{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39526/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39526","id":"gutenberg_39526","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39526","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Science - Biology","Evolution (Biology) -- History","Huxley, Thomas Henry, 1825-1895","Philosophy -- History","Spencer, Herbert, 1820-1903"],"text":"Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this\n      file which includes the original illustrations.\n      See 39526-h.htm or 39526-h.zip:\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39526/pg39526-images.html)\n      or\n      (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/39526/39526-h.zip)\n\n      Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive.\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\n      Text in italics has been surrounded with underscores\n      (_italics_).\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: C. Darwin]\n\n\nPIONEERS OF EVOLUTION FROM THALES TO HUXLEY\n\nWith an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement\n\nby\n\nEDWARD CLODD\n\nPresident of the Folk-Lore Society\nAuthor of the Childhood of the World,\nThe Story of Creation,\nThe Story of Primitive Man, etc.\n\nWith Portraits\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nD. Appleton and Company\n1897\n\nCopyright, 1897,\nby D. Appleton and Company.\n\n\n\n\n  To MY BELOVED\n\n  A. A. L.\n\n  WHOSE FELLOWSHIP AND HELP\n\n  HAVE SWEETENED LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThis book needs only brief introduction. It attempts to tell the story\nof the origin of the Evolution idea in Ionia, and, after long arrest,\nof the revival of that idea in modern times, when its profound and\npermanent influence on thought in all directions, and, therefore, on\nhuman relations and conduct, is apparent.\n\nBetween birth and revival there were the centuries of suspended\nanimation, when the nepenthe of dogma drugged the reason; the Church\nteaching, and the laity mechanically accepting, the sufficiency of the\nScriptures and of the General Councils to decide on matters which lie\noutside the domain of both. Hence the necessity for particularizing the\ncauses which actively arrested advance in knowledge for sixteen hundred\nyears.\n\nIn indicating the parts severally played in the Renascence of Evolution\nby a small group of illustrious men, the writer, through the courtesy of\nMr. Herbert Spencer, has been permitted to see the original documents\nwhich show that the theory of Evolution as a whole; i.\u00a0e., as dealing\nwith the non-living, as well as with the living, contents of the\nUniverse, was formulated by Mr. Spencer in the year preceding the\npublication of the Origin of Species.\n\n  ROSEMONT, TUFNELL PARK, LONDON, N.,\n    _14th December, 1896_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                        PART I.\n                                                         PAGE\n  PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION FROM THALES TO LUCRETIUS--B. C.\n        600-A. D. 50                                        1\n\n\n                        PART II.\n\n  THE ARREST OF INQUIRY--A. D. 50-A. D. 1600.\n\n    1. FROM THE EARLY CHRISTIAN PERIOD TO THE TIME\n        OF AUGUSTINE--A. D. 50-A. D. 400                    37\n\n    2. FROM AUGUSTINE TO LORD BACON--A. D. 400-A. D. 1600   73\n\n\n                        PART III.\n\n  THE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE--A. D. 1600 ONWARD              99\n\n\n                        PART IV.\n\n  MODERN EVOLUTION--\n\n    1. DARWIN AND WALLACE                                  126\n\n    2. HERBERT SPENCER                                     175\n\n    3. THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY                                 201\n\n  INDEX                                                    267\n\n\n\n\n  \"Nature, which governs the whole, will soon change all things which\n  thou seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and\n  again other things from the substance of them, in order that the\n  world may be ever new.\"\n                                     _Marcus Aurelius_, vii, 25.\n\n\n\n\nPIONEERS OF EVOLUTION.\n\n\n\n\n_PART I._\n\nPIONEERS OF EVOLUTION FROM THALES TO LUCRETIUS.\n\nB. C. 600-A. D. 50.\n\n  \"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but\n    having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them.\"--HEBREWS\n    xi. 13.\n\n\n\"One event is always the son of another, and we must never forget the\nparentage,\" said a Bechuana chief to Casalis the missionary. The\nbarbarian philosopher spoke wiser than he knew, for in his words lay\nthat doctrine of continuity and unity which is the creed of modern\nscience. They are a suitable text to the discourse of this chapter, the\ndesign of which is to bring out what the brilliancy of present-day\ndiscoveries tends to throw into shadow, namely, the antiquity of the\nideas of which those discoveries are the result. Although the Theory of\nEvolution, as we define it, is new, the speculations which made it\npossible are, at least, twenty-five centuries old. Indeed, it is not\npracticable, since the remote past yields no documents, to fix their\nbeginnings. Moreover, charged, as they are, with many crudities, they\nare not detachable from the barbaric conceptions of the Universe which\nare the philosophies of past, and the legends of present, times.\n\nFontenelle, a writer of the last century, shrewdly remarked that \"all\nnations made the astounding part of their myths while they were savage,\nand retained them from custom and religious conservatism.\" For, as\nWalter Bagehot argues in his brilliant little book on Physics and\nPolitics, and as all anthropological research goes to prove, the lower\nraces are non-progressive both through fear and instinct. And the\nmajority of the members of higher races have not escaped from the\noperation of the same causes. Hence the persistence of coarse and\ngrotesque elements in speculations wherein man has made gradual approach\nto the truth of things; hence, too--the like phenomena having to be\ninterpreted--the similarity of the explanation of them. And as primitive\nmyth embodies primitive theology, primitive morals, and primitive\nscience, the history of beliefs shows how few there be who have escaped\nfrom the tyranny of that authority and sanctity with which the lapse of\ntime invests old ideas.\n\nDissatisfaction is a necessary condition of progress; and\ndissatisfaction involves opposition. As Grant Allen puts it, in one\nof his most felicitous poems:\n\n    If systems that be are the order of God,\n    Revolt is a part of the order.\n\nHence a stage in the history of certain peoples when, in questioning\nwhat is commonly accepted, intellectual freedom is born. Such a stage\nwas markedly reached whenever, for example, an individual here and there\nchallenged the current belief about the beginnings and nature of things,\nbeliefs held because they were taught, not because their correspondence\nwith fact had been examined.\n\nA pioneer (French, _pionnier_; Italian, _pedone_; from Latin _pedes_)\nis, literally, a foot-soldier; one who goes before an army to clear the\nroad of obstructions. Hence the application of the term to men who are\nin the van of any new movement; hence its special fitness in the present\nconnection, as designating men whose speculations cut a pathway through\njungles of myth and legend to the realities of things. The Pioneers of\nEvolution--the first on record to doubt the truth of the theory of\nspecial creation, whether as the work of departmental gods or of one\nSupreme Deity, matters not--lived in Greece about the time already\nmentioned; six centuries before Christ. Not in the early stages of the\nEvolution idea, in the Greece limited, as now, to a rugged peninsula in\nthe southeastern corner of Europe and to the surrounding islands, but in\nthe Greece which then included Ionia, on the opposite seaboard of Asia\nMinor.\n\nFrom times beyond memory or record, the islands of the \u00c6gean had been\nthe nurseries of culture and adventure. Thence the maritime inhabitants\nhad spread themselves both east and west, feeding the spirit of inquiry,\nand imbibing influences from older civilizations, notably of Egypt and\nChald\u00e6a. But, mix as they might with other peoples, the Greeks never\nlost their own strongly marked individuality, and, in imparting what\nthey had acquired or discovered to younger peoples, that is, younger in\nculture, they stamped it with an impress all their own.\n\nAt the later period with which we are dealing, refugees from the\nPeloponnesus, who would not submit to the Dorian yoke, had been long\nsettled in Ionia. To what extent they had been influenced by contact\nwith their neighbours is a question which, even were it easy to answer,\nneed not occupy us here. Certain it is that trade and travel had widened\ntheir intellectual horizon, and although India lay too remote to touch\nthem closely (if that incurious, dreamy East had touched them, it would\nhave taught them nothing), there was Babylonia with her star-watchers,\nand Egypt with her land-surveyors. From the one, these Ionians probably\ngained knowledge of certain periodic movements of some of the heavenly\nbodies; and from the other, a few rules of mensuration, perchance a\nlittle crude science. But this is conjecture. For all the rest that she\nevolved, and with which she enriched the world, ancient Greece is in\ndebt to none.\n\nWhile the Oriental shrunk from quest after causes, looking, as Professor\nButcher aptly remarks in his Aspects of the Greek Genius, on \"each fresh\ngain of earth as so much robbery of heaven,\" the Greek eagerly sought\nfor the law governing the facts around him. And in Ionia was born the\nidea foreign to the East, but which has become the starting-point of all\nsubsequent scientific inquiry--the idea that Nature works by fixed laws.\nSir Henry Maine said that \"except the blind forces of Nature, nothing\nmoves which is not Greek in its origin,\" and we feel how hard it is to\navoid exaggeration when speaking of the heritage bequeathed by Greece as\nthe giver of every fruitful, quickening idea which has developed human\nfaculty on all sides, and enriched every province of life. Amid\nserious defects of character, as craftiness, avariciousness, and\nunscrupulousness, the Greeks had the redeeming grace of pursuit after\nknowledge which naught could baffle (Plato, Republic, vol. iv, p. 435),\nand that healthy outlook on things which saved them from morbid\nintrospection. There arose among them no Simeon Stylites to mount\nhis profitless pillar; no filth-ingrained fakir to waste life in\ncontemplating the tip of his nose; no schoolman to idly speculate how\nmany angels could dance upon a needle's point; or to debate such fatuous\nquestions as the language which the saints in heaven will speak after\nthe Last Judgment.\n\nIn his excellent and cautious survey of Early Greek Philosophy, which we\nmainly follow in this section, Professor Burnet says that the real\nadvance made by the Ionians was through their \"leaving off telling\ntales. They gave up the hopeless task of describing what was when as yet\nthere was nothing, and asked instead what all things really are now.\"\nFor the early notions of the Greeks about nature, being an inheritance\nfrom their barbaric ancestors, were embodied in myths and legends\nbearing strong resemblance to those found among the uncivilized tribes\nof Polynesia and elsewhere in our day. For example, the old nature-myth\nof Cronus separating heaven and earth by the mutilation of Uranus occurs\namong Chinese, Japanese, and Maoris, and among the ancient Hindus and\nEgyptians.\n\nThe earliest school of scientific speculation was at Miletus, the most\nflourishing city of Ionia. Thales, whose name heads the list of the\n\"Seven Sages,\" was its founder. As with other noted philosophers of this\nand later periods, neither the exact date of his birth nor of his death\nare known, but the sixth century before Christ may be held to cover the\nperiod when he \"flourished.\"\n\nThat \"nothing comes into being out of nothing, and that nothing passes\naway into nothing,\" was the conviction with which he and those who\nfollowed him started on their quest. All around was change; everything\nalways becoming something else; \"all in motion like streams.\" There must\nbe that which is the vehicle of all the changes, and of all the motions\nwhich produce them. _What_, therefore, was this permanent and primary\nsubstance? in other words, of what is the world made? And Thales,\nperhaps through observing that it could become vaporous, liquid,\nand solid in turn; perhaps--if, as tradition records, he visited\nEgypt--through watching the wonder-working, life-giving Nile; perhaps as\ndoubtless sharing the current belief in an ocean-washed earth, said that\nthe primary substance was WATER. Anaximander, his friend and pupil,\ndisagreeing with what seemed to him a too concrete answer, argued, in\nmore abstract fashion, that \"the material cause and first element of\nthings was the Infinite.\" This material cause, which he was the first\nthus to name, \"is neither water nor any other of what are now called the\n_elements_\" (we quote from Theophrastus, the famous pupil of Aristotle,\nborn at Eresus in Lesbos, 371 B.\u00a0C.). Perhaps, following Professor\nBurnet's able guidance through the complexities of definitions, the term\nBOUNDLESS best expresses the \"one eternal, indestructible substance out\nof which everything arises, and into which everything once more\nreturns\"; in other words, the exhaustless stock of matter from which the\nwaste of existence is being continually made good.\n\nAnaximander was the first to assert the origin of life from the\nnon-living, i.\u00a0e., \"the moist element as it was evaporated by the sun,\"\nand to speak of man as \"like another animal, namely, a fish, in the\nbeginning.\" This looks well-nigh akin to prevision of the mutability of\nspecies, and of what modern biology has proved concerning the marine\nancestry of the highest animals, although it is one of many ancient\nspeculations as to the origin of life in slimy matter. And when\nAnaximander adds that \"while other animals quickly find food for\nthemselves, man alone requires a prolonged period of suckling,\" he\nanticipates the modern explanation of the origin of the rudimentary\nfamily through the development of the social instincts and affections.\nThe lengthening of the period of infancy involves dependence on the\nparents, and evolves the sympathy which lies at the base of social\nrelations. (Cf. Fiske's Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. ii, pp. 344,\n360.)\n\nIn dealing with speculations so remote, we have to guard against reading\nmodern meanings into writings produced in ages whose limitations of\nknowledge were serious, and whose temper and standpoint are wholly alien\nto our own. For example, shrewd as are some of the guesses made by\nAnaximander, we find him describing the sun as \"a ring twenty-eight\ntimes the size of the earth, like a cartwheel with the felloe hollow and\nfull of fire, showing the fire at a certain point, as if through the\nnozzle of a pair of bellows.\" And if he made some approach to truer\nideas of the earth's shape as \"convex and round,\" the world of his day,\nas in the days of Homer, thought of it as flat and as floating on the\nall-surrounding water. The Ionian philosophers lacked not insight, but\nthe scientific method of starting with working hypotheses, or of\nobservation before theory, was as yet unborn.\n\nIn this brief survey of the subject there will be no advantage in\ndetailing the various speculations which followed on the heels of those\nof Thales and Anaximander, since these varied only in non-essentials;\nor, like that of Pythagoras and his school, which Zeller regards as\nthe outcome of the teachings of Anaximander, were purely abstract and\nfanciful. As is well known, the Pythagoreans, whose philosophy was\nethical as well as cosmical, held that all things are made of numbers,\neach of which they believed had its special character and property. A\nbelief in such symbols as entities seems impossible to us, but its\nexistence in early thought is conceivable when, as Aristotle says, they\nwere \"not separated from the objects of sense.\" Even in the present\nday, among the eccentric people who still believe in the modern sham\nagnosticism, known as theosophy, and in astrology, we find the delusion\nthat numbers possess inherent magic or mystic virtues. So far as the\nancients are concerned, \"consider,\" as Mr. Benn remarks in his Greek\nPhilosophers (vol. i, p. 12), \"the lively emotions excited at a time\nwhen multiplication and division, squaring and cubing, the rule of\nthree, the construction and equivalence of figures, with all their\nmanifold applications to industry, commerce, fine arts, and tactics,\nwere just as strange and wonderful as electrical phenomena are to us ...\nand we shall cease to wonder that a mere form of thought, a lifeless\nabstraction, should once have been regarded as the solution of every\nproblem; the cause of all existence; or that these speculations were\nmore than once revived in after ages.\"\n\nXenophanes of Colophon, one of the twelve Ionian cities of Asia Minor,\ndeserves, however, a passing reference. He, with Parmenides and Zeno,\nare the chief representatives of the Eleatic school, so named from\nthe city in southwestern Italy where a Greek colony had settled. The\ntendency of that school was toward metaphysical theories. He was the\nfirst known observer to detect the value of fossils as evidences of the\naction of water, but his chief claim to notice rests on the fact that,\npassing beyond the purely physical speculations of the Ionian school, he\ndenied the idea of a primary substance, and theorized about the nature\nand actions of superhuman beings. Living at a time when there was a\nrevival of old and gross superstitions to which the vulgar had recourse\nwhen fears of invasions arose, he dared to attack the old and persistent\nideas about the gods, as in the following sentences from the fragments\nof his writings:\n\n\"Homer and Hesiod have ascribed to the gods all things that are a shame\nand a disgrace among men, theft and adulteries and deception of one\nanother.\"\n\n\"There never was nor will be a man who has clear certainty as to what I\nsay about the gods and about all things; for even if he does chance to\nsay what is right, yet he himself does not know that it is so. But all\nare free to guess.\"\n\n\"Mortals think that the gods were born as they are, and have senses and\na voice and body like their own. So the Ethiopians make their gods black\nand snub-nosed; the Thracians give theirs red hair and blue eyes.\"\n\n\"There is one god, the greatest among gods and men, unlike mortals both\nin mind and body.\"\n\nHad such heresies been spoken in Athens, where the effects of a\nreligious revival were still in force, the \"secular arm\" of the archons\nwould probably have made short work of Xenophanes. But in Elea, or in\nwhatever other colony he may have lived, \"the gods were left to take\ncare of themselves.\"\n\nGreater than the philosophers yet named is Heraclitus of Ephesus,\nnicknamed \"the dark,\" from the obscurity of his style. His original\nwritings have shared the fate of most documents of antiquity, and exist,\nlike many of these, only in fragments preserved in the works of other\nauthors. Many of his aphorisms are indeed dark sayings, but those that\nyield their meaning are full of truth and suggestiveness. As for\nexample:\n\n\"The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.\"\n\n\"You will not find out the boundaries of soul by travelling in any\ndirection.\"\n\n\"Man is kindled and put out like a light in the nighttime.\"\n\n\"Man's character is his fate.\"\n\nBut these have special value as keys to his philosophy:\n\n\"You cannot step twice into the same rivers; for fresh waters are ever\nflowing in upon you.\"\n\n\"Homer was wrong in saying: 'Would that strife might perish from among\ngods and men!' He did not see that he was praying for the destruction of\nthe universe; for, if his prayer were heard, all things would pass\naway.\"\n\nFlux or movement, says Heraclitus, is the all-pervading law of things,\nand in the opposition of forces, by which things are kept going, there\nis underlying harmony. Still on the quest after the primary substance\nwhose manifestations are so various, he found it in FIRE, since \"the\nquantity of it in a flame burning steadily appears to remain the same;\nthe flames seems to be what we call a 'thing.' And yet the substance of\nit is continually changing. It is always passing away in smoke, and its\nplace is always being taken by fresh matter from the fuel that feeds it.\nThis is just what we want. If we regard the world as an 'ever-living\nfire'--'this order, which is the same in all things, and which no one of\ngods or men has made'--we can understand how fire is always becoming all\nthings, while all things are always returning to it.\" And as is the\nworld, so is man, made up, like it, both soul and body, of the fire, the\nwater, and the earth. We are and are not the same for two consecutive\nmoments; \"the fire in us is perpetually becoming water, and the water\nearth, but as the opposite process goes on simultaneously we appear to\nremain the same.\"\n\nAs speculation advanced, it became more and more applied to details,\ntheories of the beginnings of life being followed by theories of the\norigin of its various forms. This is a feature of the philosophy of\nEmpedocles, who flourished in the fifth century B.\u00a0C. The advance of\nPersia westward had led to migrations of Greeks to the south of Italy\nand Sicily, and it was at Agrigentum, in that island, that Empedocles\nwas born about 490. He has an honoured place among the earliest who\nsupplanted _guesses_ about the world by _inquiry_ into the world itself.\nMany legends are told of his magic arts, one of which, it will be\nremembered, Matthew Arnold makes an occasion of some fine reflections in\nhis poem Empedocles in Etna. The philosopher was said to have brought\nback to life a woman who apparently had been dead for thirty days. As he\nascends the mountain, Pausanias of Gela, with an address to whom the\npoem of Empedocles opens, would fain have his curiosity slaked as to\nthis and other marvels reported of him:\n\n    Ask not the latest news of the last miracle,\n    Ask not what days and nights\n    In trance Pantheia lay,\n    But ask how thou such sights\n    May'st see without dismay;\n    Ask what most helps when known, thou son of Anchitus.\n\nHis speculations about things, like those of Parmenides before him and\nof Lucretius after him, are set down in verse. From the remains of his\nPoem on Nature we learn that he conceived \"the four roots of all things\"\nto be FIRE, AIR, EARTH, and WATER. They are \"fools, lacking far-reaching\nthoughts, who deem that what before was not comes into being, or that\naught can perish and be utterly destroyed.\" Therefore the \"roots\" or\nelements are eternal and indestructible. They are acted upon by two\nforces, which are also material, LOVE and STRIFE; the one a uniting\nagent, the other a disrupting agent. From the four roots, thus operated\nupon, arise \"the colours and forms\" of living things; trees first, both\nmale and female, then fragmentary parts of animals, heads without necks,\nand \"eyes that strayed up and down in want of a forehead,\" which,\ncombined together, produced monstrous forms. These, lacking power to\npropagate, perished, and were replaced by \"whole-natured\" but sexless\n\"forms\" which \"arose from the earth,\" and which, as Strife gained the\nupper hand, became male and female. Herein, amidst much fantastic\nspeculation, would appear to be the germ of the modern theory that the\nunadapted become extinct, and that only the adapted survive. Nature\nkills off her failures to make room for her successes.\n\nAnaxagoras, who was a contemporary of Empedocles, interests us because\nhe was the first philosopher to repair to Athens, and the first sufferer\nfor truth's sake of whom we have record in Greek annals. Because he\ntaught that the sun was a red-hot stone, and that the moon had plains\nand ravines in it, he was put upon his trial, and but for the influence\nof his friend, the famous Pericles, might have suffered death.\nSpeculations, however bold they be, pass unheeded till they collide\nwith the popular creed, and in thus attacking the gods, attack a\nseemingly divinely settled order. Athens then, and long after, while\nindifferent about natural science, was, under the influence of the\nrevival referred to above, actively hostile to free thinking. The\nopinions of Anaxagoras struck at the existence of the gods and emptied\nOlympus. If the sky was but an air-filled space, what became of Zeus? if\nthe sun was only a fiery ball, what became of Apollo? Mr. Grote says\n(History of Greece, vol. i, p. 466) that \"in the view of the early\nGreek, the description of the sun, as given in a modern astronomical\ntreatise, would have appeared not merely absurd, but repulsive and\nimpious; even in later times, Anaxagoras and other astronomers incurred\nthe charge of blasphemy for dispersonifying H\u0113lios.\" Of Socrates, who\nwas himself condemned to death for impiety in denying old gods and\nintroducing new ones, the same authority writes: \"Physics and astronomy,\nin his opinion, belonged to the divine class of phenomena, in which\nhuman research was insane, fruitless, and impious.\" So Demos and his\n\"betters\" clung, as the majority still cling, to the myths of their\nforefathers. They repaired to the oracles, and watched for the will of\nthe gods in signs and omens.\n\nIn his philosophy Anaxagoras held that there was a portion of everything\nin everything, and that things are variously mixed in infinite numbers\nof seeds, each after its kind. From these, through the action of an\nexternal cause, called NOUS, which also is material, although the\n\"thinnest of all things and the purest,\" and \"has power over all\nthings,\" there arose plants and animals. It is probable, as Professor\nBurnet remarks, \"that Anaxagoras substituted NOUS, still conceived as a\nbody, for the LOVE and STRIFE of Empedocles simply because he wished to\nretain the old Ionic doctrine of a substance that 'knows' all things,\nand to identify this with the new theory of a substance that 'moves' all\nthings.\"\n\nThus far speculation has run largely on the origin of life forms, but\nnow we find revival of speculation about the nature of things generally,\nand the formulation of a theory which links Greek cosmology with early\nnineteenth-century science with Dalton's ATOMIC THEORY. Democritus\nof Abdera, who was born about 460 B.\u00a0C., has the credit of having\nelaborated an atomic theory, but probably he only further developed what\nLeucippus had taught before him. Of this last-named philosopher nothing\nwhatever is known; indeed, his existence has been doubted, but it counts\nfor something that Aristotle gives him the credit of the discovery, and\nthat Theophrastus, in the first book of his Opinions, wrote of Leucippus\nas follows: \"He assumed innumerable and ever-moving elements, namely,\nthe atoms. And he made their forms infinite in number, since there\nwas no reason why they should be of one kind rather than another, and\nbecause he saw that there was unceasing becoming and change in things.\nHe held, further, that _what is_ is no more real than _what is not_,\nand that both are alike causes of the things that come into being; for\nhe laid down that the substance of the atoms was compact and full, and\nhe called them _what is_, while they moved in the void which he called\n_what is not_, but affirmed to be just as real as _what is_.\" Thus did\n\"he answer the question that Thales had been the first to ask.\"\n\nPostponing further reference to this theory until the great name of\nLucretius, its Roman exponent, is reached, we find a genuine scientific\nmethod making its first start in the person of Aristotle. This\nremarkable man, the founder of the experimental school, and the Father\nof Natural History, was born 384 B.\u00a0C. at Stagira in Macedonia. In his\neighteenth year he left his native place for Athens, where he became a\npupil of Plato. Disappointed, as it is thought, at not succeeding his\nmaster in the Academy, he removed to Mytilene in the island of Lesbos,\nwhere he received an invitation from Philip of Macedon to become tutor\nto his son, the famous Alexander the Great. When Alexander went on his\nexpedition to Asia, Aristotle returned to Athens, teaching in the\n\"school\" which his genius raised to the first rank. There he wrote the\ngreater part of his works, the completion of some of which was stopped\nby his death at Chalcis in 322. The range of his studies was boundless,\nbut in this brief notice we must limit our survey--and the more so\nbecause Aristotle's speculations outside natural history abound in\nerrors--to his pioneer work in organic evolution. Here, in the one\npossible method of reaching the truth, theory follows observation.\nStagira lay on the Strymonic gulf, and a boyhood spent by the seashore\ngave Aristotle ample opportunity for noting the variations, and withal\ngradations, between marine plants and animals, among which last-named it\nshould be noted as proof of his insight that he was keen enough to\ninclude sponges. Here was laid the foundation of a classification of\nlife-forms on which all corresponding attempts were based. Then, he\nsaw, as none other before him had seen, and as none after him saw for\ncenturies, the force of heredity, that still unsolved problem of\nbiology. Speaking broadly of his teaching, the details of which would\nfill pages, its main features are (1) His insistence on observation. In\nhis History of Animals he says \"we must not accept a general principle\nfrom logic only, but must prove its application to each fact. For it is\nin facts that we must seek general principles, and these must always\naccord with facts. Experience furnishes the particular facts from which\ninduction is the pathway to general laws.\" (2) His rejection of chance\nand assertion of law, not, following a common error, of law personified\nas cause, but as the term by which we express the fact that certain\nphenomena always occur in a certain order. In his Physics Aristotle says\nthat \"Jupiter rains not that corn may be increased, but from necessity.\nSimilarly, if some one's corn is destroyed by rain, it does not rain\nfor this purpose, but as an accidental circumstance. It does not appear\nto be from fortune or chance that it frequently rains in winter, but\nfrom necessity.\" (3) On the question of the origin of life-forms he was\nnearest of all to its modern solution, setting forth the necessity \"that\ngerms should have been first produced, and not immediately animals; and\nthat soft mass which first subsisted was the germ. In plants, also,\nthere is purpose, but it is less distinct; and this shows that plants\nwere produced in the same manner as animals, not by chance, as by the\nunion of olives with grape vines. Similarly, it may be argued, that\nthere should be an accidental generation of the germs of things, but he\nwho asserts this subverts Nature herself, for Nature produces those\nthings which, being continually moved by a certain principle contained\nin themselves, arrive at a certain end.\" In the eagerness of theologians\nto discover proof of a belief in one God among the old philosophers, the\nreferences made by Aristotle to a \"perfecting principle,\" an \"efficient\ncause,\" a \"prime mover,\" and so forth, have been too readily construed\nas denoting a monotheistic creed which, reminding us of the \"one god\"\nof Xenophanes, is also akin to the Personal God of Christianity. \"The\nStagirite,\" as Mr. Benn remarks (Greek Philosophers, vol. i, p. 312),\n\"agrees with Catholic theism, and he agrees with the First Article of\nthe English Church, though not with the Pentateuch, in saying that God\nis without parts or passions, but there his agreement ceases. Excluding\nsuch a thing as divine interference with all Nature, his theology, of\ncourse, excludes the possibility of revelation, inspiration, miracles,\nand grace.\" He is a being who does not interest himself in human\naffairs.\n\nBut, differ as the commentators may as to Aristotle's meaning, his\nassumed place in the orthodox line led, as will be seen hereafter, to\nthe acceptance of his philosophy by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, in the\nfourth century, and by other Fathers of the Church, so that the medi\u00e6val\ntheories of the Bible, blended with Aristotle, represent the sum of\nknowledge held as sufficient until the discoveries of Copernicus in the\nsixteenth century upset the Ptolemaic theory with its fixed earth and\nsystem of cycles and epicycles in which the heavenly bodies moved. He\nthereby upset very much besides. Like Anaximander and others, Aristotle\nbelieved in spontaneous generation, although only in the case of certain\nanimals, as of eels from the mud of ponds, and of insects from putrid\nmatter. However, in this, both Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, and many\nmen of science down to the latter part of the seventeenth century,\nfollowed him. For example, Van Helmont, an experimental chemist of that\nperiod, gave a recipe for making fleas; and another scholar showed\nhimself on a level with the unlettered rustics of to-day, who believe\nthat eels are produced from horse hairs thrown into a pond.\n\nOf deeper interest, as marking Aristotle's prevision, is his\nanticipation of what is known as Epigenesis, or the theory of the\ndevelopment of the germ into the adult form among the higher individuals\nthrough the union of the fertilizing powers of the male and female\norgans. This theory, which was proved by the researches of Harvey, the\ndiscoverer of the circulation of the blood, and is accepted by all\nbiologists to-day, was opposed by Malpighi, an Italian physician, born\nin 1628, the year in which Harvey published his great discovery, and by\nother prominent men of science down to the last century. Malpighi and\nhis school contended that the perfect animal is already \"preformed\" in\nthe germ; for example, the hen's egg, before fecundation, containing an\nexcessively minute, but complete, chick. It therefore followed that in\nany germ the germs of all subsequent offspring must be contained, and\nin the application of this \"box-within-box\" theory its defenders even\ncomputed the number of human germs concentrated in the ovary of mother\nEve, estimating these at two hundred thousand millions!\n\nWhen the \"preformation\" theory was revived by Bonnet and others\nin the eighteenth century, Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles\nDarwin, passed the following shrewd criticism on it: \"Many ingenious\nphilosophers have found so great difficulty in conceiving the manner of\nreproduction in animals that they have supposed all the numerous progeny\nto have existed in miniature in the animal originally created. This\nidea, besides its being unsupported by any analogy we are acquainted\nwith, ascribes a greater continuity to organized matter than we can\nreadily admit. These embryons ... must possess a greater degree of\nminuteness than that which was ascribed to the devils who tempted St.\nAnthony, of whom twenty thousand were said to have been able to dance\na saraband on the point of a needle without the least incommoding each\nother.\"\n\nAlthough no theistic element could be extracted by the theologians\nof the early Christian Church from the systems of Empedocles and\nDemocritus, thereby securing them a share in the influence exercised by\nthe great Stagirite, they were formative powers in Greek philosophy,\nand, moreover, have \"come by their own\" in these latter days. Their\nchief representative in what is known as the Post-Aristotelian period is\nEpicurus, who was born at Samos, 342 B.\u00a0C. As with Zeno, the founder of\nthe Stoic school, his teaching has been perverted, so that his name has\nbecome loosely identified with indulgence in gross and sensual living.\nHe saw in pleasure the highest happiness, and therefore advocated the\npursuit of pleasure to attain happiness, but he did not thereby mean the\npursuit of the unworthy. Rather did he counsel the following after pure,\nhigh, and noble aims, whereby alone a man could have peace of mind. It\nis not hard to see that in the minds of men of low ideals the tendency\ntowards passivity which lurked in such teaching would aid their sliding\ninto the pursuit of mere animal enjoyment; hence the gross and limited\nassociation of the term Epicurean. Epicurus accepted the theory of\nLeucippus, and applied it all round. The _fain\u00e9ant_ gods, who dwell\nserenely indifferent to human affairs, and about whom men should\ntherefore have no dread; all things, whether dead or living, even\nthe ideas that enter the mind; are alike composed of atoms. He also\naccepted the theory broached by Empedocles as to the survival of fit and\ncapable forms after life had arrived at these through the processes of\nspontaneous generation and the production of monstrosities. Adopting the\nphysical speculations of these forerunners, he made them the vehicle of\ndidactic and ethical philosophies which inspired the production of the\nwonderful poem of Lucretius.\n\nBetween this great Roman and Epicurus--a period of some two\ncenturies--there is no name of sufficient prominence to warrant\nattention. The decline of Greece had culminated in her conquest by the\nsemi-barbarian Mummius, and in her consequent addition to the provinces\nof the Roman Empire. What life lingered in her philosophy within her own\nborders expired with the loss of freedom, and the work done by the\nPioneers of Evolution in Greece was to be resumed elsewhere. In the\nfew years of the pre-Christian period that remained the teaching of\nEmpedocles, and of Epicurus as the mouthpiece of the atomic theory, was\nrevived by Lucretius in his De Rerum Natura. Of that remarkable man but\nlittle is recorded, and the record is untrustworthy. He was probably\nborn 99 B.\u00a0C., and died--by his own hand, Jerome says, but of this there\nis no proof--in his forty-fourth year. It is difficult, taking up his\nwonderful poem, to resist the temptation to make copious extracts\nfrom it, since, even through the vehicle of Mr. Munro's exquisite\ntranslation, it is probably little known to the general reader in these\nevil days of snippety literature. But the temptation must be resisted,\nsave in moderate degree.\n\nWith the dignity which his high mission inspires, Lucretius appeals to\nus in the threefold character of teacher, reformer, and poet. \"First, by\nreason of the greatness of my argument, and because I set the mind free\nfrom the close-drawn bonds of superstition; and next because, on so dark\na theme, I compose such lucid verse, touching every point with the grace\nof poesy.\" As a teacher he expounds the doctrines of Epicurus concerning\nlife and nature; as a reformer he attacks superstition; as a poet he\ninforms both the atomic philosophy and its moral application with\nharmonious and beautiful verse swayed by a fervour that is akin to\nreligious emotion.\n\nDiscussing at the outset various theories of origins, and dismissing\nthese, notably that which asserts that things came from nothing--\"for if\nso, any kind might be born of anything, nothing would require seed,\"\nLucretius proceeds to expound the teaching of Leucippus and other\natomists as to the constitution of things by particles of matter ruled\nin their movements by unvarying laws. This theory he works all round,\nexplaining the processes by which the atoms unite to carry on the birth,\ngrowth, and decay of things, the variety of which is due to variety of\nform of the atoms and to differences in modes of their combination; the\ncombinations being determined by the affinities or properties of the\natoms themselves, \"since it is absolutely decreed what each thing can\nand what it cannot do by the conditions of Nature.\" Change is the law of\nthe universe; what is, will perish, but only to reappear in another\nform. Death is \"the only immortal\"; and it is that and what may follow\nit which are the chief tormentors of men. \"This terror of the soul,\ntherefore, and this darkness, must be dispelled, not by the rays of\nthe sun or the bright shafts of day, but by the outward aspect and\nharmonious plan of Nature.\" Lucretius explains that the soul, which he\nplaces in the centre of the breast, is also formed of very minute atoms\nof heat, wind, calm air, and a finer essence, the proportions of which\ndetermine the character of both men and animals. It dies with the body,\nin support of which statement Lucretius advances seventeen arguments, so\ndetermined is he to \"deliver those who through fear of death are all\ntheir lifetime subject to bondage.\"\n\nThese themes fill the first three books. In the fourth he grapples with\nthe mental problems of sensation and conception, and explains the origin\nof belief in immortality as due to ghosts and apparitions which appear\nin dreams. \"When sleep has prostrated the body, for no other reason\ndoes the mind's intelligence wake, except because the very same images\nprovoke our minds which provoke them when we are awake, and to such a\ndegree that we seem without a doubt to perceive him whom life has left,\nand death and earth gotten hold of. This Nature constrains to come to\npass because all the senses of the body are then hampered and at rest\nthroughout the limbs, and cannot refute the unreal by real things.\"\n\nIn the fifth book Lucretius deals with origins--of the sun, the moon,\nthe earth (which he held to be flat, denying the existence of the\nantipodes); of life and its development; and of civilization. In\nall this he excludes design, explaining everything as produced and\nmaintained by natural agents, \"the masses, suddenly brought together,\nbecame the rudiments of earth, sea, and heaven, and the race of living\nthings.\" He believed in the successive appearance of plants and animals,\nbut in their arising separately and directly out of the earth, \"under\nthe influence of rain and the heat of the sun,\" thus repeating the old\nspeculations of the emergence of life from slime, \"wherefore the earth\nwith good title has gotten and keeps the name of mother.\" He did not\nadopt Empedocles's theory of the \"four roots of all things,\" and\nhe will have none of the monsters--the hippogriffs, chimeras, and\ncentaurs--which form a part of the scheme of that philosopher. These,\nhe says, \"have never existed,\" thus showing himself far in advance of\nages when unicorns, dragons, and such-like fabled beasts were seriously\nbelieved to exist. In one respect, more discerning than Aristotle, he\naccepts the doctrine of the survival of the fittest as taught by the\nsage of Agrigentum. For he argues that since upon \"the increase of some\nNature set a ban, so that they could not reach the coveted flower of\nage, nor find food, nor be united in marriage,\" ... \"many races of\nliving things have died out, and been unable to beget and continue\ntheir breed.\" Lucretius speaks of Empedocles in terms scarcely less\nexaggerated than those which he applied to Epicurus. The latter is\n\"a god\" \"who first found out that plan of life which is now termed\nwisdom, and who by tried skill rescued life from such great billows\nand such thick darkness and moored it in so perfect a calm and in so\nbrilliant a light, ... he cleared men's breasts with truth-telling\nprecepts, and fixed a limit to lust and fear, and explained what was the\nchief good which we all strive to reach.\" As to Empedocles, \"that great\ncountry (Sicily) seems to have held within it nothing more glorious than\nthis man, nothing more holy, marvellous, and dear. The verses, too, of\nthis godlike genius cry with a loud voice, and make known his great\ndiscoveries, so that he seems scarcely born of a mortal stock.\"\n\nContinuing his speculations on the development of living things,\nLucretius strikes out in bolder and original vein. The past history of\nman, he says, lies in no heroic or golden age, but in one of struggle\nout of savagery. Only when \"children, by their coaxing ways, easily\nbroke down the proud temper of their fathers,\" did there arise the\nfamily ties out of which the wider social bond has grown, and softening\nand civilizing agencies begin their fair offices. In his battle for food\nand shelter, \"man's first arms were hands, nails and teeth and stones\nand boughs broken off from the forests, and flame and fire, as soon\nas they had become known. Afterward the force of iron and copper was\ndiscovered, and the use of copper was known before that of iron, as its\nnature is easier to work, and it is found in greater quantity. With\ncopper they would labour the soil of the earth and stir up the billows\nof war.... Then by slow steps the sword of iron gained ground and the\nmake of the copper sickle became a byword, and with iron they began to\nplough through the earth's soil, and the struggles of wavering man were\nrendered equal.\" As to language, \"Nature impelled them to utter the\nvarious sounds of the tongue, and use struck out the names of things.\"\nThus does Lucretius point the road along which physical and mental\nevolution have since travelled, and make the whole story subordinate to\nthe high purpose of his poem in deliverance of the beings whose career\nhe thus traces from superstition. Man \"seeing the system of heaven and\nthe different seasons of the years could not find out by what causes\nthis was done, and sought refuge in handing over all things to the gods\nand supposing all things to be guided by their nod.\" Then, in the sixth\nand last book, the completion of which would seem to have been arrested\nby his death, Lucretius explains the \"law of winds and storms,\" of\nearthquakes and volcanic outbursts, which men \"foolishly lay to the\ncharge of the gods,\" who thereby make known their anger.\n\n          So, loath to suffer mute,\n          We, peopling the void air,\n          Make Gods to whom to impute\n          The ills we ought to bear;\n    With God and Fate to rail at, suffering easily.\n\nAnd what a motley crowd of gods they were on whose caprice or\nindifference he pours his vials of anger and contempt! The tolerant\npantheon of Rome gave welcome to any foreign deity with respectable\ncredentials; to Cybele, the Great Mother, imported in the shape of a\nrough-hewn stone with pomp and rejoicings from Phrygia 204 B.\u00a0C.; to\nIsis, welcomed from Egypt; to Herakles, Demeter, Asklepios, and many\nanother god from Greece. But these were dismissed from a man's thought\nwhen the prayer or sacrifice to them had been offered at the due season.\nThey had less influence on the Roman's life than the crowd of native\ngodlings who were thinly disguised fetiches, and who controlled every\naction of the day. For the minor gods survive the changes in the\npantheon of every race. Of the Greek peasant of to-day Mr. Rennel Rodd\ntestifies, in his Custom and Lore of Modern Greece, that much as he\nwould shudder at the accusation of any taint of paganism, the ruling of\nthe Fates is more immediately real to him than divine omnipotence. Mr.\nTozer confirms this in his Highlands of Turkey. He says: \"It is rather\nthe minor deities and those associated with man's ordinary life that\nhave escaped the brunt of the storm, and returned to live in a dim\ntwilight of popular belief.\" In India, Sir Alfred Lyall tells us that,\n\"even the supreme triad of Hindu allegory, which represents the almighty\npowers of creation, preservation, and destruction, have long ceased to\npreside actively over any such corresponding distribution of functions.\"\nLike limited monarchs, they reign, but do not govern. They are\nsuperseded by the ever-increasing crowd of godlings whose influence\nis personal and special, as shown by Mr. Crooke in his instructive\nIntroduction to the Popular Religion and Folk-lore of Northern India.\n\nThe old Roman catalogue of spiritual beings, abstractions as they\nwere, who guarded life in minute detail, is a long one. From the\n_indigitamenta_, as such lists are called, we learn that no less than\nforty-three were concerned with the actions of a child. When the farmer\nasked Mother Earth for a good harvest, the prayer would not avail unless\nhe also invoked \"the spirit of breaking up the land and the spirit of\nploughing it crosswise; the spirit of furrowing and the spirit of\nploughing in the seed; and the spirit of harrowing; the spirit of\nweeding and the spirit of reaping; the spirit of carrying corn to the\nbarn; and the spirit of bringing it out again.\" The country, moreover,\nswarmed with Chald\u00e6an astrologers and casters of nativities; with\nEtruscan haruspices full of \"childish lightning-lore,\" who foretold\nevents from the entrails of sacrificed animals; while in competition\nwith these there was the State-supported college of augurs to divine the\nwill of the gods by the cries and direction of the flight of birds. Well\nmight the satirist of such a time say that the \"place was so densely\npopulated with gods as to leave hardly room for the men.\"\n\nIt will be seen that the justification for including Lucretius among the\nPioneers of Evolution lies in his two signal and momentous contributions\nto the science of man; namely, the primitive savagery of the human race,\nand the origin of the belief in a soul and a future life. Concerning the\nfirst, anthropological research, in its vast accumulation of materials\nduring the last sixty years, has done little more than fill in the\noutline which the insight of Lucretius enabled him to sketch. As to the\nsecond, he anticipates, well-nigh in detail, the ghost-theory of the\norigin of belief in spirits generally which Herbert Spencer and Dr.\nTylor, following the lines laid down by Hume and Turgot (see p. 255),\nhave formulated and sustained by an enormous mass of evidence. The\ncredit thus due to Lucretius for the original ideas in his majestic\npoem--Greek in conception and Roman in execution--has been obscured in\nthe general eclipse which that poem suffered for centuries through its\nanti-theological spirit. Grinding at the same philosophical mill,\nAristotle, because of the theism assumed to be involved in his\n\"perfecting principle,\" was cited as \"a pillar of the faith\" by the\nFathers and Schoolmen; while Lucretius, because of his denial of design,\nwas \"anathema maranatha.\" Only in these days, when the far-reaching\neffects of the theory of evolution, supported by observation in every\nbranch of inquiry, are apparent, are the merits of Lucretius as an\noriginal seer, more than as an expounder of the teachings of Empedocles\nand Epicurus, made clear.\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nStanding well-nigh on the threshold of the Christian era, we may pause\nto ask what is the sum of the speculation into the causes and nature of\nthings which, begun in Ionia (with impulse more or less slight from the\nEast, in the sixth century before Christ), by Thales, ceased, for many\ncenturies, in the poem of Lucretius, thus covering an active period of\nabout five hundred years. The caution not to see in these speculations\nmore than an approximate approach to modern theories must be kept in\nmind.\n\n1. There is a primary substance which abides amidst the general flux of\nthings.\n\n_All modern research tends to show that the various combinations of\nmatter are formed of some _prima materia_. But its ultimate nature\nremains unknown._\n\n2. Out of nothing comes nothing.\n\n_Modern science knows nothing of a beginning, and, moreover, holds\nit to be unthinkable. In this it stands in direct opposition to the\ntheological dogma that God created the universe out of nothing; a dogma\nstill accepted by the majority of Protestants and binding on Roman\nCatholics. For the doctrine of the Church of Rome thereon, as expressed\nin the Canons of the Vatican Council, is as follows: \"If any one\nconfesses not that the world and all things which are contained in it,\nboth spiritual and mental, have been, in their whole substance, produced\nby God out of nothing; or shall say that God created, not by His free\nwill from all necessity, but by a necessity equal to the necessity\nwhereby He loves Himself, or shall deny that the world was made for the\nglory of God: let him be anathema.\"_\n\n3. The primary substance is indestructible.\n\n_The modern doctrine of the Conservation of Energy teaches that both\nmatter and motion can neither be created nor destroyed._\n\n4. The universe is made up of indivisible particles called atoms, whose\nmanifold combinations, ruled by unalterable affinities, result in the\nvariety of things.\n\n_With modifications based on chemical as well as mechanical changes\namong the atoms, this theory of Leucippus and Democritus is confirmed.\n(But recent experiments and discoveries show that reconstruction of\nchemical theories as to the properties of the atom may happen.)_\n\n5. Change is the law of things, and is brought about by the play of\nopposing forces.\n\n_Modern science explains the changes in phenomena as due to the\nantagonism of repelling and attracting modes of motion; when the latter\novercome the former, equilibrium will be reached, and the present state\nof things will come to an end._\n\n6. Water is a necessary condition of life.\n\n_Therefore life had its beginnings in water; a theory wholly indorsed by\nmodern biology._\n\n7. Life arose out of non-living matter.\n\n_Although modern biology leaves the origin of life as an insoluble\nproblem, it supports the theory of fundamental continuity between the\ninorganic and the organic._\n\n8. Plants came before animals: the higher organisms are of separate sex,\nand appeared subsequent to the lower.\n\n_Generally confirmed by modern biology, but with qualification as to the\nundefined borderland between the lowest plants and the lowest animals.\nAnd, of course, it recognises a continuity in the order and succession\nof life which was not grasped by the Greeks. Aristotle and others before\nhim believed that some of the higher forms sprang from slimy matter\ndirect._\n\n9. Adverse conditions cause the extinction of some organisms, thus\nleaving room for those better fitted.\n\n_Herein lay the crude germ of the modern doctrine of the \"survival of\nthe fittest.\"_\n\n10. Man was the last to appear, and his primitive state was one of\nsavagery. His first tools and weapons were of stone; then, after the\ndiscovery of metals, of copper; and, following that, of iron. His body\nand soul are alike compounded of atoms, and the soul is extinguished at\ndeath.\n\n_The science of Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology confirms the theory of man's slow\npassage from barbarism to civilization; and the science of Comparative\nPsychology declares that the evidence of his immortality is neither\nstronger nor weaker than the evidence of the immortality of the lower\nanimals._\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch, in very broad outline, is the legacy of suggestive theories\nbequeathed by the Ionian school and its successors, theories which fell\ninto the rear when Athens became a centre of intellectual life in which\ndiscussion passed from the physical to those ethical problems which lie\noutside the range of this survey. Although Aristotle, by his prolonged\nand careful observations, forms a conspicuous exception, the fact abides\nthat insight, rather than experiment, ruled Greek speculation, the\nfantastic guesses of parts of which themselves evidence the survival of\nthe crude and false ideas about earth and sky long prevailing. The more\nwonderful is it, therefore, that so much therein points the way along\nwhich inquiry travelled after its subsequent long arrest; and the more\napparent is it that nothing in science or art, and but little in\ntheological speculations, at least among us Westerns, can be understood\nwithout reference to Greece.\n\n\nTABLE.\n\n  ------------+-------------+-----------+-------------------------------\n              |             |Approximate|\n      NAME.   |    Place.   |   date    |           Speciality.\n              |             |   B.\u00a0C.   |\n  ------------+-------------+-----------+-------------------------------\n  Thales.     |Miletus      |    600    |Cosmological }\n              | (Ionia).    |           | Theory as to}\n              |             |           | the Primary } Water.\n              |             |           | Substance   }\n  Anaximander.|    \"        |    570    |    \"          the Boundless.\n  Anaximenes. |    \"        |    500    |    \"          Air.\n  Pythagoras. |Samos (near  |    500    |    \"          Numbers:\n              | the Ionian  |           |              \"a Cosmos built\n              | coast).     |           |               up of\n              |             |           |               geometrical\n              |             |           |               figures,\"\n              |             |           |               or (Grote,\n              |             |           |               Plato, i, 12)\n              |             |           |               \"generated\n              |             |           |               out of number.\"\n  Xenophanes. |Colophon     |    500    |              Founder of the\n              | (Ionia).    |           |               Eleatic school.\n  Heraclitus. |Ephesus      |    500    |    \"         Fire.\n              | (Ionia).    |           |\n  Empedocles. |Agrigentum   |    450    |    \"         Fire, Air, Earth,\n              | (Sicily).   |           |               and Water:\n              |             |           |               ruled by Love\n              |             |           |               and Strife.\n  Anaxagoras. |Clazomenae   |    450    |              Nous.\n              | (Ionia).    |           |\n  Leucippus   |             |           |\n  Democritus. |Abdera       |    460    |Formulators of the Atomic\n              | (Thrace).   |           | Theory.\n  Aristotle.  |Stagira      |    350    |Naturalist.\n              | (Macedonia).|           |\n  Epicurus.   |Samos.       |    300    |Expounder of the Atomic\n              |             |           | Theory and Ethical\n              |             |           | Philosopher.\n  Lucretius.  |Rome.        |     50    |Interpreter of Epicurus and\n              |             |           | Empedocles: the first\n              |             |           | Anthropologist.\n  ------------+-------------+-----------+-------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n_Part II._\n\nTHE ARREST OF INQUIRY.\n\nA. D. 50-A. D. 400.\n\n\n1. _From the Early Christian Period to the Time of Augustine._\n\n  \"A revealed dogma is always opposed to the free research that may\n    contradict it. The result of science is not to banish the divine\n    altogether, but ever to place it at a greater distance from the\n    world of particular facts in which men once believed they saw\n    it.\"--RENAN, Essay on Islamism and Science.\n\nA detailed account of the rise and progress of the Christian religion is\nnot within the scope of this book. But as that religion, more especially\nin the elaborated theological form which it ultimately assumed, became\nthe chief barrier to the development of Greek ideas; except, as has been\nremarked, in the degree that these were represented by Aristotle, and\nbrought into harmony with it; a short survey of its origin and early\nstages is necessary to the continuity of our story.\n\nThe history of that great movement is told according to the bias of the\nwriters. They explain its rapid diffusion and its ultimate triumph over\nPaganism as due either to its Divine origin and guidance; or to the\nfavourable conditions of the time of its early propagation, and to that\nwise adaptation to circumstances which linked its fortunes with those\nof the progressive peoples of Western Europe. In the judgment of every\nunofficial narrator, this latter explanation best accords with the facts\nof history, and with the natural causes which largely determine success\nor failure. The most partisan advocates of its supernatural, and\ntherefore special, character have to show reason why the fortunes of the\nChristian religion have varied like those of other great religions, both\nolder and younger than it; why, like Buddhism, it has been ousted from\nthe country in which it rose; and why, in competition with Brahmanism,\nas Sir Alfred Lyall testifies in his Asiatic Studies (p. 110), and with\nMohammedanism in Africa, it has less success than these in the mission\nfields where it comes into rivalry with them. Riven into wrangling\nsects from an early period of its history, it has, while exercising a\nbeneficent influence in turbulent and lawless ages, brought not \"peace\non earth, but a sword.\" It has been the cause of undying hate, of bloody\nwars, and of persecutions between parties and nations, whose animosity\nseems the deeper when stirred by matters which are incapable of proof.\nAs Montaigne says, \"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which\nis least known.\" To bring the Christian religion, or, rather, its\nmanifold forms, from the purest spiritualistic to such degraded type\nas exists, for example, in Abyssinia, within the operation of the law\nwhich governs development, and which, therefore, includes partial and\nlocal corruption; is to make its history as clear as it is profoundly\ninstructive; while, to demand for it an origin and character different\nin kind from other religions, is to import confusion into the story of\nmankind, and to raise a swarm of artificial difficulties. \"If,\" as John\nMorley observes in his criticism of Turgot's dissertation upon The\nAdvantages that the Establishment of Christianity has conferred upon the\nHuman Race (Miscell., vol. ii, p. 90), \"there had been in the Christian\nidea the mysterious self-sowing quality so constantly claimed for it,\nhow came it that in the Eastern part of the Empire it was as powerless\nfor spiritual or moral regeneration as it was for political health and\nvitality; while in the Western part it became the organ of the most\nimportant of all the past transformations of the civilized world? Is not\nthe difference to be explained by the difference in the surrounding\nmedium, and what is the effect of such an explanation upon the\nsupernatural claims of the Christian idea?\" Its inclusion as one of\nother modes, varying only in degree, by which man has progressed from\nthe \"ape and tiger\" stage to the highest ideals of the race, makes clear\nwhat concerns us here, namely, its attitude toward secular knowledge,\nand the consequent serious arrest of that knowledge. That a religion\nwhich its followers claim to be of supernatural origin, and secured from\nerror by the perpetual guidance of a Holy Spirit, should have opposed\ninquiry into matters the faculty for investigating which lay within\nhuman power and province; that it should actually have put to death\nthose who dared thus to inquire, and to make known what they had\ndiscovered; is a problem which its advocates may settle among\nthemselves. It is no problem to those who take the opposite view.\n\nIn outlining the history of Christianity stress will be here laid only\nupon those elements which caused it to be an arresting force in man's\nintellectual development, and, therefore, in his spiritual emancipation\nfrom terrors begotten of ignorance. It does not fall within our survey\nto speak of that primary element in it which was before all dogma, and\nwhich may survive when dogma has become only a matter of antiquarian\ninterest. That element, born of emotion, which, as a crowd of kindred\nexamples show, incarnates, and then deifies the object of its worship,\nwas the belief in the manifestation of the divine through the human\nJesus who had borne men's griefs, carried their sorrows, and offered\nrest to the weary and heavy-laden. For no religion--and here Evolution\ncomes in as witness--can take root which does not adapt itself to, and\nanswer some need of, the heart of man. Hence the importance of study of\nthe history of all religions.\n\nEvolution knows only one heresy--the denial of continuity. Recognising\nthe present as the outcome of the past, it searches after origins. It\nknows that both that which revolts us in man's spiritual history has,\nalike with that which attracts, its place, its necessary place, in the\ndevelopment of ideas, and is, therefore, capable of explanation from\nits roots upward. For this age is sympathetic, not flippant. It looks\nwith no favour on criticism that is only destructive, or on ridicule or\nribaldry as modes of attack on current beliefs. Hence we have the modern\nscience of comparative theology, with its Hibbert Lectures, and Gifford\nLectures, which are critical and constructive; as opposed to Bampton\nLectures, Boyle and Hulse Lectures, which are apologetic, the speaker\nholding an official brief. Of the Boyle Lecturers, Collings the \"Deist\"\ncaustically said that nobody doubted the existence of the Deity till\nthey set to work to prove it. Religions are no longer treated as true or\nfalse, as inventions of priests or of divine origin, but as the product\nof man's intellectual speculations, however crude or coarse; and of his\nspiritual needs, no matter in what repulsive form they are satisfied.\nFor \"proofs\" and \"evidences\" we have substituted explanations.\n\nNevertheless, so strong, often so bitter, are the feelings aroused over\nthe most temperate discussion of the origin of Christianity that it\nremains necessary to repeat that to explain is not to attack, and that\nto narrate is not to apportion blame, for no religion can do aught than\nreflect the temper of the age in which it flourishes.\n\nLet us now summarize certain occurrences which, although familiar\nenough, must be repeated for the clear understanding of their effects.\n\nSome sixty years after the death of Lucretius there happened, in the\nsubsequent belief of millions of mankind, an event for which all that\nhad gone before in the history of this planet is said to have been a\npreparation. In the fulness of time the Omnipotent maker and ruler of a\nuniverse to which no boundaries can be set by human thought, sent to\nthis earth-speck no less a person than His Eternal Son. He was said to\nhave been born, not by the natural processes of generation, but to have\nbeen incarnated in the womb of a virgin, retaining his divine nature\nwhile subjecting it to human limitations. This he had done that he\nmight, as sinless man, become an expiatory sacrifice to offended deity,\nand to the requirements of divine justice, for the sins which the human\nrace had committed since the transgression of Adam and Eve, or which men\nyet to be born might commit.\n\nThe \"miraculous\" birth of Jesus took place at Nazareth in Galilee, in\nthe reign of C\u00e6sar Augustus, about 750 A.\u00a0U.\u00a0C., as the Romans reckoned\ntime. Tradition afterward fixed his birthday on the 25th December,\nwhich, curiously enough, although, perhaps, explaining the choice, was\nthe day dedicated to the sun-god Mithra, an Oriental deity to whom\naltars had been raised and sacrifices performed, with rites of baptisms\nof blood, in hospitable Rome.\n\nJesus is said to have lived in the obscurity of his native mountain\nvillage till his thirtieth year. Except one doubtful story of his going\nto Jerusalem with his parents when he was twelve years old, nothing is\nrecorded in the various biographies of him between his birth and his\nappearance as a public teacher. Probably he followed his father's trade\nas a carpenter. The event that seems to have called him from home was\nthe preaching of an enthusiastic ascetic named John the Baptist. At his\nhands Jesus submitted to the baptismal rite, and then entered on his\ncareer, wandering from place to place. The fragments of his discourses,\nwhich have survived in the short biographies known as the Gospels, show\nhim to have been gifted with a simple, winning style, and his sermons,\nbrightened by happy illustration or striking parable, went home to the\nhearts of his hearers. Women, often of the outcast class, were drawn\nto him by the sympathy which attracted even more than his teaching.\nAmong a people to whom the unvarying order of Nature was an idea\nwholly foreign--for Greek speculations had not penetrated into\nPalestine--stories of miracle-working found easy credit, falling in, as\nthey did, with popular belief in the constant intervention of deity.\nThus, to the reports of what Jesus taught were added those of the\nwonders which he had wrought, from feeding thousands of folk with a few\nloaves of bread to raising the dead to life. His itinerant mission\nsecured him a few devoted followers from various towns and villages,\nwhile the effect of success upon himself was to heighten his own\nconception of the importance of his work. The skill of the Romans in\nfusing together subject races had failed them in the case of the Jews,\nwhose belief in their special place in the world as the \"chosen people\"\nnever forsook them. Nor had their misfortunes weakened their belief that\nthe Messiah predicted by their prophets would appear to deliver them,\nand plant their feet on the neck of the hated conqueror. This hope,\nas became a pious Jew, Jesus shared, but it set him brooding on\nsome nobler, because more spiritual, conception of it than his\nfellow-countrymen nurtured. Finally, it led him to the belief, fostered\nby the ambition of his nearer disciples, which was, however, material in\nits hopes, that he was the spiritual Messiah. In that faith he repaired\nto Jerusalem at the time of the Passover feast when the city was crowded\nwith devotees, that he might, before the chief priests and elders, make\nhis appeal to the nation. According to the story, his daring in clearing\nthe holy temple of money-changers and traders led to his appearance\nbefore the Sanhedrin, the highest judicial council; his plainness of\nspeech raised the fury of the sects; and when, dreaming of a purer\nfaith, he spoke ominous words about the destruction of the temple, the\ncharge of blasphemy was laid against him. His guilt was made clear to\nhis judges when, answering a question of the high priest, he declared\nhimself to be the Messiah. This, involving claim to kingship over the\nJews, and therefore rebellion against the Empire, was made the plea of\nhaling him before the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, for trial. Pilate,\nlooking upon the whole affair as a local _\u00e9meute_, was disinclined to\nseverity, but nothing short of the death of Jesus as a blasphemer\n(although his chief offence appears to have been his disclaimer of\nearthly sovereignty) would satisfy the angry mob. Amidst their taunts\nand jeers he was taken to a place named Calvary, and there put to death\nby the torturing process of crucifixion, or, the particular mode not\nbeing clear, of transfixion on a stake.\n\nThis tragic event, on which, as is still widely held, hang the destinies\nof mankind to the end of time, attracted no attention outside Jud\u00e6a. In\nthe Roman eye, cold, contemptuous, and practical, it was but the\nexecution of a troublesome fanatic who had embroiled himself with his\nfellow-countrymen, and added the crime of sedition to the folly of\nblasphemy. Pilate himself passed on, without more ado, to the next duty.\nTradition, anxious to prove that retribution followed his criminal act,\nas it was judged in after-time to be, tells how he flung himself in\nremorse from the mountain known as Pilatus, which overlooks the lake of\nLucerne. With truer insight, a striking modern story, L'Etui de Nacre,\nby Anatole France, makes Pilate, on his retirement to Sicily in old age,\nthus refer to the incident in conversation with a Roman friend who had\nloved a Jewish maiden.\n\n  \"A few months after I had lost sight of her I heard by accident that\n  she had joined a small party of men and women who were following a\n  young Galilean miracle-worker. His name was Jesus, he came from\n  Nazareth, and he was crucified for I don't know what crime. Pontius,\n  do you remember this man? Pontius Pilate knit his brow, and put his\n  hand to his forehead like one who is searching his memory; then\n  after a few moments of silence: 'Jesus,' murmured he, 'Jesus of\n  Nazareth. No, I don't remember him.'\"\n\nOn the third day after his death, Jesus is said to have risen from the\ngrave, and appeared to a faithful few of his disciples. On the fortieth\nday after his resurrection he is said to have ascended to heaven. Both\nthese statements rest on the authority of the biographies which were\ncompiled some years after his death. Jesus wrote nothing himself;\ntherefore the \"brethren,\" as his intimate followers called one another,\nhad no other sacred books than those of the Old Testament. They believed\nthat Jesus was the Messiah predicted in Daniel and some of the\napocryphal writings, and they cherished certain \"logia\" or sayings of\nhis which formed the basis of the first three Gospels. The earliest of\nthese, that bearing the name of Mark, probably took the shape in which\nwe have it (some spurious verses at the end excepted) about 70 A.\u00a0D.\nThe fourth Gospel, which tradition attributes to John, is generally\nbelieved to be half a century later than Mark. It seems likely that the\nimportance of collecting the words of Jesus into any permanent form did\nnot occur to those who had heard them, because the belief in his speedy\nreturn was all-powerful among them, and their life and attitude toward\neverything was shaped accordingly.\n\nWithout sacred books, priesthood, or organization, these earliest\ndisciples, whom the fate of their leader had driven into hiding for a\ntime, gathered themselves into groups for communion and worship. \"In\nthe church of Jerusalem,\" says Selden in his Table Talk (xiv), \"the\nChristians were but another sect of Jews that did believe the Messias\nwas come.\" From that sacred city there went forth preachers of this\nsimple doctrine through the lands where Greek-speaking Jews, known as\nthose of the Dispersion, had been long settled. These formed a very\nimportant element in the Roman Empire, being scattered from Asia Minor\nto Egypt, and thence in all the lands washed by the Mediterranean. As\ntheir racial isolation and national hopes made them the least contented\namong the subject-peoples, a series of tolerant measures securing them\ncertain privileges, subject to loyal behaviour, had been prudently\ngranted by their Roman masters. The new teaching spread from Antioch to\nAlexandria and Rome. But early in the onward career of the movement a\ndivision broke out among the immediate disciples of Jesus which ended in\nlasting rupture. A distinguished convert had been won to the faith in\nthe person of the Apostle Paul. He is the real founder of Christianity\nas a more or less systematized creed, and all the development of dogma\nwhich followed are integral parts of the structure raised by him. He\nconverted it from a local religion into a widespread faith. This came\nabout, at the start, through his defeat of the narrower section headed\nby Peter, who would have compelled all non-Jewish converts to submit to\nthe rite of circumcision.\n\nThe unity of the Empire gave Christianity its chance. Through the\nconnection of Eurasia from the Euphrates to the Atlantic by magnificent\nroads, communication between peoples followed the lines of least\nresistance. Happily for the future of Christianity, the early\nmissionaries travelled westward, in the wake of the dispersed Jews,\nalong the Mediterranean seaboard, and thus its fortunes became\nidentified with the civilizing portion of mankind. Had they travelled\neastward, it might have been blended with Buddhism, or, as its Gnostic\nphases show, become merged in Oriental mysticism. The story of progress\nran smoothly till A.\u00a0D. 64, when we first hear of the \"Christians\"--for\nby such name they had become known--in \"profane\" history, as it was once\noddly called. Tacitus, writing many years after the event, tells how on\nthe night of the 18th July, in the sixty-fourth year of our era, a\nfierce fire broke out in Rome, causing the destruction of magnificent\nbuildings raised by Augustus, and of priceless works of Greek art.\nSuspicion fell on Nero, and he, as has been suggested, was instigated by\nhis wife Poppaea Sabina, an unscrupulous woman, and, according to some\nauthorities, a convert to Judaism, \"to put an end to the common talk, by\nimputing the fire to others, visiting, with a refinement of punishment,\nthose detestable criminals who went by the name of Christians. The\nauthor of that denomination was Christus, who had been executed in the\ntime of Tiberius, by the procurator, Pontius Pilate.\" Tacitus goes on\nto describe Christianity as \"a pestilent superstition,\" and its\nadherents as guilty of \"hatred to the human race.\" The indictment, on\nthe face of it, seems strange, but it has an explanation, although the\nChristians were brutally murdered on the charge of arson, and not of\nsuperstition. So far as religious persecution went, they suffered this\nfirst at the hands of Jews, the Empire intervening to protect them.\nBroadly speaking, the Roman note was toleration. Throughout the\nEmpire religion was a national affair, because it began and ended\nwith the preservation of the State. Thereupon it was the binding\nduty--_religio_--of every citizen to pay due honour to the protecting\ngods on whose favour the safety of the State depended. That done, a man\nmight believe what he chose. Polytheism is, from its nature, easy-going\nand tolerant; so long as there was no open opposition to the authorized\npublic worship, the worshipper could explain it any way he chose. In\nGreece a man \"might believe or disbelieve that the Mysteries taught the\ndoctrine of immortality; the essential thing was that he should duly\nsacrifice his pig.\" In Rome, that vast Cosmopolis, \"the ordinary pagan\ndid not care two straws whether his neighbour worshipped twenty gods or\ntwenty-one.\" Why should he care?\n\nNow, against all this, the Christians set their faces sternly, and the\nresult was to make them regarded as anti-patriotic and anti-social.\nTheir success among the lower classes had been rapid. Christianity\nlevelled all distinctions: it welcomed the master and his slave, the\noutcast and the pure: it treated woman as the spiritual equal of man: it\nheld out to each the hope of a future life. Thus far, all was to the\ngood, although the old Mithraic religion had done well-nigh as much. But\nChristianity held aloof from the common social life, putting itself out\nof touch with the manifold activity of Rome. It sought to apply certain\nmaxims of Jesus literally; it discouraged marriage, it brought disunion\ninto family life; it counselled avoidance of service in the army or\nacceptance of any public office. This general attitude was wholly due to\nthe belief that with the return of Jesus, the end of the world was\nat hand. For Jesus had foretold his second coming, and the earliest\nepistles of the apostles bade the faithful prepare for it. Here there\nwas no continuing city; citizenship was in heaven, for the kingdom of\nChrist was not of this world. Therefore to give thought to the earthly\nand fleeting was folly and impiety, for who would care to heap up\nwealth, to strive for place or to pursue pleasure, or to search after\nwhat men called \"wisdom,\" when these imperilled the soul, and blocked\nthe way to heaven?\n\nThe prejudice created by this belief, expressed in such direct action as\nrefusal to worship the guardian gods and the \"genius\" of the Emperor,\nwas deepened by ugly, although baseless, rumours as to the cruel and\nimmoral things done by the Christians at their secret meetings. And so\nit came to pass that Tacitus spoke of Christianity in the terms quoted;\nthat Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (who refers to it only once in his\nMeditations) dismissed it with a scornful phrase; that the common people\ncalled it atheistic; and that, finally, it became a proscribed and\npersecuted religion.\n\nFurther than this there is no need to pursue its career until, with\nwholly changed fortunes, we meet it as a tolerated religion under a\nso-called Christian Emperor. The object in tracing it thus far is to\nindicate how enthusiasts, thus filled with an anti-worldly spirit, would\nbecome and remain an arresting force against the advance of inquiry and,\ntherefore, of knowledge; and how, as their religion gathered power, and\nitself became worldly in policy, it would the more strongly assert\nsupremacy over the reason. For intellectual activity would lead to\ninquiry into the claims and authority of the Church, and inquiry,\ntherefore, was the thing to be proscribed. Then, too, the committal of\nthe floating biographies of Jesus to written form, and their grouping,\nwith the letters of the apostles, into one more or less complete\ncollection, to be afterward called the New Testament (a collection held\nto embrace, as the theory of inspiration became formulated, all that it\nis needful for man to know), would create a further barrier against\nintellectual activity. Then, as Christianity came into nearer touch with\nthe enfeebled remnants of Greek philosophy, and with other foreign\ninfluences shaping its dogmas, discussions about the person of Christ\nbecame active. The simple fluent creed of the early Christians took\nrigid form in the subtleties of the Nicene Creed, and as \"Very God of\nVery God\" the final appeal was, logically, to the words of Jesus. Hence\nanother barrier against inquiry.\n\nConflict has never arisen on the ethical sayings of Jesus, which, making\nallowance for the impracticableness of a few, place him high among the\nsages of antiquity. Comparing their teaching with his, it is easy to\ngroup together maxims which do not yield to the more famous examples in\nthe Sermon on the Mount as guides to conduct, or as inspiration to high\nideals. The \"golden rule\" is anticipated by Plato's \"Thou shalt not take\nthat which is mine, and may I do to others as I would that they should\ndo to me\" (Jowett's translation, v, p. 483). And it is paralleled by\nIsocrates, a contemporary of Plato, in those words spoken by the King\nNicocles when addressing his governors, \"You should be to others what\nyou think I should be to you.\" But if there was nothing new in what\nJesus taught, there was freshness in the method. Conflict is waged only\nover statements the nature and limits of which might be expected from\nthe place and age when they were delivered. They who hold that Jesus was\nGod the Son Eternal, and therefore incapable of error, may reconcile, as\nbest they can with this, his belief in the mischievous delusions of his\ntime. If they say that so much of this as may be reported in the records\nof his life are spurious, they throw the whole contents of the gospels\ninto the melting-pot of criticism.\n\nTaking the narratives as we have them, documents stamped with the\nhall-mark of the centuries, \"declaring,\" as a body of clergymen\nproclaimed recently, \"incontrovertibly the actual historical truth in\nall records, both of past events, and of the delivery of predictions to\nbe thereafter fulfilled,\" we learn that Jesus accepted the accuracy of\nthe sacred writings of his people; that he spoke of Moses as the author\nof the Pentateuch; that he referred to its legends as dealing with\nhistorical persons, and as reporting actual events. All these beliefs\nare refuted by the critical scholarship of to-day. We need not go to\nGermany for the verdict; it is indorsed by eminent Hebraists, officials\nof the Church of England. Canon Driver, Professor of Hebrew at Oxford,\nsays that \"like other people, the Jews formed theories to account for\nthe beginnings of the earth and man\"; that \"they either did this for\nthemselves, or borrowed from their neighbours,\" and that \"of the\ntheories current in Assyria and Phoenicia fragments have been preserved\nwhich exhibit parts of resemblance to the Bible narratives sufficient to\nwarrant the inference that both are derived from the same cycle of\ntraditions.\" If, therefore, the cosmogonic and other legends are\ninspired, so must also the common original of these and their\ncorresponding stories be inspired. The matter might be pursued through\nthe patriarchal age to the eve of the Exodus, showing that, here also,\nthe mythical element is dominant; the existence of Abraham himself\ndissolving in the solution of the \"higher criticism.\" As to the\nPentateuch, the larger number of scholars place its composition, in the\nform in which we have it--older documents being blended therein--about\nthe sixth and fifth centuries B.\u00a0C.\n\nJesus spoke of the earth as if it were flat, and the most important\namong the heavenly bodies. Knowledge of the active speculations that\nwent on centuries before his time on the Ionian seaboard; prevision of\nwhat secrets men would wrest from the stars centuries hence--of neither\ndid he dream. That Homer and Virgil had sung; that Plato had discoursed;\nthat Buddha had founded a religion with which his, when Western activity\nmet Eastern passivity, would vainly compete; these, and aught else that\nhad moved the great world without, were unknown to the Syrian teacher.\n\nJesus believed in an arch-fiend, who was permitted by Omnipotence, the\nOmnipotence against which he had rebelled, to set loose countless\nnumbers of evil spirits to work havoc on men and animals. Jesus also\nbelieved in a hell of eternal torment for the wicked; and in a heaven of\nunending happiness for the good. There is no surer index of the\nintellectual stage of any people than the degree in which belief in the\nsupernatural, and, especially in the activity of supernatural agents,\nrules their lives. The lower we descend, the more detailed and familiar\nis the assumption of knowledge of the behaviour of these agents, and of\nthe nature of the places they come from or haunt. Of this, medi\u00e6val\nspeculations on demonology, and modern books of anthropology, supply any\nnumber of examples. Here we are concerned only with the momentous fact\nthat belief in demoniacal activity pervades the New Testament from\nbeginning to end, and, therefore, gave the warrant for the unspeakable\ncruelties with which that belief has stained the annals of Christendom.\nJohn Wesley was consistent when he wrote that \"Giving up the belief in\nwitchcraft was in effect giving up the Bible,\" and it may be added that\ngiving up belief in the devil is giving up belief in the atonement--the\ncentral doctrine of the Christian faith. To this the early Christians\nwould have subscribed: so, also, would the great Augustine, who said\nthat \"nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of Scripture,\nsince greater is that authority than all the powers of the human mind\";\nso would all who have followed him in ancient confessions of the faith.\nIt is only the amorphous form of that faith which, lingering on, an\u00e6mic\nand boneless, denies by evasion.\n\nBut they who abandon belief in maleficent demons and in witches; as\nalso, for this follows, in beneficent agents, as angels; land themselves\nin serious dilemma. For to this are such committed. If Jesus, who came\n\"that he might destroy the works of the devil,\" and who is reported,\namong other proofs of his divine ministry, to have cast out demons from\n\"possessed\" human beings, and, in one case, to have permitted a crowd of\nthe infernal agents to enter into a herd of swine; if he verily believed\nthat he actually did these things; and if it be true that the belief is\na superstition limited to the ignorant or barbaric mind; _what value can\nbe attached to any statement that Jesus is reported to have made about a\nspiritual world_?\n\nHere then (1) in the attitude of the early Christians toward all mundane\naffairs as of no moment compared with those affecting their souls'\nsalvation; (2) in the assumed authority of Scripture as a full\nrevelation of both earthly and heavenly things; and (3) in the assumed\ninfallibility of the words of Jesus reported therein; we have three\nfactors which suffice to explain why the great movement toward discovery\nof the orderly relations of phenomena was arrested for centuries, and\ntheories of capricious government of the universe sheltered and upheld.\n\nWhile, as has been said, the unity of the Empire secured Christianity\nits fortunate start; the multiform elements of which the Empire was made\nup--philosophic and pagan--being gradually absorbed by Christianity,\nsecured it acceptance among the different subject-peoples. The break up\nof the Empire secured its supremacy.\n\nThe absorption of foreign ideas and practices by Christianity, largely\nthrough the influence of Hellenic Jews, was an added cause of arrest of\ninquiry. The adoption of pagan rites and customs, resting, as these\ndid, on a bedrock of barbarism, dragged it to a lower level. The\nintrusion of philosophic subtleties led to terms being mistaken for\nexplanations: as Gibbon says, \"the pride of the professors and of their\ndisciples was satisfied with the science of words.\" The inchoate and\nmobile character of Christianity during the first three centuries gave\nboth influences--pagan and philosophic--their opportunity. For long\nyears the converts scattered throughout the Empire were linked together,\nin more or less regular federation, by the acknowledgment of Christ as\nLord, and by the expectation of his second coming. There was no official\npriesthood, only overseers--\"episkopoi\"--for social purposes, who made\nno claims to apostolic succession; no formulated set of doctrines; no\nApostles' Creed; no dogmas of baptismal regeneration or of the real\npresence; no worship or apotheosis of Mary as the Mother of God; no\nworship of saints or relics.\n\n_On the philosophic side_, it was the Greek influence in the person of\nthe more educated converts that shaped the dogmas of the Church and\nsought to blend them with the occult and mysterious elements in Oriental\nsystems, of which modern \"Theosophy\" is the tenuous parody. That old\nGreek habit of asking questions, of seeking to reach the reason of\nthings, which, as has been seen, gave the great impulse to scientific\ninquiry, was as active as ever. Appeals to the Old Testament touched not\nthe Greek as they did the Jewish Christian, and the Canon of the New\nTestament was as yet unsettled. Strange as it may seem in view of the\nassumed divine origin of the Gospels and Epistles, human judgment took\nupon itself to decide which of them were, and which were not, an\nintegral part of supernatural revelation. The ultimate verdict, so far\nas the Western Church was concerned, was delivered by the Council of\nCarthage in the early part of the fifth century. There arose a school of\nApologists, founders of theology, who, to quote Gibbon, \"equipped the\nChristian religion for the conquest of the Roman world by changing it\ninto a philosophy, attested by Revelation. They mingled together the\nmetaphysics of Platonism, the doctrine of the Logos, which came from the\nStoics, morality partly Platonic, partly Stoic, methods of argument and\ninterpretation learnt from Philo, with the pregnant maxims of Jesus and\nthe religious language of the Christian congregations.\" Thus the road\nwas opened for additions to dogmatic theology, doctrines of the Trinity,\nof the Virgin Birth, and whatever else could be inferentially extracted\nfrom the Scriptures, and blended with foreign ideas. The growing\ncomplexity of creed called for interpretation of it, and this obviously\nfell to the overseers or bishops, chosen for their special gifts of \"the\ngrace of the truth.\" These met, as occasion required, to discuss\nsubjects affecting the faith and discipline of the several groups. Among\nsuch, precedence, as a matter of course, would be accorded to the\noverseer of the most important Christian society in the Empire; and\nhence the prominence and authority, from an early period, of the bishop\nof Rome. In the simple and business-like act of his election as chairman\nof the gatherings lay the germ of the audacious and preposterous claims\nof the Papacy.\n\n_On the pagan side_, the course of development is not so easily traced.\nTo determine when and where this or that custom or rite arose is now\nimpossible; indeed, we may say, without exaggeration, that it never\narose at all, because the conditions for its adoption were present\nthroughout in human tendencies. The first Christian disciples were Jews:\nand the ritual which they followed was the direct outcome of ideas\ncommon to all barbaric religions, so that certain of the pagan rites and\nceremonies with which they came in contact in all parts of the Empire\nfitted in with custom, tradition, and desire. And this applies, with\nstronger force, to the converts scattered from Edessa, east of the\nEuphrates, to the Empire's westernmost limits in Britain. Moreover, we\nknow that a policy of adaptation and conciliation wisely governed the\nruling minds of the Church, in whom, stripped of all the verbiage about\nthem as semi-inspired successors of the apostles, there was deep-seated\nsuperstition. Paganism might, in its turn, be suppressed by Imperial\nedict, but it had too much in common with the later forms of\nChristianity not to survive in fact, however changed in name.\n\nIt may be taken as a truism that in the ceremonies of the higher\nreligions there are no inventions, only survivals. This fact sent\nthinkers like Hobbes, and dealers in literary antiquities of the type of\nBurton, Bishop Newton, and, notablest of all, Conyers Middleton, on the\nsearch after parallels, which have received astonishing confirmation in\nour day. Burton sees the mimicry of the \"arch-deceiver in the strange\nsacraments, the priests, and the sacrifices,\" as the Romanist\nmissionaries to Tibet saw the same diabolical parody of their rites in\nBuddhist temples. But Hobbes, with the sagacity which might be expected\nof him, recognises the continuity of ideas: \"_mutato nomine tantum_;\nVenus and Cupid (Hobbes might have added Isis and Horus) appearing as\n'the Virgin Mary and her Sonne,' and the \u0391\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03ad\u03c9\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 of the Heathen\nsurviving in the Canonization of Saints. The carrying of the Popes 'by\nSwitzers under a Canopie' is a 'Relique of the Divine Honours given to\nC\u00e6sar'; the carriage of Images in _Procession_ 'a Relique of the Greeks\nand Romans.' ... 'The Heathen had also their _Aqua Lustralis_, that is\nto say, _Holy Water_. The Church of Rome imitates them also in their\n_Holy Dayes_. They had their _Bacchanalia_, and we have our _Wakes_\nanswering to them; They their _Saturnalia_, and we our Carnevalls and\nShrove-tuesdays liberty of Servants; They their Procession of Priapus,\nwe our fetching-in, erection, and dancing about _May-Poles_; and Dancing\nis one kind of worship; They had their Procession called _Ambarvalia_,\nand we our Procession about the Fields in the _Rogation week_.'\"\n\nMiddleton examined the matter on the spot, and in his celebrated Letter\nfrom Rome gives numerous examples of \"an exact CONFORMITY between POPERY\nand PAGANISM.\" Since few read his book now-a-days, some of these may be\ncited, because their presence goes far to explain why the conglomerate\nreligion which Christianity had become was proof against ideas spurned\nalike by pagans and ecclesiastics. Visiting the place for classical\nstudy, and \"not to notice the fopperies and ridiculous ceremonies of the\npresent Religion,\" Middleton soon found himself \"still in old Heathen\nRome,\" with its rituals of primitive Paganism, as if handed down by an\nuninterrupted succession from the priests of old to the priests of new\nRome. The \"smoak of the incense\" in the churches transports him to the\ntemple of the Paphian Venus described by Virgil (\u00c6neid, I, 420); the\nsurpliced boy waiting on the priest with the thurible reminds him of\nsculptures on ancient bas-reliefs representing heathen sacrifice, with a\nwhite-clad attendant on a priest holding a little chest or box in his\nhand. The use of holy water suggests numerous parallels. At the entrance\nto Pagan temples stood vases of holy liquid, a mixture of salt and\ncommon water; and, on bas-reliefs, the aspergillum or brush for the\nceremony of sprinkling is carved. In the annual festival of the\nbenediction of horses, when the animals were sent to the convent of St.\nAnthony to be sprinkled (Middleton had his own horses thus blest \"for\nabout eighteenpence of our money\") there is the survival of a ceremony\nin the Circensian games. In the lamps and wax candles before the shrines\nof the Madonna and Saints he is reminded of a passage in Herodotus as to\nthe use of lights in the Egyptian temples, while we know that lamps to\nthe Madonna took the place of those before the images of the Lares,\nwhose chapels stood at the corners of the streets. The Synod of Elviri\n(305 A.\u00a0D.) forbade the lighting of wax candles during the day in\ncemeteries lest the spirits of the saints should be disquieted, but the\ncustom was too deeply rooted to be abolished. As for votive offerings,\nMiddleton truly says that \"no one _custom of antiquity_ is so frequently\nmentioned by all their writers\" ... \"but the most common of all\n_offerings_ were _pictures_ representing the history of the miraculous\ncure or deliverance vouchsafed upon the vow of the donor.\" Of which\nofferings, the _blessed Virgin_ is so sure always to carry off the\ngreatest share, that it may be truly said of her what _Juvenal_ says of\nthe _Goddess Isis_, whose religion was at that time in the greatest\nvogue in _Rome_, that the \"_painters got their livelihood out of her_.\"\nMiddleton tells the story from Cicero which, not without covert\nsympathy, Montaigne quotes in his Essay on Prognostications. Diagoras,\nsurnamed the Atheist, being found one day in a temple, was thus\naddressed by a friend: \"You, who think the gods take no care of human\naffairs, do not you see here by this number of pictures how many people,\nfor the sake of their vows, have been saved in storms at sea, and got\nsafe into harbour?\" \"Yes,\" answered Diagoras, \"I see how it is; for\nthose are never painted who happen to be drowned.\" There is nothing new\nunder the sun. Horace (Odes, Bk. I, v) tells of the shipwrecked sailor\nwho hung up his clothes as a thank-offering in the temple of the sea-god\nwho had preserved him; Polydorus Vergilius, who lived in the early part\nof the sixteenth century, that is, some 1,500 years after Horace,\ndescribes the classic custom of _ex voto_ offerings at length, while\nPennant the antiquary, describing the well of Saint Winifred in\nFlintshire in the last century, tells of the votive offerings, in the\nshape of crutches and other objects, which were hung about it. To this\nday the store is receiving additions. The sick crowd thither as of old\nthey crowded into the temples of \u00c6sculapius and Serapis; mothers bring\ntheir sick children as in Imperial Rome they took them to the Temple of\nRomulus and Remus. A draught of water from the basin near the bath, or a\nplunge in the bath itself, is followed by prayers at the altar of the\nchapel which incloses the well. When the saint's feast-day is held, the\nafflicted gather to kiss the reliquary that holds her bones. Perhaps one\nof the most pathetic sights in Catholic churches, especially in\nout-of-the-way villages, is the altars on which are hung votive\nofferings, rude daubs depicting the disease or danger from which the\nworshipper has been delivered.\n\nAs to the images, tricked out in curious robes and gewgaws, Middleton\n\"could not help recollecting the picture which old Homer draws of _Q.\nHecuba of Troy_, prostrating herself before the _miraculous Image of\nPallas_,\" while his wonder at the Loretto image of the \"Queen of Heaven\"\nwith \"a face as black as a Negus\" reminds him of the reference in Baruch\nto the idols black with the \"perpetual smoak of lamps and incense.\" In\nhis Hibbert Lectures Professor Rhys refers to churches dedicated to\nNotre Dame in virtue of legends of discovery of images of the Virgin on\nthe spot. These were usually of wood, which had turned black in the\nsoil. Such a black \"Madonna\" was found near Grenoble, in the commune of\nLa Zouche. Then, in the titles of the new deities, Middleton correctly\nsees those of the old. The Queen of Heaven reminds him of Astarte or\nMylitta; the Divine Mother of the Magna Mater, the \"great mother\" of\nOriental cults. In other attributes of Mary, lineal descendant of Isis,\nthere survive those of Venus, Lucina, Cybele, or Maria. He gives amusing\nexamples of myths and misreadings through which certain \"saints\" have a\nplace in the Roman Calendar. He apparently knew nothing of the strange\nconfusion by which Buddha appears therein under the title of Saint\nJosaphat; but he tells how, by misinterpretation of a boundary stone,\nProefectus Viarum, an overseer of highways, became S. Viar; how S.\nVeronica secured canonization through a blunder over the words Vera\nIcon: still more droll, how hagiology includes both a mountain and a\nmantle!\n\nThe marks of hands or feet on rocks, said to be made by the apparition\nof some saint or angel, call to mind \"the impression of Hercules' feet\non a stone in Scythia\"; the picture of the Virgin, which came from\nheaven, suggests the descent of Numa's shield \"from the clouds\"; that of\nthe weeping Madonna the statue of Apollo, which Livy says wept for\nthree successive days and nights; while the periodical miracle of the\nliquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius is obviously paralleled in\nthe incidents named by Horace on his journey to Brundusium, when the\npriests of the temple at Gnatia sought to persuade him that \"the\nfrankincense used to dissolve and melt miraculously without the help of\nfire\" (Sat., v, 97-100).\n\nMiddleton, and those of his school, thought that they were near primary\nformations when they struck on these suggestive classic or pagan\nparallels to Christian belief and custom. But in truth they had probed\na comparatively recent layer; since, far beneath, lay the unsuspected\nprehistoric deposits of barbaric ideas which are coincident with,\nand composed of, man's earliest speculations about himself and his\nsurroundings. When, however, we borrow an illustration from geology, it\nmust be remembered that our divisions, like those into which the strata\nof the globe are separated, are artificial. There is no real detachment.\nThe difference between former and present methods of research is\nthat nowadays we have gone further down for discovery of the common\nmaterials of which barbaric, pagan, and civilized ideas are compounded.\nThey arise in the comparison which exists in the savage mind between the\nliving and the non-living, and in the attribution of like qualities to\nthings superficially resembling one another; hence belief in their\nefficacy, which takes active form in what may be generally termed magic.\nFor example, the rite of baptism is explained when we connect it with\nbarbaric lustrations and water-worship generally; as also that of the\nEucharist by reference to sacrificial feasts in honour of the gods;\nfeasts at which they were held to be both the eaters and the eaten.\nMiddleton, himself a clergyman, shows perplexity when watching the\nelevation of the host at mass. He lacked that knowledge of the origin of\nsacramental rites which study of barbaric customs has since supplied.\nIn Mr. Frazer's Golden Bough, the \"central idea\" of which is \"the\nconception of the slain god,\" he shows at what an early stage in his\nspeculations man formulated the conception of deity incarnated in\nhimself, or in plant or animal, and as afterward slain, both the\nincarnation and the death being for the benefit of mankind. The god is\nhis own sacrifice, and in perhaps the most striking form, as insisted\nupon by Mr. Frazer, he is, as corn-spirit, killed in the person of his\nrepresentative; the passage in this mode of incarnation to the custom\nof eating bread sacramentally being obvious. The fundamental idea of\nthis sacramental act, as the mass of examples collected by Mr. Frazer\nfurther goes to show, is that by eating a thing its physical and mental\nqualities are acquired. So the barbaric mind reasons, and extends the\nnotion to all beings. To quote Mr. Frazer: \"By eating the body of the\ngod he shares in the god's attributes and powers. And when the god is a\ncorn-god, the corn is his proper body; when he is a vine-god, the juice\nof the grape is his blood; and so by eating the bread and drinking the\nwine the worshipper partakes of the real body and blood of his god. Thus\nthe drinking of wine in the rites of a vine-god like Dionysus is not an\nact of revelry; it is a solemn sacrament.\" It is, perhaps, needless to\npoint out that the same explanation applies to the rites attaching to\nDemeter, or to add what further parallels are suggested in the belief\nthat Dionysus was slain, rose again, and descended into Hades to bring\nup his mother Semele from the dead. This, however, by the way. What\nhas to be emphasized is, that in the quotation just given we have\ntransubstantiation clearly anticipated as the barbaric idea of eating\nthe god. In proof of the underlying continuity of that idea two\nwitnesses--Catholic and Protestant--may be cited.\n\nThe Church of Rome, and in this the Greek Church is at one therewith,\nthus defines the term transubstantiation in the Canon of the Council of\nTrent:\n\n  \"If any one shall say that in the most holy sacrament of the\n  Eucharist there remains the substance of bread and wine together\n  with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and shall deny\n  that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the\n  bread into the body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the\n  blood, the species of bread and wine alone remaining--which\n  conversion the Catholic Church most fittingly calls\n  Transubstantiation--let him be anathema.\"\n\nThe Church of England, through the medium of a letter to a well-known\nnewspaper, the British Weekly (29th August, 1895), supplies the\nfollowing illustration of the position of its \"High\" section, and this,\nit is interesting to note, from the church of which Mr. Gladstone's son\nis rector, and in which the distinguished statesman himself often reads\nthe lessons:\n\n  \"A few Sundays ago--8 o'clock celebration of Holy Communion. Rector,\n  officiating minister (Hawarden Church).\n\n  \"When the point was reached for the communicants to partake, cards\n  containing a hymn to be sung after Communion were distributed among\n  the congregation. This hymn opened with the following couplet:--\n\n      Jesu, mighty Saviour,\n      Thou art _in_ us now.\n\n  And my attention was arrested by an asterisk referring to a\n  footnote. The word 'in,' in the second line, was printed in italics,\n  and the note intimated that those who had _not_ communicated should\n  sing '_with_' instead of '_in_,' i.\u00a0e. those who had taken the\n  consecrated elements to sing 'Thou art _in_ us now,' and those who\n  had not, to sing 'Thou art _with_ us now.'\"\n\nWhether, therefore, the cult be barbaric or civilized, we find theory\nand practice identical. The god is eaten so that the communicant thereby\nbecomes a \"partaker of the divine nature.\"\n\nIn the gestures denoting _sacerdotal benediction_ we have probably an\nold form of averting the evil eye; in the act of _breathing_ on a bishop\nat the service of consecration there was the survival of belief in\ntransference of spiritual qualities, the soul being, as language\nevidences, well-nigh universally identified with breath. The modern\nspiritualist who describes apparitions as having the \"consistency of\ncigar-smoke,\" is one with the Congo negroes who leave the house of\nthe dead unswept for a time lest the dust should injure the delicate\nsubstance of the ghost. The inhaling of the last breath of the dying\nRoman by his nearest kinsman has parallel in the breathing of the risen\nJesus on his disciples that they might receive the Holy Ghost (John xx,\n22). In the offering of _prayers for the dead_; in the _canonization_\nand _intercession_ of _saints_; in the _prayers_ and _offerings_ at the\n_shrines of the Virgin_ and _saints_, and at the _graves of martyrs_;\nthere are the manifold forms of that great cult of the departed which is\nfound throughout the world. To this may be linked the _belief in\nangels_, whether good or bad, or guardian, because the element common to\nthe whole is animistic, the peopling of the heavens above, as well as\nthe earth beneath, with an innumerable company of spiritual beings\ninfluencing the destinies of men. Well might Jews and Moslems reproach\nthe Christians, as they did down to the eighth century, with having\nfilled the world with more gods than they had overthrown in the pagan\ntemples; while we have Erasmus, in his Encomium Moriae, when reciting\nthe names and functions of saints, adding that \"as many things as we\nwish, so many gods have we made.\" Closely related to this group of\nbeliefs is the _adoration of relics_, the vitality of which has springs\ntoo deep in human nature to be wholly abolished, whether we carry about\nus a lock from the hair of some dead loved one, or read of the fragments\nof saints or martyrs which lie beneath every Catholic altar, or of the\nskull-bones of his ancestor which the savage carries about with him as a\ncharm. Then there is the long list of _church festivals_, the reference\nof which to pagan prototypes is but one step toward their ultimate\nexplanation in nature-worship; there are the _processions_ which are the\nsuccessors of Corybantic frenzies, and, more remotely, of savage dances\nand other forms of excitation; there is that now somewhat casual belief\nin the _Second Advent_ which is a member of the widespread group wherein\nhuman hopes fix eyes on the return of long-sleeping heroes; of Arthur\nand Olger Dansk, of V\u00e4in\u00e4m\u00f6inen and Quetzalcoatl, of Charlemagne and\nBarbarossa, of the lost Marko of Servia and the lost King Sebastian. We\nspeak of it as \"casual,\" because among the two hundred and eighty-odd\nsects scheduled in Whitaker's Almanack the curious in such inquiries\nwill note only three distinctive bodies of Adventists.\n\nAll changes in popular belief have been, and, practically, remain\nsuperficial; the old animism pervades the higher creeds. In our own\nisland, for example, the Celtic and pre-Celtic paganism remained\nunleavened by the old Roman religion. The legions took back to Rome the\ngods which they brought with them. The names of Mithra and Serapis occur\non numerous tablets, the worship of the one--that \"Sol invictus\" whose\nbirthday at the winter solstice became (see p. 42) the anniversary\nof the birth of Christ--had ranged as far west as South Wales and\nNorthumberland; while the foundations of a temple to the other have been\nunearthed at York. The chief Celtic gods, in virtue of common attributes\nas elemental nature-deities, were identified with certain _dii majores_\nof the Roman pantheon, and the _deae matres_ equated with the gracious\nor malevolent spirits of the indigenous faith. But the old names were\nnot displaced. Neither did the earlier Christian missionaries effect any\norganic change in popular beliefs, while, during the submergence of\nChristianity under waves of barbaric invasion, there were infused into\nthe old religion kindred elements from oversea which gave it yet more\nvigorous life. The eagle penetration of Gibbon detected this persistent\nelement at work when he described the sequel to the futile efforts of\nTheodosius to extirpate paganism. The ancestor worship which lay at the\ncore of much of it took shape among the Christianized pagans in the\nworship of martyrs and in the scramble after their relics. The bodies of\nprophets and apostles were discovered by the strangest coincidences, and\ntransported to the churches by the Tiber and the Bosphorus, and although\nthe supply of these more important remains was soon exhausted, there\nwas no limit to the production of relics of their person or belongings,\nas of filings from the chains of S. Peter, and from the gridiron of S.\nLawrence. The catacombs yielded any number of the bodies of martyrs, and\nRome became a huge manufactory to meet the demands for wonder-working\nrelics from every part of Christendom. A sceptical feeling might be\naroused at the claims of a dozen abbeys to possession of the veritable\ncrown of thorns wherewith the majesty of the suffering Christ was\nmocked, but it was silenced before the numerous fragments of his cross,\nsince ingenuity has computed that this must have contained at least one\nhundred and eighty million cubic millemetres, whereas the total cubic\nvolume of all the known relics is but five millions. \"It must,\" remarks\nGibbon (Decline and Fall, end of chap. xxviii), \"ingeniously be\nconfessed that the ministers of the Catholic Church imitated the profane\nmodel which they were impotent to destroy. The most respectable bishops\nhad persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully\nrenounce the superstitions of paganism if they found some resemblance,\nsome compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of\nConstantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the\nRoman Empire, but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the\narts of their vanquished rivals.\"\n\nEnough has been said on a topic to which prominence has been given\nbecause it brings into fuller relief the fact that in a religion for\nwhich its apologists claim divine origin and guidance \"to the end of\nthe world\" we have the same intrusion of the rites and customs of\nlower cults which marks other advanced faiths. Hence, science and\nsuperstition being deadly foes, the explanation of that hostile\nattitude toward inquiry and that dread of its results which marked\nChristianity down to modern times. While the intrusion of corrupting\nelements presents difficulties which the theory of the supernatural\nhistory of Christianity alone creates, it accords with all that might\nbe predicted of a religion whose success was due to its early escape\nfrom the narrow confines of Judaism; and to its fortunate contact with\nthe enterprising peoples to whom the civilization of Europe and the\nNew World is due.\n\n\n2. _From Augustine to Lord Bacon._\n\nA. D. 400-A. D. 1600.\n\nThe foregoing slight outline of the causes which operated for centuries\nagainst the freedom of the human mind will render it needless to follow\nthe history of the development of Christian polity and dogma--the\ntemporalizing of the one, and the crystallizing of the other. Yet one\nprominent actor in that history demands a brief notice, because of the\ninfluence which his teaching wielded from the fifth to the fifteenth\ncenturies. The annals of the churches in Africa, along whose northern\nshores Christianity had spread early and rapidly, yield notable names,\nbut none so distinguished as that of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo from 395\nto 430 A.\u00a0D. This greatest of the Fathers of the Church sought, as has\nbeen remarked already, to bring the system of Aristotle, the greatest of\nancient naturalists, into line with Christian theology. His range of\nstudy was well-nigh as wide as that of the famous Stagirite, but we are\nhere concerned only with so much of it as bears on an attempt to graft\nthe development theory on the dogma of special creation. Augustine,\naccepting the Old Testament cosmogony as a revelation, believed\nthat the world was created out of nothing, but, this initial paradox\naccepted, he argued that God had endowed matter with certain powers of\nself-development which left free the operation of natural causes in the\nproduction of plants and animals. With this, however, as already noted,\nhe held, with preceding philosophers and with his fellow-theologians,\nthe doctrine of spontaneous generation. It explained to him the\nexistence of apparently purposeless creatures, as flies, frogs, mice,\netc. \"Certain very small animals,\" he says, \"may not have been created\non the fifth and sixth days, but may have originated later from\nputrefying matter.\" Not till the seventeenth century did the experiments\nof Redi refute a doctrine which had held part of the biological field\nfor above two thousand years, and which still has adherents. Of course\nAugustine, as do modern Catholic biologists, excepted man from the\noperation of secondary causes, and held that his soul was created by\nthe direct intervention of the Creator. Augustine's concessions are,\ntherefore, more seeming than real, and, moreover, we find him denying\nthe existence of the antipodes on the ground that Scripture is silent\nabout them, and also, that if God had placed any races there, they could\nnot see Christ descending at his second coming. To Augustine the air was\nfull of devils who are the cause of \"all diseases of Christians.\" In\nother words, he was not ahead of the illusions of his age. Then, too, he\nshows that allegorizing spirit which was manifest in Greece a thousand\nyears earlier; the spirit which reads hidden meanings in Homer, in\nHorace, and in Omar Khayy\u00e1m; and which, in the hands of present-day\nGnostics, mostly fantastic or illiterate cabalists, converts the plain\nnarratives of Old and New Testaments into vehicles of mysterious types\nand esoteric symbols. It is in such allegorical vein that Augustine\nexplains the outside and inside pitching of the ark as typifying the\nsafety of the Church from the leaking-in of heresy; while the ghastly\napplication of symbolical exegetics is seen in his citation of the words\nof Jesus, \"Compel them to come in,\" as a Divine warrant for the\nslaughter of heretics.\n\nWe shall meet with no other such commanding figure in Church history\ntill nine hundred years have passed, when Thomas Aquinas, the \"Angel of\nthe Schools,\" appears, but although that period marks no advance of the\nChurch from her central position, it witnessed changes in her fortune\nthrough the intrusion of a strange people into her territory and\nsanctuaries.\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nPerhaps there are few events in history more impressive than the\nconversion of the wild and ignorant Arab tribes of the seventh century\nfrom stone-worship to monotheism. The series of conquests which followed\nhad also, as an indirect and unforeseen result, effects of vast\nimportance in the revival and spread of Greek culture from the Tigris to\nthe Guadalquivir. It is not easy, neither does the inquiry fall within\nour present purpose, to discover the special impulses which led\nMohammed, the leader of the movement, to preach a new faith whose one\ncreed, stripped of all subtleties, was the unity of God. Large numbers\nof Jews and Christians had settled in Arabia long before his time, and\nhe had become acquainted with the narrowness of the one, and with the\ncauses of the wranglings of the other, riven, as these last-named were,\ninto sects quarrelling over the nature of the Person of Christ. These,\nand the fetichism of his fellow-countrymen, may, perhaps, have impelled\nhim to start a crusade the mandate for which he, in fanatic impulse,\nbelieved came from heaven. The result is well known. The hitherto\nuntamed nomads became the eager instruments of the prophet. Under his\nleadership, and that of the able Khalifs who succeeded him, the flag of\nIslam was carried from East to West, till within one hundred years of\nthe flight of Mohammed from Mecca (622 A.\u00a0D.) it waved from the Indian\nOcean to the Atlantic. With the conquest of Syria there was achieved\none of the greatest and most momentous of triumphs in the capture of\nJerusalem, and the seizure of sites sanctified to Christians by\nassociation with the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.\nOnly a few years before (614 A.\u00a0D.), the holy city had been taken by\nChosroes; the sacred buildings raised over the venerated tomb had been\nburned, and the cross--a spurious relic--carried off by the Persian\nking. These places have been, as it were, the cockpit of Christendom\nfrom the time of the siege of Jerusalem under Titus to that of the\nCrimean war, when blood was spilt like water in a conflict stirred by\nsquabbles between Latin and Greek Christians over possession of the key\nof the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. In the Church of the Holy\nSepulchre these sectaries are still kept from flying at one another's\nthroats by the muskets of Mohammedan soldiers.\n\nThe Arabian conquest of Persia followed that of Syria. The turn of Egypt\nsoon came, the city of Alexandria being taken in 640, seven years after\nthe prophets' death. Since the loss of Greek freedom, and the decay of\nintellectual life at Athens, that renowned place had become, notably\nunder the Ptolemies, the chief home of science and philosophy. Through\nthe propagandism of Christianity among the Hellenized Jews, of whom, as\nof Greeks, large numbers had settled there, it was also the birthplace\nof dogmatic theology, and, therefore, the fountain whence welled the\ncontroversies whose logomachies were the gossip of the streets of\nConstantinople and the cause of bloody persecution. After a few years'\npause, the Saracens (Ar., _sharkiin_, orientals) resumed their\nconquering march. They captured and burnt Carthage, another famous\ncentre of Christianity, and then crossed over to Spain. In \"the fair and\nfertile isle of Andalusia\" the Gothic king Roderick was aroused from his\nluxurious life in Toledo to lead his army in gallant, but vain, attempt\nto repel the infidel invaders. So rapid was their advance that in six\nyears they had subdued the whole of Spain, the north and northwestern\nportions excepted, for the hardy Basque mountaineers maintained their\nindependence against the Arabs, as they had maintained it against Celt,\nRoman, and Goth. Only before the walls of Tours did the invaders meet\nwith a rebuff from Charles Martel and his Franks, which arrested their\nadvance in Western Europe; as, in a more momentous defeat before\nConstantinople by Leo III. in 718, fourteen years earlier, the torrent\nof Mohammedan conquest was first checked.\n\nEnough, however, of Saracenic wars and their destructive work, which, if\ntradition lies not, included the burning of the remnants of the vast\nAlexandrian library. \"A revealed dogma is always opposed to the free\nresearch that may contradict it,\" and Islam has ever been a worse foe to\nscience than Christianity. Its association, as a religion, with the\nrenaissance of knowledge, was as wholly accidental as the story of it is\ninteresting.\n\nUnder the Sassanian kings, Persia had become an active centre of\nintellectual life, reaching the climax of its Augustan age in the reign\nof Chosroes. Jew, Greek, and Christian alike had welcome at his court,\nand translations of the writings of the Indian sages completed the\neclecticism of that enlightened monarch. Then came the ruthless Arab,\nand philosophy and science were eclipsed. But with the advent of the\nAbbaside Khalifs, who number the famous Haroun al-Raschid among them,\nthere came revival of the widest toleration, and consequent return of\nintellectual activity. Baghdad arose as the seat of empire. Situated on\nthe high road of Oriental commerce, along which travelled foreign ideas\nand foreign culture, that city became also the Oxford of her time.\nArabic was the language of the conquerors, and into that poetic, but\nunphilosophic, tongue, Greek philosophy and science were rendered. Under\nthe rule of those Khalifs, says Renan, \"nontolerant, nonreluctant\npersecutors,\" free thought developed; the _Motecallenim_ or \"disputants\"\nheld debates, where all religions were examined in the light of reason.\nAristotle, Euclid, Galen, and Ptolemy were text-books in the colleges,\nthe repute of whose teachers brought to Baghdad and Naishapur (dear to\nlovers of \"old\" Khayy\u00e1m) students westward from Spain, and eastward from\nTransoxiana.\n\n\"Arab\" philosophy, therefore, is only a name. It has been well\ndescribed as \"a system of Greek thought expressed in a Semitic tongue;\nand modified by Oriental influences called into existence by the\npatronage of the more liberal princes, and kept alive by the zeal of a\nsmall band of thinkers.\" In the main, it began and ended with the study\nof Aristotle, commentaries on whom became the chief work of scholars, at\nwhose head stands the great name of Averroes. Through these--a handful\nof Jews and Moslems--knowledge of Greek science, of astronomy, algebra,\nchemistry, and medicine, was carried into Western Europe. By the latter\nhalf of the tenth century, one hundred and fifty years after the\ntranslation of Aristotle into Arabic, Spain had become no mean rival of\nBaghdad and Cairo. Schools were founded; colleges to which the Girton\ngirls of the period could repair to learn mathematics and history were\nset up by lady principals; manufactures and agriculture were encouraged;\nand lovely and stately palaces and mosques beautified Seville, Cordova,\nToledo, and Granada, which last-named city the far-famed Alh\u00e2mra or Red\nFortress still overlooks. Seven hundred years before there was a public\nlamp in London, and when Paris was a town of swampy roadways bordered\nby windowless dwellings, Cordova had miles of well-lighted, well-paved\nstreets; and the constant use of the bath by the \"infidel\" contrasted\nwith the saintly filth and rags which were the pride of flesh-mortifying\ndevotees and the outward and odorous signs of their religion. The pages\nof our dictionaries evidence in familiar mathematical and chemical\nterms; in the names of the principal \"fixed\" stars; and in the words\n\"admiral\" and \"chemise\"; the influence of the \"Arab\" in science, war,\nand dress.\n\nIt forms no part of our story to tell how feuds between rival dynasties\nand rival sects of Islam, becoming more acute as time went on, enabled\nChristianity to recover lost ground, and, in the capture of Granada in\n1492, to put an end to Moorish rule in Spain. Before that event, a\nknowledge of Greek philosophy had been diffused through Christendom by\nthe translation of the works of Avicenna, Averroes, and other scholars,\ninto Latin. That was about the middle of the twelfth century, when\nAristotle, who had been translated into Arabic some three centuries\nearlier, also appeared in Latin dress. The detachment of any branch of\nknowledge from theology being a thing undreamed of, the deep reverence\nin which the Stagirite was held by his Arabian commentators ultimately\nled to his becoming \"suspect\" by the Christians, since that which\napproved itself to the followers of Mohammed must, _ipso facto_, be\ncondemned by the followers of Jesus. Hence came reaction, and recourse\nto the Scriptures as sole guide to secular as well as sacred knowledge;\nrecourse to a method which, as Hallam says, \"had not untied a single\nknot, or added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy.\"\n\nSo far as the scanty records tell (for we may never know how much was\nsuppressed, or fell into oblivion, under ecclesiastical frowns and\nthreats; nor how many thinkers toiled in secret and in dread), none\nseemed possessed either of courage or desire to supplement the revealed\nword by examination into things themselves. To supplant it was not\ndreamed of. But, in the middle of the thirteenth century, one notable\nexception occurred in the person of Roger Bacon, sometimes called Friar\nBacon in virtue of his belonging to the order of Franciscans. He was\nborn in 1214 at Ilchester, in Somerset, whence he afterward removed to\nOxford, and thence to Paris. That this remarkable and many-sided man,\nclassic and Arabic scholar, mathematician, and natural philosopher,\nhas not a more recognised place in the annals of science is strange,\nalthough it is, perhaps, partly explained by the fact that his writings\nwere not reissued for more than three centuries after his death. He has\nbeen credited with a number of inventions, his title to which is however\ndoubtful, although the doubt in nowise impairs the greatness of his\nname. He shared the current belief in alchemy, but made a number of\nexperiments in chemistry pointing to his knowledge of the properties of\nthe various gases, and of the components of gunpowder. If he did not\ninvent spectacles, or the microscope and telescope, he was skilled in\noptics, and knew the principles on which those instruments are made,\nas the following extract from his Opus Majus shows: \"We can place\ntransparent bodies in such a form and position between our eyes and\nother objects that the rays shall be refracted and bent toward any place\nwe please, so that we shall see the object near at hand, or at a\ndistance, under any angle we please; and thus from an incredible\ndistance we may read the smallest letters, and may number the smallest\nparticles of sand, by reason of the greatness of the angle under which\nthey appear.\" He knew the \"wisdom of the ancients\" in the cataloguing of\nthe stars, and suggested a reform of the calendar--following the then\nunknown poet-astronomer of Naishapur. But he believed in astrology, that\nbastard science which from remotest times had ruled the life of man, and\nwhich has no small number of votaries among ourselves to this day. Roger\nBacon's abiding title to fame rests, however, on his insistence on\nthe necessity of experiment, and his enforcement of this precept by\npractice. As a mathematician he laid stress on the application of this\n\"first of all the sciences\"; indeed, as \"preceding all others, and as\ndisposing us to them.\" His experiments, both from their nature and the\nseclusion in which they were made, laid him open to the charge of black\nmagic, in other words, of being in league with the devil. This, in the\nhands of a theology thus \"possessed,\" became an instrument of awful\ntorture to mankind. Roger Bacon's denial of magic only aggravated his\ncrime, since in ecclesiastical ears, this was tantamount to a denial of\nthe activity, nay more, of the very existence of Satan. So, despite\ncertain encouragement in his scientific work from an old friend who\nafterward became Pope Clement IV., for whose information he wrote his\nOpus Majus, he was, on the death of that potentate, thrown into prison,\nwhence tradition says he emerged, after ten years, only to die.\n\nThe theories of medi\u00e6val schoolmen--a monotonous record of unprogressive\nideas--need not be scheduled here, the more so as we approach the period\nof discoveries momentous in their ultimate effect upon opinions which\nnow possess only the value attaching to the history of discredited\nconceptions of the universe. Commerce, more than scientific curiosity,\ngave the impetus to the discovery that the earth is a globe. Trade with\nthe East was divided between Genoa and Venice. These cities were rivals,\nand the Genoese, alarmed at the growing success of the Venetians,\nresolved to try to reach India from the west. Their schemes were\njustified by reports of land indications brought by seamen who had\npassed through the \"Pillars of Hercules\" to the Atlantic. The sequel is\nwell known. Columbus, after clerical opposition, and rebuffs from other\nstates, \"offering,\" as Mr. Payne says, in his excellent History of\nAmerica, \"though he knew it not, the New World in exchange for three\nships and provisions for twelve months,\" finally secured the support of\nthe Spanish king, and sailed from Cadiz on the 3d of August, 1492. On\n11th of October he sighted the fringes of the New World, and believing\nthat he had sailed from Spain to India, gave the name West Indies to the\nisland-group. America itself had been discovered by roving Norsemen five\nhundred years before, but the fact was buried in Icelandic tradition.\nFollowing Columbus, Vasco de Gama, a Portuguese, set sail in 1497, and\ntaking a southerly course, doubled the Cape of Good Hope. Twenty-two\nyears later, Ferdinand Magellan started on a voyage more famous than\nthat of Columbus, since his ambition was to sail round the world, and\nthus complete the chain of proof against the theory of its flatness. For\n\"though the Church hath evermore from Holy Writ affirmed that the earth\nshould be a widespread plain bordered by the waters, yet he comforted\nhimself when he considered that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow\ncast of the earth is round; and as is the shadow, such, in like manner,\nis the substance.\" Doubling Cape Horn through the straits that bear his\nname, Magellan entered the vast ocean whose calm surface caused him to\ncall it the Pacific, and after terrible sufferings, he reached the\nLadrone Islands where, either at the hands of a mutinous crew, or of\nsavages, he was killed. His chief lieutenant, Sebastian d'Eleano,\ncontinued the voyage, and after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, brought\nthe San Vittoria--name of happy omen--to anchor at St. Lucar, near\nSeville, on 7th of September, 1522. Brought, too, the story of a\ncircumnavigated globe, and of new groups of stars never seen under\nnorthern skies.\n\nThe scene shifts, for the time being, from the earth to the heavens. The\nChurch had barely recovered from the blow struck at her authority on\nmatters of secular knowledge, when another dealt, and that by an\necclesiastic, Copernicus, Canon of Frauenburg, in Prussia. But before\npursuing this, some reference to the revolt against the Church of Rome,\nwhich is the great event of the sixteenth century, is necessary, if only\nto inquire whether the movement known as the Reformation justified its\nname as freeing the intellect from theological thraldom. Far-reaching as\nwere the areas which it covered and the effects which it wrought, its\nquarrel with the Church of Rome was not because of that Church's\nattitude toward freedom of thought. On the Continent it was a protest of\nnobler minds against the corruptions fostered by the Papacy; in England,\nit was personal and political in origin, securing popular support by its\nanti-sacerdotal character, and its appeal to national irritation against\nforeign control. But, both here and abroad, it sought mending rather\nthan ending; \"not to vary in any jot from the faith Catholic.\" It\ndisputed the claim of the Church to be the sole interpreter of\nScripture, and contended that such interpretation was the right and duty\nof the individual. But it would not admit the right of the individual to\ncall in question the authority of the Bible itself: to that book alone\nmust a man go for knowledge of things temporal as of things spiritual.\nSo that the Reformation was but an exchange of fetters, or, as Huxley\nhappily puts it, the scraping of a little rust off the chains which\nstill bound the mind. \"Learning perished where Luther reigned,\" said\nErasmus, and in proof of it we find the Reformer agreeing with his\ncoadjutor, Melanchthon, in permitting no tampering with the written\nWord. Copernicus notwithstanding, they had no doubt that the earth was\nfixed and that sun and stars travelled round it, because the Bible said\nso. Peter Martyr, one of the early Lutheran converts, in his Commentary\non Genesis, declared that wrong opinions about the creation as narrated\nin that book would render valueless all the promises of Christ. Wherein\nhe spoke truly. As for the schoolmen, Luther called them \"locusts,\ncaterpillars, frogs, and lice.\" Reason he denounced as the \"arch whore\"\nand the \"devil's bride,\" Aristotle is a \"prince of darkness, horrid\nimpostor, public and professed liar, beast, and twice execrable.\"\nConsistently enough, Luther believed vehemently in a personal devil, and\nin witches; \"I would myself burn them,\" he says, \"even as it is written\nin the Bible that the priests stoned offenders.\" To him demoniacal\npossession was a fact clear as noonday: idiocy, lunacy, epilepsy and all\nother mental and nervous disorders were due to it. Hence, a movement\nwhose intent appeared to be the freeing of the human spirit riveted more\ntightly the bolts that imprisoned it; arresting the physical explanation\nof mental diseases and that curative treatment of them which is one of\nthe countless services of science to suffering mankind. To Luther, the\ndescent of Christ into hell, which modern research has shown to be a\nvariant of an Orphic legend of the underworld, was a real event, Jesus\ngoing thither that he might conquer Satan in a hand-to-hand struggle.\n\nTherefore, freedom of thought, as we define it, had the bitterest foe in\nLuther, although, in his condemnation of \"works,\" and his fanatical\ndogma of man's \"justification by faith alone,\" which made him reject the\nEpistle of James as one \"of straw,\" and as unworthy of a place in the\nCanon, he unwittingly drove in the thin end of the rationalist wedge.\nThe Reformers had hedged the canonical books with theories of verbal\ninspiration which extended even to the punctuation of the sentences.\nThey thus rendered intelligent study of the Bible impossible, and did\ngrievous injury to a collection of writings of vast historical value,\nand of abiding interest as records of man's primitive speculations and\nspiritual development. But Luther's application of the right of private\njudgment to the omission or addition of this or that book into a canon\nwhich had been closed by a Council of the Church, surrendered the whole\nposition, since there was no telling where the thing might stop.\n\nCopernicus waited full thirty years before he ventured to make his\ntheory public. The Ptolemaic system, which assumed a fixed earth with\nsun, moon, and stars revolving above it, had held the field for about\nfourteen hundred years. It accorded with Scripture; it was adopted\nby the Church; and, moreover, it was confirmed by the senses, the\ncorrection of which still remains, and will long remain, a condition of\nintellectual advance. Little wonder is it, then, that Copernicus\nhesitated to broach a theory thus supported, or that, when published, it\nwas put forth in tentative form as a possible explanation more in accord\nwith the phenomena. A preface, presumably by a friendly hand, commended\nthe Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies to Pope Paul III. It urged that\n\"as in previous times others had been allowed the privilege of feigning\nwhat circles they chose in order to explain the phenomena,\" Copernicus\n\"had conceived that he might take the liberty of trying whether, on the\nsupposition of the earth's motion, it was possible to find better\nexplanations than the ancient ones of the revolutions of the celestial\norbs.\" A copy of the book was placed in the hands of its author only a\nfew hours before his death on 23d of May, 1543.\n\nThis \"upstart astrologer,\" this \"fool who wishes to reverse the entire\nscience of astronomy,\" for \"sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua\ncommanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth\"--these are Luther's\nwords--was, therefore, beyond the grip of the Holy Inquisition. But a\nsubstitute was forthcoming. Giordano Bruno, a Dominican monk, had added\nto certain heterodox beliefs the heresy of Copernicanism, which he\npublicly taught from Oxford to Venice. For these cumulative crimes he\nwas imprisoned and, after two years, condemned to be put to death\n\"as mercifully as possible and without the shedding of his blood,\" a\nCatholic euphemism for burning a man alive. The murder was committed in\nRome on 17th of February, 1600.\n\nThe year 1543 marks an epoch in biology as in astronomy. As shown in the\nresearches of Galen, an Alexandrian physician of the second century,\nthere had been no difficulty in studying the structure of the lower\nanimals, but, fortified both by tradition and by prejudice, the Church\nrefused to permit dissection of the human body, and in the latter part\nof the thirteenth century, Boniface VIII. issued a Bull of the major\nexcommunication against offenders. Prohibition, as usual, led to\nevasion, and Vesalius, Professor of Anatomy in Padua University,\nresorted to various devices to procure \"subjects,\" the bodies of\ncriminals being easiest to obtain. The end justified the means, as he\nwas able to correct certain errors of Galen, and to give the _quietus_\nto the old legend, based upon the myth of the creation of Eve, that man\nhas one rib less than woman. This was among the discoveries announced in\nhis De Corporis Humani Fabrica, published when he was only twenty-eight\nyears of age. The book fell under the ban of the Church because Vesalius\ngave no support to the belief in an indestructible bone, nucleus of the\nresurrection body, in man. The belief had, no doubt, near relation to\nthat of the Jews in the _os sacru_, and may remind us of Descartes'\nfanciful location of the soul in the minute cone-like part of the brain\nknown as the _conarium_, or pineal gland. On some baseless charge of\nattempting the dissection of a living subject, the Inquisition haled\nVesalius to prison, and would have put him to death \"as mercifully as\npossible,\" but for the intervention of King Charles V. of Spain, to\nwhom Vesalius had been physician. Returning in October, 1564, from a\npilgrimage taken, presumably, as atonement for his alleged offence, he\nwas shipwrecked on the coast of Zante, and died of exhaustion.\n\nWhile the heretical character and tendencies of discoveries in astronomy\nand anatomy awoke active opposition from the Church, the work of men of\nthe type of Gesner, the eminent Swiss naturalist, and of Caesalpino,\nprofessor of botany at Padua, passed unquestioned. No dogma was\nendangered by the classification of plants and animals. But when a\ncouple of generations after the death of Copernicus had passed, the\nInquisition found a second victim in the famous Galileo, who was born at\nPisa in 1564. After spending some years in mechanical and mathematical\npursuits, he began a series of observations in confirmation of the\nCopernican theory, of the truth of which he had been convinced in early\nlife. With the aid of a rude telescope, made by his own hands, he\ndiscovered the satellites of Jupiter; the moon-like phases of Venus and\nMars; mountains and valleys in the moon; spots on the sun's disk; and\nthe countless stars which composed the luminous band known as the Milky\nWay. Nought occurred to disturb his observations till, in a work on the\nSolar Spots, he explained the movements of the earth and of the heavenly\nbodies according to Copernicus. On the appearance of that book the\nauthorities contented themselves with a caution to the author. But\naction followed his supplemental Dialogue on the Copernican and\nPtolemaic Systems. Through that convenient medium which the title\nimplies, Galileo makes the defender of the Copernican theory an easy\nvictor, and for this he was brought before the Inquisition in 1633.\nAfter a tedious trial, and threats of \"rigorous personal examination,\"\na euphemism for \"torture,\" he was, despite the plea--too specious to\ndeceive--that he had merely put the _pros_ and _cons_ as between the\nrival theories, condemned to abjure all that he had taught. There is a\nstory, probably fictitious, since it was first told in 1789, that when\nthe old man rose from his knees, he muttered his conviction that the\nearth moves, in the words \"e pur si muove.\" As a sample of the arguments\nused by the ecclesiastics when they substituted, as rare exception, the\npen for the faggot, the reasoning advanced by one Sizzi against the\nexistence of Jupiter's moons, may be cited. \"There are seven windows\ngiven to animals in the domicile of the head, through which the air is\nadmitted to the tabernacle of the body, viz.: two nostrils, two eyes,\ntwo ears, and one mouth. So, in the heavens, as in a macrocosm, or\ngreat world, there are two favourable stars, Jupiter and Venus; two\nunpropitious, Mars and Saturn; two luminaries, the sun and moon, and\nMercury alone undecided and indifferent. From these and many other\nphenomena of Nature, which it were tedious to enumerate, we gather that\nthe number of planets is necessarily seven. Moreover, the satellites are\ninvisible to the naked eye, and, therefore, can exercise no influence\nover the earth, and would, of course, be useless; and, therefore, do not\nexist.\"\n\nIn this brief summary of the attitude of the Church toward science, it\nis not possible, and if it were so, it is not needful, to refer in\ndetail to the contributions of the more speculative philosophers, who,\nalthough they made no discoveries, advocated those methods of research\nand directions of inquiry which made the discoveries possible. Among\nthese a prominent name is that of Lord Bacon, whose system of\nphilosophy, known as the Inductive, proceeds from the collection,\nexamination and comparison of any group of connected facts to the\nrelation of them to some general principle. The universal is thus\nexplained by the particular. But the inductive method was no invention\nof Bacon's; wherever observation or testing of a thing preceded\nspeculation about it, as with his greater namesake, there the Baconian\nsystem had its application. Lord Bacon, moreover, undervalued Greek\nscience; he argued against the Copernican theory; and either knew\nnothing of, or ignored, Harvey's momentous discovery of the circulation\nof the blood. A more illustrious name than his is that of Ren\u00e9\nDescartes, a man who combined theory with observation; \"one who,\" in\nHuxley's words, \"saw that the discoveries of Galileo meant that the\nremotest parts of the universe were governed by mechanical laws, while\nthose of Harvey meant that the same laws presided over the operations of\nthat portion of the world which is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily\nframe.\" The greatness of this man, a good Catholic, whom the Jesuits\ncharged with Atheism, has no mean tribute in his influence on an equally\nremarkable man, Benedict Spinoza. Spinoza reduced the Cartesian analysis\nof phenomena into God, mind and matter to one phenomenon, namely, God,\nof whom matter and spirit, extension and thought, are but attributes.\nHis short life fell within the longer span of Newton's, whose strange\nsubjection to the theological influences of his age is seen in this\nimmortal interpreter of the laws of the universe wasting his later\nyears on an attempt to interpret unfulfilled prophecy. These and others,\nas Locke, Leibnitz, Herder, and Schelling, like the great Hebrew leader,\nhad glimpses of a goodly land which they were not themselves to enter.\nBut, perhaps, in the roll of illustrious men to whom prevision came,\nnone have better claim to everlasting remembrance than Immanuel Kant.\nFor in his Theory of the Heavens, published in 1755, he anticipates that\nhypothesis of the origin of the present universe which, associated with\nthe succeeding names of Laplace and Herschel, has, under corrections\nfurnished by modern physics, common acceptance among us. Then, as shown\nin the following extract, Kant foresees the theory of the development of\nlife from formless stuff to the highest types: \"It is desirable to\nexamine the great domain of organized beings by means of a methodical\ncomparative anatomy, in order to discover whether we may not find in\nthem something resembling a system, and that too in connection with\ntheir mode of generation, so that we may not be compelled to stop short\nwith a mere consideration of forms as they are--which gives no insight\ninto their generation--and need not despair of gaining a full insight\ninto this department of Nature. The agreement of so many kinds of\nanimals in a certain common plan of structure, which seems to be visible\nnot only in their skeletons, but also in the arrangement of the other\nparts--so that a wonderfully simple typical form, by the shortening or\nlengthening of some parts, and by the suppression and development of\nothers, might be able to produce an immense variety of species--gives us\na ray of hope, though feeble, that here perhaps some results may be\nobtained, by the application of the principle of the mechanism of\nNature; without which, in fact, no science can exist. This analogy of\nforms (in so far as they seem to have been produced in accordance with\na common prototype, notwithstanding their great variety) strengthens\nthe supposition that they have an actual blood-relationship, due to\nderivation from a common parent; a supposition which is arrived at by\nobservation of the graduated approximation of one class of animals to\nanother, beginning with the one in which the principle of purposiveness\nseems to be most conspicuous, namely, man, and extending down to the\npolyps, and from these even down to mosses and lichens, and arriving\nfinally at raw matter, the lowest stage of Nature observable by us. From\nthis raw matter and its forces, the whole apparatus of Nature seems to\nhave been derived according to mechanical laws (such as those which\nresulted in the production of crystals); yet this apparatus, as seen in\norganic beings, is so incomprehensible to us, that we feel ourselves\ncompelled to conceive for it a different principle. But it would seem\nthat the arch\u00e6ologist of Nature is at liberty to regard the great\nFamily of creatures (for as a Family we must conceive it, if the\nabove-mentioned continuous and connected relationship has a real\nfoundation) as having sprung from their immediate results of her\nearliest revolutions, judging from all the laws of their mechanisms\nknown to or conjectured by him.\"\n\nIn our arrival at the age of these seers, we feel the play of a freer,\npurer air; a lull in the miasmatic currents that bring intolerance on\ntheir wings. The tolerance that approaches is due to no surrender of its\nmain position by dogmatic theology, but to that larger perception of the\nvariety and complexity of life, ignorance of, or wilful blindness to,\nwhich is the secret of the survival of rigid opinion. The demonstration\nof the earth's roundness; the discovery of America; the growing\nconception of inter-relation between the lowest and the highest\nlife-forms; the slow but sure acceptance of the Copernican theory; and,\nabove all, the idea of a Cosmos, an unbroken order, to which every\nadvance in knowledge contributes, justified and fostered the free play\nof the intellect. Foreign as yet, however, to the minds of widest\nbreadth, was the conception of the inclusion of MAN himself in the\nuniversal order. Duality--Nature overruled by supernature--was the\nunaltered note; the supernature as part of Nature a thing undreamed of.\nNor could it be otherwise while the belief in diabolical agencies still\nheld the field, sending wretched victims to the stake on the evidence of\nconscientious witnesses, and with the concurrence of humane judges.\nAnimism, the root of all personification, whether of good or evil, had\nlost none of its essential character, and but little of its vigour.\n\n\"I flatter myself,\" says Hume, in the opening words of the essay upon\nMiracles, in his Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, \"that I have\ndiscovered an argument of a like nature (he is referring to Archbishop\nTillotson's argument on Transubstantiation) which, if just, will,\nwith the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kind of\nsuperstitious delusion, and, consequently, will be useful as long as the\nworld endures.\" Hume certainly did not overrate the force of the blow\nwhich he dealt at supernaturalism, one of a series of attacks which, in\nFrance and Britain, carried the war into the camp of the enemy, and\nchanged its tactics from aggressive to defensive. But none the less is\nit true that the \"superstitious delusions\" against which he planted his\nlogical artillery were killed neither by argument nor by evidence.\nDelusion and error do not perish by controversial warfare. They perish\nunder the slow and silent operation of changes to which they are unable\nto adapt themselves. The atmosphere is altered: the organism can neither\nrespond nor respire; therefore, it dies. Thus, save where lurks the\nignorance which is its breath of life, has wholly perished belief in\nwitchcraft; thus, too, is slowly perishing belief in miracles, and, with\nthis, belief in the miraculous events, the incarnation, resurrection,\nand ascension of Jesus, on which the fundamental tenets of Christianity\nare based, and in which lies so largely the secret of its long hostility\nto knowledge.\n\n\n\n\n_PART III._\n\nTHE RENASCENCE OF SCIENCE.\n\nA. D. 1600 ONWARDS.\n\n  \"Though science, like Nature, may be driven out with a fork,\n    ecclesiastical or other, yet she surely comes back again.\"--HUXLEY,\n    Prologue to Collected Essays, vol. v.\n\n\nThe exercise of a more tolerant spirit, to which reference has been\nmade, had its limits. It is true that Dr. South, a famous divine,\ndenounced the Royal Society (founded 1645) as an irreligious body;\nalthough a Dr. Wallis, one of the first members, especially declared\nthat \"matters of theology\" were \"precluded\": the business being \"to\ndiscourse and consider of philosophical inquiries and such as related\nthereunto; as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation,\nStaticks, Magneticks, Chymicks, and Natural Experiments; with the\nstate of these studies, and their cultivation at home and abroad.\"\nRegardless of South and such as agreed with him, Torricelli worked at\nhydrodynamics, and discovered the principle of the barometer; Boyle\ninquired into the law of the compressibility of gases; Malpighi examined\nminute life-forms and the structure of organs under the microscope; Ray\nand Willughby classified plants and animals; Newton theorized on the\nnature of light; and Roemer measured its speed; Halley estimated the\nsun's distance, predicted the return of comets, and observed the\ntransits of Venus and Mercury; Hunter dissected specimens, and laid the\nfoundations of the science of comparative anatomy; and many another\nillustrious worker contributed to the world's stock of knowledge\n\"without let or hindrance,\" for in all this \"matters of theology were\nprecluded.\"\n\nBut the old spirit of resistance was aroused when, after a long lapse of\ntime, inquiry was revived in a branch of science which, it will be\nnoticed, has no distinct place in the subjects dealt with by the Royal\nSociety at the start. That science was Geology; a science destined, in\nits ultimate scope, to prove a far more powerful dissolvent of dogma\nthan any of its compeers.\n\nIt seems strange that the discovery of the earth's true shape and\nmovements was not sooner followed by investigation into her contents,\nbut the old ideas of special creation remained unaffected by these and\nother discoveries, and the more or less detailed account of the process\nof creation furnished in the book of Genesis sufficed to arrest\ncuriosity. In the various departments of the inorganic universe the\nearth was the last to become subject of scientific research; as in study\nof the organic universe, man excluded himself till science compelled his\ninclusion.\n\nAfter more than two thousand years, the Ionian philosophers \"come to\ntheir own\" again. Xenophanes of Colophon has been referred to as\narriving, five centuries B.\u00a0C., at a true explanation of the imprints of\nplants and animals in rocks. Pythagoras, who lived before him, may, if\nOvid, writing near the Christian era, is to be trusted, have reached\nsome sound conclusions about the action of water in the changes of land\nand sea areas. But we are on surer ground when we meet the geographer\nStrabo, who lived in the reign of Augustus. Describing the countries in\nwhich he travelled, he notes their various features, and explains the\ncauses of earthquakes and allied phenomena. Then eleven hundred years\npass before we find any explanation of like rational character supplied.\nThis was furnished by the Arabian philosopher, Avicenna, whose theory of\nthe origin of mountains is the more marvellous when we remember what\nintellectual darkness surrounded him. He says that \"mountains may be due\nto two different causes. Either they are effects of upheavals of the\ncrust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or\nthey are the effect of water, which, cutting for itself a new route, has\ndenuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft,\nsome hard. The winds and waters disintegrate the one, but leave the\nother intact. Most of the eminences of the earth have had this latter\norigin. It would require a long period of time for all such changes to\nbe accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat\ndiminished in size. But that water has been the main cause of these\neffects is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and\nother animals on many mountains\" (cf. Osborn's From the Greeks to\nDarwin, p. 76). A similar explanation of fossils was given by the\nengineer-artist Leonardo de Vinci in the fifteenth century, and by the\npotter Bernard Palissy, in the sixteenth century; but thence onward,\nfor more than a hundred years, the earth was as a sealed book to man.\nThe earlier chapters of its history, once reopened, have never been\nclosed again. Varied as were the theories of the causes which wrought\nmanifold changes on its surface, they agreed in demanding a far longer\ntime-history than the Church was willing to allow. If the reasoning of\nthe geologists was sound, the narrative in Genesis was a myth. Hence\nthe renewal of struggle between the Christian Church and Science,\nwaged, at first, over the six days of the Creation.\n\nHere and there, in bygone days, a sceptical voice had been raised in\ndenial of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Such was that of La\nPeyr\u00e8re who, in 1655, published an instalment of a work in which he\nanticipated what is nowadays accepted, but what then was akin to\nblasphemy to utter. For not only does he doubt whether Moses had any\nhand in the writings attributed to him: he rejects the orthodox view of\nsuffering and death as the penalties of Adam's disobedience; and gives\nrationalistic interpretation of the appearance of the star of Bethlehem,\nand of the darkness at the Crucifixion. But La Peyr\u00e8re became a Roman\nCatholic, and, of course, recanted his opinions. Then, nearer the time\nwhen controversy on the historical character of the Scriptures was\nbecoming active, one Astruc, a French physician, suggested, in a work\npublished in 1753, that Moses may have used older materials in his\ncompilation of the earlier parts of the Pentateuch.\n\nBut, practically, the five books included under that name, were believed\nto have been written by Moses under divine authority. The statement in\nGenesis that God made the universe and its contents, both living and\nnon-living, in six days of twenty-four hours each, was explicit. Thus\ninterpreted, as their plain meaning warranted, Archbishop Usher made his\nfamous calculation as to the time elapsing between the creation and the\nbirth of Christ. Dr. White, in his important Warfare of Science with\nTheology, gives an amusing example of the application of Usher's method\nin detail. A seventeenth century divine, Dr. Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor\nof Cambridge University, computed that \"man was created by the Trinity\non 23d October, 4004 B.\u00a0C., at nine o'clock in the morning.\" The same\ntheologian, who, by the way, was a very eminent Hebrew scholar,\nfollowing the interpretation of the great Fathers of the Church,\n\"declared, as the result of profound and exhaustive study of the\nScriptures, that 'heaven and earth, centre and circumference, and clouds\nfull of water, were created all together, in the same instant.'\"\n\nThe story of the Deluge was held to furnish sufficing explanation of the\norganic remains yielded by the rocks, but failing this, a multitude of\nfantastic theories were at hand to explain the fossils. They were said\nto be due to a \"formative quality\" in the soil; to its \"plastic virtue\";\nto a \"lapidific juice\"; to the \"fermentation of fatty matter\"; to \"the\ninfluence of the heavenly bodies,\" or, as the late eminent naturalist,\nPhilip Gosse, seriously suggested in his whimsical book Omphalos: an\nAttempt to untie the Geological Knot, they were but simulacra wherewith\na mocking Deity rebuked the curiosity of man. Every explanation, save\nthe right and obvious one, had its defenders, because it was essential\nto support some theory to rebut the evidence supplied by remains of\nanimals as to the existence of death in the world before the fall of\nAdam. Otherwise, the statements in the Old Testament, on which the\nPauline reasoning rested, were baseless, and to discredit these was\nto undermine the authority of the Scriptures from Genesis to the\nApocalypse. No wonder, therefore, that theology was up in arms, or that\nit saw in geology a deadlier foe than astronomy had seemed to be in ages\npast. The Sorbonne, or Faculty of Theology, in Paris burnt the books of\nthe geologists, banished their authors, and, in the case of Buffon, the\nfamous naturalist, condemned him to retract the awful heresy, which was\ndeclared \"contrary to the creed of the Church,\" contained in these\nwords: \"The waters of the sea have produced the mountains and valleys\nof the land; the waters of the heavens, reducing all to a level, will at\nlast deliver the whole land over to the sea, and the sea successively\nprevailing over the land, will leave dry new continents like those which\nwe inhabit.\" So the old man repeated the submission of Galileo, and\npublished his recantation: \"I declare that I had no intention to\ncontradict the text of Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein\nrelated about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact.\nI abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth,\nand generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses.\" That\nwas in the year 1751.\n\nIf the English theologians could not deliver heretics of the type of\nBuffon to the secular arm, they used all the means that denunciation\nsupplied for delivering them over to Satan. Epithets were hurled at\nthem; arguments drawn from a world accursed of God levelled at them.\nSaint Jerome, living in the fourth century, had pointed to the cracked\nand crumpled rocks as proof of divine anger: now Wesley and others saw\nin \"sin the moral cause of earthquakes, whatever their natural cause\nmight be,\" since before Adam's transgression, no convulsions or\neruptions ruffled the calm of Paradise. Meanwhile, the probing of the\nearth's crust went on; revealing, amidst all the seeming confusion of\ndistorted and metamorphosed rocks, an unvarying sequence of strata, and\nof the fossils imbedded in them. Different causes were assigned for the\nvast changes ranging over vast periods; one school believing in the\naction of volcanic and such like catastrophic agents; another in\nthe action of aqueous agents, seeing, more consistently, in present\noperations the explanation of the causes of past changes. But there\nwas no diversity of opinion concerning the extension of the earth's\ntime-history and life-history to millions on millions of years.\n\nSo, when this was to be no longer resisted, theologians sought some\nbasis of compromise on such non-fundamental points as the six days of\ncreation. It was suggested that perhaps these did not mean the seventh\npart of a week, but periods, or eons, or something equally elastic; and\nthat if the Mosaic narrative was regarded as a poetic revelation of the\ngeneral succession of phenomena, beginning with the development of order\nout of chaos, and ending with the creation of man, Scripture would be\nfound to have anticipated or revealed what science confirms. It was\nimpossible, so theologians argued, that there could be aught else than\nharmony between the divine works and the writings which were assumed to\nbe of divine origin. Science could not contradict revelation, and\nwhatever seemed contradictory was due to misapprehension either of the\nnatural fact, or to misreading of the written word. But although the\nstory of the creation might be clothed, as so exalted and moving a theme\nwarranted, in poetic form, that of the fall of Adam and of the drowning\nof his descendants, eight persons excepted, must be taken in all its\nappalling literalness. Confirmation of the Deluge story was found in\nthe fossil shells on high mountain tops; while as for the giants of\nantediluvian times, there were the huge bones in proof. Some of these\nrelics of mastodon and mammoth were actually hung up in churches as\nevidence that \"there were giants in those days\"! Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire\ntells of one Henrion, who published a book in 1718 giving the height of\nAdam as one hundred and twenty-three feet nine inches, and of Eve as\none hundred and eighteen feet nine inches, Noah being of rather less\nstature. But to parley with science is fatal to theology. Moreover,\narguments which involve the cause they support in ridicule may be left\nto refute themselves. And while theology was hesitating, as in the\namusing example supplied by Dr. William Smith's Dictionary of the Bible\n(published in 1863) wherein the reader, turning up the article \"Deluge,\"\nis referred to \"Flood,\" and thence to \"Noah\"; arch\u00e6ology produced the\nChald\u00e6an original of the legend whence the story of the flood is\nderived. With candour as commendable as it is rare, the Reverend\nProfessor Driver, from whom quotation has been made already, admits that\n\"read without prejudice or bias, the narrative of Genesis i. creates an\nimpression at variance with the facts revealed by science\"; all efforts\nat reconciliation being only \"different modes of obliterating the\ncharacteristic features of Genesis, and of reading into it a view which\nit does not express.\"\n\nWhile the ground in favour of the literal interpretation of Genesis was\nbeing contested, an invading force, that had been gathering strength\nwith the years, was advancing in the shape of the science of Biology.\nThe workers therein fall into two classes: the one, represented by\nLinnaeus and his school, applied themselves to the classifying and\nnaming of plants and animals; the other, represented by Cuvier and his\nschool, examined into structure and function. Anatomy made clear the\nmachinery: physiology the work which it did, and the conditions under\nwhich the work was done. Then, through comparison of corresponding\norgans and their functions in various life-forms, came growing\nperception of their unity. But only to a few came gleams of that unity\nas proof of common descent of plant and animal, for, save in scattered\nhints of inter-relation between species, which occur from the time of\nLord Bacon onward, the theory of their immutability was dominant until\nforty years ago.\n\nFour men form the chief vanguard of the biological movement. \"Modern\nclassificatory method and nomenclature have largely grown out of the\nwork of Linnaeus; the modern conception of biology, as a science, and\nof its relation to climatology, geography, and geology, are as largely\nrooted in the labours of Buffon; comparative anatomy and pal\u00e6ontology\nowe a vast debt to Cuvier's results; while invertebrate zoology and the\nrevival of the idea of Evolution are intimately dependent on the results\nof the work of Lamarck. In other words, the main results of biology up\nto the early years of this century are to be found in, or spring out of,\nthe works of these men.\"\n\nLinnaeus, son of a Lutheran pastor, born at Roeshult, in Sweden, in\n1707, had barely passed his twenty-fifth year before laying the\nground-plan of the system of classification which bears his name, a\nsystem which advance in knowledge has since modified. Based on external\nresemblances, its formulation was possible only to a mind intent on\nminute and accurate detail, and less observant of general principles. In\nbrief, the work of Linnaeus was constructive, not interpretative. Hence,\nperhaps, conjoined to the theological ideas then current, the reason\nwhy the larger question of the fixity of species entered not into his\npurview. To him each plant and animal retained the impress of the\nCreative hand that had shaped it \"in the beginning,\" and, throughout\nhis working life, he departed but slightly from the plan with which he\nstarted, namely, \"reckoning as many species as issued in pairs\" from the\nAlmighty fiat.\n\nNot so Buffon, born on his father's estate in Burgundy in the same year\nas Linnaeus, whom he survived ten years, dying in 1788. His opinions,\nclashing as they did with orthodox creeds, were given in a tentative,\nquestioning fashion, so that where ecclesiastical censure fell, retreat\nwas easier. As has been seen in his submission to the Sorbonne, he was\nnot of the stuff of which martyrs are made. Perhaps he felt that the\nultimate victory of his opinions was sufficiently assured to make\nself-sacrifice needless. But, under cover of pretence at inquiry, his\nconvictions are clear enough. He was no believer in the permanent\nstability of species, and noted, as warrant of this, the otherwise\nunexplained presence of aborted or rudimentary structures. For example,\nhe says, \"the pig does not appear to have been formed upon an original,\nspecial, and perfect plan, since it is a compound of other animals; it\nhas evidently useless parts, or rather, parts of which it cannot make\nany use, toes, all the bones of which are perfectly formed, and which,\nnevertheless, are of no service to it. Nature is far from subjecting\nherself to final causes in the formation of her creatures.\" Then,\nfurther, as showing his convictions on the non-fixity of species, he\nsays, how many of them, \"being perfected or degenerated by the great\nchanges in land and sea, by the favours or disfavours of Nature, by\nfood, by the prolonged influences of climate, contrary or favourable,\nare no longer what they formerly were.\" But he writes with an eye on the\nSorbonne when, hinting at a possible common ancestor of horse and ass,\nand of ape and man, he slyly adds that since the Bible teaches the\ncontrary, the thing cannot be. Thus he attacked covertly; by adit, not\nby direct assault; and to those who read between the lines there was\ngiven a key wherewith to unlock the door to the solution of many\nbiological problems. Buffon, consequently, was the most stimulating and\nsuggestive naturalist of the eighteenth century. There comes between him\nand Lamarck, both in order of time and sequence of ideas, Erasmus\nDarwin, the distinguished grandfather of Charles Darwin.\n\nBorn at Eton, near Newark, in 1731, he walked the hospitals at London\nand Edinburgh, and settled, for some years, at Lichfield, ultimately\nremoving to Derby. Since Lucretius, no scientific writer had put his\ncosmogonic speculations into verse until Dr. Darwin made the heroic\nmetre, in which stereotyped form the poetry of his time was cast, the\nvehicle of rhetorical descriptions of the amours of flowers and the\nevolution of the thumb. The Loves of the Plants, ridiculed in the Loves\nof the Triangles in the Anti-Jacobin, is not to be named in the same\nbreath, for stateliness of diction, and majesty of movement, as the De\nrerum Natura. But both the prose work Zoonomia and the poem The Temple\nof Nature (published after the author's death in 1802) have claim\nto notice as the matured expression of conclusions at which the\nclear-sighted, thoughtful, and withal, eccentric doctor had arrived in\nthe closing years of his life. Krause's Life and Study of the Works of\nErasmus Darwin supplies an excellent outline of the contents of books\nwhich are now rarely taken down from the shelves, and makes clear that\ntheir author had the root of the matter in him. His observations and\nreading, for the influence of Buffon and others is apparent in his\nwritings, led him to reject the current belief in the separate creation\nof species. He saw that this theory wholly failed to account for the\nexistence of abnormal forms, of adaptations of the structure of organs\nto their work, of gradations between living things, and other features\ninconsistent with the doctrine of \"let lions be, and there were lions.\"\nHis shrewd comment on the preformation notion of development has been\nquoted (p. 20). The substance of his argument in support of a \"physical\nbasis of life\" is as follows: \"When we revolve in our minds the\nmetamorphosis of animals, as from the tadpole to the frog; secondly, the\nchanges produced by artificial cultivation, as in the breeds of horses,\ndogs, and sheep; thirdly, the changes produced by conditions of climate\nand of season, as in the sheep of warm climates being covered with hair\ninstead of wool, and the hares and partridges of northern climates\nbecoming white in winter; when, further, we observe the changes of\nstructure produced by habit, as seen especially by men of different\noccupations; or the changes produced by artificial mutilation and\nprenatal influences, as in the crossing of species and production of\nmonsters; fourth, when we observe the essential unity of plan in all\nwarm-blooded animals--we are led to conclude that they have been alike\nproduced from a similar living filament.\" The concluding words of this\nextract make remarkable approach to the modern theory of the origin of\nlife in the complex jelly-like protoplasm, or, as some call it, nuclein\nor nucleoplasm. And, on this, Erasmus Darwin further remarks: \"As the\nearth and ocean were probably peopled with vegetable productions long\nbefore the existence of animals, and many families of these animals long\nbefore other animals of them, shall we conjecture that one and the same\nkind of living filament is and has been the cause of all organic life?\"\nNor does he make any exception to this law of organic development. He\nquotes Buffon and Helvetius to the effect--\"that many features in the\nanatomy of man point to a former quadrupedal position, and indicate that\nhe is not yet fully adapted to the erect position; that, further, man\nmay have arisen from a single family of monkeys, in which, accidentally,\nthe opposing muscle brought the thumb against the tips of the fingers,\nand that this muscle gradually increased in size by use in successive\ngenerations.\" While we who live in these days of fuller knowledge\nof agents of variation may detect the _minus_ in all foregoing\nspeculations, our interest is increased in the thought of their near\napproach to the cardinal discovery. And a rapid run through the later\nwritings of Dr. Darwin shows that there is scarcely a side of the great\ntheory of Evolution which has escaped his notice or suggestive comment.\nGrant Allen, in his excellent little monograph on Charles Darwin, says\nthat the theory of \"natural selection was the only cardinal one in the\nevolutionary system on which Erasmus Darwin did not actually forestall\nhis more famous and greater namesake. For its full perception, the\ndiscovery of Malthus had to be collated with the speculations of\nBuffon.\"\n\nIn the Historical Sketch on the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of\nSpecies, which Darwin prefixed to his book, he refers to Lamarck as \"the\nfirst man whose conclusions on the subject excited much attention;\"\nrendering \"the eminent service of arousing attention to the probability\nof all change in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, being\nthe result of law, and not of miraculous interposition.\" Lamarck was\nborn at Bezantin, in Picardy, in 1744. Intended for the Church, he\nchose the army, but an injury resulting from a practical joke cut short\nhis career as a soldier. He then became a banker's clerk, in which\noccupation he secured leisure for his favourite pursuit of natural\nhistory. Through Buffon's influence he procured a civil appointment,\nand ultimately became a colleague of Cuvier and Geoffroy St. Hilaire in\nthe Museum of Natural History at Paris. Of Cuvier it will here suffice\nto say that he remained to the end of his life a believer in special\ncreation, or, what amounts to the same thing, a series of special\ncreations which, he held, followed the catastrophic annihilations\nof prior plants and animals. Although orthodox by conviction, his\nresearches told against his tenets, because his important work in the\nreconstruction of skeletons of long extinct animals laid the foundation\nof pal\u00e6ontology.\n\nTo Lamarck, says Haeckel, \"will always belong the immortal glory of\nhaving for the first time worked out the Theory of Descent as an\nindependent scientific theory of the first order, and as the\nphilosophical foundation of the whole science of Biology.\" He taught\nthat in the beginnings of life only the very simplest and lowest\nanimals and plants came into existence; those of more complex structure\ndeveloping from these; man himself being descended from ape-like\nmammals. For the Aristotelian mechanical figure of life as a ladder,\nwith its detached steps, he substituted the more appropriate figure of\na tree, as an inter-related organism. He argued that the course of the\nearth's development, and also of all life upon it, was continuous, and\nnot interrupted by violent revolutions. In this he followed Buffon and\nHutton. Buffon, in his Theory of the Earth, argues that \"in order to\nunderstand what had taken place in the past, or what will happen in the\nfuture, we have but to observe what is going on in the present.\" This\nis the keynote of modern geology. \"Life,\" adds Lamarck, \"is a purely\nphysical phenomenon. All its phenomena depend on mechanical, physical,\nand chemical causes which are inherent in the nature of matter itself.\"\nHe believed in a form of spontaneous generation. Rejecting Buffon's\ntheory of the direct action of the surroundings as agents of change in\nliving things, he sums up the causes of organic evolution in the\nfollowing propositions:\n\n1. Life tends by its inherent forces to increase the volume of each\nliving body and of all its parts up to a limit determined by its own\nneeds.\n\n2. New wants in animals give rise to new movements which produce organs.\n\n3. The development of these organs is in proportion to their employment.\n\n4. New developments are transmitted to offspring.\n\nThe second and third propositions were illustrated by examples which\nhave, with good reason, provoked ridicule. Lamarck accounts for the long\nneck of the giraffe by that organ being continually stretched out to\nreach the leaves at the tree-tops; for the long tongue of the ant-eater\nor the woodpecker by these creatures protruding it to get at food in\nchannel or crevice; for the webbed feet of aquatic animals by the\noutstretching of the membranes between the toes in swimming; and for the\nerect position of man by the constant efforts of his ape-like ancestors\nto keep upright. The legless condition of the serpent which, in the\nlegend of the Garden of Eden, is accounted for on moral grounds, is\nthus explained by Lamarck: \"Snakes sprang from reptiles with four\nextremities, but having taken up the habit of moving along the earth and\nconcealing themselves among bushes, their bodies, owing to repeated\nefforts to elongate themselves and to pass through narrow spaces, have\nacquired a considerable length out of all proportion to their width.\nSince long feet would have been very useless, and short feet would have\nbeen incapable of moving their bodies, there resulted a cessation of use\nof these parts, which has finally caused them to totally disappear,\nalthough they were originally part of the plan of organization in these\nanimals.\" The discovery of an efficient cause of modifications, which\nLamarck refers to the efforts of the creatures themselves, has placed\nhis speculations in the museum of biological curiosities; but sharp\ncontroversy rages to-day over the question raised in Lamarck's fourth\nproposition, namely, the transmission of characters acquired by the\nparent during its lifetime to the offspring. This burning question\nbetween Weismann and his opponents, involving the serious problem of\nheredity, will remain unsettled till a long series of observations\nsupply material for judgment.\n\nLamarck, poor, neglected, and blind in his old age, died in 1829. Both\nCuvier, who ridiculed him, and Goethe, who never heard of him, passed\naway three years later. The year following his death, when Darwin was an\nundergraduate at Cambridge, Lyell published his Principles of Geology,\na work destined to assist in paving the way for the removal of one\ndifficulty attending the solution of the theory of the origin of\nspecies, namely, the vast period of time for the life-history of\nthe globe which that theory demands. As Lyell, however, was then a\nbeliever--although, like a few others of his time, of wavering type--in\nthe fixity of species, he had other aims in view than those to which his\nbook contributed. But he wrote with an open mind, not being, as Herbert\nSpencer says of Hugh Miller, \"a theologian studying geology.\" Following\nthe theories of uniformity of action laid down by Hutton, by Buffon, and\nby that industrious surveyor, William Smith, who travelled the length\nand breadth of England, mapping out the sequence of the rocks, and\ntabulating the fossils special to each stratum, Lyell demonstrated in\ndetail that the formation and features of the earth's crust are\nexplained by the operation of causes still active. He was one among\nothers, each working independently at different branches of research;\neach, unwittingly, collecting evidence which would help to demolish old\nideas, and support new theories.\n\nA year after the Principles of Geology appeared, there crept unnoticed\ninto the world a treatise, by one Patrick Matthew, on Naval Timber and\nArboriculture, under which unexciting title Darwin's theory was\nanticipated. Of this, however, as of a still earlier anticipation, more\npresently. About this period Von Baer, in examining the embryos of\nanimals, showed that creatures so unlike one another in their adult\nstate as fishes, lizards, lions, and men, resemble one another so\nclosely in the earlier stages of their development that no differences\ncan be detected between them. But Von Baer was himself anticipated by\nMeckel, who wrote as follows in 1811: \"There is no good physiologist who\nhas not been struck, incidentally, by the observation that the original\nform of all organisms is one and the same, and that out of this one\nform, all, the lowest as well as the highest, are developed in such a\nmanner that the latter pass through the permanent forms of the former as\ntransitory stages\" (Osborn's From the Greeks to Darwin, p. 212). In\nbotany Conrad Sprengel, who belongs to the eighteenth century, had shown\nthe work effected by insects in the fertilization of plants. Following\nhis researches, Robert Brown made clear the mode of the development of\nplants, and Sir William Hooker traced their habits and geographical\ndistribution. Von Mohl discovered that material basis of both plant and\nanimal which he named \"protoplasm.\" In 1844, nine years before Von Mohl\ntold the story of the building-up of life from a seemingly structureless\njelly, a book appeared which critics of the time charged with \"poisoning\nthe fountains of science, and sapping the foundations of religion.\" This\nwas the once famous Vestiges of Creation, acknowledged after his death\nas the work of Robert Chambers, in which the origin and movements of the\nsolar system were explained as determined by uniform laws, themselves\nthe expression of Divine power. Organisms, \"from the simplest and\noldest, up to the highest and most recent,\" were the result of an\n\"inherent impulse imparted by the Almighty both to advance them from the\nseveral grades and modify their structure as circumstances required.\"\nAlthough now referred to only as \"marking time\" in the history of the\ntheory of Evolution, the book created a sensation which died away only\nsome years after its publication. Darwin remarks upon it in his\nHistorical Sketch that although displaying \"in the earlier editions\nlittle accurate knowledge and a great want of scientific knowledge, it\ndid excellent service in this country in calling attention to the\nsubject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the\nreception of analogous views.\"\n\nThree years after the Vestiges, there was, although none then knew it,\nor knowing the fact, would have admitted it, more \"sapping of the\nfoundations\" of orthodox belief, when M. Boucher de Perthes exhibited\nsome rudely-shaped flint implements which had been found at intervals in\nhitherto undisturbed deposits of sand and gravel--old river beds--in the\nSomme valley, near Abbeville, in Picardy. For these rough stone tools\nand weapons, being of human workmanship, evidenced the existence of\nsavage races of men in Europe in a dim and dateless past, and went far\nto refute the theories of his paradisiacal state on that memorable \"23\nOctober, 4004 B.\u00a0C.,\" when, according to Dr. Lightfoot's reckoning (see\np. 103), Adam was created. While the pickaxe, in disturbing flint knives\nand spearheads, that had lain for countless ages, was disturbing much\nbesides, English and German philosophers were formulating the imposing\ntheory which, under the name of the Conservation of Energy, makes clear\nthe indestructibility of both matter and motion. Then, to complete the\nwork of preparation effected by the discoveries now briefly outlined,\nthere appeared, in a now defunct newspaper, the Leader, in its issue of\n20th of March, 1852, an article by Herbert Spencer on the Development\nHypothesis, in which the following striking passage occurs: \"Those who\ncavalierly reject the Theory of Evolution, as not adequately supported\nby facts, seem quite to forget that their own theory is supported by no\nfacts at all. Like the majority of men who are born to a given belief,\nthey demand the most rigorous proof of any adverse belief, but assume\nthat their own needs none. Here we find, scattered over the globe,\nvegetable and animal organisms numbering, of the one kind (according to\nHumboldt) some 320,000 species, and of the other, some 2,000,000 species\n(see Carpenter); and if to these we add the numbers of animal and\nvegetable species that have become extinct, we may safely estimate the\nnumber of species that have existed, and are existing, on the earth, at\nnot less than _ten millions_. Well, which is the most rational theory\nabout these ten millions of species? Is it most likely that there have\nbeen ten millions of special creations? or is it most likely that by\ncontinual modifications, due to change of circumstances, ten millions of\nvarieties have been produced, as varieties are being produced still?...\nEven could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely show\nthat the origination of species by the process of modification is\nconceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents.\nBut they can do much more than this. They can show that the process of\nmodification has effected, and is effecting, decided changes in all\norganisms subject to modifying influences.... They can show that in\nsuccessive generations these changes continue, until ultimately the new\nconditions become the natural ones. They can show that in cultivated\nplants, domesticated animals, and in the several races of men, such\nalterations have taken place. They can show that the degrees of\ndifference so produced are often, as in dogs, greater than those on\nwhich distinctions of species are in other cases founded. They can show,\ntoo, that the changes daily taking place in ourselves--the facility that\nattends long practice, and the loss of aptitude that begins when\npractice ceases--the strengthening of passions habitually gratified, and\nthe weakening of those habitually curbed--the development of every\nfaculty, bodily, moral, or intellectual, according to the use made of\nit--are all explicable on this same principle. And thus they can show\nthat throughout all organic nature there is at work a modifying\ninfluence of the kind they assign as the cause of these specific\ndifferences; an influence which, though slow in its action, does, in\ntime, if the circumstances demand it, produce marked changes--an\ninfluence which, to all appearance, would produce in the millions of\nyears, and under the great varieties of condition which geological\nrecords imply, any amount of change.\"\n\nThis quotation shows, as perhaps no other reference might show, how, by\nthe middle of the present century, science was trembling on the verge of\ndiscovery of that \"modifying influence\" of which Mr. Spencer speaks.\nThat discovery made clear how all that had preceded it not only\ncontributed thereto, but gained a significance and value which, apart\nfrom it, could not have been secured. When the relation of the several\nparts to the whole became manifest, each fell into its place like the\npieces of a child's puzzle map.\n\n\nLEADING MEN OF SCIENCE.\n\nA. D. 800 TO A. D. 1800.\n\n  --------------------+-----------------+------+------------------------\n                      | Place and date  |      |\n         NAME.        |    of birth.    | Died.|       Speciality.\n  --------------------+-----------------+------+------------------------\n  Geber (Djafer).     |Mesopotamia,     | .... |Earliest known Chemist.\n                      |  830.           |      |\n  Avicenna (Ibu Sina).|Bokhara, 980.    | 1037 |Expositor of Aristotle;\n                      |                 |      |  Physician and\n                      |                 |      |  Geologist.\n  Averroes  (Ibu      |Spain, 1126.     | 1198 |Translator and\n    Roshd).           |                 |      |  Commentator of\n                      |                 |      |  Aristotle.\n  Roger Bacon.        |Ilchester, 1214. | 1292 |First English\n                      |                 |      |  Experimentalist.\n  Christopher         |Genoa, 1445.     | 1506 |Discoverer of America,\n    Columbus.         |                 |      |  1492.\n  Vasco de Gama.      |Sines, 1469.     | 1525 |Sailed round the South\n                      |(Portugal.)      |      |  of Africa, 1497.\n  Ferdinand Magellan. |Ville de         | 1521 |Circumnavigator of\n                      |  Sabroza, 1470. |      |  the Globe, 1519.\n  Nicholas Copernicus.|Thorn, 1473.     | 1543 |Discoverer of the Sun\n                      |(Prussia.)       |      |  as the Centre of our\n                      |                 |      |  System.\n  Andreas Vesalius.   |Brussels, 1514.  | 1564 |Human Anatomist.\n  Conrad Gesner.      |Zurich, 1516.    | 1565 |Classification of\n                      |                 |      |  Plants and Animals.\n  Andrew Caesalpino.  |Arezzo, 1519.    | 1603 |Comparative Botanist.\n                      |(Tuscany.)       |      |\n  Tycho Brahe.        |Knudstrup,       | 1601 |Collector of\n                      |  1546.          |      |  Astronomical Data.\n                      |(Sweden.)        |      |\n  Giordano Bruno.     |Nola, 1550.      | 1600 |Expounder of the\n                      |                 |      |  Copernican System\n                      |                 |      |  and Philosopher.\n  Francis, Lord Bacon.|London, 1561.    | 1626 |Expounder of the\n                      |                 |      |  Inductive Philosophy.\n  Galileo Galilei.    |Pisa, 1564.      | 1642 |Numerous Astronomical\n                      |                 |      |  Discoveries.\n  Johann Kepler.      |W\u00fcrtemburg,      | 1630 |Discoverer of the\n                      |  1571.          |      |  Three Laws of\n                      |                 |      |  Planetary Movements.\n  Thomas Hobbes.      |Malmesbury,      | 1679 |One of the Founders\n                      |  1588.          |      |  of Modern Ethics.\n  Ren\u00e9 Descartes.     |La Haye, 1596.   | 1650 |Resolution of all\n                      |(Touraine.)      |      |  Phenomena into Terms\n                      |                 |      |  of Matter and Motion.\n                      |                 |      |  (Dualism.)\n  Benedict Spinoza.   |Amsterdam,       | 1677 |Resolution of all\n                      |  1632.          |      |  Phenomena into Terms\n                      |                 |      |  of Substance=God.\n                      |                 |      |  (Monism.)\n  John Locke.         |Wrington, 1632.  | 1704 |Moral Philosopher.\n                      |(Somerset.)      |      |\n  Gottfrid Wilhelm    |Leipsic, 1646.   | 1716 |Philosopher and\n    Leibnitz.         |                 |      |  Mathematician.\n  Sir Isaac Newton.   |Woolsthorpe,     | 1727 |Expounder of the Law\n                      |  1642.          |      |  of Gravitation.\n                      |(Lincoln.)       |      |\n  Edmund Halley.      |London, 1656.    | 1741 |Astronomer.\n  David Hartley.      |Illingworth,     | 1757 |Psychology of Man.\n                      |  1705.          |      |\n  Carl von Linnaeus.  |Roeshult, 1707.  | 1778 |Systematic Botany and\n                      |(Sweden.)        |      |  Zoology.\n  Count de Buffon.    |Burgundy,        | 1788 |Contributions from\n                      |  1707.          |      |  Biology toward Theory\n                      |                 |      |  of Evolution and\n                      |                 |      |  Geology.\n  David Hume.         |Edinburgh,       | 1776 |Philosophy of the\n                      |                 |      |  Anti-supernatural;\n                      |  1711.          |      |  all Science Converging\n                      |                 |      |  in Man.\n  Immanuel Kant.      |K\u00f6nigsberg,      | 1804 |Formulator of the\n                      |  1724.          |      |  Nebular Theory.\n  James Hutton.       |Edinburgh,       | 1797 |Geologist:\n                      |  1726.          |      |  Uniformitarian.\n  Erasmus Darwin.     |Elton, 1731.     | 1802 |(_See_ BUFFON.)\n                      |(Lincolnshire.)  |      |\n  Sir William         |Hanover, 1738.   | 1822 |Astronomer.\n    Herschel.         |                 |      |\n  Jean Baptiste       |Bazantium,       | 1829 |Biologist: Contributions\n    Lamarck.          |  1744.          |      |  against fixity\n                      |                 |      |  of Species.\n  Marquis de Laplace. |Beaumont-en-Ange,| 1827 |Expounder of the\n                      |  1749.          |      |  Nebular Theory.\n  Conrad Sprengel.    |Pomerania,       | 1833 |Botanist.\n                      |  1766.          |      |\n  John Dalton.        |Eaglesfield,     | 1844 |Formulator of the\n                      |  1767.          |      |  Modern Atomic\n                      |(Cumberland.)    |      |  Theory.\n  Baron Cuvier.       |Montbeliard,     | 1832 |Pal\u00e6ontologist and\n                      |  1769.          |      |  Anatomist.\n  Geoff. St. Hilaire. |Etampes, 1772.   | 1844 |Zoologist.\n  Alexander von       | Berlin, 1769.   | 1859 |Explorer.\n    Humboldt.         |                 |      |\n  William Smith.      |Churchill, 1769. | 1840 |Geologist: mapped\n                      |(Oxon.)          |      |  Strata of Great\n                      |                 |      |  Britain.\n  Boucher de Perthes. |1788.            | 1868 |Discoverer of Evidences\n                      |                 |      |  of Man's\n                      |                 |      |  Antiquity.\n  Sir William Hooker. |Norwich, 1785.   | 1865 |Botanist.\n  Sir Charles Lyell.  |Kinnordy,        | 1875 |Geologist: developed\n                      |  1797.          |      |  Hutton's Theory.\n                      |(Forfarshire.)   |      |\n  Ernst von Baer.     |Esthonia, 1792.  | 1876 |Embryologist: Law of\n                      |                 |      |  Organic Development.\n  Sir Richard Owen.   |Lancaster, 1804. | 1892 |Pal\u00e6ontologist.\n  Hugo von Mohl.      |Germany, 1805.   | 1872 |Discoverer of\n                      |                 |      |  Protoplasm.\n  Theodor Schwann.    |Neuss, 1810.     | 1882 |Founder of the Cell\n                      |(Prussia.)       |      |  Theory.\n  Hermann von         |Potsdam, 1821.   | 1894 |Formulator of the\n    Helmholtz.        |                 |      |  Doctrine of the\n                      |                 |      |  Conservation of\n                      |                 |      |  Energy.\n  --------------------+-----------------+------+------------------------\n\n\n\n\n_PART IV._\n\nMODERN EVOLUTION.\n\n\n1. _Darwin and Wallace._\n\n  We have to deal with Man as a product of Evolution; with Society as\n  a product of Evolution; and with Moral Phenomena as products of\n  Evolution.--HERBERT SPENCER, Principles of Ethics, \u00a7 193.\n\nCHARLES ROBERT DARWIN (the second name was rarely used by him) was born\nat Shrewsbury on the 12th of February, 1809. He came of a long line of\nLincolnshire yeomen, whose forbears spelt the name variously, as Darwen,\nDerwent, and Darwynne, perhaps deriving it from the river of kindred\nname. His father was a kindly, prosperous doctor, of sufficient\nscientific reputation to secure his election into the Royal Society,\nalthough that coveted honour was then more easily obtained than now. Of\nthe more famous grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, the reminder suffices that\nboth his prose and poetry were vehicles of suggestive speculations on\nthe development of life-forms. Dealing with bald facts and dates for\nclearance of what follows, it may be added that Charles Darwin was\neducated at the Grammar School of his native town; that he passed thence\nto Edinburgh and Cambridge Universities; was occupied as volunteer\nnaturalist on board the Beagle from December, 1831, till October,\n1836; that he published his epoch-making Origin of Species in November,\n1859; and that he was buried by the side of Sir Isaac Newton in\nWestminster Abbey on the 26th of April, 1882.\n\n[Illustration: Alfred R. Wallace]\n\nAs with not a few other men of \"light and leading,\" neither school nor\nuniversity did much for him, nor did his boyhood give indication of\nfuture greatness. In his answers to the series of questions addressed to\nvarious scientific men in 1873 by his distinguished cousin, Francis\nGalton, he says: \"I consider that all I have learnt of any value has\nbeen self-taught,\" and he adds that his education fostered no methods of\nobservation or reasoning. Of the Shrewsbury Grammar School, where, after\nthe death of his mother (daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the celebrated\npotter), in his ninth year, he was placed as a boarder till his\nsixteenth year, he tells us, in the modest and candid Autobiography\nprinted in the Life and Letters, \"nothing could have been worse for the\ndevelopment of my mind.\" All that he was taught were the classics, and\na little ancient geography and history; no mathematics, and no modern\nlanguages. Happily, he had inherited a taste for natural history and for\ncollecting, his spoils including not only shells and plants, but also\ncoins and seals. When the fact that he helped his brother in chemical\nexperiments became known to Dr. Butler, the head-master, that desiccated\npedagogue publicly rebuked him \"for wasting time on such useless\nsubjects.\" Then his father, angry at finding that he was doing no good\nat school, reproved him for caring for nothing but shooting, dogs, and\nrat-catching, and declared that he would be a disgrace to the family! He\nsent him to Edinburgh University with his brother to study medicine, but\nDarwin found the dulness of the lectures intolerable, and the sight of\nblood sickened him, as it did his father. Although the effect of the\n\"incredibly\" dry lectures on geology made him--the future Secretary of\nthe Geological Society!--vow never to read a book on the science, or in\nany way study it, his interest in biological subjects grew, and its\nfirst fruits were shown in a paper read before the Plinian Society at\nEdinburgh in 1826, in which he reported his discovery that the so-called\nova of _Flustra_, or the sea-mat, were larv\u00e6.\n\nBut his father had to accept the fact that Darwin disliked the idea of\nbeing a doctor, and fearing that he would degenerate into an idle\nsporting man, proposed that he should become a clergyman! Darwin says\nupon this:--\n\n  I asked for some time to consider, as from what little I had heard\n  or thought on the subject I had scruples about declaring my belief\n  in all the dogmas of the Church of England, though otherwise I liked\n  the thought of being a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with\n  care Pearson on the Creed, and a few other books on divinity; and,\n  as I did not then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of\n  every word in the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our creed must\n  be fully accepted. Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by\n  the orthodox, it seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a\n  clergyman. Nor was this intention and my father's wish ever\n  formally given up, but died a natural death when, on leaving\n  Cambridge, I joined the Beagle as naturalist. If the phrenologists\n  are to be trusted, I was well fitted in one respect to be a\n  clergyman. A few years ago the secretaries of a German psychological\n  society asked me earnestly by letter for a photograph of myself; and\n  some time afterwards I received the proceedings of one of the\n  meetings, in which it seemed that the shape of my head had been the\n  subject of a public discussion, and one of the speakers declared\n  that I had the bump of reverence developed enough for ten priests.\n\nThe result was that early in 1828 Darwin went to Cambridge, the three\nyears spent at which were \"time wasted, as far as the academical studies\nwere concerned.\" His passion for shooting and hunting led him into\na sporting, card-playing, drinking company, but science was his\nredemption. No pursuit gave him so much pleasure as collecting beetles,\nof his zeal in which the following is an example: \"One day, on tearing\noff some old bark, I saw two rare beetles, and seized one in each hand;\nthen I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to lose, so I\npopped the one which I held in my right hand into my mouth. Alas! it\nejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was\nforced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as was the third one.\"\n\nHappily for his future career, and therefore for the interests of\nscience, Darwin became intimate with men like Whewell, Henslow, and\nSedgwick, while the reading of Humboldt's Personal Narrative, and of Sir\nJohn Herschel's Introduction to Natural Philosophy, stirred up in him\n\"a burning zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble\nstructure of Natural Science.\" The vow to eschew geology was quickly\nbroken when he came under the spell of Sedgwick's influence, but it\nwas the friendship of Henslow that determined his after career, and\nprevented him from becoming the \"Rev. Charles Darwin.\" For on his return\nfrom a geological tour in Wales with Sedgwick he found a letter from\nHenslow awaiting him, the purport of which is in the following\nextract:--\n\n\"I have been asked by Peacock (Lowndean Professor of Astronomy at\nCambridge) to recommend him a naturalist as companion to Captain\nFitz-Roy, employed by Government to survey the southern extremity of\nAmerica. I have stated that I consider you to be the best-qualified\nperson I know of who is likely to undertake such a situation.\"\n\nIn connection with this the following memorandum from Darwin's\npocket-book of 1831 is of interest:--\"Returned to Shrewsbury at end of\nAugust. Refused offer of voyage.\"\n\nThis refusal was given at the instance of his father, who objected\nto the scheme as \"wild and unsettling, and as disreputable to his\ncharacter as a clergyman\"; but he soon yielded on the advice of his\nbrother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood, and on Darwin's plea that he \"should\nbe deuced clever to spend more than his allowance whilst on board the\nBeagle.\" On this his father answered with a smile, \"But they tell me\nyou are very clever.\" It is amusing to find that Darwin narrowly escaped\nbeing rejected by Fitz-Roy, who, as a disciple of Lavater, doubted\nwhether a man with such a nose as Darwin's \"could possess sufficient\nenergy and determination for the voyage.\"\n\nThe details of that voyage, the first of the two memorable events in\nDarwin's otherwise unadventurous life, are set down in delightful\nnarrative in his Naturalist's Voyage Round the World, and it will\nsuffice to quote a passage from the autobiography bearing on the\nsignificance of the materials collected during his five years' absence.\n\n  During the voyage of the Beagle I had been deeply impressed by\n  discovering in the Pampean formation great fossil animals covered\n  with armour like that on the existing armadillos; secondly, by the\n  manner in which closely allied animals replace one another in\n  proceeding southwards over the continent; and thirdly, by the South\n  American character of most of the productions of the Galapagos\n  Archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which they differ\n  slightly on each island of the group, none of the islands appearing\n  to be very ancient in a geological sense. It was evident that such\n  facts as these, as well as many others, could only be explained on\n  the supposition that species gradually became modified; and the\n  subject haunted me. But it was equally evident that \"none of the\n  evolutionary theories then current in the scientific world\" could\n  account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind\n  are beautifully adapted to their habits of life.... I had always\n  been much struck by such adaptations, and until these could be\n  explained, it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to prove by\n  indirect evidence that species have been modified.... In October,\n  1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic\n  inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and\n  being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which\n  everywhere goes on, from long-continued observations of the habits\n  of plants and animals, it at once struck me that under these\n  circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and\n  unfavourable ones destroyed. The result of this would be the\n  formation of new species.\n\nShortly after his return he settled in London, prepared his journal and\nmanuscripts of observations for publication, and opened, he says, under\ndate of July, 1837, \"my first note-book for facts in relation to the\norigin of species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased\nworking for the next twenty years.\" He acted for two years as one of the\nhonorary secretaries of the Geological Society, which brought him into\nclose relations with Lyell, and, as his health then allowed him to go\ninto society, he saw a good deal of prominent literary and scientific\ncontemporaries.\n\nIn the autumn of 1842, two years and eight months after his marriage\nwith his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, who died in October last (1896),\nDarwin removed from London, the air and social demands of which were\nalike unsuited to his health, and finally fixed upon a house in the\nsecluded village of Down, near Beckenham, where he spent the rest of his\ndays. Henceforth the life of Darwin is merged in the books in which,\nfrom time to time, he gave the result of his long years of patient\nobservation and inquiry, from the epoch-making Origin to the monograph\non earthworms. With bad health, apparently due to gouty tendencies\naggravated by chronic sea-sickness during his voyage; with nights that\nnever gave unbroken sleep; and days that were never passed without\nprostrating pain; he might well have felt justified in doing nothing\nwhatever. But he was saved from the accursed monotony of a wealthy\ninvalid's life by his insatiate delight in searching for that solution\nof the problem of the mutability of species which time would not fail to\nbring. In this, he tells us, he forgot his \"daily discomfort,\" and thus\nwas delivered from morbid introspection.\n\nDarwin worked at his rough notes on the variation of animals and plants\nunder domestication, adding facts collected by \"printed enquiries, by\nconversations with skilful breeders and gardeners, and by extensive\nreading,\" gleams of light coming till he says that he is \"almost\nconvinced that species are not (it is like confessing a murder)\nimmutable.\" But he was still groping in the dark as to the application\nof selection to wild plants and animals, until, as remarked above, the\nchance reading of Malthus suggested a working theory. A brief sketch of\nthis theory, written out in pencil in 1842, was elaborated in 1844 into\nan essay of two hundred and thirty pages. The importance attached to\nthis was shown in a letter which Darwin then addressed to his wife,\ncharging her, in the event of his death, to apply \u00a3400 to the expense of\npublication. He also named certain competent men from whom an editor\nmight be chosen, preference being given to Sir Charles (then Mr. Lyell,\nat whose advice Darwin began to write out his views on a scale three or\nfour times as extensive as that in which they appeared in the Origin of\nSpecies.) Their publication in an abstract form was hastened by the\nreceipt, in June, 1858, of a paper, containing \"exactly the same\ntheory,\" from Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace at Ternate in the Moluccas. This\nreference to that distinguished explorer, will, before the story of the\ncoincident discovery is further told, fitly introduce a sketch of his\ncareer.\n\nALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE was born at Usk, in Monmouthshire, on the 8th of\nJanuary, 1823. He was educated at Hereford Grammar School, and in his\nfourteenth year began the study of land-surveying and architecture under\nan elder brother. Quick-witted and observing, he studied a great deal\nmore on his own account in his journeyings over England and Wales,\nthe results of which abide in the wide range of subjects--scientific,\npolitical, and social--engaging his active pen from early manhood to the\npresent day.\n\nAbout 1844 he exchanged the theodolite for the ferule, and became\nEnglish master in the Collegiate School at Leicester, in which town he\nfound a congenial friend in the person of his future fellow-traveller,\nHenry Walter Bates. Bates was then employed in his father's hosiery\nwarehouse, from which he escaped, as often as the long working hours\nthen prevailing allowed, into the fields with his collecting-box. Both\nschoolmaster and shopman were ardent naturalists, Mr. Wallace, as he\ntells us, being at that time \"chiefly interested in botany,\" but he\nafterward took up his friend's favourite pursuit of entomology. The\nwriter, when preparing his memoir of Bates (which prefaces a reprint of\nthe first edition of the delightful Naturalist on the Amazons), learned\nfrom Mr. Wallace that in early life he did not keep letters from Bates\nand other correspondents. But, fortunately, among Bates's papers, there\nwas a bundle of interesting letters from Wallace written between June,\n1845, and October, 1847, from Neath, in South Wales, to which town he\nhad removed. In one of these, dated the 9th of November, 1845, Wallace\nasks Bates if he had read the Vestiges of the Natural History of\nCreation, and a subsequent letter indicates that Bates had not formed a\nfavourable opinion of the book. A later letter is interesting as\nconveying an estimate of Darwin. \"I first,\" Wallace says, \"read Darwin's\nJournal three or four years back, and have lately re-read it. As the\njournal of a scientific traveller, it is second only to Humboldt's\nPersonal Narrative; as a work of general interest, perhaps supporter to\nit. He is an ardent admirer and most able supporter of Mr. Lyell's\nviews. His style of writing I very much admire, so free from all labour,\naffectation, or egotism, yet so full of interest and original thought.\"\n\nBut, of still greater moment, is a letter in which Wallace tells Bates\nthat he begins \"to feel dissatisfied with a mere local collection. I\nshould like to take some one family to study thoroughly, principally\nwith a view to the theory of the origin of species.\" The two friends had\noften discussed schemes for going abroad to explore some virgin region,\nnor could their scanty means prevent the fulfilment of a scheme which\nhas enriched both science and the literature of travel. The choice of\ncountry to explore was settled by Wallace's perusal of a little book\nentitled A Voyage up the River Amazons, including a Residence in Par\u00e1,\nby W.\u00a0H. Edwards, an American tourist, published in Murray's Family\nLibrary, in 1847. In the autumn of that year Wallace proposed a joint\nexpedition to the river Amazons for the purpose of exploring the Natural\nHistory of its banks; the plan being to make a collection of objects,\ndispose of the duplicates in London to pay expenses, and gather facts,\nas Mr. Wallace expressed it in one of his letters, \"towards solving the\nproblem of the origin of species.\"\n\nThe choice was a happy one, for, except by the German zoologist Von\nSpix, and the botanist Von Martius in 1817-20, and subsequently by Count\nde Castelnau, no exploration of a region so rich and interesting to the\nbiologist had been attempted. Early in 1848 Bates and Wallace met in\nLondon to study South American animals and plants in the principal\ncollections, and afterward went to Chatsworth to gain information about\norchids, which they proposed to collect in the moist tropical forests\nand send home.\n\nOn 26th of April, 1848, they embarked at Liverpool in a barque of only\n192 tons burden, one of the few ships then trading to Par\u00e1, to which\nseaport of the Amazons region a swift passage, \"straight as an arrow,\"\nbrought them on 28th of May.\n\nThe travellers soon settled in a _rocinha_, or country-house, a mile and\nhalf from Par\u00e1, and close to the forest, which came down to their doors.\nLike other towns along the Amazons, Par\u00e1 stands on ground cleared from\nthe forest that stretches, a well-nigh pathless jungle of luxuriant\nprimeval vegetation, two thousand miles inland. In that paradise of the\nnaturalist, the collectors gathered consignments which met with ready\nsale in London, and thus spent a couple of years in pursuits moderately\nremunerative and wholly pleasurable, till, on reaching Barra, at the\nmouth of the Rio Negro, one thousand miles from Par\u00e1, in March, 1850,\nBates and Wallace, who was accompanied by his younger brother, parted\ncompany, \"finding it more convenient to explore separate districts and\ncollect independently.\" Wallace took the northern parts and tributaries\nof the Amazons, and Bates kept to the main stream, which, from the\ndirection it seems to take at the fork of the Rio Negro, is called the\nUpper Amazons or the Solimoens. Different in character and climatic\nconditions from the Lower Amazons, it flows through a \"vast plain about\na thousand miles in length, and five hundred or six hundred miles in\nbreadth covered with one uniform, lofty, impervious, and humid forest.\"\nBates stayed in the country till June, 1859, but Wallace left in 1852,\nand in the following year published an account of his journey under the\ntitle of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro. That book was written\nunder the serious disadvantage of the destruction of the greater part of\nthe notes and specimens by the burning of the ship in which Mr. Wallace\ntook passage on his homeward voyage. That it remains one of the select\ncompany of works of travel for which demand is continuous is evidenced\nin a reprint which appeared in 1891. If it affords few hints of the\nauthor's bent of mind toward the question of the origin of species, it\nshows what interest was being aroused within him over the allied subject\nof the geographical distribution of plants and animals which Mr. Wallace\nwas to make so markedly his own.\n\nIn 1854 he sailed for the Malay Archipelago, where nearly eight years\nwere spent in exploring the region from Sumatra to New Guinea. The large\nand varied outcome of that labour was embodied in numerous papers\ncommunicated to learned societies and scientific journals, and in a\nseries of delightful books from The Malay Archipelago, first published\nin 1869, to Island Life, published in 1880. Among the minor results\nof his extensive travels--for all else that Wallace did pales before\nthe great discovery which links his name with Darwin's--was the\nestablishment of a line, known as \"Wallace's,\" which divides the Malay\nArchipelago into two main groups, \"Indo-Malaysia and Austro-Malaysia,\nmarked by distinct species and groups of animals.\" That line runs\nthrough a deep channel separating the islands of Bali and Lombok; the\nplants and animals on which, although but fifteen miles of water\nseparate them, differ from each other even more than do the islands of\nGreat Britain and Japan. \"A similar line, but somewhat farther east,\ndivides on the whole the Malay from the Papuan races of man.\"\n\nAmong the more fugitive contributions which mark Mr. Wallace's approach\nto a solution of the problem in quest of which he and Bates went to the\nAmazons is a paper On the Law which has Regulated the Introduction of\nNew Species, published in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History,\n1855. In this he shows that some form of evolution of one species from\nanother is needed to explain the geological and geographical facts of\nwhich examples are given.\n\nIn the interesting preface to the reprint of the famous paper On the\nTendencies of Varieties to depart Indefinitely from the Original Type,\nMr. Wallace recites the several researches which he made in quest of\nthat \"form\" till, when lying ill with fever at Ternate, in February,\n1858, something led him to think of the \"positive checks\" described by\nMalthus in his Essay on Population, a book which he had read some years\nbefore. Oddly enough, therefore, the honours lie with the maligned\nHaileybury Reverend Professor of Political Economy in furnishing both\nDarwin and Wallace with the clue. The \"positive checks\"--war, disease,\nfamine--Wallace felt must act even more effectively on the lower animals\nthan on man, because of their more rapid rate of multiplication. And he\ntells us, in the prefatory note to a reprint of his paper, \"there\nsuddenly flashed on me the _idea_ of the survival of the fittest, and in\nthe two hours that elapsed before my ague fit was over I had thought out\nthe whole of the theory, and in the two succeeding evenings wrote it out\nin full and sent it by the next post to Mr. Darwin,\" asking him, if he\nthought well of the essay, to send it to Lyell. This Darwin did with the\nfollowing remarks: \"Your words have come true with a vengeance--that I\nshould be forestalled.... I never saw a more striking coincidence; if\nWallace had my MS. sketch written out in 1842, he could not have made a\nbetter short abstract! Even his terms now stand as heads of my chapters.\nPlease return me the MS., which he does not say he wishes me to\npublish; but I shall, of course, at once write and offer to send to\nany journal. So all my originality, whatever it may amount to, will be\nsmashed, though my book, if it will ever have any value, will not be\ndeteriorated, as all the labour consists in the application of the\ntheory.\" Darwin came out well in this business. For to have hit upon a\ntheory which interprets so large a question as the origin and causes of\nmodification of life-forms; to keep on turning it over and over again in\nthe mind for twenty long years; to spend the working hours of every day\nin collection and verification of facts for and against it; and then to\nhave another man launching a \"bolt from the blue\" in the shape of a\npaper with exactly the same theory, might well disturb even a\nphilosopher of Darwin's serenity.\n\nHowever, both Hooker and Lyell had read his sketch a dozen years before,\nand it was arranged by them, not as considering claims of priority,\nwhich have too often been occasion of unworthy wrangling, but in the\n\"interests of science generally,\" that an abstract of Darwin's\nmanuscript should be read with Wallace's paper at a meeting of the\nLinn\u00e6an Society on the 1st of July, 1858. The full title of the joint\ncommunication was On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties, and on\nthe Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Selection. Sir\nJoseph Hooker, describing the gathering, says that \"the interest excited\nwas intense, but the subject was too novel and too ominous for the old\nschool to enter the lists before armouring. After the meeting it was\ntalked over with bated breath. Lyell's approval, and perhaps, in a small\nway mine, as his lieutenant in the affair, rather overawed the Fellows,\nwho would otherwise have flown out against the doctrine. We had, too,\nthe vantage ground of being familiar with the authors and their theme.\"\nNothing can deprive Mr. Wallace of the honour due to him as the\nco-originator of the theory, which, regarded in its application to the\norigin, history, and destiny of man, involves the most momentous changes\nin belief, and there may be fitly quoted here his own modest and,\ndoubtless, correct, assessment of limitations which in no wise\ninvalidate his high claims. In the Preface to his Contributions to the\nTheory of Natural Selection (1870), Mr. Wallace says the book will prove\nthat he both saw at the time the value and scope of the law which he had\ndiscovered, and has since been able to apply to some purpose in a few\noriginal lines of investigation. \"But,\" he adds, \"here my claims cease.\nI have felt all my life, and I still feel, the most sincere satisfaction\nthat Mr. Darwin had been at work long before me, and that it was not\nleft for me to attempt to write the Origin of Species. I have long since\nmeasured my own strength, and know full well that it would be quite\nunequal to that task. Far abler men than myself may confess that they\nhave not that untiring patience in accumulating, and that wonderful\nskill in using, large masses of facts of the most varied kind--that wide\nand accurate physiological knowledge--that acuteness in devising and\nskill in carrying out experiments, and that admirable style of\ncomposition at once clear, persuasive, and judicial--qualities which, in\ntheir harmonious combination, mark out Mr. Darwin as the man, perhaps of\nall men now living, best fitted for the great work he has undertaken\nand accomplished.\"\n\nIn a letter to Wallace dated 20th April, 1870, Darwin says, \"There has\nnever been passed on me, or, indeed, on any one, a higher eulogium than\nyours. I wish that I fully deserved it. Your modesty and candour are\nvery far from new to me. I hope it is a satisfaction to you to\nreflect--and very few things in my life have been more satisfactory to\nme--that we have never felt any jealousy towards each other, though in\none sense rivals. I believe I can say this of myself with truth, and I\nam absolutely sure it is true of you.\"\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut on one question, and that round which discussion still rages, the\nfriends were poles asunder. There had been correspondence between them\nas to the bearing of the theory of natural selection on man, and in\nApril, 1869, Darwin wrote, \"As you expected, I differ grievously from\nyou, and I am very sorry for it. I can see no necessity for calling in\nan additional and proximate cause in regard to man.\" In the fifteenth\nchapter of his comprehensive book on Darwinism, Wallace admits the\naction of natural selection in man's physical structure. This structure\nclasses him among the vertebrates; the mode of human suckling classes\nhim among the mammals; his blood, his muscles, and his nerves, the\nstructure of his heart with its veins and arteries, his lungs and his\nwhole respiratory and circulatory systems, all closely correspond to\nthose of other mammals, and are often almost identical with them. He\npossesses the same number of limbs, terminating in the same number of\ndigits, as belong fundamentally to the mammals. His senses are identical\nwith theirs, and his organs of sense are the same in number and occupy\nthe same relative position. Every detail of structure which is common to\nthe mammalia as a class is found also in man, while he differs from\nthem only in such ways and degrees as the various species or groups of\nmammals differ from each other. He is, like them, begotten by sexual\nconjugation; like them, developed from a fertilized egg, and in his\nembryonic condition passes through stages recapitulating the variety of\nenormously remote ancestors of whom he is the perfected descendant.\nFull-grown, he appears as most nearly allied to the anthropoid or\nman-like apes; so much does his skeleton resemble theirs that, comparing\nhim with the chimpanzee, we find, with very few exceptions, bone for\nbone, differing only in size, arrangement, and proportion.\n\nMr. Wallace, therefore, rejected the idea of man's special creation \"as\nbeing entirely unsupported by facts, as well as in the highest degree\nimprobable.\" _But he would not allow that natural selection explains the\norigin of man's spiritual and intellectual nature._ These, he argues,\n\"must have had another origin, and for this origin we can only find an\nadequate cause in the unseen universe of Spirit.\" More detailed\ntreatment of this argument will be given further on; here reference is\nmade to it as furnishing the explanation why Mr. Wallace kept not his\n\"first estate,\" and dropped out of the ranks of Pioneers of Evolution.\nMany subjects, as hinted above, have occupied his facile pen--land\nnationalization, causes of depression in trade, labourers' allotments,\nvaccination, _et hoc genus omne_; showing, at least, the prominence\nwhich all social matters occupy in the minds of the leading exponents of\nthe theory of Evolution. For of this, as will be seen, both Herbert\nSpencer and Huxley supply cogent examples in their application of that\ntheory to human interests. But it is as a defender, although on lines of\nhis own not wholly orthodox, of supernaturalism, with attendant beliefs\nin miracles and the grosser forms of spiritualism, that Mr. Wallace\nappears in the character of opponent to the inclusion of man's psychical\nnature as a product of Evolution.\n\nThe arresting influence of these views when backed by honest, sincere,\nand eminent men of the type of Mr. Wallace, and when also supported by\nseveral prominent men of science, renders it desirable to show that\nmodern psychism is but savage animism \"writ large,\" and wholly\nexplicable on the theory of continuity. In his book on Miracles and\nModern Spiritualism, of which a revised edition, with chapters on\nApparitions and Phantasms, was issued in 1895, Mr. Wallace contends that\n\"Spiritualism, if true, furnishes such proofs of the existence of\nethereal beings and of their power to act upon matter, as must\nrevolutionise philosophy. It demonstrates the actuality of forms of\nmatter and modes of being before inconceivable; it demonstrates mind\nwithout brain, and intelligence disconnected from what we know as the\nmaterial body; and it thus cuts away all presumption against our\ncontinued existence after the physical body is disorganised and\ndissolved. Yet more, it demonstrates, as completely as the fact can be\ndemonstrated, that the so-called dead are still alive; that our friends\nare still with us, though unseen, and guide and strengthen us when,\nowing to absence of proper conditions, they cannot make their presence\nknown. It thus furnishes a _proof_ of a future life which so many crave,\nand for want of which so many live and die in anxious doubt, so many in\npositive disbelief. It substitutes a definite, real, and practical\nconviction for a vague, theoretical, and unsatisfying faith. It\nfurnishes actual knowledge on a matter of vital importance to all men,\nand as to which the wisest men and most advanced thinkers have held, and\nstill hold, that no knowledge was attainable.\"\n\nThis claim, this tremendous claim, on behalf of the phenomena of\nspiritualism to supply an answer to \"the question of questions; the\nascertainment of man's relation to the universe of things; whence our\nrace has come; to what goal we are tending,\" rests on the assumption\nwith which Mr. Wallace starts, \"Spiritualism, _if true_.\"\n\nThe essay from which the above passages are quoted is preceded by\nreferences in detail to a considerable number of cases of \"the\nappearance of preterhuman or spiritual beings,\" the evidence of which\n\"is as good and definite as it is possible for any evidence of any fact\nto be.\" These ghost-stories, contrasted with the full-flavoured eerie\ntales of old, are feebly monotonous. The apparatus of the medium is\nlimited: the phenomena are largely of the \"horse-play\" order. Through\nthe whole series we vainly seek for some ennobling and exalting\nconception of a life beyond, some glimpses \"behind the veil,\" only to\nfind that the shades are but diluted or vulgarized parodies of\nourselves; or that \"the filthy are filthy still,\" like the departed\nbargee whose \"communicating intelligence\" (we quote from a recent book\non spiritualism entitled The Great Secret) was as coarse-mouthed as when\nin the flesh. In considering, if it be deemed worth while, the evidence\nof genuineness of the occurrences, we are thrown, not on the honesty,\nbut on the competency of the witnesses. The most eminent among these\nshow themselves persons of undisciplined emotions. The distinguished\nphysicist, Professor Oliver Lodge, who has been described to the writer\nby an intimate friend of the Professor as \"longing to believe\nsomething,\" argues that in dealing with psychical phenomena, a hazy,\nmuzzy state of mind is better than a mind \"keenly awake\" and \"on the\nspot\" (see Address to the Society for Psychical Research, Proceedings,\npart xxvi, pp. 14, 15). With this may be compared a Mohammedan receipt\nfor summoning spirits given in Klunzinger's Upper Egypt (p. 386): \"Fast\nseven days in a lonely place, and take incense with you. Read a chapter\n1001 times from the Koran. That is the secret, and you will see\nindescribable wonders; drums will be beaten beside you, and flags\nhoisted over your head, and you will see spirits.\" Thus have the dreamy\nOriental Moslem and the self-hypnotized Western professor met together\nto elicit truth from trance.\n\nConcerning the competence of Mr. Wallace himself to weigh, unbiassed,\nthe evidence which comes before him, it suffices to cite the case of\nEusapia Paladino, a Neapolitan \"medium,\" who, in the words of one of\nher most ardent dupes, became \"the unexpected instrument of driving\nconviction as to the reality of psychical manifestations by the\ninvisible into the minds of many scientists.\" A number of distinguished\nsavants testified to the genuineness of the woman's performances in\nProfessor Richet's cottage on the Ile Roubant in the autumn of 1893. It\nwas the serious and complete conviction of all of them (Lodge, Richet,\nOchorowicz, and others) that \"on no single occasion during the\noccurrence of an event recorded by them was a hand of Eusapia's\nfree to execute any trick whatever.\" Mr. Maskelyne, such testimony\nnotwithstanding, declared that the whole business was \"the sorriest of\ntrickeries,\" and, to the credit of the Society for Psychical Research,\nit undertook the expense of bringing Eusapia to England for the purpose\nof testing the genuineness of her doings. She was taken to a house in\nCambridge, and detected as a vulgar impostor. Yet Mr. Wallace, in the\nnew edition of his Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, describes all the\nphenomena occurring at Professor Richet's house as \"not explicable\nas the result of any known physical causes,\" and, in a subsequent\nexplanatory letter to the Daily Chronicle of 24th of January, 1896,\nexpresses the opinion that \"the Cambridge experiments, so far as they\nare recorded, only prove that Eusapia _might_ have deceived, not that\nshe actually and _consciously_ did so.\" The integrity of Mr. Wallace is\nnot to be doubted, but what becomes of his competence to judge when\nprejudice blinds itself to facts? Spiritualism, _if true_, demonstrates\nthis and that about the unseen; but spiritualism, _proved to be untrue_,\nlacks half the dexterity of an astute conjurer, and the whole of\nhis honesty. Every scientific man recognises the doctrine of the\nConservation of Energy as a fundamental canon. But with those who regard\nthe phenomena of Spiritualism as \"not explicable\" except by supernatural\ncauses, it would seem that that doctrine, as also the not unimportant\nconditions of Time and Space, count for nothing. When we read their\nreports of the behaviour of mediums who project (of course, in the dark)\n\"abnormal temporary prolongations\" like pseudopodia, we should feel\nalike depressed and confounded were there not abundant proofs what\nwholly untrustworthy observers scientific specialists can be outside\ntheir own domain. As the writer has remarked elsewhere, minds of this\ntype must be built in water-tight compartments. They show how, even in\nthe higher culture, the force of a dominant idea may suspend or\nnarcotize the reason and judgment, and contribute to the rise and spread\nof another of the epidemic delusions of which history supplies warning\nexamples.\n\nThey also show that man's senses have been his arch-deceivers, and his\npreconceptions their abettors, throughout human history; that advance\nhas been possible only as he has escaped through the discipline of the\nintellect from the illusive impressions about phenomena which the senses\nconvey. Upon this matter the words of the late Dr. Carpenter may be\nquoted, words the more weighty because they are the utterance of a man\nwhose philosophy was influenced by deep religious convictions: \"With\nevery disposition to accept facts when I could once clearly satisfy\nmyself that they were facts, I have had to come to the conclusion that\nwhenever I have been permitted to employ such tests as I should employ\nin any scientific investigation, there was either intentional deception\non the part of interested persons, or else self-deception on the part\nof persons who were very sober-minded and rational upon all ordinary\naffairs of life.\" He adds further: \"It has been my business lately to\ninquire into the mental condition of some of the individuals who have\nreported the most remarkable occurrences. I cannot--it would not be\nfair--say all I could with regard to that mental condition; but I can\nonly say this, that it all fits in perfectly well with the result of my\nprevious studies upon the subject, viz., that there is nothing too\nstrange to be believed by those who have once surrendered their judgment\nto the extent of accepting as credible things which common sense tells\nus are entirely incredible.\"\n\nThe fact abides that the great mass of supernatural beliefs which have\npersisted from the lower culture till now, and which are still held by\nan overwhelming majority of civilized mankind, are referable to causes\nconcomitant with man's mental development: causes operative throughout\nhis history. The low intellectual environment of his barbaric past\nwas constant for thousands of years, and his adaptation thereto was\ncomplete. The intrusion of the scientific method in its application to\nman disturbed that equilibrium. But this, as yet, only superficially.\nLike the foraminifera that persist in the ocean depths, the great\nmajority of mankind have remained, but slightly, if at all, modified;\nthus illustrating the truth of the doctrine of evolution in their\npsychical history. (For that doctrine does not imply all-round\ncontinuous advance. \"Let us never forget,\" Mr. Spencer says in Social\nStatics, \"that the law is--adaptation to circumstances, be they what\nthey may.\") Therefore the superstitions that still dominate the life of\nman, even in so-called civilized centres, are no stumbling-blocks to\nus. They are supports along the path of inquiry, because we account for\ntheir persistence. Thought and feeling have a common base, because man\nis a unit, not a duality. But the exercise of the one has been active\nfrom the beginnings of his history--indeed we know not at what point\nbackward we can classify it as human or quasi-human--while the other,\nspeaking comparatively, has but recently been called into play. So far\nas its influence on the modern World goes, may we not say that it began\nat least in the domain of scientific naturalism with the Ionian\nphilosophers? Emotionally, we are hundreds of thousands of years old;\nrationally, we are embryos.\n\nIn other words, man wondered countless ages before he reasoned; because\nfeeling travels along the line of least resistance, while thought, or\nthe challenge by inquiry--therefore the assumption that there may be two\nsides to a question--must pursue a path obstructed by the dominance of\ncustom, the force of imitation, and the strength of prejudice and fear.\nIt is here that anthropology, notably that psychical branch of it\ncomprehended under folk-lore, takes up the cue from the momentous\ndoctrine of heredity; explains the persistence of the primitive; and\nthe causes of man's tardy escape from the illusions of the senses,\nand the general conservatism of human nature. \"Born into life! in\nvain, Opinions, those or these, unalter'd to retain the obstinate\nmind decrees,\" as in the striking illustration cited in Heine's\nTravel-Pictures. \"A few years ago Bullock dug up an ancient stone idol\nin Mexico, and the next day he found that it had been crowned during\nthe night with flowers. And yet the Spaniard had exterminated the old\nMexican religion with fire and sword, and for three centuries had been\nengaged in ploughing and harrowing their minds and implanting the\nseed of Christianity.\" The causes of error and delusion, and of\nthe spiritual nightmares of olden time, being made clear, there is\nbegotten a generous sympathy with that which empirical notions of\nhuman nature attributed to wilfulness or to man's fall from a high\nestate. Superstitions which are the outcome of ignorance can only\nawaken pity. Where the corrective of knowledge is absent, we see that\nit could not be otherwise. Where that corrective is present, but\neither perverted or not exercised, pity is supplanted by blame. In\neither case, we learn that the art of life largely consists in that\ncontrol of the emotions and that diversion of them into wholesome\nchannels, which the intellect, braced with the latest knowledge, can\nalone effect.\n\nTherefore, discarding theories of revelation, spiritual illumination,\nand other assumed supra-mundane sources of knowledge, sufficing causes\nof abnormal mental phenomena are found in abnormal working of the mental\napparatus. The investigation of hallucinations (Lat. _alucinor_, to\nwander in mind) leaves no doubt that they are the effect of a morbid\ncondition of that intricate, delicately poised structure, the nervous\nsystem, under which objects are seen and sensations felt when no\ncorresponding impression has been made through the medium of the senses.\nWhen the nervous system is out of gear, voices, whether divine or of the\ndead, may be heard; and actual figures may be seen. A mental image\nbecomes a visual image; an imagined pain a real pain, as the great\nphysiologist, John Hunter, testified when he said, \"I am confident that\nI can fix my attention to any part until I have a sensation in that\npart.\" Shakespere portrays the like condition when Macbeth attempts to\nclutch the dagger wherewith to stab Duncan:\n\n                   There's no such thing;\n    It is the bloody business which informs\n    Thus to mine eyes.\n\nThis abnormal state, which sees things having no existence outside the\n\"mind's eye,\" is no respecter of persons; the savage and the civilized\nare alike its victims. It may be organic or functional. Organic, when\ndisease is present; functional, through excessive fatigue, lack of food\nor sleep, or derangement of the digestive system, causing the patient,\nas Hood says, \"to think he's pious when he's only bilious.\" Under such\nconditions, hallucinations of all sorts possess the mind; hallucinations\nfrom which the true peptic, who, as Carlyle says, \"has no system,\" is\ndelivered. Only the mentally an\u00e6mic, the emotionally overwrought, the\nunbalanced, and the epileptic, are the victims, whether of the lofty\nillusions of august visions such as carried Saint Paul, Saint Theresa,\nand Joan of Arc, into the presence of the holiest; or hallucination of\ndrowned cat, thin and \"dripping with water,\" born of the disordered\nnerves of Mrs. Gordon Jones. To quote from Dr. Gower's Bowman Lecture\n(Nature, 4th July, 1895) on Subjective Visual Sensations, such as\naccompany fits, when, e.\u00a0g., sensations of sight occur without the\nretina being stimulated:\n\n  The spectra perceived before epileptic fits vary widely. They may be\n  stars or sparks, spherical luminous bodies, or mere flashes of\n  light, white or coloured, still or in movement. Often they are more\n  elaborate, distinct visions of faces, persons, objects, places. They\n  may be combined with sensations from the other special senses, as\n  with hearing and smell. In one case a warning, constant for years,\n  began with thumping in the chest ascending to the head, where it\n  became a beating sound. Then two lights appeared, advancing nearer\n  with a pulsating motion. Suddenly these disappeared and were\n  replaced by the figure of an old woman in a red cloak, always the\n  same, who offered the patient something that had the smell of\n  Tonquin beans, and then he lost consciousness. Such warnings may be\n  called psychovisual sensations. The psychical element may be very\n  strong, as in one woman whose fits were preceded by a sudden\n  distinct vision of London in ruins, the river Thames emptied to\n  receive the rubbish, and she the only survivor of the inhabitants.\n\nHad a man of lesser renown and mental calibre than Mr. Wallace thrown\nthe weight of his testimony into the scales in favour of spiritualism,\nthere would have been neither necessity nor excuse for this digression.\nBut both these pleas prevail when we find the co-formulator of the\nDarwinian theory among mediums and their dupes. The respectful\nattention which his words command: the tremendous claims which he makes\non behalf of the phenomena at _s\u00e9ances_ as proving the existence of soul\napart from body after death, and as revealing the conditions under which\nit lives, have made incumbent the foregoing attempt to indicate what\nother explanation is given of those phenomena, showing how these fall in\nwith all we know of man's tendencies to imperfect observation and\nself-deception, and with all that history tells of the persistence of\nanimistic ideas.\n\nA salutary lesson on the use and misuse of the imagination is thus\ntaught. That which, under wholesome restraint, is the initiative and\nincentive of inquiry, of enterprise, and of noble ideas; unrestricted,\nleads the dreamer and the enthusiast into ingulfing quicksands of\nillusions and delusions. Hence the necessity of curbing a faculty so\nthat in unison with reason, it works toward definite ends within the\ndomain, marking man's limits of service. As Dr. Maudsley reminds us in\nhis sane and sober book on Natural Causes and Supernatural Seeming, \"not\nby standing out of Nature in the ecstasy of a rapt and over-strained\nidealism of any sort, but by large and close and faithful converse with\nNature and human nature in all their moods, aspects, and relations, is\nthe solid basis of fruitful ideas and the soundest mental development\nlaid. The endeavour to stimulate and strain any mental function to an\nactivity beyond the reach and need of a physical correlate in external\nnature, and to give it an independent value, is certainly an endeavour\nto go directly contrary to the sober and salutary method by which solid\nhuman development has taken place in the past, and is taking place in\nthe present.\"\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe story of Darwin's work must now be resumed. Shortly after the\nLinn\u00e6an meeting, he prepared a series of chapters which, always regarded\nby him as an \"Abstract,\" ultimately took book form, and was published,\nunder the title of the Origin of Species, on the 24th of November, 1859.\n\nThe story of the reception of the work is admirably told by Huxley in\nthe chapter which he contributed to Darwin's Life and Letters, and it\nmay be commended as useful reading to a generation which, drinking-in\nDarwinism from its birth, will not readily understand how such storm and\noutcry as rent the air, both in scientific as well as clerical quarters,\ncould have been raised. \"In fact,\" says Huxley, \"the contrast between\nthe present condition of public opinion upon the Darwinian question;\nbetween the estimation in which Darwin's views are now held in the\nscientific world; between the acquiescence, or, at least, quiescence, of\nthe theologian of the self-respecting order at the present day, and the\noutburst of antagonism on all sides in 1858-59, when the new theory\nrespecting the origin of species first became known to the older\ngeneration to which I belong, is so startling that, except for\ndocumentary evidence, I should be sometimes inclined to think my\nmemories dreams.\" The like reflection arises when we consider the\nindifference with which books of the most daring and revolutionary\ncharacter, both in theology and morals, are treated nowadays, in\ncontrast to the uproar which greeted such a _brutum fulmen_ as Essays\nand Reviews. As for Colenso's Pentateuch, and books of its type,\northodoxy has long taken them to its bosom.\n\nSo far as the larger number of naturalists, and of the intelligent\npublic who followed their lead, were concerned, there was an absolutely\nopen mind on the question of the mutation of species. There had been,\nas the foregoing sections of this book have shown, a long time of\npreparation and speculation. We certainly find the keynote of Evolution\nin Heraclitus, and more than two thousand years after his time Herbert\nSpencer, above all men, had removed it from the empirical stage, and\nplaced it on a base broad as the facts which supported it. But it needed\nthe leaven of the human and personal to stir it into life, and touch\nman in his various interests; and not all that Mr. Spencer had done\nin application of the theory of development to social questions and\ninstitutions could avail much till Darwin's theory gave it practical\nshape. Dissertations on the passage of the \"homogeneous to the\nheterogeneous\"; explanations of the theory of the evolution of complex\nsidereal systems out of diffused vapours of seemingly simple texture,\ninterested people only in a vague and wondering fashion. But when Darwin\nillustrated the theory of the modification of life-forms by familiar\nexamples gathered from his own experiments and observations, and from\nintercourse with breeders of pigeons, horses, and dogs, this went to\nmen's \"business and bosoms,\" and if the vulgar interpreted Darwinism,\nas some, who should know better, interpret it even now, as explaining\nman's descent from a monkey, or how a bear became a whale by taking to\nswimming, the thoughtful accepted it as a master-key unlocking not the\nmystery of origins or of causes of variations, but the mystery of the\nceaselessly-acting agent which, operating on favourable variations, has\nbrought about myriads of species from simple forms.\n\nAs Huxley reminds us in the passage quoted above, the attitude of the\nclergy toward the theory of Evolution has undergone an astounding\nchange. Dr. Whewell remarked that every great discovery in science has\nhad to pass through three stages. First, people said, \"It is absurd\";\nthen they said, \"It is contrary to the Bible\"; finally, they said, \"We\nalways knew that it was so.\" Thus it has been with Evolution. It is\ncalmly discussed; even claimed as a \"defender of the faith,\" at Church\nCongresses nowadays. It was not so in the sixties. Here and there a\nsingle voice was raised in qualified sympathy--Charles Kingsley showed\nmore than this--but both in the Old and the New World the \"drum\necclesiastic\" was beaten. Cardinal Manning declared Darwinism to be a\n\"brutal philosophy, to wit, there is no God and the ape is our Adam.\"\nProtestant and Catholic agreed in condemning it as \"an attempt to\ndethrone God\"; as \"a huge imposture,\" as \"tending to produce disbelief\nof the Bible,\" and \"to do away with all idea of God,\" as \"turning the\nCreator out of doors.\" Such are fair samples to be culled from the\nanthology of invective which was the staple content of nearly every\n\"criticism.\" Occasionally some parody of reasoning appears when the\n\"argument\" is advanced that there is \"a simpler explanation of the\npresence of these strange forms among the works of God in the fall of\nAdam,\" but even this pseudo-concession to logic is rare; and one divine\nhad no hesitation in predicting the fate of Darwin and his followers in\nthe world to come. \"If,\" said a Dr. Duffield in the Princeton Review,\n\"the development theory of the origin of man shall, in a little while,\ntake the place--as doubtless it will--with other exploded scientific\nspeculations, then they who accept it with its proper logical\nconsequences will, in the life to come, have their portion with those\nwho in this life 'know not God and obey not the Gospel of His Son.'\" But\nthe most notable attack came from Samuel Wilberforce, then Bishop of\nOxford, in the Quarterly Review of July, 1860. \"It is,\" said Huxley, in\nhis review of Haeckel's Evolution of Man, \"a production which should be\nbound in good stout calf, or better, asses' skin, by the curious\nbook-collector, together with Brougham's attack on the undulatory\ntheory of light when it was first propounded by Young.\" The bishop\ndeclared \"the principle of natural selection to be absolutely\nincompatible with the word of God\" and as \"contradicting the revealed\nrelations of creation to its Creator.\" If by \"revealed relations\" and\nthe \"word of God\" the Bible is intended, the evolutionist is in\nagreement with the bishop. But, at this time of day, it seems scarcely\nworth while to shake the dust off articles which have gone the way of\nall purely controversial matter, and justification for reference to them\nlies only in the fact that the contest between the biologists and the\nbishops is not yet ended.\n\nIn contrast to all this, and in evidence of the compromise by which\ntheology is vainly striving to justify itself, are these vague sentences\nfrom Archdeacon Wilson's address at the Church Congress at Shrewsbury in\nthe autumn of 1896: \"It is scarcely too much to say that the Theistic\nEvolutionist cannot be otherwise than a practical Trinitarian, and\ncannot find a difficulty in the Incarnation or in the doctrine of the\nHoly Spirit.\" \"Christian doctrine, apart from the statement of\nhistorical facts, is the attempt to create out of Christ's teaching, a\nphilosophy of life which shall satisfy these needs (i.\u00a0e., the needs of\nhumanity), and it will therefore remain the same in substance. But the\nform in which that doctrine will be presented must change with man's\nintellectual environment. The bearing of Evolution on Christian\ndoctrine is, therefore, in a word, to modify, not the doctrine, but the\nform in which it is expressed.\"\n\nPostponing the story of the famous debate between Wilberforce and\nHuxley, the reception accorded to the Origin of Species by Darwin's\nscientific contemporaries may be noted. Herbert Spencer's position, as\nwill be shown later on, was already distinctive: he was a Darwinian\nbefore Darwin. Hooker, Huxley,--who said that he was prepared to go to\nthe stake, if needs be, in support of some parts of the book,--Bates,\nand Lubbock were immediate converts; so were Asa Gray and Lyell, but\nwith reservations, for Lyell, whose creed was Unitarian, never wholly\naccepted the inclusion of man, \"body, soul, and spirit,\" as the outcome\nof natural selection. Henslow and Pictet went one mile, but refused to\ngo twain; Agassiz, Murray, and Harvey would have none of the new heresy;\nneither would Adam Sedgwick, who wrote a long protest to Darwin, couched\nin loving terms, and ending with the hope that \"we shall meet in\nheaven.\" The attitude of Owen, if apparently neutral or tentative in\nopen conversation, was, as an anonymous critic, deadly hostile. Although\nit is not included in the list of his writings given in the Life by his\ngrandson, he is known to have been the author of the critique on the\nOrigin of Species in the Edinburgh Review of April, 1860.\n\nAt the outset of the article he speaks of Darwin's \"seduction\" of\n\"several, perhaps the majority of our younger naturalists\" by the\nhomoeopathic form of the transmutation of species presented to them\nunder the phrase of natural selection.... \"Owen has long stated his\nbelief that some pre-ordained law or secondary cause is operative in\nbringing about the change ... we therefore regard the painstaking and\nminute comparison by Cuvier of the osteological and every other\ncharacter that could be tested in the mummified ibis, cat, or crocodile\nwith those of species living in his time; and the equally philosophical\ninvestigation of the polyps operating at an interval of thirty thousand\nyears in the building-up of coral reefs by the profound pal\u00e6ontologist\nof Neuch\u00e2tel (Agassiz is here referred to), as of far truer value in\nreference to the inductive determination of the question of the origin\nof species than the speculations of Demailler, Buffon, Lamarck,\n'Vestiges,' Baden Powell, or Darwin\" (p. 532).\n\nEntangled in the meshes of this theory of a \"pre-ordained law,\" which\nseems to bear some relation to Aristotle's \"perfecting principle,\" and\nis in close alliance with the teaching of the great Cuvier, at whose\nfeet Owen had sat, he remained to the end of his life a type of arrested\ndevelopment. While the Church cited him as an authority against the\nDarwinian theory, especially in its application to man's descent, there\nremained in the memory of his brother savants his lack of candour in\nnever withdrawing the statement made by him, and demonstrated by Huxley\nas untrue, that the \"hippocampus minor\" in the human brain is absent\nfrom the brain of the ape.\n\nAs for the reception of the book abroad, the French savants were\nsomewhat coy, but the Germans, with Haeckel at their head, were\nenthusiastic. Darwin had, like all prophets, more honour in other\ncountries than in his own, Evolution being rechristened _Darwinismus_.\nTranslation after translation of the Origin followed apace, and the\npersonal interest that gathered round the central idea led to the\nperusal of the book by people who had never before opened a scientific\ntreatise. Punch seized on it as subject of caricature; and writers of\nlight verse found welcome material for \"chaff\" which the winds of\noblivion have blown away, a stanza here and there surviving, as in Mr.\nCourthope's Aristophanic lines:\n\n    Eggs were laid as before, but each time more and more varieties\n        struggled and bred,\n    Till one end of the scale dropped its ancestor's tail, and the other\n        got rid of his head.\n    From the bill, in brief words, were developed the Birds, unless our\n        tame pigeons and ducks lie;\n    From the tail and hind legs, in the second-laid eggs, the apes.--and\n        Professor Huxley!\n\nHeeding neither squib, satire, nor sermon, Darwin, in the quiet of his\nKentish home, went on rearranging old materials, collecting new\nmaterials, and verifying both, the outcome of this being his works on\nthe Fertilization of Orchids and the Variation of Plants and Animals\nunder Domestication, published in 1862 and 1867 respectively. Between\nthese dates Huxley's Man's Place in Nature--logical supplement to the\nOrigin of Species--appeared. But of this more anon.\n\nMeanwhile, as already named, Mr. Patrick Matthew had in the Gardener's\nChronicle of 7th April, 1860, drawn attention to an appendix to his book\non Naval Timber and Arboriculture published in 1831, in which he\nanticipated Darwin and Wallace's theory as follows:\n\n\"The self-regulating adaptive disposition of organised life may, in\npart, be traced to the extreme fecundity of Nature, who, as before\nstated, has in all the varieties of her offspring a prolific power much\nbeyond (in many cases a thousandfold) what is necessary to fill up\nthe vacancies caused by senile decay. As the field of existence is\nlimited and pre-occupied, it is only the hardier, more robust,\nbetter-suited-to-circumstance individuals, who are able to struggle\nforward to maturity, these inhabiting only the situations to which they\nhave superior adaptation and greater power of occupancy than any other\nkind; the weaker and less circumstance-suited being prematurely\ndestroyed. This principle is in constant action; it regulates the\ncolour, the figure, the capacities, and instincts; those individuals in\neach species whose colour and covering are best suited to concealment or\nprotection from enemies, or defence from inclemencies or vicissitudes of\nclimate, whose figure is best accommodated to health, strength, defence,\nand support; whose capacities and instincts can best regulate the\nphysical energies to self-advantage according to circumstances--in such\nimmense waste of primary and youthful life those only come to maturity\nfrom the strict ordeal by which Nature tests their adaptation to\nher standard of perfection and fitness to continue their kind by\nreproduction\" (pp. 384, 385).\n\nWhile speaking of difficulty in understanding some passages in Mr.\nMatthew's appendix, Darwin says that \"the full force of the principle of\nnatural selection\" is there, and, in referring to it in a letter to\nLyell, he adds that \"one may be excused in not having discovered the\nfact in a work on Naval Timber!\"\n\nFive years after this, another pre-Darwinian was unearthed, and, like\nPatrick Matthew, in unsuspected company. Dr. W.\u00a0C. Wells read a paper\nbefore the Royal Society in 1813 on a White Female Part of whose Skin\nresembles that of a Negro, but this was not published till 1818, when it\nformed part of a volume including the author's famous Two Essays upon\nDew and Single Vision. In his Historical Sketch Darwin says that Wells\n\"distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is\nthe first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only\nto the races of man, and to certain characters alone.... Of the\naccidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and\nscattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be\nbetter fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This\nrace would consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not\nonly from their inability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from\ntheir incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours.\"\n\nWhen the simplicity of the long-hidden solution is brought home, we can\nunderstand Huxley's reflection on mastering the central idea of the\nOrigin: \"How extremely stupid not to have thought of that!\" Twelve years\nelapsed before Darwin followed up his world-shaking book with the\nDescent of Man. But the ground had been prepared for its reception in\nthe decade between 1860 and 1870. Quoting Grant Allen's able summary of\nthe advance of the theory of Evolution in his Charles Darwin: \"One by\none the few scientific men who still held out were overborne by\nthe weight of evidence. Geology kept supplying fresh instances of\ntransitional forms; the progress of research in unexplored countries\nkept adding to our knowledge of existing intermediate species and\nvarieties. During those ten years, Herbert Spencer published his First\nPrinciples, his Biology, and the remodelled form of his Psychology;\nHuxley brought out Man's Place in Nature, the Lectures on Comparative\nAnatomy, and the Introduction to the Classification of Animals; Wallace\nproduced his Malay Archipelago and his Contributions to the Theory of\nNatural Selection (Bates, we may here add to Mr. Allen's list, published\nhis paper on Mimicry in 1861, and his Naturalist on the Amazons in\n1863); and Galton wrote his admirable work on Hereditary Genius, of\nwhich his own family is so remarkable an instance. Tyndall and Lewes had\nlong since signified their warm adhesion. At Oxford, Rolleston was\nbringing up a fresh generation of young biologists in the new faith; at\nCambridge, Darwin's old university, a whole school of brilliant and\naccurate physiologists was beginning to make itself both felt and heard.\nIn the domain of anthropology, Tylor was welcoming the assistance of the\nnew ideas, while Lubbock was engaged on his kindred investigations into\nthe Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man. All\nthese diverse lines of thought both showed the widespread influence of\nDarwin's first great work, and led up to the preparation of his second,\nin which he dealt with the history and development of the human race.\nAnd what was thus true of England was equally true of the civilized\nworld, regarded as a whole: everywhere the great evolutionary movement\nwas well in progress, everywhere the impulse sent forth from the quiet\nKentish home was permeating and quickening the entire pulse of\nintelligent humanity.\"\n\nThe Origin of Species, as we have seen, was intended as a rough draft or\npreliminary outline of the theory of natural selection. The materials\nwhich Darwin had collected in support of that theory being enormous, the\nseveral books which followed between 1859 and 1881, the year before his\ndeath, were expansions of hints and parts of the pioneer book. The last\nto appear was that treating of The Formation of Vegetable Mould through\nthe Action of Worms. It embodied the results of experiments which had\nbeen carried on for more than forty years, since, as far back as 1837,\nDarwin read a paper on the subject before the Geological Society.\nReference to it recalls a story, characteristic of Darwin's innate\nmodesty, told to the writer by the present John Murray. Darwin called on\nthe elder Murray (presumably some time in 1880), and after fumbling in\nhis coat-tail pocket, drew out a packet, which he handed to Murray with\nthe timidity of an unfledged author submitting his first manuscript. \"I\nhave brought you,\" he said, \"a little thing of mine on the action of\nworms on soil,\" and then paused as if in doubt whether Murray would care\nto run the risk of bringing out the book! One story leads to another,\nand our second relates to the burial of Darwin in Westminster Abbey.\nAmong the signatures of members of Parliament, requesting Dean Bradley's\nconsent to Darwin's interment there, was that of Mr. Richard B. Martin,\npartner in the well-known bank of that name, trading under the sign of\nthe \"Grasshopper.\" In his history of this old institution Mr. John B.\nMartin prints the following letter, which was received on the 27th of\nApril, 1882, the day after Darwin's funeral.--\n\n  SIRS--We have this day drawn a check for the sum of \u00a3280, which\n  closes our account with your firm. Our reasons for thus closing an\n  account opened so very many years ago are of so exceptional a kind\n  that we are quite prepared to find that they are deemed wholly\n  inadequate to the result.... They are entirely the presence of Mr.\n  R.\u00a0B. Martin at Westminster Abbey, not merely as giving sanction to\n  the same as an individual, but appearing as one of the deputation\n  from a Society which has especially become the indorser and\n  sustainer of Mr. Darwin's theories.\n                                                      ---- & Co.\n\nThe accordance of a resting-place to Darwin's remains among England's\nillustrious dead in that Valhalla, was an irenicon from Theology to one\nwhose theories, pushed to their logical issues, have done more than any\nother to undermine the supernatural assumptions on which it is built.\nNot that Darwin was a man of aggressive type. If he speaks on the high\nmatters round which, like planet tethered to sun, the spirit of man\nrevolves by irresistible attraction, it is with hesitating voice and\nwith no deep emotion. A man of placid temper, in whom the observing\nfaculties were stronger than the reflective, he was content to collect\nand co-ordinate facts, leaving to others the work of pointing out their\nsignificance, and adjusting them, as best they could, to this or that\ntheory. It would be unjust to say of him what John Morley says of\nVoltaire, that \"he had no ear for the finer vibrations of the spiritual\nvoice,\" but we know from his own confessions, what limitations hemmed in\nhis emotional nature. The Life and Letters tells us that he was glad,\nafter the more serious work and correspondence of the day were over, to\nlisten to novels, for which he had a great love so long as they ended\nhappily, and contained \"some person whom one can thoroughly love, if a\npretty woman, so much the better.\" But strangely enough, he lost all\npleasure in music, art, and poetry after thirty. When at school he\nenjoyed Thomson, Byron, and Scott; Shelley gave him intense delight, and\nhe was fond of Shakespeare, especially the historical plays; but in his\nold age he found him \"so intolerably dull that it nauseated me.\"\n\n  This curious and lamentable loss of the higher \u00e6sthetic tastes\n  is all the odder, as books on history, biographies, and travels\n  (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and\n  essays on all sorts of subjects, interest me as much as ever they\n  did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding\n  general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should\n  have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone on which the\n  higher tastes depend I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more\n  highly organised or better constituted than mine would not, I\n  suppose, have thus suffered; and, if I had to live my life again, I\n  would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music\n  at least once every week, for perhaps the parts of my brain now\n  atrophied would thus have been kept active through use. The loss of\n  these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious\n  to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by\n  enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.\n\nIt is often said that a man's religion concerns himself only. So far as\nthe value of the majority of people's opinions on such high matters\ngoes, this is true; but it is a shallow saying when applied to men whose\nwords carry weight, or whose discoveries cause us to ask what is their\nbearing on the larger questions of human relations and destinies to\nwhich past ages have given answers that no longer satisfy us, or that\nare not compatible with the facts discovered. Whatever silence Darwin\nmaintained in his books as to his religious opinions, intelligent\nreaders would see that unaggressive as was the mode of presentments of\nhis theory, it undermined current beliefs in special providence,\nwith its special creations and contrivances, and therefore in the\nintermittent interference of a deity; thus excluding that supernatural\naction of which miracles are the decaying stock evidence.\n\nNor could they fail to ask whether the theory of natural selection by\n\"descent with modification\" was to apply to the human species. And when\nDarwin, already anticipated in this application by his more daring\ndisciples, Professors Huxley and Haeckel, published his Descent of\nMan, with its outspoken chapter on the origin of conscience and\nthe development of belief in spiritual beings, a belief subject to\nperiodical revision as knowledge increased, it was obvious that the\nbottom was knocked out of all traditional dogmas of man's fall and\nredemption, of human sin and divine forgiveness. Therefore, what Darwin\nhimself believed was a matter of moment. His answers to inquiries which\nwere made public during his lifetime told us that while the varying\ncircumstances and modes of life caused his judgment to often fluctuate,\nand that while he had never been an atheist in the sense of denying the\nexistence of a God, \"I think,\" he says, \"that generally (and more and\nmore as I grow older) but not always, an agnostic would be the most\ncorrect description of my state of mind.\" The chapter on Religion,\nalthough a part of the autobiography, is printed separately in the Life\nand Letters. As the following quotation shows, it is interesting as\ndetailing a few of the steps by which Darwin reached that suspensive\nstage.\n\n  Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember\n  being heartily laughed at by several of the officers (though\n  themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable\n  authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the novelty of\n  the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come by this\n  time--i.\u00a0e., 1836 to 1839--to see that the Old Testament was no more\n  to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos. The question,\n  then, continually rose before my mind, and would not be banished--is\n  it credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos\n  he would permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva,\n  etc., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament? This\n  appeared to me utterly incredible.\n\n  By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite\n  to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity\n  is supported--and that the more we know of the fixed laws of Nature\n  the more incredible do miracles become--that the men at that time\n  were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible\n  by us, that the Gospels can not be proved to have been written\n  simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important\n  details, far too important, as it seems to me, to be admitted as the\n  usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses: by such reflections as these,\n  which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they\n  influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a\n  divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread\n  over large portions of the earth like wildfire had some weight with\n  me.\n\n  But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this,\n  for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of\n  old letters between distinguished Romans, and manuscripts being\n  discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere, which confirmed in the most\n  striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it\n  more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to\n  invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief\n  crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The\n  rate was so slow that I felt no distress.\n\n  Although I did not think much about the existence of a personal God\n  until a considerably later period of my life, I will here give the\n  vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old argument from\n  design in Nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed to me so\n  conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has been\n  discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the beautiful\n  hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an intelligent\n  being, like the hinge of a door by a man. There seems to be no more\n  design in the variability of organic beings, and in the action of\n  natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows. But I\n  have discussed this subject at the end of my book on the Variation\n  of Domesticated Animals and Plants, and the argument there given has\n  never, as far as I can see, been answered.\n\nWithout doubt, the influence of the conclusions deducible from the\ntheory of Evolution are fatal to belief in the supernatural. When we say\nthe supernatural, we mean that great body of assumptions out of which\nare constructed all theologies, the essential element in these being the\nintimate relation between spiritual beings, of whom certain qualities\nare predicated, and man. These beings have no longer any place in the\neffective belief of intelligent and unprejudiced men, because they are\nfound to have no correspondence with the ascertained operations of\nNature.\n\n[Illustration: Herbert Spencer]\n\n\n2. _Herbert Spencer._\n\nContact with many \"sorts and conditions of men\" brings home the need of\nceaselessly dinning into their ears the fact that _Darwin's theory deals\nonly with the evolution of plants and animals from a common ancestry.\nIt is not concerned with the origin of life itself, nor with those\nconditions preceding life which are covered by the general term_,\nInorganic Evolution. Therefore, it forms but a very small part of the\ngeneral theory of the origin of the earth and other bodies, \"as the sand\nby the seashore innumerable,\" that fill the infinite spaces.\n\nWe have seen that speculation about the universe had its rise in Ionia.\nAfter centuries of discouragement, prohibition, and, sometimes, actual\npersecution, it was revived, to advance, without further serious arrest,\nsome three hundred years ago. A survey of the history of philosophies of\nthe origin of the cosmos from the time of the renascence of inquiry,\nshows that the great Immanuel Kant has not had his due. As remarked\nalready, he appears to have been the first to put into shape what is\nknown as the nebular theory. In his General Natural History and Theory\nof the Celestial Bodies; or an Attempt to Account for the Constitution\nand the Mechanical Origin of the Universe upon Newtonian Principles,\npublished in 1775, he \"pictures to himself the universe as once an\ninfinite expansion of formless and diffused matter. At one point of this\nhe supposes a single centre of attraction set up, and shows how this\nmust result in the development of a prodigious central body, surrounded\nby systems of solar and planetary worlds in all stages of development.\nIn vivid language he depicts the great world-maelstrom, widening the\nmargins of its prodigious eddy in the slow progress of millions of\nages, gradually reclaiming more and more of the molecular waste, and\nconverting chaos into cosmos. But what is gained at the margin is lost\nin the centre; the attractions of the central systems bring their\nconstituents together, which then, by the heat evolved, are converted\nonce more into molecular chaos. Thus the worlds that are lie between\nthe ruins of the worlds that have been and the chaotic materials of the\nworlds that shall be; and in spite of all waste and destruction, Cosmos\nis extending his borders at the expense of Chaos.\"\n\nKant's speculations were confirmed by the celebrated mathematician,\nLaplace. He showed that the \"rings\" rotate in the same direction as the\ncentral body from which they were cast off; sun, planets, and moons\n(those of Uranus excepted) moving in a common direction, and almost in\nthe same plane. The probability that these harmonious movements are the\neffects of like causes he calculated as 200,000 billions to one.\n\nThe observations of the famous astronomer, Sir William Herschel, which\nresulted in the discovery of binary or double stars, of star-clusters,\nand cloud-like nebul\u00e6 (as that term implies) were further confirmations\nof Kant's theory. And such modifications in this as have been made\nby subsequent advance in knowledge, notably by the doctrine of the\nConservation of Energy (the hypothesis of Kant and Laplace being based\non gravitation alone), affect not the general theory of the origin\nof the heavenly bodies from seemingly formless, unstable, and\nhighly-diffused matter. The assumption of primitive unstableness and\nunlikeness squares with the unequal distribution of matter; with the\nmovements of its masses in different directions, and at different rates;\nand with the ceaseless redistribution of matter and motion. For all\nchanges of states are due to the rearrangement of the atoms of which\nmatter is made up, resulting in the evolution of the seeming like into\nthe actual unlike; of the simple into the more and more complex,\ntill--speaking of the only planet of whose life-history we can have\nknowledge--with the cooling of the earth to a temperature permitting of\nthe evolution of living matter, the highest complexity is reached in\nthe infinitely diverse forms of plants and animals. Therefore, as our\nknowledge of matter is limited to the changes of which we assume it to\nbe the vehicle, it would seem that science reduces the Universe to the\nintelligible concept of Motion.\n\nSince the great discovery by Kirchoff, in 1859, of the meaning of the\ndark lines that cross the refracted sun-rays, the spectroscope has come\nas powerful evidence in support of the nebular theory, while the\nphotographic plate is a scarcely less important witness. The one has\ndemonstrated that many nebul\u00e6, once thought to be star-clusters, are\nmasses of glowing hydrogen and nitrogen gases; that, to quote the\nstriking communication made by the highest authority on the subject, Dr.\nHuggins, in his Presidential Address to the British Association, 1891,\n\"in the part of the heavens within our ken, the stars still in the early\nand middle stages of evolution exceed greatly in number those which\nappear to be in an advanced condition of condensation.\" The other,\nrecording infallible vibrations on a sensitive plate, and securing\naccurate registration of the impressions, reveals, as in Dr. Roberts's\ngrand photograph of the nebula in Andromeda, a central mass round which\nare distinct rings of luminous matter, these being separated from the\nmain body by dark rifts or spaces. To quote Dr. Huggins once more, \"We\nseem to have presented to us some stage of cosmical Evolution on a\ngigantic scale.\"\n\nThe great fact that lies at the back of all these confirmations of the\nnebular theory is the fundamental identity of the stuff of which the\nuniverse is made; a fact which entered into the prevision of the Ionian\ncosmologists. Dr. Huggins says that \"if the whole earth were heated to\nthe temperature of the sun, its spectrum would resemble very closely the\nsolar spectrum.\"\n\nIn referring to this, there may be carrying of \"owls to Athens,\" but\nthat re-statements may sometimes be needful has illustration in Lord\nSalisbury's Presidential Address to the British Association, 1894,\nwherein the assumed absence of oxygen and nitrogen in the sun's spectrum\nis adduced as an argument against the theory of the common origin of the\nbodies of the solar system. Speaking of the predominant proportion of\noxygen in the solid and liquid substances of the earth, and of the\npredominance of nitrogen in our atmosphere, his lordship asked, \"if the\nearth be a detached bit whisked off the mass of the sun, as cosmogonists\nlove to tell us, how comes it that, in leaving the sun, we cleaned him\nout so completely of his nitrogen and oxygen that not a trace of these\ngases remains behind to be discovered even by the searching vision of\nthe spectroscope?\" If Lord Salisbury had consulted Dr. Huggins, or some\nforeign astronomer of equal rank, as Dun\u00e9r or Scheiner, he would not\nhave put a question exposing his ignorance, and unmasking his prejudice.\nThese authorities would have told him that when a mixture of the\nincandescent vapours of the metals and metalloids (or non-metallic\nelementary substances, to which class both oxygen and nitrogen belong),\nor their compounds, is examined with the spectroscope, the spectra of\nthe metalloids always yield before that of the metals. Hence the absence\nof the lines of oxygen and other metalloids, carbon and silicon\nexcepted, among the vast crowd of lines in the solar spectrum. Then,\ntoo, in extreme states of rarefaction of the sun's absorbing layer, the\nabsorption of the oxygen is too small to be sensible to us.\n\n\"While the genesis of the Solar System, and of countless other systems\nlike it, is thus rendered comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues\nas great as ever. The problem of existence is not solved: it is simply\nremoved further back. The Nebular Hypothesis throws no light on the\norigin of diffused matter; and diffused matter as much needs accounting\nfor as concrete matter. The genesis of an atom is not easier to conceive\nthan the genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far from making the\nuniverse a less mystery than before, it makes it a greater mystery.\nCreation by manufacture is a much lower thing than creation by\nevolution. A man can put together a machine; but he cannot make a\nmachine develop itself. The ingenious artisan, able as some have been so\nfar to imitate vitality as to produce a mechanical pianoforte player,\nmay in some sort conceive how, by greater skill, a complete man might be\nartificially produced; but he is unable to conceive how such a complex\norganism gradually arises out of a minute structureless germ. That our\nharmonious universe once existed potentially as formless diffuse matter,\nand has slowly grown into its present organized state, is a far more\nastonishing fact than would have been its formation after the artificial\nmethod vulgarly supposed. Those who hold it legitimate to argue from\nphenomena to noumena, may rightly contend that the Nebular Hypothesis\nimplies a First Cause as much transcending 'the mechanical God of Paley'\nas does the fetish of the savage.\"\n\nThis quotation is from an essay on the Nebular Hypothesis, which\nappeared in the Westminster Review of July, 1858, and which must,\ntherefore, have been written before the eventful date of the reading\nof Darwin and Wallace's memorable paper before the Linn\u00e6an Society.\nThe author of that essay is Mr. Herbert Spencer, and the foregoing\nextract from it may fitly preface a brief account of his life-work in\nco-ordinating the manifold branches of knowledge into a synthetic whole.\nIn erecting a complete theory of Evolution on a purely scientific\nbasis \"his profound and vigorous writings,\" to quote Huxley, \"embody\nthe spirit of Descartes in the knowledge of our own day.\" Laying the\nfoundation of his massive structure in early manhood, Mr. Spencer has\nhad the rare satisfaction of placing the topmost stone on the building\nwhich his brain devised and his hand upreared. While the sheets of this\nlittle book are being passed for press, there arrives the third volume\nof the Principles of Sociology, which completes Mr. Spencer's Synthetic\nPhilosophy. In the preface to this, the venerable author says:\n\n\"On looking back over the six-and-thirty years which I have passed since\nthe Synthetic Philosophy was commenced, I am surprised at my audacity\nin undertaking it, and still more surprised by its completion. In 1860\nmy small resources had been nearly all frittered away in writing and\npublishing books which did not repay their expenses; and I was suffering\nunder a chronic disorder, caused by overtax of brain in 1855, which,\nwholly disabling me for eighteen months, thereafter limited my work to\nthree hours a day, and usually to less. How insane my project must have\nseemed to onlookers, may be judged from the fact that before the first\nchapter of the first volume was finished, one of my nervous breakdowns\nobliged me to desist.\n\n\"But imprudent courses do not always fail. Sometimes a forlorn hope\nis justified by the event. Though, along with other deterrents, many\nrelapses, now lasting for weeks, now for months, and once for years,\noften made me despair of reaching the end, yet at length the end is\nreached. Doubtless in earlier years some exultation would have resulted;\nbut as age creeps on feelings weaken, and now my chief pleasure is in my\nemancipation. Still there is satisfaction in the consciousness that\nlosses, discouragements, and shattered health have not prevented me\nfrom fulfilling the purpose of my life.\"\n\nThese words recall a parallel invited by Gibbon's record of his\nfeelings on the completion of his immortal work, when walking under the\nacacias of his garden at Lausanne, he pondered on the \"recovery of his\nfreedom, and perhaps the establishment of his fame,\" but with a \"sober\nmelancholy\" at the thought that \"he had taken an everlasting leave of an\nold and agreeable companion.\"\n\nHERBERT SPENCER, spiritual descendant--_longo intervallo_--of Heraclitus\nand Lucretius, was born at Derby on the 27th of April, 1820. His father\nwas a schoolmaster; a man of scientific tastes, and, it is interesting\nto note, secretary of the Derby Philosophical Association founded by\nErasmus Darwin. In Mr. Spencer's book on Education there are hints of\nhis inheritance of the father's bent as an observer and lover of Nature\nin the remark that, \"whoever has not in youth collected plants and\ninsects, knows not half the halo of interest which lanes and hedgerows\ncan assume.\" He was articled in his seventeenth year to a railway\nengineer, and followed that profession until he was twenty-five. During\nthis period he wrote various papers for the Civil Engineers' and\nArchitects' Journal, and, what is of importance to note, a series of\nletters to the Nonconformist in 1842 on The Proper Sphere of Government\n(republished as a pamphlet in 1844), in which \"the only point of\ncommunity with the general doctrine of Evolution is a belief in the\nmodifiability of human nature through adaptation to conditions, and a\nconsequent belief in human progression.\" After giving up engineering,\nMr. Spencer joined the staff of the Economist, and while thus employed,\npublished, in 1850, his first important book, Social Statics, or the\nConditions essential to Human Happiness specified, and the first of\nthem developed. In a footnote to the later editions of this work Mr.\nSpencer points out a brace of paragraphs in the chapter on General\nConsiderations in which \"may be seen the first step toward the general\ndoctrine of Evolution. After referring to the analogy between the\nsubdivision of labour, which goes on in human society as it advances;\nand the gradual diminution in the number of like parts and the\nmultiplication of unlike parts which are observable in the higher\nanimals; Mr. Spencer says:\n\n\"Now, just the same coalescence of like parts and separation of unlike\nones--just the same increasing subdivision of function--takes place in\nthe development of society. The earliest social organisms consist almost\nwholly of repetitions of one element. Every man is a warrior, hunter,\nfisherman, builder, agriculturist, toolmaker. Each portion of the\ncommunity performs the same duties with every other portion; much as\neach slice of the polyp's body is alike stomach, muscle, skin, and\nlungs. Even the chiefs, in whom a tendency towards separateness of\nfunction first appears, still retain their similarity to the rest in\neconomic respects. The next stage is distinguished by a segregation of\nthese social units into a few distinct classes--warriors, priests, and\nslaves. A further advance is seen in the sundering of the labourers into\ndifferent castes, having special occupations, as among the Hindoos. And,\nwithout further illustration, the reader will at once perceive, that\nfrom these inferior types of society up to our own complicated and more\nperfect one, the progress has ever been of the same nature. While he\nwill also perceive that this coalescence of like parts, as seen in the\nconcentration of particular manufactures in particular districts, and\nthis separation of agents having separate functions, as seen in the more\nand more minute division of labour, are still going on.\n\n\"Thus do we find, not only that the analogy between a society and a\nliving creature is borne out to a degree quite unsuspected by those who\ncommonly draw it, but also that the same definition of life applies to\nboth. This union of many men into one community--this increasing mutual\ndependence of units which were originally independent--this formation of\na whole consisting of unlike parts--this growth of an organism, of which\none portion cannot be injured without the rest feeling it--may all be\ngeneralized under the law of individuation. The development of society,\nas well as the development of man and the development of life generally,\nmay be described as a tendency to individuate--_to become a thing_. And\nrightly interpreted, the manifold forms of progress going on around us\nare uniformly significant of this tendency.\"\n\n_Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto_: \"I am a man and nothing\nhuman is foreign to me.\" This oft-quoted saying of the old farmer in the\nSelf-Tormentor of Terence might be affixed as motto to Herbert Spencer's\nwritings from the tractate on the Proper Sphere of Government to the\nconcluding volume of the Principles of Sociology. For thought of human\ninterests everywhere pervades them; social and ethical questions are\nkept in the van throughout. Philosophy is brought from her high seat to\nmix in the sweet amenities of home, in the discipline of camp, in the\nrivalry of market; and linked to conduct. Conduct is defined as \"acts\nadjusted to ends,\" the perfecting of the adjustment being the highest\naim, so that \"the greatest totality of life in self, in offspring, and\nin fellow-men\" is secured, the limit of evolution of conduct not being\nreached, \"until, beyond avoidance of direct and indirect injuries to\nothers, there are spontaneous efforts to further the welfare of others.\"\nEmerson puts this ideal into crisp form when he speaks of the time in\nwhich a man shall care more that he wrongs not his neighbour than that\nhis neighbour wrongs him; then will his \"market-cart become a chariot of\nthe sun.\"\n\nThat humanity is the pivot round which Mr. Spencer's philosophic system\nrevolves is seen in the earliest Essays, and notably in his making\nmental evolution the subject of the first instalment of his Synthetic\nPhilosophy. For, in the Principles of Psychology, published in 1855, he\nlimits feeling or consciousness to animals possessing a nervous system,\nand traces its beginnings in the \"blurred, undetermined feeling\nanswering to a single pulsation or shock\" (as for example, to go no\nlower down the life-scale, in the medusa or jelly-fish), to its highest\nform as self-consciousness, or knowing that we know, in man. This\ndominant element in Mr. Spencer's philosophy secures it a life and\npermanence which, had it been restricted to explaining the mechanics of\nthe inorganic universe, it could never have possessed. It has been\nobserved how the Darwinian theory aroused attention in all quarters\nbecause it touched human interests on every side. And, although less\nobvious to the multitude, the Synthetic Philosophy, dealing with all\ncosmic processes as purely mechanical problems, interprets \"the\nphenomena of life (excluding the question of its origin), mind, and\nsociety, in terms of matter and motion.\" Anticipating the levelling\nof epithets against such apparent materializing of mental phenomena\ninvolved in that method, Spencer remarks on the dismay with which men,\nwho have not risen above the vulgar conception which unites with matter\nthe contemptuous epithets \"gross\" and \"brute,\" regard the proposal to\nreduce the phenomena of Life, of Mind, and of Society, to a level which\nthey think so degraded. \"Whoever remembers that the forms of existence\nwhich the uncultivated speak of with so much scorn, are shown by the\nman of science to be the more marvellous in their attributes the more\nthey are investigated, and are also proved to be in their ultimate\nnatures absolutely incomprehensible--as absolutely incomprehensible\nas sensation, or the conscious something which perceives it--whoever\nclearly recognises this truth, will see that the course proposed does\nnot imply a degradation of the so-called higher, but an elevation of\nthe so-called lower. Perceiving, as he will, that the Materialist\nand Spiritualist controversy is a mere war of words,--in which the\ndisputants are equally absurd, each thinking that he understands that\nwhich it is impossible for any man to understand,--he will perceive how\nutterly groundless is the fear referred to. Being fully convinced that\nno matter what nomenclature is used, the ultimate mystery must remain\nthe same, he will be as ready to formulate all phenomena in terms of\nMatter, Motion, and Force, as in any other terms; and will rather indeed\nanticipate, that only in a doctrine which recognises the Unknown Cause\nas co-extensive with all orders of phenomena, can there be a consistent\nReligion, or a consistent Philosophy.\"\n\nThis is clear enough; yet such is the crass density of some objectors\nthat eighteen years after the above was written, Mr. Spencer, in\nanswering criticisms on First Principles, had to rebut the charge that\nhe believed matter to consist of \"space-occupying units, having shape\nand measurement.\"\n\nThe Principles of Psychology was both preceded and followed by a series\nof essays in which the process of change from the \"homogeneous to the\nheterogeneous,\" i.\u00a0e., from the seeming like to the actual unlike, was\nexpounded. Mr. Spencer tells us that in 1852 he first became acquainted\nwith Von Baer's Law of Development, or the changes undergone in each\nliving thing, from the general to the special, during its advance\nfrom the embryonic to the fully-formed state. That law confirmed the\nprevision indicated in the passages quoted above from Social Statics,\nand impressed him as one of the three doctrines which are indispensable\nelements of the general theory of Evolution. The other two are the\nCorrelation of the Physical Forces, or the transformation of different\nmodes of motion into other modes of motion, as of heat or light into\nelectricity, and so forth, in Proteus-like fashion; and the Conservation\nof Energy, or the indestructibility of matter and motion, whatever\nchanges or transformations these may undergo.\n\nIn permitting the quotation of the useful abstract of the Synthetic\nPhilosophy which, originally drawn up for the late Professor Youmans,\nwas imbodied in a letter to the Athen\u00e6um of 22d of July, 1882, Mr.\nSpencer was good enough to volunteer the following details to the\nwriter:--\n\n\"You are probably aware that the conception set forth in that abstract\nwas reached by slow steps during many years. These steps occurred as\nfollows:--\n\n  1850. Social Statics: especially chapter General Considerations.\n            (Higher human Evolution.)\n\n  1852. March. Development Hypothesis, in the Leader. (Evolution of\n            species, _vid. ante_, p. 111.)\n\n  1852. April. Theory of Population, etc., in Westminster Review.\n            (Higher human Evolution.)\n\n  1854. July. The Genesis of Science in British Quarterly Review.\n            (Intellectual Evolution.)\n\n  1855. July. Principles of Psychology. (Mental Evolution in general.)\n\n  1857. April. Progress: its Law and Cause: Westminster Review.\n            (Evolution at large.)\n\n  1857. April. Ultimate Laws of Physiology. National Review. (Another\n            factor of Evolution at large.)\n\n\"From these last two Essays came the inception of the Synthetic\nPhilosophy. The first programme of it was drawn up in January, 1858.\" ...\n\nWhen seeing Mr. Spencer on the subject of this letter, he took the\nfurther trouble to point out certain passages in the essays originally\ncomprised in the one volume edition of 1858 which contain germinal ideas\nof his synthesis. That they are his selection will add to the interest\nand value of their quotation, revealing, as perchance they may, a\nfragment of the autobiography which it is an open secret Mr. Spencer\nhas written.\n\n\"That Law, Religion, and Manners are thus related--that their respective\nkinds of operation come under one generalisation--that they have in\ncertain contrasted characteristics of men a common support and a common\ndanger--will, however, be most clearly seen on discovering that they\nhave a common origin. Little as from present appearances we should\nsuppose it, we shall yet find that at first, the control of religion,\nthe control of laws, and the control of manners, were all one control.\nHowever incredible it may now seem, we believe it to be demonstrable\nthat the rules of etiquette, the provisions of the statute-book, and the\ncommands of the decalogue, have grown from the same root. If we go far\nback enough into the ages of primeval Fetishism, it becomes manifest\nthat originally Deity, Chief, and Master of the Ceremonies were\nidentical\" (Essays, vol. i, 1883 edition; Manners and Fashion, p. 65).\n\n\"Scientific advance is as much from the special to the general as from\nthe general to the special. Quite in harmony with this we find to be the\nadmissions that the sciences are as branches of one trunk, and that they\nwere at first cultivated simultaneously; and this becomes the more\nmarked on finding, as we have done, not only that the sciences have\na common root, but that science in general has a common root with\nlanguage, classification, reasoning, art; that throughout civilisation\nthese have advanced together, acting and reacting on each other just\nas the separate sciences have done; and that thus the development of\nintelligence in all its divisions and subdivisions has conformed to this\nsame law to which we have shown the sciences conform\" (Ib. The Genesis\nof Science, pp. 191, 192).\n\n(In correspondence with this, recognising that the same method has to be\nadopted in all inquiry, whether we deal with the body or the mind, the\nfollowing may be quoted from Hume's Treatise on Human Nature.\n\n\"'Tis evident that all the sciences have a relation, greater or less,\nto human nature; and that, however wide any of them may seem to run\nfrom it, they still return back by one passage or another. Even\n_Mathematics_, _Natural Philosophy_, and _Natural Religion_ are in some\nmeasure dependent on the science of MAN, since they lie under the\ncognisance of men, and are judged of by their powers and qualities.)\n\n\"The analogy between individual organisms and the social organisms\nis one that has in all ages forced itself on the attention of the\nobservant.... While it is becoming clear that there are no such special\nparallelisms between the constituent parts of a man and those of a\nnation, as have been thought to exist, it is also becoming clear that\nthe general principles of development and structure displayed in all\norganised bodies are displayed in societies also. The fundamental\ncharacteristic both of societies and of living creatures is, that they\nconsist of mutually dependent parts; and it would seem that this\ninvolves a community of various other characteristics.... Meanwhile, if\nany such correspondence exists, it is clear that Biology and Sociology\nwill more or less interpret each other.\n\n\"One of the positions we have endeavoured to establish is, that\nin animals the process of development is carried on, not by\ndifferentiations only, but by subordinate integrations. Now in the\nsocial organism we may see the same duality of process; and further, it\nis to be observed that the integrations are of the same three kinds.\nThus we have integrations that arise from the simple growth of adjacent\nparts that perform like functions; as, for instance, the coalescence of\nManchester with its calico-weaving suburbs. We have other integrations\nthat arise when, out of several places producing a particular commodity,\none monopolises more and more of the business, and leaves the rest to\ndwindle; as witness the growth of the Yorkshire cloth districts at the\nexpense of those in the west of England.... And we have yet those\nother integrations that result from the actual approximation of the\nsimilarly-occupied parts, whence results such facts as the concentration\nof publishers in Paternoster Row, of lawyers in the Temple and\nneighbourhood, of corn merchants about Mark Lane, of civil engineers in\nGreat George Street, of bankers in the centre of the city\" (Essays,\nvol. iii, 1878 edition; Transcendental Physiology, pp. 414-416).\n\nBut, divested of technicalities, and summarized in words to be\n\"understanded of the people,\" the following quotation from the Essay on\nProgress: Its Law and Cause, gives the gist of the Synthetic Philosophy:\n\n\"We believe we have shown beyond question that that which the German\nphysiologists (Von Baer, Wolff, and others) have found to be the law of\norganic development (as of a seed into a tree, and of an egg into an\nanimal), is the law of all development. The advance from the simple to\nthe complex, through a process of successive differentiations (i.\u00a0e.,\nthe appearance of differences in the parts of a seemingly like\nsubstance), is seen alike in the earliest changes of the Universe to\nwhich we can reason our way back; and in the earlier changes which we\ncan inductively establish; it is seen in the geologic and climatic\nevolution of the Earth, and of every single organism on its surface; it\nis seen in the evolution of Humanity, whether contemplated in the\ncivilised individual, or in the aggregation of races; it is seen in the\nevolution of Society in respect alike of its political, its religious,\nand its economical organisation; and it is seen in the evolution of all\nthose endless concrete and abstract products of human activity which\nconstitute the environment of our daily life. From the remotest past\nwhich Science can fathom, up to the novelties of yesterday, that in\nwhich Progress essentially consists, is the transformation of the\nhomogeneous into the heterogeneous\" (Essays, vol. i, 1883, p. 30).\n\nTo this may fitly follow the \"succinct statement of the cardinal\nprinciples developed in the successive works,\" which Mr. Spencer, as\nnamed above, prepared for Professor Youmans.\n\n1. Throughout the universe in general and in detail there is an\nunceasing redistribution of matter and motion.\n\n2. This redistribution constitutes evolution when there is a predominant\nintegration of matter and dissipation of motion, and constitutes\ndissolution when there is a predominant absorption of motion and\ndisintegration of matter.\n\n3. Evolution is simple when the process of integration, or the formation\nof a coherent aggregate, proceeds uncomplicated by other processes.\n\n4. Evolution is compound, when along with this primary change from an\nincoherent to a coherent state, there go on secondary changes due to\ndifferences in the circumstances of the different parts of the\naggregate.\n\n5. These secondary changes constitute a transformation of the\nhomogeneous into the heterogeneous--a transformation which, like the\nfirst, is exhibited in the universe as a whole and in all (or nearly\nall) its details; in the aggregate of stars and nebul\u00e6; in the planetary\nsystem; in the earth as an inorganic mass; in each organism, vegetal or\nanimal (Von Baer's law otherwise expressed); in the aggregate of\norganisms throughout geologic time; in the mind; in society; in all\nproducts of social activity.\n\n6. The process of integration, acting locally as well as generally,\ncombines with the process of differentiation to render this change\nnot simply from homogeneity to heterogeneity, but from an indefinite\nhomogeneity to a definite heterogeneity; and this trait of increasing\ndefiniteness, which accompanies the trait of increasing heterogeneity,\nis, like it, exhibited in the totality of things and in all its\ndivisions and subdivisions down to the minutest.\n\n7. Along with this redistribution of the matter composing any evolving\naggregate there goes on a redistribution of the retained motion of its\ncomponents in relation to one another; this also becomes, step by step,\nmore definitely heterogeneous.\n\n8. In the absence of a homogeneity that is infinite and absolute, that\nredistribution, of which evolution is one phase, is inevitable. The\ncauses which necessitate it are these--\n\n9. The instability of the homogeneous, which is consequent upon the\ndifferent exposures of the different parts of any limited aggregate to\nincident forces.\n\nThe transformations hence resulting are--\n\n10. The multiplication of effects. Every mass and part of a mass on\nwhich a force falls subdivides and differentiates that force, which\nthereupon proceeds to work a variety of changes; and each of these\nbecomes the parent of similarly-multiplying changes; the multiplication\nof them becoming greater in proportion as the aggregate becomes more\nheterogeneous. And these two causes of increasing differentiations are\nfurthered by--\n\n11. Segregation, which is a process tending ever to separate unlike\nunits and to bring together like units--so serving continually to\nsharpen, or make definite, differentiations otherwise caused.\n\n12. Equilibration is the final result of these transformations which an\nevolving aggregate undergoes. The changes go on until there is reached\nan equilibrium between the forces which all parts of the aggregate are\nexposed to and the forces these parts oppose to them.\n\nEquilibration may pass through a transition stage of balanced motions\n(as in a planetary system) or of balanced functions (as in a living\nbody) on the way to ultimate equilibrium; but the state of rest in\ninorganic bodies, or death in organic bodies, is the necessary limit of\nthe changes constituting evolution.\n\n13. Dissolution is the counter-change which sooner or later every\nevolved aggregate undergoes. Remaining exposed to surrounding forces\nthat are unequilibrated, each aggregate is ever liable to be dissipated\nby the increase, gradual or sudden, of its contained motion; and\nits dissipation, quickly undergone by bodies lately animate, and\nslowly undergone by inanimate masses, remains to be undergone at an\nindefinitely remote period by each planetary and stellar mass, which\nsince an indefinitely distant period in the past has been slowly\nevolving; the cycle of its transformations being thus completed.\n\n14. This rhythm of evolution and dissolution, completing itself\nduring short periods in small aggregates, and in the vast aggregates\ndistributed through space completing itself in periods immeasurable by\nhuman thought, is, so far as we can see, universal and eternal--each\nalternating phase of the process predominating now in this region of\nspace and now in that, as local conditions determine.\n\n15. All these phenomena, from their great features down to their\nminutest details, are necessary results of the persistence of force\nunder its forms of matter and motion. Given these as distributed through\nspace, and their quantities being unchangeable, either by increase or\ndecrease, there inevitably result the continuous redistributions\ndistinguishable as evolution and dissolution, as well as all these\nspecial traits above enumerated.\n\n16. That which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in\nform, under these sensible appearances which the universe presents\nto us, transcends human knowledge and conception--is an unknown and\nunknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as without limit in\nspace and without beginning or end in time.\n\nAll that is comprised in the dozen volumes which, exclusive of the minor\nworks and the Sociological Tables, form the great body of the Synthetic\nPhilosophy, is the expansion of this abstract. The general lines\nlaid down in that Philosophy have become a permanent way along which\ninvestigation will continue to travel. The revisions which may be called\nfor will not affect it fundamentally, being limited to details, more\nespecially in the settlement of the relative functions of individuals\nand communities, and cognate questions. Into these we cannot enter here.\nSuffice it, that to those who have the rare possession of sound mental\npeptics, no more nutritive diet can be recommended than is supplied by\nFirst Principles and the works in which its theses are developed. For\nthose who, blessed with good digestion, lack leisure, there is provided\nin a convenient volume the excellent epitome which Mr. Howard Collins\nhas prepared.\n\nThe prospectus of the then proposed issue of the series of works which,\nbeginning with First Principles, ends with the Principles of Sociology\n(1862-1896), was issued by Mr. Spencer in March, 1860. Through his\ncourtesy the writer has seen the documents which prove that the first\ndraft of that prospectus was written out on the 6th of January, 1858,\nand that it was the occasion of an interesting correspondence between\nMr. Spencer and his father--mainly in the form of questions from the\nlatter--during that month. The record of these facts is of some moment\nas evidencing that the scheme of the Synthetic Philosophy took definite\nshape in 1857. Therefore, the Theory of Evolution, dealing with the\nuniverse _as a whole_, was formulated some months before the publication\nof the Darwin-Wallace paper, in which only _organic evolution_ was\ndiscussed. The Origin of Species, as the outcome of that paper, showed\nthat the action of natural selection is a sufficing cause for the\nproduction of new life-forms, and thus knocked the bottom out of the old\nbelief in special creation.\n\nThe general doctrine of Evolution, however, is not so vitally related to\nthat of natural selection that the two stand or fall together. The\nevidence as to the connection between the succession of past life-forms\nwhich, regard being had to the well-nigh obliterated record, has been\nsupplied by the fossil-yielding rocks; and the evidence as to the\nunbroken development of the highest plants and animals from the lowest\nwhich more and more confirms the theory of Von Baer; alike furnish a\nbody of testimony placing the doctrine of Organic Evolution on a\nfoundation that can never be shaken. And, firm as that, stands the\ndoctrine of Inorganic Evolution upon the support given by modern science\nto the speculations of Immanuel Kant.\n\nThere is the more need for laying stress on this because recent\ndiscussions, revealing divided opinions among biologists as to the\nsufficiency of natural selection as a cause of all modifications in the\nstructure of living things, lead timid or half-informed minds to hope\nthat the doctrine of Evolution may yet turn out not to be true. It is in\nsuch stratum of intelligence that there lurks the feeling, whenever\nsome old inscription or monument verifying statements in the Bible is\ndiscovered, that the infallibility of that book has further proof. For\nexample, until the present year, not a single confirmatory piece of\nevidence as to the story of the Exodus was forthcoming from Egypt\nitself. Even the inscription which has come to light does not, in the\njudgment of such an expert as Dr. Flinders Petrie, supply the exact\nconfirmation desired. But let that irrefragable witness appear, and\nwhile the historian will welcome it as evidence of the sojourn of the\nIsraelites in Egypt, thus throwing light on the movements of races, and\nadding to the historical value of the Pentateuch; the average orthodox\nbeliever will feel a vague sort of satisfaction that the foundations of\nhis belief in the Trinity and the Incarnation are somehow strengthened.\n\n[Illustration: T. H. Huxley]\n\n\n3. _Thomas Henry Huxley._\n\nTHOMAS HENRY HUXLEY was born at Ealing, on the 4th of May, 1825.\nMontaigne tells us that he was \"borne between eleven of the clock and\nnoone,\" and, with like quaint precision, Huxley gives the hour of his\nbirth as \"about eight o'clock in the morning.\" Speaking of his first\nChristian name, he humorously said that, by curious chance, his parents\nchose that of the particular apostle with whom, as the doubting member\nof the twelve, he had always felt most sympathy.\n\nConcerning his father, who was \"one of the masters in a large\nsemi-public school\" (the father of Herbert Spencer, it will be\nremembered, was also a schoolmaster), Huxley has little to say in the\nslight autobiographical sketch reprinted as an introduction to the first\nvolume of the Collected Essays. On that side, he tells us, he could find\nhardly any trace in himself, except a certain faculty for drawing, and\na certain hotness of temper. \"Physically and mentally,\" he was the son\nof his mother, \"a slender brunette, of an emotional and energetic\ntemperament.\" His school training was brief and profitless; his tastes\nwere mechanical, and but for lack of means, he would have started life\nin the same profession which Herbert Spencer followed till he forsook\nMessrs. Fox's office for journalism. So, with a certain shrinking from\nanatomical work, Huxley studied medicine for a time under a relative,\nand in his seventeenth year entered the Charing Cross Hospital School as\na student. In those days there was no instruction in physics, and only\nin such branch of chemistry as dealt with the nature of drugs. _Non\nmulta, sed multum_, and what was lacking in breadth was, perhaps, gained\nin thoroughness. Huxley had as excellent a teacher in Wharton Jones as\nthe latter had a promising pupil in Huxley, and in working with the\nmicroscope, the evidence of that came in his discovery of a certain\nroot-sheath in the hair, which has since then been known as \"Huxley's\nlayer.\"\n\nUp to the time of his studentship, he had been left, intellectually,\naltogether to his own devices. He tells us that he was a voracious and\nomnivorous reader, \"a dreamer and speculator of the first water, well\nendowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and every subject\nwhich is the blessed compensation of youth and inexperience.\" Among\nthe books and essays that impressed him were Guizot's History of\nCivilization; and Sir William Hamilton's essay On the Philosophy of the\nUnconditioned which he accidentally came upon in an odd volume of the\nEdinburgh Review. This, he adds, was \"devoured with avidity,\" and it\nstamped upon his mind the strong conviction \"that on even the most\nsolemn and important of questions, men are apt to take cunning phrases\nfor answers; and that the limitation of our faculties, in a great number\nof cases, renders real answers to such questions, not merely actually\nimpossible, but theoretically inconceivable.\" Thus, before he was out of\nhis teens, the philosophy that ruled his life-teaching was taking\ndefinite shape.\n\nIn 1845, he won his M.\u00a0B. London with honours in anatomy and physiology,\nand after a few months' practice at the East End, applied, at the\ninstance of his senior fellow-student, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph\nFayrer, for an appointment in the medical service of the Navy. At the\nend of two months he was fortunate enough to be entered on the books of\nNelson's old ship, the Victory, for duty at Haslar Hospital. His\nofficial chief was the famous Arctic Explorer, Sir John Richardson,\nthrough whose recommendation he was appointed, seven months later,\nassistant surgeon of the Rattlesnake. That ship, commanded by Captain\nOwen Stanley, was commissioned to survey the intricate passage within\nthe Barrier Reef skirting the eastern shores of Australia, and to\nexplore the sea lying between the northern end of that reef and New\nGuinea. It was the best apprenticeship to what was eventually the work\nof Huxley's life--the solution of biological problems and the indication\nof their far-reaching significance. Darwin and Hooker had passed through\na like marine curriculum. The former served as naturalist on board the\nBeagle when she sailed on her voyage round the world in 1831; the latter\nas assistant-surgeon on board the Erebus on her Antarctic Expedition in\n1839. Fortune was to bring the three shoulder to shoulder when the\nbattle against the theory of the immutability of species was fought.\n\nDuring his four-years' absence Huxley, in whom the biologist dominated\nthe doctor, made observations on the various marine animals collected.\nThese he sent home to the Linn\u00e6an Society in vain hope of acceptance.\nA more elaborate paper to the Royal Society, communicated through\nthe Bishop of Norwich (author of a book on birds, and father of Dean\nStanley), secured the coveted honour of publication, and on Huxley's\nreturn in 1850 a \"huge packet of separate copies\" awaited him. It dealt\nwith the anatomy and affinities of the Medus\u00e6, and the original research\nwhich it evidenced justified his election in 1851 to the fellowship of\nthe society whose presidential chair he was in after years to adorn.\nHe would seem to have won the blue ribbon of science _per saltum_.\nProbably, so far as their biological value is concerned, nothing that\nhe did subsequently has surpassed his contributions to scientific\nliterature at that period; but if his services to knowledge had been\nlimited to the class of work which they represent, he would have\nremained only a distinguished specialist. Further recognition of his\nwell-won position came in the award of the society's royal medal. But\nfellowships and medals keep no wolf from the door, and Huxley was a poor\nman. After vain attempts to obtain, first, a professorship of physiology\nin England, and then a chair of natural history at Toronto (Tyndall was\nat the same time an unsuccessful candidate for the chair of physics in\nthe same university), a settled position was secured by Sir Henry de\nla Beche's offer of the professorship of pal\u00e6ontology and of the\nlectureship on natural history in the Royal School of Mines, vacated\nby Edward Forbes. That was in 1854. Between that date and the time of\nhis return Huxley had contributed a number of valuable papers on the\nstructure of the invertebrates, and on histology, or the science of\ntissues. But these, while adding to his established qualifications for\na scientific appointment, demand no detailed reference here. With both\nchairs there was united the curatorship of the fossil collections in\nthe Museum of Practical Geology, and these, with the inspectorship of\nsalmon fisheries, which office he accepted in 1881, complete the list of\nHuxley's more important public appointments. He surrendered them all in\n1885, having reached the age at which, as he jocosely remarked to the\nwriter, \"Every scientific man ought to be poleaxed.\" Perhaps he dreaded\nthe conservatism of attitude, the non-receptivity to new ideas, which\noften accompany old age. But for himself such fears were needless. He\nwas never of robust constitution; in addition to the lasting effects\nof an illness in boyhood, Carlyle's \"accursed Hag,\" dyspepsia, which\ntroubled both Darwin and Bates for the rest of their lives after their\nreturn from abroad, troubled him. Therefore, considerations of health\nmainly prompted the surrender of his varied official responsibilities,\nthe loyal discharge of which met with becoming recognition in the grant\nof a pension. This secured a modest competence in the evening of life\nto one who had never been wealthy, and who had never coveted wealth. To\nHuxley may fitly be applied what Faraday said of himself, that he had\n\"no time to make money.\" And yet, to his abiding discredit, the present\neditor of Punch allowed his theological animus, which had already been\nshown in abortive attempts in the pages of that \"facetious\" journal to\nappraise a Roman Catholic biologist at the expense of Huxley, to further\ndegrade itself by affixing the letters \"L.\u00a0S.\u00a0D.\" to his name in a\ncharacter-sketch.\n\nHis public life may be said to date from 1854. The duties which he then\nundertook included the delivery of a course of lectures to working men\nevery alternate year. Some of these--models of their kind--have been\nreissued in the Collected Essays. Among the most notable are those on\nOur Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature. At the\noutset of his public career lecturing was as distasteful to him as in\nearlier years the trouble of writing was detestable. But mother wit and\n\"needs must\" trained him in a short time to win the ear of an audience.\nOne evening in 1852 he made his d\u00e9but at the Royal Institution, and the\nnext day he received a letter charging him with every possible fault\nthat a lecturer could commit--ungraceful stoop, awkwardness in use of\nhands, mumbling of words, or dropping them down the shirt front. The\nlesson was timely, and its effect salutary. Huxley was fond of telling\nthis story, and it is worth recording--if but as encouragement to\nstammerers who have something to say--at what price he \"bought this\nfreedom\" which held an audience spellbound. How he thus held it in\nlater years they will remember who in the packed theatre of the Royal\nInstitution listened on the evening of Friday, 9th of April, 1880, to\nhis lecture On the Coming of Age of the Origin of Species.\n\nIn 1856 Huxley visited the glaciers of the Alps with Tyndall, the result\nappearing in their joint authorship of a paper on Glacial Phenomena in\nthe Philosophical Transactions of the following year. But this was a\nrare interlude. What time could be wrested from daily routine was given\nto the study of invertebrate and vertebrate morphology, pal\u00e6ontology,\nand ethnology, familiarity with which was no mean equipment for the\nconflict soon to rage round these seemingly pacific materials when\ntheir deep import was declared. The outcome of such varied industry is\napparent to the student of scientific memoirs. But a recital of the\ntitles of papers contributed to these, as e.\u00a0g., On Ceratodus,\nHyperodapedon Gordoni, Hypsilophodon, Telerpeton, and so forth, will not\nhere tend to edification. The original and elaborate investigations\nwhich they embody have had recognition in the degrees and medals\nwhich decorated the illustrious author. But it is not by these that\nHuxley's renown as one of the most richly-endowed and widely-cultured\npersonalities of the Victorian era will endure. They might sink into\nthe oblivion which buries most purely technical work without in any\nway affecting that foremost place which he fills in the ranks of\nphilosophical biologists both as clear-headed thinker and luminous\ninterpreter.\n\nIn this high function the publication of the Origin of Species gave\nhim his opportunity. That was in 1859. As with Hooker and Bates, his\nexperiences as a traveller, and, more than this, his penetrating inquiry\ninto significances and relations, prepared his mind for acceptance of\nthe theory of descent with modification of living forms from one stock.\nHence the mutability, as against the old theory of the fixity, of\nspecies.\n\nIn the chapter On the Reception of the Origin of Species, which Huxley\ncontributed to Darwin's Life and Letters, he gives an interesting\naccount of his attitude toward that burning question. He says--\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I think that I must have read the Vestiges (see p. 119) before I left\nEngland in 1846, but if I did the book made very little impression upon\nme, and I was not brought into serious contact with the 'species'\nquestion until after 1850. At that time I had long done with the\nPentateuchal cosmogony which had been impressed upon my childish\nunderstanding as Divine truth with all the authority of parents and\ninstructors, and from which it had cost me many a struggle to get free.\nBut my mind was unbiassed in respect of any doctrine which presented\nitself if it professed to be based on purely philosophical and\nscientific reasoning.... I had not then and I have not now the smallest\n_a priori_ objection to raise to the account of the creation of animals\nand plants given in Paradise Lost, in which Milton so vividly embodies\nthe natural sense of Genesis. Far be it from me to say that it is untrue\nbecause it is impossible. I confine myself to what must be regarded as a\nmodest and reasonable request for some particle of evidence that the\nexisting species of animals and plants did originate in that way as a\ncondition of my belief in a statement which appears to me to be highly\nimprobable....\n\n\"And by way of being perfectly fair, I had exactly the same answer to\ngive to the evolutionists of 1851-58. Within the ranks of the biologists\nof that time I met with nobody, except Dr. Grant, of University College,\nwho had a word to say for Evolution, and his advocacy was not calculated\nto advance the cause. Outside these ranks the only person known to me\nwhose knowledge and capacity compelled respect, and who was at the same\ntime a thoroughgoing evolutionist, was Mr. Herbert Spencer, whose\nacquaintance I made, I think, in 1852, and then entered into the bonds\nof a friendship which I am happy to think has known no interruption.\nMany and prolonged were the battles we fought on this topic. But even my\nfriend's rare dialectic skill and copiousness of apt illustration could\nnot drive me from my agnostic position. I took my stand upon two\ngrounds: firstly, that up to that time the evidence in favour of\ntransmutation was wholly insufficient; and secondly, that no suggestion\nrespecting the causes of the transmutation assumed which had been made\nwas in any way adequate to explain the phenomena. Looking back at the\nstate of knowledge at that time, I really do not see that any other\nconclusion was justifiable.\n\n\"As I have already said, I imagine that most of those of my\ncontemporaries who thought seriously about the matter were very\nmuch in my own state of mind--inclined to say to both Mosaists and\nEvolutionists 'A plague on both your houses!' and disposed to turn aside\nfrom an interminable and apparently fruitless discussion to labour in\nthe fertile fields of ascertainable fact. And I may therefore further\nsuppose that the publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858,\nand still more that of the Origin in 1859, had the effect upon them of\nthe flash of light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night\nsuddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or\nnot, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for and could\nnot find was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms\nwhich assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to\nbe actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any\nother speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions\nwhich could be brought face to face with facts, and have their validity\ntested. The Origin provided us with the working hypothesis we sought.\nMoreover, it did the immense service of freeing us for ever from the\ndilemma--refuse to accept the creation hypothesis, and what have you to\npropose that can be accepted by any cautious reasoner? In 1857 I had no\nanswer ready, and I do not think that any one else had. A year later\nwe reproached ourselves with dulness for being perplexed by such an\ninquiry. My reflection, when I first made myself master of the central\nidea of the Origin was 'How extremely stupid not to have thought of\nthat!' I suppose that Columbus's companions said much the same when he\nmade the egg stand on end. The facts of variability, of the struggle for\nexistence, of adaptation to conditions, were notorious enough, but none\nof us had suspected that the road to the heart of the species problem\nlay through them, until Darwin and Wallace dispelled the darkness, and\nthe beacon-fire of the Origin guided the benighted.\"\n\nBut the disciple soon outstripped the master. As was said of Luther in\nrelation to Erasmus, Huxley hatched the egg that Darwin laid. For in the\nOrigin of Species the theory was not pushed to its obvious conclusion:\nDarwin only hinted that it \"would throw much light on the origin of\nman and his history.\" His silence, as he candidly tells us in the\nIntroduction to the Descent of Man, was due to a desire \"not to add to\nthe prejudices against his views.\" No such hesitancy kept Huxley silent.\nIn the spirit of Plato's Laws, he followed the argument whithersoever it\nled. In 1860 he delivered a course of lectures to working-men On the\nRelations of Man to the Lower Animals, and in 1862, a couple of lectures\non the same subject at the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution.\nThe important and significant feature of these discourses was the\ndemonstration that no cerebral barrier divides man from apes; that\nthe attempt to draw a psychical distinction between him and the lower\nanimals is futile; and that \"even the highest faculties of feeling and\nof intellect begin to germinate in lower forms of life.\" The lectures\nwere published in 1863 in a volume entitled Evidence as to Man's Place\nin Nature; and it was with pride warranted by the results of subsequent\nresearches that Huxley, in a letter to the writer, thus refers to the\nbook when arranging for its reissue among the Collected Essays--\n\n  I was looking through Man's Place in Nature the other day. I do not\n  think there is a word I need delete, nor anything I need add, except\n  in confirmation and extension of the doctrine there laid down. That\n  is great good fortune for a book thirty years old, and one that a\n  very shrewd friend of mine implored me not to publish, as it would\n  certainly ruin all my prospects.\n\nThe sparse annotations to the whole series of reprinted matter show that\nthe like permanence attends all his writings. And yet, true workman,\nwith ideal ever lying ahead, as he was, he remarked to the writer that\nnever did a book come hot from the press, but he wished that he could\nsuppress it and rewrite it.\n\nBut before dealing with the momentous issues raised in Man's Place in\nNature, we must return to 1860. For that was the \"Sturm und Drang\"\nperiod. Then, at Oxford, \"home of lost causes,\" as Matthew Arnold\napostrophizes her in the Preface to his Essays in Criticism, was fought,\non Saturday, 30th of June, a memorable duel between biologist and\nbishop; perhaps in its issues, more memorable than the historic\ndiscussion on the traditional doctrine of special creation between\nCuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in the French Academy in 1830.\n\nBoth Huxley and Wilberforce were doughty champions. The scene of combat,\nthe Museum Library, was crammed to suffocation. Fainting women were\ncarried out. There had been \"words\" between Owen and Huxley on the\nprevious Thursday. Owen contended that there were certain fundamental\ndifferences between the brains of man and apes. Huxley met this with\n\"direct and unqualified contradiction,\" and pledged himself to \"justify\nthat unusual procedure elsewhere.\" No wonder that the atmosphere was\nelectric. The bishop was up to time. Declamation usurped the vacant\nplace of argument in his speech, and the declamation became acrid. He\nfinished his harangue by asking Huxley whether he was related by his\ngrandfather's or grandmother's side to an ape. \"The Lord hath delivered\nhim into my hands,\" whispered Huxley to a friend at his side, as he rose\nto reply. After setting his opponent an example in demonstrating his\ncase by evidence which, although refuting Owen, evoked no admission of\nerror from him then or ever after, Huxley referred to the personal\nremark of Wilberforce. And this is what he said--\n\n  I asserted, and I repeat, that a man has no reason to be ashamed of\n  having an ape for his grandfather. If there were an ancestor whom I\n  should feel shame in recalling, it would be a _man_, a man of\n  restless and versatile intellect, who, not content with an equivocal\n  success in his own sphere of activity, plunges into scientific\n  questions with which he has no real acquaintance, only to obscure\n  them by an aimless rhetoric, and distract the attention of his\n  hearers from the real point at issue by eloquent digressions, and\n  skilled appeals to religious prejudice.\n\nPerhaps the best comment on a piece of what is now ancient history is to\nquote the admissions made by Lord Salisbury--a rigid High Churchman--in\nhis presidential address to the British Association in this same city of\nOxford in 1894--\n\n  Few now are found to doubt that animals separated by differences far\n  exceeding those that distinguish what we know as species have yet\n  descended from common ancestors.... Darwin has, as a matter of fact,\n  disposed of the doctrine of the immutability of species.\n\nFew, also, are now found to doubt not only that doctrine, but also the\ndoctrine that all life-forms have a common origin; plants and animals\nbeing alike built-up of matter which is identical in character. This\ndoctrine, to-day a commonplace of biology, was, thirty years ago, rank\nheresy, since it seemed to reduce the soul of man to the level of his\nbiliary duct. Hence the Oxford storm was but a capful of wind compared\nwith that which raged round Huxley's lecture on The Physical Basis of\nLife delivered, thus aggravating the offence, on a \"Sabbath\" evening in\nEdinburgh in 1868. People had settled down, with more or less vague\nunderstanding of the matter, into quiescent acceptance of Darwinism. And\nnow their somnolence was rudely shaken by this Southron troubler of\nIsrael, with his production of a bottle of solution of smelling salts,\nand a pinch or two of other ingredients, which represented the\nelementary substances entering into the composition of every living\nthing from a jelly-speck to man. Well might the removal of the stopper\nto that bottle take their breath away! Microscopists, philosophers\n\"so-called,\" and clerics alike raised the cry of \"gross materialism,\"\nnever pausing to read Huxley's anticipatory answer to the baseless\ncharge, an answer repeated again and again in his writings, as in the\nessay of Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason\nrightly, and in his Hume. In season and out of season he never wearies\nin insisting that there is nothing in the doctrine inconsistent with the\npurest idealism. \"All the phenomena of Nature are, in their ultimate\nanalysis, known to us only as facts of consciousness.\" The cyclone thus\nraised travelled westward on the heels of Tyndall, when in 1874 he\nasserted the fundamental identity of the organic and inorganic; dashing,\nas his Celtic blood stirred him, the statements with a touch of poetry\nin the famous phrase that \"the genius of Newton was potential in the\nfires of the sun.\"\n\nThe ancient belief in \"spontaneous generation,\" which Redi's experiments\nupset, was the subject of Huxley's Presidential Address to the British\nAssociation in 1870. But while he showed how subsequent investigation\nconfirmed the doctrine of Abiogenesis, or the non-production of living\nfrom dead matter, he made this statement in support of Tyndall's creed\nas to the fundamental unity of the vital and the non-vital.\n\n\"Looking back through the prodigious vista of the past, I find no record\nof the commencement of life, and therefore I am devoid of any means of\nforming a definite conclusion as to the conditions of its appearance.\nBelief, in the scientific sense of the word, is a serious matter, and\nneeds strong foundations. To say, therefore, in the admitted absence of\nevidence, that I have any belief as to the mode in which the existing\nforms of life have originated, would be using words in a wrong sense.\nBut expectation is permissible where belief is not; and if it were given\nto me to look beyond the abyss of geologically recorded time to the\nstill more remote period when the earth was passing through physical and\nchemical conditions which it can no more see again than a man can recall\nhis infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evolution of living\nprotoplasm from non-living matter. I should expect to see it appear\nunder forms of great simplicity, endowed, like existing fungi, with the\npower of determining the formation of new protoplasm from such matters\nas ammonium carbonates, oxalates, and tartrates, alkaline and earthy\nphosphates, and water, without the aid of light. That is the expectation\nto which analogical reasoning leads me; but I beg you once more to\nrecollect that I have no right to call my opinion anything but an act of\nphilosophical faith.\"\n\nHuxley was the Apostle Paul of the Darwinian movement, and one main\nresult of his active propagandism was to so effectively prepare the way\nfor the reception of the profounder issues involved in the theory of the\norigin of species, that the publication of Darwin's Descent of Man in\n1871 created mild excitement. And the weight of his support is the\ngreater because he never omitted to lay stress on the obscurity which\nstill hides the causes of variation which, it must be kept in mind,\nnatural selection cannot bring about, and on which it can only act. He\ninsists on the non-implication of the larger theory with its subordinate\nparts, or with the fate of them. The \"doctrine of Evolution is a\ngeneralisation of certain facts which may be observed by any one who\nwill take the necessary trouble.\" The facts are those which biologists\nclass under the heads of Embryology and Pal\u00e6ontology, to the conclusions\nfrom which \"all future philosophical and theological speculations will\nhave to accommodate themselves.\"\n\nThat is the direction of the revolution to which the publication of\nMan's Place in Nature gave impetus; and it is in the all-round\napplication of the theory of man's descent that Huxley stands foremost,\nboth as leader and lawgiver. Mr. Spencer has never shrunk from\ncontroversy, but he has not forsaken the study for the arena, and hence\nhis influence, great and abiding as it is, has been less direct and\npersonal than that of his comrade, \"ever a fighter,\" who, in Browning's\nwords, \"marched breast forward.\" Man's Place in Nature was the first of\na series of deliverances upon the most serious questions that can occupy\nthe mind; and its successors, the brilliant monograph on Hume, published\nin 1879, and the Romanes Lecture on Evolution and Ethics, delivered at\nOxford, 18th of May, 1893, are but expansions of the thesis laid down in\nthat wonderful little volume; wonderful in the prevision which fills it,\nand in the justification which it has received from all subsequent\nresearch, notably in psychology.\n\nIf the propositions therein maintained are unshaken, then there is no\npossible reconciliation between Evolution and Theology, and all the\nsmooth sayings in attempted harmonies between the two, of which\nProfessor Drummond's Ascent of Man is a type, and in speeches at Church\nCongresses of which that delivered by Archdeacon Wilson (see p. 161) is\na type, do but hypnotize the \"light half-believers of our casual\ncreeds.\" To some there are \"signs of the times\" which point to\napproaching acquiescence in the sentiment of Ovid, paralleled by a\nfamous passage in Gibbon, that \"the existence of the gods is a matter of\npublic policy, and we must believe it accordingly.\" It looks like the\nprelude to surrender of what is the cardinal dogma of Christianity when\nwe read in the Archdeacon's address that \"the theory of Evolution is\nindeed fatal to certain _quasi_-mythological doctrines of the Atonement\nwhich once prevailed, but it is in harmony with its spirit.\" For those\ndoctrines, as the Venerable apologist may learn from the evidence in\nFrazer's Golden Bough (chap. iii, _passim_), are wholly mythological,\nbecause barbaric. But, in truth, there is not a dogma of Christendom,\nnot a foundation on which the dogma rests, that Evolution does not\ntraverse. The Church of England adopts \"as thoroughly to be received\nand believed,\" the three ancient creeds, known as the Apostles', the\nAthanasian, and the Nicene. There is not a sentence in any one of these\nwhich finds confirmation; and only a sentence or two that find neither\nconfirmation nor contradiction, in Evolution.\n\nThe question, on which reams of paper have been wasted, lies in a\nnutshell. The statements in the Creeds profess to have warrant in the\ndirect words of the Bible; or in inferences drawn from those words, as\ndefined by the Councils of the Church. The decisions of these Councils\nrepresent the opinion of the majority of fallible men composing those\nassemblies, and no number of fallible parts can make an infallible\nwhole. As Selden quaintly puts it (Table Talk, xxx, Councils), \"they\ntalk (but blasphemously enough) that the Holy Ghost is president of\ntheir General Councils, when the truth is the odd man is still the Holy\nGhost.\" With this same \"odd man\" rested the decision as to what books\nshould be included or excluded from the collection on which the Church\nbases its authority and formulates its creeds. So, in the last result,\nboth sets of questions are settled by a human tribunal employing a\ncircular argument. But, dismissing this for the moment, let us see to\nwhat issues the controversy is narrowed, to quote Huxley's words\n(written in 1871), by \"the spontaneous retreat of the enemy from\nnine-tenths of the territory which he occupied ten years ago.\"\n\nThe battle has no longer to be fought over the question of the\nfundamental identity of the physical structure of man and of the\nanthropoid apes. The most enlightened Protestant divines accept this as\nproven; and not a few Catholic divines are adopting an attitude toward\nit which is only the prelude to surrender. Matters must have moved apace\nin the Church which Huxley, backed by history, describes as \"that\nvigorous and consistent enemy of the highest intellectual, moral, and\nsocial life of mankind,\" to permit the Roman Catholic Professor of\nPhysics in the University of Notre Dame, America, to parley as follows:\n\n\"Granting that future researches in pal\u00e6ontology, anthropology, and\nbiology, shall demonstrate beyond doubt that man is genetically related\nto the inferior animals, and we have seen how far scientists are from\nsuch a demonstration (?), there will not be, even in such an improbable\nevent, the slightest ground for imagining that then, at last, the\nconclusions of science are hopelessly at variance with the declarations\nof the sacred text, or the authorised teachings of the Church of Christ.\nAll that would logically follow from the demonstration of the animal\norigin of man, would be a modification of the traditional view regarding\nthe origin of the body of our first ancestor. We should be obliged to\nrevise the interpretation that has usually been given to the words of\nScripture which refer to the formation of Adam's body, and read these\nwords in the sense which Evolution demands, a sense which, as we have\nseen, may be attributed to the words of the inspired record, without\neither distorting the meaning of terms, or in any way doing violence to\nthe text\" (Evolution and Dogma. By the Reverend J. A. Zahm, Ph. D.,\nC.S.C., pp. 364, 365).\n\nUpon this suggested revision of writings which are claimed as forming\npart of a divine revelation, one of the highest authorities, Francisco\nSuarez, thus refers, in his Tractatus de Opere sex Dierum, to the\nelastic interpretation given in his time to the \"days\" in the first\nchapter of Genesis. \"It is not probable that God, in inspiring Moses to\nwrite a history of the Creation, which was to be believed by ordinary\npeople, would have made him use language the true meaning of which it\nwas hard to discover, and still harder to believe.\" Three centuries have\npassed since these wise words were penned, and the reproof which they\nconvey is as much needed now as then.\n\nIn near connection with the question of man's origin is that of his\nantiquity. The existence of his remains, rare as they are everywhere, in\ndeposits older than the Pleistocene or Quaternary Epoch is not proven.\nThis applies to the remarkable fragments found by Dr. Dubois in Java,\nthe character of which, in the judgment of several pal\u00e6ontologists,\nindicates the nearest approach between man and ape hitherto discovered.\nBut the evidence of the physical relation of these two being conclusive,\nthe exact place of man in the earth's time-record is rendered of\nsubordinate importance.\n\nThe theologians have come to their last ditch in contesting that the\nmental differences between man and the lower animals are fundamental,\nbeing differences of kind, and therefore that no gradual process from\nthe mental faculties of the one to those of the other has taken place.\nThis struggle against the application of the theory of Evolution to\nman's intellectual and spiritual nature will be long and stubborn. It\nis a matter of life and death to the theologian to show that he has in\nrevelation, and in the world-wide belief of mankind in spiritual\nexistences without, and in a spirit or soul within, evidence of the\nsupernatural. The evolutionist has no such corresponding deep concern.\nWhen the argument against him is adduced from the Bible, he can only\nchallenge the ground on which that book is cited as divine authority, or\nas an authority at all. Granting, for the sake of argument, that a\nrevelation has been made, the writings purporting to contain it must\ncomply with the twofold condition attaching to it, namely, that it makes\nknown matters which the human mind could not, unaided, have found out;\nand that it embodies those matters in language as to the meaning of\nwhich there can be no doubt whatever. If there be any sacred books which\ncomply with these conditions, they have yet to be discovered.\n\nWhen the argument against the evolutionist is drawn from human\ntestimony, he does not dispute the existence of the belief in a soul and\nin all the accompanying apparatus of the supernatural; but he calls in\nthe anthropologist to explain how these arose in the barbaric mind.\n\nMeanwhile, let us summarize the evidence which points to the psychical\nunity between man and the lower life-forms. As stated on p. 187, Mr.\nHerbert Spencer traces the gradual evolution of consciousness from \"the\nblurred, indeterminate feeling which responds to a single nerve\npulsation or shock.\" There is no trace of a nervous system in the\nsimplest organisms, but this counts for little, because there are also\nno traces of a mouth, or a stomach, or limbs. In these seemingly\nstructureless creatures every part does everything. The amoeba eats and\ndrinks, digests and excretes, manifests \"irritability,\" that is,\nresponds to the various stimuli of its surroundings, and multiplies,\nwithout possessing special organs for these various functions. Division\nof labour arises at a slightly higher stage, when rudimentary organs\nappear; the development of function and organ going on simultaneously.\n\nSpeaking broadly, the functions of living things are threefold: they\nfeed; they reproduce; they respond to their \"environment,\" and it is\nthis last-named function--communication with surroundings--which is the\nspecial work of the nervous system. It was an old Greek maxim that \"a\nman may once say a thing as he would have said it: he cannot say it\ntwice.\" This is the warrant for transferring a few sentences on the\norigin of the nerves from my Story of Creation. They are but a meagre\nabstract of Mr. Spencer's long, but luminous exposition of the subject.\n\n\"As every part of an organism is made up of cells, and as the functions\ngovern the form of the cells, the origin of nerves must be due to a\nmodification in cell shape and arrangement, whereby certain tracts or\nfibres of communication between the body and its surroundings are\nestablished.\n\n\"But what excited that modification? The all-surrounding medium, without\nwhich no life had been, which determined its limits, and _touches_ it at\nevery point with its throbs and vibrations. In the beginnings of a\nprimitive layer or skin manifested by creatures a stage above the\nlowest, unlikenesses would arise, and certain parts, by reason of their\nfiner structure, would be the more readily stimulated by, and the more\nquickly responsive to, the ceaseless action of the surroundings, the\nresult being that an extra sensitiveness along the lines of least\nresistance would be set up in those more delicate parts. These,\ndeveloping, like all things else, by use, would become more and more the\nselected paths of the impulses, leading, as the molecular waves thrilled\nthem, to structural changes or modification into nerve-cells, and\nnerve-fibres, of increasing complexity as we ascend the scale of life.\nThe entire nervous system, with its connections; the brain and all the\nsubtle mechanism with which it controls the body; the organs of the\nsenses alike begin as sacs formed by infoldings of the primitive outer\nskin.\"\n\nBiologists are agreed that a certain stage in the organization of the\nnervous system--the germs of which, we saw, are visible in the quivering\nof an amoeba, and probably in plants as well as animals--must be reached\nbefore consciousness is manifest. Obscurity still hangs round the stage\nat which mere irritability passes into sensibility, but so long as the\ncontinuity of development is clear, the gradations are of lesser\nimportance. And, for the present purpose, there is no need to descend\nfar in the life-scale; if the psychical connection between man and the\nmammals immediately beneath him is proven, the connection of the mammals\nwith the lowest invertebrate may be assumed as also established.\nSpeaking only of vertebrates, the brain being, whether in fish or man,\nthe organ of mental phenomena, how far does its structure support or\ndestroy the theory of mental continuity? In Man's Place in Nature, and\nits invaluable supplement, the second part of the monograph on Hume,\nthis subject is expounded by Huxley with his usual clearness. In the\nolder book he traces the gradual modification of brain in the series of\nbackboned animals. He points out that the brain of a fish is very small\ncompared with the spinal cord into which it is continued, that in\nreptiles the mass of brain, relatively to the spinal cord, is larger,\nand still larger in birds, until among the lowest mammals, as the\nopossums and kangaroos, the brain is so increased in proportion as to be\nextremely different from that of fish, bird, or reptile. Between these\nmarsupials and the highest or placental mammals, there occurs \"the\ngreatest leap anywhere made by Nature in her brain work.\" Then follows\nthis important statement in favour of continuity.\n\n\"As if to demonstrate, by a striking example, the impossibility of\nerecting any cerebral barrier between man and the apes, Nature has\nprovided us, in the latter animals, with an almost complete series of\ngradations from brains little higher than that of a Rodent to brains\nlittle lower than that of Man.\" After giving technical descriptions\nin proof of this, and laying special stress on the presence of the\nstructure known as the \"hippocampus minor\" in the brain of man as well\nas of the ape--in the denial of which Owen cut such a sorry figure,\nHuxley adds:\n\n\"So far as cerebral structure goes, therefore, it is clear that Man\ndiffers less from the Chimpanzee or the Orang than these do even\nfrom the Monkeys, and that the difference between the brains of the\nChimpanzee and of Man is almost insignificant when compared with that\nbetween the Chimpanzee brain and that of a Lemur.... Thus, whatever\nsystem of organs be studied, the comparison of their modifications in\nthe ape series leads to one and the same result,--that the structural\ndifferences which separate Man from the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee are\nnot so great as those which separate the Gorilla from the lower apes.\nBut in enunciating this important truth I must guard myself against a\nform of misunderstanding which is very prevalent ... that the structural\ndifferences between man and even the highest apes are small and\ninsignificant. Let me then distinctly assert, on the contrary, that they\nare great and significant; that every bone of a Gorilla bears marks by\nwhich it might be distinguished from the corresponding bone of a Man;\nand that, in the present creation, at any rate, no intermediate link\nbridges over the gap between _Homo_ and _Troglodytes_. It would be no\nless wrong than absurd to deny the existence of this chasm; but it is at\nleast equally wrong and absurd to exaggerate its magnitude, and, resting\non the admitted fact of its existence, to refuse to inquire whether it\nis wide or narrow. Remember, if you will, that there is no existing link\nbetween Man and the Gorilla, but do not forget that there is a no less\nsharp line of demarcation, a no less complete absence of any traditional\nform, between the Gorilla and the Orang, or the Orang and the Gibbon.\"\n\nThe brains of man and ape being fundamentally the same in structure, it\nfollows that the functions which they perform are fundamentally the\nsame. The large array of facts mustered by a series of careful observers\nprove how futile is the argument which, in his pride of birth, man\nadvances against psychical continuity. Vain is the search after boundary\nlines between reflex action and instinct, and between instinct and\nreason. Barriers there are between man and brute, for articulate speech\nand the consequent power to transmit experiences has set up these, and\nthey remain impassable. \"The potentialities of language, as the vocal\nsymbol of thought, lay in the faculty of modulating and articulating the\nvoice. The potentialities of writing, as the visual symbol of thought,\nlay in the hand that could draw, and in the mimetic tendency which we\nknow was gratified by drawing as far back as the days of Quaternary man\"\n(Huxley's Essays on Controverted Questions, p. 47). But these specially\nhuman characteristics are no sufficing warrant for denying that the\nsensations, emotions, thoughts, and volitions of man vary in kind from\nthose of the lower creation. \"The essential resemblances in all points\nof structure and function, so far as they can be studied, between the\nnervous system of man and that of the dog, leave no reasonable doubt\nthat the processes which go on in the one are just like those which take\nplace in the other. In the dog, there can be no doubt that the nervous\nmatter which lies between the retina and the muscles undergoes a series\nof changes, precisely analogous to those which, in the man, give rise\nto sensation, a train of thought, and volition.\" This passage occurs\nin Huxley's Reply to Mr. Darwin's Critics, which appeared in the\nContemporary Review, 1871, and it may be supplemented by a quotation\nfrom the chapter on The Mental Phenomena of Animals in his Hume. \"It\nseems hard to assign any good reason for denying to the higher animals\nany mental state or process in which the employment of the vocal or\nvisual symbols of which language is composed is not involved; and\ncomparative psychology confirms the position in relation to the rest of\nthe animal world assigned to man by comparative anatomy. As comparative\nanatomy is easily able to show that, physically, man is but the last\nterm of a long series of forms, which lead, by slow gradations, from the\nhighest mammal to the almost formless speck of living protoplasm, which\nlies on the shadowy boundary between animal and vegetable life; so,\ncomparative psychology, though but a young science, and far short of her\nelder sister's growth, points to the same conclusion.\"\n\nWithin recent years the psychologists are doing remarkable work in\nattacking the problem of the mechanics of mental operations, and already\nin Europe and America some thirty laboratories have been started for\nexperimental work. The subject is somewhat abstruse for detailed\nreference here, and it must suffice to say that the psychologist,\nbeginning with observations upon himself, measuring, for example, \"the\ndegree of sensibility of his own eye to luminous irritations, or of his\nown skin to pricking, passes on to like inquiry into the numerical\nrelations between the energy of the stimuli of light, sound, and so\nforth, and the energy of the sensations which they arouse in the\nnerve-channels.\" An excellent summary, with references to the newest\nauthorities on the subject, is given by Prince Kropotkin in the\nNineteenth Century of August, 1896.\n\nAll this, to the superficial onlooker, seems rank materialism. But we\ncannot think without a brain any more than we can see without eyes, and\nany inquiry into the operation of the organ of thought must run on the\nsame lines as inquiry into the operations of any other organ of the\nbody. And the inquiry leaves us at the point whence we began in so\nfar as any light is thrown on the connection between the molecular\nvibrations in nerve-tissue and the mental processes of which they are\nthe indispensable accompaniment. Changes take place in some of the\nthousands of millions of brain-cells in every thought that we think, and\nin every emotion that we feel, but the nexus remains an impenetrable\nmystery. Nevertheless, if we may not say that the brain secretes thought\nas we say that the liver secretes bile, we may also not say that the\nmind is detachable from the nervous system, and that it is an entity\nindependent of it. Were it this, not only would it stand outside the\nordinary conditions of development, but it would also maintain the\nequilibrium which a dose of narcotics or of alcohol, or which starvation\nand gorging alike rapidly upset.\n\nIn his posthumous essay On the Immortality of the Soul, Hume says:\n\"Matter and spirit are at bottom equally unknown, and we cannot\ndetermine what qualities inhere in the one or in the other.\" That is the\nconclusion to which the wisest come. And in the ultimate correlation of\nthe physical and psychical lies the hope of arrival at that terminus\nof unity which was the dream of the ancient Greeks, and to which all\ninquiry makes approach. How, in these matters, philosophy is at one, is\nagain seen in Huxley's admission that \"in respect of the great problems\nof philosophy, the post-Darwinian generation is, in one sense, exactly\nwhere the pr\u00e6-Darwinian generations were. They remain insoluble. But the\npresent generation has the advantage of being better provided with the\nmeans of freeing itself from the tyranny of certain sham solutions.\"\n\nScience explains, and, in explaining, dissipates the pseudo-mysteries by\nwhich man, in his myth-making stage, when conception of the order of the\nuniverse was yet unborn, accounted for everything. But she may borrow\nthe Apostle's words, \"Behold! I show you a mystery,\" and give to them a\nprofounder meaning as she confesses that the origin and ultimate destiny\nof matter and motion; the causes which determine the behaviour of atoms,\nwhether they are arranged in the lovely and varying forms which mark\ntheir crystals, or whether they are quivering with the life which is\ncommon to the amoeba and the man; the conversion of the inorganic into\nthe organic by the green plant, and the relation between nerve-changes\nand consciousness; are all impenetrable mysteries.\n\nIn his speech on the commemoration of the jubilee of his Professorship\nin the University of Glasgow last year, Lord Kelvin said, \"I know no\nmore of electric and magnetic force, or of the relation between ether,\nelectricity, and ponderable matter, or of chemical affinity than I knew\nand tried to teach my students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in\nmy first session as professor.\"\n\nThis recognition of limitations will content those who seek not \"after a\nsign\". For others, that search will continue to have encouragement not\nonly from the theologian, but from the pseudo-scientific who have\ntravelled some distance with the Pioneers of Evolution, but who refuse\nto follow them further. In each of these there is present the\n\"theological bias\" whose varied forms are skilfully analyzed by Mr.\nSpencer in his chapter under that heading in the Study of Sociology.\nThis explains the attitude of various groups which are severally\nrepresented by Mr. St. George Mivart, and the late Dr. W.\u00a0B. Carpenter;\nby Professor Sir Geo. G. Stokes, and Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace. The\nfirst-named is a Roman Catholic; the second was a Unitarian; the third\nis an orthodox Churchman, and the fourth, as already seen, is a\nSpiritualist. In his Genesis of Species, Mr. Mivart contends that \"man's\nbody was evolved from pre-existing material (symbolised by the term\n'dust of the earth'), and was therefore only derivatively created,\ni.\u00a0e., by the operation of secondary laws,\" but that \"his soul, on the\nother hand, was created in quite a different way ... by the direct\naction of the Almighty (symbolised by the term breathing),\" p. 325. In\nhis Mental Physiology, Dr. Carpenter postulates an Ego or Will which\npresides over, without sharing in, the causally determined action of the\nother mental functions and their correlated bodily processes; \"an entity\nwhich does not depend for its existence on any play of physical or vital\nforces, but which makes these forces subservient to its determinations\"\n(p. 27). Professor Mivart actually cites St. Augustine and Cardinal\nNewman as authorities in support of his theory of the special creation\nof the soul. He might with equal effect subpoena Dr. Joseph Parker or\nGeneral Booth as authorities. Dr. Carpenter argued as became a good\nUnitarian. In his Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology, Professor Stokes\nasserts, drawing \"on sources of information which lie beyond man's\nnatural powers,\" in other words, appealing to the Bible, that God made\nman immortal and upright, and endowed him with freedom of the will. As,\nwithout the exercise of this, man would have been as a mere automaton,\nhe was exposed to the temptation of the devil, and fell. Thereby he\nbecame \"subject to death like the lower animals,\" and by the \"natural\neffect of heredity,\" transmitted the taint of sin to his offspring. The\neternal life thus forfeited was restored by the voluntary sacrifice of\nChrist, but can be secured only to those who have faith in him. This\ndoctrine, which is no novel one, is known as \"conditional immortality.\"\nProfessor Stokes attaches \"no value to the belief in a future life by\nmetaphysical arguments founded on the supposed nature of the soul\nitself,\" and he admits that the purely psychic theory which would\ndiscard the body altogether in regard to the process of thought is beset\nby very great difficulties. So he once more has recourse to \"sources of\ninformation which lie beyond man's natural powers.\" Following up certain\ndistinctions between \"soul\" and \"spirit\" drawn by the Apostle Paul in\nhis tripartite division of man, Professor Stokes, somewhat in keeping\nwith Dr. Carpenter, assumes an \"Ego, which, on the one hand, is not\nto be identified with thought, which may exist while thought is in\nabeyance, and which may, with the future body of which the Christian\nreligion speaks, be the medium of continuity of thought.... What\nthe nature of this body might be we do not know; but we are pretty\ndistinctly informed that it would be something very different from that\nof our present body, very different in its properties and functions, and\nyet no less our own than our present body.\" \"Words, words, words,\" as\nHamlet says.\n\nReference has been made in some fulness to Mr. Wallace's limitations of\nthe theory of natural selection in the case of man's mental faculties.\nWe must now pursue this somewhat in detail, reminding the reader of Mr.\nWallace's admission that, \"provisionally, the laws of variation and\nnatural selection ... may have brought about, first, that perfection of\nbodily structure in which man is so far above all other animals, and, in\nco-ordination with it, the larger and more developed brain by means of\nwhich he has been able to subject the whole animal and vegetable\nkingdoms to his service.\" But, although Mr. Wallace rejects the theory\nof man's special creation as \"being entirely unsupported by facts, as\nwell as in the highest degree improbable,\" he contends that it does not\nnecessarily follow that \"his mental nature, even though developed _pari\npassu_ with his physical structure, has been developed by the same\nagencies.\" Then, by the introduction of a physical analogy which is no\nanalogy at all, he suggests that the agent by which man was upraised\ninto a kingdom apart bears like relation to natural selection as the\nglacial epoch bears to the ordinary agents of denudation and other\nchanges in producing new effects which, though continuous with preceding\neffects, were not due to the same causes.\n\nApplying this \"argument\" (drawn from natural causes), as Mr. Wallace\nnames it, \"to the case of man's intellectual and moral nature,\" he\ncontends that such special faculties as the mathematical, musical, and\nartistic (is this faculty to be denied the nest-decorating bower bird?),\nand the high moral qualities which have given the martyr his constancy,\nthe patriot his devotion, and the philanthropist his unselfishness, are\ndue to a \"spiritual essence or nature, superadded to the animal nature\nof man.\" We are not told at what stage in man's development this was\ninserted; whether, once and for all, in \"primitive\" man, with\npotentiality of transmission through Pal\u00e6olithic folk to all succeeding\ngenerations; or whether there is special infusion of a \"spiritual\nessence\" into every human being at birth.\n\nAny perplexity that might arise at the line thus taken by Mr. Wallace\nvanishes before the fact, already enlarged upon, that the author of the\nMalay Archipelago and Island Life has written a book on Miracles and\nModern Spiritualism in defence of both. The explanation lies in that\nduality of mind which, in one compartment, ranks Mr. Wallace foremost\namong naturalists, and, in the other compartment, places him among the\nmost credulous of Spiritualists.\n\nDespite this, Mr. Wallace has claims to a respectful hearing and to\nserious reply. Fortunately, he would appear to furnish the refutation to\nhis own argument in the following paragraph from his delightful\nContributions to the Theory of Natural Selection:\n\n\"From the time when the social and sympathetic feelings came into\noperation and the intellectual and moral faculties became fairly\ndeveloped, man would cease to be influenced by natural selection in\nhis physical form and structure. As an animal he would remain almost\nstationary, the changes in the surrounding universe ceasing to produce\nin him that powerful modifying effect which they exercise on other\nparts of the organic world. But, from the moment that the form of his\nbody became stationary, his mind would become subject to those very\ninfluences from which his body had escaped; every slight variation in\nhis mental and moral nature which should enable him better to guard\nagainst adverse circumstances and combine for mutual comfort and\nprotection would be preserved and accumulated; the better and higher\nspecimens of our race would therefore increase and spread, the lower and\nmore brutal would give way and successively die out, and that rapid\nadvancement of mental organisation would occur which has raised the very\nlowest races of man so far above the brutes (although differing so\nlittle from some of them in physical structure), and, in conjunction\nwith scarcely perceptible modifications of form, has developed the\nwonderful intellect of the European races\" (pp. 316, 317, Second\nEdition, 1871).\n\nThis argument has suggestive illustration in the fifth chapter of the\nOrigin of Species. Mr. Darwin there refers to a remark to the following\neffect made by Mr. Waterhouse: \"_A part developed in any species in an\nextraordinary degree or manner in comparison with the same part in\nallied species tends to be highly variable._\" This applies only where\nthere is unusual development. \"Thus, the wing of a bat is a most\nabnormal structure in the class of mammals; but the rule would not apply\nhere, because the whole group of bats possesses wings; it would apply\nonly if some one species had wings developed in a remarkable manner in\ncomparison with the other species of the same genus.\" And when this\nexceptional development of any part or organ occurs, we may conclude\nthat the modification has arisen since the period when the several\nspecies branched off from the common progenitor of the genus; and this\nperiod will seldom be very remote, as species rarely endure for more\nthan one geological period.\n\nHow completely this applies to man, the latest product of organic\nevolution. The brain is that part or organ in him which has been\ndeveloped \"in an extraordinary degree, in comparison with the same part\"\nin other Primates, and which has become _highly variable_. Whatever may\nhave been the favouring causes which secured his immediate progenitors\nsuch modification of brain as advanced him in intelligence over \"allied\nspecies,\" the fact abides that in this lies the explanation of their\nafter-history; the arrest of the one, the unlimited progress of the\nother. Increasing intelligence at work through vast periods of time\noriginated and developed those social conditions which alone made\npossible that progress which, in its most advanced degree, but a small\nproportion of the race has reached. For in this question of mental\ndifferences the contrast is not between man and ape, but between man\nsavage and civilized; between the incapacity of the one to count beyond\nhis fingers, and the capacity of the other to calculate an eclipse of\nthe sun or a transit of Venus. It would therefore seem that Mr.\nWallace should introduce his \"spiritual essence, or nature,\" in the\nintermediate, and not in the initial stage.\n\nAs answer to Mr. Wallace's argument that in their large and\nwell-developed brains, savages \"possess an organ quite disproportioned\nto their requirements,\" Huxley cites Wallace's own remarks in his paper\non Instinct in Man and Animals as to the considerable demands made by\nthe needs of the lower races on their observing faculties which call\ninto play no mean exercise of brain function.\n\n\"Add to this,\" Huxley says, \"the knowledge which a savage is obliged to\ngain of the properties of plants, of the characters and habits of\nanimals, and of the minute indications by which their course is\ndiscoverable; consider that even an Australian can make excellent\nbaskets and nets, and neatly fitted and beautifully balanced spears;\nthat he learns to use these so as to be able to transfix a quartern loaf\nat sixty yards; and that very often, as in the case of the American\nIndians, the language of a savage exhibits complexities which a\nwell-trained European finds it difficult to master; consider that every\ntime a savage tracks his game, he employs a minuteness of observation,\nand an accuracy of inductive and deductive reasoning which, applied to\nother matters, would assure some reputation, and I think one need ask no\nfurther why he possesses such a fair supply of brains.\"... But Mr.\nWallace's objection \"applies quite as strongly to the lower animals.\nSurely a wolf must have too much brain, or else how is it that a dog,\nwith only the same quantity and form of brain, is able to develop such\nsingular intelligence? The wolf stands to the dog in the same relation\nas the savage to the man; and therefore, if Mr. Wallace's doctrine holds\ngood, a higher power must have superintended the breeding up of wolves\nfrom some inferior stock, in order to prepare them to become dogs\"\n(Critiques and Addresses, p. 293).\n\nAfter all is said, perhaps the effective refutation of the belief in a\nspiritual entity superadded in man is found in the explanation of the\norigin of that belief which anthropology supplies.\n\nThe theory of the origin and growth of the belief in souls and spiritual\nbeings generally, and in a future life, which has been put into coherent\nform by Spencer and Tylor, is based upon an enormous mass of evidence\ngathered by travellers among existing barbaric peoples; evidence\nagreeing in character with that which results from investigations into\nbeliefs of past races in varying stages of culture. Only brief reference\nto it here is necessary, but the merest outline suffices to show\nfrom what obvious phenomena the conception of a soul was derived, a\nconception of which all subsequent forms are but elaborated copies. As\nin other matters, crude analogies have guided the barbaric mind in its\nideas about spirits and their behaviour. A man falls asleep and dreams\ncertain things; on waking, he believes that these things actually\nhappened; and he therefore concludes that the dead who came to him or to\nwhom he went in his dreams, are alive; that the friend or foe whom he\nknows to be far away, but with whom he feasted or fought in dreamland,\ncame to him. He sees another man fall into a swoon or trance that may\nlay him seemingly lifeless for hours or even days; he himself may be\nattacked by deranging fevers and see visions stranger than those which\na healthy person sees; shadows of himself and of objects, both living\nand not living, follow or precede him and lengthen or shorten in the\nwithdrawing or advancing light; the still water throws back images of\nhimself; the hillsides resound with mocking echoes of his words and of\nsounds around him; and it is these and allied phenomena which have given\nrise to the notion of \"another self,\" to use Mr. Spencer's convenient\nterm, or of a number of selves that are sometimes outside the man and\nsometimes inside him, as to which the barbaric mind is never sure.\nOutside him, however, when the man is sleeping, so that he must not be\nawakened, lest this \"other self\" be hindered from returning; or when he\nis sick, or in the toils of the medicine-man, who may hold the \"other\nself\" in his power, as in the curious soul-trap of the Polynesians--a\nseries of cocoa-nut rings--in which the sorcerer makes believe to catch\nand detain the soul of an offender or sick person. When Dr. Catat and\nhis companions, MM. Maistre and Foucart were exploring the \"Bara\"\ncountry on the west coast of Madagascar the people suddenly became\nhostile. On the previous day the travellers, not without difficulty,\nhad photographed the royal family, and now found themselves accused of\ntaking the souls of the natives with the object of selling them when\nthey returned to France. Denial was of no avail; following the custom of\nthe Malagasays, they were compelled to catch the souls, which were then\nput into a casket, and ordered by Dr. Catat to return to their\nrespective owners (Times, 24th March, 1891).\n\nAlthough the difference presented by such phenomena and by death is\nthat it is abiding, while they are temporary, to the barbaric mind the\ndifference is in degree, and not in kind. True, the \"other self\" has\nleft the body, and will never return to it; but it exists, for it\nappears in dreams and hallucinations, and therefore is believed to\nrevisit its ancient haunts, as well as to tarry often near the exposed\nor buried body. The nebulous theories which identified the soul with\nbreath, and shadow, and reflection, slowly condensed into theories of\nsemi-substantiality still charged with ethereal conceptions, resulting\nin the curious amalgam which, in the minds of cultivated persons,\nwhenever they strive to envisage the idea, represents the disembodied\nsoul.\n\nTherefore, in vain may we seek for points of difference in our\ncomparison of primitive ideas of the origin and nature of the soul with\nthe later ideas. The copious literature to which these have given birth\nis represented in the bibliography appended to Mr. Alger's work on\nTheories of a Future Life, by 4977 books, exclusive of many published\nsince his list was compiled. Save in refinement of detail such as a\nhigher culture secures, what is there to choose between the four souls\nof the Hidatsa Indians, the two souls of the Gold Coast natives, and the\ntripartite division of man by Rabbis, Platonists, and Paulinists, which\nare but the savage other-self \"writ large\"? Their common source is in\nman's general animistic interpretation of Nature, which is a _vera\ncausa_, superseding the need for the assumptions of which Mr. Wallace's\nis a type. As an excellent illustration of what is meant by animism, we\nmay cite what Mr. Everard im Thurn has to say about the Indians of\nGuiana, who are, presumably, a good many steps removed from so-called\n\"primitive\" man. \"The Indian does not see any sharp line of distinction\nsuch as we see between man and other animals, between one kind of animal\nand another, or between animals--man included--and inanimate objects. On\nthe contrary, to the Indian all objects, animate and inanimate, seem\nexactly of the same nature, except that they differ in the accident of\nbodily form. Every object in the whole world is a being, consisting of\na body and spirit, and differs from every other object in no respect\nexcept that of bodily form, and in the greater or lesser degree of brute\npower and brute cunning consequent on the difference of bodily form and\nbodily habits. Our next step, therefore, is to note that animals, other\nthan men, and even inanimate objects, have spirits which differ not at\nall in kind from those of men.\"\n\nThe importance of the evidence gathered by anthropology in support of\nman's inclusion in the general theory of evolution is ever becoming\nmore manifest. For it has brought witness to continuity in organic\ndevelopment at the point where a break has been assumed, and driven home\nthe fact that if Evolution operates anywhere, it operates everywhere.\nAnd operates, too, in such a way that every part co-operates in the\ndischarge of a universal process. Hence it meets the divisions which\nmark opposition to it by the transcendent power of unity.\n\nUntil the past half-century, man excepted himself, save in crude and\nsuperficial fashion, from that investigation which, for long periods,\nhe has made into the earth beneath him and the heavens above him. This\ntardy inquiry into the history of his own kind, and its place in the\norder and succession of life, as well as its relation to the lower\nanimals, between whom and itself, as has been shown, the barbaric mind\nsees much in common, is due, so far as Christendom is concerned (and\nthe like cause applies, _mutatis mutandis_, in non-Christian civilized\ncommunities), to the subjection of the intellect to pre-conceived\ntheories based on the authority accorded to ancient legends about man.\nThese legends, invested with the sanctity with which time endows the\npast, finally became integral parts of sacred literatures, to question\nwhich was as superfluous as it was impious. Thus it has come to pass\nthat the only being competent to inquire into his own antecedents has\nlooked at his history through the distorting prism of a mythopoeic past!\n\nPerhaps, in the long run, the gain has exceeded the loss. For, in the\nprecedence of study of other sciences more remote from man's \"business\nand bosom,\" there has been rendered possible a more dispassionate\ntreatment of matters charged with profounder issues. Since the Church,\nhowever she may conveniently ignore the fact as concession after\nconcession is wrung from her, has never slackened in jealousy of the\nadvance of secular knowledge, it was well for human progress that those\nsubjects of inquiry which affected orthodox views only indirectly were\nfirst prosecuted. The brilliant discoveries in astronomy, to which the\nCopernican theory gave impetus, although they displaced the earth from\nits assumed supremacy among the bodies in space, did not apparently\naffect the doctrine of the supremacy of man as the centre of Divine\nintervention, as the creature for whom the great scheme of redemption\nhad been formulated \"in the counsels of the Trinity,\" and the tragedy of\nthe self-sacrifice of God the Son enacted on earth. The surrender or\nnegation of any fundamental dogma of Christian theology was not involved\nin the abandonment of the statement in the Bible as to the dominant\nposition of the earth in relation to the sun and other self-luminous\nstars. To our own time the increase of knowledge concerning the myriads\nof sidereal systems which revolve through space is not held to be\ndestructive of those dogmas, but held, rather, to supply material for\nspeculation as to the probable extension of Divine paternal government\nthroughout the universe. And, although, as coming nearer home, with\nconsequent greater chance of intrusion of elements of friction, the like\napplies to the discoveries of geology. Apart from intellectual apathy,\nwhich explains much, the impact of these discoveries on traditional\nbeliefs was softened by the buffers which a moderating spirit of\ncriticism interposed in the shape of superficial \"reconciliations\"\nemptying the old cosmogony of all its poetry, and therefore of its value\nas a key to primitive ideas, and converting it into bastard science.\nThus a temporary, because artificial, unity, was set up. But with the\nevidence supplied by study of the ancient life whose remains are\nimbedded in the fossil-yielding strata, that unity is shivered. In a\nScripture that \"cannot be broken\" there was read the story of conflict\nand death \u00e6ons before man appeared. Between this record, and that which\nspoke of pain and death as the consequences of man's disobedience to the\nfrivolous prohibition of an anthropomorphic God, there is no possible\nreconciliation.\n\nTo the evidence from fossiliferous beds was added evidence from old\nriver-gravels and limestone caverns. The relics extracted from the\nstalagmitic deposits in Kent's Hole, near Torquay, had lain unheeded\nfor some years save as \"curios,\" when M. Boucher des Perthes saw in the\nworked flints of a somewhat rougher type which he found mingled with the\nbones of rhinoceroses, cave-bears, mammoths, or woolly-haired elephants,\nand other mammals in the \"drift\" or gravel-pits of Abbeville, in\nPicardy, the proofs of man's primitive savagery, so far as Western\nEurope was concerned. The presence of these rudely-chipped flints had\nbeen noticed by M. de Perthes in 1839, but he could not persuade savants\nto admit that human hands had shaped them, until these doubting Thomases\nsaw for themselves like implements _in situ_ at a depth of seventeen\nfeet from the original surface of the ground. That was in 1858: a year\nbefore the publication of the Origin of Species. Similar materials have\nbeen unearthed from every part of the globe habitable once or inhabited\nnow. They confirm the speculations of Lucretius as to a universal\nmakeshift with stone, bone, horn, and such-like accessible or pliable\nsubstances during the ages that preceded the discovery of metals.\nTherefore, the existence of a Stone Age at one period or another where\nnow an Age of Iron (following an Age of Bronze) prevails, is an\nestablished canon of arch\u00e6ological science. From this follows the\ninference that man's primitive condition was that which corresponds to\nthe lowest type extant, the Australian and Papuan; that the further back\ninquiry is pushed such culture as exists is found to have been preceded\nby barbarism; and that the savage races of to-day represent not a\ndegradation to which man, as the result of a fall from primeval purity\nand Eden-like ease, has sunk, but a condition out of which all races\nabove the savage have emerged.\n\nWhile Prehistoric Arch\u00e6ology, with its enormous mass of _material_\nremains gathered from \"dens and caves of the earth,\" from primitive\nwork-shops, from rude tombs and temples, thus adds its testimony to the\n\"great cloud of witnesses\"; _immaterial_ remains, potent as embodying\nthe thought of man, are brought by the twin sciences of Comparative\nMythology and Folklore, and Comparative Theology--remains of paramount\nvalue, because existing to this day in hitherto unsuspected form, as\nsurvivals in beliefs and rites and customs. Readers of Tylor's Primitive\nCulture, with its wealth of facts and their significance; and of Lyall's\nAsiatic Studies, wherein is described the making of myths to this day in\nthe heart of India; need not be told how the slow zigzag advance of man\nin material things has its parallel in the stages of his intellectual\nand spiritual advance all the world over; from the lower animism to\nthe higher conception of deity; from bewildering guesses to assuring\ncertainties. To this mode of progress no civilized people has been the\nexception, as notably in the case of the Hebrews, was once thought--\"the\ncorrespondence between the old Israelitic and other archaic forms of\ntheology extending to details.\"\n\nWhile, therefore, the discoveries of astronomers and geologists have\nbeen disintegrating agencies upon old beliefs, the discoveries classed\nunder the general term Anthropological are acting as more powerful\nsolvents on every opinion of the past. Showing on what mythical\nfoundation the story of the fall of man rests, Anthropology has utterly\ndemolished the _raison d'\u00eatre_ of the doctrine of his redemption--the\nkeystone of the fabric. It has penetrated the mists of antiquity, and\ntraced the myth of a forfeited Paradise, of the Creation, the Deluge,\nand other legends, to their birthplaces in the valley of the Euphrates\nor the uplands of Persia; legends whose earliest inscribed records are\non Accadian tablets, or in the scriptures of Zarathustra. It has in the\nspirit of the commended Bereans, \"searched\" those and other scriptures,\nfinding therein legends of founders of ancient faiths cognate to those\nwhich in the course of the centuries gathered round Jesus of Nazareth;\nit has collated the rites and ceremonies of many a barbaric theology\nwith those of old-world religions--Brahmanic, Buddhistic, Christian--and\nfound only such differences between them as are referable to the higher\nor the lower culture. For the history of superstitions is included in\nthe history of beliefs; the superstitions being the germ-plasm of\nwhich all beliefs above the lowest are the modified products. Belief\nincarnates itself in word or act. In the one we have the charm, the\ninvocation, and the dogma; in the other the ritual and ceremony. \"A\nritual system,\" Professor Robertson Smith remarks, \"must always remain\nmaterialistic, even if its materialism is disguised under the cloak of\nmysticism.\" And it is with the incarnated ideas, uninfluenced by\nthe particular creed in connection with which it finds them, that\nanthropology deals. Its method is that of biology. Without bias, without\nassumptions of relative truth or falsity, the anthropologist searches\ninto origins, traces variations, compares and classifies, and relates\nthe several families to one ordinal group. He must be what was said of\nDante, \"a theologian to whom no dogma is foreign.\" Unfortunately, this\nmethod, whose application to the physical sciences is unchallenged, is,\nwhen applied to beliefs, regarded as one of attack, instead of being one\nof explanation. But this should not deter; and if in analyzing a belief\nwe kill a superstition, this does but show what mortality lay at its\ncore. For error cannot survive dissection. Moreover, as John Morley puts\nit, \"to tamper with veracity is to tamper with the vital force of human\nprogress.\" Therefore, delivering impartial judgment, the verdict of\nanthropology upon the whole matter is that the claims of Christian\ntheologians to a special and divine origin of their religion are refuted\nby the accordant evidence of the latest utterances of a science whose\nmain concern is with the origin, nature, and destiny of man.\n\nThe extension of the comparative method to the various products of\nman's intellectual and spiritual nature is the logical sequence to the\nadoption of that method throughout every department of the universe. Of\ncourse it starts with the assumption of differences in things, else it\nwould be superfluous. But it equally starts with the assumption of\nresemblances, and in every case it has brought out the fact that the\ndifferences are superficial, and that the resemblances are fundamental.\n\nAll this bears closely on Huxley's work. The impulse thereto has come\nlargely from the evidence focussed in Man's Place in Nature, evidence of\nwhich the material of the writings of his later years is the expansion.\nThe cultivation of intellect and character had always been a favourite\ntheme with him, and the interest was widened when the passing of Mr.\nForster's Elementary Education Act in 1870 brought the problem of\npopular culture to the front. The wave of enthusiasm carried a group of\ndistinguished liberal candidates to the polls, and Huxley was elected a\nmember of the School Board for London. Then, although in not so acute a\nform as now, the religious difficulty was the sole cause of any serious\ndivision, and Huxley's attitude therein puzzled a good many people\nbecause he advocated the retention of the Bible in the schools. Those\nwho should have known him better thought that he was (to quote from one\nof his letters to the writer) \"a hypocrite, or simply a fool.\" \"But,\" he\nadds, \"my meaning was that the mass of the people should not be deprived\nof the one great literature which is open to them, nor shut out from\nthe perception of its place in the whole past history of civilised\nmankind.\" He lamented, as every thoughtful person must lament, the\ndecay of Bible reading in this generation, while, at the same time, he\nadvocated the more strenuously its detachment from the glosses and\ntheological inferences which do irreparable injury to a literature whose\nvalue cannot be overrated.\n\nFor Huxley was well read in history, and therefore he would not trust\nthe clergy as interpreters of the Bible. After repeating in the Prologue\nto his Essays on Controverted Questions what he had said about the book\nin his article on the School Boards in Critiques and Addresses, he adds,\n\"I laid stress on the necessity of placing such instruction in lay\nhands; in the hope and belief that it would thus gradually accommodate\nitself to the coming changes of opinion; that the theology and the\nlegend would drop more and more out of sight, while the perennially\ninteresting historical, literary, and ethical contents would come more\nand more into view.\"\n\nSubsequent events have justified neither the hope nor the belief. Had\nHuxley lived to see that all the sectaries, while quarrelling as to the\nparticular dogmas which may be deduced from the Bible, agree in refusing\nto use it other than as an instrument for the teaching of dogma, he\nwould probably have come to see that the only solution in the interests\nof the young, is its exclusion from the schools. Never has any\ncollection of writings, whose miscellaneous, unequal, and often\ndisconnected character is obscured by the common title \"Bible\" which\ncovers them, had such need for deliverance from the so-called\n\"believers\" in it. Its value is only to be realized in the degree that\ntheories of its inspiration are abandoned. Then only is it possible to\ntreat it like any other literature of the kind; to discriminate between\nthe coarse and barbaric features which evidence the humanness of its\norigin, and the loftier features of its later portions which also\nevidence how it falls into line with other witnesses of man's gradual\nethical and spiritual development.\n\nHuxley's breadth of view, his sympathy with every branch of culture, his\nadvocacy of literary in unison with scientific training, fitted him\nsupremely for the work of the School Board, but its demands were too\nsevere on a man never physically strong, and he was forced to resign.\nHowever, he was thereby set free for other work, which could be only\neffectively done by exchanging the arena for the study. The earliest\nimportant outcome of that relief was the monograph on Hume, published in\n1879, and the latest was the Romanes lecture on Evolution and Ethics,\nwhich was delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford on the 18th of\nMay, 1893. Between the two lie a valuable series of papers dealing with\nthe Evolution of Theology and cognate subjects. In all these we have the\napplication of the theory of Evolution to the explanation of the origin\nof beliefs and of the basis of morals. To quote the saying attributed to\nLeibnitz, both Spencer and Huxley, and all who follow them, care for\n\"science only because it enables them to speak with authority in\nphilosophy and religion.\" In a letter to the writer, wherein Huxley\nrefers to his retirement from official life, he says:--\n\n  I was so ill that I thought with Hamlet, \"the rest is silence.\" But\n  my wiry constitution has unexpectedly weathered the storm, and I\n  have every reason to believe that with renunciation of the devil and\n  all his works (i.\u00a0e., public speaking, dining, and being dined,\n  etc.) my faculties may be unimpaired for a good spell yet. And\n  whether my lease is long or short, I mean to devote them to the work\n  I began in the paper on the Evolution of Theology.\n\nThat essay was first published in two sections in the Nineteenth\nCentury, 1886, and was the sequel to the eighth chapter of his Hume. The\nRomanes Lecture supplemented the last chapter of that book. All these\nare accessible enough to render superfluous any abstract of their\ncontents. But the tribute due to David Hume, who may well-nigh claim\nplace among the few but fit company of Pioneers, warrants reference\nto his anticipation of accepted theories of the origin of belief in\nspiritual beings in his Natural History of Religion, published in 1757.\nHe says: \"There is an universal tendency among mankind to conceive all\nbeings like themselves, and to transfer to every object those qualities\nwith which they are familiarly acquainted, and of which they are\nintimately conscious.... The _unknown causes_ which continually employ\ntheir thought, appearing always in the same aspect, are all apprehended\nto be of the same kind or species. Nor is it long before we ascribe to\nthem thought, and reason, and passion, and sometimes even the limbs and\nfigures of men, in order to bring them nearer to a resemblance with\nourselves.\" In his address to the Sorbonne on The Successive Advances of\nthe Human Mind, delivered in 1750, Turgot expresses the same idea,\ntouching, as John Morley says in his essay on that statesman, \"the root\nof most of the wrong thinking that has been as a manacle to science.\"\n\nThe foregoing, and passages of a like order, are made by Huxley the text\nof his elaborations of the several stages of theological evolution, the\none note of all of which is the continuity of belief in supernatural\nintervention. But more important than the decay of that belief which is\nthe prelude to decay of belief in deity itself as commonly defined, is\nthe resulting transfer of the foundation of morals, in other words, of\nmotives to conduct, from a theological to a social base. Theology is not\nmorality; indeed, it is, too often, immorality. It is concerned with\nman's relations to the gods in whom he believes; while morals are\nconcerned with man's relations to his fellows. The one looks heavenward,\nwondering what dues shall be paid the gods to win their smiles or ward\noff their frowns. In old Rome _sanctitas_ or holiness, was, according to\nCicero, \"the knowledge of the rites which had to be performed.\" These\ndone, the gods were expected to do their part. So in new Rome, when the\nCatholic has attended mass, his share in the contract is ended. Worship\nand sacrifice, as mere acts toward supernatural beings, may be\nconsonant with any number of lapses in conduct. Morality, on the other\nhand, looks earthward, and is prompted to action solely by what is\ndue from a man to his fellow-men, or from his fellow-men to him. Its\nfoundation therefore is not in supernatural beliefs, but in social\ninstincts. All sin is thus resolved into an anti-social act: a wrong\ndone by man to man.\n\nThis is not merely readjustment; it is revolution. For it is the\nrejection of theology with its appeals to human obligation to deity, and\nto man's hopes of future reward or fears of future punishment; and it is\nthe acceptance of wholly secular motives as incentives to right action.\nThose motives, having their foundation in the physical, mental, and\nmoral results of our deeds, rest on a stable basis. No longer interlaced\nwith the unstable theological, they neither abide nor perish with it.\nAnd one redeeming feature of our time is that the churches are beginning\nto see this, and to be effected by it. John Morley caustically remarks\nthat \"the efforts of the heterodox have taught them to be better\nChristians than they were a hundred years ago.\" Certain extremists\nexcepted, they are keeping dogma in the background, and are laying\nstress on the socialism which it is contended was at the heart of the\nteaching of Jesus. Wisely, if not very consistently, they are seeking\nalliance with the liberal movements whose aim is the \"abolition of\nprivilege.\" The liberal theologians, in the face of the varying ethical\nstandards which mark the Old Testament and the New, no longer insist on\nthe absoluteness of moral codes, and so fall into line with the\nevolutionist in his theory of their relativeness. For society in its\nadvance from lower to higher conceptions of duty, completely reverses\nits ethics, looking back with horror on that which was once permitted\nand unquestioned.\n\nIt is with this checking of \"the ape and tiger,\" and this fostering of\nthe \"angel\" in man, that Huxley dealt in his Romanes Lecture. There was\nmuch unintelligent, and some wilful, misunderstanding of his argument,\nelse a prominent Catholic biologist would hardly have welcomed it as a\npossible prelude to Huxley's submission to the Church. Yet the reasoning\nwas clear enough, and in no wise contravened the application of\nEvolution to morals. Huxley showed that Evolution is both _cosmical_ and\n_ethical_. _Cosmic Evolution_ has resulted in the universe with its\nnon-living and living contents, and since, dealing with the conditions\nwhich obtain on our planet, there is not sufficient elbow-room or food\nfor all the offspring of living things, the result is a furious\nstruggle in which the strong win and transmit their advantages to their\ndescendants. Nature is wholly selfish; the race is to the swift, and the\nbattle to the strong.\n\nBut there are limits set to that struggle by man in the substitution,\nalso within limits, of social progress for cosmic progress. In this\n_Ethical Evolution_ selfishness is so far checked as to permit groups\nof human beings to live together in amity, recognising certain common\nrights, which restrain the self-regarding impulses. For, in the words of\nMarcus Aurelius, \"that which is not good for the swarm is not good for\nthe bee\" (Med., vi, 54). Huxley aptly likens this counter-process to the\naction of a gardener in dealing with a piece of waste ground. He stamps\nout the weeds, and plants fragrant flowers and useful fruits. But he\nmust not relax his efforts, otherwise the weeds will return, and the\nuntended plants will be choked and perish. So in conduct. For the common\nweal, in which the unit shares, thus blending the selfish and the\nunselfish motives, men check their natural impulses. The emotions and\naffections which they share with the lower social animals, only in\nhigher degree, are co-operative, and largely help the development of\nfamily, tribal, and national life. But once we let these be weakened,\nand society becomes a bear-garden. Force being the dominant factor in\nlife, the struggle for existence revives in all its primitive violence,\nand atavism asserts its power. Therefore, although he do the best that\nin him lies, man can only set limits to that struggle, for the ethical\nprocess is an integral part of the cosmic powers, \"just as the\n'governor' in a steam-engine is part of the mechanism of the engine.\"\nAs with society, so with its units: there is no truce in the contest.\nDr. Plimmer, an eminent bacteriologist, describes to the writer the\naction of a kind of yeast upon a species of Daphnia, or water-flea.\nMetschnikoff observed that these yeast-cells, which enter with the\nanimal's food, penetrate the intestines, and get into the tissues. They\nare there seized upon by the leukocytes, which gather round the invaders\nin larger fashion, as if seemingly endowed with consciousness, so\nmarvellous is the strategy. If they win, the Daphnia recovers; if they\nlose, it dies. \"In a similar manner in ourselves certain leukocytes\n(phagocytes) accumulate at any point of invasion, and pick up the living\nbacteria,\" and in the success or failure of their attack lies the fate\nof man. Which things are fact as well as allegory; and time is on the\nside of the bacteria. For as our life is but a temporary arrest of the\nuniversal movement toward dissolution, so naught in our actions can\narrest the destiny of our kind. Huxley thus puts it in the concluding\nsentences of his Preface--written in July, 1894, one year before his\ndeath--to the reissue of Evolution and Ethics:\n\n\"That man, as a 'political animal,' is susceptible of a vast amount of\nimprovement, by education, by instruction, and by the application of his\nintelligence to the adaptation of the conditions of life to his higher\nneeds, I entertain not the slightest doubt. But, so long as he remains\nliable to error, intellectual or moral; so long as he is compelled to\nbe perpetually on guard against the cosmic forces, whose ends are not\nhis ends, without and within himself; so long as he is haunted by\ninexpugnable memories and hopeless aspirations; so long as the\nrecognition of his intellectual limitations forces him to acknowledge\nhis incapacity to penetrate the mystery of existence; the prospect of\nattaining untroubled happiness, or of a state which can, even remotely,\ndeserve the title of perfection, appears to me to be as misleading an\nillusion as ever was dangled before the eyes of poor humanity. And there\nhave been many of them. That which lies before the human race is a\nconstant struggle to maintain and improve, in opposition to the State of\nNature, the State of Art of an organised polity; in which, and by which,\nman may develop a worthy civilisation, capable of maintaining and\nconstantly improving itself, until the evolution of our globe shall have\nentered so far upon its downward course that the cosmic process resumes\nits sway; and, once more, the State of Nature prevails over the surface\nof our planet.\"\n\nBut only those of low ideals would seek in this impermanence of things\nexcuse for inaction; or worse, for self-indulgence. The world will last\na very long time yet, and afford scope for battle against the wrongs\ndone by man to man. Even were it and ourselves to perish to-morrow, our\nduty is clear while the chance of doing it may be ours. Clifford,--dead\nbefore his prime, before the rich promise of his genius had its full\nfruitage,--speaking of the inevitable end of the earth \"and all the\nconsciousness of men\" reminds us, in his essay on The First and Last\nCatastrophe, that we are helped in facing the fact \"by the words of\nSpinoza: 'The free man thinks of nothing so little as of death, and his\nwisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.'\" \"Our interest,\"\nClifford adds, \"lies with so much of the past as may serve to guide our\nactions in the present, and to intensify our pious allegiance to the\nfathers who have gone before us and the brethren who are with us; and\nour interest lies with so much of the future as we may hope will be\nappreciably affected by our good actions now. Do I seem to say, 'Let us\neat and drink, for to-morrow we die?' Far from it; on the contrary I\nsay, 'Let us take hands and help, for this day we are alive together.'\"\n\nEvolution and Ethics was Huxley's last important deliverance, since the\ncompletion of his reply to Mr. Balfour's \"quaintly entitled\" Foundations\nof Belief was arrested by his death on the 30th of June, 1895.\n\nIn looking through the Collected Essays, which represent his\nnon-technical contributions to knowledge, there may be regret that\nthroughout his life circumstances were against his doing any piece of\nlong-sustained work, such as that which, for example, the affluence and\npatience of Darwin permitted him to do. But until Huxley's later years,\nand, indeed, through broken health to the end, his work outside\nofficial demands had to be done fitfully and piecemeal, or not at all.\nNotwithstanding this, it has the unity which is inspired by a central\nidea. The application of the theory of evolution all round imparts a\nquality of relation to subjects seemingly diverse. And this comes out\nclearly and strongly in the more orderly arrangement of the material in\nthe new issue of Collected Essays.\n\nThese show what an omnivorous reader he was; how well equipped in\nclassics, theology, and general literature, in addition to subjects\ndistinctly his own. He sympathized with every branch of culture. As\ncontrasted with physical science, he said, \"Nothing would grieve me more\nthan to see literary training other than a very prominent branch of\neducation.\" One corner of his library was filled with a strange company\nof antiquated books of orthodox type; this he called \"the condemned\ncell.\" When looking at the \"strange bedfellows\" that slept on the\nshelves, the writer asked Huxley what author had most influenced a style\nwhose clearness and vigour, nevertheless, seems unborrowed; and he at\nonce named the masculine and pellucid Leviathan of Hobbes. He had the\nhappy faculty of rapidly assimilating what he read; of clearly grasping\nan opponent's standpoint; and what is a man's salvation nowadays,\nfreedom from that curse of specialism which kills all sense of\nproportion, and reduces its slave to the level of the machine-hand\nthat spends his life in making the heads of screws. He believed in\n\"scepticism as the highest duty, and in blind faith as the one\nunpardonable sin.\" \"And,\" he adds, \"it cannot be otherwise, for every\ngreat advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection\nof authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism, the annihilation\nof the spirit of blind faith; and the most ardent votary of science\nholds his firmest convictions, not because the men he most venerates\nholds them; not because their verity is testified by portents and\nwonders; but because his experience teaches him that whenever he chooses\nto bring these convictions into contact with their primary source,\nNature--whenever he thinks fit to test them by appealing to experiment\nand to observation--Nature will confirm them. The man of science has\nlearned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.\"\nTherefore he nursed no illusions; would not say that he knew when he did\nnot or could not know, and bidding us follow the evidence whithersoever\nit leads us, remains the surest-footed guide of our time. Such\nleadership is his, since he has gone on \"from strength to strength.\" The\nchanges in the attitude of man toward momentous questions which new\nevidence and the _zeit-geist_ have effected, have been approaches to the\nposition taken by Huxley since he first caught the public ear. His deep\nreligious feeling kept him in sympathetic touch with his fellows. Ever\npresent to him was \"that consciousness of the limitation of man, that\nsense of an open secret which he cannot penetrate, in which lies the\nessence of all religion.\" In one of his replies to a prominent exponent\nof the Comtian philosophy, that \"incongruous mixture of bad science with\neviscerated papistry,\" as he calls it, Huxley protests against the idea\nthat the teaching of science is wholly negative.\n\n  I venture, he says, to count it an improbable suggestion that any\n  one who has graduated in all the faculties of human relationships;\n  who has taken his share in all the deep joys and deeper anxieties\n  which cling about them, who has felt the burden of young lives\n  entrusted to his care, and has stood alone with his dead before the\n  abyss of the Eternal--has never had a thought beyond negative\n  criticism.\n\nThat is the Agnostic position as he defined it; an attitude, not a\ncreed; and if he refused to affirm, he equally refused to deny.\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus have the Pioneers of Evolution, clear-sighted and sure-footed, led\nus by ways undreamed-of at the start to a goal undreamed-of by the\nearliest among them. To have halted on the route when the graver\ndifficulties of the road began would have made the journey futile, and\nhave left their followers in the wilds. Evolution, applied to everything\nup to man, but stopping at the stage when he appears, would have\nremained a fascinating study, but would not have become a guiding\nphilosophy of life. It is in the extension of its processes as\nexplanation of all that appertains to mankind that its abiding value\nconsists. That extension was inevitable. The old theologies of civilized\nraces, useful in their day, because answering, however imperfectly, to\npermanent needs of human nature, no longer suffice. Their dogmas are\ntraced as the lineal descendants of barbaric conceptions; their ritual\nis becoming an arch\u00e6ological curiosity. They have no answer to the\nquestions propounded by the growing intelligence of our time; neither\ncan they satisfy the emotions which they but feebly discipline. Their\nplace is being slowly, but surely, and more effectively, filled by a\ntheory which, interpreting the \"mighty sum of things,\" substitutes clear\nconceptions of unbroken order and relation between phenomena, in place\nof hazy conceptions of intermittent interferences; a theory which gives\nmore than it takes away. For if men are deprived of belief in the\npseudo-mysteries coined in a pre-scientific age, their wonder is\nfed, and their inquiry is stimulated, by the consciousness of the\nimpenetrable mysteries of the Universe.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n  Abdera, 16.\n  Abiogenesis, 216.\n  Abraham, 54.\n  Adam, fall of, 104.\n  ---- stature of, 107.\n  Advent, the Second, 50, 70.\n  \u00c6gean, the, 3.\n  Agassiz, 162.\n  Agrigentum, 13.\n  Air as primary substance, 13.\n  Alexander the Great, 17.\n  Alexandria, conquest of, 77.\n  ---- philosophical schools of, 77.\n  Allegorical method, 75.\n  Allen, Grant, 2, 113, 167.\n  Amazons, river, 136.\n  America, discovery of, 84.\n  Amoeba, the, 224.\n  Anatomy, comparative, 230.\n  ---- human, 90.\n  Anaxagoras, 14.\n  Anaximander, 7, 20.\n  Ancestor-worship, 70.\n  Andromeda, nebula in, 178.\n  Angels, belief in, 69.\n  Animism, 69, 97, 244, 255.\n  Anthropology and belief in the soul, 241.\n  ---- and dogmas of the Fall and the Redemption, 247, 250.\n  ---- and man's place in Evolution, 245.\n  Antioch, 47.\n  Ape and man, brain of, 227.\n  ---- general relation of, 228.\n  Aquinas, Thomas, 20, 75.\n  Arab conquest, 76.\n  ---- philosophy, 79.\n  Arch-fiend, 54.\n  Aristotle, 17-19, 20, 32, 35, 36, 74, 80, 81, 87, 163.\n  Arnold, Matthew, 13, 213.\n  Ascent of Man, Drummond's, 219.\n  Asklepios, 29.\n  Astruc, Dr., 103.\n  Athens, intellectual decay in, 35, 77.\n  ---- persecution in, 14.\n  ---- religious revival in, 11.\n  Atomic theory, 16.\n  Atonement, doctrine of the, and\n  Anthropology, 250.\n  Augurs, 31.\n  Augustine, St., 20, 55, 74.\n  Augustus, C\u00e6sar, 42, 48.\n  Aurelius, Marcus, 51, 259.\n  Averroes, 80.\n  Avicenna, 101.\n\n  Bacon, Lord, 93, 108.\n  Bacon, Roger, 82.\n  Bacteria and leukocytes, 260.\n  Bagehot, Mr., 2.\n  Baghdad, 79.\n  Balfour, A. J., 262.\n  Baptism, origin of rite of, 66.\n  Bates, H. W., 134, 136, 162, 167, 208.\n  Beagle, voyage of the, 131.\n  Benn, A. W., 9, 19.\n  Bible, Dictionary of the, 107.\n  Biology, advance in study of, 108.\n  Black magic, 83.\n  Body and mind, mystery of connection between, 231.\n  Bone, resurrection, 90.\n  Bonnet, Charles, 21.\n  \"Boundless,\" the, 7.\n  Breathing, symbolism of, 69.\n  Bruno, Giordano, 89.\n  Buddha, 64.\n  Buffon, place of, in theory of Evolution, 110.\n  ---- submission to the Sorbonne, 104.\n  Burnet, Prof., 5, 7, 16.\n  Burton's Anatomy, 60.\n  Butcher, Prof., 4.\n\n  Caesalpino, 91.\n  Cairo, 80.\n  Canon of the Bible, 58, 88.\n  Carpenter, Dr., 150, 233.\n  Carthage, 78.\n  ---- Council of, 58.\n  Casalis, Mr., 1.\n  Catat, Dr., 242.\n  Celtic religion, 70.\n  Chald\u00e6a, 4.\n  Chambers, Robert, 119.\n  Charles Martel, 78.\n  Chosroes, 77, 79.\n  Christianity and Anthropology, 251.\n  ---- anti-social nature of, 50.\n  ---- causes of success of, 48, 56.\n  ---- opposition to inquiry, 40.\n  ---- origin of, 37.\n  ---- pagan elements in, 59-73.\n  ---- philosophic elements in, 57.\n  ---- polytheism of, 69.\n  ---- varying fortunes of, 38.\n  Christians, persecution of, 49.\n  Church Congress and Evolution, 159, 219.\n  Circumnavigation of the globe, 85.\n  Clifford, Prof., 261.\n  Collings, 41.\n  Colophon, 9.\n  Columbus, Christopher, 84.\n  Communion at Hawarden Church, 68.\n  Comtism, 264.\n  Conduct, bases of, 186, 254.\n  Consciousness, evolution of, 187, 224.\n  ---- self-, 187.\n  Conservation of energy, 33, 120, 149, 177.\n  Copernicus, 20, 86.\n  Cordova, 80.\n  Correlation of forces, 189.\n  Cosmic Evolution, 258.\n  Councils, general, 220.\n  Courthope, W. J., 164.\n  Creation, days of, 103, 106.\n  Credulity of the learned, 148.\n  Creeds, 52, 220.\n  Criticism of religions, features of modern, 40.\n  Cronus, myth of, 56.\n  Crooke, Mr., 30.\n  Cross, relics of the, 72.\n  Crown of thorns, 72.\n  Cuvier, 114, 117, 163.\n  ---- and Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 214.\n  Cybele, 29.\n\n  Dalton, John, 16, 125.\n  Daphnia, Dr. Plimmer on, 260.\n  Darwin, Charles, 126-134, 157-175.\n  ---- Life and Letters of, 127, 157.\n  ---- religious belief of, 173.\n  ---- Erasmus, 21, 111.\n  Days of creation, 102, 106.\n  De Gama, Vasco, 85.\n  Deluge, 104, 107, 250.\n  Demeter, 29, 67.\n  Democritus, 16, 22, 33.\n  Demons, 55, 75, 87.\n  De Perthes, Boucher, 120, 248.\n  De Rerum Natura, 24.\n  Descartes, 91, 94, 216.\n  Descent into Hell, 88.\n  Descent of Man, 167, 172, 218.\n  Development, law of, 189.\n  Devil, 54, 83.\n  De Vinci, Leonardo, 102.\n  Diagoras, 63.\n  Dictionary of the Bible, 107.\n  Dionysus, 67.\n  Dispersion of the Jews, 56, 77.\n  Dogma and Evolution, 220.\n  Driver, Rev. Canon, 53, 107.\n  Dubois, Dr., 222.\n  Dun\u00e9r, Professor, 179.\n\n  Earth as \"element,\" 13.\n  ---- Greek notions about the, 6, 8.\n  Education and dogma, 253.\n  Egypt, 4, 6, 7.\n  ---- conquest of, 77.\n  Eleatic school, 10.\n  Elviri, Synod of, 62.\n  Embryology, 118, 218.\n  Empedocles, 13, 22, 27.\n  Ephesus, 11.\n  Epictetus, 51.\n  Epicurus, 22, 27.\n  Epigenesis, 21.\n  Ethical Evolution, 259.\n  Etruscan haruspices, 31.\n  Eve, stature of, 107.\n  Evil eye, 69.\n  Evolution and dogma, 220.\n  ---- cosmic, 258.\n  ---- ethical, 258.\n  ---- inclusion of man in, 245.\n  ---- inorganic, 175.\n  ---- organic, 200.\n  Evolution and Ethics, Huxley on, 219, 254.\n\n  Fall, doctrine of the, and anthropology, 247.\n  Fire, as primary substance, 12.\n  First Principles, 167, 188.\n  Fiske, Professor, 8.\n  Flint implements, 248.\n  Folk-lore, value of study of, 249.\n  Fontenelle, 2.\n  Fossils, theories about, 104.\n  Frazer, J. G., 66, 220.\n\n  Galen, 90.\n  Galileo, discoveries and persecution of, 91.\n  Geology, effect of study of, 100.\n  ---- revival of study of, 100.\n  ---- principles of, 117.\n  Gesner, 91.\n  Gibbon, 57, 58, 72, 219.\n  Gladstone, Mr., 68.\n  Gnosticism, 48.\n  Gods in Rome, 29.\n  Golden Bough, The, 66, 220.\n  Gospels, origin of, 46.\n  Gosse, P. H., 104.\n  Gower, Dr., 155.\n  Granada, 80.\n  Greece, 3.\n  ---- conquest and intellectual decline of, 23.\n  Greek philosophers, Table of, 36.\n  Greeks, early conception of earth by, 6, 8.\n  ---- search of, for the primary substance, 6.\n  Grote, 15.\n\n  Haeckel, 115, 164.\n  Hallucinations, 153.\n  Haroun al-Raschid, 79.\n  Hartley, 124.\n  Haruspices, 31.\n  Harvey, William, 21, 93.\n  Hawarden Church, Communion at, 68.\n  Heine's Travel-Pictures, 153.\n  Hellenized Jews, 56, 77.\n  Helmholtz, 125.\n  Henrion, 107.\n  Heraclitus, 11.\n  Herakles, 29.\n  Herodotus, 62.\n  Herschel, Sir William, 95, 177.\n  Hesiod, 10.\n  Hippocampus minor, 227.\n  Hobbes' Leviathan, 60, 263.\n  Holy Communion, barbaric origin of rite of, 66, 68.\n  Homer, 8, 10, 12, 75.\n  Hooker, Sir Joseph, 141, 162.\n  ----  Sir William, 119.\n  Horace, 63, 75.\n  Huggins, Dr. Wm., 178.\n  Humanity and Evolution, 192.\n  Humboldt, 121, 135.\n  Hume, 97, 192, 216, 255.\n  Hutton, 115.\n  Huxley, 94, 157, 159, 201-266.\n\n  Indigitamenta, 30.\n  Inductive philosophy, the, 93.\n  Inquisition, the, 89, 91.\n  Instinct, 229.\n  Ionia, 3, 4, 6, 32.\n  Isis, 29, 62.\n\n  Jerome, St., 24, 105.\n  Jerusalem, early disciples of Jesus at, 47.\n  ---- fall of, 77.\n  ---- Jesus at, 44.\n  Jesus, summary of life of, 42-46.\n  ---- superstition shared by, 53-56.\n  Jews, Hellenized, or of the Dispersion, 56, 77.\n\n  Kant, 94, 175, 200.\n  Kelvin, Lord, 233.\n  Kent's Hole, 248.\n  Khalifs, 76.\n  Kirchoff, 178.\n  Kropotkin, Prince, 231.\n\n  Lamarck, 114.\n  Language, 229.\n  La Peyr\u00e8re, 102.\n  Laplace, 95, 176.\n  Leading Men of Science, Table of, 123-125.\n  Leibnitz, 124, 254.\n  Leo III., 78.\n  L'Etui de Nacre, 45.\n  Leucippus, 16, 23, 33, 36.\n  Leukocytes, 260.\n  Life and Letters, Darwin's, 127, 157, 173.\n  Lightfoot, Dr., 103, 120.\n  Linnaeus, 108.\n  Linn\u00e6an Society, famous meeting at, 141, 181.\n  Living and non-living matter, connection between, 34, 216.\n  Locke, 94.\n  Lodge, Prof. Oliver, 147.\n  Love as an \"element,\" 14.\n  Lubbock, Sir John, 168.\n  Lucretius, 17, 23, 24-29, 41, 248.\n  Luther, 87.\n  Lyall, Sir Alfred, 30, 38, 249.\n  Lyell, Sir Charles, 117, 134, 162.\n\n  Madonna, 64.\n  Magellan, 85.\n  Maine, Sir Henry, 5.\n  Malay Archipelago, 138.\n  Malpighi, 21.\n  Malthus on Population, 119, 133, 139.\n  Man and Evolution, 97, 143, 218, 227, 236.\n  ---- and ape, brain of, 227.\n  ---- and ape, general structure of, 143.\n  ---- antiquity of, 222.\n  ---- inclusion of, in Evolution, 233.\n  ---- lower animals and, 218, 227.\n  ---- primitive state of, 248.\n  ---- suckling, period of, 8.\n  Manning, Cardinal, 160.\n  Man's Place in Nature, 164, 167, 213, 218, 252.\n  Marcus Aurelius, 51, 259.\n  Martin, R. B., 169.\n  Martyr, Peter, 87.\n  Maskelyne, Mr., 148.\n  Matter, indestructibility of, 33.\n  ---- living and non-living, 34, 217.\n  ---- mystery of, 180, 188, 216, 232.\n  Matthew, Patrick, 118, 165.\n  Maudsley, Dr., 156.\n  Meckel, 118.\n  Messiah, Jewish belief in, 44, 46.\n  Metals, age of, 28, 35, 248.\n  Middleton, Conyers, 60.\n  Miletus, 6.\n  Miracles and Modern Spiritualism, 145, 237.\n  Mithra worship, 42, 50, 71.\n  Mivart, Prof. St. George, 233.\n  Mohammed, 76.\n  Montaigne, 38, 62.\n  Morality, essential nature of, 256.\n  Morals and Evolution, 254.\n  ---- scientific base of, 256.\n  Morley, John, 39, 170, 251, 257.\n  Motion, concept of, 178.\n  ---- indestructibility of, 33.\n  ---- mystery of, 180, 187, 216, 232.\n  Mummius, 23.\n  Munro, Mr., 24.\n  Mysteries, Greek, 49.\n  Mystery of matter, 231.\n  ---- motion, 186, 187, 216, 232.\n  Myth, primitive, features of, 2.\n\n  Nebula in Andromeda, 178.\n  Nebular theory, 94, 180.\n  Nero, 48.\n  Nervous system, disorders of the, 153.\n  ---- origin of the, 225.\n  New Testament, canon of, 58, 88.\n  ---- origin of, 51.\n  Nicene Creed, 52, 220.\n  Nous of Anaxagoras, 16.\n  Numbers, in primitive thought, 9.\n  ---- Pythagorean theory of, 9, 36.\n\n  Organic Evolution, 200.\n  Origin of species, 142, 168, 211.\n  ---- publication of, 157.\n  ---- reception of, 157, 162.\n  Osborn, Prof., 102, 119.\n  Ovid, 219.\n  Owen, Sir Richard, attitude of, towards Darwin's theory, 162, 214.\n  ---- review of the Origin of Species, 162.\n\n  Pagan elements in Christianity, 59-73.\n  Paladino, Eusapia, 148.\n  Pal\u00e6ontology, 218.\n  Palissy, Bernard, 102.\n  Pantheon, Roman, 29.\n  Papacy, origin of the, 58.\n  Paul, St., 47.\n  Pausanias, 13.\n  Pentateuch, 103.\n  Pericles, 14.\n  Persia, intellectual activity in, 79.\n  Perthes, Boucher de, 120, 125, 248.\n  Petrie, Prof. Flinders, 201.\n  Philo, 58.\n  Philosophy, synthetic, 181, 195, 199.\n  Photography in Science, 178.\n  Physical Basis of Life, Huxley on, 215.\n  Pineal gland, theory of soul in, 91.\n  Plato, 5, 52, 212.\n  Polytheism, feature of, 49.\n  ---- in Christianity, 71.\n  Pontius Pilate, 44, 48.\n  Poppaea, Sabina, 48.\n  Preformation theory, 21.\n  Primary substance, 33.\n  ---- search after, 6.\n  Protoplasm, 119.\n  Psychical Research, Society for, 148.\n  Psychology, experimental, 230.\n  ---- Principles of, 187, 189.\n  Ptolemaic System, 20, 88.\n  Punch, 206.\n  Pythagoras, 9.\n  Pythagorean theory of numbers, 9, 36.\n\n  Redi, experiments of, 216.\n  Reformation, non-intellectual, 88.\n  ---- character of the, 86.\n  Relics, collection of, 71.\n  ---- worship of, 70.\n  Revelations, condition of, 223.\n  Rhys, Professor, 64.\n  Rodd, Rennell, 29.\n  Roman doctrine of transubstantiation, 67.\n  Rome, bishop of, 58.\n  ---- fire in, 48.\n  ---- gods in, 29.\n  ---- polytheism of, 49.\n  Royal Society, 99.\n\n  Sacraments, barbaric origin of, 65-68.\n  Saints, fictitious, 64.\n  Salisbury, Lord, Presidential Address of, 179, 215.\n  Samos, 22, 36.\n  Sanctitas, 256.\n  Saracens, 78.\n  Savages, brain of, 240.\n  Scheiner, Professor, 179.\n  School Boards, 252.\n  Schwann, Theodor, 125.\n  Science, Leading men of, 123-125.\n  Second Coming of Jesus, 50, 70.\n  Sedgwick, 162.\n  Selden, 47, 220.\n  Serapis, 71.\n  Sin, essence of, 257.\n  Sizzi, 92.\n  Smith, Professor Robertson, 250.\n  ---- William (geologist), 118.\n  Social Statics, 184.\n  Society, evolution of, 184, 193.\n  ---- modification of struggle in, 259.\n  Sociology, Principles of, 186, 199.\n  ---- study of, 233.\n  Socrates, 15.\n  Solar spectrum, lines in, 178.\n  Sorbonne, the, 104, 256.\n  Soul, origin of belief in, 241-245.\n  ---- location of, 91.\n  ---- Lucretius on location of, 25.\n  Spain, intellectual advance in, 80.\n  Spectroscope, the, 178.\n  Spencer, Herbert, 31, 118, 121, 162, 175-201, 233, 241, 254.\n  Spinoza, 94.\n  Spiritualism, 145, 156.\n  Spontaneous generation, 20, 74.\n  Sprengel, 119, 125.\n  St. Hilaire, 107, 114.\n  Stagira, 17.\n  Stokes, Sir G. G., 234.\n  Stone, ages of, 28, 35, 248.\n  Strabo, 101.\n  Strife as an \"element,\" 14.\n  Struggle for life, 131, 140, 258.\n  Suarez, Francisco, 222.\n  Synthetic philosophy, 182.\n  ---- abstract of the, 195, 199.\n  ---- first draft of, 199.\n\n  Table of Greek Philosophers, 36.\n  ---- of leading men of science, 123-125.\n  Tacitus, 48.\n  Thales, 6, 8, 17.\n  Theology and Evolution, final issue between, 223.\n  Theophrastus, 7, 16.\n  Theosophy, 9.\n  Tozer, Mr., 30.\n  Transubstantiation, origin of belief in, 67.\n  Turgot, 39, 256.\n  Tylor, Dr., 168, 241, 246.\n  Tyndall, Professor, 205, 207, 216.\n\n  Usher, Archbishop, 103.\n\n  Van Helmont, 20.\n  Vatican Council on Creation, 33.\n  Vesalius, 90.\n  Vestiges of Creation, 119, 135, 209.\n  Virgin Mary, 60.\n  Virgins, Black, 64.\n  Visual sensations, subjective, 154.\n  Von Baer, 118, 125, 189, 194, 200.\n  Von Mohl, 119, 125.\n  Votive offerings, 62.\n\n  Wallace, Alfred Russel, 134-157.\n  ---- as biologist, 143.\n  ---- as spiritualist, 145-157.\n  ---- limitation of natural selection to man's physical structure, 144,\n              235-241.\n  ---- theory of origin of species identical with Darwin's, 140.\n  \"Wallace's Line,\" 139.\n  Water as primary substance, 7.\n  Water-worship, 61, 63.\n  Weismann, 117.\n  Wells, Dr. W. C., 166.\n  Wesley, John, 55, 105.\n  Whewell, Dr., 159.\n  White, Dr., 103.\n  Wilberforce, Bishop, and the Origin of Species, 160.\n  ---- and Huxley, 213.\n  Wilson, Archdeacon, 161, 219.\n  Winifred's Well, St., 63.\n  Witchcraft, belief in, 55.\n  ---- causes of decay of belief in, 98.\n  Worms, Darwin on the Action of, 168.\n\n  Xenophanes, 9, 19.\n\n  Zahm, Professor, 222.\n  Zeller, 9.\n  Zeno, 10.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nD. APPLETON AND COMPANY'S PUBLICATIONS.\n\nTHE ANTHROPOLOGICAL SERIES.\n\nNOW READY.\n\n\n  _THE BEGINNINGS OF ART._ By ERNST GROSSE, Professor of Philosophy in\n    the University of Freiburg. A new volume in the Anthropological\n    Series, edited by Professor FREDERICK STARR. Illustrated. 12mo.\n    Cloth. $1.75.\n\nThis is an inquiry into the laws which control the life and development\nof art, and into the relations existing between it and certain forms of\ncivilization. The origin of an artistic activity should be sought among\nthe most primitive peoples, like the native Australians, the Mincopies\nof the Andaman Islands, the Botocudos of South America, and the Eskimos;\nand with these alone the author studies his subject. Their arts are\nregarded as a social phenomenon and a social function, and are\nclassified as arts of rest and arts of motion. The arts of rest comprise\ndecoration, first of the body by scarification, painting, tattooing, and\ndress; and then of implements--painting and sculpture; while the arts of\nmotion are the dance (a living sculpture), poetry or song, with rhythm,\nand music.\n\n\n  _WOMAN'S SHARE IN PRIMITIVE CULTURE._ By OTIS TUFTON MASON, A. M.,\n    Curator of the Department of Ethnology in the United States National\n    Museum. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.\n\n\"A most interesting _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the revelations which science has made\nconcerning the habits of human beings in primitive times, and especially\nas to the place, the duties, and the customs of women.\"--_Philadelphia\nInquirer._\n\n\n  _THE PYGMIES._ By A. DE QUATREFAGES, late Professor of Anthropology\n    at the Museum of Natural History, Paris. With numerous\n    Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.\n\n\"Probably no one was better equipped to illustrate the general subject\nthan Quatrefages. While constantly occupied upon the anatomical and\nosseous phases of his subject, he was none the less well acquainted with\nwhat literature and history had to say concerning the pygmies.... This\nbook ought to be in every divinity school in which man as well as God is\nstudied, and from which missionaries go out to convert the human being\nof reality and not the man of rhetoric and text-books.\"--_Boston\nLiterary World._\n\n\n  _THE BEGINNINGS OF WRITING._ By W.\u00a0J. HOFFMAN, M.\u00a0D. With numerous\n    Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth, $1.75.\n\nThis interesting book gives a most attractive account of the rude\nmethods employed by primitive man for recording his deeds. The earliest\nwriting consists of pictographs which were traced on stone, wood, bone,\nskins, and various paperlike substances. Dr. Hoffman shows how the\nseveral classes of symbols used in these records are to be interpreted,\nand traces the growth of conventional signs up to syllabaries and\nalphabets--the two classes of signs employed by modern peoples.\n\n\nIN PREPARATION.\n\n  _THE SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS._ By DR. SCHMELTZ.\n  _THE ZU\u00d1I._ By FRANK HAMILTON CUSHING.\n  _THE AZTECS._ By Mrs. ZELIA NUTTALL.\n\n\nD. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.\n\n\n_NEW EDITION OF PROF. HUXLEY'S ESSAYS._\n\n  _COLLECTED ESSAYS._ By THOMAS H. HUXLEY. New complete edition, with\n    revisions, the Essays being grouped according to general subject. In\n    nine volumes, a new Introduction accompanying each volume. 12mo.\n    Cloth, $1.25 per volume.\n\n  VOL.    I.--METHOD AND RESULTS.\n  VOL.   II.--DARWINIANA.\n  VOL.  III.--SCIENCE AND EDUCATION.\n  VOL.   IV.--SCIENCE AND HEBREW TRADITION.\n  VOL.    V.--SCIENCE AND CHRISTIAN TRADITION.\n  VOL.   VI.--HUME.\n  VOL.  VII.--MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE.\n  VOL. VIII.--DISCOURSES, BIOLOGICAL AND GEOLOGICAL.\n  VOL.   IX.--EVOLUTION AND ETHICS, AND OTHER ESSAYS.\n\n\"Mr. Huxley has covered a vast variety of topics during the last quarter\nof a century. It gives one an agreeable surprise to look over the tables\nof contents and note the immense territory which he has explored. To\nread these books carefully and studiously is to become thoroughly\nacquainted with the most advanced thought on a large number of\ntopics.\"--_New York Herald._\n\n\"The series will be a welcome one. There are few writings on the more\nabstruse problems of science better adapted to reading by the general\npublic, and in this form the books will be well in the reach of the\ninvestigator.... The revisions are the last expected to be made by the\nauthor, and his introductions are none of earlier date than a few months\nago [1893], so they may be considered his final and most authoritative\nutterances.\"--_Chicago Times._\n\n\"It was inevitable that his essays should be called for in a completed\nform, and they will be a source of delight and profit to all who read\nthem. He has always commanded a hearing, and as a master of the literary\nstyle in writing scientific essays he is worthy of a place among the\ngreat English essayists of the day. This edition of his essays will be\nwidely read, and gives his scientific work a permanent form.\"--_Boston\nHerald._\n\n\"A man whose brilliancy is so constant as that of Prof. Huxley will\nalways command readers; and the utterances which are here collected are\nnot the least in weight and luminous beauty of those with which the\nauthor has long delighted the reading world.\"--_Philadelphia Press._\n\n\"The connected arrangement of the essays which their reissue permits\nbrings into fuller relief Mr. Huxley's masterly powers of exposition.\nSweeping the subject-matter clear of all logomachies, he lets the light\nof common day fall upon it. He shows that the place of hypothesis in\nscience, as the starting point of verification of the phenomena to be\nexplained, is but an extension of the assumptions which underlie actions\nin everyday affairs; and that the method of scientific investigation is\nonly the method which rules the ordinary business of life.\"--_London\nChronicle._\n\n\n  _THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY OF HERBERT SPENCER_. In nine volumes.\n    12mo. Cloth, $2.00 per volume. The titles of the several volumes are\n    as follows:\n\n   (1.) FIRST PRINCIPLES.\n           I. The Unknowable.\n          II. Laws of the Knowable.\n\n   (2.) THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. Vol. I.\n           I. The Data of Biology.\n          II. The Inductions of Biology.\n         III. The Evolution of Life.\n\n   (3.) THE PRINCIPLES OF BIOLOGY. Vol. II.\n          IV. Morphological Development.\n           V. Physiological Development.\n          VI. Laws of Multiplication.\n\n   (4.) THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Vol. I.\n           I. The Data of Psychology.\n          II. The Inductions of Psychology.\n         III. General Synthesis.\n          IV. Special Synthesis.\n           V. Physical Synthesis.\n\n   (5.) THE PRINCIPLES OF PSYCHOLOGY. Vol. II.\n          VI. Special Analysis.\n         VII. General Analysis.\n        VIII. Congruities.\n          IX. Corollaries.\n\n   (6.) THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. Vol. I.\n           I. The Data of Sociology.\n          II. The Inductions of Sociology.\n         III. The Domestic Relations.\n\n   (7.) THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. Vol. II.\n          IV. Ceremonial Institutions.\n           V. Political Institutions.\n\n   (8.) THE PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY. Vol. III.\n          VI. Ecclesiastical Institutions.\n         VII. Professional Institutions.\n        VIII. Industrial Institutions.\n\n   (9.) THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. Vol. I.\n           I. The Data of Ethics.\n          II. The Inductions of Ethics.\n         III. The Ethics of Individual Life.\n\n  (10.) THE PRINCIPLES OF ETHICS. Vol. II.\n          IV. The Ethics of Social Life: Justice.\n           V. The Ethics of Social Life: Negative Beneficence.\n          VI. The Ethics of Social Life: Positive Beneficence.\n\n\n  _DESCRIPTIVE SOCIOLOGY. A Cyclop\u00e6dia of Social Facts_. Representing\n    the Constitution of Every Type and Grade of Human Society, Past and\n    Present, Stationary and Progressive. By HERBERT SPENCER. Eight Nos.,\n    Royal Folio.\n\n  No.    I. ENGLISH                                               $4 00\n  No.   II. MEXICANS, CENTRAL AMERICANS, CHIBCHAS, and PERUVIANS   4 00\n  No.  III. LOWEST RACES, NEGRITO RACES, and MALAYO-POLYNESIAN\n             RACES                                                 4 00\n  No.   IV. AFRICAN RACES                                          4 00\n  No.    V. ASIATIC RACES                                          4 00\n  No.   VI. AMERICAN RACES                                         4 00\n  No.  VII. HEBREWS and PHOENICIANS                                4 00\n  No. VIII. FRENCH (Double Number)                                 7 00\n\n\n  _THE STRUGGLE OF THE NATIONS_: Egypt, Syria, and Assyria. By\n    Professor MASPERO. Edited by the Rev. Professor SAYCE. Translated by\n    M.\u00a0L. MCCLURE. With Map, 3 Colored Plates, and over 400\n    Illustrations. Uniform with \"The Dawn of Civilization.\" Quarto.\n    Cloth, $7.50.\n\nThis important work is a companion volume to \"The Dawn of Civilization,\"\nand carries the history of the ancient peoples of the East from the\ntwenty-fourth to the ninth century before our era. It embraces the\nsojourn of the Children of Israel in Egypt, and shows the historic\nconnection between Egypt and Syria during the centuries immediately\nfollowing the exodus. The book embodies the latest discoveries in the\nField of Egyptian and Oriental arch\u00e6ology, and there is no other work\ndealing so exhaustively with the period covered.\n\n\n  _THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION._ (EGYPT AND CHALD\u00c6A.) By Prof. G.\n    MASPERO. Edited by Rev. Prof. A.\u00a0H. SAYCE. Translated by M.\u00a0L.\n    MCCLURE. Revised and brought up to date by the Author. With Map and\n    over 470 Illustrations. Quarto. Cloth, $7.50.\n\n\"The most sumptuous and elaborate work which has yet appeared on this\ntheme.... The book should be in every well-equipped Oriental library, as\nthe most complete work on the dawn of civilization. Its careful reading\nand studying will open a world of thought to any diligent student, and\nvery largely broaden and enlarge his views of the grandeur, the\nstability, and the positive contributions of the civilization of that\nearly day to the life and culture of our own times.\"--_Chicago\nStandard._\n\n\"By all odds the best account of Egyptian and Assyrian theology, or,\nmore properly speaking, theosophy, with which we are acquainted.... The\nbook will arouse many enthusiasms. Its solid learning will enchant the\nscholar--its brilliancy will charm the general reader and tempt him into\na region which he may have hesitated to enter.\"--_The Outlook._\n\n\"The most complete reconstruction of that ancient life which has yet\nappeared in print. Maspero's great book will remain the standard work\nfor a long time to come.\"--_London Daily News._\n\n\n  _LIFE IN ANCIENT EGYPT AND ASSYRIA._ By G. MASPERO, late Director of\n    Arch\u00e6ology in Egypt, and Member of the Institute of France.\n    Translated by ALICE MORTON. With 188 Illustrations. 12mo. Cloth,\n    $1.50.\n\n\"A lucid sketch, at once popular and learned, of daily life in Egypt at\nthe time of Rameses II, and of Assyria in that of Assurbanipal.... As an\nOrientalist, M. Maspero stands in the front rank, and his learning is so\nwell digested and so admirably subdued to the service of popular\nexposition, that it nowhere overwhelms and always interests the\nreader.\"--_London Times._\n\n\"Only a writer who had distinguished himself as a student of Egyptian\nand Assyrian antiquities could have produced this work, which has none\nof the features of a modern book of travels in the East, but is an\nattempt to deal with ancient life as if one had been a contemporary with\nthe people whose civilization and social usages are very largely\nrestored.\"--_Boston Herald._\n\n\n  _PIONEERS OF SCIENCE IN AMERICA._ Sketches of their Lives and\n    Scientific Work. Edited and revised by WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS, M.D.\n    With Portraits. 8vo. Cloth, $4.00.\n\n  Impelled solely by an enthusiastic love of Nature, and neither\n  asking nor receiving outside aid, these early workers opened the way\n  and initiated the movement through which American science has\n  reached its present commanding position. This book gives some\n  account of these men, their early struggles, their scientific\n  labors, and, whenever possible, something of their personal\n  characteristics. This information, often very difficult to obtain,\n  has been collected from a great variety of sources, with the utmost\n  care to secure accuracy. It is presented in a series of sketches,\n  some fifty in all, each with a single exception accompanied with a\n  well-authenticated portrait.\n\n\"Fills a place that needed filling, and is likely to be widely\nread.\"--_N. Y. Sun._\n\n\"It is certainly a useful and convenient volume, and readable too, if we\njudge correctly of the degree of accuracy of the whole by critical\nexamination of those cases in which our own knowledge enables us to form\nan opinion.... In general, it seems to us that the handy volume is\nspecially to be commended for setting in just historical perspective\nmany of the earlier scientists who are neither very generally nor very\nwell known.\"--_New York Evening Post._\n\n\"A wonderfully interesting volume. Many a young man will find it\nfascinating. The compilation of the book is a work well done, well worth\nthe doing.\"--_Philadelphia Press._\n\n\"One of the most valuable books which we have received.\"--_Boston\nAdvertiser._\n\n\"A book of no little educational value.... An extremely valuable work of\nreference.\"--_Boston Beacon._\n\n\"A valuable handbook for those whose work runs on these same lines, and\nis likely to prove of lasting interest to those for whom '_les documents\nhumain_' are second only to history in importance--nay, are a vital part\nof history.\"--_Boston Transcript._\n\n\"A biographical history of science in America, noteworthy for its\ncompleteness and scope.... All of the sketches are excellently prepared\nand unusually interesting.\"--_Chicago Record._\n\n\"One of the most valuable contributions to American literature recently\nmade.... The pleasing style in which these sketches are written, the\nplans taken to secure accuracy, and the information conveyed, combine to\ngive them great value and interest. No better or more inspiring reading\ncould be placed in the hands of an intelligent and aspiring young\nman.\"--_New York Christian Work._\n\n\"A book whose interest and value are not for to-day or to-morrow, but\nfor indefinite time.\"--_Rochester Herald._\n\n\"It is difficult to imagine a reader of ordinary intelligence who would\nnot be entertained by the book.... Conciseness, exactness, urbanity of\ntone, and interestingness are the four qualities which chiefly impress\nthe reader of these sketches.\"--_Buffalo Express._\n\n\"Full of interesting and valuable matter.\"--_The Churchman._\n\n\n  _THE RISE AND GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH NATION._ With Special Reference\n    to Epochs and Crises. A History of and for the People. By W.\u00a0H.\u00a0S.\n    AUBREY, LL.D. In Three Volumes. 12mo. Cloth, $4.50.\n\n\"The merit of this work is intrinsic. It rests on the broad intelligence\nand true philosophy of the method employed, and the coherency and\naccuracy of the results reached. The scope of the work is marvelous.\nNever was there more crowded into three small volumes. But the saving of\nspace is not by the sacrifice of substance or of style. The broadest\nview of the facts and forces embraced by the subject is exhibited with a\nclearness of arrangement and a definiteness of application that render\nit perceptible to the simplest apprehension.\"--_New York Mail and\nExpress._\n\n\"A useful and thorough piece of work. One of the best treatises which\nthe general reader can use.\"--_London Daily Chronicle._\n\n\"Conceived in a popular spirit, yet with strict regard to the modern\nstandards. The title is fully borne out. No want of color in the\ndescriptions.\"--_London Daily News._\n\n\"The plan laid down results in an admirable English history.\"--_London\nMorning Post._\n\n\"Dr. Aubrey has supplied a want. His method is undoubtedly the right\none.\"--_Pall Mall Gazette._\n\n\"It is a distinct step forward in history writing; as far ahead of Green\nas he was of Macaulay, though on a different line. Green gives the\npicture of England at different times--Aubrey goes deeper, showing the\ncauses which led to the changes.\"--_New York World._\n\n\"A work that will commend itself to the student of history, and as a\ncomprehensive and convenient reference book.\"--_The Argonaut._\n\n\"Contains much that the ordinary reader can with difficulty find\nelsewhere unless he has access to a library of special works.\"--_Chicago\nDial._\n\n\"Up to date in its narration of fact, and in its elucidation of those\ngreat principles that underlie all vital and worthy history.... The\npainstaking division, along with the admirably complete index, will make\nit easy work for any student to get definite views of any era, or any\nparticular feature of it.... The work strikes one as being more\ncomprehensive than many that cover far more space.\"--_The Christian\nIntelligencer._\n\n\"One of the most elaborate and noteworthy of recent contributions to\nhistorical literature.\"--_New Haven Register._\n\n\"As a popular history it possesses great merits, and in many particulars\nis excelled by none. It is full, careful as to dates, maintains a\ngenerally praiseworthy impartiality, and it is interesting to\nread.\"--_Buffalo Express._\n\n\"These volumes are a surprise and in their way a marvel.... They\nconstitute an almost encylop\u00e6dia of English history, condensing in a\nmarvelous manner the facts and principles developed in the history\nof the English nation.... The work is one of unsurpassed value to\nthe historical student or even the general reader, and when more\nwidely known will no doubt be appreciated as one of the remarkable\ncontributions to English history published in the century.\"--_Chicago\nUniversalist._\n\n\"In every page Dr. Aubrey writes with the far-reaching relation of\ncontemporary incidents to the whole subject. The amount of matter\nthese three volumes contain is marvelous. The style in which they are\nwritten is more than satisfactory.... The work is one of unusual\nimportance.\"--_Hartford Post._\n\n\nNew York: D. APPLETON & CO., 72 Fifth Avenue.\n\n\n\n\n                 *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note:\n\nA few punctuation errors have been corrected silently.\n\nThe following corrections were made on the page indicated:\n\n   10 \"Then\" changed to \"The\" (The tendency of that school)\n\n   15 \"news\" changed to \"new\" (introducing new ones)\n\n   36 \"Anaximender\" changed to \"Anaximander\" (TABLE)\n\n  120 \"95\" changed to \"103\" (see p. 103)\n\n  124 \"Ren\u00e8\" changed to \"Ren\u00e9\" (Ren\u00e9 Descartes)\n\n  191 \"Cermonies\" changed to \"Ceremonies\" (Master of the Ceremonies)\n\n  239 \"genius\" changed to \"genus\" (of the same genus)\n\n  254 \"Liebnitz\" changed to \"Leibnitz\" (attributed to Leibnitz)\n\n  259 \"we\" added and \"we\" changed to \"be\" (once we let these be\n  weakened)\n\n  263 \"pelluccid\" changed to \"pellucid\" (the masculine and pellucid\n  Leviathan)\n\n  271 \"Linnean\" changed to \"Linn\u00e6an\" in the index (Linn\u00e6an Society,\n  famous)\n\n  278 \"enthusiams\" changed to \"enthusiasms\" (will arouse many\n  enthusiasms).\n\nOtherwise this text has been preserved as in the original, including\narchaic and inconsistent spelling and hyphenation.","title":"Pioneers of Evolution from Thales to Huxley: With an Intermediate Chapter on the Causes of Arrest of the Movement","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":71587}