \"Me, me, me, revert hitherward, my descendant,\"\nshouts one as it were from some high vantage-ground over the heads of the\nclamorous multitude.  \"Nay, but me, me, me,\" echoes another; and our\nformer selves fight within us and wrangle for our possession.  Have we\nnot here what is commonly called an _internal tumult_, when dead\npleasures and pains tug within us hither and thither?  Then may the\nbattle be decided by what people are pleased to call our own experience.\nOur own indeed!  What is our own save by mere courtesy of speech?  A\nmatter of fashion.  Sanction sanctifieth and fashion fashioneth.  And so\nwith death--the most inexorable of all conventions.\n\nHowever this may be, we may assume it as an axiom with regard to actions\nacquired after birth, that we never do them automatically save as the\nresult of long practice, and after having thus acquired perfect mastery\nover the action in question.\n\nBut given the practice or experience, and the intricacy of the process to\nbe performed appears to matter very little.  There is hardly anything\nconceivable as being done by man, which a certain amount of familiarity\nwill not enable him to do, unintrospectively, and without conscious\neffort.  \"The most complex and difficult movements,\" writes Mr. Darwin,\n\"can in time be performed without the least effort or consciousness.\"  All\nthe main business of life is done thus unconsciously or\nsemi-unconsciously.  For what is the main business of life?  We work that\nwe may eat and digest, rather than eat and digest that we may work; this,\nat any rate, is the normal state of things; the more important business\nthen is that which is carried on unconsciously.  So again, the action of\nthe brain, which goes on prior to our realising the idea in which it\nresults, is not perceived by the individual.  So also all the deeper\nsprings of action and conviction.  The residuum with which we fret and\nworry ourselves is a mere matter of detail, as the higgling and haggling\nof the market, which is not over the bulk of the price, but over the last\nhalfpenny.\n\nShall we say, then, that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves the\nwhole principle of the pump, and hence a profound practical knowledge of\nthe laws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its blood\n(millions of years before Sir Humphry Davy discovered oxygen), sees and\nhears--all most difficult and complicated operations, involving an\nunconscious knowledge of the facts concerning optics and acoustics,\ncompared with which the conscious discoveries of Newton sink into utter\ninsignificance?  Shall we say that a baby can do all these things at\nonce, doing them so well and so regularly, without being even able to\ndirect its attention to them, and without mistake, and at the same time\nnot know how to do them, and never have done them before?\n\nSuch an assertion would be a contradiction to the whole experience of\nmankind.  Surely the _onus probandi_ must rest with him who makes it.\n\nA man may make a lucky hit now and again by what is called a fluke, but\neven this must be only a little in advance of his other performances of\nthe same kind.  He may multiply seven by eight by a fluke after a little\nstudy of the multiplication table, but he will not be able to extract the\ncube root of 4913 by a fluke, without long training in arithmetic, any\nmore than an agricultural labourer would be able to operate successfully\nfor cataract.  If, then, a grown man cannot perform so simple an\noperation as that, we will say, for cataract, unless he have been long\ntrained in other similar operations, and until he has done what comes to\nthe same thing many times over, with what show of reason can we maintain\nthat one who is so far less capable than a grown man, can perform such\nvastly more difficult operations, without knowing how to do them, and\nwithout ever having done them before?  There is no sign of \"fluke\" about\nthe circulation of a baby's blood.  There may perhaps be some little\nhesitation about its earliest breathing, but this, as a general rule,\nsoon passes over, both breathing and circulation, within an hour after\nbirth, being as regular and easy as at any time during life.  Is it\nreasonable, then, to say that the baby does these things without knowing\nhow to do them, and without ever having done them before, and continues\nto do them by a series of lifelong flukes?\n\nIt would be well if those who feel inclined to hazard such an assertion\nwould find some other instances of intricate processes gone through by\npeople who know nothing about them, and who never had any practice\ntherein.  What _is_ to know how to do a thing?  Surely to do it.  What is\nproof that we know how to do a thing?  Surely the fact that we can do it.\nA man shows that he knows how to throw the boomerang by throwing the\nboomerang.  No amount of talking or writing can get over this; _ipso\nfacto_, that a baby breathes and makes its blood circulate, it knows how\nto do so; and the fact that it does not know its own knowledge is only\nproof of the perfection of that knowledge, and of the vast number of past\noccasions on which it must have been exercised already.  As has been said\nalready, it is less obvious when the baby could have gained its\nexperience, so as to be able so readily to remember exactly what to do;\n_but it is more easy to suppose that the necessary occasions cannot have\nbeen wanting_, _than that the power which we observe_, _should have been\nobtained without practice and memory_.\n\nIf we saw any self-consciousness on the baby's part about its breathing\nor circulation, we might suspect that it had had less experience, or had\nprofited less by its experience, than its neighbours--exactly in the same\nmanner as we suspect a deficiency of any quality which we see a man\ninclined to parade.  We all become introspective when we find that we do\nnot know our business, and whenever we are introspective we may generally\nsuspect that we are on the verge of unproficiency.  Unfortunately, in the\ncase of sickly children we observe that they sometimes do become\nconscious of their breathing and circulation, just as in later life we\nbecome conscious that we have a liver or a digestion.  In that case there\nis always something wrong.  The baby that becomes aware of its breathing\ndoes not know how to breathe and will suffer for his ignorance and\nincapacity, exactly in the same way as he will suffer in later life for\nignorance and incapacity in any other respect in which his peers are\ncommonly knowing and capable.  In the case of inability to breathe, the\npunishment is corporal, breathing being a matter of fashion, so old and\nlong settled that nature can admit of no departure from the established\ncustom, and the procedure in case of failure is as much formulated as the\nfashion itself.  In the case of the circulation, the whole performance\nhas become one so utterly of rote, that the mere discovery that we could\ndo it at all was considered one of the highest flights of human genius.\n\nIt has been said a day will come when the Polar ice shall have\naccumulated, till it forms vast continents many thousands of feet above\nthe level of the sea, all of solid ice.  The weight of this mass will, it\nis believed, cause the world to topple over on its axis, so that the\nearth will be upset as an ant-heap overturned by a ploughshare.  In that\nday the icebergs will come crunching against our proudest cities, razing\nthem from off the face of the earth as though they were made of rotten\nblotting-paper.  There is no respect now of Handel nor of Shakespeare;\nthe works of Rembrandt and Bellini fossilise at the bottom of the sea.\nGrace, beauty, and wit, all that is precious in music, literature, and\nart--all gone.  In the morning there was Europe.  In the evening there\nare no more populous cities nor busy hum of men, but a sea of jagged ice,\na lurid sunset, and the doom of many ages.  Then shall a scared remnant\nescape in places, and settle upon the changed continent when the waters\nhave subsided--a simple people, busy hunting shellfish on the drying\nocean beds, and with little time for introspection; yet they can read and\nwrite and sum, for by that time these accomplishments will have become\nuniversal, and will be acquired as easily as we now learn to talk; but\nthey do so as a matter of course, and without self-consciousness.  Also\nthey make the simpler kinds of machinery too easily to be able to follow\ntheir own operations--the manner of their own apprenticeship being to\nthem as a buried city.  May we not imagine that, after the lapse of\nanother ten thousand years or so, some one of them may again become\ncursed with lust of introspection, and a second Harvey may astonish the\nworld by discovering that it can read and write, and that steam-engines\ndo not grow, but are made?  It may be safely prophesied that he will die\na martyr, and be honoured in the fourth generation.\n\n\n\nPERSONAL IDENTITY.  (CHAPTER V. OF LIFE AND HABIT.)\n\n\n\"Strange difficulties have been raised by some,\" says Bishop Butler,\n\"concerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents as\nimplied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or indeed in any\ntwo consecutive moments.\"  But in truth it is not easy to see the\nstrangeness of the difficulty, if the words either \"personal\" or\n\"identity\" are used in any strictness.\n\nPersonality is one of those ideas with which we are so familiar that we\nhave lost sight of the foundations upon which it rests.  We regard our\npersonality as a simple definite whole; as a plain, palpable, individual\nthing, which can be seen going about the streets or sitting indoors at\nhome; as something which lasts us our lifetime, and about the confines of\nwhich no doubt can exist in the minds of reasonable people.  But in truth\nthis \"we,\" which looks so simple and definite, is a nebulous and\nindefinable aggregation of many component parts which war not a little\namong themselves, our perception of our existence at all being perhaps\ndue to this very clash of warfare, as our sense of sound and light is due\nto the jarring of vibrations.  Moreover, as the component parts of our\nidentity change from moment to moment, our personality becomes a thing\ndependent upon time present, which has no logical existence, but lives\nonly upon the sufferance of times past and future, slipping out of our\nhands into the domain of one or other of these two claimants the moment\nwe try to apprehend it.  And not only is our personality as fleeting as\nthe present moment, but the parts which compose it blend some of them so\nimperceptibly into, and are so inextricably linked on to, outside things\nwhich clearly form no part of our personality, that when we try to bring\nourselves to book and determine wherein we consist, or to draw a line as\nto where we begin or end, we find ourselves baffled.  There is nothing\nbut fusion and confusion.\n\nPutting theology on one side, and dealing only with the common sense of\nmankind, our body is certainly part of our personality.  With the\ndestruction of our bodies, our personality, as far as we can follow it,\ncomes to a full stop; and with every modification of them it is\ncorrespondingly modified.  But what are the limits of our bodies?  They\nare composed of parts, some of them so unessential as to be hardly\nincluded in personality at all, and to be separable from ourselves\nwithout perceptible effect, as hair, nails, and daily waste of tissue.\nAgain, other parts are very important, as our hands, feet, arms, legs,\n&c., but still are no essential parts of our \"self\" or \"soul,\" which\ncontinues to exist, though in a modified condition, in spite of their\namputation.  Other parts, as the brain, heart, and blood, are so\nessential that they cannot be dispensed with, yet it is impossible to say\nthat personality consists in any one of them.\n\nEach one of these component members of our personality is continually\ndying and being born again, supported in this process by the food we eat,\nthe water we drink, and the air we breathe; which three things link us\non, and fetter us down, to the organic and inorganic world about us.  For\nour meat and drink, though no part of our personality before we eat and\ndrink, cannot, after we have done so, be separated entirely from us\nwithout the destruction of our personality altogether, so far as we can\nfollow it; and who shall say at what precise moment our food has or has\nnot become part of ourselves?  A famished man eats food; after a short\ntime his whole personality is so palpably affected that we know the food\nto have entered into him and taken, as it were, possession of him; but\nwho can say at what precise moment it did so?  Thus we find that we melt\naway into outside things and are rooted into them as plants into the soil\nin which they grow, nor can any man say he consists absolutely in this or\nthat, nor define himself so certainly as to include neither more nor less\nthan himself; many undoubted parts of his personality being more\nseparable from it, and changing it less when so separated, both to his\nown senses and those of other people, than other parts which are strictly\nspeaking no parts at all.\n\nA man's clothes, for example, as they lie on a chair at night are no part\nof him, but when he wears them they would appear to be so, as being a\nkind of food which warms him and hatches him, and the loss of which may\nkill him of cold.  If this be denied, and a man's clothes be considered\nas no part of his self, nevertheless they, with his money, and it may\nperhaps be added his religious opinions, stamp a man's individuality as\nstrongly as any natural feature can stamp it.  Change in style of dress,\ngain or loss of money, make a man feel and appear more changed than\nhaving his chin shaved or his nails cut.  In fact, as soon as we leave\ncommon parlance on one side, and try for a scientific definition of\npersonality, we find that there is none possible, any more than there can\nbe a demonstration of the fact that we exist at all--a demonstration for\nwhich, as for that of a personal God, many have hunted but which none\nhave found.  The only solid foundation is, as in the case of the earth's\ncrust, pretty near the surface of things; the deeper we try to go, the\ndamper, darker, and altogether more uncongenial we find it.  There is no\nquagmire of superstition into which we may not be easily lured if we once\ncut ourselves adrift from those superficial aspects of things, in which\nalone our nature permits us to be comforted.\n\nCommon parlance, however, settles the difficulty readily enough (as\nindeed it settles most others if they show signs of awkwardness) by the\nsimple process of ignoring it: we decline, and very properly, to go into\nthe question of where personality begins and ends, but assume it to be\nknown by every one, and throw the onus of not knowing it upon the over-\ncurious, who had better think as their neighbours do, right or wrong, or\nthere is no knowing into what villany they may not presently fall.\n\nAssuming, then, that every one knows what is meant by the word \"person\"\n(and such superstitious bases as this are the foundations upon which all\naction, whether of man, beast, or plant, is constructed and rendered\npossible; for even the corn in the fields grows upon a superstitious\nbasis as to its own existence, and only turns the earth and moisture into\nwheat through the conceit of its own ability to do so, without which\nfaith it were powerless; and the lichen only grows upon the granite rock\nby first saying to itself, \"I think I can do it;\" so that it would not be\nable to grow unless it thought it could grow, and would not think it\ncould grow unless it found itself able to grow, and thus spends its life\narguing most virtuously in a most vicious circle--basing action upon\nhypothesis, which hypothesis is in turn based upon action)--assuming that\nwe know what is meant by the word \"person,\" we say that we are one and\nthe same person from birth till death, so that whatever is done by or\nhappens to any one between birth and death, is said to happen to or be\ndone by one individual.  This in practice is found sufficient for the law\ncourts and the purposes of daily life, which, being full of hurry and the\npressure of business, can only tolerate compromise, or conventional\nrendering of intricate phenomena.  When facts of extreme complexity have\nto be daily and hourly dealt with by people whose time is money, they\nmust be simplified, and treated much as a painter treats them, drawing\nthem in squarely, seizing the more important features, and neglecting all\nthat does not assert itself as too essential to be passed over--hence the\nslang and cant words of every profession, and indeed all language; for\nlanguage at best is but a kind of \"patter,\" the only way, it is true, in\nmany cases, of expressing our ideas to one another, but still a very bad\nway, and not for one moment comparable to the unspoken speech which we\nmay sometimes have recourse to.  The metaphors and _facons de parler_ to\nwhich even in the plainest speech we are perpetually recurring (as, for\nexample, in this last two lines, \"plain,\" \"perpetually,\" and \"recurring,\"\nare all words based on metaphor, and hence more or less liable to\nmislead) often deceive us, as though there were nothing more than what we\nsee and say, and as though words, instead of being, as they are, the\ncreatures of our convenience, had some claim to be the actual ideas\nthemselves concerning which we are conversing.\n\nThis is so well expressed in a letter I have recently received from a\nfriend, now in New Zealand, and certainly not intended by him for\npublication, that I shall venture to quote the passage, but should say\nthat I do so without his knowledge or permission which I should not be\nable to receive before this book must be completed.\n\n\"Words, words, words,\" he writes, \"are the stumbling-blocks in the way of\ntruth.  Until you think of things as they are, and not of the words that\nmisrepresent them, you cannot think rightly.  Words produce the\nappearance of hard and fast lines where there are none.  Words divide;\nthus we call this a man, that an ape, that a monkey, while they are all\nonly differentiations of the same thing.  To think of a thing they must\nbe got rid of: they are the clothes that thoughts wear--only the clothes.\nI say this over and over again, for there is nothing of more importance.\nOther men's words will stop you at the beginning of an investigation.  A\nman may play with words all his life, arranging them and rearranging them\nlike dominoes.  If I could _think_ to you without words you would\nunderstand me better.\"\n\nIf such remarks as the above hold good at all, they do so with the words\n\"personal identity.\"  The least reflection will show that personal\nidentity in any sort of strictness is an impossibility.  The expression\nis one of the many ways in which we are obliged to scamp our thoughts\nthrough pressure of other business which pays us better.  For surely all\nreasonable people will feel that an infant an hour before birth, when in\nthe eye of the law he has no existence, and could not be called a peer\nfor another sixty minutes, though his father were a peer, and already\ndead,--surely such an embryo is more personally identical with the baby\ninto which he develops within an hour's time than the born baby is so\nwith itself (if the expression may be pardoned), one, twenty, or it may\nbe eighty years after birth.  There is more sameness of matter; there are\nfewer differences of any kind perceptible by a third person; there is\nmore sense of continuity on the part of the person himself, and far more\nof all that goes to make up our sense of sameness of personality between\nan embryo an hour before birth and the child on being born, than there is\nbetween the child just born and the man of twenty.  Yet there is no\nhesitation about admitting sameness of personality between these two\nlast.\n\nOn the other hand, if that hazy contradiction in terms, \"personal\nidentity,\" be once allowed to retreat behind the threshold of the womb,\nit has eluded us once for all.  What is true of one hour before birth is\ntrue of two, and so on till we get back to the impregnate ovum, which may\nfairly claim to have been personally identical with the man of eighty\ninto which it ultimately developed, in spite of the fact that there is no\nparticle of same matter nor sense of continuity between them, nor\nrecognised community of instinct, nor indeed of anything which on a\n_prima facie_ view of the matter goes to the making up of that which we\ncall identity.\n\nThere is far more of all these things common to the impregnate ovum and\nthe ovum immediately before impregnation, or again between the impregnate\novum, and both the ovum before impregnation and the spermatozoon which\nimpregnated it.  Nor, if we admit personal identity between the ovum and\nthe octogenarian, is there any sufficient reason why we should not admit\nit between the impregnate ovum and the two factors of which it is\ncomposed, which two factors are but offshoots from two distinct\npersonalities, of which they are as much part as the apple is of the\napple-tree; so that an impregnate ovum cannot without a violation of\nfirst principles be debarred from claiming personal identity with both\nits parents, and hence, by an easy chain of reasoning, _with each of the\nimpregnate ova from which its parents were developed_.\n\nSo that each ovum when impregnate should be considered not as descended\nfrom its ancestors, but as being a continuation of the personality of\nevery ovum in the chain of its ancestry, every which ovum _it actually\nis_ as truly as the octogenarian _is_ the same identity with the ovum\nfrom which he has been developed.  The two cases stand or fall together.\n\nThis process cannot stop short of the primordial cell, which again will\nprobably turn out to be but a brief resting-place.  We therefore prove\neach one of us to _be actually_ the primordial cell which never died nor\ndies, but has differentiated itself into the life of the world, all\nliving beings whatever, being one with it, and members one of another.\n\nTo look at the matter for a moment in another light, it will be admitted\nthat if the primordial cell had been killed before leaving issue, all its\npossible descendants would have been killed at one and the same time.  It\nis hard to see how this single fact does not establish at the point, as\nit were, of a logical bayonet, an identity between any creature and all\nothers that are descended from it.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe fencing (for it does not deserve the name of serious disputation)\nwith which Bishop Butler meets his opponents is rendered possible by the\nlaxness with which the words \"identical\" and \"identity\" are ordinarily\nused.  Bishop Butler would not seriously deny that personality undergoes\ngreat changes between infancy and old age, and hence that it must undergo\nsome change from moment to moment.  So universally is this recognised,\nthat it is common to hear it said of such and such a man that he is not\nat all the person he was, or of such and such another that he is twice\nthe man he used to be--expressions than which none nearer the truth can\nwell be found.  On the other hand, those whom Bishop Butler is intending\nto confute would be the first to admit that, though there are many\nchanges between infancy and old age, yet they come about in any one\nindividual under such circumstances as we are all agreed in considering\nas the factors of personal identity rather than as hindrances\nthereto--that is to say that there has been no entire and permanent death\non the part of the individual between any two phases of his existence,\nand that any one phase has had a lasting though perhaps imperceptible\neffect upon all succeeding ones.  So that no one ever seriously argued in\nthe manner supposed by Bishop Butler, unless with modifications and\nsaving clauses, to which it does not suit his purpose to call attention.\n\n* * * * *\n\nNo doubt it would be more strictly accurate to say \"you are the now phase\nof the person I met last night,\" or \"you are the being which has been\nevolved from the being I met last night,\" than \"you are the person I met\nlast night.\"  But life is too short for the periphrases which would crowd\nupon us from every quarter, if we did not set our face against all that\nis under the surface of things, unless, that is to say, the going beneath\nthe surface is, for some special chance of profit, excusable or capable\nof extenuation.\n\n* * * * *\n\nTake again the case of some weeping trees, whose boughs spring up into\nfresh trees when they have reached the ground, who shall say at what time\nthey cease to be members of the parent tree?  In the case of cuttings\nfrom plants it is easy to elude the difficulty by making a parade of the\nsharp and sudden act of separation from the parent stock, but this is\nonly a piece of mental sleight of hand; the cutting remains as much part\nof its parent plant as though it had never been severed from it; it goes\non profiting by the experience which it had before it was cut off, as\nmuch as though it had never been cut off at all.  This will be more\nreadily seen in the case of worms which have been cut in half.  Let a\nworm be cut in half, and the two halves will become fresh worms; which of\nthem is the original worm?  Surely both.  Perhaps no simpler cage than\nthis could readily be found of the manner in which personality eludes us,\nthe moment we try to investigate its real nature.  There are few ideas\nwhich on first consideration appear so simple, and none which becomes\nmore utterly incapable of limitation or definition as soon as it is\nexamined closely.\n\nIt has gone the way of species.  It is now generally held that species\nblend or have blended into one another; so that any possibility of\narrangement and apparent subdivision into definite groups, is due to the\nsuppression by death both of individuals and whole genera, which, had\nthey been now existing, would have linked all living beings by a series\nof gradations so subtle that little classification could have been\nattempted.  What we have failed to see is that the individual is as much\nlinked onto other individuals as the species is linked on to other\nspecies.  How it is that the one great personality of life as a whole,\nshould have split itself up into so many centres of thought and action,\neach one of which is wholly, or at any rate nearly unconscious of its\nconnection with the other members, instead of having grown up into a huge\npolyp, or as it were coral reef or compound animal over the whole world,\nwhich should be conscious but of its own one single existence; how it is\nthat the daily waste of this creature should be carried on by the\nconscious death of its individual members, instead of by the unconscious\nwaste of tissue which goes on in the bodies of each individual (if indeed\nthe tissue which we waste daily in our own bodies is so unconscious of\nits birth and death as we suppose); how, again, that the daily repair of\nthis huge creature life should have become decentralised, and be carried\non by conscious reproduction on the part of its component items, instead\nof by the unconscious nutrition of the whole from a single centre, as the\nnutrition of our own bodies would appear (though perhaps falsely) to be\ncarried on; these are matters upon which I dare not speculate here, but\non which some reflections may follow in subsequent chapters.\n\n\n\nINSTINCT AS INHERITED MEMORY.  (CHAPTER XI. OF LIFE AND HABIT.)\n\n\nObviously the memory of a habit or experience will not commonly be\ntransmitted to offspring in that perfection which is called \"instinct,\"\ntill the habit or experience has been repeated in several generations\nwith more or less uniformity; for otherwise the impression made will not\nbe strong enough to endure through the busy and difficult task of\nreproduction.  This of course involves that the habit shall have\nattained, as it were, equilibrium with the creature's sense of its own\nneeds, so that it shall have long seemed the best course possible,\nleaving upon the whole and under ordinary circumstances little further to\nbe desired, and hence that it should have been little varied during many\ngenerations.  We should expect that it would be transmitted in a more or\nless partial, varying, imperfect, and intelligent condition before\nequilibrium had been attained; it would, however, continually tend\ntowards equilibrium.\n\nWhen this stage has been reached, as regards any habit, the creature will\ncease trying to improve; on which the repetition of the habit will become\nstable, and hence capable of more unerring transmission--but at the same\ntime improvement will cease; the habit will become fixed, and be perhaps\ntransmitted at an earlier and earlier age, till it has reached that date\nof manifestation which shall be found most agreeable to the other habits\nof the creature.  It will also be manifested, as a matter of course,\nwithout further consciousness or reflection, for people cannot be always\nopening up settled questions; if they thought a matter all over yesterday\nthey cannot think it all over again to-day, what they thought then they\nwill think now, and will act upon their opinion; and this, too, even in\nspite sometimes of misgiving, that if they were to think still further\nthey could find a still better course.  It is not, therefore, to be\nexpected that \"instinct\" should show signs of that hesitating and\ntentative action which results from knowledge that is still so imperfect\nas to be actively self-conscious; nor yet that it should grow or vary\nperceptibly unless under such changed conditions as shall baffle memory,\nand present the alternative of either invention--that is to say,\nvariation--or death.\n\nBut every instinct must have passed through the laboriously intelligent\nstages through which human civilisations _and mechanical inventions_ are\nnow passing; and he who would study the origin of an instinct with its\ndevelopment, partial transmission, further growth, further transmission,\napproach to more unreflecting stability, and finally, its perfection as\nan unerring and unerringly transmitted instinct, must look to laws,\ncustoms, _and machinery_ as his best instructors.  Customs and machines\nare instincts _and organs_ now in process of development; they will\nassuredly one day reach the unconscious state of equilibrium which we\nobserve in the structures and instincts of bees and ants, and an approach\nto which may be found among some savage nations.  We may reflect,\nhowever, not without pleasure, that this condition--the true\nmillennium--is still distant.  Nevertheless the ants and bees seem happy;\nperhaps more happy than when so many social questions were in as hot\ndiscussion among them as other and not dissimilar ones will one day be\namongst ourselves.\n\nAnd this, as will be apparent, opens up the whole question of the\nstability of species, which we cannot follow further here, than to say,\nthat according to the balance of testimony, many plants and animals do\nappear to have reached a phase of being from which they are hard to\nmove--that is to say, they will die sooner than be at the pains of\naltering their habits--true martyrs to their convictions.  Such races\nrefuse to see changes in their surroundings as long as they can, but when\ncompelled to recognise them, they throw up the game because they cannot\nand will not, or will not and cannot, invent.\n\nThis is perfectly intelligible, for a race is nothing but a long-lived\nindividual, and like any individual, or tribe of men whom we have yet\nobserved, will have its special capacities and its special limitations,\nthough, as in the case of the individual, so also with the race, it is\nexceedingly hard to say what those limitations are, and why, having been\nable to go so far, it should go no further.  Every man and every race is\ncapable of education up to a certain point, but not to the extent of\nbeing made from a sow's ear into a silk purse.  The proximate cause of\nthe limitation seems to lie in the absence of the wish to go further; the\npresence or absence of the wish will depend upon the nature and\nsurroundings of the individual, which is simply a way of saying that one\ncan get no further, but that as the song (with a slight alteration)\nsays:--\n\n   \"Some breeds do, and some breeds don't,\n   Some breeds will, but this breed won't:\n   I tried very often to see if it would,\n   But it said it really couldn't, and I don't think it could.\"\n\n* * * * *\n\nM. Ribot in his work on Heredity {119} writes (p. 14):--\"The duckling\nhatched by the hen makes straight for water.\"  In what conceivable way\ncan we account for this, except on the supposition that the duckling\nknows perfectly well what it can and what it cannot do with water, owing\nto its recollection of what it did when it was still one individuality\nwith its parents, and hence, when it was a duckling before?\n\n\"The squirrel, before it knows anything of winter, lays up a store of\nnuts.  A bird when hatched in a cage will, when given its freedom, build\nfor itself a nest like that of its parents, out of the same materials,\nand of the same shape.\"\n\nIf this is not due to memory, \"even an imperfect\" explanation of what\nelse it can be due to, \"would,\" to quote from Mr. Darwin, \"be\nsatisfactory.\"\n\n\"Intelligence gropes about, tries this way and that, misses its object,\ncommits mistakes, and corrects them.\"\n\nYes.  Because intelligence is of consciousness, and consciousness is of\nattention, and attention is of uncertainty, and uncertainty is of\nignorance or want of consciousness.  Intelligence is not yet thoroughly\nup to its business.\n\n\"Instinct advances with a mechanical certainty, hence comes its\nunconscious character.  It knows nothing either of ends, or of the means\nof attaining them: it implies no comparison, judgment, or choice.\"\n\nThis is assumption.  What is certain is that instinct does not betray\nsigns of self-consciousness as to its own knowledge.  It has dismissed\nreference to first principles, and is no longer under the law, but under\nthe grace of a settled conviction.\n\n\"All seems directed by thought.\"\n\nYes; because all _has been_ in earlier existences directed by thought.\n\n\"Without ever arriving at thought.\"\n\nBecause it has _got past thought_, and though \"directed by thought\"\noriginally, is now travelling in exactly the opposite direction.  It is\nnot likely to reach thought again, till people get to know worse and\nworse how to do things, the oftener they practise them.\n\n\"And if this phenomenon appear strange, it must be observed that\nanalogous states occur in ourselves.  _All that we do from\nhabit_--_walking_, _writing_, _or practising a mechanical act_, _for\ninstance_--_all these and many other very complex acts are performed\nwithout consciousness_.\n\n\"Instinct appears stationary.  It does not, like intelligence, seem to\ngrow and decay, to gain and to lose.  It does not improve.\"\n\nNaturally.  For improvement can only as a general rule be looked for\nalong the line of latest development, that is to say, in matters\nconcerning which the creature is being still consciously exercised.  Older\nquestions are settled, and the solution must be accepted as final, for\nthe question of living at all would be reduced to an absurdity, if\neverything decided upon one day was to be undecided again the next; as\nwith painting or music, so with life and politics, let every man be fully\npersuaded in his own mind, for decision with wrong will be commonly a\nbetter policy than indecision--I had almost added with right; and a firm\npurpose with risk will be better than an infirm one with temporary\nexemption from disaster.  Every race has made its great blunders, to\nwhich it has nevertheless adhered, inasmuch as the corresponding\nmodification of other structures and instincts was found preferable to\nthe revolution which would be caused by a radical change of structure,\nwith consequent havoc among a legion of vested interests.  Rudimentary\norgans are, as has been often said, the survivals of these interests--the\nsigns of their peaceful and gradual extinction as living faiths; they are\nalso instances of the difficulty of breaking through any cant or trick\nwhich we have long practised, and which is not sufficiently troublesome\nto make it a serious object with us to cure ourselves of the habit.\n\n\"If it does not remain perfectly invariable, at least it only varies\nwithin very narrow limits; and though this question has been warmly\ndebated in our day and is yet unsettled, we may yet say that in instinct\nimmutability is the law, variation the exception.\"\n\nThis is quite as it should be.  Genius will occasionally rise a little\nabove convention, but with an old convention immutability will be the\nrule.\n\n\"Such,\" continues M. Ribot, \"are the admitted characters of instinct.\"\n\nYes; but are they not also the admitted characters of habitual actions\nthat are due to memory?\n\n* * * * *\n\nM. Ribot says a little further on: \"Originally man had considerable\ntrouble in taming the animals which are now domesticated; and his work\nwould have been in vain had not heredity\" (memory) \"come to his aid.  It\nmay be said that after man has modified a wild animal to his will, there\ngoes on in its progeny a silent conflict between two heredities\"\n(memories), \"the one tending to fix the acquired modifications and the\nother to preserve the primitive instincts.  The latter often get the\nmastery, and only after several generations is training sure of victory.\nBut we may see that in either case heredity\" (memory) \"always asserts its\nrights.\"\n\nHow marvellously is the above passage elucidated and made to fit in with\nthe results of our recognised experience, by the simple substitution of\nthe word \"memory\" for heredity.\n\n* * * * *\n\nI cannot refrain from bringing forward a few more instances of what I\nthink must be considered by every reader as hereditary memory.  Sydney\nSmith writes:--\n\n\"Sir James Hall hatched some chickens in an oven.  Within a few minutes\nafter the shell was broken, a spider was turned loose before this very\nyouthful brood; the destroyer of flies had hardly proceeded more than a\nfew inches, before he was descried by one of these oven-born chickens,\nand, at one peck of his bill, immediately devoured.  This certainly was\nnot imitation.  A female goat very near delivery died; Galen cut out the\nyoung kid, and placed before it a bundle of hay, a bunch of fruit, and a\npan of milk; the young kid smelt to them all very attentively, and then\nbegan to lap the milk.  This was not imitation.  And what is commonly and\nrightly called instinct, cannot be explained away under the notion of its\nbeing imitation.\"  (Lecture xvii. on Moral Philosophy.)\n\nIt cannot, indeed, be explained away under the notion of its being\nimitation, but I think it may well be so under that of its being memory.\n\nAgain, a little further on in the same lecture as that above quoted from,\nwe find:--\n\n\"Ants and beavers lay up magazines.  Where do they get their knowledge\nthat it will not be so easy to collect food in rainy weather as it is in\nsummer?  Men and women know these things, because their grandpapas and\ngrandmammas have told them so.  Ants hatched from the egg artificially,\nor birds hatched in this manner, have all this knowledge by intuition,\nwithout the smallest communication with any of their relations.  Now\nobserve what the solitary wasp does; she digs several holes in the sand,\nin each of which she deposits an egg, though she certainly knows not (?)\nthat an animal is deposited in that egg, and still less that this animal\nmust be nourished with other animals.  She collects a few green flies,\nrolls them up neatly in several parcels (like Bologna sausages), and\nstuffs one parcel into each hole where an egg is deposited.  When the\nwasp worm is hatched, it finds a store of provision ready made; and what\nis most curious, the quantity allotted to each is exactly sufficient to\nsupport it, till it attains the period of wasphood, and can provide for\nitself.  This instinct of the parent wasp is the more remarkable as it\ndoes not feed upon flesh itself.  Here the little creature has never seen\nits parent; for by the time it is born, the parent is always eaten by\nsparrows; and yet, without the slightest education, or previous\nexperience, it does everything that the parent did before it.  Now the\nobjectors to the doctrine of instinct may say what they please, but young\ntailors have no intuitive method of making pantaloons; a new-born mercer\ncannot measure diaper; nature teaches a cook's daughter nothing about\nsippets.  All these things require with us seven years' apprenticeship;\nbut insects are like Moliere's persons of quality--they know everything\n(as Moliere says) without having learnt anything.  'Les gens de qualite\nsavent tout, sans avoir rien appris.'\"\n\nHow completely all difficulty vanishes from the facts so pleasantly told\nin this passage when we bear in mind the true nature of personal\nidentity, the ordinary working of memory, and the vanishing tendency of\nconsciousness concerning what we know exceedingly well.\n\nMy last instance I take from M. Ribot, who writes:--\"Gratiolet, in his\n_Anatomie Comparee du Systems Nerveux_, states that an old piece of\nwolf's skin, with the hair all worn away, when set before a little dog,\nthrew the animal into convulsions of fear by the slight scent attaching\nto it.  The dog had never seen a wolf, and we can only explain this alarm\nby the hereditary transmission of certain sentiments, coupled with a\ncertain perception of the sense of smell.\"  (\"Heredity,\" p. 43.)\n\nI should prefer to say \"we can only explain the alarm by supposing that\nthe smell of the wolf's skin\"--the sense of smell being, as we all know,\nmore powerful to recall the ideas that have been associated with it than\nany other sense--\"brought up the ideas with which it had been associated\nin the dog's mind during many previous existences\"--he on smelling the\nwolf's skin remembering all about wolves perfectly well.\n\n\n\nCONCLUDING REMARKS.  (FROM CHAPTER XV. OF LIFE AND HABIT.)\n\n\nHere, then, I leave my case, though well aware that I have crossed the\nthreshold only of my subject.  My work is of a tentative character, put\nbefore the public as a sketch or design for a, possibly, further\nendeavour, in which I hope to derive assistance from the criticisms which\nthis present volume may elicit. {125}  Such as it is, however, for the\npresent I must leave it.\n\nWe have seen that we cannot do anything thoroughly till we can do it\nunconsciously, and that we cannot do anything unconsciously till we can\ndo it thoroughly; this at first seems illogical; but logic and\nconsistency are luxuries for the gods, and the lower animals, only.  Thus\na boy cannot really know how to swim till he can swim, but he cannot swim\ntill he knows how to swim.  Conscious effort is but the process of\nrubbing off the rough corners from these two contradictory statements,\ntill they eventually fit into one another so closely that it is\nimpossible to disjoin them.\n\nWhenever we see any creature able to go through any complicated and\ndifficult process with little or no effort--whether it be a bird building\nher nest, or a hen's egg making itself into a chicken, or an ovum turning\nitself into a baby--we may conclude that the creature has done the same\nthing on a very great number of past occasions.\n\nWe found the phenomena exhibited by heredity to be so like those of\nmemory, and to be so inexplicable on any other supposition than that they\nwere modes of memory, that it was easier to suppose them due to memory in\nspite of the fact that we cannot remember having recollected, than to\nbelieve that because we cannot so remember, therefore the phenomena\ncannot be due to memory.\n\nWe were thus led to consider \"personal identity,\" in order to see whether\nthere was sufficient reason for denying that the experience, which we\nmust have clearly gained somewhere, was gained by us when we were in the\npersons of our forefathers; we found, not without surprise, that unless\nwe admitted that it might be so gained, in so far as that we once\n_actually were_ our remotest ancestor, we must change our ideas\nconcerning personality altogether.\n\nWe therefore assumed that the phenomena of heredity, whether as regards\ninstinct or structure, were due to memory of past experiences,\naccumulated and fused till they had become automatic, or quasi automatic,\nmuch in the same way as after a long life--\n\n   . . . \"Old experience doth attain\n   To something like prophetic strain.\"\n\nAfter dealing with certain phenomena of memory, but more especially with\nits abeyance and revival, we inquired what the principal corresponding\nphenomena of life and species should be, on the hypothesis that they were\nmainly due to memory.\n\nI think I may say that we found the hypothesis fit in with actual facts\nin a sufficiently satisfactory manner.  We found not a few matters, as,\nfor example, the sterility of hybrids, the principle underlying\nlongevity, the phenomena of old age, and puberty as generally near the\nend of development, explain themselves with more completeness than I have\nyet heard of their being explained on any other hypothesis.  Most indeed\nof these phenomena have been left hitherto without even an attempt at an\nexplanation.\n\nWe considered the most important difficulty in the way of instinct as\nhereditary habit, namely, the structure and instincts of neuter insects;\nthese are very unlike those of their parents, and cannot, apparently, be\ntransmitted to offspring by individuals of the previous generation, in\nwhom such structure and instincts appeared, inasmuch as these creatures\nare sterile.  I do not say that the difficulty is wholly removed,\ninasmuch as some obscurity must be admitted to remain as to the manner in\nwhich the structure of the larva is aborted; this obscurity is likely to\nremain till we know more of the early history of civilisation among bees\nthan I can find that we know at present; but I believe the difficulty was\nreduced to such proportions as to make it little likely to be felt in\ncomparison with that of attributing instinct to any other cause than\ninherited habit, or memory on the part of offspring, of habits contracted\nin the persons of its ancestors. {127}\n\nWe then inquired what was the great principle underlying variation, and\nanswered, with Lamarck, that it must be \"sense of need;\" and though not\nwithout being haunted by suspicion of a vicious circle, and also well\naware that we were not much nearer the origin of life than when we\nstarted, we still concluded that here was the truest origin of species,\nand hence of genera; and that the accumulation of variations, which in\ntime amounted to specific and generic differences, was due to\nintelligence and memory on the part of the creature varying, rather than\nto the operation of what Mr. Darwin has called \"natural selection.\"  At\nthe same time we admitted that the course of nature is very much as Mr.\nDarwin has represented it, in this respect, in so far as that there is a\nstruggle for existence, and that the weaker must go to the wall.  But we\ndenied that this part of the course of nature would lead to much, if any,\naccumulation of variation, unless the variation was directed mainly by\nintelligent sense of need, with continued personality and memory.\n\nWe conclude, therefore, that the small, apparently structureless,\nimpregnate ovum from which we have each one of us sprung, has a potential\nrecollection of all that has happened to each one of its ancestors prior\nto the period at which any such ancestor has issued from the bodies of\nits progenitors--provided, that is to say, a sufficiently deep, or\nsufficiently often-repeated, impression has been made to admit of its\nbeing remembered at all.\n\nEach step of normal development will lead the impregnate ovum up to, and\nremind it of, its next ordinary course of action, in the same way as we,\nwhen we recite a well-known passage, are led up to each successive\nsentence by the sentence which has immediately preceded it.\n\nAnd for this reason, namely, that as it takes two people \"to tell\" a\nthing--a speaker and a comprehending listener, without which last, though\nmuch may have been said, there has been nothing told--so also it takes\ntwo people, as it were, to \"remember\" a thing--the creature remembering,\nand the surroundings of the creature at the time it last remembered.\nHence, though the ovum immediately after impregnation is instinct with\nall the memories of both parents, not one of these memories can normally\nbecome active till both the ovum itself, and its surroundings, are\nsufficiently like what they respectively were, when the occurrence now to\nbe remembered last took place.  The memory will then immediately return,\nand the creature will do as it did on the last occasion that it was in\nlike case as now.  This ensures that similarity of order shall be\npreserved in all the stages of development in successive generations.\n\nLife then is the being possessed of memory.  We are all the same stuff to\nstart with; plants and animals only differ from one another because they\nremember different things; they grow up in the shapes they bear because\nthese shapes are the embodiments of their ideas concerning their own past\nhistory; they are forms of faith or faiths of form whichever the reader\nchooses.\n\nHence the term \"Natural History,\" as applied to the different plants and\nanimals around us.  For surely the study of natural history means only\nthe study of plants and animals themselves, which, at the moment of using\nthe words \"Natural History,\" we assume to be the most important part of\nnature.\n\nA living creature well supported by a mass of healthy ancestral memory is\na young and growing creature, free from ache or pain, and thoroughly\nacquainted with its business so far, but with much yet to be reminded of.\nA creature which finds itself and its surroundings not so unlike those of\nits parents about the time of their begetting it, as to be compelled to\nrecognise that it never yet was in any such position, is a creature in\nthe heyday of life.  A creature which begins to be aware of itself is one\nwhich is beginning to recognise that the situation is a new one.\n\nIt is the young and fair, then, who are the truly old and truly\nexperienced; it is they who alone have a trustworthy memory to guide\nthem; they alone know things as they are, and it is from them that, as we\ngrow older, we must study if we would still cling to truth.  The whole\ncharm of youth lies in its advantage over age in respect of experience,\nand where this has for some reason failed, or been misapplied, the charm\nis broken.  When we say that we are getting old, we should say rather\nthat we are getting new or young, and are suffering from inexperience,\nwhich drives us into doing things which we do not understand, and lands\nus, eventually, in the utter impotence of death.  The kingdom of heaven\nis the kingdom of little children.\n\n\n\n\nSELECTIONS FROM EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. {131}\n\n\nIMPOTENCE OF PALEY'S CONCLUSION.  THE TELEOLOGY OF THE EVOLUTIONIST.\n(FROM CHAPTER III. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.)\n\n\nIf we conceive of ourselves as looking simultaneously upon a real foot,\nand upon an admirably constructed artificial one, placed by the side of\nit, the idea of design, and design by an intelligent living being with a\nbody and soul (without which, the use of the word design is delusive),\nwill present itself strongly to our minds in connection both with the\ntrue foot and with the model; but we find another idea asserting itself\nwith even greater strength, namely, that the design of the true foot is\ninfinitely more intricate, and yet is carried into execution in far more\nmasterly manner than that of the model.  We not only feel that there is a\nwider difference between the ability, time, and care which have been\nlavished on the real foot and upon the model, than there is between the\nskill and the time taken to produce Westminster Abbey, and that bestowed\nupon a gingerbread cake stuck with sugar plums so as to represent it, but\nalso that these two objects must have been manufactured on different\nprinciples.  We do not for a moment doubt that the real foot was\ndesigned, but we are so astonished at the dexterity of the designer that\nwe are at a loss for some time to think who could have designed it, where\nhe can live, in what manner he studied, for how long, and by what\nprocesses he carried out his design, when matured, into actual practice.\nUntil recently it was thought that there was no answer to many of these\nquestions, more especially to those which bear upon the mode of\nmanufacture.  For the last hundred years, however, the importance of a\nstudy has been recognised which does actually reveal to us in no small\ndegree the processes by which the human foot is manufactured, so that in\nour endeavour to lay our hands upon the points of difference between the\nkind of design with which the foot itself is designed, and the design of\nthe model, we turn naturally to the guidance of those who have made this\nstudy their specialty; and a very wide difference does this study,\nembryology, at once reveal to us.\n\nWriting of the successive changes through which each embryo is forced to\npass, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes says that \"none of these phases have any\nadaptation to the future state of the animal, but are in positive\ncontradiction to it or are simply purposeless; whereas all show stamped\non them the unmistakable characters of _ancestral_ adaptation, and the\nprogressions of organic evolution.  What does the fact imply?  There is\nnot a single known example of a complex organism which is not developed\nout of simpler forms.  Before it can attain the complex structure which\ndistinguishes it, there must be an evolution of forms similar to those\nwhich distinguish the structure of organisms lower in the series.  On the\nhypothesis of a plan which prearranged the organic world, nothing could\nbe more unworthy of a supreme intelligence than this inability to\nconstruct an organism at once, without making several previous tentative\nefforts, undoing to-day what was so carefully done yesterday, and\n_repeating for centuries the same tentatives in the same succession_.  Do\nnot let us blink this consideration.  There is a traditional phrase much\nin vogue among the anthropomorphists, which arose naturally enough from a\ntendency to take human methods as an explanation of the Divine--a phrase\nwhich becomes a sort of argument--'The Great Architect.'  But if we are\nto admit the human point of view, a glance at the facts of embryology\nmust produce very uncomfortable reflections.  For what should we say to\nan architect who was unable, or being able was obstinately unwilling, to\nerect a palace except by first using his materials in the shape of a hut,\nthen pulling them down and rebuilding them as a cottage, then adding\nstory to story and room to room, _not_ with any reference to the ultimate\npurposes of the palace, but wholly with reference to the way in which\nhouses were constructed in ancient times?  What should we say to the\narchitect who could not form a museum out of bricks and mortar, but was\nforced to begin as if going to construct a mansion, and after proceeding\nsome way in this direction, altered his plan into a palace, and that\nagain into a museum?  Yet this is the sort of succession on which\norganisms are constructed.  The fact has long been familiar; how has it\nbeen reconciled with infinite wisdom?  Let the following passage answer\nfor a thousand:--'The embryo is nothing like the miniature of the adult.\nFor a long while the body in its entirety and in its details, presents\nthe strangest of spectacles.  Day by day and hour by hour, the aspect of\nthe scene changes, and this instability is exhibited by the most\nessential parts no less than by the accessory parts.  One would say that\nnature feels her way, and only reaches the goal after many times missing\nthe path' (on dirait que la nature tatonne et ne conduit son oeuvre a bon\nfin, qu'apres s'etre souvent trompee).\" {134a}\n\nThe above passage does not, I think, affect the evidence for design which\nwe adduced in the preceding chapter. {134b}  However strange the process\nof manufacture may appear, when the work comes to be turned out the\ndesign is too manifest to be doubted.\n\nIf the reader were to come upon some lawyer's deed which dealt with\nmatters of such unspeakable intricacy that it baffled his imagination to\nconceive how it could ever have been drafted, and if in spite of this he\nwere to find the intricacy of the provisions to be made, exceeded only by\nthe ease and simplicity with which the deed providing for them was found\nto work in practice; and after this, if he were to discover that the\ndeed, by whomsoever drawn, had nevertheless been drafted upon principles\nwhich at first seemed very foreign to any according to which he was in\nthe habit of drafting deeds himself, as for example, that the draftsman\nhad begun to draft a will as a marriage settlement, and so forth--yet an\nobserver would not, I take it, do either of two things.  He would not in\nthe face of the result deny the design, making himself judge rather of\nthe method of procedure than of the achievement.  Nor yet after insisting\nin the manner of Paley, on the wonderful proofs of intention and on the\nexquisite provisions which were to be found in every syllable--thus\nleading us up to the highest pitch of expectation--would he present us\nwith such an impotent conclusion as that the designer, though a living\nperson and a true designer, was yet immaterial and intangible, a\nsomething, in fact, which proves to be a nothing; an omniscient and\nomnipotent vacuum.\n\nOur observer would feel he need not have been at such pains to establish\nhis design if this was to be the upshot of his reasoning.  He would\ntherefore admit the design, and by consequence the designer, but would\nprobably ask a little time for reflection before he ventured to say who,\nor what, or where the designer was.  Then gaining some insight into the\nmanner in which the deed had been drawn, he would conclude that the\ndraftsman was a specialist who had had long practice in this particular\nkind of work, but who now worked almost as it might be said automatically\nand without consciousness, and found it difficult to depart from a\nhabitual method of procedure.\n\nWe turn, then, on Paley, and say to him: \"We have admitted your design\nand your designer.  Where is he?  Show him to us.  If you cannot show him\nto us as flesh and blood, show him as flesh and sap; show him as a living\ncell; show him as protoplasm.  Lower than this we should not fairly go;\nit is not in the bond or _nexus_ of our ideas that something utterly\ninanimate and inorganic should scheme, design, contrive, and elaborate\nstructures which can make mistakes: it may elaborate low unerring things,\nlike crystals, but it cannot elaborate those which have the power to err.\nNevertheless, we will commit such abuse with our understandings as to\nwaive this point, and we will ask you to show him to us as air which, if\nit cannot be seen yet can be felt, weighed, handled, transferred from\nplace to place, be judged by its effects, and so forth; or if this may\nnot be, give us half a grain of hydrogen, diffused through all space and\ninvested with some of the minor attributes of matter; or if you cannot do\nthis, give us an imponderable like electricity, or even the higher\nmathematics, but give us something or throw off the mask and tell us\nfairly out that it is your paid profession to hoodwink us on this matter\nif you can, and that you are but doing your best to earn an honest\nliving.\"\n\nWe may fancy Paley as turning the tables upon us and as saying; \"But you\ntoo have admitted a designer--you too then must mean a designer with a\nbody and soul, who must be somewhere to be found in space, and who must\nlive in time.  Where is this your designer?  Can you show him more than I\ncan?  Can you lay your finger on him and demonstrate him so that a child\nshall see him and know him, and find what was heretofore an isolated idea\nconcerning him, combine itself instantaneously with the idea of the\ndesigner, we will say, of the human foot, so that no power on earth shall\nhenceforth tear those two ideas asunder?  Surely if you cannot do this,\nyou too are trifling with words, and abusing your own mind and that of\nyour reader.  Where, then, is your designer of man?  Who made him?  And\nwhere, again, is your designer of beasts and birds, of fishes and of\nplants?\"\n\nOur answer is simple enough; it is that we can and do point to a living\ntangible person with flesh, blood, eyes, nose, ears, organs, senses,\ndimensions, who did of his own cunning after infinite proof of every kind\nof hazard and experiment scheme out and fashion each organ of the human\nbody.  This is the person whom we claim as the designer and artificer of\nthat body, and he is the one of all others the best fitted for the task\nby his antecedents, and his practical knowledge of the requirements of\nthe case--for he is man himself.\n\nNot man, the individual of any given generation, but man in the entirety\nof his existence from the dawn of life onwards to the present moment.  In\nlike manner we say that the designer of all organisms is so incorporate\nwith the organisms themselves--so lives, moves, and has its being in\nthose organisms, and is so one with them--they in it, and it in them--that\nit is more consistent with reason and the common use of words to see the\ndesigner of each living form in the living form itself, than to look for\nits designer in some other place or person.\n\nThus we have a third alternative presented to us.\n\nMr. Charles Darwin and his followers deny design, as having any\nappreciable share in the formation of organism at all.\n\nPaley and the theologians insist on design, but upon a designer outside\nthe universe and the organism.\n\nThe third opinion is that suggested in the first instance and carried out\nto a very high degree of development by Buffon.  It was improved, and\nindeed, made almost perfect by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, but too much neglected\nby him after he had put it forward.  It was borrowed, as I think we may\nsay with some confidence, from Dr. Darwin by Lamarck, and was followed up\nby him ardently thenceforth, during the remainder of his life, though\nsomewhat less perfectly comprehended by him than it had been by Dr.\nDarwin.  It is that the design which has designed organisms, has resided\nwithin, and been embodied in, the organisms themselves.\n\n\n\nFAILURE OF THE FIRST EVOLUTIONISTS TO SEE THEIR POSITION AS TELEOLOGICAL.\n(CHAPTER IV. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.)\n\n\nIt follows from the doctrine of Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, if not\nfrom that of Buffon himself, that the majority of organs are as purposive\nto the evolutionist as to the theologian, and far more intelligibly so.\nCircumstances, however, prevented these writers from acknowledging this\nfact to the world, and perhaps even to themselves.  Their _crux_ was, as\nit still is to so many evolutionists, the presence of rudimentary organs,\nand the processes of embryological development.  They would not admit\nthat rudimentary and therefore useless organs were designed by a Creator\nto take their place once and for ever as part of a scheme whose main idea\nwas, that every animal structure was to serve some useful end in\nconnection with its possessor.\n\nThis was the doctrine of final causes as then commonly held; in the face\nof rudimentary organs it was absurd.  Buffon was above all things else a\nplain matter of fact thinker, who refused to go far beyond the obvious.\nLike all other profound writers, he was, if I may say so, profoundly\nsuperficial.  He felt that the aim of research does not consist in the\nknowing this or that, but in the easing of the desire to know or\nunderstand more completely--in the peace of mind which passeth all\nunderstanding.  His was the perfection of a healthy mental organism by\nwhich over effort is felt to be as vicious and contemptible as indolence.\nHe knew this too well to know the grounds of his knowledge, but we\nsmaller people who know it less completely, can see that such felicitous\ninstinctive tempering together of the two great contradictory principles,\nlove of effort and love of ease, has underlain every healthy step of all\nhealthy growth, whether of vegetable or animal, from the earliest\nconceivable time to the present moment.  Nothing is worth looking at\nwhich is seen either too obviously or with too much difficulty.  Nothing\nis worth doing or well done which is not done fairly easily, and some\nlittle deficiency of effort is more pardonable than any very perceptible\nexcess, for virtue has ever erred on the side of self-indulgence rather\nthan of asceticism.\n\nAccording to Buffon, then--as also according to Dr. Darwin, who was just\nsuch another practical and genial thinker, and who was distinctly a pupil\nof Buffon, though a most intelligent and original one--if an organ after\na reasonable amount of inspection appeared to be useless, it was to be\ncalled useless without more ado, and theories were to be ordered out of\ncourt if they were troublesome.  In like manner, if animals breed freely\n_inter se_ before our eyes, as for example the horse and ass, the fact\nwas to be noted, but no animals were to be classed as capable of\ninterbreeding until they had asserted their right to such classification\nby breeding with tolerable certainty.  If, again, an animal looked as if\nit felt, that is to say, if it moved about pretty quickly or made a\nnoise, it must be held to feel; if it did neither of these things it did\nnot look as if it felt, and therefore it must be said not to feel.  _De\nnon apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est lex_ was one of the chief\naxioms of their philosophy; no writers have had a greater horror of\nmystery or of ideas that have not become so mastered as to be, or to have\nbeen, superficial.  Lamarck was one of those men of whom I believe it has\nbeen said that they have brain upon the brain.  He had his theory that an\nanimal could not feel unless it had a nervous system, and at least a\nspinal marrow--and that it could not think at all without a brain--all\nhis facts, therefore, have to be made to square with this.  With Buffon\nand Dr. Darwin we feel safe that however wrong they may sometimes be,\ntheir conclusions have always been arrived at on that fairly superficial\nview of things in which, as I have elsewhere said, our nature alone\npermits us to be comforted.\n\nTo these writers, then, the doctrine of final causes for rudimentary\norgans was a piece of mystification and an absurdity; no less fatal to\nany such doctrine were the processes of embryological development.  It\nwas plain that the commonly received teleology must be given up; but the\nidea of design or purpose was so associated in their minds with\ntheological design that they avoided it altogether.  They seem to have\nforgotten that an internal purpose is as much purpose as an external one;\nhence, unfortunately, though their whole theory of development is\nintensely purposive, it is the fact rather than the name of teleology\nwhich has hitherto been insisted upon, even by the greatest writers on\nevolution--the name having been most persistently denied even by those\nwho were most insisting on the thing itself.\n\nIt is easy to understand the difficulty felt by the fathers of evolution\nwhen we remember how much had to be seen before the facts could lie well\nbefore them.  It was necessary to attain, firstly, to a perception of the\nunity of person between parents and offspring in successive generations;\nsecondly, it must be seen that an organism's memory (within the\nlimitations to which all memory is subject) goes back for generations\nbeyond its birth, to the first beginnings in fact, of which we know\nanything whatever; thirdly, the latency of that memory, as of memory\ngenerally, till the associated ideas are reproduced, must be brought to\nbear upon the facts of heredity; and lastly, the unconsciousness with\nwhich habitual actions come to be performed, must be assigned as the\nexplanation of the unconsciousness with which we grow and discharge most\nof our natural functions.\n\nBuffon was too busy with the fact that animals descended with\nmodification at all, to go beyond the development and illustration of\nthis great truth.  I doubt whether he ever saw more than the first, and\nthat dimly, of the four considerations above stated.\n\nDr. Darwin was the first to point out the first two considerations; he\ndid so with some clearness, but can hardly be said to have understood\ntheir full importance: the two latter ideas do not appear to have\noccurred to him.\n\nLamarck had little if any perception of any one of the four.  When,\nhowever, they are firmly seized and brought into their due bearings one\nupon another, the facts of heredity become as simple as those of a man\nmaking a tobacco pipe, and rudimentary organs are seen to be essentially\nof the same character as the little rudimentary protuberance at the\nbottom of the pipe to which I referred in 'Erewhon.' {141}\n\nThese organs are now no longer useful, but they once were so, and were\ntherefore once purposive, though not so now.  They are the expressions of\na bygone usefulness; sayings, as it were, about which there was at one\ntime infinite wrangling, as to what both the meaning and the expression\nshould best be, so that they then had living significance in the mouths\nof those who used them, though they have become such mere shibboleths and\ncant formulae to ourselves that we think no more of their meaning than we\ndo of Julius Caesar in the month of July.  They continue to be reproduced\nthrough the force of habit, and through indisposition to get out of any\nfamiliar groove of action until it becomes too unpleasant for us to\nremain in it any longer.  It has long been felt that embryology and\nrudimentary structures indicated community of descent.  Dr. Darwin and\nLamarck insisted on this, as have all subsequent writers on evolution;\nbut the explanation why and how the structures come to be\nrepeated--namely, that they are simply examples of the force of habit--can\nonly be perceived intelligently by those who admit such unity between\nparents and offspring as that the self-development of the latter can be\nproperly called habitual (as being a repetition of an act by one and the\nsame individual), and can only be fully sympathised with by those who\nrecognise that if habit be admitted as the key to the fact at all, the\nunconscious manner in which the habit comes to be repeated is only of a\npiece with all our other observations concerning habit.  For the fuller\ndevelopment of the foregoing, I must refer the reader to my work \"Life\nand Habit.\"\n\nThe purposiveness, which even Dr. Darwin (and Lamarck still less) seems\nnever to have quite recognised in spite of their having insisted so much\non what amounts to the same thing, now comes into full view.  It is seen\nthat the organs external to the body, and those internal to it, are the\nsecond as much as the first, things which we have made for our own\nconvenience, and with a prevision that we shall have need of them; the\nmain difference between the manufacture of these two classes of organs\nbeing, that we have made the one kind so often that we can no longer\nfollow the processes whereby we make them, while the others are new\nthings which we must make introspectively or not at all, and which are\nnot yet so incorporate with our vitality as that we should think they\ngrow instead of being manufactured.  The manufacture of the tool, and the\nmanufacture of the living organ prove therefore to be but two species of\nthe same genus, which, though widely differentiated, have descended as it\nwere from one common filament of desire and inventive faculty.  The\ngreater or less complexity of the organs goes for very little.  It is\nonly a question of the amount of intelligence and voluntary\nself-adaptation which we must admit, and this must be settled rather by\nan appeal to what we find in organism, and observe concerning it, than by\nwhat we may have imagined _a priori_.\n\nGiven a small speck of jelly with some power of slightly varying its\nactions in accordance with slightly varying circumstances and\ndesires--given such a jelly-speck with a power of assimilating other\nmatter, and thus of reproducing itself, given also that it should be\npossessed of a memory and a reproductive system, and we can show how the\nwhole animal world can have descended it may be from an _amoeba_ without\ninterference from without, and how every organ in every creature is\ndesigned at first roughly and tentatively but finally fashioned with the\nmost consummate perfection, by the creature which has had need of that\norgan, which best knew what it wanted, and was never satisfied till it\nhad got that which was the best suited to its varying circumstances in\ntheir entirety.  We can even show how, if it becomes worth the\nEthiopian's while to try and change his skin, or the leopard's to change\nhis spots, they can assuredly change them within a not unreasonable time\nand adapt their covering to their own will and convenience, and to that\nof none other; thus what is commonly conceived of as direct creation by\nGod is moved back to a time and space inconceivable in their remoteness,\nwhile the aim and design so obvious in nature are shown to be still at\nwork around us, growing ever busier and busier, and advancing from day to\nday both in knowledge and power.\n\nIt was reserved for Mr. Charles Darwin and for those who have too rashly\nfollowed him to deny purpose as having had any share in the development\nof animal and vegetable organs; to see no evidence of design in those\nwonderful provisions which have been the marvel and delight of observers\nin all ages.  The one who has drawn our attention more than perhaps any\nother living writer to those very marvels of co-adaptation, is the\nforemost to maintain that they are the result not of desire and design,\neither within the creature or without it, but of blind chance, working no\nwhither, and due but to the accumulation of innumerable lucky accidents.\n\n\"There are men,\" writes Professor Tyndal in the _Nineteenth Century_ for\nlast November, {144} \"and by no means the minority, who, however wealthy\nin regard to facts, can never rise into the region of principles; and\nthey are sometimes intolerant of those that can.  They are formed to plod\nmeritoriously on in the lower levels of thought; unpossessed of the\npinions necessary to reach the heights, they cannot realise the mental\nact--the act of inspiration it might well be called--by which a man of\ngenius, after long pondering and proving, reaches a theoretic conception\nwhich unravels and illuminates the tangle of centuries of observation and\nexperiment.  There are minds, it may be said in passing, who, at the\npresent moment, stand in this relation to Mr. Darwin.\"\n\nThe more rhapsodical parts of the above must go for what they are worth,\nbut I should be sorry to think that what remains conveyed a censure which\nmight fall justly on myself.  As I read the earlier part of the passage I\nconfess that I imagined the conclusion was going to be very different\nfrom what it proved to be.  Fresh from the study of the older men and\nalso of Mr. Darwin himself, I failed to see that Mr. Darwin had\n\"unravelled and illuminated\" a tangled skein, but believed him, on the\ncontrary, to have tangled and obscured what his predecessors had made in\ngreat part, if not wholly, plain.  With the older writers, I had felt as\nthough in the hands of men who wished to understand themselves and to\nmake their reader understand them with the smallest possible exertion.\nThe older men, if not in full daylight, at any rate saw in what quarter\nof the sky the dawn was breaking, and were looking steadily towards it.\nIt is not they who have put their hands over their own eyes and ours, and\nwho are crying out that there is no light, but chance and blindness\neverywhere.\n\n\n\nTHE TELEOLOGICAL EVOLUTION OF ORGANISM.  (CHAPTER V. OF EVOLUTION, OLD\nAND NEW.)\n\n\nI have stated the foregoing in what I take to be an extreme logical\ndevelopment, in order that the reader may more easily perceive the\nconsequences of those premises which I am endeavouring to re-establish.\nBut it must not be supposed that an animal or plant has ever conceived\nthe idea of some organ widely different from any it was yet possessed of,\nand has set itself to design it in detail and grow towards it.\n\nThe small jelly-speck, which we call the amoeba, has no organs save what\nit can extemporise as occasion arises.  If it wants to get at anything,\nit thrusts out part of its jelly, which thus serves it as an arm or hand:\nwhen the arm has served its purpose, it is absorbed into the rest of the\njelly, and has now to do the duty of a stomach by helping to wrap up what\nit has just purveyed.  The small round jelly-speck spreads itself out and\nenvelops its food, so that the whole creature is now a stomach, and\nnothing but a stomach.  Having digested its food, it again becomes a\njelly-speck, and is again ready to turn part of itself into hand or foot\nas its next convenience may dictate.  It is not to be believed that such\na creature as this, which is probably just sensitive to light and nothing\nmore, should be able to form any conception of an eye and set itself to\nwork to grow one, any more than it is believable that he who first\nobserved the magnifying power of a dew-drop, or even he who first\nconstructed a rude lens, should have had any idea in his mind of Lord\nRosse's telescope with all its parts and appliances.  Nothing could be\nwell conceived more foreign to experience and common sense.  Animals and\nplants have travelled to their present forms as a man has travelled to\nany one of his own most complicated inventions.  Slowly, step by step,\nthrough many blunders and mischances which have worked together for good\nto those that have persevered in elasticity.  They have travelled as man\nhas travelled, with but little perception of a want till there was also\nsome perception of a power, and with but little perception of a power\ntill there was a dim sense of want; want stimulating power, and power\nstimulating want; and both so based upon each other that no one can say\nwhich is the true foundation, but rather that they must be both baseless\nand, as it were, meteoric in mid air.  They have seen very little ahead\nof a present power or need, and have been then most moral, when most\ninclined to pierce a little into futurity, but also when most obstinately\ndeclining to pierce too far, and busy mainly with the present.  They have\nbeen so far blindfolded that they could see but for a few steps in front\nof them, yet so far free to see that those steps were taken with aim and\ndefinitely, and not in the dark.\n\n\"Plus il a su,\" says Buffon, speaking of man, \"plus il a pu, mais aussi\nmoins il a fait, moins il a su.\"  This holds good wherever life holds\ngood.  Wherever there is life there is a moral government of rewards and\npunishments understood by the amoeba neither better nor worse than by\nman.  The history of organic development is the history of a moral\nstruggle.\n\nAs for the origin of a creature able to feel want and power and as to\nwhat want and power spring from, we know nothing as yet, nor does it seem\nworth while to go into this question until an understanding has been come\nto as to whether the interaction of want and power in some low form or\nforms of life which could assimilate matter, reproduce themselves, vary\ntheir actions, and be capable of remembering, will or will not suffice to\nexplain the development of the varied organs and desires which we see in\nthe higher vertebrates and man.  When this question has been settled,\nthen it will be time to push our inquiries farther back.\n\nBut given such a low form of life as here postulated, and there is no\nforce in Paley's pretended objection to the Darwinism of his time.\n\n\"Give our philosopher,\" he says, \"appetencies; give him a portion of\nliving irritable matter (a nerve or the clipping of a nerve) to work\nupon; give also to his incipient or progressive forms the power of\npropagating their like in every stage of their alteration; and if he is\nto be believed, he could replenish the world with all the vegetable and\nanimal productions which we now see in it.\" {148}\n\nAfter meeting this theory with answers which need not detain us, he\ncontinues:--\n\n\"The senses of animals appear to me quite incapable of receiving the\nexplanation of their origin which this theory affords.  Including under\nthe word 'sense' the organ and the perception, we have no account of\neither.  How will our philosopher get at vision or make an eye?  Or,\nsuppose the eye formed, would the perception follow?  The same of the\nother senses.  And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you will\nto the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to be\nobserved by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able to\nmake of past things with the present.  Concede what you please to these\narbitrary and unattested superstitions, how will they help you?  Here is\nno inception.  No laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail at\npresent, nor any analogous to these would give commencement to a new\nsense; and it is in vain to inquire how that might proceed which would\nnever _begin_.\"\n\nIn answer to this, let us suppose that some inhabitants of another world\nwere to see a modern philosopher so using a microscope that they should\nbelieve it to be a part of the philosopher's own person, which he could\ncut off from and join again to himself at pleasure, and suppose there\nwere a controversy as to how this microscope had originated, and that one\nparty maintained the man had made it little by little because he wanted\nit, while the other declared this to be absurd and impossible; I ask,\nwould this latter party be justified in arguing that microscopes could\nnever have been perfected by degrees through the preservation of and\naccumulation of small successive improvements inasmuch as men could not\nhave begun to want to use microscopes until they had had a microscope\nwhich should show them that such an instrument would be useful to them,\nand that hence there is nothing to account for the _beginning_ of\nmicroscopes, which might indeed make some progress when once originated,\nbut which could never originate?\n\nIt might be pointed out to such a reasoner, firstly, that as regards any\nacquired power the various stages in the acquisition of which he might be\nsupposed able to remember, he would find that logic notwithstanding, the\nwish did originate the power, and yet was originated by it, both coming\nup gradually out of something which was not recognisable as either power\nor wish, and advancing through vain beating of the air, to a vague\neffort, and from this to definite effort with failure, and from this to\ndefinite effort with success, and from this to success with little\nconsciousness of effort, and from this to success with such complete\nabsence of effort that he now acts unconsciously and without power of\nintrospection, and that, do what he will, he can rarely or never draw a\nsharp dividing line whereat anything shall be said to begin, though none\nless certain that there has been a continuity in discontinuity, and a\ndiscontinuity in continuity between it and certain other past things;\nmoreover, that his opponents postulated so much beginning of the\nmicroscope as that there should be a dew-drop, even as our evolutionists\nstart with a sense of touch, of which sense all the others are\nmodifications, so that not one of them, but is resolvable into touch by\nmore or less easy stages; and secondly, that the question is one of fact\nand of the more evident deductions therefrom, and should not be carried\nback to those remote beginnings where the nature of the facts is so\npurely a matter of conjecture and inference.\n\nNo plant or animal, then, according to our view, would be able to\nconceive more than a very slight improvement on its organisation at a\ngiven time, so clearly as to make the efforts towards it that would\nresult in growth of the required modification; nor would these efforts be\nmade with any far-sighted perception of what next and next and after, but\nonly of what next; while many of the happiest thoughts would come like\nall other happy thoughts--thoughtlessly; by a chain of reasoning too\nswift and subtle for conscious analysis by the individual.  Some of these\nmodifications would be noticeable, but the majority would involve no more\nnoticeable difference that can be detected between the length of the\nshortest day, and that of the shortest but one.\n\nThus a bird whose toes were not webbed, but who had under force of\ncircumstances little by little in the course of many generations learned\nto swim, either from having lived near a lake, and having learnt the art\nowing to its fishing habits, or from wading about in shallow pools by the\nsea-side at low water and finding itself sometimes a little out of its\ndepth and just managing to scramble over the intermediate yard or so\nbetween it and safety--such a bird did not probably conceive the idea of\nswimming on the water and set itself to learn to do so, and then conceive\nthe idea of webbed feet and set itself to get webbed feet.  The bird\nfound itself in some small difficulty, out of which it either saw, or at\nany rate found that it could extricate itself by striking out vigorously\nwith its feet and extending its toes as far as ever it could; it thus\nbegan to learn the art of swimming and conceived the idea of swimming\nsynchronously, or nearly so; or perhaps wishing to get over a yard or two\nof deep water, and trying to do so without being at the trouble of rising\nto fly, it would splash and struggle its way over the water, and thus\npractically swim, though without much perception of what it had been\ndoing.  Finding that no harm had come to it, the bird would do the same\nagain and again; it would thus presently lose fear, and would be able to\nact more calmly; then it would begin to find out that it could swim a\nlittle, and if its food lay much in the water so that it would be of\ngreat advantage to it to be able to alight and rest without being forced\nto return to land, it would begin to make a practice of swimming.  It\nwould now discover that it could swim the more easily according as its\nfeet presented a more extended surface to the water; it would therefore\nkeep its toes extended wherever it swam, and as far as in it lay, would\nmake the most of whatever skin was already at the base of its toes.  After\nmany generations it would become web-footed, if doing as above described\nshould have been found continuously convenient, so that the bird should\nhave continuously used the skin about its toes as much as possible in\nthis direction.\n\nFor there is a margin in every organic structure (and perhaps more than\nwe imagine in things inorganic also), which will admit of references, as\nit were, side notes, and glosses upon the original text.  It is on this\nmargin that we may err or wander--the greatness of a mistake depending\nrather upon the extent of the departure from the original text, than on\nthe direction that the departure takes.  A little error on the bad side\nis more pardonable, and less likely to hurt the organism than a too great\ndeparture upon the right one.  This is a fundamental proposition in any\ntrue system of ethics, the question what is too much or too sudden being\ndecided by much the same higgling as settles the price of butter in a\ncountry market, and being as invisible as the link which connects the\nlast moment of desire with the first of power and performance, and with\nthe material result achieved.\n\nIt is on this margin that the fulcrum is to be found, whereby we obtain\nthe little purchase over our structure, that enables us to achieve great\nresults if we use it steadily, with judgment, and with neither too little\neffort nor too much.  It is by employing this that those who have a fancy\nto move their ears or toes without moving other organs learn to do so.\nThere is a man at the Agricultural Hall now {153a} playing the violin\nwith his toes, and playing it, as I am told, sufficiently well.  The eye\nof the sailor, the wrist of the conjuror, the toe of the professional\nmedium, are all found capable of development to an astonishing degree,\neven in a single lifetime; but in every case success has been attained by\nthe simple process of making the best of whatever power a man has had at\nany given time, and by being on the look-out to take advantage of\naccident, and even of misfortune.  If a man would learn to paint, he must\nnot theorise concerning art, nor think much what he would do beforehand,\nbut he must do _something_--whatever under the circumstances will come\nhandiest and easiest to him; and he must do that something as well as he\ncan.  This will presently open the door for something else, and a way\nwill show itself which no conceivable amount of searching would have\ndiscovered, but which yet could never have been discovered by sitting\nstill and taking no pains at all.  \"Dans l'animal,\" says Buffon, \"il y a\nmoins de jugement que de sentiment.\" {153b}\n\nIt may appear as though this were blowing hot and cold with the same\nbreath, inasmuch as I am insisting that important modifications of\nstructure have been always purposive; and at the same time am denying\nthat the creature modified has had any far-seeing purpose in the greater\npart of all those actions which have at length modified both structure\nand instinct.  Thus I say that a bird learns to swim without having any\npurpose of learning to swim before it set itself to make those movements\nwhich have resulted in its being able to do so.  At the same time I\nmaintain that it has only learned to swim by trying to swim, and this\ninvolves the very purpose which I have just denied.  The reconciliation\nof these two apparently irreconcilable contentions must be found in the\nconsideration that the bird was not the less trying to swim, merely\nbecause it did not know the name we have chosen to give to the art which\nit was trying to master, nor yet how great were the resources of that\nart.  A person, who knew all about swimming, if from some bank he could\nwatch our supposed bird's first attempt to scramble over a short space of\ndeep water, would at once declare that the bird was trying to swim--if\nnot actually swimming.  Provided then that there is a very little\nperception of, and prescience concerning, the means whereby the next\ndesired end may be attained, it matters not how little in advance that\nend may be of present desire or faculties; it is still reached through\npurpose, and must be called purposive.  Again, no matter how many of\nthese small steps be taken, nor how absolute was the want of purpose or\nprescience concerning any but the one being actually taken at any given\nmoment, this does not bar the result from having been arrived at through\ndesign and purpose.  If each one of the small steps is purposive the\nresult is purposive, though there was never purpose extended over more\nthan one, two, or perhaps at most three steps at a time.\n\nReturning to the art of painting for an example, are we to say that the\nproficiency which such a student as was supposed above will certainly\nattain, is not due to design, merely because it was not until he had\nalready become three parts excellent that he knew the full purport of all\nthat he had been doing?  When he began he had but vague notions of what\nhe would do.  He had a wish to learn to represent nature, but the line\ninto which he has settled down has probably proved very different from\nthat which he proposed to himself originally.  Because he has taken\nadvantage of his accidents, is it, therefore, one whit the less true that\nhis success is the result of his desires and his design?  The _Times_\npointed out some time ago that the theory which now associates meteors\nand comets in the most unmistakable manner, was suggested by one\naccident, and confirmed by another.  But the writer added well that \"such\naccidents happen only to the zealous student of nature's secrets.\"  In\nthe same way the bird that is taking to the habit of swimming, and of\nmaking the most of whatever skin it already has between its toes, will\nhave doubtless to thank accidents for no small part of its progress; but\nthey will be such accidents as could never have happened to or been taken\nadvantage of by any creature which was not zealously trying to make the\nmost of itself--and between such accidents as this, and design, the line\nis hard to draw; for if we go deep enough we shall find that most of our\ndesign resolves itself into as it were a shaking of the bag to see what\nwill come out that will suit our purpose, and yet at the same time that\nmost of our shaking of the bag resolves itself into a design that the bag\nshall contain only such and such things, or thereabouts.\n\nAgain, the fact that animals are no longer conscious of design and\npurpose in much that they do, but act unreflectingly, and as we sometimes\nsay concerning ourselves \"automatically\" or \"mechanically\"--that they\nhave no idea whatever of the steps, whereby they have travelled to their\npresent state, and show no sign of doubt about what must have been at one\ntime the subject of all manner of doubts, difficulties, and\ndiscussions--that whatever sign of reflection they now exhibit is to be\nfound only in case of some novel feature or difficulty presenting itself;\nthese facts do not bar that the results achieved should be attributed to\nan inception in reason, design and purpose, no matter how rapidly and as\nwe call it instinctively, the creatures may now act.\n\nFor if we look closely at such an invention as the steam engine in its\nlatest and most complicated developments, about which there can be no\ndispute but that they are achievements of reason, purpose and design, we\nshall find them present us with examples of all those features the\npresence of which in the handiwork of animals is too often held to bar\nreason and purpose from having had any share therein.\n\nAssuredly such men as the Marquis of Worcester and Captain Savery had\nvery imperfect ideas as to the upshot of their own action.  The simplest\nsteam engine now in use in England is probably a marvel of ingenuity as\ncompared with the highest development which appeared possible to these\ntwo great men, while our newest and most highly complicated engines would\nseem to them more like living beings than machines.  Many, again, of the\nsteps leading to the present development have been due to action which\nhad but little heed of the steam engine, being the inventions of\nattendants whose desire was to save themselves the trouble of turning\nthis or that cock, and who were indifferent to any other end than their\nown immediate convenience.  No step in fact along the whole route was\never taken with much perception of what would be the next step after the\none being taken at any given moment.\n\nNor do we find that an engine made after any old and well-known pattern\nis now made with much more consciousness of design than we can suppose a\nbird's nest to be built with.  The greater number of the parts of any\nsuch engine, are made by the gross as it were like screw and nuts, which\nare turned out by machinery and in respect of which the labour of design\nis now no more felt than is the design of him who first invented the\nwheel.  It is only when circumstances require any modification in the\narticle to be manufactured that thought and design will come into play\nagain; but I take it few will deny that if circumstances compel a bird\neither to give up a nest three-parts built altogether, or to make some\ntrifling deviation from its ordinary practice, it will in nine cases out\nof ten make such deviation as shall show that it had thought the matter\nover, and had on the whole concluded to take such and such a course, that\nis to say, that it had reasoned and had acted with such purpose as its\nreason had dictated.\n\nAnd I imagine that this is the utmost that any one can claim even for\nman's own boasted powers.  Set the man who has been accustomed to make\nengines of one type, to make engines of another type without any\nintermediate course of training or instruction, and he will make no\nbetter figure with his engines than a thrush would do if commanded by her\nmate to make a nest like a blackbird.  It is vain then to contend that\nthe ease and certainty with which an action is performed, even though it\nmay have now become matter of such fixed habit that it cannot be suddenly\nand seriously modified without rendering the whole performance abortive,\nis any argument against that action having been an achievement of design\nand reason in respect of each one of the steps that have led to it; and\nif in respect of each one of the steps then as regards the entire action;\nfor we see our own most reasoned actions become no less easy, unerring,\nautomatic, and unconscious, than the actions which we call instinctive\nwhen they have been repeated a sufficient number of times.\n\n* * * * *\n\nIf the foregoing be granted, and it be admitted that the unconsciousness\nand seeming automatism with which any action may be performed is no bar\nto its having a foundation in memory, reason, and at one time consciously\nrecognised effort--and this I believe to be the chief addition which I\nhave ventured to make to the theory of Buffon and Dr. Erasmus Darwin--then\nthe wideness of the difference between the Darwinism of eighty years ago\nand the Darwinism of to-day becomes immediately apparent, and it also\nbecomes apparent, how important and interesting is the issue which is\nraised between them.\n\nAccording to the older Darwinism the lungs are just as purposive as the\ncorkscrew.  They, no less than the corkscrew, are a piece of mechanism\ndesigned and gradually improved upon and perfected by an intelligent\ncreature for the gratification of its own needs.  True there are many\nimportant differences between mechanism which is part of the body, and\nmechanism which is no such part, but the differences are such as do not\naffect the fact that in each case the result, whether, for example, lungs\nor corkscrew, is due to desire, invention, and design.\n\nAnd now I will ask one more question, which may seem, perhaps, to have\nbut little importance, but which I find personally interesting.  I have\nbeen told by a reviewer, of whom upon the whole I have little reason to\ncomplain, that the theory I put forward in \"Life and Habit,\" and which I\nam now again insisting on, is pessimism--pure and simple.  I have a very\nvague idea what pessimism means, but I should be sorry to believe that I\nam a pessimist.  Which, I would ask, is the pessimist?  He who sees love\nof beauty, design, steadfastness of purpose, intelligence, courage, and\nevery quality to which success has assigned the name of \"worth\" as having\ndrawn the pattern of every leaf and organ now and in all past time, or he\nwho sees nothing in the world of nature but a chapter of accidents and of\nforces interacting blindly?\n\n\n\nBUFFON--MEMOIR.  (CHAPTER VIII. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.)\n\n\nBuffon, says M. Flourens, was born at Montbar, on the 7th of September\n1707; he died in Paris, at the Jardin du Roi, on the 16th of April 1788,\naged 81 years.  More than fifty of these years, as he used himself to\nsay, he had passed at his writing-desk.  His father was a councillor of\nthe parliament of Burgundy.  His mother was celebrated for her wit, and\nBuffon cherished her memory.\n\nHe studied at Dijon with much _eclat_, and shortly after leaving became\naccidentally acquainted with the Duke of Kingston, a young Englishman of\nhis own age, who was travelling abroad with a tutor.  The three travelled\ntogether in France and Italy, and Buffon then passed some months in\nEngland.\n\nReturning to France, he translated Hales's Vegetable Statics and Newton's\nTreatise on Fluxions.  He refers to several English writers on natural\nhistory in the course of his work, but I see he repeated spells the\nEnglish name Willoughby, \"Willulghby.\"  He was appointed superintendent\nof the Jardin du Roi in 1739, and from thenceforth devoted himself to\nscience.\n\nIn 1752 Buffon married Mdlle de Saint Belin, whose beauty and charm of\nmanner were extolled by all her contemporaries.  One son was born to him,\nwho entered the army, became a colonel, and I grieve to say, was\nguillotined at the age of twenty-nine, a few days only before the\nextinction of the Reign of Terror.\n\nOf this youth, who inherited the personal comeliness and ability of his\nfather, little is recorded except the following story.  Having fallen\ninto the water and been nearly drowned when he was about twelve years\nold, he was afterwards accused of having been afraid: \"I was so little\nafraid,\" he answered, \"that though I had been offered the hundred years\nwhich my grandfather lived, I would have died then and there, if I could\nhave added one year to the life of my father;\" then thinking for a\nminute, a flush suffused his face and he added, \"but I should petition\nfor one quarter of an hour in which to exult over the thought of what I\nwas about to do.\"\n\nOn the scaffold he showed much composure, smiling half proudly, half\nreproachfully, yet wholly kindly upon the crowd in front of him.\n\"Citoyens,\" he said, \"Je me nomine Buffon,\" and laid his head upon the\nblock.\n\nThe noblest outcome of the old and decaying order, overwhelmed in the\nmost hateful birth frenzy of the new.  So in those cataclysms and\nrevolutions which take place in our own bodies during their development,\nwhen we seem studying in order to become fishes and suddenly make, as it\nwere, different arrangements and resolve on becoming men--so, doubtless,\nmany good cells must go, and their united death cry comes up, it may be,\nin the pain which an infant feels on teething.  But to return.  The man\nwho could be father of such a son, and who could retain that son's\naffection, as it is well known that Buffon retained it, may not perhaps\nalways be strictly accurate, but it will be as well to pay attention to\nwhatever he may think fit to tell us.  These are the only people whom it\nis worth while to look to and study from.\n\n\"Glory,\" said Buffon, after speaking of the hours during which he had\nlaboured, \"glory comes always after labour if she can--_and she generally\ncan_.\"  But in his case she could not well help herself.  \"He was\nconspicuous,\" says M. Flourens, \"for elevation and force of character,\nfor a love of greatness and true magnificence in all he did.  His great\nwealth, his handsome person, and graceful manners seemed in\ncorrespondence with the splendour of his genius, so that of all the gifts\nwhich Fortune has in it her power to bestow she had denied him nothing.\"\n\nMany of his epigrammatic sayings have passed into proverbs: for example,\nthat \"genius is but a supreme capacity for taking pains.\"  Another and\nstill more celebrated passage shall be given in its entirety and with its\noriginal setting.\n\n\"Style,\" says Buffon, \"is the only passport to posterity.  It is not\nrange of information, nor mastery of some little known branch of science,\nnor yet novelty of matter that will ensure immortality.  Works that can\nclaim all this will yet die if they are conversant about trivial objects\nonly, or written without taste, genius, and true nobility of mind; for\nrange of information, knowledge of details, novelty of discovery are of a\nvolatile essence and fly off readily into other hands that know better\nhow to treat them.  The matter is foreign to the man, and is not of him;\nthe manner is the man himself.\" {162}\n\n\"Le style, c'est l'homme memo.\"  Elsewhere he tells us what true style\nis, but I quote from memory and cannot be sure of the passage.  \"Le\nstyle,\" he says \"est comme le bonheur; il vient de la douceur de l'ame.\"\n\nIs it possible not to think of the following?--\n\n\"But whether there be prophecies they shall fail; whether there be\ntongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge it shall vanish away\n. . . and now abideth faith, hope and charity, these three; but the\ngreatest of these is charity.\" {163}\n\n\n\nBUFFON'S METHOD--THE IRONICAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORK.  (CHAPTER IX. OF\nEVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.)\n\n\nBuffon's idea of a method amounts almost to the denial of the possibility\nof method at all.  \"The true method,\" he writes, \"is the complete\ndescription and exact history of each particular object,\" {164a} and\nlater on he asks, \"is it not more simple, more natural and more true to\ncall an ass an ass, and a cat a cat, than to say, without knowing why,\nthat an ass is a horse, and a cat a lynx?\" {164b}\n\nHe admits such divisions as between animals and vegetables, or between\nvegetables and minerals, but that done, he rejects all others that can be\nfounded on the nature of things themselves.  He concludes that one who\ncould see living forms as a whole and without preconceived opinions,\nwould classify animals according to the relations in which he found\nhimself standing towards them:--\n\n   \"Those which he finds most necessary and useful to him will occupy the\n   first rank; thus he will give the precedence among the lower animals\n   to the dog and the horse; he will next concern himself with those\n   which without being domesticated, nevertheless occupy the same country\n   and climate as himself, as for example stags, hares, and all wild\n   animals; nor will it be till after he has familiarised himself with\n   all these that curiosity will lead him to inquire what inhabitants\n   there may be in foreign climates, such as elephants, dromedaries, &c.\n   The same will hold good for fishes, birds, insects, shells, and for\n   all nature's other productions; he will study them in proportion to\n   the profit which he can draw from them; he will consider them in that\n   order in which they enter into his daily life; he will arrange them in\n   his head according to this order, which is in fact that in which he\n   has become acquainted with them, and in which it concerns him to think\n   about them, This order--the most natural of all--is the one which I\n   have thought it well to follow in this volume.  My classification has\n   no more mystery in it than the reader has just seen . . . it is\n   preferable to the most profound and ingenious that can be conceived,\n   for there is none of all the classifications which ever have been made\n   or ever can be, which has not more of an arbitrary character than this\n   has.  Take it for all in all,\" he concludes, \"it is more easy, more\n   agreeable, and more useful, to consider things in their relation to\n   ourselves than from any other standpoint.\" {165}\n\n   \"Has it not a better effect not only in a treatise on natural history,\n   but in a picture or any work of art to arrange objects in the order\n   and place in which they are commonly found, than to force them into\n   association in virtue of some theory of our own?  Is it not better to\n   let the dog which has toes, come after the horse which has a single\n   hoof, in the same way as we see him follow the horse in daily life,\n   than to follow up the horse by the zebra, an animal which is little\n   known to us, and which has no other connection with the horse than the\n   fact that it has a single hoof?\" {166a}\n\nCan we suppose that Buffon really saw no more connection than this?  The\nwriter whom we shall presently find {166b} declining to admit any\nessential difference between the skeletons of man and of the horse, can\nhere see no resemblance between the zebra and the horse, except that they\neach have a single hoof.  Is he to be taken at his word?\n\nIt is perhaps necessary to tell the reader that Buffon carried the\nforegoing scheme into practice as nearly as he could in the first fifteen\nvolumes of his Natural History.  He begins with man--and then goes on to\nthe horse, the ass, the cow, sheep, goat, pig, dog, &c.  One would be\nglad to know whether he found it always more easy to know in what order\nof familiarity this or that animal would stand to the majority of his\nreaders than other classifiers have found it to know whether an\nindividual more resembles one species or another; probably he never gave\nthe matter a thought after he had gone through the first dozen most\nfamiliar animals, but settled generally down into a classification which\nbecomes more and more specific--as when he treats of the apes and\nmonkeys--till he reaches the birds, when he openly abandons his original\nidea, in deference, as he says, to the opinion of \"le peuple des\nnaturalistes.\"\n\nPerhaps the key to this piece of apparent extravagance is to be found in\nthe word \"mysterieuse.\" {166c}  Buffon wished to raise a standing protest\nagainst mystery mongering.  Or perhaps more probably, he wished at once\nto turn to animals under domestication, so as to insist early on the main\nobject of his work--the plasticity of animal forms.\n\nI am inclined to think that a vein of irony pervades the whole or much\nthe greater part of Buffon's work, and that he intended to convey one\nmeaning to one set of readers, and another to another; indeed, it is\noften impossible to believe that he is not writing between his lines for\nthe discerning, what the undiscerning were not intended to see.  It must\nbe remembered that his Natural History has two sides,--a scientific and a\npopular one.  May we not imagine that Buffon would be unwilling to debar\nhimself from speaking to those who could understand him, and yet would\nwish like Handel and Shakespeare to address the many, as well as the few?\nBut the only manner in which these seemingly irreconcilable ends could be\nattained, would be by the use of language which should be self-adjusting\nto the capacity of the reader.  So keen an observer can hardly have been\nblind to the signs of the times which were already close at hand.  Free-\nthinker though he was, he was also a powerful member of the aristocracy,\nand little likely to demean himself--for so he would doubtless hold it--by\nplaying the part of Voltaire or Rousseau.  He would help those who could\nsee to see still further, but he would not dazzle eyes that were yet\nimperfect with a light brighter than they could stand.  He would\ntherefore impose upon people, as much as he thought was for their good;\nbut, on the other hand, he would not allow inferior men to mystify them.\n\n\"In the private character of Buffon,\" says Sir William Jardine in a\ncharacteristic passage, \"we regret there is not much to praise; his\ndisposition was kind and benevolent, and he was generally beloved by his\ninferiors, followers, and dependants, which were numerous over his\nextensive property; he was strictly honourable, and was an affectionate\nparent.  In early youth he had entered into the pleasures and\ndissipations of life, and licentious habits seem to have been retained to\nthe end.  But the great blemish in such a mind was his declared\ninfidelity; it presents one of those exceptions among the persons who\nhave been devoted to the study of nature; and it is not easy to imagine a\nmind apparently with such powers, scarcely acknowledging a Creator, and\nwhen noticed, only by an arraignment for what appeared wanting or\ndefective in His great works.  So openly, indeed, was the freedom of his\nreligious opinions expressed, that the indignation of the Sorbonne was\nprovoked.  He had to enter into an explanation which he in some way\nrendered satisfactory; and while he afterwards attended to the outward\nordinances of religion, he considered them as a system of faith for the\nmultitude, and regarded those most impolitic who most opposed them.\"\n{168}\n\nThis is partly correct and partly not.  Buffon was a free-thinker, and as\nI have sufficiently explained, a decided opponent of the doctrine that\nrudimentary and therefore useless organs were designed by a Creator in\norder to serve some useful end throughout all time to the creature in\nwhich they are found.\n\nHe was not, surely, to hide the magnificent conceptions which he had been\nthe first to grasp, from those who were worthy to receive them; on the\nother hand he would not tell the uninstructed what they would interpret\nas a licence to do whatever they pleased, inasmuch as there was no God.\nWhat he did was to point so irresistibly in the right direction, that a\nreader of any intelligence should be in no doubt as to the road he ought\nto take, and then to contradict himself so flatly as to reassure those\nwho would be shocked by a truth for which they were not yet ready.  If I\nam right in the view which I have taken of Buffon's work, it is not easy\nto see how he could have formed a finer scheme, nor have carried it out\nmore finely.\n\nI should, however, warn the reader to be on his guard against accepting\nmy view too hastily.  So far as I know I stand alone in taking it.\nNeither Dr. Darwin, nor Flourens, nor Isidore Geoffroy, nor Mr. Charles\nDarwin see any subrisive humour in Buffon's pages; but it must be\nremembered that Flourens was a strong opponent of mutability, and\nprobably paid but little heed to what Buffon said on this question;\nIsidore Geoffroy is not a safe guide, few men indeed less so.  Mr.\nCharles Darwin seems to have adopted the one half of Isidore Geoffrey's\nconclusions without verifying either; and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who has no\nsmall share of a very pleasant conscious humour, yet sometimes rises to\nsuch heights of unconscious humour, that Buffon's puny labour may well\nhave been invisible to him.  Dr. Darwin wrote a great deal of poetry,\nsome of which was about the common pump.  Miss Seward tells us, that he\n\"illustrated this familiar object with a picture of Maternal Beauty\nadministering sustenance to her infant.\"  Buffon could not have done\nanything like this.\n\nBuffon never, then, \"arraigned the Creator for what was wanting or\ndefective in His works;\" on the contrary, whenever he was led up by an\nirresistible chain of reasoning to conclusions which should make men\nrecast their ideas concerning the Deity, he invariably retreats under\ncover of an appeal to revelation.  Naturally enough, the Sorbonne\nobjected to an artifice which even Buffon could not conceal completely.\nThey did not like being undermined; like Buffon himself, they preferred\nimposing upon the people, to seeing others do so.  Buffon made his peace\nwith the Sorbonne immediately, and, perhaps, from that time forward,\ncontradicted himself a little more impudently than heretofore.\n\nIt is probably for the reasons above suggested that Buffon did not\npropound a connected scheme of evolution or descent with modification,\nbut scattered his theory in fragments up and down his work in the\nprefatory remarks with which he introduces the more striking animals or\nclasses of animals.  He never wastes evolutionary matter in the preface\nto an uninteresting animal; and the more interesting the animal, the more\nevolution will there be commonly found.  When he comes to describe the\nanimal more familiarly--and he generally begins a fresh chapter or half\nchapter when he does so--he writes no more about evolution, but gives an\nadmirable description, which no one can fail to enjoy, and which I cannot\nthink is nearly so inaccurate as is commonly supposed.  These\ndescriptions are the parts which Buffon intended for the general reader,\nexpecting, doubtless, and desiring that such a reader should skip the dry\nparts he had been addressing to the more studious.  It is true the\ndescriptions are written _ad captandum_, as are all great works, but they\nsucceed in captivating, having been composed with all the pains a man of\ngenius and of great perseverance could bestow upon them.  If I am not\nmistaken, he looked to these parts of his work to keep the whole alive\ntill the time should come when the philosophical side of his writings\nshould be understood and appreciated.\n\nThus the goat breeds with the sheep, and may therefore serve as the text\nfor a dissertation on hybridism, which is accordingly given in the\npreface to this animal.  The presence of rudimentary organs under a pig's\nhoof suggests an attack upon the doctrine of final causes in so far as it\nis pretended that every part of every animal or plant was specially\ndesigned with a view to the wants of the animal or plant itself, once and\nforever throughout all time.  The dog with his great variety of breeds\ngives an opportunity for an article on the formation of breeds and sub-\nbreeds by man's artificial selection.  The cat is not honoured with any\nphilosophical reflection, and comes in for nothing but abuse.  The hare\nsuggests the rabbit, and the rabbit is a rapid breeder, although the hare\nis an unusually slow one; but this is near enough, so the hare shall\nserve us for the theme of a discourse on the geometrical ratio of\nincrease and the balance of power which may be observed in nature.  When\nwe come to the carnivora, additional reflections follow upon the\nnecessity for death, and even for violent death; this leads to the\nquestion whether the creatures that are killed suffer pain; here, then,\nwill be the proper place for considering the sensations of animals\ngenerally.\n\nPerhaps the most pregnant passage concerning evolution is to be found in\nthe preface to the ass, which is so near the beginning of the work as to\nbe only the second animal of which Buffon treats after having described\nman himself.  It points strongly in the direction of his having believed\nall animal forms to have been descended from one single common ancestral\ntype.  Buffon did not probably choose to take his very first opportunity\nin order to insist upon matter that should point in this direction; but\nthe considerations were too important to be deferred long, and are\naccordingly put forward under cover of the ass, his second animal.\n\nWhen we consider the force with which Buffon's conclusion is led up to;\nthe obviousness of the conclusion itself when the premises are once\nadmitted; the impossibility that such a conclusion should be again lost\nsight of if the reasonableness of its being drawn had been once admitted;\nthe position in his scheme which is assigned to it by its propounder; the\npersistency with which he demonstrates during forty years thereafter that\nthe premises, which he has declared should establish the conclusion in\nquestion, are indisputable;--when we consider, too, that we are dealing\nwith a man of unquestionable genius, and that the times and circumstances\nof his life were such as would go far to explain reserve and irony--is\nit, I would ask, reasonable to suppose that Buffon did not in his own\nmind, and from the first, draw the inference to which he leads his\nreader, merely because from time to time he tells the reader, with a\nshrug of the shoulders, that _he_ draws no inferences opposed to the Book\nof Genesis?  Is it not more likely that Buffon intended his reader to\ndraw his inferences for himself, and perhaps to value them all the more\nhighly on that account?\n\nThe passage to which I am alluding is as follows:--\n\n   \"If from the boundless variety which animated nature presents to us,\n   we choose the body of some animal or even that of man himself to serve\n   as a model with which to compare the bodies of other organised beings,\n   we shall find that though all these beings have an individuality of\n   their own, and are distinguished from one another by differences of\n   which the gradations are infinitely subtle, there exists at the same\n   time a primitive and general design which we can follow for a long\n   way, and the departures from which (_degenerations_) are far more\n   gentle than those from mere outward resemblance.  For not to mention\n   organs of digestion, circulation, and generation, which are common to\n   all animals, and without which the animal would cease to be an animal,\n   and could neither continue to exist nor reproduce itself--there is\n   none the less even in those very parts which constitute the main\n   difference in outward appearance, a striking resemblance which carries\n   with it irresistibly the idea of a single pattern after which all\n   would appear to have been conceived.  The horse, for example--what can\n   at first sight seem more unlike mankind?  Yet when we compare man and\n   horse point by point and detail by detail, is not our wonder excited\n   rather by the points of resemblance than of difference that are to be\n   found between them?  Take the skeleton of a man; bend forward the\n   bones in the region of the pelvis, shorten the thigh bones, and those\n   of the leg and arm, lengthen those of the feet and hands, run the\n   joints together, lengthen the jaws, and shorten the frontal bone,\n   finally, lengthen the spine, and the skeleton will now be that of a\n   man no longer, but will have become that of a horse--for it is easy to\n   imagine that in lengthening the spine and the jaws we shall at the\n   same time have increased the number of the vertebrae, ribs, and teeth.\n   It is but in the number of these bones, which may be considered\n   accessory, and by the lengthening, shortening, or mode of attachment\n   of others, that the skeleton of the horse differs from that of the\n   human body. . . . We find ribs in man, in all the quadrupeds, in\n   birds, in fishes, and we may find traces of them as far down as the\n   turtle, in which they seem still to be sketched out by means of\n   furrows that are to be found beneath the shell.  Let it be remembered\n   that the foot of the horse, which seems so different from a man's\n   hand, is, nevertheless, as M. Daubenton has pointed out, composed of\n   the same bones, and that we have at the end of each of our fingers a\n   nail corresponding to the hoof of a horse's foot.  Judge, then,\n   whether this hidden resemblance is not more marvellous than any\n   outward differences--whether this constancy to a single plan of\n   structure which we may follow from man to the quadrupeds, from the\n   quadrupeds to the cetacea, from the cetacea to birds, from birds to\n   reptiles, from reptiles to fishes--in which all such essential parts\n   as heart, intestines, spine are invariably found--whether, I say, this\n   does not seem to indicate that the Creator when He made them would use\n   but a single main idea, though at the same time varying it in every\n   conceivable way, so that man might admire equally the magnificence of\n   the execution and the simplicity of the design.\" {174}\n\n   \"If we regard the matter thus, not only the ass and the horse, _but\n   even man himself_, _the apes_, _the quadrupeds_, _and all animals\n   might be regarded but as forming members of one and the same family_.\n   But are we to conclude that within this vast family which the Creator\n   has called into existence out of nothing, there are other and smaller\n   families, projected as it were by Nature, and brought forth by her in\n   the natural course of events and after a long time, of which some\n   contain but two members, as the ass and the horse, others many\n   members, as the weasel, martin, stoat, ferret, &c., and that on the\n   same principle there are families of vegetables, containing ten,\n   twenty, or thirty plants, as the case may be?  If such families had\n   any real existence they could have been formed only by crossing, by\n   the accumulation of successive variations (_variation successive_),\n   and by degeneration from an original type; but if we once admit that\n   there are families of plants and animals, so that the ass may be of\n   the family of the horse, and that the one may only differ from the\n   other through degeneration from a common ancestor, we might be driven\n   to admit that the ape is of the family of man, that he is but a\n   degenerate man, and that he and man have had a common ancestor, even\n   as the ass and horse have had.  It would follow then that every\n   family, whether animal or vegetable, had sprung from a single stock,\n   which after a succession of generations had become higher in the case\n   of some of its descendants and lower in that of others.\"\n\nWhat inference could be more aptly drawn?  But it was not one which\nBuffon was going to put before the general public.  He had said enough\nfor the discerning, and continues with what is intended to make the\nconclusions they should draw even plainer to them, while it conceals them\nstill more carefully from the general reader.\n\n\"The naturalists who are so ready to establish families among animals and\nvegetables, do not seem to have sufficiently considered the consequences\nwhich should follow from their premises, for these would limit direct\ncreation to as small a number of forms as any one might think fit\n(reduisoient le produit immediat de la creation, aun nombre d'individus\naussi petit que l'on voudroit).  _For if it were once shown that we had\nright grounds for establishing these families_; _if the point were once\ngained that among animals and vegetables there had been_, _I do not say\nseveral species_, _but even a single one_, _which had been produced in\nthe course of direct descent from another species_; _if for example it\ncould be once shown that the ass was but a degeneration from the\nhorse_--_then there is no further limit to be set to the power of\nnature_, _and we should not be wrong in supposing that with sufficient\ntime she could have evolved all other organised forms from one primordial\ntype_ (_et l'on n'auroit pas tort de supposer_, _que d'un seul etre elle\na su tirer avec le temps tous les autres etres organises_).\"\n\nBuffon now felt that he had sailed as near the wind as was desirable.  His\nnext sentence is as follows:--\n\n\"But no!  It is certain _from revelation_ that all animals have alike\nbeen favoured with the grace of an act of direct creation, and that the\nfirst pair of every species issued full formed from the hands of the\nCreator.\" {176}\n\nThis might be taken as _bona fide_, if it had been written by Bonnet, but\nit is impossible to accept it from Buffon.  It is only those who judge\nhim at second hand, or by isolated passages, who can hold that he failed\nto see the consequences of his own premises.  No one could have seen more\nclearly, nor have said more lucidly, what should suffice to show a\nsympathetic reader the conclusion he ought to come to.  Even when\nironical, his irony is not the ill-natured irony of one who is merely\namusing himself at other people's expense, but the serious and legitimate\nirony of one who must either limit the circle of those to whom he\nappeals, or must know how to make the same language appeal differently to\nthe different capacities of his readers, and who trusts to the good sense\nof the discerning to understand the difficulty of his position and make\ndue allowance for it.\n\nThe compromise which he thought fit to put before the public was that\n\"Each species has a type of which the principal features are engraved in\nindelible and eternally permanent characters, while all accessory touches\nvary.\" {177a}  It would be satisfactory to know where an accessory touch\nis supposed to begin and end.\n\nAnd again:--\n\n   \"The essential characteristics of every animal have been conserved\n   without alteration in their most important parts. . . . The\n   individuals of each genus still represent the same forms as they did\n   in the earliest ages, especially in the case of the larger animals\"\n   (so that the generic forms even of the larger animals prove not to be\n   the same, but only \"especially\" the same as in the earliest ages).\n   {177b}\n\nThis transparently illogical position is maintained ostensibly from first\nto last, much in the same spirit as in the two foregoing passages,\nwritten at intervals of thirteen years.  But they are to be read by the\nlight of the earlier one--placed as a lantern to the wary upon the\nthreshold of his work in 1753--to the effect that a single,\nwell-substantiated case of degeneration would make it conceivable that\nall living beings were descended from but one common ancestor.  If after\nhaving led up to this by a remorseless logic, a man is found five-and-\ntwenty years later still substantiating cases of degeneration, as he has\nbeen substantiating them unceasingly in thirty quartos during the whole\ninterval, there should be little question how seriously we are to take\nhim when he wishes us to stop short of the conclusions he has told us we\nought to draw from the premises that he has made it the business of his\nlife to establish--especially when we know that he has a Sorbonne to keep\na sharp eye upon him.\n\nI believe that if the reader will bear in mind the twofold, serious and\nironical, character of Buffon's work he will understand it, and feel an\nadmiration for it which will grow continually greater and greater the\nmore he studies it, otherwise he will miss the whole point.\n\nBuffon on one of the early pages of his first volume protested against\nthe introduction of either \"_plaisanterie_\" or \"_equivoque_\" (p. 25) into\na serious work.  But I have observed that there is an unconscious irony\nin most disclaimers of this nature.  When a writer begins by saying that\nhe has \"an ineradicable tendency to make things clear,\" we may infer that\nwe are going to be puzzled; so when he shows that he is haunted by a\nsense of the impropriety of allowing humour to intrude into his work, we\nmay hope to be amused as well as interested.  As showing how far the\nobjection to humour which he expressed upon his twenty-fifth page\nsucceeded in carrying him safely over his twenty-sixth and\ntwenty-seventh, I will quote the following, which begins on page twenty-\nsix:--\n\n   \"Aldrovandus is the most learned and laborious of all naturalists;\n   after sixty years of work he has left an immense number of volumes\n   behind him, which have been printed at various times, the greater\n   number of them after his death.  It would be possible to reduce them\n   to a tenth part if we could rid them of all useless and foreign\n   matter, and of a prolixity which I find almost overwhelming; were this\n   only done, his books should be regarded as among the best we have on\n   the subject of natural history in its entirety.  The plan of his work\n   is good, his classification distinguished for its good sense, his\n   dividing lines well marked, his descriptions sufficiently\n   accurate--monotonous it is true, but painstaking; the historical part\n   of his work is less good; it is often confused and fabulous, and the\n   author shows too manifestly the credulous tendencies of his mind.\n\n   \"While going over his work, I have been struck with that defect, or\n   rather excess, which we find in almost all the books of a hundred or a\n   couple of hundred years ago, and which prevails still among the\n   Germans--I mean with that quantity of useless erudition with which\n   they intentionally swell out their works, and the result of which is\n   that their subject is overlaid with a mass of extraneous matter on\n   which they enlarge with great complacency, but with no consideration\n   whatever for their readers.  They seem, in fact, to have forgotten\n   what they have to say in their endeavour to tell us what has been said\n   by other people.\n\n   \"I picture to myself a man like Aldrovandus, after he has once\n   conceived the design of writing a complete natural history.  I see him\n   in his library reading, one after the other, ancients, moderns,\n   philosophers, theologians, jurisconsults, historians, travellers,\n   poets, and reading with no other end than with that of catching at all\n   words and phrases which can be forced from far or near into some kind\n   of relation with his subject.  I see him copying all these passages,\n   or getting them copied for him, and arranging them in alphabetical\n   order.  He fills many portfolios with all manner of notes, often taken\n   without either discrimination or research, and at last sets himself to\n   write with a resolve that not one of all these notes shall remain\n   unused.  The result is that when he comes to his account of the cow or\n   of the hen, he will tell us all that has ever yet been said about cows\n   or hens; all that the ancients ever thought about them; all that has\n   ever been imagined concerning their virtues, characters, and courage;\n   every purpose to which they have ever yet been put; every story of\n   every old woman that he can lay hold of; all the miracles which\n   certain religions have ascribed to them; all the superstitions they\n   have given rise to; all the metaphors and allegories which poets have\n   drawn from them; the attributes that have been assigned to them; the\n   representations that have been made of them in hieroglyphics and\n   armorial bearings, in a word all the histories and all fables in which\n   there was ever yet any mention either of a cow or hen.  How much\n   natural history is likely to be found in such a lumber-room? and how\n   is one to lay one's hand upon the little that there may actually be?\"\n   {180}\n\nIt is hoped that the reader will see Buffon, much as Buffon saw the\nlearned Aldrovandus.  He should see him going into his library, &c., and\nquietly chuckling to himself as he wrote such a passage as the one in\nwhich we lately found him saying that the larger animals had \"especially\"\nthe same generic forms as they had always had.  And the reader should\nprobably see Daubenton chuckling also.\n\n\n\n\nEXTRACTS FROM UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.\n\n\nRECAPITULATION AND STATEMENT OF AN OBJECTION.  (CHAPTER X. OF UNCONSCIOUS\nMEMORY.) {181a}\n\n\nThe true theory of unconscious action is that of Professor Hering, from\nwhose lecture {181b} it is no strained conclusion to gather that he holds\nthe action of all living beings, from the moment of conception to that of\nfullest development, to be founded in volition and design, though these\nhave been so long lost sight of that the work is now carried on, as it\nwere, departmentally and in due course according to an official routine\nwhich can hardly be departed from.\n\nThis involves the older \"Darwinism\" and the theory of Lamarck, according\nto which the modification of living forms has been effected mainly\nthrough the needs of the living forms themselves, which vary with varying\nconditions--the survival of the fittest (which, as I see Mr. H. B.\nBaildon has just said, \"sometimes comes to mean merely the survival of\nthe survivors\" {181c}) being taken as a matter of course.  According to\nthis view of evolution, there is a remarkable analogy between the\ndevelopment of living organs, or tools, and that of those organs or tools\nexternal to the body which has been so rapid during the last few thousand\nyears.\n\nAnimals and plants, according to Professor Hering, are guided throughout\ntheir development, and preserve the due order in each step they take,\nthrough memory of the course they took on past occasions when in the\npersons of their ancestors.  I am afraid I have already too often said\nthat if this memory remains for long periods together latent and without\neffect, it is because the vibrations of the molecular substance of the\nbody which are its supposed explanation are during these periods too\nfeeble to generate action, until they are augmented in force through an\naccession of similar vibrations issuing from exterior objects; or, in\nother words, until recollection is stimulated by a return of the\nassociated ideas.  On this the internal agitation becomes so much\nenhanced, that equilibrium is visibly disturbed, and the action ensues\nwhich is proper to the vibrations of the particular substance under the\nparticular conditions.  This, at least, is what I suppose Professor\nHering to intend.\n\nLeaving the explanation of memory on one side, and confining ourselves to\nthe fact of memory only, a caterpillar on being just hatched is supposed,\naccording to this theory, to lose its memory of the time it was in the\negg, and to be stimulated by an intense but unconscious recollection of\nthe action taken by its ancestors when they were first hatched.  It is\nguided in the course it takes by the experience it can thus command.  Each\nstep it takes recalls a new recollection, and thus it goes through a\ndevelopment as a performer performs a piece of music, each bar leading\nhis recollection to the bar that should next follow.\n\nIn Life and Habit will be found examples of the manner in which this view\nsolves a number of difficulties for the explanation of which the leading\nmen of science express themselves at a loss.  The following from\nProfessor Huxley's recent work upon the crayfish may serve for an\nexample.  Professor Huxley writes:--\n\n   \"It is a widely received notion that the energies of living matter\n   have a tendency to decline and finally disappear, and that the death\n   of the body as a whole is a necessary correlate of its life.  That all\n   living beings sooner or later perish needs no demonstration, but it\n   would be difficult to find satisfactory grounds for the belief that\n   they needs must do so.  The analogy of a machine, that sooner or later\n   must be brought to a standstill by the wear and tear of its parts,\n   does not hold, inasmuch as the animal mechanism is continually renewed\n   and repaired; and though it is true that individual components of the\n   body are constantly dying, yet their places are taken by vigorous\n   successors.  A city remains notwithstanding the constant death-rate of\n   its inhabitants; and such an organism as a crayfish is only a\n   corporate unity, made up of innumerable partially independent\n   individualities.\"--_The Crayfish_, p. 127.\n\nSurely the theory which I have indicated above makes the reason plain why\nno organism can permanently outlive its experience of past lives.  The\ndeath of such a body corporate as the crayfish is due to the social\ncondition becoming more complex than there is memory of past experience\nto deal with.  Hence social disruption, insubordination, and decay.  The\ncrayfish dies as a state dies, and all states that we have heard of die\nsooner or later.  There are some savages who have not yet arrived at the\nconception that death is the necessary end of all living beings, and who\nconsider even the gentlest death from old age as violent and abnormal; so\nProfessor Huxley seems to find a difficulty in seeing that though a city\ncommonly outlives many generations of its citizens, yet cities and states\nare in the end no less mortal than individuals.  \"The _city_,\" he says,\n\"remains.\"  Yes, but not for ever.  When Professor Huxley can find a city\nthat will last for ever, he may wonder that a crayfish does not last for\never.\n\nI have already here and elsewhere said all that I can yet bring forward\nin support of Professor Hering's theory; it now remains for me to meet\nthe most troublesome objection to it that I have been able to think of--an\nobjection which I had before me when I wrote Life and Habit, but which\nthen as now I believe to be unsound.  Seeing, however, that a plausible\ncase can be made out for it, I will state it and refute it here.  When I\nsay refute it, I do not mean that I shall have done with it--for it is\nplain that it opens up a vaster question in the relations between the so-\ncalled organic and inorganic worlds--but that I will refute the\nsupposition that it any way militates against Professor Hering's theory.\n\n\"Why,\" it may be asked, \"should we go out of our way to invent\nunconscious memory--the existence of which must at the best remain an\ninference {184}--when the observed fact that like antecedents are\ninvariably followed by like consequents should be sufficient for our\npurpose?  Why should the fact that a given kind of chrysalis in a given\ncondition will always become a butterfly within a certain time be\nconnected with memory when it is not pretended that memory has anything\nto do with the invariableness with which oxygen and hydrogen when mixed\nin certain proportions make water?\"\n\nWe assume confidently that if a drop of water were decomposed into its\ncomponent parts, and if these were brought together again, and again\ndecomposed and again brought together any number of times over, the\nresults would be invariably the same, whether decomposition or\ncombination, yet no one will refer the invariableness of the action\nduring each repetition, to recollection by the gaseous molecules of the\ncourse taken when the process was last repeated.  On the contrary, we are\nassured that molecules in some distant part of the world which had never\nentered into such and such a known combination themselves, nor held\nconcert with other molecules that had been so combined, and which,\ntherefore, could have had no experience and no memory, would none the\nless act upon one another in that one way in which other like\ncombinations of atoms have acted under like circumstances, as readily as\nthough they had been combined and separated and recombined again a\nhundred or a hundred thousand times.  It is this assumption, tacitly made\nby every man, beast, and plant in the universe, throughout all time and\nin every action of their lives, that has made any improvement in action\npossible--for it is this which lies at the root of the power to profit by\nexperience.  I do not exactly know _why_ we make this assumption, and I\ncannot find out that any one else knows much better than myself, but I do\nnot recommend any one to dispute it.\n\nAs we admit of no doubt concerning the main result, so we do not suppose\nan alternative to lie before any atom of any molecule at any moment\nduring the process of combination.  This process is, in all probability,\nan exceedingly complicated one, involving a multitude of actions and\nsubordinate processes, which follow one upon the other, and each one of\nwhich has a beginning, a middle, and an end, though they all come to pass\nin what appears to be an instant of time.  Yet at no point do we conceive\nof any atom as swerving ever such a little to right or left of a\ndetermined course, but invest each one of them with so much of the divine\nattributes as that with it there shall be no variableness neither shadow\nof turning.\n\nWe attribute this regularity of action to what we call the necessity of\nthings, as determined by the nature of the atoms and the circumstances in\nwhich they are placed.  We say that only one proximate result can ever\narise from any given combination.  If, then, so great uniformity of\naction as nothing can exceed is manifested by atoms to which no one will\nimpute memory, why this desire for memory, as though it were the only way\nof accounting for regularity of action in living beings?  Sameness of\naction may be seen abundantly where there is no room for anything that we\ncan consistently call memory.  In these cases we say that it is due to\nsameness of substance in same circumstances.\n\nThe most cursory reflection upon our actions will show us that it is no\nmore possible for living action to have more than one set of proximate\nconsequents at any given time than for oxygen and hydrogen when mixed in\nthe proportions proper for the formation of water.  Why then not\nrecognise this fact, and ascribe repeated similarity of living action to\nthe reproduction of the necessary antecedents, with no more sense of\nconnection between the steps in the action, or memory of similar action\ntaken before, than we suppose on the part of oxygen and hydrogen\nmolecules between the several occasions on which they may have been\ndisunited and reunited?\n\nA boy catches the measles not because he remembers having caught them in\nthe persons of his father and mother, but because he is a fit soil for a\ncertain kind of seed to grow upon.  In like manner he should be said to\ngrow his nose because he is a fit combination for a nose to spring from.\nDr. X---'s father died of _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine; so\ndid Dr. X---.  Can it be pretended that Dr. X--- remembered having died\nof _angina pectoris_ at the age of forty-nine when in the person of his\nfather, and accordingly, when he came to be forty-nine years old himself,\ndied also?  For this to hold, Dr. X---'s father must have begotten him\nafter he was dead; for the son could not remember the father's death\nbefore it happened.\n\nAs for the diseases of old age, so very commonly inherited, they are\ndeveloped for the most part not only long after the average age of\nreproduction, but at a time when no appreciable amount of memory of any\nprevious existence can remain; for a man will not have many male\nancestors who become parents at over sixty years old, nor female\nancestors who did so at over forty.  By our own showing, therefore,\nrecollection can have nothing to do with the matter.  Yet who can doubt\nthat gout is due to inheritance as much as eyes and noses?  In what\nrespects do the two things differ so that we should refer the inheritance\nof eyes and noses to memory, while denying any connection between memory\nand gout?  We may have a ghost of a pretence for saying that a man grows\na nose by rote, or even that he catches the measles or whooping-cough by\nrote; but do we mean to say that he develops the gout by rote in his old\nage if he comes of a gouty family?  If, then, rote and red-tape have\nnothing to do with the one, why should they with the other?\n\nRemember also the cases in which aged females develop male\ncharacteristics.  Here are growths, often of not inconsiderable extent,\nwhich make their appearance during the decay of the body, and grow with\ngreater and greater vigour in the extreme of old age, and even for days\nafter death itself.  It can hardly be doubted that an especial tendency\nto develop these characteristics runs as an inheritance in certain\nfamilies; here then is perhaps the best case that can be found of a\ndevelopment strictly inherited, but having clearly nothing whatever to do\nwith memory.  Why should not all development stand upon the same footing?\n\nA friend who had been arguing with me for some time as above, concluded\nwith the following words:--\n\n\"If you cannot be content with the similar action of similar substances\n(living or non-living) under similar circumstances--if you cannot accept\nthis as an ultimate fact, but consider it necessary to connect repetition\nof similar action with memory before you can rest in it and be\nthankful--be consistent, and introduce this memory which you find so\nnecessary into the inorganic world also.  Either say that a chrysalis\nbecomes a butterfly because it is the thing that it is, and, being that\nkind of thing, must act in such and such a manner and in such a manner\nonly, so that the act of one generation has no more to do with the act of\nthe next than the fact of cream being churned into butter in a dairy one\nday has to do with other cream being churnable into butter in the\nfollowing week--either say this or else develop some mental\ncondition--which I have no doubt you will be very well able to do if you\nfeel the want of it--in which you can make out a case for saying that\noxygen and hydrogen on being brought together, and cream on being\nchurned, are in some way acquainted with, and mindful of, action taken by\nother cream, and other oxygen and hydrogen on past occasions.\"\n\nI felt inclined to reply that my friend need not twit me with being able\nto develop a mental organism if I felt the need of it, for his own\ningenious attack on my position, and indeed every action of his life, was\nbut an example of this omnipresent principle.\n\nWhen he was gone, however, I thought over what he had been saying.  I\nendeavoured to see how far I could get on without volition and memory,\nand reasoned as follows:--A repetition of like antecedents will be\ncertainly followed by a repetition of like consequents, whether the\nagents be men and women or chemical substances.  \"If there be two cowards\nperfectly similar in every respect, and if they be subjected in a\nperfectly similar way to two terrifying agents, which are themselves\nperfectly similar, there are few who will not expect a perfect similarity\nin the running away, even though ten thousand years intervene between the\noriginal combination and its repetition.\" {189}  Here certainly there is\nno coming into play of memory, more than in the pan of cream on two\nsuccessive churning days, yet the action is similar.\n\nA clerk in an office has an hour in the middle of the day for dinner.\nAbout half-past twelve he begins to feel hungry; at one he takes down his\nhat and leaves the office.  He does not yet know the neighbourhood, and\non getting down into the street asks a policeman at the corner which is\nthe best eating-house within easy distance.  The policeman tells him of\nthree houses, one of which is a little farther off than the other two,\nbut is cheaper.  Money being a greater object to him than time, the clerk\ndecides on going to the cheaper house.  He goes, is satisfied, and\nreturns.\n\nNext day he wants his dinner at the same hour, and--it will be\nsaid--remembering his satisfaction of yesterday, will go to the same\nplace as before.  But what has his memory to do with it?  Suppose him to\nhave forgotten all the circumstances of the preceding day from the moment\nof his beginning to feel hungry onward, though in other respects sound in\nmind and body, and unchanged generally.  At half-past twelve he would\nbegin to be hungry; but his beginning to be hungry cannot be connected\nwith his remembering having begun to be hungry yesterday.  He would begin\nto be hungry just as much whether he remembered or no.  At one o'clock he\nagain takes down his hat and leaves the office, not because he remembers\nhaving done so yesterday, but because he wants his hat to go out with.\nBeing again in the street, and again ignorant of the neighbourhood (for\nhe remembers nothing of yesterday), he sees the same policeman at the\ncorner of the street, and asks him the same question as before; the\npoliceman gives him the same answer, and money being still an object to\nhim, the cheapest eating-house is again selected; he goes there, finds\nthe same _menu_, makes the same choice for the same reasons, eats, is\nsatisfied, and returns.\n\nWhat similarity of action can be greater than this, and at the same time\nmore incontrovertible?  But it has nothing to do with memory; on the\ncontrary, it is just because the clerk has no memory that his action of\nthe second day so exactly resembles that of the first.  As long as he has\nno power of recollecting, he will day after day repeat the same actions\nin exactly the same way, until some external circumstances, such as his\nbeing sent away, modify the situation.  Till this or some other\nmodification occurs, he will day after day go down into the street\nwithout knowing where to go; day after day he will see the same policeman\nat the corner of the same street, and (for we may as well suppose that\nthe policeman has no memory too) he will ask and be answered, and ask and\nbe answered, till he and the policeman die of old age.  This similarity\nof action is plainly due to that--whatever it is--which ensures that like\npersons or things when placed in like circumstances shall behave in a\nlike manner.\n\nAllow the clerk ever such a little memory, and the similarity of action\nwill disappear; for the fact of remembering what happened to him on the\nfirst day he went out in search of dinner will be a modification in him\nin regard to his then condition when he next goes out to get his dinner.\nHe had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second.  Some\nmodification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor,\nand this is immediately observable.  He wants his dinner, indeed, goes\ndown into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he does\nnot ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and what\nhe did, and therefore goes straight to the eating-house without wasting\ntime: nor does he dine off the same dish two days running, for he\nremembers what he had yesterday and likes variety.  If, then, similarity\nof action is rather hindered than promoted by memory, why introduce it\ninto such cases as the repetition of the embryonic processes by\nsuccessive generations?  The embryos of a well-fixed breed, such as the\ngoose, are almost as much alike as water is to water, and by consequence\none goose comes to be almost as like another as water to water.  Why\nshould it not be supposed to become so upon the same grounds--namely,\nthat it is made of the same stuffs, and put together in like proportions\nin the same manner?\n\n\n\nON CYCLES.  (CHAPTER XI. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.)\n\n\nThe one faith on which all normal living beings consciously or\nunconsciously act, is that like antecedents will be followed by like\nconsequents.  This is the one true and catholic faith, undemonstrable,\nbut except a living being believe which, without doubt it shall perish\neverlastingly.  In the assurance of this all action is taken.  But if\nthis fundamental article is admitted, it follows that if ever a complete\ncycle were formed, so that the whole universe of one instant were to\nrepeat itself absolutely in a subsequent one, no matter after what\ninterval of time, then the course of the events between these two moments\nwould go on repeating itself for ever and ever afterwards in due order,\ndown to the minutest detail, in an endless series of cycles like a\ncirculating decimal.  For the universe comprises everything; there could\ntherefore be no disturbance from without.  Once a cycle, always a cycle.\n\nLet us suppose the earth of given weight, moving with given momentum in a\ngiven path, and under given conditions in every respect, to find itself\nat any one time conditioned in all these respects as it was conditioned\nat some past moment; then it must move exactly in the same path as the\none it took when at the beginning of the cycle it has just completed, and\nmust therefore in the course of time fulfil a second cycle, and therefore\na third, and so on for ever and ever, with no more chance of escape than\na circulating decimal has, if the circumstances have been reproduced with\nperfect accuracy as to draw it into such a whirlpool.\n\nWe see something very like this actually happen in the yearly revolutions\nof the planets round the sun.  But the relations between, we will say,\nthe earth and the sun are not reproduced absolutely.  These relations\ndeal only with a small part of the universe, and even in this small part\nthe relation of the parts _inter se_ has never yet been reproduced with\nthe perfection of accuracy necessary for our argument.  They are liable,\nmoreover, to disturbance from events which may or may not actually occur\n(as, for example, our being struck by a comet, or the sun's coming within\na certain distance of another sun), but of which, if they do occur, no\none can foresee the effects.  Nevertheless the conditions have been so\nnearly repeated that there is no appreciable difference in the relations\nbetween the earth and sun on one New Year's Day and on another, nor is\nthere reason for expecting such change within any reasonable time.\n\nIf there is to be an eternal series of cycles involving the whole\nuniverse, it is plain that not one single atom must be excluded.  Exclude\na single molecule of hydrogen from the ring, or vary the relative\npositions of two molecules only, and the charm is broken; an element of\ndisturbance has been introduced, of which the utmost that can be said is\nthat it may not prevent the ensuing of a long series of very nearly\nperfect cycles before similarity in recurrence is destroyed, but which\nmust inevitably prevent absolute identity of repetition.  The movement of\nthe series becomes no longer a cycle, but spiral, and convergent or\ndivergent at a greater or less rate according to circumstances.\n\nWe cannot conceive of all the atoms in the universe standing twice over\nin absolutely the same relation each one of them to every other.  There\nare too many of them, and they are too much mixed; but, as has been just\nsaid, in the planets and their satellites we do see large groups of atoms\nwhose movements recur with some approach to precision.  The same holds\ngood also with certain comets and with the sun himself.  The result is\nthat our days and nights and seasons follow one another with nearly\nperfect regularity from year to year, and have done so for as long time\nas we know anything for certain.  A vast preponderance of all the action\nthat takes place around us is cyclical action.  Within the great cycle of\nthe planetary revolution of our own earth, and as a consequence thereof,\nwe have the minor cycle of the seasons; these generate atmospheric\ncycles.  Water is evaporated from the ocean and conveyed to\nmountain-ranges, where it is cooled, and whence it returns again to the\nsea.  This cycle of events is being repeated again and again with little\nappreciable variation.  The tides, and winds in certain latitudes, go\nround and round the world with what amounts to continuous regularity.\nThere are storms of wind and rain called cyclones.  In the case of these,\nthe cycle is not very complete, the movement, therefore, is spiral, and\nthe tendency to recur is comparatively soon lost.  It is a common saying\nthat history repeats itself, so that anarchy will lead to despotism and\ndespotism to anarchy; every nation can point to instances of men's minds\nhaving gone round and round so nearly in a perfect cycle that many\nrevolutions have occurred before the cessation of a tendency to recur.\nLastly, in the generation of plants and animals we have, perhaps, the\nmost striking and common example of the inevitable tendency of all action\nto repeat itself when it has once proximately done so.  Let only one\nliving being have once succeeded in producing a being like itself, and\nthus have returned, so to speak, upon itself, and a series of generations\nmust follow of necessity, unless some matter interfere which had no part\nin the original combination, and, as it may happen, kill the first\nreproductive creature or all its descendants within a few generations.  If\nno such mishap occurs as this, and if the recurrence of the conditions is\nsufficiently perfect, a series of generations follows with as much\ncertainty as a series of seasons follows upon the cycle of the relations\nbetween the earth and sun.\n\nLet the first periodically recurring substance--we will say A--be able to\nrecur or reproduce itself, not once only, but many times over, as A1, A2,\n&c.; let A also have consciousness and a sense of self-interest, which\nqualities must, _ex hypothesi_, be reproduced in each one of its\noffspring; let these get placed in circumstances which differ\nsufficiently to destroy the cycle in theory without doing so\npractically--that is to say, to reduce the rotation to a spiral, but to a\nspiral with so little deviation from perfect cycularity as for each\nrevolution to appear practically a cycle, though after many revolutions\nthe deviation becomes perceptible; then some such differentiations of\nanimal and vegetable life as we actually see follow as matters of course.\nA1 and A2 have a sense of self-interest as A had, but they are not\nprecisely in circumstances similar to A's, nor, it may be, to each\nother's; they will therefore act somewhat differently, and every living\nbeing is modified by a change of action.  Having become modified, they\nfollow the spirit of A's action more essentially in begetting a creature\nlike themselves than in begetting one like A; for the essence of A's act\nwas not the reproduction of A, but the reproduction of a creature like\nthe one from which it sprung--that is to say, a creature bearing traces\nin its body of the main influences that have worked upon its parent.\n\nWithin the cycle of reproduction there are cycles upon cycles in the life\nof each individual, whether animal or plant.  Observe the action of our\nlungs and heart, how regular it is, and how a cycle having been once\nestablished, it is repeated many millions of times in an individual of\naverage health and longevity.  Remember also that it is this\nperiodicity--this inevitable tendency of all atoms in combination to\nrepeat any combination which they have once repeated, unless forcibly\nprevented from doing so--which alone renders nine-tenths of our\nmechanical inventions of practical use to us.  There is not internal\nperiodicity about a hammer or a saw, but there is in the steam-engine or\nwatermill when once set in motion.  The actions of these machines recur\nin a regular series, at regular intervals, with the unerringness of\ncirculating decimals.\n\nWhen we bear in mind, then, the omnipresence of this tendency in the\nworld around us, the absolute freedom from exception which attends its\naction, the manner in which it holds equally good upon the vastest and\nthe smallest scale, and the completeness of its accord with our ideas of\nwhat must inevitably happen when a like combination is placed in\ncircumstances like those in which it was placed before--when we bear in\nmind all this, is it possible not to connect the facts together, and to\nrefer cycles of living generations to the same unalterableness in the\naction of like matter under like circumstances which makes Jupiter and\nSaturn revolve round the sun, or the piston of a steam-engine move up and\ndown as long as the steam acts upon it?\n\nBut who will attribute memory to the hands of a clock, to a piston-rod,\nto air or water in a storm or in course of evaporation, to the earth and\nplanets in their circuits round the sun, or to the atoms of the universe,\nif they too be moving in a cycle vaster than we can take account of?\n{198a}  And if not, why introduce it into the embryonic development of\nliving beings, when there is not a particle of evidence in support of its\nactual presence, when regularity of action can be ensured just as well\nwithout it as with it, and when at the best it is considered as existing\nunder circumstances which it baffles us to conceive, inasmuch as it is\nsupposed to be exercised without any conscious recollection?  Surely a\nmemory which is exercised without any consciousness of recollecting is\nonly a periphrasis for the absence of any memory at all. {198b}\n\n\n\nREPUTATION--MEMORY AT ONCE A PROMOTER AND A DISTURBER OF UNIFORMITY OF\nACTION AND STRUCTURE.  (CHAPTER XII. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.)\n\n\nTo meet the objections in the two foregoing chapters, I need do little\nmore than show that the fact of certain often inherited diseases and\ndevelopments, whether of youth or old age, being obviously not due to a\nmemory on the part of offspring of like diseases and developments in the\nparents, does not militate against supposing that embryonic and youthful\ndevelopment generally is due to memory.\n\nThis is the main part of the objection; the rest resolves itself into an\nassertion that there is no evidence in support of instinct and embryonic\ndevelopment being due to memory, and a contention that the necessity of\neach particular moment in each particular case is sufficient to account\nfor the facts without the introduction of memory.\n\nI will deal with these two last points briefly first.  As regards the\nevidence in support of the theory that instinct and growth are due to a\nrapid unconscious memory of past experiences and developments in the\npersons of the ancestors of the living form in which they appear, I must\nrefer my readers to Life and Habit, and to the translation of Professor\nHering's lecture given in Chapter VI. of Unconscious Memory.  I will only\nrepeat here that a chrysalis, we will say, is as much one and the same\nperson with the chrysalis of its preceding generation, as this last is\none and the same person with the egg or caterpillar from which it sprang.\nYou cannot deny personal identity between two successive generations\nwithout sooner or later denying it during the successive stages in the\nsingle life of what we call one individual; nor can you admit personal\nidentity through the stages of a long and varied life (embryonic and post-\nnatal) without admitting it to endure through an endless series of\ngenerations.\n\nThe personal identity of successive generations being admitted, the\npossibility of the second of two generations remembering what happened to\nit in the first is obvious.  The _a priori_ objection, therefore, is\nremoved, and the question becomes one of fact--does the offspring act as\nif it remembered?\n\nThe answer to this question is not only that it does so act, but that it\nis not possible to account for either its development or its early\ninstinctive actions upon any other hypothesis than that of its\nremembering, and remembering exceedingly well.\n\nThe only alternative is to declare with Von Hartmann that a living being\nmay display a vast and varied information concerning all manner of\ndetails, and be able to perform most intricate operations, independently\nof experience and practice.  Once admit knowledge independent of\nexperience, and farewell to sober sense and reason from that moment.\n\nFirstly, then, we show that offspring has had every facility for\nremembering; secondly, that it shows every appearance of having\nremembered; thirdly, that no other hypothesis except memory can be\nbrought forward, so as to account for the phenomena of instinct and\nheredity generally, which is not easily reducible to an absurdity.  Beyond\nthis we do not care to go, and must allow those to differ from us who\nrequire further evidence.\n\nAs regards the argument that the necessity of each moment will account\nfor likeness of result, without there being any need for introducing\nmemory, I admit that likeness of consequents is due to likeness of\nantecedents, and I grant this will hold as good with embryos as with\noxygen and hydrogen gas; what will cover the one will cover the other,\nfor the writs of the laws common to all matter run within the womb as\nfreely as elsewhere; but admitting that there are combinations into which\nliving beings enter with a faculty called memory which has its effects\nupon their conduct, and admitting that such combinations are from time to\ntime repeated (as we observe in the case of a practised performer playing\na piece of music which he has committed to memory), then I maintain that\nthough, indeed, the likeness of one performance to its immediate\npredecessor is due to likeness of the combinations immediately preceding\nthe two performances, yet memory plays so important a part in both these\ncombinations as to make it a distinguishing feature in them, and\ntherefore proper to be insisted upon.  We do not, for example, say that\nHerr Joachim played such and such a sonata without the music, because he\nwas such and such an arrangement of matter in such and such\ncircumstances, resembling those under which he played without music on\nsome past occasion.  This goes without saying; we say only that he played\nthe music by heart or by memory, as he had often played it before.\n\nTo the objector that a caterpillar becomes a chrysalis not because it\nremembers and takes the action taken by its fathers and mothers in due\ncourse before it, but because when matter is in such a physical and\nmental state as to be called caterpillar, it must perforce assume\npresently such another physical and mental state as to be called\nchrysalis, and that therefore there is no memory in the case--to this\nobjector I rejoin that the offspring caterpillar would not have become so\nlike the parent as to make the next or chrysalis stage a matter of\nnecessity, unless both parent and offspring had been influenced by\nsomething that we usually call memory.  For it is this very possession of\na common memory which has guided the offspring into the path taken by,\nand hence to a virtually same condition with, the parent, and which\nguided the parent in its turn to a state virtually identical with a\ncorresponding state in the existence of its own parent.  To memory,\ntherefore, the most prominent place in the transaction is assigned\nrightly.\n\nTo deny that will guided by memory has anything to do with the\ndevelopment of embryos seems like denying that a desire to obstruct has\nanything to do with the recent conduct of certain members in the House of\nCommons.  What should we think of one who said that the action of these\ngentlemen had nothing to do with a desire to embarrass the Government,\nbut was simply the necessary outcome of the chemical and mechanical\nforces at work, which being such and such, the action which we see is\ninevitable, and has therefore nothing to do with wilful obstruction?  We\nshould answer that there was doubtless a great deal of chemical and\nmechanical action in the matter; perhaps, for aught we knew or cared, it\nwas all chemical and mechanical; but if so, then a desire to obstruct\nparliamentary business is involved in certain kinds of chemical and\nmechanical action, and that the kinds involving this had preceded the\nrecent proceedings of the members in question.  If asked to prove this,\nwe can get no further than that such action as has been taken has never\nbeen seen except as following after and in consequence of a desire to\nobstruct; that this is our nomenclature, and that we can no more be\nexpected to change it than to change our mother tongue at the bidding of\na foreigner.\n\nA little reflection will convince the reader that he will be unable to\ndeny will and memory to the embryo without at the same time denying their\nexistence everywhere, and maintaining that they have no place in the\nacquisition of a habit, nor indeed in any human action.  He will feel\nthat the actions, and the relation of one action to another which he\nobserves in embryos is such as is never seen except in association with\nand as a consequence of will and memory.  He will therefore say that it\nis due to will and memory.  To say that these are the necessary outcome\nof certain antecedents is not to destroy them: granted that they are--a\nman does not cease to be a man when we reflect that he has had a father\nand mother, neither do will and memory cease to be will and memory on the\nground that they cannot come causeless.  They are manifest minute by\nminute to the perception of all people who can keep out of lunatic\nasylums, and this tribunal, though not infallible, is nevertheless our\nultimate court of appeal--the final arbitrator in all disputed cases.\n\nWe must remember that there is no action, however original or peculiar,\nwhich is not in respect of far the greater number of its details founded\nupon memory.  If a desperate man blows his brains out--an action which he\ncan do once in a lifetime only, and which none of his ancestors can have\ndone before leaving offspring--still nine hundred and ninety-nine\nthousandths of the movements necessary to achieve his end consist of\nhabitual movements--movements, that is to say, which were once difficult,\nbut which have been practised and practised by the help of memory until\nthey are now performed automatically.  We can no more have an action than\na creative effort of the imagination cut off from memory.  Ideas and\nactions seem almost to resemble matter and force in respect of the\nimpossibility of originating or destroying them; nearly all that are, are\nmemories of other ideas and actions, transmitted but not created,\ndisappearing but not perishing.\n\nIt appears, then, that when in Chapter X. we supposed the clerk who\nwanted his dinner to forget on a second day the action he had taken the\nday before, we still, without perhaps perceiving it, supposed him to be\nguided by memory in all the details of his action, such as his taking\ndown his hat and going out into the street.  We could not, indeed,\ndeprive him of all memory without absolutely paralysing his action.\n\nNevertheless new ideas, new faiths, and new actions do in the course of\ntime come about, the living expressions of which we may see in the new\nforms of life which from time to time have arisen and are still arising,\nand in the increase of our own knowledge and mechanical inventions.  But\nit is only a very little new that is added at a time, and that little is\ngenerally due to the desire to attain an end which cannot be attained by\nany of the means for which there exists a perceived precedent in the\nmemory.  When this is the case, either the memory is further ransacked\nfor any forgotten shreds of details a combination of which may serve the\ndesired purpose; or action is taken in the dark, which sometimes succeeds\nand becomes a fertile source of further combinations; or we are brought\nto a dead stop.  All action is random in respect of any of the minute\nactions which compose it that are not done in consequence of memory, real\nor supposed.  So that random, or action taken in the dark, or illusion,\nlies at the very root of progress.\n\nI will now consider the objection that the phenomena of instinct and\nembryonic development ought not to be ascribed to memory, inasmuch as\ncertain other phenomena of heredity, such as gout, cannot be ascribed to\nit.\n\nThose who object in this way forget that our actions fall into two main\nclasses: those which we have often repeated before by means of a regular\nseries of subordinate actions beginning and ending at a certain tolerably\nwell-defined point--as when Herr Joachim plays a sonata in public, or\nwhen we dress or undress ourselves; and actions the details of which are\nindeed guided by memory, but which in their general scope and purpose are\nnew--as when we are being married, or presented at court.\n\nAt each point in any action of the first of the two kinds above referred\nto there is a memory (conscious or unconscious according to the less or\ngreater number of times the action has been repeated), not only of the\nsteps in the present and previous performances which have led up to the\nparticular point that may be selected, _but also of the particular point\nitself_; there is therefore, at each point in a habitual performance, a\nmemory at once of like antecedents _and of a like present_.\n\nIf the memory, whether of the antecedent or the present, were absolutely\nperfect; that is to say, if the vibrations in the nervous system (or, if\nthe reader likes it better, if the molecular change in the particular\nnerves affected--for molecular change is only a change in the character\nof the vibrations going on within the molecules--it is nothing else than\nthis)--it the vibrations in the particular nerves affected by any\noccurrence continued on each fresh repetition of the occurrence in their\nfull original strength and without having been interfered with by any\nother vibrations; and if, again, the new waves running into the faint old\nones from exterior objects and restoring the lapsed molecular state of\nthe nerves to a pristine condition were absolutely identical in character\non each repetition of the occurrence with the waves that ran in upon the\nlast occasion, then there would be no change in the action, and no\nmodification or improvement could take place.  For though indeed the\nlatest performance would always have one memory more than the latest but\none to guide it, yet the memories being identical, it would not matter\nhow many or how few they were.\n\nOn any repetition, however, the circumstances, external or internal, or\nboth, never are absolutely identical: there is some slight variation in\neach individual case, and some part of this variation is remembered, with\napprobation or disapprobation as the case may be.\n\nThe fact, therefore, that on each repetition of the action there is one\nmemory more than on the last but one, and that this memory is slightly\ndifferent from its predecessor, is seen to be an inherent and, _ex\nhypothesi_, necessarily disturbing factor in all habitual action--and the\nlife of an organism should, as has been sufficiently insisted on, be\nregarded as the habitual action of a single individual, namely, of the\norganism itself, and of its ancestors.  This is the key to accumulation\nof improvement, whether in the arts which we assiduously practise during\nour single life, or in the structures and instincts of successive\ngenerations.  The memory does not complete a true circle, but is, as it\nwere, a spiral slightly divergent therefrom.  It is no longer a perfectly\ncirculating decimal.  Where, on the other hand, there is no memory of a\nlike present, where, in fact, the memory is not, so to speak, spiral,\nthere is no accumulation of improvement.  The effect of any variation is\nnot transmitted, and is not thus pregnant of still further change.\n\nAs regards the second of the two classes of actions above referred\nto--those, namely which are not recurrent or habitual, _and at no point\nof which is there a memory of a past present like the one which is\npresent now_--there will have been no accumulation of strong and well-\nknit memory as regards the action as a whole, but action, if taken at\nall, will be taken upon disjointed fragments of individual actions (our\nown and those of other people) pieced together with a result more or less\nsatisfactory according to circumstances.\n\nBut it does not follow that the action of two people who have had\ntolerably similar antecedents and are placed in tolerably similar\ncircumstances should be more unlike each other in this second case than\nin the first.  On the contrary, nothing is more common than to observe\nthe same kind of people making the same kind of mistake when placed for\nthe first time in the same kind of new circumstances.  I did not say that\nthere would be no sameness of action without memory of a like present.\nThere may be sameness of action proceeding from a memory, conscious or\nunconscious, of like antecedents, and _a presence only of like presents\nwithout recollection of the same_.\n\nThe sameness of action of like persons placed under like circumstances\nfor the first time, resembles the sameness of action of inorganic matter\nunder the same combinations.  Let us for a moment suppose what we call\nnon-living substances to be capable of remembering their antecedents, and\nthat the changes they undergo are the expressions of their recollections.\nThen I admit, of course, that there is not memory in any cream, we will\nsay, that is about to be churned of the cream of the preceding week, but\nthe common absence of such memory from each week's cream is an element of\nsameness between the two.  And though no cream can remember having been\nchurned before, yet all cream in all time has had nearly identical\nantecedents, and has therefore nearly the same memories and nearly the\nsame proclivities.  Thus, in fact, the cream of one week is as truly the\nsame as the cream of another; week from the same cow, pasture, &c., as\nanything is ever the same with anything; for the having been subjected to\nlike antecedents engenders the closest similarity that we can conceive\nof, if the substances were like to start with.  Same is as same does.\n\nThe manifest absence of any connecting memory (or memory of like\npresents) from certain of the phenomena of heredity, such as, for\nexample, the diseases of old age, is now seen to be no valid reason for\nsaying that such other and far more numerous and important phenomena as\nthose of embryonic development are not phenomena of memory.  Growth and\nthe diseases of old age do indeed, at first sight, appear to stand on the\nsame footing.  The question, however, whether certain results are due to\nmemory or no must be settled not by showing that two combinations,\nneither of which can remember the other (as between each other), may yet\ngenerate like results, and therefore, considering the memory theory\ndisposed of for all other cases, but by the evidence we may be able to\nadduce in any particular case that the second agent has actually\nremembered the conduct of the first.  Such evidence must show firstly\nthat the second agent cannot be supposed able to do what it is plain he\ncan do, except under the guidance of memory or experience, and secondly,\nthat the second agent has had every opportunity of remembering.  When the\nfirst of these tests fails, similarity of action on the part of two\nagents need not be connected with memory of a like present as well as of\nlike antecedents; when both fail, similarity of action should be referred\nto memory of like antecedents only.\n\nReturning to a parenthesis a few pages back, in which I said that\nconsciousness of memory would be less or greater according to the greater\nor fewer number of times that the act had been repeated, it may be\nobserved as a corollary to this, that the less consciousness of memory\nthe greater the uniformity of action, and _vice versa_.  For the less\nconsciousness involves the memory's being more perfect, through a larger\nnumber (generally) of repetitions of the act that is remembered; there is\ntherefore a less proportionate difference in respect of the number of\nrecollections of this particular act between the most recent actor and\nthe most recent but one.  This is why very old civilisations, as those of\nmany insects, and the greater number of now living organisms, appear to\nthe eye not to change at all.\n\nFor example, if an action has been performed only ten times, we will say\nby A, B, C, &c, who are similar in all respects, except that A acts\nwithout recollection, B with recollection of A's action, C with\nrecollection of both B's and A's, while J remembers the course taken by\nA, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, and I--the possession of a memory by B will\nindeed so change his action, as compared with A's, that it may well be\nhardly recognisable.  We saw this in our example of the clerk who asked\nthe policeman the way to the eating-house on one day, but did not ask him\nthe next, because he remembered; but C's action will not be so different\nfrom B's as B's from A's, for though C will act with a memory of two\noccasions on which the action has been performed, while B recollects only\nthe original performance by A, yet B and C both act with the guidance of\na memory and experience of some kind, while A acted without any.  Thus\nthe clerk referred to in Chapter X. will act on the third day much as he\nacted on the second--that is to say, he will see the policeman at the\ncorner of the street, but will not question him.\n\nWhen the action is repeated by J for the tenth time, the difference\nbetween J's repetition of it and I's will be due solely to the difference\nbetween a recollection of nine past performances by J against only eight\nby I, and this is so much proportionately less than the difference\nbetween a recollection of two performances and of only one, that a less\nmodification of action should be expected.  At the same time\nconsciousness concerning an action repeated for the tenth time should be\nless acute than on the first repetition.  Memory, therefore, though\ntending to disturb similarity of action less and less continually, must\nalways cause some disturbance.  At the same time the possession of a\nmemory on the successive repetitions of an action after the first, and,\nperhaps, the first two or three, during which the recollection may be\nsupposed still imperfect, will tend to ensure uniformity, for it will be\none of the elements of sameness in the agents--they both acting by the\nlight of experience and memory.\n\nDuring the embryonic stages and in childhood we are almost entirely under\nthe guidance of a practised and powerful memory of circumstances which\nhave been often repeated, not only in detail and piecemeal, but as a\nwhole, and under many slightly varying conditions; thus the performance\nhas become well averaged and matured in its arrangements, so as to meet\nall ordinary emergencies.  We therefore act with great unconsciousness\nand vary our performances little.  Babies are much more alike than\npersons of middle age.\n\nUp to the average age at which our ancestors have had children during\nmany generations, we are still guided in great measure by memory; but the\nvariations in external circumstances begin to make themselves perceptible\nin our characters.  In middle life we live more and more continually upon\nthe piecing together of details of memory drawn from our personal\nexperience, that is to say, upon the memory of our own antecedents; and\nthis resembles the kind of memory we hypothetically attached to cream a\nlittle time ago.  It is not surprising, then, that a son who has\ninherited his father's tastes and constitution, and who lives much as his\nfather had done, should make the same mistakes as his father did when he\nreaches his father's age--we will say of seventy--though he cannot\npossibly remember his father's having made the mistakes.  It were to be\nwished we could, for then we might know better how to avoid gout, cancer,\nor what not.  And it is to be noticed that the developments of old age\nare generally things we should be glad enough to avoid if we knew how to\ndo so.\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.  (CHAPTER XIII. OF UNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.)\n\n\nIf we observed the resemblance between successive generations to be as\nclose as that between distilled water and distilled water through all\ntime, and if we observed that perfect unchangeableness in the action of\nliving beings which we see in what we call chemical and mechanical\ncombinations, we might indeed suspect that memory had as little place\namong the causes of their action as it can have in anything, and that\neach repetition, whether of a habit or the practice of art, or of an\nembryonic process in successive generations, was as original as the\n\"Origin of Species\" itself, for all that memory had to do with it.  I\nsubmit, however, that in the case of the reproductive forms of life we\nsee just so much variety, in spite of uniformity, as is consistent with a\nrepetition involving not only a nearly perfect similarity in the agents\nand their circumstances, but also the little departure therefrom that is\ninevitably involved in the supposition that a memory of like presents as\nwell as of like antecedents (as distinguished from a memory of like\nantecedents only) has played a part in their development--a cyclical\nmemory, if the expression may be pardoned.\n\nThere is life infinitely lower and more minute than any which our most\npowerful microscopes reveal to us, but let us leave this upon one side\nand begin with the amoeba.  Let us suppose that this \"structureless\"\nmorsel of protoplasm is, for all its \"structurelessness,\" composed of an\ninfinite number of living molecules, each one of them with hopes and\nfears of its own, and all dwelling together like Tekke Turcomans, of whom\nwe read that they live for plunder only, and that each man of them is\nentirely independent, acknowledging no constituted authority, but that\nsome among them exercise a tacit and undefined influence over the others.\nLet us suppose these molecules capable of memory, both in their capacity\nas individuals and as societies, and able to transmit their memories to\ntheir descendants from the traditions of the dimmest past to the\nexperiences of their own lifetime.  Some of these societies will remain\nsimple, as having had no history, but to the greater number unfamiliar,\nand therefore striking, incidents will from time to time occur, which,\nwhen they do not disturb memory so greatly as to kill, will leave their\nimpression upon it.  The body or society will remember these incidents\nand be modified by them in its conduct, and therefore more or less in its\ninternal arrangements, which will tend inevitably to specialisation.  This\nmemory of the most striking events of varied lifetimes I maintain, with\nProfessor Hering, to be the differentiating cause, which, accumulated in\ncountless generations, has led up from the amoeba to man.  If there had\nbeen no such memory, the amoeba of one generation would have exactly\nresembled the amoeba of the preceding, and a perfect cycle would have\nbeen established; the modifying effects of an additional memory in each\ngeneration have made the cycle into a spiral, and into a spiral whose\neccentricities, in the outset hardly perceptible, is becoming greater and\ngreater with increasing longevity and more complex social and mechanical\ninventions.\n\nWe say that the chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which it\nultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers having\ngrown it before, and the use it made of it.  We say that it made it on\nthe same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is to say,\nas the joint result both of desire and experience.  When I say\nexperience, I mean, experience not only of what will be wanted, but also\nof the details of all the means that must be taken in order to effect\nthis.  Memory, therefore, is supposed to guide the chicken not only in\nrespect of the main design, but in respect also of every atomic action,\nso to speak, which goes to make up the execution of this design.  It is\nnot only the suggestion of a plan which is due to memory, but, as\nProfessor Hering has so well said, it is the binding power of memory\nwhich alone renders any consolidation or coherence of action possible,\ninasmuch as without this no action could have parts subordinate one to\nanother, yet bearing upon a common end; no part of an action, great or\nsmall, could have reference to any other part, much less to a combination\nof all the parts; nothing, in fact, but ultimate atoms of actions could\never happen--these bearing the same relation to such an action, we will\nsay, as a railway journey from London to Edinburgh as a single molecule\nof hydrogen to a gallon of water.\n\nIf asked how it is that the chicken shows no sign of consciousness\nconcerning this design, nor yet of the steps it is taking to carry it\nout, we reply that such unconsciousness is usual in all cases where an\naction, and the design which prompts it, have been repeated exceedingly\noften.  If, again, we are asked how we account for the regularity with\nwhich each step is taken in its due order, we answer that this too is\ncharacteristic of actions that are done habitually--they being very\nrarely misplaced in respect of any part.\n\nWhen I wrote Life and Habit, I had arrived at the conclusion that memory\nwas the most essential characteristic of life, and went so far as to say,\n\"Life is that property of matter whereby it can remember--matter which\ncan remember is living.\"  I should perhaps have written, \"Life is the\nbeing possessed of a memory--the life of a thing at any moment is the\nmemories which at that moment it retains;\" and I would modify the words\nthat immediately follow, namely, \"Matter which cannot remember is dead;\"\nfor they imply that there is such a thing as matter which cannot remember\nanything at all, and this on fuller consideration I do not believe to be\nthe case; I can conceive of no matter which is not able to remember a\nlittle, and which is not living in respect of what it can remember.  I do\nnot see how action of any kind (chemical as much as vital) is conceivable\nwithout the supposition that every atom retains a memory of certain\nantecedents.  I cannot, however, at this point, enter upon the reasons\nwhich have compelled me to join the many who are now adopting this\nconclusion.  Whether these would be deemed sufficient or no, at any rate\nwe cannot believe that a system of self-reproducing associations should\ndevelop from the simplicity of the amoeba to the complexity of the human\nbody without the presence of that memory which can alone account at once\nfor the resemblances and the differences between successive generations,\nfor the arising and the accumulation of divergences--for the tendency to\ndiffer and the tendency not to differ.\n\nAt parting, therefore, I would recommend the reader to see every atom in\nthe universe as living and able to feel and to remember, but in a humble\nway.  He must have life eternal, as well as matter eternal; and the life\nand the matter must be joined together inseparably as body and soul to\none another.  Thus he will see God everywhere, not as those who repeat\nphrases conventionally, but as people who would have their words taken\naccording to their most natural and legitimate meaning; and he will feel\nthat the main difference between him and many of those who oppose him\nlies in the fact that whereas both he and they use the same language, his\nopponents only half mean what they say, while he means it entirely.\n\nThe attempt to get a higher form of a life from a lower one is in\naccordance with our observation and experience.  It is therefore proper\nto be believed.  The attempt to get it from that which has absolutely no\nlife is like trying to get something out of nothing.  The millionth part\nof a farthing put out to interest at ten per cent. will in five hundred\nyears become over a million pounds, and so long as we have any millionth\nof a millionth of the farthing to start with, our getting as many million\npounds as we have a fancy for is only a question of time, but without the\ninitial millionth of a millionth of a millionth part, we shall get no\nincrement whatever.  A little leaven will leaven the whole lump, but\nthere must be _some_ leaven.\n\nWe should endeavour to see the so-called inorganic as living, in respect\nof the qualities it has in common with the organic, rather than the\norganic as non-living in respect of the qualities it has in common with\nthe inorganic.  True, it would be hard to place one's self on the same\nmoral platform as a stone, but this is not necessary; it is enough that\nwe should feel the stone to have a moral platform of its own, though that\nplatform embraces little more than a profound respect for the laws of\ngravitation, chemical affinity, &c.  As for the difficulty of conceiving\na body as living that has not got a reproductive system--we should\nremember that neuter insects are living but are believed to have no\nreproductive system.  Again, we should bear in mind that mere\nassimilation involves all the essentials of reproduction, and that both\nair and water possess this power in a very high degree.  The essence of a\nreproductive system, then, is found low down in the scheme of nature.\n\nAt present our leading men of science are in this difficulty; on the one\nhand their experiments and their theories alike teach them that\nspontaneous generation ought not to be accepted; on the other, they must\nhave an origin for the life of the living forms, which, by their own\ntheory, have been evolved, and they can at present get this origin in no\nother way than by _Deus ex machina_ method, which they reject as\nunproved, or spontaneous generation of living from non-living matter,\nwhich is no less foreign to their experience.  As a general rule, they\nprefer the latter alternative.  So Professor Tyndall, in his celebrated\narticle (_Nineteenth Century_, November 1878), wrote:--\n\n\"The theory of evolution in its complete form involves the assumption\nthat at some period or other of the earth's history there occurred what\nwould be now called 'spontaneous generation.'\" {217}  And so Professor\nHuxley--\n\n   \"It is argued that a belief in abiogenesis is a necessary corollary\n   from the doctrine of Evolution.  This may be\" [which I submit is\n   equivalent here to \"is\"] \"true of the occurrence of abiogenesis at\n   some time.\" {218}\n\nProfessor Huxley goes on to say that however this may be, abiogenesis (or\nspontaneous generation) is not respectable and will not do at all now.\nThere may have been one case once; this may be winked at, but it must not\noccur again.  \"It is enough,\" he writes, \"that a single particle of\nliving protoplasm should once have appeared on the globe as the result of\nno matter what agency.  In the eyes of a consistent [!] evolutionist any\nfurther [!] independent formation of protoplasm would be sheer waste\"--and\nthe sooner the Almighty gets to understand that He must not make that\nsingle act of special creation into a precedent the better for Him.\n\nProfessor Huxley, in fact, excuses the single case of spontaneous\ngeneration which he appears to admit, because however illegitimate, it\nwas still \"only a very little one,\" and came off a long time ago in a\nforeign country.  For my own part I think it will prove in the end more\nconvenient if we say that there is a low kind of livingness in every atom\nof matter, and adopt Life eternal as no less inevitable a conclusion than\nmatter eternal.\n\nIt should not be doubted that wherever there is vibration or motion there\nis life and memory, and that there is vibration and motion at all times\nin all things.  The reader who takes the above position will find that he\ncan explain the entry of what he calls death among what he calls the\nliving, whereas he could by no means introduce life into his system if he\nstarted without it.  Death is deducible; life is not deducible.  Death is\na change of memories; it is not the destruction of all memory.  It is as\nthe liquidation of one company each member of which will presently join a\nnew one, and retain a trifle even of the old cancelled memory, by way of\ngreater aptitude for working in concert with other molecules.  This is\nwhy animals feed on grass and on each other, and cannot proselytise or\nconvert the rude ground before it has been tutored in the first\nprinciples of the higher kinds of association.\n\nAgain, I would recommend the reader to beware of believing anything in\nthis book unless he either likes it, or feels angry at being told it.  If\nrequired belief in this or that makes a man angry, I suppose he should,\nas a general rule, swallow it whole then and there upon the spot,\notherwise he may take it or leave it as he likes.\n\nI have not gone far for my facts, nor yet far from them; all on which I\nrest are as open to the reader as to me.  If I have sometimes used hard\nterms, the probability is that I have not understood them, but have done\nso by a slip, as one who has caught a bad habit from the company he has\nbeen lately keeping.  They should be skipped.\n\nDo not let the reader be too much cast down by the bad language with\nwhich professional scientists obscure the issue, nor by their seeming to\nmake it their business to fog us under the pretext of removing our\ndifficulties.  It is not the ratcatcher's interest to catch all the rats;\nand, as Handel observed so sensibly, \"Every professional gentleman must\ndo his best for to live.\"  The art of some of our philosophers, however,\nis sufficiently transparent, and consists too often in saying \"organism\nwhich . . . must be classified among fishes,\" {220a} instead of \"fish\"\nand then proclaiming that they have \"an ineradicable tendency to try to\nmake things clear.\" {220b}\n\nIf another example is required, here is the following from an article\nthan which I have seen few with which I more completely agree, or which\nhave given me greater pleasure.  If our men of science would take to\nwriting in this way, we should be glad enough to follow them.  The\npassage I refer to runs thus:--\n\n   \"Professor Huxley speaks of a 'verbal fog by which the question at\n   issue may be hidden;' is there no verbal fog in the statement that\n   _the aetiology of crayfishes resolves itself into a gradual evolution\n   in the course of the mesozoic and subsequent epochs of the world's\n   history of these animals from a primitive astacomorphous form_?  Would\n   it be fog or light that would envelop the history of man if we say\n   that the existence of man was explained by the hypothesis of his\n   gradual evolution from a primitive anthropomorphous form?  I should\n   call this fog, not light.\" {220c}\n\nEspecially let him mistrust those who are holding forth about protoplasm,\nand maintaining that this is the only living substance.  Protoplasm may\nbe, and perhaps is, the _most_ living part of an organism, as the most\ncapable of retaining vibrations, of a certain character, but this is the\nutmost that can be claimed for it.  I have noticed, however, that\nprotoplasm has not been buoyant lately in the scientific market.\n\nHaving mentioned protoplasm, I may ask the reader to note the breakdown\nof that school of philosophy which divided the _ego_ from the _non ego_.\nThe protoplasmists, on the one hand, are whittling away at _ego_, till\nthey have reduced it to a little jelly in certain parts of the body, and\nthey will whittle away this too presently, if they go on as they are\ndoing now.\n\nOthers, again, are so unifying the _ego_ and the _non ego_, that with\nthem there will soon be as little of the _non ego_ left as there is of\nthe _ego_ with their opponents.  Both, however, are so far agreed as that\nwe know not where to draw the line between the two, and this renders\nnugatory any system which is founded upon a distinction between them.\n\nThe truth is, that all classification whatever, when we examine its\n_raison d'etre_ closely, is found to be arbitrary--to depend on our sense\nof our own convenience, and not on any inherent distinction in the nature\nof the things themselves.  Strictly speaking, there is only one thing and\none action.  The universe, or God, and the action of the universe as a\nwhole.\n\nLastly, I may predict with some certainty that before long we shall find\nthe original Darwinism of Dr. Erasmus Darwin (with an infusion of\nProfessor Hering into the bargain) generally accepted instead of the neo-\nDarwinism of to-day, and that the variations whose accumulation results\nin species will be recognised as due to the wants and endeavours of the\nliving forms in which they appear, instead of being ascribed to chance,\nor, in other words, to unknown causes, as by Mr. Charles Darwin's system.\nWe shall have some idyllic young naturalists bringing up Dr. Erasmus\nDarwin's note on _Trapa natans_ {221} and Lamarck's kindred passage on\nthe descent of _Ranunculus hederaceus_ from _Ranunculus aquatilis_ {222a}\nas fresh discoveries, and be told with much happy simplicity, that those\nanimals and plants which have felt the need of such a structure have\ndeveloped it, while those which have not wanted it have gone without it.\nThus it will be declared, every leaf we see around us, every structure of\nthe minutest insect, will bear witness to the truth of the \"great guess\"\nof the greatest of naturalists concerning the memory of living matter.\n{222b}\n\nI dare say the public will not object to this, and am very sure that none\nof the admirers of Mr. Charles Darwin or Mr. Wallace will protest against\nit; but it may be as well to point out that this was not the view of the\nmatter taken by Mr. Wallace in 1858 when he and Mr. Darwin first came\nforward as preachers of natural selection.  At that time Mr. Wallace saw\nclearly enough the difference between the theory of \"natural selection\"\nand that of Lamarck.  He wrote:--\n\n   \"The hypothesis of Lamarck--that progressive changes in species have\n   been produced by the attempts of animals to increase the development\n   of their own organs and thus modify their structure and habits--has\n   been repeatedly and easily refuted by all writers on the subject of\n   varieties and species, . . . but the view here developed renders such\n   a hypothesis quite unnecessary . . .  The powerful retractile talons\n   of the falcon and the cat tribes have not been produced or increased\n   by the volition of those animals, . . . neither did the giraffe\n   acquire its long neck by desiring to reach the foliage of the more\n   lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its neck for this purpose, but\n   because any varieties which occurred among its antitypes with a longer\n   neck than usual _at once secured a fresh range of pasture over the\n   same ground as their short-necked companions_, _and on the first\n   scarcity of food were thereby enabled to outlive them_\" (italics in\n   original). {223a}\n\nThis is absolutely the neo-Darwin doctrine, and a denial of the mainly\nfortuitous character of the variations in animal and vegetable forms cuts\nat its root.  That Mr. Wallace, after years of reflection, still adhered\nto this view, is proved by his heading a reprint of the paragraph just\nquoted from {223b} with the words \"Lamarck's hypothesis very different\nfrom that now advanced;\" nor do any of his more recent works show that he\nhas modified his opinion.  It should be noted that Mr. Wallace does not\ncall his work Contributions to the Theory of Evolution, but to that of\nNatural Selection.\n\nMr. Darwin, with characteristic caution, only commits himself to saying\nthat Mr. Wallace has arrived at _almost_ (italics mine) the same general\nconclusions as he, Mr. Darwin, has done; {223c} but he still, as in 1859,\ndeclares that it would be \"a serious error to suppose that the greater\nnumber of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation and\nthen transmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations,\" {223d} and he\nstill comprehensively condemns the \"well-known doctrine of inherited\nhabit, as advanced by Lamarck.\" {224}\n\nAs for the statement in the passage quoted from Mr. Wallace, to the\neffect that Lamarck's hypothesis \"has been repeatedly and easily refuted\nby all writers on the subject of varieties and species,\" it is a very\nsurprising one.  I have searched Evolution literature in vain for any\nrefutation of the Erasmus Darwinian system (for this is what Lamarck's\nhypothesis really is), which need make the defenders of that system at\nall uneasy.  The best attempt at an answer to Erasmus Darwin that has yet\nbeen made is Paley's Natural Theology, which was throughout obviously\nwritten to meet Buffon and the Zoonomia.  It is the manner of theologians\nto say that such and such an objection \"has been refuted over and over\nagain,\" without at the same time telling us when and where; it is to be\nregretted that Mr. Wallace has here taken a leaf out of the theologians'\nbook.  His statement is one which will not pass muster with those whom\npublic opinion is sure in the end to follow.\n\nDid Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, \"repeatedly and easily refute\"\nLamarck's hypothesis in his brilliant article in the _Leader_, March 20,\n1852?  On the contrary, that article is expressly directed against those\n\"who cavalierly reject the hypothesis of Lamarck and his followers.\"  This\narticle was written six years before the words last quoted from Mr.\nWallace; how absolutely, however, does the word \"cavalierly\" apply to\nthem!\n\nDoes Isidore Geoffrey, again, bear Mr. Wallace's assertion out better?  In\n1859--that is to say but a short time after Mr. Wallace had written--he\nwrote as follows:--\n\n   \"Such was the language which Lamarck heard during his protracted old\n   age, saddened alike by the weight of years and blindness; this was\n   what people did not hesitate to utter over his grave yet barely\n   closed, and what indeed they are still saying--commonly too without\n   any knowledge of what Lamarck maintained, but merely repeating at\n   secondhand bad caricatures of his teaching.\n\n   \"When will the time come when we may see Lamarck's theory\n   discussed--and, I may as well at once say, refuted in some important\n   points {225a}--with at any rate the respect due to one of the most\n   illustrious masters of our science?  And when will this theory, the\n   hardihood of which has been greatly exaggerated, become freed from the\n   interpretations and commentaries by the false light of which so many\n   naturalists have followed their opinion concerning it?  If its author\n   is to be condemned, let it be, at any rate, not before he has been\n   heard.\" {225b}\n\nIn 1873 M. Martin published his edition of Lamarck's _Philosophic\nZoologique_.  He was still able to say, with, I believe, perfect truth,\nthat Lamarck's theory has \"never yet had the honour of being discussed\nseriously.\" {225c}\n\nProfessor Huxley in his article on Evolution is no less cavalier than Mr.\nWallace.  He writes: {225d}--\n\n   \"Lamarck introduced the conception of the action of an animal on\n   itself as a factor in producing modification.\"\n\nLamarck did nothing of the kind.  It was Buffon and Dr. Darwin who\nintroduced this, but more especially Dr. Darwin.  The accuracy of\nProfessor Huxley's statements about the history and literature of\nevolution is like the direct interference of the Deity--it vanishes\nwhenever and wherever I have occasion to test it.\n\n\"But _a little consideration showed_\" (italics mine) \"that though Lamarck\nhad seized what, as far as it goes, is a true cause of modification, it\nis a cause the actual effects of which are wholly inadequate to account\nfor any considerable modification in animals, and which can have no\ninfluence whatever in the vegetable world,\" &c.\n\nI should be very glad to come across some of the \"little consideration\"\nwhich will show this.  I have searched for it far and wide, and have\nnever been able to find it.\n\nI think Professor Huxley has been exercising some of his ineradicable\ntendency to try to make things clear in the article on Evolution, already\nso often quoted from.  We find him (p. 750) pooh-poohing Lamarck, yet on\nthe next page he says, \"How far 'natural selection' suffices for the\nproduction of species remains to be seen.\"  And this when \"natural\nselection\" was already so nearly of age!  Why, to those who know how to\nread between a philosopher's lines the sentence comes to very nearly the\nsame as a declaration that the writer has no great opinion of \"natural\nselection.\"  Professor Huxley continues, \"Few can doubt that, if not the\nwhole cause, it is a very important factor in that operation.\"  A\nphilosopher's words should be weighed carefully, and when Professor\nHuxley says, \"few can doubt,\" we must remember that he may be including\nhimself among the few whom he considers to have the power of doubting on\nthis matter.  He does not say \"few will,\" but \"few can\" doubt, as though\nit were only the enlightened who would have the power of doing so.\nCertainly \"nature\"--for that is what \"natural selection\" comes to--is\nrather an important factor in the operation, but we do not gain much by\nbeing told so.  If however, Professor Huxley neither believes in the\norigin of species, through sense of need on the part of animals\nthemselves, nor yet in \"natural selection,\" we should be glad to know\nwhat he does believe in.\n\nThe battle is one of greater importance than appears at first sight.  It\nis a battle between teleology and non-teleology, between the\npurposiveness and the non-purposiveness of the organs in animal and\nvegetable bodies.  According to Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and Paley,\norgans are purposive; according to Mr. Darwin and his followers, they are\nnot purposive.  But the main arguments against the system of Dr. Erasmus\nDarwin are arguments which, so far as they have any weight, tell against\nevolution generally.  Now that these have been disposed of, and the\nprejudice against evolution has been overcome, it will be seen that there\nis nothing to be said against the system of Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck\nwhich does not tell with far greater force against that of Mr. Charles\nDarwin and Mr. Wallace.\n\n\n\n\nREMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS. {228a}\n\n\nI have said on page 96 of this book that the word \"heredity\" may be a\nvery good way of stating the difficulty which meets us when we observe\nthe reappearance of like characteristics, whether of body or mind, in\nsuccessive generations, but that it does nothing whatever towards\nremoving it.\n\nIt is here that Mr. Herbert Spencer, the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, and Mr.\nRomanes fail.  Mr. Herbert Spencer does indeed go so far in one place as\nto call instinct \"organised memory,\" {228b} and Mr. G. H. Lewes\nattributes many instincts to what he calls the \"lapsing of intelligence.\"\n{228c}  So does Mr. Herbert Spencer, {228d} whom Mr. Romanes should have\nknown that Mr. Lewis was following.  Mr. Romanes, in his recent work,\nMental Evolution in Animals (November, 1883), endorses this, and\nfrequently uses such expressions as \"the lifetime of the species,\" {228e}\n\"hereditary experience,\" {228f} and \"hereditary memory and instinct,\"\n{228g} but none of these writers (and indeed no writer that I know of\nexcept Professor Hering of Prague, for a translation of whose address on\nthis subject I must refer the reader to my book Unconscious Memory) has\nshown a comprehension of the fact that these expressions are unexplained\nso long as \"heredity,\" whereby they explain them, is unexplained; and\nnone of them sees the importance of emphasizing Memory, and making it as\nit were the keystone of the system.\n\nMr. Spencer may very well call instinct \"organised memory\" if he means\nthat offspring can remember--within the limitations to which all memory\nis subject--what happened to it while it was yet in the person or persons\nof its parent or parents; but if he does not mean this, his use of the\nword \"memory,\" his talk about \"the experience of the race,\" and other\nexpressions of kindred nature, are delusive.  If he does mean this, it is\na pity he has nowhere said so.\n\nProfessor Hering does mean this, and makes it clear that he does so.  He\ndoes not catch the ball and let it slip through his fingers again, but\nholds it firmly.  \"It is to memory,\" he says, \"that we owe almost all\nthat we have or are; our ideas and conceptions are its work; our every\nthought and movement are derived from this source.  Memory connects the\ncountless phenomena of our existence into a single whole, and as our\nbodies would be scattered into the dust of their component atoms if they\nwere not held together by the cohesion of matter, so our consciousness\nwould be broken up into as many moments as we had lived seconds, but for\nthe binding and unifying force of Memory.\" {229}  And he proceeds to show\nthat Memory persists between generations exactly as it does between the\nvarious stages in the life of the individual.  If I could find any such\npassage as the one I have just quoted, in Mr. Herbert Spencer's, Mr.\nLewes's, or Mr. Romanes' works, I should be only too glad to quote it,\nbut I know of nothing comparable to it for definiteness of idea,\nthoroughness and consistency.\n\nNo reader indeed can rise from a perusal of Mr. Herbert Spencer's, or Mr.\nG. H. Lewes', work with an adequate--if indeed with any--impression that\nthe phenomena of heredity are in fact phenomena of memory; that heredity,\nwhether as regards body or mind, is only possible because each generation\nis linked on to and made one with its predecessor by the possession of a\ncommon and abiding memory, in as far as bodily existence was common--that\nis to say, until the substance of the one left the substance of the\nother; and that this memory is exactly of the same general character as\nthat which enables us to remember what we did half an hour ago--strong\nunder the same circumstances as those under which this familiar kind of\nmemory is strong, and weak under those under which it is weak.  Mr.\nSpencer and Mr. Lewes have even less conception of the connection between\nheredity and memory than Dr. Erasmus Darwin had at the close of the last\ncentury. {230}\n\nMr. Lewes' position was briefly this.  He denied that there could be any\nknowledge independent of experience, but he could not help seeing that\nyoung animals come into the world furnished with many organs which they\nuse with great dexterity at a very early age.  This looks as if they are\nacting on knowledge acquired independently of experience.  \"No,\" says Mr.\nLewes, \"not so.  They are born with the organs--I cannot tell how or why,\nbut heredity explains all that, and having once got the organs, the\nobjects that come into contact with them in daily life naturally produce\nthe same effect as on the parents, just as oxygen coming into contact\nwith the right quantity of hydrogen will make water; hence even the first\ntime the offspring come into contact with any given object they act as\ntheir parents did.\"  The idea of the young having got their experience in\na past generation does not seem to have even crossed his mind.\n\n\"What marvel is there,\" he asks, \"that constant conditions acting upon\nstructures which are similar should produce similar results?  It is in\nthis sense that the paradox of Leibnitz is true, and we can be said 'to\nacquire an innate idea;' only the idea is not acquired independently of\nexperience, but through the process of experience similar to that which\noriginally produced it.\" {231a}\n\nThe impression left upon me is that he is all at sea for want of the clue\nwith which Professor Hering would have furnished him, and that had that\nclue been presented to him a dozen years or so earlier than it was he\nwould have adopted it.\n\nAs regards Mr. Romanes the case is different.  His recent work, Mental\nEvolution in Animals, {231b} shows that he is well aware of the direction\nwhich modern opinion is taking, and in several places he so writes as to\nwarrant me in claiming his authority in support of the views which I have\nbeen insisting on for several years past.\n\nThus Mr. Romanes says that the analogies between the memory with which we\nare familiar in daily life and hereditary memory \"are so numerous and\nprecise\" as to justify us in considering them to be of essentially the\nsame kind. {232a}\n\nAgain he says that although the memory of milk shown by new-born infants\nis \"at all events in large part hereditary, it is none the less memory\"\nof a certain kind. {232b}\n\nTwo lines lower down he writes of \"hereditary memory or instinct,\"\nthereby implying that instinct is \"hereditary memory.\"  \"It makes no\nessential difference,\" he says, \"whether the past sensation was actually\nexperienced by the individual itself, or bequeathed it, so to speak, by\nits ancestors. {232c}  For it makes no essential difference whether the\nnervous changes . . . were occasioned during the lifetime of the\nindividual or during that of the species, and afterwards impressed by\nheredity on the individual.\"\n\nLower down on the same page he writes:--\n\n   \"As showing how close is the connection between hereditary memory and\n   instinct,\" &c.\n\nAnd on the following page:--\n\n   \"And this shows how closely the phenomena of hereditary memory are\n   related to those of individual memory: at this stage . . . it is\n   practically impossible to disentangle the effects of hereditary memory\n   from those of the individual.\"\n\nAgain:--\n\n   \"Another point which we have here to consider is the part which\n   heredity has played in forming the perceptive faculty of the\n   individual prior to its own experience.  We have already seen that\n   heredity plays an important part in forming memory of ancestral\n   experiences, and thus it is that many animals come into the world with\n   their power of perception already largely developed. . . .  The wealth\n   of ready-formed information, and therefore of ready-made powers of\n   perception, with which many newly-born or newly-hatched animals are\n   provided, is so great and so precise that it scarcely requires to be\n   supplemented by the subsequent experience of the individual.\" {233a}\n\nAgain:--\n\n   \"Instincts probably owe their origin and development to one or other\n   of two principles.\n\n   \"I.  The first mode of origin consists in natural selection or\n   survival of the fittest, continuously preserving actions, &c. &c. . .\n   .\n\n   \"II.  The second mode of origin is as follows:--By the effects of\n   habit in successive generations, actions which were originally\n   intelligent become as it were stereotyped into permanent instincts.\n   Just as in the lifetime of the individual adjustive actions which were\n   originally intelligent may by frequent repetition become automatic, so\n   in the lifetime of species actions originally intelligent may by\n   frequent repetition and heredity so write their effects on the nervous\n   system that the latter is prepared, even before individual experience,\n   to perform adjustive actions mechanically which in previous\n   generations were performed intelligently.  This mode of origin of\n   instincts has been appropriately called (by Lewes--see Problems of\n   Life and Mind {233b}) the 'lapsing of intelligence.'\" {233c}\n\nLater on:--\n\n   \"That 'practice makes perfect' is a matter, as I have previously said,\n   of daily observation.  Whether we regard a juggler, a pianist, or a\n   billiard-player, a child learning his lesson or an actor his part by\n   frequently repeating it, or a thousand other illustrations of the same\n   process, we see at once that there is truth in the cynical definition\n   of a man as a 'bundle of habits.'  And the same of course is true of\n   animals.\" {234a}\n\nFrom this Mr. Romanes goes on to show \"that automatic actions and\nconscious habits may be inherited,\" {234b} and in the course of doing\nthis contends that \"instincts may be lost by disuse, and conversely that\nthey may be acquired as instincts by the hereditary transmission of\nancestral experience.\" {234c}\n\nOn another page Mr. Romanes says:--\n\n   \"Let us now turn to the second of these two assumptions, viz., that\n   some at least among migratory birds must possess, by inheritance\n   alone, a very precise knowledge of the particular direction to be\n   pursued.  It is without question an astonishing fact that a young\n   cuckoo should be prompted to leave its foster parents at a particular\n   season of the year, and without any guide to show the course\n   previously taken by its own parents, but this is a fact which must be\n   met by any theory of instinct which aims at being complete.  Now upon\n   our own theory it can only be met by taking it to be due to inherited\n   memory.\" {234d}\n\nMr. Romanes says in a note that this theory was first advanced by Canon\nKingsley in _Nature_, January 18, 1867, a piece of information which I\nlearn for the first time; otherwise, as I need hardly say, I should have\ncalled attention to it in my own books on evolution.  _Nature_ did not\nbegin to appear till the end of 1869, and I can find no communication\nfrom Canon Kingsley bearing upon hereditary memory in any number of\n_Nature_ prior to the date of Canon Kingsley's death; but no doubt Mr.\nRomanes has only made a slip in his reference.  Mr. Romanes also says\nthat the theory connecting instinct with inherited memory \"has since been\nindependently 'suggested' by many writers.\"\n\nA little lower Mr. Romanes says: \"Of what kind, then, is the inherited\nmemory on which the young cuckoo (if not also other migratory birds)\ndepends?  We can only answer, of the same kind, whatever this may be, as\nthat upon which the old bird depends.\" {235}\n\nI have given above most of the more marked passages which I have been\nable to find in Mr. Romanes' book which attribute instinct to memory, and\nwhich admit that there is no fundamental difference between the kind of\nmemory with which we are all familiar and hereditary memory as\ntransmitted from one generation to another.  But throughout his work\nthere are passages which suggest, though less obviously, the same\ninference.\n\nThe passages I have quoted show that Mr. Romanes is upholding the same\nopinions as Professor Hering's and my own, but their effect and tendency\nis more plain here than in Mr. Romanes' own book, where they are overlaid\nby nearly 400 long pages of matter which is not always easy of\ncomprehension.\n\nThe late Mr. Darwin himself, indeed--whose mantle seems to have fallen\nmore especially and particularly on Mr. Romanes--could not contradict\nhimself more hopelessly than Mr. Romanes often does.  Indeed in one of\nthe very passages I have quoted in order to show that Mr. Romanes accepts\nthe phenomena of heredity as phenomena of memory, he speaks of \"heredity\nas playing an important part _in forming memory_ of ancestral\nexperiences;\" so that whereas I want him to say that the phenomena of\nheredity are due to memory, he will have it that the memory is due to the\nheredity, {236a} which seems to me absurd.\n\nOver and over again Mr. Romanes insists that it is heredity which does\nthis or that.  Thus it is \"_heredity with natural selection which adapt_\nthe anatomical plan of the ganglia.\" {236b}  It is heredity which\nimpresses nervous changes on the individual. {236c}  \"In the lifetime of\nspecies actions originally intelligent may by frequent repetition _and\nheredity_,\" &c. {236d}; but he nowhere tells us what heredity is any more\nthan Messrs. Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Lewes have done.  This,\nhowever, is, exactly what Professor Hering, whom I have unwittingly\nfollowed, does.  He resolves all phenomena of heredity, whether in\nrespect of body or mind, into phenomena of memory.  He says in effect, \"A\nman grows his body as he does, and a bird makes her nest as she does,\nbecause both man and bird remember having grown body and made nest as\nthey now do, or very nearly so, on innumerable past occasions.\"  He thus\nreduces life from an equation of say 100 unknown quantities to one of 99\nonly by showing that heredity and memory, two of the original 100 unknown\nquantities, are in reality part of one and the same thing.\n\nThat he is right Mr. Romanes seems to me to admit, though in a very\nunsatisfactory way.\n\n\n\n\nREMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS--(_continued_).\n\n\nI will give examples of my meaning.  Mr. Romanes says on an early page,\n\"The most fundamental principle of mental operation is that of memory,\nfor this is the _conditio sine qua non_ of all mental life\" (page 35).\n\nI do not understand Mr. Romanes to hold that there is any living being\nwhich has no mind at all, and I do understand him to admit that\ndevelopment of body and mind are closely interdependent.\n\nIf then, \"the most fundamental principle\" of mind is memory, it follows\nthat memory enters also as a fundamental principle into development of\nbody.  For mind and body are so closely connected that nothing can enter\nlargely into the one without correspondingly affecting the other.\n\nOn a later page, indeed, Mr. Romanes speaks point-blank of the new-born\nchild as \"_embodying_ the results of a great mass of _hereditary\nexperience_\" (p. 77), so that what he is driving at can be collected by\nthose who take trouble, but is not seen until we call up from our own\nknowledge matter whose relevancy does not appear on the face of it, and\nuntil we connect passages many pages asunder, the first of which may\neasily be forgotten before we reach the second.  There can be no doubt,\nhowever, that Mr. Romanes does in reality, like Professor Hering and\nmyself, regard development, whether of mind or body, as due to memory,\nfor it is nonsense indeed to talk about \"hereditary experience\" or\n\"hereditary memory\" if anything else is intended.\n\nI have said above that on page 113 of his recent work Mr. Romanes\ndeclares the analogies between the memory with which we are familiar in\ndaily life, and hereditary memory, to be \"so numerous and precise\" as to\njustify us in considering them as of one and the same kind.\n\nThis is certainly his meaning, but, with the exception of the words\nwithin inverted commas, it is not his language.  His own words are\nthese:--\n\n   \"Profound, however, as our ignorance unquestionably is concerning the\n   physical substratum of memory, I think we are at least justified in\n   regarding this substratum as the same both in ganglionic or organic,\n   and in conscious or psychological memory, seeing that the analogies\n   between them are so numerous and precise.  Consciousness is but an\n   adjunct which arises when the physical processes, owing to infrequency\n   of repetition, complexity of operation, or other causes, involve what\n   I have before called ganglionic friction.\"\n\nI submit that I have correctly translated Mr. Romanes' meaning, and also\nthat we have a right to complain of his not saying what he has to say in\nwords which will involve less \"ganglionic friction\" on the part of the\nreader.\n\nAnother example may be found on p. 43 of Mr. Romanes' book.  \"Lastly,\" he\nwrites, \"just as innumerable special mechanisms of muscular\nco-ordinations are found to be inherited, innumerable special\nassociations of ideas are found to be the same, and in one case as in the\nother the strength of the organically imposed connection is found to bear\na direct proportion to the frequency with which in the history of the\nspecies it has occurred.\"\n\nMr. Romanes is here intending what the reader will find insisted on on p.\n98 of the present volume; but how difficult he has made what could have\nbeen said intelligibly enough, if there had been nothing but the reader's\ncomfort to be considered.  Unfortunately that seems to have been by no\nmeans the only thing of which Mr. Romanes was thinking, or why, after\nimplying and even saying over and over again that instinct is inherited\nhabit due to inherited memory, should he turn sharply round on p. 297 and\npraise Mr. Darwin for trying to snuff out \"the well-known doctrine of\ninherited habit as advanced by Lamarck\"?  The answer is not far to seek.\nIt is because Mr. Romanes did not merely want to tell us all about\ninstinct, but wanted also, if I may use a homely metaphor, to hunt with\nthe hounds and run with the hare at one and the same time.\n\nI remember saying that if the late Mr. Darwin \"had told us what the\nearlier evolutionists said, why they said it, wherein he differed from\nthem, and in what way he proposed to set them straight, he would have\ntaken a course at once more agreeable with usual practice, and more\nlikely to remove misconception from his own mind and from those of his\nreaders.\" {239}  This I have no doubt was one of the passages which made\nMr. Romanes so angry with me.  I can find no better words to apply to Mr.\nRomanes himself.  He knows perfectly well what others have written about\nthe connection between heredity and memory, and he knows no less well\nthat so far as he is intelligible at all he is taking the same view that\nthey have taken.  If he had begun by saying what they had said and had\nthen improved on it, I for one should have been only too glad to be\nimproved upon.\n\nMr. Romanes has spoiled his book just because this plain old-fashioned\nmethod of procedure was not good enough for him.  One-half the obscurity\nwhich makes his meaning so hard to apprehend is due to exactly the same\ncause as that which has ruined so much of the late Mr. Darwin's work--I\nmean to a desire to appear to be differing altogether from others with\nwhom he knew himself after all to be in substantial agreement.  He\nadopts, but (probably quite unconsciously) in his anxiety to avoid\nappearing to adopt, he obscures what he is adopting.\n\nHere, for example, is Mr. Romanes' definition of instinct:--\n\n   \"Instinct is reflex action into which there is imported the element of\n   consciousness.  The term is therefore a generic one, comprising all\n   those faculties of mind which are concerned in conscious and adaptive\n   action, antecedent to individual experience, without necessary\n   knowledge of the relation between means employed and ends attained,\n   but similarly performed under similar and frequently recurring\n   circumstances by all the individuals of the same species.\" {240}\n\nIf Mr, Romanes would have been content to build frankly upon Professor\nHering's foundation, the soundness of which he has elsewhere abundantly\nadmitted, he might have said--\n\n\"Instinct is knowledge or habit acquired in past generations--the new\ngeneration remembering what happened to it before it parted company with\nthe old.\"  Then he might have added as a rider--\n\n\"If a habit is acquired as a new one, during any given lifetime, it is\nnot an instinct.  If having been acquired in one lifetime it is\ntransmitted to offspring, it is an instinct in the offspring though it\nwas not an instinct in the parent.  If the habit is transmitted\npartially, it must be considered as partly instinctive and partly\nacquired.\"\n\nThis is easy; it tells people how they may test any action so as to know\nwhat they ought to call it; it leaves well alone by avoiding all such\ndebatable matters as reflex action, consciousness, intelligence, purpose,\nknowledge of purpose, &c.; it both introduces the feature of inheritance\nwhich is the one mainly distinguishing instinctive from so-called\nintelligent actions, and shows the manner in which these last pass into\nthe first, that is to say, by way of memory and habitual repetition;\nfinally it points the fact that the new generation is not to be looked\nupon as a new thing, but (as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since said {241}) as\n\"a branch or elongation\" of the one immediately preceding it.\n\nBut then to have said this would have made it too plain that Mr. Romanes\nwas following some one else.  Mr. Romanes should remember that no one\nwould mind how much he took if he would only take it well.  But this is\nwhat those who take without due acknowledgment never do.\n\nIn Mr. Darwin's case it is hardly possible to exaggerate the waste of\ntime, money, and trouble that has been caused by his not having been\ncontent to appear as descending with modification like other people from\nthose who went before him.  It will take years to get the evolution\ntheory out of the mess in which Mr. Darwin has left it.  He was heir to a\ndiscredited truth; he left behind him an accredited fallacy.  Mr.\nRomanes, if he is not stopped in time, will get the theory connecting\nheredity and memory into just such another muddle as Mr. Darwin has got\nEvolution, for surely the writer who can talk about \"_heredity being able\nto work up_ the faculty of homing into the instinct of migration,\" {242a}\nor of \"the principle of (natural) selection combining with that of\nlapsing intelligence to the formation of a joint result,\" {242b} is\nlittle likely to depart from the usual methods of scientific procedure\nwith advantage either to himself or any one else.  Fortunately Mr.\nRomanes is not Mr. Darwin, and though he has certainly got Mr. Darwin's\nmantle, and got it very much too, it will not on Mr. Romanes' shoulders\nhide a good deal that people were not going to observe too closely while\nMr. Darwin wore it.\n\n\n\n\nREMARKS ON MR. ROMANES' MENTAL EVOLUTION IN ANIMALS--(_concluded_).\n\n\nI gather that in the end the late Mr. Darwin himself admitted the\nsoundness of the view which the reader will have found insisted upon in\nthe extracts from my earlier books given in this volume.  Mr. Romanes\nquotes a letter written by Mr. Darwin in the last year of his life, in\nwhich he speaks of an intelligent action gradually becoming\n\"_instinctive_, _i.e._, _memory transmitted from one generation to\nanother_.\" {243a}\n\nBriefly, the stages of Mr. Darwin's opinion upon the subject of\nhereditary memory are as follows:--\n\n1859.  \"It would be _the most serious error_ to suppose that the greater\nnumber of instincts have been acquired by habit in one generation and\ntransmitted by inheritance to succeeding generations.\" {243b}  And this\nmore especially applies to the instincts of many ants.\n\n1876.  \"It would be _a serious error_ to suppose\" &c., as before. {243c}\n\n1881.  \"We should remember _what a mass of inherited knowledge_ is\ncrowded into the minute brain of a worker ant.\" {243d}\n\n1881 or 1882.  Speaking of a given habitual action Mr. Darwin writes:--\"It\ndoes not seem to me at all incredible that this action [and why this more\nthan any other habitual action?] should then become instinctive:\" _i.e._,\n_memory transmitted from one generation to another_. {244a}\n\nAnd yet in 1839 or thereabouts, Mr. Darwin had pretty nearly grasped the\nconception from which until the last year or two of his life he so\nfatally strayed; for in his contribution to the volumes giving an account\nof the voyages of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_, he wrote: \"Nature by\nmaking habit omnipotent and its effects hereditary, has fitted the\nFuegian for the climate and productions of his country\" (p. 237).\n\nWhat is the secret of the long departure from the simple common-sense\nview of the matter which he took when he was a young man?  I imagine\nsimply what I have referred to in the preceding chapter,--over-anxiety to\nappear to be differing from his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and\nLamarck.\n\nI believe I may say that Mr. Darwin before he died not only admitted the\nconnection between memory and heredity, but came also to see that he must\nreadmit that design in organism which he had so many years opposed.  For\nin the preface to Hermann Muller's Fertilisation of Flowers, {244b} which\nbears a date only a very few weeks prior to Mr. Darwin's death, I find\nhim saying:--\"Design in nature has for a long time deeply interested many\nmen, and though the subject must now be looked at from a somewhat\ndifferent point of view from what was formerly the case, it is not on\nthat account rendered less interesting.\"  This is mused forth as a\ngeneral gnome, and may mean anything or nothing: the writer of the\nletterpress under the hieroglyph in Old Moore's Almanac could not be more\nguarded; but I think I know what it does mean.\n\nI cannot of course be sure; Mr. Darwin did not probably intend that I\nshould; but I assume with confidence that whether there is design in\norganism or no, there is at any rate design in this passage of Mr.\nDarwin's.  This, we may be sure, is not a fortuitous variation; and\nmoreover it is introduced for some reason which made Mr. Darwin think it\nworth while to go out of his way to introduce it.  It has no fitness in\nits connection with Hermann Muller's book, for what little Hermann Muller\nsays about teleology at all is to condemn it; why then should Mr. Darwin\nmuse here of all places in the world about the interest attaching to\ndesign in organism?  Neither has the passage any connection with the rest\nof the preface.  There is not another word about design, and even here\nMr. Darwin seems mainly anxious to face both ways, and pat design as it\nwere on the head while not committing himself to any proposition which\ncould be disputed.\n\nThe explanation is sufficiently obvious.  Mr. Darwin wanted to hedge.  He\nsaw that the design which his works had been mainly instrumental in\npitchforking out of organisms no less manifestly designed than a\nburglar's jemmy is designed, had nevertheless found its way back again,\nand that though, as I insisted in Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious\nMemory, it must now be placed within the organism instead of outside it,\nas \"was formerly the case,\" it was not on that account any the\nless--design, as well as interesting.\n\nI should like to have seen Mr. Darwin say this more explicitly.  Indeed I\nshould have liked to have seen Mr. Darwin say anything at all about the\nmeaning of which there could be no mistake, and without contradicting\nhimself elsewhere; but this was not Mr. Darwin's manner.\n\nIn passing I will give another example of Mr. Darwin's manner when he did\nnot quite dare even to hedge.  It is to be found in the preface which he\nwrote to Professor Weismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent, published\nin 1882.\n\n\"Several distinguished naturalists,\" says Mr. Darwin, \"maintain with much\nconfidence that organic beings tend to vary and to rise in the scale,\nindependently of the conditions to which they and their progenitors have\nbeen exposed; whilst others maintain that all variation is due to such\nexposure, though the manner in which the environment acts is as yet quite\nunknown.  At the present time there is hardly any question in biology of\nmore importance than this of the nature and causes of variability, and\nthe reader will find in the present work an able discussion on the whole\nsubject which will probably lead him to pause before he admits the\nexistence of an innate tendency to perfectibility\"--or towards, _being\nable to be perfected_.\n\nI could find no able discussion upon the whole subject in Professor\nWeismann's book.  There was a little something here and there, but not\nmuch.\n\nMr Herbert Spencer has not in his more recent works said anything which\nenables me to appeal to his authority.\n\nI imagine that if he had got hold of the idea that heredity was only a\nmode of memory before 1870, when he published the second edition of his\nPrinciples of Psychology, he would have gladly adopted it, for he seems\ncontinually groping after it, and aware of it as near him, though he is\nnever able to grasp it.  He probably failed to grasp it because Lamarck\nhad failed.  He could not adopt it in his edition of 1880, for this is\nevidently printed from stereos taken from the 1870 edition, and no\nconsiderable alteration was therefore possible.\n\nThe late Mr. G. H. Lewes did not get hold of the memory theory, probably\nbecause neither Mr. Spencer nor any of the well-known German philosophers\nhad done so.  Mr. Romanes, as I think I have shown, actually has adopted\nit, but he does not say where he got it from.  I suppose from reading\nCanon Kingsley in _Nature_ some years before _Nature_ began to exist, or\n(for has not the mantle of Mr. Darwin fallen upon him?) he has thought it\nall out independently; but however Mr. Romanes may have reached his\nconclusion, he must have done so comparatively recently, for when he\nreviewed my book, Unconscious Memory, {247} he scoffed at the very theory\nwhich he is now adopting.\n\nOf the view that \"there is thus a race memory, as there is an individual\nmemory, and that the expression of the former constitutes the phenomena\nof heredity\"--for it is thus Mr. Romanes with fair accuracy describes the\ntheory I was supporting--he wrote:\n\n\"Now this view, in which Mr. Butler was anticipated by Prof. Hering, is\ninteresting if advanced merely as an illustration; but to imagine that it\nmaintains any truth of profound significance, or that it can possibly be\nfraught with any benefit to science, is simply absurd.  The most cursory\nthought is enough to show,\" &c. &c.\n\n\"We can understand,\" he continued, \"in some measure how an alteration in\nbrain structure when once made should be permanent, . . . but we cannot\nunderstand how this alteration is transmitted to progeny through\nstructures so unlike the brain as are the products of the generative\nglands.  And we merely stultify ourselves if we suppose that the problem\nis brought any nearer to a solution by asserting that a future individual\nwhile still in the germ has already participated, say in the cerebral\nalterations of its parents,\" &c.  Mr. Romanes could find no measure of\nabuse strong enough for me,--as any reader may see who feels curious\nenough to turn to Mr. Romanes' article in _Nature_ already referred to.\n\nAs for Evolution, Old and New, he said I had written it \"in the hope of\ngaining some notoriety by deserving and perhaps receiving a contemptuous\nrefutation from\" Mr. Darwin. {248a}  In my reply to Mr. Romanes I said,\n\"I will not characterise this accusation in the terms which it merits.\"\n{248b}  Mr. Romanes, in the following number of _Nature_, withdrew his\naccusation and immediately added, \"I was induced to advance it because it\nseemed the only rational motive that could have led to the publication of\nsuch a book.\"  Again I will not characterise such a withdrawal in the\nterms it merits, but I may say in passing that if Mr. Romanes thinks the\nmotive he assigned to me \"a rational one,\" his view of what is rational\nand mine differ.  It does not commend itself as \"rational\" to me, that a\nman should spend a good deal of money and two or three years of work in\nthe hope of deserving a contemptuous refutation from any one--not even\nfrom Mr. Darwin.  But then Mr. Romanes has written such a lot about\nreason and intelligence.\n\nThe reply to Evolution, Old and New, which I actually did get from Mr.\nDarwin, was one which I do not see advertised among Mr. Darwin's other\nworks now, and which I venture to say never will be advertised among them\nagain--not at least until it has been altered.  I have seen no reason to\nleave off advertising Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory.\n\nI have never that I know of seen Mr. Romanes, but am told that he is\nstill young.  I can find no publication of his indexed in the British\nMuseum Catalogue earlier than 1874, and then it was only about Christian\nPrayer.  Mr. Romanes was good enough to advise me to turn painter or\nhomoeopathist; {249} as he has introduced the subject, and considering\nhow many years I am his senior, I might be justified (if it could be any\npleasure to me to do so) in suggesting to him too what I should imagine\nmost likely to tend to his advancement in life; but there are examples so\nbad that even those who have no wish to be any better than their\nneighbours may yet decline to follow them, and I think Mr. Romanes' is\none of these.  I will not therefore find him a profession.\n\nBut leaving this matter on one side, the point I wish to insist on is\nthat Mr. Romanes is saying almost in my own words what less than three\nyears ago he was very angry with me for saying.  I do not think that\nunder these circumstances much explanation is necessary as to the reasons\nwhich have led Mr. Romanes to fight so shy of any reference to Life and\nHabit, Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory--works in which, if\nI may venture to say so, the theory connecting the phenomena of heredity\nwith memory has been not only \"suggested,\" but so far established that\neven Mr. Romanes has been led to think the matter over independently and\nto arrive at the same general conclusion as myself.\n\nCuriously enough, Mr. Grant Allen too has come to much the same\nconclusions as myself, after having attacked me, though not so fiercely,\nas Mr. Romanes has done.  In 1879 he said in the _Examiner_ (May 17) that\nthe teleological view put forward in Evolution, Old and New, was \"just\nthe sort of mystical nonsense from which\" he \"had hoped Mr. Darwin had\nfor ever saved us.\"  And so in the _Academy_ on the same day he said that\nno \"one-sided argument\" (referring to Evolution, Old and New) could ever\ndeprive Mr. Darwin of the \"place which he had eternally won in the\nhistory of human thought by his magnificent achievement.\"\n\nA few years, and Mr. Allen entertains a very different opinion of Mr.\nDarwin's magnificent achievement.\n\n\"There are only two conceivable ways,\" he writes, \"in which any increment\nof brain power can ever have arisen in any individual.  The one is the\nDarwinian way, by 'spontaneous variation,' that is to say by variation\ndue to minute physical circumstances affecting the individual in the\ngerm.  The other is the Spencerian way, by functional increment, that is\nto say by the effect of increased use and constant exposure to varying\ncircumstances during conscious life.\" {250}\n\nMr. Allen must know very well, or if he does not he has no excuse at any\nrate for not knowing, that the theory according to which increase of\nbrain power or any other bodily or mental power is due to use, is no more\nMr. Spencer's than the theory of gravitation is, except in so far as that\nMr. Spencer has adopted it.  It is the theory which every one except Mr.\nAllen associates with Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, but more especially\n(and on the whole I suppose justly) with Lamarck.\n\n\"I venture to think,\" continues Mr. Allen, \"that the first way [Mr.\nDarwin's], if we look it clearly in the face, will be seen to be\n_practically unthinkable_; and that we have therefore no alternative but\nto accept the second.\"\n\nThese writers go round so quickly and so completely that there is no\nkeeping pace with them.  \"As to Materialism,\" he writes presently,\n\"surely it is more profoundly materialistic to suppose that mere physical\ncauses operating on the germ can determine minute physical and material\nchanges in the brain, which will in turn make the individuality what it\nis to be, than to suppose _that all brains are what they are in virtue of\nantecedent function_.  The one creed makes the man depend mainly upon the\naccidents of molecular physics in a colliding germ cell and sperm cell;\n_the other makes him depend mainly upon the doings and gains of his\nancestors as modified and altered by himself_.\"\n\nHere is a sentence taken almost at random from the body of the article:--\n\n   \"We are always seeing something which adds to our total stock of\n   memories; we are always learning and doing something new.  The vast\n   majority of these experiences are similar in kind to those already\n   passed through by our ancestors: they add nothing to the inheritance\n   of the race. . . . Though they leave physical traces on the\n   individual, they do not so far affect the underlying organisation of\n   the brain as to make the development of after-brains somewhat\n   different from previous ones.  But there are certain functional\n   activities which do tend so to alter the development of after-brains;\n   certain novel or sustained activities which apparently result in the\n   production of new correlated brain elements or brain connections\n   hereditarily transmissible as increased potentialities of similar\n   activity in the offspring.\"\n\nOf Natural Selection Mr. Allen writes much, as Professor Mivart and\nothers have been writing for many years past.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" he says, \"easy to understand how survival of the\nfittest may result in progress starting from such functionally produced\ngains, but impossible to understand how it could result in progress if it\nhad to start in mere accidental structural increments due to spontaneous\nvariation alone.\" {252a}\n\nMr. Allen may say this now, but until lately he has been among the first\nto scold any one else who said so.\n\nAnd this is how the article concludes:--\n\n\"The first hypothesis (Mr Darwin's) is one that throws no light upon any\nof the facts.  The second hypothesis (which Mr. Allen is pleased to call\nMr. Herbert Spencer's) is one that explains them all with transparent\nlucidity.\" {252b}\n\nSo that Mr. Darwin, according to Mr. Allen, is clean out of it.  Truly\nwhen Mr. Allen makes stepping-stones of his dead selves, he jumps upon\nthem to some tune.  But then Mr. Darwin is dead now.  I have not heard of\nhis having given Mr. Allen any manuscripts as he gave Mr. Romanes.  I\nhope Mr. Herbert Spencer will not give him any.  If I was Mr. Spencer and\nfound my admirers crowning me with Lamarck's laurels, I think I should\nhave something to say to them.\n\nWhat are we to think of a writer who declares that the theory that\nspecific and generic changes are due to use and disuse \"explains _all the\nfacts_ with transparent lucidity\"?\n\nLamarck's hypothesis is no doubt a great help and a great step toward\nProfessor Hering's; it makes a known cause underlie variations, and thus\nis free from those fatal objections which Professor Mivart and others\nhave brought against the theory of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace; but how\ndoes the theory that use develops an organism explain why offspring\nrepeat the organism at all?  How does the Lamarckian hypothesis explain\nthe sterility of hybrids, for example?  The sterility of hybrids has been\nalways considered one of the great _cruces_ in connection with any theory\nof Evolution.  How again does it explain reversion to long-lost\ncharacters and the resumption of feral characteristics? the phenomena of\nold age? the principle that underlies longevity? the reason why the\nreproductive system is generally the last to arrive at maturity, and why\nfew further developments take place in any organism after this has been\nfully developed? the sterility of many animals under captivity? the\ndevelopment in both males and females, under certain circumstances, of\nthe characteristics of the opposite sex? the latency of memory? the\nunconsciousness with which we develop, and with which instinctive actions\nare performed?  How does any theory advanced either by Lamarck, Mr.\nHerbert Spencer, or Mr. Darwin explain, or indeed throw light upon these\nfacts until supplemented with the explanation given of them in Life and\nHabit--for which I must refer the reader to that work itself?\n\nPeople may say what they like about \"the experience of the race,\" {254a}\n\"the registration of experiences continued for numberless generations,\"\n{254b} \"infinity of experiences,\" {254c} \"lapsed intelligence,\" &c., but\nuntil they make Memory, in the most uncompromising sense of the word, the\nkey to all the phenomena of Heredity, they will get little help to the\nbetter understanding of the difficulties above adverted to.  Add this to\nthe theory of Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, and the points which I\nhave above alluded to receive a good deal of \"lucidity.\"\n\nBut to return to Mr. Romanes: however much he and Mr. Allen may differ\nabout the merits of Mr. Darwin, they were at any rate not long since\ncordially agreed in vilipending my unhappy self, and are now saying very\nmuch what I have been saying for some years past.  I do not deny that\nthey are capable witnesses.  They will generally see a thing when a\ncertain number of other people have come to do so.  I submit that, no\nmatter how grudgingly they give their evidence, the tendency of that\nevidence is sufficiently clear to show that the opinions put forward in\nLife and Habit, Evolution, Old and New, and Unconscious Memory, deserve\nthe attention of the reader.\n\nI may perhaps deal with Mr. Romanes' recent work more fully in the sequel\nto Life and Habit on which I am now engaged.  For the present it is\nenough to say that if he does not mean what Professor Hering and, _longo\nintervallo_, myself do, he should not talk about habit or experience as\nbetween successive generations, and that if he does mean what we do--which\nI suppose he does--he should have said so much more clearly and\nconsistently than he has.\n\n\n\nPOSTSCRIPT.\n\n\nThis afternoon (March 7, 1884), the copies of this book being ready for\nissue, I see Mr. Romanes' letter to the _Athenaeum_ of this day, and get\nthis postscript pasted into the book after binding.\n\nMr. Romanes corrects his reference to the passage in which he says that\nCanon Kingsley first advanced the theory that instinct is inherited\nmemory (\"M. E. in Animals,\" p. 296).  Canon Kingsley's words are to be\nfound in _Fraser_, June, 1867, and are as follows:--\n\n   \"Yon wood-wren has had enough to make him sad, if only he recollects\n   it, and if he can recollect his road from Morocco hither he maybe\n   recollects likewise what happened on the road: the long weary journey\n   up the Portuguese coast, and through the gap between the Pyrenees and\n   the Jaysquivel, and up the Landes of Bordeaux, and through Brittany,\n   flitting by night and hiding and feeding as he could by day; and how\n   his mates flew against the lighthouses and were killed by hundreds,\n   and how he essayed the British Channel and was blown back, shrivelled\n   up by bitter blasts; and how he felt, nevertheless, that 'that was\n   water he must cross,' he knew not why; but something told him that his\n   mother had done it before him, and he was flesh of her flesh, life of\n   her life, and had inherited her instinct (as we call hereditary memory\n   in order to avoid the trouble of finding out what it is and how it\n   comes).  A duty was laid on him to go back to the place where he was\n   bred, and now it is done, and he is weary and sad and lonely, &c. &c.\n\nThis is a very interesting passage, and I am glad to quote it; but it\nhardly amounts to advancing the theory that instinct is inherited memory.\nObserving Mr. Romanes' words closely, I see he only says that Canon\nKingsley was the first to advance the theory \"that many hundred miles of\nlandscape scenery\" can \"constitute an object of inherited memory;\" but as\nhe proceeds to say that \"_this_\" has since \"been independently suggested\nby several writers,\" it is plain he intends to convey the idea that Canon\nKingsley advanced the theory that instinct generally is inherited memory,\nwhich indeed his words do; but it is hardly credible that he should have\nleft them where he did if he had realized their importance.\n\nMr. Romanes proceeds to inform me personally that the reference to\n\"Nature\" in his proof \"originally indicated another writer who had\nindependently advanced the same theory as that of Canon Kingsley.\"  After\nthis I have a right to ask him to tell me who the writer is, and where I\nshall find what he said.  I ask this, and at my earliest opportunity will\ndo my best to give this writer, too, the credit he doubtless deserves.\n\nI have never professed to be the originator of the theory connecting\nheredity with memory.  I knew I knew so little that I was in great\ntrepidation when I wrote all the earlier chapters of \"Life and Habit.\"  I\nput them paradoxically, because I did not dare to put them otherwise.  As\nthe book went on, I saw I was on firm ground, and the paradox was\ndropped.  When I found what Professor Hering had done, I put him forward\nas best I could at once.  I then learned German, and translated him,\ngiving his words in full in \"Unconscious Memory;\" since then I have\nalways spoken of the theory as Professor Hering's.\n\nMr. Romanes says that \"the theory in question forms the backbone of all\nthe previous literature on instinct by the above-named writers (not to\nmention their numerous followers) and is by all of them elaborately\nstated as clearly as any theory can be stated in words.\"  Few except Mr.\nRomanes will say this.  I grant it ought to have formed the backbone \"of\nall previous literature on instinct by the above-named writers,\" but when\nI wrote \"Life and Habit\" it was not understood to form it.  If it had\nbeen, I should not have found it necessary to come before the public this\nfourth time during the last seven years to insist upon it.  Of course the\ntheory is not new--it was in the air and bound to come; but when it came,\nit came through Professor Hering of Prague, and not through those who,\ngreat as are the services they have rendered, still did not render this\nparticular one of making memory the keystone of their system.  Mr.\nRomanes now says: \"Why, of course, that's what they were meaning all the\ntime.\"  Perhaps they were, but they did not say so, and\nothers--conspicuously Mr. Romanes himself--did not understand them to be\nmeaning what he now discovers that they meant.  When Mr. Romanes attacked\nme in _Nature_, January 27, 1881, he said I had \"been anticipated by\nProfessor Hering,\" but he evidently did not understand that any one else\nhad anticipated me; and far from holding, as he now does, that \"the\ntheory in question forms the backbone of all the previous\" writers on\ninstinct, and \"is by all of them elaborately stated as clearly as any\ntheory can be stated in words,\" he said (in a passage already quoted)\nthat it was \"interesting, if advanced merely as an illustration, but to\nimagine that it maintains any truth of profound significance, or that it\ncan possibly be fraught with any benefit to science, is absurd.\"\nConsidering how recently Mr. Romanes wrote the words just quoted, he has\nsoon forgotten them.\n\nI do not, as I have said already, and never did, claim to have originated\nthe theory I put forward in \"Life and Habit.\"  I thought it out\nindependently, but I knew it must have occurred to many, and had probably\nbeen worked out by many, before myself.  My claim is to have brought it\nperhaps into fuller light, and to have dwelt on its importance, bearings,\nand developments with some persistence, and to have done so without much\nrecognition or encouragement, till lately.  Of men of science, Mr. A. R.\nWallace and Professor Mivart gave me encouragement, but no one else has\ndone so.  I sometimes saw, as in the Duke of Argyll's case, and in Mr.\nRomanes' own, that men were writing at me, or borrowing from me, but with\nthe two exceptions already made, and that also of the Bishop of Carlisle,\nnot one of the literary and scientific notables of the day so much as\nmentioned my name while making use of my work.\n\nA few words more, and I will bring these remarks to a close, Mr. Romanes\nsays I represent \"the phenomena of memory as occurring throughout the\ninorganic world.\"  This implies that I attribute all the phenomena of\nmemory as we see them in animals to such things as stones and gases.  Mr.\nRomanes knows very well that I have never said anything which could\nwarrant his attempting to put the absurdity into my mouth which he here\ntries to do.  The reader who wishes to see what I do maintain upon this\nsubject will find it on pp. 216-218 of the present volume.\n\n\n\n\nEXTRACTS FROM \"ALPS AND SANCTUARIES OP PIEDMONT AND THE CANTON TICINO.\"\n\n\nDALPE, PRATO, ROSSURA.  (FROM CHAPTER III. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)\n{255}\n\n\nTalking of legs, as I went through the main street of Dalpe an old lady\nof about sixty-five stopped me, and told me that while gathering her\nwinter store of firewood she had had the misfortune to hurt her leg.  I\nwas very sorry, but I failed to satisfy her; the more I sympathised in\ngeneral terms, the more I felt that something further was expected of me.\nI went on trying to do the civil thing, when the old lady cut me short by\nsaying it would be much better if I were to see the leg at once; so she\nshowed it me in the street, and there, sure enough, close to the groin\nthere was a swelling.  Again I said how sorry I was, and added that\nperhaps she ought to show it to a medical man.  \"But aren't _you_ a\nmedical man?\" said she in an alarmed manner.  \"Certainly not, ma'am,\"\nreplied I.  \"Then why did you let me show you my leg?\" said she\nindignantly, and pulling her clothes down, the poor old woman began to\nhobble off; presently two others joined her, and I heard hearty peals of\nlaughter as she recounted her story.  A stranger visiting these out-of-\nthe-way villages is almost certain to be mistaken for a doctor.  What\nbusiness, they say to themselves, can any one else have there, and who in\nhis senses would dream of visiting them for pleasure?  This old lady had\nrushed to the usual conclusion, and had been trying to get a little\nadvice gratis.\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe little objects looking like sentry-boxes that go all round Prato\nChurch contain rough modern frescoes representing, if I remember rightly,\nthe events attendant upon the crucifixion.  These are on a small scale\nwhat the chapels on the sacred mountain of Varallo are on a large one.\nSmall single oratories are scattered about all over the Canton Ticino,\nand indeed everywhere in North Italy, by the road-side, at all halting-\nplaces, and especially at the crest of any more marked ascent, where the\ntired wayfarer, probably heavy laden, might be inclined to say a naughty\nword or two if not checked.  The people like them, and miss them when\nthey come to England.  They sometimes do what the lower animals do in\nconfinement when precluded from habits they are accustomed to, and put up\nwith strange makeshifts by way of substitute.  I once saw a poor Ticinese\nwoman kneeling in prayer before a dentist's show-case in the Hampstead\nRoad; she doubtless mistook the teeth for the relics of some saint.  I am\nafraid she was a little like a hen sitting upon a chalk egg, but she\nseemed quite contented.\n\nWhich of us, indeed, does not sit contentedly enough upon chalk eggs at\ntimes?  And what would life be but for the power to do so?  We do not\nsufficiently realise the part which illusion has played in our\ndevelopment.  One of the prime requisites for evolution is a certain\npower for adaptation to varying circumstances, that is to say, of\nplasticity, bodily and mental.  But the power of adaptation is mainly\ndependent on the power of thinking certain new things sufficiently like\ncertain others to which we have been accustomed for us not to be too much\nincommoded by the change--upon the power, in fact, of mistaking the new\nfor the old.  The power of fusing ideas (and through ideas, structures)\ndepends upon the power of _con_fusing them; the power to confuse ideas\nthat are not very unlike, and that are presented to us in immediate\nsequence, is mainly due to the fact of the impetus, so to speak, which\nthe mind has upon it.  It is this which bars association from sticking to\nthe letter of its bond; for we are in a hurry to jump to a conclusion on\nthe first show of plausible pretext, and cut association's statement of\nclaim short by taking it as read before we have got through half of it.\nWe \"get it into our notes, in fact,\" as Mr. Justice Stareleigh did in\nPickwick, and having got it once in, we are not going to get it out\nagain.  This breeds fusion and confusion, and from this there come new\ndevelopments.\n\nSo powerful is the impetus which the mind has continually upon it that we\nalways, I believe, make an effort to see every new object as a repetition\nof the object last before us.  Objects are so varied and present\nthemselves so rapidly, that as a general rule we renounce this effort too\npromptly to notice it, but it is always there, and as I have just said,\nit is because of it that we are able to mistake, and hence to evolve new\nmental and bodily developments.  Where the effort is successful, there is\nillusion; where nearly successful but not quite, there is a shock and a\nsense of being puzzled--more or less, as the case may be; where it so\nobviously impossible as not to be pursued, there is no perception of the\neffort at all.\n\nMr. Locke has been greatly praised for his essay upon human\nunderstanding.  An essay on human misunderstanding should be no less\ninteresting and important.  Illusion to a small extent is one of the main\ncauses, if indeed it is not the main cause, of progress, but it must be\nupon a small scale.  All abortive speculation, whether commercial or\nphilosophical, is based upon it, and much as we may abuse such\nspeculation, we are, all of us, its debtors.\n\n* * * * *\n\nI know few things more touching in their way than the porch of Rossura\nChurch: it is dated early in the last century, and is absolutely without\nornament; the flight of steps inside it lead up to the level of the floor\nof the church.  One lovely summer Sunday morning passing the church\nbetimes, I saw the people kneeling upon these steps, the church within\nbeing crammed.  In the darker light of the porch, they told out against\nthe sky that showed through the open arch beyond them; far away the eye\nrested on the mountains--deep blue, save where the snow still lingered.  I\nnever saw anything more beautiful--and these forsooth are the people whom\nso many of us think to better by distributing tracts about Protestantism\namong them!\n\nI liked the porch almost best under an aspect which it no longer\npresents.  One summer an opening was made in the west wall, which was\nafterwards closed because the wind blew through it too much and made the\nchurch too cold.  While it was open, one could sit on the church steps\nand look down through it on to the bottom of the Ticino valley; and\nthrough the windows one could see the slopes about Dalpe and Cornone.\nBetween the two windows there is a picture of austere old S. Carlo\nBorromeo with his hands joined in prayer.\n\nIt was at Rossura that I made the acquaintance of a word which I have\nsince found very largely used throughout North Italy.  It is pronounced\n\"chow\" pure and simple, but is written, if written at all, \"ciau\" or\n\"ciao,\" the \"a\" being kept very broad.  I believe the word is derived\nfrom \"schiavo,\" a slave, which became corrupted into \"schiao,\" and\n\"ciao.\"  It is used with two meanings, both of which, however, are\ndeducible from the word slave.  In its first and more common use it is\nsimply a salute, either on greeting or taking leave, and means, \"I am\nyour very obedient servant.\"  Thus, if one has been talking to a small\nchild, its mother will tell it to say \"chow\" before it goes away, and\nwill then nod her head and say \"chow\" herself.  The other use is a kind\nof pious expletive, intending \"I must endure it,\" \"I am the slave of a\nhigher power.\"  It was in this sense I first heard it at Rossura.  A\nwoman was washing at a fountain while I was eating my lunch.  She said\nshe had lost her daughter in Paris a few weeks earlier.  \"She was a\nbeautiful woman,\" said the bereaved mother, \"but--chow.  She had great\ntalents--chow.  I had her educated by the nuns of Bellinzona--chow.  Her\nknowledge of geography was consummate--chow, chow,\" &c.  Here \"chow\"\nmeans \"pazienza,\" \"I have done and said all that I can, and must now bear\nit as best I may.\"\n\nI tried to comfort her, but could do nothing, till at last it occurred to\nme to say \"chow\" too.  I did so, and was astonished at the soothing\neffect it had upon her.  How subtle are the laws that govern consolation!\nI suppose they must ultimately be connected with reproduction--the\nconsoling idea being a kind of small cross which _re-generates_ or _re-\ncreates_ the sufferer.  It is important, therefore, that the new ideas\nwith which the old are to be crossed should differ from these last\nsufficiently to divert the attention, and yet not so much as to cause a\npainful shock.\n\nThere should be a little shock, or there will be no variation in the new\nideas that are generated, but they will resemble those that preceded\nthem, and grief will be continued; there must not be too great a shock or\nthere will be no illusion--no confusion and fusion between the new set of\nideas and the old, and in consequence there will be no result at all, or,\nif any, an increase in mental discord.  We know very little, however,\nupon this subject, and are continually shown to be at fault by finding an\nunexpectedly small cross produce a wide diversion of the mental images,\nwhile in other cases a wide one will produce hardly any result.  Sometimes\nagain, a cross which we should have said was much too wide will have an\nexcellent effect.  I did not anticipate, for example, that my saying\n\"chow\" would have done much for the poor woman who had lost her daughter:\nthe cross did not seem wide enough: she was already, as I thought,\nsaturated with \"chow.\"  I can only account for the effect my application\nof it produced by supposing the word to have derived some element of\nstrangeness and novelty as coming from a foreigner--just as land which\nwill give a poor crop, if planted with sets from potatoes that have been\ngrown for three or four years on this same soil, will yet yield\nexcellently if similar sets be brought from twenty miles off.  For the\npotato, so far as I have studied it, is a good-tempered, frivolous plant,\neasily amused and easily bored, and one, moreover, which if bored, yawns\nhorribly.\n\nI may say in passing that the tempers of plants have not been\nsufficiently studied; and what little opinion we have formed about their\ndispositions is for the most part ill formed.  The sulkiest tree that I\nknow is the silver beech.  It never forgives a scratch.--There is a tree\nin Kensington gardens a little off the west side of the Serpentine with\nnames cut upon it as long ago as 1717 and 1736, which the tree is as\nlittle able to forgive and forget as though the injury had been done not\nten years since.  And the tree is not an aged tree either.\n\n\n\nCALONICO.  (FROM CHAPTER V. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)\n\n\nOur inventions increase in geometrical ratio.  They are like living\nbeings, each one of which may become parent of a dozen others--some good\nand some ne'er-do-weels; but they differ from animals and vegetables\ninasmuch as they not only increase in a geometrical ratio, but the period\nof their gestation decreases in geometrical ratio also.  Take this matter\nof Alpine roads for example.  For how many millions of years was there no\napproach to a road over the St. Gothard, save the untutored watercourses\nof the Ticino and the Reuss, and the track of the bouquetin or the\nchamois?  For how many more ages after this was there not a mere\nshepherd's or huntsman's path by the river-side--without so much as a log\nthrown over so as to form a rude bridge?  No one would probably have ever\nthought of making a bridge out of his own unaided imagination, more than\nany monkey that we know of has done so.  But an avalanche or a flood once\nswept a pine into position and left it there; on this a genius, who was\ndoubtless thought to be doing something very infamous, ventured to make\nuse of it.  Another time a pine was found nearly across the stream, but\nnot quite; and not quite, again, in the place where it was wanted.  A\nsecond genius, to the horror of his fellow-tribesmen--who declared that\nthis time the world really would come to an end--shifted the pine a few\nfeet so as to bring it across the stream and into the place where it was\nwanted.  This man was the inventor of bridges--his family repudiated him,\nand he came to a bad end.  From this to cutting down the pine and\nbringing it from some distance is an easy step.  To avoid detail, let us\ncome to the old Roman horse-road over the Alps.  The time between the\nshepherd's path and the Roman road is probably short in comparison with\nthat between the mere chamois track and the first thing that can be\ncalled a path of men.  From the Roman we go on to the mediaeval road with\nmore frequent stone bridges, and from the mediaeval to the Napoleonic\ncarriage-road.\n\nThe close of the last century and the first quarter of this present one\nwas the great era for the making of carriage-roads.  Fifty years have\nhardly passed, and here we are already in the age of tunnelling and\nrailroads.  The first period, from the chamois track to the foot road,\nwas one of millions of years; the second, from the first foot road to the\nRoman military way, was one of many thousands; the third, from the Roman\nto the mediaeval, was perhaps a thousand; from the mediaeval to the\nNapoleonic, five hundred; from the Napoleonic to the railroad, fifty.\nWhat will come next we know not, but it should come within twenty years,\nand will probably have something to do with electricity.\n\nIt follows by an easy process of reasoning that after another couple of\nhundred years or so, great sweeping changes should be made several times\nin an hour, or indeed in a second, or fraction of a second, till they\npass unnoticed as the revolutions we undergo in the embryonic stages, or\nare felt simply as vibrations.  This would undoubtedly be the case but\nfor the existence of a friction which interferes between theory and\npractice.  This friction is caused partly by the disturbance of vested\ninterests which every invention involves, and which will be found\nintolerable when men become millionaires and paupers alternately once a\nfortnight--living one week in a palace and the next in a workhouse, and\nhaving perpetually to be sold up, and then to buy a new house and\nrefurnish, &c.--so that artificial means for stopping inventions will be\nadopted; and partly by the fact that though all inventions breed in\ngeometrical ratio, yet some multiply more rapidly than others, and the\nbackwardness of one art will impede the forwardness of another.  At any\nrate, so far as I can see, the present is about the only comfortable time\nfor a man to live in, that either ever has been or ever will be.  The\npast was too slow, and the future will be much too fast.\n\nThe fact is (but it is so obvious that I am ashamed to say anything about\nit) that science is rapidly reducing time and space to a very\nundifferentiated condition.  Take lamb: we can get lamb all the year\nround.  This is perpetual spring; but perpetual spring is no spring at\nall; it is not a season; there are no more seasons, and being no seasons,\nthere is no time.  Take rhubarb, again.  Rhubarb to the philosopher is\nthe beginning of autumn, if indeed the philosopher can see anything as\nthe beginning of anything.  If any one asks why, I suppose the\nphilosopher would say that rhubarb is the beginning of the fruit season,\nwhich is clearly autumnal, according to our present classification.  From\nrhubarb to the green gooseberry the step is so small as to require no\nbridging--with one's eyes shut, and plenty of cream and sugar, they are\nalmost indistinguishable--but the gooseberry is quite an autumnal fruit,\nand only a little earlier than apples and plums, which last are almost\nwinter; clearly, therefore, for scientific purposes rhubarb is autumnal.\n\nAs soon as we can find gradations, or a sufficient number of uniting\nlinks between two things, they become united or made one thing, and any\nclassification of them must be illusory.  Classification is only possible\nwhere there is a shock given to the senses by reason of a perceived\ndifference, which, if it is considerable, can be expressed in words.  When\nthe world was younger and less experienced, people were shocked at what\nappeared great differences between living forms; but species, whether of\nanimals or plants, are now seen to be so united, either inferentially or\nby actual finding of the links, that all classification is felt to be\narbitrary.  The seasons are like species--they were at one time thought\nto be clearly marked, and capable of being classified with some approach\nto satisfaction.  It is now seen that they blend either in the present or\nthe past insensibly into one another, much as Mr. Herbert Spencer shows\nus that geology and astronomy blend into one another, {265} and cannot be\nclassified except by cutting Gordian knots in a way which none but plain\nsensible people can tolerate.  Strictly speaking, there is only one\nplace, one time, one action, and one individual or thing; of this thing\nor individual each one of us is a part.  It is perplexing, but it is\nphilosophy; and modern philosophy, like modern music, is nothing if it is\nnot perplexing.\n\nA simple verification of the autumnal character of rhubarb may, at first\nsight, appear to be found in Covent Garden Market, where we can actually\nsee the rhubarb towards the end of October.  But this way of looking at\nthe matter argues a fatal ineptitude for the pursuit of true philosophy.\nIt would be \"the most serious error\" to regard the rhubarb that will\nappear in Covent Garden Market next October as belonging to the autumn\nthen supposed to be current.  Practically, no doubt, it does so, but\ntheoretically it must be considered as the first-fruits of the autumn (if\nany) of the following year, which begins before the preceding summer (or,\nperhaps, more strictly, the preceding summer but one--and hence, but any\nnumber), has well ended.  Whether this, however, is so or no, the rhubarb\ncan be seen in Covent Garden, and I am afraid it must be admitted that to\nthe philosophically minded there lurks within it a theory of evolution,\nand even Pantheism, as surely as Theism was lurking in Bishop Berkeley's\ntar-water.\n\nTo return, however, to Calonico.  The _curato_ was very kind to me.  We\nhad long talks together.  I could see it pained him that I was not a\nCatholic.  He could never quite get over this, but he was very good and\ntolerant.  He was anxious to be assured that I was not one of those\nEnglish who went about distributing tracts, and trying to convert people.\nThis of course was the last thing I should have wished to do; and when I\ntold him so, he viewed me with sorrow but henceforth without alarm.\n\nAll the time I was with him I felt how much I wished I could be a\nCatholic in Catholic countries, and a Protestant in Protestant ones.\nSurely there are some things which like politics are too serious to be\ntaken quite seriously.  _Surtout point de zele_ is not the saying of a\ncynic, but the conclusion of a sensible man; and the more deep our\nfeeling is about any matter, the more occasion have we to be on our guard\nagainst _zele_ in this particular respect.  There is but one step from\nthe \"earnest\" to the \"intense.\"  When St. Paul told us to be all things\nto all men he let in the thin end of the wedge, nor did he mark it to say\nhow far it was to be driven.\n\nI have Italian friends whom I greatly value, and who tell me they think I\nflirt just a trifle too much with \"_il partito nero_,\" when I am in\nItaly, for they know that in the main I think as they do.  \"These\npeople,\" they say, \"make themselves very agreeable to you, and show you\ntheir smooth side; we, who see more of them, know their rough one.\nKnuckle under to them, and they will perhaps condescend to patronise you;\nhave any individuality of your own, and they know neither scruple nor\nremorse in their attempts to get you out of their way.  '_Il prete_' they\nsay, with a significant look, '_e sempre prete_.'  For the future let us\nhave professors and men of science instead of priests.\"\n\nI smile to myself at this last, and reply, that I am a foreigner come\namong them for recreation, and anxious to keep clear of their internal\ndiscords.  I do not wish to cut myself off from one side of their\nnational character--a side which, in some respects, is no less\ninteresting than the one with which I suppose I am on the whole more\nsympathetic.  If I were an Italian, I should feel bound to take a side;\nas it is, I wish to leave all quarrelling behind me, having as much of\nthat in England as suffices to keep me in good health and temper.\n\nIn old times people gave their spiritual and intellectual sop to Nemesis.\nEven when most positive, they admitted a percentage of doubt.  Mr.\nTennyson has said well, \"There lives more doubt\"--I quote from memory--\"in\nhonest faith, believe me, than in half the\" systems of philosophy, or\nwords to that effect.  The victor had a slave at his ear during his\ntriumph; the slaves during the Roman Saturnalia, dressed in their\nmasters' clothes, sat at meat with them, told them of their faults, and\nblacked their faces for them.  They made their masters wait upon them.  In\nthe ages of faith, an ass dressed in sacerdotal robes was gravely\nconducted to the cathedral choir at a certain season, and mass was said\nbefore him, and hymns chanted discordantly.  The elder D'Israeli, from\nwhom I am quoting, writes: \"On other occasions, they put burnt old shoes\nto fume in the censors: ran about the church leaping, singing, dancing,\nand playing at dice upon the altar, while a _boy bishop_ or _pope of\nfools_ burlesqued the divine service;\" and later on he says: \"So late as\n1645, a pupil of Gassendi, writing to his master what he himself\nwitnessed at Aix on the Feast of Innocents, says--'I have seen in some\nmonasteries in this province extravagances solemnised which pagans would\nnot have practised.  Neither the clergy nor the guardians indeed go to\nthe choir on this day, but all is given up to the lay brethren, the\ncabbage-cutters, errand boys, cooks, scullions, and gardeners; in a word,\nall the menials fill their places in the church, and insist that they\nperform the offices proper for the day.  They dress themselves with all\nthe sacerdotal ornaments, but torn to rags, or wear them inside out: they\nhold in their hands the books reversed or sideways, which they pretend to\nread with large spectacles without glasses, and to which they fix the\nrinds of scooped oranges . . . ! particularly while dangling the censers\nthey keep shaking them in derision, and letting the ashes fly about their\nheads and faces, one against the other.  In this equipage they neither\nsing hymns nor psalms nor masses, but mumble a certain gibberish as\nshrill and squeaking as a herd of pigs whipped on to market.  The\nnonsense verses they chant are singularly barbarous:--\n\n   \"'Haec est clara dies, clararum clara dierum,\n   Haec est festa dies festarum festa dierum.'\" {269}\n\nFaith was far more assured in the times when the spiritual saturnalia\nwere allowed than now.  The irreverence which was not dangerous then, is\nnow intolerable.  It is a bad sign for a man's peace in his own\nconvictions when he cannot stand turning the canvas of his life\noccasionally upside down, or reversing it in a mirror, as painters do\nwith their pictures that they may judge the better concerning them.  I\nwould persuade all Jews, Mohammedans, Comtists, and freethinkers to turn\nhigh Anglicans, or better still, downright Catholics for a week in every\nyear, and I would send people like Mr. Gladstone to attend Mr.\nBradlaugh's lectures in the forenoon, and the Grecian pantomime in the\nevening, two or three times every winter.  I should perhaps tell them\nthat the Grecian pantomime has nothing to do with Greek plays.  They\nlittle know how much more keenly they would relish their normal opinions\nduring the rest of the year for the little spiritual outing which I would\nprescribe for them, which, after all, is but another phase of the wise\nsaying--\"_Surtout point de zele_.\"  St. Paul attempted an obviously\nhopeless task (as the Church of Rome very well understands) when he tried\nto put down seasonarianism.  People must and will go to church to be a\nlittle better, to the theatre to be a little naughtier, to the Royal\nInstitution to be a little more scientific, than they are in actual life.\nIt is only by pulsations of goodness, naughtiness, and whatever else we\naffect that we can get on at all.  I grant that when in his office, a man\nshould be exact and precise, but our holidays are our garden, and too\nmuch precision here is a mistake.\n\nSurely truces, without even an _arriere pensee_ of difference of opinion,\nbetween those who are compelled to take widely different sides during the\ngreater part of their lives, must be of infinite service to those who can\nenter on them.  There are few merely spiritual pleasures comparable to\nthat derived from the temporary laying down of a quarrel, even though we\nmay know that it must be renewed shortly.  It is a great grief to me that\nthere is no place where I can go among Mr. Darwin, Professors Huxley,\nTyndal, and Ray Lankester, Miss Buckley, Mr. Romanes, Mr. Grant Allen and\nothers whom I cannot call to mind at this moment, as I can go among the\nItalian priests.  I remember in one monastery (but this was not in the\nCanton Ticino) the novice taught me how to make sacramental wafers, and I\nplayed him Handel on the organ as well as I could.  I told him that\nHandel was a Catholic; he said he could tell that by his music at once.\nThere is no chance of getting among our scientists in this way.\n\nSome friends say I was telling a lie when I told the novice Handel was a\nCatholic, and ought not to have done so.  I make it a rule to swallow a\nfew gnats a day, lest I should come to strain at them, and so bolt\ncamels; but the whole question of lying is difficult.  What _is_ \"lying\"?\nTurning for moral guidance to my cousins the lower animals, whose\nunsophisticated nature proclaims what God has taught them with a\ndirectness we may sometimes study, I find the plover lying when she lures\nus from her young ones under the fiction of a broken wing.  Is God angry,\nthink you, with this pretty deviation from the letter of strict accuracy?\nor was it not He who whispered to her to tell the falsehood--to tell it\nwith a circumstance, without conscientious scruple, not once only, but to\nmake a practice of it so as to be a plausible, habitual, and professional\nliar for some six weeks or so in the year?  I imagine so.  When I was\nyoung I used to read in good books that it was God who taught the bird to\nmake her nest, and if so He probably taught each species the other\ndomestic arrangements best suited to it.  Or did the nest-building\ninformation come from God, and was there an evil one among the birds also\nwho taught them at any rate to steer clear of priggishness?\n\nThink of the spider again--an ugly creature, but I suppose God likes it.\nWhat a mean and odious lie is that web which naturalists extol as such a\nmarvel of ingenuity!\n\nOnce on a summer afternoon in a far country I met one of those orchids\nwho make it their business to imitate a fly with their petals.  This lie\nthey dispose so cunningly that real flies, thinking the honey is being\nalready plundered, pass them without molesting them.  Watching intently\nand keeping very still, methought I heard this orchid speaking to the\noffspring which she felt within her, though I saw them not.  \"My\nchildren,\" she exclaimed, \"I must soon leave you; think upon the fly, my\nloved ones, for this is truth; cling to this great thought in your\npassage through life, for it is the one thing needful; once lose sight of\nit and you are lost!\"  Over and over again she sang this burden in a\nsmall still voice, and so I left her.  Then straightway I came upon some\nbutterflies whose profession it was to pretend to believe in all manner\nof vital truths which in their inner practice they rejected; thus,\nasserting themselves to be certain other and hateful butterflies which no\nbird will eat by reason of their abominable smell, these cunning ones\nconceal their own sweetness, and live long in the land and see good days.\nNo: lying is so deeply rooted in nature that we may expel it with a fork,\nand yet it will always come back again: it is like the poor, we must have\nit always with us.  We must all eat a peck of moral dirt before we die.\n\nAll depends upon who it is that is lying.  One man may steal a horse when\nanother may not look over a hedge.  The good man who tells no lies\nwittingly to himself and is never unkindly, may lie and lie and lie\nwhenever he chooses to other people, and he will not be false to any man:\nhis lies become truths as they pass into the hearers' ear.  If a man\ndeceives himself and is unkind, the truth is not in him; it turns to\nfalsehood while yet in his mouth, like the quails in the Wilderness of\nSinai.  How this is so or why, I know not, but that the Lord hath mercy\non whom He will have mercy and whom He willeth He hardeneth.  My Italian\nfriends are doubtless in the main right about the priests, but there are\nmany exceptions, as they themselves gladly admit.  For my own part I have\nfound the _curato_ in the small subalpine villages of North Italy to be\nmore often than not a kindly excellent man to whom I am attracted by\nsympathies deeper than any mere superficial differences of opinion can\ncounteract.  With monks, however, as a general rule, I am less able to\nget on: nevertheless I have received much courtesy at the hands of some.\n\nMy young friend the novice was delightful--only it was so sad to think of\nthe future that is before him.  He wanted to know all about England, and\nwhen I told him it was an island, clasped his hands and said, \"Oh che\nProvidenza!\"  He told me how the other young men of his own age plagued\nhim as he trudged his rounds high up among the most distant hamlets\nbegging alms for the poor.  \"Be a good fellow,\" they would say to him,\n\"drop all this nonsense and come back to us, and we will never plague you\nagain.\"  Then he would turn upon them and put their words from him.  Of\ncourse my sympathies were with the other young men rather than with him,\nbut it was impossible not to be sorry for the manner in which he had been\nhumbugged from the day of his birth, till he was now incapable of seeing\nthings from any other standpoint than that of authority.\n\nWhat he said to me about knowing that Handel was a Catholic by his music,\nput me in mind of what another good Catholic once said to me about a\npicture.  He was a Frenchman and very nice, but a _devot_, and anxious to\nconvert me.  He paid a few days' visit to London, so I showed him the\nNational Gallery.  While there I pointed out to him Sebastian del\nPiombo's picture of the raising of Lazarus as one of the supposed\nmasterpieces of our collection.  He had the proper orthodox fit of\nadmiration over it, and then we went through the other rooms.  After a\nwhile we found ourselves before West's picture of \"Christ healing the\nSick.\"  My French friend did not, I suppose, examine it very carefully,\nat any rate he believed he was again before the raising of Lazarus by\nSebastian del Piombo; he paused before it, and had his fit of admiration\nover again: then turning to me he said, \"Ah! you would understand this\npicture better if you were a Catholic.\"  I did not tell him of his\nmistake.\n\n\n\nPIORA.  (FROM CHAPTER VI. OF ALPS AND SANCTUARIES.) {275}\n\n\nAn excursion which may be very well made from Faido is to the Val Piora,\nwhich I have already more than once mentioned.  There is a large hotel\nhere which has been opened some years, but has not hitherto proved the\nsuccess which it was hoped it would be.  I have stayed there two or three\ntimes and found it very comfortable; doubtless, now that Signer Lombardi\nof the Hotel Prosa has taken it, it will become a more popular place of\nresort.\n\nI took a trap from Faido to Ambri, and thence walked over to Quinto; here\nthe path begins to ascend, and after an hour Ronco is reached.  There is\na house at Ronco where refreshments and excellent Faido beer can be had.\nThe old lady who keeps the house would make a perfect Fate; I saw her\nsitting at her window spinning, and looking down over the Ticino valley\nas though it were the world and she were spinning its destiny.  She had a\nsomewhat stern expression, thin lips, iron-grey eyes, and an aquiline\nnose; her scanty locks straggled from under the handkerchief which she\nwore round her head.  Her employment and the wistful far-away look she\ncast upon the expanse below made a very fine _ensemble_.  \"She would have\nafforded,\" as Sir Walter Scott says, \"a study for a Rembrandt, had that\ncelebrated painter existed at the period,\" {276} but she must have been a\nsmart-looking, handsome girl once.\n\nShe brightened up in conversation.  I talked about Piora, which I already\nknew, and the _Lago Tom_, the highest of the three lakes.  She said she\nknew the _Lago Tom_.  I said laughingly, \"Oh, I have no doubt you do.\nWe've had many a good day at the _Lago Tom_, I know.\"  She looked down at\nonce.\n\nIn spite of her nearly eighty years she was active as a woman of forty,\nand altogether she was a very grand old lady.  Her house is scrupulously\nclean.  While I watched her spinning, I thought of what must so often\noccur to summer visitors.  I mean what sort of a look-out the old woman\nmust have in winter, when the wind roars and whistles, and the snow\ndrives down the valley with a fury of which we in England can have little\nconception.  What a place to see a snowstorm from! and what a place from\nwhich to survey the landscape next morning after the storm is over and\nthe air is calm and brilliant.  There are such mornings: I saw one once,\nbut I was at the bottom of the valley and not high up, as at Ronco.  Ronco\nwould take a little sun even in midwinter, but at the bottom of the\nvalley there is no sun for weeks and weeks together; all is in deep\nshadow below, though the upper hill-sides may be seen to have the sun\nupon them.  I walked once on a frosty winter's morning from Airolo to\nGiornico, and can call to mind nothing in its way more beautiful:\neverything was locked in frost--there was not a watershed but was sheeted\nand coated with ice: the road was hard as granite--all was quiet, and\nseen as through a dark but incredibly transparent medium.  Near Piotta I\nmet the whole village dragging a large tree; there were many men and\nwomen dragging at it, but they had to pull hard, and they were silent; as\nI passed them I thought what comely, well-begotten people they were.\nThen, looking up, there was a sky, cloudless and of the deepest blue,\nagainst which the snow-clad mountains stood out splendidly.  No one will\nregret a walk in these valleys during the depth of winter.  But I should\nhave liked to have looked down from the sun into the sunlessness, as the\nold Fate woman at Ronco can do when she sits in winter at her window; or\nagain, I should like to see how things would look from this same window\non a leaden morning in midwinter after snow has fallen heavily and the\nsky is murky and much darker than the earth.  When the storm is at its\nheight, the snow must search and search and search even through the\ndouble windows with which the houses are protected.  It must rest upon\nthe frames of the pictures of saints, and of the sisters \"grab,\" and of\nthe last hours of Count Ugolino, which adorn the walls of the parlour.  No\nwonder there is a _S. Maria della Neve_,--a \"St. Mary of the Snow;\" but I\ndo wonder that she has not been painted.\n\nI said this to an Italian once, and he said the reason was probably\nthis--that St. Mary of the Snow was not developed till long after Italian\nart had begun to decline.  I suppose in another hundred years or so we\nshall have a _St. Maria delle Ferrovie_--a St. Mary of the Railways.\n\nFrom Ronco the path keeps level and then descends a little so as to cross\nthe stream that comes down from Piora.  This is near the village of\nAltanca, the church of which looks remarkably well from here.  Then there\nis an hour and a half's rapid ascent, and at last all on a sudden one\nfinds oneself on the _Lago Ritom_, close to the hotel.\n\nThe lake is about a mile, or a mile and a half, long, and half a mile\nbroad.  It is 6000 feet above the sea, very deep at the lower end, and\ndoes not freeze where the stream issues from it, so that the magnificent\ntrout with which it abounds can get air and live through the winter.  In\nmany other lakes, as, for example, the _Lago di Tremorgio_, they cannot\ndo this, and hence perish, though the lakes have been repeatedly stocked.\nThe trout in the _Lago Ritom_ are said to be the finest in the world, and\ncertainly I know none so fine myself.  They grow to be as large as\nmoderate-sized salmon, and have a deep-red flesh, very firm and full of\nflavour.  I had two cutlets off one for breakfast, and should have said\nthey were salmon unless I had known otherwise.  In winter, when the lake\nis frozen over, the people bring their hay from the farther Lake of\nCadagna in sledges across the Lake Ritom.  Here, again, winter must be\nworth seeing, but on a rough snowy day Piora must be an awful place.\nThere are a few stunted pines near the hotel, but the hillsides are for\nthe most part bare and green.  Piora in fact is a fine breezy open upland\nvalley of singular beauty, and with a sweet atmosphere of cow about it;\nit is rich in rhododendrons and all manner of Alpine flowers, just a\ntrifle bleak, but as bracing as the Engadine itself.\n\nThe first night I was ever in Piora there was a brilliant moon, and the\nunruffled surface of the lake took the reflection of the mountains.  I\ncould see the cattle a mile off, and hear the tinkling of their bells\nwhich danced multitudinously before the ear as fire-flies come and go\nbefore the eyes; for all through a fine summer's night the cattle will\nfeed as though it were day.  A little above the lake I came upon a man in\na cave before a furnace, burning lime, and he sat looking into the fire\nwith his back to the moonlight.  He was a quiet moody man, and I am\nafraid I bored him, for I could get hardly anything out of him but \"Oh\naltro\"--polite but not communicative.  So after a while I left him with\nhis face burnished as with gold from the fire, and his back silver with\nthe moonbeams; behind him were the pastures and the reflections in the\nlake and the mountains and the distant ringing of the cowbells.\n\nThen I wandered on till I came to the chapel of S. Carlo; and in a few\nminutes found myself on the _Lugo di Cadagna_.  Here I heard that there\nwere people, and the people were not so much asleep as the simple\npeasantry of these upland valleys are expected to be by nine o'clock in\nthe evening.  For now was the time when they had moved up from Ronco,\nAltanca, and other villages in some numbers to cut the hay, and were\nliving for a fortnight or three weeks in the chalets upon the _Lago di\nCadagna_.  As I have said, there is a chapel, but I doubt whether it is\nattended during this season with the regularity with which the parish\nchurches of Ronco, Altanca, &c., are attended during the rest of the\nyear.  The young people, I am sure, like these annual visits to the high\nplaces, and will be hardly weaned from them.  Happily the hay will be\nalways there, and will have to be cut by some one, and the old people\nwill send the young ones.\n\nAs I was thinking of these things, I found myself going off into a doze,\nand thought the burnished man from the furnace came up and sat beside me,\nand laid his hand upon my shoulder.  Then I saw the green slopes that\nrise all round the lake were much higher than I had thought; they went up\nthousands of feet, and there were pine forests upon them, while two large\nglaciers came down in streams that ended in a precipice of ice, falling\nsheer into the lake.  The edges of the mountains against the sky were\nrugged and full of clefts, through which I saw thick clouds of dust being\nblown by the wind as though from the other side of the mountains.\n\nAnd as I looked, I saw that this was not dust, but people coming in\ncrowds from the other side, but so small as to be visible at first only\nas dust.  And the people became musicians, and the mountainous\namphitheatre a huge orchestra, and the glaciers were two noble armies of\nwomen-singers in white robes, ranged tier above tier behind each other,\nand the pines became orchestral players, while the thick dust-like cloud\nof chorus-singers kept pouring in through the clefts in the precipices in\ninconceivable numbers.  When I turned my telescope upon them I saw they\nwere crowded up to the extreme edge of the mountains, so that I could see\nunderneath the soles of their boots as their legs dangled in the air.  In\nthe midst of all, a precipice that rose from out of the glaciers shaped\nitself suddenly into an organ, and there was one whose face I well knew\nsitting at the keyboard, smiling and pluming himself like a bird as he\nthundered forth a giant fugue by way of overture.  I heard the great\npedal notes in the bass stalk majestically up and down, as the rays of\nthe Aurora that go about upon the face of the heavens off the coast of\nLabrador.  Then presently the people rose and sang the chorus \"Venus\nLaughing from the Skies;\" but ere the sound had well died away, I awoke,\nand all was changed; a light fleecy cloud had filled the whole basin, but\nI still thought I heard a sound of music, and a scampering-off of great\ncrowds from the part where the precipices should be.  After that I heard\nno more but a little singing from the chalets, and turned homewards.  When\nI got to the chapel of S. Carlo, I was in the moonlight again, and when\nnear the hotel, I passed the man at the mouth of the furnace with the\nmoon still gleaming upon his back, and the fire upon his face, and he was\nvery grave and quiet.\n\n\n\nS. MICHELE AND MONTE PIRCHIRIANO.  (EXTRACTS FROM CHAPTERS VII. AND X. OF\nALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)\n\n\nThe history of the sanctuary of S. Michele is briefly as follows:--\n\nAt the close of the tenth century, when Otho III. was Emperor of Germany,\na certain Hugh de Montboissier, a noble of Auvergne, commonly called\n\"Hugh the Unsewn\" (_lo sdruscito_), was commanded by the Pope to found a\nmonastery in expiation of some grave offence.  He chose for his site the\nsummit of the Monte Pirchiriano in the valley of Susa, being attracted\npartly by the fame of a church already built there by a recluse of\nRavenna, Giovanni Vincenzo by name, and partly by the striking nature of\nthe situation.  Hugh de Montboissier, when returning from Rome to France\nwith Isengarde his wife, would, as a matter of course, pass through the\nvalley of Susa.  The two--perhaps when stopping to dine at S.\nAmbrogio--would look up and observe the church founded by Giovannia\nVincenzo: they had got to build a monastery somewhere; it would very\nlikely, therefore, occur to them that they could not perpetuate their\nnames better than by choosing this site, which was on a much-travelled\nroad, and on which a fine building would show to advantage.  If my view\nis correct, we have here an illustration of a fact which is continually\nobservable--namely, that all things which come to much, whether they be\nbooks, buildings, pictures, music, or living beings, are begotten of\nothers of their own kind.  It is always the most successful, like Handel\nand Shakespeare, who owe most to their forerunners, in spite of the\nmodifications with which their works descend.\n\nGiovanni Vincenzo had built his church about the year 987.  It is\nmaintained by some that he had been bishop of Ravenna, but Clareta gives\nsufficient reason for thinking otherwise.  In the \"Cronaca Clusina\" it is\nsaid that he had for some years previously lived as a recluse on the\nMonte Caprasio, to the north of the present Monte Pirchiriano; but that\none night he had a vision, in which he saw the summit of Monte\nPirchiriano enveloped in heaven-descended flames, and on this founded a\nchurch there, and dedicated it to S. Michael.  This is the origin of the\nname Pirchiriano, which means [Greek text], or the Lord's fire.\n\nAvogadro is among those who make Giovanni Bishop, or rather Archbishop,\nof Ravenna, and gives the following account of the circumstances which\nled to his resigning his diocese and going to live at the top of the\ninhospitable Monte Caprasio.  It seems there had been a confirmation at\nRavenna, during which he had accidentally forgotten to confirm the child\nof a certain widow.  The child, being in weakly health, died before\nGiovanni could repair his oversight, and this preyed upon his mind.  In\nanswer, however, to his earnest prayers, it pleased the Almighty to give\nhim power to raise the dead child to life again; this he did, and having\nimmediately performed the rite of confirmation, restored the boy to his\noverjoyed mother.  He now became so much revered that he began to be\nalarmed lest pride should obtain dominion over him; he felt, therefore,\nthat his only course was to resign his diocese, and go and live the life\nof a recluse on the top of some high mountain.  It is said that he\nsuffered agonies of doubt as to whether it was not selfish of him to take\nsuch care of his own eternal welfare, at the expense of that of his\nflock, whom no successor could so well guide and guard from evil; but in\nthe end he took a reasonable view of the matter, and concluded that his\nfirst duty was to secure his own spiritual position.  Nothing short of\nthe top of a very uncomfortable mountain could do this, so he at once\nresigned his bishopric and chose Monte Caprasio as on the whole the most\ncomfortable uncomfortable mountain he could find.\n\nThe latter part of the story will seem strange to Englishmen.  We can\nhardly fancy the Archbishop of Canterbury or York resigning his diocese\nand settling down quietly on the top of Scafell or Cader Idris to secure\nhis eternal welfare.  They would hardly do so even on the top of Primrose\nHill.  But nine hundred years ago human nature was not the same as now-a-\ndays.\n\n* * * * *\n\nComparing our own clergy with the best North Italian and Ticinese\npriests, I should say there was little to choose between them.  The\nlatter are in a logically stronger position, and this gives them greater\ncourage in their opinions; the former have the advantage in respect of\nmoney, and the more varied knowledge of the world which money will\ncommand.  When I say Catholics have logically the advantage over\nProtestants, I mean that starting from premises which both sides admit, a\nmerely logical Protestant will find himself driven to the Church of Rome.\nMost men as they grow older will, I think, feel this, and they will see\nin it the explanation of the comparatively narrow area over which the\nReformation extended, and of the gain which Catholicism has made of late\nyears here in England.  On the other hand, reasonable people will look\nwith distrust upon too much reason.  The foundations of action lie deeper\nthan reason can reach.  They rest on faith--for there is no absolutely\ncertain incontrovertible premise which can be laid by man, any more than\nthere is any investment for money or security in the daily affairs of\nlife which is absolutely unimpeachable.  The Funds are not absolutely\nsafe; a volcano might break out under the Bank of England.  A railway\njourney is not absolutely safe; one person at least in several millions\ngets killed.  We invest our money upon faith, mainly.  We choose our\ndoctor upon faith, for how little independent judgment can we form\nconcerning his capacity?  We choose schools for our children chiefly upon\nfaith.  The most important things a man has are his body, his soul, and\nhis money.  It is generally better for him to commit these interests to\nthe care of others of whom he can know little, rather than be his own\nmedical man, or invest his money on his own judgment; and this is nothing\nelse than making a faith which lies deeper than reason can reach, the\nbasis of our action in those respects which touch us most nearly.\n\nOn the other hand, as good a case could be made out for placing reason as\nthe foundation, inasmuch as it would be easy to show that a faith, to be\nworth anything, must be a reasonable one--one, that is to say, which is\nbased upon reason.  The fact is that faith and reason are like function\nand organ, desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to\nsay which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when\nwe can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first\ncaught sight of.  All we can now see is that each has a tendency\ncontinually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only.\nStrictly they are not two things, but two aspects of one thing; for\nconvenience' sake, however, we classify them separately.\n\nIt follows, therefore--but whether it follows or no, it is certainly\ntrue--that neither faith alone nor reason alone is a sufficient guide: a\nman's safety lies neither in faith nor reason, but in temper--in the\npower of fusing faith and reason, even when they appear most mutually\ndestructive.\n\nThat we all feel temper to be the first thing is plain from the fact that\nwhen we see two men quarrelling we seldom even try to weigh their\narguments--we look instinctively at the tone or spirit or temper which\nthe two display and give our verdict accordingly.\n\nA man of temper will be certain in spite of uncertainty, and at the same\ntime uncertain in spite of certainty; reasonable in spite of his resting\nmainly upon faith rather than reason, and full of faith even when\nappealing most strongly to reason.  If it is asked, In what should a man\nhave faith?  To what faith should he turn when reason has led him to a\nconclusion which he distrusts? the answer is, To the current feeling\namong those whom he most looks up to--looking upon himself with suspicion\nif he is either among the foremost or the laggers.  In the rough, homely\ncommon sense of the community to which we belong we have as firm ground\nas can be got.  This, though not absolutely infallible, is secure enough\nfor practical purposes.\n\nAs I have said, Catholic priests have rather a fascination for me--when\nthey are not Englishmen.  I should say that the best North Italian\npriests are more openly tolerant than our English clergy generally are.  I\nremember picking up one who was walking along a road, and giving him a\nlift in my trap.  Of course we fell to talking, and it came out that I\nwas a member of the Church of England.  \"Ebbene, Caro Signore,\" said he\nwhen we shook hands at parting; \"mi rincresce che lei non crede come io,\nma in questi tempi non possiamo avere tutti i medesimi principii.\" {287}\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe one thing, he said, which shocked him with the English, was the\nmanner in which they went about distributing tracts upon the Continent.  I\nsaid no one could deplore the practice more profoundly than myself, but\nthat there were stupid and conceited people in every country, who would\ninsist upon thrusting their opinions upon people who did not want them.\nHe replied that the Italians travelled not a little in England, but that\nhe was sure not one of them would dream of offering Catholic tracts to\npeople, for example, in the streets of London.  Certainly I have never\nseen an Italian to be guilty of such rudeness.  It seems to me that it is\nnot only toleration that is a duty; we ought to go beyond this now; we\nshould conform, when we are among a sufficient number of those who would\nnot understand our refusal to do so; any other course is to attach too\nmuch importance at once to our own opinions and to those of our\nopponents.  By all means let a man stand by his convictions when the\noccasion requires, but let him reserve his strength, unless it is\nimperatively called for.  Do not let him exaggerate trifles, and let him\nremember that everything is a trifle in comparison with the not giving\noffence to a large number of kindly, simple-minded people.  Evolution, as\nwe all know, is the great doctrine of modern times; the very essence of\nevolution consists in the not shocking anything too violently, but\nenabling it to mistake a new action for an old one, without \"making\nbelieve\" too much.\n\nOne day when I was eating my lunch near a fountain, there came up a\nmoody, meditative hen, crooning plaintively after her wont.  I threw her\na crumb of bread while she was still a good way off, and then threw more,\ngetting her to come a little closer and a little closer each time; at\nlast she actually took a piece from my hand.  She did not quite like it,\nbut she did it.  \"A very little at a time,\" this is the evolution\nprinciple; and if we wish those who differ from us to understand us, it\nis the only method to proceed upon.  I have sometimes thought that some\nof my friends among the priests have been treating me as I treated the\nmeditative hen.  But what of that?  They will not kill and eat me, nor\ntake my eggs.  Whatever, therefore, promotes a more friendly feeling\nbetween us must be pure gain.\n\n* * * * *\n\nSometimes priests say things, as a matter of course, which would make any\nEnglish clergyman's hair stand on end.  At one town there is a remarkable\nfourteenth-century bridge, commonly known as \"The Devil's Bridge.\"  I was\nsketching near this when a jolly old priest with a red nose came up and\nbegan a conversation with me.  He was evidently a popular character, for\nevery one who passed greeted him.  He told me that the devil did not\nreally build the bridge.  I said I presumed not, for he was not in the\nhabit of spending his time so well.\n\n\"I wish he had built it,\" said my friend; \"for then perhaps he would\nbuild us some more.\"\n\n\"Or we might even get a church out of him,\" said I, a little slyly.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha! we will convert him, and make a good Christian of him in the\nend.\"\n\nWhen will our Protestantism, or Rationalism, or whatever it may be, sit\nas lightly upon ourselves?\n\nAnother time I had the following dialogue with an old Piedmontese priest\nwho lived in a castle which I asked permission to go over:--\n\n\"Vous etes Anglais, monsieur?\" said he in French.\n\n\"Oui, monsieur.\"\n\n\"Vous etes Catholique?\"\n\n\"Monsieur, je suis de la religion de mes ancetres.\"\n\n\"Pardon, monsieur, vos ancetres etaient Catholiques jusqu'au temps de\nHenri Huit.\"\n\n\"Mais il y a trois cents ans depuis le temps de Henri Huit.\"\n\n\"Eh bien; chacun a ses convictions; vous ne parlez pas contre la\nreligion?\"\n\n\"Jamais, jamais, monsieur, j'ai un respect enorme pour l'eglise\nCatholique.\"\n\n\"Monsieur, faites comme chez vous; allez ou vous voulez; vous trouverez\ntoutes les portes ouvertes.  Amusez vous bien.\"\n\n\n\nCONSIDERATIONS ON THE DECLINE OF ITALIAN ART.  (FROM CHAPTER XIII. OF\nALPS AND SANCTUARIES.)\n\n\nThose who know the Italians will see no sign of decay about them.  They\nare the quickest-witted people in the world, and at the same time have\nmuch more of the old Roman steadiness than they are generally credited\nwith.  Not only is there no sign of degeneration, but, as regards\npractical matters, there is every sign of health and vigorous\ndevelopment.  The North Italians are more like Englishmen, both in body,\nand mind, than any other people whom I know; I am continually meeting\nItalians whom I should take for Englishmen if I did not know their\nnationality.  They have all our strong points, but they have more grace\nand elasticity of mind than we have.\n\nPriggishness is the sin which doth most easily beset middle-class, and so-\ncalled educated Englishmen; we call it purity and culture, but it does\nnot much matter what we call it.  It is the almost inevitable outcome of\na university education, and will last as long as Oxford and Cambridge do,\nbut not much longer.\n\nLord Beaconsfield sent Lothair to Oxford; it is with great pleasure that\nI see he did not send Endymion.  My friend Jones called my attention to\nthis, and we noted that the growth observable throughout Lord\nBeaconsfield's life was continued to the end.  He was one of those who,\nno matter how long he lived, would have been always growing: this is what\nmakes his later novels so much better than those of Thackeray or Dickens.\nThere was something of the child about him to the last.  Earnestness was\nhis greatest danger, but if he did not quite overcome it (as who indeed\ncan?  It is the last enemy that shall be subdued), he managed to veil it\nwith a fair amount of success.  As for Endymion, of course if Lord\nBeaconsfield had thought Oxford would be good for him, he could, as Jones\npointed out to me, just as well have killed Mr. Ferrars a year or two\nlater.  We feel satisfied, therefore, that Endymion's exclusion from a\nuniversity was carefully considered, and are glad.\n\nI will not say that priggishness is absolutely unknown among the North\nItalians; sometimes one comes upon a young Italian who wants to learn\nGerman, but not often.  Priggism, or whatever the substantive is, is as\nessentially a Teutonic vice as holiness is a Semitic characteristic; and\nif an Italian happens to be a prig, he will, like Tacitus, invariably\nshow a hankering after German institutions.  The idea, however, that the\nItalians were ever a finer people than they are now, will not pass muster\nwith those who knew them.\n\nAt the same time, there can be no doubt that modern Italian art is in\nmany respects as bad as it was once good.  I will confine myself to\npainting only.  The modern Italian painters, with very few exceptions,\npaint as badly as we do, or even worse, and their motives are as poor as\nis their painting.  At an exhibition of modern Italian pictures, I\ngenerally feel that there is hardly a picture on the walls but is a\nsham--that is to say, painted not from love of this particular subject\nand an irresistible desire to paint it, but from a wish to paint an\nacademy picture, and win money or applause.\n\nThe last rays of the sunset of genuine art are to be found in the votive\npictures at Locarno or Oropa, and in many a wayside chapel.  In these,\nreligious art still lingers as a living language, however rudely spoken.\nIn these alone is the story told, not as in the Latin and Greek verses of\nthe scholar, who thinks he has succeeded best when he has most concealed\nhis natural manner of expressing himself, but by one who knows what he\nwants to say, and says it in his mother-tongue, shortly, and without\ncaring whether or not his words are in accordance with academic rules.  I\nregret to see photography being introduced for votive purposes, and also\nto detect in some places a disposition on the part of the authorities to\nbe a little ashamed of these pictures and to place them rather out of\nsight.\n\nThe question is, how has the falling-off in Italian painting been caused?\nAnd by doing what may we again get Bellinis and Andrea Mantegnas as in\nold time?  The fault does not lie in any want of raw material: nor yet\ndoes it lie in want of taking pains.  The modern Italian painter frets\nhimself to the full as much as his predecessor did--if the truth were\nknown, probably a great deal more.  I am sure Titian did not take much\npains after he was more than about twenty years old.  It does not lie in\nwant of schooling or art education.  For the last three hundred years,\never since the Caraccis opened their academy at Bologna, there has been\nno lack of art education in Italy.  Curiously enough, the date of the\nopening of the Bolognese Academy coincides as nearly as may be with the\ncomplete decadence of Italian painting.  The academic system trains boys\nto study other people's works rather than nature, and, as Leonardo da\nVinci so well says, it makes them nature's grandchildren and not her\nchildren.  This I believe is at any rate half the secret of the whole\nmatter.\n\nIf half-a-dozen young Italians could be got together with a taste for\ndrawing; if they had power to add to their number; if they were allowed\nto see paintings and drawings done up to the year A.D. 1510, and votive\npictures and the comic papers; if they were left with no other assistance\nthan this, absolutely free to please themselves, and could be persuaded\nnot to try and please any one else, I believe that in fifty years we\nshould have all that was ever done repeated with fresh naivete, and as\nmuch more delightfully than even by the best old masters, as these are\nmore delightful than anything we know of in classic painting.  The young\nplants keep growing up abundantly every day--look at Bastianini, dead not\nten years since--but they are browsed down by the academies.  I remember\nthere came out a book many years ago with the title, \"What becomes of all\nthe clever little children?\"  I never saw the book, but the title is\npertinent.\n\nAny man who can write, can draw to a not inconsiderable extent.  Look at\nthe Bayeux tapestry; yet Matilda probably never had a drawing lesson in\nher life.  See how well prisoner after prisoner in the Tower of London\nhas cut out this or that in the stone of his prison wall, without, in all\nprobability, having ever tried his hand at drawing before.  Look at my\nfriend Jones, who has several illustrations in this book. {294}  The\nfirst year he went abroad with me he could hardly draw at all.  He was no\nyear away from England more than three weeks.  How did he learn?  On the\nold principle, if I am not mistaken.  The old principle was for a man to\nbe doing something which he was pretty strongly bent on doing, and to get\na much younger one to help him.  The younger paid nothing for\ninstruction, but the elder took the work, as long as the relation of\nmaster and pupil existed between them.  I, then, was mailing\nillustrations for this book, and got Jones to help me.  I let him see\nwhat I was doing, and derive an idea of the sort of thing I wanted, and\nthen left him alone--beyond giving him the same kind of small criticism\nthat I expected from himself--but I appropriated his work.  That is the\nway to teach, and the result was that in an incredibly short time Jones\ncould draw.  The taking the work is a _sine qua non_.  If I had not been\ngoing to have his work, Jones, in spite of all his quickness, would\nprobably have been rather slower in learning to draw.  Being paid in\nmoney is nothing like so good.\n\nThis is the system of apprenticeship _versus_ the academic system.  The\nacademic system consists in giving people the rules for doing things.  The\napprenticeship system consists in letting them do it, with just a trifle\nof supervision.  \"For all a rhetorician's rules,\" says my great namesake,\n\"teach nothing but, to name his tools;\" and academic rules generally are\nmuch the same as the rhetorician's.  Some men can pass through academies\nunscathed, but they are very few, and in the main the academic influence\nis a baleful one, whether exerted in a university or a school.  While\nyoung men at universities are being prepared for their entry into life,\ntheir rivals have already entered it.  The most university and\nexamination ridden people in the world are the Chinese, and they are the\nleast progressive.\n\nMen should learn to draw as they learn conveyancing: they should go into\na painter's studio and paint on his pictures.  I am told that half the\nconveyances in the country are drawn by pupils; there is no more mystery\nabout painting than about conveyancing--not half in fact, I should think,\nso much.  One may ask, How can the beginner paint, or draw conveyances,\ntill he has learnt how to do so?  The answer is, How can he learn,\nwithout at any rate trying to do?  It is the old story, organ and\nfunction, power and desire, demand and supply, faith and reason, etc.,\nthe most virtuous action and interaction in the most vicious circle\nconceivable.  If the beginner likes his subject, he will try: if he\ntries, he will soon succeed in doing something which shall open a door.\nIt does not matter what a man does; so long as he does it with the\nattention which affection engenders, he will come to see his way to\nsomething else.  After long waiting he will certainly find one door open,\nand go through it.  He will say to himself that he can never find\nanother.  He has found this, more by luck than cunning, but now he is\ndone.  Yet by and by he will see that there is _one_ more small\nunimportant door which he had overlooked, and he proceeds through this\ntoo.  If he remains now for a long while and sees no other, do not let\nhim fret; doors are like the kingdom of heaven, they come not by\nobservation, least of all do they come by forcing: let him just go on\ndoing what comes nearest, but doing it attentively, and a great wide door\nwill one day spring into existence where there had been no sign of one\nbut a little time previously.  Only let him be always doing something,\nand let him cross himself now and again, for belief in the wondrous\nefficacy of crosses and crossing is the corner-stone of the creed of the\nevolutionists.  Then after years--but not probably till after a great\nmany--doors will open up all around, so many and so wide that the\ndifficulty will not be to find a door, but rather to obtain the means of\neven hurriedly surveying a portion of those that stand invitingly open.\n\nI know that just as good a case can be made out for the other side.  It\nmay be said as truly that unless a student is incessantly on the watch\nfor doors he will never see them, and that unless he is incessantly\npressing forward to the kingdom of heaven he will never find it--so that\nthe kingdom does come by observation.  It is with this as with everything\nelse--there must be a harmonious fusing of two principles which are in\nflat contradiction to one another.\n\nThe question of whether it is better to abide quiet and take advantage of\nopportunities that come, or to go farther afield in search of them, is\none of the oldest which living beings have had to deal with.  It was on\nthis that the first great schism or heresy arose in what was heretofore\nthe catholic faith of protoplasm.  The schism still lasts, and has\nresulted in two great sects--animals and plants.  The opinion that it is\nbetter to go in search of prey is formulated in animals; the other--that\nit is better on the whole to stay at home and profit by what comes--in\nplants.  Some intermediate forms still record to us the long struggle\nduring which the schism was not yet complete.\n\nIf I may be pardoned for pursuing this digression further, I would say\nthat it is the plants and not we who are the heretics.  There can be no\nquestion about this; we are perfectly justified, therefore, in devouring\nthem.  Ours is the original and orthodox belief, for protoplasm is much\nmore animal than vegetable; it is much more true to say that plants have\ndescended from animals than animals from plants.  Nevertheless, like many\nother heretics, plants have thriven very fairly well.  There are a great\nmany of them, and as regards beauty, if not wit--of a limited kind\nindeed, but still wit--it is hard to say that the animal kingdom has the\nadvantage.  The views of plants are sadly narrow; all dissenters are\nnarrow-minded; but within their own bounds they know the details of their\nbusiness sufficiently well--as well as though they kept the most nicely-\nbalanced system of accounts to show them their position.  They are eaten,\nit is true; to eat them is our intolerant and bigoted way of trying to\nconvert them: eating is only a violent mode of proselytising or\nconverting; and we do convert them--to good animal substance, of our own\nway of thinking.  If we have had no trouble with them, we say they have\n\"agreed\" with us; if we have been unable to make them see things from our\npoints of view, we say they \"disagree\" with us, and avoid being on more\nthan distant terms with them for the future.  If we have helped ourselves\nto too much, we say we have got more than we can \"manage.\"  But then,\nanimals are eaten too.  They convert one another, almost as much as they\nconvert plants.  And an animal is no sooner dead than a plant will\nconvert it back again.  It is obvious, however, that no schism could have\nbeen so long successful, without having a good deal to say for itself.\n\nNeither party has been quite consistent.  Who ever is or can be?  Every\nextreme--every opinion carried to its logical end--will prove to be an\nabsurdity.  Plants throw out roots and boughs and leaves: this is a kind\nof locomotion; and as Dr. Erasmus Darwin long since pointed out, they do\nsometimes approach nearly to what may be called travelling; a man of\nconsistent character will never look at a bough, a root, or a tendril\nwithout regarding it as a melancholy and unprincipled compromise.  On the\nother hand, many animals are sessile, and some singularly successful\ngenera, as spiders, are in the main liers-in-wait.  It may appear,\nhowever, on the whole, like reopening a settled question to uphold the\nprinciple of being busy and attentive over a small area, rather than\ngoing to and fro over a larger one, for a mammal like man, but I think\nmost readers will be with me in thinking that, at any rate as regards art\nand literature, it is he who does his small immediate work most carefully\nwho will find doors open most certainly to him, that will conduct him\ninto the richest chambers.\n\nMany years ago, in New Zealand, I used sometimes to accompany a dray and\nteam of bullocks who would have to be turned loose at night that they\nmight feed.  There were no hedges or fences then, so sometimes I could\nnot find my team in the morning, and had no clue to the direction in\nwhich they had gone.  At first I used to try and throw my soul into the\nbullocks' souls, so as to divine if possible what they would be likely to\nhave done, and would then ride off ten miles in the wrong direction.\nPeople used in those days to lose their bullocks sometimes for a week or\nfortnight--when they perhaps were all the time hiding in a gully hard by\nthe place where they were turned out.  After some time I changed my\ntactics.  On losing my bullocks I would go to the nearest accommodation\nhouse, and stand drinks.  Some one would ere long, as a general rule,\nturn up who had seen the bullocks.  This case does not go quite on all\nfours with what I have been saying above, inasmuch as I was not very\nindustrious in my limited area; but the standing drinks and inquiring was\nbeing as industrious as the circumstances would allow.\n\nTo return, universities and academies are an obstacle to the finding of\ndoors in later life; partly because they push their young men too fast\nthrough doorways that the universities have provided, and so discourage\nthe habit of being on the look-out for others; and partly because they do\nnot take pains enough to make sure that their doors are _bona fide_ ones.\nIf, to change the metaphor, an academy has taken a bad shilling, it is\nseldom very scrupulous about trying to pass it on.  It will stick to it\nthat the shilling is a good one as long as the police will let it.  I was\nvery happy at Cambridge; when I left it I thought I never again could be\nso happy anywhere else; I shall ever retain a most kindly recollection\nboth of Cambridge and of the school where I passed my boyhood; but I\nfeel, as I think most others must in middle life, that I have spent as\nmuch of my maturer years in unlearning as in learning.\n\nThe proper course is for a boy to begin the practical business of life\nmany years earlier than he now commonly does.  He should begin at the\nvery bottom of a profession; if possible of one which his family has\npursued before him--for the professions will assuredly one day become\nhereditary.  The ideal railway director will have begun at fourteen as a\nrailway porter.  He need not be a porter for more than a week or ten\ndays, any more than he need have been a tadpole more than a short time;\nbut he should take a turn in practice, though briefly, at each of the\nlower branches in the profession.  The painter should do just the same.\nHe should begin by setting his employer's palette and cleaning his\nbrushes.  As for the good side of universities, the proper preservative\nof this is to be found in the club.\n\nIf, then, we are to have a renaissance of art, there must be a complete\nstanding aloof from the academic system.  That system has had time\nenough.  Where and who are its men?  Can it point to one painter who can\nhold his own with the men of, say, from 1450 to 1550?  Academies will\nbring out men who can paint hair very like hair, and eyes very like eyes,\nbut this is not enough.  This is grammar and deportment; we want wit and\na kindly nature, and these cannot be got from academies.  As far as mere\n_technique_ is concerned, almost every one now can paint as well as is in\nthe least desirable.  The same _mutatis mutandis_ holds good with writing\nas with painting.  We want less word-painting and fine phrases, and more\nobservation at first-hand.  Let us have a periodical illustrated by\npeople who cannot draw, and written by people who cannot write (perhaps,\nhowever, after all, we have some), but who look and think for themselves,\nand express themselves just as they please,--and this we certainly have\nnot.  Every contributor should be at once turned out if he or she is\ngenerally believed to have tried to do something which he or she did not\ncare about trying to do, and anything should be admitted which is the\noutcome of a genuine liking.  People are always good company when they\nare doing what they really enjoy.  A cat is good company when it is\npurring, or a dog when it is wagging its tail.\n\nThe sketching-clubs up and down the country might form the nucleus of\nsuch a society, provided all professional men were rigorously excluded.\nAs for the old masters, the better plan would be never even to look at\none of them, and to consign Raffaelle, along with Plato, Marcus Aurelius\nAntoninus, Dante, Goethe, and two others, neither of them Englishmen, to\nlimbo, as the Seven Humbugs of Christendom.\n\nWhile we are about it, let us leave off talking about \"art for art's\nsake.\"  Who is art, that it should have a sake?  A work of art should be\nproduced for the pleasure it gives the producer, and the pleasure he\nthinks it will give to a few of whom he is fond; but neither money nor\npeople whom he does not know personally should be thought of.  Of course\nsuch a society as I have proposed would not remain incorrupt long.\n\"Everything that grows, holds in perfection but a little moment.\"  The\nmembers would try to imitate professional men in spite of their rules,\nor, if they escaped this and after a while got to paint well, they would\nbecome dogmatic, and a rebellion against their authority would be as\nnecessary ere long as it was against that of their predecessors: but the\nbalance on the whole would be to the good.\n\nProfessional men should be excluded, if for no other reason yet for this,\nthat they know too much for the beginner to be _en rapport_ with them.  It\nis the beginner who can help the beginner, as it is the child who is the\nmost instructive companion for another child.  The beginner can\nunderstand the beginner, but the cross between him and the proficient\nperformer is too wide for fertility.  It savours of impatience, and is in\nflat contradiction to the first principles of biology.  It does a\nbeginner positive harm to look at the masterpieces of the great\nexecutionists, such as Rembrandt or Turner.\n\nIf one is climbing a very high mountain which will tax all one's\nstrength, nothing fatigues so much as casting upward glances to the top;\nnothing encourages so much as casting downward glances.  The top seems\nnever to draw nearer; the parts that we have passed retreat rapidly.  Let\na water-colour student go and see the drawing by Turner in the basement\nof our National Gallery, dated 1787.  This is the sort of thing for him,\nnot to copy, but to look at for a minute or two now and again.  It will\nshow him nothing about painting, but it may serve to teach him not to\novertax his strength, and will prove to him that the greatest masters in\npainting, as in everything else, begin by doing work which is no way\nsuperior to that of their neighbours.  A collection of the earliest known\nworks of the greatest men would be much more useful to the student than\nany number of their maturer works, for it would show him that he need not\nworry himself because his work does not look clever, or as silly people\nsay, \"show power.\"\n\nThe secrets of success are affection for the pursuit chosen, a flat\nrefusal to be hurried or to pass anything as understood which is not\nunderstood, and an obstinacy of character which shall make the student's\nfriends find it less trouble to let him have his own way than to bend him\ninto theirs.  Our schools and academies or universities are covertly but\nessentially radical institutions, and abhorrent to the genius of\nConservatism.  Their sin is the true radical sin of being in too great a\nhurry, and the natural result has followed, they waste far more time than\nthey save.  But it must be remembered that this proposition like every\nother wants tempering with a slight infusion of its direct opposite.\n\nI said in an early part of this book that the best test to know whether\nor no one likes a picture is to ask oneself whether one would like to\nlook at it if one was quite sure one was alone.  The best test for a\npainter as to whether he likes painting his picture is to ask himself\nwhether he should like to paint it if he was quite sure that no one\nexcept himself, and the few of whom he was very fond, would ever see it.\nIf he can answer this question in the affirmative, he is all right; if he\ncannot, he is all wrong.\n\nI must reserve other remarks upon this subject for another occasion.\n\n\n\nSANCTUARIES OF OROPA AND GRAGLIA.  (FROM CHAPTERS XV. AND XVI. OF ALPS\nAND SANCTUARIES.)\n\n\nThe morning after our arrival at Biella, we took the daily diligence for\nOropa, leaving Biella at eight o'clock.  Before we were clear of the town\nwe could see the long line of the hospice, and the chapels dotted about\nnear it, high up in a valley at some distance off; presently we were\nshown another fine building some eight or nine miles away, which we were\ntold was the sanctuary of Graglia.  About this time the pictures and\nstatuettes of the Madonna began to change their hue and to become\nblack--for the sacred image of Oropa being black, all the Madonnas in her\nimmediate neighbourhood are of the same complexion.  Underneath some of\nthem is written, \"Nigra sum sed sum formosa,\" which, as a rule, was more\ntrue as regards the first epithet than the second.\n\nIt was not market-day, but streams of people were coming to the town.\nMany of them were pilgrims returning from the sanctuary, but more were\nbringing the produce of their farms or the work of their hands for sale.\nWe had to face a steady stream of chairs, which were coming to town in\nbaskets upon women's heads.  Each basket contained twelve chairs, though\nwhether it is correct to say that the basket contained the chairs--when\nthe chairs were all, so to say, froth running over the top of the\nbasket--is a point I cannot settle.  Certainly we had never seen anything\nlike so many chairs before, and felt almost as though we had surprised\nnature in the laboratory wherefrom she turns out the chair-supply of the\nworld.  The road continued through a succession of villages almost\nrunning into one another for a long way after Biella was passed, but\neverywhere we noticed the same air of busy thriving industry which we had\nseen in Biella itself.  We noted also that a preponderance of the people\nhad light hair, while that of the children was frequently nearly white,\nas though the infusion of German blood was here stronger even than usual.\nThough so thickly peopled, the country was of great beauty.  Near at hand\nwere the most exquisite pastures close shaven after their second mowing,\ngay with autumnal crocuses, and shaded with stately chestnuts; beyond\nwere rugged mountains, in a combe on one of which we saw Oropa itself now\ngradually nearing; behind, and below, many villages, with vineyards and\nterraces cultivated to the highest perfection; farther on, Biella already\ndistant, and beyond this a \"big stare,\" as an American might say, over\nthe plains of Lombardy from Turin to Milan, with the Apennines from Genoa\nto Bologna hemming the horizon.  On the road immediately before us, we\nstill faced the same steady stream of chairs flowing ever Biella-ward.\n\nAfter a couple of hours the houses became more rare; we got above the\nsources of the chair-stream; bits of rough rock began to jut out from the\npasture; here and there the rhododendron began to shew itself by the\nroadside; the chestnuts left off along a line as level as though cut with\na knife; stone-roofed _cascine_ began to abound, with goats and cattle\nfeeding near them; the booths of the religious trinket-mongers increased;\nthe blind, halt, and maimed became more importunate, and the\nfoot-passengers were more entirely composed of those whose object was, or\nhad been, a visit to the sanctuary itself.  The numbers of these\npilgrims--generally in their Sunday's best, and often comprising the\ngreater part of a family--were so great, though there was no special\nfesta, as to testify to the popularity of the institution.  They\ngenerally walked barefoot, and carried their shoes and stockings; their\nbaggage consisted of a few spare clothes, a little food, and a pot or pan\nor two to cook with.  Many of them looked very tired, and had evidently\ntramped from long distances--indeed, we saw costumes belonging to valleys\nwhich could not be less than two or three days distant.  They were almost\ninvariably quiet, respectable, and decently clad, sometimes a little\nmerry, but never noisy, and none of them tipsy.  As we travelled along\nthe road, we must have fallen in with several hundreds of these pilgrims\ncoming and going; nor is this likely to be an extravagant estimate,\nseeing that the hospice can make up more than five thousand beds.  By\neleven we were at the sanctuary itself.\n\nFancy a quiet upland valley, the floor of which is about the same height\nas the top of Snowdon, shut in by lofty mountains upon three sides, while\non the fourth the eye wanders at will over the plains below.  Fancy\nfinding a level space in such a valley watered by a beautiful mountain\nstream, and nearly filled by a pile of collegiate buildings, not less\nimportant than those, we will say, of Trinity College, Cambridge.  True,\nOropa is not in the least like Trinity, except that one of its courts is\nlarge, grassy, has a chapel and a fountain in it, and rooms all round it;\nbut I do not know how better to give a rough description of Oropa than by\ncomparing it with one of our largest English colleges.\n\nThe buildings consist of two main courts.  The first comprises a couple\nof modern wings, connected by the magnificent facade of what is now the\nsecond or inner court.  This facade dates from about the middle of the\nseventeenth century; its lowest storey is formed by an open colonnade,\nand the whole stands upon a raised terrace from which a noble flight of\nsteps descends into the outer court.\n\nAscending the steps and passing under the colonnade, we find ourselves in\nthe second or inner court, which is a complete quadrangle, and is, so at\nleast we were told, of rather older date than the facade.  This is the\nquadrangle which gives its collegiate character to Oropa.  It is\nsurrounded by cloisters on three sides, on to which the rooms in which\nthe pilgrims are lodged open--those at least that are on the\nground-floor, but there are three storeys.  The chapel, which was\ndedicated in the year 1600, juts out into the court upon the north-east\nside.  On the north-west and south-west sides are entrances through which\none may pass to the open country.  The grass at the time of our visit was\nfor the most part covered with sheets spread out to dry.  They looked\nvery nice, and, dried on such grass, and in such an air, they must be\ndelicious to sleep on.  There is, indeed, rather an appearance as though\nit were a perpetual washing-day at Oropa, but this is not to be wondered\nat considering the numbers of comers and goers; besides, people in Italy\ndo not make so much fuss about trifles as we do.  If they want to wash\ntheir sheets and dry them, they do not send them to Ealing, but lay them\nout in the first place that comes handy, and nobody's bones are broken.\n\nOn the east side of the main block of buildings there is a grassy slope\nadorned with chapels that contain figures illustrating scenes in the\nhistory of the Virgin.  These figures are of terra-cotta, for the most\npart life-size, and painted up to nature.  In some cases, if I remember\nrightly, they have hemp or flax for hair, as at Varallo, and throughout\nrealism is aimed at as far as possible, not only in the figures, but in\nthe accessories.  We have very little of the same kind in England.  In\nthe Tower of London there is an effigy of Queen Elizabeth going to the\ncity to give thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada.  This looks as\nif it might have been the work of some one of the Valsesian sculptors.\nThere are also the figures that strike the quarters of Sir John Bennett's\ncity clock in Cheapside.  The automatic movements of these last-named\nfigures would have struck the originators of the Varallo chapels with\nenvy.  They aimed at realism so closely that they would assuredly have\nhad recourse to clockwork in some one or two of their chapels; I cannot\ndoubt, for example, that they would have eagerly welcomed the idea of\nmaking the cock crow to Peter by a cuckoo-clock arrangement, if it had\nbeen presented to them.  This opens up the whole question of realism\n_versus_ conventionalism in art--a subject much too large to be treated\nhere.\n\nAs I have said, the founders of these Italian chapels aimed at realism.\nEach chapel was intended as an illustration, and the desire was to bring\nthe whole scene more vividly before the faithful by combining the\npicture, the statue, and the effect of a scene upon the stage in a single\nwork of art.  The attempt would be an ambitious one though made once only\nin a neighbourhood, but in most of the places in North Italy where\nanything of the kind has been done, the people have not been content with\na single illustration; it has been their scheme to take a mountain as\nthough it had been a book or wall and cover it with illustrations.  In\nsome cases--as at Orta, whose Sacro Monte is perhaps the most beautiful\nof all as regards the site itself--the failure is complete, but in some\nof the chapels at Varese and in many of those at Varallo, great works\nhave been produced which have not yet attracted as much attention as they\ndeserve.  It may be doubted, indeed, whether there is a more remarkable\nwork of art in North Italy than the crucifixion chapel at Varallo, where\nthe twenty-five statues, as well as the frescoes behind them, are (with\nthe exception of the figure of Christ, which has been removed) by\nGaudenzio Ferrari.  It is to be wished that some one of these\nchapels--both chapel and sculptures--were reproduced at South Kensington.\n\nVarallo, which is undoubtedly the most interesting sanctuary in North\nItaly, has forty-four of these illustrative chapels; Varese, fifteen;\nOrta, eighteen; and Oropa, seventeen.  No one is allowed to enter them,\nexcept when repairs are needed; but when these are going on, as is\nconstantly the case, it is curious to look through the grating into the\nsomewhat darkened interior, and to see a living figure or two among the\nstatues; a little motion on the part of a single figure seems to\ncommunicate itself to the rest and make them all more animated.  If the\nliving figure does not move much, it is easy at first to mistake it for a\nterra-cotta one.  At Orta, some years since, looking one evening into a\nchapel when the light was fading, I was surprised to see a saint whom I\nhad not seen before; he had no glory except what shone from a very red\nnose; he was smoking a short pipe, and was painting the Virgin Mary's\nface.  The touch was a finishing one, put on with deliberation, slowly,\nso that it was two or three seconds before I discovered that the\ninterloper was no saint.\n\nThe figures in the chapels at Oropa are not as good as the best of those\nat Varallo, but some of them are very nice notwithstanding.  We liked the\nseventh chapel the best--the one which illustrates the sojourn of the\nVirgin Mary in the Temple.  It contains forty-four figures, and\nrepresents the Virgin on the point of completing her education as head\ngirl at a high-toned academy for young gentlewomen.  All the young ladies\nare at work making mitres for the bishop, or working slippers in Berlin\nwool for the new curate, but the Virgin sits on a dais above the others\non the same platform with the venerable lady-principal, who is having\npassages read out to her from some standard Hebrew writer.  The statues\nare the work of a local sculptor, named Aureggio, who lived at the end of\nthe seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century.\n\nThe highest chapel must be a couple of hundred feet above the main\nbuildings, and from near it there is an excellent bird's-eye view of the\nsanctuary and the small plain behind; descending on to this last, we\nentered the quadrangle from the north-west side, and visited the chapel\nin which the sacred image of the Madonna is contained.  We did not see\nthe image itself, which is only exposed to public view on great\noccasions.  It is believed to have been carved by St. Luke the\nEvangelist.  It is said that at one time there was actually an\ninscription on the image in Greek characters, of which the translation\nis, \"Eusebius.  A token of respect and affection from his sincere friend,\nLuke;\" but this being written in chalk or pencil only, has been worn off,\nand is known by tradition only.  I must ask the reader to content himself\nwith the following account of it which I take from Marocco's work upon\nOropa:--\n\n   \"That this statue of the Virgin is indeed by St. Luke is attested by\n   St. Eusebius, a man of eminent piety, and no less enlightened than\n   truthful, and the store which he set by it is proved by his shrinking\n   from no discomforts in his carriage of it from a distant country, and\n   by his anxiety to put it in a place of great security.  His desire,\n   indeed, was to keep it in the spot which was most near and dear to\n   him, so that he might extract from it the higher incitement to\n   devotion, and more sensible comfort in the midst of his austerities\n   and apostolic labours.\n\n   \"This truth is further confirmed by the quality of the wood from which\n   the statue is carved, which is commonly believed to be cedar; by the\n   Eastern character of the work; by the resemblance both of the\n   lineament and the colour to those of other statues by St. Luke; by the\n   tradition of the neighbourhood, which extends in an unbroken and well-\n   assured line to the time of St. Eusebius himself; by the miracles that\n   have been worked here by its presence, and elsewhere by its\n   invocation, or even by indirect contact with it; by the miracles,\n   lastly, which are inherent in the image itself, {311} and which endure\n   to this day, such as is its immunity from all worm and from the decay\n   which would naturally have occurred in it through time and damp--more\n   especially in the feet, through the rubbing of religious objects\n   against them.\n\n   * * * * *\n\n   \"The authenticity of this image is so certainly and clearly\n   established, that all supposition to the contrary becomes inexplicable\n   and absurd.  Such, for example, is a hypothesis that it should not be\n   attributed to the Evangelist, but to another Luke, also called\n   'Saint,' and a Florentine by birth.  This painter lived in the\n   eleventh century--that is to say, about seven centuries after the\n   image of Oropa had been known and venerated!  This is indeed an\n   anachronism.\n\n   \"Other difficulties drawn either from the ancient discipline of the\n   Church or from St. Luke the Evangelist's profession, which was that of\n   a physician, vanish at once when it is borne in mind--firstly, that\n   the cult of holy images, and especially of that of the most blessed\n   Virgin, is of extreme antiquity in the Church, and of apostolic\n   origin, as is proved by ecclesiastical writers and monuments found in\n   the catacombs which date, as far back as the first century (see among\n   other authorities, Nicolas, La Vergine vivente nella Chiesa, lib. iii.\n   cap. iii. section 2); secondly, that as the medical profession does\n   not exclude that of artists, St. Luke may have been both artist and\n   physician; that he did actually handle both the brush and the scalpel\n   is established by respectable and very old traditions, to say nothing\n   of other arguments which can be found in impartial and learned writers\n   upon such matters.\"\n\nI will only give one more extract.  It runs:--\n\n   \"In 1855 a celebrated Roman portrait-painter, after having carefully\n   inspected the image of the Virgin Mary at Oropa, declared it to be\n   certainly a work of the first century of our era.\" {313}\n\nI once saw a common cheap china copy of this Madonna announced as to be\ngiven away with two pounds of tea, in a shop near Hatton Garden.\n\nThe church in which the sacred image is kept is interesting from the\npilgrims who at all times frequent it, and from the collection of votive\npictures which adorn its walls.  Except the votive pictures and the\npilgrims the church contains little of interest, and I will pass on to\nthe constitution and objects of the establishment.\n\nThe objects are--1. Gratuitous lodging to all comers for a space of from\nthree to nine days as the rector may think fit.  2. A school.  3. Help to\nthe sick and poor.  It is governed by a president and six members, who\nform a committee.  Four members are chosen by the communal council, and\ntwo by the cathedral chapter of Biella.  At the hospice itself there\nreside a director, with his assistant, a surveyor to keep the fabric in\nrepair, a rector or dean with six priests, called _cappellani_, and a\nmedical man.  \"The government of the laundry,\" so runs the statute on\nthis head, \"and analogous domestic services are entrusted to a competent\nnumber of ladies of sound constitution and good conduct, who live\ntogether in the hospice under the direction of an inspectress, and are\ncalled daughters of Oropa.\"\n\nThe bye-laws of the establishment are conceived in a kindly, genial\nspirit, which in great measure accounts for its unmistakable popularity.\nWe understood that the poorer visitors, as a general rule, avail\nthemselves of the gratuitous lodging, without making any present when\nthey leave, but in spite of this it is quite clear that they are wanted\nto come, and come they accordingly do.  It is sometimes difficult to lay\none's hands upon the exact passages which convey an impression, but as we\nread the bye-laws which are posted up in the cloisters, we found\nourselves continually smiling at the manner in which almost anything that\nlooked like a prohibition could be removed with the consent of the\ndirector.  There is no rule whatever about visitors attending the church;\nall that is required of them is that they do not interfere with those who\ndo.  They must not play games of chance, or noisy games; they must not\nmake much noise of any sort after ten o'clock at night (which corresponds\nabout with midnight in England).  They should not draw upon the walls of\ntheir rooms, nor cut the furniture.  They should also keep their rooms\nclean, and not cook in those that are more expensively furnished.  This\nis about all that they must not do, except fee the servants, which is\nmost especially and particularly forbidden.  If any one infringes these\nrules, he is to be admonished, and in case of grave infraction or\ncontinued misdemeanor he may be expelled and not readmitted.\n\nVisitors who are lodged in the better-furnished apartments can be waited\nupon if they apply at the office; the charge is twopence for cleaning a\nroom, making the bed, bringing water, &c.  If there is more than one bed\nin a room, a penny must be paid for every bed over the first.  Boots can\nbe cleaned for a penny, shoes for a halfpenny.  For carrying wood, &c.,\neither a halfpenny or a penny will be exacted according to the time\ntaken.  Payment for these services must not be made to the servant, but\nat the office.\n\nThe gates close at ten o'clock at night, and open at sunrise, \"but if any\nvisitor wishes to make Alpine excursions, or has any other sufficient\nreason, he should let the director know.\"  Families occupying many rooms\nmust--when the hospice is very crowded, and when they have had due\nnotice--manage to pack themselves into a smaller compass.  No one can\nhave rooms kept for him.  It is to be strictly \"first come, first\nserved.\"  No one must sublet his room.  Visitors must not go away without\ngiving up the key of their room.  Candles and wood may be bought at a\nfixed price.\n\nAny one wishing to give anything to the support of the hospice must do so\nonly to the director, the official who appoints the apartments, the dean\nor the cappellani, or to the inspectress of the daughters of Oropa, but\nthey must have a receipt for even the smallest sum; alms-boxes, however,\nare placed here and there into which the smaller offerings may be dropped\n(we imagine this means anything under a franc).\n\nThe poor will be fed as well as housed for three days\ngratuitously--provided their health does not require a longer stay; but\nthey must not beg on the premises of the hospice; professional beggars\nwill be at once handed over to the mendicity society in Biella, or even\nperhaps to prison.  The poor for whom a hydropathic course is\nrecommended, can have it under the regulations made by the committee--that\nis to say, if there is a vacant place.\n\nThere are _trattorie_ and cafes at the hospice, where refreshments may be\nobtained both good and cheap.  Meat is to be sold there at the prices\ncurrent in Biella; bread at two centimes the chilogramma more, to pay for\nthe cost of carriage.\n\nSuch are the bye-laws of this remarkable institution.\n\nFew except the very rich are so under-worked that two or three days of\nchange and rest are not at times a boon to them, while the mere knowledge\nthat there is a place where repose can be had cheaply and pleasantly is\nitself a source of strength.  Here, so long as the visitor wishes to be\nmerely housed, no questions are asked; no one is refused admittance,\nexcept for some obviously sufficient reason; it is like getting a reading\nticket for the British Museum, there is practically but one test--that is\nto say, desire on the part of the visitor--the coming proves the desire,\nand this suffices.  A family, we will say, has just gathered its first\nharvest; the heat on the plains is intense, and the malaria from the rice-\ngrounds little less than pestilential; what, then, can be nicer than to\nlock up the house and go for three days to the bracing mountain air of\nOropa?  So at daybreak off they all start trudging, it may be, their\nthirty or forty miles, and reaching Oropa by nightfall.  If there is a\nweakly one among them, some arrangement is sure to be practicable whereby\nhe or she can be helped to follow more leisurely, and can remain longer\nat the hospice.  Once arrived, they generally, it is true, go the round\nof the chapels, and make some slight show of pilgrimage, but the main\npart of their time is spent in doing absolutely nothing.  It is\nsufficient amusement to them to sit on the steps, or lie about under the\nshadow of the trees, and neither say anything nor do anything, but simply\nbreathe, and look at the sky and at each other.  We saw scores of such\npeople just resting instinctively in a kind of blissful waking dream.\nOthers saunter along the walks which have been cut in the woods that\nsurround the hospice, or if they have been pent up in a town and have a\nfancy for climbing, there are mountain excursions, for the making of\nwhich the hospice affords excellent headquarters, and which are looked\nupon with every favour by the authorities.\n\nIt must be remembered also that the accommodation provided at Oropa is\nmuch better than what the people are, for the most part, accustomed to in\ntheir own homes, and the beds are softer, more often beaten up, and\ncleaner than those they have left behind them.  Besides, they have\nsheets--and beautifully clean sheets.  Those who know the sort of place\nin which an Italian peasant is commonly content to sleep, will understand\nhow much he must enjoy a really clean and comfortable bed, especially\nwhen he has not got to pay for it.  Sleep, in the circumstances of\ncomfort which most readers will be accustomed to, is a more expensive\nthing than is commonly supposed.  If we sleep eight hours in a London\nhotel we shall have to pay from 4d. to 6d. an hour, or from 1d. to 1.5d.\nfor every fifteen minutes we lie in bed; nor is it reasonable to believe\nthat the charge is excessive when we consider the vast amount of\ncompetition which exists.  There is many a man the expenses of whose\ndaily meat, drink, and clothing are less than what an accountant would\nshow us we, many of us, lay out nightly upon our sleep.  The cost of\nreally comfortable sleep-necessaries cannot, of course, be nearly so\ngreat at Oropa as in a London hotel, but they are enough to put them\nbeyond the reach of the peasant under ordinary circumstances, and he\nrelishes them all the more when he can get them.\n\nBut why, it may be asked, should the peasant have these things if he\ncannot afford to pay for them; and why should he not pay for them if he\ncan afford to do so?  If such places as Oropa were common, would not lazy\nvagabonds spend their lives in going the rounds of them, &c., &c.?\nDoubtless if there were many Oropas, they would do more harm than good,\nbut there are some things which answer perfectly well as rarities or on a\nsmall scale, out of which all the virtue would depart if they were common\nor on a larger one; and certainly the impression left upon our minds by\nOropa was that its effects were excellent.\n\nGranted the sound rule to be that a man should pay for what he has, or go\nwithout it; in practice, however, it is found impossible to carry this\nrule out strictly.  Why does the nation give A. B., for instance, and all\ncomers a large, comfortable, well-ventilated, warm room to sit in, with\nchair, table, reading-desk, &c., all more commodious than what he may\nhave at home, without making him pay a sixpence for it directly from\nyear's end to year's end?  The three or nine days' visit to Oropa is a\ntrifle in comparison with what we can all of us obtain in London if we\ncare about it enough to take a very small amount of trouble.  True, one\ncannot sleep in the reading-room of the British Museum--not all night, at\nleast--but by day one can make a home of it for years together except\nduring cleaning times, and then it is hard if one cannot get into the\nNational Gallery or South Kensington, and be warm, quiet, and entertained\nwithout paying for it.\n\nIt will be said that it is for the national interest that people should\nhave access to treasuries of art or knowledge, and therefore it is worth\nthe nation's while to pay for placing the means of doing so at their\ndisposal; granted, but is not a good bed one of the great ends of\nknowledge, whereto it must work, if it is to be accounted knowledge at\nall? and it is not worth a nation's while that her children should now\nand again have practical experience of a higher state of things than the\none they are accustomed to, and a few days' rest and change of scene and\nair, even though she may from time to time have to pay something in order\nto enable them to do so?  There can be few books which do an averagely-\neducated Englishman so much good, as the glimpse of comfort which he gets\nby sleeping in a good bed in a well-appointed room does to an Italian\npeasant; such a glimpse gives him an idea of higher potentialities in\nconnection with himself, and nerves him to exertions which he would not\notherwise make.  On the whole, therefore, we concluded that if the\nBritish Museum reading-room was in good economy, Oropa was so also; at\nany rate, it seemed to be making a large number of very nice people\nquietly happy--and it is hard to say more than this in favour of any\nplace or institution.\n\nThe idea of any sudden change is as repulsive to us as it will be to the\ngreater number of my readers; but if asked whether we thought our English\nuniversities would do most good in their present condition as places of\nso-called education, or if they were turned into Oropas, and all the\neducational part of the story totally suppressed, we inclined to think\nthey would be more popular and more useful in this latter capacity.  We\nthought also that Oxford and Cambridge were just the places, and\ncontained all the appliances and endowments almost ready made for\nconstituting two splendid and truly imperial cities of\nrecreation--universities in deed as well as in name.  Nevertheless we\nshould not venture to propose any further actual reform during the\npresent generation than to carry the principle which is already admitted\nas regards the M.A. a degree a trifle further, and to make the B.A.\ndegree a mere matter of lapse of time and fees--leaving the little go,\nand whatever corresponds to it at Oxford, as the final examination.  This\nwould be enough for the present.\n\nThere is another sanctuary about three hours' walk over the mountain\nbehind Oropa, at Andorno, and dedicated to St. John.  We were prevented\nby the weather from visiting it, but understand that its objects are much\nthe same as those of the institution I have just described.  I will now\nproceed to the third sanctuary for which the neighbourhood of Biella is\nrenowned.\n\n* * * * *\n\nAt Graglia I was shown all over the rooms in which strangers are lodged,\nand found them not only comfortable but luxurious--decidedly more so than\nthose of Oropa; there was the same cleanliness everywhere which I had\nnoticed in the restaurant.  As one stands at the windows or on the\nbalconies and looks down to the tops of the chestnuts, and over these to\nthe plains, one feels almost as if one could fly out of the window like a\nbird; for the slope of the hills is so rapid that one has a sense of\nbeing already suspended in mid-air.\n\nI thought I observed a desire to attract English visitors in the pictures\nwhich I saw in the bedrooms.  Thus there was \"A view of the Black-lead\nMine in Cumberland,\" a coloured English print of the end of the last\ncentury or the beginning of this, after, I think, Loutherbourg, and in\nseveral rooms there were English engravings after Martin.  The English\nwill not, I think, regret if they yield to these attractions.  They will\nfind the air cool, shady walks, good food, and reasonable prices.  Their\nrooms will not be charged for, but they will do well to give the same as\nthey would have paid at a hotel.  I saw in one room one of those\nflippant, frivolous, Lorenzo de' Medici matchboxes on which there was a\ngaudily-coloured nymph in high-heeled boots and tights, smoking a\ncigarette.  Feeling that I was in a sanctuary, I was a little surprised\nthat such a matchbox should have been tolerated.  I suppose it had been\nleft behind by some guest.  I should myself select a matchbox with the\nNativity or the Flight into Egypt upon it, if I were going to stay a week\nor so at Graglia.  I do not think I can have looked surprised or\nscandalised, but the worthy official who was with me could just see that\nthere was something on my mind.  \"Do you want a match?\" said he,\nimmediately reaching me the box.  I helped myself, and the matter\ndropped.\n\nThere were many fewer people at Graglia than at Oropa, and they were\nricher.  I did not see any poor about, but I may have been there during a\nslack time.  An impression was left upon me, though I cannot say whether\nit was well or ill founded, as though there were a tacit understanding\nbetween the establishments at Oropa and Graglia that the one was to adapt\nitself to the poorer, and the other to the richer classes of society; and\nthis not from any sordid motive, but from a recognition of the fact that\nany great amount of intermixture between the poor and the rich is not\nfound satisfactory to either one or the other.  Any wide difference in\nfortune does practically amount to a specific difference, which renders\nthe members of either species more or less suspicious of those of the\nother, and seldom fertile _inter se_.  The well-to-do working-man can\nhelp his poorer friends better than we can.  If an educated man has money\nto spare, he will apply it better in helping poor educated people than\nthose who are more strictly called the poor.  As long as the world is\nprogressing, wide class distinctions are inevitable; their discontinuance\nwill be a sign that equilibrium has been reached.  Then human\ncivilisation will become as stationary as that of ants and bees.  Some\nmay say it will be very sad when this is so; others, that it will be a\ngood thing; in truth, it is good either way, for progress and equilibrium\nhave each of them advantages and disadvantages which make it impossible\nto assign superiority to either; but in both cases the good greatly\noverbalances the evil; for in both the great majority will be fairly well\ncontented, and would hate to live under any other system.\n\nEquilibrium, if it is ever reached, will be attained very slowly, and the\nimportance of any change in a system depends entirely upon the rate at\nwhich it is made.  No amount of change shocks--or, in other words, is\nimportant--if it is made sufficiently slowly, while hardly any change is\ntoo small to shock if it is made suddenly.  We may go down a ladder of\nten thousand feet in height if we do so step by step, while a sudden fall\nof six or seven feet may kill us.  The importance, therefore, does not\nlie in the change, but in the abruptness of its introduction.  Nothing is\nabsolutely important or absolutely unimportant; absolutely good, or\nabsolutely bad.\n\nThis is not what we like to contemplate.  The instinct of those whose\nreligion and culture are on the surface only is to conceive that they\nhave found, or can find, an absolute and eternal standard, about which\nthey can be as earnest as they choose.  They would have even the pains of\nhell eternal if they could.  If there had been any means discoverable by\nwhich they could torment themselves beyond endurance, we may be sure they\nwould long since have found it out; but fortunately there is a stronger\npower which bars them inexorably from their desire, and which has ensured\nthat intolerable pain shall last only for a very little while.  For\neither the circumstances or the sufferer will change after no long time.\nIf the circumstances are intolerable, the sufferer dies: if they are not\nintolerable, he becomes accustomed to them, and will cease to feel them\ngrievously.  No matter what the burden, there always has been, and always\nmust be, a way for us also to escape.\n\n\n\n\nA PSALM OF MONTREAL.\n\n\n[The City of Montreal is one of the most rising and, in many respects,\nmost agreeable on the American continent, but its inhabitants are as yet\ntoo busy with commerce to care greatly about the masterpieces of old\nGreek Art.  A cast of one of these masterpieces--the finest of the\nseveral statues of Discoboli, or Quoit-throwers--was found by the present\nwriter in the Montreal Museum of Natural History; it was, however,\nbanished from public view, to a room where were all manner of skins,\nplants, snakes, insects, &c., and in the middle of these, an old man,\nstuffing an owl.  The dialogue--perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps\na little of one and a little of the other--between the writer and this\nold man gave rise to the lines that follow.]\n\nStowed away in a Montreal lumber-room,\nThe Discobolus standeth, and turneth his face to the wall;\nDusty, cobweb-covered, maimed, and set at naught,\nBeauty crieth in an attic, and no man regardeth.\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\nBeautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,\nWhole or maimed, always and alike beautiful,--\nHe preacheth gospel of grace to the skins of owls,\nAnd to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls.\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\nWhen I saw him, I was wroth, and I said, \"O Discobolus!\nBeautiful Discobolus, a Prince both among gods and men,\nWhat doest thou here, how camest thou here, Discobolus,\nPreaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?\"\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\nAnd I turned to the man of skins, and said unto him, \"Oh! thou man of\nskins,\nWherefore hast thou done thus, to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?\"\nBut the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins,\nAnd he answered, \"My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\"\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\n\"The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar,--\nHe hath neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;\nI, sir, am a person of most respectable connections,--\nMy brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\"\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\nThen I said, \"O brother-in law to Mr. Spurgeon's haberdasher!\nWho seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,\nThou callest 'trousers' 'pants,' whereas I call them 'trousers,'\nTherefore thou art in hell-fire, and may the Lord pity thee!\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\n\"Preferrest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,\nThe gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon's haberdashery to the\ngospel of the Discobolus?\"\nYet none the less blasphemed he beauty, saying, \"The Discobolus hath no\ngospel,--\nBut my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.\"\n      O God!  O Montreal!\n\nPRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.\nEDINBURGH AND LONDON.\n\n\n\n\nWorks by the same Author.\n\n\nSixth Edition.  Crown 8vo, Cloth, 6s.\nEREWHON; or, OVER THE RANGE.  Op. 1.\n\nA WORK OF SATIRE AND IMAGINATION.\n\nSecond Edition.  Demy 8vo, Cloth, 7s. 6d.\nTHE FAIR HAVEN.  Op. 2.\n\nA work in Defence of the Miraculous Element in our Lord's Ministry on\nearth, both as against Rationalistic Impugners and certain Orthodox\nDefenders.  Written under the pseudonym of JOHN PICKARD OWEN, with a\nMemoir by his supposed brother, WILLIAM BICKERSTETH OWEN.\n\nSecond Edition.  Crown 8vo, Cloth, 7s. 6d.\nLIFE AND HABIT.  Op. 3.\n\nAN ESSAY AFTER A COMPLETER VIEW OF EVOLUTION.\n\nSecond Edition, with Appendix and Index.  Crown 8vo, Cloth, 10s. 6d.\nEVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.  Op. 4.\n\nA Comparison of the theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck,\nwith that of the late Mr. Charles Darwin, with copious extracts from the\nworks of the three first-named writers.\n\nCrown 8vo, Cloth, 7s. 6d.\nUNCONSCIOUS MEMORY.  Op. 5.\n\nA Comparison between the theory of Dr. Ewald Hering, Professor of\nPhysiology at the University of Prague, and the \"Philosophy of the\nUnconscious\" of Dr. Edward Von Hartmann, with translations from both\nthese authors, and preliminary chapters bearing on \"Life and Habit,\"\n\"Evolution, Old and New,\" and Mr. Charles Darwin's edition of Dr.\nKrause's \"Erasmus Darwin.\"\n\nPott Quarto, Cloth, 21s.\n\nALPS AND SANCTUARIES OF PIEDMONT AND THE CANTON TICINO.  Op. 6.\n\nProfusely Illustrated by Charles Gogin, H. F. Jones, and the Author.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{iii}  See page 234 of this book.\n\n{1}  The first edition of Erewhon was published in the spring of 1872.\n\n{47}  The myth above alluded to exists in Erewhon with changed names and\nconsiderable modifications.  I have taken the liberty of referring to the\nstory as familiar to ourselves.\n\n{48}  The first edition of the Fair Haven was published April 1873.\n\n{68}  The first edition of Life and Habit was published in December,\n1877.\n\n{96}  See page 228 of this book, \"Remarks on Mr. Romanes' 'Mental\nEvolution in Animals.'\"\n\n{119}  Kegan Paul, 1875.\n\n{125}  It is now (January 1884) more than six years since Life and Habit\nwas published, but I have come across nothing which makes me wish to\nalter it to any material extent.\n\n{127}  It must be remembered that the late Mr. C. Darwin expressly denied\nthat instinct and inherited habit are generally to be connected.--See Mr.\nDarwin's \"Origin of Species,\" end of chapter viii., where he expresses\nhis surprise that no one has hitherto adduced the instincts of neuter\ninsects \"against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit as advanced\nby Lamarck.\"\n\nMr. Romanes, in his \"Mental Evolution in Animals\" (November, 1883),\nrefers to this passage of Mr. Darwin's, and endorses it with approbation\n(p. 297).\n\n{131}  Evolution, Old and New, was published in May, 1879.\n\n{134a}  Quatrefages, \"Metamorphoses de l'Homme et des Animaux,\" 1862, p.\n42; G. H. Lewes, \"Physical Basis of Mind,\" 1877, p. 83.\n\n{134b}  I have been unable, through want of space, to give this chapter\nhere.\n\n{141}  Page 210, first edition.\n\n{144}  1878.\n\n{148}  \"Nat. Theol.\" ch. xxiii.\n\n{153a}  1878.\n\n{153b}  \"Oiseaux,\" vol. i. p. 5.\n\n{162}  \"Discours de Reception a l'Academie Francaise.\"\n\n{163}  I Cor. xiii. 8, 13.\n\n{164a}  Tom. i. p. 24, 1749.\n\n{164b}  Tom. i. p. 40, 1749.\n\n{165}  Vol. i. p. 34, 1749.\n\n{166a}  Tom. i. p. 36.\n\n{166b}  See p. 173.\n\n{166c}  Tom. i. p. 33.\n\n{168}  The Naturalist's Library, vol. ii. p. 23.  Edinburgh, 1843.\n\n{174}  Tom. iv. p. 381, 1753.\n\n{176}  Tom. iv. p. 383, 1753 (this was the first volume on the lower\nanimals).\n\n{177a}  Tom xiii. p. 1765.\n\n{177b}  Sup. tom. v. p. 27, 1778.\n\n{180}  Tom. i. p. 28, 1749.\n\n{181a}  Unconscious Memory was published December, 1880.\n\n{181b}  See Unconscious Memory, chap. vi.\n\n{181c}  The Spirit of Nature, p. 39.  J. A. Churchill & Co.  1880.\n\n{184}  I have put these words into the mouth of my supposed objector, and\nshall put others like them, because they are characteristic; but nothing\ncan become so well known as to escape being an inference.\n\n{189}  Erewhon, chap, xxiii.\n\n{198a}  It must be remembered that this passage is put as if in the mouth\nof an objector.\n\n{198b}  Mr. Herbert Spencer denies that there can be memory without a\n\"tolerably deliberate succession of psychical states.\" {198c}  So that\npractically he denies that there can be any such thing as \"unconscious\nmemory.\"  Nevertheless a few pages later on he says that \"conscious\nmemory passes into unconscious or organic memory.\" {198d}  It is plain,\ntherefore, that he could after all find no expression better suited for\nhis purpose.\n\nMr. Romanes is, I think, right in setting aside Mr. Spencer's limitation\nof memory to conscious memory.  He writes, \"Because I have so often seen\nthe sun shine that my memory of it as shining has become automatic, I see\nno reason why my memory of this fact, simply on account of its\nperfection, should be called no memory.\" {198e}\n\n{198c}  Principles of Psychology, I., 447.\n\n{198d}  Ibid, p. 452.\n\n{198e}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 130\n\n{217}  Nineteenth Century, Nov. 1878, p. 826.\n\n{218}  Encyclopedia Britannica, Art.  Biology, 9th ed., Vol. 3, p. 689.\n\n{220a}  Professor Huxley, Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., Art. Evolution, p. 750.\n\n{220b}  \"Hume,\" by Professor Huxley, p. 45.\n\n{220c}  \"The Philosophy of Crayfishes,\" by the Right Rev. the Lord Bishop\nof Carlisle.  Nineteenth Century for October 1880, p. 636.\n\n{221}  Les Amours des Plantes, p. 360.  Paris, 1800.\n\n{222a}  Philosophie Zoologique, tom. i. p. 231.  Ed. M. Martin.  Paris,\n1873.\n\n{222b}  Those who read the three following chapters will see that these\nwords, written in 1880, have come out near the truth in 1884.\n\n{223a}  Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society.  Williams &\nNorgate. 1858, p. 61.\n\n{223b}  Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, 2d ed., 1871,\np. 41.\n\n{223c}  Origin of Species, p. I, ed. 1872.\n\n{223d}  Origin of Species, 6th ed., p. 206.  I ought in fairness to Mr\nDarwin to say that he does not hold the error to be quite as serious as\nhe once did.  It is now \"a serious error\" only; in 1859 it was \"most\nserious error.\"--_Origin of Species_, 1st ed., p. 209.\n\n{224}  Origin of Species, 1st ed., p. 242; 6th ed., p. 233.\n\n{225a}  I never could find what these particular points were.\n\n{225b}  Isidore Geoffrey, Hist. Nat. Gen., tom. ii. p. 407, 1859.\n\n{225c}  M. Martin's edition of the Philosophie Zoologique (Paris, 1873),\nIntroduction, p. vi.\n\n{225d}  Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th ed., p. 750.\n\n{228a}  Kegan Paul & Co., 1883.\n\n{228b}  Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. p. 445.\n\n{228c}  Ibid.  I. 456.\n\n{228d}  Problems of Life and Mind, first series, Vol. I., 3rd ed. 1874,\np. 141, and Problem I. 21.\n\n{228e}  p. 33.\n\n{228f}  p. 77.\n\n{228g}  p. 115.\n\n{229}  Translation of Professor Hering's address on \"Memory as an\nOrganised Function of Matter,\" Unconscious Memory, p. 116.\n\n{230}  See Zoonomia, Vol. I. p. 484.\n\n{231a}  Problems of Life and Mind, I. pp. 239, 240: 1874.\n\n{231b}  Kegan Paul.  November, 1883.\n\n{232a}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 113.\n\n{232b}  Ibid. p. 115.\n\n{232c}  Ibid. p. 116.  Kegan Paul.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{233a}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 131.  Kegan Paul.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{233b}  Vol. I., 3rd ed. 1874, p. 141, and Problem I. 21.\n\n{233c}  Mental Evolution in Animals, pp. 177, 178.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{234a}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 193.\n\n{234b}  Ibid, p. 195.\n\n{234c}  Ibid, p. 296.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{234d}  Ibid. p. 192.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{235}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 296.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{236a}  See page 228.\n\n{236b}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 33.  Nov. 1883.\n\n{236c}  Ibid, p. 116.\n\n{236d}  Ibid. p. 178.\n\n{239}  Evolution, Old and New, pp. 357, 358.\n\n{240}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 159.  Kegan Paul & Co., 1883.\n\n{241}  Zoonomia, Vol. I. p. 484.\n\n{242a}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 297.  Kegan Paul & Co., 1883.\n\n{242b}  Ibid. p. 201.\n\n{243a}  Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 301.  November, 1883.\n\n{243b}  Origin of Species, Ed. I. p. 209.\n\n{243c}  Ibid, Ed. VI. 1876, p. 206.\n\n{243d}  Formation of Vegetable Mould, &c., p. 98.\n\n{244a}  Quoted by Mr. Romanes as written in the last year of Mr. Darwin's\nlife.\n\n{244b}  Macmillan, 1883.\n\n{247}  Nature, Jan. 27, 1881.\n\n{248a}  Nature, Jan. 27, 1881.\n\n{248b}  Ibid., Feb. 3, 1881.\n\n{249}  Nature, Jan. 27, 1881.\n\n{250}  Mind, October, 1883.\n\n{252a}  _Mind_ for October 1883, p. 498.\n\n{252b}  Ibid, p. 505, October 1883.\n\n{254a}  Principles of Psychology, I. 422.\n\n{254b}  Ibid.  I. 424.\n\n{254c}  Ibid.  I. 424.\n\n{255}  The first edition of Alps and Sanctuaries was published Dec. 1882.\n\n{265}  Princ. of Psych., ed. 3, Vol. I., p. 136, 1880.\n\n{269}  Curiosities of Literature, Lond. 1866, Routledge & Co., p. 272.\n\n{275}  See p. 87 of this vol.\n\n{276}  Ivanhoe, chap xxiii., near the beginning.\n\n{287}  \"Well, my dear sir, I am sorry you do not think as I do, but in\nthese days we cannot all of us start with the same principles.\"\n\n{294}  For these I must refer the reader to Alps and Sanctuaries itself.\n\n{311}  \"Dalle meraviglie finalmente che sono inerenti al simulacro\nstesso.\"--Cenni storico artistici intorno al santuario di Oropa.  (Prof.\nMaurizio, Marocco.  Turin, Milan, 1866, p. 329.)\n\n{313}  Marocco, p. 331.","title":"Selections from Previous Works: With Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals, and a Psalm of Montreal","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":96438}