{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75664/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75664","id":"gutenberg_75664","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75664","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Science - Physics","Evolution","Religion and science","Science -- History"],"text":"ADDRESS\n  DELIVERED BEFORE\n  THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION\n  ASSEMBLED AT\n  BELFAST\n\n\n  _WITH ADDITIONS_\n\n\n  BY\n  JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S.\n  PRESIDENT\n\n\n\n  FIFTH THOUSAND\n\n\n\n  LONDON\n  LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.\n  1874\n\n\n\n\n  'There is one God supreme over all gods, diviner than mortals,\n  Whose form is not like unto man's, and as unlike his nature;\n  But vain mortals imagine that gods like themselves are begotten,\n  With human sensations and voice and corporeal members;\n  So, if oxen or lions had hands and could work in man's fashion,\n  And trace out with chisel or brush their conception of Godhead,\n  Then would horses depict gods like horses, and oxen like oxen,\n  Each kind the divine with its own form and nature endowing.'\n\nXENOPHANES of Colophon (six centuries B.C.), 'Supernatural Religion,'\nVol. I. p. 76.\n\n\n'It were better to have no opinion of God at all, than such an\nopinion as is unworthy of Him; for the one is unbelief, the other is\ncontumely.' BACON.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nAt the request of my Publishers, strengthened by the expressed desire\nof many Correspondents, I reprint, with a few slight alterations,\nthis Address.\n\nIt was written under some disadvantages this year in the Alps, and\nsent by instalments to the printer.  When read subsequently it proved\ntoo long for its purpose, and several of its passages were\naccordingly struck out.  Some of them are here restored.\n\nIt has provoked an unexpected amount of criticism.  This, in due\ntime, will subside; and I confidently look forward to a calmer future\nfor a verdict, founded not on imaginary sins, but on the real facts\nof the case.\n\nOf the numberless strictures and accusations, some of them exceeding\nfierce, of which I have been, and continue to be, the object, I\nrefrain from speaking at any length.  To one or two of them, however,\nout of respect for their sources, I would ask permission briefly to\nrefer.\n\nAn evening paper of the first rank, after the ascription of various\nmore or less questionable aims and motives, proceeds to the\nimputation, that I permitted the cheers of my audience to 'stimulate'\nme to the utterance of words which no right-minded man, without a\nsense of the gravest responsibility, could employ.  I trust the\nauthor of this charge will allow me in all courtesy to assure him\nthat the words ascribed by him to the spur of the moment were written\nin Switzerland; that they stood in the printed copy of the Address\nfrom which I read; that they evoked no 'cheers,' but a silence far\nmore impressive than cheers; and that, finally, as regards both\napprobation and the reverse, my course had been thought over and\ndecided long before I ventured to address a Belfast audience.\n\nA writer in a most able theological journal represents me as 'patting\nreligion on the back.'  The thought of doing so is certainly his, not\nmine.  The facts of religious feeling are to me as certain as the\nfacts of physics.  But the world, I hold, will have to distinguish\nbetween the feeling and its forms, and to vary the latter in\naccordance with the intellectual condition of the age.\n\nI am unwilling to dwell upon statements ascribed to eminent men,\nwhich may be imperfectly reported in the newspapers, and I therefore\npass over a recent sermon attributed to the Bishop of Manchester with\nthe remark, that one engaged so much as he is in busy and, I doubt\nnot on the whole, beneficent outward life, is not likely to be among\nthe earliest to discern the more inward and spiritual signs of the\ntimes, or to prepare for the condition which they foreshadow.\n\nIn a recent speech at Dewsbury, the Dean of Manchester is reported to\nhave expressed himself thus:--'The Professor (myself) ended a most\nremarkable and eloquent speech by terming himself a material\nAtheist.'  My attention was drawn to Dean Cowie's statement by a\ncorrespondent, who described it as standing 'conspicuous among the\nstrange calumnies' with which my words have been assailed.  For\nmyself I use no language which could imply that I am hurt by such\nattacks.  They have lost their power to wound or injure.  So likewise\nas regards a resolution recently passed by the Presbytery of Belfast,\nin which Professor Huxley and myself are spoken of as 'ignoring the\nexistence of God, and advocating pure and simple materialism;' had\nthe possessive pronoun 'our' preceded 'God,' and had the words 'what\nwe consider' preceded 'pure,' this statement would have been\nobjectively true; but to make it so this qualification is required.\n\nCardinal Cullen, I am told, is also actively engaged in erecting\nspiritual barriers against the intrusion of 'Infidelity' into\nIreland.  His Eminence, I believe, has reason to suspect that the\nCatholic youth around him are not proof to the seductions of science.\nStrong as he is, I believe him to be impotent here.  The youth of\nIreland will imbibe science, however slowly; they will be leavened by\nit, however gradually.  And to its inward modifying power among\nCatholics themselves, rather than to any Protestant propagandism, or\nother external influence, I look for the abatement of various\nincongruities; among them, of those medi\u00e6val proceedings which, to\nthe scandal and amazement of our nineteenth century intelligence,\nhave been revived among us during the last two years.\n\nIn connexion with the charge of Atheism, I would make one remark.\nChristian men are proved by their writings to have their hours of\nweakness and of doubt, as well as their hours of strength and of\nconviction; and men like myself share, in their own way, these\nvariations of mood and tense.  Were the religious views of many of my\nassailants the only alternative ones, I do not know how strong the\nclaims of the doctrine of 'Material Atheism' upon my allegiance might\nbe.  Probably they would be very strong.  But, as it is, I have\nnoticed during years of self-observation that it is not in hours of\nclearness and vigour that this doctrine commends itself to my mind;\nthat in the presence of stronger and healthier thought it ever\ndissolves and disappears, as offering no solution of the mystery in\nwhich we dwell, and of which we form a part.\n\nTo coarser attacks and denunciations I pay no attention; nor have I\nany real reason to complain of revilings addressed to me, which\nprofessing Christians, as could readily be proved, do not scruple to\nuse towards each other.  The more agreeable task remains to me of\nthanking those who have tried, however hopelessly, to keep accusation\nwithin the bounds of justice, and who, privately, and at some risk in\npublic, have honoured me with the expression of their sympathy and\napproval.\n\nJOHN TYNDALL.\n\n  Athen\u00e6um Club.\n  _September_ 16, 1874.\n\n\n\n\nADDRESS,\n\nETC.\n\n\nAn impulse inherent in primeval man turned his thoughts and\nquestionings betimes towards the sources of natural phenomena.  The\nsame impulse, inherited and intensified, is the spur of scientific\naction to-day.  Determined by it, by a process of abstraction from\nexperience we form physical theories which lie beyond the pale of\nexperience, but which satisfy the desire of the mind to see every\nnatural occurrence resting upon a cause.  In forming their notions of\nthe origin of things, our earliest historic (and doubtless, we might\nadd, our prehistoric) ancestors pursued, as far as their intelligence\npermitted, the same course.  They also fell back upon experience, but\nwith this difference--that the particular experiences which furnished\nthe weft and woof of their theories were drawn, not from the study of\nnature, but from what lay much closer to them, the observation of\nmen.  Their theories accordingly took an anthropomorphic form.  To\nsupersensual beings, which, 'however potent and invisible, were\nnothing but a species of human creatures, perhaps raised from among\nmankind, and retaining all human passions and appetites,'[1] were\nhanded over the rule and governance of natural phenomena.\n\nTested by observation and reflection, these early notions failed in\nthe long run to satisfy the more penetrating intellects of our race.\nFar in the depths of history we find men of exceptional power\ndifferentiating themselves from the crowd, rejecting these\nanthropomorphic notions, and seeking to connect natural phenomena\nwith their physical principles.  But long prior to these purer\nefforts of the understanding the merchant had been abroad, and\nrendered the philosopher possible; commerce had been developed,\nwealth amassed, leisure for travel and speculation secured, while\nraces educated under different conditions, and therefore differently\ninformed and endowed, had been stimulated and sharpened by mutual\ncontact.  In those regions where the commercial aristocracy of\nancient Greece mingled with its eastern neighbours the sciences were\nborn, being nurtured and developed by free-thinking and courageous\nmen.  The state of things to be displaced may be gathered from a\npassage of Euripides quoted by Hume.  'There is nothing in the world;\nno glory, no prosperity.  The gods toss all into confusion; mix\neverything with its reverse, that all of us, from our ignorance and\nuncertainty, may pay them the more worship and reverence.'  Now, as\nscience demands the radical extirpation of caprice and the absolute\nreliance upon law in nature, there grew with the growth of scientific\nnotions a desire and determination to sweep from the field of theory\nthis mob of gods and demons, and to place natural phenomena on a\nbasis more congruent with themselves.\n\nThe problem which had been previously approached from above was now\nattacked from below; theoretic effort passed from the super- to the\nsub-sensible.  It was felt that to construct the universe in idea it\nwas necessary to have some notion of its constituent parts--of what\nLucretius subsequently called the 'First Beginnings.'  Abstracting\nagain from experience, the leaders of scientific speculation reached\nat length the pregnant doctrine of atoms and molecules, the latest\ndevelopments of which were set forth with such power and clearness at\nthe last meeting of the British Association.  Thought, no doubt, had\nlong hovered about this doctrine before it attained the precision and\ncompleteness which it assumed in the mind of Democritus,[2] a\nphilosopher who may well for a moment arrest our attention.  'Few\ngreat men,' says Lange, a non-materialist, in his excellent 'History\nof Materialism,' to the spirit and to the letter of which I am\nequally indebted, 'have been so despitefully used by history as\nDemocritus.  In the distorted images sent down to us through\nunscientific traditions there remains of him almost nothing but the\nname of \"the laughing philosopher,\" while figures of immeasurably\nsmaller significance spread themselves out at full length before us.'\nLange speaks of Bacon's high appreciation of Democritus--for ample\nillustrations of which I am indebted to my excellent friend Mr.\nSpedding, the learned editor and biographer of Bacon.  It is evident,\nindeed, that Bacon considered Democritus to be a man of weightier\nmetal than either Plato or Aristotle, though their philosophy 'was\nnoised and celebrated in the schools, amid the din and pomp of\nprofessors.'  It was not they, but Genseric and Attila and the\nbarbarians, who destroyed the atomic philosophy.  'For at a time when\nall human learning had suffered shipwreck these planks of\nAristotelian and Platonic philosophy, as being of a lighter and more\ninflated substance, were preserved and came down to us, while things\nmore solid sank and almost passed into oblivion.'\n\nThe son of a wealthy father, Democritus devoted the whole of his\ninherited fortune to the culture of his mind.  He travelled\neverywhere; visited Athens when Socrates and Plato were there, but\nquitted the city without making himself known.  Indeed, the dialectic\nstrife in which Socrates so much delighted had no charms for\nDemocritus, who held that 'the man who readily contradicts and uses\nmany words is unfit to learn anything truly right.'  He is said to\nhave discovered and educated Protagoras the sophist, being struck as\nmuch by the manner in which he, being a hewer of wood, tied up his\nfaggots as by the sagacity of his conversation.  Democritus returned\npoor from his travels, was supported by his brother, and at length\nwrote his great work entitled 'Diakosmos,' which he read publicly\nbefore the people of his native town.  He was honoured by his\ncountrymen in various ways, and died serenely at a great age.\n\nThe principles enunciated by Democritus reveal his uncompromising\nantagonism to those who deduced the phenomena of nature from the\ncaprices of the gods.  They are briefly these:--1. From nothing comes\nnothing.  Nothing that exists can be destroyed.  All changes are due\nto the combination and separation of molecules.  2. Nothing happens\nby chance.  Every occurrence has its cause from which it follows by\nnecessity.  3. The only existing things are the atoms and empty\nspace; all else is mere opinion.  4. The atoms are infinite in number\nand infinitely various in form; they strike together, and the lateral\nmotions and whirlings which thus arise are the beginnings of worlds.\n5. The varieties of all things depend upon the varieties of their\natoms, in number, size, and aggregation.  6. The soul consists of\nfine, smooth, round atoms, like those of fire.  These are the most\nmobile of all.  They interpenetrate the whole body, and in their\nmotions the phenomena of life arise.  The first five propositions are\na fair general statement of the atomic philosophy, as now held.  As\nregards the sixth, Democritus made his fine smooth atoms do duty for\nthe nervous system, whose functions were then unknown.  The atoms of\nDemocritus are individually without sensation; they combine in\nobedience to mechanical laws; and not only organic forms, but the\nphenomena of sensation and thought are the result of their\ncombination.\n\nThat great enigma, 'the exquisite adaptation of one part of an\norganism to another part, and to the conditions of life,' more\nespecially the construction of the human body, Democritus made no\nattempt to solve.  Empedocles, a man of more fiery and poetic nature,\nintroduced the notion of love and hate among the atoms to account for\ntheir combination and separation.  Noticing this gap in the doctrine\nof Democritus, he struck in with the penetrating thought, linked,\nhowever, with some wild speculation, that it lay in the very nature\nof those combinations which were suited to their ends (in other\nwords, in harmony with their environment) to maintain themselves,\nwhile unfit combinations, having no proper habitat, must rapidly\ndisappear.  Thus more than 2,000 years ago the doctrine of the\n'survival of the fittest,' which in our day, not on the basis of\nvague conjecture, but of positive knowledge, has been raised to such\nextraordinary significance, had received at all events partial\nenunciation.[3]\n\nEpicurus,[4] said to be the son of a poor schoolmaster at Samos, is\nthe next dominant figure in the history of the atomic philosophy.  He\nmastered the writings of Democritus, heard lectures in Athens, went\nback to Sarnos, and subsequently wandered through various countries.\nHe finally returned to Athens, where he bought a garden, and\nsurrounded himself by pupils, in the midst of whom he lived a pure\nand serene life, and died a peaceful death.  Democritus looked to the\nsoul as the ennobling part of man; even beauty without understanding\npartook of animalism.  Epicurus also rated the spirit above the body;\nthe pleasure of the body was that of the moment, while the spirit\ncould draw upon the future and the past.  His philosophy was almost\nidentical with that of Democritus; but he never quoted either friend\nor foe.  One main object of Epicurus was to free the world from\nsuperstition and the fear of death.  Death he treated with\nindifference.  It merely robs us of sensation.  As long as we are,\ndeath is not; and when death is, we are not.  Life has no more evil\nfor him who has made up his mind that it is no evil not to live.  He\nadored the gods, but not in the ordinary fashion.  The idea of divine\npower, properly purified, he thought an elevating one.  Still he\ntaught, 'Not he is godless who rejects the gods of the crowd, but\nrather he who accepts them.'  The gods were to him eternal and\nimmortal beings, whose blessedness excluded every thought of care or\noccupation of any kind.  Nature pursues her course in accordance with\neverlasting laws, the gods never interfering.  They haunt\n\n  'The lucid interspace of world and world\n  Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind,\n  Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,\n  Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,\n  Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar\n  Their sacred everlasting calm.'[5]\n\n\nLange considers the relation of Epicurus to the gods subjective; the\nindication probably of an ethical requirement of his own nature.  We\ncannot read history with open eyes, or study human nature to its\ndepths, and fail to discern such a requirement.  Man never has been,\nand he never will be, satisfied with the operations and products of\nthe Understanding alone; hence physical science cannot cover all the\ndemands of his nature.  But the history of the efforts made to\nsatisfy these demands might be broadly described as a history of\nerrors--the error, in great part, consisting in ascribing fixity to\nthat which is fluent, which varies as we vary, being gross when we\nare gross, and becoming, as our capacities widen, more abstract and\nsublime.  On one great point the mind of Epicurus was at peace.  He\nneither sought nor expected, here or hereafter, any personal profit\nfrom his relation to the gods.  And it is assuredly a fact that\nloftiness and serenity of thought may be promoted by conceptions\nwhich involve no idea of profit of this kind.  'Did I not believe,'\nsaid a great man to me once, 'that an Intelligence is at the heart of\nthings, my life on earth would be intolerable.'  The utterer of these\nwords is not, in my opinion, rendered less noble but more noble by\nthe fact that it was the need of ethical harmony here, and not the\nthought of personal profit hereafter, that prompted his observation.\n\nThere are persons, not belonging to the highest intellectual zone,\nnor yet to the lowest, to whom perfect clearness of exposition\nsuggests want of depth.  They find comfort and edification in an\nabstract and learned phraseology.  To some such people Epicurus, who\nspared no pains to rid his style of every trace of haze and\nturbidity, appeared, on this very account, superficial.  He had,\nhowever, a disciple who thought it no unworthy occupation to spend\nhis days and nights in the effort to reach the clearness of his\nmaster, and to whom the Greek philosopher is mainly indebted for the\nextension and perpetuation of his fame.  A century and a half after\nthe death of Epicurus, Lucretius[6] wrote his great poem, 'On the\nNature of Things,' in which he, a Roman, developed with extraordinary\nardour the philosophy of his Greek predecessor.  He wishes to win\nover his friend Memnius to the school of Epicurus; and although he\nhas no rewards in a future life to offer, although his object appears\nto be a purely negative one, he addresses his friend with the heat of\nan apostle.  His object, like that of his great forerunner, is the\ndestruction of superstition; and considering that men trembled before\nevery natural event as a direct monition from the gods, and that\never-lasting torture was also in prospect, the freedom aimed at by\nLucretius might perhaps be deemed a positive good.  'This terror,' he\nsays, 'and darkness of mind must be dispelled, not by the rays of the\nsun and glittering shafts of day, but by the aspect and the law of\nnature.'  He refutes the notion that anything can come out of\nnothing, or that that which is once begotten can be recalled to\nnothing.  The first beginnings, the atoms, are indestructible, and\ninto them all things can be resolved at last.  Bodies are partly\natoms, and partly combinations of atoms; but the atoms nothing can\nquench.  They are strong in solid singleness, and by their denser\ncombination all things can be closely packed and exhibit enduring\nstrength.  He denies that matter is infinitely divisible.  We come at\nlength to the atoms, without which, as an imperishable substratum,\nall order in the generation and development of things would be\ndestroyed.\n\nThe mechanical shock of the atoms being in his view the\nall-sufficient cause of things, he combats the notion that the\nconstitution of nature has been in any way determined by intelligent\ndesign.  The inter-action of the atoms throughout infinite time\nrendered all manner of combinations possible.  Of these the fit ones\npersisted, while the unfit ones disappeared.  Not after sage\ndeliberation did the atoms station themselves in their right places,\nnor did they bargain what motions they should assume.  From all\neternity they have been driven together, and after trying motions and\nunions of every kind, they fell at length into the arrangements out\nof which this system of things has been formed.  'If you will\napprehend and keep in mind these things, nature, free at once, and\nrid of her haughty lords, is seen to do all things spontaneously of\nherself, without the meddling of the gods.'[7]\n\nTo meet the objection that his atoms cannot be seen, Lucretius\ndescribes a violent storm, and shows that the invisible particles of\nair act in the same way as the visible particles of water.  We\nperceive, moreover, the different smells of things, yet never see\nthem coming to our nostrils.  Again, clothes hung up on a shore which\nwaves break upon become moist, and then get dry if spread out in the\nsun, though no eye can see either the approach or the escape of the\nwater particles.  A ring, worn long on the finger, becomes thinner; a\nwater-drop hollows out a stone; the ploughshare is rubbed away in the\nfield; the street pavement is worn by the feet; but the particles\nthat disappear at any moment we cannot see.  Nature acts through\ninvisible particles.  That Lucretius had a strong scientific\nimagination the foregoing references prove.  A fine illustration of\nhis power in this respect is his explanation of the apparent rest of\nbodies whose atoms are in motion.  He employs the image of a flock of\nsheep with skipping lambs, which, seen from a distance, presents\nsimply a white patch upon the green hill, the jumping of the\nindividual lambs being quite invisible.\n\nHis vaguely-grand conception of the atoms falling eternally through\nspace suggested the nebular hypothesis to Kant, its first propounder.\nFar beyond the limits of our visible world are to be found atoms\ninnumerable, which have never been united to form bodies, or which,\nif once united, have been again dispersed, falling silently through\nimmeasurable intervals of time and space.  As everywhere throughout\nthe All the same conditions are repeated, so must the phenomena be\nrepeated also.  Above us, below us, beside us, therefore, are worlds\nwithout end; and this, when considered, must dissipate every thought\nof a deflection of the universe by the gods.  The worlds come and go,\nattracting new atoms out of limitless space, or dispersing their own\nparticles.  The reputed death of Lucretius, which forms the basis of\nMr. Tennyson's noble poem, is in strict accordance with his\nphilosophy, which was severe and pure.\n\n\nDuring the centuries lying between the first of these three\nphilosophers and the last, the human intellect was active in other\nfields than theirs.  The sophists had run through their career.  At\nAthens had appeared Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, who ruined the\nsophists, and whose yoke remains to some extent unbroken to the\npresent hour.  Within this period also the School of Alexandria was\nfounded, Euclid wrote his 'Elements,' and made some advance in\noptics.  Archimedes had propounded the theory of the lever and the\nprinciples of hydrostatics.  Pythagoras had made his experiments on\nthe harmonic intervals, while astronomy was immensely enriched by the\ndiscoveries of Hipparchus, who was followed by the historically more\ncelebrated Ptolemy.  Anatomy had been made the basis of Scientific\nmedicine; and it is said by Draper[8] that vivisection then began.\nIn fact, the science of ancient Greece had already cleared the world\nof the fantastic images of divinities operating capriciously through\nnatural phenomena.  It had shaken itself free from that fruitless\nscrutiny 'by the internal light of the mind alone,' which had vainly\nsought to transcend experience and reach a knowledge of ultimate\ncauses.  Instead of accidental observation, it had introduced\nobservation with a purpose; instruments were employed to aid the\nsenses; and scientific method was rendered in a great measure\ncomplete by the union of Induction and Experiment.\n\nWhat, then, stopped its victorious advance?  Why was the scientific\nintellect compelled, like an exhausted soil, to lie fallow for nearly\ntwo millenniums before it could regather the elements necessary to\nits fertility and strength?  Bacon has already let us know one cause;\nWhewell ascribes this stationary period to four causes--obscurity of\nthought, servility, intolerance of disposition, enthusiasm of\ntemper--and he gives striking examples of each.[9]  But these\ncharacteristics must have had their antecedents in the circumstances\nof the time.  Rome and the other cities of the Empire had fallen into\nmoral putrefaction.  Christianity had appeared, offering the gospel\nto the poor, and, by moderation if not asceticism of life,\npractically protesting against the profligacy of the age.  The\nsufferings of the early Christians, and the extraordinary exaltation\nof mind which enabled them to triumph over the diabolical tortures to\nwhich they were subjected,[10] must have left traces not easily\neffaced.  They scorned the earth, in view of that 'building of God,\nthat house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'  The\nScriptures which ministered to their spiritual needs were also the\nmeasure of their Science.  When, for example, the celebrated question\nof antipodes came to be discussed, the Bible was with many the\nultimate court of appeal.  Augustin, who flourished A.D. 400, would\nnot deny the rotundity of the earth; but he would deny the possible\nexistence of inhabitants at the other side, 'because no such race is\nrecorded in Scripture among the descendants of Adam.' Archbishop\nBoniface was shocked at the assumption of a 'world of human beings\nout of the reach of the means of salvation.'  Thus reined in, Science\nwas not likely to make much progress.  Later on the political and\ntheological strife between the Church and civil governments, so\npowerfully depicted by Draper, must have done much to stifle\ninvestigation.\n\nWhewell makes many wise and brave remarks regarding the spirit of the\nMiddle Ages.  It was a menial spirit.  The seekers after natural\nknowledge had forsaken that fountain of living waters, the direct\nappeal to nature by observation and experiment, and had given\nthemselves up to the remanipulation of the notions of their\npredecessors.  It was a time when thought had become abject, and when\nthe acceptance of mere authority led, as it always does in science,\nto intellectual death.  Natural events, instead of being traced to\nphysical, were referred to moral causes; while an exercise of the\nphantasy, almost as degrading as the spiritualism of the present day,\ntook the place of scientific speculation.  Then came the mysticism of\nthe Middle Ages, Magic, Alchemy, the Neo-platonic philosophy, with\nits visionary though sublime abstractions, which caused men to look\nwith shame upon their own bodies as hindrances to the absorption of\nthe creature in the blessedness of the Creator.  Finally came the\nScholastic philosophy, a fusion, according to Lange, of the\nleast-mature notions of Aristotle with the Christianity of the West.\nIntellectual immobility was the result.  As a traveller without a\ncompass in a fog may wander long, imagining he is making way, and\nfind himself after hours of toil at his starting-point, so the\nschoolmen, having 'tied and untied the same knots and formed and\ndissipated the same clouds,' found themselves at the end of centuries\nin their old position.\n\nWith regard to the influence wielded by Aristotle in the Middle Ages,\nand which, though to a less extent, he still wields, I would ask\npermission to make one remark.  When the human mind has achieved\ngreatness and given evidence of extraordinary power in any domain,\nthere is a tendency to credit it with similar power in all other\ndomains.  Thus theologians have found comfort and assurance in the\nthought that Newton dealt with the question of revelation, forgetful\nof the fact that the very devotion of his powers, through all the\nbest years of his life, to a totally different class of ideas, not to\nspeak of any natural disqualification, tended to render him less\ninstead of more competent to deal with theological and historic\nquestions.  Goethe, starting from his established greatness as a\npoet, and indeed from his positive discoveries in Natural History,\nproduced a profound impression among the painters of Germany when he\npublished his 'Farbenlehre,' in which he endeavoured to overthrow\nNewton's theory of colours.  This theory he deemed so obviously\nabsurd that he considered its author a charlatan, and attacked him\nwith a corresponding vehemence of language.  In the domain of Natural\nHistory Goethe had made really considerable discoveries; and we have\nhigh authority for assuming that, had he devoted himself wholly to\nthat side of science, he might have reached in it an eminence\ncomparable with that which he attained as a poet.  In sharpness of\nobservation, in the detection of analogies, however apparently\nremote, in the classification and organization of facts according to\nthe analogies discerned, Goethe possessed extraordinary powers.\nThese elements of scientific inquiry fall in with the discipline of\nthe poet.  But, on the other hand, a mind thus richly endowed in the\ndirection of natural history may be almost shorn of endowment as\nregards the more strictly called physical and mechanical sciences.\nGoethe was in this condition.  He could not formulate distinct\nmechanical conceptions; he could not see the force of mechanical\nreasoning; and in regions where such reasoning reigns supreme he\nbecame a mere _ignis fatuus_ to those who followed him.\n\nI have sometimes permitted myself to compare Aristotle with Goethe,\nto credit the Stagirite with an almost superhuman power of amassing\nand systematizing facts, but to consider him fatally defective on\nthat side of the mind in respect to which incompleteness has been\njust ascribed to Goethe.  Whewell refers the errors of Aristotle, not\nto a neglect of facts, but to 'a neglect of the idea appropriate to\nthe facts; the idea of Mechanical cause, which is Force, and the\nsubstitution of vague or inapplicable notions, involving only\nrelations of space or emotions of wonder.'  This is doubtless true;\nbut the word 'neglect' implies mere intellectual misdirection,\nwhereas in Aristotle, as in Goethe, it was not, I believe,\nmisdirection, but sheer natural incapacity which lay at the root of\nhis mistakes.  As a physicist, Aristotle displayed what we should\nconsider some of the worst attributes of a modern physical\ninvestigator--indistinctness of ideas, confusion of mind, and a\nconfident use of language, which led to the delusive notion that he\nhad really mastered his subject, while he had as yet failed to grasp\neven the elements of it.  He put words in the place of things,\nsubject in the place of object.  He preached Induction without\npractising it, inverting the true order of inquiry by passing from\nthe general to the particular, instead of from the particular to the\ngeneral.  He made of the universe a closed sphere, in the centre of\nwhich he fixed the earth, proving from general principles, to his own\nsatisfaction and to that of the world for near 2,000 years, that no\nother universe was possible.  His notions of motion were entirely\nunphysical.  It was natural or unnatural, better or worse, calm or\nviolent--no real mechanical conception regarding it lying at the\nbottom of his mind.  He affirmed that a vacuum could not exist, and\nproved that if it did exist motion in it would be impossible.  He\ndetermined _\u00e0 priori_ how many species of animals must exist, and\nshows on general principles why animals must have such and such\nparts.  When an eminent contemporary philosopher, who is far removed\nfrom errors of this kind, remembers these abuses of the _\u00e0 priori_\nmethod, he will be able to make allowance for the jealousy of\nphysicists as to the acceptance of so-called _\u00e0 priori_ truths.\nAristotle's errors of detail, as shown by Eucken and Lange, were\ngrave and numerous.  He affirmed that only in man we had the beating\nof the heart, that the left side of the body was colder than the\nright, that men have more teeth than women, and that there is an\nempty space at the back of every man's head.\n\nThere is one essential quality in physical conceptions which was\nentirely wanting in those of Aristotle and his followers.  I wish it\ncould be expressed by a word untainted by its associations; it\nsignifies a capability of being placed as a coherent picture before\nthe mind.  The Germans express the act of picturing by the word\n_vorstellen_, and the picture they call a _Vorstellung_.  We have no\nword in English which comes nearer to our requirements than\n_Imagination_, and, taken with its proper limitations, the word\nanswers very well; but, as just intimated, it is tainted by its\nassociations, and therefore objectionable to some minds.  Compare,\nwith reference to this capacity of mental presentation, the case of\nthe Aristotelian who refers the ascent of water in a pump to Nature's\nabhorrence of a vacuum, with that of Pascal when he proposed to solve\nthe question of atmospheric pressure by the ascent of the Puy de\nDome.  In the one case the terms of the explanation refuse to fall\ninto place as a physical image; in the other the image is distinct,\nthe fall and rise of the barometer being clearly figured as the\nbalancing of two varying and opposing pressures.\n\nDuring the drought of the Middle Ages in Christendom, the Arabian\nintellect, as forcibly shown by Draper, was active.  With the\nintrusion of the Moors into Spain, he says, order, learning, and\nrefinement took the place of their opposites.  When smitten with\ndisease, the Christian peasant resorted to a shrine, the Moorish one\nto an instructed physician.  The Arabs encouraged translations from\nthe Greek philosophers, but not from the Greek poets.  They turned in\ndisgust 'from the lewdness of our classical mythology, and denounced\nas an unpardonable blasphemy all connexion between the impure\nOlympian Jove and the Most High God.'  Draper traces still further\nthan Whewell the Arab elements in our scientific terms, and points\nout that the under garment of ladies retains to this hour its Arab\nname.  He gives examples of what Arabian men of science accomplished,\ndwelling particularly on Alhazen, who was the first to correct the\nPlatonic notion that rays of light are emitted by the eye.  He\ndiscovered atmospheric refraction, and points out that we see the sun\nand the moon after they have set.  He explains the enlargement of the\nsun and moon, and the shortening of the vertical diameters of both\nthese bodies, when near the horizon.  He is aware that the atmosphere\ndecreases in density with increase of elevation, and actually fixes\nits height at 58\u00bd miles.  In the Book of the Balance Wisdom, he sets\nforth the connexion between the weight of the atmosphere and its\nincreasing density.  He shows that a body will weigh differently in a\nrare and dense atmosphere: he considers the force with which plunged\nbodies rise through heavier media.  He understands the doctrine of\nthe centre of gravity, and applies it to the investigation of\nbalances and steelyards.  He recognises gravity as a force, though he\nfalls into the error of making it diminish simply as the distance\nincreased, and of making it purely terrestrial.  He knows the\nrelation between the velocities, spaces, and times of falling bodies,\nand has distinct ideas of capillary attraction.  He improved the\nhydrometer.  The determination of the densities of bodies as given by\nAlhazen approach very closely to our own.  'I join,' says Draper, in\nthe pious prayer of Alhazen, 'that in the day of judgment the\nAll-Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Raih\u00e2n, because he\nwas the first of the race of men to construct a table of specific\ngravities.'  If all this be historic truth (and I have entire\nconfidence in Dr. Draper), well may he 'deplore the systematic manner\nin which the literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight\nour scientific obligations to the Mahommedans.'[11]\n\nThe strain upon the mind during the stationary period towards\nultra-terrestrial things, to the neglect of problems close at hand,\nwas sure to provoke reaction.  But the reaction was gradual; for the\nground was dangerous, a power being at hand competent to crush the\ncritic who went too far.  To elude this power and still allow\nopportunity for the expression of opinion, the doctrine of 'twofold\ntruth' was invented, according to which an opinion might be held;\n'theologically' and the opposite opinion 'philosophically.'[12]  Thus\nin the thirteenth century the creation of the world in six days, and\nthe unchangeableness of the individual soul which had been so\ndistinctly affirmed by St. Thomas Aquinas, were both denied\nphilosophically, but admitted to be true as articles of the Catholic\nfaith.  When Protagoras uttered the maxim which brought upon him so\nmuch vituperation, that' opposite assertions are equally true,' he\nsimply meant that human beings differed so much from each other that\nwhat was subjectively true to the one might be subjectively untrue to\nthe other.  The great Sophist never meant to play fast and loose with\nthe truth by saying that one of two opposite assertions, made by the\nsame individual, could possibly escape being a lie.  It was not\n'sophistry,' but the dread of theologic vengeance that generated this\ndouble dealing with conviction; and it is astonishing to notice what\nlengths were possible to men who were adroit in the use of artifices\nof this kind.\n\nTowards the close of the stationary period a word-weariness, if I may\nso express it, took more and more possession of men's minds.\nChristendom had become sick of the School philosophy and its verbal\nwastes, which led to no issue, but left the intellect in everlasting\nhaze.  Here and there was heard the voice of one impatiently crying\nin the wilderness, 'Not unto Aristotle, not unto subtle hypothesis,\nnot unto church, Bible, or blind tradition, must we turn for a\nknowledge of the universe, but to the direct investigation of Nature\nby observation and experiment.'  In 1543 the epoch-making work of\nCopernicus on the paths of the heavenly bodies appeared.  The total\ncrash of Aristotle's closed universe with the earth at its centre\nfollowed as a consequence, and 'the earth moves!' became a kind of\nwatchword among intellectual freemen.  Copernicus was Canon of the\nChurch of Frauenburg, in the diocese of Ermeland.  For\nthree-and-thirty years he had withdrawn himself from the world and\ndevoted himself to the consolidation of his great scheme of the solar\nsystem.  He made its blocks eternal; and even to those who feared it\nand desired its overthrow it was so obviously strong that they\nrefrained for a time from meddling with it.  In the last year of the\nlife of Copernicus his book appeared: it is said that the old man\nreceived a copy of it a few days before his death, and then departed\nin peace.\n\nThe Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was one of the earliest\nconverts to the new astronomy.  Taking Lucretius as his exemplar, he\nrevived the notion of the infinity of worlds; and, combining with it\nthe doctrine of Copernicus, reached the sublime generalization that\nthe fixed stars are suns, scattered numberless through space and\naccompanied by satellites, which bear the same relation to them, that\nour earth does to our sun, or our moon to our earth.  This was an\nexpansion of transcendent import; but Bruno came closer than this to\nour present line of thought.  Struck with the problem of the\ngeneration and maintenance of organisms, and duly pondering it, he\ncame to the conclusion that Nature in her productions does not\nimitate the technic of man.  Her process is one of unravelling and\nunfolding.  The infinity of forms under which matter appears were not\nimposed upon it by an external artificer; by its own intrinsic force\nand virtue it brings these forms forth.  Matter is not the mere\nnaked, empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but\nthe universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her\nown womb.\n\nThis outspoken man was originally a Dominican monk.  He was accused\nof heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in Geneva, Paris, England,\nand Germany.  In 1592 he fell into the hands of the Inquisition at\nVenice.  He was imprisoned for many years, tried, degraded,\nexcommunicated, and handed over to the civil power, with the request\nthat he should be treated gently and 'without the shedding of blood.'\nThis meant that he was to be burnt; and burnt accordingly he was, on\nthe 16th of February, 1600.  To escape a similar fate Galileo,\nthirty-three years afterwards, abjured, upon his knees, and with his\nhand upon the holy gospels, the heliocentric doctrine which he knew\nto be true.  After Galileo came Kepler, who from his German home\ndefied the power beyond the Alps.  He traced out from pre-existing\nobservations the laws of planetary motion.  Materials were thus\nprepared for Newton, who bound those empirical laws together by the\nprinciple of gravitation.\n\nIn the seventeenth century Bacon and Descartes, the restorers of\nphilosophy, appeared in succession.  Differently educated and\nendowed, their philosophic tendencies were different.  Bacon held\nfast to Induction, believing firmly in the existence of an external\nworld, and making collected experiences the basis of all knowledge.\nThe mathematical studies of Descartes gave him a bias towards\nDeduction; and his fundamental principle was much the same as that of\nProtagoras, who made the individual man the measure of all things.\n'I think, therefore I am,' said Descartes.  Only his own identity was\nsure to him; and the development of this system would have led to an\nidealism in which the outer world would be resolved into a mere\nphenomenon of consciousness.  Gassendi, one of Descartes's\ncontemporaries, of whom we shall hear more presently, quickly pointed\nout that the fact of personal existence would be proved as well by\nreference to any other act as to the act of thinking.  I eat,\ntherefore I am; or I love, therefore I am, would be quite as\nconclusive.  Lichtenberg showed that the very thing to be proved was\ninevitably postulated in the first two words, 'I think;' and that no\ninference from the postulate could by any possibility be stronger\nthan the postulate itself.\n\nBut Descartes deviated strangely from the idealism implied in his\nfundamental principle.  He was the first to reduce, in a manner\neminently capable of bearing the test of mental presentation, vital\nphenomena to purely mechanical principles.  Through fear or love,\nDescartes was a good churchman; he accordingly rejects the notion of\nan atom, because it was absurd to suppose that God, if he so pleased,\ncould not divide an atom; he puts in the place of the atoms small\nround particles and light splinters, out of which he builds the\norganism.  He sketches with marvellous physical insight a machine,\nwith water for its motive power, which shall illustrate vital\nactions.  He has made clear to his mind that such a machine would be\ncompetent to carry on the processes of digestion, nutrition, growth,\nrespiration, and the beating of the heart.  It would be competent to\naccept impressions from the external sense, to store them up in\nimagination and memory, to go through the internal movements of the\nappetites and passions, the external movement of limbs.  He deduces\nthese functions of his machine from the mere arrangement of its\norgans, as the movement of a clock or other automaton is deduced from\nits weights and wheels.  'As far as these functions are concerned,'\nhe says, 'it is not necessary to conceive any other vegetative or\nsensitive soul, nor any other principle of motion or of life, than\nthe blood and the spirits agitated by the fire which burns\ncontinually in the heart, and which is in no wise different from the\nfires which exist in inanimate bodies.'  Had Descartes been\nacquainted with the steam-engine, he would have taken it, instead of\na fall of water, as his motive power, and shown the perfect analogy\nwhich exists between the oxidation of the food in the body and that\nof the coal in the furnace.  He would assuredly have anticipated\nMayer in calling the blood which the heart diffuses 'the oil of the\nlamp of life;' deducing all animal motions from the combustion of\nthis oil, as the motions of a steam-engine are deduced from the\ncombustion of its coal.  As the matter stands, however, and\nconsidering the circumstances of the time, the boldness, clearness,\nand precision with which he grasped the problem of vital dynamics\nconstitute a marvellous illustration of intellectual power.[13]\n\nDuring the Middle Ages the doctrine of atoms had to all appearance\nvanished from discussion.  In all probability it held its ground\namong sober-minded and thoughtful men, though neither the church nor\nthe world was prepared to hear of it with tolerance.  Once, in the\nyear 1348, it received distinct expression.  But retractation by\ncompulsion immediately followed, and, thus discouraged, it slumbered\ntill the seventeenth century, when it was revived by a contemporary\nand friend of Hobbes and Malmesbury, the orthodox Catholic provost of\nDigne, Gassendi.  But before stating his relation to the Epicurean\ndoctrine, it will be well to say a few words on the effect, as\nregards science, of the general introduction of monotheism among\nEuropean nations.\n\n'Were men,' says Hume, 'led into the apprehension of invisible\nintelligent power by 'contemplation of the works of Nature, they\ncould never possibly entertain any conception but of one single\nbeing, who bestowed existence and order on this vast machine, and\nadjusted all its parts to one regular system.'  Referring to the\ncondition of the heathen, who sees a god behind every natural event,\nthus peopling the world with thousands of beings whose caprices are\nincalculable, Lange shows the impossibility of any compromise between\nsuch notions and those of science, which proceeds on the assumption\nof never-changing law and causality.  'But,' he continues, with\ncharacteristic penetration, 'when the great thought of one God,\nacting as a unit upon the universe, has been seized, the connexion of\nthings in accordance with the law of cause and effect is not only\nthinkable, but it is a necessary consequence of the assumption.  For\nwhen I see ten thousand wheels in motion, and know, or believe, that\nthey are all driven by one, then I know that I have before me a\nmechanism the action of every part of which is determined by the plan\nof the whole.  So much being assumed, it follows that I may\ninvestigate the structure of that machine, and the various motions of\nits parts.  For the time being, therefore, this conception renders\nscientific action free.'  In other words, were a capricious God at\nthe circumference of every wheel and at the end of every lever, the\naction of the machine would be incalculable by the methods of\nscience.  But the action of all its parts being rigidly determined by\ntheir connexions and relations, and these being brought into play by\na single self-acting driving wheel, then, though this last prime\nmover may elude me, I am still able to comprehend the machinery which\nit sets in motion.  We have here a conception of the relation of\nNature to its Author which seems perfectly acceptable to some minds,\nbut perfectly intolerable to others.  Newton and Boyle lived and\nworked happily under the influence of this conception; Goethe\nrejected it with vehemence, and the same repugnance to accepting it\nis manifest in Carlyle.[14]\n\nThe analytic and synthetic tendencies of the human mind exhibit\nthemselves throughout history, great writers ranging themselves\nsometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other.  Men of warm\nfeelings and minds open to the elevating impressions produced by\nNature as a whole, whose satisfaction, therefore, is rather ethical\nthan logical, lean to the synthetic side; while the analytic\nharmonizes best with the more precise and more mechanical bias which\nseeks the satisfaction of the understanding.  Some form of pantheism\nwas usually adopted by the one, while a detached Creator, working\nmore or less after the manner of men, was often assumed by the other.\nGassendi is hardly to be ranked with either.  Having formally\nacknowledged God as the great first cause, he immediately dropped the\nidea, applied the known laws of mechanics to the atoms, deducing\nthence all vital phenomena.  He defended Epicurus, and dwelt upon his\npurity, both of doctrine and of life.  True he was a heathen, but so\nwas Aristotle.  He assailed superstition and religion, and rightly,\nbecause he did not know the true religion.  He thought that the gods\nneither rewarded nor punished, and adored them purely in consequence\nof their completeness; here we see, says Gassendi, the reverence of\nthe child instead of the fear of the slave.  The errors of Epicurus\nshall be corrected, the body of his truth retained; and then Gassendi\nproceeds, as any heathen might do, to build up the world, and all\nthat therein is, of atoms and molecules.  God, who created earth and\nwater, plants and animals, produced in the first place a definite\nnumber of atoms, which constituted the seed of all things.  Then\nbegan that series of combinations and decompositions which goes on at\npresent, and which will continue in future.  The principle of every\nchange resides in matter.  In artificial productions the moving\nprinciple is different from the material worked upon; but in Nature\nthe agent works within, being the most active and mobile part of the\nmaterial itself.  Thus, this bold ecclesiastic, without incurring the\ncensure of the church or the world, contrives to outstrip Mr. Darwin.\nThe same cast of mind which caused him to detach the Creator from his\nuniverse led him also to detach the soul from the body, though to the\nbody he ascribes an influence so large as to render the soul almost\nunnecessary.  The aberrations of reason were in his view an affair of\nthe material brain.  Mental disease is brain disease; but then the\nimmortal reason sits apart, and cannot be touched by the disease.\nThe errors of madness are errors of the instrument, not of the\nperformer.\n\nIt may be more than a mere result of education, connecting itself\nprobably with the deeper mental structure of the two men, that the\nidea of Gassendi above enunciated is substantially the same as that\nexpressed by Professor Clerk Maxwell at the close of the very able\nlecture delivered by him at Bradford last year.  According to both\nphilosophers, the atoms, if I understand aright, are the prepared\nmaterials which, formed by the skill of the highest, produce by their\nsubsequent inter-action all the phenomena of the material world.\nThere seems to be this difference, however, between Gassendi and\nMaxwell.  The one _postulates_, the other _infers_ his first cause.\nIn his 'manufactured articles,' as he calls the atoms, Professor\nMaxwell finds the basis of an induction which enables him to scale\nphilosophic heights considered inaccessible by Kant, and to take the\nlogical step from the atoms to their Maker.\n\nAccepting here the leadership of Kant, I doubt the legitimacy of\nMaxwell's logic; but it is impossible not to feel the ethic glow with\nwhich his lecture concludes.  There is, moreover, a very noble strain\nof eloquence in his description of the steadfastness of the\natoms:--'Natural causes, as we know, are at work, which tend to\nmodify, if they do not at length destroy, all the arrangements and\ndimensions of the earth and the whole solar system.  But though in\nthe course of ages catastrophes have occurred and may yet occur in\nthe heavens, though ancient systems may be dissolved and new systems\nevolved out of their ruins, the molecules out of which these systems\nare built--the foundation stones of the material universe--remain\nunbroken and unworn.'\n\nThe atomic doctrine, in whole or in part, was entertained by Bacon,\nDescartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle, and their successors, until\nthe chemical law of multiple proportions enabled Dalton to confer\nupon it an entirely new significance.  In our day there are\nsecessions from the theory, but it still stands firm.  Loschmidt,\nStoney, and Sir William Thomson have sought to determine the sizes of\nthe atoms, or rather to fix the limits between which their sizes lie;\nwhile only last year the discourses of Williamson and Maxwell\nillustrate the present hold of the doctrine upon the foremost\nscientific minds.  In fact, it may be doubted whether, wanting this\nfundamental conception, a theory of the material universe is capable\nof scientific statement.\n\n\nNinety years subsequent to Gassendi the doctrine of bodily\ninstruments, as it may be called, assumed immense importance in the\nhands of Bishop Butler, who, in his famous 'Analogy of Religion,'\ndeveloped, from his own point of view, and with consummate sagacity,\na similar idea.  The Bishop still influences superior minds; and it\nwill repay us to dwell for a moment on his views.  He draws the\nsharpest distinction between our real selves and our bodily\ninstruments.  He does not, as far as I remember, use the word soul,\npossibly because the term was so hackneyed in his day as it had been\nfor many generations previously.  But he speaks of 'living powers,'\n'perceiving' or 'percipient powers,' 'moving agents,' 'ourselves,' in\nthe same sense as we should employ the term soul.  He dwells upon the\nfact that limbs may be removed, and mortal diseases assail the body,\nthe mind, almost up to the moment of death, remaining clear.  He\nrefers to sleep and to swoon, where the 'living powers' are suspended\nbut not destroyed.  He considers it quite as easy to conceive of\nexistence out of our bodies as in them: that we may animate a\nsuccession of bodies, the dissolution of all of them having no more\ntendency to dissolve our real selves, or 'deprive us of living\nfaculties--the faculties of perception and action--than the\ndissolution of any foreign matter which we are capable of receiving\nimpressions from, or making use of for the common occasions of life.'\nThis is the key of the Bishop's position; 'our organized bodies are\nno more a part of ourselves than any other matter around us.'  In\nproof of this he calls attention to the use of glasses, which\n'prepare objects' for the 'percipient power' exactly as the eye does.\nThe eye itself is no more percipient than the glass; is quite as much\nthe instrument of the true self, and also as foreign to the true\nself, as the glass is.  'And if we see with our eyes only in the same\nmanner as we do with glasses, the like may justly be concluded from\nanalogy of all our senses.'\n\nLucretius, as you are aware, reached a precisely opposite conclusion;\nand it certainly would be interesting, if not profitable, to us all,\nto hear what he would or could urge in opposition to the reasoning of\nthe Bishop.  As a brief discussion of the point will enable us to see\nthe bearings of an important question, I will here permit a disciple\nof Lucretius to try the strength of the Bishop's position, and then\nallow the Bishop to retaliate, with the view of rolling back, if he\ncan, the difficulty upon Lucretius.\n\nThe argument might proceed in this fashion:--\n\n'Subjected to the test of mental presentation (_Vorstellung_), your\nviews, most honoured prelate, would present to many minds a great, if\nnot an insuperable difficulty.  You speak of \"living powers,\"\n\"percipient or perceiving powers,\" and \"ourselves;\" but can you form\na mental picture of any one of these apart from the organism through\nwhich it is supposed to act?  Test yourself honestly, and see whether\nyou possess any faculty that would enable you to form such a\nconception.  The true self has a local habitation in each of us; thus\nlocalized, must it not possess a form?  If so, what form?  Have you\never for a moment realized it?  When a leg is amputated the body is\ndivided into two parts; is the true self in both of them or in one?\nThomas Aquinas might say in both; but not you, for you appeal to the\nconsciousness associated with one of the two parts to prove that the\nother is foreign matter.  Is consciousness, then, a necessary element\nof the true self?  If so, what do you say to the case of the whole\nbody being deprived of consciousness?  If not, then on what grounds\ndo you deny any portion of the true self to the severed limb?  It\nseems very singular that, from the beginning to the end of your\nadmirable book (and no one admires its sober strength more than I\ndo), you never once mention the brain or nervous system.  You begin\nat one end of the body, and show that its parts may be removed\nwithout prejudice to the perceiving power.  What if you begin at the\nother end, and remove, instead of the leg, the brain?  The body, as\nbefore, is divided into two parts; but both are now in the same\npredicament, and neither can be appealed to to prove that the other\nis foreign matter.  Or, instead of going so far as to remove the\nbrain itself, let a certain portion of its bony covering be removed,\nand let a rhythmic series of pressures and relaxations of pressure be\napplied to the soft substance.  At every pressure \"the faculties of\nperception and of action\" vanish; at every relaxation of pressure\nthey are restored.  Where, during the intervals of pressure, is the\nperceiving power?  I once had the discharge of a large Leyden battery\npassed unexpectedly through me: I felt nothing, but was simply\nblotted out of conscious existence for a sensible interval.  Where\nwas my true self during that interval?  Men who have recovered from\nlightning-stroke have been much longer in the same state; and indeed\nin cases of ordinary concussion of the brain, days may elapse during\nwhich no experience is registered in consciousness.  Where is the man\nhimself during the period of insensibility?  You may say that I beg\nthe question when I assume the man to have been unconscious, that he\nwas really conscious all the time, and has simply forgotten what had\noccurred to him.  In reply to this, I can only say that no one need\nshrink from the worst tortures that superstition ever invented if\nonly so felt and so remembered.  I do not think your theory of\ninstruments goes at all to the bottom of the matter.  A\ntelegraph-operator has his instruments, by means of which he\nconverses with the world; our bodies possess a nervous system, which\nplays a similar part between the perceiving power and external\nthings.  Cut the wires of the operator, break his battery,\ndemagnetize his needle: by this means you certainly sever his\nconnexion with the world; but inasmuch as these are real instruments,\ntheir destruction does not touch the man who uses them.  The operator\nsurvives, _and he knows that he survives_.  What is it, I would ask,\nin the human system that answers to this conscious survival of the\noperator when the battery of the brain is so disturbed as to produce\ninsensibility, or when it is destroyed altogether?\n\n'Another consideration, which you may consider slight, presses upon\nme with some force.  The brain may change from health to disease, and\nthrough such a change the most exemplary man may be converted into a\ndebauchee or a murderer.  My very noble and approved good master had,\nas you know, threatenings of lewdness introduced into his brain by\nhis jealous wife's philter; and sooner than permit himself to run\neven the risk of yielding to these base promptings he slew himself.\nHow could the hand of Lucretius have been thus turned against himself\nif the real Lucretius remained as before?  Can the brain or can it\nnot act in this distempered way without the intervention of the\nimmortal reason?  If it can, then it is a prime mover which requires\nonly healthy regulation to render it reasonably self-acting, and\nthere is no apparent need of your immortal reason at all.  If it\ncannot, then the immortal reason, by its mischievous activity in\noperating upon a broken instrument, must have the credit of\ncommitting every imaginable extravagance and crime.  I think, if you\nwill allow me to say so, that the gravest consequences are likely to\nflow from your estimate of the body.  To regard the brain as you\nwould a staff or an eyeglass--to shut your eyes to all its mystery,\nto the perfect correlation of its condition and our consciousness, to\nthe fact that a slight excess or defect of blood in it produces the\nvery swoon to which you refer, and that in relation to it our meat\nand drink and air and exercise have a perfectly transcendental value\nand significance--to forget all this does, I think, open a way to\ninnumerable errors in our habits of life, and may possibly in some\ncases initiate and foster that very disease, and consequent mental\nruin, which a wiser appreciation of this mysterious organ would have\navoided.'\n\nI can imagine the Bishop thoughtful after hearing this argument.  He\nwas not the man to allow anger to mingle with the consideration of a\npoint of this kind.  After due reflection, and having strengthened\nhimself by that honest contemplation of the facts which was habitual\nwith him, and which includes the desire to give even adverse facts\ntheir due weight, I can suppose the Bishop to proceed thus:--'You\nwill remember that in the \"Analogy of Religion,\" of which you have so\nkindly spoken, I did not profess to prove anything absolutely, and\nthat I over and over again acknowledged and insisted on the smallness\nof our knowledge, or rather the depth of our ignorance, as regards\nthe whole system of the universe.  My object was to show my deistical\nfriends, who set forth so eloquently the beauty and beneficence of\nNature and the Ruler thereof, while they had nothing but scorn for\nthe so-called absurdities of the Christian scheme, that they were in\nno better condition than we were, and that, for every difficulty\nfound upon our side, quite as great a difficulty was to be found upon\ntheirs.  I will now, with your permission, adopt a similar line of\nargument.  You are a Lucretian, and from the combination and\nseparation of insensate atoms deduce all terrestrial things,\nincluding organic forms and their phenomena.  Let me tell you, in the\nfirst instance, how far I am prepared to go with you.  I admit that\nyou can build crystalline forms out of this play of molecular force;\nthat the diamond, amethyst, and snow-star are truly wonderful\nstructures which are thus produced.  I will go further and\nacknowledge that even a tree or flower might in this way be\norganized.  Nay, if you can show me an animal without sensation, I\nwill concede to you that it also might be put together by the\nsuitable play of molecular force.\n\n'Thus far our way is clear; but now comes my difficulty.  Your atoms\nare individually without sensation, much more are they without\nintelligence.  May I ask you, then, to try your hand upon this\nproblem?  Take your dead hydrogen atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your\ndead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen atoms, your dead phosphorus\natoms, and all the other atoms, dead as grains of shot, of which the\nbrain is formed.  Imagine them separate and sensationless, observe\nthem running together and forming all imaginable combinations.  This,\nas a purely mechanical process, is seeable by the mind.  But can you\nsee, or dream, or in any way imagine, how out of that mechanical act,\nand from these individually dead atoms, sensation, thought, and\nemotion are to arise?  Are you likely to extract Homer out of the\nrattling of dice, or the Differential Calculus out of the clash of\nbilliard-balls?  I am not all bereft of this Vorstellungs-Kraft of\nwhich you speak, nor am I, like so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum\nas regards scientific knowledge.  I can follow a particle of musk\nuntil it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound\nuntil their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth and set the\notoliths and Corti's fibres in motion; I can also visualize the waves\nof ether as they cross the eye and hit the retina.  Nay more, I am\nable to pursue to the central organ the motion thus imparted at the\nperiphery, and to see in idea the very molecules of the brain thrown\ninto tremors.  My insight is not baffled by these physical processes.\nWhat baffles and bewilders me, is the notion that from those physical\ntremors things so utterly incongruous with them as sensation,\nthought, and emotion can be derived.  You may say, or think, that\nthis issue of consciousness from the clash of atoms is not more\nincongruous than the flash of light from the union of oxygen and\nhydrogen.  But I beg to say that it is.  For such incongruity as the\nflash possesses is that which I now force upon your attention.  The\nflash is an affair of consciousness, the objective counterpart of\nwhich is a vibration.  It is a flash only by your interpretation.\nYou are the cause of the apparent incongruity, and you are the thing\nthat puzzles me.  I need not remind you that the great Leibnitz felt\nthe difficulty which I feel, and that to get rid of this monstrous\ndeduction of life from death he displaced your atoms by his monads,\nwhich were more or less perfect mirrors of the universe, and out of\nthe summation and integration of which he supposed all the phenomena\nof life--sentient, intellectual, and emotional--to arise.\n\n'Your difficulty, then, as I see you are ready to admit, is quite as\ngreat as mine.  You cannot satisfy the human understanding in its\ndemand for logical continuity between molecular processes and the\nphenomena of consciousness.  This is a rock on which materialism must\ninevitably split whenever it pretends to be a complete philosophy of\nlife.  What is the moral, my Lucretian?  You and I are not likely to\nindulge in ill-temper in the discussion of these great topics, where\nwe see so much room for honest differences of opinion.  But there are\npeople of less wit or more bigotry (I say it with humility) on both\nsides, who are ever ready to mingle anger and vituperation with such\ndiscussions.  There are, for example, writers of note and influence\nat the present day who are not ashamed to assume the \"deep personal\nsin\" of a great logician to be the cause of his unbelief in a\ntheologic dogma.  And there are others who hold that we, who cherish\nour noble Bible, wrought as it has been into the constitution of our\nforefathers, and by inheritance into us, must necessarily be\nhypocritical and insincere.  Let us disavow and discountenance such\npeople, cherishing the unswerving faith that what is good and true in\nboth our arguments will be preserved for the benefit of humanity,\nwhile all that is bad or false will disappear.'\n\nI hold the Bishop's reasoning to be unanswerable, and his liberality\nto be worthy of imitation.\n\nIt is worth remarking that in one respect the Bishop was a product of\nhis age.  Long previous to his day the nature of the soul had been so\nfavourite and general a topic of discussion, that, when the students\nof the University of Paris wished to know the leanings of a new\nProfessor, they at once requested him to lecture upon the soul.\nAbout the time of Bishop Butler the question was not only agitated\nbut extended.  It was seen by the clear-witted men who entered this\narena that many of their best arguments applied equally to brutes and\nmen.  The Bishop's arguments were of this character.  He saw it,\nadmitted it, accepted the consequences, and boldly embraced the whole\nanimal world in his scheme of immortality.\n\nBishop Butler accepted with unwavering trust the chronology of the\nOld Testament, describing it as 'confirmed by the natural and civil\nhistory of the world, collected from common historians, from the\nstate of the earth, and from the late inventions of arts and\nsciences.'  These words mark progress; and they must seem somewhat\nhoary to the Bishop's successors of to-day.[15]  It is hardly\nnecessary to inform you that since his time the domain of the\nnaturalist has been immensely extended--the whole science of geology,\nwith its astounding revelations regarding the life of the ancient\nearth, having been created.  The rigidity of old conceptions has been\nrelaxed, the public mind being rendered gradually tolerant of the\nidea that not for six thousand, nor for sixty thousand, nor for six\nthousand thousand thousand, but for \u00e6ons embracing untold millions of\nyears, this earth has been the theatre of life and death.  The riddle\nof the rocks has been read by the geologist and pal\u00e6ontologist, from\nsubcambrian depths to the deposits thickening over the sea-bottoms of\nto-day.  And upon the leaves of that stone book are, as you know,\nstamped the characters, plainer and surer than those formed by the\nink of history, which carry the mind back into abysses of past time\ncompared with which the periods which satisfied Bishop Butler cease\nto have a visual angle.  The lode of discovery once struck, those\npetrified forms in which life was at one time active increased to\nmultitudes and demanded classification.  They were grouped in genera,\nspecies, and varieties, according to the degree of similarity\nsubsisting between them.  Thus confusion was avoided, each object\nbeing found in the pigeon-hole appropriated to it and to its fellows\nof similar morphological or physiological character.  The general\nfact soon became evident that none but the simplest forms of life lie\nlowest down, that as we climb higher among the super-imposed strata\nmore perfect forms appear.  The change, however, from form to form\nwas not continuous, but by steps--some small, some great.  'A\nsection,' says Mr. Huxley, 'a hundred feet thick will exhibit at\ndifferent heights a dozen species of Ammonite, none of which passes\nbeyond its particular zone of limestone, or clay, into the zone below\nit, or into that above it.' In the presence of such facts it was not\npossible to avoid the question:--Have these forms, showing, though in\nbroken stages and with many irregularities, this unmistakable general\nadvance, been subjected to no continuous law of growth or variation?\nHad our education been purely scientific, or had it been sufficiently\ndetached from influences which, however ennobling in another domain,\nhave always proved hindrances and delusions when introduced as\nfactors into the domain of physics, the scientific mind never could\nhave swerved from the search for a law of growth, or allowed itself\nto accept the anthropomorphism which regarded each successive stratum\nas a kind of mechanic's bench for the manufacture of new species out\nof all relation to the old.\n\nBiassed, however, by their previous education, the great majority of\nnaturalists invoked a special creative act to account for the\nappearance of each new group of organisms.  Doubtless there were\nnumbers who were clear-headed enough to see that this was no\nexplanation at all, that in point of fact it was an attempt, by the\nintroduction of a greater difficulty, to account for a less.  But\nhaving nothing to offer in the way of explanation, they for the most\npart held their peace.  Still the thoughts of reflecting men\nnaturally and necessarily simmered round the question.  De Maillet, a\ncontemporary of Newton, has been brought into notice by Professor\nHuxley as one who 'had a notion of the modifiability of living\nforms.'  In my frequent conversations with him, the late Sir Benjamin\nBrodie, a man of highly philosophic mind, often drew my attention to\nthe fact that, as early as 1794, Charles Darwin's grandfather was the\npioneer of Charles Darwin.[16]  In 1801, and in subsequent years, the\ncelebrated Lamarck, who produced so profound an impression on the\npublic mind through the vigorous exposition of his views by the\nauthor of the 'Vestiges of Creation,' endeavoured to show the\ndevelopment of species out of changes of habit and external\ncondition.  In 1813 Dr. Wells, the founder of our present theory of\nDew, read before the Royal Society a paper in which, to use the words\nof Mr. Darwin, 'he distinctly recognises the principle of natural\nselection; and this is the first recognition that has been\nindicated.'  The thoroughness and skill with which Wells pursued his\nwork, and the obvious independence of his character, rendered him\nlong ago a favourite with me; and it gave me the liveliest pleasure\nto alight upon this additional testimony to his penetration.\nProfessor Grant, Mr. Patrick Matthew, Von Buch, the author of the\n'Vestiges,' D'Halloy, and others,[17] by the enunciation of opinions\nmore or less clear and correct, showed that the question had been\nfermenting long prior to the year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr.\nWallace simultaneously but independently placed their closely\nconcurrent views upon the subject before the Linnean Society.\n\nThese papers were followed in 1859 by the publication of the first\nedition of 'The Origin of Species.'  All great things come slowly to\nthe birth.  Copernicus, as I informed you, pondered his great work\nfor thirty-three years.  Newton for nearly twenty years kept the idea\nof Gravitation before his mind; for twenty years also he dwelt upon\nhis discovery of Fluxions, and doubtless would have continued to make\nit the object of his private thought had he not found that Leibnitz\nwas upon his track.  Darwin for two and twenty years pondered the\nproblem of the origin of species, and doubtless he would have\ncontinued to do so had he not found Wallace upon his track.[18]  A\nconcentrated but full and powerful epitome of his labours was the\nconsequence.  The book was by no means an easy one; and probably not\none in every score of those who then attacked it had read its pages\nthrough, or were competent to grasp their significance if they had.\nI do not say this merely to discredit them; for there were in those\ndays some really eminent scientific men, entirely raised above the\nheat of popular prejudice, willing to accept any conclusion that\nscience had to offer, provided it was duly backed by fact and\nargument, and who entirely mistook Mr. Darwin's views.  In fact, the\nwork needed an expounder; and it found one in Mr. Huxley.  I know\nnothing more admirable in the way of scientific exposition than those\nearly articles of his on the origin of species.  He swept the curve\nof discussion through the really significant points of the subject,\nenriched his exposition with profound original remarks and\nreflections, often summing up in a single pithy sentence an argument\nwhich a less compact mind would have spread over pages.  But there is\none impression made by the book itself which no exposition of it,\nhowever luminous, can convey; and that is the impression of the vast\namount of labour, both of observation and of thought, implied in its\nproduction.  Let us glance at its principles.\n\nIt is conceded on all hands that what are called varieties are\ncontinually produced.  The rule is probably without exception.  No\nchick and no child is in all respects and particulars the counterpart\nof its brother and sister; and in such differences we have 'variety'\nincipient.  No naturalist could tell how far this variation could be\ncarried; but the great mass of them held that never by any amount of\ninternal or external change, nor by the mixture of both, could the\noffspring of the same progenitor so far deviate from each other as to\nconstitute different species.  The function of the experimental\nphilosopher is to combine the conditions of nature and to produce her\nresults; and this was the method of Darwin.[19]  He made himself\nacquainted with what could, without any manner of doubt, be done in\nthe way of producing variation.  He associated himself with\npigeon-fanciers--bought, begged, kept, and observed every breed that\nhe could obtain.  Though derived from a common stock, the diversities\nof these pigeons were such that 'a score of them might be chosen\nwhich, if shown to an ornithologist, and he were told that they were\nwild birds, would certainly be ranked by him as well-defined\nspecies.'  The simple principle which guides the pigeon-fancier, as\nit does the cattle-breeder, is the selection of some variety that\nstrikes his fancy, and the propagation of this variety by\ninheritance.  With his eye still directed to the particular\nappearance which he wishes to exaggerate, he selects it as it\nreappears in successive broods, and thus adds increment to increment\nuntil an astonishing amount of divergence from the parent type is\neffected.  The breeder in this case does not produce the elements of\nthe variation.  He simply observes them, and by selection adds them\ntogether until the required result has been obtained.  'No man,' says\nMr. Darwin, 'would ever try to make a fantail till he saw a pigeon\nwith a tail developed in some slight degree in an unusual manner, or\na pouter until he saw a pigeon with a crop of unusual size.'  Thus\nnature gives the hint, man acts upon it, and by the law of\ninheritance exaggerates the deviation.\n\nHaving thus satisfied himself by indubitable facts that the\norganization of an animal or of a plant (for precisely the same\ntreatment applies to plants) is to some extent plastic, he passes\nfrom variation under domestication to variation under nature.\nHitherto we have dealt with the adding together of small changes by\nthe conscious selection of man.  Can Nature thus select?  Mr.\nDarwin's answer is, 'Assuredly she can.'  The number of living things\nproduced is far in excess of the number that can be supported; hence\nat some period or other of their lives there must be a struggle for\nexistence; and what is the infallible result?  If one organism were a\nperfect copy of the other in regard to strength, skill, and agility,\nexternal conditions would decide.  But this is not the case.  Here we\nhave the fact of variety offering itself to nature, as in the former\ninstance it offered itself to man; and those varieties which are\nleast competent to cope with surrounding conditions will infallibly\ngive way to those that are most competent.  To use a familiar\nproverb, the weakest comes to the wall.  But the triumphant fraction\nagain breeds to overproduction, transmitting the qualities which\nsecured its maintenance, but transmitting them in different degrees.\nThe struggle for food again supervenes, and those to whom the\nfavourable quality has been transmitted in excess will assuredly\ntriumph.  It is easy to see that we have here the addition of\nincrements favourable to the individual still more rigorously carried\nout than in the case of domestication; for not only are unfavourable\nspecimens not selected by nature, but they are destroyed.  This is\nwhat Mr. Darwin calls 'Natural Selection,' which 'acts by the\npreservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each\nprofitable to the preserved being.'  With this idea he\ninterpenetrates and leavens the vast store of facts that he and\nothers have collected.  We cannot, without shutting our eyes through\nfear or prejudice, fail to see that Darwin is here dealing, not with\nimaginary, but with true causes; nor can we fail to discern what vast\nmodifications may be produced by natural selection in periods\nsufficiently long.  Each individual increment may resemble what\nmathematicians call a 'differential' (a quantity indefinitely small);\nbut definite and great changes may obviously be produced by the\nintegration of these infinitesimal quantities through practically\ninfinite time.\n\nIf Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the notion of creative power acting\nafter human fashion, it certainly is not because he is unacquainted\nwith the numberless exquisite adaptations on which this notion of a\nsupernatural artificer has been founded.  His book is a repository of\nthe most startling facts of this description.  Take the marvellous\nobservation which he cites from Dr. Cr\u00fcger, where a bucket with an\naperture, serving as a spout, is formed in an orchid.  Bees visit the\nflower: in eager search of material for their combs they push each\nother into the bucket, the drenched ones escaping from their\ninvoluntary bath by the spout.  Here they rub their backs against the\nviscid stigma of the flower and obtain glue; then against the\npollen-masses, which are thus stuck to the back of the bee and\ncarried away.  'When the bee, so provided, flies to another flower,\nor to the same flower a second time, and is pushed by its comrades\ninto the bucket, and then crawls out by the passage, the pollen-mass\nupon its back necessarily comes first into contact with the viscid\nstigma,' which takes up the pollen; and this is how that orchid is\nfertilized.  Or take this other case of the _Catasetum_.  'Bees visit\nthese flowers in order to gnaw the labellum; in doing this they\ninevitably touch a long, tapering, sensitive projection.  This, when\ntouched, transmits a sensation or vibration to a certain membrane,\nwhich is instantly ruptured, setting free a spring, by which the\npollen-mass is shot forth like an arrow in the right direction, and\nadheres by its viscid extremity to the back of the bee.'  In this way\nthe fertilising pollen is spread abroad.\n\nIt is the mind thus stored with the choicest materials of the\nteleologist that rejects teleology, seeking to refer these wonders to\nnatural cases.  They illustrate, according to him, the method of\nnature, not the 'technic' of a man-like Artificer.  The beauty of\nflowers is due to natural selection.  Those that distinguish\nthemselves by vividly contrasting colours from the surrounding green\nleaves are most readily seen, most frequently visited by insects,\nmost often fertilized, and hence most favoured by natural selection.\nColoured berries also readily attract the attention of birds and\nbeasts, which feed upon them, spread their manured seeds abroad, thus\ngiving trees and shrubs possessing such berries a greater chance in\nthe struggle for existence.\n\nWith profound analytic and synthetic skill, Mr. Darwin investigates\nthe cell-making instinct of the hive-bee.  His method of dealing with\nit is representative.  He falls back from the more perfectly to the\nless perfectly developed instinct--from the hive-bee to the humble\nbee, which uses its own cocoon as a comb, and to classes of bees of\nintermediate skill, endeavouring to show how the passage might be\ngradually made from the lowest to the highest.  The saving of wax is\nthe most important point in the economy of bees.  Twelve to fifteen\npounds of dry sugar are said to be needed for the secretion of a\nsingle pound of wax.  The quantities of nectar necessary for the wax\nmust therefore be vast; and every improvement of constructive\ninstinct which results in the saving of wax is a direct profit to the\ninsect's life.  The time that would otherwise be devoted to the\nmaking of wax is now devoted to the gathering and storing of honey\nfor winter food.  He passes from the humble bee with its rude cells,\nthrough the Melipona with its more artistic cells, to the hive-bee\nwith its astonishing architecture.  The bees place themselves at\nequal distances apart upon the wax, sweep and excavate equal spheres\nround the selected points.  The spheres intersect, and the planes of\nintersection are built up with thin lamin\u00e6.  Hexagonal cells are thus\nformed.  This mode of treating such questions is, as I have said,\nrepresentative.  He habitually retires from the more perfect and\ncomplex to the less perfect and simple, and carries you with him\nthrough stages of perfecting, adds increment to increment of\ninfinitesimal change, and in this way gradually breaks down your\nreluctance to admit that the exquisite climax of the whole could be a\nresult of natural selection.\n\nMr. Darwin shirks no difficulty; and, saturated as the subject was\nwith his own thought, he must have known better than his critics the\nweakness as well as the strength of his theory.  This of course would\nbe of little avail were his object a temporary dialectic victory\ninstead of the establishment of a truth which he means to be\never-lasting.  But he takes no pains to disguise the weakness he has\ndiscerned; nay, he takes every pains to bring it into the strongest\nlight.  His vast resources enable him to cope with objections started\nby himself and others, so as to leave the final impression upon the\nreader's mind that, if they be not completely answered, they\ncertainly are not fatal.  Their negative force being thus destroyed,\nyou are free to be influenced by the vast positive mass of evidence\nhe is able to bring before you.  This largeness of knowledge and\nreadiness of resource render Mr. Darwin the most terrible of\nantagonists.  Accomplished naturalists have levelled heavy and\nsustained criticisms against him--not always with the view of fairly\nweighing his theory, but with the express intention of exposing its\nweak points only.  This does not irritate him.  He treats every\nobjection with a soberness and thoroughness which even Bishop Butler\nmight be proud to imitate, surrounding each fact with its appropriate\ndetail, placing it in its proper relations, and usually giving it a\nsignificance which, as long as it was kept isolated, failed to\nappear.  This is done without a trace of ill-temper.  He moves over\nthe subject with the passionless strength of a glacier; and the\ngrinding of the rocks is not always without a counterpart in the\nlogical pulverization of the objector.\n\nBut though in handling this mighty theme all passion has been\nstilled, there is an emotion of the intellect incident to the\ndiscernment of new truth which often colours and warms the pages of\nMr. Darwin.  His success has been great; and this implies not only\nthe solidity of his work, but the preparedness of the public mind for\nsuch a revelation.  On this head a remark of Agassiz impressed me\nmore than anything else.  Sprung from a race of theologians, this\ncelebrated man combated to the last the theory of natural selection.\nOne of the many times I had the pleasure of meeting him in the United\nStates was at Mr. Winthrop's beautiful residence at Brookline, near\nBoston.  Rising from luncheon, we all halted as if by a common\nimpulse in front of a window, and continued there a discussion which\nhad been started at table.  The maple was in its autumn glory; and\nthe exquisite beauty of the scene outside seemed, in my case, to\ninterpenetrate without disturbance the intellectual action.\nEarnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz turned, and said to the gentlemen\nstanding round, 'I confess that I was not prepared to see this theory\nreceived as it has been by the best intellects of our time.  Its\nsuccess is greater than I could have thought possible.'\n\nIn our day grand generalizations have been reached.  The theory of\nthe origin of species is but one of them.  Another, of still wider\ngrasp and more radical significance, is the doctrine of the\nConservation of Energy, the ultimate philosophical issues of which\nare as yet but dimly seen--that doctrine which 'binds nature fast in\nfate' to an extent not hitherto recognized, exacting from every\nantecedent its equivalent consequent, from every consequent its\nequivalent antecedent, and bringing vital as well as physical\nphenomena under the dominion of that law of causal connexion which,\nso far as the human understanding has yet pierced, asserts itself\neverywhere in nature.  Long in advance of all definite experiment\nupon the subject, the constancy and indestructibility of matter had\nbeen affirmed; and all subsequent experience justified the\naffirmation.  Later researches extended the attribute of\nindestructibility to force.  This idea, applied in the first instance\nto inorganic, rapidly embraced organic nature.  The vegetable world,\nthough drawing almost all its nutriment from invisible sources, was\nproved incompetent to generate anew either matter or force.  Its\nmatter is for the most part transmuted gas; its force transformed\nsolar force.  The animal world was proved to be equally uncreative,\nall its motive energies being referred to the combustion of its food.\nThe activity of each animal as a whole was proved to be the\ntransferred activity of its molecules.  The muscles were shown to be\nstores of mechanical force, potential until unlocked by the nerves,\nand then resulting in muscular contractions.  The speed at which\nmessages fly to and fro along the nerves was determined, and found to\nbe, not as had been previously supposed, equal to that of light or\nelectricity, but less than the speed of a flying eagle.\n\nThis was the work of the physicist: then came the conquests of the\ncomparative anatomist and physiologist, revealing the structure of\nevery animal, and the function of every organ in the whole biological\nseries, from the lowest zoophyte up to man.  The nervous system had\nbeen made the object of profound and continued study, the wonderful\nand, at bottom, entirely mysterious, controlling power which it\nexercises over the whole organism, physical and mental, being\nrecognized more and more.  Thought could not be kept back from a\nsubject so profoundly suggestive.  Besides the physical life dealt\nwith by Mr. Darwin, there is a psychical life presenting similar\ngradations, and asking equally for a solution.  How are the different\ngrades and order of Mind to be accounted for?  What is the principle\nof growth of that mysterious power which on our planet culminates in\nReason?  These are questions which, though not thrusting themselves\nso forcibly upon the attention of the general public, had not only\noccupied many reflecting minds, but had been formally broached by one\nof them before the 'Origin of Species' appeared.\n\nWith the mass of materials furnished by the physicist and\nphysiologist in his hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty years ago,\nsought to graft upon this basis a system of psychology; and two years\nago a second and greatly amplified edition of his work appeared.\nThose who have occupied themselves with the beautiful experiments of\nPlateau will remember that when two spherules of olive-oil, suspended\nin a mixture of alcohol and water of the same density as the oil, are\nbrought together, they do not immediately unite.  Something like a\npellicle appears to be formed around the drops, the rupture of which\nis immediately followed by the coalescence of the globules into one.\nThere are organisms whose vital actions are almost as purely physical\nas that of these drops of oil.  They come into contact and fuse\nthemselves thus together.  From such organisms to others a shade\nhigher, and from these to others a shade higher still, and on through\nan ever-ascending series, Mr. Spencer conducts his argument.  There\nare two obvious factors to be here taken into account--the creature\nand the medium in which it lives, or, as it is often expressed, the\norganism and its environment.  Mr. Spencer's fundamental principle is\nthat between these two factors there is incessant interaction.  The\norganism is played upon by the environment, and is modified to meet\nthe requirements of the environment.  Life he defines to be 'a\ncontinuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.'\n\nIn the lowest organisms we have a kind of tactual sense diffused over\nthe entire body; then, through impressions from without and their\ncorresponding adjustments, special portions of the surface become\nmore responsive to stimuli than others.  The senses are nascent, the\nbasis of all of them being that simple tactual sense which the sage\nDemocritus recognised 2,300 years ago as their common progenitor.\nThe action of light, in the first instance, appears to be a mere\ndisturbance of the chemical processes in the animal organism, similar\nto that which occurs in the leaves of plants.  By degrees the action\nbecomes localized in a few pigment-cells, more sensitive to light\nthan the surrounding tissue.  The eye is here incipient.  At first it\nis merely capable of revealing differences of light and shade\nproduced by bodies close at hand.  Followed as the interception of\nthe light is in almost all cases by the contact of the closely\nadjacent opaque body, sight in this condition becomes a kind of\n'anticipatory touch.'  The adjustment continues; a slight bulging out\nof the epidermis over the pigment-granules supervenes.  A lens is\nincipient, and, through the operation of infinite adjustments, at\nlength reaches the perfection that it displays in the hawk and eagle.\nSo of the other senses; they are special differentiations of a tissue\nwhich was originally vaguely sensitive all over.\n\nWith the development of the senses the adjustments between the\norganism and its environment gradually extend in _space_, a\nmultiplication of experiences and a corresponding modification of\nconduct being the result.  The adjustments also extend in _time_,\ncovering continually greater intervals.  Along with this extension in\nspace and time the adjustments also increase in specialty and\ncomplexity, passing through the various grades of brute life, and\nprolonging themselves into the domain of reason.  Very striking are\nMr. Spencer's remarks regarding the influence of the sense of touch\nupon the development of intelligence.  This is, so to say, the\nmother-tongue of all the senses, into which they must be translated\nto be of service to the organism.  Hence its importance.  The parrot\nis the most intelligent of birds, and its tactual power is also\ngreatest.  From this sense it gets knowledge unattainable by birds\nwhich cannot employ their feet as hands.  The elephant is the most\nsagacious of quadrupeds--its tactual range and skill, and the\nconsequent multiplication of experiences, which it owes to its\nwonderfully adaptable trunk, being the basis of its sagacity.  Feline\nanimals, for a similar cause, are more sagacious than hoofed\nanimals--atonement being to some extent made, in the case of the\nhorse, by the possession of sensitive prehensile lips.  In the\nPrimates the evolution of intellect and the evolution of tactual\nappendages go hand in hand.  In the most intelligent anthropoid apes\nwe find the tactual range and delicacy greatly augmented, new avenues\nof knowledge being thus open to the animal.  Man crowns the edifice\nhere, not only in virtue of his own manipulatory power, but through\nthe enormous extension of his range of experience, by the invention\nof instruments of precision, which serve as supplemental senses and\nsupplemental limbs.  The reciprocal action of these is finely\ndescribed and illustrated.  That chastened intellectual emotion to\nwhich I have referred in connexion with Mr. Darwin is not absent in\nMr. Spencer.  His illustrations possess at times exceeding vividness\nand force; and from his style on such occasions it is to be inferred\nthat the ganglia of this Apostle of the Understanding are sometimes\nthe seat of a nascent poetic thrill.\n\nIt is a fact of supreme importance that actions the performance of\nwhich at first requires even painful effort and deliberation may by\nhabit be rendered automatic.  Witness the slow learning of its\nletters by a child, and the subsequent facility of reading in a man,\nwhen each group of letters which forms a word is instantly, and\nwithout effort, fused to a single perception.  Instance the\nbilliard-player, whose muscles of hand and eye, when he reaches the\nperfection of his art, are unconsciously co\u00f6rdinated.  Instance the\nmusician, who, by practice, is enabled to fuse a multitude of\narrangements, auditory, tactual, and muscular, into a process of\nautomatic manipulation.  Combining such facts with the doctrine of\nhereditary transmission, we reach a theory of Instinct.  A chick,\nafter coming out of the egg, balances itself correctly, runs about,\npicks up food, thus showing that it possesses a power of directing\nits movements to definite ends.  How did the chick learn this very\ncomplex co\u00f6rdination of eye, muscles, and beak?  It has not been\nindividually taught; its personal experience is _nil_; but it has the\nbenefit of ancestral experience.  In its inherited organization are\nregistered all the powers which it displays at birth.  So also as\nregards the instinct of the hive-bee, already referred to.  The\ndistance at which the insects stand apart when they sweep their\nhemispheres and build their cells is 'organically remembered.'\n\nMan also carries with him the physical texture of his ancestry, as\nwell as the inherited intellect bound up with it.  The defects of\nintelligence during infancy and youth are probably less due to a lack\nof individual experience than to the fact that in early life the\ncerebral organization is still incomplete.  The period necessary for\ncompletion varies with the race and with the individual.  As a round\nshot outstrips a rifled one on quitting the muzzle of the gun, so the\nlower race in childhood may outstrip the higher.  But the higher\neventually overtakes the lower, and surpasses it in range.  As\nregards individuals, we do not always find the precocity of youth\nprolonged to mental power in maturity; while the dulness of boyhood\nis sometimes strikingly contrasted with the intellectual energy of\nafter years.  Newton, when a boy, was weakly, and he showed no\nparticular aptitude at school; but in his eighteenth year he went to\nCambridge, and soon afterwards astonished his teachers by his power\nof dealing with geometrical problems.  During his quiet youth his\nbrain was slowly preparing itself to be the organ of those energies\nwhich he subsequently displayed.\n\nBy myriad blows (to use a Lucretian phrase) the image and\nsuperscription of the external world are stamped as states of\nconsciousness upon the organism, the depth of the impression\ndepending upon the number of the blows.  When two or more phenomena\noccur in the environment invariably together, they are stamped to the\nsame depth or to the same relief, and indissolubly connected.  And\nhere we come to the threshold of a great question.  Seeing that he\ncould in no way rid himself of the consciousness of Space and Time,\nKant assumed them to be necessary 'forms of intuition,' the moulds\nand shapes into which our intuitions are thrown, belonging to\nourselves solely and without objective existence.  With unexpected\npower and success Mr. Spencer brings the hereditary experience\ntheory, as he holds it, to bear upon this question.  'If there exist\ncertain external relations which are experienced by all organisms at\nall instants of their waking lives--relations which are absolutely\nconstant and universal--there will be established answering internal\nrelations that are absolutely constant and universal.  Such relations\nwe have in those of Space and Time.  As the substratum of all other\nrelations of the Non-Ego, they must be responded to by conceptions\nthat are the substrata of all other relations in the Ego.  Being the\nconstant and infinitely repeated elements of thought, they must\nbecome the automatic elements of thought--the elements of thought\nwhich it is impossible to get rid of--the \"forms of intuition.\"\n\nThroughout this application and extension of the 'Law of Inseparable\nAssociation,' Mr. Spencer stands upon his own ground, invoking,\ninstead of the experiences of the individual, the registered\nexperiences of the race.  His overthrow of the restriction of\nexperience to the individual is, I think, complete.  That restriction\nignores the power of organizing experience furnished at the outset to\neach individual; it ignores the different degrees of this power\npossessed by different races and by different individuals of the same\nrace.  Were there not in the human brain a potency antecedent to all\nexperience, a dog or cat ought to be as capable of education as a\nman.  These predetermined internal relations are independent of the\nexperiences of the individual.  The human brain is the 'organised\nregister of infinitely numerous experiences received during the\nevolution of life, or rather during the evolution of that series of\norganisms through which the human organism has been reached.  The\neffects of the most uniform and frequent of these experiences have\nbeen successively bequeathed, principal and interest, and have slowly\nmounted to that high intelligence which lies latent in the brain of\nthe infant.  Thus it happens that the European inherits from twenty\nto thirty cubic inches more of brain than the Papuan.  Thus it\nhappens that faculties, as of music, which scarcely exist in some\ninferior races, become congenital in superior ones.  Thus it happens\nthat out of savages unable to count up to the number of their\nfingers, and speaking a language containing only nouns and verbs,\narise at length our Newtons and Shakespeares.'\n\n\nAt the outset of this Address it was stated that physical theories\nwhich lie beyond experience are derived by a process of abstraction\nfrom experience.  It is instructive to note from this point of view\nthe successive introduction of new conceptions.  The idea of the\nattraction of gravitation was preceded by the observation of the\nattraction of iron by a magnet, and of light bodies by rubbed amber.\nThe polarity of magnetism and electricity appealed to the senses; and\nthus became the substratum of the conception that atoms and molecules\nare endowed with definite, attractive, and repellent poles, by the\nplay of which definite forms of crystalline architecture are\nproduced.  Thus molecular force becomes _structural_.  It required no\ngreat boldness of thought to extend its play into organic nature, and\nto recognize in molecular force the agency by which both plants and\nanimals are built up.  In this way out of experience arise\nconceptions which are wholly ultra-experiential.  None of the\natomists of antiquity had any notion of this play of molecular polar\nforce, but they had experience of gravity as manifested by falling\nbodies.  Abstracting from this, they permitted their atoms to fall\neternally through empty space.  Democritus assumed that the larger\natoms moved more rapidly than the smaller ones, which they therefore\ncould overtake, and with which they could combine.  Epicurus, holding\nthat empty space could offer no resistance to motion, ascribed to all\nthe atoms the same velocity; but he seems to have overlooked the\nconsequence that under such circumstances the atoms could never\ncombine.  Lucretius cut the knot by quitting the domain of physics\naltogether, and causing the atoms to move together by a kind of\nvolition.\n\nWas the instinct utterly at fault which caused Lucretius thus to\nswerve from his own principles?  Diminishing gradually the number of\nprogenitors, Mr. Darwin comes at length to one 'primordial form;' but\nhe does not say, as far as I remember, how he supposes this form to\nhave been introduced.  He quotes with satisfaction the words of a\ncelebrated author and divine who had 'gradually learnt to see that it\nis just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe He created a\nfew original forms, capable of self-development into other and\nneedful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation\nto supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.'  What Mr.\nDarwin thinks of this view of the introduction of life I do not know.\nBut the anthropomorphism, which it seemed his object to set aside, is\nas firmly associated with the creation of a few forms as with the\ncreation of a multitude.  We need clearness and thoroughness here.\nTwo courses and two only, are possible.  Either let us open our doors\nfreely to the conception of creative acts, or, abandoning them, let\nus radically change our notions of Matter.  If we look at matter as\npictured by Democritus, and as defined for generations in our\nscientific text-books, the notion of any form of life whatever coming\nout of it is utterly unimaginable.  The argument placed in the mouth\nof Bishop Butler suffices, in my opinion, to crush all such\nmaterialism as this.  But those who framed these definitions of\nmatter were not biologists but mathematicians, whose labours referred\nonly to such accidents and properties of matter as could be expressed\nin their formul\u00e6.  The very intentness with which they pursued\nmechanical science turned their thoughts aside from the science of\nlife.  May not their imperfect definitions be the real cause of our\npresent dread?  Let us reverently, but honestly, look the question in\nthe face.  Divorced from matter, where is life to be found?  Whatever\nour _faith_ may say, our _knowledge_ shows them to be indissolubly\njoined.  Every meal we eat, and every cup we drink, illustrates the\nmysterious control of Mind by Matter.\n\nTrace the line of life backwards, and see it approaching more and\nmore to what we call the purely physical condition.  We come at\nlength to those organisms which I have compared to drops of oil\nsuspended in a mixture of alcohol and water.  We reach the\n_protogenes_ of Haeckel, in which we have 'a type distinguishable\nfrom a fragment of albumen only by its finely granular character.'\nCan we pause here?  We break a magnet and find two poles in each of\nits fragments.  We continue the process of breaking, but, however\nsmall the parts, each carries with it, though enfeebled, the polarity\nof the whole.  And when we can break no longer, we prolong the\nintellectual vision to the polar molecules.  Are we not urged to do\n_something_ similar in the case of life?  Is there not a temptation\nto close to some extent with Lucretius, when he affirms that 'nature\nis seen to do all things spontaneously of herself without the\nmeddling of the gods?' or with Bruno, when he declares that Matter is\nnot 'that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to\nbe, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit\nof her own womb?'  Believing as I do in the continuity of Nature, I\ncannot stop abruptly where our microscopes cease to be of use.  Here\nthe vision of the mind authoritatively supplements the vision of the\neye.  By an intellectual necessity I cross the boundary of the\nexperimental evidence, and discern in that Matter which we, in our\nignorance of its latent powers, and notwithstanding our professed\nreverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the\npromise and potency of all terrestial Life.\n\nIf you ask me whether there exists the least evidence to prove that\nany form of life can be developed out of matter, without demonstrable\nantecedent life, my reply is that evidence considered perfectly\nconclusive by many has been adduced; and that were some of us who\nhave pondered this question to follow a very common example, and\naccept testimony because it falls in with our belief, we also should\neagerly close with the evidence referred to.  But there is in the\ntrue man of science a wish stronger than the wish to have his beliefs\nupheld; namely, the wish to have them true.  And this stronger wish\ncauses him to reject the most plausible support if he has reason to\nsuspect that it is vitiated by error.  Those to whom I refer as\nhaving studied this question, believing the evidence offered in\nfavour of 'spontaneous generation' to be thus vitiated, cannot accept\nit.  They know full well that the chemist now prepares from inorganic\nmatter a vast array of substances which were some time ago regarded\nas the sole products of vitality.  They are intimately acquainted\nwith the structural power of matter as evidenced in the phenomena of\ncrystallization.  They can justify scientifically their _belief_ in\nits potency, under the proper conditions, to produce organisms.  But\nin reply to your question they will frankly admit their inability to\npoint to any satisfactory experimental proof that life can be\ndeveloped save from demonstrable antecedent life.  As already\nindicated, they draw the line from the highest organisms through\nlower ones down to the lowest, and it is the prolongation of this\nline by the intellect beyond the range of the senses that leads them\nto the conclusion which Bruno so boldly enunciated.[20]\n\nThe 'materialism' here professed may be vastly different from what\nyou suppose, and I therefore crave your gracious patience to the end.\n'The question of an external world,' says Mr. J. S. Mill, 'is the\ngreat battleground of metaphysics.'[21]  Mr. Mill himself reduces\nexternal phenomena to 'possibilities of sensation.'  Kant, as we have\nseen, made time and space 'forms' of our own intuitions.  Fichte,\nhaving first by the inexorable logic of his understanding proved\nhimself to be a mere link in that chain of eternal causation which\nholds so rigidly in Nature, violently broke the chain by making\nNature, and all that it inherits, an apparition of his own mind.[22]\nAnd it is by no means easy to combat such notions.  For when I say I\nsee you, and that I have not the least doubt about it, the reply is,\nthat what I am really conscious of is an affection of my own retina.\nAnd if I urge that I can check my sight of you by touching you, the\nretort would be that I am equally transgressing the limits of fact;\nfor what I am really conscious of is, not that you are there, but\nthat the nerves of my hand have undergone a change.  All we hear, and\nsee, and touch, and taste, and smell, are, it would be urged, mere\nvariations of our own condition, beyond which, even to the extent of\na hair's breadth, we cannot go.  That anything answering to our\nimpressions exists outside of ourselves is not a _fact_, but an\n_inference_, to which all validity would be denied by an idealist\nlike Berkeley, or by a sceptic like Hume.  Mr. Spencer takes another\nline.  With him, as with the uneducated man, there is no doubt or\nquestion as to the existence of an external world.  But he differs\nfrom the uneducated, who think that the world really is what\nconsciousness represents it to be.  Our states of consciousness are\nmere _symbols_ of an outside entity which produces them and\ndetermines the order of their succession, but the real nature of\nwhich we can never know.[23]  In fact, the whole process of evolution\nis the manifestation of a Power absolutely inscrutable to the\nintellect of man.  As little in our day as in the days of Job can man\nby searching find this Power out.  Considered fundamentally, then, it\nis by the operation of an insoluble mystery that life on earth is\nevolved, species differentiated, and mind unfolded from their\nprepotent elements in the immeasurable past.  There is, you will\nobserve, no very rank materialism here.\n\nThe strength of the doctrine of evolution consists, not in an\nexperimental demonstration (for the subject is hardly accessible to\nthis mode of proof), but in its general harmony with scientific\nthought.  From contrast, moreover, it derives enormous relative\nstrength.  On the one side we have a theory (if it could with any\npropriety be so called) derived, as were the theories referred to at\nthe beginning of this Address, not from the study of Nature, but from\nthe observation of men--a theory which converts the Power whose\ngarment is seen in the visible universe into an Artificer, fashioned\nafter the human model, and acting by broken efforts, as man is seen\nto act.  On the other side, we have the conception that all we see\naround us, and all we feel within us--the phenomena of physical\nnature as well as those of the human mind--have their unsearchable\nroots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal\nspan of which is offered to the investigation of man.  And even this\nspan is only knowable in part.  We can trace the development of a\nnervous system, and correlate with it the parallel phenomena of\nsensation and thought.  We see with undoubting certainty that they go\nhand in hand.  But we try to soar in a vacuum the moment we seek to\ncomprehend the connexion between them.  An Archimedean fulcrum is\nhere required which the human mind cannot command; and the effort to\nsolve the problem, to borrow a comparison from an illustrious friend\nof mine, is like the effort of a man trying to lift himself by his\nown waistband.  All that has been here said is to be taken in\nconnexion with this fundamental truth.  When 'nascent senses' are\nspoken of, when 'the differentiation of a tissue at first vaguely\nsensitive all over' is spoken of, and when these processes are\nassociated with 'the modification of an organism by its environment,'\nthe same parallelism, without contact, or even approach to contact,\nis implied.  Man the _object_ is separated by an impassable gulf from\nman the _subject_.  There is no motor energy in intellect to carry it\nwithout logical rupture from the one to the other.\n\nFurther, the doctrine of evolution derives man in his totality from\nthe inter-action of organism and environment through countless ages\npast.  The Human Understanding, for example--that faculty which Mr.\nSpencer has turned so skilfully round upon its own antecedents--is\nitself a result of the play between organism and environment through\ncosmic ranges of time.  Never surely did prescription plead so\nirresistible a claim.  But then it comes to pass that, over and above\nhis understanding, there are many other things appertaining to man\nwhose perspective rights are quite as strong as those of the\nunderstanding itself.  It is a result, for example, of the play of\norganism and environment that sugar is sweet and that aloes are\nbitter, that the smell of henbane differs from the perfume of a rose.\nSuch facts of consciousness (for which, by the way, no adequate\nreason has yet been rendered) are quite as old as the understanding;\nand many other things can boast an equally ancient origin.  Mr.\nSpencer at one place refers to that most powerful of passions--the\namatory passion--as one which, when it first occurs, is antecedent to\nall relative experience whatever; and we may pass its claim as being\nat least as ancient and valid as that of the understanding.  Then\nthere are such things woven into the texture of man as the feeling of\nAwe, Reverence, Wonder--and not alone the sexual love just referred\nto, but the love of the beautiful, physical, and moral, in Nature,\nPoetry, and Art.  There is also that deep-set feeling which, since\nthe earliest dawn of history, and probably for ages prior to all\nhistory, incorporated itself in the Religions of the world.  You who\nhave escaped from these religions into the high-and-dry light of the\nintellect may deride them; but in so doing you deride accidents of\nform merely, and fail to touch the immovable basis of the religious\nsentiment in the nature of man.  To yield this sentiment reasonable\nsatisfaction is the problem of problems at the present hour.  And\ngrotesque in relation to scientific culture as many of the religions\nof the world have been and are--dangerous, nay destructive, to the\ndearest privileges of free-men as some of them undoubtedly have been,\nand would, if they could, be again--it will be wise to recognize them\nas the forms of a force, mischievous, if permitted to intrude on the\nregion of knowledge, over which it holds no command, but capable of\nbeing guided to noble issues in the region of emotion, which is its\nproper and elevated sphere.\n\nAll religious theories, schemes and systems, which embrace notions of\ncosmogony, or which otherwise reach into the domain of science, must,\n_in so far as they do this_, submit to the control of science, and\nrelinquish all thought of controlling it.  Acting otherwise proved\ndisastrous in the past, and it is simply fatuous to-day.  Every\nsystem which would escape the fate of an organism too rigid to adjust\nitself to its environment must be plastic to the extent that the\ngrowth of knowledge demands.  When this truth has been thoroughly\ntaken in, rigidity will be relaxed, exclusiveness diminished, things\nnow deemed essential will be dropped, and elements now rejected will\nbe assimilated.  The lifting of the life is the essential point; and\nas long as dogmatism, fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out,\nvarious modes of leverage may be employed to raise life to a higher\nlevel.  Science itself not unfrequently derives motive power from an\nultra-scientific source.  Whewell speaks of enthusiasm of temper as a\nhindrance to science; but he means the enthusiasm of weak heads.\nThere is a strong and resolute enthusiasm in which science finds an\nally; and it is to the lowering of this fire, rather than to the\ndiminution of intellectual insight, that the lessening productiveness\nof men of science in their mature years is to be ascribed.  Mr.\nBuckle sought to detach intellectual achievement from moral force.\nHe gravely erred; for without moral force to whip it into action, the\nachievements of the intellect would be poor indeed.\n\nIt has been said that science divorces itself from literature; but\nthe statement, like so many others, arises from lack of knowledge.  A\nglance at the less technical writings of its leaders--of its\nHelmholtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Reymond--would show what\nbreadth of literary culture they command.  Where among modern writers\ncan you find their superiors in clearness and vigour of literary\nstyle?  Science desires not isolation, but freely combines with every\neffort towards the bettering of man's estate.  Single-handed, and\nsupported not by outward sympathy, but by inward force, it has built\nat least one great wing of the many-mansioned home which man in his\ntotality demands.  And if rough walls and protruding rafter-ends\nindicate that on one side the edifice is still incomplete, it is only\nby wise combination of the parts required with those already\nirrevocably built that we can hope for completeness.  There is no\nnecessary incongruity between what has been accomplished and what\nremains to be done.  The moral glow of Socrates, which we all feel by\nignition, has in it nothing incompatible with the physics of\nAnaxagoras which he so much scorned, but which he would hardly scorn\nto-day.\n\nAnd here I am reminded of one amongst us, hoary, but still strong,\nwhose prophet-voice some thirty years ago, far more than any other of\nthis age, unlocked whatever of life and nobleness lay latent in its\nmost gifted minds--one fit to stand beside Socrates or the Maccabean\nEleazar, and to dare and suffer all that they suffered and\ndared--fit, as he once said of Fichte, 'to have been the teacher of\nthe Stoa, and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue in the groves\nof Academe.'  With a capacity to grasp physical principles which his\nfriend Goethe did not possess, and which even total lack of exercise\nhas not been able to reduce to atrophy, it is the world's loss that\nhe, in the vigour of his years, did not open his mind and sympathies\nto science, and make its conclusions a portion of his message to\nmankind.  Marvellously endowed as he was--equally equipped on the\nside of the Heart and of the Understanding--he might have done much\ntowards teaching us how to reconcile the claims of both, and to\nenable them in coming times to dwell together in unity of spirit and\nin the bond of peace.\n\nAnd now the end is come.  With more time, or greater strength and\nknowledge, what has been here said might have been better said, while\nworthy matters here omitted might have received fit expression.  But\nthere would have been no material deviation from the views set forth.\nAs regards myself, they are not the growth of a day; and as regards\nyou, I thought you ought to know the environment which, with or\nwithout your consent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in relation to\nwhich some adjustment on your part may be necessary.  A hint of\nHamlet's, however, teaches us all how the troubles of common life may\nbe ended; and it is perfectly possible for you and me to purchase\nintellectual peace at the price of intellectual death.  The world is\nnot without refuges of this description; nor is it wanting in persons\nwho seek their shelter and try to persuade others to do the same.\nThe unstable and the weak will yield to this persuasion, and they to\nwhom repose is sweeter than the truth.  But I would exhort you to\nrefuse the offered shelter and to scorn the base repose--to accept,\nif the choice be forced upon you, commotion before stagnation, the\nleap of the torrent before the stillness of the swamp.\n\nIn the course of this Address I have touched on debatable questions\nand led you over what will be deemed dangerous ground--and this\npartly with the view of telling you that as regards these questions\nscience claims unrestricted right of search.  It is not to the point\nto say that the views of Lucretius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer,\nmay be wrong.  Here I should agree with you, deeming it indeed\ncertain that these views will undergo modification.  But the point\nis, that, whether right or wrong, we ask the freedom to discuss them.\nFor science, however, no exclusive claim is here made; you are not\nurged to erect it into an idol.  The inexorable advance of man's\nunderstanding in the path of knowledge, and those unquenchable claims\nof his moral and emotional nature which the understanding can never\nsatisfy, are here equally set forth.  The world embraces not only a\nNewton, but a Shakespeare--not only a Boyle, but a Raphael--not only\na Kant, but a Beethoven--not only a Darwin, but a Carlyle.  Not in\neach of these, but in all, is human nature whole.  They are not\nopposed, but supplementary--not mutually exclusive, but reconcilable.\nAnd if, unsatisfied with them all, the human mind, with the yearning\nof a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the Mystery from\nwhich it has emerged, seeking so to fashion it as to give unity to\nthought and faith; so long as this is done, not only without\nintolerance or bigotry of any kind, but with the enlightened\nrecognition that ultimate fixity of conception is here unattainable,\nand that each succeeding age must be held free to fashion the Mystery\nin accordance with its own needs--then, casting aside all the\nrestrictions of Materialism, I would affirm this to be a field for\nthe noblest exercise of what, in contrast with the _knowing_\nfaculties, may be called the _creative_ faculties of man.\n\n'Fill thy heart with it,' said Goethe, 'and then name it as thou\nwilt.'  Goethe himself did this in untranslateable language.[24]\nWordsworth did it in words known to all Englishmen, and which may be\nregarded as a forecast and religious vitalization of the latest and\ndeepest scientific truth,--\n\n                    'For I have learned\n  To look on nature; not as in the hour\n  Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes\n  The still, sad music of humanity,\n  Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power\n  To chasten and subdue.  _And I have felt\n  A presence that disturbs me with the joy\n  Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime\n  Of something far more deeply interfused,\n  Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,\n  And the round ocean, and the living air,\n  And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:\n  A motion and a spirit, that impels\n  All thinking things, all objects of all thought,\n  And rolls through all things_.'[25]\n\n\n\n\n[1] Hume, _Natural History of Religion_.\n\n[2] Born 460 B.C.\n\n[3] Lange, 2nd edit., p. 23.\n\n[4] Born 342 B.C.\n\n[5] Tennyson's Lucretius.\n\n[6] Born 99 B.C.\n\n[7] Monro's translation.  In his criticism of this work,\n_Contemporary Review_, 1867, Dr. Hayman does not appear to be aware\nof the really sound and subtile observations on which the reasoning\nof Lucretius, though erroneous, sometimes rests.\n\n[8] _History of the Intellectual Development of Europe_, p. 295.\n\n[9] _History of the Inductive Sciences_, vol. i.\n\n[10] Depicted with terrible vividness in _Renan's Antichrist_.\n\n[11] _Intellectual Development of Europe_, p. 359.\n\n[12] Lange, 2nd edit. pp. 181, 182.\n\n[13] See Huxley's admirable Essay on Descartes.  _Lay Sermons_, pp.\n864, 365.\n\n[14] Boyle's model of the universe was the Strasburg clock with an\noutside Artificer.  Goethe, on the other hand, sang\n\n  'Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,\n  Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen.'\n\nSee also Carlyle, _Past and Present_, Chap. V.\n\n[15] Only to some; for there are dignitaries who even now speak of\nthe earth's rocky crust as so much building material prepared for man\nat the Creation.  Surely it is time that this loose language should\ncease.\n\n[16] _Zoonomia_, vol. i. pp. 500-510.\n\n[17] In 1855 Mr. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Psychology, 2nd edit.\nvol. i. p. 465) expressed 'the belief that life under all its forms\nhas arisen by an unbroken evolution, and through the instrumentality\nof what are called natural causes.'\n\n[18] The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this subject has\nbeen dignified in the highest desgree.\n\n[19] The first step only towards experimental demonstration has been\ntaken.  Experiments now begun might, a couple of centuries hence,\nfurnish data of incalculable value, which ought to be supplied to the\nscience of the future.\n\n[20] Bruno was a 'Pantheist,' not an 'Atheist' or a 'Materialist.'\n\n[21] _Examination of Hamilton_, p. 154.\n\n[22] _Bestimmung des Menschen_.\n\n[23] In a paper, at once popular and profound, entitled _Recent\nProgress in the Theory of Vision_, contained in the volume of\nLectures by Helmholtz, published by Longmans, this symbolism of our\nstates of consciousness is also dwelt upon.  The impressions of sense\nare the mere signs of external things.  In this paper Helmholtz\ncontends strongly against the view that the consciousness of space is\ninborn; and he evidently doubts the power of the chick to pick up\ngrains of corn without preliminary lessons.  On this point, he says,\nfurther experiments are needed.  Such experiments have been since\nmade by Mr. Spalding, aided, I believe, in some of his observations\nby the accomplished and deeply lamented Lady Amberly; and they seem\nto prove conclusively that the chick does not need a single moment's\ntuition to enable it to stand, run, govern the muscles of its eyes,\nand to peck.  Helmholtz, however, is contending against the notion of\npre-established harmony; and I am not aware of his views as to the\norganisation of experiences of race or breed.\n\n[24] Pro\u0153mium to 'Gott und Welt.'\n\n[25] Tintern Abbey.\n\n\n\n  LONDON: PRINTED BY\n  SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE\n  AND PARLIAMENT STREET","title":"Address delivered before the British Association assembled at Belfast","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":21130}