Cornell University Library HM101 .C95 1888 T 1924 030 236 2 H M ■/ ol C 16^ Digitized by Microsoft® CIVILIZATION &PROGRESS. JOHN BEATTIE CROZIER. NEW EDITION. lEonJron : LONGMANS & CO. 1 888 ^jAU Rights Resemd.} Digitized by Microsoft® JO < V 7, /(■; cA.^f.fi. Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE. The high and generous recognition which has been accorded to this work by a few of the foremost thinkers and critics of the time has encouraged me to issue a new and cheaper edition, with the view of bringing it within the compass of a wider circle of readers. In doing so, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity thus afforded me of saying a word or two on one and another of the various difficulties and objections which some of these critics have found either in my treatment of the subject, or in the special views and opinions presented for consideration. The first of these objections turns on the New Organon or Method which I have proposed, for the solution of the problems discussed, and the necessity there was for its introduction and use. Now, as the main object of this work was not so much, to present the reader with a brand-new theory of Civilization, as to so re-arrange, modify, and develop the various elements of older theories as to fit them into a new and more harmonious structure, it is evident that many compli- cations, both in method and in treatment, had to be Digitized by Microsoft® iv. PREFACE, cleared away before I could enter with confidence on my central problem, which was — to determine, if possible, more accurately and scientifically than had hitherto been attempted, the relative parts played in Civilization by the ^reat organic factors of Religion, Government, Science, and Material and Social Conditions generally, and to connect these factors by such stringent laws and relations that the whole would be seen to form one single and harmonious scheme. In endeavouring to- carry out my object, the first difficulty I had to encounter was, that presented by the various and diverg- ent standpoints occupied by existing students of Civi- lization — standpoints as various and divergent as the various sciences from which the problem was approached.^ The Historian, for example, whether of the narrative or the philosophical school, is apt to feel that a sufficient theory of Civilization will have been attained when once the mines of history shall have been minutely and exhaustively explored, and the results collated and embodied in some one or more wide and far-reaching generalizations ; the Christian Theologian, when he has referred its phenomena to the presence or absence from the thoughts and lives of men of that Spirit which Christ promised to leave to the world after he was gone; while the Physical and Psychological Scientist thinks the course of Civilization sufficiently accounted for, either by representing it as the continuation into the mental and moral world of the same impersonal law of Evolution which rules the physical; or by referring many of its most striking phenomena — notably those fanaticisms and enthusiasms which have given rise to religions, and changed the face of the world — to the Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE. V. effects produced by material conditions of the brain on mental states. And as all these types of Thinkers have carried into their survey of Civilization the methods and standpoints of the respective studies to which they are attached; and as, further, the method of each is con- sidered by the rest to be false or incompetent, and all are felt to be more or less partial and incomplete ; it was incumbent on me to try and discover, if possible, some new organon or method which should be commensurate with the full breadth of the problem to be solved, and which, while freely using all these various sciences as instruments of investigation, should become itself the sole and only standpoint of interpretation. Accordingly, aftei passing under review the various sciences — History Physical Science, Metaphysics, Psychology, Theology and the rest — and marking out the limits beyond which their various methods were inapplicable, I proceedec to explain my own method, which was simply this— to take my stand on Human Nature as we know i to-day, to detach its laws from the web in which the] liq and make them my standpoint of interpretation while using the various sciences as subordinate instru ments to furnish me with the materials and result: required. Such is my new organon and the necessity '. felt for its use and adoption. That there is nothinj strange in this may be seen in the practice of those wh( have to deal with any wide class of confused and con ilicting phenomena. The Statesman, for example, wh< is obliged to call in for consultation and advice, lawyers doctors, soldiers, seamen, vestrymen, and divines, i unable to take the standpoint of any of his advisers, bu must occupy another and different one proper to his owj Digitized by Microsoft® v.i. PREFACE. particular problem ; for while hearing what the doctors have to say as to the necessity of compulsory vaccination, he has still to consider the effects of compulsion on individual liberty; what the War Office and Admiralty have to say as to the necessity of increased armaments, has still to consider their relations to the public purse ; what the vestrymen or philanthropists have to say on the necessity of further poor-relief, has still to consider its effects on the springs and incentives of industry ; and the like. Again, in endeavouring to show that all the old religions of the world contained, wrapped up in their structure, philosophies of the origin and nature of things more or less adapted to their age and time, I pointed out that the great role played by religions in the practical life of the past was due to these philosophies embedded in their creeds ; and' I contended that when once Science shall have taken over these philosophies from Religion, and added them to her own proper domain, as she is doing more and more every day, Religion, having lost its jilrisdiction over that part of the field, will no longer have any effect on action, but will be restricted to its natural, proper, and perennial function of harmonizing the heart and mind. On arriving at this point, one of the acutest of my critics was brought to a stand, and imagining that my words conveyed the impression that Religion would no longer be of any practical value at all, argued, on the contrary, that a book might still be written to show how immense must ever be its practical influence on human life. Now the fault here, I have no doubt, lay with myself in not more distinctly explaining that when I said that Religion in the future would have no effect on action. Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE. V what I meant was, not' that it would not be of an practical value (for any theory that generates convictioi and gives unity and harmony to both mind and hear must give a stimulus and impulse to action which ca never be attained when mind and heart are rent in twai by Scepticism), but that it would no longer dictate on specific actions^ as, for example, whether we should tak usury or not, drink wine or not, give alms or not, pel secute heretics or not, but would leave all this to i1 proper sphere of Science, with its balanced consideration of expediency, and its julrisdiction over the realm • c calculable cause and effect. Another of my critics, observing the immense influenc often exerted over individual men by direct moral exhorts tion and appeal in spite of unfavourable physical an material conditions of life, found fault with me for' insisi ing as strongly as I did that the controlling factor i Civilization was not the more or less preaching of moralitj but the material and social conditions of men ; that, i truth, you can get at morality in societies only throug improvements in these conditions ; and that before yo can get a further advance at any given stage, these con ditions must be more equalized; the active agent in th successive equalizations being, as I have shown, Scienc in the widest sense of that term, with its application ti all the arts, comforts, and conveniences of life. Now although in saying this I myself fully recognize the grea reclamations and improvements worked in individua natures by direct appeals to their intellects, consciences and hearts, independently of any change in their mereb material and social conditions, I feel still bound to poin out, what my critic seems to have overlooked, that I an Digitized by Microsoft® viii. PREFACE. dealing in this work with the problem of Civilization, that is to say, with the laws which govern the move- ments of men in societies and masses, and not with what concerns man as an individual unit ; and that the laws which determine the progress of the one are practically* as different from those which determine the progress of the other, as the laws of bodies in the mass are practically different from the laws of the particles of which they are composed. In actual life, this is everywhere recognized. If you take, for example, any high-class journal which deals alike with Politics and Religion — say, for example. The Spectator — and run your eye along the series of articles under each of these re- spective headings, you will find that the considerations advanced in the one case are quite different from those in the other ; that while in the articles dealing with Religion, that is to say, those which appeal to man as an individual unit, the writer expects to influence the reader by present- ing him with higher and truer ideas, with nobler standards of morality, and the like ; in the articles dealing with Politics, or society as a whole, the argument proceeds almost entirely on the assumption that improvements are to be effected in men only by alterations in their general material and social conditions. The truth is, the two problems, viz., of Society and of the Individual, are quite distinct and separate in nature, and require quite distinct and separate treatment ; and hence the large space devoted in this work to proving, by illustrations drawn from every quarter of life, that all attempts to forward civilization by direct moral exhortation or appeal, in the face of material and social conditions adverse to its reception, are dreams of the closet only. Digitized by Microsoft® PREFACE. ix. In conclusion, I may add that in a work dealing with so wide and complex a subject as Civilization, it was inevitable that if I were to attain to results of a definite and scientific character, I should have to hew my way through all manner of obstructions, and through all forms of accepted doctrine and tradition. I hope, however, that in every instance in which I have been forced into collision with other and abler minds, I shall be found to have represented them with that fairness, and spoken of them with that courtesy and respect, which is due alike to their high and unselfish aims, and to the depth of my own indebtedness to their labours ; and in leaving the work to the reader, I trust I may rely on his giving it that patient consideration which not any pretensions of mine, but the importance of its subject, the sincerity of its purpose, and the long labour spent on it — some ten years in pre- paration, and four in actual construction and writing — may claim at his hands. 24, Elgin Avenue, W. January, 1888. Digitized by Microsoft® Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS, PART I.-A NEW ORGANON. CHAPTER I. History — Descriptive. New direction taken by Historyr-Appeal to Tradition — Carlyle's view — Panorama of History — What light does History throw on Present or Future ? — Accounts for the Present but does not explain it — What we want to know is not how Institutions came here, but their effects now that they are here — -History does not give this — A Science of Pohtics needed — Influence of New Men cannot be Predicted^ — ^Effects of Institutions can — Assumed in all Legislation — History can neither direct Imagination in choice oi Ideals, Conscience as to Conduct, or Reason as to Action — ^This can onh' be had from insight into To-day. CHAPTER II. History — Philosophical. Gibbon, Hume, Macaulay, and Carlyle, and their Methods — History gets all its light from To-day — Must inter- pret Past by Present — Method of Analogy — Shake- speare — Platitudes of History-^The Positive Value of History — History and Miracles — Lord ^ Bacon and Witchcraft — Comets — Philosophical Theories of History not so much deduced from the Facts as projected into them — Antony and Cleopatra — Herbert Spencer, Comte, Buckle, Montesquieu, Carlyle. CHAPTER III. Metaphysics. Resume — Physical Science and Political Economy not -the Organon we require — Metaphysics deals with words only, and ends in awa/ysM^Illustrations— Theological Metaphysics and the " Infinite " — Meta- . physics not the instrument we require. Digitized by Microsoft® xii. SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. CHAPTER IV. Psychology. Influence of Biology on Metaphysics — Use made of it by Herbert Spencer— Psychology, like Metaphysics, ends in analysis merely — Not the Organon we want — Positive contributions of Psychology, and its effects on Religion and Practical Life — Physical Science useful as Instrument of Investigation, false as Standpoint of Interpretation. It cannot give us the idea of quality, or the idea of catise — Illustrations from Herbert Spencer — His fallacies. CHAPTER V. Cardinal Newman. His Character and Intellectual Perplexities — His " Gram- mar of Assent " and " Illative Sense " — Locke and Newman-^How he gets rid of Science — Refutation of his doctrine of " Assent " — Chooses his Religion by the " Illative Sense "—The " Illative Sense " only another name for Art, or Science applied. CHAPTER VI. The New Organon. Recognized Instruments of Knowledge discarded — Resume of Reasons — The New Organon, what is it ? — How it works — Illustrations from Shakespeare, Bacon, Goethe, Emerson, and Carlyle — How these differ from Metaphysicians and Novelists, and from Scientists and Theologians — The method of " de- tachment." CHAPTER VII. SUPERNATURALISM VCVSUS SCIENCE. Supernaturalist and Scientist contrasted — Supernaturalism credible in time of St. Paul — Ho'v^ affected now by the law of Wills and Causes — The principle of In- dividuation and its bearings on the Origin of Evil — Illustrations — Consolations of Supernaturalism — ^The satisfaction of the Feelings no proof of the truth of the Doctrine — Illustrations — Perplexities of Super- naturalism — Civilization and the "Spirit of Christ" Effects of Supernaturalism and Science contrasted. Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. xiii_ PART II.-THE GOAL. CHAPTER I. How IS Justice done? " How from a Universe of Knaves to get a common Honesty?" — The Ideal in Man, and how it becomes the Public Conscience — The Ring. of Spectators — Its bearing on Progress and Civilization — Illustrations — Education. CHAPTER II. The End of Government. Why necessary to determine it ? — Society as a whole versus the Individual — Order and Progress — The Elevation of the Individual the End of Nature, the Aim of Government, and the Goal of Civilization — Illustrations from Nature and Society — Duty a Means not an End — Illustrations from History. CHAPTER III. The Politics of Comte. Comte and Carlyle — Comte's attempt to reconcile Order and Progress — Carlyle and Emerson — Why Comte made Humanity the central point of his System — Logical concatenation of his Political Scheme — Its examination and refutation — His neglect of two great . Laws ; first, that men are alike in their Essential Natures ; second, that they are led by the Imagination — Proofs and Illustrations. CHAPTER IV. Politics of Carlyle. General Agreement of Comte and Carlyle — Their Differences — Hero-worship — Logical Concatenation of Carlyle's Political Scheme— His neglect of two great Laws ; first, that men must have Change and Rotation in the Objects of their Admiration and Worship ; second, that men are alike in their Essential Natures — Illustrations — The Fallacy of Making Society as a whole the end of Political Action, illustrated by the Schemes of Comte and Carlyle — Order and Progress Reconciled. Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OP CHAPTERS. PART III.-THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. CHAPTER I. The Law of Wills and Causes. The new form Religion has assumed — Comte's State- ment of it the most complete — How it essentially differs from the Old Forms — Logical Coherence of Comte's Religious System — The Law of Wills and Causes — How by means of it Comte gets rid of the Deity as the Object of Religion — Comte and the Object of the Religious Sentiment — Humanity. CHAPTER II. First Principles. Difference between Knowledge and Belief — Six Truths which must be' believed, but cannot be known by Science — These Truths the Foundation-stones of all our Intelligence — Effect of the Discovery of the Law of Wills and Causes on my own mind — Belief in a Great Cause of Things necessary to harmonize the Mind — Reasons — Anthropomorphism and its Neces- sity — Scientific Causation explained, and its effects on Religion pointed out — Refutation of Materialism — Differences between scientific and real causation. CHAPTER III. A Confusion of Planes. Religion has its Object in the Plane of the Transcen- dental — Mr. Spencer's admission of this quoted — Comte confounds the Sphere of Duty with the Sphere of Religion — Frederic Harrison quoted — Other Uses of the term Religion examined — Meaning of Religion in its True Sense — Why Humanity is not the proper Object of Religion— Why it cannot practically be made an Object of Worship — Fallacy of regarding Humanity as the Supreme Being exposed — Arguments and Illustrations. Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. PART IV.-RELIGION. CHAPTER I. Preliminary. Herbert Spencer's Theory of the Origin of Rehgions — How my Object differs from his, and the Results to be expected from that Difference — Religion at bottom an Intellectual. Belief — The Theory that it is a matter of Faith or Morality examined and refuted-7- Professor Tyndall's Theory of the Nature of Religion examined and refuted — Logical Consistency of Religious Superstitions — The Theory that Religion is a matter of Emotion examined— ^Complications being swept away, the way is now open to determine the Laws on which all Religions are constructed. CHAPTER n. The Law of Reflexion. The two great Laws on which all Religions are con- structed — ^The Number and Character of the Gods of any Religion depend on the First Law — The relation in which Men stand to these Gods on the Second Law — Illustrations and Proofs — Evolution of the character of the Gods shewn in History — Apparent exceptions explained — Later complications. CHAPTER HL The Law of the Balances. What it is — ^The Law of Evolution a Corollary from it — Their respective Uses — The part played by the Law of the Balances in Poetry and Art — Proof that all Religions are constructed on this Law — Religions both constructed and evolved — Effects of Individual Genius on the evolution of Religions illustrated — Effects of Expediency and Tradition — The extent to which the Theory of Evolutipn can throw light on Religion. Digitized by Microsoft® xvi. SUMMARY OF CH AFTERS > CHAPTER IV. Mental Effects. The first function of Religion is to satisfy' the craving of the intellect for the Cause and Origin of Things — Religions always contain Philosophies embedded in their structure — ^The second function of Religion is to satisfy tlfe cravings of the imagination and heart — Differences between Religion and Philosophy- — Reasons why Evolution must always be under- pinned by Religion — Summary of the part played by Religion in Human Llife. CHAPTER V. Practical Results. Complications that must be cleared away before the natural effects of Religion on Action can be clearly seen — Stage of Culture and of Moral Refinement — ■ Temperament — Heaven and Hell — Enthusiasm — Religion and Public Opinion — Summary and Con- clusion. PART V.-GOVERNMENT. CHAPTER I. Aristocracy — Preliminary. Classes not governed by the same Moral Principles as individuals — A Scale of Moralities— International Morality — Class Morality — Social Morality — Effects of the principle of Aristocracy on the masses of Men, and the complications which obscure it — The Idea at the root of every society, and its effects — The Aris- tocracy Our national Ideal. Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. xvii. CHAPTER II. Aristocracy — Moral and Social Effects. The essential Likeness of Men — Effects of the Idea of Inequality when made the basis of a social structure — Illustrations — Aristocracy and Democracy compared in their effects on the minds of Men — Their re- spective Codes of Morality — Lord and Serf. CHAPTER III. Democracy — Political Illusions. Arguments from History as to the dangers of Democracy — Their fallacies exposed — Republics of Rome, Greece, France, and America considered — Neglect of the element of Time — Illusions that spring from this neglect in Religion, Morals and Politics. CHAPTER IV. Democracy — Political Dangers: Danger from absence of Hereditary Nobility — Fallacy exposed — Local Governing Bodies as Centres of Resistance — Danger from Ambition of Individuals — France — Differences between America and France — Safeguards in Principle of Association and Educa- tion — Inferior importance of the Politician in Democracies — Other Safeguards — Danger from excessive Individualism — Antagonism of Material Interests a Safeguard — Special Dangers in America — Their Remedy — Dangers from Weakness of Execu- tive — Difficulties of Democracy. CHAPTER V. Democracy — The Demagogue, Belief in the Orator — His Danger in Democracies — /Picture of a Political Debating Room — Exaggerated conception of the qualities of a Statesman — General influence of the Statesman — The Demagogue and Foreign Aifairs^ — Danger from him in the Future. B Digitized by Microsoft® xviii, SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. CHAPTER VI. Democracy— The March of Concentration. Fear of an Industrial Aristocracy— Fallacy and Safe- guards—Effects of Monopoly— Henry George. CHAPTER VII. Democracy — Morality. De Tocqueville and the "Tyranny of the Majority"— Aristocracies and Democracies compared in _ this Respect — Low Tone of Morality in Democracies — - Reasons for this — Individualism and Egotism — Envy a Vice of Democracies — Its Form in Aristocracies — Its Uses. CHAPTER VIII. Democracy — Society. Charge of Monotony — Society Picturesque in Aristocra- cies, Individuals in Democracies — Charge of Want of Culture — Education more general, but Culture less than in Aristocracies — Reasons and Illustra- tions — Importance of Manners — Manners bad in Deinocracies — Reasons — Differences in points of View. PART VI.-THEORY OF PROGRESS. CHAPTER I. Historical. Existing Theories of Progress unsatisfactory— Comte's failure to grasp the Controlhng Factor — Guizot deals with Special Causes, not General Laws of Civilization — Buckle's Theory — Its Incompleteness pointed out— Carlyle's Theory— How it differs from Buckle's — Herbert Spencer's Theory too wide and general for Practical Purposes— Scope of my own attempt. Digitized by Microsoft® SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. xix. CHAPTER II. The Controlling Factor. All Thinkers divided into two great Schools on this question — Those who hold by the preaching of Morality, and those who hold by ameliorating the Material and Social Conditions — Comte and Carlyle represent the first — Chain of Thought by which they respectively arrive at their conclusion — My own View — Illustrations and proofs of the dependence / of Morality on the Conditions of Life — Parents — Press — American Slavery — Crusades — The Reforma- tion — French Revolution — Proofs from Laws of the Mind and of the World — From Practical Life — From Society in General — From Intellectual Advancement — From Failure of Attempts to Realize Higher Ideals — From the Genesis of Ideals — From the Practical Methods of the Statesman — From the Fears of Men — Material and Social Conditions not sole Cause but Controlling Factor in Civilization. CHAPTER III. The Equalization of Conditions. In what does Civilization consist? — Two Movements, Lateral and Vertical — Thucydides — ^The Equalization of Conditions indispensable to a further Advance in Civilization — Illustrated by small States, huge Armaments, and old "Balance of Power" — Practical Statesmanship works by Equalizing Conditions — The Revolution — The Reform Bill — Trades' Unionism — Land League — Early days of California — Superior and Inferior — Slavery — Illustrations from the Past — Chiefs — Kings — Written Law — Scientific Judicature — How they extend Justice by more and more Equalizing the Conditions — Illustrations from His- torical Cataclysms — The Downfall of the Roman Empire — Feudalism — Border-Raiders — Society not Homogeneous — Complications — The rise in Men's Ideals made possible only by successive Equalizations of their Material and Social Conditions— Proofs and Illustrations from History and the Present Time. Digitized by Microsoft® XX. SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS. CHAPTER IV. Statics. The four great factors in Civilisation — First, Religion-^ Second, Material and Social Conditions — Third, Religion in its character as Philosophy — Fourth, Science, physical and mental — Summary of part played by Religion in Civilization — Of part played by Material and Social Conditions — On Religion in its; character as Philosophy — What is its normal function ? ■ — Historical and other illustrations — Summary of part played by Science — Influence of Science in equal- izing conditions of life illustrated — Negative effects of Science on Religion and on Society — Proofs from History of Eastern Civilizations — Why Science did not arise in the East — Why the Priests attained to supremacy in the East — Origin of Caste — Stagna- tion — Influence of Mental Science on Civilization — Progress shewn in successive Religions — Art, Science, Poetry, Industrial Arts, Practical Morality, all results of combination among the above primary factors. CHAPTER V. Dynamics. The parts played by the factors in combination — The Ideal in Man — Each Religion satisfies the longings of the Individual — Religious philosophies have affected the race in proportion to the amount of insight em- bodied in them — Hindooism — Mahommedanism — Stoicism --Judaism — Christianity — Catholicism — Protestantism — No Religion can jump the element of Time for the race, but must wait for the dilatory Material and Social Conditions — The illusory hopes created by the neglect of the element of Time — Evidences of real moral advances in Civilization Their immediate dependence on the Material and Social Conditions — Things make their own Morality Belief and Sight — The dynamical or initiative force in Civilization is the Ideal in Man — Its different sides— Panoramic view of Christianity — Spiritual Thinkers — Modern Science — The Future. Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY. In the present work I propose to trace the great laws of Civilization and Progress, and to exhibit, in as systertiatic a form as possible, the parts played respectively in Civili- zation by Religion, Government, Science, and the general Material and Social Conditions of the world. But just as in a watch the connexion of each wheel and movement with every other must be known and adjusted before the watch can be of any practical service; or as in an •electrical apparatus the connexion between all the links of the circuit must be established before the machine can be made available for working purposes; so, until the laws which unite each of the great factors of Civilization with -every other are known and understood, we cannot have a Theory of Civilization which will be of practical value, •either as enabling us the better to understand the Past, - or as affording us guidance for the Future ; the failure to apprehend the part played by any one of the factors - completely vitiating the practical value of the theory as a whole. Now although the illustrious Thinkers, who up to the present time have been engaged on the problem of • Civilization, have succeeded, in the face of enormous •difficulties, in establishing the true relations existing between certain of the factors, none of them, in my ■ opinion, have clearly established the true relations existing B Digitized by Microsoft® 2 INTRODUCTORY. between them all, and none of them therefore have given us a Theory of Civilization that can lay any claim to com- pleteness. Comte, for example, although he succeeded in working out, with great brilliancy and with an abundance of historical detail, the relations existing between Religion and Science, failed to discover the Hnk that united Religion with Material and Social Conditions generally ; and so was unabl'e to bring a full and complete theory to bear on the interpretation of the Past or the guidance of the Present. Buckle, again, although he set forth, with much force and clearness, the part played in Civilization by Science, and by Material and Social Conditions, left the parts played by Religion and Government dark and confused ; while Mr. Herbert Spencer, concerning himself only with demonstrating that Civilization, like all other phenomena, follows the general Law of Evolution, has not attempted to show the parts played in it respectively by Religion, Government, Science, and Material and Social Conditions. In attempting, therefore, to add to the inheritance of thought bequeathed to us by these great Thinkers, I shall endeavour, by means of the super- structure which they have erected, to carry the solution of the problem a step higher, and by taking advantage of the lights which they have planted in different portions of the field, to carry the torch of Science still farther into the darkness. But instead of pursuing the enquiries begun by them into further or finer detail, I prefer to concentrate all my efforts on the discovery of the laws uniting those factors which they have left unconnected; and so, if possible, by completing the circuit of connexion at all points, to establish the outlines of a Philosophy of Civilization which shall be sufficiently vital and well- jointed to stand on its feet, and enable us to interpret the Past, and in a measure afford us guidance for the Future. In the method, however, which I find it necessary to employ to reach my ends, I differ almost entirely from these distinguished Thinkers. For while they have either. Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY. 3 like Comte and Buckle, taken their stand on the Past, and from the generalization of what are called the facts of History, have sought to interpret the Present and forecast the Future ; or starting, like Mr. Herbert Spencer, from some more or less comprehensive generalization of the external world — as, for example, from the Law of Evolu- tion — have cast their hypotheses, like nets, into the sea of History, landing only such facts as fall within their range ; I have taken as my point of departure the essential identity of the human mind in every age and clime, and have sought to trace the progress of Civilization to the union of this constant nature with the various Material and Social Conditions of the Past, regarding the facts of History as instructive commentary only. In a word, while former Thinkers have made historical data the main-stay of their theories, and have regarded the Human Mind as practically of subordinate importance, I have taken my stand on the constant nature of Man, and have regarded the facts of History as but appendage and illustration. To justify so wide a departure from the ordinary mdthods of interpretation, and to show that a new method is absolutely necessary and must be systematically em- ployed if we are to attain to scientific truth in these higher departments of speculation, I have opened with a section which I have entitled A New Organon. Under this section I have arranged most of the ordinary and recognised instruments of knowledge, physical and mental ; and, while attempting to show precisely the part they play in human Thought and Culture, I at the same time point out that none of them can furnish us with the organon we require for the problem of Civilization. I show that while Civilization includes within itself the great transactions of History, yet History, neither in its narrative nor in its philosophical form, can furnish us with what we require ; that while it includes the great results of Physicg.1 Science, Physical Science is not. the Digitized by Microsoft® 4 INTRODUCTORY. method ; that while it has to do with the thoughts and feelings of men, neither Metaphysics nor Psychology, which deal with these thoughts and feelings, will serve us ; that while it is largely concerned with Commerce and Industry, Political Economy cannot help us ; and finally, that while it is full of the results of religious beliefs, Theology is of no avail for the solution of the problem. Having thus thrown out the ordinary instruments of knowledge as unsuited to my purpose, I then endeavour to show what that New Organon is which must be persistently employed, if we are to establish a Science of Civilization that shall bear practical fruit ; and, further, I show that it is to the neglect of this organon or instrument that are traceable not only the main illusions of life, but also most of those political and social Utopias into which thinkers of the highest eminence have fallen, both in ancient and modern times. Having illustrated in detail the importance of the new rnethod which I propose to employ in my enquiries into the Laws of Civilization, I am in a position to enter on the main business of this work; and, accordingly, after attempting to answer the question. How are Civilization and Progress possible at all, in a world where the selfish and anti-social instincts are stronger than the social and unselfish? — or, as Carlyle has it, how from a world of knaves to get an honesty from their united action ? — I come to the first and all-essential problem to be solved, viz. : What is the goal of Civilization ; the aim that Nature has at heart ; the end to which all political and social arrange- ments are but means, and to which all individual efforts should be directed ; and in determining this, I shall have indirectly determined the main and essential element in Civilization itself. N ow, in order to furnish a solution that shall be broad and comprehensive, at tha same time that It IS sufficiently definite and precise, I shall, in the first place, proceed by a direct inspection of Nature herself- and, in the second ^l^ce, ^a^^^^^j^way of affording an INTRODUCTORY. 5 indirect or side light on this important question, and bringing it into greater rehef), I shall contrast the views held on it by the two opposite schools into one or other of which all Systematic Thinkers may be drafted ; tracing these divergences of opinion to their secret roots in opposite views of the nature of Man, and of what constitutes his highest welfare. And. as I give my own firm adhesion to the one side in this conflict of opposing camps, I hope to exhibit the weakness of the other by showing the primary Laws of the Human Mind which it has neglected, and the Utopias to which this neglect gives rise when projected, like the image of a camera, on the vast canvas of the world. For just as the smallest angle at the centre of a circle, if ignored or neglected, will subtend, in proportion to the vastness of the field, wide and 'unsightly gaps in the cir- cumference ; or as the smallest want of proportion in a miniature will, if sufficiently expanded, show as a foul and ugly distortion ; so the smallest neglect of any of the primary laws of the human mind will, when embodied in theories of the world, in schemes of political regeneration, ideals of society, and the like, end in Utopias and- chimeras. An examination of the two most pregnant of these political and social Utopias will serve to expose the errors that lie concealed in the central conceptions from which they take their rise, and will assist the reader to a just decision on the all-important question involved. The goal to which Civilization is gradually tending being thus determined, I shall next attempt to estimate the parts played in it by Rehgion, Government, Science, and Material and Social Conditions respectively, in order that I may afterwards treat of these factors in com- bination, and show how the successive steps of Progress have been slowly realised in the past — those moral conquests won by man from the realin of barbarism and night. And throughout the whole enquiry I shall follow the method indicated in the chapter on the New Organon, Digitized by Microsoft® fi INTRODUCTORY. seeking to bring the constant Laws of the Human Mind,, in their fulness and entirety, to bear on the different periods of the Past, always of course allowing for the difference in the circumstances and conditions of different times ; much in the same way as, in a telescope, we allow for different distances by adjusting the segments, while the lens or eye of the instrument remains all the while unchanged. In attempting to estimate the part played in Civilization and Progress by Religion, I shall be obliged to define at the outset the sense in which the term Religion is to be used, as of late years Comte and his disciples have put forward the claims of Humanity to be worshipped in the same sense, and on the same footing, as the deities of the old religions. A critical examination accordingly of the Religion of Humanity will show us the special and excep- tional sense in which alone Humanity can be legitimately said to be an object of Religion, and will leave us with certain clearly-defined ideas with which to enter on the subject of Religion in its wide and generally-accepted sense. The way thus cleared, I shall invite the reader to a consideration of the subject of Religion in genera:l, and my first attempt will be, after giving the question a form sufficiently definite to admit of a scientific solution, to point out the two great laws on which all Religions what- ever have been constructed, and along the lines of which they have all been, and will continue to be, evolved. If I shall have succeeded in carrying the reader with me so far, I shall then be in a position to mark out, more pre- cisely and scientifically, the part played by Religion in Civilization and Human Life— its effects on the intellect, heart, and conduct of men ; the laws on which religions are constructed being the other side, as it were, of the necessities of thought and feeling which these religions are adapted to meet and satisfy. And while some persons believe that Religion does everything for human life, and Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY. 7 •others that it does nothing, or worse than nothing, my • endeavour shall be to estimate, in as scientific a way as is open to me, what it does do, and what it does not and • cannot do. Having exhibited the part played by Religion on Civili- zation and Progress, I come next to the part played, by Government. Now, as the form of government existing in any country should be in a general way the outcome :and reflex of the intellectual, social, and material cdn- • ditions of that country, it is evident tha.t, politically speaking, all forms of government are alike good or bad according as they are well or ill adapted to the time or circum- stances. But, morally and socially speaking, these different -forms of government have the most widely different- results. Nowto exhibit these moral and social effects — and these, after all, are the essential elements in Civilization — all forms of government may for convenience be divided into two classes — the aristocratic and the democratic. The essence of Aristocracy is the inequality of Men's Material and Social Conditions, and includes all forms of Despotism, Imperialism, Kingship, Oligarchism, and the like ; the essence of Democracy is the equetlity of Men's Material and Social Conditions, and includes, besides •democracies pure and simple, all forms of Socialism that are of natural and spontaneous growth (and not mere paper Utopias), and which are but the carrying of the principle of equality from the political sphere, still further into the material and social sphere. But to ensure the reader against the risk of being led into the region of misty, vague, and unprofitable speculations, and also to test the truth or falsehood of the doctrines enumerated by the touchstone of actual fact, I have exemplified the effects ■ of Aristocracy and Democracy respectively by the existing condition of England and America, with just so much reference to other democracies of the ancient and modern world, as shall bring out aspects of political law not else- where to be seen. In doing this, I have endeavoured so to Digitized by Microsoft® 8 INTRODUCTORY. free the essential characteristics of Aristocracy and De- mocracy from the comphcations and illusions that obscure- them, that the great Laws of Society may be clearly- exposed. For just as the highest service the dramatist can render us is so to present a number of concrete men and women, variously related, and of different characters,, that by their action and interaction on one another they may exhibit laws of the human mind, that shall be true of all men and in all times ; so the highest problem of the Political Thinker is, from the relations existing between, different concrdte institutions and forms of government,, and the character of the people living under them, to- establish laws of such universality that, due allowance being made for compensating circumstances and con- ditions, they will account for the great characteristics of any nation and of any age. The parts played in Civilization and Progress by Re- ligion and Government having been determined, and the: course of the discussion having also brought out pro- minently the parts played by Science and Material and Social Conditions generally, it then becomes possible to- treat of these great factors in combination. But before I can exhibit the laws that connect each of these factors with every other, so that the whole shall form the coherent unity called Civilization, which marches along the ages,, and in its evolution throws off along its track the different special civilizations of the world, it is necessary to de-- termine the controlling factor, the factor on which all the: others depend, and from which they take their initiative- and word of command ; the factor, in a word, which must be practically addressed if Civilization is to be advanced or retarded. This being determined, I shall then ask how this controlling factor must be affected to make each successive advance in Civilization possible; and this in turn being answered, it will only remain to exhibit the way in which the different factors have acted and inter- acted on each. other as they have come down through the. Digitized by Microsoft® INTRODUCTORY. .9 long ages of the Past, and will continue to act and interact far into the unknown Future. The reader may possibly have anticipated that the execution of a plan so wide and comprehensive would cover even a larger space than that which in this work I have given it. When a writer bases his Theory of Civili- zation on the alleged facts and details of History, rather than on the Laws of the Human Mind, there is no doubt that bulk is indispensable, even inevitable ; and in pro- portion to the reconditeness of the causes to which political and social phenomena are referred, and their remoteness from the ordinary motives that actuate human beings, must be the volume of evidence by which they are supported ; as in the Early Church, in proportion to the incredibility of the miracles recorded, were the clouds of witnesses by whom they were attested. Indeed, all theories of Civilization that are wanting in that simplicity which characterises the primary motives and impulses of human nature, are liable to suspicion, and like the characters of persons whose actions are dark and involved, must be reinforced by hosts of testimonials.. But as the' truths which I desire to enforce are founded not so much on the multiplicity of past events, with their fugitive and misleading lustres, as on the steady identity of Human Nature in all ages ; not so much on the endless circumstantialities of History, as on universal principles of interpretation ; not so much on external generalizations, as on the inner Laws of the Human Mind ; all undue bulk would be a weakness, like that excess of fat which is a sign of degeneration rather than of development, or that overgrowth of territory beyond the arm of the central power, which historians have noted as a real source of debility, and a sure precursor of decline. Accordingly, instead of inundating the reader with a flood of historical details, which fall off the mind like the filings off a magnet when the theory that gave them cohesion becomes discredited, and of adding thereby to the number of Digitized by Microsoft® lo INTRODUCTORY. ponderous tomes, that, like the ruins of Roman aqueducts, have lain mouldering in sullen decay since the doctrines that gave them life have been superseded, I shall ■endeavour rather to compose my theory out of the simple impulses and laws of the human mind ; filling in the canvas vcith pigments picked up here and there along the great highway of life, following in this, with humble step, the example set by the great Michael Angelo himself, who is said to have painted the walls of the Vatican with ochres dug from a garden at the back of the palace, -careless of the source of his materials, so only that, his pictures were intelligible, and bore the impress of truth. Digitized by Microsoft® PART I -A NEW ORGANON. CHAPTER I. HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. Some time ago, as I sat wondering to myself how I was lo make clear to the reader the new method of interpre- tation which I proposed to adopt in the present work, I glanced along the library-shelves on which rested the old and well-thumbed volumes containing the record of every department of human thought and culture — volumes which •had so long been my delight, which had once been so zealously studied, and to which I owed so much — and as my eye fell on the great names of Gibbon and Grote, Maurice and Newman, Tyndall and Darwin, Hume and Kant, Adam Smith and Mill, Buckle, Guizot, Spencer, and Cqmte, my first feeling was one of doubt whether there could be any field of human thought and speculation which these great writers had not already occupied, any instrument of interpretation which one or another of them had not already fully and systematically employed. But -as I ran over in my mind the subject-matter of these volumes, recalling in a general way their contents and mode of treatment, and as I thought of the length of time they had remained undisturbed on their shelves, and that, too, at a period when my own speculations were most active, I began to realise how widely different must be my ■own method of interpretation from those of these illustrious writers. To make more clear to myself the reasons for Digitized by Microsoft® 12 A NEW ORGANON. this difference of method, and with the object of marking- out, if possible, with greater precision than has hithertO' been attempted, the range and Hmitations within which the ordinary instruments of knowledge can be legitimately- employed, I took down from the shelves in turn the more typical of the works belonging to the various depart- ments of thought and speculation, dipping into them here and there to refresh myself with their methods and results,, and seeking in all ways to discover wherein the instru- ments employed were unsuited to my own designs. And now, in the present and succeeding chapters, I desire ta lay before the reader the results of this investigation ; and shall open with the great subject of History, and by a brief examination of it in each of its three great divisions — narrative, philosophico-descriptive, and philosophical—, shall endeavour to show what light, if any, it throws on the Present or the Future. At a time when not only the great crises of nations, but the minute and personal concerns of individuals, were believed to be under the immediate care and guidance oi a Supreme Power, and human affairs were, in conse- quence, liable to supernatural interventions at every turn, no attempt was likely to be made to unite the Present with the Past by connected links of natural causation. History, accordingly, busied itself for the most part with the sayings and doings of those conspicuous personages, whose sublime heads were regarded as the appointed channels by which the will of Heaven was to be trans- mitted to the great masses of men, who lay passive and inert around the base of the social edifice. But, from the time that the procession of human events, like the move- ments of the stars, was suspected to lie under the; dominion of fixed and inexorable laws, and " the people '" (hitherto believed to be as rooted and inanimate as that object on whose scaly rind Milton's pilot moored), was discovered to be a Leviathan — a huge but inarticulate life stretching through the centuries, with impulse and motion. Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 13 inherent in itself — History entered on a new path, and announced itself as a new and sovereign power. Instead of dealing, as formerly, with the intrigues of princes and priests, with the rivalries of courts and camps, it set itself to follow and record the movements of that great world-stream of Humanity, on whose impetuous waters princes and potentates were swept along, like straws on the surface of some dark unfathomed tide. In other words, as human affairs were gradually withdrawn from the interference of the Deity, and natural causes were invoked to explain them, men turned for the springs that jnoved events to the vast and complex structure of Society itself; and History announced itself as the only sure ground on which to rest in any attempt to understand the Present or guide the Future. It was looked upon as an immense quarry, wherein were to be found, if assiduously explored, those secret links which, like the fossils of the •geologist, would unite the present order of things with the remotest past ; as a vast pyramid or mausoleum, whose inner recesses would, when unlocked, disclose the mighty figures that still work among us — " those dead but sceptred •sovereigns who still rule our spirits from their urns." So deeply, indeed, has this new-born conception penetrated the present age, that not a creed, institution, or shade of opinion but may be seen groping in the dark and un- fathomed mines of History, seeking to connect its lineage with the extinct heroisms of other days. Here, for example, are a band of Christian believers digging at the root of the primitive . tree, trying to square their doctrine and practice with the simplicity of the early limes ; there, a group of pale and eager figures bending over the great Protestant upheaval, intent on proving the legitimacy of their descent from the early ritual of the Reformation; and apart, unchanged while all around are changed, the undaunted forms of those who stand stern and inflexible on that primitive rock, against which it has been said the gates of hell cannot prevail. The Digitized by Microsoft® 14 A NEW ORGANON. torches of the poHticians, too, are to be seen flitting here and there in the dusky labyrinths :— Radicals chanting dirges over the grave of Liberty, or invoking the shade of Pericles and the glories of departed Greece; Re- actionaries under Carlyle, doing homage at the shrines of Caesar and of Cromwell, and commemorating the bril- liancies of the despotic regimes ; Whigs keeping time to the music of Macaulay as they march past the long line of monuments sacred to the memory of their once vital but now fast-decaying principles. There they all are, equally anxious to justify their claims to pre-eminence in the new and ever-living Present, by connecting their lineage with the shadows and spectres of the Past. And not only these, but even popes and kings, who formerly held their haughty prerogatives in fief by the grace of God or divine right, are now obliged, like suppliants, to appeal in. justification of their existence to the glorious role they have played in the past— their efforts in the cause of progress and civilization, their guardianship of national honor and prestige, their encouragement of literature and the arts, and their care and tenderness for the elevation and amelioration of the masses. Nor is such an appeal altogether without reason. For just as the traditions^ which a man has inherited, the training he has under- gone, and the circumstances and influences by which he has been moulded, leave their impress on his character, and are held as testimonial and guarantee of his present honor and integrity, so the historical antecedents of the current phases of life and opinion may be fairly adduced in support of their claims to. the approval of mankind. But when such antecedents are made the ground of exclusive authority and pre-eminence, and each starts up in turn to assert itself as the leading thread in the vast complexity of causes at work in the past, we feel that the web is too heterogeneous, the threads too involved, to justify the assumption. The same may be urged against those philosophical historians who would refer the evo- Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. ij lutiori of societies to the agency of a single principle, proximate or remote, such as climate, geological or meteorological phenomena, the "persistence offeree" and the like. Carlyle, who of all thinkers has perceived most clearly the unfathomed deeps of mystery on which our little islet of knowledge swims, advises the historian t» refrain from such attempts, as more worthy of an artisan than a true artist ; and, instead of fancying that he has- exhausted the infinite meanings of any transaction, to- restrict himself to the more modest attempt of giving some faithful picture of it, deducing from it only such household truths as may prove valuable recipes in practice. Nevertheless, he, too, urges all men to search more and more into the Past, as " it is the true fountain of knowledge, by whose light alone, whether consciously or unconsciously, employed, can the Present or the Future be interpreted or guessed at." - Now, as this is precisely the point which I wish here to raise, and if possible to resolve, I shall for the sake of clearness consider History, first, as a mere record of events, and secondly, as a philosophical interpretation of them ; and shall endeavour to trace the effects of each on a just insight into the Present or wise guidance of the Future. Of late years the scattered records of dead and for- gotten ages, dragged from the recesses in which they lay entombed by assiduous and indefatigable explorers, have been so ingeniously dovetailed and pieced together, that the Past, like some fossil mammal^ stands reconstructed before us, and is open to the inspection alike of the curious, the contemplative, or the indifferent. Not only the great panorama of events, moving in vast perspective and outline along the ages, but the political, religious, and . social life of the various peoples and nations, have been traced with fidelity by the historic pen ; each link in the great chain of historical sequence having found its natural relations and connexions. We see the great monarchies of the East as they emerge large and in- Digitized by Microsoft® i6 A NEW ORGANON. distinct on the far horizon, their vast and shadowy figures rising and faUing in perpetual conflict, Hke a confused wrestle of giant spirits in the dawn. We see Persia returning triumphant from the struggle, and follow the movements of her gigantic despotism as, like some huge python, it rolls its slow and portentous bulk westwards to the sea, over whose sunny isles it hangs for a while dark and minatory, until Greece, startled by the impending danger, steps gaily out from beneath the oppressive shadow, erect and defiant as a young Apollo, and with impetuous ardour buries the glowing shaft deep in its unwieldy side. Eastern barbarism rolled back for a while to its den, we watch with impassioned interest the rapid flowerage and culmination of Grecian glory, her noontide brilliance and dazzling elevation ; and as she turns slowly to her setting, we linger over her departing splendour until, torn by dissension within and treachery without, she sinks fouled and bedraggled into the night. In the mean- time, while the degenerate Greeks sit chattering in their dotage, unmindful of the glory of their sires, Macedon lias arisen and asserted her supremacy over the whole peninsula. Holding in her leash the last remnants of Grecian patriotism, whipped from its torpor into fiery enthusiasm by the memory of happier days, we see her storming across the Hellespont, her legions mad with glory, into the heart of the prostrate East ; and as she advances in her career of conquest, we see kingdoms and peoples fall successively before her, until her dominions stretch from sea to sea. But, long before the colossal fabric has had time to consolidate, dismemberment ensues, and the glory of her short-lived empire passes away, until at last the once mighty kingdoms of which she was com- posed, after here and there a spasmodic flicker of returning vigour, like the cottage lights of some peaceful hamlet in the evening, are one by one extinguished. For a power more stern and indomitable has arisen and is pushing onwards to universal dominion, disdaining to share with Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 17 meaner rivals the empire of the world. While the crash of falling kingdoms is resounding in the ear, and the con- fused din of perpetual strife fills the air, the infant Rome, unheeded and in obscurity, is putting out her little feelers, -and is seizing on such adjacent territory as lies within her :reach. Growing by what she feeds upon, she gradually ■enlarges until she has covered the whole of. Italy, and •converted it into nutriment for herself. Centuries come :and go, empires rise and fall, and many a bright promise "has bloomed and faded, but still she waxes in bulk and "vigour, until at last, like some mighty octopus, we see her •embracing the world in her giant tentacles, and Gaul and Carthage, Persia and Egypt, Macedonia and Greece, have .-all alike gone down before her indomitable arms. But long ere the vast stretch of dominion has reached its -utmost bounds, her vital organs, gorged to repletion, lose ' "their vigour and are beginning to decay. Luxury and dis- sipation have taken the place of the early simplicity and "frugaility ; intrigue and faction, of the old republican virtue ; the pleasures of the circus, of the glories of the field. "The ancient patriot is succeeded by the self-indulgent voluptuary; the ancient priest, by the winking augur; and the old Roman citizen, by the effeminate oriental and emancipated slave. And when at last civil war has precipitated its bloody round of proscription and atrocity, :and the Republic, honey-combed to the heart by corruption, is about to collapse, the Empire arises to prop for a while the rotting edifice and stay its impending fall. But still the disintegration goes on. The army, grown omnipotent 1 and dissolute, puts up the Empire to aucti,on ; and the favourites of the hour are borne in turn from the camp to the palace on shields dishonoured by treachery and stained by crime. Victorious generals returning in triumph from distant provinces make Rome the bloody arena wherein to contest their rival claims to the envied purple. Liberty is strangled, the voice of Freedom is hushed, and the -bright scintillations of genius are extinguished in the thick c . Digitized by Microsoft® i8 A NEW ORGANON. and stifling air. Licentiousness and debauchery run riot^ and their mad orgies are varied only by confiscations and crimes. While revelry holds its court at the capital, ia the meantime around the vast ring of frontier the Bar- barian sits squatting low and savage, and, as he presses; in, his growl is heard from the outer darkness, like the confused rolling of the midnigbt sea. The provinces, crushed under the dead weight of civil and military officialism, that stretches like an iron network over the surface of the Empire, are impotent for defence ; resistance: droops ; the ramparts give way ; and through the breach the thickening hordes pour like a scorching flood. The Empire, put on its defence, disperses or buys off the invaders, reconstructs its dykes, and retracts its limits ; but still the flood rolls in, until at last, subsidies and defeats proving alike unavailing, and even whole provinces thrown out to appease the fury and slacken the pursuit, the Empire goes down under th^e desolating tide. When we next catcb sight of it, after the waters have subsided, its vast system, of Centralization has fallen to pieces and disappeared ;: Society has resolved itself into its primitive molecules ; the old world-serpent has become a roll of isolated rings ; and ImperiaHsm, after an abortive attempt to resuscitate itself in the West, passes into the Feudalism with which / Modern Civilization commences. The face of Europe is seen studded over with the castles of barbarian chieftains,, around each of which, as a nucleus, runs a series of con- centric circles of infeudation, which radiate power and authority from the feudal lord himself, through successive ranges of vassals and retainers, to the outermost ring of artificers and slaves. Christianity, meanwhile, has arisen, and become the religion of the Roman World. Dropped as a leaven into the fermenting heart of the Empire at the period' of its greatest power, we see it at first working silently among the lowest sediment of the people — the cooks, the cobblers, and slaves — then slowly rising, in spite of persecution, through the superincumbent layers of society,. Digitized by Microsoft® HISTOR Y—DESCRIPTI VE. 19 until it surges at last over the feet of the imperial thronCi Returning thence, like a vivifying lava-stream, it spreads itself abroad on all sides, mingling with the currents of barbarian invaders that roll in successive tides over the empire, and converting them to itself, until it reaches the most secluded districts, and there silently extinguishes the last fires left slumbering on the neglected altars of Paganism. Accompanying it as it extends is the vast organization of the Church, which interweaves its golden threads everywhere through the complex structure of society ; softening, by its creeds, chalrities, and chivalries, the harsh and cruel codes of the barbarian conquerors, and moderating the internecine feuds of their savage chieftains. While Society is thus re-a.rranging itself in the West, the Crescent arises with its flaming propaganda, firing the sky like a comet, and after lopping off Africa and the East from the Empire and the Church, penetrates into Europe, and plants its standards at the very gates of Christendom. Repulsed and driven back to its native dominions, it continues to maintain, with varying success, the conquests it has achieved, until, with the somnolency of fate creeping over its decaying members, it relaxes into torpor, and finally sinks into impotent death. The West knit . together again, by the whirlwind of religious fervour into \ which the Crusades have thrown the nations. Industry begins to appear, and Commerce cuts highways for itself over distant seas to the most inhospitable shores. The Serf, hitherto chained to the earth, gradually acquires property and even rights in the soil, shakes off his fetters, and ventures to lift his stooped and imbriited front to the Hght; but his mind, enmeshed in a finer and more subtle despotism, is still enslaved, and awaits a happier day. The People, meanwhile, have gathered into towns and become powerful, and in return for services rendered are extorting charters of liberty from unwilling kings. The Nobility, once free as mountain eagles, but now ruined by Crusades or decimated by civil war, lose their authority, and are Digitized by Microsoft® 20 A NEW ORG ANON, gradually reduced under the arm of the central power. And then, again, once more a new era of Caesarism and Kingship arises for Europe, which here conspiring with the nobility against the people, and there depressing both alike, continues to exist, until the nations, stripped of the last vestige of political and social liberty, and ground by oppression to the dust, are awakened by the trumpet-blast of the French Revolution, and rise in terror and majesty to Sweep the accursed thing away. Such, in brief outline, is a rough general sketch of the great movements with which History has familiarised us, and the question becomes — What light does this, or the; like of this, worked into minute and minuter detail, throw on the Present or the Future ? The Present is ever a mystery to us until it is irradiated by some knowledge of the Past. The glittering symbols we see around us — Church, School, Court, and Camp^ — seem to the unlettered, as they do to children, to be fixed and rooted in eternity, and to be as much a part of the economy of Nature as the sun, moon, and stars. But a glance along the perspective of History shows us that these, too, like the fleeting years, are evanescent and tran- sitory ; that Time changes, and will continue to change, their configuration and character; and that, as they sprang originally from the opinions, sentiments, and necessities of men, so they will fade and disappear with them. History it is that traces the changes that institutions have undergone from their inception and starting-point down to our own time, and thus enables us to apprehend intelligently their present position and significance- — saving us from the deception of appearances. Without History, indeed, it would be difficult to know whether the large and imposing organizations that confront us on every hand were gaining or losing ground ; were waxing or waning ; were rising in power or sinking in decay. The Catholic Church, for example, still stretches its vast network over Europe as it did in the palmiest days of the Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 21 Papacy. How, then, can I tell whether it be a rising of declining power, but by tracing its history from the days when kings shuddered before its anathemas, to the time when, pressed by relentless foes on every side, and still fighting like a Parthian in its retreat, it finally yields to the enemy its last heritage of political power ? Royalty is still surrounded with all the trappings of authority—* with all the pomp and circumstance of state. To know whether it is in its prime, or its dotage, we must follow it from the time when it held, in its single hand alone, each several rein of authority and power, to the time when, stripped ohe by one of its prerogatives, it at last becomes, as a political power, a myth and symbol merely. So, too, with the Aristocracy. They still retain unimpaired their dazzling supremacy of wealth and position, and still exist as a distinct and independent body in the . State. It is only when we see that, after having been once the rivals of kings, they are now compelled to save themselves from political extinction by winking the eye, by ducking to let the wave pass over them, that we rightly apprehend their present position. The face of the Continent gleams with bristling bayonets, compacted into battalions larger and more menacing than any the world has seen. How then can I know whether Militaryism is gaining or losing ground in the world, but by a wide and comprehensive survey of its history from the earliest recorded times ? The great body of the people still retain their ancient habits of deference and submission, and to all appearances are still in their pupilage. But, by following them from the time when they were still enslaved, down to the time when, shaking off their chains and coming to manhood, they set their feet on the necks of their former oppressors, we can the better estimate the present significance of Democracy. In this way, History, by furnishing a larger base for observation and comparison, and by fixing the attention on deeper and more cardinal issues, enables us to apprehend intelligently the purport and significance Digitized by Microsoft® 22 A NEW ORGANON. of things around us. It enables us also, in a general sort of way, to forecast their future. For if, as many believe, the course of History is the most authoritative expression and revelation of the deep designs of the Creator, or, if you will, of the great central laws of the world, it is evi- dent that, by following the tracks described by institutions in the past down to their meeting-points in the present, and thence prolonging them onwards according to the laws of their proper curves, we may roughly determine their relative positions in the future. Some are moving in ascending lines, others in falling ones ; some have short arcs, and will soon complete their cycles and disappear ; while others, with vaster sweep, will prolong their influence far into the unknown future. It is somewhat in this way that History, as a. record of the Past, is believed to throw light on the Present and the Future. But a little consideration will show that, while it accounts for the Present, it does not really explain it ; and, while it enables us in a way to anticipate the Future, it does not help us to guide or direct it. We have just seen that History traces the institutions we see around us to their sources in the past, and follows them back again through all the windings of their progress and development to their condition at the present time. But as institutions have no merit in themselves, 'and are good or bad only in so far as they forward or impede the true well-being of man, it is evident that we cannot guide Society aright until we know what their constant effects are — what constant relations they bear to the minds and characters of the people living under them. That they have effects of one kind or another is admitted. Some have a tendency to stimulate and expand the mental energies, others to repress or deaden them ; and the aim of the statesman accordingly is to strengthen and uphold the one, to restrict or abolish the other. But before he can act wisely, he must first of all know what these eff'ects are, as a physician must know the effects of his medicines before he can Digitized by Microsoft® 1 HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 23 prescribe for the welfare of his patient. What we wanty therefore, is not so much a knowledge of how institutions I ■came here, as of their effects now that they are here ; not J History, but insight into To-day. Of what use is it to me to know how Slavery, for example, arose, spread, and rooted \ itself in this or that country ? What I want to know is I its constant effect on the moral nature of man in every age .and nationr Of what use is it to know how Christianity ■or Mahommedanism arose and Staruggled into supremacy in this or that quarter of the world ? What I want to | know is the effects of these respective creeds on the popu- ' lations living under their sway. Of what use is it to know the history of the long struggle between Aristocracies and Democracies, if we do not know the effects of their distinctive principles on the human mind, on its dignity ■or abasement, its expansion or repression, its fullness and :spontaneity, or tameness and rigidity ? It is clear, there- fore, that, without a knowledge of the effects of institutions •on human well-being — material, intellectual, and moral — we cannot wisely guide the Future. It is equally clear that, without such knowledge, we cannot understand the Present < To understand the Present, is to understand the opinions, sentiments, and beliefs of men in the Present ; and for the ^reat masses these are the direct results of the religions, ■creeds, and forms of government under which they live — in a word, of their Institutions. Of course, the great moral and mental characteristics of any people are the combined results of many institutions. Nevertheless, it is evident that, until we can separate the effects that are attributable to each of these institutions, " and which are inherent in their very nature, we cannot possibly understand the condition of the people in its tout ensemble. ^ History, then, as a record of the Past, can give us no insight into the Present, or guidance for the Future ; such insight and guidance being got' only from a systematic knowledge of the effects of Institutions on human life and character. This knowledge, when attained, will congtitute Digitized by Microsoft® 24 A NEW ORG AN ON. the Science of Politics — a science hitherto almost entirely neglected, only here and there an occasional explorer having ventured to sink a shaft in some outlying portion of the field. And, in passing, I may remark that such a science will lie midway between the general Science of Society, or Sociology, on the one hand, and what is called practical statesmanship on the other. Sociology interprets- the movements of Society as the results of some one law,, as of Evolution, which is so general that, even if. it were true, it would be of little use for practical guidance. In this respect it bears the same relation to the special Science of Politics, that the general Science of Biology does to the special Science of Medicine. For, while the Science of" Biology announces the general laws that are common to alL animal organizations alike, it is incompetent to deal with those special complexities of the human body, and the- diseases to which it is subject, which are the subject- matter of the Science of Medicine. So, too, with Sociology.. It shows us the laws which Societies in general follow, but does not enable us to guide any particular Society to its- true goal. It does not take into account the infinite- variety of motives, interests, and beliefs which must be directed and combined before any Society can enter on a. higher stage; but merely points to a fatality rolling through the ag^s, and making human beings its willing- or unwilling ministers. Practical statesmanship, on the other hand, is a species of empiricism, and is too super- ficial and shortsighted to be depended on for future guidance and direction. Its method is to listen assiduously to the interests, wishes, and prejudices of the different classes in Society, and, if possible, to estimate their relative force and volume (by the clamour which they raise in the Press and elsewhere), with the object of so apportioning legislative enactments as to satisfy at once the greatest number of interests. It does not attempt to estimate the consequences that will flow from the preponderance of any institution or set of beliefs, for, as has been well said, Jesus. Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 25 has no chance with Judas Iscariot unless he has the votes, but seeks merely to follow the wishes of those who for the moment have turned the balance of power in their favour. In this respect it resembles that empiricism in medical practice which, instead of understanding the functions of the different organs of the body and their relations to each other, would, when the patient complains, simply clap a poultice on the seat of pain. Hence the necessity of a Science of Politics which shall trace the effects of Creeds, Institutions, and forms of Government, on human well- being; and, by indoctrinating the public mind with its principles, shall prepare the way for the Practical States- man, who when the time is ripe will take them up, and devise the best means for giving them effect. Attempts have already been made, it is true, to reduce the effects of different institutions on material welfare to a systematic form, and the results constitute a part of the Science of Political Economy. But the time has now arrived when their effects on the higher moral and spiritual life of nations should be investigated, and the results made a part of the consolidated knowledge of mankind. It will be objected, doubtless, that Institutions are as much the product of the thoughts and sentiments of men, as the thoughts and sentiments of men are the product of Institutions ; and that, in consequence, any attempt to formulate the effects of Institutions on men, without taking into account the effects of men on Institutions, must furnish us with data for insight and guidance at best partial and incomplete. Now, while I am willing to admit that Institutions are as much the product and expression of men's sentiments and opinions, as men's sentiments and opinions are the product of Institutions, I desire to point out that, for purposes of insight and guidance, there is this immense difference between them ; that whereas the effects of Institutions on men can be made the subject-matter of scientific investigation, the effects of men on Institutions cannot be so made. It is Digitized by Microsoft® 26 A NEW ORG ANON. true that we can to a large extent estimate the influence of great men on Institutions in the Past. We can trace the effects of Buddha, Mahomet, Caesar, Luther, on the institutions which preceded them and under which they were born, and can follow the movements initiated by them, and extended by their disciples, until they modified or replaced the institutions of the earlier times. But we can no more predict the form in which the next Great Man will appear, or estimate the influence he will exert, than we can the next discovery in Science, or its application to the arts of life. The influence of Great Men in the Future can- not be foreseen, and cannot, therefore, be made the subject- matter of scientific enquiry. It must forever remain an unknown quantity in human affairs, not predicable, but only a hope ; not a matter of insight, but of trust and aspiration ; not of Science, but of Providence or Fate. And as for the Great Men of the Past, and their influence on the Present, they are either already summed up and embodied in the Institutions of the Present (in which case their effects can be estimated like that of any other institution); or they are individual and personal influences merely, in which case they are politically non-extant. The influence of Christ, for example, and his effects on the welfare of men, are (in so far as he is a political power) embodied in the institution called the Christian Church; the influence of Augustine, Luther, Wesley and Knox, in the different branches of that Church. In so far as they are merely personal and individual influences, they are not subject-matter of Politics, which deals only with such sentiments and opinions as are mirrored and embodied in the institutions around us, and are held by great masses of men. If of the two great influences then, that by their play and inter-action make up the movement of Civihzation, viz., the action of Institutions on men, and of men on Institu- tions — the effects of men on Institutions in the Future cannot be now foreseen, or scientifically determined ; the Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 27 effects of men on Institutions in the Past are already represented by the institutions around us. Either way, therefore, their consideration can give us no insight into the Present, or guidance for the Future. But the effects of Institutions on men, on the contrary, can be scientifically •determined ; and, when determined, like other laws of nature, hold good alike for the Present, Past, and Future. Accordingly, if we can determine the effects that institu- tions have over men's ways of thinking and acting at the present time, we may know that they have had the same effects in the remotest times, and can predict that they will have the same effects in the next mil- lennium. That the same institution should have the •same effects in every age, although the effects of other institutions may overlay and obscure our perception ■of them, is indeed a very axiom of thought. It is assumed in all the efforts made to improve the welfare of man by legislation, i.e., by alterations in the Institutions under which he lives. Without such assumption, all legislation were as uncertain and shifting as the winds. It may be •objected that the effects of Institutions on men cannot be reduced to a scientific statement, inasmuch as institutions which in one age have forwarded human development have in another age retarded it. It may be said, and with truth, that Militaryism, which once aided Civilization, by welding small and heterogeneous tribes into large and powerful nations, now obstructs it ; that Feudal Aristocracy, which in the Middle Ages was the only possible regime that could have held Society together, is now opposed to the highest interests of the people — material, intellectual, moral ; and that Slavery, which at one time helped Civilization by releasing the more advanced races from the lower toils, thereby enabling them to pursue higher ends, has become (now that the dignity of man enters as a factor into political calculations) a curse to all engaged in it. All this may be readily admitted, and yet it does not prove that the same institutions have had different effects in Digitized by Microsoft® 28 A NEW ORGANON. different times and places. It only shows that political necessities have made these effects less urgent ^and important at one time than another. It is the same with nations as with individuals. For just as, when a man's life is in danger, the finer sentiments of his mind are for the moment less urgent than his self-preservation, so, in the earlier stages of society, material power and social order are of greater relative importance than those higher moral and spiritual interests which are the last achievement of Civihzation, But that the same institutions have had the same effects throughout is undoubted, Militaryism had the same effect in restricting the liberties of the individual,, and making him a mere cog or pinion in the State-machine, in the days when it was an essential element in civilization, as^t has now ; only, the liberty of the individual was then less urgent than the preservation of Society, or the aggrandisement and domination of the superior races,. Feudal Aristocracy had the same effect in preventing the mental and moral expansion of the great body of the people in the Middle Ages, as it has to-day ; only, at that time the dignity of serfs and artisans, the mental expansion of flunkeys and retainers, were of less consequence than the preservation of authority in innumerable centres of feudal power. Slavery has had the same effects on men in every age and country ; only at one time it was considered more- important that the few should be energetic, enlightened, and free ; should civilize, colonize, and cultivate philosophy and the arts; than that a motley herd of barbarians,, negroes, or orientals, although equal in the sight of God with their masters, should have equal justice, equal rights, equal chance of elevation and expansion of soul. As a record of the past, then, History can give us none of that political insight and guidance which it arrogates .tO' itself, none of that political wisdom of which it is believed to be the great repository ; such insight and guidance being, as we have seen, the aim of that Science of Politics which has still to be inaugurated. We have now to enquire Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— DESCRIPTIVE. 29 what help it gives us in our individual capacities as men who have lives to lead in the ever-new days that are dawning over us. Carlyle has said that the choice of our Ideals is the most important step in life ; Matthew Arnold, that Conduct is three-fourths of life; and Goethe, that life is Action, and not Contemplation. Now, if we examine History, we shall find that, although it stimulates and exercises the emotions, it neither directs the Imagination in the, choice of the ideals we are to follow, the Conscience in the principlesof conduct we are to support, or the "Reason in >■ the line of action we are to pursue. < There can be' no doubt that, in reading the lives of the Great Men who have made history illustrious, we are carried away by the virtue and character they exhibit — by their energy and perseverance under difficulties, their cheerfulness and stoicism in defeat, their moderation and humility in victory. What a fine bracing effect, for example, the old heroes of Plutarch have on the mind ! What a thrill of admiration runs through the veins as we read of how no adversity could subdue their undaunted spirits, or dim their splendid mag- nanimity ! But, unfortunately, the Past is not all a tale of ancient heroism. The ideals which it has bequeathed to us, though sometimes high and pure, are often false and liollow; and History, instead of perpetuating models of virtue, is too often the apotheosis of brute force or vulgar success. The consequence is that men's admirations as often settle on strong and unscrupulous characters, as on great and sublime ones. It is questionable, indeed, whether Bonaparte, for example, has not been as much an object of admiration, as the Apostle of the Gentiles himself. Certain it is that his career presents precisely those characteristics that are most attractive and alluring to the young ambitious mind ; at that period of life, too, when it is most important that the ideals we select should be high and unalloyed. And thus, by presenting us with types of character that are maimed and imperfect, arid erecting into Digitized by Microsoft® 30 A NEW ORG AN ON. objects of idolatry men of mixed and impure genius> History has as often served as precedent for gigantic crimes as for super-eminent virtues. It was the conquests of Alexander that fired the ambition of Napoleon, the dagger of Brutus that played before the fevered imagina- tion of Charlotte Corday. If History does not direct the Imagination in its choice of Ideals, neither does it give that support to the Con- science which is so indispensable for present or future guidance. Instead of shining with a pure and steady lustre, its lights are frequently confused, uncertain, and misleading. Virtue and its reward. Crime and its punish- ment — which ought to be linked together as by bonds of iron — lie often so far apart, that their connexion is not apparent ; and, although the bonds exist, and the compen- sations are as sure as Nemesis, they are often as invisible and unsuspected as those hidden streams, whose secret currents connect the waters of distant lakes. So difficult, indeed, is it to track the path of Justice through the y^thickets of dishonesty and crime, that men at last have ceased to believe in its existence in this world ; and special provision is accordingly made for its triumph in the next. They see Virtue followed as often by a penalty as by a reward. George Washington may have been pardoned for cutting down the apple-tree, because he would not tell a lie; but many a boy before and since has been thrashed for the same reason. For one man whom integrity and singleness of mind have raised, on the golden wave of opportunity, to power and supremacy, thousands have gone to their graves, broken-hearted and in despair, the martyrs and victims of divine ideas quickened before their time, and plucked before their general ripening. These are truisms of History. And yet, so little have they availed to instruct us, that bigotry, persecution, and neglect devour their hecatombs of victims to-day as they did in the days of oldf^ It is doubtless easy to sit and condemn the men who persecuted the inaugurators of the belief which we Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY—DESCRIPTIVE. 31 now love and cherish, but I do not find that the heralds of new thought fare any better to-day ; or that History, which has taught us to beware of neglect and persecution in general, has helped us to avoid it in particular .7 Nothing is more wearisome than the lamentations we so constantly hear over the fate of Burns, for example, and the neglect h6 suffered at the hands of his contemporaries ; and from men, too, who we perceive would act in the same way were he alive to-day. Not that men have ever wished to persecute the right, only they did not then know that it was the right ; not that they wish to neglect merit, only they do not see that it is merit. And thus all right Con- duct in the present resolves itself into a matter of belief, opinion, knowledge, or, in other words, of insight into. To-day. And, lastly. History gives us no guidance in Action.. If life is work, and not passive enjoyment or barren con- templation, of what use can the records of ancient virtue or modern chivalry be to me, who have quite another set of problems to deal with, and which, from the nature of the case, rnust be without precedent ? What insight or guidance does it give me to know what other men have done in other days and under other circumstances and conditions ? For the question, after all, is not so much how we are to act in general, as what we are to do in. particular. It is a matter not so much of right principles^ which all admit, and which it needs no one to rise from the dead to enforce, as of knowledge of the conditions under which we live, and of the laws- by which things are go- verned. It is doubtless true that Conduct is three-fourths of Kfe, and that honesty and simplicity of character will carry a man through a great part of his perplexities.. But it is equally true that the miseries, misunderstandings, and heart-burnings of the world, are as much due to bad judgments as to bad intentions, to differences of opinion as to differences of moral principle. For remedy, nothing^ will avail but insight into the conditions under which we Digitized by Microsoft® 32 A NEW ORG ANON. work and live, into the connexion of causes and the course of events ; and as the conditions are never twice alike, each emergency requires a diiferent combination of thought ■and action to meet it. An American humorist has ob- served that because Benjamin Franklin began life as a tallow-chandler, and entered Philadelphia with half-a- loaf in his pocket, other boys were expected to do the sanie, if they ever hdped to rise in the world. The remark, though purposely exaggerated, sufficiently expresses a prevalent feeling. Sclpio and Garibaldi were heroes and military men,' Paul arid Peter were apostles'. Must I too- "become a military man or an apostle ? The men whose lives we are asked to imitate were great, not because they followed the precedents of those that had gone before, but because they relied on themselves, looked into matters for themselves, and acted on insight into the immediate •conditions under which they lived and worked. To follow precedent is not so much a mark of true insight, as an indolent substitute for the want of it. Buonaparte hirh- self, if he were to rise from his grave and follow his old tactics, would be a superannuation and a failure. To be a success, a man must conform to the existing conditions of success. Does he aim at being a business success ? He -must understand, not the state of trade in the last decade, but the relation of supply and demand to-day. A political success ? Not the history of politics in the last century, but the wants and opinions of men in his own time. A literary power ? Not the records of extinct theologies and philosophies, but the present aspirations, thoughts, and •sentiments of the great bulk of cultivated readers. Or does he reject entirely all the idols of the theatre, the liiarket, and the den, and appeal to truths that are eternal and immortal ? This, too, has its conditions, which must he obeyed. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER II. ''*!ra*me lastcnapter we cansid^reu 'History as a record and narrative of. facts only. But it is usually more than a mere record. In the works of writers like Gibbon, Hume, Grote, Macaulay, Carlyle, the narrative is interwoven with philosophical and other reflections, which serve as bond and connecting link to the web and sequence of events ; the problem of the Historian being to find such causes, motives, and impulses, as shall be sufficient to explain the facts, and bind them into a complete and harmonious whole. If the motives and causes assigned are felt to. spring naturally from the situation and character of the actors, we say the historian has given us a faithful account •of the period he is recording ; if not, we are dissatisfied, ;and pronounce his work a failure ; as when a novelist, after laying down the ground-work of his characters, is unable "to make them consistent or realisable. In other words, unless the causes assigned as adequate in the Past, would be considered adequate to produce the same results in the Present, we do not credit the representation. In a ■celebrated chapter of his great work. Gibbon has enumer- ated the causes which he deems sufficient to account for the spread of Christianity in the Early Ages. We ask ■ourselves whether the like causes would account for like facts, under like circumstances, to-day; and accept or D Digitized by Microsoft® 34 A NEW ORG AN ON. rejects his conclusions accordingly. Carlyle gives us what is called a ' new estimate ' of Cromwell, and Froude of" Henry VIII. We consider whether the estimates fit the facts according to the present laws of human nature, and so give or withhold our approbation. So that History,, instead of throwing light on the Present, gets all the light it has to give from the Present; instead of being the standpoint from which the Present is to be interpreted and guided, the Present is the standpoint, and History is but illustration and commentary merely. The neglect of this principle of 'interpretation has been the source of far-reaching errors in liistorians otherwise great and admirable. • No historian, perhaps, has taken more pains- to make his characters credible and consistent than Carlyle. He is constantly asking us whether we can believe that men like Cromwell, Frederick, or Mirabeau, who did such and such things under such and such cir- cumstances, could have been the men they are usually represented to be ; and tells us that if we cannot do so, we are bound to reject the representation. But he sometimes departs from this, his own, principle of judging the Past by the Present, and when he does so, he falls into those peculiar errors from which most of his political heresies have taken their rise. He was never weary, for instance,, of praising what he called the beautiful relation that; existed between lord and serf under the old feudal regime ;^ and of holding it up as a kind of exemplar for our imitation and guidance at the present time. In this rela- tion, he asserted, the lord, on the one hand, gave guidance^ and protection ; the serf, in return, loyalty and obedience^ Now, not only was this not true as a historical fact, except in the most mechanical sense, but no man can believe that it ever could have been the fact. If we consider the relation in its effects on the heart (and this, indeed, was- Carlyle s chief concern), instead of being beautiful, it was absolutely demoralising. Although .the serf may have given loyalty and obedience (for there is no power so base Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— PHILOSOPHICAL. 35 and oppressive but will be reverenced by those who suffer from it), the lord, in return, regarded the serf as little better than a beast of the field, and treated him accord- ingly. As for the protection he afforded the serf, it was simply a piece of mutually-advantageous self-interest ; while the guidance he gave him eventuated in that brutal ignorance in which he has lain until our own. time. Carlyle would, not, of course, have the identical relation repeated in the present day ; he would put a hero in the place of a lord, and the people in general in the place of a herd of serfs. But the upshot would be the same while the relationship continued, were it even to the end of Time — on the one hand a nation of flunkeys, and on the other, a tyrant who would treat them as slaves. This result inheres in the very essence of the relation, and must reappear under like conditions in every age and nation _ No history, groping among the dead rubbish-heaps of the Past, can obliterate this pregnant truth drawn from a just insight into To-day. But how, it may be asked, are we to interpret. the Past from the Present, if there are no institutions in the present answering to those in the past ? We have no serfs, for example, in England at the present time, how then are we to understand a state of Society of which they were a component element ? The answer is — by analogy, by look- ing at the essence of the relation. Between a modern master and his lackeys and dependents, the same essential relation subsists as between the lord and serf of feudal times. If we realise to ourselves the full round of this relationship, deepen the shades to correspond with the more absolute power possessed by a lord in early times, allow for a more aristocratic state of opinion and belief,, the result will be the solution desired. This method of interpreting the Past from the Present has been followed by Shakspeare in his great historical dramas, with such success as we all know. He wishes, for example, to give us a picture of old Roman times. He gets from Plutarch. Digitized by Microsoft® 36 A NEW ORG ANON. and other sources the broad historical facts, the form of Government and Religion, the distribution of Power and Authority; this is the skeleton to which he has to give life and reality. How does he proceed ? He simply takes his stand on the times in which he himself lived ; notes the effects existing institutions have on his own and other minds ; allows for the differences in custom, mode of life, and political and religious forms ; and the result is a drama or dramas more real and lifelike, more true and believable, an insight into the working of Roman life more subtle and profound, than all the husks with which the historians have furnished us. Instead of History giving us any insight into To-day, it is only our insight into To-day that can make the old dead bones of History live. I am aware that there are a certain number of genera- lizations which are supposed to be the peculiar products of History, and which, whether for warning or encourage- ment, have a mystic sanctity attached to them quite out of proportion to their real value. These teachings of History, as they are called, include, among the rest, such well-worn platitudes as that luxury is the cause of decline in States; that the license of democracies ends in des- potism ; and that the first breath of liberty, instead or appeasing discontent, excites it. Now, whatever truth there may be in these generalities, our belief in them is no more due to the teachings of History, than our belief that two and two make four is due to the teaching of History. Were they not seen to hold true at the present time, to say that History affirmed them would have about as much weight as to say that, because History affirmed it, two and two made five. We believe luxury to be the forerunner of dechne, not because History affirms the sequence, but because we see to-day that luxury tends to selfishness, isolation, and enervation, and that these relax those social bonds without which a nation cannot subsist. We believe the hcense of de- mocracies will end in despotism, not because a number of Digitizes by Microsoft® HISTORY—PHILOSOPHICAL. 37 historical facts support the induction, but because we perceive that hcense breeds disorder, and out of disorder order can come only by supreme power being placed for the time in the hands of some one individual. We can- not, of course, make as many direct observations as we should wish on the relations between the fall of States and their political antecedents. We cannot have empires and kingdoms falling to pieces every day before our eyes to serve merely as crucial experiments for our political inductions. We are obliged, accordingly, to draw on the Past for such historical sequences as shall supplement the want of direct observation, and shall illustrate and enforce our political convictions. And it is precisely here that History is of service. Not that it teaches us any-] thing new, but that it strengthens the convictions we have I already formed from observation of the Present,, by. fur- ' nishing us with evidence of their truth in times gone by. It gives us the same sort of assurance as if we had discovered the account of an ancient eclipse in some old forgotten book, after having read that its exact time had been calculated by astronomers of our own day. It does for mankind what the experience of other minds does for the individual. The greater part of our knowledge is got by proxy, and not by direct experience. It is largely drawn from the reports of reliable contemporaries, or from the books and conversation of eye-witnesses. Never- theless, we believe and act on the information received, not because the authority is infallible, but because it runs in accord with our other beliefs, or at least does no violence to them. I can believe in events I have not witnessed, in crimes I have not committed, not because the testimony is unimpeachable, but because it corresponds to tendencies which I feel in myself, or see in the world around me. I can believe in a man killing his neighbour in a passion, although I have never witnessed it, because I can realise the extent to which passion will go when un- checked by higher considerations. So, too, with History. Digitized by Microsoft® 38 A NEW ORGAN ON. It supplies the present age with the actual experience of former ages, and so gives assurance that those results have actually happened which we should have been led to ■expect from tendencies visible in our own time. But the conclusions drawn from it must be credible to us now, or were a messenger sent from Heaven to announce them we should not believe him. And thus it is that the fraction of eternity known as To-day, will, if rightly seen, balance the whole of recorded History, as easily as a drop of water, when rightly placed, will balance the sea. That History gets all its credence from insight into To-day, appears in nothing more clearly than in the decay into which the old behef in Miracles has fallen in the present age. The historical facts which support the belief still exist as they did in the Middle Ages, and are as much a part of well-authenticated history as any other transaction. Why, then, are they not believed in now as they were formerly ? Simply because History gets all its authority from insight into the present world, and not from the credibility of witnesses, however trustworthy. In the days when miracles in general were believed in, that is to say, in the days when the interposition of super- natural agents in human affairs was believed in, any special set of miracles was of course a priori credible. But, to-day, no supernatural agencies whatever are believed to interpose in human affairs, and consequently accounts of miracles, no matter by what authority attested, are almost entirely discredited. The reason why supernatural agents were~ formerly believed to interpose in human ( affairs, was simply because events were constantly hap- pening on every side which could not, in the then state of knowledge, be explained by natural causes ; and that, con- sequently, by the profoundest law of human nature, men were bound to attribute to wills like their own what could not be referred to natural agencies. The reason, on the other hand, why we do not now believe in supernatural interpositions, is simply because all events whatever are Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— PHILOSOPHICAL. 39 TDelieved to be traceable to natural causes, time and obr servation alone being wanting to make out the more subtle and recondite connexions. It is the same with the belief in Witchcraft as with the belief in Miracles. The evidence in its favour was strong and convincing. Some of the greatest names in the past firmly believed in it — Bacon, Matthew Hale, Sir Thomas Browne. To men of such penetration the evidence seemed sufficient to justify the belief, simply because they came to the examination of the facts with minds already prepared for such interpretations. They saw events occurring around them every day which nothing but the supposition of invisible wills like their own could explain. Hence, evidence which would have been rejected by us was deemed sufficient by them. But why multiply instances ? If further proof were wanting that History is but an appendage and illustration of the Present, and must be sternly subordinated to it, it is to be found in the broad general truth that all knowledge whatever is judged from the standpoint of the Present, and not from the standpoint of the Past. We do not judge of the nature of comets, for example, by the accounts History gives of them when they were believed to ' shake from their horrid hair pestilence and war,' but we judge •of their effects then by what we know of their nature now. We do not judge of ancient maladies from the accounts of ancient writers, but from our present knowledge of disease; even the theologians venturing timidly to hint that those who were said to be possessed of devils were, after all, only the victims of epilepsy. We do not believe that the thunder was the voice of Jove, or the lightning his thunderbolt. In short, all Old interpretations must give way to the New ; the Past must be postponed to the Prer sent; and Science, while pronouncing on all that has gone before, is itself unjudged, save from the higher -standpoints to be reached in the future. To give greater completeness to the subject, we have ■still to consider History as a philosophical interpretation Digitized by Microsoft® 40 , A NEW ORG ANON. of the Past, and to enquire what light it throws on the Present or the Future. It has been often remarked that History may be so read as to support any behef or system of thought ; and, indeed, if we consider the number of c6ntradictory theories to which it has lent its aid, there would seem to be a good deal of truth in the imputation. I have noticed that those theories of the World or of Society which profess to rest on a wide induction of historical facts, carry much greater weight in the public ■ttiind, than those that stand, unsupported, on direct insight into things around us. The bulk and pretentiousness act on the imagination, as a Lor4-mayor's show on nursery- maids and children, and mightily enhance the dignity and weight of the argument. When we read Comte, or Buckle, or Spencer, and their respective accounts of the progress of Civihzation, we imagine that the theories they are seeking to establish have arisen in their own minds,, out of the facts presented, as easily and naturally as they do in their books. We are accordingly lost in admiration at the grasp of intellect that can survey, like a God, in one vast picture and perspective, the whole movement of humanity ; the eye is dazzled, and loses its sense of pro- portion ; and the imagination, crushed like an Enceladus under a mountain of tradition and authority, is paralyzed and unable to stir. But the more penetrating minds perceive that the theory, instead of flowing spontaneously from the facts, has really been projected into them, only such facts being adduced as run in accord with it ; and that the great draughts swept into the net, have been as carefully selected beforehand, as those fish which Anthony drew from the sea with such eclat, but which Cleopatra discovered to have been put on by boys paid to descend for the purpose. Instead of the theory being, as is supposed, the concentrated result and product of the author's reading, the reading has been an elaborate search for facts to support the theory. Instead of having been drawn from a vast array of historical facts, the theory has Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— PHILOSOPHICAL. 41 really been drawn from a limited observation of men and things around; and is usually either the development of some striking generalization of outer facts, or the expansion of some pregnant law of the human mind. The consequence is, that it has no force over and above the limited range of facts from which it was drawn in the first instance ; as the complicated machinery of a mill has no power over and above the simple motor by which it is turned. Mr. Spencer, for example, admits that his theory of Evolution, which appears to the reader as if it had unfolded itself in the most natural and spontaneous manner from the facts detailed, was really suggested by a striking observation of Von Baer, to the effect that organisms in their development pass from a homogeneous to a heterogeneous condition. This generalization seemed to crystallize and unite into a harmonious whole, many observations already made by Spencer himself in dif- ferent fields of scientific research. Accordingly, after giving the generalization a more precise and definite form, he ranges systematically with it through the different classes of scientific facts, and finds that it is the law which they all obey. All this is, of course, quite legitimate, seeing that the facts of science are objective realities. which exist to-day and are open to examination and inspection. But when he ascends the stream of existence to its source, and undertakes to show how things arose (and, indeed, it is this that gives bulk to his volumes), his special interpretar tions have no more value than the general theory they are intended to illustrate. For example, he undertakes to show us the origin of life, of- species, of the nervous system ; of our ideas of time and space ; of the conscience ; of the sense of beauty, sublimity, and virtue ; of societies, religions, and forms of government ; and all on the theory of Evolution ; going so far even as to have his sociological facts collected by proxy in support and verification of the hypothesis. Now, seeing that the origin of things lies quite beyond our observation, being buried in the recesses Digitized by Microsoft® 42 A NEW ORG ANON. of the past, it is clear that his explanations only go to show how things might have arisen if the theory of Evolution were true, not how they actually have arisen. Whether the theory of Evolution is itself to be regarded as true or false, will depend not so much on how far it will explain the illusory phenomena of the past, as how far it will explain the phenomena that lie around us in the present. The consequence is, that any disparagement thrown on the theory by the evidence of facts adverse to it in the present hour, would blow to the winds all the long years of toil spent on uncertain or fantastic specula- tions. Indeed, if one known fact could be distinctly adduced to negative the general theory, the whole body and superstructure of special interpretations and explana- tions would fall to the ground. I do not wish, in these remarks, to disparage the great ingenuity and subtlety shown by Mr. Spencer, still less to deny his great con- tributions to thought, his original glances into things, and the many and various fields of speculation he has opened up. I merely desire to point out, that all philosophical intferpfetations of the Past whatsoever (and especially in the domain of History), instead of throwing light on the Present, get all their light from the Present ; and are to be considered just and reliable, in proportion as the insight they exhibit into the Present is deep, exact, and comprehensive. It is the same with Comte's Philosophy of History. He declares that his Law of the Three Stages through which Humanity has passed — the Theological, the Metaphysical, and the Positive — was drawn entirely from a survey of the historical facts. But if you will look closely, you will find that (more or less unconsciously to himself) it was really drawn as a corollary from a Law of the Human Mind — the Law, viz., that in proportion as natural causes are unknown, events are attributed to wills like our own ; and moreover, that it is his belief in the truth of this law that makes him so firm in his conviction that his reading of History is the only true and scientilic one. And as he Digitized by Microsoft® HISTORY— PHILOSOPHICAL. 43 makes not only Religion, but also Practical Life turn on this law, the whole of History thus becomes the corollary •of a law of the human mind, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever. I cannot, of course, enter here into any discussion as to the amount of truth there may be in this law, or the extent to which it is applicable to societies. I only remark, that if it can be shown to be limited in its range, partially operative, or restricted to a particular sphere, any reading of History, founded on it alone, must be proportionately narrow, one-sided, and incomplete. On all hands, then, it is evident that History can give us no insight into the Present, but that it is insight into the Present that gives to History all that it has of truth or ■consistency. Of what' use are the laborious accumulations of historical details piled up by Montesquieu, in support of his theory that Climate is the prime cause of the difference between nations, in power and energy, in customs and forms of government, when our own experience teaches us "that climate, although a factor in social phenomena, is after all only a factor of subordinate importance ? What has it availed Buckle that he should have spent years in ran- sacking the libraries of the world in support of his theory that Man is the slave of circumstances, when every day •shows us that circumstances are as often the slaves of men, as men are the slaves of circumstaaces ? What has it availed Carlyle that he should have spent his long life wrestling with Dryasdasts in dreary despair, wringing History and Biography to prove that Hero-worship is the •eternal adamantine rock on which alone nations can rest secure, when we see every day, that, while it deifies the hero, it degrades the worshipper, and that, while it some- times gives rise to a beautiful spirit of devotion and ■self-sacrifice, it more frequently ends in flunkeyism and meanness of soul ? " Be lord of a day by wisdom and virtue and you may put up your history-books." Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER III. METAPHYSICS. In the preceding chapter we entered on an examination, of History, with the view of determining scientifically what light it threw on the Present and the Future ; and as the result of that examination we found that in neither of its three great divisions — neither as a mere record and narrative of transactions such as is found in ordinary his- tory-books, nor as an interweaving and connecting of these with their immediate and special causes, as in the writings- of Gibbon, Grote, and Macaulay, nor yet again as a full and all-round iriterpretation of them, as in Buckle, Comte,. and Spencer — ^did it give us any real insight into the: Present, but that, on the contrary, it was insight into the Present that gave to the Past and the theories with which it is overlaid, all the value and credibility they possess fof us ; thus degrading History as an instrument of knowledge into commentary, illustration, and appendage merely.. Now, as the main object of this work i s to determine , in as- scientific a way as possible, the greatJLaws_of_the Human. Miiid_on\vhich_£filigions_ar^^ and along the li nes- of which^ they are evolved, and the parts pl ayed J .n human life by Religion, Governm ent, and MateriaLaJid- Social C o ndition s, respectively, with the view of exhibiting- the_ wav in wh ich these great factors have acted and inter- acted_on_eadxjatlier_ to produce the complex phenomena. Digitized by Microsoft® METAPHYSICS. 45 ■of^Ciyilizalimi-and-EtagEaas, it now becomes necessary to ■enquire what is the special nature of that insight into the Present, so indispensable for the solution of these great and important problems. And so, running our minds over the different departments of thought, we shall find that, leaving out History and Sociology which we have seen to be unsuited for our present enterprise, the various recognised instruments of knowledge may all be reduced to four — Physical Science, Political Economy, Metaphysics and the modern science of Psychology. In the present ■chapter, accordingly, I propose to enquire briefly whether, and to what extent, any of the methods employed in these various departments of thought will furnish us with what we require. Of the Physical and Natural Sciences, with their Baconian methods of Observation and Experiment, little, indeed, need be said. A glance through the pages of Tyndall, Huxley, or Darwin, will show that they deal ■entirely with physical and material things, and do not touch upon those laws of the mental and spiritual world on which, as I shall endeavour to show. Religions are con- structed, and along the lines of which they are evolved. No one can be more convinced than myself of the pro- found influence exerted over the old religious beliefs — the six days' creation, fall of man, and the consequent atone- ment and redemption — by the discoveries of modern Science as to the position of Man in the universe, the age of the World, and the.mode of evolution of the animals and plants covering its surface ; and no one can be more alive to the extent to which the evolution of Religions is modified by the Physical Sciences generally. But the object of my enquiries is to find, not. what are the facts or truths of the External World by which Religions are or have been modified, but what are the laws of the Human Mind which determine that modification. Religion deals with the thoughts and feelings of the mind; Physical Science with the changes and movements of matter. Digitized by Microsoft® 46 A NEW ORG ANON. And just as the changes in the world of matter follow some law of Physics, so the changes in the moral and spiritual world may be expected to follow some law of Mind. It is evident that the method of external observa- tion and experiment by which the laws of the evolution of Matter are determined, cannot be the method by which the laws of the evolution of Religions are to be discovered,, and that, therefore, the Physical Sciences cannot furnish us with the organon we require. I am, of course, aware that the physical science of Biology deals, among other things, with the relation existing between the mind and the brain and nervous system, and thereby indirectly establishes a connexion between things mental and things, material. But, as this connexion is the basis of the modern science of Psychology, I prefer rather to treat of it under that heading, and so shall postpone all further remarks on it until we arrive at the section dealing with that science. Of Political Economy, too, a few remarks will suffice. If we run through the pages of Mill or Adam Smith, for example, we shall find that these representative writers- deal entirely with the laws that regulate the production and distribution of the material commodity — Wealth, but have nothing to say as to the effects of the different modes of distribution of this commodity on the moral and spiritual nature of man. If the land of a country, for example, is held in a few hands, and kept from dispersion by obstructive laws of entail and settlement of great stringency ; and if, further, industry and population have grown up on this basis and adapted themselves to it; Political Economy will step in and undertake to show you the laws by which the relative amount of wealth that shall fall to the landlord, the capitalist, and the labourer respectively shall be regulated ; and with that its function- ends. I, oti the contrary, propose to begin where Political Economy leaves off, and, assuming this particular arrange- ment of property and industry, shall endeavour to show what effect it (and the aristocratic regime that springs Digitized by Microsoft® METAPHYSICS. 47 naturally out of it), has on the body of the people living under it — on their culture, their aspirations, their senti- ments, and habits of thought. In like manner, too, I pro- pose to deal with the eflfects on the human mind of that wide and general equality in the distribution of wealth which is the basis of Democracy. It is evident that the science which deals with the laws that regulate the production and distribution of the material commodity, wealth, cannot furnish us with the organon necessary to determine the laws which regulate the effects of that dis- tribution on the minds and characters of men. History, the Physical Sciences, and Political Economy, being thus thrown out as unable to furnish us with the organon or instrument of investigation we require, I come now to Metaphysics ; and, as the subject is intricate, thorny, and notoriously beset with pitfalls, it will behove me to pick my steps with caution. For my own part, I must frankly say, at the outset, that Metaphysics has long ceased to have any influence on my own speculations ; and that neither directly or indirectly have its results been involved in the conclusions which it is the object of this work to enforce. In saying this, I, of course, speak of Metaphysics in its old sense — the sense in which the term was used before the science of Biology had established those definite connections between the mind and the rnaterial organ of the brain, the discovery of which has had in many ways such important consequences, and (as em- bodied in the modern science of Psychology) has almost entirely superseded the old Metaphysics. Now, in order to make clear to myself why a subject so vague and diffuse as Metaphysics, should at no point of its compass have come in contact with questions so wide and general as those to be hereinafter discussed, I have thought it expe- dient to go through once again some of the standard works on the subject — Locke, Hume, Kant, Mill, and others — with the object of determining why its problems and results have been of so little use to me. And, accord- Digitized by Microsoft® 48 A NEW ORG ANON. ingly, on gathering up my impressions, I find that Metaphysics either deals with mere words, unrealities, or fictions, and therefore can be of no use in dealing with facts, realities, and things ; or else it stops with the mere analysis of our mental faculties, and therefore can no more give us a knowledge of the truths that are to be seen by these faculties, than an analysis of the structure of the eye can give us a knowledge of the things that are to be seen by the eye. Now, in order to justify my first contention, viz., that Metaphysics deals with mere words and un- realities, I propose to select a few instances, which the reader will see to be typical of a large section of the problems which it undertakes to resolve. My first illustration will be taken from the boundless desert of Theological Metaphysics ; and my endeavour will be to show not only that these discussions deal with words and unrealities merely, but to point out the way in which the Metaphysicians, having first deceived themselves, have also deceived others. If we look around us, we see, on the one hand, physical objects of all shapes, sizes, colours, weights, motions, and temperatures, and, on the other, mental attributes, passions, sentiments, desires, thoughts, of all degrees of power, fineness, and quality. When we have ourselves seen any particular object of a given class — animal or tree — or come in contact with any particular phase of character or disposition, we can afterwards, by the simple act of memory, recall it with more or less vividness and accuracy, and even to a large extent can base our judgments on it with safety. But if we desire to convey an adequate idea of the object to those who have not seen it, we cannot do so by directly calling up an image of it, for that they have not got. We are obligdd, therefore, to do it indirectly by means of something of which they have a definite idea ; and what more natural than to make use of that average or typical specimen of the class with which everybody is supposed to be familiar. If I wish, for example, to Digitized by Microsoft® METAPHYSICS. 4^ "describe a man whofn you have not seen, I say he is tall or he is short, meaning thereby that he is above or .below that average height of man of which most people ■have a distinct image. In like manner we speak of an • object as hot or cold, light or dark, coarse or fine, .ugly or beautiful, good or bad, and the like. And as the very conception of an average is that it is a mean be- tween two opposite extremes, it follows that in all visible, tangible, or otherwise representable objects or attributes within the domain .of Experience, what are called corre- latives — such, for example, as thick and thin, long and •short, hot and cold, upper and under, east and west, and the like — necessarily involve one another, just as one end •^of a stick necessarily involves another end. Now this necessity of thought by which correlatives involve one another, owing to their tacit reference to some average or • central point which mtist have an extreme on feach side of ■it, is, you will observe, purely confined to the realm of ^Experience from which it is originally derived, and does not legitimately hold beyond. But the Metaphysicians, seizing on the phrase " correlatives necessarily involve •each other," as if it were an axiom of thought, proceed •straightway to give it a universal application, and so not •only walk unconsciously into a mere word-trap them- selves, but lead the flocks who follow them into it also. Because long necessarily involves short, thick thin, hot •<;old, good bad; they imagine that Finite must necessarily ■involve Infinite, Entity Non-entity, Temporal Eternal, and what they call the Relative, or that which exists in relation to other things, the Absolute, or that which exists out of ■relation to all things ; not perceiving that in doing this they have overstept the boundary line within which the .-generalization that " correlatives necessarily involve each •other " holds good, viz., the sphere of Experience. For what experience can I have of the Infinite or the Eternal, •of Non-entity, or of an Absolute out of all relation to • everything, even to me myself? None whatever. And what Digitized by Microsofi® Jo A NEW ORG ANON. average or middle point can there be between the Finite and the Infinite, between the Relative and the Absolute,, between Entity and Non-entity, between Temporal and. Eternal, by reason of which the one must necessarily involve the other ? There can be none. It is evident,, therefore, when we come to consider it, that the Finite: does not necessarily involve the Infinite, Entity Non-entity,, the Relative the Absolute, the Temporal the Eternal. And thus the nietaphysicians, in lifting the generalization that correlatives necessarily involve each other from the soKd ground of experience, which is its natural basis, to the cloud-land of mere words, have been deahng with phan- tasms and symbols that have no real existence, and, while imagining themselves to be walking on terra firma, have: really been ballooning in a world of unreality and dreams.. And, after all, with what result? With none whatever j. except to have set the world wrangling over contra- dictions that have made Religion a stumbling-block to the; thoughtful, a mystery passing comprehension to the. vulgar. It is this Theological Metaphysics that has given rise to such enigmas as — how can a God, infinite in power and goodness, permit evil? how can infinite justice consist with infinite mercy ? and the like — before which the wisest, can only stand bewildered and answer — how? And yet if we use the words infinite, eternal, absolute, in their natural, and not in this verbal metaphysical sense, the contradictions will fall away of themselves. When we say that an emperor is absolute, we do not mean that he is out of all relation to his subjects, but simply that, while they depend on him, he does not depend on them. When we say that Shakspeare is infinite in invention, we: do not use the word in its merely verbal sense, we, do not mean that his invention is absolutely infinite, but only within the range of human experience. And, in like manner, if we use the terms infinite, absolute, and the like, in reference to God, in their natural and not merely verbal sense, there will be no contradiction to clear away^. Digitized by Microsoft® •' METAPHYSICS. 5E Precisely the same wrangling and contradictions have arisen over the metaphysical doctrine of the Trinity, of the Three in One and One in Three, and for precisely the same reasons. But of this enough. I would only remark^ as the most curious circumstance of all, that when the Metaphysicians have thus tacked their fictions on to the nature of God, they then turn round and proceed to abuse the human understanding for not being able to fathom the contradictions which they themselves have created, and for which they alone are responsible. Dean Mansel, for example, seriously asks you whether it does not pass human understanding that infinite power and goodness should permit evil— that infinite justice is compatible with infinite mercy? and, having candidly admitted that it does, becomes almost triumphant over the fact ; urging it as an instance of the weakness of human reason, and of the consequent necessity for a Revelation to disclose those things which, being beyond our comprehension, must be taken on trust alone. It was this constructing a God with metaphysical attributes, and then trying to look at the world through the eyes of the metaphysical illusion they had created, and to coerce Nature and humanity into accord with it, that gave rise to the doctrine of Predestination and the exploded Calvinisms of other days. God, being infinite in know- ledge, must have foreseen everything that would occur ; and, not being like the gods of Epicurus, who reigned but did not govern, must have fore-ordained the greater number of human souls to everlasting perdition — a pretty consummation which Metaphysics has brought us toE The truth is, that had not the great masses of men (and these it is who have kept up the religions of thi world) had a healthy contempt for Metaphysics — wit its infinites, and absolutes, and threes in one and one i threes — had they not, when forced to listen to such metaphysical word-play, put their own natural and human, and not metaohvsical. construction UDon it ; had they not. Digitized by Microsoft® « 52 A NEW ORG ANON. when they heard God spoken of as infinite in power, goodness, justice, and the Hke, interpreted these phrases to mean what they meant, viz., the idealization and highest expression of attributes within their conception, Religion must long since have gone to wreck from internal and inherent contradictions. The above are a few instances which I think may be regarded as fairly typical of the wordy unrealities and fictions with which Metaphysics has occupied itself through'- out that large section of its domain covered by Theology. The remainder of the ground occupied by Metaphysics is devoted to the analysis of the various faculties and functions of the mind, and the decomposition of these into their primary and constituent elements ; and here, too, a few illustrations will show us that this can no more give -us a knowledge of the truths that are to be seen by these faculties, than an analysis of the structure of the eye can give us a knowledge of the things that are to be seen by the eye. We are at all hours of the day forming judgments of one kind or another on the events going on around us ; adding to our knowledge of men and things, and going through processes of reasoning as to the contingencies and pro- babilities of life. Now, if we take up the works of the professed Metaphysicians, such as Locke and Hume and Kant, we shall find that, instead of telling us what judgments under any given circumstances and conditions men will necessarily form (according to known laws of the mind) on any concrete human thing about them, or furnishing us with reasons for or against any particular course of action or conduct, they confine themselves entirely to telling us in what the mental act of judgment consists, what constitutes the reasoning process, or how a piece of organized knowledge is made possible at all. Locke, for example, who figures the mind as like a piece of white paper on which the impressions that come to us through the senses write themselves directly as they are, METAPHYSICS. 53 without any change, regards a judgment, a reason, or a piece of knowledge, as simply the indifferent scrawlings of these successive experiences, more or less sorted perhaps, by some kind of vague affinity or principle of association. Kant, on the other hand, contends that the unity which characterizes a definite judgment or piece of knowledge, could not arise directly from the separate and isolated impressions furnished by the senses, but that, on the contrary, just as in a carding-machine between the raw material of wool that goes in at one end, and the con- tinuous and definite thread of yarn that comes out at the other, there must be interposed a series of cylinders and wheels and grooves which work the separate pieces into a single thread, so between the raw material of knowledge that goes in by the senses and the formed judgments and reasons that issue from the mind, there must be interposed a number of grooves or ' categories,' as he calls them — time, space, cause and effect, and the like — in the mind, which must be impressed on our sen- sations before they can become perceptions, judgments, reasons, knowledge. It is the same with our beliefs, and the assents we give to truths of various kinds. The Metaphysician does not, as such, profess to tell us what, under given circumstances, men will believe about any concrete human interest whatever — any religion, institution, form of government, state of society — or how they were produced; he does not tell us to what, pro- positions we shall give our assent, or from what we shall withhold it, but merely discusses in what the mental act of belief or assent consists ; Locke holding that the degree of belief or assent we give to any proposition is strictly proportioned to the probabilities in its favour, and the evidence by which it is supported; while Cardinal Newman contends, on the contrary, that there are no degrees to a man's , assent, and that it may be often yielded when the reasons adduced for the belief would be far from carrying conviction to another's mind. Digitized by Microsoft® 54 A NEW OR'GANON. But, besides the judgments, the beUefs, the reasoning- processes on every variety of topic, that make up so much ■of our Kfe, we are the subjects of feelings, sentiments, passions, desires, and aspirations, which ever and anon cross the current of our thoughts, diverting them in an easy unconscious way into their own channels, or cour centrating them fixedly on some special object. There is the feeling of Love, for example, which plays so large a part in human life, and is so pregnant with important issues ; the feeling of Duty, so essential to individual and social well-being ; the feelings of Benevolence, Reverence, Mercy, Pity, and the like. On these, too, as on the intellectual faculties proper, the Metaphysicians set to work with their scalpels to dissect and analyse them into their constituent elements ; disputing as to which are to be set aside as simple and ultimate, and which are further resolvable into modes of pleasure and pain, of self-interest, self-love, expediency and the like. And, lastly, the Meta- physicians have put the Will under the microscope, and, as we all know, have filled the libraries of the world with their endless discussions as to its nature, what it is in itself, and whether it is really or only apparently free. The above are examples of the questions with which all Metaphysics outside the range of Theology are con- cerned ; and it will, I think, be evident, without further comment, that their results, however useful in themselves, can be of no service for my present purpose; as no explanation or analysis, however ultimate and complete, of -what a judgment is, what a reason is, what a belief is, or of what love is, duty is, hope is, will is, can throw the least light on what, under given circumstances, a man will believe, will consider his duty to be, and will consequently do. And as each and every concrete religion of the world has prescribed more or less definitely and minutely to its votaries the number and character of the deities they are to believe in, the propositions they are to hold about the nature and attributes of these deities, who and what they are Digitized by Microsoft® METAPHYSICS. 35 to love and revere, what they must will to do or avoid, what they are to fear, and what they are to hope for, it is evident that Metaphysics, in so far as it is engaged in isolating the ■different faculties, feelings, and sentiments of the mind, .and analysing them into their constituent elements, can throw no light whatever on the origin of these concrete religions, on the great laws on which they are constructed, .and along which they are evolved ; and so cannot supply us with the organon or instrument we require. Before leaving the subject of Metaphysics, however, I •desire to remark that the question as to whether Metaphysics has played any positive part in advancing knowledge, whether and in what way its results have modified our "views of the world and of human life, I shall postpone until I have considered the value- for my purposes of the modern science of Psychology, to which I shall now address myself. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER IV. PSYCHOLOGY. Within the last fifty years the science of Biology has made gigantic strides, and among other things the con- nexion between the brain and the mind, based on an immense induction of observation and experiment, has been shown to be so minute and exact, that the conclusions- drawn from the truth of this connexion have profoundly modified the old systems of Metaphysics, if indeed they have not to a great extent superseded them altogether. While the Metaphysiciaiis of the old school have gone on tumbling and' tossing on a shoreless and bottomless sea of speculation, revolving in endless vortices unable to- advance, devouring and being devoured by each other in turn, the Biologist standing looking on, secure in his new- found truth, has practically addressed them as follows : — All attempts to analyse the Human Mind and resolve it into its original elements, when it is detached from that material structure which is its counterpart and regarded as pure spirit alone, have hitherto proved and are forever likely to prove impotent and vain. Now, if you will allow me, I shall be pleased to offer you, in your perplexities,, fluctuations, and uncertainties, one fixed point at least on which you may stand secure, and from which you may take a new departure ; and that point is the fact, that for every thought, feeling, or emotion passing through the Digitized by Microsoft® PSYCHOLOGY. 57 mind, there .is a corresponding change in the movements of the brain and nerve centres. The use to which you can put this suggestion is this, that if you are unable to satisfactorily analyse the Mind by a direct introspection of its operations, you may be able to do so indirectly by an analysis of what is always open to you, viz. — the structure of the brain. That is to say, if by a wide and minute comparison of the brains of all animals from the lowest to the highest, you can discover any principle on which the higher have been built-up out of the lower; if you can find any unity of plan running through the nervous mechanism of them all; if you can show, in a word, that the highest organizations are built on the same type as the lowest, by the mere compounding and re-compounding of the same original elements; you will possess a clue as to the way in which the Human Mind itself has been built up, which will be of the very highest value. For all you will then have to do will be to find, by observation and reflection, the key to the cipher which shall correctly translate the material changes into the mental changes, and to apply this key consistently throughout ; at the same time that by a process of introspection you verify the conclusions, arrived at. Acting on this suggestion Mr. Herbert Spencer, of all metaphysicians the one most profoundly acquainted with the results of biological research, proceeded to compare the nervous systems of all orders of animals ; and by the aid of that principle of Evolution which was of such universal application in other fields, was soon able to announce what he called the unit of the nervous system — a nervous nodule with two filaments, sensory and motor attached — and to show that the nervous systems of all animals, up to Man himself, were but the compounding and re-compounding of this simple unit, in more definite, more complex, and more con- centrated forms. And having discovered, further, that the mental side or face of this primitive unit of nerve structure Digitized by Microsoft® 58 A NEW ORG ANON. was what is known as Reflex Action, it became com- paratively easy for him to demonstrate that Instinct, Perception, Reason, Memory, Imagination, Will, and all the higher activities of the human mind, were but different sides of this simple reflex act, of greater and greater ■complexity, and on higher and higher planes. Intro- spection confirmed this objective analysis, and showed that all mental operations whatever, however complex and remote — operations which the old school of metaphysicians had found it impossible to reduce to unity — could be ■demonstrated by the assistance of these biological re- searches to be compounded out of, and therefore resolvable again into, one simple act. At the same time, too, Mr. Spencer was able, by following this biological method, to reconcile the chronic antagonism which had existed between rival schools of metaphysicians since the days of Plato and Aristotle ; for, while holding with the school of Locke and Mill that all knowledge was derived from Experience and association of ideas, his conclusions justified the splendid insight of Kant, who perceived that there must be mental moulds or ' categories-' to give form to such Experience ; while at the same time they showed that these categories themselves, instead of being native to the mind, and underived, as Kant thought them, were really the well-worn ruts and channels which similar impressions from without had made for themselves through the mind, during a long course of hereditary transmission. But while Psychology has thus been able to give us a more scientific analysis of the faculties of the mind than the old metaphysical systems, and one, too, resting to a great extent on a basis of demonstrable fact, it never- theless, like Metaphysics, ends in analysis only. It undertakes to show us what reflex action is, what instinct is, what judgment is, what the imagination is, what the will is, and the like, but cannot, indeed does not profess to show us what men, under given circumstances, will Digitized by Microsoft® . PSYCHOLOGY. 59 believe on any great concrete interest of human life — ■on Religion, Government, arid Society — nor can it show the effects of these on the Human Mind ; it gives us no help in understanding the concrete Religions of the World, •or the great Laws of the Mind on which they are con- structed, and along the lines of which they are evolved. It can thj-ow no light therefore on the problems attempted in this work, and, so far, may be dismissed as unsuitable for our purpose. But I should be indirectly doing a real injustice to Metaphysics and Psychology, if, while setting them aside as incompetent to solve the problems with which I propose to deal, I did not also attempt to indicate their positive contributions to advancing knowledge, and the part they have played in modifying our views of the World and Human Life. At the outset, perhaps, I may remark that the interest, such as it is, shown by the general public in Metaphysics and Psychology, is owing largely to the light they are believed to throw on the great problems of Religion ; whether as strengthening the popular creed, modifying it, •or altogether destroying it. Indeed were it not for this, but little interest could attach to these dry metaphysical discussions, except perhaps the curiosity that is always attracted to insoluble problems, and which, as in the case ■of perpetual motion, invests them, to a certain class of minds, with a perennial charm. What human interest ■could there be, for example, in knowing whether the Will is absolutely free or not, when to all intents and purposes it is practically free, were it not that the answer is believed to have some bearing on the moral responsibility of man, and so indirectly on the doctrine of future rewards and punishments ? What interest could we have in those in- terminable analyses of what is called the Moral Sense, those attempts to decompose it, or account for it, were it not that if Duty is to be regarded merely as a form of self- interest, sublimated, refined, and perhaps more or less disguised, then there is nothing in man to distinguish and Digitized by Microsoft® 6o A NEW ORGANON. separate him and his destiny from the beasts that perish; whereas if it is a thing sui generis, a ' categorical im- perative,' a faculty pointing like a finger to God, then it is important to every religious mind to be aware of it ? And so, again, if Mind is an immaterial entity, entirely unconnected with the body, there is nothing to interfere with our free belief in its immortality ; but if, on the other hand, it is indissolubly connected with the material structure of the brain, there is an opening left for doubt whether it may not die with that material body with, which it is bound up, with whose condition it varies, and on which it would seem to depend. But if the solution of these and the like questions would at any age of the world have had a profound influence on religious beliefs, it is important to observe that the old school of Metaphysics that raised them, could not resolve them, but continued to leave them vague, cloudy, and incapable of that palpable proof so necessary to bring them home to the minds of the great body of the people. Precisely the same problems had been discussed from the earliest times, by Greek Pagans and Hindu Polytheists, as well as by Christian Theists ; but, except, as we have seen, by the insertion into Christian Theology of a few illegimate conceptions, 9uch as those of the Infinite and -the Absolute, these discussions had in no way modified the prevailing re- ligions. The reason, no doubt, was that the Mind, when contemplated apart from its material counterpart, the brain, as it was by the old school of Metaphysicians, is so subtle, vague, and shifting in its nature, so swift and many-changing in its moods, many of its operations have become so habitual, organic, instinctive, and but semi- conscious, that analysis of it is almost hopeless ; the observer, after the most patient introspection, can but snatch at one or other of its passing phases, which, like auroras, escape and vanish before he can fix their cha- racters, or, if seized, are seen to be but the side turned towards him, for the time being ; the opposite side; Digitized by Microsoft® PSYCHOLOGY. 6i although quite neglected in the shade, not being therefore non-extant, but journeying on in its turn to the front, there to be laid hold of in refutation by the next passing observer. And thus it is that the solutions of the old school of Metaphysicians have swallowed one another in turn, revolving in endless monotony and in ever-returning •cycles, cloudy, shifting, and vague, without basis, an- chorage, or advance. In this condition they have remained, modified more or less in detail, perhaps, by .advancing Science, from the earliest times ; until at last the advent of the Science of Biology, and the discovery of .the intimate and exact connexion between the Mind and the Brain, gave to the Metaphysicians, as we have seen, a iixed and certain point on which to stand, and from which to take a new departure. And as this discovery worked itself out into finer and finer detail, its profound effects, not only on Religious Belief and Practical Life, but also on -Speculative Thought, became more and more manifest. In the practical region it has enabled us to trace the ■causes of those diseases of the nervous system which were formerly believed to be due to spiritual agencies ; as, for -example, when a man is suddenly stricken with paralysis, -or loses his power of speech, or is subject to spectral illusions, to disturbances of sensation, or emotional sensi- bility ; and by enabling us to refer these nervous affections to their true causes, it has indirectly paved the way for their rational treatment. Insanity, too, instead of being regarded as the possession of the mind of the afflicted by some cruel, malicious, or mocking spirit, was shown to be ■due merely to functional or organic derangement of some portion of the brain ; it lost, in consequence, in a great measure its peculiarly obnoxious and uncanny associ- ations, and was treated on the same principles as any •other bodily affliction. So far for the action of Biology on Practical Life. On Religious Belief its effects have been even more marked. The sins and crimes of men, their unregulated passions Digitized by Microsoft® 62 A NEW ORG ANON. and desires on the one hand, and on the other theif generous impulses, pious sentiments, and noble aspirations, instead of being regarded as formerly as either whisperings- and instigations of the Devil, or inspirations of the Holy Spirit, were seen to be the results of the normal activity of the various parts of the brain, working under the manifold stimuli and temptations of life according to their proper laws. The old Scriptural accounts of how men were possessed with devils, and of how these devils were cast out by this or the other agency, were seen to be sufficiently explicable as examples of some form of epilepsy or other allied nervous disorder ; while the modern phe^ nomena so frequent in revival meetings, and especially among the negro population when uiider great emotional, excitement, of men falling to the earth ' struck ' by what the onlookers veritably believe to be the Holy Spirit, turn out on examination to be nothing more than hysterical seizures brought on by the extreme nerve-tension induced by over-powerful religious appeals. But, besides these deep incisions made into beliefs which fifty years ago were bound up in the very existence of the faith, the biological discovery of the connexion between the Brain and the Mind has to a great extent solved the question in what sense the Will is to be regarded as free, and in what sense it is to be regarded as determined by inflexible necessity^- It has shown, too, that Mind, as we know it, is indissolubly bound up with physical organization, and so has modified,, to a greater or less degree, the dogmas of predestination,, original sin, moral responsibility, the future life, and the like, according to the weight different thinkers will be disposed to attach to such facts in their general theory of the world. To the Materialist, these facts will seem all-important ; to the Idealist, who regards the Materialist as looking at the world from between his legs, and thus seeing all things inverted, they will not necessarily carry the same weight. Thus far the reader will observe that these modifications- Digitized by Microsoft® PSYCHOLOGY. 6$ of Religious Belief have been due rather to the scientific facts brought to light by Biology, than to the analysis based on these facts which constitutes the Science of Psychology. The part played by the science of Psycho- logy itself in advancing thought is, that by its analysis of the Mind it has demonstrated a unity of plan throughout the mental as well as the material world ; and so, as seen, in the Philosophy of Evolution, has modified the solutions hitherto given to the wider Problem of the World. And,, furthermore, in passing, I desire to remark that although Metaphysics and Psychology generally, in so far as they deal in analysis of the mental faculties merely, can throw^ no light on the concrete problems with which we propose to deal, they have, nevertheless, in their very searchings at. the roots of our knowledge, like the alchemists of old, struck on new discoveries of great value, true distinctions where all had hitherto been lumped together in confusion. These discoveries, which consisted not in analysis, but in the recovery of original facts of the mind, are rather the incidental disclosures of Metaphysics, than normal results of its proper method; but when once brought tO' light they may be made, like a'ny other facts of Nature, the. bases of new views of the World and of Human Life ; and as such, will appear when we come to the subject of Religion, and the Laws of the Mind on which it is. constructed. In the meantime it is worthy of note that the Psycho- logist, who has superseded the old Metaphysician by reason of his having based his results on the science of Biology, has destroyed the real significance of his biolo- gical facts in their relation to the greater Problem of the World, by making Physical Science, which as an instrument of investigation had proved so useful to him, his standpoint of interpretation also. The secret fallacy that underlay this fatal error was, in my opinion, the now exploded notion that because the mental changes' of thought and emotion passing in our minds vary with the material changes Digitized by Microsoft® 64 A NEW ORG ANON. going on in the brain, that therefore the changes in the brain are the causes of the changes in the mind ; and the deduction from this fallacious inference was, that if we are to interpret the World aright, we must do it from the standpoint of what we believe to be the cause — the material changes in the brain — ^and not from the stand- point of what is only an effect — the mental phenomena themselves. That is to say, we are to interpret it from the point of view of Physical Science, not from the point of view of the Mind itself. Now, it has recently been over and over again shown that the physical movements of the brain can, in no sense of the word cause, be the cause of the mental phenomena which accompany them — neither in the scientific sense of the term cause, which implies an equivalence between the antecedent and con- sequent, nor yet in the real sense of the word, which is derived from our experience of will, and therefore involves a passage from a mental, to a physical act, and not, as in the case before us, a passage from a physical to a mental. But this announcement came too late to prevent the erection of those great systems of Material- istic Philosophy, whose authors, nothing doubting, went to work with Physical Science not only as their instru- ment of investigation, which was legitimate, but as their standpoint of interpretation, which was false and fatal. For, the resuh of thus making Physical Science, with its retort and scalpel, the standpoint of interpretation, is that they have dropped out of the problem to be solved— the great Problem of the World and Human Life— its two most characteristic and essential elements — the idea of quality and the idea of cause. From the point of view of Physical Science, a cause, as all scientists admit, can be an antecedent only, nothing more, and the relation of cause and effect, that of antecedent and consequent merely. To get any other idea of cause you must abandon the scientific standpoint. The true idea of cause, as these very scientists themselves admit, is got from the ex- Digitized by Microsoft® PSYCHOLOGY. 65 perience of our wills as opposed to the resistance of objects about us. But this experience could never be got from Physical Science, which can take cognizance only of what can be seen or touched, but can only be known from introspection— that is to say, from the Mind itself. In like manner, too, if we take Physical Science as our standpoint for interpreting the World and Human Life, and regard (as the Materialists do) the higher feelings of the mind as but the compounding and re-compounding of some primitive simple feeling, how can we get the diiference in qtudity, which all feel and admit, between a feeling of Selfishness and one of Self-denial, a feeling of Honesty and one of Policy, a feeling of Fear and one of Reverence, a feeling of Lust and one of Love ? Obviously this difference of quality, which can only be known to the Mind, cannot be discovered by Physical Science. It is got by introspection only — that is to say, from the stand- point of the Mind itself. Indeed, to carry out consistently the interpretation of the World from the standpoint of Physical Science, one woulcj have tp regard intellect, virtue, and beauty, as mere forms of matter and motion — for if changes in the physical organ of the brain are the bases of all the mental attributes, changes in matter and motion again are the bases of changes in the brain — and thus that idea of quality, which is most immediate to men's lives and thoughts, would cease to exist. How a thinker, who takes Physical Science as his standpoint of interpretation, and from it desires to construct a Theory of the World at all harmonious, adequate, and complete, is reduced to extremities ; how he is compelled to shift the standpoint he has taken up, and occasionally, as if for life, to throw it overboard altogether, may be seen in the following illustration with which I may fitly conclude these few discursive remarks. It is taken from the First Principles of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the book which is the basis of his whole Philosophy, and which contains those doctrines which distinguish it from all other forms of Digitized by Microsoft® 66 A NEW ORG ANON. Positivism. In this work Mr. Herbert Spencer sets out . "with the determination to give to Science and ReHgion J such a reconcihation as shall be at once convincing, complete, and ultimate ; and to do this satisfactorily, his •object is to show that at bottom both Science and Religion rest on one and the same ultimate fact or truth, and that therefore in this truth they are harmonized and reconciled. Accordingly, after a long and complicated analysis, he brings both Religion and Science down to this ultimate fact, which he calls ' the Persistence of Force,' or, as he ■otherwise expresses it, the fact that the quantity of force in the Universe continues fixed and constant. This is the truth on which Religion rests, and, being also the truth on -which Science rests, it is, according to Mr. Spencer, the truth in which they are reconciled. Now, when one remembers that it is admitted on all hands (even Mr. Spencer himself admits it) that Science deals with the phenomenal world, the world of men and things — whereas Religion deals with that which lies behind the phenomenal world, and of which the world of men and things are the manifestations and passing shows, one will be prepared to find a fallacy somewhere, and most probably that the term ' Persistence of Force ' will have been so manipu- lated that, instead of being used consistently throughout | to mean one thing, it will have been used indifferently ' to mean two quite distinct things. And such, indeed, is the case. In one half of the book, Mr. Spencer uses the term ' persistence of force ' to express simply the sum- ■ total of forces in the natural world ; in the other half, he uses it to express that which lies behind these forces, vvhich is the cause of them, and of which they are the manifestations and effects ; and, like a skilful circus-rider, he steps from one to the other indifferently as it suits his purpose. A small but most significant circumstance in regard to this is, that he writes ' persistence of force ' with a small letter, when he means it to stand for the sum-total of forces in Nature, but with a capital letter, as Digitized by Microsoft® PSYCHOLOGY. 67 -we should expect, when he means it to represent that which Hes behind Nature, and which corresponds, in a way, to our idea of God. Science can rest on the ' per- :sistence of force' only in the sense in which the persistence of force means that sum-total of forces in the natural world which never varies in amount ; Religion •can rest on the [ Persistence of Force ' only in the sense in which the term is used to mean the ever-present Cause behind these forces. This fatal confusion in the use of the term ' persistence of force ' is paralleled by an equally fatal confusion in the use of the term ' cause.' In its scientific sense, the ' peirsistence of force' can be a cause only in so far as it is an antecedent, and in this sense the cause of the phenomena of the world to-day would lie in the phenomena of yesterday. But the phenomena of the world to-day, Mr. Spencer says, are "the manifestations or effects of an Unknown Cause, that underlies alike the present, past, and future. That is to say, every phenomenon has at the same time two different •causes, one which precedes it and another which underlies it — ^which is of course a palpable absurdity. In another place Mr. Spencer has defined the ' persistence of force,' when used to denote that of which the visible material world is the effect, as ' an Infinite and Eternal Energy, by which all things are created and sustained ; ' whereas he Iiad already defined it to be the truth that the quantity of force in the Universe remains fixed and constant, that is to say, is finite and definite, and the very reverse of infinite. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER V. CARDINAL NEWMAN. Having seen that neither History, Physical Science^, Mfetaphysics, nor Psychology can, by their methods or subject-matter, throw light on the great problem of Civilization — with the varied play of Rehgion, Govern- ment, and Material and Social. Conditions which that involves — I now invite the reader to a brief consideration, of the new organon of truth announced by Cardinal, Newman in his Grammar of Assent, and set forth by him. in that work with an unusual abundance of illustration, and detail. This new organon or instrument of truth he has called the ' Illative Sense.' But, as preliminary, and by way of seeing better the full bearing of this organon on. the problems of lifej it may be expedient perhaps tO' consider for a moment the character of the author, and the objects which by means of his new instrument he seeks to realise. Born with a deep and pious nature, Newman's youth fell on a time when the militant attitude and aggres- sive criticisms of Science on the one hand, and the torpot of the Established Church on the other, had begotten a general scepticism among the cultivated, and among the great masses, a deep and wide-spread indifference to religious concerns. Possessed of that devout and more or less ascetic spirit, which may go hand in hand equally with intellectual gifts of the meanest or the highest order, Digitized by Microsoft® CARDINAL NEWMAN. 69 a spirit which has always a tendency to subordinate the merely cold and abstract truths of the reason, to the deep longings of the heart for something on which, in this harsh world, to repose in safety and loving trilst, Newman's thoughts as he grew to manhood naturally turned to Religion — to that. Religion which, by its very nature, is the haven of those homeless souls who are too gentle for the Tude jostlings of this rough world, too elevated for its basenesses, or too refined for its coarse and unsatisfying pleasures. He entered the Church, but once within its bosom, his ardent though gentle spirit could not rest until he had kindled such a fire in its inmost vitals, as roused it from the torpor in which it had lain for ages, and waked into burning antagonism those heterogeneous elements within its own body, which in the general torpor had long slept side by side in peaceful and indolent repose. As the flames of controversy thus aroused waxed hotter .and hotter, and the doctrines of the Established Church were laid bare to the core, and tried as if in a furnace seven times heated, his subtle and commanding intellect ■could not. find satisfaction in doctrines and rituals which, ^although resting on and flowing from principles which his heart avowed, were nevertheless heterogeneous and in- consistent among themselves. And the more the anomalous -character of the Church disclosed itself, the more insecure did he feel its basis to be, until at last, to get rest for his spirit, he was compelled to turn away for ever from this -composite mass of inconsistency, and to enter the fold of that ancient Romish Church, which, in theory at lea'st, was jyesterday and forever the same. Having found, at last, that complete and perfect rest for which he had sighed ■during his long and anxious wanderings, his first concern, a.fter justifying himself to the world, was to try and lead ■others who, like himself, were tempest-tossed on a sea of doubts and perplexities, into that haven of refuge which .he had found for himself. But as his work went on, he began more and more clearly to perceive that before he Digitized by Microsoft® 7Q A NEW ORG ANON. could demonstrate with effect the superior authority of the Church of Rome over all other Churches, and of the,: Christian Religion over all other Religions, he must, as preliminary, humble the pretensions of that new-born and aggressive Physical Science, which was the sworn foe of all Supernaturalisms, and which was working its fell effects on all religions alike. Accordingly, in his Grammar of Assent, his first object is to get rid of Science as an instru^. ment of the highest truth ; and this being done to replace; it by an instrument of his own, which shall command men's full conviction and assent, and will enable them tO' decide, among other things, between the conflicting claims- of the different religions — Catholicism, Protestantism,. Mahomedanism, and the rest — which lay claim to supreme authority over the thoughts and consciences of men ; and this instrument he calls the ' Illative Sense.' Now, to break the authority of Science — the root of all scepticism at all formidable — it was necessary to show that its main, axiom — the uniformity of the laws of Nature — is at bottom only an inference of greater or less probability, not a. certainty ; and that therefore Science cannot carry with it that deep asgent and conviction which many other things — and among them Religion — are capable of pro- ducing. And accordingly, after the most formidable pre- paration, Newman sets himself to accomplish this feat with all the ingenuity, subtlety, and logical intrepidity of those schoolmen of the Middle Ages, of whom he is the legitimate descendant. In his Essay on the Human Understanding, Locke had contended that the degree of credence or assent we give to any proposition, is in proportion to the weight of the evidence by which it is supported ; and therefore that any fact, the evidence for which was full and complete (as,, for example, a law of Nature), must command our unre- served and unqualified assent. Not so, repHed Newman ; what you call a full and unreserved assent is only, when looked into, an inference of a greater or, less degree of Digitized by Microsoft® CARDINAL NEWMAN. yr probability, not an assent. There can be no degrees in assent ; it is a mental act complete and all-sufficient in itself. Assent to be assent must be the full and unreserved acquiescence of the whple mind in the' truth of a propo- sition, and as such can of course admit of no degrees. To admit of degrees, a belief can only be an inference, and therefore can inspire us with the feeling only of greater or less probability, never of certainty. Now, the belief we have in the uniformity and invariability of the Laws of Nature, Newman contends, is an inference only; an in- ference of high probability, it is true, but one which can never amount to certainty, and therefore never can command a full, unreserved, and unconditional assent. That the sun will rise to-morrow morning is most probable, but it can never amount to an absolute certainty, for there is no reason, he contends, why, because it has always risen, it will always continue to rise. Nor is there any reason why, because stones thrown into the air have always fallen, they will always continue to fall ; or that fire, which has always burned men, should always continue to burn them. That is to say, there is no necessary certainty in the uniformity of the Laws of Nature, and therefore there can be no unreserved assent of men to the affirma- tion of their uniformity. But if the uniformity of the Laws of Nature, although supported by a superabundance of evidence, can never amount to a certaintyi and cannot therefore command our unconditional assent, there are many other facts or propositions, Newman contends, to which we can give an unconditional assent, even when the reasons that can be formulated in their favour would be quite insufficient to produce assent in other minds. The belief of a child, for example, in the knowledge of its parents, or its faith in their love and virtue ; the belief of the youth in the judgment and infallibility of his teachers and masters ; the belief of many people in the medical man who attends them ; the behef we have in the integrity of men of whom perhaps we have seen but little; our Digitized by Microsoft® ^2 , ■ A NEW ORGANON. belief in the recorded and accredited facts of history, in certain rehgious dogmas, perhaps, in which we have been brought up, or which seem to satisfy the natural longings and affinities of the heart, are all instances of that full and unreserved assent the mind gives to things or propositions for which full and adequate reasons perhaps cannot be adduced. In a word then, while to the uniformity of the Laws of Nature we can at most attach only a high degree . of probabihty, there are certain concrete facts of life, of history, and of religion, to which we can yield a full and unreserved assent. And the conclusion to be drawn from this, according to Newman, is, that the doctrine of the uniformity of the Laws of Nature must give way to those facts and doctrines of Religion of which we have full certainty ; and Science, which deals with the Laws of Nature, must give way to ReHgion, which deals with these facts and doctrines. In other words, the authority of Science over the intellect, heart, and conscience of man, must yield to the authority of Religion. ■ In this way Cardinal Newman gets rid of Science — the great antagonist of Religion, and the main obstacle to the reception of its teachings. In doing so, he leaves Religion once more secure on its own basis, and it now only re- mains with him to decide between the various concrete Religions or Churches that lay claim to supreme authority over the hearts and consciences of men. But the question is, how is this to be done, how determine which is the true religion ? Having thrown out Science, as unable to give to her laws more than a high probability, Newman is obliged to cast about him for some instrument of truth that will command full assent and certainty, and that will enable him to decide between the rival claims of different Churches and Religions. This instrument he finds in what he calls the ' Illative Sense.' It is by this sense, he declares, that the truth in all concrete matters is to be determined, and as, unlike Science, it can give us that absolute certainty to which we can give full and unreserved Digitized by Microsoft® CARDINAL NEWMAN. 73 assent, it is the instrument by which we are enabled to determine which is the true ReHgion. The reason why, after having discarded Science, Newman turns to Rehgion is, that, besides Science, it is the only thing that claims authority over men's whole nature. The next question, therefore, is, which of the various concrete Religions or ■Churches, claiming a supernatural origin, is the true one ? and this, according to Newman, is to be determined, like all other concrete things, by the 'illative sense.' Now, by the 'illative sense' he means that sense by which certain individuals are enabled to reach truths, to perform feats, to judge between conflicting" evidence or opinions (the results justifying their conclusions as the right, the best, the true), by a method which is- either altogether inscrut- able, or can only be partially explained. When a great billiard-player, for example, compiles a heavy score under most unpromising circumstances, he does so by means of a power more or less inexplicable to the ordinary by- -stander, that is to say, by what Newman calls the ' illative sense.' When the skilled physician detects the true nature of a patient's malady under the most complicated symp- toms, by minute and perhaps evanescent signs, not to be formulated, he does so by means of an art beyond the reach of formal logic, which Newman calls the ' illative sense.' When the eye of a Napoleon sees at a glance amid all the complexities of a battle-field — the numbers and disposition of the enemy, the peculiarity of the .ground, the tactics of generals, their talents, their foibles, and the like — ^where and how to strike so as to win the which is to deny the Persistence of Force ; and is a proposition that could be enterta:ined only by the complete disruption of our intelligence itself, which proceeds on the assumption that a pound to-day must weigh a pound to- morrow, else we could be sure of nothing, we could predict nothing, we could infer • nothing, we could prove nothing in present, past, or future. The billiard-player could not be sure of the momentum of his balls, or the angles they would make with each other ; the general could not depend on his ammunition, the distance it would carry, or the disposition and tactics of the enemy ; the doctor could not rely on the same symptoms having the same meaning twice together ; the detective or man of the world could not rely on the same expression meaning the same character. But enough of this, which must be so patent to every school-boy of to-day, that to seriously argue as if it could be doubted is but to throw incense to ignorance, superstition, and conceit. I come now to the second point, which, after all, is the main object of the chapter-— viz., to show that the 'Illative Sense,' by which Cardinal Newman would replace Science as an organon of truth, is at bottom only another name for what we call Art, that is to say. Applied Science, and therefore can have no more authority than that same Science which is its essence, but which it professes to supersede and ignore. Having thrown out Science, and the abstract laws of Nature which it discloses, nothing can remain to Newmaili as a source of authority over men's minds and consciences. Digitized by Microsoft® 82 A NEW ORG ANON. but some one or other of the concrete Rehgions to be found in the world, and his object is to find some organon or instrument of knowledge by which the choice between, these various conflicting Religions is to be determined. It cannot be Science, for that he has already thrown out as being able to claim for its laws only a greater or less degree of probability, and therefore not to be reposed on as a certainty. Besides, Science aims at decomposing concrete things into the laws of different kinds which go to make them up. Man, for example, is a concrete object, and the aim of Science is to separate out as far as possible the various mechanical, chemical, physical, biological, and psychological laws, which, when united in their entirety, make up his personality. But what Cardinal Newman wants, is some instrument or faculty that will deal with these concrete things in their entirety. Now, one would naturally suppose that concrete things being merely a bundle of laws of different kinds, the knowledge required to understand them, and deal with them, would be the knowledge of these different kinds of laws. But that would only be a knowledge of the corresponding sciences, and these sciences Newman has already discarded, What then can the organon be ? To say directly that it is Art, would only be to say that it is Applied Science, and that he cannot do, so he gives it a neutral and non- suggestive title— the ' Illative Sense.' But if we analyse the examples we have already given of the 'iUative sense,' vve shall find that it is nothing more or less than what we call Art, or Science applied. The biUiard-player who can compile a heavy score under difficulties, does it by Art, that is to say, by the skilful application of the conjoined Sciences of angles, weights, momenta, and the like (by him implicitly known although not explicitly formulated) to different positions of the balls ; attention to the laws of each of these sciences being necessary to the result, and a weakness in regard to any one of them at once vitiating the play. The doctor who detects the nature of disease Digitized by Microsoft® CARDINAL NEWMAN. 83 by a kind of intuition, does it by Art, i.e., by the applica- "tion of the known Science of disease, together with the sfiner experience of the connexion between signs and internal conditions, to the particular case in hand. The general who overpowers or outwits his adversary and wins the battle, does so by Art — by the application of the physical and mechanical Sciences involved in the imple- ments of war, the science of the movements of men in mass, and the science of human nature involved in realizing to himself what his opponent is likely to do ■under given circumstances. The inventor, too, who invents the steam-engine, for example, does so by Art — by the application of the Science of physics, mechanics, •chemistry, and the like, to certain raw materials, as iron, :steel, &c., of which he has a knowledge, for a given end.. The pleader at the bar, who gets a prisoner off under unpromising circumstances, does so by Art — by bringing to bear on the foibles of the judge, and the prejudices of the jury, a knowledge of the laws of human nature, of the laws of evidence, and the like. In like manner, too. Poetry, Music, Art, are but applications to particular i:hemes of laws of the spiritual and aesthetic parts of man's nature, together with the laws of sound, colour, harmony, rhythm, and the like. The fact that many of these laws cannot be adequately formulated, does not prove that they are not laws ; that is to say, Science, but -only that they cannot be adequately expressed in language, which for the most part is framed to convey the rougher perceptions of men. That they are laws is seen in the "fact that the violation of any one of them would be instantly detected in the result. So that when a man, by reason of his finer talents, is able to do things that others ■cannot do, or discover truths that others could not perceive, he does it by means of the greater number, ■complexity, and variety of Scientific Laws, of which, either "by greater labour or finer sensibilities, he has become the master. But if further proof were wanted that Digitized by Microsoft® 84 A NEW OEGANON. Science — or the laws of different orders of facts of all degrees of fineness and quality — is the very essence of the ' illative sense,' it would be found in the fact that the same natural abihty two hundred years ago, say, could not perform as great achievements, make as fine predictions, or form as sound judgments, as it can to-day ; and that simply because laws of Nature have been discovered since which were unknown then. Poetry, Art, Music, Acting,, the art of pleading, and the like, depending as they do on laws of human life, and perception of form, colour, harmony, and the like, more or less the same in all ages, would not be expected to show the same advance, if indeed they advanced at all. Neither would wrestling, boating, cricket, billiards, and other games of skill, involving simple laws of physics and motion, known as well in ancient Greece as in the Europe of to-day. But the progressive: arts, the arts of knowledge, advance by reason of the Science that is in them, varying with the amount of this scientific knowledge, and not with the natural ability of the experts, which we may admit to have been as fine centuries ago as now. What ' illative sense,' for example,, would have enabled Adams or Leverrier to know where io- look for a new planet, if the Law of Gravitation had not been already discovered ? No physician, however great; his natural ability, could possibly detect diseases two- hundred years ago which are recognised at a glance by the veriest medical tyro of to-day. And why ? Simply because the Science of Medicine has made such strides since then. What could the natural talents and tactics, of a Caesar or Alexander avail, with the old weapons and methods, against the scientific warfare of modern. Europe ? And yet it is not that genius has improved, but that Science has advanced. What chfince could there have been of Newton inventing the telephone, or perfect- ing electric lighting, at a time when the laws of electricity were not yet discovered ? Again, what hope could there be of the genius of a Niebuhr finding out the truth about Digitized by Microsoft® CARDINAL NEWMAN. 85 Home or Egypt, before the discovery of monuments, and interpretation of hieroglyphics, enabled men to interpret •documents and relics otherwise dark and forever inscrut- able? And lastly, what a different judgment men would form on theology, miracles, and schemes of redemption, ;at a time when from the state of Science these things •could not seem incredible, to now, when the discoveries of Science have rendered many or the most of them abso- lutely impossible of belief. . And so Cardinal Newman, having thrown out Science at the beginning of his book on account of the havoc it was making with Religious Creeds, and all forms of Super- naturalism, is obliged to bring it back again at the end, •disguised as the ' Illative Sense.' Indeed, that a man of Cardinal Newman's iminense intellectual powers should in this nineteenth century dream that there can be any •organon of truth but Science, Physical, and Mental — which is only organized experience of all kinds — is only another instance of how the pure intellect is deflected from the truth by the longings and desires of the heart. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER VI THE NEW ORGANON. The subject of this work, as I have already said, is- Civihzation and Progress in their widest aspects — ^in a^ general way, the end to which Humanity is advancing,, and the parts played respectively by Religion, Govern- ment, and Material and Social Conditions respectively,, in that advance; and more specially, the motor power which necessitates alike Civilization and Progress; the: aim of Nature ; the goal of Government ; the Laws of the Mind on which Religions are constructed and along which they are evolved ; the part played by R.eligion in human life ; the effects of different forms of Government on. mental and moral expansion; and lastly, an analysis of the various factors, and an exhibition, not only of their- statical relations to each other, but 6i their dynamical, relations — of the way in which they act and interact as they roll on together in a mingled stream down the course of History. I have therefore deemed it expedient, before considering the New Organon which I shall use in attempting to solve these important problems, to revert for a moment to the various recognised instruments of knowledge which we have just been considering, and to recapitulate briefly the reasons why each of these was found unsuitable for my purpose, as in this way I shall exhibit more clearly, perhaps, the necessity there is for Digitized by Microsoft® •' THE NEW ORGANON. 87 some New Organon for these higher problems, and' at "the same time shall, by the very process of exclusion, , have guided the reader to where it is to be found. There was first the large and interesting department of History, including the ordinary narrative and descriptive works of the schools ; the philosophico-descriptive works of the great classical historians, as Gibbon, Hume, Macaulay, Grote ; and the purely philosophical works of the Sociologists, as Montesquieu, Buckle, and Comte ; and all these we were obliged to discard as instruments or intellectual standpoints, because, instead of throwing light on the Present, they derived all their credibility and value from the Present. In the narrative and descriptive forms the incidents are credible, and have the force of facts only in so far as we can realise them to be true from our insight into To-day. In those forms, where the narrative of events is woven into a consistent web and sequence by philosophical interpretations of cause and motive, the . account is credible only in so far as we can realise that the like cause and the like motives would give rise to the like results To-day. And finally, in those purely philosophical forms, where all particular circumstances, motives, causes, and events, are thrust into the background, and where attention is fixed only on great general results, and the great general causes at work to produce them, the account is satisfactory only in so far as we can believe that effects, so many-sided and complex as those of the different periods of civilization, could be produced under like circumstances To-day, by the various laws or principles to which, by the different thinkers, they have been referred. History being thus set aside, and the Past discarded, as a standpoint from which to interpret the Present — its main use being as illustration, appendage, or corroboration of great principles drawn from insight into To-day — ^we passed on to the other recognised instruments of know- ledge, and found that, like History, they too were not what was wanted for our purpose. The Physical Sciences, Digitized by Microsoft® 88 :a: new organon. with their methods of external observation and experi- ment, we were obHged to discard because they deal entirely with the phenomena and laws of Matter, whereas bur subject is Civilization and the phenomena and laws of Mind, as seen in the changes passed through by Religion, Morality, principles of Government, Ideas, and habits of thought.. Political Economy, too, we discarded, because it concerned itself entirely with the material laws that i regulate the production and distribution of wealth ; whereas, in the chapters on Politics and Government, I attempt the quite different problem of tracing the effects of such production and distribution on the mental and moral expansion of the individual and of society generally ; a matter which has entirely to do with mental laws. Metaphysics, again, we discarded, because it splits the mind into separate faculties, isolates these faculties, and cuts them off from their organic connections with each other, and then proceeds to decompose them into their original elements ; whereas, the problem of Civilization is concerned with man only in his totality as a concrete entity ; that is to say, is concerned with the laws that unite these separate parts or faculties together. For if I cannot get directly at the explanation of, say, a particular belief, I must do so indirectly by means of some law connecting it with what I know, as, for example, a stage of thought. So that, in attempting to solve the problem of Civilization, instead of dealing with the faculties of man's nature when isolated and kept apart, as in Meta- physics, we have to deal with the laws that unite these faculties and powers; the laws, for example, that unite sentiment with knowledge, knowledge with passion or desire, passion or desire with belief, and the hke : so that from a change in men's Material Conditions you shall be able to predict a corresponding change in their Social •Relations; from their Social Relations a correspondinf ■change in their Moral ; or shall know how a change in Knowledge, for example, will affect Religion ; or a change Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORG ANON. 89 in Religion, men's Moral and Social Relations, arid so on. Scientific Psychology, too, although it has the advantage over Metaphysics (inasmuch as by the. assistance it •derives from Biology it is enabled to analyse more successfully the separate faculties and powers of the mind), we were obliged to discard, because, like Meta- physics, it deals only with isolated faculties — with the partial man ; whereas Civilization deals with the faculties united — with the whole man. Nor could that aspect of Psychology which, resting on the science of Biology, forms part of the science of Medicine, help us, for it deals purely with morbid conditions of the brain and nervous system, and in consequence with the mind in a state of disease only ; whereas, the problem of Civilization assumes that men's minds are sane and healthy. And lastly, on examining the ' illative sense ' of Cardinal Newman, we found it to be only another name for Art, that is to say. Science applied; and to have in consequence no more ■validity or virtue than the various sciences that in its different forms are involved in it. And thus the various recognised instruments of know- ledge having either been discarded altogether as useless for our purpose, or, like History, degraded into a sub- ordinate position, the reader will be prepared by the process of exclusion to find that the New Organon which I propose to use for the solution of the higher problems of Civilization, is no other than the Laws of the Human Mind in its entirety, as a concrete entity — those laws which, as we have seen, find no place in the recognised circle of the sciences. And so indeed it is. By this organon we get truths which (as human nature is the same in all ages), hold equally in present, past, or future, and so degrade History into mere illustration or commentary; we deal with tendencies, the knowledge of which is of use both for judgment and for action ; unlike Metaphysics, which deals with particles or abstractions that can neither build up knowledge nor impel to action, and which ends in mere analysis. Digitized by Microsoft® go A NEVf^ ORG ANON. Now, in calling this a New Organon, I do not profess to have discovered something which has lain unknown and unused up to the present time. I mean merely that it has never before been employed systematically, and with con- scious forethought, and that it has no place allotted to it anywhere in the splendid circle of the sciences. Even the inductive method was neither first discovered nor first , used by Bacon ; on the contrary, as Macaulay has said, this method has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every human being. What Bacon did was to insist that if Philosophy is to bear fruit, this method must be fully, carefully, and systematically em- ployed. In the same way, the new method which I here venture to submit to the reader for the solution of the higher problems of Civilization — a method which works by the exercise of what may be called the power of Detachment, as the inductive method does by Observation and Experiment — is not a method now used for the first time. On the contrary, we use it every day of our lives in judging of the dispositions of men and of what they are likely to do or think under given circumstances, ; thereby regulating the relations in which we are to stand to them. My own small part in the matter is merely to insist that, if we are to solve the higher problems of Civilization in a way that shall be both useful and satis- factory — the great problems of Religion, Government, Material and Social Conditions, and the part they play — this method must be fully, carefully, and systematically employed. And as I shall myself consistently employ this method in the solution of the problems attempted in this work, the reader will so far have a practical test, to begin with, of its worth or worthles'sness ; and. any truths that may perchance be liberated in the course of these speculations, may fairly be attributed to the method em- ployed rather than to myself. In order, however, that the reader may see clearly my own reasons for believing in the supreme value of this Organon or instrument, I Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORGANON. 91 propose to show here that it is the method that has been unconsciously employed by the greatest poets, sages, and thinkers of the world. I shall- show further how, by ignoring it, some of the greatest systems of Philosophy have come to wreck, and systems of Polity of the greatest thinkers have ended in Utopias and dreams. And lastly, I shall show that to the neglect of it — and the power of Detachment by which it works — are due nearly all the great illusions of the world. Of all the long array of thinkers and poets of modern times, the few who have most persistently used the Laws of the Mind in its entirety as their standpoint for the interpretation of the world — who have most systematically kept their minds open to the reception of these laws, as feeling, by a kind of instinct, that in them alone could any solid basis be found for the interpretation alike of the present or the past — are admittedly among the greatest — Shakspeare, Goethe, Bacon, Emerson,- Carlyle. . I remember when as a youth I first began the study of Shakspeare, I was in the habit of reading almost entirely for the lustre of the writing, my attention con- centrated on the pomp and tread of the sentences with their rich and resplendent imagery much in the same way as when a boy I used to watch the procession through the streets of some mammoth circus, with its golden chariots, its spirit-stirring music, its glittering charioteers, but paying little or no heed to the internal coherence of the characters, the causal connexions of the dialogues, or the truth and sequence of the sentiment and passions. As time passed on, this excess of emphasis laid on mere expression gradually gave way to a growing interest in the structure and internal cohesion of the characters them- selves, until now I care comparatively little for the pomp and magnificence of expression, but dwell with ever-increas- ing delight on that immense and subtle knowledge of the laws of the human heart down to its finest and most evan- escent experiences, which enabled Shakspeare to follow; Digitized by Microsoft® 92 A NEW ORG ANON. with the fatal sureness of a hound following the trail, the winding, ever-iluctuating, and evanishing line of thought and passion. Indeed, in so far as mere insight is con- cerned, one can imagine these dialogues shorn almost entirely of that pomp of metaphor in which he so much delighted and indulged, and reduced to the plainest and simplest terms, without any derogation whatever from the profundity or fineness of the thought. In reflecting on Shakspeare, I always imagine him to have pondered' his dramas long and well, to have worked at the connexions and sequences of thought and feeling with the greatest care, and down to the minutest detail, but to have filled in rapidly, painting with a free and dashing hand, seizing the first materials that came to him, and often using metaphors and words which touched his thought by the merest segment and side of their circumference and import. It was in this way, and by the lustres and glancing meanings of these innumerable segments, that he was able to shade the curve of his thought to its finest nicety, while associations aroused by the range and redun- dancy of words from which these segments were cut, gave to the whole that richness and brilliancy which so pleases the mind. It was with great justice, therefore, that one of the most penetrating and ardent of his admirers remarked, that the distinguishing characteristic of Shakspeare was that he could say what he willed. In saying then that I do not lay much stress on his immense and brilliant powers of expression, I do not mean that I undervalue the metaphorical power in itself. On the contrary, its possession in any high degree, and when used to express the finer shades of thought and feehng, is itself an indi^ cation of a high order of thought and genius ; for it implies that the mind is so sensitive that, like light, all objects and qualities, even to the most subtle, make on it a distinct and definite impression, and therefore, by an unconscious selection, objects or experiences making a like impression may be freely used as metaphors to express each others Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORG ANON. 95 meanings. Of course much depends on the range of affinity of the iridividual mind in determining what par- ticular experiences shall be crystalUzed as metaphors out of the vast and inexhaustible riches and complexity of the world and human life. Habitual moods and feelings have a tendency to express themselves in metaphors drawn from the corresponding aspects of life and nature. In Milton or Byron, for example, where the habitual mood is one of lofty pride and elevation, the key is pitched high, and the thought expresses itself in metaphors of sublime, vague, or mystic character, drawn from the grander aspects of Nature. In Wordsworth, again, where the. range of feeling is narrow, but of exquisite sensibility, the thought reflects itself in metaphors pure, simple, and drawn from those aspects of Nature to which he was most susceptible, rather than from the varied interests of the world. In religious poets and thinkers, like Newman and Keble, the sensibility is of that intense but limited nature involved in what we understand by piety — subtle percep- tions of the effect on devotion of the varied influences of the world, spiritual or sensuous, whether as furtherances. or hindrances — and accordingly the metaphors used to express this predominant mood, are drawn chiefly from those aspects of Nature and human life which best reflect it. But Shakspeare deals with the full round of rela- tionships existing between each part of our nature and every other; and the immense range and variety of metaphor on which he draws from every. quarter of Nature and life, is but the symbol and index of this breadth and range of thought and sympathy. So that one may say that Shakspeare's metaphorical power is largely the mea- sure of his range and fineness of sensibility ; as indeed, when well considered, it will be seen to be but another aspect of it. But what I am concerned here to em- phasize is, that Shakspeare might have exhibited the same subtlety and power which enabled him to follow the intangible threads of thought and feeling as if they were Digitized by Microsoft® g^ :a new orga,non. the most gross and tangible of realities, without the use of that richness and redundancy of metaphor which to the vulgar is his highest, as it his most obvious and superficial distinction. Goethe, who in many ways draws from the same deep wells of thought and feeling, is one of the chastest, purest, and simplest of writers. What consti- tutes Shakspeare's supreme glory, and gives him that unique place which he occupies among men, is not so much his power of expression, which has been approached, if not equalled, by many men vastly his inferiors in insight; nor his poetical or lyrical power, which has been equalled, if not excelled, by several with no pretensions to his genius ; but that unequalled knowledge of the Laws of the Human Mind in its entirety, that unerring sureness of perception which, when we consider the difficulty there is in following the track of the simplest human spirit when acted on by vague and conflicting thoughts and emotions, has about it something portentous, superhuman, almost divine. In figuring him to myself, I often think of the difference between him and other men, as like the -difference between the ordinary run of billiard-players and the great professors and masters of the art. The ordinary player commencing with a few careful and happy strokes perhaps, and com- piling a small score rapidly and brilliantly, gradually, as the game advances, loses control of the balls, which go distractedly in all directions, until at last he leaves them in positions from which it is impossible to score, and so comes to an end. The great player, on the contrary, knows so accurately where the balls will be left after each stroke, that he can go on scoring with the same facility after any number of rounds, and in all positions of the balls. It is the same with Shakspeare. If we take, for example, the play of Othello, and represent the various passions, sentiments, and impulses of the mind as so many biUiard balls, we find him setting in motion one after another of these passions and sentiments, until he has them all in full activity, and then, as the interaction of conflicting passions Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORG ANON. 95 proceeds, he knows so precisely where each particular impact will leave them all — putting one to rest altogether perhaps, giving another a tremendous momentum and sending it rushing among the rest, touching a third so. skilfully as to wake it up to an attitude of attention, and no more — ^that all are kept rolling on with the greatest precision and facility without a miss, 'fluke,' or false judgment to the end ; while lesser men, after opening successfully, and every now and then perhaps making some fine stroke — generally in the line of their natural genius or affinity — when confronted with the deeper, more subtle, and complex situations, with passions and thoughts diver- sified and conflicting, lose control of their characters, neither know what to do with them or where to leave them, and at last, in desperation, strike about distractedly in all directions, and end in bombast, unreality, and absurdity. Such is Shakspeare, and the unique position he has won for himself among men by reason of his knowledge of the Laws of the Human Mind in its entirety and as a concrete whole. But it is important to remark that these laws, to be available for the world, and for each man in the diff'erent and ever new life which he has to lead, must be separated and detached from that web of laws which constitutes the mind, freed from all foreign adhesions, and fixed as a ■constellation in the galaxy of truths, of which the world through long ages has slowly become the master ; -in the same way as in the Physical Sciences, although by mere empirical knowledge you may be able to deal with any concrete thing, to know its mode of action, and how to regulate it or adapt yourself to it, still,, for your knowledge to be of use to others, or to be made available for the building up of knowledge of other kinds, the separate laws of which that concrete thing is made up must be detached, registered, and hung up as universal verities, to be used by whomsoever they may concern. A billiard-player, for example, may be able Digitized by Microsoft® 96 .A NEW ORGANQN. by practice to tell you precisely what point on the different- cushions a ball will hit, when struck from any particular angle ; but unless these angles can be abstracted from the actual cushions and table and balls, and represented abstractly in a mathematical diagram, they can never be available for any general purpose, and can, never be used to build up truths of a more complex order, and of other kinds, in which the same laws are involved. In like manner, if a physicist were unable to abstract the law of falling bodies from two actual faUing bodies, say two iron balls of different sizes ; or the law of projectiles, from some special projectiles of which he had experience ; or the law of the expansion of gases, from the particular steam-engine with which he was concerned ; his empirical knowledge of the behaviour of these balls and projectiles and engines would be of no assistance in solving other problems in which these laws are involved as factors. And so with the Laws of the Human Mind. Unless they can be loosened and detached from the web in which they lie enmeshed, . there may be great knowledge of the action of the mind as a concrete whole, but this insight is not available for other men who have different lives to lead. Of the millions who have read Shakspeare, and felt his profound insight into the human heart, how many have been able to avail themselves of a hundredth part of his wisdom ? If men had to lead precisely the same lives as Hamlet or Othello,, they would no doubt profit greatly by the knowledge which Shakspeare has opened up for them ; but their own course of life being different, and they being unable of themselves to detach the great laws of the mind which are applicable alike to every human being, they are left as poor and helpless as before. I desire further to observe, that it is precisely those men, who in the different ages of the world have detached the laws of the human mind and embodied them either in_ their own lives or in proverbs and generalizations, that have been regarded as Seers and Wise Men, in contra^- Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORGANON. . 97 distinction to the promiscuous and unknown herds who, in every age, have not been able or not chosen so to extract them, and who in consequence have lain hide- bound in illusion, the dupes of appearances, the victims and slaves of habit, custom, tradition, superstition, delusion, and imposture. Among the Thinkers and Seers of modern times who have shown insight into the Laws of the Human Mind as a concrete whole, and whose range of thought is conterminous with the whole field of knowledge, Goethe stands pre- eminent. And although, like Shakspeare, he has chosen to throw this insight into a concrete, rather than an abstract form, by means of dramas, novels, poems, tales, and the hke, he nevertheless has let fall so many scattered grains of pure thought by the way, and has left so many gems of pure wisdom in a didactic, rather than a pictorial form, that the outlines of his great Scheme of the World are sufficiently apparent. Many, if not most, of his dramas, novels, and even short poems, were written primarily with the idea of giving fotm and embodiment to some Law or Laws of the Human Mind in which at the time he was inte- rested; although from the rich complexity of his mind they often ran on all sides into subtleties not contemplated in the original framing. The Elective Affinities, for example, was written to illustrate the idea that the affinities and attractions existing between the positive and negative poles in electricity, between acids and salts in chemistry, are paralleled in human life by corresponding attractions between the sexes. His Tasso, again, is so constructed as to emphasize the unconscious antagonism that naturally exists between the poet and idealist on the one hand, and the man of the world, the ' practical man,' on the other ; while his Famt and Wilhelm Meister are embodiments of many of his thoughts on the different interests of life, and the great problem of human destiny. Many of his smaller lyrics, too, are the expression of those lighter connexions between Sentiment and Thought which private Digitized by Microsoft® 98 A NEW ORG ANON. experiences of his own had at the time deeply impressed on his rnind. Indeed, so anxious is he that these repre- sentations should be true embodiments of Laws of the Human Mind, that in many instances, as for example in Wilhelm Meister, he has, to a great extent, sacrificed the interest of the narrative, and laid himself open to the charge of dulness. And furthermore, as, unlike Shakspeare, he has chosen to express his thoughts in the most chaste and simple form, it is evident that, in spite of the exquisite beauty of thought and feeling in his smaller lyrics, and the inimitable symmetry of their form, the supreme place he holds among the moderns is due chiefly, if not entirely, to his depth and subtlety of insight into the Laws of the Human Mind as a living whole. Among the prose writers and seers, again, of the modern ■world, who have thrown their wisdom into a didactic and abstract, rather than into a concrete and dramatic form, those who have made perhaps the deepest impression on their times, and whose names will most readily occur to the reader, are Bacon and Emerson ; of those who have- thrown it into a historical or biographical form, Carlyle. Bacon has the same preponderating intelligence ; as Shakspeare — marred perhaps on certain of its sides by a defective fulness of sympathy — ^the same comprehension and range, combined with the most minute and subtle observation ; and accordingly his works are a mine of wisdom and insight into the Laws of the Human Mind in its entirety. And although, in his Essays, he dwells, perhaps, on these laws of the mind rather from the point of view of the Man of the World, who values them for the selfish lises to which they can be put for worldly advance- ment and the like, than from the point of view of the Idealist, who values them for themselves alone, or in reference to their bearings on spiritual and moral ends; nevertheless, in his writings generally, he exhibits potential insight into all parts of the mind alike, and into the. relations of each part with every, other. The subtle Digitized by Microsofm THE NEW ORG ANON. gg- spiritual affinities which connect things most opposite in appearance, and to the sensuous eye, lay before his glance as clear as their sensuous and wprldly relations ; while his mind had that comprehensiveness and reach, which ■enabled him to take up a position so central and com- manding, that from it he could survey all the kingdoms of the mind, aild construct a map of the whole region as if in a bird's-6ye view. Emerson, too, has the same comprehensive sweep of ■observation as Bacon, and overlooks without strain the whole field of human thought.- He knows the Laws of the Mind out-and-out, and reads with equal facility and •sympathy the laws connecting the intellect with the passions and emotions, the passions and emotions with the sentiments, the sentiments with ideas, and ideas with the various forms of sensuous desire. But believing that illusion always lurks in the concrete and embodied, he will not throw these laws into the form of drama, novel, or tale, but strips them naked, and gives them to us pure, and free from all taint of time and place, of circunistance ■or personality. He loves them, too, for their own sake ; i)ut if he has a bias, it is to mark their bearings on high sentiment and the spiritual nature, instead of, like Bacon, :subordinating them to the necessities of practical ' fruit,' •or the requirements of a sensuous and worldly prosperity. He has as much subtlety, too, and minuteness of observa- tion, as he has reach and comprehension ; and his eye is as awake to the baser motives, the cunning and rascalities ■of men, as that of a detective. He can dissect to a hair the parts played respectively in any concrete character or per- formance by the mingled motives of ambition, pride, desire, sympathy, or the love of ideas. In his English Traits, no essential characteristic of the English people escapes him ; and although he remained in this country only a few months, his book has made all future treatment of this subject, from the same -height of view (and without following on his lines), as impossible as Shakspeare's play oi Othello has Digitized by Microsoft® loo A NEW ORG ANON. made all subsequent treatment of the passion of jealousy. He took in the mental lineaments of all classes and con- ditions, with the same easy unconsciousness, from the : characteristics of cabmen and ' Philistines,' to those of bishops, scholars, noblemen, men of the world, and litterateurs. He knows so well, in a word, the Laws of the Human Mind in all their connexions, ramifications, and remotest implications, that a hint, a word, an expres- sion, is as good to him as a dissertation, a sermon, a scientific exposition ; and, like those biologists who can reconstruct an extinct mammal from a bone of its foot,, he can read the general in the particular, the abstract in the concrete, the macrocosm in the microcosm, and from a leaf or blade of grass can build up a world. He grasps, too, with as great facility the Laws that run throughi Societies, as those that play through the individual mind r and sees clearly that first secret of politics, viz., that the character of a people, its stage of morals and culture, will of itself necessitate the form of government it will obey; knowing well that a mob of blackguards, or a horde of blood-thirsty savages, will as surely necessitatfevj the policeman and the military despot, as a band of sainta may be imagined to dispense with them. Carlyle, too, like Emerson and Bacon, overlooks the whole field of thought, and knows the Laws of the Mind in their fulness and entirety through the whole gamut of aspiration and desire, from the worldly and sensuous up to the spiritual and moral experiences. Unlike Emerson, and Bacon, however, he prefers to exhibit these laws in. their concrete embodiment as they have appeared in His- tory and Biography, rather than in their severely abstract form. And yet, from the variety of thoughts he has thrown into an abstract shape, from the monotonousness of his didactic harangues, and the emphasis he lays on., certain cardinal features in the character of his heroes, the completeness and rotundity of his Scheme of the "World may, with a little P^^^gg^c&Mfe ^e clearly enough dis- THE NEW ORGANON. loi -covered. His insight into the Laws of the Mind as a, concrete whole, is well seen in his biographies, where the facts (none of which or their significance escape him) •are so put together and arranged in their relations to one another and the whole, that the resulting ' character ' ihas all the force and impressiveness of reality. In his histories, as in the French Revolution, he always attaches the sequence of events to primary impulses of the "heart and imagination, rather than to mere abstract formulae. The ' September Massacres ' for example, he refers, not to any abstract theories of the " rights of man," (although these were all the time passively consenting .factors in the background), but to the great active and impulsive passions of Fear (Prussians on the way to the .capital), of Preternatural Suspicion (plots in the prisons), and the unpremeditated Cruelty, Frenzy, and Rage, which in that lurid, demoniacal, and contagious atmosphere of •suspicion and fear, the smallest spark (rap on the knuckles from the cane of a suspected priest) would kindle into a blaze. With respect to his direct insight, I have always myself re- ..garded his interpretation of Goethe's Tale — whether indeed it correctly represented the meaning attached to the Tale by Goethe himself or not, matters little — as perhaps the finest exhibition in our time, of insight into the relations -existing between the various powers, faculties, and affec- tions of the human mind, and the laws which regulate their jnutual dependencies and interactions. In one instance :alone can I remember his having neglected any great law -of the human mind, but as on this law practically turned his whole scheme of Government and Politics, this neglect Tias been most disastrous in its effects, and, as the reader will hereafter see, gave rise to those reactionary theories of Society and Government, which have ruined his political influence and weakened his philosophical fame. The writers whom we have just been considering are ;admittedly among the greatest poets and thinkers of the imodern world, and have gained their pre-eminence, as we Digitized by Microsoft® 102 A NEW ORG AN ON. have seen, chiefly by their insight into the Laws of the Human Mind as a concrete whole. They differ from writers like Kant, Mill, and Herbert Spencer, inasmuch as these latter deal with the Physical Sciences, or with the sciences, of Metaphysics and Psychology, but have nothing to say on that Science of the Mind as a concrete whole, which is. the key-stone of the arch of knowledge, and in the. absence of which, as a standpoint of interpretation, all other knowledge, however practical and useful in the ordinary way, becomes, in reference to the higher ends of life, and the finer forms of human insight, a superior kind of pedantry merely. They differ again from thinkers like Comte, who, although he avowedly took as his basis that primitive form of Psychology known as Phrenology, nevertheless, when he came to the interpretation of History, and the movements of Society generally, took his stand on great broad and universal mental laws, but at the same time was so wanting in that wisdom of life which was so characteristic of the great seers we have just considered — that knowledge of the laws of the individual mind, as distinct from the laws of mankind in the aggregate — that, as we shall see farther on, he easily fell into Utopias and dreams. One great law of the human mind, however, he did perceive, and by more or less unconsciously holding fast to it through all complica- tions, perplexities, and details, he was enabled to give us that splendid interpretation of History for which he is so justly renowned. Again, the great Seers we have mentioned, differ from theologians like Newman and Maurice, who, instead of dealing genially with the whole human mind and personality, and investing the law of each part with the same interest and importance as every other, have restricted themselves chiefly to certain special relationships, which indeed, hke the specialist in medicine, they have cultivated with great thoroughness and detail, as if the problem of the world were : Given the relation of God and man, or of father and son, what are the laws that Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORGANON. 103 regulate the connections for good or evil of every other relation with this ? at the same time that all other mental relationships are frozen, as it were, and cut oif from their field of interest and. enquiry. And lastly, the great Seers differ from the higher order of novelists like Thackeray, George Eliot, and Charlotte Bronte, who, although professing in their various charac- ters to deal with the laws of the human mind in its entirety, nevertherless will be found in practice to deal only with the ordinary level of thought and feeling in very ordinary human beings, or restrict themselves chiefly to the microscopic and morbid anatomy of that more or less limited range of thought and emotion of which the sexual relation is the central point, from which all radiates and to which all returns. But the supreme value of a knowledge of the Laws of the Human Mind is not only seen in the fact that it is the Organon used by the great poets and seers of the world, it is seen also in the fact that to the neglect of these laws (and of the power of Detachment which is used to disentangle them) are due most of the illusions, impostures, and superstitions, of the world. It is because children cannot detach the law from the circumstance or thing to which it is for the time being wedded, that they imagine the virtue and beauty to be in their toys and dolls, which exist only in their own minds ; and it is for the same reason, that the youth imagiiies he sees that far-oft and rainbow-like charm in the girl of his fancy, which he himself lends to her. In like manner, it is because men cannot detach the man from the position he occupies, that we have had in history the basest and most con-r temptible of creatures worshipped as deities, and that, too, by men who, as reward for this pleasing illusion, have been whipped and trampled on from youth to age, to gratify the avarice, passions, or caprice of the despots themselves have made. It is because men cannot detach the man from the occupation — the owner of land, for Digitized by Microsoft® J 04 A NEW ORG ANON. example, from his land — the man engaged in trade, from his shop — that you have that recognised difference of nature and kind among men, which has become embedded like a tape-worm in the brain of the Old World, and which ■ not only has kept the great masses of the people willing serfs, from the dawn of history down to within the last few centuries, but would, if not extracted, have continued to keep them so until the end of time. It is because men cannot detach the fact from the phrases which overlay and disguise it,, the thought from the expression in which it is wrapped up and concealed, that you have flashy scoundrelism pushing homely honesty to the wall, the posing charlatan bearing away the palm from the simple lover of truth, the blatant and unblushing demagogue driving the serious statesman from the helm. It is because men cannot detach their feelings from the objects with which in time and place they have been associated and bound up, that you have men persecuting each other because the same happiness and bliss which the one feels in contemplating the fatherhood of God, the character of Christ, or the joys of Heaven, another feels in bending before the will of Allah, in contemplating the character of Mahomet, or the Paradise to which he invites him. It is because men cannot or will not detach their per- ceptions from their feelings, that you have the laudator temporis acti; that you have men's Philosophies, as Goethe said, but the mere supplement of their Practice, so that what they love they tend to laud, what they hate they tend to depreciate, what they would like to do they think they may do, and what they are in the habit of doing they believe it right they should do. It is because men cannot detach themselves from the occupation in which they are engaged, that they become subdued to the element they work in, and in the greater number of instances the experienced eye can predict from a man's appearance what is his occupation, and from his occupation what is the general range and configuration of his sentiments and ideas. Digitized by Microsoft® THE NEW ORGANON. 105 The above are a few familiar instances of the illusions into which men fall who neglect to exercise that power of Detachment which is the main instrument by which the Laws of the Human Mind are to be disengaged from the circumstances in which they are wrapped up. And it is to these illusions that a large part of the evils, the injustices, • the trials, the heart-burnings, the misunderstandings and chronic discontents of life are directly traceable. I do not mean to imply that it might have been otherwise ; on the contrary, I perceive, and shall show farther on, that only in the far future can we expect it to be diiferent. I would merely remark here, that it is only the ' education ' which will teach men to know the Laws of the Human Mind and to see through illusions, that can help them to remove the ills of life, not the mere pedantry which is about all that is usually implied in the term; and further that just as a man's power of Detachment is the best index of his rank in the scale of intelligence, so, too, in proportion to the general diffusion of this power throughout a society or a nation, is the stage of civilization it has reached. To illustrate still further the importance of a knowledge of the Laws of the Human Mind as a concrete entity, for the higher problems of life, I had originally intended to have pointed out in this chapter the Utopias into which some of the greatest thinkers have, fallen, from the want of knowledge, or neglect, of these laws ; but on remember- ing that in future chapters I shall have occasion to controvert certain doctrines held by some of the most eminent of these thinkers, I have judged it expedient to pass them by in this place. I shall, however, in the next chapter, give one more instance of the errors into which men fall, from the neglect of the great Laws of the Human Mind, as, by doing this, I shall not only still further illustrate the importance of these laws, but shall perhaps help to remove objections and prejudices which would otherwise stand in the way of those doctrines and laws which I desire to establish in a future chapter. Digitized by Microsoft® CHAPTER VII SUPERNATURALISM versus SCIENCE. The particular errors to which I alluded in the last fchapter will be best seen, perhaps, by a general contrast between what may be termed respectively Supernaturalisin and Science ; between those who hold that some revelation ' has been given to the world by a person or persons super; [naturally sent or inspired : and those who, like myself, believe that the only revelation the Supreme Power has given to man is the Laws of the World and of the Humaa Mind. And in order that I may do no injustice to Super* naturalism in this comparison, I propose to take, as typical instance of it, the most coherent and intelligent form it has yet assumed, the form that is accepted by the most cultured minds, and that offers the fewest points of antagonism to modern thought ; the form, in a word, that will best exemplify its true essence, freed from all those superstitions, impurities, and adhesions which are sO' obnoxious to the culture and enlightenment of the present day. Now, if we represent to ourselves in thought the respective exponents of these opposite views of the World, at the outset of their journey in search of Truth, we shall find that those feelings and necessities of the mind which it is their object to harmonize, are alike in both. Each starts forth equipped, on the one hand, with Conscience, and on the other, with the demand for Cause — the one Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM vj-rsus SCIENCE. 107- being an affection of the feelings, the other a necessity of pure thought. But they do not get far on their way before it becomes apparent that, although neither Super- naturalist nor Scientist altogether ignores either of these two affections of the mind, the Supernaturalist lays more stress on the feeling — the Conscience, the Scientist more stress on the thought — the Cause. And from this primal difference in the emphasis laid on Thought and Sentiment respectively, flow those subsequent divergencies which, widening as they go, at last become entirely antagonistic and irreconcileable. Let us follow for a moment our Supernaturalist and Scientist, and see how they fare as they pa - F siare-eaieh his sesieral way. The Supernaturalist, with a natural leaning to piety and devoutness, feeling acutely the inward unrest, the remorse, the discord, which the consciousness of Sin and the conflict between his higher and lower nature have made habitual ; yearning for deliverance from this un- natural condition, from this inward discord, this sense of longing and aspiration unsatisfied and unappeased; feels, by the deepest intuition of his mind, that there can be no desire implanted in the human breast but has its natural satisfaction somewhere ; that the yearning of the child no more surely pre-supposes the mother's breast ; hunger and thirst, food and water; the sexes, their opposites; and the bird his mate ; than this restless yearning of the soul pre- supposes, somewhere in the wide world, if one could only find it, the provision for inward harmony and rest. On looking about him for some sign or token that shall lead him to the desired object, he feels that this Sense of Sin in his own members, this Evil and misery in the world, must be referred to some commensurate cause, and to what else can it be referred but to some supernatural Evil Power or Devil, in whose chains, though struggling to be free, both he and it lie bound and captive. At the same time, he recognises that this very effort and desire to be free, this inward aspiration to Good (as well as the Digitized by Microsoft® io8 A NEW ORGANON. bounteous provision of Nature for man's wants which he sees around him), necessitate a belief in some Good Power, or God, to whom alone they can legitimately be referred. But if this were all, if his inward unrest were due to the conflict of two opposing deities for his soul, -there would be nothing for him (seeing that the Evil Power would seem to be in possession, and to have the ■strongest hold over him), but, like the Heathen or the Slave, to do homage to the tyrant, to propitiate the Evil Deity by ceremonies, offerings, expiations, sacrifices and the like. And this he sees to be the idea of the Religion of the East, where the chief gods are evil, like Siva, and are worshipped by sacrifices, expiations, and oft-times by bloody and inhuman rites. This religion, then, is a religion of Fear, an attempt to get harmony and rest for the soul by appeasing the evil, rather than by aggrandizing the ■good, and is not a solution that he can accept as final. To deliver himself from this worship of Fear which he feels to be degrading and embruting, and to attain to a worship of Reverence and Love which shall be ennobling, ■expanding, and elevating, is his main endeavour ; but recognising his own feebleness and inability to combat the great Power of Evil, he feels the necessity of some impulse, some spirit, being communicated to him, which 'shall so stimulate, encourage, and reinforce the good that is within him, as to enable it to overcome the ■evil. But how is this to be done ? How, except by the Good Power himself appearing, as a great general, in person on the field of human life, taking on Himself the nature of man, submitting to the evils, the trials, and the -temptations of life, nay even to death itself; and yet victoriously vanquishing the Devil at all points, conquer- ing Sin in himself, relieving Evil and misery in others, and •so, as our Great Exemplar, teaching us that it can be done, if we will only keep our souls at the same lofty level. But where to get the enthusiasm, the impetus, the spirit, the hope, necessary to enable us to do this. The belief Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM vERsi/s SCIENCE. 109. itself that the Great God has so loved us and taken com- passion on us, that he has come down to help us, and given Himself to die for us, and the promise that when He is gone He will leave His spirit with us, is of itself sufiicient to rouse into self-sacrificing devotion the nobler elements of our souls, to keep up the enthusiasm in our hearts, to nerve us for the struggle, to comfort us in. defeat, and to give us assurance of iinal victory. Without such Incarnation, indeed, and Exemplar, how in this con- fused world could we know what to do or avoid, what standard of life to set up for ourselves where spiritual wickedness in high places so much prevails ? How else: but with this divine standard could we separate the wheat from the chaff? How could we believe in the possibility of conquering the evil in ourselves and, others, or get heart to fight it, but that its defeat had already been. accomplished? How sympathise with the lower races,, the down-trodden and oppressed, except by the knowledge; that He Himself adopted them as His brothers, and included them in the fatherhood of God? How know that the suffering of Humanity was not God's intention^ but that He Himself came in human flesh and delivered them from it, by casting out devils, healing the sick, and the like ? How find an answer to the natural longing of the mind for a future existence, except that by His resur- rection and ascension He has given us the assurance that we too shall rise and be with the Father ? * Such an incarnation as this, is precisely what the Super- ' naturalist feels would be necessary to give him that ji inward harmony and rest which he so sorely needs, and if, as he plods wearily along, tidings reach him that such has indeed occurred, that the God of Light has actually incarnated ' Himself in human form for his deliverance, will not the coincidence of the report with the a prion belief that it was the only way of escape for men, im- mensely strengthen its credibility ? And if, moreover, the- ■strictest examination of the historical record fails to shake. ,, Digitized by Microsoft® Tio A NEW ORGANON. the broad basis of fact on which it rests; if, further (judging the tree by its fruits), he finds that all other religions have either died out altogether, or degenerated into devil-worship, and the civilizations founded on them sunk into impotence or death, whereas the European civilizations, founded on Christianity, have gone on pros- pering without any signs of decay ; and if, finally, all this ■corresponds with what Christ affirmed of Himself, viz., that He was the Light of the World, and that He would send His spirit, after He was gone, to convince the world ■of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment ; has he not here such a correspondence of a posteriori with a priori con- •siderations, as will justify him in giving to the Christian Revelation his full and unreserved assent ? Such is the course pursued, and the goal arrived at, by the Supernaturalist in his search for inward harmony and rest. And if, as a Scientist who takes his stand on the Laws of the World and of the Human Mind, I may be per- mitted to trace in a general way the course I have myself pursued, and the goal I have arrived at, I shall perhaps best illustrate the radical differences existing betweeh these two opposite views of the world. Starting out, like the Supernaturalist, in search of inward harmony, but with thoughts turned perhaps less to the state of my feeUngs than to the real relations and con- nexions of things, I, too, carried with me the consciousness ■of Evil, of the inward conflict perpetually going on between Tiigh aspirations and low tendencies and desires, and, in consequence, of discord within and without. Like him, too, I felt a yearning for inward peace, and for deliverance from Sin, from low thoughts, base motives, and guilty desires. And, Hke him, I felt confident, by a deep intuition of my nature, that somewhere provision must be made for harmonizing this inward discord, that somewhere there must exist a Power that would enable men to confront Evil with Good, and gradually to overcome it, and so give them rest and harmony and peace. But at this point of Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURAUSM versus SCIENCE. iii my journey I part company with the SuperriaturaHst, and the farther we go on our respective ways, the more diverg- ent do our paths become. The Supernaturalist being, as I have said, more con- cerned with the unsatisfactory state of his feehngs, than with the real relations and connexions of things, jumps naturally to the conclusion that the Good he sees and feels within him and without him on the one hand, and on the other, the Sitt and Evil in himself and the world, are due to the direct agency of God and the Devil respec- tively ; and, accordingly, shifts the drama of human destiny from the Natural to the Supernatural world, from the world •of effects, to the world of what to him are real causes, where the problem for solution is : — Given the soul of man as the prize of contention between God and the Devil (the Devil in the meantime having got man into his hands under protest, and holding him by force rather than by •consent), how to reinforce man so as to enable him to shake off the Devil, recover his true allegiance, and thus find peace and rest for his soul ? And the solution that the Supernaturalist finds credible and satisfactory is, as we have seen, that the Good God Himself has ap- peared on the field of human life, and that this fact, once recognised by men, will impart such enthusiasm and stimulus to their drooping and dispirited souls, as, like the appearance of some great general in the thick of the fight, will enable them to drive back the enemy, and recover that dominion of the soul which they had lost, and which was theirs by native birth-right. Now, while admitting that this method of cutting the Gordian-knot of human destiny, as in a Greek drama, by the appearance on the stage of human life of the deus ex machina in the shape of a Super- natural Power, was the most natural, harmonious, and satisfactory solution of the problem that could have been found at the time of its promulgation by St. Paul, I would remark that, at the present day, it can only be held as a satisfactory solution, by neglecting the effects on men's Digitized by Microsoft® 112 A NEW ORGANON. beliefs, of one of the greatest Laws of the Human Mind — a Law so wide and far-reaching in its consequence that (like the Law of Gravitation, which for ever got rid of those supernatural agencies formerly believed to regulate the movements of the planets), when once it is received into the mind, and its full significance becomes apparent, it will topple the most harmonious, coherent, or symmetrical superstructure of Supernaturalism to its base. The law I refer to, I have elsewhere called ' the Law of Wills and Causes,' and in future chapters I shall have occasion ta exhibit in fuller detail the great part it plays in religious' development. For the present, however, it will be suffi- cient to say, that what I mean by this Law is, that when the natural or scientific causes and connexions of any phe- nomenon are unknown, it must be ascribed to the agency I of wills like our own ; but that when the natural laws and connexions become known, the phenomenon ceases to be; ascribed to the agency of such wills. Now as at the time of Christ the mind of man was believed to be pure spirit, entirely disengaged from the body or the material organ- ization of the brain, men were forced, by this natural law of the mind, to refer the Sin and Evil in themselves and others, to the direct agency of Wills like their own, that is to say, to Evil Spirits, or, in a word, to the Devil ; the accompanying remorse and sense of guilt being at the same time naturally regarded as the consequences of the injury or oifence done to the Good Spirit, or God. But at the present day, the mind is known to be inseparably bound up with the material organization of the brain, and evil thoughts or deeds, in consequence, can no longer be legitimately referred to the agency of Evil Spirits ; but, on' the contrary, must be regarded as natural affections of the brain, acting under the various stimuli and temptations of life, according to their own proper laws ; while remorse and the sense of sin, instead of pointing of necessity, as the Supernaturalist thinks, to a good Deity whom we have offended, and to whom we must become reconciled, are Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM ysssus SCIENCE. 113 found to have their normal sphere of action primarily in the human beings around us whom we have injured or offended, and only secondarily to refer to the Deity, when we are conscious of having, by thought or act, run counter to the great ends which He is believed to be working out. But not only can the thoughts of the mind, which give rise "to Sin and Evil, no longer be referred to the agency of an Evil Spirit, but a wider view of the World will make it apparent that these very thoughts themselves have no positive quality of evil, but are merely necessities which inhere in the Ground-plan of the World. The World is constructed on the principle of Individu- ration ; by which I mean that it is not lumped together as a whole, but is distributed into individual natures — animals, plants, human beings of every race, species, and variety^ in the same way that the hand, to be more serviceable, is "divided into individual fingers. And, whatever be its 'ultimate aim, whatever be the ultimate goal to which it is "tending, it is plain that that intention and goal can only ibe worked out and arrived at, by the agency of these indi- vidual natures — animals, plants, and man. Such being i;he evident ground-plan of the World (for which, by the way, it is as useless to ask the reason as it would be to •enquire why Matter exists in the antagonistic forms of rattraction and repulsion), one sees at a glance that it is a necessity, inherent in the original design, that there should be some special provision for maintaining this individuality, ^and preventing things from being agglutinated with, or .absorbed into, one another. And so, indeed, there is. We find in animals, horns, hoofs, claws, fangs, stings, organs •of offence and defence of every variety, all serving as mere instruments or means by which this ground-scheme of Individuation is mainta:ined. Now, a little reflection will •show that corresponding to these horns, fangs, and stings in the lower animals, and to the appetites of fear, hungerj a.nd self-preservation by which they are set in motion, is what we call the evil nature in man. Besides his coarse Digitized by Microsoft® 114 A NEW ORG ANON. physical defences against enemies, man has the finer weapons of envy, pride, jealousy, revenge, and the like, vi^hich are merely these instruments of individuation and self-preservation carried up into the mind, and transmuted there into more subtle and flexible rapiers of attack or defence. Lesser men defend themselves from absorption by greater by means of envy, or hold their own against them by contradiction, combativeness, or pride. Vanity stimulates men to make the most of themselves, and helps- them to keep up their individuality. Jealousy pricks them- to hold their own against rivals; revenge to make good. again, on an enemy the injury he has done them ; while sensual desire, working after its own natural laws, stimulates them, to perpetuate this individuation by means of offspring- having the like individuality, and so prevents things from sinking back again into that flat and undiversified desert of uniformity, out of which they had originally to struggle. And so, too, if we take the more positive and active sins of lying, stealing, murder, adultery, and the like, we may see that here also no new element has been introduced, but. all are ways of aggrandizing ourselves and our own indi- viduality at the expense of others ; thus overstepping those conditions of fair play and justice which, in a limited world,, are necessary to enable each to maintain his own indi- viduality, and to escape being absorbed or annihilated by the other. If we tell lies, for example, we secure for our- selves a point of vantage which does not legitimately belong to us ; if we steal, we do the same ; and so, too, if we commit murder or adultery. Again, if we consider what the theologians would call ' sin in the inmost members,' lusts and desires that may go no farther than the mind of the person entertaining them, stopping short before they come to action — envy, impurity of thought, evil-wishing, suspicion, covetousness, selfishness, worldly-mindedness and the like — we shall find that at bottom they are only imaginative modes of protecting or aggrandizing our own individuality ; although, if not restrained, they may keep- Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM rEKSt/s SCIENCE. 115 pricking the imagination (where they can form infinite combinations) until, to relieve itself, it forces men into all sorts of unnatural cruelties and crimes ; or they may so monopolize consciousness as to weaken the authority of those high and noble aspirations which we feel by their very quality to be the real and true ends of our being. But perhaps the strongest evidence that what we call Evil » or Sin is merely the untempered and excessive exercise of | activities that are necessary to the progress and develop- ment of the world (and therefore has not that positive quality which would justify us in assuming a special Devil to account for it), is to be found in this most pregnant fact — that Society has legitimatized and provided for the gratification, within due limits, of those very activities which in their excess constitute Sin, but which, within these limits, cease to be sinful. If your sensual passions are strong, for example, you may marry, not commit adultery ; if your desire for money, for worldly goods, and prosperities is keen, you may work for thtem, not steal them, or be covetous of the goods of others ; if you have a high pride or ambition, a thirst for fame, you may attain it by good services done, or by the laudable exercise of your talents, not by envy and detraction. If you wish to be equal with the man who has wronged you, you can appeal to the law, not have recourse to murder or private revenge. And thus it is that the very same thoughts, passions, and impulses, which in excess have the special and positive quality of Sin attached to them, and so are beheved to require a Devil to explain them, when exercised in moderation, have no such positive quality, and require no such Deity. If it be urged, as by the old ascetics (and naturally enough in their stage of culture), that even this normal and legitimate exercise of the appetites, passions, and desires is Sin, then all mental and bodily activities whatever, that are not directly and immediately connected with the highest ends of our being, must be Sin, however much they rnay be shown to be remotely and indirectly so Digitized by Microsoft® ii6 A NEW ORGANON. connected ; a view of life which would forbid us the normal enjoyment of our food, as much as the normal enjoyment of our ambition, emulation, or pride, and which, if carried into effect by the whole world — a test which any doctrine professing to be at once true and universal ought to stand — would speedily bring the world to an end. The Asceticism of the early Christian centuries in Europe was the normal and legitimate result of the Pauline form of Supernaturalism which then prevailed, and which, in theory at least, is held by all Christians at the present time. But the fact that no Christian scheme, except perhaps Catholicism, now recognises Asceticism in practice, proves that the. theory from which it sprang is felt to be untenable at the present time. But if the Evil in the world and the Sin in the heart are due merely to the excessive activity of functions both good and necessary in themselves, and so do not require a Devil to account for them, does it not follow, the Super- naturahst may ask, that the Good that is in the world and man, is also due merely to the activity of other functions of the brain or mind, and so does not require a good deity or God to account for it ? To this I would reply, that when once, by a wide oversight of the world, we perceive that Sin and Evil are not ends in themselves, but are only means and instruments of that Individuation which inheres in the very Ground-plan of Nature; and when we see farther, that, as I shall show in a succeeding chapter, the real end is the elevation, enlargement, and expansion of the individual mind (truth, love, beauty, and the like being positive qualities, and carrying in their own natures the evidence that they are the true ends of being), we are bound by the very necessities of thought to refer those ends of the world to a Supreme Power commensurate with them in nature and attribute — a Power whom we must regard as the true source of all that is within us and with- out us, including those very means and instruments which in excess produce what we call evil, but which Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM versus SCIENCE. 117 are nevertheless indirectly conducive to the great ends of being. But whatever may be the nature of Good and Evil in themselves, the contradiction between them, it will be urged, still exists to cause discord and division within the soul, and provision must be somewhere found for restoring harmony. This is quite true, but mark how, after the above analysis, the terms of the Problem of Human Destiny, to which we have to find the solution, have changed. Instead of being, as the Supernaturalist has it : — Given the inward contradiction and discord in man's soul, caused by Sin and the hold which the evil spirit or Devil has over him, how, by the supernatural agency of the good spirit or God, so to reinforce man against the Devil and himself, as to bring harmony and rest to the soul — the terms of the problem are shifted to another plane altogether, and become as follows : — Given the preponderance of the means and instruments of life (which become Sin and Evil by that very preponderance) over the true ends of life — the enlargement, elevation, and expansion of our higher nature — ^to find in the Mind or the World (the Supreme Power being always in the background of consciousness) those agencies that will enable us to bring Good out of Evil (and will so remove the inward contradiction and discord), that will give us hope and assurance of final victory, and, in joyous endeavour, harmony and rest. To the problem thus differently stated to meet the intellectual and spiritual wants of modern times, the remainder of this book will, I hope, help to furnish an answer. For the present, I will only say generally, that the great agent on which we must rely is Science, by which I understand that knowledge of the Laws of the World and of the Human Mind, which (these laws being our sole revelation of the will and intention of that Supreme Power, who, as we saw, is working out in Time the elevation and expansion, of man) alone can enable us to work in harmony with the Supreme Power, and towards the same great ends. Digitized by Microsoft® ii8 A NEW ORG AN ON. It is Science that, by its application to life, has destroyed the two great scourges of the early world, famine and pestilence, or greatly diminished their frequency and se- verity. It is Science that, "by its application to the arts, has given us all the comforts, conveniences, and luxuries of life. It is Science that, by its effects on religious dogmas, has indirectly gone a long way in destroying those religious persecutions, those international hatreds, and religious wars, which the modern world regards with almost as much horror as the pestilence itself. Again, if, as I shall endeavour to show in the next chapter, it is by the pressure of a more enlightened and moral Public Opinion — a public opinion that requires ever finer and finer ideals — over the individual mind and conscience, that the grosser forms of evil are coerced, made gradually less and less habitual, until at last they die out naturally, this more sensitive Public Opinion itself grows out of wider ideas and ameliorated social conditions ; and these in their turn result from those improved material conditions which Science and the arts have been gradually bringing about. And lastly, as, by a legitimate exercise of the idea of causa- tion, we get (as a normal deduction from the plan of the World and the Human Mind) the belief in a Supreme Power, working slowly and steadily for high ends, and in a predetermined course, athwart the manifold obstructions, contradictions, and confusions of Time : it is this conviction which, by rousing into enthusiasm all the higher and nobler part's of our nature, harmonizes the mind, removes the internal contradictions, and gives us inward harmony and peace. In thinking over these opposite views of the World, as represented by Supernaturalism and Science respectively, I am conscious that, to many minds, especially those of pious and devout tendencies, there will be more comfort and real consolation in believing that the Great Cause of All actually came down to this world, assumed a human form, took on Hin^^J|^gyj^^^d miseries, died for us, SUPERNATURALISM yexsLs SCIENCE. iig ;and succeeded in triumphantly vanquishing Sin and the Devil for us, than in representing Him to themselves as working more or less inscrutably behind a veil, and reveal- ing Himself only through the Laws of the World and the Human Mind. The mind of man is so constituted that it is only by a definite personality, or what can be conceived :as a definite personality, that it can be deeply moved, whether to sympathy or aversion, love or fear. I have no doubt that the contemplation of the sun and moon, of the rivers, woods and fountains, was attended by a much more vivid and active sensation of love and reverence when they were believed to be the abodes of deities, or the haunts of sweet nymphs and goddesses, than now, when "they are beheld in their naked reality ; and, on the other hand, that tempests and comets, gloomy caverns and old witches, were regarded with a more profound feeling of ;awe and aversion when they were believed to be the manifestations of divine anger, or the abodes of evil spirits, than now, when they are regarded as only natural phenomena^ untenanted abodes, or harmless old women. I can well imagine that Luther threw his ink-pot at the Devil with much more animus, believing that he saw him ^actually before him and trying to tempt him, than he would have done had he believed that what he saw was merely a spectral illusion, and that the thoughts which rose in his mind were merely the normal affections of his own mind and brain, working according to their proper ;and natural laws. But to tacitly assume, as the Super- naturalist does, that the power any particular ' scheme of :salvation' has to. satisfy the feelings of a certain number of persons, can afford any presumption in favour of its truth, -especially when, like the legends of the saints and martyrs, it has taken such hold of the imagination, that men are too pleased and comforted by it to sift the evidence for or against it, is childish and absurd. A man might as well :assume that the pleasure he felt on hearing that an im- J mense fortune had been left him, was presumptive evidence j Digitized by Microsoft® 120 A NEW ORGANON. of the truth of the report ; or a woman assume that, becaus the complete harmony of her whole nature would be bei subserved by the marriage-state, therefore the particula man who pleased and satisfied her imagination i an heart, must necessarily be the one intended by nature fc her. It is true that any longing or natural yearning mus have its natural satisfaction somewhere, but not that th gratification, felt in any special case is evidence that w have found the precise satisfaction alone intended for us as hunger is presumptive evidence that food is good for m but not that any particular kind of food is the only kim that is good for us ; or as the sexual feeling is presumptiv evidence that it is not good for man to be alone, but no that some particular person is the only one that it is goo( for him to marry. In the same way, the religious s en ti ment is presumptive evidence of the exi stence of a.i U nseen Power working behind phenomena, but not tha a ny special conception we may, have formed of the per soi and^ttributes . .ofJhai^Eawer is ihe__ cor rect one. Thi state of our feelings, then, cannot be presumptive evidenci in favour of the truth of any special doctrine, when onci that doctrine has become discredited by a deeper insigh into the World and the Human Mind. To sit harmonizin] the discordant intrusions of the sense of Sin, by the intro duction.into the mind of sweet and beautiful personalitie and affections is easy, but unfruitful ; to laboriously strivi to know the Laws of the World and of the Human Mind and, with the sense of a Supreme Power above you, to g( out into the harsh world and strive to further them, and t( act in accordance with them, is difficult, but fruitful an( ennobling. And thus it is that even the highest, purest, and mos harmonious form of Supernaturalism that has yet appeared the one least obnoxious to Modern Thought, and whic! looked so reasonable at the outset, and indeed was entirel satisfactory, harmonious, and complete at the time c St. Paul, can only be held at the present day, by deliberate! Digitized by Micro^ft® J' J SUPERNATURALISM versus SCIENCE. 121 neglecting one of the greatest Laws of the Human Mind— the law by which, when the natural causes of things are unknown, men are bound to refer them to the agencies of wills like their own. Before proceeding to consider still farther the general divergencies between Supernaturalism and Science — be- tween tho se wh o wou ld solve the problem of life by means of S uperna tural Agents brought down into the arena of human life, anH^those who would do so by means of the L aws oTthe Worldreverently learned and conformed to ; with the recognition of a Supreme Power working through them alone to the accomplishment of His great ends — perhaps I may be allowed to recapitulate and still farther enforce what I have already said. We saw, then, that both Supernaturalist and Scientist pay homage to the two sides of our nature — Feeling, and Thought— but that the SupernaturaUst attaches more importance to the state of his feelings, than to the true laws and connexions of things ; while the Scientist, on the contrary, looks first, to see that he has got the true laws and connexions of things, and afterwards considers how they are adapted to meet the wants and desires of his heart. And we saw that it is from this origirial difference in the stress laid on Sentiment and Thought respectively, that all those after-consequences flow, which I shall now endeavour briefly to trace. I am, of course, aware, and .shall in a later chapter en- deavour to show, that the intellectual framework of Religion is constructed or evolved along certain definite intellectual lines and principles ; but what I mean when I say that the Supernaturalist lays more stress on Emotion or Sentiment than on Thought is, that when once religions have been constructed, credence is generally asked for them or given to them, by reason of their power to satisfy certain longings of the heart, rather than on any purely intellectual grounds. That this is the tendency of all Supernaturalisms may be gathered from the expressed opinion of so acute a thinker as Cardinal Newman, who says : — " Popular religion is Digitized by Microsoft® 122 A NEW ORGANON. founded in one way or another on the sense of sin." And again, "The sense of the Infinite Goodness of God, and of our own misery and need, would, in those who feel keenly, be sufficient to create a belief in any religion offering itself where there was no rival in the field." And this is as good as to say that the state of the sentiments and emotions is of such primary importance, that the fact that any religion would harmonize them, would be sufiiciemt of itself to create a beUef in that religion. Now, one would know beforehand, that any Religion or Scheme of the World that appealed to Feeling only as the test of its truth, must be hollow and uncertain. For it is the very law of our being that what we are to believe must in the last resort be decided by the Intellect alone, and that only after the Intellect has shown us what is to be believed, are our Feelings justified in offering response or protest. The Conscience, for example, is a feeling, but what is right or wrong under any given circumstances must be left for the Judgment to determine, after taking in all the conditions of the case. It is the Judgment, too, that must determine to whom our conscience owes allegiance, whether to the men and women about us, or to the Deity whom we have offended, or both. Love, too, is a feeling, but whom or what we ought to love, is a matter entirely for the judgment to decide. But the Supernaturalist's^ hope of determin- ing the truth of any particular religion by itseBecI on his feelingSj is as absur d as to attempt to determine, trom'lfie effect any incident or story has on our Eelings, whether it is true or not. And the "first result that tollows trom this excess of emphasis laid on Feehng is, that no scheme of Supernaturalism can ever become universal. Starting from the Conscience and the sense of Sin, every age or nation, according to its stage of culture, would require a different form of religion to satisfy it. And there being no background of demonstrable fact by which to test the truth of any religion, this would have to be determifted by the power each had to harmonize the feelings and meet the. Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURAUSM y^Rsus .SCIENCE. 123 ■wants of man. And as every people and nation receives equal comfort and satisfaction from its own belief, ritual, form of worship and the like, there is no reason why the Mahommedan should relinquish his religion for Buddhism, •or the Buddhist, for Mahommedanism or Christianity. On the contrary, as it is largely a matter of personal taste and comfort, what satisfies the conscience and longing of the Brahmin, will not satisfy the Buddhist ; what satisfies the conscience of the Catholic, will not satisfy the Pro- testant; and what suits the old school of Calvinism, will not suit the latest school of Broad Christianity. The . fact is, Supernaturalism, by its very nature (as taking its stand rather on Conscience and Feeling than on demon- strable Truth, and so making that true which harmonizes and satisfies the feelings), would, if not counteracted, divide men down to the last man. For as there are no two menj whose feelings and personal wants are in every way precisely alike, so when a religion is run out to its fulH detail of doctrine and ritual, there is no reason, as indeed ' may be seen in the multiplication of Protestant sects, why ' any two persons should feel precisely alike about it ; and nothing, therefore, to prevent men splitting into as many ! opinions as there are individuals, were it not indeed for that | sheep-like tendency to go in herds, which is as characteristic ( of men as their tendency to differ in detail. And, more- over, as each and all of these concrete Religions and Schemes of Salvation involve the acceptance of some fact or facts alleged to have occurred in the past, their truth ■can never be brought to an actual test, so as to convince dissentients or unbelievers ; and therefore, as I have shown in the chapter on Cardinal Newman, they can command no true and legitimate assent, but are inferences only, of more or less probability. Indeed, so deeply does Cardinal Newman himself feel the difficulty of gaining assent to the Evidences of Christianity, that he candidly admits that, were it not for the support they receive from the power of Christianity to meet all the wants of our nature, it would Digitized by Microsoft® 124 . A NEW ORGANON. be almost impossible. Here, for example,. are the beliefs and feelings which he makes a sine qua non in the enquirer, before he can hope that the evidences for the truth of Christianity will carry conviction with them : — " a belief and perception of the Divine Presence, a recognition of His attributes, and an admiration of His person as viewed under them, a conviction of the worth of the soul and of the reality and momentousness of the Unseen World, an understanding that in proportion as we partake in our owa persons of the attributes which we admire in Him, we are dear to Him, a consciousness on the contrary that we are far from partaking them, a consequent insight into our own guilt and misery, an eager hope of reconciliation to Him, a desire to know and love Him, and a sensitive looking out in all that happens, whether in the course of Nature or of human life, for tokens, if such there be, of His bestowing on us what we so greatly need." That is, to say, certain beliefs and states of feeling are made the grounds for giving assent to doctrines and facts which, unsupported, would not of themselves carry conviction ; and this illustrates one of the central fallacies of Supernatura lism, the beUefj 'nz.jJhatme's^isJgKtiono^ feeli ngs is proof of the t^lM^pfthe doctrine. Again, the same scheme which in one age of the world was found perfectly credible by a particular class of minds, in another age is quite incredible to the same class of minds. The miracles of the Old and New Testament, for example, were perfectly credible to men living at the time these books were written, for at that time men naturally expected miraculous interpositions, to eke out the explana- tion of occurrences of which the natural laws were then: unknown. The like miracles would be perfectly credible even at the present day to the inhabitants of India, and for the same reason. But these miracles are discredited by the cultured minds of Europe to-day, simply because they run counter to that order and uniformity of the laws, of Nature which with them is the first article of faith. Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURALISM ysRsus SCIENCE. 125 Even within living memory there have been great changes of behef in regard to most of the leading tenets of* Christianity ; articles that fifty years ago were considered essential to the faith having been either dropped altogether since that time, or so modified and defaced as to be. unrecognisable; although, owing to the absolute and' unchangeable character which attaches to Revelation, obnoxious doctrines cannot be openly discarded when the age has outgrown them, but must be silently put out of 1 the way and allowed to pine and linger until they at last I slip quietly into oblivion. What grieves me most, personally, in the perpetuation of Supernaturalism among cultivated men is, that it splits the little band of Spiritual Thinkers into two unsympathetic, and more or less secretly hostile, camps. Laying so much more stress on Emotion and Feeling than on purely intellectual Perception, the Supernaturalist naturally looks at the phenomena of the world more with an eye to their effects on Religious Feeling, than as pure Truth, entirely disengaged from any special forms of emotion whatever. And hence the tendency I have so often noticed, in even the most intelligent and cultured Siipernaturalists, to disparage not only the men of Science, but the great Spiritual Thinkers who, like Emerson, for example, regard all the Laws of the World and of Human Life with equal •sympathy, loving them for themselves alone, without Tegard to their special bearings on piety and devotion. It is a characteristic of all schools of Supernaturalism, whether they be Oriental, Ascetic, Catholic, or broad and •enlightened Protestant, that their sympathies go almost -entirely with those thinkers who, like Newman, have most subtly and acutely traced the effects of the varied interests of the world on contemplation and devotion. So strong, indeed, is this tendency of Supernaturalists to sympathize ■only with those Laws of the Mind which bear directly or indirectly on piety and devotion, that I remember hearing one of the most eminent lay representatives of the Broad Digitized by Microsoft® 126 A NEW ORG ANON. School of Christianity, a man too of the finest culture ar literary taste, remark in public that if he were restricted f( a length of time to only one book, and had to make choi{ between Newman and Shakspeare, he would prefer Ne\ man. I was not indeed surprised at this ; but it confirme my oft-expressed opinion of the secret sympathies s^ Supernaturalism, in spite of superficial appearances to tl contrary. I have noticed, too, that the type of mind whic is characteristic of the Supernaturalist, cares comparative little for the great operative Laws of the Mind, but deligh to philosophize on such problems as the relation thi Shame bears to Morality, for example, the effects i Prejudice on Religious Belief, whether the wish to beliei tends to make us believe, or the reverse, and the like. As a result of this narrow range of intellectual symp; thies, there is in Supernaturalism no tendency to expansic or development. When once the Supernaturalist, hi made up his mind, as he has at the present time, that tl Civilization of Europe to-day is due to the Spirit of Chris which has all along been working in the minds of me: athwart all impediments of war, bloodshed, and crime, 1 can go no farther ; and you will look in vain to him for ai finer analysis of the mingled elements which have gone ■ make up that great result. Believing that Civilization is tl . result of the Spirit which Christ promised to leave in tl j world after he had gone, he secretly discourages : I accurate and scientific investigations, founded on observf I laws of the world and the human mind, into the respectr parts played in it by various forms of Government, 1 different Material and Social Conditions, by religio Dogmas, and by Science and the Arts respectively; mu( in the same way as the Metaphysical Biologists, with th« ' vital principle ' and the like, stood in the way of a fin and more accurate analysis of physiological relations ; I as those mediaeval physicians who, believing that diseas were due to evil spirits within the body, prescrib those parts of frogs, beetles, and spiders which th Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATURAUSM versus SCIENCE. 127 thought contained spirits antagonistic- to those they wished to expel, and felt no desire for any finer and more scientific analysis of the real causes of disease. And, lastly, however much the Supernaturalist may have minimized the difficulties which stand in the way of the acceptance of his scheme, by removing the more glaring anomalies — the miracles, the plenary inspiration, the Mosaic account of creation, and the like — he still is- obliged to bring the Supernatural Power on to the world's stage, and to remove Him again from it ; and therefore, however much he may desire to keep the miraculous in the background, in deference to modern habits of thought (as the slaughter-house is kept in the background in deference to modern refinement), he cannot dispense with at least three miracles — the Miraculous Conception, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. And although he maintains that for so great an object as the salvation of man these departures from the ordinary laws of Nature are justifiable, and quite credible, nevertheless the fact that he feels it almost necessary to apologize for retaining them, shows how far he feels himself to be drifting away fromi modern habits of thought. And furthermore, when we] remember that the fact itself of an Incarnation could only have been entirely believable when Science was in its infancy, it is evident that the Supernaturalist, in not perceiving this, has neglected the effect on religious belief of that Law of the Mind whereby, when the natural causes of phenomena are unknown, they are attributed to wills like our own ; and so leaves his Theory of the World stranded and dismantled on the shore of the ever-receding tide of Medisevalism. If we turn now to a religion that is founded on the Laws of the World and the Human Mind — on Science physical and mental — we shall see that it is free from all the objections I have just urged against the religion of the Supernaturalist. Instead of laying more emphasis on Feeling than on Thought, and making that religion true Digitized by Microsoft® ^28 A NEW ORGANON. which harmonizes them, it lays the stress on the real a nd true relations^pf _daings, and would make the feelings adapt I to theseTeiations. Instead of, like Supernaturalism, tend- ing to divide inen down to the last man, owing to the diificulty of finding any two with tastes and feehngs quite alike, it tends to unite men to the last man, owing to the fact that every new Law of Nature, once verified and registered, becomes a bond of union among men in opinion and practice. For the truth of its doctrines.it does not, like Supernaturalism, depend on whether certain alleged historical facts are true or not, but rests on laws which canJDe verified at any time or iiTany place, and which are true alike yesterday, to-dayT and for ever. It can,~tEerefore, command a fulT^and compleFe assent of the mind, and is not attended by the unsecure feeling of vague and uncertain probability. Unlike Super- naturalism, again, which is constantly dropping along the line of its course articles that were once essential to the faith, or modifying them until they are unrecognizable, a Religion founded on Science changes, not by dropping old fictions, but by adding new truths. It is capable, therefore, | of endless development as the discovery of new laws enables us to work it up into finer and finer issues. In its interpretation of the World it does not remain fixed and rooted, or lay claim to that finality and absolute character which, by the necessity of the case, must characterize all religions founded on Revelation : it does not narrow all human interests, all the varied play of human life and passion, down to their effects on piety and devotion; but, on the contrary, it is open to the reception of all Laws whatever — Physical, Mental, Spiritual. In a word, it does not, like Supernaturalism, repress, but gives range and expansion to the human spirit. It makes no demands on our faith, by asking us to accept miracles in any form, and so, unlike Supernaturalism, has no tendency to split the mind in twain, to set Reason against Faith, and Experience against Authority. It recognizes the law of Digitized by Microsoft® SUPERNATVRALISM yERsus SCIENCE. 129. iiVills and Causes, and so, while setting aside all Super- laturalisms whatever, sympathizes with them, under- stands them, and accounts for them. But enough of :hese contrasts, which might be carried on indefinitely,, . md which I have introduced here to bring to a focus the rreconcileable differences between Supernaturalism and Science, in their ways of looking at the world and human life; feeling, with Carlyle, that until the "Exodus from Houndaditch " is satisfactorily accomplished, there can be no single and undivided eifort made to forward the great cause of Civilization and Progress. In future chapters I shall endeavour to make good in detail much of what has here been unavoidably left indefinite and vague. Digitized by Microsoft® PART IL-THE GOAL.