{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_3461/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_3461","id":"gutenberg_3461","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3461","summary":null,"tags":["Art criticism","Category: Art","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Evolution","Science"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1908 A. C. Fifield edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nESSAYS ON LIFE\nART AND SCIENCE\n\n\nBY\nSAMUEL BUTLER\n\nAUTHOR OF \"EREWHON,\" \"EREWHON RE-VISITED,\"\n\"THE WAY OF ALL FLESH,\" ETC.\n\nEDITED BY\nR. A. STREATFEILD\n\nLONDON\nA. C. FIFIELD\n1908\n\nPrinted by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO\nAt the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh.\n\nContents:\n\nIntroduction\nQuis Desiderio?\nRamblings in Cheapside\nThe Aunt, The Nieces, and the Dog\nHow to make the best of life\nThe Sanctuary of Montrigone\nA Medieval Girl School\nArt in the Valley of Saas\nThought and Language\nThe Deadlock in Darwinism\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\n\nIt is hardly necessary to apologise for the miscellaneous character of\nthe following collection of essays.  Samuel Butler was a man of such\nunusual versatility, and his interests were so many and so various that\nhis literary remains were bound to cover a wide field.  Nevertheless it\nwill be found that several of the subjects to which he devoted much time\nand labour are not represented in these pages.  I have not thought it\nnecessary to reprint any of the numerous pamphlets and articles which he\nwrote upon the Iliad and Odyssey, since these were all merged in \"The\nAuthoress of the Odyssey,\" which gives his matured views upon everything\nrelating to the Homeric poems.  For a similar reason I have not included\nan essay on the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which he\nprinted in 1865 for private circulation, since he subsequently made\nextensive use of it in \"The Fair Haven.\"\n\nTwo of the essays in this collection were originally delivered as\nlectures; the remainder were published in _The Universal Review_ during\n1888, 1889, and 1890.\n\nI should perhaps explain why two other essays of his, which also appeared\nin _The Universal Review_, have been omitted.\n\nThe first of these, entitled \"L'Affaire Holbein-Rippel,\" relates to a\ndrawing of Holbein's \"Danse des Paysans,\" in the Basle Museum, which is\nusually described as a copy, but which Butler believed to be the work of\nHolbein himself.  This essay requires to be illustrated in so elaborate a\nmanner that it was impossible to include it in a book of this size.\n\nThe second essay, which is a sketch of the career of the sculptor\nTabachetti, was published as the first section of an article entitled \"A\nSculptor and a Shrine,\" of which the second section is here given under\nthe title, \"The Sanctuary of Montrigone.\"  The section devoted to the\nsculptor represents all that Butler then knew about Tabachetti, but since\nit was written various documents have come to light, principally owing to\nthe investigations of Cavaliere Francesco Negri, of Casale Monferrato,\nwhich negative some of Butler's most cherished conclusions.  Had Butler\nlived he would either have rewritten his essay in accordance with\nCavaliere Negri's discoveries, of which he fully recognised the value, or\nincorporated them into the revised edition of \"Ex Voto,\" which he\nintended to publish.  As it stands, the essay requires so much revision\nthat I have decided to omit it altogether, and to postpone giving English\nreaders a full account of Tabachetti's career until a second edition of\n\"Ex Voto\" is required.  Meanwhile I have given a brief summary of the\nmain facts of Tabachetti's life in a note (page 154) to the essay on \"Art\nin the Valley of Saas.\"  Any one who wishes for further details of the\nsculptor and his work will find them in Cavaliere Negri's pamphlet, \"Il\nSantuario di Crea\" (Alessandria, 1902).\n\nThe three essays grouped together under the title of \"The Deadlock in\nDarwinism\" may be regarded as a postscript to Butler's four books on\nevolution, viz., \"Life and Habit,\" \"Evolution, Old and New,\" \"Unconscious\nMemory\" and \"Luck or Cunning.\"  An occasion for the publication of these\nessays seemed to be afforded by the appearance in 1889 of Mr. Alfred\nRussel Wallace's \"Darwinism\"; and although nearly fourteen years have\nelapsed since they were published in the _Universal Review_, I have no\nfear that they will be found to be out of date.  How far, indeed, the\nproblem embodied in the deadlock of which Butler speaks is from solution\nwas conclusively shown by the correspondence which appeared in the\n_Times_ in May 1903, occasioned by some remarks made at University\nCollege by Lord Kelvin in moving a vote of thanks to Professor Henslow\nafter his lecture on \"Present Day Rationalism.\"  Lord Kelvin's claim for\na recognition of the fact that in organic nature scientific thought is\ncompelled to accept the idea of some kind of directive power, and his\nstatement that biologists are coming once more to a firm acceptance of a\nvital principle, drew from several distinguished men of science retorts\nheated enough to prove beyond a doubt that the gulf between the two main\ndivisions of evolutionists is as wide to-day as it was when Butler wrote.\nIt will be well, perhaps, for the benefit of readers who have not\nfollowed the history of the theory of evolution during its later\ndevelopments, to state in a few words what these two main divisions are.\nAll evolutionists agree that the differences between species are caused\nby the accumulation and transmission of variations, but they do not agree\nas to the causes to which the variations are due.  The view held by the\nolder evolutionists, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, who have been\nfollowed by many modern thinkers, including Herbert Spencer and Butler,\nis that the variations occur mainly as the result of effort and design;\nthe opposite view, which is that advocated by Mr. Wallace in \"Darwinism,\"\nis that the variations occur merely as the result of chance.  The former\nis sometimes called the theological view, because it recognises the\npresence in organic nature of design, whether it be called creative\npower, directive force, directivity, or vital principle; the latter view,\nin which the existence of design is absolutely negatived, is now usually\ndescribed as Weismannism, from the name of the writer who has been its\nprincipal advocate in recent years.\n\nIn conclusion, I must thank my friend Mr. Henry Festing Jones most warmly\nfor the invaluable assistance which he has given me in preparing these\nessays for publication, in correcting the proofs, and in compiling the\nintroduction and notes.\n\nR. A. STREATFEILD.\n\n\n\n\nQUIS DESIDERIO . . . ? {1}\n\n\nLike Mr. Wilkie Collins, I, too, have been asked to lay some of my\nliterary experiences before the readers of the _Universal Review_.  It\noccurred to me that the _Review_ must be indeed universal before it could\nopen its pages to one so obscure as myself; but, nothing daunted by the\ndistinguished company among which I was for the first time asked to move,\nI resolved to do as I was told, and went to the British Museum to see\nwhat books I had written.  Having refreshed my memory by a glance at the\ncatalogue, I was about to try and diminish the large and ever-increasing\ncircle of my non-readers when I became aware of a calamity that brought\nme to a standstill, and indeed bids fair, so far as I can see at present,\nto put an end to my literary existence altogether.\n\nI should explain that I cannot write unless I have a sloping desk, and\nthe reading-room of the British Museum, where alone I can compose freely,\nis unprovided with sloping desks.  Like every other organism, if I cannot\nget exactly what I want I make shift with the next thing to it; true,\nthere are no desks in the reading-room, but, as I once heard a visitor\nfrom the country say, \"it contains a large number of very interesting\nworks.\"  I know it was not right, and hope the Museum authorities will\nnot be severe upon me if any of them reads this confession; but I wanted\na desk, and set myself to consider which of the many very interesting\nworks which a grateful nation places at the disposal of its would-be\nauthors was best suited for my purpose.\n\nFor mere reading I suppose one book is pretty much as good as another;\nbut the choice of a desk-book is a more serious matter.  It must be\nneither too thick nor too thin; it must be large enough to make a\nsubstantial support; it must be strongly bound so as not to yield or\ngive; it must not be too troublesome to carry backwards and forwards; and\nit must live on shelf C, D, or E, so that there need be no stooping or\nreaching too high.  These are the conditions which a really good book\nmust fulfil; simple, however, as they are, it is surprising how few\nvolumes comply with them satisfactorily; moreover, being perhaps too\nsensitively conscientious, I allowed another consideration to influence\nme, and was sincerely anxious not to take a book which would be in\nconstant use for reference by readers, more especially as, if I did this,\nI might find myself disturbed by the officials.\n\nFor weeks I made experiments upon sundry poetical and philosophical\nworks, whose names I have forgotten, but could not succeed in finding my\nideal desk, until at length, more by luck than cunning, I happened to\nlight upon Frost's \"Lives of Eminent Christians,\" which I had no sooner\ntried than I discovered it to be the very perfection and _ne plus ultra_\nof everything that a book should be.  It lived in Case No. 2008, and I\naccordingly took at once to sitting in Row B, where for the last dozen\nyears or so I have sat ever since.\n\nThe first thing I have done whenever I went to the Museum has been to\ntake down Frost's \"Lives of Eminent Christians\" and carry it to my seat.\nIt is not the custom of modern writers to refer to the works to which\nthey are most deeply indebted, and I have never, that I remember,\nmentioned it by name before; but it is to this book alone that I have\nlooked for support during many years of literary labour, and it is round\nthis to me invaluable volume that all my own have page by page grown up.\nThere is none in the Museum to which I have been under anything like such\nconstant obligation, none which I can so ill spare, and none which I\nwould choose so readily if I were allowed to select one single volume and\nkeep it for my own.\n\nOn finding myself asked for a contribution to the _Universal Review_, I\nwent, as I have explained, to the Museum, and presently repaired to\nbookcase No. 2008 to get my favourite volume.  Alas! it was in the room\nno longer.  It was not in use, for its place was filled up already;\nbesides, no one ever used it but myself.  Whether the ghost of the late\nMr. Frost has been so eminently unchristian as to interfere, or whether\nthe authorities have removed the book in ignorance of the steady demand\nwhich there has been for it on the part of at least one reader, are\npoints I cannot determine.  All I know is that the book is gone, and I\nfeel as Wordsworth is generally supposed to have felt when he became\naware that Lucy was in her grave, and exclaimed so emphatically that this\nwould make a considerable difference to him, or words to that effect.\n\nNow I think of it, Frost's \"Lives of Eminent Christians\" was very like\nLucy.  The one resided at Dovedale in Derbyshire, the other in Great\nRussell Street, Bloomsbury.  I admit that I do not see the resemblance\nhere at this moment, but if I try to develop my perception I shall\ndoubtless ere long find a marvellously striking one.  In other respects,\nhowever, than mere local habitat the likeness is obvious.  Lucy was not\nparticularly attractive either inside or out--no more was Frost's \"Lives\nof Eminent Christians\"; there were few to praise her, and of those few\nstill fewer could bring themselves to like her; indeed, Wordsworth\nhimself seems to have been the only person who thought much about her one\nway or the other.  In like manner, I believe I was the only reader who\nthought much one way or the other about Frost's \"Lives of Eminent\nChristians,\" but this in itself was one of the attractions of the book;\nand as for the grief we respectively felt and feel, I believe my own to\nbe as deep as Wordsworth's, if not more so.\n\nI said above, \"as Wordsworth is generally supposed to have felt\"; for any\none imbued with the spirit of modern science will read Wordsworth's poem\nwith different eyes from those of a mere literary critic.  He will note\nthat Wordsworth is most careful not to explain the nature of the\ndifference which the death of Lucy will occasion to him.  He tells us\nthat there will be a difference; but there the matter ends.  The\nsuperficial reader takes it that he was very sorry she was dead; it is,\nof course, possible that he may have actually been so, but he has not\nsaid this.  On the contrary, he has hinted plainly that she was ugly, and\ngenerally disliked; she was only like a violet when she was half-hidden\nfrom the view, and only fair as a star when there were so few stars out\nthat it was practically impossible to make an invidious comparison.  If\nthere were as many as even two stars the likeness was felt to be at an\nend.  If Wordsworth had imprudently promised to marry this young person\nduring a time when he had been unusually long in keeping to good\nresolutions, and had afterwards seen some one whom he liked better, then\nLucy's death would undoubtedly have made a considerable difference to\nhim, and this is all that he has ever said that it would do.  What right\nhave we to put glosses upon the masterly reticence of a poet, and credit\nhim with feelings possibly the very reverse of those he actually\nentertained?\n\nSometimes, indeed, I have been inclined to think that a mystery is being\nhinted at more dark than any critic has suspected.  I do not happen to\npossess a copy of the poem, but the writer, if I am not mistaken, says\nthat \"few could know when Lucy ceased to be.\"  \"Ceased to be\" is a\nsuspiciously euphemistic expression, and the words \"few could know\" are\nnot applicable to the ordinary peaceful death of a domestic servant such\nas Lucy appears to have been.  No matter how obscure the deceased, any\nnumber of people commonly can know the day and hour of his or her demise,\nwhereas in this case we are expressly told it would be impossible for\nthem to do so.  Wordsworth was nothing if not accurate, and would not\nhave said that few could know, but that few actually did know, unless he\nwas aware of circumstances that precluded all but those implicated in the\ncrime of her death from knowing the precise moment of its occurrence.  If\nLucy was the kind of person not obscurely pourtrayed in the poem; if\nWordsworth had murdered her, either by cutting her throat or smothering\nher, in concert, perhaps, with his friends Southey and Coleridge; and if\nhe had thus found himself released from an engagement which had become\nirksome to him, or possibly from the threat of an action for breach of\npromise, then there is not a syllable in the poem with which he crowns\nhis crime that is not alive with meaning.  On any other supposition to\nthe general reader it is unintelligible.\n\nWe cannot be too guarded in the interpretations we put upon the words of\ngreat poets.  Take the young lady who never loved the dear gazelle--and I\ndon't believe she did; we are apt to think that Moore intended us to see\nin this creation of his fancy a sweet, amiable, but most unfortunate\nyoung woman, whereas all he has told us about her points to an exactly\nopposite conclusion.  In reality, he wished us to see a young lady who\nhad been an habitual complainer from her earliest childhood; whose plants\nhad always died as soon as she bought them, while those belonging to her\nneighbours had flourished.  The inference is obvious, nor can we\nreasonably doubt that Moore intended us to draw it; if her plants were\nthe very first to fade away, she was evidently the very first to neglect\nor otherwise maltreat them.  She did not give them enough water, or left\nthe door of her fern-ease open when she was cooking her dinner at the gas\nstove, or kept them too near the paraffin oil, or other like folly; and\nas for her temper, see what the gazelles did; as long as they did not\nknow her \"well,\" they could just manage to exist, but when they got to\nunderstand her real character, one after another felt that death was the\nonly course open to it, and accordingly died rather than live with such a\nmistress.  True, the young lady herself said the gazelles loved her; but\ndisagreeable people are apt to think themselves amiable, and in view of\nthe course invariably taken by the gazelles themselves any one accustomed\nto weigh evidence will hold that she was probably mistaken.\n\nI must, however, return to Frost's \"Lives of Eminent Christians.\"  I will\nleave none of the ambiguity about my words in which Moore and Wordsworth\nseem to have delighted.  I am very sorry the book is gone, and know not\nwhere to turn for its successor.  Till I have found a substitute I can\nwrite no more, and I do not know how to find even a tolerable one.  I\nshould try a volume of Migne's \"Complete Course of Patrology,\" but I do\nnot like books in more than one volume, for the volumes vary in\nthickness, and one never can remember which one took; the four volumes,\nhowever, of Bede in Giles's \"Anglican Fathers\" are not open to this\nobjection, and I have reserved them for favourable consideration.\nMather's \"Magnalia\" might do, but the binding does not please me;\nCureton's \"Corpus Ignatianum\" might also do if it were not too thin.  I\ndo not like taking Norton's \"Genuineness of the Gospels,\" as it is just\npossible some one may be wanting to know whether the Gospels are genuine\nor not, and be unable to find out because I have got Mr. Norton's book.\nBaxter's \"Church History of England,\" Lingard's \"Anglo-Saxon Church,\" and\nCardwell's \"Documentary Annals,\" though none of them as good as Frost,\nare works of considerable merit; but on the whole I think Arvine's\n\"Cyclopedia of Moral and Religious Anecdote\" is perhaps the one book in\nthe room which comes within measurable distance of Frost.  I should\nprobably try this book first, but it has a fatal objection in its too\nseductive title.  \"I am not curious,\" as Miss Lottie Venne says in one of\nher parts, \"but I like to know,\" and I might be tempted to pervert the\nbook from its natural uses and open it, so as to find out what kind of a\nthing a moral and religious anecdote is.  I know, of course, that there\nare a great many anecdotes in the Bible, but no one thinks of calling\nthem either moral or religious, though some of them certainly seem as if\nthey might fairly find a place in Mr. Arvine's work.  There are some\nthings, however, which it is better not to know, and take it all round I\ndo not think I should be wise in putting myself in the way of temptation,\nand adopting Arvine as the successor to my beloved and lamented Frost.\n\nSome successor I must find, or I must give up writing altogether, and\nthis I should be sorry to do.  I have only as yet written about a third,\nor from that--counting works written but not published--to a half, of the\nbooks which I have set myself to write.  It would not so much matter if\nold age was not staring me in the face.  Dr. Parr said it was \"a beastly\nshame for an old man not to have laid down a good cellar of port in his\nyouth\"; I, like the greater number, I suppose, of those who write books\nat all, write in order that I may have something to read in my old age\nwhen I can write no longer.  I know what I shall like better than any one\ncan tell me, and write accordingly; if my career is nipped in the bud, as\nseems only too likely, I really do not know where else I can turn for\npresent agreeable occupation, nor yet how to make suitable provision for\nmy later years.  Other writers can, of course, make excellent provision\nfor their own old ages, but they cannot do so for mine, any more than I\nshould succeed if I were to try to cater for theirs.  It is one of those\ncases in which no man can make agreement for his brother.\n\nI have no heart for continuing this article, and if I had, I have nothing\nof interest to say.  No one's literary career can have been smoother or\nmore unchequered than mine.  I have published all my books at my own\nexpense, and paid for them in due course.  What can be conceivably more\nunromantic?  For some years I had a little literary grievance against the\nauthorities of the British Museum because they would insist on saying in\ntheir catalogue that I had published three sermons on Infidelity in the\nyear 1820.  I thought I had not, and got them out to see.  They were\nrather funny, but they were not mine.  Now, however, this grievance has\nbeen removed.  I had another little quarrel with them because they would\ndescribe me as \"of St. John's College, Cambridge,\" an establishment for\nwhich I have the most profound veneration, but with which I have not had\nthe honour to be connected for some quarter of a century.  At last they\nsaid they would change this description if I would only tell them what I\nwas, for, though they had done their best to find out, they had\nthemselves failed.  I replied with modest pride that I was a Bachelor of\nArts.  I keep all my other letters inside my name, not outside.  They\nmused and said it was unfortunate that I was not a Master of Arts.  Could\nI not get myself made a Master?  I said I understood that a Mastership\nwas an article the University could not do under about five pounds, and\nthat I was not disposed to go sixpence higher than three ten.  They again\nsaid it was a pity, for it would be very inconvenient to them if I did\nnot keep to something between a bishop and a poet.  I might be anything I\nliked in reason, provided I showed proper respect for the alphabet; but\nthey had got me between \"Samuel Butler, bishop,\" and \"Samuel Butler,\npoet.\"  It would be very troublesome to shift me, and bachelor came\nbefore bishop.  This was reasonable, so I replied that, under those\ncircumstances, if they pleased, I thought I would like to be a\nphilosophical writer.  They embraced the solution, and, no matter what I\nwrite now, I must remain a philosophical writer as long as I live, for\nthe alphabet will hardly be altered in my time, and I must be something\nbetween \"Bis\" and \"Poe.\"  If I could get a volume of my excellent\nnamesake's \"Hudibras\" out of the list of my works, I should be robbed of\nmy last shred of literary grievance, so I say nothing about this, but\nkeep it secret, lest some worse thing should happen to me.  Besides, I\nhave a great respect for my namesake, and always say that if \"Erewhon\"\nhad been a racehorse it would have been got by \"Hudibras\" out of\n\"Analogy.\"  Some one said this to me many years ago, and I felt so much\nflattered that I have been repeating the remark as my own ever since.\n\nBut how small are these grievances as compared with those endured without\na murmur by hundreds of writers far more deserving than myself.  When I\nsee the scores and hundreds of workers in the reading-room who have done\nso much more than I have, but whose work is absolutely fruitless to\nthemselves, and when I think of the prompt recognition obtained by my own\nwork, I ask myself what I have done to be thus rewarded.  On the other\nhand, the feeling that I have succeeded far beyond my deserts hitherto,\nmakes it all the harder for me to acquiesce without complaint in the\nextinction of a career which I honestly believe to be a promising one;\nand once more I repeat that, unless the Museum authorities give me back\nmy Frost, or put a locked clasp on Arvine, my career must be\nextinguished.  Give me back Frost, and, if life and health are spared, I\nwill write another dozen of volumes yet before I hang up my fiddle--if so\nserious a confusion of metaphors may be pardoned.  I know from long\nexperience how kind and considerate both the late and present\nsuperintendents of the reading-room were and are, but I doubt how far\neither of them would be disposed to help me on this occasion; continue,\nhowever, to rob me of my Frost, and, whatever else I may do, I will write\nno more books.\n\n_Note by Dr. Garnett_, _British Museum_.--The frost has broken up.  Mr.\nButler is restored to literature.  Mr. Mudie may make himself easy.\nEngland will still boast a humourist; and the late Mr. Darwin (to whose\nposthumous machinations the removal of the book was owing) will continue\nto be confounded.--R. GANNETT.\n\n\n\n\nRAMBLINGS IN CHEAPSIDE {2}\n\n\nWalking the other day in Cheapside I saw some turtles in Mr. Sweeting's\nwindow, and was tempted to stay and look at them.  As I did so I was\nstruck not more by the defences with which they were hedged about, than\nby the fatuousness of trying to hedge that in at all which, if hedged\nthoroughly, must die of its own defencefulness.  The holes for the head\nand feet through which the turtle leaks out, as it were, on to the\nexterior world, and through which it again absorbs the exterior world\ninto itself--\"catching on\" through them to things that are thus both\nturtle and not turtle at one and the same time--these holes stultify the\narmour, and show it to have been designed by a creature with more of\nfaithfulness to a fixed idea, and hence one-sidedness, than of that quick\nsense of relative importances and their changes, which is the main factor\nof good living.\n\nThe turtle obviously had no sense of proportion; it differed so widely\nfrom myself that I could not comprehend it; and as this word occurred to\nme, it occurred also that until my body comprehended its body in a\nphysical material sense, neither would my mind be able to comprehend its\nmind with any thoroughness.  For unity of mind can only be consummated by\nunity of body; everything, therefore, must be in some respects both knave\nand fool to all that which has not eaten it, or by which it has not been\neaten.  As long as the turtle was in the window and I in the street\noutside, there was no chance of our comprehending one another.\n\nNevertheless I knew that I could get it to agree with me if I could so\neffectually button-hole and fasten on to it as to eat it.  Most men have\nan easy method with turtle soup, and I had no misgiving but that if I\ncould bring my first premise to bear I should prove the better reasoner.\nMy difficulty lay in this initial process, for I had not with me the\nargument that would alone compel Mr. Sweeting think that I ought to be\nallowed to convert the turtles--I mean I had no money in my pocket.  No\nmissionary enterprise can be carried on without any money at all, but\neven so small a sum as half-a-crown would, I suppose, have enabled me to\nbring the turtle partly round, and with many half-crowns I could in time\nno doubt convert the lot, for the turtle needs must go where the money\ndrives.  If, as is alleged, the world stands on a turtle, the turtle\nstands on money.  No money no turtle.  As for money, that stands on\nopinion, credit, trust, faith--things that, though highly material in\nconnection with money, are still of immaterial essence.\n\nThe steps are perfectly plain.  The men who caught the turtles brought a\nfairly strong and definite opinion to bear upon them, that passed into\naction, and later on into money.  They thought the turtles would come\nthat way, and verified their opinion; on this, will and action were\ngenerated, with the result that the men turned the turtles on their backs\nand carried them off.  Mr. Sweeting touched these men with money, which\nis the outward and visible sign of verified opinion.  The customer\ntouches Mr. Sweeting with money, Mr. Sweeting touches the waiter and the\ncook with money.  They touch the turtle with skill and verified opinion.\nFinally, the customer applies the clinching argument that brushes all\nsophisms aside, and bids the turtle stand protoplasm to protoplasm with\nhimself, to know even as it is known.\n\nBut it must be all touch, touch, touch; skill, opinion, power, and money,\npassing in and out with one another in any order we like, but still link\nto link and touch to touch.  If there is failure anywhere in respect of\nopinion, skill, power, or money, either as regards quantity or quality,\nthe chain can be no stronger than its weakest link, and the turtle and\nthe clinching argument will fly asunder.  Of course, if there is an\ninitial failure in connection, through defect in any member of the chain,\nor of connection between the links, it will no more be attempted to bring\nthe turtle and the clinching argument together, than it will to chain up\na dog with two pieces of broken chain that are disconnected.  The contact\nthroughout must be conceived as absolute; and yet perfect contact is\ninconceivable by us, for on becoming perfect it ceases to be contact, and\nbecomes essential, once for all inseverable, identity.  The most absolute\ncontact short of this is still contact by courtesy only.  So here, as\neverywhere else, Eurydice glides off as we are about to grasp her.  We\ncan see nothing face to face; our utmost seeing is but a fumbling of\nblind finger-ends in an overcrowded pocket.\n\nPresently my own blind finger-ends fished up the conclusion, that as I\nhad neither time nor money to spend on perfecting the chain that would\nput me in full spiritual contact with Mr. Sweeting's turtles, I had\nbetter leave them to complete their education at some one else's expense\nrather than mine, so I walked on towards the Bank.  As I did so it struck\nme how continually we are met by this melting of one existence into\nanother.  The limits of the body seem well defined enough as definitions\ngo, but definitions seldom go far.  What, for example, can seem more\ndistinct from a man than his banker or his solicitor?  Yet these are\ncommonly so much parts of him that he can no more cut them off and grow\nnew ones, than he can grow new legs or arms; neither must he wound his\nsolicitor; a wound in the solicitor is a very serious thing.  As for his\nbank--failure of his bank's action may be as fatal to a man as failure of\nhis heart.  I have said nothing about the medical or spiritual adviser,\nbut most men grow into the society that surrounds them by the help of\nthese four main tap-roots, and not only into the world of humanity, but\ninto the universe at large.  We can, indeed, grow butchers, bakers, and\ngreengrocers, almost _ad libitum_, but these are low developments, and\ncorrespond to skin, hair, or finger-nails.  Those of us again who are not\nhighly enough organised to have grown a solicitor or banker can generally\nrepair the loss of whatever social organisation they may possess as\nfreely as lizards are said to grow new tails; but this with the higher\nsocial, as well as organic, developments is only possible to a very\nlimited extent.\n\nThe doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls--a doctrine to\nwhich the foregoing considerations are for the most part easy\ncorollaries--crops up no matter in what direction we allow our thoughts\nto wander.  And we meet instances of transmigration of body as well as of\nsoul.  I do not mean that both body and soul have transmigrated together,\nfar from it; but that, as we can often recognise a transmigrated mind in\nan alien body, so we not less often see a body that is clearly only a\ntransmigration, linked on to some one else's new and alien soul.  We meet\npeople every day whose bodies are evidently those of men and women long\ndead, but whose appearance we know through their portraits.  We see them\ngoing about in omnibuses, railway carriages, and in all public places.\nThe cards have been shuffled, and they have drawn fresh lots in life and\nnationalities, but any one fairly well up in mediaeval and last century\nportraiture knows them at a glance.\n\nGoing down once towards Italy I saw a young man in the train whom I\nrecognised, only he seemed to have got younger.  He was with a friend,\nand his face was in continual play, but for some little time I puzzled in\nvain to recollect where it was that I had seen him before.  All of a\nsudden I remembered he was King Francis I. of France.  I had hitherto\nthought the face of this king impossible, but when I saw it in play I\nunderstood it.  His great contemporary Henry VIII. keeps a restaurant in\nOxford Street.  Falstaff drove one of the St. Gothard diligences for many\nyears, and only retired when the railway was opened.  Titian once made me\na pair of boots at Vicenza, and not very good ones.  At Modena I had my\nhair cut by a young man whom I perceived to be Raffaelle.  The model who\nsat to him for his celebrated Madonnas is first lady in a confectionery\nestablishment at Montreal.  She has a little motherly pimple on the left\nside of her nose that is misleading at first, but on examination she is\nreadily recognised; probably Raffaelle's model had the pimple too, but\nRaffaelle left it out--as he would.\n\nHandel, of course, is Madame Patey.  Give Madame Patey Handel's wig and\nclothes, and there would be no telling her from Handel.  It is not only\nthat the features and the shape of the head are the same, but there is a\ncertain imperiousness of expression and attitude about Handel which he\nhardly attempts to conceal in Madame Patey.  It is a curious coincidence\nthat he should continue to be such an incomparable renderer of his own\nmusic.  Pope Julius II. was the late Mr. Darwin.  Rameses II. is a blind\nwoman now, and stands in Holborn, holding a tin mug.  I never could\nunderstand why I always found myself humming \"They oppressed them with\nburthens\" when I passed her, till one day I was looking in Mr. Spooner's\nwindow in the Strand, and saw a photograph of Rameses II.  Mary Queen of\nScots wears surgical boots and is subject to fits, near the Horse Shoe in\nTottenham Court Road.\n\nMichael Angelo is a commissionaire; I saw him on board the _Glen Rosa_,\nwhich used to run every day from London to Clacton-on-Sea and back.  It\ngave me quite a turn when I saw him coming down the stairs from the upper\ndeck, with his bronzed face, flattened nose, and with the familiar bar\nupon his forehead.  I never liked Michael Angelo, and never shall, but I\nam afraid of him, and was near trying to hide when I saw him coming\ntowards me.  He had not got his commissionaire's uniform on, and I did\nnot know he was one till I met him a month or so later in the Strand.\nWhen we got to Blackwall the music struck up and people began to dance.  I\nnever saw a man dance so much in my life.  He did not miss a dance all\nthe way to Clacton, nor all the way back again, and when not dancing he\nwas flirting and cracking jokes.  I could hardly believe my eyes when I\nreflected that this man had painted the famous \"Last Judgment,\" and had\nmade all those statues.\n\nDante is, or was a year or two ago, a waiter at Brissago on the Lago\nMaggiore, only he is better-tempered-looking, and has a more intellectual\nexpression.  He gave me his ideas upon beauty: \"Tutto ch' e vero e\nbello,\" he exclaimed, with all his old self-confidence.  I am not afraid\nof Dante.  I know people by their friends, and he went about with Virgil,\nso I said with some severity, \"No, Dante, il naso della Signora Robinson\ne vero, ma non e bello\"; and he admitted I was right.  Beatrice's name is\nTowler; she is waitress at a small inn in German Switzerland.  I used to\nsit at my window and hear people call \"Towler, Towler, Towler,\" fifty\ntimes in a forenoon.  She was the exact antithesis to Abra; Abra, if I\nremember, used to come before they called her name, but no matter how\noften they called Towler, every one came before she did.  I suppose they\nspelt her name Taula, but to me it sounded Towler; I never, however, met\nany one else with this name.  She was a sweet, artless little hussy, who\nmade me play the piano to her, and she said it was lovely.  Of course I\nonly played my own compositions; so I believed her, and it all went off\nvery nicely.  I thought it might save trouble if I did not tell her who\nshe really was, so I said nothing about it.\n\nI met Socrates once.  He was my muleteer on an excursion which I will not\nname, for fear it should identify the man.  The moment I saw my guide I\nknew he was somebody, but for the life of me I could not remember who.\nAll of a sudden it flashed across me that he was Socrates.  He talked\nenough for six, but it was all in _dialetto_, so I could not understand\nhim, nor, when I had discovered who he was, did I much try to do so.  He\nwas a good creature, a trifle given to stealing fruit and vegetables, but\nan amiable man enough.  He had had a long day with his mule and me, and\nhe only asked me five francs.  I gave him ten, for I pitied his poor old\npatched boots, and there was a meekness about him that touched me.  \"And\nnow, Socrates,\" said I at parting, \"we go on our several ways, you to\nsteal tomatoes, I to filch ideas from other people; for the rest--which\nof these two roads will be the better going, our father which is in\nheaven knows, but we know not.\"\n\nI have never seen Mendelssohn, but there is a fresco of him on the\nterrace, or open-air dining-room, of an inn at Chiavenna.  He is not\ncalled Mendelssohn, but I knew him by his legs.  He is in the costume of\na dandy of some five-and-forty years ago, is smoking a cigar, and appears\nto be making an offer of marriage to his cook.  Beethoven both my friend\nMr. H. Festing Jones and I have had the good fortune to meet; he is an\nengineer now, and does not know one note from another; he has quite lost\nhis deafness, is married, and is, of course, a little squat man with the\nsame refractory hair that he always had.  It was very interesting to\nwatch him, and Jones remarked that before the end of dinner he had become\npositively posthumous.  One morning I was told the Beethovens were going\naway, and before long I met their two heavy boxes being carried down the\nstairs.  The boxes were so squab and like their owners, that I half\nthought for a moment that they were inside, and should hardly have been\nsurprised to see them spring up like a couple of Jacks-in-the-box.  \"Sono\nindentro?\" said I, with a frown of wonder, pointing to the boxes.  The\nporters knew what I meant, and laughed.  But there is no end to the list\nof people whom I have been able to recognise, and before I had got\nthrough it myself, I found I had walked some distance, and had\ninvoluntarily paused in front of a second-hand bookstall.\n\nI do not like books.  I believe I have the smallest library of any\nliterary man in London, and I have no wish to increase it.  I keep my\nbooks at the British Museum and at Mudie's, and it makes me very angry if\nany one gives me one for my private library.  I once heard two ladies\ndisputing in a railway carriage as to whether one of them had or had not\nbeen wasting money.  \"I spent it in books,\" said the accused, \"and it's\nnot wasting money to buy books.\"  \"Indeed, my dear, I think it is,\" was\nthe rejoinder, and in practice I agree with it.  Webster's Dictionary,\nWhitaker's Almanack, and Bradshaw's Railway Guide should be sufficient\nfor any ordinary library; it will be time enough to go beyond these when\nthe mass of useful and entertaining matter which they provide has been\nmastered.  Nevertheless, I admit that sometimes, if not particularly\nbusy, I stop at a second-hand bookstall and turn over a book or two from\nmere force of habit.\n\nI know not what made me pick up a copy of AEschylus--of course in an\nEnglish version--or rather I know not what made AEschylus take up with\nme, for he took me rather than I him; but no sooner had he got me than he\nbegan puzzling me, as he has done any time this forty years, to know\nwherein his transcendent merit can be supposed to lie.  To me he is, like\nthe greater number of classics in all ages and countries, a literary\nStruldbrug, rather than a true ambrosia-fed immortal.  There are true\nimmortals, but they are few and far between; most classics are as great\nimpostors dead as they were when living, and while posing as gods are,\nfive-sevenths of them, only Struldbrugs.  It comforts me to remember that\nAristophanes liked AEschylus no better than I do.  True, he praises him\nby comparison with Sophocles and Euripides, but he only does so that he\nmay run down these last more effectively.  Aristophanes is a safe man to\nfollow, nor do I see why it should not be as correct to laugh with him as\nto pull a long face with the Greek Professors; but this is neither here\nnor there, for no one really cares about AEschylus; the more interesting\nquestion is how he contrived to make so many people for so many years\npretend to care about him.\n\nPerhaps he married somebody's daughter.  If a man would get hold of the\npublic ear, he must pay, marry, or fight.  I have never understood that\nAEschylus was a man of means, and the fighters do not write poetry, so I\nsuppose he must have married a theatrical manager's daughter, and got his\nplays brought out that way.  The ear of any age or country is like its\nland, air, and water; it seems limitless but is really limited, and is\nalready in the keeping of those who naturally enough will have no\nsquatting on such valuable property.  It is written and talked up to as\nclosely as the means of subsistence are bred up to by a teeming\npopulation.  There is not a square inch of it but is in private hands,\nand he who would freehold any part of it must do so by purchase,\nmarriage, or fighting, in the usual way--and fighting gives the longest,\nsafest tenure.  The public itself has hardly more voice in the question\nwho shall have its ear, than the land has in choosing its owners.  It is\nfarmed as those who own it think most profitable to themselves, and small\nblame to them; nevertheless, it has a residuum of mulishness which the\nland has not, and does sometimes dispossess its tenants.  It is in this\nresiduum that those who fight place their hope and trust.\n\nOr perhaps AEschylus squared the leading critics of his time.  When one\ncomes to think of it, he must have done so, for how is it conceivable\nthat such plays should have had such runs if he had not?  I met a lady\none year in Switzerland who had some parrots that always travelled with\nher and were the idols of her life.  These parrots would not let any one\nread aloud in their presence, unless they heard their own names\nintroduced from time to time.  If these were freely interpolated into the\ntext they would remain as still as stones, for they thought the reading\nwas about themselves.  If it was not about them it could not be allowed.\nThe leaders of literature are like these parrots; they do not look at\nwhat a man writes, nor if they did would they understand it much better\nthan the parrots do; but they like the sound of their own names, and if\nthese are freely interpolated in a tone they take as friendly, they may\neven give ear to an outsider.  Otherwise they will scream him off if they\ncan.\n\nI should not advise any one with ordinary independence of mind to attempt\nthe public ear unless he is confident that he can out-lung and out-last\nhis own generation; for if he has any force, people will and ought to be\non their guard against him, inasmuch as there is no knowing where he may\nnot take them.  Besides, they have staked their money on the wrong men so\noften without suspecting it, that when there comes one whom they do\nsuspect it would be madness not to bet against him.  True, he may die\nbefore he has out-screamed his opponents, but that has nothing to do with\nit.  If his scream was well pitched it will sound clearer when he is\ndead.  We do not know what death is.  If we know so little about life\nwhich we have experienced, how shall we know about death which we have\nnot--and in the nature of things never can?  Every one, as I said years\nago in \"Alps and Sanctuaries,\" is an immortal to himself, for he cannot\nknow that he is dead until he is dead, and when dead how can he know\nanything about anything?  All we know is, that even the humblest dead may\nlive long after all trace of the body has disappeared; we see them doing\nit in the bodies and memories of those that come after them; and not a\nfew live so much longer and more effectually than is desirable, that it\nhas been necessary to get rid of them by Act of Parliament.  It is love\nthat alone gives life, and the truest life is that which we live not in\nourselves but vicariously in others, and with which we have no concern.\nOur concern is so to order ourselves that we may be of the number of them\nthat enter into life--although we know it not.\n\nAEschylus did so order himself; but his life is not of that inspiriting\nkind that can be won through fighting the good fight only--or being\nbelieved to have fought it.  His voice is the echo of a drone,\ndrone-begotten and drone-sustained.  It is not a tone that a man must\nutter or die--nay, even though he die; and likely enough half the\nallusions and hard passages in AEschylus of which we can make neither\nhead nor tail are in reality only puffs of some of the literary leaders\nof his time.\n\nThe lady above referred to told me more about her parrots.  She was like\na Nasmyth's hammer going slow--very gentle, but irresistible.  She always\nread the newspaper to them.  What was the use of having a newspaper if\none did not read it to one's parrots?\n\n\"And have you divined,\" I asked, \"to which side they incline in\npolitics?\"\n\n\"They do not like Mr. Gladstone,\" was the somewhat freezing answer; \"this\nis the only point on which we disagree, for I adore him.  Don't ask more\nabout this, it is a great grief to me.  I tell them everything,\" she\ncontinued, \"and hide no secret from them.\"\n\n\"But can any parrot be trusted to keep a secret?\"\n\n\"Mine can.\"\n\n\"And on Sundays do you give them the same course of reading as on a week-\nday, or do you make a difference?\"\n\n\"On Sundays I always read them a genealogical chapter from the Old or New\nTestament, for I can thus introduce their names without profanity.  I\nalways keep tea by me in case they should ask for it in the night, and I\nhave an Etna to warm it for them; they take milk and sugar.  The old\nwhite-headed clergyman came to see them last night; it was very painful,\nfor Jocko reminded him so strongly of his late . . . \"\n\nI thought she was going to say \"wife,\" but it proved to have been only of\na parrot that he had once known and loved.\n\nOne evening she was in difficulties about the quarantine, which was\nenforced that year on the Italian frontier.  The local doctor had gone\ndown that morning to see the Italian doctor and arrange some details.\n\"Then, perhaps, my dear,\" she said to her husband, \"he is the\nquarantine.\"  \"No, my love,\" replied her husband.  \"The quarantine is not\na person, it is a place where they put people\"; but she would not be\ncomforted, and suspected the quarantine as an enemy that might at any\nmoment pounce out upon her and her parrots.  So a lady told me once that\nshe had been in like trouble about the anthem.  She read in her prayer-\nbook that in choirs and places where they sing \"here followeth the\nanthem,\" yet the person with this most mysteriously sounding name never\ndid follow.  They had a choir, and no one could say the church was not a\nplace where they sang, for they did sing--both chants and hymns.  Why,\nthen, this persistent slackness on the part of the anthem, who at this\njuncture should follow her papa, the rector, into the reading-desk?  No\ndoubt he would come some day, and then what would he be like?  Fair or\ndark?  Tall or short?  Would he be bald and wear spectacles like papa, or\nwould he be young and good-looking?  Anyhow, there was something wrong,\nfor it was announced that he would follow, and he never did follow;\ntherefore there was no knowing what he might not do next.\n\nI heard of the parrots a year or two later as giving lessons in Italian\nto an English maid.  I do not know what their terms were.  Alas! since\nthen both they and their mistress have joined the majority.  When the\npoor lady felt her end was near she desired (and the responsibility for\nthis must rest with her, not me) that the birds might be destroyed, as\nfearing that they might come to be neglected, and knowing that they could\nnever be loved again as she had loved them.  On being told that all was\nover, she said, \"Thank you,\" and immediately expired.\n\nReflecting in such random fashion, and strolling with no greater method,\nI worked my way back through Cheapside and found myself once more in\nfront of Sweeting's window.  Again the turtles attracted me.  They were\nalive, and so far at any rate they agreed with me.  Nay, they had eyes,\nmouths, legs, if not arms, and feet, so there was much in which we were\nboth of a mind, but surely they must be mistaken in arming themselves so\nvery heavily.  Any creature on getting what the turtle aimed at would\noverreach itself and be landed not in safety but annihilation.  It should\nhave no communion with the outside world at all, for death could creep in\nwherever the creature could creep out; and it must creep out somewhere if\nit was to hook on to outside things.  What death can be more absolute\nthan such absolute isolation?  Perfect death, indeed, if it were\nattainable (which it is not), is as near perfect security as we can\nreach, but it is not the kind of security aimed at by any animal that is\nat the pains of defending itself.  For such want to have things both\nways, desiring the livingness of life without its perils, and the safety\nof death without its deadness, and some of us do actually get this for a\nconsiderable time, but we do not get it by plating ourselves with armour\nas the turtle does.  We tried this in the Middle Ages, and no longer mock\nourselves with the weight of armour that our forefathers carried in\nbattle.  Indeed the more deadly the weapons of attack become the more we\ngo into the fight slug-wise.\n\nSlugs have ridden their contempt for defensive armour as much to death as\nthe turtles their pursuit of it.  They have hardly more than skin enough\nto hold themselves together; they court death every time they cross the\nroad.  Yet death comes not to them more than to the turtle, whose\ndefences are so great that there is little left inside to be defended.\nMoreover, the slugs fare best in the long run, for turtles are dying out,\nwhile slugs are not, and there must be millions of slugs all the world\nover for every single turtle.  Of the two vanities, therefore, that of\nthe slug seems most substantial.\n\nIn either case the creature thinks itself safe, but is sure to be found\nout sooner or later; nor is it easy to explain this mockery save by\nreflecting that everything must have its meat in due season, and that\nmeat can only be found for such a multitude of mouths by giving\neverything as meat in due season to something else.  This is like the\nKilkenny cats, or robbing Peter to pay Paul; but it is the way of the\nworld, and as every animal must contribute in kind to the picnic of the\nuniverse, one does not see what better arrangement could be made than the\nproviding each race with a hereditary fallacy, which shall in the end get\nit into a scrape, but which shall generally stand the wear and tear of\nlife for some time.  \"_Do ut des_\" is the writing on all flesh to him\nthat eats it; and no creature is dearer to itself than it is to some\nother that would devour it.\n\nNor is there any statement or proposition more invulnerable than living\nforms are.  Propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one another just\nlike living forms.  They support one another as plants and animals do;\nthey are based ultimately on credit, or faith, rather than the cash of\nirrefragable conviction.  The whole universe is carried on on the credit\nsystem, and if the mutual confidence on which it is based were to\ncollapse, it must itself collapse immediately.  Just or unjust, it lives\nby faith; it is based on vague and impalpable opinion that by some\ninscrutable process passes into will and action, and is made manifest in\nmatter and in flesh: it is meteoric--suspended in midair; it is the\nbaseless fabric of a vision so vast, so vivid, and so gorgeous that no\nbase can seem more broad than such stupendous baselessness, and yet any\nman can bring it about his ears by being over-curious; when faith fails a\nsystem based on faith fails also.\n\nWhether the universe is really a paying concern, or whether it is an\ninflated bubble that must burst sooner or later, this is another matter.\nIf people were to demand cash payment in irrefragable certainty for\neverything that they have taken hitherto as paper money on the credit of\nthe bank of public opinion, is there money enough behind it all to stand\nso great a drain even on so great a reserve?  Probably there is not, but\nhappily there can be no such panic, for even though the cultured classes\nmay do so, the uncultured are too dull to have brains enough to commit\nsuch stupendous folly.  It takes a long course of academic training to\neducate a man up to the standard which he must reach before he can\nentertain such questions seriously, and by a merciful dispensation of\nProvidence, university training is almost as costly as it is\nunprofitable.  The majority will thus be always unable to afford it, and\nwill base their opinions on mother wit and current opinion rather than on\ndemonstration.\n\nSo I turned my steps homewards; I saw a good many more things on my way\nhome, but I was told that I was not to see more this time than I could\nget into twelve pages of the _Universal Review_; I must therefore reserve\nany remark which I think might perhaps entertain the reader for another\noccasion.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AUNT, THE NIECES, AND THE DOG {3}\n\n\nWhen a thing is old, broken, and useless we throw it on the dust-heap,\nbut when it is sufficiently old, sufficiently broken, and sufficiently\nuseless we give money for it, put it into a museum, and read papers over\nit which people come long distances to hear.  By-and-by, when the\nwhirligig of time has brought on another revenge, the museum itself\nbecomes a dust-heap, and remains so till after long ages it is\nre-discovered, and valued as belonging to a neo-rubbish age--containing,\nperhaps, traces of a still older paleo-rubbish civilisation.  So when\npeople are old, indigent, and in all respects incapable, we hold them in\ngreater and greater contempt as their poverty and impotence increase,\ntill they reach the pitch when they are actually at the point to die,\nwhereon they become sublime.  Then we place every resource our hospitals\ncan command at their disposal, and show no stint in our consideration for\nthem.\n\nIt is the same with all our interests.  We care most about extremes of\nimportance and of unimportance; but extremes of importance are tainted\nwith fear, and a very imperfect fear casteth out love.  Extremes of\nunimportance cannot hurt us, therefore we are well disposed towards them;\nthe means may come to do so, therefore we do not love them.  Hence we\npick a fly out of a milk-jug and watch with pleasure over its recovery,\nfor we are confident that under no conceivable circumstances will it want\nto borrow money from us; but we feel less sure about a mouse, so we show\nit no quarter.  The compilers of our almanacs well know this tendency of\nour natures, so they tell us, not when Noah went into the ark, nor when\nthe temple of Jerusalem was dedicated, but that Lindley Murray,\ngrammarian, died January 16, 1826.  This is not because they could not\nfind so many as three hundred and sixty-five events of considerable\ninterest since the creation of the world, but because they well know we\nwould rather hear of something less interesting.  We care most about what\nconcerns us either very closely, or so little that practically we have\nnothing whatever to do with it.\n\nI once asked a young Italian, who professed to have a considerable\nknowledge of English literature, which of all our poems pleased him best.\nHe replied without a moment's hesitation:--\n\n   \"Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,\n      The cow jumped over the moon;\n   The little dog laughed to see such sport,\n      And the dish ran away with the spoon.\"\n\nHe said this was better than anything in Italian.  They had Dante and\nTasso, and ever so many more great poets, but they had nothing comparable\nto \"Hey diddle diddle,\" nor had he been able to conceive how any one\ncould have written it.  Did I know the author's name, and had we given\nhim a statue?  On this I told him of the young lady of Harrow who would\ngo to church in a barrow, and plied him with whatever rhyming nonsense I\ncould call to mind, but it was no use; all of these things had an element\nof reality that robbed them of half their charm, whereas \"Hey diddle\ndiddle\" had nothing in it that could conceivably concern him.\n\nSo again it is with the things that gall us most.  What is it that rises\nup against us at odd times and smites us in the face again and again for\nyears after it has happened?  That we spent all the best years of our\nlife in learning what we have found to be a swindle, and to have been\nknown to be a swindle by those who took money for misleading us?  That\nthose on whom we most leaned most betrayed us?  That we have only come to\nfeel our strength when there is little strength left of any kind to feel?\nThese things will hardly much disturb a man of ordinary good temper.  But\nthat he should have said this or that little unkind and wanton saying;\nthat he should have gone away from this or that hotel and given a\nshilling too little to the waiter; that his clothes were shabby at such\nor such a garden-party--these things gall us as a corn will sometimes do,\nthough the loss of a limb way not be seriously felt.\n\nI have been reminded lately of these considerations with more than common\nforce by reading the very voluminous correspondence left by my\ngrandfather, Dr. Butler, of Shrewsbury, whose memoirs I am engaged in\nwriting.  I have found a large number of interesting letters on subjects\nof serious import, but must confess that it is to the hardly less\nnumerous lighter letters that I have been most attracted, nor do I feel\nsure that my eminent namesake did not share my predilection.  Among other\nletters in my possession I have one bundle that has been kept apart, and\nhas evidently no connection with Dr. Butler's own life.  I cannot use\nthese letters, therefore, for my book, but over and above the charm of\ntheir inspired spelling, I find them of such an extremely trivial nature\nthat I incline to hope the reader may derive as much amusement from them\nas I have done myself, and venture to give them the publicity here which\nI must refuse them in my book.  The dates and signatures have, with the\nexception of Mrs. Newton's, been carefully erased, but I have collected\nthat they were written by the two servants of a single lady who resided\nat no great distance from London, to two nieces of the said lady who\nlived in London itself.  The aunt never writes, but always gets one of\nthe servants to do so for her.  She appears either as \"your aunt\" or as\n\"She\"; her name is not given, but she is evidently looked upon with a\ngood deal of awe by all who had to do with her.\n\nThe letters almost all of them relate to visits either of the aunt to\nLondon, or of the nieces to the aunt's home, which, from occasional\nallusions to hopping, I gather to have been in Kent, Sussex, or Surrey.  I\nhave arranged them to the best of my power, and take the following to be\nthe earliest.  It has no signature, but is not in the handwriting of the\nservant who styles herself Elizabeth, or Mrs. Newton.  It runs:--\n\n   \"MADAM,--Your Aunt Wishes me to inform you she will be glad if you\n   will let hir know if you think of coming To hir House thiss month or\n   Next as she cannot have you in September on a kount of the Hoping If\n   you ar coming she thinkes she had batter Go to London on the Day you\n   com to hir House the says you shall have everry Thing raddy for you at\n   hir House and Mrs. Newton to meet you and stay with you till She\n   returnes a gann.\n\n   \"if you arnot Coming thiss Summer She will be in London before thiss\n   Month is out and will Sleep on the Sofy As She willnot be in London\n   more thann two nits. and She Says she willnot truble you on anny a\n   kount as She Will returne the Same Day before She will plage you anny\n   more. but She thanks you for asking hir to London. but She says She\n   cannot leve the house at prassant She sayhir Survants ar to do for you\n   as she cannot lodge yours nor she willnot have thim in at the house\n   anny more to brake and destroy hir thinks and beslive hir and make up\n   Lies by hir and Skandel as your too did She says she mens to pay fore\n   2 Nits and one day, She says the Pepelwill let hir have it if you ask\n   thim to let hir: you Will be so good as to let hir know sun: wish She\n   is to do, as She says She dos not care anny thing a bout it. which way\n   tiss she is batter than She was and desirs hir Love to bouth bouth.\n\n   \"Your aunt wises to know how the silk Clocks ar madup [how the silk\n   cloaks are made up] with a Cape or a wood as she is a goin to have one\n   madeup to rideout in in hir littel shas [chaise].\n\n   \"Charles is a butty and so good.\n\n   \"Mr & Mrs Newton ar quite wall & desires to be remembered to you.\"\n\nI can throw no light on the meaning of the verb to \"beslive.\"  Each\nletter in the MS. is so admirably formed that there can be no question\nabout the word being as I have given it.  Nor have I been able to\ndiscover what is referred to by the words \"Charles is a butty and so\ngood.\"  We shall presently meet with a Charles who \"flies in the Fier,\"\nbut that Charles appears to have been in London, whereas this one is\nevidently in Kent, or wherever the aunt lived.\n\nThe next letter is from Mrs. Newton\n\n   \"DER MISS ---, I Receve your Letter your Aunt is vary Ill and\n   Lowspireted I Donte think your Aunt wood Git up all Day if My Sister\n   Wasnot to Persage her We all Think hir lif is two monopolous. you Wish\n   to know Who Was Liveing With your Aunt. that is My Sister and\n   Willian--and Cariline--as Cock and Old Poll Pepper is Come to Stay\n   With her a Littel Wile and I hoped [hopped] for Your Aunt, and Harry\n   has Worked for your Aunt all the Summer.  Your Aunt and Harry Whent to\n   the Wells Races and Spent a very Pleasant Day your Aunt has Lost Old\n   Fanney Sow She Died about a Week a Go Harry he Wanted your Aunt to\n   have her killed and send her to London and Shee Wold Fech her 11\n   pounds the Farmers have Lost a Greet Deal of Cattel such as Hogs and\n   Cows What theay call the Plage I Whent to your Aunt as you Wish Mee to\n   Do But She Told Mee She Did not wont aney Boddy She Told Mee She\n   Should Like to Come up to see you But She Cant Come know for she is\n   Boddyley ill and Harry Donte Work there know But he Go up there Once\n   in Two or Three Day Harry Offered is self to Go up to Live With your\n   Aunt But She Made him know Ancer.  I hay Been up to your Aunt at Work\n   for 5 Weeks Hopping and Ragluting Your Aunt Donte Eat nor Drink But\n   vary Littel indeed.\n\n   \"I am Happy to Say We are Both Quite Well and I am Glad no hear you\n   are Both Quite Well\n\n   \"MRS NEWTON.\"\n\nThis seems to have made the nieces propose to pay a visit to their aunt,\nperhaps to try and relieve the monopoly of her existence and cheer her up\na little.  In their letter, doubtless, the dog motive is introduced that\nis so finely developed presently by Mrs. Newton.  I should like to have\nbeen able to give the theme as enounced by the nieces themselves, but\ntheir letters are not before me.  Mrs. Newton writes:--\n\n   \"MY DEAR GIRLS,--Your Aunt receiv your Letter your Aunt will Be vary\n   glad to see you as it quite a greeable if it tis to you and Shee is\n   Quite Willing to Eair the beds and the Rooms if you Like to Trust to\n   hir and the Servantes; if not I may Go up there as you Wish.  My\n   Sister Sleeps in the Best Room as she allways Did and the Coock in the\n   garret and you Can have the Rooms the same as you allways Did as your\n   Aunt Donte set in the Parlour She Continlery Sets in the Ciching. your\n   Aunt says she Cannot Part from the dog know hows and She Says he will\n   not hurt you for he is Like a Child and I can safeley say My Self he\n   wonte hurt you as She Cannot Sleep in the Room With out him as he\n   allWay Sleep in the Same Room as She Dose. your Aunt is agreeable to\n   Git in What Coles and Wood you Wish for I am know happy to say your\n   Aunt is in as Good health as ever She Was and She is happy to hear you\n   are Both Well your Aunt Wishes for Ancer By Return of Post.\"\n\nThe nieces replied that their aunt must choose between the dog and them,\nand Mrs. Newton sends a second letter which brings her development to a\nclimax.  It runs:--\n\n   \"DEAR MISS ---, I have Receve your Letter and i Whent up to your Aunt\n   as you Wish me and i Try to Perveal With her about the Dog But she\n   Wold not Put the Dog away nor it alow him to Be Tied up But She Still\n   Wishes you to Come as Shee says the Dog Shall not interrup you for She\n   Donte alow the Dog nor it the Cats to Go in the Parlour never sence\n   She has had it Donup ferfere of Spoiling the Paint your Aunt think it\n   vary Strange you Should Be so vary Much afraid of a Dog and She says\n   you Cant Go out in London But What you are up a gance one and She says\n   She Wonte Trust the Dog in know one hands But her Owne for She is\n   afraid theay Will not fill is Belley as he Lives upon Rost Beeff and\n   Rost and Boil Moutten Wich he Eats More then the Servantes in the\n   House there is not aney One Wold Beable to Give Sattefacktion upon\n   that account Harry offerd to Take the Dog But She Wood not Trust him\n   in our hands so I Cold not Do aney thing With her your Aunt youse to\n   Tell Me When we was at your House in London She Did not know how to\n   make you amens and i Told her know it was the Time to Do it But i\n   Considder She sets the Dog Before you your Aunt keep know Beer know\n   Sprits know Wines in the House of aney Sort Oneley a Little Barl of\n   Wine I made her in the Summer the Workmen and servantes are a Blige to\n   Drink wauter Morning Noon and Night your Aunt the Same She Donte Low\n   her Self aney Tee nor Coffee But is Loocking Wonderful Well\n\n   \"I Still Remane your Humble Servant Mrs Newton\n\n   \"I am vary sorry to think the Dog Perventes your Comeing\n\n   \"I am Glad to hear you are Both Well and we are the same.\"\n\nThe nieces remained firm, and from the following letter it is plain the\naunt gave way.  The dog motive is repeated _pianissimo_, and is not\nreturned to--not at least by Mrs. Newton.\n\n   \"DEAR MISS ---, I Receve your Letter on Thursday i Whent to your Aunt\n   and i see her and She is a Greable to everry thing i asked her and\n   seme so vary Much Please to see you Both Next Tuseday and she has sent\n   for the Faggots to Day and she Will Send for the Coles to Morrow and i\n   will Go up there to Morrow Morning and Make the Fiers and Tend to the\n   Beds and sleep in it Till you Come Down your Aunt sends her Love to\n   you Both and she is Quite well your Aunt Wishes you wold Write againe\n   Before you Come as she ma Expeckye and the Dog is not to Gointo the\n   Parlor a Tall\n\n   \"your Aunt kind Love to you Both & hopes you Wonte Fail in Coming\n   according to Prommis\n\n   MRS NEWTON.\"\n\nFrom a later letter it appears that the nieces did not pay their visit\nafter all, and what is worse a letter had miscarried, and the aunt sat up\nexpecting them from seven till twelve at night, and Harry had paid for\n\"Faggots and Coles quarter of Hund.  Faggots Half tun of Coles 1_l._\n1_s._ 3_d._\"  Shortly afterwards, however, \"She\" again talks of coming up\nto London herself and writes through her servant--\n\n   \"My Dear girls i Receve your kind letter & I am happy to hear you ar\n   both Well and I Was in hopes of seeing of you Both Down at My House\n   this spring to stay a Wile I am Quite well my self in Helth But vary\n   Low Spireted I am vary sorry to hear the Misforting of Poor charles &\n   how he cum to flie in the Fier I cannot think.  I should like to know\n   if he is dead or a Live, and I shall come to London in August & stay\n   three or four daies if it is agreable to you.  Mrs. Newton has lost\n   her mother in Law 4 day March & I hope you send me word Wather charles\n   is Dead or a Live as soon as possible, and will you send me word what\n   Little Betty is for I cannot make her out.\"\n\nThe next letter is a new handwriting, and tells the nieces of their\naunt's death in the the following terms:--\n\n   \"DEAR MISS ---, It is my most painful duty to inform you that your\n   dear aunt expired this morning comparatively easy as Hannah informs me\n   and in so doing restored her soul to the custody of him whom she\n   considered to be alone worthy of its care.\n\n   \"The doctor had visited her about five minutes previously and had\n   applied a blister.\n\n   \"You and your sister will I am sure excuse further details at present\n   and believe me with kindest remembrances to remain\n\n   \"Yours truly, &c.\"\n\nAfter a few days a lawyer's letter informs the nieces that their aunt had\nleft them the bulk of her not very considerable property, but had charged\nthem with an annuity of 1 pound a week to be paid to Harry and Mrs.\nNewton so long as the dog lived.\n\nThe only other letters by Mrs. Newton are written on paper of a different\nand more modern size; they leave an impression of having been written a\ngood many years later.  I take them as they come.  The first is very\nshort:--\n\n   \"DEAR MISS ---, i write to say i cannot possiblely come on Wednesday\n   as we have killed a pig.  your's truely,\n\n   \"ELIZABETH NEWTON.\"\n\nThe second runs:--\n\n   \"DEAR MISS ---, i hope you are both quite well in health & your Leg\n   much better i am happy to say i am getting quite well again i hope\n   Amandy has reached you safe by this time i sent a small parcle by\n   Amandy, there was half a dozen Pats of butter & the Cakes was very\n   homely and not so light as i could wish i hope by this time Sarah Ann\n   has promised she will stay untill next monday as i think a few daies\n   longer will not make much diferance and as her young man has been very\n   considerate to wait so long as he has i think he would for a few days\n   Longer dear Miss --- I wash for William and i have not got his clothes\n   yet as it has been delayed by the carrier & i cannot possiblely get it\n   done before Sunday and i do not Like traviling on a Sunday but to\n   oblige you i would come but to come sooner i cannot possiblely but i\n   hope Sarah Ann will be prevailed on once more as She has so many times\n   i feel sure if she tells her young man he will have patient for he is\n   a very kind young man\n\n   \"i remain your sincerely\n   \"ELIZABETH NEWTON.\"\n\nThe last letter in my collection seems written almost within measurable\ndistance of the Christmas-card era.  The sheet is headed by a beautifully\nembossed device of some holly in red and green, wishing the recipient of\nthe letter a merry Xmas and a happy new year, while the border is crimped\nand edged with blue.  I know not what it is, but there is something in\nthe writer's highly finished style that reminds me of Mendelssohn.  It\nwould almost do for the words of one of his celebrated \"Lieder ohne\nWorte\":\n\n   \"DEAR MISS MARIA,--I hasten to acknowledge the receipt of your kind\n   note with the inclosure for which I return my best thanks.  I need\n   scarcely say how glad I was to know that the volumes secured your\n   approval, and that the announcement of the improvement in the\n   condition of your Sister's legs afforded me infinite pleasure.  The\n   gratifying news encouraged me in the hope that now the nature of the\n   disorder is comprehended her legs will--notwithstanding the process\n   may be gradual--ultimately get quite well.  The pretty Robin Redbreast\n   which lay ensconced in your epistle, conveyed to me, in terms more\n   eloquent than words, how much you desired me those Compliments which\n   the little missive he bore in his bill expressed; the emblem is\n   sweetly pretty, and now that we are again allowed to felicitate each\n   other on another recurrence of the season of the Christian's\n   rejoicing, permit me to tender to yourself, and by you to your Sister,\n   mine and my Wife's heartfelt congratulations and warmest wishes with\n   respect to the coming year.  It is a common belief that if we take a\n   retrospective view of each departing year, as it behoves us annually\n   to do, we shall find the blessings which we have received to\n   immeasurably outnumber our causes of sorrow.  Speaking for myself I\n   can fully subscribe to that sentiment, and doubtless neither Miss ---\n   nor yourself are exceptions.  Miss ---'s illness and consequent\n   confinement to the house has been a severe trial, but in that trouble\n   an opportunity was afforded you to prove a Sister's devotion and she\n   has been enabled to realise a larger (if possible) display of sisterly\n   affection.\n\n   \"A happy Christmas to you both, and may the new year prove a\n   Cornucopia from which still greater blessings than even those we have\n   hitherto received, shall issue, to benefit us all by contributing to\n   our temporal happiness and, what is of higher importance, conducing to\n   our felicity hereafter.\n\n   \"I was sorry to hear that you were so annoyed with mice and rats, and\n   if I should have an opportunity to obtain a nice cat I will do so and\n   send my boy to your house with it.\n\n   \"I remain,\n   \"Yours truly.\"\n\nHow little what is commonly called education can do after all towards the\nformation of a good style, and what a delightful volume might not be\nentitled \"Half Hours with the Worst Authors.\"  Why, the finest word I\nknow of in the English language was coined, not by my poor old\ngrandfather, whose education had left little to desire, nor by any of the\nadmirable scholars whom he in his turn educated, but by an old matron who\npresided over one of the halls, or houses of his school.\n\nThis good lady, whose name by the way was Bromfield, had a fine high\ntemper of her own, or thought it politic to affect one.  One night when\nthe boys were particularly noisy she burst like a hurricane into the\nhall, collared a youngster, and told him he was \"the\nramp-ingest-scampingest-rackety-tackety-tow-row-roaringest boy in the\nwhole school.\"  Would Mrs. Newton have been able to set the aunt and the\ndog before us so vividly if she had been more highly educated?  Would\nMrs. Bromfield have been able to forge and hurl her thunderbolt of a word\nif she had been taught how to do so, or indeed been at much pains to\ncreate it at all?  It came.  It was her [Greek text].  She did not\nprobably know that she had done what the greatest scholar would have had\nto rack his brains over for many an hour before he could even approach.\nTradition says that having brought down her boy she looked round the hall\nin triumph, and then after a moment's lull said, \"Young gentlemen,\nprayers are excused,\" and left them.\n\nI have sometimes thought that, after all, the main use of a classical\neducation consists in the check it gives to originality, and the way in\nwhich it prevents an inconvenient number of people from using their own\neyes.  That we will not be at the trouble of looking at things for\nourselves if we can get any one to tell us what we ought to see goes\nwithout saying, and it is the business of schools and universities to\nassist us in this respect.  The theory of evolution teaches that any\npower not worked at pretty high pressure will deteriorate: originality\nand freedom from affectation are all very well in their way, but we can\neasily have too much of them, and it is better that none should be either\noriginal or free from cant but those who insist on being so, no matter\nwhat hindrances obstruct, nor what incentives are offered them to see\nthings through the regulation medium.\n\nTo insist on seeing things for oneself is to be in [Greek text], or in\nplain English, an idiot; nor do I see any safer check against general\nvigour and clearness of thought, with consequent terseness of expression,\nthan that provided by the curricula of our universities and schools of\npublic instruction.  If a young man, in spite of every effort to fit him\nwith blinkers, will insist on getting rid of them, he must do so at his\nown risk.  He will not be long in finding out his mistake.  Our public\nschools and universities play the beneficent part in our social scheme\nthat cattle do in forests: they browse the seedlings down and prevent the\ngrowth of all but the luckiest and sturdiest.  Of course, if there are\ntoo many either cattle or schools, they browse so effectually that they\nfind no more food, and starve till equilibrium is restored; but it seems\nto be a provision of nature that there should always be these alternate\nperiods, during which either the cattle or the trees are getting the best\nof it; and, indeed, without such provision we should have neither the one\nnor the other.  At this moment the cattle, doubtless, are in the\nascendant, and if university extension proceeds much farther, we shall\nassuredly have no more Mrs. Newtons and Mrs. Bromfields; but whatever is\nis best, and, on the whole, I should propose to let things find pretty\nmuch their own level.\n\nHowever this may be, who can question that the treasures hidden in many a\ncountry house contain sleeping beauties even fairer than those that I\nhave endeavoured to waken from long sleep in the foregoing article?  How\nmany Mrs. Quicklys are there not living in London at this present moment?\nFor that Mrs. Quickly was an invention of Shakespeare's I will not\nbelieve.  The old woman from whom he drew said every word that he put\ninto Mrs. Quickly's mouth, and a great deal more which he did not and\nperhaps could not make use of.  This question, however, would again lead\nme far from my subject, which I should mar were I to dwell upon it\nlonger, and therefore leave with the hope that it may give my readers\nabsolutely no food whatever for reflection.\n\n\n\n\nHOW TO MAKE THE BEST OF LIFE {4}\n\n\nI have been asked to speak on the question how to make the best of life,\nbut may as well confess at once that I know nothing about it.  I cannot\nthink that I have made the best of my own life, nor is it likely that I\nshall make much better of what may or may not remain to me.  I do not\neven know how to make the best of the twenty minutes that your committee\nhas placed at my disposal, and as for life as a whole, who ever yet made\nthe best of such a colossal opportunity by conscious effort and\ndeliberation?  In little things no doubt deliberate and conscious effort\nwill help us, but we are speaking of large issues, and such kingdoms of\nheaven as the making the best of these come not by observation.\n\nThe question, therefore, on which I have undertaken to address you is, as\nyou must all know, fatuous, if it be faced seriously.  Life is like\nplaying a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes\non.  One cannot make the best of such impossibilities, and the question\nis doubly fatuous until we are told which of our two lives--the conscious\nor the unconscious--is held by the asker to be the truer life.  Which\ndoes the question contemplate--the life we know, or the life which others\nmay know, but which we know not?\n\nDeath gives a life to some men and women compared with which their so-\ncalled existence here is as nothing.  Which is the truer life of\nShakespeare, Handel, that divine woman who wrote the \"Odyssey,\" and of\nJane Austen--the life which palpitated with sensible warm motion within\ntheir own bodies, or that in virtue of which they are still palpitating\nin ours?  In whose consciousness does their truest life consist--their\nown, or ours?  Can Shakespeare be said to have begun his true life till a\nhundred years or so after he was dead and buried?  His physical life was\nbut as an embryonic stage, a coming up out of darkness, a twilight and\ndawn before the sunrise of that life of the world to come which he was to\nenjoy hereafter.  We all live for a while after we are gone hence, but we\nare for the most part stillborn, or at any rate die in infancy, as\nregards that life which every age and country has recognised as higher\nand truer than the one of which we are now sentient.  As the life of the\nrace is larger, longer, and in all respects more to be considered than\nthat of the individual, so is the life we live in others larger and more\nimportant than the one we live in ourselves.  This appears nowhere\nperhaps more plainly than in the case of great teachers, who often in the\nlives of their pupils produce an effect that reaches far beyond anything\nproduced while their single lives were yet unsupplemented by those other\nlives into which they infused their own.\n\nDeath to such people is the ending of a short life, but it does not touch\nthe life they are already living in those whom they have taught; and\nhappily, as none can know when he shall die, so none can make sure that\nhe too shall not live long beyond the grave; for the life after death is\nlike money before it--no one can be sure that it may not fall to him or\nher even at the eleventh hour.  Money and immortality come in such odd\nunaccountable ways that no one is cut off from hope.  We may not have\nmade either of them for ourselves, but yet another may give them to us in\nvirtue of his or her love, which shall illumine us for ever, and\nestablish us in some heavenly mansion whereof we neither dreamed nor\nshall ever dream.  Look at the Doge Loredano Loredani, the old man's\nsmile upon whose face has been reproduced so faithfully in so many lands\nthat it can never henceforth be forgotten--would he have had one\nhundredth part of the life he now lives had he not been linked awhile\nwith one of those heaven-sent men who know _che cosa e amor_?  Look at\nRembrandt's old woman in our National Gallery; had she died before she\nwas eighty-three years old she would not have been living now.  Then,\nwhen she was eighty-three, immortality perched upon her as a bird on a\nwithered bough.\n\nI seem to hear some one say that this is a mockery, a piece of special\npleading, a giving of stones to those that ask for bread.  Life is not\nlife unless we can feel it, and a life limited to a knowledge of such\nfraction of our work as may happen to survive us is no true life in other\npeople; salve it as we may, death is not life any more than black is\nwhite.\n\nThe objection is not so true as it sounds.  I do not deny that we had\nrather not die, nor do I pretend that much even in the case of the most\nfavoured few can survive them beyond the grave.  It is only because this\nis so that our own life is possible; others have made room for us, and we\nshould make room for others in our turn without undue repining.  What I\nmaintain is that a not inconsiderable number of people do actually attain\nto a life beyond the grave which we can all feel forcibly enough, whether\nthey can do so or not--that this life tends with increasing civilisation\nto become more and more potent, and that it is better worth considering,\nin spite of its being unfelt by ourselves, than any which we have felt or\ncan ever feel in our own persons.\n\nTake an extreme case.  A group of people are photographed by Edison's new\nprocess--say Titiens, Trebelli, and Jenny Lind, with any two of the\nfinest men singers the age has known--let them be photographed\nincessantly for half an hour while they perform a scene in \"Lohengrin\";\nlet all be done stereoscopically.  Let them be phonographed at the same\ntime so that their minutest shades of intonation are preserved, let the\nslides be coloured by a competent artist, and then let the scene be\ncalled suddenly into sight and sound, say a hundred years hence.  Are\nthose people dead or alive?  Dead to themselves they are, but while they\nlive so powerfully and so livingly in us, which is the greater paradox--to\nsay that they are alive or that they are dead?  To myself it seems that\ntheir life in others would be more truly life than their death to\nthemselves is death.  Granted that they do not present all the phenomena\nof life--who ever does so even when he is held to be alive?  We are held\nto be alive because we present a sufficient number of living phenomena to\nlet the others go without saying; those who see us take the part for the\nwhole here as in everything else, and surely, in the case supposed above,\nthe phenomena of life predominate so powerfully over those of death, that\nthe people themselves must be held to be more alive than dead.  Our\nliving personality is, as the word implies, only our mask, and those who\nstill own such a mask as I have supposed have a living personality.\nGranted again that the case just put is an extreme one; still many a man\nand many a woman has so stamped him or herself on his work that, though\nwe would gladly have the aid of such accessories as we doubtless\npresently shall have to the livingness of our great dead, we can see them\nvery sufficiently through the master pieces they have left us.\n\nAs for their own unconsciousness I do not deny it.  The life of the\nembryo was unconscious before birth, and so is the life--I am speaking\nonly of the life revealed to us by natural religion--after death.  But as\nthe embryonic and infant life of which we were unconscious was the most\npotent factor in our after life of consciousness, so the effect which we\nmay unconsciously produce in others after death, and it may be even\nbefore it on those who have never seen us, is in all sober seriousness\nour truer and more abiding life, and the one which those who would make\nthe best of their sojourn here will take most into their consideration.\n\nUnconsciousness is no bar to livingness.  Our conscious actions are a\ndrop in the sea as compared with our unconscious ones.  Could we know all\nthe life that is in us by way of circulation, nutrition, breathing, waste\nand repair, we should learn what an infinitesimally small part\nconsciousness plays in our present existence; yet our unconscious life is\nas truly life as our conscious life, and though it is unconscious to\nitself it emerges into an indirect and vicarious consciousness in our\nother and conscious self, which exists but in virtue of our unconscious\nself.  So we have also a vicarious consciousness in others.  The\nunconscious life of those that have gone before us has in great part\nmoulded us into such men and women as we are, and our own unconscious\nlives will in like manner have a vicarious consciousness in others,\nthough we be dead enough to it in ourselves.\n\nIf it is again urged that it matters not to us how much we may be alive\nin others, if we are to know nothing about it, I reply that the common\ninstinct of all who are worth considering gives the lie to such cynicism.\nI see here present some who have achieved, and others who no doubt will\nachieve, success in literature.  Will one of them hesitate to admit that\nit is a lively pleasure to her to feel that on the other side of the\nworld some one may be smiling happily over her work, and that she is thus\nliving in that person though she knows nothing about it?  Here it seems\nto me that true faith comes in.  Faith does not consist, as the Sunday\nSchool pupil said, \"in the power of believing that which we know to be\nuntrue.\"  It consists in holding fast that which the healthiest and most\nkindly instincts of the best and most sensible men and women are\nintuitively possessed of, without caring to require much evidence further\nthan the fact that such people are so convinced; and for my own part I\nfind the best men and women I know unanimous in feeling that life in\nothers, even though we know nothing about it, is nevertheless a thing to\nbe desired and gratefully accepted if we can get it either before death\nor after.  I observe also that a large number of men and women do\nactually attain to such life, and in some cases continue so to live, if\nnot for ever, yet to what is practically much the same thing.  Our life\nthen in this world is, to natural religion as much as to revealed, a\nperiod of probation.  The use we make of it is to settle how far we are\nto enter into another, and whether that other is to be a heaven of just\naffection or a hell of righteous condemnation.\n\nWho, then, are the most likely so to run that they may obtain this\nveritable prize of our high calling?  Setting aside such lucky numbers\ndrawn as it were in the lottery of immortality, which I have referred to\ncasually above, and setting aside also the chances and changes from which\neven immortality is not exempt, who on the whole are most likely to live\nanew in the affectionate thoughts of those who never so much as saw them\nin the flesh, and know not even their names?  There is a _nisus_, a\nstraining in the dull dumb economy of things, in virtue of which some,\nwhether they will it and know it or no, are more likely to live after\ndeath than others, and who are these?  Those who aimed at it as by some\ngreat thing that they would do to make them famous?  Those who have lived\nmost in themselves and for themselves, or those who have been most\nensouled consciously, but perhaps better unconsciously, directly but more\noften indirectly, by the most living souls past and present that have\nflitted near them?  Can we think of a man or woman who grips us firmly,\nat the thought of whom we kindle when we are alone in our honest daw's\nplumes, with none to admire or shrug his shoulders, can we think of one\nsuch, the secret of whose power does not lie in the charm of his or her\npersonality--that is to say, in the wideness of his or her sympathy with,\nand therefore life in and communion with other people?  In the wreckage\nthat comes ashore from the sea of time there is much tinsel stuff that we\nmust preserve and study if we would know our own times and people;\ngranted that many a dead charlatan lives long and enters largely and\nnecessarily into our own lives; we use them and throw them away when we\nhave done with them.  I do not speak of these, I do not speak of the\nVirgils and Alexander Popes, and who can say how many more whose names I\ndare not mention for fear of offending.  They are as stuffed birds or\nbeasts in a Museum, serviceable no doubt from a scientific standpoint,\nbut with no vivid or vivifying hold upon us.  They seem to be alive, but\nare not.  I am speaking of those who do actually live in us, and move us\nto higher achievements though they be long dead, whose life thrusts out\nour own and overrides it.  I speak of those who draw us ever more towards\nthem from youth to age, and to think of whom is to feel at once that we\nare in the hands of those we love, and whom we would most wish to\nresemble.  What is the secret of the hold that these people have upon us?\nIs it not that while, conventionally speaking, alive, they most merged\ntheir lives in, and were in fullest communion with those among whom they\nlived?  They found their lives in losing them.  We never love the memory\nof any one unless we feel that he or she was himself or herself a lover.\n\nI have seen it urged, again, in querulous accents, that the so-called\nimmortality even of the most immortal is not for ever.  I see a passage\nto this effect in a book that is making a stir as I write.  I will quote\nit.  The writer says:--\n\n   \"So, it seems to me, is the immortality we so glibly predicate of\n   departed artists.  If they survive at all, it is but a shadowy life\n   they live, moving on through the gradations of slow decay to distant\n   but inevitable death.  They can no longer, as heretofore, speak\n   directly to the hearts of their fellow-men, evoking their tears or\n   laughter, and all the pleasures, be they sad or merry, of which\n   imagination holds the secret.  Driven from the marketplace they become\n   first the companions of the student, then the victims of the\n   specialist.  He who would still hold familiar intercourse with them\n   must train himself to penetrate the veil which in ever-thickening\n   folds conceals them from the ordinary gaze; he must catch the tone of\n   a vanished society, he must move in a circle of alien associations, he\n   must think in a language not his own.\" {5}\n\nThis is crying for the moon, or rather pretending to cry for it, for the\nwriter is obviously insincere.  I see the _Saturday Review_ says the\npassage I have just quoted \"reaches almost to poetry,\" and indeed I find\nmany blank verses in it, some of them very aggressive.  No prose is free\nfrom an occasional blank verse, and a good writer will not go hunting\nover his work to rout them out, but nine or ten in little more than as\nmany lines is indeed reaching too near to poetry for good prose.  This,\nhowever, is a trifle, and might pass if the tone of the writer was not so\nobviously that of cheap pessimism.  I know not which is cheapest,\npessimism or optimism.  One forces lights, the other darks; both are\nequally untrue to good art, and equally sure of their effect with the\ngroundlings.  The one extenuates, the other sets down in malice.  The\nfirst is the more amiable lie, but both are lies, and are known to be so\nby those who utter them.  Talk about catching the tone of a vanished\nsociety to understand Rembrandt or Giovanni Bellini!  It's nonsense--the\nfolds do not thicken in front of these men; we understand them as well as\nthose among whom they went about in the flesh, and perhaps better.  Homer\nand Shakespeare speak to us probably far more effectually than they did\nto the men of their own time, and most likely we have them at their best.\nI cannot think that Shakespeare talked better than we hear him now in\n\"Hamlet\" or \"Henry the Fourth\"; like enough he would have been found a\nvery disappointing person in a drawing-room.  People stamp themselves on\ntheir work; if they have not done so they are naught; if they have we\nhave them; and for the most part they stamp themselves deeper in their\nwork than on their talk.  No doubt Shakespeare and Handel will be one day\nclean forgotten, as though they had never been born.  The world will in\nthe end die; mortality therefore itself is not immortal, and when death\ndies the life of these men will die with it--but not sooner.  It is\nenough that they should live within us and move us for many ages as they\nhave and will.  Such immortality, therefore, as some men and women are\nborn to, achieve, or have thrust upon them, is a practical if not a\ntechnical immortality, and he who would have more let him have nothing.\n\nI see I have drifted into speaking rather of how to make the best of\ndeath than of life, but who can speak of life without his thoughts\nturning instantly to that which is beyond it?  He or she who has made the\nbest of the life after death has made the best of the life before it; who\ncares one straw for any such chances and changes as will commonly befall\nhim here if he is upheld by the full and certain hope of everlasting life\nin the affections of those that shall come after?  If the life after\ndeath is happy in the hearts of others, it matters little how unhappy was\nthe life before it.\n\nAnd now I leave my subject, not without misgiving that I shall have\ndisappointed you.  But for the great attention which is being paid to the\nwork from which I have quoted above, I should not have thought it well to\ninsist on points with which you are, I doubt not, as fully impressed as I\nam: but that book weakens the sanctions of natural religion, and\nminimises the comfort which it affords us, while it does more to\nundermine than to support the foundations of what is commonly called\nbelief.  Therefore I was glad to embrace this opportunity of protesting.\nOtherwise I should not have been so serious on a matter that transcends\nall seriousness.  Lord Beaconsfield cut it shorter with more effect.  When\nasked to give a rule of life for the son of a friend he said, \"Do not let\nhim try and find out who wrote the letters of Junius.\"  Pressed for\nfurther counsel he added, \"Nor yet who was the man in the iron mask\"--and\nhe would say no more.  Don't bore people.  And yet I am by no means sure\nthat a good many people do not think themselves ill-used unless he who\naddresses them has thoroughly well bored them--especially if they have\npaid any money for hearing him.  My great namesake said, \"Surely the\npleasure is as great of being cheated as to cheat,\" and great as the\npleasure both of cheating and boring undoubtedly is, I believe he was\nright.  So I remember a poem which came out some thirty years ago in\n_Punch_, about a young lady who went forth in quest to \"Some burden make\nor burden bear, but which she did not greatly care, oh Miserie.\"  So,\nagain, all the holy men and women who in the Middle Ages professed to\nhave discovered how to make the best of life took care that being bored,\nif not cheated, should have a large place in their programme.  Still\nthere are limits, and I close not without fear that I may have exceeded\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SANCTUARY OF MONTRIGONE {6}\n\n\nThe only place in the Valsesia, except Varallo, where I at present\nsuspect the presence of Tabachetti {7} is at Montrigone, a little-known\nsanctuary dedicated to St. Anne, about three-quarters of a mile south of\nBorgo-Sesia station.  The situation is, of course, lovely, but the\nsanctuary does not offer any features of architectural interest.  The\nsacristan told me it was founded in 1631; and in 1644 Giovanni d'Enrico,\nwhile engaged in superintending and completing the work undertaken here\nby himself and Giacomo Ferro, fell ill and died.  I do not know whether\nor no there was an earlier sanctuary on the same site, but was told it\nwas built on the demolition of a stronghold belonging to the Counts of\nBiandrate.\n\nThe incidents which it illustrates are treated with even more than the\nhomeliness usual in works of this description when not dealing with such\nsolemn events as the death and passion of Christ.  Except when these\nsubjects were being represented, something of the latitude, and even\nhumour, allowed in the old mystery plays was permitted, doubtless from a\ndesire to render the work more attractive to the peasants, who were the\nmost numerous and most important pilgrims.  It is not until faith begins\nto be weak that it fears an occasionally lighter treatment of semi-sacred\nsubjects, and it is impossible to convey an accurate idea of the spirit\nprevailing at this hamlet of sanctuary without attuning oneself somewhat\nto the more pagan character of the place.  Of irreverence, in the sense\nof a desire to laugh at things that are of high and serious import, there\nis not a trace, but at the same time there is a certain unbending of the\nbow at Montrigone which is not perceivable at Varallo.\n\nThe first chapel to the left on entering the church is that of the Birth\nof the Virgin.  St. Anne is sitting up in bed.  She is not at all ill--in\nfact, considering that the Virgin has only been born about five minutes,\nshe is wonderful; still the doctors think it may be perhaps better that\nshe should keep her room for half an hour longer, so the bed has been\nfestooned with red and white paper roses, and the counterpane is covered\nwith bouquets in baskets and in vases of glass and china.  These cannot\nhave been there during the actual birth of the Virgin, so I suppose they\nhad been in readiness, and were brought in from an adjoining room as soon\nas the baby had been born.  A lady on her left is bringing in some more\nflowers, which St. Anne is receiving with a smile and most gracious\ngesture of the hands.  The first thing she asked for, when the birth was\nover, was for her three silver hearts.  These were immediately brought to\nher, and she has got them all on, tied round her neck with a piece of\nblue silk ribbon.\n\nDear mamma has come.  We felt sure she would, and that any little\nmisunderstandings between her and Joachim would ere long be forgotten and\nforgiven.  They are both so good and sensible if they would only\nunderstand one another.  At any rate, here she is, in high state at the\nright hand of the bed.  She is dressed in black, for she has lost her\nhusband some few years previously, but I do not believe a smarter, sprier\nold lady for her years could be found in Palestine, nor yet that either\nGiovanni d'Enrico or Giacomo Ferro could have conceived or executed such\na character.  The sacristan wanted to have it that she was not a woman at\nall, but was a portrait of St. Joachim, the Virgin's father.  \"Sembra una\ndonna,\" he pleaded more than once, \"ma non e donna.\"  Surely, however, in\nworks of art even more than in other things, there is no \"is\" but\nseeming, and if a figure seems female it must be taken as such.  Besides,\nI asked one of the leading doctors at Varallo whether the figure was man\nor woman.  He said it was evident I was not married, for that if I had\nbeen I should have seen at once that she was not only a woman but a\nmother-in-law of the first magnitude, or, as he called it, \"una suocera\ntremenda,\" and this without knowing that I wanted her to be a mother-in-\nlaw myself.  Unfortunately she had no real drapery, so I could not settle\nthe question as my friend Mr. H. F. Jones and I had been able to do at\nVarallo with the figure of Eve that had been turned into a Roman soldier\nassisting at the capture of Christ.  I am not, however, disposed to waste\nmore time upon anything so obvious, and will content myself with saying\nthat we have here the Virgin's grandmother.  I had never had the\npleasure, so far as I remembered, of meeting this lady before, and was\nglad to have an opportunity of making her acquaintance.\n\nTradition says that it was she who chose the Virgin's name, and if so,\nwhat a debt of gratitude do we not owe her for her judicious selection!\nIt makes one shudder to think what might have happened if she had named\nthe child Keren-Happuch, as poor Job's daughter was called.  How could we\nhave said, \"Ave Keren-Happuch!\"  What would the musicians have done?  I\nforget whether Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz was a man or a woman, but there were\nplenty of names quite as unmanageable at the Virgin's grandmother's\noption, and we cannot sufficiently thank her for having chosen one that\nis so euphonious in every language which we need take into account.  For\nthis reason alone we should not grudge her her portrait, but we should\ntry to draw the line here.  I do not think we ought to give the Virgin's\ngreat-grandmother a statue.  Where is it to end?  It is like Mr.\nCrookes's ultimissimate atoms; we used to draw the line at ultimate\natoms, and now it seems we are to go a step farther back and have\nultimissimate atoms.  How long, I wonder, will it be before we feel that\nit will be a material help to us to have ultimissimissimate atoms?\nQuavers stopped at demi-semi-demi, but there is no reason to suppose that\neither atoms or ancestresses of the Virgin will be so complacent.\n\nI have said that on St. Anne's left hand there is a lady who is bringing\nin some flowers.  St. Anne was always passionately fond of flowers.  There\nis a pretty story told about her in one of the Fathers, I forget which,\nto the effect that when a child she was asked which she liked best--cakes\nor flowers?  She could not yet speak plainly and lisped out, \"Oh fowses,\npretty fowses\"; she added, however, with a sigh and as a kind of wistful\ncorollary, \"but cakes are very nice.\"  She is not to have any cakes, just\nnow, but as soon as she has done thanking the lady for her beautiful\nnosegay, she is to have a couple of nice new-laid eggs, that are being\nbrought her by another lady.  Valsesian women immediately after their\nconfinement always have eggs beaten up with wine and sugar, and one can\ntell a Valsesian Birth of the Virgin from a Venetian or a Florentine by\nthe presence of the eggs.  I learned this from an eminent Valsesian\nprofessor of medicine, who told me that, though not according to received\nrules, the eggs never seemed to do any harm.  Here they are evidently to\nbe beaten up, for there is neither spoon nor egg-cup, and we cannot\nsuppose that they were hard-boiled.  On the other hand, in the Middle\nAges Italians never used egg-cups and spoons for boiled eggs.  The\nmediaeval boiled egg was always eaten by dipping bread into the yolk.\n\nBehind the lady who is bringing in the eggs is the under-under-nurse who\nis at the fire warming a towel.  In the foreground we have the regulation\nmidwife holding the regulation baby (who, by the way, was an\nastonishingly fine child for only five minutes old).  Then comes the\nunder-nurse--a good buxom creature, who, as usual, is feeling the water\nin the bath to see that it is of the right temperature.  Next to her is\nthe head-nurse, who is arranging the cradle.  Behind the head-nurse is\nthe under-under-nurse's drudge, who is just going out upon some errands.\nLastly--for by this time we have got all round the chapel--we arrive at\nthe Virgin's grandmother's-body-guard, a stately, responsible-looking\nlady, standing in waiting upon her mistress.  I put it to the reader--is\nit conceivable that St. Joachim should have been allowed in such a room\nat such a time, or that he should have had the courage to avail himself\nof the permission, even though it had been extended to him?  At any rate,\nis it conceivable that he should have been allowed to sit on St. Anne's\nright hand, laying down the law with a \"Marry, come up here,\" and a\n\"Marry, go-down there,\" and a couple of such unabashed collars as the old\nlady has put on for the occasion?\n\nMoreover (for I may as well demolish this mischievous confusion between\nSt. Joachim and his mother-in-law once and for all), the merest tyro in\nhagiology knows that St. Joachim was not at home when the Virgin was\nborn.  He had been hustled out of the temple for having no children, and\nhad fled desolate and dismayed into the wilderness.  It shows how silly\npeople are, for all the time he was going, if they had only waited a\nlittle, to be the father of the most remarkable person of purely human\norigin who had ever been born, and such a parent as this should surely\nnot be hurried.  The story is told in the frescoes of the chapel of\nLoreto, only a quarter of an hour's walk from Varallo, and no one can\nhave known it better than D'Enrico.  The frescoes are explained by\nwritten passages that tell us how, when Joachim was in the desert, an\nangel came to him in the guise of a fair, civil young gentleman, and told\nhim the Virgin was to be born.  Then, later on, the same young gentleman\nappeared to him again, and bade him \"in God's name be comforted, and turn\nagain to his content,\" for the Virgin had been actually born.  On which\nSt. Joachim, who seems to have been of opinion that marriage after all\n_was_ rather a failure, said that, as things were going on so nicely\nwithout him, he would stay in the desert just a little longer, and\noffered up a lamb as a pretext to gain time.  Perhaps he guessed about\nhis mother-in-law, or he may have asked the angel.  Of course, even in\nspite of such evidence as this I may be mistaken about the Virgin's\ngrandmother's sex, and the sacristan may be right; but I can only say\nthat if the lady sitting by St. Anne's bedside at Montrigone is the\nVirgin's father--well, in that case I must reconsider a good deal that I\nhave been accustomed to believe was beyond question.\n\nTaken singly, I suppose that none of the figures in the chapel, except\nthe Virgin's grandmother, should be rated very highly.  The under-nurse\nis the next best figure, and might very well be Tabachetti's, for neither\nGiovanni d'Enrico nor Giacomo Ferro was successful with his female\ncharacters.  There is not a single really comfortable woman in any chapel\nby either of them on the Sacro Monte at Varallo.  Tabachetti, on the\nother hand, delighted in women; if they were young he made them comely\nand engaging, if they were old he gave them dignity and individual\ncharacter, and the under-nurse is much more in accordance with\nTabachetti's habitual mental attitude than with D'Enrico's or Giacomo\nFerro's.  Still there are only four figures out of the eleven that are\nmere otiose supers, and taking the work as a whole it leaves a pleasant\nimpression as being throughout naive and homely, and sometimes, which is\nof less importance, technically excellent.\n\nAllowance must, of course, be made for tawdry accessories and repeated\ncoats of shiny oleaginous paint--very disagreeable where it has peeled\noff and almost more so where it has not.  What work could stand against\nsuch treatment as the Valsesian terra-cotta figures have had to put up\nwith?  Take the Venus of Milo; let her be done in terra-cotta, and have\nrun, not much, but still something, in the baking; paint her pink, two\noils, all over, and then varnish her--it will help to preserve the paint;\nglue a lot of horsehair on to her pate, half of which shall have come\noff, leaving the glue still showing; scrape her, not too thoroughly, get\nthe village drawing-master to paint her again, and the drawing-master in\nthe next provincial town to put a forest background behind her with the\nbrightest emerald-green leaves that he can do for the money; let this\npainting and scraping and repainting be repeated several times over;\nfestoon her with pink and white flowers made of tissue paper; surround\nher with the cheapest German imitations of the cheapest decorations that\nBirmingham can produce; let the night air and winter fogs get at her for\nthree hundred years, and how easy, I wonder, will it be to see the\ngoddess who will be still in great part there?  True, in the case of the\nBirth of the Virgin chapel at Montrigone, there is no real hair and no\nfresco background, but time has had abundant opportunities without these.\nI will conclude my notice of this chapel by saying that on the left,\nabove the door through which the under-under-nurse's drudge is about to\npass, there is a good painted terra-cotta bust, said--but I believe on no\nauthority--to be a portrait of Giovanni d'Enrico.  Others say that the\nVirgin's grandmother is Giovanni d'Enrico, but this is even more absurd\nthan supposing her to be St. Joachim.\n\nThe next chapel to the Birth of the Virgin is that of the _Sposalizio_.\nThere is no figure here which suggests Tabachetti, but still there are\nsome very good ones.  The best have no taint of _barocco_; the man who\ndid them, whoever he may have been, had evidently a good deal of life and\ngo, was taking reasonable pains, and did not know too much.  Where this\nis the case no work can fail to please.  Some of the figures have real\nhair and some terra cotta.  There is no fresco background worth\nmentioning.  A man sitting on the steps of the altar with a book on his\nlap, and holding up his hand to another, who is leaning over him and\ntalking to him, is among the best figures; some of the disappointed\nsuitors who are breaking their wands are also very good.\n\nThe angel in the Annunciation chapel, which comes next in order, is a\nfine, burly, ship's-figurehead, commercial-hotel sort of being enough,\nbut the Virgin is very ordinary.  There is no real hair and no fresco\nbackground, only three dingy old blistered pictures of no interest\nwhatever.\n\nIn the visit of Mary to Elizabeth there are three pleasing subordinate\nlady attendants, two to the left and one to the right of the principal\nfigures; but these figures themselves are not satisfactory.  There is no\nfresco background.  Some of the figures have real hair and some terra\ncotta.\n\nIn the Circumcision and Purification chapel--for both these events seem\ncontemplated in the one that follows--there are doves, but there is\nneither dog nor knife.  Still Simeon, who has the infant Saviour in his\narms, is looking at him in a way which can only mean that, knife or no\nknife, the matter is not going to end here.  At Varallo they have now got\na dreadful knife for the Circumcision chapel.  They had none last winter.\nWhat they have now got would do very well to kill a bullock with, but\ncould not be used professionally with safety for any animal smaller than\na rhinoceros.  I imagine that some one was sent to Novara to buy a knife,\nand that, thinking it was for the Massacre of the Innocents chapel, he\ngot the biggest he could see.  Then when he brought it back people said\n\"chow\" several times, and put it upon the table and went away.\n\nReturning to Montrigone, the Simeon is an excellent figure, and the\nVirgin is fairly good, but the prophetess Anna, who stands just behind\nher, is by far the most interesting in the group, and is alone enough to\nmake me feel sure that Tabachetti gave more or less help here, as he had\ndone years before at Orta.  She, too, like the Virgin's grandmother, is a\nwidow lady, and wears collars of a cut that seems to have prevailed ever\nsince the Virgin was born some twenty years previously.  There is a\nlargeness and simplicity of treatment about the figure to which none but\nan artist of the highest rank can reach, and D'Enrico was not more than a\nsecond or third-rate man.  The hood is like Handel's Truth sailing upon\nthe broad wings of Time, a prophetic strain that nothing but the old\nexperience of a great poet can reach.  The lips of the prophetess are for\nthe moment closed, but she has been prophesying all the morning, and the\npeople round the wall in the background are in ecstasies at the lucidity\nwith which she has explained all sorts of difficulties that they had\nnever been able to understand till now.  They are putting their\nforefingers on their thumbs and their thumbs on their forefingers, and\nsaying how clearly they see it all and what a wonderful woman Anna is.  A\nprophet indeed is not generally without honour save in his own country,\nbut then a country is generally not without honour save with its own\nprophet, and Anna has been glorifying her country rather than reviling\nit.  Besides, the rule may not have applied to prophetesses.\n\nThe Death of the Virgin is the last of the six chapels inside the church\nitself.  The Apostles, who of course are present, have all of them real\nhair, but, if I may say so, they want a wash and a brush-up so very badly\nthat I cannot feel any confidence in writing about them.  I should say\nthat, take them all round, they are a good average sample of apostle as\napostles generally go.  Two or three of them are nervously anxious to\nfind appropriate quotations in books that lie open before them, which\nthey are searching with eager haste; but I do not see one figure about\nwhich I should like to say positively that it is either good or bad.\nThere is a good bust of a man, matching the one in the Birth of the\nVirgin chapel, which is said to be a portrait of Giovanni d'Enrico, but\nit is not known whom it represents.\n\nOutside the church, in three contiguous cells that form part of the\nfoundations, are:--\n\n1.  A dead Christ, the head of which is very impressive while the rest of\nthe figure is poor.  I examined the treatment of the hair, which is terra-\ncotta, and compared it with all other like hair in the chapels above\ndescribed; I could find nothing like it, and think it most likely that\nGiacomo Ferro did the figure, and got Tabachetti to do the head, or that\nthey brought the head from some unused figure by Tabachetti at Varallo,\nfor I know no other artist of the time and neighbourhood who could have\ndone it.\n\n2.  A Magdalene in the desert.  The desert is a little coal-cellar of an\narch, containing a skull and a profusion of pink and white paper\nbouquets, the two largest of which the Magdalene is hugging while she is\nsaying her prayers.  She is a very self-sufficient lady, who we may be\nsure will not stay in the desert a day longer than she can help, and\nwhile there will flirt even with the skull if she can find nothing better\nto flirt with.  I cannot think that her repentance is as yet genuine, and\nas for her praying there is no object in her doing so, for she does not\nwant anything.\n\n3.  In the next desert there is a very beautiful figure of St. John the\nBaptist kneeling and looking upwards.  This figure puzzles me more than\nany other at Montrigone; it appears to be of the fifteenth rather than\nthe sixteenth century; it hardly reminds me of Gaudenzio, and still less\nof any other Valsesian artist.  It is a work of unusual beauty, but I can\nform no idea as to its authorship.\n\nI wrote the foregoing pages in the church at Montrigone itself, having\nbrought my camp-stool with me.  It was Sunday; the church was open all\nday, but there was no mass said, and hardly any one came.  The sacristan\nwas a kind, gentle, little old man, who let me do whatever I wanted.  He\nsat on the doorstep of the main door, mending vestments, and to this end\nwas cutting up a fine piece of figured silk from one to two hundred years\nold, which, if I could have got it, for half its value, I should much\nlike to have bought.  I sat in the cool of the church while he sat in the\ndoorway, which was still in shadow, snipping and snipping, and then\nsewing, I am sure with admirable neatness.  He made a charming picture,\nwith the arched portico over his head, the green grass and low church\nwall behind him, and then a lovely landscape of wood and pasture and\nvalleys and hillside.  Every now and then he would come and chirrup about\nJoachim, for he was pained and shocked at my having said that his Joachim\nwas some one else and not Joachim at all.  I said I was very sorry, but I\nwas afraid the figure was a woman.  He asked me what he was to do.  He\nhad known it, man and boy, this sixty years, and had always shown it as\nSt. Joachim; he had never heard any one but myself question his\nascription, and could not suddenly change his mind about it at the\nbidding of a stranger.  At the same time he felt it was a very serious\nthing to continue showing it as the Virgin's father if it was really her\ngrandmother.  I told him I thought this was a case for his spiritual\ndirector, and that if he felt uncomfortable about it he should consult\nhis parish priest and do as he was told.\n\nOn leaving Montrigone, with a pleasant sense of having made acquaintance\nwith a new and, in many respects, interesting work, I could not get the\nsacristan and our difference of opinion out of my head.  What, I asked\nmyself, are the differences that unhappily divide Christendom, and what\nare those that divide Christendom from modern schools of thought, but a\nseeing of Joachims as the Virgin's grandmothers on a larger scale?  True,\nwe cannot call figures Joachim when we know perfectly well that they are\nnothing of the kind; but I registered a vow that henceforward when I\ncalled Joachims the Virgin's grandmothers I would bear more in mind than\nI have perhaps always hitherto done, how hard it is for those who have\nbeen taught to see them as Joachims to think of them as something\ndifferent.  I trust that I have not been unfaithful to this vow in the\npreceding article.  If the reader differs from me, let me ask him to\nremember how hard it is for one who has got a figure well into his head\nas the Virgin's grandmother to see it as Joachim.\n\n\n\n\nA MEDIEVAL GIRL SCHOOL {8}\n\n\nThis last summer I revisited Oropa, near Biella, to see what connection I\ncould find between the Oropa chapels and those at Varallo.  I will take\nthis opportunity of describing the chapels at Oropa, and more especially\nthe remarkable fossil, or petrified girl school, commonly known as the\n_Dimora_, or Sojourn of the Virgin Mary in the Temple.\n\nIf I do not take these works so seriously as the reader may expect, let\nme beg him, before he blames me, to go to Oropa and see the originals for\nhimself.  Have the good people of Oropa themselves taken them very\nseriously?  Are we in an atmosphere where we need be at much pains to\nspeak with bated breath?  We, as is well known, love to take even our\npleasures sadly; the Italians take even their sadness _allegramente_, and\ncombine devotion with amusement in a manner that we shall do well to\nstudy if not imitate.  For this best agrees with what we gather to have\nbeen the custom of Christ himself, who, indeed, never speaks of austerity\nbut to condemn it.  If Christianity is to be a living faith, it must\npenetrate a man's whole life, so that he can no more rid himself of it\nthan he can of his flesh and bones or of his breathing.  The Christianity\nthat can be taken up and laid down as if it were a watch or a book is\nChristianity in name only.  The true Christian can no more part from\nChrist in mirth than in sorrow.  And, after all, what is the essence of\nChristianity?  What is the kernel of the nut?  Surely common sense and\ncheerfulness, with unflinching opposition to the charlatanisms and\nPharisaisms of a man's own times.  The essence of Christianity lies\nneither in dogma, nor yet in abnormally holy life, but in faith in an\nunseen world, in doing one's duty, in speaking the truth, in finding the\ntrue life rather in others than in oneself, and in the certain hope that\nhe who loses his life on these behalfs finds more than he has lost.  What\ncan Agnosticism do against such Christianity as this?  I should be\nshocked if anything I had ever written or shall ever write should seem to\nmake light of these things.  I should be shocked also if I did not know\nhow to be amused with things that amiable people obviously intended to be\namusing.\n\nThe reader may need to be reminded that Oropa is among the somewhat\ninfrequent sanctuaries at which the Madonna and infant Christ are not\nwhite, but black.  I shall return to this peculiarity of Oropa later on,\nbut will leave it for the present.  For the general characteristics of\nthe place I must refer the reader to my book, \"Alps and Sanctuaries.\" {9}\nI propose to confine myself here to the ten or a dozen chapels containing\nlife-sized terra-cotta figures, painted up to nature, that form one of\nthe main features of the place.  At a first glance, perhaps, all these\nchapels will seem uninteresting; I venture to think, however, that some,\nif not most of them, though falling a good deal short of the best work at\nVarallo and Crea, are still in their own way of considerable importance.\nThe first chapel with which we need concern ourselves is numbered 4, and\nshows the Conception of the Virgin Mary.  It represents St. Anne as\nkneeling before a terrific dragon or, as the Italians call it, \"insect,\"\nabout the size of a Crystal Palace pleiosaur.  This \"insect\" is supposed\nto have just had its head badly crushed by St. Anne, who seems to be\nbegging its pardon.  The text \"Ipsa conteret caput tuum\" is written\noutside the chapel.  The figures have no artistic interest.  As regards\ndragons being called insects, the reader may perhaps remember that the\nisland of S. Giulio, in the Lago d'Orta, was infested with _insetti_,\nwhich S. Giulio destroyed, and which appear, in a fresco underneath the\nchurch on the island, to have been monstrous and ferocious dragons; but I\ncannot remember whether their bodies are divided into three sections, and\nwhether or no they have exactly six legs--without which, I am told, they\ncannot be true insects.\n\nThe fifth chapel represents the birth of the Virgin.  Having obtained\npermission to go inside it, I found the date 1715 cut large and deep on\nthe back of one figure before baking, and I imagine that this date covers\nthe whole.  There is a Queen Anne feeling throughout the composition, and\nif we were told that the sculptor and Francis Bird, sculptor of the\nstatue in front of St. Paul's Cathedral, had studied under the same\nmaster, we could very well believe it.  The apartment in which the Virgin\nwas born is spacious, and in striking contrast to the one in which she\nherself gave birth to the Redeemer.  St. Anne occupies the centre of the\ncomposition, in an enormous bed; on her right there is a lady of the\nGeorge Cruikshank style of beauty, and on the left an older person.  Both\nare gesticulating and impressing upon St. Anne the enormous obligation\nshe has just conferred upon mankind; they seem also to be imploring her\nnot to overtax her strength, but, strange to say, they are giving her\nneither flowers nor anything to eat and drink.  I know no other birth of\nthe Virgin in which St. Anne wants so little keeping up.\n\nI have explained in my book \"Ex Voto,\" {10} but should perhaps repeat\nhere, that the distinguishing characteristic of the Birth of the Virgin,\nas rendered by Valsesian artists, is that St. Anne always has eggs\nimmediately after the infant is born, and usually a good deal more,\nwhereas the Madonna never has anything to eat or drink.  The eggs are in\naccordance with a custom that still prevails among the peasant classes in\nthe Valsesia, where women on giving birth to a child generally are given\na _sabaglione_--an egg beaten up with a little wine, or rum, and sugar.\nEast of Milan the Virgin's mother does not have eggs, and I suppose, from\nthe absence of the eggs at Oropa, that the custom above referred to does\nnot prevail in the Biellese district.  The Virgin also is invariably\nwashed.  St. John the Baptist, when he is born at all, which is not very\noften, is also washed; but I have not observed that St. Elizabeth has\nanything like the attention paid her that is given to St. Anne.  What,\nhowever, is wanting here at Oropa in meat and drink is made up in Cupids;\nthey swarm like flies on the walls, clouds, cornices, and capitals of\ncolumns.\n\nAgainst the right-hand wall are two lady-helps, each warming a towel at a\nglowing fire, to be ready against the baby should come out of its bath;\nwhile in the right-hand foreground we have the _levatrice_, who having\ndischarged her task, and being now so disposed, has removed the bottle\nfrom the chimney-piece, and put it near some bread, fruit and a chicken,\nover which she is about to discuss the confinement with two other\ngossips.  The _levatrice_ is a very characteristic figure, but the best\nin the chapel is the one of the head nurse, near the middle of the\ncomposition; she has now the infant in full charge, and is showing it to\nSt. Joachim, with an expression as though she were telling him that her\nhusband was a merry man.  I am afraid Shakespeare was dead before the\nsculptor was born, otherwise I should have felt certain that he had drawn\nJuliet's nurse from this figure.  As for the little Virgin herself, I\nbelieve her to be a fine boy of about ten months old.  Viewing the work\nas a whole, if I only felt more sure what artistic merit really is, I\nshould say that, though the chapel cannot be rated very highly from some\nstandpoints, there are others from which it may be praised warmly enough.\nIt is innocent of anatomy-worship, free from affectation or swagger, and\nnot devoid of a good deal of homely _naivete_.  It can no more be\ncompared with Tabachetti or Donatello than Hogarth can with Rembrandt or\nGiovanni Bellini; but as it does not transcend the limitations of its\nage, so neither is it wanting in whatever merits that age possessed; and\nthere is no age without merits of some kind.  There is no inscription\nsaying who made the figures, but tradition gives them to Pietro Aureggio\nTermine, of Biella, commonly called Aureggio.  This is confirmed by their\nstrong resemblance to those in the _Dimora_ Chapel, in which there is an\ninscription that names Aureggio as the sculptor.\n\nThe sixth chapel deals with the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple.\nThe Virgin is very small, but it must be remembered that she is only\nseven years old, and she is not nearly so small as she is at Crea, where,\nthough a life-sized figure is intended, the head is hardly bigger than an\napple.  She is rushing up the steps with open arms towards the High\nPriest, who is standing at the top.  For her it is nothing alarming; it\nis the High Priest who appears frightened; but it will all come right in\ntime.  The Virgin seems to be saying, \"Why, don't you know me?  I'm the\nVirgin Mary.\"  But the High Priest does not feel so sure about that, and\nwill make further inquiries.  The scene, which comprises some twenty\nfigures, is animated enough, and though it hardly kindles enthusiasm,\nstill does not fail to please.  It looks as though of somewhat older date\nthan the Birth of the Virgin chapel, and I should say shows more signs of\ndirect Valsesian influence.  In Marocco's book about Oropa it is ascribed\nto Aureggio, but I find it difficult to accept this.\n\nThe seventh, and in many respects most interesting chapel at Oropa, shows\nwhat is in reality a medieval Italian girl school, as nearly like the\nthing itself as the artist could make it; we are expected, however, to\nsee in this the high-class kind of Girton College for young gentlewomen\nthat was attached to the Temple at Jerusalem, under the direction of the\nChief Priest's wife, or some one of his near female relatives.  Here all\nwell-to-do Jewish young women completed their education, and here\naccordingly we find the Virgin, whose parents desired she should shine in\nevery accomplishment, and enjoy all the advantages their ample means\ncommanded.\n\nI have met with no traces of the Virgin during the years between her\nPresentation in the Temple and her becoming head girl at Temple College.\nThese years, we may be assured, can hardly have been other than eventful;\nbut incidents, or bits of life, are like living forms--it is only here\nand here, as by rare chance, that one of them gets arrested and\nfossilised; the greater number disappear like the greater number of\nantediluvian molluscs, and no one can say why one of these flies, as it\nwere, of life should get preserved in amber more than another.  Talk,\nindeed, about luck and cunning; what a grain of sand as against a\nhundredweight is cunning's share here as against luck's.  What moment\ncould be more humdrum and unworthy of special record than the one chosen\nby the artist for the chapel we are considering?  Why should this one get\narrested in its flight and made immortal when so many worthier ones have\nperished?  Yet preserved it assuredly is; it is as though some fairy's\nwand had struck the medieval Miss Pinkerton, Amelia Sedley, and others\nwho do duty instead of the Hebrew originals.  It has locked them up as\nsleeping beauties, whose charms all may look upon.  Surely the hours are\nlike the women grinding at the mill--the one is taken and the other left,\nand none can give the reason more than he can say why Gallio should have\nwon immortality by caring for none of \"these things.\"\n\nIt seems to me, moreover, that fairies have changed their practice now in\nthe matter of sleeping beauties, much as shopkeepers have done in Regent\nStreet.  Formerly the shopkeeper used to shut up his goods behind strong\nshutters, so that no one might see them after closing hours.  Now he\nleaves everything open to the eye and turns the gas on.  So the fairies,\nwho used to lock up their sleeping beauties in impenetrable thickets, now\nleave them in the most public places they can find, as knowing that they\nwill there most certainly escape notice.  Look at De Hooghe; look at \"The\nPilgrim's Progress,\" or even Shakespeare himself--how long they slept\nunawakened, though they were in broad daylight and on the public\nthoroughfares all the time.  Look at Tabachetti, and the masterpieces he\nleft at Varallo.  His figures there are exposed to the gaze of every\npasser-by; yet who heeds them?  Who, save a very few, even know of their\nexistence?  Look again at Gaudenzio Ferrari, or the \"Danse des Paysans,\"\nby Holbein, to which I ventured to call attention in the _Universal\nReview_.  No, no; if a thing be in Central Africa, it is the glory of\nthis age to find it out; so the fairies think it safer to conceal their\n_proteges_ under a show of openness; for the schoolmaster is much abroad,\nand there is no hedge so thick or so thorny as the dulness of culture.\n\nIt may be, again, that ever so many years hence, when Mr. Darwin's earth-\nworms shall have buried Oropa hundreds of feet deep, some one sinking a\nwell or making a railway-cutting will unearth these chapels, and will\nbelieve them to have been houses, and to contain the _exuviae_ of the\nliving forms that tenanted them.  In the meantime, however, let us return\nto a consideration of the chapel as it may now be seen by any one who\ncares to pass that way.\n\nThe work consists of about forty figures in all, not counting Cupids, and\nis divided into four main divisions.  First, there is the large public\nsitting-room or drawing-room of the College, where the elder young ladies\nare engaged in various elegant employments.  Three, at a table to the\nleft, are making a mitre for the Bishop, as may be seen from the model on\nthe table.  Some are merely spinning or about to spin.  One young lady,\nsitting rather apart from the others, is doing an elaborate piece of\nneedlework at a tambour-frame near the window; others are making lace or\nslippers, probably for the new curate; another is struggling with a\nletter, or perhaps a theme, which seems to be giving her a good deal of\ntrouble, but which, when done, will, I am sure, be beautiful.  One dear\nlittle girl is simply reading \"Paul and Virginia\" underneath the window,\nand is so concealed that I hardly think she can be seen from the outside\nat all, though from inside she is delightful; it was with great regret\nthat I could not get her into any photograph.  One most amiable young\nwoman has got a child's head on her lap, the child having played itself\nto sleep.  All are industriously and agreeably employed in some way or\nother; all are plump; all are nice looking; there is not one Becky Sharp\nin the whole school; on the contrary, as in \"Pious Orgies,\" all is\npious--or sub-pious--and all, if not great, is at least eminently\nrespectable.  One feels that St. Joachim and St. Anne could not have\nchosen a school more judiciously, and that if one had daughter oneself\nthis is exactly where one would wish to place her.  If there is a fault\nof any kind in the arrangements, it is that they do not keep cats enough.\nThe place is overrun with mice, though what these can find to eat I know\nnot.  It occurs to me also that the young ladies might be kept a little\nmore free of spiders' webs; but in all these chapels, bats, mice and\nspiders are troublesome.\n\nOff the main drawing-room on the side facing the window there is a dais,\nwhich is approached by a large raised semicircular step, higher than the\nrest of the floor, but lower than the dais itself.  The dais is, of\ncourse, reserved for the venerable Lady Principal and the\nunder-mistresses, one of whom, by the way, is a little more _mondaine_\nthan might have been expected, and is admiring herself in a\nlooking-glass--unless, indeed, she is only looking to see if there is a\nspot of ink on her face.  The Lady Principal is seated near a table, on\nwhich lie some books in expensive bindings, which I imagine to have been\npresented to her by the parents of pupils who were leaving school.  One\nhas given her a photographic album; another a large scrap-book, for\nillustrations of all kinds; a third volume has red edges, and is\npresumably of a devotional character.  If I dared venture another\ncriticism, I should say it would be better not to keep the ink-pot on the\ntop of these books.  The Lady Principal is being read to by the monitress\nfor the week, whose duty it was to recite selected passages from the most\napproved Hebrew writers; she appears to be a good deal outraged, possibly\nat the faulty intonation of the reader, which she has long tried vainly\nto correct; or perhaps she has been hearing of the atrocious way in which\nher forefathers had treated the prophets, and is explaining to the young\nladies how impossible it would be, in their own more enlightened age, for\na prophet to fail of recognition.\n\nOn the half-dais, as I suppose the large semicircular step between the\nmain room and the dais should be called, we find, first, the monitress\nfor the week, who stands up while she recites; and secondly, the Virgin\nherself, who is the only pupil allowed a seat so near to the august\npresence of the Lady Principal.  She is ostensibly doing a piece of\nembroidery which is stretched on a cushion on her lap, but I should say\nthat she was chiefly interested in the nearest of four pretty little\nCupids, who are all trying to attract her attention, though they pay no\ncourt to any other young lady.  I have sometimes wondered whether the\nobviously scandalised gesture of the Lady Principal might not be directed\nat these Cupids, rather than at anything the monitress may have been\nreading, for she would surely find them disquieting.  Or she may be\nsaying, \"Why, bless me!  I do declare the Virgin has got another hamper,\nand St. Anne's cakes are always so terribly rich!\"  Certainly the hamper\nis there, close to the Virgin, and the Lady Principal's action may be\nwell directed at it, but it may have been sent to some other young lady,\nand be put on the sub-dais for public exhibition.  It looks as if it\nmight have come from Fortnum and Mason's, and I half expected to find a\nlabel, addressing it to \"The Virgin Mary, Temple College, Jerusalem,\" but\nif ever there was one the mice have long since eaten it.  The Virgin\nherself does not seem to care much about it, but if she has a fault it is\nthat she is generally a little apathetic.\n\nWhose the hamper was, however, is a point we shall never now certainly\ndetermine, for the best fossil is worse than the worst living form.  Why,\nalas! was not Mr. Edison alive when this chapel was made?  We might then\nhave had a daily phonographic recital of the conversation, and an\nannouncement might be put outside the chapels, telling us at what hours\nthe figures would speak.\n\nOn either of side the main room there are two annexes opening out from\nit; these are reserved chiefly for the younger children, some of whom, I\nthink, are little boys.  In the left-hand annex, behind the ladies who\nare making a mitre, there is a child who has got a cake, and another has\nsome fruit--possibly given them by the Virgin--and a third child is\nbegging for some of it.  The light failed so completely here that I was\nnot able to photograph any of these figures.  It was a dull September\nafternoon, and the clouds had settled thick round the chapel, which is\nnever very light, and is nearly 4000 feet above the sea.  I waited till\nsuch twilight as made it hopeless that more detail could be got--and a\nqueer ghostly place enough it was to wait in--but after giving the plate\nan exposure of fifty minutes, I saw I could get no more, and desisted.\n\nThese long photographic exposures have the advantage that one is\ncompelled to study a work in detail through mere lack of other\nemployment, and that one can take one's notes in peace without being\ntempted to hurry over them; but even so I continually find I have omitted\nto note, and have clean forgotten, much that I want later on.\n\nIn the other annex there are also one or two younger children, but it\nseems to have been set apart for conversation and relaxation more than\nany other part of the establishment.\n\nI have already said that the work is signed by an inscription inside the\nchapel, to the effect that the sculptures are by Pietro Aureggio Termine\ndi Biella.  It will be seen that the young ladies are exceedingly like\none another, and that the artist aimed at nothing more than a faithful\nrendering of the life of his own times.  Let us be thankful that he aimed\nat nothing less.  Perhaps his wife kept a girls' school; or he may have\nhad a large family of fat, good-natured daughters, whose little ways he\nhad studied attentively; at all events the work is full of spontaneous\nincident, and cannot fail to become more and more interesting as the age\nit renders falls farther back into the past.  It is to be regretted that\nmany artists, better known men, have not been satisfied with the humbler\nambitions of this most amiable and interesting sculptor.  If he has left\nus no laboured life-studies, he has at least done something for us which\nwe can find nowhere else, which we should be very sorry not to have, and\nthe fidelity of which to Italian life at the beginning of the last\ncentury will not be disputed.\n\nThe eighth chapel is that of the _Sposalizio_, is certainly not by\nAureggio, and I should say was mainly by the same sculptor who did the\nPresentation in the Temple.  On going inside I found the figures had come\nfrom more than one source; some of them are constructed so absolutely on\nValsesian principles, as regards technique, that it may be assumed they\ncame from Varallo.  Each of these last figures is in three pieces, that\nare baked separately and cemented together afterwards, hence they are\nmore easily transported; no more clay is used than is absolutely\nnecessary; and the off-side of the figure is neglected; they will be\nfound chiefly, if not entirely, at the top of the steps.  The other\nfigures are more solidly built, and do not remind me in their business\nfeatures of anything in the Valsesia.  There was a sculptor, Francesco\nSala, of Locarno (doubtless the village a short distance below Varallo,\nand not the Locarno on the Lago Maggiore), who made designs for some of\nthe Oropa chapels, and some of whose letters are still preserved, but\nwhether the Valsesian figures in this present work are by him or not I\ncannot say.\n\nThe statues are twenty-five in number; I could find no date or signature;\nthe work reminds me of Montrigone; several of the figures are not at all\nbad, and several have horsehair for hair, as at Varallo.  The effect of\nthe whole composition is better than we have a right to expect from any\nsculpture dating from the beginning of the last century.\n\nThe ninth chapel, the Annunciation, presents no feature of interest; nor\nyet does the tenth, the Visit of Mary to Elizabeth.  The eleventh, the\nNativity, though rather better, is still not remarkable.\n\nThe twelfth, the Purification, is absurdly bad, but I do not know whether\nthe expression of strong personal dislike to the Virgin which the High\nPriest wears is intended as prophetic, or whether it is the result of\nincompetence, or whether it is merely a smile gone wrong in the baking.\nIt is amusing to find Marocco, who has not been strict about\narchaeological accuracy hitherto, complain here that there is an\nanachronism, inasmuch as some young ecclesiastics are dressed as they\nwould be at present, and one of them actually carries a wax candle.  This\nis not as it should be; in works like those at Oropa, where implicit\nreliance is justly placed on the earnest endeavours that have been so\nsuccessfully made to thoroughly and carefully and patiently ensure the\naccuracy of the minutest details, it is a pity that even a single error\nshould have escaped detection; this, however, has most unfortunately\nhappened here, and Marocco feels it his duty to put us on our guard.  He\nexplains that the mistake arose from the sculptor's having taken both his\ngeneral arrangement and his details from some picture of the fourteenth\nor fifteenth century, when the value of the strictest historical accuracy\nwas not yet so fully understood.\n\nIt seems to me that in the matter of accuracy, priests and men of science\nwhether lay or regular on the one hand, and plain people whether lay or\nregular on the other, are trying to play a different game, and fail to\nunderstand one another because they do not see that their objects are not\nthe same.  The cleric and the man of science (who is only the cleric in\nhis latest development) are trying to develop a throat with two distinct\npassages--one that shall refuse to pass even the smallest gnat, and\nanother that shall gracefully gulp even the largest camel; whereas we men\nof the street desire but one throat, and are content that this shall\nswallow nothing bigger than a pony.  Every one knows that there is no\nsuch effectual means of developing the power to swallow camels as\nincessant watchfulness for opportunities of straining at gnats, and this\nshould explain many passages that puzzle us in the work both of our\nclerics and our scientists.  I, not being a man of science, still\ncontinue to do what I said I did in \"Alps and Sanctuaries,\" and make it a\nrule to earnestly and patiently and carefully swallow a few of the\nsmallest gnats I can find several times a day, as the best astringent for\nthe throat I know of.\n\nThe thirteenth chapel is the Marriage Feast at Cana of Galilee.  This is\nthe best chapel as a work of art; indeed, it is the only one which can\nclaim to be taken quite seriously.  Not that all the figures are very\ngood; those to the left of the composition are commonplace enough; nor\nare the Christ and the giver of the feast at all remarkable; but the ten\nor dozen figures of guests and attendants at the right-hand end of the\nwork are as good as anything of their kind can be, and remind me so\nstrongly of Tabachetti that I cannot doubt they were done by some one who\nwas indirectly influenced by that great sculptor's work.  It is not\nlikely that Tabachetti was alive long after 1640, by which time he would\nhave been about eighty years old; and the foundations of this chapel were\nnot laid till about 1690; the statues are probably a few years later;\nthey can hardly, therefore, be by one who had even studied under\nTabachetti; but until I found out the dates, and went inside the chapel\nto see the way in which the figures had been constructed, I was inclined\nto think they might be by Tabachetti himself, of whom, indeed, they are\nnot unworthy.  On examining the figures I found them more heavily\nconstructed than Tabachetti's are, with smaller holes for taking out\nsuperfluous clay, and more finished on the off-sides.  Marocco says the\nsculptor is not known.  I looked in vain for any date or signature.\nPossibly the right-hand figures (for the left-hand ones can hardly be by\nthe same hand) may be by some sculptor from Crea, which is at no very\ngreat distance from Oropa, who was penetrated by Tabachetti's influence;\nbut whether as regards action and concert with one another, or as regards\nexcellence in detail, I do not see how anything can be more realistic,\nand yet more harmoniously composed.  The placing of the musicians in a\nminstrels' gallery helps the effect; these musicians are six in number,\nand the other figures are twenty-three.  Under the table, between Christ\nand the giver of the feast, there is a cat.\n\nThe fourteenth chapel, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, is without\ninterest.\n\nThe fifteenth, the Coronation of the Virgin, contains forty-six angels,\ntwenty-six cherubs, fifty-six saints, the Holy Trinity, the Madonna\nherself, and twenty-four innocents, making 156 statues in all.  Of these\nI am afraid there is not one of more than ordinary merit; the most\ninteresting is a half-length nude life-study of Disma--the good thief.\nAfter what had been promised him it was impossible to exclude him, but it\nwas felt that a half-length nude figure would be as much as he could\nreasonably expect.\n\nBehind the sanctuary there is a semi-ruinous and wholly valueless work,\nwhich shows the finding of the black image, which is now in the church,\nbut is only shown on great festivals.\n\nThis leads us to a consideration that I have delayed till now.  The black\nimage is the central feature of Oropa; it is the _raison d'etre_ of the\nwhole place, and all else is a mere incrustation, so to speak, around it.\nAccording to this image, then, which was carved by St. Luke himself, and\nthan which nothing can be better authenticated, both the Madonna and the\ninfant Christ were as black as anything can be conceived.  It is not\nlikely that they were as black as they have been painted; no one yet ever\nwas so black as that; yet, even allowing for some exaggeration on St.\nLuke's part, they must have been exceedingly black if the portrait is to\nbe accepted; and uncompromisingly black they accordingly are on most of\nthe wayside chapels for many a mile around Oropa.  Yet in the chapels we\nhave been hitherto considering--works in which, as we know, the most\npunctilious regard has been shown to accuracy--both the Virgin and Christ\nare uncompromisingly white.  As in the shops under the Colonnade where\ndevotional knick-knacks are sold, you can buy a black china image or a\nwhite one, whichever you like; so with the pictures--the black and white\nare placed side by side--_pagando il danaro si puo scegliere_.  It rests\nnot with history or with the Church to say whether the Madonna and Child\nwere black or white, but you may settle it for yourself, whichever way\nyou please, or rather you are required, with the acquiescence of the\nChurch, to hold that they were both black and white at one and the same\ntime.\n\nIt cannot be maintained that the Church leaves the matter undecided, and\nby tolerating both types proclaims the question an open one, for she\nacquiesces in the portrait by St. Luke as genuine.  How, then, justify\nthe whiteness of the Holy Family in the chapels?  If the portrait is not\nknown as genuine, why set such a stumbling-block in our paths as to show\nus a black Madonna and a white one, both as historically accurate, within\na few yards of one another?\n\nI ask this not in mockery, but as knowing that the Church must have an\nexplanation to give, if she would only give it, and as myself unable to\nfind any, even the most farfetched, that can bring what we see at Oropa,\nLoreto and elsewhere into harmony with modern conscience, either\nintellectual or ethical.\n\nI see, indeed, from an interesting article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for\nSeptember 1889, entitled \"The Black Madonna of Loreto,\" that black\nMadonnas were so frequent in ancient Christian art that \"some of the\nearly writers of the Church felt obliged to account for it by explaining\nthat the Virgin was of a very dark complexion, as might be proved by the\nverse of Canticles which says, 'I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of\nJerusalem.'  Others maintained that she became black during her sojourn\nin Egypt. . . .  Priests, of to-day, say that extreme age and exposure to\nthe smoke of countless altar-candles have caused that change in\ncomplexion which the more naive fathers of the Church attributed to the\npower of an Egyptian sun\"; but the writer ruthlessly disposes of this\nsupposition by pointing out that in nearly all the instances of black\nMadonnas it is the flesh alone that is entirely black, the crimson of the\nlips, the white of the eyes, and the draperies having preserved their\noriginal colour.  The authoress of the article (Mrs. Hilliard) goes on to\ntell us that Pausanias mentions two statues of the black Venus, and says\nthat the oldest statue of Ceres among the Phigalenses was black.  She\nadds that Minerva Aglaurus, the daughter of Cecrops, at Athens, was\nblack; that Corinth had a black Venus, as also the Thespians; that the\noracles of Dodona and Delphi were founded by black doves, the emissaries\nof Venus, and that the Isis Multimammia in the Capitol at Rome is black.\n\nSometimes I have asked myself whether the Church does not intend to\nsuggest that the whole story falls outside the domain of history, and is\nto be held as the one great epos, or myth, common to all mankind;\nadaptable by each nation according to its own several needs;\ntranslatable, so to speak, into the facts of each individual nation, as\nthe written word is translatable into its language, but appertaining to\nthe realm of the imagination rather than to that of the understanding,\nand precious for spiritual rather than literal truths.  More briefly, I\nhave wondered whether she may not intend that such details as whether the\nVirgin was white or black are of very little importance in comparison\nwith the basing of ethics on a story that shall appeal to black races as\nwell as to white ones.\n\nIf so, it is time we were made to understand this more clearly.  If the\nChurch, whether of Rome or England, would lean to some such view as\nthis--tainted though it be with mysticism--if we could see either great\nbranch of the Church make a frank, authoritative attempt to bring its\nteaching into greater harmony with the educated understanding and\nconscience of the time, instead of trying to fetter that understanding\nwith bonds that gall it daily more and more profoundly; then I, for one,\nin view of the difficulty and graciousness of the task, and in view of\nthe great importance of historical continuity, would gladly sink much of\nmy own private opinion as to the value of the Christian ideal, and would\ngratefully help either Church or both, according to the best of my very\nfeeble ability.  On these terms, indeed, I could swallow not a few camels\nmyself cheerfully enough.\n\nCan we, however, see any signs as though either Rome or England will stir\nhand or foot to meet us?  Can any step be pointed to as though either\nChurch wished to make things easier for men holding the opinions held by\nthe late Mr. Darwin, or by Mr. Herbert Spencer and Professor Huxley?  How\ncan those who accept evolution with any thoroughness accept such\ndoctrines as the Incarnation or the Redemption with any but a\nquasi-allegorical and poetical interpretation?  Can we conceivably accept\nthese doctrines in the literal sense in which the Church advances them?\nAnd can the leaders of the Church be blind to the resistlessness of the\ncurrent that has set against those literal interpretations which she\nseems to hug more and more closely the more religious life is awakened at\nall?  The clergyman is wanted as supplementing the doctor and the lawyer\nin all civilised communities; these three keep watch on one another, and\nprevent one another from becoming too powerful.  I, who distrust the\n_doctrinaire_ in science even more than the _doctrinaire_ in religion,\nshould view with dismay the abolition of the Church of England, as\nknowing that a blatant bastard science would instantly step into her\nshoes; but if some such deplorable consummation is to be avoided in\nEngland, it can only be through more evident leaning on the part of our\nclergy to such an interpretation of the Sacred History as the presence of\na black and white Madonna almost side by side at Oropa appears to\nsuggest.\n\nI fear that in these last paragraphs I may have trenched on dangerous\nground, but it is not possible to go to such places as Oropa without\nasking oneself what they mean and involve.  As for the average Italian\npilgrims, they do not appear to give the matter so much as a thought.\nThey love Oropa, and flock to it in thousands during the summer; the\nPresident of the Administration assured me that they lodged, after a\nfashion, as many as ten thousand pilgrims on the 15th of last August.  It\nis astonishing how living the statues are to these people, and how the\nwicked are upbraided and the good applauded.  At Varallo, since I took\nthe photographs I published in my book \"Ex Voto,\" an angry pilgrim has\nsmashed the nose of the dwarf in Tabachetti's Journey to Calvary, for no\nother reason than inability to restrain his indignation against one who\nwas helping to inflict pain on Christ.  It is the real hair and the\npainting up to nature that does this.  Here at Oropa I found a paper on\nthe floor of the _Sposalizio_ Chapel, which ran as follows:--\n\n\"By the grace of God and the will of the administrative chapter of this\nsanctuary, there have come here to work --- ---, mason --- ---,\ncarpenter, and --- --- plumber, all of Chiavazza, on the twenty-first day\nof January 1886, full of cold (_pieni di freddo_).\n\n\"They write these two lines to record their visit.  They pray the Blessed\nVirgin that she will maintain them safe and sound from everything\nequivocal that may befall them (_sempre sani e salvi da ogni equivoco li\npossa accadere_).  Oh, farewell!  We reverently salute all the present\nstatues, and especially the Blessed Virgin, and the reader.\"\n\nThrough the _Universal Review_, I suppose, all its readers are to\nconsider themselves saluted; at any rate, these good fellows, in the\neffusiveness of their hearts, actually wrote the above in pencil.  I was\nsorely tempted to steal it, but, after copying it, left it in the Chief\nPriest's hands instead.\n\n\n\n\nART IN THE VALLEY OF SAAS {11}\n\n\nHaving been told by Mr. Fortescue, of the British Museum, that there were\nsome chapels at Saas-Fee which bore analogy to those at Varallo,\ndescribed in my book \"Ex Voto,\" {12} I went to Saas during this last\nsummer, and venture now to lay my conclusions before the reader.\n\nThe chapels are fifteen in number, and lead up to a larger and singularly\ngraceful one, rather more than half-way between Saas and Saas-Fee.  This\nis commonly but wrongly called the chapel of St. Joseph, for it is\ndedicated to the Virgin, and its situation is of such extreme beauty--the\ngreat Fee glaciers showing through the open portico--that it is in itself\nworth a pilgrimage.  It is surrounded by noble larches and overhung by\nrock; in front of the portico there is a small open space covered with\ngrass, and a huge larch, the stem of which is girt by a rude stone seat.\nThe portico itself contains seats for worshippers, and a pulpit from\nwhich the preacher's voice can reach the many who must stand outside.  The\nwalls of the inner chapel are hung with votive pictures, some of them\nvery quaint and pleasing, and not overweighted by those qualities that\nare usually dubbed by the name of artistic merit.  Innumerable wooden and\nwaxen representations of arms, legs, eyes, ears and babies tell of the\ncures that have been effected during two centuries of devotion, and can\nhardly fail to awaken a kindly sympathy with the long dead and forgotten\nfolks who placed them where they are.\n\nThe main interest, however, despite the extreme loveliness of the St.\nMary's Chapel, centres rather in the small and outwardly unimportant\noratories (if they should be so called) that lead up to it.  These begin\nimmediately with the ascent from the level ground on which the village of\nSaas-im-Grund is placed, and contain scenes in the history of the\nRedemption, represented by rude but spirited wooden figures, each about\ntwo feet high, painted, gilt, and rendered as life-like in all respects\nas circumstances would permit.  The figures have suffered a good deal\nfrom neglect, and are still not a little misplaced.  With the assistance,\nhowever, of the Rev. E. J. Selwyn, English Chaplain at Saas-im-Grund, I\nhave been able to replace many of them in their original positions, as\nindicated by the parts of the figures that are left rough-hewn and\nunpainted.  They vary a good deal in interest, and can be easily sneered\nat by those who make a trade of sneering.  Those, on the other hand, who\nremain unsophisticated by overmuch art-culture will find them full of\ncharacter in spite of not a little rudeness of execution, and will be\nsurprised at coming across such works in a place so remote from any art-\ncentre as Saas must have been at the time these chapels were made.  It\nwill be my business therefore to throw what light I can upon the\nquestions how they came to be made at all, and who was the artist who\ndesigned them.\n\nThe only documentary evidence consists in a chronicle of the valley of\nSaas written in the early years of this century by the Rev. Peter Jos.\nRuppen, and published at Sion in 1851.  This work makes frequent\nreference to a manuscript by the Rev. Peter Joseph Clemens Lommatter,\n_cure_ of Saas-Fee from 1738 to 1751, which has unfortunately been lost,\nso that we have no means of knowing how closely it was adhered to.  The\nRev. Jos. Ant. Ruppen, the present excellent _cure_ of Saas-im-Grund,\nassures me that there is no reference to the Saas-Fee oratories in the\n\"Actes de l'Eglise\" at Saas, which I understand go a long way back; but I\nhave not seen these myself.  Practically, then, we have no more\ndocumentary evidence than is to be found in the published chronicle above\nreferred to.\n\nWe there find it stated that the large chapel, commonly, but as above\nexplained, wrongly called St. Joseph's, was built in 1687, and enlarged\nby subscription in 1747.  These dates appear on the building itself, and\nare no doubt accurate.  The writer adds that there was no actual edifice\non this site before the one now existing was built, but there was a\nmiraculous picture of the Virgin placed in a mural niche, before which\nthe pious herdsmen and devout inhabitants of the valley worshipped under\nthe vault of heaven. {13}  A miraculous (or miracle-working) picture was\nalways more or less rare and important; the present site, therefore,\nseems to have been long one of peculiar sanctity.  Possibly the name Fee\nmay point to still earlier Pagan mysteries on the same site.\n\nAs regards the fifteen small chapels, the writer says they illustrate the\nfifteen mysteries of the Psalter, and were built in 1709, each\nhouseholder of the Saas-Fee contributing one chapel.  He adds that\nHeinrich Andenmatten, afterwards a brother of the Society of Jesus, was\nan especial benefactor or promoter of the undertaking.  One of the\nchapels, the Ascension (No. 12 of the series), has the date 1709 painted\non it; but there is no date on any other chapel, and there seems no\nreason why this should be taken as governing the whole series.\n\nOver and above this, there exists in Saas a tradition, as I was told\nimmediately on my arrival, by an English visitor, that the chapels were\nbuilt in consequence of a flood, but I have vainly endeavoured to trace\nthis story to an indigenous source.\n\nThe internal evidence of the wooden figures themselves--nothing analogous\nto which, it should be remembered, can be found in the chapel of\n1687--points to a much earlier date.  I have met with no school of\nsculpture belonging to the early part of the eighteenth century to which\nthey can be plausibly assigned; and the supposition that they are the\nwork of some unknown local genius who was not led up to and left no\nsuccessors may be dismissed, for the work is too scholarly to have come\nfrom any one but a trained sculptor.  I refer of course to those figures\nwhich the artist must be supposed to have executed with his own hand, as,\nfor example, the central figure of the Crucifixion group and those of the\nMagdalene and St. John.  The greater number of the figures were probably,\nas was suggested to me by Mr. Ranshaw, of Lowth, executed by a local\nwoodcarver from models in clay and wax furnished by the artist himself.\nThose who examine the play of line in the hair, mantle, and sleeve of the\nMagdalene in the Crucifixion group, and contrast it with the greater part\nof the remaining draperies, will find little hesitation in concluding\nthat this was the case, and will ere long readily distinguish the two\nhands from which the figures have mainly come.  I say \"mainly,\" because\nthere is at least one other sculptor who may well have belonged to the\nyear 1709, but who fortunately has left us little.  Examples of his work\nmay perhaps be seen in the nearest villain with a big hat in the\nFlagellation chapel, and in two cherubs in the Assumption of the Virgin.\n\nWe may say, then, with some certainty, that the designer was a cultivated\nand practised artist.  We may also not less certainly conclude that he\nwas of Flemish origin, for the horses in the Journey to Calvary and\nCrucifixion chapels, where alone there are any horses at all, are of\nFlemish breed, with no trace of the Arab blood adopted by Gaudenzio at\nVarallo.  The character, moreover, of the villains is Northern--of the\nQuentin Matsys, Martin Schongauer type, rather than Italian; the same sub-\nRubensesque feeling which is apparent in more than one chapel at Varallo\nis not less evident here--especially in the Journey to Calvary and\nCrucifixion chapels.  There can hardly, therefore, be a doubt that the\nartist was a Fleming who had worked for several years in Italy.\n\nIt is also evident that he had Tabachetti's work at Varallo well in his\nmind.  For not only does he adopt certain details of costume (I refer\nparticularly to the treatment of soldiers' tunics) which are peculiar to\nTabachetti at Varallo, but whenever he treats a subject which Tabachetti\nhad treated at Varallo, as in the Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns, and\nJourney to Calvary chapels, the work at Saas is evidently nothing but a\nsomewhat modified abridgement of that at Varallo.  When, however, as in\nthe Annunciation, the Nativity, the Crucifixion, and other chapels, the\nwork at Varallo is by another than Tabachetti, no allusion is made to it.\nThe Saas artist has Tabachetti's Varallo work at his finger-ends, but\nbetrays no acquaintance whatever with Gaudenzio Ferrari, Gio. Ant.\nParacca, or Giovanni D'Enrico.\n\nEven, moreover, when Tabachetti's work at Varallo is being most obviously\ndrawn from, as in the Journey to Calvary chapel, the Saas version differs\nmaterially from that at Varallo, and is in some respects an improvement\non it.  The idea of showing other horsemen and followers coming up from\nbehind, whose heads can be seen over the crown of the interposing hill,\nis singularly effective as suggesting a number of others that are unseen,\nnor can I conceive that any one but the original designer would follow\nTabachetti's Varallo design with as much closeness as it has been\nfollowed here, and yet make such a brilliantly successful modification.\nThe stumbling, again, of one horse (a detail almost hidden, according to\nTabachetti's wont) is a touch which Tabachetti himself might add, but\nwhich no Saas woodcarver who was merely adapting from a reminiscence of\nTabachetti's Varallo chapel would be likely to introduce.  These\nconsiderations have convinced me that the designer of the chapels at Saas\nis none other than Tabachetti himself, who, as has been now conclusively\nshown, was a native of Dinant, in Belgium.\n\nThe Saas chronicler, indeed, avers that the chapels were not built till\n1709--a statement apparently corroborated by a date now visible on one\nchapel; but we must remember that the chronicler did not write until a\ncentury or so later than 1709, and though, indeed, his statement may have\nbeen taken from the lost earlier manuscript of 1738, we know nothing\nabout this either one way or the other.  The writer may have gone by the\nstill existing 1709 on the Ascension chapel, whereas this date may in\nfact have referred to a restoration, and not to an original construction.\nThere is nothing, as I have said, in the choice of the chapel on which\nthe date appears, to suggest that it was intended to govern the others.  I\nhave explained that the work is isolated and exotic.  It is by one in\nwhom Flemish and Italian influences are alike equally predominant; by one\nwho was saturated with Tabachetti's Varallo work, and who can improve\nupon it, but over whom the other Varallo sculptors have no power.  The\nstyle of the work is of the sixteenth and not of the eighteenth\ncentury--with a few obvious exceptions that suit the year 1709\nexceedingly well.  Against such considerations as these, a statement made\nat the beginning of this century referring to a century earlier, and a\npromiscuous date upon one chapel, can carry but little weight.  I shall\nassume, therefore, henceforward, that we have here groups designed in a\nplastic material by Tabachetti, and reproduced in wood by the best local\nwood-sculptor available, with the exception of a few figures cut by the\nartist himself.\n\nWe ask, then, at what period in his life did Tabachetti design these\nchapels, and what led to his coming to such an out-of-the-way place as\nSaas at all?  We should remember that, according both to Fassola and\nTorrotti (writing in 1671 and 1686 respectively), Tabachetti {14} became\ninsane about the year 1586 or early in 1587, after having just begun the\nSalutation chapel.  I have explained in \"Ex Voto\" that I do not believe\nthis story.  I have no doubt that Tabachetti was declared to be mad, but\nI believe this to have been due to an intrigue, set on foot in order to\nget a foreign artist out of the way, and to secure the Massacre of the\nInnocents chapel, at that precise time undertaken, for Gio. Ant. Paracca,\nwho was an Italian.\n\nOr he may have been sacrificed in order to facilitate the return of the\nworkers in stucco whom he had superseded on the Sacro Monte.  He may have\nbeen goaded into some imprudence which was seized upon as a pretext for\nshutting him up; at any rate, the fact that when in 1587 he inherited his\nfather's property at Dinant, his trustee (he being expressly stated to be\n\"_expatrie_\") was \"_datif_,\" \"_dativus_,\" appointed not by himself but by\nthe court, lends colour to the statement that he was not his own master\nat the time; for in later kindred deeds, now at Namur, he appoints his\nown trustee.  I suppose, then, that Tabachetti was shut up in a madhouse\nat Varallo for a considerable time, during which I can find no trace of\nhim, but that eventually he escaped or was released.\n\nWhether he was a fugitive, or whether he was let out from prison, he\nwould in either case, in all reasonable probability, turn his face\nhomeward.  If he was escaping, he would make immediately for the Savoy\nfrontier, within which Saas then lay.  He would cross the Baranca above\nFobello, coming down on to Ponte Grande in the Val Anzasca.  He would go\nup the Val Anzasca to Macugnaga, and over the Monte Moro, which would\nbring him immediately to Saas.  Saas, therefore, is the nearest and most\nnatural place for him to make for, if he were flying from Varallo, and\nhere I suppose him to have halted.\n\nIt so happened that on the 9th of September, 1589, there was one of the\nthree great outbreaks of the Mattmark See that have from time to time\ndevastated the valley of Saas. {15}  It is probable that the chapels were\ndecided upon in consequence of some grace shown by the miraculous picture\nof the Virgin, which had mitigated a disaster occurring so soon after the\nanniversary of her own Nativity.  Tabachetti, arriving at this juncture,\nmay have offered to undertake them if the Saas people would give him an\nasylum.  Here, at any rate, I suppose him to have stayed till some time\nin 1590, probably the second half of it, his design of eventually\nreturning home, if he ever entertained it, being then interrupted by a\nsummons to Crea near Casale, where I believe him to have worked with a\nfew brief interruptions thenceforward for little if at all short of half\na century, or until about the year 1640.  I admit, however, that the\nevidence for assigning him so long a life rests solely on the supposed\nidentity of the figure known as \"Il Vecchietto,\" in the Varallo Descent\nfrom the Cross chapel, with the portrait of Tabachetti himself in the\nEcce Homo chapel, also at Varallo.\n\nI find additional reason for thinking the chapels owe their origin to the\ninundation of September 9, 1589, in the fact that the 8th of September is\nmade a day of pilgrimage to the Saas-Fee chapels throughout the whole\nvalley of Saas.  It is true the 8th of September is the festival of the\nNativity of the Virgin Mary, so that under any circumstances this would\nbe a great day, but the fact that not only the people of Saas, but the\nwhole valley down to Visp, flock to this chapel on the 8th of September,\npoints to the belief that some special act of grace on the part of the\nVirgin was vouchsafed on this day in connection with this chapel.  A\nbelief that it was owing to the intervention of St. Mary of Fee that the\ninundation was not attended with loss of life would be very likely to\nlead to the foundation of a series of chapels leading up to the place\nwhere her miraculous picture was placed, and to the more special\ncelebration of her Nativity in connection with this spot throughout the\nvalley of Saas.  I have discussed the subject with the Rev. Jos. Ant.\nRuppen, and he told me he thought the fact that the great _fete_ of the\nyear in connection with the Saas-Fee chapels was on the 8th of September\npointed rather strongly to the supposition that there was a connection\nbetween these and the recorded flood of September 9, 1589.\n\nTurning to the individual chapels they are as follows:--\n\n1.  The Annunciation.  The treatment here presents no more analogy to\nthat of the same subject at Varallo than is inevitable in the nature of\nthe subject.  The Annunciation figures at Varallo have proved to be mere\ndraped dummies with wooden heads; Tabachetti, even though he did the\nheads, which he very likely did, would take no interest in the Varallo\nwork with the same subject.  The Annunciation, from its very simplicity\nas well as from the transcendental nature of the subject, is singularly\nhard to treat, and the work here, whatever it may once have been, is now\nno longer remarkable.\n\n2.  The Salutation of Mary by Elizabeth.  This group, again, bears no\nanalogy to the Salutation chapel at Varallo, in which Tabachetti's share\nwas so small that it cannot be considered as in any way his.  It is not\nto be expected, therefore, that the Saas chapel should follow the Varallo\none.  The figures, four in number, are pleasing and well arranged.  St.\nJoseph, St. Elizabeth, and St. Zacharias are all talking at once.  The\nVirgin is alone silent.\n\n3.  The Nativity is much damaged and hard to see.  The treatment bears no\nanalogy to that adopted by Gaudenzio Ferrari at Varallo.  There is one\npleasing young shepherd standing against the wall, but some figures have\nno doubt (as in others of the chapels) disappeared, and those that remain\nhave been so shifted from their original positions that very little idea\ncan be formed of what the group was like when Tabachetti left it.\n\n4.  The Purification.  I can hardly say why this chapel should remind me,\nas it does, of the Circumcision chapel at Varallo, for there are more\nfigures here than space at Varallo will allow.  It cannot be pretended\nthat any single figure is of extraordinary merit, but amongst them they\ntell their story with excellent effect.  Two, those of St. Joseph and St.\nAnna (?), that doubtless were once more important factors in the drama,\nare now so much in corners near the window that they can hardly be seen.\n\n5.  The Dispute in the Temple.  This subject is not treated at Varallo.\nHere at Saas there are only six doctors now; whether or no there were\noriginally more cannot be determined.\n\n6.  The Agony in the Garden.  Tabachetti had no chapel with this subject\nat Varallo, and there is no resemblance between the Saas chapel and that\nby D'Enrico.  The figures are no doubt approximately in their original\npositions, but I have no confidence that I have rearranged them\ncorrectly.  They were in such confusion when I first saw them that the\nRev. E. J. Selwyn and myself determined to rearrange them.  They have\ndoubtless been shifted more than once since Tabachetti left them.  The\nsleeping figures are all good.  St. James is perhaps a little prosaic.\nOne Roman soldier who is coming into the garden with a lantern, and\nmotioning silence with his hand, does duty for the others that are to\nfollow him.  I should think more than one of these figures is actually\ncarved in wood by Tabachetti, allowance being made for the fact that he\nwas working in a material with which he was not familiar, and which no\nsculptor of the highest rank has ever found congenial.\n\n7.  The Flagellation.  Tabachetti has a chapel with this subject at\nVarallo, and the Saas group is obviously a descent with modification from\nhis work there.  The figure of Christ is so like the one at Varallo that\nI think it must have been carved by Tabachetti himself.  The man with the\nhooked nose, who at Varallo is stooping to bind his rods, is here\nupright: it was probably the intention to emphasise him in the succeeding\nscenes as well as this, in the same way as he has been emphasised at\nVarallo, but his nose got pared down in the cutting of later scenes, and\ncould not easily be added to.  The man binding Christ to the column at\nVarallo is repeated (_longo intervallo_) here, and the whole work is one\ninspired by that at Varallo, though no single figure except that of the\nChrist is adhered to with any very great closeness.  I think the nearer\nmalefactor, with a goitre, and wearing a large black hat, is either an\naddition of the year 1709, or was done by the journeyman of the local\nsculptor who carved the greater number of the figures.  The man stooping\ndown to bind his rods can hardly be by the same hand as either of the two\nblack-hatted malefactors, but it is impossible to speak with certainty.\nThe general effect of the chapel is excellent, if we consider the\nmaterial in which it is executed, and the rudeness of the audience to\nwhom it addresses itself.\n\n8.  The Crowning with Thorns.  Here again the inspiration is derived from\nTabachetti's Crowning with Thorns at Varallo.  The Christs in the two\nchapels are strikingly alike, and the general effect is that of a\nresiduary impression left in the mind of one who had known the Varallo\nFlagellation exceedingly well.\n\n9.  Sta. Veronica.  This and the next succeeding chapels are the most\nimportant of the series.  Tabachetti's Journey to Calvary at Varallo is\nagain the source from which the present work was taken, but, as I have\nalready said, it has been modified in reproduction.  Mount Calvary is\nstill shown, as at Varallo, towards the left-hand corner of the work, but\nat Saas it is more towards the middle than at Varallo, so that horsemen\nand soldiers may be seen coming up behind it--a stroke that deserves the\nname of genius none the less for the manifest imperfection with which it\nhas been carried into execution.  There are only three horses fully\nshown, and one partly shown.  They are all of the heavy Flemish type\nadopted by Tabachetti at Varallo.  The man kicking the fallen Christ and\nthe goitred man (with the same teeth missing), who are so conspicuous in\nthe Varallo Journey to Calvary, reappear here, only the kicking man has\nmuch less nose than at Varallo, probably because (as explained) the nose\ngot whittled away and could not be whittled back again.  I observe that\nthe kind of lapelled tunic which Tabachetti, and only Tabachetti, adopts\nat Varallo, is adopted for the centurion in this chapel, and indeed\nthroughout the Saas chapels this particular form of tunic is the most\nusual for a Roman soldier.  The work is still a very striking one,\nnotwithstanding its translation into wood and the decay into which it has\nbeen allowed to fall; nor can it fail to impress the visitor who is\nfamiliar with this class of art as coming from a man of extraordinary\ndramatic power and command over the almost impossible art of composing\nmany figures together effectively in all-round sculpture.  Whether all\nthe figures are even now as Tabachetti left them I cannot determine, but\nMr. Selwyn has restored Simon the Cyrenian to the position in which he\nobviously ought to stand, and between us we have got the chapel into\nsomething more like order.\n\n10.  The Crucifixion.  This subject was treated at Varallo not by\nTabachetti but by Gaudenzio Ferrari.  It confirms therefore my opinion as\nto the designer of the Saas chapels to find in them no trace of the\nVarallo Crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at Varallo is only\nfound in chapels wherein Tabachetti worked again appears here.  The work\nis in a deplorable state of decay.  Mr. Selwyn has greatly improved the\narrangement of the figures, but even now they are not, I imagine, quite\nas Tabachetti left them.  The figure of Christ is greatly better in\ntechnical execution than that of either of the two thieves; the folds of\nthe drapery alone will show this even to an unpractised eye.  I do not\nthink there can be a doubt but that Tabachetti cut this figure himself,\nas also those of the Magdalene and St. John, who stand at the foot of the\ncross.  The thieves are coarsely executed, with no very obvious\ndistinction between the penitent and the impenitent one, except that\nthere is a fiend painted on the ceiling over the impenitent thief.  The\none horse introduced into the composition is again of the heavy Flemish\ntype adopted by Tabachetti at Varallo.  There is great difference in the\ncare with which the folds on the several draperies have been cut, some\nbeing stiff and poor enough, while others are done very sufficiently.  In\nspite of smallness of scale, ignoble material, disarrangement and decay,\nthe work is still striking.\n\n11.  The Resurrection.  There being no chapel at Varallo with any of the\nremaining subjects treated at Saas, the sculptor has struck out a line\nfor himself.  The Christ in the Resurrection Chapel is a carefully\nmodelled figure, and if better painted might not be ineffective.  Three\nsoldiers, one sleeping, alone remain.  There were probably other figures\nthat have been lost.  The sleeping soldier is very pleasing.\n\n12.  The Ascension is not remarkably interesting; the Christ appears to\nbe, but perhaps is not, a much more modern figure than the rest.\n\n18.  The Descent of the Holy Ghost.  Some of the figures along the end\nwall are very good, and were, I should imagine, cut by Tabachetti\nhimself.  Those against the two side walls are not so well cut.\n\n14.  The Assumption of the Virgin Mary.  The two large cherubs here are\nobviously by a later hand, and the small ones are not good.  The figure\nof the Virgin herself is unexceptionable.  There were doubtless once\nother figures of the Apostles which have disappeared; of these a single\nSt. Peter (?), so hidden away in a corner near the window that it can\nonly be seen with difficulty, is the sole survivor.\n\n15.  The Coronation of the Virgin is of later date, and has probably\nsuperseded an earlier work.  It can hardly be by the designer of the\nother chapels of the series.  Perhaps Tabachetti had to leave for Crea\nbefore all the chapels at Saas were finished.\n\nLastly, we have the larger chapel dedicated to St. Mary, which crowns the\nseries.  Here there is nothing of more than common artistic interest,\nunless we except the stone altar mentioned in Ruppen's chronicle.  This\nis of course classical in style, and is, I should think, very good.\n\nOnce more I must caution the reader against expecting to find\nhighly-finished gems of art in the chapels I have been describing.  A\nwooden figure not more than two feet high clogged with many coats of\npaint can hardly claim to be taken very seriously, and even those few\nthat were cut by Tabachetti himself were not meant to have attention\nconcentrated on themselves alone.  As mere wood-carving the Saas-Fee\nchapels will not stand comparison, for example, with the triptych of\nunknown authorship in the Church of St. Anne at Gliss, close to Brieg.\nBut, in the first place, the work at Gliss is worthy of Holbein himself:\nI know no wood-carving that can so rivet the attention; moreover it is\ncoloured with water-colour and not oil, so that it is tinted, not\npainted; and, in the second place, the Gliss triptych belongs to a date\n(1519) when artists held neither time nor impressionism as objects, and\nhence, though greatly better than the Saas-Fee chapels as regards a\ncertain Japanese curiousness of finish and _naivete_ of literal\ntranscription, it cannot even enter the lists with the Saas work as\nregards _elan_ and dramatic effectiveness.  The difference between the\ntwo classes of work is much that between, say, John Van Eyck or Memling\nand Rubens or Rembrandt, or, again, between Giovanni Bellini and\nTintoretto; the aims of the one class of work are incompatible with those\nof the other.  Moreover, in the Gliss triptych the intention of the\ndesigner is carried out (whether by himself or no) with admirable skill;\nwhereas at Saas the wisdom of the workman is rather of Ober-Ammergau than\nof the Egyptians, and the voice of the poet is not a little drowned in\nthat of his mouthpiece.  If, however, the reader will bear in mind these\nsomewhat obvious considerations, and will also remember the pathetic\ncircumstances under which the chapels were designed--for Tabachetti when\nhe reached Saas was no doubt shattered in body and mind by his four\nyears' imprisonment--he will probably be not less attracted to them than\nI observed were many of the visitors both at Saas-Grund and Saas-Fee with\nwhom I had the pleasure of examining them.\n\nI will now run briefly through the other principal works in the\nneighbourhood to which I think the reader would be glad to have his\nattention directed.\n\nAt Saas-Fee itself the main altar-piece is without interest, as also one\nwith a figure of St. Sebastian.  The Virgin and Child above the remaining\naltar are, so far as I remember them, very good, and greatly superior to\nthe smaller figures of the same altar-piece.\n\nAt Almagel, an hour's walk or so above Saas-Grund--a village, the name of\nwhich, like those of the Alphubel, the Monte Moro, and more than one\nother neighbouring site, is supposed to be of Saracenic origin--the main\naltar-piece represents a female saint with folded arms being beheaded by\na vigorous man to the left.  These two figures are very good.  There are\ntwo somewhat inferior elders to the right, and the composition is crowned\nby the Assumption of the Virgin.  I like the work, but have no idea who\ndid it.  Two bishops flanking the composition are not so good.  There are\ntwo other altars in the church: the right-hand one has some pleasing\nfigures, not so the left-hand.\n\nIn St. Joseph's Chapel, on the mule-road between Saas-Grund and Saas-Fee,\nthe St. Joseph and the two children are rather nice.  In the churches and\nchapels which I looked into between Saas and Stalden, I saw many florid\nextravagant altar-pieces, but nothing that impressed me favourably.\n\nIn the parish church at Saas-Grund there are two altar-pieces which\ndeserve attention.  In the one over the main altar the arrangement of the\nLast Supper in a deep recess half-way up the composition is very pleasing\nand effective; in that above the right-hand altar of the two that stand\nin the body of the church there are a number of round lunettes, about\neight inches in diameter, each containing a small but spirited group of\nwooden figures.  I have lost my notes on these altar-pieces and can only\nremember that the main one has been restored, and now belongs to two\ndifferent dates, the earlier date being, I should imagine, about 1670.  A\nsimilar treatment of the Last Supper may be found near Brieg in the\nchurch of Naters, and no doubt the two altar-pieces are by the same man.\nThere are, by the way, two very ambitious altars on either side the main\narch leading to the chance in the church at Naters, of which the one on\nthe south side contains obvious reminiscences of Gaudenzio Ferrari's Sta.\nMaria frescoes at Varallo; but none of the four altar-pieces in the two\ntransepts tempted me to give them much attention.  As regards the smaller\naltar-piece at Saas-Grund, analogous work may be found at Cravagliana,\nhalf-way between Varallo and Fobello, but this last has suffered through\nthe inveterate habit which Italians have of showing their hatred towards\nthe enemies of Christ by mutilating the figures that represent them.\nWhether the Saas work is by a Valsesian artist who came over to\nSwitzerland, or whether the Cravagliana work is by a Swiss who had come\nto Italy, I cannot say without further consideration and closer\nexamination than I have been able to give.  The altar-pieces of Mairengo,\nChiggiogna, and, I am told, Lavertezzo, all in the Canton Ticino, are by\na Swiss or German artist who has migrated southward; but the reverse\nmigration was equally common.\n\nBeing in the neighbourhood, and wishing to assure myself whether the\nsculptor of the Saas-Fee chapels had or had not come lower down the\nvalley, I examined every church and village which I could hear of as\ncontaining anything that might throw light on this point.  I was thus led\nto Vispertimenen, a village some three hours above either Visp or\nStalden.  It stands very high, and is an almost untouched example of a\nmedieval village.  The altar-piece of the main church is even more\nfloridly ambitious in its abundance of carving and gilding than the many\nother ambitious altar-pieces with which the Canton Valais abounds.  The\nApostles are receiving the Holy Ghost on the first storey of the\ncomposition, and they certainly are receiving it with an overjoyed\nalacrity and hilarious ecstasy of _allegria spirituale_ which it would\nnot be easy to surpass.  Above the village, reaching almost to the limits\nbeyond which there is no cultivation, there stands a series of chapels\nlike those I have been describing at Saas-Fee, only much larger and more\nambitious.  They are twelve in number, including the church that crowns\nthe series.  The figures they contain are of wood (so I was assured, but\nI did not go inside the chapels): they are life-size, and in some chapels\nthere are as many as a dozen figures.  I should think they belonged to\nthe later half of the last century, and here, one would say, sculpture\ntouches the ground; at least, it is not easy to see how cheap\nexaggeration can sink an art more deeply.  The only things that at all\npleased me were a smiling donkey and an ecstatic cow in the Nativity\nchapel.  Those who are not allured by the prospect of seeing perhaps the\nvery worst that can be done in its own line, need not be at the pains of\nclimbing up to Vispertimenen.  Those, on the other hand, who may find\nthis sufficient inducement will not be disappointed, and they will enjoy\nmagnificent views of the Weisshorn and the mountains near the Dom.\n\nI have already referred to the triptych at Gliss.  This is figured in\nWolf's work on Chamonix and the Canton Valais, but a larger and clearer\nreproduction of such an extraordinary work is greatly to be desired.  The\nsmall wooden statues above the triptych, as also those above its modern\ncompanion in the south transept, are not less admirable than the triptych\nitself.  I know of no other like work in wood, and have no clue whatever\nas to who the author can have been beyond the fact that the work is\npurely German and eminently Holbeinesque in character.\n\nI was told of some chapels at Rarogne, five or six miles lower down the\nvalley than Visp.  I examined them, and found they had been stripped of\ntheir figures.  The few that remained satisfied me that we have had no\nloss.  Above Brieg there are two other like series of chapels.  I\nexamined the higher and more promising of the two, but found not one\nsingle figure left.  I was told by my driver that the other series, close\nto the Pont Napoleon on the Simplon road, had been also stripped of its\nfigures, and, there being a heavy storm at the time, have taken his word\nfor it that this was so.\n\n\n\n\nTHOUGHT AND LANGUAGE {16}\n\n\nThree well-known writers, Professor Max Muller, Professor Mivart, and Mr.\nAlfred Russel Wallace have lately maintained that though the theory of\ndescent with modification accounts for the development of all vegetable\nlife, and of all animals lower than man, yet that man cannot--not at\nleast in respect of the whole of his nature--be held to have descended\nfrom any animal lower than himself, inasmuch as none lower than man\npossesses even the germs of language.  Reason, it is contended--more\nespecially by Professor Max Muller in his \"Science of Thought,\" to which\nI propose confining our attention this evening--is so inseparably\nconnected with language, that the two are in point of fact identical;\nhence it is argued that, as the lower animals have no germs of language,\nthey can have no germs of reason, and the inference is drawn that man\ncannot be conceived as having derived his own reasoning powers and\ncommand of language through descent from beings in which no germ of\neither can be found.  The relations therefore between thought and\nlanguage, interesting in themselves, acquire additional importance from\nthe fact of their having become the battle-ground between those who say\nthat the theory of descent breaks down with man, and those who maintain\nthat we are descended from some ape-like ancestor long since extinct.\n\nThe contention of those who refuse to admit man unreservedly into the\nscheme of evolution is comparatively recent.  The great propounders of\nevolution, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck--not to mention a score of\nothers who wrote at the close of the last and early part of this present\ncentury--had no qualms about admitting man into their system.  They have\nbeen followed in this respect by the late Mr. Charles Darwin, and by the\ngreatly more influential part of our modern biologists, who hold that\nwhatever loss of dignity we may incur through being proved to be of\nhumble origin, is compensated by the credit we may claim for having\nadvanced ourselves to such a high pitch of civilisation; this bids us\nexpect still further progress, and glorifies our descendants more than it\nabases our ancestors.  But to whichever view we may incline on\nsentimental grounds the fact remains that, while Charles Darwin declared\nlanguage to form no impassable barrier between man and the lower animals,\nProfessor Max Muller calls it the Rubicon which no brute dare cross, and\ndeduces hence the conclusion that man cannot have descended from an\nunknown but certainly speechless ape.\n\nIt may perhaps be expected that I should begin a lecture on the relations\nbetween thought and language with some definition of both these things;\nbut thought, as Sir William Grove said of motion, is a phenomenon \"so\nobvious to simple apprehension, that to define it would make it more\nobscure.\" {17}  Definitions are useful where things are new to us, but\nthey are superfluous about those that are already familiar, and\nmischievous, so far as they are possible at all, in respect of all those\nthings that enter so profoundly and intimately into our being that in\nthem we must either live or bear no life.  To vivisect the more vital\nprocesses of thought is to suspend, if not to destroy them; for thought\ncan think about everything more healthily and easily than about itself.\nIt is like its instrument the brain, which knows nothing of any injuries\ninflicted upon itself.  As regards what is new to us, a definition will\nsometimes dilute a difficulty, and help us to swallow that which might\nchoke us undiluted; but to define when we have once well swallowed is to\nunsettle, rather than settle, our digestion.  Definitions, again, are\nlike steps cut in a steep slope of ice, or shells thrown on to a greasy\npavement; they give us foothold, and enable us to advance, but when we\nare at our journey's end we want them no longer.  Again, they are useful\nas mental fluxes, and as helping us to fuse new ideas with our older\nones.  They present us with some tags and ends of ideas that we have\nalready mastered, on to which we can hitch our new ones; but to multiply\nthem in respect of such a matter as thought, is like scratching the bite\nof a gnat; the more we scratch the more we want to scratch; the more we\ndefine the more we shall have to go on defining the words we have used in\nour definitions, and shall end by setting up a serious mental raw in the\nplace of a small uneasiness that was after all quite endurable.  We know\ntoo well what thought is, to be able to know that we know it, and I am\npersuaded there is no one in this room but understands what is meant by\nthought and thinking well enough for all the purposes of this discussion.\nWhoever does not know this without words will not learn it for all the\nwords and definitions that are laid before him.  The more, indeed, he\nhears, the more confused he will become.  I shall, therefore, merely\npremise that I use the word \"thought\" in the same sense as that in which\nit is generally used by people who say that they think this or that.  At\nany rate, it will be enough if I take Professor Max Muller's own\ndefinition, and say that its essence consists in a bringing together of\nmental images and ideas with deductions therefrom, and with a\ncorresponding power of detaching them from one another.  Hobbes, the\nProfessor tells us, maintained this long ago, when he said that all our\nthinking consists of addition and subtraction--that is to say, in\nbringing ideas together, and in detaching them from one another.\n\nTurning from thought to language, we observe that the word is derived\nfrom the French _langue_, or _tongue_.  Strictly, therefore, it means\n_tonguage_.  This, however, takes account of but a very small part of the\nideas that underlie the word.  It does, indeed, seize a familiar and\nimportant detail of everyday speech, though it may be doubted whether the\ntongue has more to do with speaking than lips, teeth and throat have, but\nit makes no attempt at grasping and expressing the essential\ncharacteristic of speech.  Anything done with the tongue, even though it\ninvolve no speaking at all, is _tonguage_; eating oranges is as much\ntonguage as speech is.  The word, therefore, though it tells us in part\nhow speech is effected, reveals nothing of that ulterior meaning which is\nnevertheless inseparable from any right use of the words either \"speech\"\nor \"language.\"  It presents us with what is indeed a very frequent\nadjunct of conversation, but the use of written characters, or the finger-\nspeech of deaf mutes, is enough to show that the word \"language\" omits\nall reference to the most essential characteristics of the idea, which in\npractice it nevertheless very sufficiently presents to us.  I hope\npresently to make it clear to you how and why it should do so.  The word\nis incomplete in the first place, because it omits all reference to the\nideas which words, speech or language are intended to convey, and there\ncan be no true word without its actually or potentially conveying an\nidea.  Secondly, it makes no allusion to the person or persons to whom\nthe ideas are to be conveyed.  Language is not language unless it not\nonly expresses fairly definite and coherent ideas, but unless it also\nconveys these ideas to some other living intelligent being, either man or\nbrute, that can understand them.  We may speak to a dog or horse, but not\nto a stone.  If we make pretence of doing so we are in reality only\ntalking to ourselves.  The person or animal spoken to is half the\nbattle--a half, moreover, which is essential to there being any battle at\nall.  It takes two people to say a thing--a sayee as well as a sayer.  The\none is as essential to any true saying as the other.  A. may have spoken,\nbut if B. has not heard, there has been nothing said, and he must speak\nagain.  True, the belief on A.'s part that he had a _bona fide_ sayee in\nB., saves his speech qua him, but it has been barren and left no fertile\nissue.  It has failed to fulfil the conditions of true speech, which\ninvolve not only that A. should speak, but also that B. should hear.\nTrue, again, we often speak of loose, incoherent, indefinite language;\nbut by doing so we imply, and rightly, that we are calling that language\nwhich is not true language at all.  People, again, sometimes talk to\nthemselves without intending that any other person should hear them, but\nthis is not well done, and does harm to those who practise it.  It is\nabnormal, whereas our concern is with normal and essential\ncharacteristics; we may, therefore, neglect both delirious babblings, and\nthe cases in which a person is regarding him or herself, as it were, from\noutside, and treating himself as though he were some one else.\n\nInquiring, then, what are the essentials, the presence of which\nconstitutes language, while their absence negatives it altogether, we\nfind that Professor Max Muller restricts them to the use of grammatical\narticulate words that we can write or speak, and denies that anything can\nbe called language unless it can be written or spoken in articulate words\nand sentences.  He also denies that we can think at all unless we do so\nin words; that is to say, in sentences with verbs and nouns.  Indeed he\ngoes so far as to say upon his title-page that there can be no\nreason--which I imagine comes to much the same thing as thought--without\nlanguage, and no language without reason.\n\nAgainst the assertion that there can be no true language without reason I\nhave nothing to say.  But when the Professor says that there can be no\nreason, or thought, without language, his opponents contend, as it seems\nto me, with greater force, that thought, though infinitely aided,\nextended and rendered definite through the invention of words,\nnevertheless existed so fully as to deserve no other name thousands, if\nnot millions of years before words had entered into it at all.  Words,\nthey say, are a comparatively recent invention, for the fuller expression\nof something that was already in existence.\n\nChildren, they urge, are often evidently thinking and reasoning, though\nthey can neither think nor speak in words.  If you ask me to define\nreason, I answer as before that this can no more be done than thought,\ntruth or motion can be defined.  Who has answered the question, \"What is\ntruth?\"  Man cannot see God and live.  We cannot go so far back upon\nourselves as to undermine our own foundations; if we try to do we topple\nover, and lose that very reason about which we vainly try to reason.  If\nwe let the foundations be, we know well enough that they are there, and\nwe can build upon them in all security.  We cannot, then, define reason\nnor crib, cabin and confine it within a thus-far-shalt-thou-go-and-no-\nfurther.  Who can define heat or cold, or night or day?  Yet, so long as\nwe hold fast by current consent, our chances of error for want of better\ndefinition are so small that no sensible person will consider them.  In\nlike manner, if we hold by current consent or common sense, which is the\nsame thing, about reason, we shall not find the want of an academic\ndefinition hinder us from a reasonable conclusion.  What nurse or mother\nwill doubt that her infant child can reason within the limits of its own\nexperience, long before it can formulate its reason in articulately\nworded thought?  If the development of any given animal is, as our\nopponents themselves admit, an epitome of the history of its whole\nanterior development, surely the fact that speech is an accomplishment\nacquired after birth so artificially that children who have gone wild in\nthe woods lose it if they have ever learned it, points to the conclusion\nthat man's ancestors only learned to express themselves in articulate\nlanguage at a comparatively recent period.  Granted that they learn to\nthink and reason continually the more and more fully for having done so,\nwill common sense permit us to suppose that they could neither think nor\nreason at all till they could convey their ideas in words?\n\nI will return later to the reason of the lower animals, but will now deal\nwith the question what it is that constitutes language in the most\ncomprehensive sense that can be properly attached to it.  I have said\nalready that language to be language at all must not only convey fairly\ndefinite coherent ideas, but must also convey them to another living\nbeing.  Whenever two living beings have conveyed and received ideas,\nthere has been language, whether looks or gestures or words spoken or\nwritten have been the vehicle by means of which the ideas have travelled.\nSome ideas crawl, some run, some fly; and in this case words are the\nwings they fly with, but they are only the wings of thought or of ideas,\nthey are not the thought or ideas themselves, nor yet, as Professor Max\nMuller would have it, inseparably connected with them.  Last summer I was\nat an inn in Sicily, where there was a deaf and dumb waiter; he had been\nborn so, and could neither write nor read.  What had he to do with words\nor words with him?  Are we to say, then, that this most active, amiable\nand intelligent fellow could neither think nor reason?  One day I had had\nmy dinner and had left the hotel.  A friend came in, and the waiter saw\nhim look for me in the place I generally occupied.  He instantly came up\nto my friend, and moved his two forefingers in a way that suggested two\npeople going about together, this meant \"your friend\"; he then moved his\nforefingers horizontally across his eyes, this meant, \"who wears divided\nspectacles\"; he made two fierce marks over the sockets of his eyes, this\nmeant, \"with the heavy eyebrows\"; he pulled his chin, and then touched\nhis white shirt, to say that my beard was white.  Having thus identified\nme as a friend of the person he was speaking to, and as having a white\nbeard, heavy eyebrows, and wearing divided spectacles, he made a munching\nmovement with his jaws to say that I had had my dinner; and finally, by\nmaking two fingers imitate walking on the table, he explained that I had\ngone away.  My friend, however, wanted to know how long I had been gone,\nso he pulled out his watch and looked inquiringly.  The man at once\nslapped himself on the back, and held up the five fingers of one hand, to\nsay it was five minutes ago.  All this was done as rapidly as though it\nhad been said in words; and my friend, who knew the man well, understood\nwithout a moment's hesitation.  Are we to say that this man had no\nthought, nor reason, nor language, merely because he had not a single\nword of any kind in his head, which I am assured he had not; for, as I\nhave said, he could not speak with his fingers?  Is it possible to deny\nthat a dialogue--an intelligent conversation--had passed between the two\nmen?  And if conversation, then surely it is technical and pedantic to\ndeny that all the essential elements of language were present.  The signs\nand tokens used by this poor fellow were as rude an instrument of\nexpression, in comparison with ordinary language, as going on one's hands\nand knees is in comparison with walking, or as walking compared with\ngoing by train; but it is as great an abuse of words to limit the word\n\"language\" to mere words written or spoken, as it would be to limit the\nidea of a locomotive to a railway engine.  This may indeed pass in\nordinary conversation, where so much must be suppressed if talk is to be\ngot through at all, but it is intolerable when we are inquiring about the\nrelations between thought and words.  To do so is to let words become as\nit were the masters of thought, on the ground that the fact of their\nbeing only its servants and appendages is so obvious that it is generally\nallowed to go without saying.\n\nIf all that Professor Max Muller means to say is, that no animal but man\ncommands an articulate language, with verbs and nouns, or is ever likely\nto command one (and I question whether in reality he means much more than\nthis), no one will differ from him.  No dog or elephant has one word for\nbread, another for meat, and another for water.  Yet, when we watch a cat\nor dog dreaming, as they often evidently do, can we doubt that the dream\nis accompanied by a mental image of the thing that is dreamed of, much\nlike what we experience in dreams ourselves, and much doubtless like the\nmental images which must have passed through the mind of my deaf and dumb\nwaiter?  If they have mental images in sleep, can we doubt that waking,\nalso, they picture things before their mind's eyes, and see them much as\nwe do--too vaguely indeed to admit of our thinking that we actually see\nthe objects themselves, but definitely enough for us to be able to\nrecognise the idea or object of which we are thinking, and to connect it\nwith any other idea, object, or sign that we may think appropriate?\n\nHere we have touched on the second essential element of language.  We\nlaid it down, that its essence lay in the communication of an idea from\none intelligent being to another; but no ideas can be communicated at all\nexcept by the aid of conventions to which both parties have agreed to\nattach an identical meaning.  The agreement may be very informal, and may\npass so unconsciously from one generation to another that its existence\ncan only be recognised by the aid of much introspection, but it will be\nalways there.  A sayer, a sayee, and a convention, no matter what, agreed\nupon between them as inseparably attached to the idea which it is\nintended to convey--these comprise all the essentials of language.  Where\nthese are present there is language; where any of them are wanting there\nis no language.  It is not necessary for the sayee to be able to speak\nand become a sayer.  If he comprehends the sayer--that is to say, if he\nattaches the same meaning to a certain symbol as the sayer does--if he is\na party to the bargain whereby it is agreed upon by both that any given\nsymbol shall be attached invariably to a certain idea, so that in virtue\nof the principle of associated ideas the symbol shall never be present\nwithout immediately carrying the idea along with it, then all the\nessentials of language are complied with, and there has been true speech\nthough never a word was spoken.\n\nThe lower animals, therefore, many of them, possess a part of our own\nlanguage, though they cannot speak it, and hence do not possess it so\nfully as we do.  They cannot say \"bread,\" \"meat,\" or \"water,\" but there\nare many that readily learn what ideas they ought to attach to these\nsymbols when they are presented to them.  It is idle to say that a cat\ndoes not know what the cat's-meat man means when he says \"meat.\"  The cat\nknows just as well, neither better nor worse than the cat's-meat man\ndoes, and a great deal better than I myself understand much that is said\nby some very clever people at Oxford or Cambridge.  There is more true\nemployment of language, more _bona fide_ currency of speech, between a\nsayer and a sayee who understand each other, though neither of them can\nspeak a word, than between a sayer who can speak with the tongues of men\nand of angels without being clear about his own meaning, and a sayee who\ncan himself utter the same words, but who is only in imperfect agreement\nwith the sayer as to the ideas which the words or symbols that he utters\nare intended to convey.  The nature of the symbols counts for nothing;\nthe gist of the matter is in the perfect harmony between sayer and sayee\nas to the significance that is to be associated with them.\n\nProfessor Max Muller admits that we share with the lower animals what he\ncalls an emotional language, and continues that we may call their\ninterjections and imitations language if we like, as we speak of the\nlanguage of the eyes or the eloquence of mute nature, but he warns us\nagainst mistaking metaphor for fact.  It is indeed mere metaphor to talk\nof the eloquence of mute nature, or the language of winds and waves.\nThere is no intercommunion of mind with mind by means of a covenanted\nsymbol; but it is only an apparent, not a real, metaphor to say that two\npairs of eyes have spoken when they have signalled to one another\nsomething which they both understand.  A schoolboy at home for the\nholidays wants another plate of pudding, and does not like to apply\nofficially for more.  He catches the servant's eye and looks at the\npudding; the servant understands, takes his plate without a word, and\ngets him some.  Is it metaphor to say that the boy asked the servant to\ndo this, or is it not rather pedantry to insist on the letter of a bond\nand deny its spirit, by denying that language passed, on the ground that\nthe symbols covenanted upon and assented to by both were uttered and\nreceived by eyes and not by mouth and ears?  When the lady drank to the\ngentleman only with her eyes, and he pledged with his, was there no\nconversation because there was neither noun nor verb?  Eyes are verbs,\nand glasses of wine are good nouns enough as between those who understand\none another.  Whether the ideas underlying them are expressed and\nconveyed by eyeage or by tonguage is a detail that matters nothing.\n\nBut everything we say is metaphorical if we choose to be captious.\nScratch the simplest expressions, and you will find the metaphor.  Written\nwords are handage, inkage and paperage; it is only by metaphor, or\nsubstitution and transposition of ideas, that we can call them language.\nThey are indeed potential language, and the symbols employed presuppose\nnouns, verbs, and the other parts of speech; but for the most part it is\nin what we read between the lines that the profounder meaning of any\nletter is conveyed.  There are words unwritten and untranslatable into\nany nouns that are nevertheless felt as above, about and underneath the\ngross material symbols that lie scrawled upon the paper; and the deeper\nthe feeling with which anything is written the more pregnant will it be\nof meaning which can be conveyed securely enough, but which loses rather\nthan gains if it is squeezed into a sentence, and limited by the parts of\nspeech.  The language is not in the words but in the heart-to-heartness\nof the thing, which is helped by words, but is nearer and farther than\nthey.  A correspondent wrote to me once, many years ago, \"If I could\nthink to you without words you would understand me better.\"  But surely\nin this he was thinking to me, and without words, and I did understand\nhim better . . .  So it is not by the words that I am too presumptuously\nventuring to speak to-night that your opinions will be formed or\nmodified.  They will be formed or modified, if either, by something that\nyou will feel, but which I have not spoken, to the full as much as by\nanything that I have actually uttered.  You may say that this borders on\nmysticism.  Perhaps it does, but their really is some mysticism in\nnature.\n\nTo return, however, to _terra firma_.  I believe I am right in saying\nthat the essence of language lies in the intentional conveyance of ideas\nfrom one living being to another through the instrumentality of arbitrary\ntokens or symbols agreed upon, and understood by both as being associated\nwith the particular ideas in question.  The nature of the symbol chosen\nis a matter of indifference; it may be anything that appeals to human\nsenses, and is not too hot or too heavy; the essence of the matter lies\nin a mutual covenant that whatever it is it shall stand invariably for\nthe same thing, or nearly so.\n\nWe shall see this more easily if we observe the differences between\nwritten and spoken language.  The written word \"stone,\" and the spoken\nword, are each of them symbols arrived at in the first instance\narbitrarily.  They are neither of them more like the other than they are\nto the idea of a stone which rises before our minds, when we either see\nor hear the word, or than this idea again is like the actual stone\nitself, but nevertheless the spoken symbol and the written one each alike\nconvey with certainty the combination of ideas to which we have agreed to\nattach them.\n\nThe written symbol is formed with the hand, appeals to the eye, leaves a\nmaterial trace as long as paper and ink last, can travel as far as paper\nand ink can travel, and can be imprinted on eye after eye practically _ad\ninfinitum_ both as regards time and space.\n\nThe spoken symbol is formed by means of various organs in or about the\nmouth, appeals to the ear, not the eye, perishes instantly without\nmaterial trace, and if it lives at all does so only in the minds of those\nwho heard it.  The range of its action is no wider than that within which\na voice can be heard; and every time a fresh impression is wanted the\ntype must be set up anew.\n\nThe written symbol extends infinitely, as regards time and space, the\nrange within which one mind can communicate with another; it gives the\nwriter's mind a life limited by the duration of ink, paper, and readers,\nas against that of his flesh and blood body.  On the other hand, it takes\nlonger to learn the rules so as to be able to apply them with ease and\nsecurity, and even then they cannot be applied so quickly and easily as\nthose attaching to spoken symbols.  Moreover, the spoken symbol admits of\na hundred quick and subtle adjuncts by way of action, tone and\nexpression, so that no one will use written symbols unless either for the\nspecial advantages of permanence and travelling power, or because he is\nincapacitated from using spoken ones.  This, however, is hardly to the\npoint; the point is that these two conventional combinations of symbols,\nthat are as unlike one another as the Hallelujah Chorus is to St. Paul's\nCathedral, are the one as much language as the other; and we therefore\ninquire what this very patent fact reveals to us about the more essential\ncharacteristics of language itself.  What is the common bond that unites\nthese two classes of symbols that seem at first sight to have nothing in\ncommon, and makes the one raise the idea of language in our minds as\nreadily as the other?  The bond lies in the fact that both are a set of\nconventional tokens or symbols, agreed upon between the parties to whom\nthey appeal as being attached invariably to the same ideas, and because\nthey are being made as a means of communion between one mind and\nanother,--for a memorandum made for a person's own later use is nothing\nbut a communication from an earlier mind to a later and modified one; it\nis therefore in reality a communication from one mind to another as much\nas though it had been addressed to another person.\n\nWe see, therefore, that the nature of the outward and visible sign to\nwhich the inward and spiritual idea of language is attached does not\nmatter.  It may be the firing of a gun; it may be an old semaphore\ntelegraph; it may be the movements of a needle; a look, a gesture, the\nbreaking of a twig by an Indian to tell some one that he has passed that\nway: a twig broken designedly with this end in view is a letter addressed\nto whomsoever it may concern, as much as though it had been written out\nin full on bark or paper.  It does not matter one straw what it is,\nprovided it is agreed upon in concert, and stuck to.  Just as the lowest\nforms of life nevertheless present us with all the essential\ncharacteristics of livingness, and are as much alive in their own humble\nway as the most highly developed organisms, so the rudest intentional and\neffectual communication between two minds through the instrumentality of\na concerted symbol is as much language as the most finished oratory of\nMr. Gladstone.  I demur therefore to the assertion that the lower animals\nhave no language, inasmuch as they cannot themselves articulate a\ngrammatical sentence.  I do not indeed pretend that when the cat calls\nupon the tiles it uses what it consciously and introspectively recognises\nas language; it says what it has to say without introspection, and in the\nordinary course of business, as one of the common forms of courtship.  It\nno more knows that it has been using language than M. Jourdain knew he\nhad been speaking prose, but M. Jourdain's knowing or not knowing was\nneither here nor there.\n\nAnything which can be made to hitch on invariably to a definite idea that\ncan carry some distance--say an inch at the least, and which can be\nrepeated at pleasure, can be pressed into the service of language.  Mrs.\nBentley, wife of the famous Dr. Bentley of Trinity College, Cambridge,\nused to send her snuff-box to the college buttery when she wanted beer,\ninstead of a written order.  If the snuff-box came the beer was sent, but\nif there was no snuff-box there was no beer.  Wherein did the snuff-box\ndiffer more from a written order, than a written order differs from a\nspoken one?  The snuff-box was for the time being language.  It sounds\nstrange to say that one might take a pinch of snuff out of a sentence,\nbut if the servant had helped him or herself to a pinch while carrying it\nto the buttery this is what would have been done; for if a snuff-box can\nsay \"Send me a quart of beer,\" so efficiently that the beer is sent, it\nis impossible to say that it is not a _bona fide_ sentence.  As for the\nrecipient of the message, the butler did not probably translate the snuff-\nbox into articulate nouns and verbs; as soon as he saw it he just went\ndown into the cellar and drew the beer, and if he thought at all, it was\nprobably about something else.  Yet he must have been thinking without\nwords, or he would have drawn too much beer or too little, or have spilt\nit in the bringing it up, and we may be sure that he did none of these\nthings.\n\nYou will, of course, observe that if Mrs. Bentley had sent the snuff-box\nto the buttery of St. John's College instead of Trinity, it would not\nhave been language, for there would have been no covenant between sayer\nand sayee as to what the symbol should represent, there would have been\nno previously established association of ideas in the mind of the butler\nof St. John's between beer and snuff-box; the connection was artificial,\narbitrary, and by no means one of those in respect of which an impromptu\nbargain might be proposed by the very symbol itself, and assented to\nwithout previous formality by the person to whom it was presented.  More\nbriefly, the butler of St. John's would not have been able to understand\nand read it aright.  It would have been a dead letter to him--a snuff-box\nand not a letter; whereas to the butler of Trinity it was a letter and\nnot a snuff-box.\n\nYou will also note that it was only at the moment when he was looking at\nit and accepting it as a message that it flashed forth from snuff-box-\nhood into the light and life of living utterance.  As soon as it had\nkindled the butler into sending a single quart of beer, its force was\nspent until Mrs. Bentley threw her soul into it again and charged it anew\nby wanting more beer, and sending it down accordingly.\n\nAgain, take the ring which the Earl of Essex sent to Queen Elizabeth, but\nwhich the queen did not receive.  This was intended as a sentence, but\nfailed to become effectual language because the sensible material symbol\nnever reached those sentient organs which it was intended to affect.  A\nbook, again, however full of excellent words it may be, is not language\nwhen it is merely standing on a bookshelf.  It speaks to no one, unless\nwhen being actually read, or quoted from by an act of memory.  It is\npotential language as a lucifer-match is potential fire, but it is no\nmore language till it is in contact with a recipient mind, than a match\nis fire till it is struck, and is being consumed.\n\nA piece of music, again, without any words at all, or a song with words\nthat have nothing in the world to do with the ideas which it is\nnevertheless made to convey, is often very effectual language.  Much\nlying, and all irony depends on tampering with covenanted symbols, and\nmaking those that are usually associated with one set of ideas convey by\na sleight of mind others of a different nature.  That is why irony is\nintolerably fatiguing unless very sparingly used.  Take the song which\nBlondel sang under the window of King Richard's prison.  There was not\none syllable in it to say that Blondel was there, and was going to help\nthe king to get out of prison.  It was about some silly love affair, but\nit was a letter all the same, and the king made language of what would\notherwise have been no language, by guessing the meaning, that is to say\nby perceiving that he was expected to enter then and there into a new\ncovenant as to the meaning of the symbols that were presented to him,\nunderstanding what this covenant was to be, and acquiescing in it.\n\nOn the other hand, no ingenuity can torture language into being a fit\nword to use in connection with either sounds or any other symbols that\nhave not been intended to convey a meaning, or again in connection with\neither sounds or symbols in respect of which there has been no covenant\nbetween sayer and sayee.  When we hear people speaking a foreign\nlanguage--we will say Welsh--we feel that though they are no doubt using\nwhat is very good language as between themselves, there is no language\nwhatever as far as we are concerned.  We call it lingo, not language.  The\nChinese letters on a tea-chest might as well not be there, for all that\nthey say to us, though the Chinese find them very much to the purpose.\nThey are a covenant to which we have been no parties--to which our\nintelligence has affixed no signature.\n\nWe have already seen that it is in virtue of such an understood covenant\nthat symbols so unlike one another as the written word \"stone\" and the\nspoken word alike at once raise the idea of a stone in our minds.  See\nhow the same holds good as regards the different languages that pass\ncurrent in different nations.  The letters p, i, e, r, r, e convey the\nidea of a stone to a Frenchman as readily as s, t, o, n, e do to\nourselves.  And why? because that is the covenant that has been struck\nbetween those who speak and those who are spoken to.  Our \"stone\" conveys\nno idea to a Frenchman, nor his \"pierre\" to us, unless we have done what\nis commonly called acquiring one another's language.  To acquire a\nforeign language is only to learn and adhere to the covenants in respect\nof symbols which the nation in question has adopted and adheres to.\n\nTill we have done this we neither of us know the rules, so to speak, of\nthe game that the other is playing, and cannot, therefore, play together;\nbut the convention being once known and assented to, it does not matter\nwhether we raise the idea of a stone by the word \"lapis,\" or by \"lithos,\"\n\"pietra,\" \"pierre,\" \"stein,\" \"stane\" or \"stone\"; we may choose what\nsymbols written or spoken we choose, and one set, unless they are of\nunwieldy length will do as well as another, if we can get other people to\nchoose the same and stick to them; it is the accepting and sticking to\nthem that matters, not the symbols.  The whole power of spoken language\nis vested in the invariableness with which certain symbols are associated\nwith certain ideas.  If we are strict in always connecting the same\nsymbols with the same ideas, we speak well, keep our meaning clear to\nourselves, and convey it readily and accurately to any one who is also\nfairly strict.  If, on the other hand, we use the same combination of\nsymbols for one thing one day and for another the next, we abuse our\nsymbols instead of using them, and those who indulge in slovenly habits\nin this respect ere long lose the power alike of thinking and of\nexpressing themselves correctly.  The symbols, however, in the first\ninstance, may be anything in the wide world that we have a fancy for.\nThey have no more to do with the ideas they serve to convey than money\nhas with the things that it serves to buy.\n\nThe principle of association, as every one knows, involves that whenever\ntwo things have been associated sufficiently together, the suggestion of\none of them to the mind shall immediately raise a suggestion of the\nother.  It is in virtue of this principle that language, as we so call\nit, exists at all, for the essence of language consists, as I have said\nperhaps already too often, in the fixity with which certain ideas are\ninvariably connected with certain symbols.  But this being so, it is hard\nto see how we can deny that the lower animals possess the germs of a\nhighly rude and unspecialised, but still true language, unless we also\ndeny that they have any ideas at all; and this I gather is what Professor\nMax Muller in a quiet way rather wishes to do.  Thus he says, \"It is easy\nenough to show that animals communicate, but this is a fact which has\nnever been doubted.  Dogs who growl and bark leave no doubt in the minds\nof other dogs or cats, or even of man, of what they mean, but growling\nand barking are not language, nor do they even contain the elements of\nlanguage.\" {18}\n\nI observe the Professor says that animals communicate without saying what\nit is that they communicate.  I believe this to have been because if he\nsaid that the lower animals communicate their ideas, this would be to\nadmit that they have ideas; if so, and if, as they present every\nappearance of doing, they can remember, reflect upon, modify these ideas\naccording to modified surroundings, and interchange them with one\nanother, how is it possible to deny them the germs of thought, language,\nand reason--not to say a good deal more than the germs?  It seems to me\nthat not knowing what else to say that animals communicated if it was not\nideas, and not knowing what mess he might not get into if he admitted\nthat they had ideas at all, he thought it safer to omit his accusative\ncase altogether.\n\nThat growling and barking cannot be called a very highly specialised\nlanguage goes without saying; they are, however, so much diversified in\ncharacter, according to circumstances, that they place a considerable\nnumber of symbols at an animal's command, and he invariably attaches the\nsame symbol to the same idea.  A cat never purrs when she is angry, nor\nspits when she is pleased.  When she rubs her head against any one\naffectionately it is her symbol for saying that she is very fond of him,\nand she expects, and usually finds that it will be understood.  If she\nsees her mistress raise her hand as though to pretend to strike her, she\nknows that it is the symbol her mistress invariably attaches to the idea\nof sending her away, and as such she accepts it.  Granted that the\nsymbols in use among the lower animals are fewer and less highly\ndifferentiated than in the case of any known human language, and\ntherefore that animal language is incomparably less subtle and less\ncapable of expressing delicate shades of meaning than our own, these\ndifferences are nevertheless only those that exist between highly\ndeveloped and inchoate language; they do not involve those that\ndistinguish language from no language.  They are the differences between\nthe undifferentiated protoplasm of the amoeba and our own complex\norganisation; they are not the differences between life and no life.  In\nanimal language as much as in human there is a mind intentionally making\nuse of a symbol accepted by another mind as invariably attached to a\ncertain idea, in order to produce that idea in the mind which it is\ndesired to affect--more briefly, there is a sayer, a sayee, and a\ncovenanted symbol designedly applied.  Our own speech is vertebrated and\narticulated by means of nouns, verbs, and the rules of grammar.  A dog's\nspeech is invertebrate, but I do not see how it is possible to deny that\nit possesses all the essential elements of language.\n\nI have said nothing about Professor R. L. Garner's researches into the\nlanguage of apes, because they have not yet been so far verified and\naccepted as to make it safe to rely upon them; but when he lays it down\nthat all voluntary sounds are the products of thought, and that, if they\nconvey a meaning to another, they perform the functions of human speech,\nhe says what I believe will commend itself to any unsophisticated mind.  I\ncould have wished, however, that he had not limited himself to sounds,\nand should have preferred his saying what I doubt not he would readily\naccept--I mean, that all symbols or tokens of whatever kind, if\nvoluntarily adopted as such, are the products of thought, and perform the\nfunctions of human speech; but I cannot too often remind you that nothing\ncan be considered as fulfilling the conditions of language, except a\nvoluntary application of a recognised token in order to convey a more or\nless definite meaning, with the intention doubtless of thus purchasing as\nit were some other desired meaning and consequent sensation.  It is\nastonishing how closely in this respect money and words resemble one\nanother.  Money indeed may be considered as the most universal and\nexpressive of all languages.  For gold and silver coins are no more money\nwhen not in the actual process of being voluntarily used in purchase,\nthan words not so in use are language.  Pounds, shillings and pence are\nrecognised covenanted tokens, the outward and visible signs of an inward\nand spiritual purchasing power, but till in actual use they are only\npotential money, as the symbols of language, whatever they may be, are\nonly potential language till they are passing between two minds.  It is\nthe power and will to apply the symbols that alone gives life to money,\nand as long as these are in abeyance the money is in abeyance also; the\ncoins may be safe in one's pocket, but they are as dead as a log till\nthey begin to burn in it, and so are our words till they begin to burn\nwithin us.\n\nThe real question, however, as to the substantial underlying identity\nbetween the language of the lower animals and our own, turns upon that\nother question whether or no, in spite of an immeasurable difference of\ndegree, the thought and reason of man and of the lower animals is\nessentially the same.  No one will expect a dog to master and express the\nvaried ideas that are incessantly arising in connection with human\naffairs.  He is a pauper as against a millionaire.  To ask him to do so\nwould be like giving a street-boy sixpence and telling him to go and buy\nhimself a founder's share in the New River Company.  He would not even\nknow what was meant, and even if he did it would take several millions of\nsixpences to buy one.  It is astonishing what a clever workman will do\nwith very modest tools, or again how far a thrifty housewife will make a\nvery small sum of money go, or again in like manner how many ideas an\nintelligent brute can receive and convey with its very limited\nvocabulary; but no one will pretend that a dog's intelligence can ever\nreach the level of a man's.  What we do maintain is that, within its own\nlimited range, it is of the same essential character as our own, and that\nthough a dog's ideas in respect of human affairs are both vague and\nnarrow, yet in respect of canine affairs they are precise enough and\nextensive enough to deserve no other name than thought or reason.  We\nhold moreover that they communicate their ideas in essentially the same\nmanner as we do--that is to say, by the instrumentality of a code of\nsymbols attached to certain states of mind and material objects, in the\nfirst instance arbitrarily, but so persistently, that the presentation of\nthe symbol immediately carries with it the idea which it is intended to\nconvey.  Animals can thus receive and impart ideas on all that most\nconcerns them.  As my great namesake said some two hundred years ago,\nthey know \"what's what, and that's as high as metaphysic wit can fly.\"\nAnd they not only know what's what themselves, but can impart to one\nanother any new what's-whatness that they may have acquired, for they are\nnotoriously able to instruct and correct one another.\n\nAgainst this Professor Max Muller contends that we can know nothing of\nwhat goes on in the mind of any lower animal, inasmuch as we are not\nlower animals ourselves.  \"We can imagine anything we like about what\npasses in the mind of an animal,\" he writes, \"we can know absolutely\nnothing.\" {19}  It is something to have it in evidence that he conceives\nanimals as having a mind at all, but it is not easy to see how they can\nbe supposed to have a mind, without being able to acquire ideas, and\nhaving acquired, to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them.  Surely\nthe mistake of requiring too much evidence is hardly less great than that\nof being contented with too little.  We, too, are animals, and can no\nmore refuse to infer reason from certain visible actions in their case\nthan we can in our own.  If Professor Max Muller's plea were allowed, we\nshould have to deny our right to infer confidently what passes in the\nmind of any one not ourselves, inasmuch as we are not that person.  We\nnever, indeed, can obtain irrefragable certainty about this or any other\nmatter, but we can be sure enough in many cases to warrant our staking\nall that is most precious to us on the soundness of our opinion.\nMoreover, if the Professor denies our right to infer that animals reason,\non the ground that we are not animals enough ourselves to be able to form\nan opinion, with what right does he infer so confidently himself that\nthey do not reason?  And how, if they present every one of those\nappearances which we are accustomed to connect with the communication of\nan idea from one mind to another, can we deny that they have a language\nof their own, though it is one which in most cases we can neither speak\nnor understand?  How can we say that a sentinel rook, when it sees a man\nwith a gun and warns the other rooks by a concerted note which they all\nshow that they understand by immediately taking flight, should not be\ncredited both with reason and the germs of language?\n\nAfter all, a professor, whether of philology, psychology, biology, or any\nother ology, is hardly the kind of person to whom we should appeal on\nsuch an elementary question as that of animal intelligence and language.\nWe might as well ask a botanist to tell us whether grass grows, or a\nmeteorologist to tell us if it has left off raining.  If it is necessary\nto appeal to any one, I should prefer the opinion of an intelligent\ngamekeeper to that of any professor, however learned.  The keepers,\nagain, at the Zoological Gardens, have exceptional opportunities for\nstudying the minds of animals--modified, indeed, by captivity, but still\nminds of animals.  Grooms, again, and dog-fanciers, are to the full as\nable to form an intelligent opinion on the reason and language of animals\nas any University Professor, and so are cats'-meat men.  I have\nrepeatedly asked gamekeepers and keepers at the Zoological Gardens\nwhether animals could reason and converse with one another, and have\nalways found myself regarded somewhat contemptuously for having even\nasked the question.  I once said to a friend, in the hearing of a keeper\nat the Zoological Gardens, that the penguin was very stupid.  The man was\nfurious, and jumped upon me at once.  \"He's not stupid at all,\" said he;\n\"he's very intelligent.\"\n\nWho has not seen a cat, when it wishes to go out, raise its fore paws on\nto the handle of the door, or as near as it can get, and look round,\nevidently asking some one to turn it for her?  Is it reasonable to deny\nthat a reasoning process is going on in the cat's mind, whereby she\nconnects her wish with the steps necessary for its fulfilment, and also\nwith certain invariable symbols which she knows her master or mistress\nwill interpret?  Once, in company with a friend, I watched a cat playing\nwith a house-fly in the window of a ground-floor room.  We were in the\nstreet, while the cat was inside.  When we came up to the window she gave\nus one searching look, and, having satisfied herself that we had nothing\nfor her, went on with her game.  She knew all about the glass in the\nwindow, and was sure we could do nothing to molest her, so she treated us\nwith absolute contempt, never even looking at us again.\n\nThe game was this.  She was to catch the fly and roll it round and round\nunder her paw along the window-sill, but so gently as not to injure it\nnor prevent it from being able to fly again when she had done rolling it.\nIt was very early spring, and flies were scarce, in fact there was not\nanother in the whole window.  She knew that if she crippled this one, it\nwould not be able to amuse her further, and that she would not readily\nget another instead, and she liked the feel of it under her paw.  It was\nsoft and living, and the quivering of its wings tickled the ball of her\nfoot in a manner that she found particularly grateful; so she rolled it\ngently along the whole length of the window-sill.  It then became the\nfly's turn.  He was to get up and fly about in the window, so as to\nrecover himself a little; then she was to catch him again, and roll him\nsoftly all along the window-sill, as she had done before.\n\nIt was plain that the cat knew the rules of her game perfectly well, and\nenjoyed it keenly.  It was equally plain that the fly could not make head\nor tail of what it was all about.  If it had been able to do so it would\nhave gone to play in the upper part of the window, where the cat could\nnot reach it.  Perhaps it was always hoping to get through the glass, and\nescape that way; anyhow, it kept pretty much to the same pane, no matter\nhow often it was rolled.  At last, however, the fly, for some reason or\nanother, did not reappear on the pane, and the cat began looking\neverywhere to find it.  Her annoyance when she failed to do so was\nextreme.  It was not only that she had lost her fly, but that she could\nnot conceive how she should have ever come to do so.  Presently she noted\na small knot in the woodwork of the sill, and it flashed upon her that\nshe had accidentally killed the fly, and that this was its dead body.  She\ntried to move it gently with her paw, but it was no use, and for the time\nshe satisfied herself that the knot and the fly had nothing to do with\none another.  Every now and then, however, she returned to it as though\nit were the only thing she could think of, and she would try it again.\nShe seemed to say she was certain there had been no knot there before--she\nmust have seen it if there had been; and yet, the fly could hardly have\ngot jammed so firmly into the wood.  She was puzzled and irritated beyond\nmeasure, and kept looking in the same place again and again, just as we\ndo when we have mislaid something.  She was rapidly losing temper and\ndignity when suddenly we saw the fly reappear from under the cat's\nstomach and make for the window-pane, at the very moment when the cat\nherself was exclaiming for the fiftieth time that she wondered where that\nstupid fly ever could have got to.  No man who has been hunting twenty\nminutes for his spectacles could be more delighted when he suddenly finds\nthem on his own forehead.  \"So that's where you were,\" we seemed to hear\nher say, as she proceeded to catch it, and again began rolling it very\nsoftly without hurting it, under her paw.  My friend and I both noticed\nthat the cat, in spite of her perplexity, never so much as hinted that we\nwere the culprits.  The question whether anything outside the window\ncould do her good or harm had long since been settled by her in the\nnegative, and she was not going to reopen it; she simply cut us dead, and\nthough her annoyance was so great that she was manifestly ready to lay\nthe blame on anybody or anything with or without reason, and though she\nmust have perfectly well known that we were watching the whole affair\nwith amusement, she never either asked us if we had happened to see such\na thing as a fly go down our way lately, or accused us of having taken it\nfrom her--both of which ideas she would, I am confident, have been very\nwell able to convey to us if she had been so minded.\n\nNow what are thought and reason if the processes that were going through\nthis cat's mind were not both one and the other?  It would be childish to\nsuppose that the cat thought in words of its own, or in anything like\nwords.  Its thinking was probably conducted through the instrumentality\nof a series of mental images.  We so habitually think in words ourselves\nthat we find it difficult to realise thought without words at all; our\ndifficulty, however, in imagining the particular manner in which the cat\nthinks has nothing to do with the matter.  We must answer the question\nwhether she thinks or no, not according to our own ease or difficulty in\nunderstanding the particular manner of her thinking, but according as her\naction does or does not appear to be of the same character as other\naction that we commonly call thoughtful.  To say that the cat is not\nintelligent, merely on the ground that we cannot ourselves fathom her\nintelligence--this, as I have elsewhere said, is to make intelligence\nmean the power of being understood, rather than the power of\nunderstanding.  This nevertheless is what, for all our boasted\nintelligence, we generally do.  The more we can understand an animal's\nways, the more intelligent we call it, and the less we can understand\nthese, the more stupid do we declare it to be.  As for plants--whose\npunctuality and attention to all the details and routine of their\nsomewhat restricted lines of business is as obvious as it is beyond all\npraise--we understand the working of their minds so little that by common\nconsent we declare them to have no intelligence at all.\n\nBefore concluding I should wish to deal a little more fully with\nProfessor Max Muller's contention that there can be no reason without\nlanguage, and no language without reason.  Surely when two practised\npugilists are fighting, parrying each other's blows, and watching keenly\nfor an unguarded point, they are thinking and reasoning very subtly the\nwhole time, without doing so in words.  The machination of their\nthoughts, as well as its expression, is actual--I mean, effectuated and\nexpressed by action and deed, not words.  They are unaware of any logical\nsequence of thought that they could follow in words as passing through\ntheir minds at all.  They may perhaps think consciously in words now and\nagain, but such thought will be intermittent, and the main part of the\nfighting will be done without any internal concomitance of articulated\nphrases.  Yet we cannot doubt that their action, however much we may\ndisapprove of it, is guided by intelligence and reason; nor should we\ndoubt that a reasoning process of the same character goes on in the minds\nof two dogs or fighting-cocks when they are striving to master their\nopponents.\n\nDo we think in words, again, when we wind up our watches, put on our\nclothes, or eat our breakfasts?  If we do, it is generally about\nsomething else.  We do these things almost as much without the help of\nwords as we wink or yawn, or perform any of those other actions that we\ncall reflex, as it would almost seem because they are done without\nreflection.  They are not, however, the less reasonable because wordless.\n\nEven when we think we are thinking in words, we do so only in half\nmeasure.  A running accompaniment of words no doubt frequently attends\nour thoughts; but, unless we are writing or speaking, this accompaniment\nis of the vaguest and most fitful kind, as we often find out when we try\nto write down or say what we are thinking about, though we have a fairly\ndefinite notion of it, or fancy that we have one, all the time.  The\nthought is not steadily and coherently governed by and moulded in words,\nnor does it steadily govern them.  Words and thought interact upon and\nhelp one another, as any other mechanical appliances interact on and help\nthe invention that first hit upon them; but reason or thought, for the\nmost part, flies along over the heads of words, working its own\nmysterious way in paths that are beyond our ken, though whether some of\nour departmental personalities are as unconscious of what is passing, as\nthat central government is which we alone dub with the name of \"we\" or\n\"us,\" is a point on which I will not now touch.\n\nI cannot think, then, that Professor Max Muller's contention that thought\nand language are identical--and he has repeatedly affirmed this--will\never be generally accepted.  Thought is no more identical with language\nthan feeling is identical with the nervous system.  True, we can no more\nfeel without a nervous system than we can discern certain minute\norganisms without a microscope.  Destroy the nervous system, and we\ndestroy feeling.  Destroy the microscope, and we can no longer see the\nanimalcules; but our sight of the animalcules is not the microscope,\nthough it is effectuated by means of the microscope, and our feeling is\nnot the nervous system, though the nervous system is the instrument that\nenables us to feel.\n\nThe nervous system is a device which living beings have gradually\nperfected--I believe I may say quite truly--through the will and power\nwhich they have derived from a fountain-head, the existence of which we\ncan infer, but which we can never apprehend.  By the help of this device,\nand in proportion as they have perfected it, living beings feel ever with\ngreater definiteness, and hence formulate their feelings in thought with\nmore and more precision.  The higher evolution of thought has reacted on\nthe nervous system, and the consequent higher evolution of the nervous\nsystem has again reacted upon thought.  These things are as power and\ndesire, or supply and demand, each one of which is continually\noutstripping, and being in turn outstripped by the other; but, in spite\nof their close connection and interaction, power is not desire, nor\ndemand supply.  Language is a device evolved sometimes by leaps and\nbounds, and sometimes exceedingly slowly, whereby we help ourselves alike\nto greater ease, precision, and complexity of thought, and also to more\nconvenient interchange of thought among ourselves.  Thought found rude\nexpression, which gradually among other forms assumed that of words.\nThese reacted upon thought, and thought again on them, but thought is no\nmore identical with words than words are with the separate letters of\nwhich they are composed.\n\nTo sum up, then, and to conclude.  I would ask you to see the connection\nbetween words and ideas, as in the first instance arbitrary.  No doubt in\nsome cases an imitation of the cry of some bird or wild beast would\nsuggest the name that should be attached to it; occasionally the sound of\nan operation such as grinding may have influenced the choice of the\nletters g, r, as the root of many words that denote a grinding, grating,\ngrasping, crushing, action; but I understand that the number of words due\nto direct imitation is comparatively few in number, and that they have\nbeen mainly coined as the result of connections so far-fetched and\nfanciful as to amount practically to no connection at all.  Once chosen,\nhowever, they were adhered to for a considerable time among the dwellers\nin any given place, so as to become acknowledged as the vulgar tongue,\nand raise readily in the mind of the inhabitants of that place the ideas\nwith which they had been artificially associated.\n\nAs regards our being able to think and reason without words, the Duke of\nArgyll has put the matter as soundly as I have yet seen it stated.  \"It\nseems to me,\" he wrote, \"quite certain that we can and do constantly\nthink of things without thinking of any sound or word as designating\nthem.  Language seems to me to be necessary for the progress of thought,\nbut not at all for the mere act of thinking.  It is a product of thought,\nan expression of it, a vehicle for the communication of it, and an\nembodiment which is essential to its growth and continuity; but it seems\nto me altogether erroneous to regard it as an inseparable part of\ncogitation.\"\n\nThe following passages, again, are quoted from Sir William Hamilton in\nProfessor Max Muller's own book, with so much approval as to lead one to\nsuppose that the differences between himself and his opponents are in\nreality less than he believes them to be:--\n\n\"Language,\" says Sir W. Hamilton, \"is the attribution of signs to our\ncognitions of things.  But as a cognition must have already been there\nbefore it could receive a sign, consequently that knowledge which is\ndenoted by the formation and application of a word must have preceded the\nsymbol that denotes it.  A sign, however, is necessary to give stability\nto our intellectual progress--to establish each step in our advance as a\nnew starting-point for our advance to another beyond.  A country may be\noverrun by an armed host, but it is only conquered by the establishment\nof fortresses.  Words are the fortresses of thought.  They enable us to\nrealise our dominion over what we have already overrun in thought; to\nmake every intellectual conquest the base of operations for others still\nbeyond.\"\n\n\"This,\" says Professor Max Muller, \"is a most happy illustration,\" and he\nproceeds to quote the following, also from Sir William Hamilton, which he\ndeclares to be even happier still.\n\n\"You have all heard,\" says Sir William Hamilton, \"of the process of\ntunnelling through a sandbank.  In this operation it is impossible to\nsucceed unless every foot, nay, almost every inch of our progress be\nsecured by an arch of masonry before we attempt the excavation of\nanother.  Now language is to the mind precisely what the arch is to the\ntunnel.  The power of thinking and the power of excavation are not\ndependent on the words in the one case or on the mason-work in the other;\nbut without these subsidiaries neither could be carried on beyond its\nrudimentary commencement.  Though, therefore, we allow that every\nmovement forward in language must be determined by an antecedent movement\nforward in thought, still, unless thought be accompanied at each point of\nits evolutions by a corresponding evolution of language, its further\ndevelopment is arrested.\"\n\nMan has evolved an articulate language, whereas the lower animals seem to\nbe without one.  Man, therefore, has far outstripped them in reasoning\nfaculty as well as in power of expression.  This, however, does not bar\nthe communications which the lower animals make to one another from\npossessing all the essential characteristics of language, and as a matter\nof fact, wherever we can follow them we find such communications\neffectuated by the aid of arbitrary symbols covenanted upon by the living\nbeings that wish to communicate, and persistently associated with certain\ncorresponding feelings, states of mind, or material objects.  Human\nlanguage is nothing more than this in principle, however much further the\nprinciple has been carried in our own case than in that of the lower\nanimals.\n\nThis being admitted, we should infer that the thought or reason on which\nthe language of men and animals is alike founded differs as between men\nand brutes in degree but not in kind.  More than this cannot be claimed\non behalf of the lower animals, even by their most enthusiastic admirer.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM {20}--PART I\n\n\nIt will be readily admitted that of all living writers Mr. Alfred Russel\nWallace is the one the peculiar turn of whose mind best fits him to write\non the subject of natural selection, or the accumulation of fortunate but\naccidental variations through descent and the struggle for existence.  His\nmind in all its more essential characteristics closely resembles that of\nthe late Mr. Charles Darwin himself, and it is no doubt due to this fact\nthat he and Mr. Darwin elaborated their famous theory at the same time,\nand independently of one another.  I shall have occasion in the course of\nthe following article to show how misled and misleading both these\ndistinguished men have been, in spite of their unquestionable familiarity\nwith the whole range of animal and vegetable phenomena.  I believe it\nwill be more respectful to both of them to do this in the most out-spoken\nway.  I believe their work to have been as mischievous as it has been\nvaluable, and as valuable as it has been mischievous; and higher, whether\npraise or blame, I know not how to give.  Nevertheless I would in the\noutset, and with the utmost sincerity, admit concerning Messrs. Wallace\nand Darwin that neither can be held as the more profound and\nconscientious thinker; neither can be put forward as the more ready to\nacknowledge obligation to the great writers on evolution who had preceded\nhim, or to place his own developments in closer and more conspicuous\nhistorical connection with earlier thought upon the subject; neither is\nthe more ready to welcome criticism and to state his opponent's case in\nthe most pointed and telling way in which it can be put; neither is the\nmore quick to encourage new truth; neither is the more genial, generous\nadversary, or has the profounder horror of anything even approaching\nliterary or scientific want of candour; both display the same inimitable\npower of putting their opinions forward in the way that shall best ensure\ntheir acceptance; both are equally unrivalled in the tact that tells them\nwhen silence will be golden, and when on the other hand a whole volume of\nfacts may be advantageously brought forward.  Less than the foregoing\ntribute both to Messrs. Darwin and Wallace I will not, and more I cannot\npay.\n\nLet us now turn to the most authoritative exponent of latter-day\nevolution--I mean to Mr. Wallace, whose work, entitled \"Darwinism,\"\nthough it should have been entitled \"Wallaceism,\" is still so far\nDarwinistic that it develops the teaching of Mr. Darwin in the direction\ngiven to it by Mr. Darwin himself--so far, indeed, as this can be\nascertained at all--and not in that of Lamarck.  Mr. Wallace tells us, on\nthe first page of his preface, that he has no intention of dealing even\nin outline with the vast subject of evolution in general, and has only\ntried to give such an account of the theory of natural selection as may\nfacilitate a clear conception of Darwin's work.  How far he has succeeded\nis a point on which opinion will probably be divided.  Those who find Mr.\nDarwin's works clear will also find no difficulty in understanding Mr.\nWallace; those, on the other hand, who find Mr. Darwin puzzling are\nlittle likely to be less puzzled by Mr. Wallace.  He continues:--\n\n\"The objections now made to Darwin's theory apply solely to the\nparticular means by which the change of species has been brought about,\nnot to the fact of that change.\"\n\nBut \"Darwin's theory\"--as Mr. Wallace has elsewhere proved that he\nunderstands--has no reference \"to the fact of that change\"--that is to\nsay, to the fact that species have been modified in course of descent\nfrom other species.  This is no more Mr. Darwin's theory than it is the\nreader's or my own.  Darwin's theory is concerned only with \"the\nparticular means by which the change of species has been brought about\";\nhis contention being that this is mainly due to the natural survival of\nthose individuals that have happened by some accident to be born most\nfavourably adapted to their surroundings, or, in other words, through\naccumulation in the common course of nature of the more lucky variations\nthat chance occasionally purveys.  Mr. Wallace's words, then, in reality\namount to this, that the objections now made to Darwin's theory apply\nsolely to Darwin's theory, which is all very well as far as it goes, but\nmight have been more easily apprehended if he had simply said, \"There are\nseveral objections now made to Mr. Darwin's theory.\"\n\nIt must be remembered that the passage quoted above occurs on the first\npage of a preface dated March 1889, when the writer had completed his\ntask, and was most fully conversant with his subject.  Nevertheless, it\nseems indisputable either that he is still confusing evolution with Mr.\nDarwin's theory, or that he does not know when his sentences have point\nand when they have none.\n\nI should perhaps explain to some readers that Mr. Darwin did not modify\nthe main theory put forward, first by Buffon, to whom it indisputably\nbelongs, and adopted from him by Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and many other\nwriters in the latter half of the last century and the earlier years of\nthe present.  The early evolutionists maintained that all existing forms\nof animal and vegetable life, including man, were derived in course of\ndescent with modification from forms resembling the lowest now known.\n\nMr. Darwin went as far as this, and farther no one can go.  The point at\nissue between him and his predecessors involves neither the main fact of\nevolution, nor yet the geometrical ratio of increase, and the struggle\nfor existence consequent thereon.  Messrs. Darwin and Wallace have each\nthrown invaluable light upon these last two points, but Buffon, as early\nas 1756, had made them the keystone of his system.  \"The movement of\nnature,\" he then wrote, \"turns on two immovable pivots: one, the\nillimitable fecundity which she has given to all species: the other, the\ninnumerable difficulties which reduce the results of that fecundity.\"\nErasmus Darwin and Lamarck followed in the same sense.  They thus admit\nthe survival of the fittest as fully as Mr. Darwin himself, though they\ndo not make use of this particular expression.  The dispute turns not\nupon natural selection, which is common to all writers on evolution, but\nupon the nature and causes of the variations that are supposed to be\nselected from and thus accumulated.  Are these mainly attributable to the\ninherited effects of use and disuse, supplemented by occasional sports\nand happy accidents?  Or are they mainly due to sports and happy\naccidents, supplemented by occasional inherited effects of use and\ndisuse?\n\nThe Lamarckian system has all along been maintained by Mr. Herbert\nSpencer, who, in his \"Principles of Biology,\" published in 1865, showed\nhow impossible it was that accidental variations should accumulate at\nall.  I am not sure how far Mr. Spencer would consent to being called a\nLamarckian pure and simple, nor yet how far it is strictly accurate to\ncall him one; nevertheless, I can see no important difference in the main\npositions taken by him and by Lamarck.\n\nThe question at issue between the Lamarckians, supported by Mr. Spencer\nand a growing band of those who have risen in rebellion against the\nCharles-Darwinian system on the one hand, and Messrs. Darwin and Wallace\nwith the greater number of our more prominent biologists on the other,\ninvolves the very existence of evolution as a workable theory.  For it is\nplain that what Nature can be supposed able to do by way of choice must\ndepend on the supply of the variations from which she is supposed to\nchoose.  She cannot take what is not offered to her; and so again she\ncannot be supposed able to accumulate unless what is gained in one\ndirection in one generation, or series of generations, is little likely\nto be lost in those that presently succeed.  Now variations ascribed\nmainly to use and disuse can be supposed capable of being accumulated,\nfor use and disuse are fairly constant for long periods among the\nindividuals of the same species, and often over large areas; moreover,\nconditions of existence involving changes of habit, and thus of\norganisation, come for the most part gradually; so that time is given\nduring which the organism can endeavour to adapt itself in the requisite\nrespects, instead of being shocked out of existence by too sudden change.\nVariations, on the other hand, that are ascribed to mere chance cannot be\nsupposed as likely to be accumulated, for chance is notoriously\ninconstant, and would not purvey the variations in sufficiently unbroken\nsuccession, or in a sufficient number of individuals, modified similarly\nin all the necessary correlations at the same time and place to admit of\ntheir being accumulated.  It is vital therefore to the theory of\nevolution, as was early pointed out by the late Professor Fleeming Jenkin\nand by Mr. Herbert Spencer, that variations should be supposed to have a\ndefinite and persistent principle underlying them, which shall tend to\nengender similar and simultaneous modification, however small, in the\nvast majority of individuals composing any species.  The existence of\nsuch a principle and its permanence is the only thing that can be\nsupposed capable of acting as rudder and compass to the accumulation of\nvariations, and of making it hold steadily on one course for each\nspecies, till eventually many havens, far remote from one another, are\nsafely reached.\n\nIt is obvious that the having fatally impaired the theory of his\npredecessors could not warrant Mr. Darwin in claiming, as he most\nfatuously did, the theory of evolution.  That he is still generally\nbelieved to have been the originator of this theory is due to the fact\nthat he claimed it, and that a powerful literary backing at once came\nforward to support him.  It seems at first sight improbable that those\nwho too zealously urged his claims were unaware that so much had been\nwritten on the subject, but when we find even Mr. Wallace himself as\nprofoundly ignorant on this subject as he still either is, or affects to\nbe, there is no limit assignable to the ignorance or affected ignorance\nof the kind of biologists who would write reviews in leading journals\nthirty years ago.  Mr. Wallace writes:--\n\n\"A few great naturalists, struck by the very slight difference between\nmany of these species, and the numerous links that exist between the most\ndifferent forms of animals and plants, and also observing that a great\nmany species do vary considerably in their forms, colours and habits,\nconceived the idea that they might be all produced one from the other.\nThe most eminent of these writers was a great French naturalist, Lamarck,\nwho published an elaborate work, the _Philosophie Zoologique_, in which\nhe endeavoured to prove that all animals whatever are descended from\nother species of animals.  He attributed the change of species chiefly to\nthe effect of changes in the conditions of life--such as climate, food,\n&c.; and especially to the desires and efforts of the animals themselves\nto improve their condition, leading to a modification of form or size in\ncertain parts, owing to the well-known physiological law that all organs\nare strengthened by constant use, while they are weakened or even\ncompletely lost by disuse . . .\n\n\"The only other important work dealing with the question was the\ncelebrated 'Vestiges of Creation,' published anonymously, but now\nacknowledged to have been written by the late Robert Chambers.\"\n\nNone are so blind as those who will not see, and it would be waste of\ntime to argue with the invincible ignorance of one who thinks Lamarck and\nBuffon conceived that all species were produced from one another, more\nespecially as I have already dealt at some length with the early\nevolutionists in my work, \"Evolution, Old and New,\" first published ten\nyears ago, and not, so far as I am aware, detected in serious error or\nomission.  If, however, Mr. Wallace still thinks it safe to presume so\nfar on the ignorance of his readers as to say that the only two important\nworks on evolution before Mr. Darwin's were Lamarck's _Philosophie\nZoologique_ and the \"Vestiges of Creation,\" how fathomable is the\nignorance of the average reviewer likely to have been thirty years ago,\nwhen the \"Origin of Species\" was first published?  Mr. Darwin claimed\nevolution as his own theory.  Of course, he would not claim it if he had\nno right to it.  Then by all means give him the credit of it.  This was\nthe most natural view to take, and it was generally taken.  It was not,\nmoreover, surprising that people failed to appreciate all the niceties of\nMr. Darwin's \"distinctive feature\" which, whether distinctive or no, was\nassuredly not distinct, and was never frankly contrasted with the older\nview, as it would have been by one who wished it to be understood and\njudge upon its merits.  It was in consequence of this omission that\npeople failed to note how fast and loose Mr. Darwin played with his\ndistinctive feature, and how readily he dropped it on occasion.\n\nIt may be said that the question of what was thought by the predecessors\nof Mr. Darwin is, after all, personal, and of no interest to the general\npublic, comparable to that of the main issue--whether we are to accept\nevolution or not.  Granted that Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck bore\nthe burden and heat of the day before Mr. Charles Darwin was born, they\ndid not bring people round to their opinion, whereas Mr. Darwin and Mr.\nWallace did, and the public cannot be expected to look beyond this broad\nand indisputable fact.\n\nThe answer to this is, that the theory which Messrs. Darwin and Wallace\nhave persuaded the public to accept is demonstrably false, and that the\nopponents of evolution are certain in the end to triumph over it.  Paley,\nin his \"Natural Theology,\" long since brought forward far too much\nevidence of design in animal organisation to allow of our setting down\nits marvels to the accumulations of fortunate accident, undirected by\nwill, effort and intelligence.  Those who examine the main facts of\nanimal and vegetable organisation without bias will, no doubt, ere long\nconclude that all animals and vegetables are derived ultimately from\nunicellular organisms, but they will not less readily perceive that the\nevolution of species without the concomitance and direction of mind and\neffort is as inconceivable as is the independent creation of every\nindividual species.  The two facts, evolution and design, are equally\npatent to plain people.  There is no escaping from either.  According to\nMessrs. Darwin and Wallace, we may have evolution, but are on no account\nto have it as mainly due to intelligent effort, guided by ever higher and\nhigher range of sensations, perceptions, and ideas.  We are to set it\ndown to the shuffling of cards, or the throwing of dice without the play,\nand this will never stand.\n\nAccording to the older men, cards did indeed count for much, but play\ncounted for more.  They denied the teleology of the time--that is to say,\nthe teleology that saw all adaptation to surroundings as part of a plan\ndevised long ages since by a quasi-anthropomorphic being who schemed\neverything out much as a man would do, but on an infinitely vaster scale.\nThis conception they found repugnant alike to intelligence and\nconscience, but, though they do not seem to have perceived it, they left\nthe door open for a design more true and more demonstrable than that\nwhich they excluded.  By making their variations mainly due to effort and\nintelligence, they made organic development run on all-fours with human\nprogress, and with inventions which we have watched growing up from small\nbeginnings.  They made the development of man from the amoeba part and\nparcel of the story that may be read, though on an infinitely smaller\nscale, in the development of our most powerful marine engines from the\ncommon kettle, or of our finest microscopes from the dew-drop.\n\nThe development of the steam-engine and the microscope is due to\nintelligence and design, which did indeed utilise chance suggestions, but\nwhich improved on these, and directed each step of their accumulation,\nthough never foreseeing more than a step or two ahead, and often not so\nmuch as this.  The fact, as I have elsewhere urged, that the man who made\nthe first kettle did not foresee the engines of the _Great Eastern_, or\nthat he who first noted the magnifying power of the dew-drop had no\nconception of our present microscopes--the very limited amount, in fact,\nof design and intelligence that was called into play at any one\npoint--this does not make us deny that the steam-engine and microscope\nowe their development to design.  If each step of the road was designed,\nthe whole journey was designed, though the particular end was not\ndesigned when the journey was begun.  And so is it, according to the\nolder view of evolution, with the development of those living organs, or\nmachines, that are born with us, as part of the perambulating carpenter's\nchest we call our bodies.  The older view gives us our design, and gives\nus our evolution too.  If it refuses to see a quasi-anthropomorphic God\nmodelling each species from without as a potter models clay, it gives us\nGod as vivifying and indwelling in all His creatures--He in them, and\nthey in Him.  If it refuses to see God outside the universe, it equally\nrefuses to see any part of the universe as outside God.  If it makes the\nuniverse the body of God, it also makes God the soul of the universe.  The\nquestion at issue, then, between the Darwinism of Erasmus Darwin and the\nneo-Darwinism of his grandson, is not a personal one, nor anything like a\npersonal one.  It not only involves the existence of evolution, but it\naffects the view we take of life and things in an endless variety of most\ninteresting and important ways.  It is imperative, therefore, on those\nwho take any interest in these matters, to place side by side in the\nclearest contrast the views of those who refer the evolution of species\nmainly to accumulation of variations that have no other inception than\nchance, and of that older school which makes design perceive and develop\nstill further the goods that chance provides.\n\nBut over and above this, which would be in itself sufficient, the\nhistorical mode of studying any question is the only one which will\nenable us to comprehend it effectually.  The personal element cannot be\neliminated from the consideration of works written by living persons for\nliving persons.  We want to know who is who--whom we can depend upon to\nhave no other end than the making things clear to himself and his\nreaders, and whom we should mistrust as having an ulterior aim on which\nhe is more intent than on the furthering of our better understanding.  We\nwant to know who is doing his best to help us, and who is only trying to\nmake us help him, or to bolster up the system in which his interests are\nvested.  There is nothing that will throw more light upon these points\nthan the way in which a man behaves towards those who have worked in the\nsame field with himself, and, again, than his style.  A man's style, as\nBuffon long since said, is the man himself.  By style, I do not, of\ncourse, mean grammar or rhetoric, but that style of which Buffon again\nsaid that it is like happiness, and _vient de la douceur de l'ame_.  When\nwe find a man concealing worse than nullity of meaning under sentences\nthat sound plausibly enough, we should distrust him much as we should a\nfellow-traveller whom we caught trying to steal our watch.  We often\ncannot judge of the truth or falsehood of facts for ourselves, but we\nmost of us know enough of human nature to be able to tell a good witness\nfrom a bad one.\n\nHowever this may be, and whatever we may think of judging systems by the\ndirectness or indirectness of those who advance them, biologists, having\ncommitted themselves too rashly, would have been more than human if they\nhad not shown some pique towards those who dared to say, first, that the\ntheory of Messrs. Darwin and Wallace was unworkable; and secondly, that\neven though it were workable it would not justify either of them in\nclaiming evolution.  When biologists show pique at all they generally\nshow a good deal of pique, but pique or no pique, they shunned Mr.\nSpencer's objection above referred to with a persistency more unanimous\nand obstinate than I ever remember to have seen displayed even by\nprofessional truth-seekers.  I find no rejoinder to it from Mr. Darwin\nhimself, between 1865 when it was first put forward, and 1882 when Mr.\nDarwin died.  It has been similarly \"ostrichised\" by all the leading\napologists of Darwinism, so far at least as I have been able to observe,\nand I have followed the matter closely for many years.  Mr. Spencer has\nrepeated and amplified it in his recent work, \"The Factors of Organic\nEvolution,\" but it still remains without so much as an attempt at serious\nanswer, for the perfunctory and illusory remarks of Mr. Wallace at the\nend of his \"Darwinism\" cannot be counted as such.  The best proof of its\nirresistible weight is that Mr. Darwin, though maintaining silence in\nrespect to it, retreated from his original position in the direction that\nwould most obviate Mr. Spencer's objection.\n\nYet this objection has been repeatedly urged by the more prominent anti-\nCharles-Darwinian authorities, and there is no sign that the British\npublic is becoming less rigorous in requiring people either to reply to\nobjections repeatedly urged by men of even moderate weight, or to let\njudgment go by default.  As regards Mr. Darwin's claim to the theory of\nevolution generally, Darwinians are beginning now to perceive that this\ncannot be admitted, and either say with some hardihood that Mr. Darwin\nnever claimed it, or after a few saving clauses to the effect that this\ntheory refers only to the particular means by which evolution has been\nbrought about, imply forthwith thereafter none the less that evolution is\nMr. Darwin's theory.  Mr. Wallace has done this repeatedly in his recent\n\"Darwinism.\"  Indeed, I should be by no means sure that on the first page\nof his preface, in the passage about \"Darwin's theory,\" which I have\nalready somewhat severely criticised, he was not intending evolution by\n\"Darwin's theory,\" if in his preceding paragraph he had not so clearly\nshown that he knew evolution to be a theory of greatly older date than\nMr. Darwin's.\n\nThe history of science--well exemplified by that of the development\ntheory--is the history of eminent men who have fought against light and\nhave been worsted.  The tenacity with which Darwinians stick to their\naccumulation of fortuitous variations is on a par with the like tenacity\nshown by the illustrious Cuvier, who did his best to crush evolution\naltogether.  It always has been thus, and always will be; nor is it\ndesirable in the interests of Truth herself that it should be otherwise.\nTruth is like money--lightly come, lightly go; and if she cannot hold her\nown against even gross misrepresentation, she is herself not worth\nholding.  Misrepresentation in the long run makes Truth as much as it\nmars her; hence our law courts do not think it desirable that pleaders\nshould speak their _bona fide_ opinions, much less that they should\nprofess to do so.  Rather let each side hoodwink judge and jury as best\nit can, and let truth flash out from collision of defence and accusation.\nWhen either side will not collide, it is an axiom of controversy that it\ndesires to prevent the truth from being elicited.\n\nLet us now note the courses forced upon biologists by the difficulties of\nMr. Darwin's distinctive feature.  Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace, as is well\nknown, brought the feature forward simultaneously and independently of\none another, but Mr. Wallace always believed in it more firmly than Mr.\nDarwin did.  Mr. Darwin as a young man did not believe in it.  He wrote\nbefore 1889, \"Nature, by making habit omnipotent and its effects\nhereditary, has fitted the Fuegian for the climate and productions of his\ncountry,\" {21} a sentence than which nothing can coincide more fully with\nthe older view that use and disuse were the main purveyors of variations,\nor conflict more fatally with his own subsequent distinctive feature.\nMoreover, as I showed in my last work on evolution, {22} in the\nperoration to his \"Origin of Species,\" he discarded his accidental\nvariations altogether, and fell back on the older theory, so that the\nbody of the \"Origin of Species\" supports one theory, and the peroration\nanother that differs from it _toto coelo_.  Finally, in his later\neditions, he retreated indefinitely from his original position, edging\nalways more and more continually towards the theory of his grandfather\nand Lamarck.  These facts convince me that he was at no time a thorough-\ngoing Darwinian, but was throughout an unconscious Lamarckian, though\never anxious to conceal the fact alike from himself and from his readers.\n\nNot so with Mr. Wallace, who was both more outspoken in the first\ninstance, and who has persevered along the path of Wallaceism just as Mr.\nDarwin with greater sagacity was ever on the retreat from Darwinism.  Mr.\nWallace's profounder faith led him in the outset to place his theory in\nfuller daylight than Mr. Darwin was inclined to do.  Mr. Darwin just\nwaved Lamarck aside, and said as little about him as he could, while in\nhis earlier editions Erasmus Darwin and Buffon were not so much as named.\nMr. Wallace, on the contrary, at once raised the Lamarckian spectre, and\ndeclared it exorcised.  He said the Lamarckian hypothesis was \"quite\nunnecessary.\"  The giraffe did not \"acquire its long neck by desiring to\nreach the foliage of the more lofty shrubs, and constantly stretching its\nneck for this purpose, but because any varieties which occurred among its\nantitypes with a longer neck than usual at once secured a fresh range of\npasture over the same ground as their shorter-necked companions, and on\nthe first scarcity of food were thus enabled to outlive them.\" {23}\n\n\"Which occurred\" is evidently \"which happened to occur\" by some chance or\naccident unconnected with use and disuse.  The word \"accident\" is never\nused, but Mr. Wallace must be credited with this instance of a desire to\ngive his readers a chance of perceiving that according to his distinctive\nfeature evolution is an affair of luck, rather than of cunning.  Whether\nhis readers actually did understand this as clearly as Mr. Wallace\ndoubtless desired that they should, and whether greater development at\nthis point would not have helped them to fuller apprehension, we need not\nnow inquire.  What was gained in distinctness might have been lost in\ndistinctiveness, and after all he did technically put us upon our guard.\n\nNevertheless he too at a pinch takes refuge in Lamarckism.  In relation\nto the manner in which the eyes of soles, turbots, and other flat-fish\ntravel round the head so as to become in the end unsymmetrically placed,\nhe says:--\n\n\"The eyes of these fish are curiously distorted in order that both eyes\nmay be upon the upper side, where alone they would be of any use. . . .\nNow if we suppose this process, which in the young is completed in a few\ndays or weeks, to have been spread over thousands of generations during\nthe development of these fish, those usually surviving _whose eyes\nretained more and more of the position into which the young fish tried to\ntwist them_ [italics mine], the change becomes intelligible.\" {24}  When\nit was said by Professor Ray Lankester--who knows as well as most people\nwhat Lamarck taught--that this was \"flat Lamarckism,\" Mr. Wallace\nrejoined that it was the survival of the modified individuals that did it\nall, not the efforts of the young fish to twist their eyes, and the\ntransmission to descendants of the effects of those efforts.  But this,\nas I said in my book, \"Evolution, Old and New,\" {25} is like saying that\nhorses are swift runners, not by reason of the causes, whatever they\nwere, that occasioned the direct line of their progenitors to vary\ntowards ever greater and greater swiftness, but because their more slow-\ngoing uncles and aunts go away.  Plain people will prefer to say that the\nmain cause of any accumulation of favourable modifications consists\nrather in that which brings about the initial variations, and in the fact\nthat these can be inherited at all, than in the fact that the unmodified\nindividuals were not successful.  People do not become rich because the\npoor in large numbers go away, but because they have been lucky, or\nprovident, or more commonly both.  If they would keep their wealth when\nthey have made it they must exclude luck thenceforth to the utmost of\ntheir power, and their children must follow their example, or they will\nsoon lose their money.  The fact that the weaker go to the wall does not\nbring about the greater strength of the stronger; it is the consequence\nof this last and not the cause--unless, indeed, it be contended that a\nknowledge that the weak go to the wall stimulates the strong to exertions\nwhich they would not otherwise so make, and that these exertions produce\ninheritable modifications.  Even in this case, however, it would be the\nexertions, or use and disuse, that would be the main agents in the\nmodification.  But it is not often that Mr. Wallace thus backslides.  His\npresent position is that acquired (as distinguished from congenital)\nmodifications are not inherited at all.  He does not indeed put his faith\nprominently forward and pin himself to it as plainly as could be wished,\nbut under the heading, \"The Non-Heredity of Acquired Characters,\" he\nwrites as follows on p. 440 of his recent work in reference to Professor\nWeismann's Theory of Heredity:--\n\n\"Certain observations on the embryology of the lower animals are held to\nafford direct proof of this theory of heredity, but they are too\ntechnical to be made clear to ordinary readers.  A logical result of the\ntheory is the impossibility of the transmission of acquired characters,\nsince the molecular structure of the germ-plasm is already determined\nwithin the embryo; and Weismann holds that there are no facts which\nreally prove that acquired characters can be inherited, although their\ninheritance has, by most writers, been considered so probable as hardly\nto stand in need of direct proof.\n\n\"We have already seen in the earlier part of this chapter that many\ninstances of change, imputed to the inheritance of acquired variations,\nare really cases of selection.\"\n\nAnd the rest of the remarks tend to convey the impression that Mr.\nWallace adopts Professor Weismann's view, but, curiously enough, though I\nhave gone through Mr. Wallace's book with a special view to this\nparticular point, I have not been able to find him definitely committing\nhimself either to the assertion that acquired modifications never are\ninherited, or that they sometimes are so.  It is abundantly laid down\nthat Mr. Darwin laid too much stress on use and disuse, and a residuary\nimpression is left that Mr. Wallace is endorsing Professor Weismann's\nview, but I have found it impossible to collect anything that enables me\nto define his position confidently in this respect.\n\nThis is natural enough, for Mr. Wallace has entitled his book\n\"Darwinism,\" and a work denying that use and disuse produced any effect\ncould not conceivably be called Darwinism.  Mr. Herbert Spencer has\nrecently collected many passages from \"The Origin of Species\" and from\n\"Animals and Plants under Domestication,\" {26} which show how largely,\nafter all, use and disuse entered into Mr. Darwin's system, and we know\nthat in his later years he attached still more importance to them.  It\nwas out of the question, therefore, that Mr. Wallace should categorically\ndeny that their effects were inheritable.  On the other hand, the\ntemptation to adopt Professor Weismann's view must have been overwhelming\nto one who had been already inclined to minimise the effects of use and\ndisuse.  On the whole, one does not see what Mr. Wallace could do, other\nthan what he has done--unless, of course, he changed his title, or had\nbeen no longer Mr. Wallace.\n\nBesides, thanks to the works of Mr. Spencer, Professor Mivart, Professor\nSemper, and very many others, there has for some time been a growing\nperception that the Darwinism of Charles Darwin was doomed.  Use and\ndisuse must either do even more than is officially recognised in Mr.\nDarwin's later concessions, or they must do a great deal less.  If they\ncan do as much as Mr. Darwin himself said they did, why should they not\ndo more?  Why stop where Mr. Darwin did?  And again, where in the name of\nall that is reasonable did he really stop?  He drew no line, and on what\nprinciple can we say that so much is possible as effect of use and\ndisuse, but so much more impossible?  If, as Mr. Darwin contended, disuse\ncan so far reduce an organ as to render it rudimentary, and in many cases\nget rid of it altogether, why cannot use create as much as disuse can\ndestroy, provided it has anything, no matter how low in structure, to\nbegin with?  Let us know where we stand.  If it is admitted that use and\ndisuse can do a good deal, what does a good deal mean?  And what is the\nproportion between the shares attributable to use and disuse and to\nnatural selection respectively?  If we cannot be told with absolute\nprecision, let us at any rate have something more definite than the\nstatement that natural selection is \"the most important means of\nmodification.\"\n\nMr. Darwin gave us no help in this respect; and worse than this, he\ncontradicted himself so flatly as to show that he had very little\ndefinite idea upon the subject at all.  Thus in respect to the\nwinglessness of the Madeira beetles he wrote:--\n\n\"In some cases we might easily put down to disuse modifications of\nstructure, which are wholly or mainly due to natural selection.  Mr.\nWollaston has discovered the remarkable fact that 200 beetles, out of the\n550 species (but more are now known) inhabiting Madeira, are so far\ndeficient in wings that they cannot fly; and that of the 29 endemic\ngenera no less than 23 have all their species in this condition!  Several\nfacts,--namely, that beetles in many parts of the world are frequently\nblown out to sea and perish; that the beetles in Madeira, as observed by\nMr. Wollaston, lie much concealed until the wind lulls and the sun\nshines; that the proportion of wingless beetles is larger on the exposed\nDesertas than in Madeira itself; and especially the extraordinary fact,\nso strongly insisted on by Mr. Wollaston, that certain large groups of\nbeetles, elsewhere excessively numerous, which absolutely require the use\nof their wings are here almost entirely absent;--these several\nconsiderations make me believe that the wingless condition of so many\nMadeira beetles is mainly due to the action of natural selection,\n_combined probably with disuse_ [italics mine].  For during many\nsuccessive generations each individual beetle which flew least, either\nfrom its wings having been ever so little less perfectly developed or\nfrom indolent habit, will have had the best chance of surviving, from not\nbeing blown out to sea; and, on the other hand, those beetles which most\nreadily took to flight would oftenest have been blown to sea, and thus\ndestroyed.\" {27}\n\nWe should like to know, first, somewhere about how much disuse was able\nto do after all, and moreover why, if it can do anything at all, it\nshould not be able to do all.  Mr. Darwin says: \"Any change in structure\nand function which can be effected by small stages is within the power of\nnatural selection.\"  \"And why not,\" we ask, \"within the power of use and\ndisuse?\"  Moreover, on a later page we find Mr. Darwin saying:--\n\n\"_It appears probable that disuse has been the main agent in rendering\norgans rudimentary_ [italics mine].  It would at first lead by slow steps\nto the more and more complete reduction of a part, until at last it has\nbecome rudimentary--as in the case of the eyes of animals inhabiting dark\ncaverns, and of the wings of birds inhabiting oceanic islands, which have\nseldom been forced by beasts of prey to take flight, and have ultimately\nlost the power of flying.  Again, an organ, useful under certain\nconditions, might become injurious under others, _as with the wings of\nbeetles living on small and exposed islands_; and in this case natural\nselection will have aided in reducing the organ, until it was rendered\nharmless and rudimentary [italics mine].\" {28}\n\nSo that just as an undefined amount of use and disuse was introduced on\nthe earlier page to supplement the effects of natural selection in\nrespect of the wings of beetles on small and exposed islands, we have\nhere an undefined amount of natural selection introduced to supplement\nthe effects of use and disuse in respect of the identical phenomena.  In\nthe one passage we find that natural selection has been the main agent in\nreducing the wings, though use and disuse have had an appreciable share\nin the result; in the other, it is use and disuse that have been the main\nagents, though an appreciable share in the result must be ascribed to\nnatural selection.\n\nBesides, who has seen the uncles and aunts going away with the uniformity\nthat is necessary for Mr. Darwin's contention?  We know that birds and\ninsects do often get blown out to sea and perish, but in order to\nestablish Mr. Darwin's position we want the evidence of those who watched\nthe reduction of the wings during the many generations in the course of\nwhich it was being effected, and who can testify that all, or the\noverwhelming majority, of the beetles born with fairly well-developed\nwings got blown out to sea, while those alone survived whose wings were\ncongenitally degenerate.  Who saw them go, or can point to analogous\ncases so conclusive as to compel assent from any equitable thinker?\n\nDarwinians of the stamp of Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Professor Ray Lankester,\nor Mr. Romanes, insist on their pound of flesh in the matter of\nirrefragable demonstration.  They complain of us for not bringing forward\nsome one who has been able to detect the movement of the hour-hand of a\nwatch during a second of time, and when we fail to do so, declare\ntriumphantly that we have no evidence that there is any connection\nbetween the beating of a second and the movement of the hour-hand.  When\nwe say that rain comes from the condensation of moisture in the\natmosphere, they demand of us a rain-drop from moisture not yet\ncondensed.  If they stickle for proof and cavil on the ninth part of a\nhair, as they do when we bring forward what we deem excellent instances\nof the transmission of an acquired characteristic, why may not we, too,\ndemand at any rate some evidence that the unmodified beetles actually did\nalways, or nearly always, get blown out to sea, during the reduction\nabove referred to, and that it is to this fact, and not to the masterly\ninactivity of their fathers and mothers, that the Madeira beetles owe\ntheir winglessness?  If we began stickling for proof in this way, our\nopponents would not be long in letting us know that absolute proof is\nunattainable on any subject, that reasonable presumption is our highest\ncertainty, and that crying out for too much evidence is as bad as\naccepting too little.  Truth is like a photographic sensitised plate,\nwhich is equally ruined by over and by under exposure, and the just\nexposure for which can never be absolutely determined.\n\nSurely if disuse can be credited with the vast powers involved in Mr.\nDarwin's statement that it has probably \"been the main agent in rendering\norgans rudimentary,\" no limits are assignable to the accumulated effects\nof habit, provided the effects of habit, or use and disuse, are supposed,\nas Mr. Darwin supposed them, to be inheritable at all.  Darwinians have\nat length woke up to the dilemma in which they are placed by the manner\nin which Mr. Darwin tried to sit on the two stools of use and disuse, and\nnatural selection of accidental variations, at the same time.  The knell\nof Charles-Darwinism is rung in Mr. Wallace's present book, and in the\ngeneral perception on the part of biologists that we must either assign\nto use and disuse such a predominant share in modification as to make it\nthe feature most proper to be insisted on, or deny that the\nmodifications, whether of mind or body, acquired during a single\nlifetime, are ever transmitted at all.  If they can be inherited at all,\nthey can be accumulated.  If they can be accumulated at all, they can be\nso, for anything that appears to the contrary, to the extent of the\nspecific and generic differences with which we are surrounded.  The only\nthing to do is to pluck them out root and branch: they are as a cancer\nwhich, if the smallest fibre be left unexcised, will grow again, and kill\nany system on to which it is allowed to fasten.  Mr. Wallace, therefore,\nmay well be excused if he casts longing eyes towards Weismannism.\n\nAnd what was Mr. Darwin's system?  Who can make head or tail of the\ninextricable muddle in which he left it?  The \"Origin of Species\" in its\nlatest shape is the reduction of hedging to an absurdity.  How did Mr.\nDarwin himself leave it in the last chapter of the last edition of the\n\"Origin of Species\"?  He wrote:--\n\n\"I have now recapitulated the facts and considerations which have\nthoroughly convinced me that species have been modified during a long\ncourse of descent.  This has been effected chiefly through the natural\nselection of numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations; aided\nin an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of\nparts, and in an unimportant manner--that is, in relation to adaptive\nstructures whether past or present--by the direct action of external\nconditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise\nspontaneously.  It appears that I formerly underrated the frequency and\nvalue of these latter forms of variation, as leading to permanent\nmodifications of structure independently of natural selection.\"\n\nThe \"numerous, successive, slight, favourable variations\" above referred\nto are intended to be fortuitous, accidental, spontaneous.  It is the\nessence of Mr. Darwin's theory that this should be so.  Mr. Darwin's\nsolemn statement, therefore, of his theory, after he had done his best or\nhis worst with it, is, when stripped of surplusage, as follows:--\n\n\"The modification of species has been mainly effected by accumulation of\nspontaneous variations; it has been aided in an important manner by\naccumulation of variations due to use and disuse, and in an unimportant\nmanner by spontaneous variations; I do not even now think that\nspontaneous variations have been very important, but I used once to think\nthem less important than I do now.\"\n\nIt is a discouraging symptom of the age that such a system should have\nbeen so long belauded, and it is a sign of returning intelligence that\neven he who has been more especially the _alter ego_ of Mr. Darwin should\nhave felt constrained to close the chapter of Charles-Darwinism as a\nliving theory, and relegate it to the important but not very creditable\nplace in history which it must henceforth occupy.  It is astonishing,\nhowever, that Mr. Wallace should have quoted the extract from the \"Origin\nof Species\" just given, as he has done on p. 412 of his \"Darwinism,\"\nwithout betraying any sign that he has caught its driftlessness--for\ndrift, other than a desire to hedge, it assuredly has not got.  The\nbattle now turns on the question whether modifications of either\nstructure or instinct due to use or disuse are ever inherited, or whether\nthey are not.  Can the effects of habit be transmitted to progeny at all?\nWe know that more usually they are not transmitted to any perceptible\nextent, but we believe also that occasionally, and indeed not\ninfrequently, they are inherited and even intensified.  What are our\ngrounds for this opinion?  It will be my object to put these forward in\nthe following number of the _Universal Review_.\n\n\n\nTHE DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM--PART II {29}\n\n\nAt the close of my article in last month's number of the _Universal\nReview_, I said I would in this month's issue show why the opponents of\nCharles-Darwinism believe the effects of habits acquired during the\nlifetime of a parent to produce an effect on their subsequent offspring,\nin spite of the fact that we can rarely find the effect in any one\ngeneration, or even in several, sufficiently marked to arrest our\nattention.\n\nI will now show that offspring can be, and not very infrequently is,\naffected by occurrences that have produced a deep impression on the\nparent organism--the effect produced on the offspring being such as\nleaves no doubt that it is to be connected with the impression produced\non the parent.  Having thus established the general proposition, I will\nproceed to the more particular one--that habits, involving use and disuse\nof special organs, with the modifications of structure thereby\nengendered, produce also an effect upon offspring, which, though seldom\nperceptible as regards structure in a single, or even in several\ngenerations, is nevertheless capable of being accumulated in successive\ngenerations till it amounts to specific and generic difference.  I have\nfound the first point as much as I can treat within the limits of this\npresent article, and will avail myself of the hospitality of the\n_Universal Review_ next month to deal with the second.\n\nThe proposition which I have to defend is one which no one till recently\nwould have questioned, and even now, those who look most askance at it do\nnot venture to dispute it unreservedly; they every now and then admit it\nas conceivable, and even in some cases probable; nevertheless they seek\nto minimise it, and to make out that there is little or no connection\nbetween the great mass of the cells of which the body is composed, and\nthose cells that are alone capable of reproducing the entire organism.\nThe tendency is to assign to these last a life of their own, apart from,\nand unconnected with that of the other cells of the body, and to cheapen\nall evidence that tends to prove any response on their part to the past\nhistory of the individual, and hence ultimately of the race.\n\nProfessor Weismann is the foremost exponent of those who take this line.\nHe has naturally been welcomed by English Charles-Darwinians; for if his\nview can be sustained, then it can be contended that use and disuse\nproduce no transmissible effect, and the ground is cut from under\nLamarck's feet; if, on the other hand, his view is unfounded, the\nLamarckian reaction, already strong, will gain still further strength.\nThe issue, therefore, is important, and is being fiercely contested by\nthose who have invested their all of reputation for discernment in\nCharles-Darwinian securities.\n\nProfessor Weismann's theory is, that at every new birth a part of the\nsubstance which proceeds from parents and which goes to form the new\nembryo is not used up in forming the new animal, but remains apart to\ngenerate the germ-cells--or perhaps I should say \"germ-plasm\"--which the\nnew animal itself will in due course issue.\n\nContrasting the generally received view with his own, Professor Weismann\nsays that according to the first of these \"the organism produces germ-\ncells afresh again and again, and that it produces them entirely from its\nown substance.\"  While by the second \"the germ-cells are no longer looked\nupon as the product of the parent's body, at least as far as their\nessential part--the specific germ-plasm--is concerned; they are rather\nconsidered as something which is to be placed in contrast with the _tout\nensemble_ of the cells which make up the parent's body, and the\ngerm-cells of succeeding generations stand in a similar relation to one\nanother as a series of generations of unicellular organisms arising by a\ncontinued process of cell-division.\" {30}\n\nOn another page he writes:--\n\n\"I believe that heredity depends upon the fact that a small portion of\nthe effective substance of the germ, the germ-plasm, remains unchanged\nduring the development of the ovum into an organism, and that this part\nof the germ-plasm serves as a foundation from which the germ-cells of the\nnew organism are produced.  There is, therefore, continuity of the germ-\nplasm from one generation to another.  One might represent the germ-plasm\nby the metaphor of a long creeping root-stock from which plants arise at\nintervals, these latter representing the individuals of successive\ngenerations.\" {31}\n\nMr. Wallace, who does not appear to have read Professor Weismann's essays\nthemselves, but whose remarks are, no doubt, ultimately derived from the\nsequel to the passage just quoted from page 266 of Professor Weismann's\nbook, contends that the impossibility of the transmission of acquired\ncharacters follows as a logical result from Professor Weismann's theory,\ninasmuch as the molecular structure of the germ-plasm that will go to\nform any succeeding generation is already predetermined within the still\nunformed embryo of its predecessor; \"and Weismann,\" continues Mr.\nWallace, \"holds that there are no facts which really prove that acquired\ncharacters can be inherited, although their inheritance has, by most\nwriters, been considered so probable as hardly to stand in need of direct\nproof.\" {32}\n\nProfessor Weismann, in passages too numerous to quote, shows that he\nrecognises this necessity, and acknowledges that the non-transmission of\nacquired characters \"forms the foundation of the views\" set forth in his\nbook, p. 291.\n\nProfessor Ray Lankester does not commit himself absolutely to this view,\nbut lends it support by saying (_Nature_, December 12, 1889): \"It is\nhardly necessary to say that it has never yet been shown experimentally\nthat _anything_ acquired by one generation is transmitted to the next\n(putting aside diseases).\"\n\nMr. Romanes, writing in _Nature_, March 18, 1890, and opposing certain\ndetails of Professor Weismann's theory, so far supports it as to say that\n\"there is the gravest possible doubt lying against the supposition that\nany really inherited decrease is due to the inherited effects of disuse.\"\nThe \"gravest possible doubt\" should mean that Mr. Romanes regards it as a\nmoral certainty that disuse has no transmitted effect in reducing an\norgan, and it should follow that he holds use to have no transmitted\neffect in its development.  The sequel, however, makes me uncertain how\nfar Mr. Romanes intends this, and I would refer the reader to the article\nwhich Mr. Romanes has just published on Weismann in the _Contemporary\nReview_ for this current month.\n\nThe burden of Mr. Thiselton Dyer's controversy with the Duke of Argyll\n(see _Nature_, January 16, 1890, _et seq._) was that there was no\nevidence in support of the transmission of any acquired modification.  The\northodoxy of science, therefore, must be held as giving at any rate a\nprovisional support to Professor Weismann, but all of them, including\neven Professor Weismann himself, shrink from committing themselves to the\nopinion that the germ-cells of any organisms remain in all cases\nunaffected by the events that occur to the other cells of the same\norganism, and until they do this they have knocked the bottom out of\ntheir case.\n\nFrom among the passages in which Professor Weismann himself shows a\ndesire to hedge I may take the following from page 170 of his book:--\n\n\"I am also far from asserting that the germ-plasm which, as I hold, is\ntransmitted as the basis of heredity from one generation to another, is\nabsolutely unchangeable or totally uninfluenced by forces residing in the\norganism within which it is transformed into germ-cells.  I am also\ncompelled to admit it as conceivable that organisms may exert a modifying\ninfluence upon their germ-cells, and even that such a process is to a\ncertain extent inevitable.  The nutrition and growth of the individual\nmust exercise some influence upon its germ-cells . . . \"\n\nProfessor Weismann does indeed go on to say that this influence must be\nextremely slight, but we do not care how slight the changes produced may\nbe provided they exist and can be transmitted.  On an earlier page (p.\n101) he said in regard to variations generally that we should not expect\nto find them conspicuous; their frequency would be enough, if they could\nbe accumulated.  The same applies here, if stirring events that occur to\nthe somatic cells can produce any effect at all on offspring.  A very\nsmall effect, provided it can be repeated and accumulated in successive\ngenerations, is all that even the most exacting Lamarckian will ask for.\n\nHaving now made the reader acquainted with the position taken by the\nleading Charles-Darwinian authorities, I will return to Professor\nWeismann himself, who declares that the transmission of acquired\ncharacters \"at first sight certainly seems necessary,\" and that \"it\nappears rash to attempt to dispense with its aid.\"  He continues:--\n\n\"Many phenomena only appear to be intelligible if we assume the\nhereditary transmission of such acquired characters as the changes which\nwe ascribe to the use or disuse of particular organs, or to the direct\ninfluence of climate.  Furthermore, how can we explain instinct as\nhereditary habit, unless it has gradually arisen by the accumulation,\nthrough heredity, of habits which were practised in succeeding\ngenerations?\" {33}\n\nI may say in passing that Professor Weismann appears to suppose that the\nview of instinct just given is part of the Charles-Darwinian system, for\non page 889 of his book he says \"that many observers had followed Darwin\nin explaining them [instincts] as inherited habits.\"  This was not Mr.\nDarwin's own view of the matter.  He wrote:--\n\n\"If we suppose any habitual action to become inherited--and I think it\ncan be shown that this does sometimes happen--then the resemblance\nbetween what originally was a habit and an instinct becomes so close as\nnot to be distinguished. . . But it would be the most serious error to\nsuppose that the greater number of instincts have been acquired by habit\nin one generation, and then transmitted by inheritance to succeeding\ngenerations.  It can be clearly shown that the most wonderful instincts\nwith which we are acquainted, namely, those of the hive-bee and of many\nants, could not possibly have been thus acquired.\"--[\"Origin of Species,\"\ned., 1859, p. 209.]\n\nAgain we read: \"Domestic instincts are sometimes spoken of as actions\nwhich have become inherited solely from long-continued and compulsory\nhabit, but this, I think, is not true.\"--_Ibid._, p. 214.\n\nAgain: \"I am surprised that no one has advanced this demonstrative case\nof neuter insects, against the well-known doctrine of inherited habit, as\nadvanced by Lamarck.\"--[\"Origin of Species,\" ed. 1872, p. 283.]\n\nI am not aware that Lamarck advanced the doctrine that instinct is\ninherited habit, but he may have done so in some work that I have not\nseen.\n\nIt is true, as I have more than once pointed out, that in the later\neditions of the \"Origin of Species\" it is no longer \"the _most_ serious\"\nerror to refer instincts generally to inherited habit, but it still\nremains \"a serious error,\" and this slight relaxation of severity does\nnot warrant Professor Weismann in ascribing to Mr. Darwin an opinion\nwhich he emphatically condemned.  His tone, however, is so offhand, that\nthose who have little acquaintance with the literature of evolution would\nhardly guess that he is not much better informed on this subject than\nthemselves.\n\nReturning to the inheritance of acquired characters, Professor Weismann\nsays that this has never been proved either by means of direct\nobservation or by experiment.  \"It must be admitted,\" he writes, \"that\nthere are in existence numerous descriptions of cases which tend to prove\nthat such mutilations as the loss of fingers, the scars of wounds, &c.,\nare inherited by the offspring, but in these descriptions the previous\nhistory is invariably obscure, and hence the evidence loses all\nscientific value.\"\n\nThe experiments of M.  Brown-Sequard throw so much light upon the\nquestion at issue that I will quote at some length from the summary given\nby Mr. Darwin in his \"Variation of Animals and Plants under\nDomestication.\" {34}  Mr. Darwin writes:--\n\n\"With respect to the inheritance of structures mutilated by injuries or\naltered by disease, it was until lately difficult to come to any definite\nconclusion.\"  [Then follow several cases in which mutilations practised\nfor many generations are not found to be transmitted.]  \"Notwithstanding,\"\ncontinues Mr. Darwin, \"the above several negative cases, we now possess\nconclusive evidence that the effects of operations are sometimes\ninherited.  Dr. Brown-Sequard gives the following summary of his\nobservations on guinea-pigs, and this summary is so important that I will\nquote the whole:--\n\n\"'1st.  Appearance of epilepsy in animals born of parents having been\nrendered epileptic by an injury to the spinal cord.\n\n\"'2nd.  Appearance of epilepsy also in animals born of parents having\nbeen rendered epileptic by the section of the sciatic nerve.\n\n\"'3rd.  A change in the shape of the ear in animals born of parents in\nwhich such a change was the effect of a division of the cervical\nsympathetic nerve.\n\n\"'4th.  Partial closure of the eyelids in animals born of parents in\nwhich that state of the eyelids had been caused either by the section of\nthe cervical sympathetic nerve or the removal of the superior cervical\nganglion.\n\n\"'5th.  Exophthalmia in animals born of parents in which an injury to the\nrestiform body had produced that protrusion of the eyeball.  This\ninteresting fact I have witnessed a good many times, and I have seen the\ntransmission of the morbid state of the eye continue through four\ngenerations.  In these animals modified by heredity, the two eyes\ngenerally protruded, although in the parents usually only one showed\nexophthalmia, the lesion having been made in most cases only on one of\nthe corpora restiformia.\n\n\"'6th.  Haematoma and dry gangrene of the ears in animals born of parents\nin which these ear-alterations had been caused by an injury to the\nrestiform body near the nib of the calamus.\n\n\"'7th.  Absence of two toes out of the three of the hind leg, and\nsometimes of the three, in animals whose parents had eaten up their hind-\nleg toes which had become anaesthetic from a section of the sciatic nerve\nalone, or of that nerve and also of the crural.  Sometimes, instead of\ncomplete absence of the toes, only a part of one or two or three was\nmissing in the young, although in the parent not only the toes but the\nwhole foot was absent (partly eaten off, partly destroyed by\ninflammation, ulceration, or gangrene).\n\n\"'8th.  Appearance of various morbid states of the skin and hair of the\nneck and face in animals born of parents having had similar alterations\nin the same parts, as effects of an injury to the sciatic nerve.'\n\n\"It should be especially observed that Brown-Sequard has bred during\nthirty years many thousand guinea-pigs from animals which had not been\noperated upon, and not one of these manifested the epileptic tendency.\nNor has he ever seen a guinea-pig born without toes, which was not the\noffspring of parents which had gnawed off their own toes owing to the\nsciatic nerve having been divided.  Of this latter fact thirteen\ninstances were carefully recorded, and a greater number were seen; yet\nBrown-Sequard speaks of such cases as one of the rarer forms of\ninheritance.  It is a still more interesting fact, 'that the sciatic\nnerve in the congenitally toeless animal has inherited the power of\npassing through all the different morbid states which have occurred in\none of its parents from the time of the division till after its reunion\nwith the peripheric end.  It is not, therefore, simply the power of\nperforming an action which is inherited, but the power of performing a\nwhole series of actions, in a certain order.'\n\n\"In most of the cases of inheritance recorded by Brown-Sequard only one\nof the two parents had been operated upon and was affected.  He concludes\nby expressing his belief that 'what is transmitted is the morbid state of\nthe nervous system,' due to the operation performed on the parents.\"\n\nMr. Darwin proceeds to give other instances of inherited effects of\nmutilations:--\n\n\"With the horse there seems hardly a doubt that exostoses on the legs,\ncaused by too much travelling on hard roads, are inherited.  Blumenbach\nrecords the case of a man who had his little finger on the right hand\nalmost cut off, and which in consequence grew crooked, and his sons had\nthe same finger on the same hand similarly crooked.  A soldier, fifteen\nyears before his marriage, lost his left eye from purulent ophthalmia,\nand his two sons were microphthalmic on the same side.\"\n\nThe late Professor Rolleston, whose competence as an observer no one is\nlikely to dispute, gave Mr. Darwin two cases as having fallen under his\nown notice, one of a man whose knee had been severely wounded, and whose\nchild was born with the same spot marked or scarred, and the other of one\nwho was severely cut upon the cheek, and whose child was born scarred in\nthe same place.  Mr. Darwin's conclusion was that \"the effects of\ninjuries, especially when followed by disease, or perhaps exclusively\nwhen thus followed, are occasionally inherited.\"\n\nLet us now see what Professor Weismann has to say against this.  He\nwrites:--\n\n\"The only cases worthy of discussion are the well-known experiments upon\nguinea-pigs conducted by the French physiologist, Brown-Sequard.  But the\nexplanation of his results is, in my opinion, open to discussion.  In\nthese cases we have to do with the apparent transmission of artificially\nproduced malformations . . . All these effects were said to be\ntransmitted to descendants as far as the fifth or sixth generation.\n\n\"But we must inquire whether these cases are really due to heredity, and\nnot to simple infection.  In the case of epilepsy, at any rate, it is\neasy to imagine that the passage of some specific organism through the\nreproductive cells may take place, as in the case of syphilis.  We are,\nhowever, entirely ignorant of the nature of the former disease.  This\nsuggested explanation may not perhaps apply to the other cases; but we\nmust remember that animals which have been subjected to such severe\noperations upon the nervous system have sustained a great shock, and if\nthey are capable of breeding, it is only probable that they will produce\nweak descendants, and such as are easily affected by disease.  Such a\nresult does not, however, explain why the offspring should suffer from\nthe same disease as that which was artificially induced in the parents.\nBut this does not appear to have been by any means invariably the case.\nBrown-Sequard himself says: 'The changes in the eye of the offspring were\nof a very variable nature, and were only occasionally exactly similar to\nthose observed in the parents.'\n\n\"There is no doubt, however, that these experiments demand careful\nconsideration, but before they can claim scientific recognition, they\nmust be subjected to rigid criticism as to the precautions taken, the\nnature and number of the control experiments, &c.\n\n\"Up to the present time such necessary conditions have not been\nsufficiently observed.  The recent experiments themselves are only\ndescribed in short preliminary notices, which, as regards their accuracy,\nthe possibility of mistake, the precautions taken, and the exact\nsuccession of individuals affected, afford no data on which a scientific\nopinion can be founded\" (pp. 81, 82).\n\nThe line Professor Weismann takes, therefore, is to discredit the facts;\nyet on a later page we find that the experiments have since been repeated\nby Obersteiner, \"who has described them in a very exact and unprejudiced\nmanner,\" and that \"the fact\"--(I imagine that Professor Weismann intends\n\"the facts\")--\"cannot be doubted.\"\n\nOn a still later page, however, we read:--\n\n\"If, for instance, it could be shown that artificial mutilation\nspontaneously reappears in the offspring with sufficient frequency to\nexclude all possibilities of chance, then such proof [_i.e._, that\nacquired characters can be transmitted] would be forthcoming.  The\ntransmission of mutilations has been frequently asserted, and has been\neven recently again brought forward, but all the supposed instances have\nbroken down when carefully examined\" (p. 390).\n\nHere, then, we are told that proof of the occasional transmission of\nmutilations would be sufficient to establish the fact, but on p. 267 we\nfind that no single fact is known which really proves that acquired\ncharacters can be transmitted, \"_for the ascertained facts which seem to\npoint to the transmission of artificially produced diseases cannot be\nconsidered as proof_\" [Italics mine.]  Perhaps; but it was mutilation in\nmany cases that Professor Weismann practically admitted to have been\ntransmitted when he declared that Obersteiner had verified\nBrown-Sequard's experiments.\n\nThat Professor Weismann recognises the vital importance to his own theory\nof the question whether or no mutilations can be transmitted under any\ncircumstances, is evident from a passage on p. 425 of his work, on which\nhe says: \"It can hardly be doubted that mutilations are acquired\ncharacters; they do not arise from any tendency contained in the germ,\nbut are merely the reaction of the body under certain external\ninfluences.  They are, as I have recently expressed it, purely\nsomatogenic characters--viz., characters which emanate from the body\n(_soma_) only, as opposed to the germ-cells; they are, therefore,\ncharacters that do not arise from the germ itself.\n\n\"If mutilations must necessarily be transmitted\" [which no one that I\nknow of has maintained], \"or even if they might occasionally be\ntransmitted\" [which cannot, I imagine, be reasonably questioned], \"a\npowerful support would be given to the Lamarckian principle, and the\ntransmission of functional hypertrophy or atrophy would thus become\nhighly probable.\"\n\nI have not found any further attempt in Professor Weismann's book to deal\nwith the evidence adduced by Mr. Darwin to show that mutilations, if\nfollowed by diseases, are sometimes inherited; and I must leave it to the\nreader to determine how far Professor Weismann has shown reason for\nrejecting Mr. Darwin's conclusion.  I do not, however, dwell upon these\nfacts now as evidence of a transmitted change of bodily form, or of\ninstinct due to use and disuse or habit; what they prove is that the germ-\ncells within the parent's body do not stand apart from the other cells of\nthe body so completely as Professor Weismann would have us believe, but\nthat, as Professor Hering, of Prague, has aptly said, they echo with more\nor less frequency and force to the profounder impressions made upon other\ncells.\n\nI may say that Professor Weismann does not more cavalierly wave aside the\nmass of evidence collected by Mr. Darwin and a host of other writers, to\nthe effect that mutilations are sometimes inherited, than does Mr.\nWallace, who says that, \"as regards mutilations, it is generally admitted\nthat they are not inherited, and there is ample evidence on this point.\"\nIt is indeed generally admitted that mutilations, when not followed by\ndisease, are very rarely, if ever, inherited; and Mr. Wallace's appeal to\nthe \"ample evidence\" which he alleges to exist on this head, is much as\nthough he should say that there is ample evidence to show that the days\nare longer in summer than in winter.  \"Nevertheless,\" he continues, \"a\nfew cases of apparent inheritance of mutilations have been recorded, and\nthese, if trustworthy, are difficulties in the way of the theory.\" . . .\n\"The often-quoted case of a disease induced by mutilation being inherited\n(Brown-Sequard's epileptic guinea-pigs) has been discussed by Professor\nWeismann and shown to be not conclusive.  The mutilation itself--a\nsection of certain nerves--was never inherited, but the resulting\nepilepsy, or a general state of weakness, deformity, or sores, was\nsometimes inherited.  It is, however, possible that the mere injury\nintroduced and encouraged the growth of certain microbes, which,\nspreading through the organism, sometimes reached the germ-cells, and\nthus transmitted a diseased condition to the offspring.\" {35}\n\nI suppose a microbe which made guinea-pigs eat their toes off was\ncommunicated to the germ-cells of an unfortunate guinea-pig which had\nbeen already microbed by it, and made the offspring bite its toes off\ntoo.  The microbe has a good deal to answer for.\n\nOn the case of the deterioration of horses in the Falkland Islands after\na few generations, Professor Weismann says:--\n\n\"In such a case we have only to assume that the climate which is\nunfavourable, and the nutriment which is insufficient for horses, affect\nnot only the animal as a whole but also its germ-cells.  This would\nresult in the diminution in size of the germ-cells, the effects upon the\noffspring being still further intensified by the insufficient nourishment\nsupplied during growth.  But such results would not depend upon the\ntransmission by the germ-cells of certain peculiarities due to the\nunfavourable climate, which only appear in the full-grown horse.\"\n\nBut Professor Weismann does not like such cases, and admits that he\ncannot explain the facts in connection with the climatic varieties of\ncertain butterflies, except \"by supposing the passive acquisition of\ncharacters produced by the direct influence of climate.\"\n\nNevertheless in his next paragraph but one he calls such cases\n\"doubtful,\" and proposes that for the moment they should be left aside.\nHe accordingly leaves them, but I have not yet found what other moment he\nconsidered auspicious for returning to them.  He tells us that \"new\nexperiments will be necessary, and that he has himself already begun to\nundertake them.\"  Perhaps he will give us the results of these\nexperiments in some future book--for that they will prove satisfactory to\nhim can hardly, I think, be doubted.  He writes:--\n\n\"Leaving on one side, for the moment, these doubtful and insufficiently\ninvestigated cases, we may still maintain that the assumption that\nchanges induced by external conditions in the organism as a whole are\ncommunicated to the germ-cells after the manner indicated in Darwin's\nhypothesis of pangenesis, is wholly unnecessary for the explanation of\nthese phenomena.  Still we cannot exclude the possibility of such a\ntransmission occasionally occurring, for even if the greater part of the\neffects must be attributable to natural selection, there might be a\nsmaller part in certain cases which depends on this exceptional factor.\"\n\nI repeatedly tried to understand Mr. Darwin's theory of pangenesis, and\nso often failed that I long since gave the matter up in despair.  I did\nso with the less unwillingness because I saw that no one else appeared to\nunderstand the theory, and that even Mr. Darwin's warmest adherents\nregarded it with disfavour.  If Mr. Darwin means that every cell of the\nbody throws off minute particles that find their way to the germ-cells,\nand hence into the new embryo, this is indeed difficult of comprehension\nand belief.  If he means that the rhythms or vibrations that go on\nceaselessly in every cell of the body communicate themselves with greater\nor less accuracy or perturbation, as the case may be, to the cells that\ngo to form offspring, and that since the characteristics of matter are\ndetermined by vibrations, in communicating vibrations they in effect\ncommunicate matter, according to the view put forward in the last chapter\nof my book \"Luck or Cunning,\" {36} then we can better understand it.  I\nhave nothing, however, to do with Mr. Darwin's theory of pangenesis\nbeyond avoiding the pretence that I understand either the theory itself\nor what Professor Weismann says about it; all I am concerned with is\nProfessor Weismann's admission, made immediately afterwards, that the\nsomatic cells may, and perhaps sometimes do, impart characteristics to\nthe germ-cells.\n\n\"A complete and satisfactory refutation of such an opinion,\" he\ncontinues, \"cannot be brought forward at present\"; so I suppose we must\nwait a little longer, but in the meantime we may again remark that, if we\nadmit even occasional communication of changes in the somatic cells to\nthe germ-cells, we have let in the thin end of the wedge, as Mr. Darwin\ndid when he said that use and disuse did a good deal towards\nmodification.  Buffon, in his first volume on the lower animals, {37}\ndwells on the impossibility of stopping the breach once made by admission\nof variation at all.  \"If the point,\" he writes, \"were once gained, that\namong animals and vegetables there had been, I do not say several\nspecies, but even a single one, which had been produced in the course of\ndirect descent from another species; if, for example, it could be once\nshown that the ass was but a degeneration from the horse--then there is\nno farther limit to be set to the power of Nature, and we should not be\nwrong in supposing that with sufficient time she could have evolved all\nother organised forms from one primordial type.\"  So with use and disuse\nand transmission of acquired characteristics generally--once show that a\nsingle structure or instinct is due to habit in preceding generations,\nand we can impose no limit on the results achievable by accumulation in\nthis respect, nor shall we be wrong in conceiving it as possible that all\nspecialisation, whether of structure or instinct, may be due ultimately\nto habit.\n\nHow far this can be shown to be probable is, of course, another matter,\nbut I am not immediately concerned with this; all I am concerned with now\nis to show that the germ-cells not unfrequently become permanently\naffected by events that have made a profound impression upon the somatic\ncells, in so far that they transmit an obvious reminiscence of the\nimpression to the embryos which they go subsequently towards forming.\nThis is all that is necessary for my case, and I do not find that\nProfessor Weismann, after all, disputes it.\n\nBut here, again, comes the difficulty of saying what Professor Weismann\ndoes, and what he does not, dispute.  One moment he gives all that is\nwanted for the Lamarckian contention, the next he denies common-sense the\nbare necessaries of life.  For a more exhaustive and detailed criticism\nof Professor Weismann's position, I would refer the reader to an\nadmirably clear article by Mr. Sidney H. Vines, which appeared in\n_Nature_, October 24, 1889.  I can only say that while reading Professor\nWeismann's book, I feel as I do when I read those of Mr. Darwin, and of a\ngood many other writers on biology whom I need not name.  I become like a\nfly in a window-pane.  I see the sunshine and freedom beyond, and buzz up\nand down their pages, ever hopeful to get through them to the fresh air\nwithout, but ever kept back by a mysterious something, which I feel but\ncannot either grasp or see.  It was not thus when I read Buffon, Erasmus\nDarwin, and Lamarck; it is not thus when I read such articles as Mr.\nVines's just referred to.  Love of self-display, and the want of\nsingleness of mind that it inevitably engenders--these, I suppose, are\nthe sins that glaze the casements of most men's minds; and from these, no\nmatter how hard he tries to free himself, nor how much he despises them,\nwho is altogether exempt?\n\nFinally, then, when we consider the immense mass of evidence referred to\nbriefly, but sufficiently, by Mr. Charles Darwin, and referred to without\nother, for the most part, than off-hand dismissal by Professor Weismann\nin the last of the essays that have been recently translated, I do not\nsee how any one who brings an unbiased mind to the question can hesitate\nas to the side on which the weight of testimony inclines.  Professor\nWeismann declares that \"the transmission of mutilations may be dismissed\ninto the domain of fable.\" {38}  If so, then, whom can we trust?  What is\nthe use of science at all if the conclusions of a man as competent as I\nreadily admit Mr. Darwin to have been, on the evidence laid before him\nfrom countless sources, is to be set aside lightly and without giving the\nclearest and most cogent explanation of the why and wherefore?  When we\nsee a person \"ostrichising\" the evidence which he has to meet, as clearly\nas I believe Professor Weismann to be doing, we shall in nine cases out\nof ten be right in supposing that he knows the evidence to be too strong\nfor him.\n\n\n\nTHE DEADLOCK IN DARWINISM--PART III\n\n\nNow let me return to the recent division of biological opinion into two\nmain streams--Lamarckism and Weismannism Both Lamarckians and\nWeismannists, not to mention mankind in general, admit that the better\nadapted to its surroundings a living form may be, the more likely it is\nto outbreed its compeers.  The world at large, again, needs not to be\ntold that the normal course is not unfrequently deflected through the\nfortunes of war; nevertheless, according to Lamarckians and\nErasmus-Darwinians, habitual effort, guided by ever-growing\nintelligence--that is to say, by continued increase of power in the\nmatter of knowing our likes and dislikes--has been so much the main\nfactor throughout the course of organic development, that the rest,\nthough not lost sight of, may be allowed to go without saying.  According,\non the other hand, to extreme Charles-Darwinians and Weismannists, habit,\neffort and intelligence acquired during the experience of any one life\ngoes for nothing.  Not even a little fraction of it endures to the\nbenefit of offspring.  It dies with him in whom it is acquired, and the\nheirs of a man's body take no interest therein.  To state this doctrine\nis to arouse instinctive loathing; it is my fortunate task to maintain\nthat such a nightmare of waste and death is as baseless as it is\nrepulsive.\n\nThe split in biological opinion occasioned by the deadlock to which\nCharles-Darwinism has been reduced, though comparatively recent, widens\nrapidly.  Ten years ago Lamarck's name was mentioned only as a byword for\nextravagance; now, we cannot take up a number of _Nature_ without seeing\nhow hot the contention is between his followers and those of Weismann.\nThis must be referred, as I implied earlier, to growing perception that\nMr. Darwin should either have gone farther towards Lamarckism or not so\nfar.  In admitting use and disuse as freely as he did, he gave\nLamarckians leverage for the overthrow of a system based ostensibly on\nthe accumulation of fortunate accidents.  In assigning the lion's share\nof development to the accumulation of fortunate accidents, he tempted\nfortuitists to try to cut the ground from under Lamarck's feet by denying\nthat the effects of use and disuse can be inherited at all.  When the\npublic had once got to understand what Lamarck had intended, and wherein\nMr. Charles Darwin had differed from him, it became impossible for\nCharles-Darwinians to remain where they were, nor is it easy to see what\ncourse was open to them except to cast about for a theory by which they\ncould get rid of use and disuse altogether.  Weismannism, therefore, is\nthe inevitable outcome of the straits to which Charles-Darwinians were\nreduced through the way in which their leader had halted between two\nopinions.\n\nThis is why Charles-Darwinians, from Professor Huxley downwards, have\nkept the difference between Lamarck's opinions and those of Mr. Darwin so\nmuch in the background.  Unwillingness to make this understood is nowhere\nmanifested more clearly than in Dr. Francis Darwin's life of his father.\nIn this work Lamarck is sneered at once or twice, and told to go away,\nbut there is no attempt to state the two cases side by side; from which,\nas from not a little else, I conclude that Dr. Francis Darwin has\ndescended from his father with singularly little modification.\n\nProceeding to the evidence for the transmissions of acquired habits, I\nwill quote two recently adduced examples from among the many that have\nbeen credibly attested.  The first was contributed to _Nature_ (March 14,\n1889) by Professor Marcus M. Hartog, who wrote:--\n\n\"A. B. is moderately myopic and very astigmatic in the left eye;\nextremely myopic in the right.  As the left eye gave such bad images for\nnear objects, he was compelled in childhood to mask it, and acquired the\nhabit of leaning his head on his left arm for writing, so as to blind\nthat eye, or of resting the left temple and eye on the hand, with the\nelbow on the table.  At the age of fifteen the eyes were equalised by the\nuse of suitable spectacles, and he soon lost the habit completely and\npermanently.  He is now the father of two children, a boy and a girl,\nwhose vision (tested repeatedly and fully) is emmetropic in both eyes, so\nthat they have not inherited the congenital optical defect of their\nfather.  All the same, they have both of them inherited his early\nacquired habit, and need constant watchfulness to prevent their hiding\nthe left eye when writing, by resting the head on the left forearm or\nhand.  Imitation is here quite out of the question.\n\n\"Considering that every habit involves changes in the proportional\ndevelopment of the muscular and osseous systems, and hence probably of\nthe nervous system also, the importance of inherited habits, natural or\nacquired, cannot be overlooked in the general theory of inheritance.  I\nam fully aware that I shall be accused of flat Lamarckism, but a nickname\nis not an argument.\"\n\nTo this Professor Ray Lankester rejoined (_Nature_, March 21, 1889):--\n\n\"It is not unusual for children to rest the head on the left forearm or\nhand when writing, and I doubt whether much value can be attached to the\ncase described by Professor Hartog.  The kind of observation which his\nletter suggests is, however, likely to lead to results either for or\nagainst the transmission of acquired characters.  An old friend of mine\nlost his right arm when a schoolboy, and has ever since written with his\nleft.  He has a large family and grandchildren, but I have not heard of\nany of them showing a disposition to left-handedness.\"\n\nFrom _Nature_ (March 21, 1889) I take the second instance communicated by\nMr. J. Jenner-Weir, who wrote as follows:--\n\n\"Mr. Marcus M. Hartog's letter of March 6th, inserted in last week's\nnumber (p. 462), is a very valuable contribution to the growing evidence\nthat acquired characters may be inherited.  I have long held the view\nthat such is often the case, and I have myself observed several instances\nof the, at least I may say, apparent fact.\n\n\"Many years ago there was a very fine male of the _Capra megaceros_ in\nthe gardens of the Zoological Society.  To restrain this animal from\njumping over the fence of the enclosure in which he was confined, a long,\nand heavy chain was attached to the collar round his neck.  He was\nconstantly in the habit of taking this chain up by his horns and moving\nit from one side to another over his back; in doing this he threw his\nhead very much back, his horns being placed in a line with the back.  The\nhabit had become quite chronic with him, and was very tiresome to look\nat.  I was very much astonished to observe that his offspring inherited\nthe habit, and although it was not necessary to attach a chain to their\nnecks, I have often seen a young male throwing his horns over his back\nand shifting from side to side an imaginary chain.  The action was\nexactly the same as that of his ancestor.  The case of the kid of this\ngoat appears to me to be parallel to that of child and parent given by\nMr. Hartog.  I think at the time I made this observation I informed Mr.\nDarwin of the fact by letter, and he did not accuse me of 'flat\nLamarckism.'\"\n\nTo this letter there was no rejoinder.  It may be said, of course, that\nthe action of the offspring in each of these cases was due to accidental\ncoincidence only.  Anything can be said, but the question turns not on\nwhat an advocate can say, but on what a reasonably intelligent and\ndisinterested jury will believe; granted they might be mistaken in\naccepting the foregoing stories, but the world of science, like that of\ncommerce, is based on the faith or confidence, which both creates and\nsustains them.  Indeed the universe itself is but the creature of faith,\nfor assuredly we know of no other foundation.  There is nothing so\ngenerally and reasonably accepted--not even our own continued\nidentity--but questions may be raised about it that will shortly prove\nunanswerable.  We cannot so test every sixpence given us in change as to\nbe sure that we never take a bad one, and had better sometimes be cheated\nthan reduce caution to an absurdity.  Moreover, we have seen from the\nevidence given in my preceding article that the germ-cells issuing from a\nparent's body can, and do, respond to profound impressions made on the\nsomatic-cells.  This being so, what impressions are more profound, what\nneeds engage more assiduous attention than those connected with\nself-protection, the procuring of food, and the continuation of the\nspecies?  If the mere anxiety connected with an ill-healing wound\ninflicted on but one generation is sometimes found to have so impressed\nthe germ-cells that they hand down its scars to offspring, how much more\nshall not anxieties that have directed action of all kinds from birth\ntill death, not in one generation only but in a longer series of\ngenerations than the mind can realise to itself, modify, and indeed\ncontrol, the organisation of every species?\n\nI see Professor S. H. Vines, in the article on Weismann's theory referred\nto in my preceding article, says Mr. Darwin \"held that it was not the\nsudden variations due to altered external conditions which become\npermanent, but those slowly produced by what he termed 'the accumulative\naction of changed conditions of life.'\"  Nothing can be more soundly\nLamarckian, and nothing should more conclusively show that, whatever else\nMr. Darwin was, he was not a Charles-Darwinian; but what evidence other\nthan inferential can from the nature of the case be adduced in support of\nthis, as I believe, perfectly correct judgment?  None know better than\nthey who clamour for direct evidence that their master was right in\ntaking the position assigned to him by Professor Vines, that they cannot\nreasonably look for it.  With us, as with themselves, modification\nproceeds very gradually, and it violates our principles as much as their\nown to expect visible permanent progress, in any single generation, or\nindeed in any number of generations of wild species which we have yet had\ntime to observe.  Occasionally we can find such cases, as in that of\n_Branchipus stagnalis_, quoted by Mr. Wallace, or in that of the New\nZealand Kea whose skin, I was assured by the late Sir Julius von Haast,\nhas already been modified as a consequence of its change of food.  Here\nwe can show that in even a few generations structure is modified under\nchanged conditions of existence, but as we believe these cases to occur\ncomparatively rarely, so it is still more rarely that they occur when and\nwhere we can watch them.  Nature is eminently conservative, and fixity of\ntype, even under considerable change of conditions, is surely more\nimportant for the well-being of any species than an over-ready power of\nadaptation to, it may be, passing changes.  There could be no steady\nprogress if each generation were not mainly bound by the traditions of\nthose that have gone before it.  It is evolution and not incessant\nrevolution that both parties are upholding; and this being so, rapid\nvisible modification must be the exception, not the rule.  I have quoted\ndirect evidence adduced by competent observers, which is, I believe,\nsufficient to establish the fact that offspring can be and is sometimes\nmodified by the acquired habits of a progenitor.  I will now proceed to\nthe still more, as it appears to me, cogent proof afforded by general\nconsiderations.\n\nWhat, let me ask, are the principal phenomena of heredity?  There must be\nphysical continuity between parent, or parents, and offspring, so that\nthe offspring is, as Erasmus Darwin well said, a kind of elongation of\nthe life of the parent.\n\nErasmus Darwin put the matter so well that I may as well give his words\nin full; he wrote:--\n\n\"Owing to the imperfection of language the offspring is termed a new\nanimal, but is in truth a branch or elongation of the parent, since a\npart of the embryon animal is, or was, a part of the parent, and\ntherefore, in strict language, cannot be said to be entirely new at the\ntime of its production; and therefore it may retain some of the habits of\nthe parent system.\n\n\"At the earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem to\nconsist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation,\nsensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquired habits\nor propensities peculiar to the parent; the former of these are in common\nwith other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of\nanimal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity of feature or form\nto the parent.\" {39}\n\nThose who accept evolution insist on unbroken physical continuity between\nthe earliest known life and ourselves, so that we both are and are not\npersonally identical with the unicellular organism from which we have\ndescended in the course of many millions of years, exactly in the same\nway as an octogenarian both is and is not personally identical with the\nmicroscopic impregnate ovum from which he grew up.  Everything both is\nand is not.  There is no such thing as strict identity between any two\nthings in any two consecutive seconds.  In strictness they are identical\nand yet not identical, so that in strictness they violate a fundamental\nrule of strictness--namely, that a thing shall never be itself and not\nitself at one and the same time; we must choose between logic and dealing\nin a practical spirit with time and space; it is not surprising,\ntherefore, that logic, in spite of the show of respect outwardly paid to\nher, is told to stand aside when people come to practice.  In practice\nidentity is generally held to exist where continuity is only broken\nslowly and piecemeal, nevertheless, that occasional periods of even rapid\nchange are not held to bar identity, appears from the fact that no one\ndenies this to hold between the microscopically small impregnate ovum and\nthe born child that springs from it, nor yet, therefore, between the\nimpregnate ovum and the octogenarian into which the child grows; for both\novum and octogenarian are held personally identical with the newborn\nbaby, and things that are identical with the same are identical with one\nanother.\n\nThe first, then, and most important element of heredity is that there\nshould be unbroken continuity, and hence sameness of personality, between\nparents and offspring, in neither more nor less than the same sense as\nthat in which any other two personalities are said to be the same.  The\nrepetition, therefore, of its developmental stages by any offspring must\nbe regarded as something which the embryo repeating them has already done\nonce, in the person of one or other parent; and if once, then, as many\ntimes as there have been generations between any given embryo now\nrepeating it, and the point in life from which we started--say, for\nexample, the amoeba.  In the case of asexually and sexually produced\norganisms alike, the offspring must be held to continue the personality\nof the parent or parents, and hence on the occasion of every fresh\ndevelopment, to be repeating something which in the person of its parent\nor parents it has done once, and if once, then any number of times,\nalready.\n\nIt is obvious, therefore, that the germ-plasm (or whatever the fancy word\nfor it may be) of any one generation is as physically identical with the\ngerm-plasm of its predecessor as any two things can be.  The difference\nbetween Professor Weismann and, we will say, Heringians consists in the\nfact that the first maintains the new germ-plasm when on the point of\nrepeating its developmental processes to take practically no cognisance\nof anything that has happened to it since the last occasion on which it\ndeveloped itself; while the latter maintain that offspring takes much the\nsame kind of account of what has happened to it in the persons of its\nparents since the last occasion on which it developed itself, as people\nin ordinary life take of things that happen to them.  In daily life\npeople let fairly normal circumstances come and go without much heed as\nmatters of course.  If they have been lucky they make a note of it and\ntry to repeat their success.  If they have been unfortunate but have\nrecovered rapidly they soon forget it; if they have suffered long and\ndeeply they grizzle over it and are scared and scarred by it for a long\ntime.  The question is one of cognisance or non-cognisance on the part of\nthe new germs, of the more profound impressions made on them while they\nwere one with their parents, between the occasion of their last preceding\ndevelopment, and the new course on which they are about to enter.  Those\nwho accept the theory put forward independently by Professor Hering of\nPrague (whose work on this subject is translated in my book, \"Unconscious\nMemory\") {40} and by myself in \"Life and Habit,\" {41} believe in\ncognizance, as do Lamarckians generally.  Weismannites, and with them the\northodoxy of English science, find non-cognisance more acceptable.\n\nIf the Heringian view is accepted, that heredity is only a mode of\nmemory, and an extension of memory from one generation to another, then\nthe repetition of its development by any embryo thus becomes only the\nrepetition of a lesson learned by rote; and, as I have elsewhere said,\nour view of life is simplified by finding that it is no longer an\nequation of, say, a hundred unknown quantities, but of ninety-nine only,\ninasmuch as two of the unknown quantities prove to be substantially\nidentical.  In this case the inheritance of acquired characteristics\ncannot be disputed, for it is postulated in the theory that each embryo\ntakes note of, remembers and is guided by the profounder impressions made\nupon it while in the persons of its parents, between its present and last\npreceding development.  To maintain this is to maintain use and disuse to\nbe the main factors throughout organic development; to deny it is to deny\nthat use and disuse can have any conceivable effect.  For the detailed\nreasons which led me to my own conclusions I must refer the reader to my\nbooks, \"Life and Habit\" {42} and \"Unconscious Memory,\" {42} the\nconclusions of which have been often adopted, but never, that I have\nseen, disputed.  A brief _resume_ of the leading points in the argument\nis all that space will here allow me to give.\n\nWe have seen that it is a first requirement of heredity that there shall\nbe physical continuity between parents and offspring.  This holds good\nwith memory.  There must be continued identity between the person\nremembering and the person to whom the thing that is remembered happened.\nWe cannot remember things that happened to some one else, and in our\nabsence.  We can only remember having heard of them.  We have seen,\nhowever, that there is as much _bona-fide_ sameness of personality\nbetween parents and offspring up to the time at which the offspring quits\nthe parent's body, as there is between the different states of the parent\nhimself at any two consecutive moments; the offspring therefore, being\none and the same person with its progenitors until it quits them, can be\nheld to remember what happened to them within, of course, the limitations\nto which all memory is subject, as much as the progenitors can remember\nwhat happened earlier to themselves.  Whether it does so remember can\nonly be settled by observing whether it acts as living beings commonly do\nwhen they are acting under guidance of memory.  I will endeavour to show\nthat, though heredity and habit based on memory go about in different\ndresses, yet if we catch them separately--for they are never seen\ntogether--and strip them there is not a mole nor strawberry-mark, nor\ntrick nor leer of the one, but we find it in the other also.\n\nWhat are the moles and strawberry-marks of habitual action, or actions\nremembered and thus repeated?  First, the more often we repeat them the\nmore easily and unconsciously we do them.  Look at reading, writing,\nwalking, talking, playing the piano, &c.; the longer we have practised\nany one of these acquired habits, the more easily, automatically and\nunconsciously, we perform it.  Look, on the other hand, broadly, at the\nthree points to which I called attention in \"Life and Habit\":--\n\nI.  That we are most conscious of and have most control over such habits\nas 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 eating and\ndrinking [provided the food be normal], swallowing, breathing, seeing,\nand hearing--which were acquisitions of our prehuman ancestry, and for\nwhich we had provided ourselves with all the necessary apparatus before\nwe saw light, but which are still, geologically speaking, recent.\n\nIII.  That we are most unconscious of and have least control over our\ndigestion and circulation--powers possessed even by our invertebrate\nancestry, and, geologically speaking, of extreme antiquity.\n\nI have put the foregoing very broadly, but enough is given to show the\nreader the gist of the argument.  Let it be noted that disturbance and\ndeparture, to any serious extent, from normal practice tends to induce\nresumption of consciousness even in the case of such old habits as\nbreathing, seeing, and hearing, digestion and the circulation of the\nblood.  So it is with habitual actions in general.  Let a player be never\nso proficient on any instrument, he will be put out if the normal\nconditions under which he plays are too widely departed from, and will\nthen do consciously, if indeed he can do it at all, what he had hitherto\nbeen doing unconsciously.  It is an axiom as regards actions acquired\nafter birth, that we never do them automatically save as the result of\nlong practice; the stages in the case of any acquired facility, the\ninception of which we have been able to watch, have invariably been from\na nothingness of ignorant impotence to a little somethingness of highly\nself-conscious, arduous performance, and thence to the\nunselfconsciousness of easy mastery.  I saw one year a poor blind lad of\nabout eighteen sitting on a wall by the wayside at Varese, playing the\nconcertina with his whole body, and snorting like a child.  The next year\nthe boy no longer snorted, and he played with his fingers only; the year\nafter that he seemed hardly to know whether he was playing or not, it\ncame so easily to him.  I know no exception to this rule.  Where is the\nintricate and at one time difficult art in which perfect automatic ease\nhas been reached except as the result of long practice?  If, then,\nwherever we can trace the development of automatism we find it to have\ntaken this course, is it not most reasonable to infer that it has taken\nthe same even when it has risen in regions that are beyond our ken?  Ought\nwe not, whenever we see a difficult action performed, automatically to\nsuspect antecedent practice?  Granted that without the considerations in\nregard to identity presented above it would not have been easy to see\nwhere a baby of a day old could have had the practice which enables it to\ndo as much as it does unconsciously, but even without these\nconsiderations it would have been more easy to suppose that the necessary\nopportunities had not been wanting, than that the easy performance could\nhave been gained without practice and memory.\n\nWhen I wrote \"Life and Habit\" (originally published in 1877) I said in\nslightly different words:--\n\n\"Shall we say that a baby of a day old sucks (which involves the whole\nprinciple of the pump and hence a profound practical knowledge of the\nlaws of pneumatics and hydrostatics), digests, oxygenises its\nblood--millions of years before any one had discovered oxygen--sees and\nhears, operations that involve an unconscious knowledge of the facts\nconcerning optics and acoustics compared with which the conscious\ndiscoveries of Newton are insignificant--shall we say that a baby can do\nall these things at once, doing them so well and so regularly without\nbeing even able to give them attention, and yet without mistake, and\nshall we also say at the same time that it has not learnt to do them, and\nnever did them before?\n\n\"Such an assertion would contradict the whole experience of mankind.\"\n\nI have met with nothing during the thirteen years since the foregoing was\npublished that has given me any qualms about its soundness.  From the\npoint of view of the law courts and everyday life it is, of course,\nnonsense; but in the kingdom of thought, as in that of heaven, there are\nmany mansions, and what would be extravagance in the cottage or\nfarmhouse, as it were, of daily practice, is but common decency in the\npalace of high philosophy, wherein dwells evolution.  If we leave\nevolution alone, we may stick to common practice and the law courts;\ntouch evolution and we are in another world; not higher, not lower, but\ndifferent as harmony from counterpoint.  As, however, in the most\nabsolute counterpoint there is still harmony, and in the most absolute\nharmony still counterpoint, so high philosophy should be still in touch\nwith common sense, and common sense with high philosophy.\n\nThe common-sense view of the matter to people who are not over-curious\nand to whom time is money, will be that a baby is not a baby until it is\nborn, and that when born it should be born in wedlock.  Nevertheless, as\na sop to high philosophy, every baby is allowed to be the offspring of\nits father and mother.\n\nThe high-philosophy view of the matter is that every human being is still\nbut a fresh edition of the primordial cell with the latest additions and\ncorrections; there has been no leap nor break in continuity anywhere; the\nman of to-day is the primordial cell of millions of years ago as truly as\nhe is the himself of yesterday; he can only be denied to be the one on\ngrounds that will prove him not to be the other.  Every one is both\nhimself and all his direct ancestors and descendants as well; therefore,\nif we would be logical, he is one also with all his cousins, no matter\nhow distant, for he and they are alike identical with the primordial\ncell, and we have already noted it as an axiom that things which are\nidentical with the same are identical with one another.  This is\npractically making him one with all living things, whether animal or\nvegetable, that ever have existed or ever will--something of all which\nmay have been in the mind of Sophocles when he wrote:--\n\n   \"Nor seest thou yet the gathering hosts of ill\n   That shall en-one thee both with thine own self\n   And with thine offspring.\"\n\nAnd all this has come of admitting that a man may be the same person for\ntwo days running!  As for sopping common sense it will be enough to say\nthat these remarks are to be taken in a strictly scientific sense, and\nhave no appreciable importance as regards life and conduct.  True they\ndeal with the foundations on which all life and conduct are based, but\nlike other foundations they are hidden out of sight, and the sounder they\nare, the less we trouble ourselves about them.\n\nWhat other main common features between heredity and memory may we note\nbesides the fact that neither can exist without that kind of physical\ncontinuity which we call personal identity?  First, the development of\nthe embryo proceeds in an established order; so must all habitual actions\nbased on memory.  Disturb the normal order and the performance is\narrested.  The better we know \"God save the Queen,\" the less easily can\nwe play or sing it backwards.  The return of memory again depends on the\nreturn of ideas associated with the particular thing that is\nremembered--we remember nothing but for the presence of these, and when\nenough of these are presented to us we remember everything.  So, if the\ndevelopment of an embryo is due to memory, we should suppose the memory\nof the impregnate ovum to revert not to yesterday, when it was in the\npersons of its parents, but to the last occasion on which it was an\nimpregnate ovum.  The return of the old environment and the presence of\nold associations would at once involve recollection of the course that\nshould be next taken, and the same should happen throughout the whole\ncourse of development.  The actual course of development presents\nprecisely the phenomena agreeable with this.  For fuller treatment of\nthis point I must refer the reader to the chapter on the abeyance of\nmemory in my book \"Life and Habit,\" already referred to.\n\nSecondly, we remember best our last few performances of any given kind,\nso our present performance will probably resemble some one or other of\nthese; we remember our earlier performances by way of residuum only, but\nevery now and then we revert to an earlier habit.  This feature of memory\nis manifested in heredity by the way in which offspring commonly\nresembles most its nearer ancestors, but sometimes reverts to earlier\nones.  Brothers and sisters, each as it were giving their own version of\nthe same story, but in different words, should generally resemble each\nother more closely than more distant relations.  And this is what\nactually we find.\n\nThirdly, the introduction of slightly new elements into a method already\nestablished varies it beneficially; the new is soon fused with the old,\nand the monotony ceases to be oppressive.  But if the new be too foreign,\nwe cannot fuse the old and the new--nature seeming to hate equally too\nwide a deviation from ordinary practice and none at all.  This fact\nreappears in heredity as the beneficial effects of occasional crossing on\nthe one hand, and on the other, in the generally observed sterility of\nhybrids.  If heredity be an affair of memory, how can an embryo, say of a\nmule, be expected to build up a mule on the strength of but two\nmule-memories?  Hybridism causes a fault in the chain of memory, and it\nis to this cause that the usual sterility of hybrids must be referred.\n\nFourthly, it requires many repeated impressions to fix a method firmly,\nbut when it has been engrained into us we cease to have much recollection\nof the manner in which it came to be so, or indeed of any individual\nrepetition, but sometimes a single impression, if prolonged as well as\nprofound, produces a lasting impression and is liable to return with\nsudden force, and then to go on returning to us at intervals.  As a\ngeneral rule, however, abnormal impressions cannot long hold their own\nagainst the overwhelming preponderance of normal authority.  This appears\nin heredity as the normal non-inheritance of mutilations on the one hand,\nand on the other as their occasional inheritance in the case of injuries\nfollowed by disease.\n\nFifthly, if heredity and memory are essentially the same, we should\nexpect that no animal would develop new structures of importance after\nthe age at which its species begins ordinarily to continue its race; for\nwe cannot suppose offspring to remember anything that happens to the\nparent subsequently to the parent's ceasing to contain the offspring\nwithin itself.  From the average age, therefore, of reproduction,\noffspring should cease to have any farther steady, continuous memory to\nfall back upon; what memory there is should be full of faults, and as\nsuch unreliable.  An organism ought to develop as long as it is backed by\nmemory--that is to say, until the average age at which reproduction\nbegins; it should then continue to go for a time on the impetus already\nreceived, and should eventually decay through failure of any memory to\nsupport it, and tell it what to do.  This corresponds absolutely with\nwhat we observe in organisms generally, and explains, on the one hand,\nwhy the age of puberty marks the beginning of completed development--a\nriddle hitherto not only unexplained but, so far as I have seen, unasked;\nit explains, on the other hand, the phenomena of old age--hitherto\nwithout even attempt at explanation.\n\nSixthly, those organisms that are the longest in reaching maturity should\non the average be the longest-lived, for they will have received the most\nmomentous impulse from the weight of memory behind them.  This harmonises\nwith the latest opinion as to the facts.  In his article on Weismann in\nthe _Contemporary Review_ for May 1890, Mr. Romanes writes: \"Professor\nWeismann has shown that there is throughout the metazoa a general\ncorrelation between the natural lifetime of individuals composing any\ngiven species, and the age at which they reach maturity or first become\ncapable of procreation.\"  This, I believe, has been the conclusion\ngenerally arrived at by biologists for some years past.\n\nLateness, then, in the average age of reproduction appears to be the\nprinciple underlying longevity.  There does not appear at first sight to\nbe much connection between such distinct and apparently disconnected\nphenomena as 1, the orderly normal progress of development; 2, atavism\nand the resumption of feral characteristics; 3, the more ordinary\nresemblance _inter se_ of nearer relatives; 4, the benefit of an\noccasional cross, and the usual sterility of hybrids; 5, the\nunconsciousness with which alike bodily development and ordinary\nphysiological functions proceed, so long as they are normal; 6, the\nordinary non-inheritance, but occasional inheritance of mutilations; 7,\nthe fact that puberty indicates the approach of maturity; 8, the\nphenomena of middle life and old age; 9, the principle underlying\nlongevity.  These phenomena have no conceivable bearing on one another\nuntil heredity and memory are regarded as part of the same story.\nIdentify these two things, and I know no phenomenon of heredity that does\nnot immediately become infinitely more intelligible.  Is it conceivable\nthat a theory which harmonises so many facts hitherto regarded as without\neither connection or explanation should not deserve at any rate\nconsideration from those who profess to take an interest in biology?\n\nIt is not as though the theory were unknown, or had been condemned by our\nleading men of science.  Professor Ray Lankester introduced it to English\nreaders in an appreciative notice of Professor Hering's address, which\nappeared in _Nature_, July 18, 1876.  He wrote to the _Athenaeum_, March\n24, 1884, and claimed credit for having done so, but I do not believe he\nhas ever said more in public about it than what I have here referred to.\nMr. Romanes did indeed try to crush it in _Nature_, January 27, 1881, but\nin 1883, in his \"Mental Evolution in Animals,\" he adopted its main\nconclusion without acknowledgment.  The _Athenaeum_, to my unbounded\nsurprise, called him to task for this (March 1, 1884), and since that\ntime he has given the Heringian theory a sufficiently wide berth.  Mr.\nWallace showed himself favourably enough disposed towards the view that\nheredity and memory are part of the same story when he reviewed my book\n\"Life and Habit\" in _Nature_, March 27, 1879, but he has never since\nbetrayed any sign of being aware that such a theory existed.  Mr. Herbert\nSpencer wrote to the _Athenaeum_ (April 5, 1884), and claimed the theory\nfor himself, but, in spite of his doing this, he has never, that I have\nseen, referred to the matter again.  I have dealt sufficiently with his\nclaim in my book, \"Luck or Cunning.\" {43}  Lastly, Professor Hering\nhimself has never that I know of touched his own theory since the single\nshort address read in 1870, and translated by me in 1881.  Every one,\neven its originator, except myself, seems afraid to open his mouth about\nit.  Of course the inference suggests itself that other people have more\nsense than I have.  I readily admit it; but why have so many of our\nleaders shown such a strong hankering after the theory, if there is\nnothing in it?\n\nThe deadlock that I have pointed out as existing in Darwinism will, I\ndoubt not, lead ere long to a consideration of Professor Hering's theory.\nEnglish biologists are little likely to find Weismann satisfactory for\nlong, and if he breaks down there is nothing left for them but Lamarck,\nsupplemented by the important and elucidatory corollary on his theory\nproposed by Professor Hering.  When the time arrives for this to obtain a\nhearing it will be confirmed, doubtless, by arguments clearer and more\nforcible than any I have been able to adduce; I shall then be delighted\nto resign the championship which till then I shall continue, as for some\nyears past, to have much pleasure in sustaining.  Heretofore my\nsatisfaction has mainly lain in the fact that more of our prominent men\nof science have seemed anxious to claim the theory than to refute it; in\nthe confidence thus engendered I leave it to any fuller consideration\nwhich the outline I have above given may incline the reader to bestow\nupon it.\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{1}  Published in the _Universal Review_, July 1888.\n\n{2}  Published in the _Universal Review_, December 1890.\n\n{3}  Published in the _Universal Review_, May 1889.  As I have several\ntimes been asked if the letters here reprinted were not fabricated by\nButler himself, I take this opportunity of stating that they are\nauthentic in every particular, and that the originals are now in my\npossession.--R. A. S.\n\n{4}  An address delivered at the Somerville Club, February 27, 1895.\n\n{5}  \"The Foundations of Belief,\" by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour.\nLongmans, 1895, p. 48.\n\n{6}  Published in the _Universal Review_, November 1888.\n\n{7}  Since this essay was written it has been ascertained by Cavaliere\nFrancesco Negri, of Casale Monferrato, that Tabachetti died in 1615.  If,\ntherefore, the Sanctuary of Montrigone was not founded until 1631, it is\nplain that Tabachetti cannot have worked there.  All the latest\ndiscoveries about Tabachetti's career will be found in Cavaliere Negri's\npamphlet \"Il Santuario di Crea\" (Alessandria, 1902).  See also note on p.\n154.--R. A. S.\n\n{8}  Published in the _Universal Review_, December 1889.\n\n{9}  Longmans & Co., 1890.\n\n{10}  Longmans & Co., 1890.\n\n{11}  Published in the _Universal Review_, November 1890.\n\n{12}  Longmans & Co., 1890.\n\n{13}  M. Ruppen's words run: \"1687 wurde die Kapelle zur hohen Stiege\ngebaut, 1747 durch Zusatz vergrossert und 1755 mit Orgeln ausgestattet.\nAnton Ruppen, ein geschickter Steinhauer mid Maurermeister leitete den\nKapellebau, und machte darin das kleinere Altarlein.  Bei der hohen\nStiege war fruher kein Gebetshauslein; nur ein wunderthatiges Bildlein\nder Mutter Gottes stand da in einer Mauer vor dem fromme Hirten und viel\nandachtiges Volk unter freiem Himmel beteten.\n\n\"1709 wurden die kleinen Kapellelein die 15 Geheimnisse des Psalters\nvorstelland auf dem Wege zur hohen Stiege gebaut.  Jeder Haushalter des\nViertels Fee ubernahm den Bau eines dieser Geheimnisskapellen, und ein\nbesonderer Gutthater dieser frommen Unternehmung war Heinrich\nAndenmatten, nachher Bruder der Geselischaft Jesu.\"\n\n{14}  The story of Tabachetti's incarceration is very doubtful.  Cavaliere\nF. Negri, to whose book on Tabachetti and his work at Crea I have already\nreferred the reader, does not mention it.  Tabachetti left his native\nDinant in 1585, and from that date until his death in 1615 he appears to\nhave worked chiefly at Varallo and Crea.  There is a document in\nexistence stating that in 1588 he executed a statue for the hermitage of\nS. Rocco, at Crea, which, if it is to be relied on, disposes both of the\nincarceration and of the visit to Saas.  It is possible, however, that\nthe date is 1598, in which case Butler's theory of the visit to Saas may\nhold good.  In 1590 Tabachetti was certainly at Varallo, and again in\n1594, 1599, and 1602.  He died in 1615, possibly during a visit to\nVarallo, though his home at that time was Costigliole, near Asti.--R. A.\nS.\n\n{15}  This is thus chronicled by M. Ruppen: \"1589 den 9 September war\neine Wassergrosse, die viel Schaden verursachte.  Die Thalstrasse, die\nvon den Steinmatten an bis zur Kirche am Ufer der Visp lag, wurde ganz\nzerstort.  Man ward gezwungen eine neue Strasse in einiger Entfernung vom\nWasser durch einen alten Fussweg auszuhauen welche vier und einerhalben\nViertel der Klafter, oder 6 Schuh und 9 Zoll breit soilte.\"  (p. 43).\n\n{16}  A lecture delivered at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond\nStreet, March 15, 1890; rewritten and delivered again at the Somerville\nClub, February 13, 1894.\n\n{17}  \"Correlation of Forces\": Longmans, 1874, p. 15.\n\n{18}  \"Three Lectures on the Science of Language,\" Longmans, 1889, p. 4.\n\n{19}  \"Science of Thought,\" Longmans, 1887, p. 9.\n\n{20}  Published in the _Universal Review_, April, May, and June 1890.\n\n{21}  \"Voyages of the _Adventure_ and _Beagle_,\" iii. p. 237.\n\n{22}  \"Luck, or Cunning, as the main means of Organic Modification?\"\n(Longmans), pp. 179, 180.\n\n{23}  _Journals of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society_ (Zoology, vol.\niii.), 1859, p. 61.\n\n{24}  \"Darwinism\" (Macmillan, 1889), p. 129.\n\n{25}  Longmans, 1890, p. 376.\n\n{26}  See _Nature_, March 6, 1890.\n\n{27}  \"Origin of Species,\" sixth edition, 1888, vol. i. p. 168.\n\n{28}  \"Origin of Species,\" sixth edition, 1888, vol. ii. p. 261.\n\n{29}  Mr. J. T. Cunningham, of the Marine Biological Laboratory,\nPlymouth, has called my attention to the fact that I have ascribed to\nProfessor Ray Lankester a criticism on Mr. Wallace's remarks upon the\neyes of certain fiat-fish, which Professor Ray Lankester was, in reality,\nonly adopting--with full acknowledgment--from Mr. Cunningham.  Mr.\nCunningham has left it to me whether to correct my omission publicly or\nnot, but he would so plainly prefer my doing so that I consider myself\nbound to insert this note.  Curiously enough I find that in my book\n\"Evolution Old and New,\" I gave what Lamarck actually said upon the eyes\nof flat-fish, and having been led to return to the subject, I may as well\nquote his words.  He wrote:--\n\n\"Need--always occasioned by the circumstances in which an animal is\nplaced, and followed by sustained efforts at gratification--can not only\nmodify an organ--that is to say, augment or reduce it--but can change its\nposition when the case requires its removal.\n\n\"Ocean fishes have occasion to see what is on either side of them, and\nhave their eyes accordingly placed on either side of their head.  Some\nfishes, however, have their abode near coasts on submarine banks and\ninclinations, and are thus forced to flatten themselves as much as\npossible in order to get as near as they can to the shore.  In this\nsituation they receive more light from above than from below, and find it\nnecessary to pay attention to whatever happens to be above them; this\nneed has involved the displacement of their eyes, which now take the\nremarkable position which we observe in the case of soles, turbots,\nplaice, &c.  The transfer of position is not even yet complete in the\ncase of these fishes, and the eyes are not, therefore, symmetrically\nplaced; but they are so with the skate, whose head and whole body are\nequally disposed on either side a longitudinal section.  Hence the eyes\nof this fish are placed symmetrically upon the uppermost\n_side_.\"--_Philosophie Zoologique_, tom. i., pp. 250, 251.  Edition C.\nMartins.  Paris, 1873.\n\n{30}  \"Essays on Heredity,\" &c., Oxford, 1889, p. 171.\n\n{31}  \"Essays on Heredity,\" &c., Oxford, 1889, p. 266.\n\n{32}  \"Darwinism,\" 1889, p. 440.\n\n{33}  Page 83.\n\n{34}  Vol. i. p. 466, &c.  Ed. 1885.\n\n{35}  \"Darwinism,\" p. 440.\n\n{36}  Longmans, 1890.\n\n{37}  Tom. iv. p. 383.  Ed. 1753.\n\n{38}  Essays, &c., p. 447.\n\n{39}  \"Zoonomia,\" 1794, vol. i. p. 480.\n\n{40}  Longmans, 1890.\n\n{41}  Longmans, 1890.\n\n{42}  Longmans, 1890.\n\n{43}  Longmans, 1890.","title":"Essays on Life, Art and Science","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":65792}