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Books of special value and gift books, when the _ .'.:. .,iii.*,.(.i.I giver wishes it. are not allowed to circulate. * Readers are asked tore- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. Do not daface books by muks and wiitiaC' Cornell University Library B1618.A7 A65 Dr. A ppleton: his life and literary reli 3 1924 029 046 279 B' At THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY VOLUME XIII. BALLANTYNE AND HANSON, EDINBURGH CHANDOS STREET, LONDON The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029046279 CHARLES EDWARD APPLETON, D.C.U. FELLOW OF 5T JOHn's COLLEGE.; OXFORD. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1876. D^ APPLETON: HIS LIFE AND LITERARY RELICS. BY JOHN H. APPLETON, M.A., LATE VICAR OF ST. MARK'S, STAPLEFIELD, SUSSEX ; A. H. SAYCE, M.A., FELLOW OF queen's COLLEGE, AND DEPUTY PROFESSOR OF COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY, OXFORD. LONDON : TRUBNER AND COL, ILUDGATE HILL. U[s!l ."i 88x^:1 r Y {A II rights reserved. ) w A^sasn CONTENTS. FAGBS Life of "Dr. Appleton i— 107 IntEODUOTION, CONTAIITING FHAGMEUrS or AN Unfinished Essay on Detelopment . . . 109-128 What is the Ego ? chaptee i. strauss as a theologian . . i29-i59 chaptee ii. a piea eoe metaphysic, i. . l60-i9s chaptee iii. a plea eoe metaphtsio, ii. . i95-243 Ameeican Efeoets aetee Inteenational Copt- EIGHT 245-280 Atheism .... 281-310 Doubt 311-326 Eeagments 327-350 LIFE OF DE. APPLETOIf AND INTRODUCTION. LIFE OF DR. APPLETOK CHARLES EDWARD APPLETON was born at Reading, on March 16, 1841. His father, the Rev. Robert Appleton, had at that time been recently appointed to the Head Mastership of Reading School, a well-known foundation of Henry VII. which, during its long and useful existence, has trained many eminent persons for the service of Church and State. The Head Master was an excellent classical scholar, and also gradually succeeded in organizing, under considerable difficulties, what would now be called the " modern side" of education ; so that Mathematics, History, the German and French languages and general Literature formed, to a remarkable degree for those times, an important feature in the work of the School. To the very favourable circumstances of his home and school life must be attributed the early formation of those habits of industry and accuracy, as also the first begin- nings of that wide and cultured sympathy, for which Dr. Appleton was afterwards so remarked. He himself was always most loyal and grateful to Reading School, where he received the whole of his education up to the time of his entering the University : he took great interest in its recent re-organization, and used any influence he might possess to secure for it, in a time of change, those features which he felt were of so much value *in his own case. B 4 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. As a young boy he was rather delicate, but strength seemed to come to him as he grew older, and he was able not only to study regularly, but also to take a fair share in the sports of the playground : indeed, he bore through- out his life distinct traces of an ugly blow he received in the cricket-field when about sixteen years old. He was of an impulsive, sanguine temperament, and this, rather than physical strength, supplied much of the motive power both in his boyhood and throughout his busy, energetic hfe; enabling him to carry out, to at least some measure of completeness, many schemes which in other hands would probably have fallen to the ground. His single-hearted zeal won him allies both at school and in the world ; he was born to be the leader of a forlorn hope, and he was, to a remarkable degree, successful in his enterprises. One who knew him well in later life makes a remark which applies to a much earlier period of his career : — " He was one of those rare natures who convince practical people against their slower judgment, and achieve impossibilities by the contagion of their own enthusiasm. Possunt quia posse videntur." Fortunately, moreover, his impulsiveness did not merely accumulate force to be wasted, as so often happens, in spasmodic, ill-sustained effort. Method, rather in his case an acquired habit than a natural gift, characterized him even as a boy to quite a curious degree. He set an object steadily before his eyes, calculated, so far as he could, the means that would reach the end, and then sternly disciplined himself with a view to the accomplish- ment of his cherished purpose. An old friend, who had ample means of studying, his character both at School and at Oxford, says, — "His days were bound each to each by conscientious adherence to a well-considered, self- imposed plan of life. In an age which is spendthrift of time and too much open to casual impulses, he never drifted : he always seemed to be steering straight at a mark He was the least pushing of men, and Little LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 5 careful of external success ; but nothing turned him aside from what seemed to him the line of his chosen duty.'" And yet withal he was a most genial, lovable boy, full of fun and with a keen appreciation of all the lighter sides of life ; of quick and ready sympathies, fond of society as he grew older, and generally popular. Indeed, it was an early and almost precocious realization of the risks to which he was exposed by his social gifts and natural temperament, that made him set himself firmly to acquire those habits of self-restraint and methodical study with- out which he felt any intellectual self-development was impossible. It is a great pleasure to me to recall that, while holding a curacy in Reading after taking my degree, I was able to be of service to my brother in his preparation for his University career. I have a very distinct recollection, for instance, of reading the Latin satirists with him, and of the eager and intelligent interest he took in aU the social and historical questions which arise in the course of such a study. This must have been in 1858 and in the first part of 1859. At this time it was proposed that Charles should compete at some scholarship examination at Oxford ; but nothing definite had been arranged, when, quite unex- pectedly, an opportunity came at St. John's College. Eeading School had the privilege of sending two scholars to St. John's ; but no vacancy was likely to occur, and consequently it seemed well nigh impossible that my brother could ever be upon the foundation of that college to which the thoughts of a Reading boy would naturally turn. But during a visit of a few hours to Oxford in June, 1859, I fortunately heard from one of the Eeading Fellows that Tunbridge School, a sister foundation to Eeading in the privilege of sending scholars to St. John's, had just presented a candidate whom the college had ^ From a letter from the Bev. Edward Harris, M.A., Head Master of Exeter School. B 2 6 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. determined to reject. The result was that the Scholarship was thrown open to public competition, a valuable prize in those days, for it led in due course to a Fellowship. I well remember the astonishment of the future Fellow, when, on his return from a boating expedition that even- ing, he was told he must start next morning for Oxford. However, not much persuasion was required, and, although there were some worthy competitors, Charles was successful at the examination; the thing that struck the examiners being the wide range of his reading for so young a man. The preferment then won he retained tUl his death. At Oxford he was a diligent, energetic student, reading widely and systematically; and, although he failed to obtain the highest honours in the University examinations, he was generally allowed to be one of the ablest men of his standing.' Perhaps in reading he did not keep the schools sufficiently in view to achieve the greatest success ; but I suppose few at the present time will be found to maintain that a competitive examination is the most desirable stimulus for the best minds, or even an infallible means of discovering them. I am sorry to have but few records of my brother's undergraduate life, which admit of being introduced in a memoir. The following extracts, however, will serve to give sojne glimpses of a routine of hard work lightened by genial sympathy with the thoughts and pursuits of others : — As an undergraduate he was a very industrious student, 1 "In the Moderations List he obtained a second class, but -was so little below the standard of a First as to make me feel (I was an Ex- aminer at the time) that a very slight difference in the chances of the Examination would have secured him that position." — From a letter rom Mr. Robinson Ellis. Another Examiner also writes, — "I examined him in the Final Classical School. He shovyed great ability and very considerable know- ledge. His philosophical papers I thought quite on a level with the best sent in that time." LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 7 with a decided bent towards speculative philosophy. . . . Even in his freshman's term, nearly twenty years ago, two or thr^e of his friends used to meet on Sunday evenings in each others' rooms and read philosophical books, among which Mansel's Bampton Lectures, then in the height of their fame, found a promiuent place. The choice was not very happy, perhaps, and it was only Appleton's philosophical ardour which kept the little band together; the others soon found the food too strong for them, but he relished it heartily, and would not allow his friends to relinquish their chosen task.^ A contemporary adds the reminiscence : — If one was with him late in the evening, one would invariably see the faggot brought in and laid in the fender, that he might light his own fire and begin work before any servants came into college. Another friend writes to me as follows : — "When I went up as an undergraduate to Oxford in October, 1863, my first visit was to Appleton's rooms. It was on a Saturday night, at about half-past seven, when I found my way to "No. I, first quad., I pair, left hand door ;" his" oak" was " sported," but as soon as he discovered it was none of his college friends, he opened the door and welcomed me warmly to Oxford. He was now reading steadily for " Grreats," and made a point of arranging his work so as to get to bed very early ; but he went out of his way to keep me talking, and even walked out with me to see my rooms and gave me some hints about furnishing. It was the first of the many proofs he gave me of the genuine, practical interest he took in his friends. This term it was his custom to get up at four o'clock in the morning, light his fire, make some coffee and then work till nine. After a short interval for breakfast, he read on till midday, and then gave a long afternoon to exercise and recreation. Though he was so busy, he allowed me to see a good deal of him even before the schools began. I found he had given up the idea of taking Orders and was now thinking of the Bar. One day we had a long talk about " Church principles," and he seemed satisfied that a good case could be made out for them. He was at this time inclined to the opinions of ' From the obituary notice in the Athencmm, Feb. 22, 1879. S LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Maurice and Stanley, and something gave me the impression that Stanley had had a good deal of influence upon him. On Novemher 21, 1863, I wrote in my diary: " Appleton las just been to see me and we have had a walk. He has missed his Krst, but in very good company ; for there are two or three men in the second, whom everybody expected to find in the first class." His disappointment in the final schools did not make him a less eager student than he was before. Having put aside, at least for the present, the thought of the Bar, he gave himself up earnestly to philosophy. I saw much of him during the next three years ; and he used to talk often, and always with deep seriousness, of the questions which lie at the foundation of philosophy and theology. He was one of those men^not too many — wlio are in earnest about philo- sophy. His conversations gave me a clear idea of the nature and the bearings of the Hegelian system, and he put before me with great plainness and force the reasons which led him to think this philosophy the true one On Monday, October 22, 1866, I wrote in my diary: " Appleton lunched with me to-day and we walked out after- wards. He has been much troubled lately with weakness in. one eye, and Dr. Symonds has advised him to avoid all reading for a time ; so I have promised to read to him in the evening three times a week out of some book that may be useful to both of us. We shall begin with Mill's " Examination of Sir "W. Hamilton's Philosophy." Dr. Symonds' treatment was successful, and by the end of term the weakness was nearly cured. About this time your brother took an interest in a friend of mine, A , of Balliol, who had just been received into the Eoman Catholic Church, and showed all that earnest curiosity about a position so difierent from his own, which I had noticed so often before to be characteristic of him. "We had Bome talk about an article, which appeared at the beginning of November in the Daily News, accusing the High Church party in Oxford of systematic proselytism by means of brotherhoods, party lectures and personal influence. This charge Appleton did not think a fair one, and could not agree with his Liberal friends about it. After I had taken my degree, I saw Appleton oftener than before, in company with his graduate friends, and used to enjoy listening to his conversation with them. One evening LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 9 I remem'ber Laing of "Wadham dining with him and dis- cussing tho subject of Monasticism in England, on which we afterward s heard Appleton read a paper at a meeting of the Architectural Society.^ About this time (Lent Term, 1868), he used to join me in going to Green of Balliol's college-lecture on Modern Philosophy. His interest in this subject seemed always to be uppermost, and to find its centre in the great problems common to philosophy and theology. He was reading, about this time, the history of the Port Eoyal, and studying the subject of miracles When I returned to Oxford in January, 1 8/0, after an absence of a year, Appleton was kind enough to ask me to be sub-editor of the Academy, which he had recently started. He was enthusiastic about the undertaking .... and gave up nearly all his time to it. "We used to sit down to work at a quarter-past nine in the morning, and left ofi" about half- past three, allowing a very short interval for lunch. Some- times also, we worked in the evening, and then Cheyne came to help us Shortly after I went to Cambridge in January, 1877, your brother wrote to tell me of his intention to send a paper on tbe subject of "Doctrinal Development" to the Contemporary Review, or the Nineteenth Century; and 1 think I wrote to him twice in reply, sending (as he had requested me) what struck me as the best references to various works of Dr. Newman A few days before coming to the Oratory on Michaelmas Day, l877> I dined with him at Hampstead and slept at his house. We had a long talk on the question of Development and the nature of Eevelation, and next morning I parted from him and said " Goodbye" for the last time. I am indebted to the Eev. T. A. F. Eaglesim, of the Birmingham Oratory, for the above interesting com- munication. It passes considerably beyond the time which we have reached in our narrative, but it seemed best to let it run on without interruption to the end. My brother took his B.A. degree in October, 1 86 3,''' and, 1 At the first Meeting of the Society in Trinity Term, 1868. An abstract of the Lecture was published, ' He subsequently took the Degree of D.C.L., in June, 1871, lo LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. after a short holiday, drew out for himself a course of reading in Philosophy, Law and History, which, with the occasional interruption of pupils, fully occupied his time until a long-cherished project' of a residence at one or more German universities could be realized. His scheme of study was no doubt framed in great measure with a view to the proposed sojourn in Germany, so that he might be able to gain the greatest advantage from the lectures he hoped to hear from the professors at Heidel- berg, HaUe and Berlin. He marked out his time and work with characteristic method : — Each month must consist of four weeks of six days, and each day of a good six hours' reading .... the hours kept and the work done to be noted in this book ; public lectures, and light biographical, poetical and novel reading not to count. It is interesting to observe that he read Hegel's " Propadeutik" in the early part of 1864, and soon commenced a translation of it, upon which he spent a considerable time during the next three or four years, until the engrossing work of the Academy compelled him to lay it aside. On Dec. 23, 1865, I find the following note, written at Berlin, which shows the expansion of his plan under the influence of his German studies : — My so-called " Translation of the Propadeutik" has increased into the following scheme : — Table of Contents. Introduction : (o) Characteristics of Propadeutik ; (6) Explanation of technical terms, with parallel passages ; (c) Analysis of the four parts of the work ; (d) Account of the Parallel Works"— i.e., i. " The Philosophy of Eight" ; ii. Phe- nomenology ; iii. Logic ; iv. Eneyclopsedia— in outline. A. Essay on Philosophy of Eight. Notes and Translation. ' An old schoolfellow writes; "Long before he left school he Lad formed the plan, which he afterwards carried out, of adding study in Germany to the university course at Oxford." LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. ii B. Essay on Phenomenology. Notes and Translation. C. Essay on Log;ic. Notes and Translation. D. Essay on Encyclojssedia. Notes and Translation. Excursus — i. Summary of Hegel's system up to the idea of a State. ii. The Italian School. iii. Criticism of Herbart and the Empirics : — Schopenhauer. iv. History of Philosophy since Hegel. The notes are to consist of a carefully digested parallel from the four great corresponding works. In the summer of 1865, Dr. Appleton, in company with his friend, Mr. Owen, of Cheltondale, Cheltenham, studied for some time at Heidelberg, where he heard Zeller and Bluntschli, and in October of the same year commenced his residence at Berlin, of which Uni- versity he became a matriculated member. Here is a,n account of the ceren^ony :- — Tou will rejoice to hear I am now a matriculated member of the University, for which honour I paid 1 8s., and received a whole heap of big, printed papers, in which I am described as " vir juvenis ornatissimus," which is, of course, a delicate allusion to my personal appearance. The authorities keep my passport till I leave Berlin, and give me a' kind of testamur instead, which the police have insisted upon seeing, along with particulars as to my age, social position, object in living here, &c. The police surveillance is very silly, although not in the least annoying Professor had his sister staying with him, and the police came with their inquiries, as to what her object was, &c. ; to which the Professor being provoked replied, that her object was to found a republio ! . . . . Well, as to matriculation, it was a long business, lasting an hour and a half, from the great number of candidates. Our names and particular descriptions were written in about six big books, and then the " Eector Magnificus," a most meek old man, the Professor of Botany, made a speech, and shook hands formally with us all, jurisjurandi loco, — i.e., we J2 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. thereby engaged to obey the University regulations. He then singled me out, and said very kindly in G-erman, " You are a foreigner; I must shake hands again with you; my best blessing on your work," — which was jolly of him. He finds comfortable quarters in the house of Pro- fessoii Solly, and soon gets into harness, being much pleased to find Hegel so well represented at Berlin : — I am getting nicely into work and have heard Miehelet, the man I came to hear, for a fortnight with great effect. He delivers his lectures, which are very suggestive, with tremen- dous energy, throwing his arms about in the wildest way all the time. He is quite an enthusiast in philosophy, which suits me very well. Trendelenberg and Werder have not yet begun. I am most agreeably surprised to find that there are no less than four Hegelians lecturing in Philosophy and Art ; three of them personal friends of Hegel, and editors of his works. (Sunday, Nov. 12.) I had a charming talk with Miehelet, this morning, for an hour and a half. He seemed very pleased to have got a disciple, and begged me to call again, and to bring any difficulties to him. In reply to a request that he would explain briefly what the Hegelian philosophy is, he writes : — It is difficult to state in short what Hegel is, or what German philosophy is. From a letter from a frieud to-day I gathered that he thought it was something like what we call in England " Low Church !" This, it is needless to tell you, is not the case So far as I can describe it in an intelligible manner, I should say it was simply the consumma- tion of the attempt, which has been going on in the best minds, for the last two thoiisand years, to find an absolutely certain basis for complete knowledge. Tour weeks ago we began with the first principle of the Hegelian Logic, " Pure Being is Pure Nothing," which appears, at first sight, an absurdity, but, on closer scrutiny, to be the last point of abstraction to which Thought can go, and consequently ta form a beginning which is absolutely such, i.e., which takes nothing for granted, not even, like the celebrated Cogito, ergo sum, the thinking mind itself. It would take an essay to explain this fully ; and, as the first point of all, in which Thought and Being are fused in complete indifference, it LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 13 IS the most abstruse. But when we have got this principle, we don't stop, as the old philosophy did when it said, " What- ever is, is;" or, "The one is, the many ia not;" but our principle involves its own development ; it contains the necessity of motion in itself, an.d this necessity is its contra- diction. Just as we see nothing in pure light, any more than in pure darkness ; the only possible thing for us to see ia their union in what we call. Colour. This is only an illustra- tion ; as also is Life, which is a complete fusion of the con- tradictories, growth and decay. This principle, then, is not developed by the application of an external method, which must always be arbitrary, but is its own method, or, as the Germans express it, '.' The form, and the matter are absolutely identical." It developes itself through every stage of thought, then of nature, and then, lastly, of mind, which, instead of being a starting-point, ia our last result. And thus the physical sciences, law, morality, politics, art, religion, philo- sophy proceed in regular and necessary order, until at laat a point is reached, which the G-ermans call Qeist, in which the whole universe is subdued to the Infinite Beason. Professor Croft, Director of Public Instruction, Bengal, has been kind enough to send me the following extracts from letters written to him, in the autumn of 186 5, by my brother from Berlin. They are humorous and characteristic : — After a fortnight's intense thought, we of Michelet's class have arrived at the momentous proposition that " Being is Being :" and, with this formula upon my lips, I feel that I have my finger on the great pulse of the universe. Being is good, but Not-being is better, because it adds to the notion of Being the notion of Not. When we enunciate the truth — " Being is, and not-Being is not," you must not suppose that there is no such thing aa not-Being, Verily, there ia such a thing as not-Being, only it is Not. Hegel has found a word which approximates to the meaning of ovaia in the German dingheit, which a learned Italian, M. Yera, translates into French choseite ; I suppose the English equivalent must be "thingamy-tight." I have discovered a threefold theological argument, which is completely efficacious in confuting unbelievers. The first 14 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. is called ignoratio elenchi, and is a very valuable instrument: it consists in pa'ssing over the point to which your opponent wishes to bring you, and in proving something else. But if your opponent is a sharp man and drives you from this stand- point, there remains a second serviceable weapon ; it is called petitio principii, and consists in assuming the point to be proved — generally (though this is not essential) in a slightly altered form. If your opponent has had a logical training, he will detect your device and wrest the weapon from your bands. Tou will then take refuge in the last and impregnable stronghold, which is called maxima refutatio, and which con- sists in denying that there is any point at issue. But this was not the whole of ' his life at Berlin. Partly, no doubt, through the influence of his kind host, he was welcomed into some very pleasant society, and greatly enjoyed his experiences of German home life. His letters are full of the good music he hea,rd, the interesting people he met, and the places he visited. A few extracts shall be given : — On Wednesday I sat an hour with the great jurist, Gneist, and smoked a cigar with him. He promised me tickets for the House of Parliament, of which he is a member ; cut up our English notions of philosophy, in which I quite agreed with him ; and finally told me that three Mondays in every month he should be at home in the evening and should be glad to see me; I enjoyed my visit to him extremely The political excitement is increasing, and Gneist had a demonstration from three or four hundred students the other day, of whom I was one, though rather as a spectator. As he entered, everybody stood up and shouted "Hoch!" which is the formula used instead of our Oxford " Por he's a jolly good fellow, &c." It is at least simpler. He made a little speech in answer. A couple of nights ago I attended a meeting of the Theo- logical Society, where the Philosophy of Spinoza was fairly thoroughly discussed by about ten students out of a larger circle of forty or fifty. Tou would scarcely find forty English undergraduates, or people of any sort, capable of discussing such a question or listening to an esgay intelligently upon it. There was no irreverence or lightness of any kind, and alto- gether I was much pleased with my evening. The Germans LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 15 are eerfcaioly much more adapted to abstract thought than we are, but, as far as my experience goes, are mqre children in practical matters. I got home [from a four days' walk in the Hartz] in time for the so-called FoUer-abend, that is, the evening before the wedding, of a relative of Professor Eanke The play representing the different scenes in the lives of the happy couple, with good fairies in blue and silver, and bad fairies in red, was a very happy thought; and, upon the whole, was very well acted The pair sat in the front row just under the stage, which was placed in the middle of the drawing- room. Several prologues were spoken, some by young ladies, who then descended and hugged the bride ; and after all was over, they were both dragged by the players behind the curtain for the same process. Tfien the stage, scenery &c., were cleared, and the whole room thrown open, with a ball- room beyond. At the other end of the suite of four rooms was the professor's study, which was devoted to the reception of presents for the bride. We sat up till twelve last night, and drank the old year (1865) out in punch with German pancakes, which are the orthodox thing for the occasion. Each of us poured a spoon- ful of molten lead into a basin of water, and then did our best to interpret the fantastic shapes of the lead as prophecies of our fortunes during the coming year. The Professor sang a comic song or two ; after which we danced a quadrille as the clock was striking, and then opened the windows to hear the nojse of the congratulations passing on through the streets. The city is quite quiet till the moment, and then you might imagine that a riot had suddenly broken out. In March, 1866, Dr. Appleton joined me at Genoa, after a few days' stay at Halle, where he heard Erdmann. His own comment upon his residence in Germany, written apparently some years after, seems, at first sight, a little disparaging : — " The nett result of my visit to Berlin, and in the previous summer to Heidelberg, was not any great increase of philosophical or other knowledge such as I might not have acquired in England, by reading the books published by the professors whose lectures I attended;" but there can be little doubt that his future career was i(j LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. largely shaped by his sojourn in Germany. It may have been that such matters as those with which his name was afterwards so closely associated, the organization of academical studies, the endowment of research, and even the foundation of a review like the Academy, had pre- viously come into his thoughts ;^ but certainly the con- trast between a German and EngHsh university, a contrast realized strongly by actual experience of the formei;, must have served to emphasize his impressions and to direct them to a definite result ; while the original plan of the Academy was undoubtedly modelled on that of the Ziterarisches Centralblatt. The Athenaeum of Feb. 22, 1879, has an interesting passage on this point, in the obituary notice from which we have already made an extract : — Soon after taking his degree, Appleton went for some time to Germany, to perfect himself in a language which he already knew fairly well, and to prosecute his favourite studies. He spent some time at Heidelberg and afterwards at Berlin. The contrast between German and English universities impressed him, as it has done most of those who have studied both impartially, and he came home confirmed in the opinion that, v>hile Oxford and Cambridge are admirable finishing schools and consummate examining machines, they are far surpassed by Germany in that important function of a university, which consists in keeping alive a spirit of mature and disinterested learning and of original research. In order to give expression to this view, he translated and published '^ a pamphlet by Dr. Dollinger on " Universities, Past and Present ;" and to the propagation of a higher conception of the function of uni- versities, in regard to learning as opposed to teaching, he subse- quently devoted a great part of his life and energy. He projected a learned journal, after the mode] of similar publications in Germany, in which all books were to be noticed by persons specially qualified by the course of their own studies to deal > See page 89. " In 1867, — "in order that it miglit appear before the several Billa relating to the University of Oxford come again under the consideration of Parliament." LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 17 with them, and prepared to give their names as a guarantee of their fitness. This was the origin of the Academy. Genoa was our starting-point for a three months' tour in Italy, of which many pleasant memories remain, though few are of such a character as can well be transferred to these pages. Florence, Milan, Bologna, Padua, Venice, Naples, a visit to Pompeii, a scramble up Vesuvius, above all a month in Eome, where we certainly worked hard at churches, pictures and ruins of every date — all this is a well-worn theme ; but, at the risk of telling again an oft- told tale, a few extracts from letters shall be made : — The want of sympathy with art and with practices to which we are unaccustomed, and which we don't take the trouble to understand, is a most serious drawback to the enjoyment of a foreign tour, and, more than all, of such a place as Rome, which is a very hive of art, as well as a place proud of its past, tenacious of its peculiarities and the very centre and focus of Catholic Christendom. "We really miist put our dignity in our pocket in the face of the gigantic fact of Boman history, Roman art, Eoman religion, Roman manners, and the great swarming city itself. How seldom do you find a Grerman or a Frenchman impervious to all these influences ; he wUl talk to you by the hour about a picture, or a foreign language, or the antiquities of a place like Rome, the archi- tecture of its palaces, the last new phase of its politics, the significance of Catholicism in the world. "Whereas — but I am quite ashamed to go on condemning our countrymen in this root and branch manner ; and besides, w6 are not all equally bad There are many English people of whom Rome herself is prqud, and Gribson, Miss Horner and Nathaniel Hawthorne are a host in themselves, and may stand surety for us that the modern Anglo-Saxon is not quite hopeless. The Pope himself [Pius IX.] is a dear, fatherly, gentle, spiritual-looking old man. His is scarcely an Italian face, but a kind of universal, indeterminate face — just the face for the father of a world-wide, manifold, struggling Christendom ; and it does you good and makes you more of a Christian to look at its serenity. He was much impressed by the service at St. Peter's 1 8 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. on Good Friday morning, a description of which ends thus •.■^- The people went up two and two, men and women, the former, if anything, slightly in the majority ; all classes alike, soldiers, nobles and peasants, knelt, uttered a short prayer, and kissed the symbol of man's reconciliation. As a moving service, this to my mind is unequalled during the week ; and so far from the adoration of the emblem seeming superstitious, it appeared the most obvious and natural thing in the world; a great improvement on the British " Dearly beloved brethren," some of us thought, at such a place, and at such a time. One is struck by the exceeding plainness of the Eoman churches. If the sacramental lamp were removed, one might fancy oneself in England In the churches where Catholicism is presented publicly and authoritatively to the world, one looks in vain for the abominable and shapeless dolls, with their twopenny-halfpenny tinsel dresses, which distress one in Erance or Belgium. The mother of Christ is presented, by the authority of the Holy See, as the object and stimulator of devout aspiration, under the conception of Perugino or Eaphael or Michael Angelo, as un gran pezzo di donna, "a splendid piece of womanhood," which will really elevate the mind by its very beauty above the level of ordinary life. I can't help thinking that a great picture by its very excellence keeps people from abusing it as an object of worship, and that when we hear of winking pictures or miraculous images we may be quite safe in assuming that they are rude blocks and miserable daubs, which depress the soul instead of raising it Who ever heard of a Vandyke or a Titian working wonders ? People say that going to Home in the flesh is the best preservative against going over to Home in the spirit : I think that this is quite the opposite of the truth. If you don't see the Bambino, and if you take the trouble to understand what is going on in the services you will be led to feel that what divides Christendom is not religion, ' but prejudice, ignorance, misunderstanding, differences in words and in the outside rind of thought, want of sympathy and communication, a host of habits which grow up, dividing man from man, and which prevent us from seeing that we are all aiming the same way LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 19 thinking at bottom the same thoughts^ hoping, aspiring after, feeling the same thing.^ On his return from the Continent Dr. Appleton resumed his residence at Oxford, and in October, 1867, was appointed lecturer in Philosophy at his own college. His note-books bear ample testimony to the conscientious labour bestowed upon the subjects which he taught, and I am glad to be able to add a statement by one of his pupils as to the value of his lectures, and the estimation in which the lecturer was held at this time at St. John's: — To the general body of students he was above all things the representative of German ideas, GTerman thought, learn- ing, method ; and was consequently regarded with mingled feelings of jealousy, mystery and admiration He was the only efficient tutor we had upon "Grreats' " subjects, and his lectures on the History of Philosophy, which I attended, were undoubtedly very valuable ; more particularly as, at that time, there were very few men in the University who knew anything of the German language, and Zeller and a variety of works, which have been since translated, could only be read in the original. The qualities for which Dr. Appleton was most remarkable as a lecturer were, I should say, subtlety, clearness, system and power of compression. He took a great delight in put- ting the minds of his pupils through the exercise of differen- tiating nice shades of thought ; while nothing could exceed the neatness with which he would reduce a large mass of matter to a small compass. His style was always lucid and animated, and calculated to fix what he said in the memory of his hearers Por myself, I always think with pleasure and gratitude of the time when I was under him. Amongst many, however, in his own coEege, it would perhaps be correct to say that he rather inspired respect than won any high degree of popularity. Taught by his course of reading for the final classical school to subject everything to a strict analysis, and armed with rather a powerful dialectiCj he was, we can well imagine, a sore ' The above extracts are from letters to a " Long Vacation Journal" started by an Oxford reading party in North Devon in 1866. C 20 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. trial to men of fisTed opinions, even if he did not some- times permit his love of mischief to triumph over prudence, and prompt him to shock the propriety of the common- room by advancing some highly revolutionary thesis. He was an energetic product of new Oxford, with a high ideal of what a university ought to be ; and this ideal he pressed upon all, with whom he came in contact, in season and out of season. He desired to see his own college taking its place in the intellectual regeneration, and so his projects of reform were many and far-reaching : he was known, moreover, to be the personal friend of the leaders of the re-organizing movement, which has produced, and is producing, such important results at Oxford. All this was, no doubt, disquieting to those who, if not altogether satisfied with the old regime, were content to put off the day of change — were " opportunists " in reform, and feared to drift away from their old moorings. But from aU he certainly won respect to a high degree : his aims, if to some they seemed impracticable, were, at least, perfectly disinterested : he sought no private ends, shrank from no sacrifice : he did not preach what he did not also practise ; if he made ruthless war upon idleness and self-indulgence, he was himself an example of hard work and vigorous intellectual life; if he was, in his public capacity, as holding a trust for his college, stern and inexorable to vice, he was one of whom the following testimony could be given by one of his contemporaries : — The signal purity of his habits of life, and his rare gentleness, might well have earned him Milton's Cambridge nickname — the Lady ; for, more than any man whom I have known, he seemed to me to combine feminine graces with true manliness. The following letter which I have received will be read with interest : — LIFE OF DR. APPLETON, 2R 'From the Bev. F. JE. Warren, Fellow of Si. John's College, Oxford. I gladly comply with your request that I would put down on paper some of my recollections of C. E. C. B. Appleton's career at St. John's College, Oxford. When I matriculated and came into residence, in October, l86i, he had recently passed through Moderations, and was regarded by a freshman with the sort of awe which is inspired by a senior man. This feeling was, however, modified in my case by the fact that I had known him for some time previously, during the vacations spent by him under his father's roof at Beading, where I was a pupil ; and, as a consequence of this previous acquaintance, an intimacy sprang up between us at college, greater than would be usual between undergraduates of such different university standing. The points in his character which impress me most — writing of events which occurred nearly twenty years ago — are these : — (1) His great industry and powers of application to work. He read for seldom less than eight, and often for ten hours a day. Not being of a very robust constitution, cricket, football, and other violent pastimes had little attraction for him ; and the comparatively gentle exertion of an afternoon walk was usually sufficient for him by way of bodily exercise. His reading was not only steady and continuous, but far wider in its range than was usual among men of his standing, or than was required by the exigencies of university examina- tions. But aelf-culture and general research were the object? at which he aimed, rather than any temporary distinctions in the schools, or triumphs in the narrower grooves within which Special subjects, as parts of the curriculum of the university, are confined. (2) His great earnestness, both intellectual and moral. Self-cultivation to the highest point which, with the limited capacity with which our nature is endowed, it was possible to obtain, was the goal of his efforts ; and in the determination to make the best use of his mental powers he never wavered. His moral earnestness was of a similar intensity. Apart from the supernatural sanctions of morality, an immoral life in any sense, and certainly in its worst sense, was incompatible with the highest cultivation of intellectual life, and as such was consistently avoided. Shunning any deviation from a high 2 22 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. moral ideal himself, he could not tolerate it, if he saw it, or thought he saw it, in others. And here, perhaps, was his weakest point — a want of sympathy with, or of toleration for, the moral or intellectual weaknesses of others. Stern, and justly stern in himself towards any development of idleness or viciousness, he was equally stern towards others ; and no private consideration of friendship or of pity for the inex- perience of youth, or of allowance for juvenile extravagance, would induce him to condone deviations from the path of rectitude. Tet even here, on occasions where, a few years later, his position as Fellow gave him a voice and vote in college meetings, he acted certainly not under the influence of resentment against an individual, but of indignation against the abuse of position and powers, and from a sincere desire to protect the best interests of his college. But, if ever his conduct may have, for a time, given rise to a feeling of hostility, those who felt it would probably now be the first to acknowledge that his actions were never the result of personal pique, but the necessity, real or supposed, of virtuous resentment. (3) Another point in his character, which was especially worthy of notice, was his unselfishness and readiness to help others. In his busiest moments, if any one approached him with any doubt, or any question of difiBculty, he was sure of a patient hearing, and probably of an exhaustive reply. It might be a question of grammar, or of translation, or of ethics, or of theology. The question was carefully listened to, and, when the questioner's back was turned, every available authority on the subject was ransacked, and a complete resume of opinions would be frequently drawn up on paper, and criticized at length, and sent to you the next morning by the college messenger. If there have been those who have reached a greater zenith of popularity among their contemporaries than Charles Appleton, there can be few who can look back on their past lives, and say they have done less evil, or whose example has been of more substantial advantage to those with whom they have been from time to time brought in contact. In 1868 Dr. Appleton contributed an article on "The Dark Ages" to the Jiine number of the Contemporary Meview ; and again, in June, 1869, a criticism on Mr. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 23 Lecky's "History of European Morals.'' Also in the summer of 1868 he undertook a series of articles, chiefly on subjects which lie on the border-land between religion and philosophy, for Blunt's "Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology" and for the " Dictionary of Sects and Heresies" (Eivingtons); but the pressing nature of his duties with regard to the Academy made him unable to complete his engagement. He, however, finished fourteen papers, which appeared in the former work, and several of them were selected for very favourable criticism, while all bear the evidence of careful, conscientious study. The following is a list of the completed articles, of which the two first are permitted to appear in the present volume. Atheism Affections Doubt Cenobites Dualism Emanation Eternity Infinite Buddhism Hermit Head Heart Dark Ages Conceptualism. On Feb. 24, 1871, Dr. Appleton gave evidence before the Select Cqmmittee on University Tests, and was further examined on March 7. His evidence was the subject of an interesting debate in the House of Lords on Monday, May 8, and attracted much general attention at the time. His own recapitulation, given on the second day of his examination, may be quoted in this place. It is hardly necessary to premise that he was in favour of unreserved abolition. I first meant to say, respecting the application of tests at present, that the men affected by them or by their abolition were a small number; secondly, that the influences under which these men came were not influences exercised by persons who might be restrained from exercising such iDfluences by law, but were influences partaking more of the nature of general causes, to which Acts of Parliament do 24 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. not apply ; and thirdly, with respect to the operation of tests, I meant to say that they do not at present act in preventing a destruction of belief, but they intervene at the most inopportune moment in preventing its natural re-construc- tion. These statements involved a criticism on the system of education for the final classical school at Oxford, which awakened considerable discussion, and to which I shall have occasion to refer again as we proceed.^ Dr. Apple- ton then went on to speak of safeguards : — 1 mentioned three, which I thought existed at the present time in Oxford quite independentlyof the tests, andwhichwould continue to exist if tests were abolished. The first and most important of these, in my opinion, is the common feeling of honour existing among tutors of colleges, which would prevent a man, who was slightly older than his pupil, or even a great deal older than his pupil, from abusing his power over that pupil's mind. I think, so long as the tutors and fellows of colleges are gentlemen, we may rest assured that that restraint will operate. The second safeguard, which I conceived to exist already, was the increasing practice of dividing the branches of knowledge ; so that a philosophical question,' such as a question in moral philosophy, may be decided, and men are educated to decide it, without bringing in any religious considerations. The third safeguard was that there already existed in Oxford a number of religious influences quite independent of the university organization.® He now desired to mention a fourth and new safe- guard, which would be introduced by the very fact of the abolition of tests, in addition to the three which exist already : this would consist " in a large infusion, in the course of time, of Eoman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters into the universities." His experience had led him to the conclusion that Nonconformists, as a rule, were more carefully trained, both religiously and theologically, than members of the Church of England of the same age, ' See pp. 93-5. 2 He explains that he is alluding to the " immense influence exercised by Dr. Liddon," and, to a less extent, by some of the parochial clergy. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 25 and lie consequently argued that their presence at Oxford, their interest in theology, and their religious influence socially, would have the desirable effect of keeping "undogmatic Christianity" at bay, and preserving the definite outlines of the faith. Another incident of 1871, connected with the siege and capitulation of Paris, shall be recorded in the words of an accomplished writer in the Ee,vuR crUique, M. Paul Meyer : — Si Appleton n'avait ete qu'un litterateur de talent, nous bornerions a enregistrer sa mort dans uotre chronique, les notices necrologiques ne pouvant etre dans la Bevue qu'une exception toujours motivee par des circonstances particulieres. Mais la Bevue critique a contracte envera Appleton une dette de reconnaissance. Au commencement de fevrier 1871, alors que les portes de Paris venaient d'etre ouvertes par la capitulation, celui qui ecrit ces lignes re9ut la visite d'une personne arrivant de Londres — c'etait le P. Hyacinthe — qui lui remit, au nom d' Appleton et de V Academy, uue somme de 10,000 fr., pour etre distribuee entre les ^rudits et litterateurs que nos malheurs auraient mis dans une situation embarrassee.^ Cette somme etait le produit d'une souscription faite entre les collaborateurs de V Academy. Elle fut, selon les intentions du donateur, employee partie en dous, partie enpr^ts. Cefut un acte de bienfaisance accompli avec discretion. Ceux-la seuls le connurent qui y contribuerent ou qui en beneficierent. La direction de la Bevue critique, choisie comme intermediaire, fut profondement touchee de I'honneur qui lui etait fait, et si ces lignes tombent sous les yeux de ceux qui, en de doulou- reuses circonstances, a I'initiative d' Appleton, ont accorde aux savants fran9ais un temoignage de sympathie, elles leur porte- ' Extrait d'une lettre d' Appleton, 19 f^vrier 1871 : — "The object of sending it (the sum) was to help in the first place the collaborators of the JfCTMe onMqae, especially those who collaborate for the Academy. After them for the collaborators of the Eevue (t/rchSologiqwe, &c. It appears to me that in these categories would be found many men who held several offices, and had lost by the war all or most of these ; . . . . and that, by placing the sum at the disposal of yourself, or one of your colleagues in the redaction of the Reone critigae, it could be used here and there with discretion, lent or given as seemed most acceptable, in all ways tendered ~ in such a way that a gentleman could accept it." 26 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. ront I'expression de notre vire reconnaissance. Efc quant a ceux de nos compatriotes qui furent releves d'uQe gSne momentanee grace a V Academy, ila n'apprendront pas sans regret la fin prematuree d'un homme qui, dans ses actes corame dans ses ecrita, fut toujours conduit par la passion du bien. (15 mars 1879.) I am glad to be able to carry on the narrative of this important part of my brother's life by means of a contribu- tion from Mr. James S. Cotton, late Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, one of the essayists in the volume on "The Endowment of Eesearch," who also has ample knowledge of the circumstances connected with the history of the Academy : — Those who knew Dr. Appleton best would be disposed to dwell most upon the theoretical bent of h'is mind, as its dominant characteristic. He himself always regretted that his other duties never allowed him leisure to formulate in detail those metaphysical speculations of which he has left us but a single incomplete specimen. What he might have accomplished in this direction is now unknown. The world judges, and necessarily must judge, by work done, and not by hopes held out. The wort to which Dr. Appleton gave his life was practical. To philosophy, his first love, he was never inconstant ; but the call of duty compelled him to postpone his courtship to another day, which he was never destined to see. In default of others, he voluntarily undertook 'the obligation of leading a public life, and immersing himself in the details of business. While his friends stayed at Oxford, he went forth into the world, willing to spend and be spent for the sake of the common object they all alike had in view — the promotion of learning. Dr. Appleton's practical talents were chiefly manifested in two arduous enterprises, by both of which his name will long be remembered. He founded the Academy, and he organized the movement in favour of the endowment of research. Concerning both of these it is necessary that something should be said in this place, but matters so recent and so intimately connected with the names of persons still alive can only be treated with a considerable measure of reticence. For some time before the foundation of the Academy LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 27 Dr. Appleton bad been considering how best he might devote himself to the cause of learning. His residence in Germany, and his experience of G-erman universities, had deeply im- pressed him with the dignity of the life of the savant, and with the importance of diffusing the results of scientific study more widely among the cultivated classes of this country. It was at about this period that he eagerly took up a scheoie for the publication in English of the master-works of the political thinkers of all ages and of all countries.^ This scheme failed of accomplishment ; but meanwhile the idea of the Academy was gradually gathering shape in his mind. In concert with a band of Oxford friends, almost every one of whom survived him, he planned and laboured and agitated, with all the enthusiasm of youth and of disinterested purpose , until at last the Academy was brought into existence. At first it was proposed that the journal should consist largely of original communications, with resumes of recent publications by competent hands rather than what is generally under- stood in England by " reviews." In short, the well-known lAterarisehes Centralhlatt was to be taken as a model. At this stage, also, it was suggested that the journal (still without a name) should be divided into six departments, each under the direction of a separate editor skilled in his own branch of learning. At a somewhat later date, when the nujnber of departments was to be reduced to three. Dr. Appleton modestly described his own position as being con- cerned with only " the mechanical part of the labour of editing." The first draft prospectus of the proposed new Monthly Journal of Science was privately circulated in April, 1869. The favour with which this prospectus was received at once forced attention to some details of business which had hitherto been lightly regarded. It was felt that the undertaking, from its growing magnitude, demanded that one man must stand forth as responsible editor, and also that the editor must take up his home in London. The universal con- sensus of his fellow-projectors pointed to Dr. Appleton as the person who could best satisfy the requisite conditions. He had not yet settled down as an Oxford teacher, nor in truth was he particularly anxious to do so. His Fellowship supplied him with that hold upon the university which was essential from the point of view of the original scheme. His exu- 1 See pp. 84-5. 28 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. berant energy, his keen knowledge of men, his practical grasp of details, his devotion to an idea once firmly conceived, the wideness of his intellectual sympathies and the eharm of his social manners — all these were qualifications for the editor- ship, each of them strong, l)ut in their combination unequalled. It thus happened, as it were by natural selection, that Dr. Appleton, who had founded the Academy, became also its first editor. Shortly afterwards, he removed his permanent residence from Oxford to London •} and the projected journal was launched, not in the quiet of a university town, but amid the busy stir of the metropolis. Oct. 9, 1869, was the date of the first appearance of the Academy, "A Monthly Eecord of Literature, Learning, Science and Art," with the motto "Inter silvas academi quaerere verum." The number consisted of 30 quarto pages of text, with 20 additional for advertisements. The following is a list of the contributors, according to the order in which their names occur : — Matthew Arnold, H. de B. Hollings, G. A. Simcox, G-ustave Masson, H. Lawrenny (Edith Simcox), Sidney Colvin, J. B. Lightfoot, T. K. Cheyne, T. H. Huxley, Sir J. Lubbock, A. Neubauer, H. N. Oxenham, O.W. Boase, G. Waring, H. F. Tozer, Th. Noldeke, Mark Pattison, D. B. Monro, J. Conington, E. Ellis. It was scarcely to be expected that the Academy would maintain the high-water mark of distinction implied by such a collection of names as this. But, despite all the vicissitudes to which it has been subject, it has always attempted to hold fast the principles upon which it was founded, and at least it has never abandoned the rule of admitting none but signed reviews. Erom February, 1 87 1, the Academy appeared fortnightly instead of monthly. Three years later, in January, 1874, it gained a publisher of its own, and began to appear every week. It has survived the crisis in its existence caused by the death of its founder and editor, and it still continues under the management of one who worked in 1 After living for a short time in London, Dr. Appleton took up his quarters at Netley Cottage, Hampstead, the pretty artistic home where it was his pride and pleasure to bring together gradually the goodly collection of books, engravings, china, old furniture, &c., which formed, as it were, the Betting of his busy life. Many of those who read these pages win, I am sure, have very pleasant memories of this hospitable retreat.— J. H. A. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 29 willing Bubordination to Dr. Appleton for more than five years, and who was designated by him aa Tiis successor at the very last. The present occasion is not suitable for tracing the history of the Academy. So far as Dr. Appleton is concerned, it is sufiB.cient to say that for almost ten years his life was identified with it, as the life of a parent sometimes is with that of a child. As founder, as editor, and as part proprietor, he united in his own person all the multifarious duties that can arise in a literary concern. He was familiar with every detail of the publishing and advertising departments. He maintained communications not only with contributors and authors, but also with booksellers, with printers, with adver- tising agents, and with men of capital. It was not so much a paper that he edited as a business that he conducted. "Wherever he went, whether paying visits of pleasure or travelling for health, the Academy was ever in his thoughts, and its name was ever foremost on his lips. Anxieties, from which an ordinary editor is free, daily pressed upon him, but only stimulated his courageous heart to fresh exertions. Nothing could dim his enthusiasm or daunt his perseverance. In season and (as some might think who knew not the simplicity of his nature) out of season, he advocated the claims of his paper upon the public with all the ardour of a projector, and with all the eloquence of a man of letters. Unfortunately, his physical strength proved unequal to the continual strain imposed upon it. His friends observed with pain that work and anxiety were gradually sapping a con- stitution that was at no ti^jie robust. To have argued with Dr. Appleton that he should spare himself while the Academy was in need of his services, would have been futile. But his labour had the only reward he desired. Before he left England for the last time he had the satisfaction of knowing that his paper was placed, by his own exertions and at his own pecuniary sacrifice, in a position where he could securely leave it for a time. Absorbing as was the business of founding and watching over the Academy, Dr. Appleton's activity found vent in a second practical enterprise, which would have been enough in itself to occupy the time and establish the reputation of most men. He invented the phrase, once ridiculed but now generally accepted, of "the endowment of research," and he ■organized a public movement in its favour. University reform 30 LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. had always been a favourite subject with him, as with most Oxford mea of his standing. He belonged to a generation which grew up under the immediate influence of the reforms inaugurated by the Commission, of 1854. Open competition and abolition of tests were the two Watchwords of that school ; and to these principles Dr. Appleton always remained constant. But these principles were negative, and not constructive. They represented a protest against the unreformed colleges, rather than an ideal of what a university might be. Such an ideal Dr. Appleton constructed out of his German experiences, and set to work to preach it as a new gospel of academical reform. Eecogaizing, as he always did, the high character and even the commercial value of an Oxford education, he refused to admit that teaching, however excellent, and examinations, however searching, were the sole or indeed the main duty of a university. The average Oxford Liberal, on the other hand, was satisfied to acquiesce in the existing state of things, as being the best of which human nature was capable. " Permit the colleges a little more liberty in initiating legislation, and remove the few remaining clerical restrictions, and all will be well." To this Dr. Apple- ton replied .- " You misconceive the proper functions of an endowed university. It does not exist to be a cramming and boarding school of the first magnitude, but as the home of students who devote themselves to a life of learning for its own sake. History proves that this was so ; and the present circumstances of England imperatively require that original research should be encouraged, or we shall be shamed by the Germans." The rallying cry of the new band of Oxford reformers was sounded by the Rector of Lincoln in his " Suggestions on Academical Organization," publislied in 1868. The attention of the reading public was thus called to the subject, and the followers of physical science fancied that they had discovered a breach through which they might enter into the treasure- houses of the old universities. Dr. Appleton was not content to let the matter rest with the inarticulate approval of the reading public, nor was he any the more disposed to allow learning to be swallowed up by physical science. He stirred up a practical movement, and founded an association ; and he popularized the word " research," as including all branches of study. With one foot planted in London as editor of the Academy, and with the other not yet withdrawn from LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 31 St. Jolin's College, he occupied a most conrenient position from which to appreciate the various opinions of savants, of university reformers, and of men of business. For the second time, he planned, worked and agitated, until the "Association for the Organization of Academical Study" was established. This association included a long list of distinguished names, from London, from the provinces, from Oxford, and from Cambridge. Its first meeting was held in the Freemasons' Tavern, Great Queen Street, on November 16, 1872. The chairman of the meeting was the Eector of Lincoln, who delivered an address emphasizing what he had already written in his book. The general object of the association may be gathered from the following resolution, *hich was passed by a full body without a dissentient : — " That the chief end to be kept in view in any redistribu- tion of the revenues of Oxford and Cambridge is the adequate maintenance of mature study and scientific research, as well for their own sakes as with the view of bringing the higher education within the reach of all who are desirous of profiting by it." The Association for the Organization of Academical Study held one more meeting on May 24, 1873, with Sir Benjamin Brodie in the chair. On this occasion a divergence of opinion between two sections of the members became manifest ; and for reasons it would be idle now to discuss the association was allowed by its promoters to die a natural death. But although a most valuable instrument with which to influence the public mind thus broke in his hand. Dr. Appleton never abandoned his convictions or ceased to work by all the means that remained to him. In concert with the editor of Nature, a journal founded in the same year and the same rponth as the Academy, he set to work upon a private propaganda to influence all those with whom he came into contact, and bided his time for a favourable opportunity for a second public demonstration. This opportunity came when the Eoyal Commission appointed by Mr. Grladstone to inquire into the revenues of the two Universities presented its report. Popular interest was aroused by the apparent magnitude of the wealth disclosed ; and Dr. Appleton's essay on " The Endowment of Eesearch" in the Fortnightly Mevieuo of October, 1874 (afterwards published as one of a collection of essays bearing the same title), was assured of a hearing. Dr. Appleton was not one to let the iron, when once struck, 32 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. get cool. He replied with vigour to the criticisms on his essay which appeared in the periodical press, especially in the Spectator, the Fall Mall Gazette and the Athenaum. A second essay on "The Endowment of Education," in the Theological Eeview for January, 1 875 (read before the Oxford Political Economy Club in the preceding November), was in- tended to carry the war into the enemy's country by showing that unremunerative study possessed a claim for subsidy higher than that of education. This essay was noticed at length in the Times, which also opened its columns to a correspondence in which Dr. Appleton re-asserted his position with additional arguments. Of this long discussion, in which Dr. Appleton, single-handed, fought with a cloud of opponents, the most important part, in his own opinion, was that in which he met the common objection that his "researchers" would only be a new order of sinecurists. To conquer practical difficulties of this nature was a task peculiarly adapted to his energetic and hopeful mind. In the Spectator of October 24, 1874, he published a " Draft Scheme for the Endowment of Eesearch," which he afterwards circulated in a separate form among eminent men of science for their advice and suggestions. As this draft scheme still remains the only attempt to organize the endowment of research, not by sporadic grants to indi- viduals, but as a systematic part of the duty of a university, and as it met with a considerable measure of approval and but little criticism, it has been thought desirable to reprint it in full in this place. It reveals Dr. Appleton's mind at its best, when dealing with a practical problem, and ' is also a favourable example of his lighter style of composition. " Drafi Scheme for the Endowment of Scientific Research. " I . Given, a number of young men who are receiving a liberal education, under the guidance of competent professors, and within the limits of a sufficiently elastic and varied curriculum. A considerable number of these will probably waste their time, or, from different causes, never attain anything' like proficiency in their studies. "We are not concerned with these. The remainder will fall into two classes, perfectly distinguishable by a teacher of ordinary experience, of those who shine because they have naturally agile and vigorous minds, who succeed in study because they LIFE OF DR. APPLETON, 33 would succeed in anything else ; and of those who have a particular aptitude for study, and for a particular kind of study. " 2. In this latter group, consisting of men endowed with different varieties of a special faculty, we thus arrive, by a method of exclusion, at the raw material — the first draft, so to speak, of the scientific class of the next generation. Under our present arrangements, the members of both these classes alike are attracted into the practical professions — educational, legal, medical, civil, &c. — by which money may be made. As life goes on, the distinction between the two kinds of men becomes obliterated, and society suffers a double loss. First, it loses the additions to knowledge which the members of this latter class, or some of them, might have made; and it loses, secondly, by having a portion of its routine business performed by men whose temperament is studious and inventive, rather than practical. This happens because we have no career to offer to the savant at the outset. " 3. But if we had such a career to offer, what would happen is this : — The man who, at the age of twenty, say, felt within himself, or thought he felt within himself, the scientific impulse, would go to the professor under whom he had chiefly studied, and would say, " Now you have seen my work for a couple of years, and you know pretty well what I can do ; do you think I shall make anything of a scientific career, or shall I go into a profession ?" The recommendation of a professor who knows his pupils and possesses their confidence, being given and followed, would then, form the first stage in the " sifting process," and out of the class of promising students, with apparently special capacities, who desire to try the career of research, we should get a still smaller group of men whom an experienced teacher recommends to try it. " 4. Can the professor tell without a formal examination ? It is suggested that he can, for this reason : Because two or three years' experience of the quality of a man's work, under a variety of conditions, is better than three days' experience of the same work done under pressure. But for the satisfac- tion of the public, whose money is to be spent, by all means let us have an examination ; only not a competitive examina- tion. Por we want to know whether the applicant is adequately acquainted with fact, and with the prpsent state of inquiry, as well as adequately trained in scientific method, before we trust him to make investigations himself, for which 34 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. we are to pay. "We do not want to know whether and to what extept (if the expression be pardoned) he has been induced by the prospect of a glittering prize to allow himself to be fattened for the market. But the simple examination which reveals the candidate under pressure, and the professor's opinion of him independently of the examination, should be weighed together by the Board of Electors who have to grant the endowment for research. "5. As to the composition of this Board, it may suffice for the present to say, that it should always contain external and independent elements capable of checking the recommendation , of the local professor, and some men at least of acknowledged eminence as discoverers. " 6. Now, as to the nature of the grant to be made. In annual amount it should be equal to, but not greater than, the average income which the candidate would make if he went into practical life. Otherwise, if a premium be put on research which shall make it monetarily more desirable than other occupations, we shall be embarrassed by an " ugly rush." Let us say enough to live upon, to begin with — perhaps not enough to marry upon. " 7- But the essential point about the grant of endowment for research is, that it should be made for a very limited time, and for the performance of a specific piece of research, to be chosen, of course, by the candidate, subject to the approval of the Board. This will ensure its being a real, and not a fanciful or fruitless investigation, and its being within the lines along which a particular science is advancing. At the same time it should be something distinctly modest in its extent, which ; will not take more than a year, or a couple of years, to gel'" done. And the recipient of the grant should fully understand that he has vested no right to have a similar grant for anothelf ' research when this is over. He is simply paid handsomely for ^ doing a particular job ; nothing more. "8. It is easy at this point to think of a number of meanS whereby he may be made to put forth his whole strength upon this first research. He may do it under the eye of the professor, or, what is more satisfactory, the research may form a part of a larger investigation in which some discoverer of eminence is engaged. In this way he is at once made a citizen of the Eepublic of Science, and a healthy emulation will spring up in him by intercourse with those who are engaged on other parts of the same investigation. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 35 " g. Let us now suppose the term of the first grant nearly- expired, and the first research done. It should then be presented for acceptance in the form of a paper to the Eoyal Society, or to one of the other learned societies of London. It is either accepted or rejected. If rejected, it is clear that the author has mistaken his vocation, and that both the professor and the Board have made a blunder. But it is a blunder, both in reference to the community and in reference to the person more immediately concerned, of the very smallest practical consequence. A few hundred pounds have been spent in trying an experiment ; a further grant, if the candidate desires itj which is improbable, will be refused; and he is not too old to enter with success upon some other walk of life. If, on the other hand, the learned society accepts his research as a real contribution to knowledge, we shall let him choose another problem of larger dimensions, occupying a longer time, and with an increase in the annual payment, but in all other respects upon the same terms. " 10. This precarious and terminable, as opposed to permanent endowment, such as we have in a Fellowship, should go on, with slight increase in the annual amount of each successive grant, for ten or twelve years — i.e., until the scientific habit of mind has been thoroughly formed in the recipient, and he has arrived at an age at which the choice of another profession is practically closed to him. He would, according to the hypothesis, have done by this time a good number of thoroughly real researches, and then we could safely give him an endow- ment for life, the amount of which should be equal to the income of a barrister or a medical man in fairly good practice, of a clerk who had been a dozen years in a public office, or of a junior partner in an average business — say ;^8oo or ;^I,000 a year. And if he at any time of his life makes a great discovery, let him be rewarded as Sir G-arnet "Wolseley has been rewarded for his conduct of the Ashantee campaign — by an additional annuity on an equally liberal scale. In this way, the profession of Science could be made to compete on equal terms with the practical professions ; and it should be re- marked that during the period of probation, the endowment, although precarious and terminable, is really continuous, and not only continuous, but increasing in value, just as the income derived from a "practical profession would have been. "II. Lastly, the learned *and scientific societies should be endowed to an extent which would enable them to carry" on D 36 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. their business and to print their transactions ; because it is a WBlI-known fact that, in the ease of some of them, it is found necessary, from sheer want of funds, to admit to membership a multitude of persons who have no pretension to the character of savants. It is probable that, in the majority of cases, the council of an unendowed society might be trusted, for com- petence, to perform the part, which in the present scheme is assigned to them, of accepting or rejecting the researches which we have supposed our young scientific men to' make ; but if the society be dependent upon its subscriptions, it is obvious that the introduction of incompetent persons upon the council is within the bounds of possibility ; whereas, in the case of a learned body like the Eoyal Society such a contin- gency and its consequences are scarcely conceivable." The year ,1876 was a memorable one for the cause which Dr. Appleton had at heart. The Conservative Ministry brought forward their long-expected measure for the reform of the Universities by means of a Commission ; and it was found that " research" figured prominently in their permissive scheme. In the first blush of surprise, it appeared as if Dr. Appleton's arguments, which had never been refuted by his anonymous opponents in the press, had carried conviction to the minds of responsible politicians. . In his address as Lord Eector to the students of Edinburgh on Dec. 17, 1875, the Earl of Derby had foreshadowed the coming measure in words which justified all that Dr. Appleton had ever written : — " Who knows how many discoveries might be worked out, how many conquests of man over Nature secured, if for, I do not say a numerous body, but even for some 50 or lOO picked men, such modest provision were made that they might be set apart, free from other cares, for the double duty of advancing and diffusing science "Whatever is done, or who- ever does it, I think that more liberal assistance in the prosecutipn of original scientific research is one of the recognized wants of our time." In moving the first reading of the Oxford Bill in the House of Lords on February 24, 1876, the Marquis of Salisbury made the following statements : — " The only point in this connection to which I wish to call attention is that referring to research. We are of opinion that the mere duty of communicating knowledge to others does not fulfil all the functions of a university ; and that the LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 37 best univerBities in former times have been those in which the instructors, in addition to imparting learning, were en- gaged in adding new stores to the already acquired accumu- lation of knowledge Another consideration which weighs upon me in urging the claims of research to a full recognition is that in recent times it has suffered some detriment from the fact that it has been pursued by men who have not possessed arms sufficiently robust to enable them to fight their way." It is given to few men who lead a forlorn hope, as Dr. Appleton had done, to see their repeated assaults suddenly result in what looked like an unconditional surrender. The actual working of the TJniversity Commissioners, so far as it has become known, has unfortunately given little confidence that they are themselves imbued with the spirit of Lord Derby and Lord Salisbury. It may be that the obstructiveness characteristic of all ancient corporate bodies, the dead weight of vested interests, and, still worse, of vested anticipations, and possibly the fall in agricultural rents, have hampered their good intentions. Whatever the immediate results may be, it is something to be able to say that " research" will henceforth be officially recognized as one of the duties of a university, and will appear side by side with religion and education in the statutes of every college. Besides taking part in preparing the scheme for St. John's College, Dr. Appleton was examined before the Oxford Commissioners on October 24, 1877. As the Report has not yet been published, it would be improper to refer more particularly to his evidence. As usual, he dwelt most upon the practical objections urged against the scheme for the endowment of research with which his name is identified. But to return to 1876. In May of that year also appeared a volume of" Essays on the Endowment of Eiesearch," by various writers (Hfenry S. King & Co., London), which Dr. Appleton edited, and in which he republished the two essays already referred to. The Hector of Lincoln wrote an introduction entitled " Eeview of the Situation ;" and the other contribu- tors were Professors Nettleship and Sayce, the Eev. T. K. Cheyne, Mr. H. 0. Sorby, Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer, and Mr. J. S. Cotton. These names are but a sample of those who were proud to follow Dr. Appleton's lead, and are now honoured by the recollection that they were associated with him in a movement that has not been altogether barren of D 2 38 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. results, and is every day spreading its influence though its champion is gone. On the last day of July, 1 875, Dr. Appleton left Eng- land for America. The journey was undertaken chiefly for reasons connected with the Academy, and consequently a great part of his time was occupied with literary business, while his movements were largely determined hy the same cause. He, however, had many friends in America, who gave him a hearty welcome, and ensured his introduction into the best circles. I have selected a few passages from his diary, some of which may perhaps be open to the criticism of saying what many have said before ; but they will be iuteresting to many, and will at least serve to illustrate his wide sympathy and powers of observation. Of the voyage over the Atlantic he writes : — There were two episodes .... which I would willingly remember. On the day after we left, Aug. I, the ship called at Queenstown about 2 o'clock and stayed till nearly 6. It is a wide and beautiful bay, with green low hills on either side, and Italian and Swedish ships riding at anchor Here the women came out in a boat to sell grapes and lace ; and we pulled up the articles iu a basket and let the money over the side of the ship. I fancy I must have sold somewhat over £^ worth for a good woman, who rewarded me for my pains by the gift of a lace necktie The other episode was the singing of hymns by the Americans, who composed the majority of our party, on the following Sunday. The tunes were new to me and exceedingly beautiful, of the Dis- senting chapel type, but thoroughly refined ; the hymns were many of them well-known English ones, such as " Eock of Ages." As we sat in the waning twilight, with the sun setting on our port, I could not help thinking of the good people on the Mayflower The women sang well and sweetly, and there was a simple charm abciut the whole thing. He notes carefully some features of. the domestic architecture of New York : — LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 39, The predominant appearance of the streets, at first sight, is foreign — French or German. The shops, with cellars under- neath and with gold letters on a black ground, savour of G-ermany ; while the frequent sight of mountain ashes in the streets, and the green louvre shutters everywhere observable and standing in strong contrast with the red brick of the houses — a red produced by painting on the brick- — confirm the im- pression. As one looks more closely at the structure of the houses, one sees that this is based on the old English "Queen Anne" house of the last century. There is the same general squareness and solidity of build ; the same row of formal windows, set flush with the woodwork instead of four inches back, as we set them now, the frames delicately and severely moulded ; the same square and ample doorway, with pilasters, and horizontal ' tooth ' moulding along the top, with rosettes in the angle of intersection and panelling in the doors and in the frames. Occasionally these doors have a semicircular top, like ours of the period of the Eegency. The sama modelling is to be found in the old wooden houses of the Massachusetts villages, with greater slightness of appearance, arising from the use of wood instead of brick. In ITew York the more modern houses are buUt of brown sandstone or of white granite and marble ; but they preserve the essential features of the style of English last century work. The Gothic revival and the gin-palace style have not yet invaded America. After a visit to Philadelphia and the Centenmal bmldings, he went on to Newport, Ehode Island, where his friendship with Mr. Andrews and his family gave him a very pleasant visit. Here also he made the acquain- tance of Col. Higginsou, Professors Eogers, Cooke and Gibbs, Mr. Calvert, Mr. Laf arge, Mr. Lathrop, Mr. Agassiz and others. On Aug. 2 5 there is the following entry : — Drove to the meeting of the Town and Country Club to hear a paper read on old notices of Newport by Colonel Higginson. He .... gave, from some old letters and documents, .... an account of the advent of French troops and officers under Count Bochambeau, when the English were encamped on Long Island. The French seem to have made furious love to the Newport beauties, amongst whom were mentioned Miss Hunter and Miss Champlain, whose names are still handed 40 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. dowu in connection with the Hunter and Champlain houses, which I have visited. The most renowned of them all was the beautiful Quaker maiden, Polly Leighton or Lawton — the name is still borne in Newport — who wore a bewitching cap, concealing all her blonde hair but half an inch, and a white dress and plentiful white neckerchief, and who startled the Frenchmen with her "thees" and "thous," and with her dis- approval of their coming and meddling in the war. One notice described "Washington leading oflF a minuet at Newport with the beautiful Miss Hunter I talked some time with Mark Twain (Mr. C. Clemens) who sat next me, and appeared to have a very fine head and face. He was delighted with the old Newport houses, as also with some he saw in Nantucket and Middleborough : the descriptions are too long and minute for quotation, and are illustrated with rough pen sketches, showing the care with which he examined every point. Shortly after, he visits Berkeley's Eock : — A mass of pudding-stone overgrown with lichens The swampy ground around abounds in crickets and mos- quitos, and I got badly bitten on the hands Bishop Berkeley's house is about two miles up the country beyond the rock. The wooded ravine behind the rock, called Paradise, is a favourite resort of artists A picture of it would give the idea of an extensive mountain scene, although the place is very small ■ and one wall of the glen singularly thin ; but there are no houses near, and the trees are all stunted, so that there is no standard of size. He observes that the grasshoppers are very large : — I saw one at Nantucket which was beautifully coloured on the inside of its wings — black, with a pale yellow border. The crickets keep up a perpetual chirp day and night, even in the region of the hotel, and their various notes seem to amalgamate into a shrill low whistle, swinging in regular time. A " spread" is a new sensation to him : — I went down at I o'clock to bathe. At this hour the "fuU dress " is not required, and it is the custom, after coming out of the water, to lie down and roll in the dry sand for half an hour or an hour. It gives a glow to the system, and goes by LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 41 the name of " sun-bath," " sand-bath," or vulgarly, " spread." Some forty or fifty people were lying about to-day, rolling, jumping, turning summersaults, conversing with their friends, smoking, Ac. I tried it, and found it fairly agreeable Many go into the water again after the sand-bath ; to-day I did not, but simply wiped the dry sand off the skiu, after lying for about twenty-five minutes. After a few more experiences he becomes more en- thusiastic, and writes : — August 30, 1.30. — Bath and "spread," lasting an hour and a half altogether, including walk It does one a great deal of good. From Aug. 31 to Sunday, Sept. 5, he stayed at Shelter Island, under the hospitable roof of Professor Horsf ord. It was a period of repose he much enjoyed after three weeks of almost incessant movement and business. "The long mornings spent on the lawn under the shade of the trees were very restful ;" and he seemed " so thoroughly and cordially welcome" that he felt able to prolong his visit beyond the time originally contemplated. There is naturally little to record of such a period j but the idyllic " straw-ride," when " we all got into a country cart filled with straw, and sang songs by starlight, while driving through the country lanes," must not be entirely passed over. After a short stay at Naushon Island, and a visit to the Fish Laboratory at "Wood's Hole, where he was received with " much courtesy by Professor Verrill,"' he hurried on to the White Mountains, so as to be in time to hear Henry Ward Beecher preach, on Sunday, Sept. 1 2. He was not much impressed with the " worshippers" of the great preacher, who crowded the hotel, and whose talk was " underbred, loud, incessant ;" but of the sermon he speaks thus : — The sermon was on the text, " Let your light so shine before men," &c., and urged the importance of commending > He afterwards had the advantage of a. long chat, at Boston, with Professor Baird. 42 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Christianity, by making the life of the Christian visibly beauti- ful and attractive. There were several allusions to the late Beecher-Tilton scandal, to which I understand the preacher is fond of referring. As a literary composition the sermon was inferior to one of Spurgeon's ; it repeated itself, and was occasionally guilty of the sort of grammatical slips which may pass in conversation, but ought to be avoided by a trained orator. Beecher walked about a little as he delivered the discourse from copious notes ; and he not unfrequently con- descended to raise a laugh by a good story, a pun, or a bit of Yankee dia]ect. But there was a good deal of sound expe- rience, and a thoroughly moderate, human and possible view of the religious life. He was disappointed vdth Quebec ; " altogether the impression was one of dulness, bleakness, squalor and excessive provinciality." Perhaps the weather had some- thing to do with it, which was cold and windy, and gradually developed into a tremendous hurricane or " gulf -storm." The appearance, on the other hand, of Montreal " was bright and cheerful :" here is a description of the market : — I too.k a turn in the Bonsecours Market, overlooking the river, and among the fruit and other stalls in the street below. It was a very bright and busy scene, more like an Italian seaport — Grenoa, for instance — than anything I remember. The view of the wharves and the bridge, which spans the St. Lawrence, and of the stalls below, from the balcony of the market, was very delightful. As one walked along till one came inside the meat market, the view of the stores was most picturesque, with the wide sunny outlook over the river seen through the window, partially shrouded by bits of thin louvre blind, ragged and hanging all askew. A Dutch painter might have made a charming gewre picture out of any of them ; and then this meat market was thoroughly pure and sweet, and the butchers well-looking and courteous men. He rarely criticized unfavourably what he saw or heard in church, but he thus records his experience of a Sunday at Montreal : — "Went to high mass at Notre Dame, a church with a fine exterior, but ugly and tawdry within. The music was LIF^ OF DR. APPLETON. 43 ambitious, but badly played and sung, and we had a very foolish sermon, in Prench, on the " Seven Dolours of Mary :" it struck me as thoroughly hollow and unreal. The preacher prefaced his discourse by reading a pastoral from the Arch- bishop, declaring that, for the pacification of the public mind, he advised no further opposition to the burial of Guibord, the excommunicated member of the Institut Canadien, in the Catholic part of the cemetery ; but that, by "the divine power" committed to him, he interdicted the site of this tomb in par- ticular as an unholy spot. At Toronto he met Goldwin Smith. A few notes are preserved of a long and interesting conversation : — He took a pessimist view of the literary acquirements and demands of Toronto. He could only remember one literary man, or man with literary tastes, amongst his acquaintances, and he thought that " even now" — i.e., after the main bulk of his library had been given to Cornell — he had the best collec- tion of books, public or private, in Toronto. The people were for the most part " lumberers," and those who were not were the flunkeys of the mock Court of Ottawa. He thought the allegiance to a distant throne was the bane of Canada, and must sooner or later come to an end. The Canadians would get into some complication, pecuniary or otherwise, and would fly for help to the United States. At the same time, he regarded the distinct existence of Canada as a boon, because Democracy in the United States was anything but perfect, and Canada provided for a balance in the political opinion of the continent. The weakness of the Canadian people, which made it so difficult for it to combine together into an independent nation, was its heterogeneous character and the want of sympathy between the two races of its popula- tion. The union with the empire of Great Britain led Canada into acquisitions — as, e.g., of the N.W. Provinces — which could only be a burden to it by itself, and was simply the carrying on of the imperial idea over an area in which it ehould find no place. Then, again, the Canadians had learned of Great Britain the miserable system of government by party, which had no raison d'etre, as there was no important point of difference between the two parties. We then spoke of International Copyright. He thought the best policy to advocate was free trade in books, and 44 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. considered that Mr. was under some misapprehensian in saying that the position of the American author aad artist was defined by the constitution in terms express and distinct from those protecting any other producer. He was himself in faTOUT of protection under certain limitations — i.e., he thought that no more imposts should be laid on than were required for revenue purposes, and that these should be made to fall so as to benefit, and, in eases where it was weak, pro- tect the industry of the country itself. This clearly had the first claim. As to the American publishers, he thought that they were too much in love with the profits of piracy to be willing to have the duty taken off foreign books, or to have a copyright treaty. We then turned to the subject of the Endowment of Eesearch. He thought that the Fellowship reform was bearing such good fruit, considering the short time Oxford " had really been a university," that this was the proper way of endowing it. The Fellows had half the year to themselves; but what impeded research was the Sybaritism which of late had been creeping over Oxford. I said this arose from the depressing quality of the climate. He answered that, except whilst at Magdalen, he had not found it depressing. I spoke of the competitive system being prejudicial to original work, in that it made the student mercenary and limited the curri- culum. He thought that the mercenary motive of getting on could not be eliminated from human action : certainly, in his own ease, it was the desire to please his friends, by getting a good class, and registering in some tangible way his powers and acquirements, which led him to take an interest in letters "at all. Otherwise, he should have preferred to keep a horse and enjoy himself. As to the limitation of the curriculum, he thought it was quite possible to introduce any amount of variety into this, and of option, compatibly with the competi- tive system. I then said that the Fellowship system was universally con- demned by public opinion of all parties, and was regarded by everybody as certain to go. This he regretted, and thought it had not yet had time to give itself a fair trial. I reminded him, too, that the great manufacturing towns were putting in an imperative claim for portions of our old endowments. This he thought ought to be resisted : it was a mistake to try to carry away to the provinces the semblance of university culture, without the reality I told him UFE OF DR. APPLETON. 45 that the American scientific men were, almost to a man, much more unreservedly with me than the English. He answered, " That is because they have known nothing hut the endless routine of education, and have not enjoyed the leisure which English Fellows have." I asked him if Canada had any future before it : he said, "Yes, if she can become a nation." A visit to Niagara has been made and described so often, that I give only one characteristic extract: — The view on the top of the extreme left brink of the Horseshoe Pall is certainly very grand, and the bright green of the water as it tumbles over extremely beautiful .... Tou get here an idea of the vast body of water .... I was very much pleased with the view of the rapids on this side, fringed by the low woodland to the right, and extending to your left away to an indefinite distance. It recalled a picture of this precise spot which I had seen in my childhood, and which gave me the notion that all scenery in America was like this : just as I once dreamed that in India the air was black and all the objects golden — a fancy derived, no doubt, from the black and gold Indian or Japanese cabinet with which I had always been familiar. At Cleveland, Ohio, he gives the palm to Princes Street, Edinburgh, and High Street, Oxford, over Euclid Avenue ; but he is much struck with the brightness of the placCj and is conscious of a general "impression of refinement," which he did not remember striking him to the same degree elsewhere. Then, after a short stay at Chicago, we next find him at St. Louis, where he is pleased to meet a brother Hegelian, Dr. Harris, the editor of the Jowrnal of Speculative Philosophy : — He (Dr. Harris) seemed right glad to see me, and honoured Professor Gilman's introduction with great cordiality. We talked about Hegel, whom he finds time to read and develop ; and about Green, Wallace, Caird, and other English philoso- phic writers, about whom he seemed very pleased to hear personal details. He said the members of the Hegel Associa- tion were just then engaged in reading Wallace's book at their meetings. His own especial study for some years had 46 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. been the Phenomenology, about which we talked a good deal, as we walked up and down the Mississippi bridge by lamp- light. Like all Hegelians, he would not give a direct answer to a question, but allowed his mind to play freely over Hegelian . topics, and let me gather his reply from the general tenor of his remarks. One point he seemed to have a clear notion about — or rather two points — which I have never been able to determine so exactly ; the meaning of the Begriff and the Idee. The Begriff is a thing as determined by the snm of its conditions, in the metaphysical sense of absolutely all its conditions, or the Universe quoad one point of it. The Idee is the complexus of all the Begriffe — i.e, of each of the things which in the Begriff figure as conditions, re- garded themselves as cosmically conditioned in like manner. Thus the Begriff of a is as as conditioned by h, o, d, &c., to n. The Idee is the complexus of a as conditioned by h, c, d, &c., to n. h „ „ a, c, d, „ to n. c „ „ a, h, d, „ to n. and so on to n. Another point about Hegel, which Dr. Harris accentuated, was this : when Hegel, in the course of his dialectic, arrives at a certain stage, he always names it before passing on. In the evening I went to Harris's private house, after the walk on the bridge, and met Mr. D. J. Snider, a master in the High School, a very able man, who talked well and precisely about Hegel, and corrected me in my rusty inaccuracies more than once. We ate a kind of sour cream and biscuits, and drank copious draughts of the most excellent Lager Bier I ever tasted. After a short stay at Cincinnati, where he made the acquaintance of Judge Stallo, and heard Governor Hayes address the mob on the hard money and school question in Ohio — "he spoke well and soberly, reasoning out the money question clearly " — he went on to Washington, "936 miles, which we accomplished in about twenty hours," a large part of the journey being through " the lovely valley of the Potomac" : — LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 47 I bad a comfortable armebair in the smoking-room of the parlour car .... which was conveniently at the end of the train ; so that we Could look not only through the windows on all sides, but through the open door, and see this charming scene perpetually receding before us. The colours of the trees were very varied— -puce, orange, orange-red, straw-yellow, crimson, scarlet, brown and green. The country on each side of the river was as broken and full of variety as in the Passumpsic valley, and the sunshine was most brilliant. Harper's Ferry is a lovely spot; and the old building used in the skirmish of John Brown was still in ruins. I read Colonel Higginson's book, " History of the United States for Young Polks," as I passed through the scenes of the war, and got a sort of general outline. At Washington lie is full of business, chiefly connected with the Academy, for which he took out a copyright : " Spofford declares that it will protect me from being quoted without acknowledgment." He also had an interesting conversation with Sir E. Thornton, the British Ambassador. Of the Library of Congress, where he had occasion to work for some hours, he says : — It was as deserted as the Bodleian, and as comfortable to read in, eyerything being brought quite promptly, and there being no interruptions. Two more extracts may be made — the second, if the information given was correct, revealing rather a strange state of things : — Was driven into the country by Mr. Spofford in his buggy. The environs of Washington are very charming, and quite English in their aspect. We drove up to the Soldiers' Home, situated on a hill amidst beautiful trees, from which we got charming views of the town and river — notably one, of the white dome of the Capitol, through a gap in the trees, called Capitol Vista Lost my umbrella in the lavatory of the hotel : a lot of noisy groups crowded the whole area of the entrance-hall. The porter told me that not a few were bad characters, and that almost all carried revolvers and bowie knives ! 48 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. On Oct. 8 lie went to stay at Irvington with Mr. Cyrus Field, whose name has become historical in con- nection with the great work of laying the Atlantic cahle. It was evidently a very interesting and enjoyable visit ; but the diary at this point becomes rather fragmentary, and does not readily admit of quotation. A few extracts shall, nevertheless, be given : — We drove this evening to the house of Washington Irving, and were admitted to see his study. The house is of stone, with gables, having flowing outline, and gives one the itu] pression of a seventeenth-century building. I understand, however, that the old house was destroyed and the present one built within the memory of my informant Mr. rield talked this evening very agreeably about his English friends, amongst the most intimate of whom was John Bright. He also had a great regard for Dean Stanley, whom he knew well, and had " the highest opinion of his mind and his charitable goodness." Went out after breakfast with Mr. Field in the carriage, and drove to Sleepy Hollow, a lovely spot, with gently un- dulating ground on either side, crowned with woods in all their autumn glory. In the afternoon I went another drive with Miss Pield to various points from which good views of the Hudson could be obtained. The great river reminds one of the Ithine, and is all the better for the absence of the chess-board pattern made by the vineyards upon the hills. Here they are clothed with trees, at present beautifully variegated with red and gold and russet and brown. One more quotation must bring the American episode to an end. On Oct. 30 he dined with the Saturday Club at Boston, where he met, amongst other celebrities, Mr. Emerson, Mr. Lowell, Professor Wolcott Gibbs, Mr. J. M. Forbes, Professor Peirce, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Mr. Howells, Mr. Clemens (Mark Twain), Dr. Cabot, &c. Dr. Holmes was highly talkative and agreeable. He con- verses very much like the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, wittily and in a literary way, but perhaps with too great an LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 49 infasion of ptysiological and medical metaphor He is a little deaf, aud has a mouth like the beak of a bird : indeed, he is, with his small body and quick movements, very like a bird in his general aspect. When poor Kingsley was in Boston he met Holmes, .... who came in, frisked about and talked incessantly, K. intervening with a few words only occasionally. At last Holmes whisked himself away, saying, " And now I must go." " He is an insp-sp-sp-ired j-j-j-h-ack- daw," said Kingsley. After dinner, Mr. Emerson, who had greeted me most warmly on my entering the room, came up to Dr. Holmes' end of the table for a talk. He said he had hoped to have me as his guest — so also said Mr. Lowell — if another arrangement had not been made. He talked very freely and pleasantly, but his memory seems considerably impaired, especially in regard to names Speaking of SheUey, he said that he thought the English were quite wrong in admir- ing him ; but few of his lines were really good, and many of his subjects were horrible. " There is one of his tragedies — what is it called ?" " Queen Mab ?" paid I. " No." " Cenci, perhaps ?" " Yes, Cenci ; that is horrible. But there is another man, who has written a poem which I like ; I can't speak his name at this moment." " Keats ?" " Tes, Keats ; and there is a poem of his with gods and goddesses in it, which is good." Byron he admired, as a real poet who was to his mind. I said that to me he did not appeal as an imaginative writer ; but as a writer in verse of agreeable and pointed narration and fine thoughts. He thought " Childe Harold " particularly good. I asked him why he had put six poems of William AUingham in his " Parnassus," and only three of Browning ? He said that he could not admire or read Browning ; a principal merit of a poet was lucidity, and Browning was not lucid. I said that ia a room in which Browning was life-size, AUingham would be invisible to the naked eye. " Yet ' Touchstone' is a good poem," he replied. " Browning's obscurity," I said, " arises from his being the child of his age. We are all in these days detached from our old mooriugs, and are reaching forward, both in thought and emotion, into the unknown, and putting to sea without a compass. Our thoughts, instead of being thought out to the end of them, are crossed by other thoughts, and these by others ; so that they are all broken and incomplete. Browning represents so LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. this turmoil in his diction." To this, Emerson said little or nothing. He spoke of his acquaintance with John Sterling, Carlyle's friend, and of the correspondence Sterling (whom he called Stanning and something else at times) had opened with him. He liked his poems. I told Emerson that we regarded Swinburne as one of our greatest poets. " Swinburne is a leper," he said. " Mr. Swinburne has written against me, that Mr. Emerson has called him a leper. I do not remember that I ever said so ; but as he puts the word into my mouth, I adopt it." I mentioned to Mr. Emerson an opinion expressed to me by Mrs. Eanny Kemble, that there was a great deal more talent for poetry and art spread about among the young men and women of America than was to be found in England ; only it came to nothing for lack of discipline. Emerson, instead of meeting the main point of the remark — viz., the question as to the presence or not of a greater quantity of aesthetic talent — said that poetry was not the same as verse- making, and that discipline would not avail without talent. This habit of his— I suppose it has grown upon him in his old age — of not taking the real point of an observation, but fixing upon some quite trivial detail, was exemplified at my first interview with him, two years ago, at the soiree in the Beethoven Eooms, in Harley Street, London, the night when Tom Hughes was installed as President of the "Working Men's Club in Great Ormond Street, in the place of E. D. Maurice. Emerson was very silent that night, and I said, by way of trying to interest him, that a friend of mine, a young barrister, now deceased, had a class of sixteen work- ing men, earning but poor wages, button-makers and the like, with whom he had read Sophocles in the Greek, and that they had shown more appreciation of Greek tragedy than the ordi- nary undergraduate at Oxford. Instead of entering into the main point of the remark, he merely said, " "What was your friend's name ?" " Eobinson." And he then passed on into the crowd. - This trait of mind, which tends to seize on the trivial element in a statement, I have also noted and wondered at in Professor Jowett. His fit of forgetfulness came over him in speaking of Nichol He asked me to come over and see him on Tuesday, November 2, at one o'clock, and that he would ask Mr. Alcott to meet me. " Alcott, he said, is really a man LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 51 of genius. But be sure you come to Concord, Massachusetts ; not Concord, Kew Hampshire. There was a very good man — he was a Professor in Scotland, at Glasgow — who came to the wrong Concord, and went sixty miles out of his way." " Was it Professor Nichol ?" — who had given me a letter to him — "Ah, yea ; Nichol was the man." Some one told me that his forgetfulness was to some extent an affectation ; . . . . but I fear it is only too real a loss of memory, and it embarrasses conversation a good deal. We also talked of Buskin Emerson said he had told his friends at Oxford that he would only come there on a day when he could hear both Euskin and Max Miiller lecture. He was charmed with E.'s lecture, but when E. carried him off to his rooms at Corpus, and began a tirade against railways, telegraphs, and modern civilization generally, Emerson said to his daughter, " I cannot hear this : we must go." So he left Euskin. He said he had been to see Carlyle, who said that Euskin was the best man who came now habitually to see him. Speaking of copyright, Emerson said, "Well, you see, we have no writers in this country." He then rose to catch his train. ' Mr. Emerson speaks with great modesty and diffidence, whilst a smile covers his whole face — forehead, chin, eyes, nose, all taking part in the muscular modification. He has a way of raising one eyebrow a good deal, which gives him the aspect of having one eye somewhat above the level of the other ; and in conversation he is fond of using the phrase, " Tou shall find," &c., which occurs very often in his essays. A long chat with Mr. Lowell and "Maxk Twain," chiefly about the Academy and International Copyright, brought a most enjoyable evening to a olose. Dr. Appleton started for England on Nov. 10, in the Cunard ship, Scythia, and arrived in Liverpool on Saturday, Nov. 20. His American tour had been a great success in every way but one. His business arrangements were satis- factorily completed, he had made many friends, he was sincerely touched by the warmth of the welcome he had 52 LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. received, while of his keen appreciation of American life and scenery the above extracts are a sufficient proof. The one drawback, at which he probably would have laughed at the time, was that his strength was scarcely adequate for the amount of wear and tear which such a tour involved. Dr. Appleton was a man to whom it was very difficult to rest, and yet to whom rest was becoming a real necessity. It was not that he did not get plenty of what is called " change." He entered largely into society in London and Oxford, and his inclination, as well as his duty to the Academy, led him to journey far and wide. But all this was not repose. He excelled in conversation, and was fond of breaking a lance in argument with some worthy antagonist ; but a visit or a dinner party, even when it was not a prelude to business, or when it did not involve, as it did perhaps at Lord Houghton's^ or Sir J. Lubbock's, a gathering of literary and scientific men, was, however enjoyable, yet often somewhat of a mental strain. It certainly was not rest. , There were, no doubt, a few houses where he could thoroughly unbend — at Canons Ashby, for instance, with Sii- Henry Dryden, at Cheltenham, Sydenham, and, I hope I may add, at my own country vicarage, and at Brighton. But it was hard to get him, and harder still to hold him ; though one of his great characteristics was the ease with which he could make himself thoroughly happy in the simple routine of uneventful home-life. One who knew him well writes : — His readiness to enjoy and to be pleased with everything — a quiet afternoon in the garden, a country walk, a chat by the fire, no matter how unexciting the company — made him always a welcome guest. " Whom can we get to meet him ?" ;never needed to be a matter of anxious deliberation, when he ' Lord Houghton writes : " I mucli enjoyed your brother's society, both from his freedom of thought and from his real sympathy with every thing good and great It is a very fine nature lost to mankind. " LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. S3 wrote to ask if he might come and "bring his bag with him." He fell so naturally into our ways that we ceased to regard him as a stranger. His tender consideration and reverence for the elders, and his delight in children, always madehim a pleasant addition to our home circle. To us he knew that he was always welcome, and some- times we really thought "that we had caught him for a long and thorough holiday. But although he had come to us because he was overworked, we often found that he had brought a bag full of papers with him, and it generally ended in his returning to town on some pressing business before the proper term 'of his visit had expired. There was an intensity, moreover, in almost everything he did, even when he was supposed to be taking a holiday. If he went to a concert, it was as a student of music, of which he was passionately fond ; if he read a novel, he analyzed and annotated it. I well remember a tour I took with him in Germany and Switzerland : he was, of course, a charming companion, but to get in his society the repose that we both required was indeed a difiBcult matter. To see everything, to go everywhere, with a complete disregard of distance or fatigue — this was hi§ daily programme. And he was certainly unwell at the time, and quite unfit for the amount of exertion he wished to undergo. His indomitable energy carried him through everything ; but it was a source of danger — it began to wear him out. In the course of the year that followed his visit to America, Dr. Appleton began to suffer some inconvenience with one lung, and in February, 1877, he consulted Dr. Evershed, of Hampstead, on the subject. He wasi told that there was evident weakness, not, however, amounting to actual organic disease. This opinion determined him to try the effect of a short sojourn in a southern climate, and he left England early in thie following month. He was at first very unfortunate in weather, for on arriving at Marseilles he found the " mistral cutting like a knife ;" E 2 54 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. and at Cannes he was laid up with a severe cold. This attack of " influenza," as he calls it, must have served to develop "weakness" into a condition of positive disease; for, on consulting Dr. Bennet, and subsequently Dr. Frank, at Mentone, he was told distinctly that the apex of the left lung was consolidated. The cUmate, however — though he found it somewhat relaxing — coupled with complete rest, produced, in a comparatively short time, a decided change for the better : " the progress of the mischief was stopped," he was pronounced " a good case," but warned that the cure would take two years. I am sorry I have no records of this absence from home which admit of being quoted in this place ; but, in spite of anxieties, he evidently enjoyed his exile. He met many friends, and had the pleasure of spending some part of the time under the hospitable roof of J. B. Andrews, Esq., at Le Pigauti^. After a short tour in Italy, he returned to London on the last day of May. It was, I think, on Sunday, June lo, that, while wandering with me over the hills near Brighton, he told me, for the first time, about the state of his health. He was, no doubt, anxious not to give us pain, and so had hitherto spoken only of a troublesome cold, which he had found it difficult to shake off. I well remember the shock the present announcement was to me. He said, however, that he had placed himself, since his return, in the hands of Dr. Andrew Clark : his trouble was called "fibrosis" the area afiected was very small, it was per- fectly curable, and was in fact in process of cure. As the dreaded words phthisis or consumption were not used in our conversation, and as he had so much to say which served to allay my apprehension, I ended by believing that I had been alarmed too hastily. When he returned to London, and seemed to work on as usual, this favourable view appeared to be confirmed. But notwithstanding Hi-health and Dr. Appleton's LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 55 manifold engagements, the years 1876-7 were not unfruitful in literary work. In November and December, 1876, he contributed two articles to the Contemporary Heview, entitled "A Plea for Metaphysic :" these papers, in conjunction with an article published in the same review, in July, 1874, on "Strauss as a Theologian," were intended to form chapters in a forthcoming work on the " Ego," to appear as a volume of Triibner's " Philosophical Library." A fourth chapter, on "Development," was occupying him when his health broke down more rapidly at the end of 1878. In the present volume, which may be regarded as in some sort a fulfilment of my brother's arrangement with Mr. Triibner, the three completed articles are reprinted, together with a considerable amount of unpublished matter, excluded before by the exigencies of space. They appear, moreover, under the title that the larger work was meant to bear, " What is the Ego ?" Dr. Appleton, also, still continued to give much atten- tion to the important question of Copyright, his interest therein having been greatly quickened by his intercourse with the leading American publishers and literary men. He gave evidence before the Copyright Commission in January, 1877, and in the f olio wiag month contributed a paper, on " American efforts after International Copy- right" to the Fortnightly Review. This article, which is included in this volume, excited a considerable amount of iiiterest at the time of its publication. A careful analysis of its contents appeared in the Times of January 31; and on February 3 the Athenmum printed a long and elaborate comment by Mr. Moy Thomas. There were also important notices in the Pall Mall Gazette, Academy, Exwminer, &c. It must, however, be borne in miad that the article is now reprinted — with additional matter formerly excluded from the Fortnightly Review — simply on account of its historical interest in a volume like the present. The question of International Copyright has considerably advanced since the date of Dr. Appleton's S6 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. paper, and mainly on the lines he foresaw. The American point of view is now very generally recognized in this country; and further, in March, 1879, Messrs. Harper and Brothers issued an important circular on the question,^ modifying their original position, and making the following proposal: — That full copyright in the United States shall, on reciprocal terms, be conferred on English authors, upon the condition that their works shall be manufactured and published in that country, by a citizen thereof, within three months after publication here. On ISTov. I, Dr. Appleton left England for Egypt, in accordance with the recommendation of his medical adyisers. He went, as he expresses it, "as a robust invalid," with sufficient strength and energy to enter fully into the charm of visiting such historic ground, and also with a firm belief that his wanderings in the sunny south would indeed be so many steps on the road to complete recovery. After a pleasant journey he arrives at Alexandria, Which looked most brilliant on thia splendid afternoon, with the whole port covered with little boats filled with Arabs in their various colours : there was also a goodly assemblage of ships both of war and merchandise. I was met by Cook's tourist boat, with rowers in bright red, with the magic name of Cook on their jerseys, and the Maltese agent in the bows. I at once beckoned to him, and he came on board, got off all my luggage, for wnich the Arabs struggled like wild cats, and saw me safely through the custom-house with only the opening of my hand-bag Already I have found it necessary to learn some Arabic, but at present can only say a few sentences, the most impor- tant of which are " Go," and " I do not want a donkey." .... The donkeys in Alexandria disappointed me, being depressed animals, such as one sees in England ; but in Cairo the white donkey is a beautiful creature, holds up its head, looks happy, and is worth a good sum. ' See Academy of April 5, 1879, and of Oct. 23, 1880. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 57- He halts for a time at Shepheard's Hotel, Cairo, Where I have a comfortable room looking into a garden with two pelicans and some swans in it. My things are unpacked ; Kant and Hegel are by my side, and I am quite happy. Captain Burton, the traveller, is next door but one : he is an old acquaintance. After a few weeks at Cairo he goes on to Helouan-les- Bains, where he, at first, planned to remain quiet for the winter : — This is quite a little place, an hour's ride, by a very rickety railway, from Cairo, and between two and three miles from the Nile. I was charmed with it at once, and now have stayed nearly three weeks with great pleasure, and, I hope, some profit I have a splendid room (at the Grand Hotel),nearlytwentyfeet high,withtwo windows, through which I lookout upon the Pyramids To-day we had an influx of soldiers from Cairo to take care of Tewfik Pasha, the heir- apparent, who is come here to visit one of the princesses, who is taking the baths. She is called " Princess No. 2" — that is, she is the second wife of the Khedive, and is' said to be his favourite. The harem is here in the different houses, which have trellis screens and sail-cloth coverings in all the balconies and verandahs, and even on the top of the house, to prevent any of these precious creatures from being seen. The place is full of lanky, black eunuchs, as conceited and insolent as they can stand : every morning they come past the hotel in carriages to take the Isulphur baths. The Khedivial bath- rooms are a curious mixture of luxury and bad taste — yellow damask curtains and the most hideous carpets, that might have been made in Halifax. There is not much to do at Helouan, but Ainongst other diversions are the shooting of the Nile geese; the catching of cobras, which abound in the neighbour- ing mountains ; and lastly, the collection of flint flakes and desert plants. Of the latter there are a number of species : I saw a collection made by Schweinfurth, the African traveller, at the house of Franz Bey, containing nearly 250 examples. He was at length advised by his doctor to take the Nile voyage in a sailing boat, if possible to the Second S8 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Cataract ; and so, leaving Helouan with some regret, he joined a party in the dahabeyah Minnehaha, and is charmed with his new experience : — "We have now been three weeks together, and pleasanter companions it would be difficult to find. There is a dining- room and a drawing-room, the food is excellent, and we have not had a dull, much less a disagreeable half-hour the whole way. The mode of life suits me thoroughly. The air is, of course, splendid — sunshine every day and all day, and not a drop of rain since we left Cairo. The perfect quiet and the ever-changing scene are more like a dream than anything else. There is no mode of travelling in the world that can be compared with it We are now 450 miles or more S. of Cairo, and the weather [in January] is like an English July ; we sit on deck all day with an awning over our heads, on comfortable sofas, with oriental rugs under our feet, and here we read and write and talk. There is always a little excitement, for three of our party are sportsmen, and therp is generally a vulture, or a flamingo, or a crocodile-bird, or more rarely a wild duck or teal, to be had. Pigeon and turtle-doves we don't count: they may be shot by the hundred, and we get them for lunch or dinner every day Then, I do a little work daily at philosophy, and am dabbling in Egyptian antiquities, besides French and English novels. We have made it a rule, in view of the different nationalities on board, to talk English at breakfast, Arabic at lunch, and Prench at dinner, and we pay a small fine of one piastre for using our mother-tongue at forbidden hours. The lunch is generally uproarious, as none of us know more than a few words of Arabic — ^just enough to ask the servants for what we want. In the evening, after dinner, we take it in turns to read out a story from the " Arabian Nights," and finish up with whist Then, again, there is the doctoring of the crew ; and this generally falls to me, as, from hearing medalled " the doctor," the Arabs have got the idea into their heads that I am a Hakim, and I have now the still more honourable title of Hakim Pasha. Their ailments are simple : generally cuts in their hands and feet, or indigestion ; for the first we give cold cream and sticking plaster, and for the last, castor-oil copiously. I have also two patients with bad eyes, and one with a boil on the top of his head, which I have duly poulticed. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 59 .... "We have nearly twenty of these Araha on board, including a dozen for crew, three cooks, two waiters and a dragoman ; and they are all very grateful for the slightest kindness The dragoman is a very handsome Nubian, and a great favourite with ladies ; he has spent two years in Paris, and speaks English also a little. Amongst other qualifications, he belongs to the order of howling and dancing dervishes, and this is a sort of certificate of respectability and honesty, aa none but upright, straightforward men are admitted into these orders. He dresses in the most gorgeous manner, and for the most part in good taste : this morning I see he has put on a brilliant green satin waistcoat, but he generally appears in delicate, faded greens or yellows, admi- rably harmonized, and a red fez on his black, head. .... On Sunday we have a nice little service in the morning : the Major says the prayers or litany, the lady and her maid start a couple of hynins, and I read one of Eobertson's sermons. One of the Frenchmen, who speaks English, asked to be allowed to attend — he is a Catholic ; and now the captain, who is a Coptic Christian, attends also. He does not understand a word of anything but Araljic, or, it may be, Coptic also ; he sits, however, in his turban and black cloak, a picture of oriental humility and attention, and no doubt says his own prayers. The letter from wHch the next extract is made is dated " Cook's Hotel, Luxor, Feb. 28, 1878." He had now heen as far as the First Cataract, and was on his way hack. There is not much to see till you get within about ten miles of Assouan, 'when the whole landscape changes, and; instead of the flat bank of drab-coloured mud, you have, on one or both sides of the river, mountains of black rock covered with the most beautiful golden sand. In fact, Nubia has already begun aiid Egypt has ended At Esneh we stopped for a day tq bake bread for the crew : it is said to be the finest air in Egypt, and I spent the whole day on land, visiting the temple and walking under the palm-trees. The climate is certainly very balmy and beautiful ; but as soon as you enter the Nubian region the air is much crisper, and, judging from its effect upon myself, I should say it is as much better than the climate of Egypt 6o LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. as that of Egypt is better tlian any in Europe. . . . "We are just on the bend of the world, and already begin to see the stars of the Southern Hemisphere, while the constella- tions of the North assume a drunken, topsy-turvy appearance. Juvenal was a lucky fellow to be exiled to this delicious region The nearest approach to a crocodile we found and shot at opposite the island of Philse, above the cataract, and just across the Nubian frontier. He was a vast lizard about three feet long, and, after receiving a shot from one of the Erench- men, he bolted among the rocks and we lost him One day we visited a dahabeyah whilst in the act o£ passing up the cataract. We were on donkeys, coming from PhilsB, when we first saw the boat battling with the rapids, and 1 50 struggling and screaming Arabs on shore dragging it up with ropes. It seemed to make about a foot an hour, and to go back two whenever the rope slackened. The sheikhs of the cataract, who organize all this pulling, were sitting quietly on their heels and smoking We went on board to see how it felt Even with every window shut, the water gets into the boat ; but there is no danger in going up and not much in coming down, as the people on the spot are thoroughly used to it. The following is an incident of the return voyage to Luxor : — It was a windy day, and we were moored up against the bank between two villages, with nothing but sandy desert within sight. Presently two men in the Bedawin dress rode up on donkeys, carrying guns, and with a wretched little black girl walking beside them. Her feet were cut about dread- fully, and she was a miserable, crouching, and, in the face, perfectly hideous object. This poor creature was' purchased by the dragoman foi" jC^S> "the price of a cow," and was to he taken to Cairo as a servant to his wife. The story goes on : — I raised a feeble objection to the transaction, on the ground that the Egyptian Government had given England an understanding to stop the sale of slaves, and it was now a crime by law, rendering the purchaser liable to fine and imprisonment. This was overruled by the acquiescence of LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 6i the majority of the passengers, and Marisilla, much against her will, came on board. We gave her dates, which she duly ate, and put the stones on the carpet : she was as black as jet, with splendid white teeth, thick lips, and no nose appreciable. After a day or two she was washed, and a new dress made for her by the lady's maid under the directions of the captain of the boat ; she began to smile and look happy, instead of sitting all of a heap, and at last answered to her name, and made the oriental salute by touching the lips and then the forehead. The sailors were very kind to her, and she slept below decks among the wine bottles. "When we got to Luxor she was taken on shore, and had a bath .and her hair cut ; after which she returned gorgeous in a red chintz gown and a gauze coif, which made her look about fifty and a great swell. The poor thing had gained immensely in self-respect by being made decent, and stood up to be admired, and kissed our' hands. This is my first experience of the traffic in human flesh. Dr. Appleton now determined to leave the MinTiehahM, and to retrace his steps. Those five days on the ISTubian frontier " seemed to do me more good," he says, " than all the rest of "the trip;" and further, the English doctor at Luxor advised him not to return to Cairo till the end of March ; so he arranged to take the steamer to the Second Cataract. Fortunately, moreover, he found a congenial companion for the journey in the person of an old friend, Professor Blackie of Edinburgh. A few more quotations shall be made from the letters we received from~ my brother while in Egypt. In all my extracts it will have been observed that I am avoiding descriptions of temples and other antiquities, which are now so familiar from guide-books and other more formal and scientific works on Egypt ; and even Abou Simbel must not tempt me from the rule. On March 4 we found ourselves once more at Assouan, and again visited the bazaars, the quarries, and the beautiful, green island of Elephantine. Here we saw two wonderful things — a Nubian having his head shaved, and a chameleon with a tongue as long as his body. Afterwards, I found a number of chameleons, which are very common about here : 62 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. they are bright green, but, if you rub them and put them in a bad temper, they turn black. Mine, however, refused to eat their proper quantity of flies, and languished and died. Five miles on donkeys through the desert brought us to PhilsB, where we found Cook's steamer, which plies between the First and Second Cataracts. It can only be got up or down the falls when the Nile is very full, in the rainy season, and so it is kept above the First Cataract all the winter From March 5th to the 1 6th we were in Nubia The climate is beautifully warm, without being heavy or sultry : my thermometer marked from 68 up to 83 in my bedroom. The atmosphere, too, is deliciously clear ; everything, even to the details of a temple, seems quite near and distinct The sand is golden-coloured, and there is a good deal of black igneous rock, but scarcely any vegetation ; though sometimes you come across an acre or two of the castor-oil plant, which is much prized by the women, who smear their hair and the whole of their bodies with this delightful unguent. We saw quite big girls of twelve or fourteen with absolutely nothing on but castor-oil and a fringe of hippopotamus hide round their waist At Korosko, one end of a caravan route down to Khartoum, we met the oriental merchant, gorgeous in yellow silk and with silver-mounted pistols ; but there was little or nothing to buy that we wanted, except gum At Dakkeh, on our way back, all the women of the village turned out to sell their necklaces. I bought four or five : at present they all smell of castor-oil, and must be washed and restrung When we got back to Philae, we took a boat to visit the First Cataract, and see the men and boys shoot the rapids oa logs of wood. There were seven in all — one or two without logs, simply treading water. Those on the logs seemed to be able to turn out of the current at will, and one, quite an old man, put into land when half-way down. This exploit, which seems a very dangerous one, and cost an Englishman his life a few years ago, has been performed by the inhabitants of these villages for at least two thousand years. .... Between the island of PhilsB and the island of Biggeh we saw little girls swimming across on logs, with their long blue dresses tied in a bundle on their heads, and on the top of all a quantity of clover for their cattle. They let down their dresses again LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 63 before landing ; so that the whole was a very decent operation. [Near Abjdus, on the way back from Luxor to Cairo,] I saw what I had never seen before, a mirage. To the right and left of our route were groves of palms, and, at about eight in the morning, these palms, though really standing in a sandy plain, seemed to be planted by the side of a refreshing lake or river ; and we could even see the reflection of the trees upside down in the imaginary water At Assiout we heard and saw the priest go up to the gallery of the nlinaret, close to the water, and call the faithful to prayer — an oriental sight not to be missed, which I had never before witnessed. Unfortunately, an execrable band made an effort to play Italian airs at the same time, which rather destroyed the effect. On arriving at Cairo my brother was again examined by the doctor, and the result was far from encouraging. "He says I may be infinitesimally better, but must still come abroad in the winters for a year or two." He, however, endeavoured to take a cheerful view of Ms case, and to impress the same upon his friends. " In general health I am very we.U, though I find I have lost several pounds of flesh. This I shall probably make up on my return to England, and it is then rather than now that I expect to find evidence of improvement." Important business, moreover, was then claiming his presence in London, and I fear he was much harassed by the con- flicting duties of an immediate return and of gradually changing the climate of Egypt for that of England. I wrote, I remember, to implore him to delay, and he yielded so far as to give himself another five or six weeks, which he spent in the Levant and Italy. I am glad to be able to resume my quotations. After finishing my letters .... I went into Alexandria to look out for the other two members of my party. Professor Blackie and Mrs. Heygate. By four o'clock we were all safely on board the " Messageries " boat, and steaming away for Port Said The boat had come from Marseilles, and was full of Prench pilgrims and their priests, on their way to the holy places in 64 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Palestine. (I heard afterwards that an English party went to Gethsemane the night before Good Friday, armed with pistols, and sang the hymn " Go to dark Gethsemane," after paying sixpence at the gate. This to my lay mind seems to partake rather of the nature of bathos.) .... The principal things we had to complain of in the French pilgrims were loud talking and fleas ; and we were very glad when we got to Jaffa and saw the backs of almost all of them. At Port Said, on Sunday, we went on board the English gunboat keeping guard at the entrance of the Canal, and had a very nice service and sermon. They were very warlike ; and that same afternoon received a despatch not by any means to leave until two other gunboats had arrived. As we approached Jaffa the most delicious odours of orange blossom came over the sea : it is a great place for oranges, of an enormous size, but very good. When the crowd had left we went on shore and spent an hour in the reputed house of Simon the Tanner The smells are bad, but the walls are covered with hyssop in bloom ; and from the top we get a beautiful view over the sea — just such a view as would have suggested to the Apostle that Christianity was meant for a larger world than Palestine All night long — after we had filled the ship chokefuU of oranges — we steamed along the Syrian coast, seeing only the light at the headland S. of Tyre, for it was rather misty ; but at six in the morning. Mount Lebanon, with its cap of snow, burst upon us, with the rising sun shining obliquely upon it Passing Tripoli — where we took on board a cargo of sponges — we got to Iskanderun, or Alexandretta, the ancient Issus, in the corner between Asia Minor and the Syrian coast, and here we stayed lading for three whole days, till we were deep down in the water with 2,000 bales of cotton, besides oil, grain and oranges. This is the dirtiest and most unhealthy town I ever came across, but it is important com- mercially as the port of Aleppo, through which the produce of the far interior of the Turkish Empire comes to the sea. At the back of the town is a belt of marsh about a mile broad, and the sewage stands ankle-deep in some of the streets. There has lately been an extensive visitation of fever, and we saw a great many pale faces. Lately, since the Peace of San Stefano, the Circassians expelled from Bulgaria have begun to be deported here, on their way to the valley of LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 65 the Euphrates. A thousand or more had already arrived, aud 1 50,000 are expected ultimately. This is pleasant for the inhabitants, especially as they have brought small-ppx with them, which is very bad at Constantinople. Notwithstanding these drawbacks. Professor Blackie and I determined to make a little ex-cursion into the interior. So on the second day, we got a couple of very bad horses from the English Vice-Consul, and the loan of his cavass, who rode, with a sword and a big knife, on a third beast. "We rode for six miles across the marsh and up the mountain, on a fearfully- bad road, taking three hours for our six miles : it gave one an idea of what travelling in Turkey is like. All along the Toad we met people coming with produce, and armed with guns ; we met also the Circassians and their families, armed to the teeth, with rows of cartridges on each breast of their tunic, It was difficult to say which looked the greater scoundrels, the Circassians or the population who had armed themselves against them. At the inn at Beylan, the village we rode to, the yard was full of Circassians ; their wives, sometimes exceedingly beautiful, rode on horses astride, with babies in boxes on each aide of the saddle In the curiosity shops here, and at Smyrna, you are offered brooches and trinkets, some of them still spotted with blood, which were taken from the Bulgariail women by these men. "We have taken on board a great man, a Pasha, going to Constantinople, formerly, I believe, the governor of Bagdad, with ten horses and a white donkey, besides servants. He doesn't eat with us, but has his salad and his olives after we have done. He has with him his private chaplain, a TJIema, with a green turban and a very nice mild face, who says his praryers on the deck, turning towards Mecca, with great regularity. Every inch of the deck vacated by the pilgrims is now occupied by Turks, whom we have taken in at all the little ports on the way, and who are bound for Constantinople, changing at Smyrna. It was a very picturesque sight after dark to walk to the fore part of the ship amongst all these Mussulmans, sleeping or preparing to sleep. Each side, against the gunwale, oriental carpets were spread, and boxes and bundles disposed to windward as a protection. Some hedged themselves in nearly all round with their luggage, and then began gravely to change their daily dress of many- coloured coats and tunics for a nightly dress of nearly as 66 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. many pieces and as mueh variety ; afterwards, they smoked their hubble-bubble pipes, and went to sleep. In the fore part the hatches over the two entrances to the hold, and, at one time, the hatch over the aft entrance, were quite covered with men in white and yellow, sleeping and snoring under the starlight The coast of Asia Minor is exceedingly beautiful, as fine all along the southern edge as the Syrian coast is under Lebanon. At Mersina, Professor Blackie went off by himself to Tarsus, to see the house or birth-place of St. Paul, fifteen miles off. The reputed house is occupied by the American Consul, who showed a Greek inscription beginning OIKOS 11 AYAOY ; but I am afraid I am sceptical about the whole thing, except the beauty of the wide plain, with the snow-capped range above it, and a little Crusader's castle, like a mushroom, by the shore Smyrna, the northern limit of our journey, is a disappointing town after Cairo and Alexandria ; the bazaars are not so good, and the oriental character not so marked "We just escaped a heavy fall of snow and came in for all the chilliness of the day after it : the bay^ however, is warm — one of the great bays of the world ; so, while the Professor and some Americans scamper off to see the ruins of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, Mrs. H. and I go out for four hours of tossing and warm sunshine in a little boat We only stayed three hours at Syra — the ancient Seyros — a kind of Charing Cross in the ^gean, where all roads meet, and whence you can g' anywhere. The town is finely situated, rising up the mountair in a pyramidal form to its acropolis. Then on we went th];i \gh a labyrinth of misty islands, the wind dead ahead of us, but the sea not rough "With the exception of Syra, the Greek islands showed but little signs of habitation ; but very different was it when we began to near the Calabrian coast, after a fairly smooth run across the stormy Adriatic ; all round the Italian sea-board were numberless towns and villages, almost continuous with one another from Spartivento "to Eeggio At Messina we took on board 50,000 live quails for the London market ; and, sublimely unconscious both of Scylla and Charybdis, between which we passed in the dark, we got to Palermo on Tuesday last (April 30) after seventeen days at sea. Here (at Palermo) I have been for nearly a week, seeing the interesting Norman churches, the museum and the LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. 67 surrounding country To-morrow I go to Catania, the Professor to Naples, and on Tuesday Mrs. Heygate starts, by Cunard steamer, to Liverpool ; so our pleasant trio, whicli has lasted, off and on, since the end of February, is broken up at last. After a few days at Catania, and a visit to Syracuse, I shall hope to get to Capri for a week, and then home by the 1st of June. Dr. Appleton realized his programme in less time than he anticipated, for I see he was staying with us at Brighton on the day appointed for reaching London. We were glad to be able to congratulate him on his appear- ance ; he' was perhaps thinner, but he looked brown and well, and was in excellent spirits. He told us that the sea had done great things for him since he left Alexandria; his chest had cleared in a most satisfactory way, and he felt wonderfully better. He said so much about the effect of sea air that we were tempted to regret he had not had more of it, and hoped his advisers might let him, next winter, try the experiment of a voyage or of a quiet sojourn on some sheltered coast. The wear and tear of travel and its occasional vexations always told on him even when in health, and the great variations of tempera- ture in Egypt had, we knew, given him many a cold. He himself was in favour of spenc';ng the next winter in the Bay of Naples, and, with a view to this, had made a complete circuit of that coast on his way home. On his return to London he plunged into work with characteristic energy ; he was told he " need not consider himself an invalid," and I fear he availed himself to the full of this implied permission to exert himself. But the mistake was soon discovered. It was a miserable June, with almost constant rain for the first three weeks ; and before this period was over, a condition of fever set in, which remained constant for seven months; it was, in fact, the beginning of the end. In the second week of July he broke down so completely that he was prevailed upon to take a ten days' rest at Margate ; and here again the 68 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. sea air proved a friend, and lie returned to town refreshed and stronger. Early in August we went to stay with him at ISTetley Cottage, and were distressed to find him looking ill and evidently very weak. Yet he was cheerful about himself, and explained his illness by a chill which he had experienced one night: he was returning to Hampstead from a friend's house in evening dress, and was caught in a heavy shower. He told us, too, of the worry and anxiety, which certain business affairs connected with the Academy were causing him. Moreover, the doctors spoke assuringly. At this time nothing was decided about future move- ments, and I think he suffered from the uncertainty and from the divided counsels of his advisers. In this condition he clkpie down to us at Brighton on September i : his symptoms had for some time past suggested the idea of chronic malarial poisoning, and he was instructed to leave his pretty home at Hampstead without delay. He stayed with us for about three weeks, and fortunately the weather permitted him to be for the greater part of the day in the open air ; after a short time given to work, he used to spend hours on the pier, lying on the shingle, or driving slowly up and down from Sussex Square to Cliftonville. He was very cheerful too, full of his usual keen interest in all around him ; his voice was clear and strong, and he had scarcely any cough. I confess we shared the delusion with so many of his friends that all might yet be well. He returned to town on September 19, and became the guest of Henry Holiday, Esq., of Oak Tree House, Hampstead, where he remained almost continuously until he left England in the following month. Here he received every attention that the most devoted friendship could suggest, but though he went manfully through a great deal of trying business, it was with obviously declining strength. But still the medical report was very encouraging ; although the general bodily condition LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 69 was not so good, the local trouble was certainly better ; there was a tendency, he was told, to go back to the state in which he was when he returned last June. And, moreover, there seemed enough to account for a general disturbance of health in the work which he had been compelled to undertake — the removal of his books and furniture to his rooms at Oxford, and the final settlement of the Academy on what he believed to be a sure and prosperous basis. And so the weeks passed on, and at last, on October 16, the doctors decided upon Egypt as the place of his approaching exile — " Cairo, Thebes, and, if possible. Nubia" — and the die was cast. Dr. Appleton left Southampton on October 3 1 , in the Peninsular and Oriental steamer, Nepaul, for Suez. The following extract is from a letter I received from him dated November 4, 1878, off Gibraltar. You will be glad to hear that I have passed through the formidable Bay of Biscay, and am now in warm air and calm water. I write this on Sunday night, off the Coast of Portugal, between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, with a piano going, and about a dozen people singing Hymns Ancient and Modern Maitland, as I think you know, follows me to Egypt, giving up his project of a winter in Eome. He is such a delightful companion, that this will be a great boon to me You will be pleased to know that my appetite has come back ; I eat ravenously at all three meals, and have milk frothing and warm from the Peninsular and Oriental cow, at six in the morning and in the afternoon. The whole day, as far as possible, 1 spend in the open air, either walking on deck or esconoed in a chair lent me by Miss Eaven. We have had aN.W. wind hitherto, fresh and rather cold, but the best for the Bay, and now we have a simoon from Africa and a Scotch drizzle. He arrived at Cairo on November 1 3, and took up his quarters at the Hotel du Nil. " It was excessively hot," he writes, " and the floods were out all round the city. The pyramids can only be visited by water." There were F 2 70 LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. also " fogs every morning, m the English style." He soon became very unwell, and was most kindly nursed hy Mrs. Loftie, who fortunately was staying at the same hotel. In the latter part of December, he determined, as he had been advised, to get on, if possible, to Luxor, where he knew by experience there was an excellent hotel, and an English physician in whom he had great confidence. In the steamer he suffered grievously. The accommodation was, of course, inadequate for an invalid, and the wind was bitterly cold. He reached Luxor on January i, 1879, "with bronchitis, increased chest trouble and loss of voice," and, although he received unremitting attention from Dr. Maclean, yet, on the whole, he got slowly weaker. The long continued fever was wearing him out, even more than the progress of the disease in the lungs. He was, however, always able to get out and sit on the verandah , and chat with the friends who used to gather round his chair, and then "he was very cheerful — even merry." And he happily suffered no pain, and retained his intel- lectual powers in all their keenness. One day an old friend expressed a fear that the days were long and wearisome to him : " they are too short," he replied, " for what I have to do." It soon became necessary for him to have the attendance of a servant, and a visitor at the hotel, Colonel Alexander, M.P., who had previously yielded to the invalid a large and sunny bedroom, now very considerately placed his valet at my brother's service. This was a great boon, and Henry Ireland proved a kind and experienced nurse. Madame Pagnon too — whom he had described, on the occasion of his former visit, as " a charming hostess" — did her utmost to make him comfortable. On January 23, three travellers arrived, who had just com^ileted a riding tour from Sioot to Luxor, all acquaint- ances of Dr. Appleton, one of them the friend of whom he speJiks in his letter of , November 4. Their . coming LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 71 was a great delight to him, and, weak as he was, he entered with characteristic interest into all they had to tell. He even discussed the feasibility of a summer expedition to Beyroot, in which he had agreed to join, adding, however, " but it is more than probable that I shall lay my bones in Thebes." He sent off six letters on January 3 1 ; the one to myself, contataing full instructions in the event of his decease, had evidently been written some time before ; but there was a long postscript added, no doubt, on this last day of his life. Though still speaking of recovery as possible, he writes as one who is face to face with death, and, I am most thankful to say, with perfect calmness, and a mind absolutely " at rest." He was simply waiting for the revelation of " God's will," ready to stay or to depart. Mr. Loftie, the historian of the ride to Luxor, shall tell the rest : — In the morning (of Eebruary l) we returned to the hotel .... and, as we were lingering in the porch, Appieton'a servant came down with a pale face. His master was breath- ing very hard, he said, and did not seem to recognize him. We ascended to his .chamber and summoned the Doctor in haste. But there was nothing to be done. The rays of the morning sun entered the open window, but the darkness of death had already shadowed our friend's face. "We had little time to give to sorrow. In that southern land burial follows death within a few hours, and, before many of the sojourners in the hotel knew he was gone, they were summoned to attend his funeral He had died at a quarter before nine. By half past three all was prepared, and we wrapped him in his plaid and laid him reverently to rest. The landlady covered the coffin with a white sheet, on which wreaths of lovely flowers had been arranged, and four stout Arabs took up the light burden, followed by his three friends and many of those who, but the day before, had conversed with him as he reclined in his chair on the shady side of the terrace. The Coptic Church at Luxor is a quaint building, entered 72 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. from a narrow lane by a court, over the door of which is a wooden cross. It has five aisles, supported by pillars, and the apse is shut off by a beautiful screen of carved woodwork, over which hang an old " gold ground " picture of two saints, and a modern (lerman lithograph of the Holy Family. The body was borne into the sanctuary,! and while a kind clergy- man from the hotel (the Eev. Henry Majendie, of Holy Trinity, Barnstaple) read the solemn English service, the Coptic priest and his assistants swung the censer round the coffin, and stuck long candles at the four corners. The scene was strange but very impressive, and tears were not wanting among those who stood amid the shadows of the dimly-lighted church. We next took our sad way^ through the outskirts of the town to the summit of a little knoll on the road towards Kiirnac, whose colossal pylons and lofty pUlars were visible through the groves of palms. Here is a little enclosure in which rest the bones of those few English people who hs died at Luxor. In one corner was a vacant space, and h( the grave was dug, and when the last words had been si and the last blessing pronounced, we left the body of ( friend departed in charge of the priests and officers of the i Jacobite Church.* As Dr. Appleton maintained his manifold activities to the very day of his departure from England, the news of his decease came with something of a shock of surprise upon many of his friends. I am glad, therefore, to have Dr. Maclean's permission to publish the following, which will serve as a reply to many inquirers : — The cause of death, in my opinion, was exhaustion, dependent on a fever of seven months' duration. The patient undoubtedly suffered from phthisis, and, as undoubtedly, a portion of his fever was due to that disease, but another por- tion, and by far the larger, was due to the presence in his constitution of some malarial taint ; as is evidenced by (ist) ' The enclosure in front of the icouostasis. ' The procession was headed by the scarlet banners of the Coptic Church with their white embroidered crosses. See Mr. Greville Chester's account in theicademy of February 22, 1879. The ready kindness and sympathy of the Coptic clergy are worthy of record. ^ " A Eide in Egypt," by W. J. Loftie (Maomillan and Co.), pp. 352-4. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 73 the slight and limited amount of lung mischief in. comparisou with the amount of fever, (3ud) by the daily occurrence of chills, and (3rd) by the immense influence of quinine, given as it should be given in malarial fevers, in reducing the tem- perature. To Dr. Maclean my warmest thanks are due, both for his attention to my brother at the last, and for much trouble taken on my behalf in superintending the erection of a suitable monument over Dr. Appleton's grave. There are many others, also, whose help and sympathy were a great support to the invalid, when those who would gladly have fulfilled the sorrowful task could not reach him iu that distant land : to these, known and unknown, I am glad of this opportunity of acknowledging with gratitude their kindly service. To the three travellers I owe ma thanks, and especially to " the Scot," who, in the hour need, proved himself a true friend to him who is go: and to myself. The following letters are the result of a request thai made to a few of those with whom my brother was, fr( time to time, brought into close contact, that they would put on paper for me some reminiscences of his life and work. They seem to combine to form an interesting analysis of Dr. Appleton's character from independent points of view, and will, I am sure, be read with the attention they deserve : — T'rom, Shadworth H. Hodgson, LL.D. I know not whether I can add much to vivify the picture of my friend C. E. Appleton, by recording the impression left oil me by our occasional but not infrequent conversations on philosophical subjects in the last ten years or so of his life. Philosophical our conversations usually were, for to that subject all others seemed naturally to lead, when circumstances allowed them to take their own course. In this at least we agreed that both of us regarded philosophy, properly so called, 74 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. as the region where all the divergent streams of thought had their source and watershed. Two traits were very marked in Appleton : his perfect fair- ness in argument, and his tendency to postpone details and consequences to the estahlishment (or refutation) of the principles which governed them ; this last a trait by no means universal in Englishmen. So that, being agreed, as I have already remarked, on so much of the preliminaries, we gene- rally found ourselves joining battle on Hegelianism, of which Appleton was an ardent disciple. Then, there was a courtesy and a gentleness about his whole manner of arguing, which rendered a discussion with him a real pleasure. He would try to see your position in its best light and its strongest points, and do full justice to it. Then he would slate his own case in the same way. I speak of cases where he was arguing for victory. The laws of fairness in discussion are different according as you are arguing for victory, or for eliciting truth by a common effort. In the latter case you are bound, in the former you are not, to state for the common benefit whatever difficulties may occur to you as important, against the view which you are maintaining. Appleton's fairness and courtesy, combined with what 1 shall presently notice, his subtlety, made him a powerful advocate. He had the rare art of persuading by argument. He was a born diplomatist, in the true and honourable sense of the word. Another of his prominent traits was one which, it some- times occurred to me, might be a source of his Hegelianism, I mean his generally sanguine temperament. If an idea was at once consistent, tenable, and desirable, then, to him it seemed that it could lack no condition of realization. Sooner or later it must take its place among actual facts. Add to this sanguine temperament an artist-like delight in elegance and congruity, in the constructions of thought as well as in aesthetics proper; add, further, another trait not very usual in Englishmen, nor perhaps anywhere, at least in a higb degree, I mean subtlety of intellect as distinguished from acutv^ness ; that is to say, a fineness and keenness of the perceptive as distinguished from the discursive powers ; and you have, it seems to me, a character predisposed for Hegelianism, if other circumstances favour. Circumstances did favour, at Oxford, in Appleton's time. There was and stUl is going on there a series of events, which LIFE OF DR. APPLETOX. 75 repeats on a small scale what has already happened on a larger theatre, in the history of philosophy itself. On the larger theatre, we have the sequence of Hume's eighteenth dentury naturalism, Kant's criticism, Hegel's absolutism. On the smaller, we have the dominance of Mill's or nineteenth century naturalism, inaugurated with the University Eeform of 185 I ; then the Kantian re-action, led by the late Dean Mansel ; then the Hegelianism, which still continues. Of course I speak only of the Oxford world which is affected by such topics. Theological Oxford, scientific Oxford, classical Oxford, aesthetic Oxford, and so on, are different matters, though of course not unconnected. Appleton belonged to the Hegelian development. I well remember the vividness with which he pictured, in one of our conversations, his weariness of that dreary method of " pigeon- holing everything," which, by some imaginative process of his own, he identified with the Aristotelian logic, and the philo- sophies which are based upon it ; not seeing that, though any system whatever may be frozen into formalities by incompetent expounders, yet, of all systems that have ever been promulgatefl, none so lends itself to such an ice-bound state as the Hegelian ; a system in which all explanations, all theories, in every branch of knowledge, consist of giving the exact position of the subject in hand relatively to its neighbours, placing it in its precise niche in the particular " stage of development" to which it belongs in the great thought-process. But Appleton had eyes only for the life and motion of that process. To him the Hegelian logic revived what the Aristotelian stifled, the life and freedom of the universe. No dead abstractions, but a concrete idea developing endless articulations, matter and form, in one living union governed by thought. No logic but this could be commensurate to the boundless variety, the unfettered energy of existence. I used sometimes to tell him (snre that he would not mis- construe me), that, with all his subtlety, he seemed to me to lack the one essential condition of philosophy — a determined spirit of analysis. He courted philosophy for what it could give — (I do not mean its temporalities) — for the-freedom and amplitude of its outlook, the basis it afforded for intellectual activity in all directions, the intellectual dignity it lent to culture, in short as an adornment and instrument of the higher life. Perhaps he might with some plausibility have I'eplied, that to do otherwise was to make philosophy itself a 76 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. •' pigeon-hole." But he did not accept my criticism. It was his continual regret that his multifarious engagements, especially as editor of the Academy, prevented his devoting his time more uninterruptedly to philosophical study, as he always hoped, some day or other, to be able to do ; a wish unhappily not destined in this world to be fulfilled. The bearing of philosophy on religion was one of its fruits in which he was most deeply interested. He had no sympathy with those who, from mistaking the deeply seated character of those feelings and cravings of human nature, which have never yet been satisfied without some form of theological creed touching the invisible world, and from thus misreading the facts of the case, are led on first to identify religion with creed, and then to consider creeds either as the mere guesses of antiquated science, or as the arbitrary creations of a self-indulgent fancy. Hegelianism is in no sense open to this reproach. It is a philosophy eminently compatible with religious faith in unseen realities, and performs in this respect all that religion can legitimately demand at the hands of philosophy (supposing philosophy has the power), namely, that it should secure for it a ground, in the unseen world, whereon its anchor can fasten, and hold for it, so to speak, against all comers, the intellectual right to believe. I speak mainly from the recollection of a long talk with Appleton, in later years, but the exact date of which I cannot recall, on the subject of a future life, and the mutual recognition of friends therein. He strongly maintained our logical as well as moral right to believe, and not merely to wish, the aifirmative of both points ; though admitting the danger there was, and the consequent, necessity of being on our guard, lest we confounded a belief, obtained as these are on the ground of a moral prompting, with a belief of facts which are in no way motived by desire and will, such as are the data and con- clusions of science. A belief, which is a hope matured, cannot be inspired in others except by implanting the hope which is its seed. To teach it as if it were a fact of science, to teach it dogmatically as science is taught, is superstition. This is the difference between the two kinds of belief which it is im- portant to observe, without giving up the right to believe in things sincerely hoped for and morally approved ; the mainte- nance of which right was the object of Appleton's earnest contention in the conversation which I am recording. He refused to admit that man's hopes, and if his hopes then also LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 77 his beliefs, either could be or oughb to be confined within the limits of his merely scientific knowledge; that his reason should consent, as if mesmerized, to imagine herself a convinced and hopeless prisoner in the dark cavern of Plato's allegory. I remember that the conversation contributed not a little to clear my own conceptions, at any rate, of these matters, as well as to strengthen my conviction of the reality of the unseen. On such talks it is a pleasure to look back, mixed though it be with the inevitable regret that they are to be enjoyed no more. lE'rom Robinson Ellis, M.A., Senior Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. My first introduction to Appleton was in i860. In the October Term of that year, and the Spring Term of 1 861, he read with me for Moderations, and, during the remainder of his undergraduate course, I had frequent opportunities of seeing and talking with him. He was at all times an interesting companion ; though a hard reader, he was never so absorbed in books as not to be keenly alive to all that went on about him. Moreover, he was by nature an innovator, and as it was his fortune to be at a College which was supposed to be strongly opposed to innovation, he was rarely in want of some fresh grievance, real or imaginary. At such times, he would project schemes of reform which were amusing from their hopelessness. He obtained a second class in the final schools in 1 863, having before this time suc- ceeded to a Fellowship at his College. Thenceforth, throughout the time that we were at Oxford together, Appleton never lost sight of me. I was at that time working at my edition of Catullus, and he was always iuterested in hearing and talking about it. Meanwhile, his own studies, as I learnt from him, had taken a new course ; he was devoting himself to modern languages and history. Not that he ever gave up his philo- sophical reading ; philosophy was indeed the subject in which his chief interest lay, and I remember liis subsequently inter- rupting the laborious routine, which his editorship of the Academy imposed upon him, to devote a month to the assiduous perusal of Hegel with a friend at Brighton.^ ' Namely, in the autumn of 1872, with Dr. Arnold Huge, formerly Professor of the Hegelian Philosophy at the University of Halle, Editor of the HaUische Jalirbiicher, and Member for Breslau in the First Grerman Parliament at Frankfurt.— J. H. A. 78 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Prom 1866 to 1869 I had few opportunities of meeting Appleton, already well-knowu at Oxford as an uncompromisiiiu; reformer. But in tbe latter year the Academy was projected, and I was asked to become a contributor. Those who remem- ber the Academy at its first starting, will not deny that it set up, and to a great degree fulfilled, a really high ideal. The Eeviews were not only written by men of the highest eminence in their several departments, but with special attention to completeness and accuracy. The principle of signed articles made negligence impossible, and gave a significance to even short communications. None who knew the character of Appleton can doubt that the design, as well as the successful execution of the design were mainly, if not wholly, due to him. At the close of 1 869, I was elected Professor of Latin at University College, London. Appleton was one of the first to congratulate me on the appointment, and, from that time till my resignation of the chair in 1 876, was in frequent com- munication with me. Partly through this connection, partly through the Savile Club, he established a tolerably wide acquaintance with the Professors of University College: and that Institution has ever since made the Academy one of its chief advertising mediums, to say nothing of the contribu- tions which members of the professional staiF of the College have added to its pages. It was in 1870, that the question of reforming the pronuncia- tion of Latin was started by the conference of schoolmasters. The question was taken up by the philological societies of Oxford and Cambridge, and the result was the ibrmation of a syllabus drawn up by Professor Munro and Professor E. Palmer. My intimacy with Professor Key, a scholar at all times profoundly interested in every point of Latin philology, and through him with Mr. Eoby and Mr. A. J. Ellis, would have sufficed to make the question one of special interest to me, if I had not already been attracted to it by the great work of Corssen. Hence, when Appleton opened the pages of the Academy to a discussion on the pronunciation of c, in Latin, between Max Miiller and Munro, I felt that I could not remain a mere spectator, and contributed to the controversy an article on the pronunciation of v. An animated discussion ensued, which, if it did not settle the question, aroused public attention not only in England, but America. Soon after, I obtained the consent of University College to the introduction LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 79 of the new pronunciation in my classeB : and this was followed by Professor Key's introducing it into University College School. At this time Appleton was residing at Hampstead. The noise of London had begun to affect my health, and I was begiuning to apprehend a serious illness. -He insisted on my joiuing him for a time, and the air of Hampstead, seconded by my friend's kindness and attention, soon restored me to com- parative health. He was already planning a fixed residence there, and often counaelled with me between conflicting spots. He was much taken with a cottage in the Vale of Health, but finally fixed on a smaller one in a higher situation. He was, J think I may say, very happy in this little home of his, and whatever time he could spare from the Academy, was devoted to the entertainment of the numerous friends his editorial position or social tendencies attracted around him. No guest of his can have failed to observe his extreme fondness for a very amiable cat, which was the habitual companion of his meals. Not content with a quiescent position at his side, she would mount his chair and seat herself upon his shoulder. If the weather was fine, he would take his friends into the little garden which surrounded his cottage, and allow them to inhale the wonderful air of Hampstead. The necessity of reconstituting the Academy on a wider and more general basis, obliged Appleton to be constantly on the move. He traversed England to advertise the new Company he was forming, and was very successful in getting his shares taken. On one occasion I accompanied him on a fruitless visit of this kind ; but one repulse did not frighten him; and, if I remember rightly, he was not allowed to retire baffled from his second visit. I am persuaded that the excitement of these perpetual journeys had an injurious effect upon his health ; especially a prolonged visit, which he made in 1875 to the United States, where he was welcomed with a cordiality which he always spoke of with pleasure. It was after this visit that I first heard the alarming news that he was believed to be consumptive ; but I was in the habit of seeing almost daily a consumptive patient in a far more dangerous stage of the malady, himself a friend of Appleton's, the lamented "W. K. Clifford ; and comparing the two, I never could believe Appleton to be in any serious danger. I was wrong ; both succumbed to the malady, but the earlier was " the more 8o LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. robust and hardy to the view," and it was not till a year after Appleton's death in Egypt, that Clifford died in Madeira. I must say a few words as to the general impression which Appleton's life and character left upon me. I have never known anyone who was more determined. As soon as he had fixed upon a plan, he set about realizing it. The difficulties with which he had to struggle in the re-creation of the Academy were prodigious ; I may safely say I knew none amongst my own friends who would have attempted to confront them. Two years after the first publication of the paper, everybody prophesied its decease ; decease it did : but only to enter upon another and more prolonged existence. This was entirely the work of Appleton, and I know, from many conversations which we had on the subject, how laborious a work it proved. But he never flagged ; and so great was the confidence in his ability, that, on his proposing to resign the editorship, the shareholders unanimously insisted that he should retain it. He was equally determined in the cause of research. Those who know Oxford best will probably admit that its highest rewards are too often bestowed on successful teachers, that education has to a great extent supplanted learning, and that investigation, whether of the laborious and minute, or brilliant and ingenious kind, finds but scant if any recognition. This, which since the publication of Mr. Mark Pattison's book on the University, has been more and more felt to be true, was realized to the full extent by Appleton. He saw that the University, with its vast machinery of exami- nations and class lists, was too well satisfied with this practical and palpable result to care much for its equally important function of guiding and stimulating inquiry in new and unexplored fields. Among the many tutors and lecturers who filled the Uni- versity, how few could be said to make any real use of its resources ! How few frequented the Bodleian ! How rare to find any one who examined or collated manuscripts ! Our national treasures, the envy of foreigners, were almost igriored by ourselves. "Within my own memory, the Austrian Gomperz had unearthed from its forgotten hiding-place in the Bodleian those admirable transcripts of the Herculanean papyri, which, thirty or forty years before, the Etonian Hayter had executed with religious care at Naples only to be mislaid and lost at Oxford. Facts like these pointed, as Appleton saw, to the LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 8i necessity of organizing research. The spirit of research thoTigh dormant was not extinct ; something might be done by merely enforcing and preaching it. He therefore attempted — with no great success perhaps, but still with an earnestness and enthusiasm which produced their effect — to create a society, which should have for its object the promotion aad facilitation of research. He convened meetings in London, and preached the doctrine wherever he went. Finally, he edited a volume of Essays on Eesearch, which included in the list of its contributors the distinguished names of Pattison and Sayce. The opposition which this movement of Appleton's aroused, proved to me its reality. The name of researcher was invented to stigmatize the holders of the unpalatable doctrine. If you wished to please the dominant party in common-rooms^ it was only necessary to sneer at research and researchers. Even now the case is very little altered, and it was not with- out some difficulty that, when recently the new statutes for my own College were under discussion, I succeeded in getting admission for the obnoxious word. Short as was our friend's career, it certainly was not unsuc- cessful. His creation of the Academy, and the wide diffusion which he gave to the idea of research, were more remarkable achievements than were attained by many much older men among his contemporaries ; and for these, if for nothing else, he deserves the gratitude of all, who aspire to see the TJniver- sities take a higher position in Europe. From T. K. CTieyne, M.A., Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. I feel some difficulty in putting down my recollections of your brother, on account of the exceedingly personal character of the friendship which united us. I was not acquainted with him in his undergraduate days, but I think our relations were as intimate as if they had been formed at an earlier age. Our paths lay together at a very interesting period, both to him and to me. jifterwards they diverged, and we seldom met, but the feeling of intimacy remained ; he was not one to break a bond, or lose a friend. It is only of this early period that I feel justified in speaking. "We were at one in our keen interest in the application of a scientific method to all branches of knowledge, The principles so ably expounded by the Rector of Lincoln, in his book on Academical Organi- 82 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. zation, found nowhere a more enthusiastic reception than in my friend and myself. He was not content, however, witli limiting the action of those principles to the Universities. His notion was, that academies of savants, working in unison for the same branch of science, were one of the most urgently needed institutions, and, failing them, it occurred to him that an Aoademy of another kind might serve as a useful point d'appui for scientific workers in all departments. How well do 1 remember the walk in which he first communicated this idea to me ! I cannot even now help wondering at the ardour with which he matured and subsequently carried out this cherished scheme. He found friends and sympathizers, it is true ; but none brought such zeal and energy to the work as himself. Many were the colloquies we had on this subject ; for, among his other admirable qualities, that of inspiring others witb his own faith was pre-eminent, and I at any rate was not reluctant to be inspired. I suppose that, owing to the abundance of my leisure, he made more demands upon me than upon his other friends : for doubtless, among the early contributors of the Academy, few of the really work- ing scholars of the Oxford of that day were omitted. He could, therefore, easily have found other assistants ; but I shall always remember with pleasure the fact that, to the not unlaborious share of editorial work which he imposed upon me, I owe much delightful intercourse with the most stimu- lating of companions. It was impossible to damp him ; no difficulties dismayed him ; like the English army, he did not know when he was beaten. It was in October, 1869, that the first number appeared. A first-rate publisher hrfd been secured. The prince of English critics had not only approved (as he was in con- sistency bound to approve) the general plan of the new paper, but contributed a characteristic article to the literary section ; Dr. Lightfoot had opened the history ; Professor Huxley and Sir John Lubbock, the science ; and the other departments had been, jf not so attractively, yet not at all discreditably, catered for.« Tet the editor was not entirelv happy. He had accepted a contribution to the Byron literature from Mr. Murray, which seemed like condescending to the ways and methods of ordinary periodicals. He declared himself convinced of the necessity of making a dash- ing appearance in the first number, but I know his conscience was as much wounded by it, as if some positive duty had been LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 83 violated. He wished to set the literary world an example, and lo ! he had yielded at the first onset of temptation. But he did labour hard to realize his idea of an organ of scientific research. Personally or by letter, he or his friends applied to many of the leading scholars and " researchers," both in this country and on the Continent. He much dis^ liked the insularity of English scholarship, though he was also of opinion that German scholars unduly disparaged their English Fachgenossen. To be international was therefore his great aim. And if both English and Q-erman science and scholarship is less narrow and more cosmopolitan than for- merly, a share in the credit is due to the little known but not less meritorious labours of Dr. Appleton. This is, I fear, a dry disquisition, but the period which I look back upon is nothing less than dry ; it is lighted up by the recollection of cheerful humour and unweariable energy. Has this type of humanity been broken for good ? or has Providence raised up other equal representatives of this fruit- ful combination of rare qualities ? IVom F. A. GTianning, M.A., late Fellow of University College, Oxford. As I look back on the too short career of which I have had frequent but too insufficient glimpses, I seem to recall several distinct phases in the development of the mind and character of the friend we all loved so dearly. My earliest recollection of Appleton is about the time we both took our degrees. His earnest, eager face and genial manner marked him at once among the many. He was one of the few who brought originality and a real vital interest to the Oxford studies ; but, like many others of original power, he was perhaps too impatient of the schoolboy accuracy as to detail, which generally secured the highest places in the class list. Next I recall him as the centre of a little group of pupils and admirers, who may claim the credit of having been the first to feel and recognize his powers. Appleton had at once struck out boldly into the deep waters of German philosophy, and soon found in Kant and Hegel, especially the latter, the spirit for which he had instinctive kinship. Appleton's mind was naturally synthetic rather than- analytic. His sympathies lay with the great intellectual G 84 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. enthusiasm which affirms unity; that seeks to find and believes in finding a universal explanation, a complete solu- tion, of all the great problems ; rather than with the critical and sceptical spirit, which finds safety ia nothing but the negation of error. To some he might appear to be too hasty, too sanguine in his hopeful views of a unity of solution ; but it was the bent of his beiag, which he could not alter, and it gave a warmth and a beauty to his intellectual character which are infinitely more attractive than the chill of the universal negative. This love of synthesis and unity led, also, to a singular breadth, generosity and appreciativeness of mind. Each view, however outwardly in discord, must have some inner congruity, which only needed interpretation to bring it into harmony with the whole onward-sweepiag development of thought and being. This wide power of appreciation, of finding some good in everything, coupled with his geniality, gave the peculiar charm to his conversation that all his friends must have found. Connected with this period is my recollection of Appleton in the old rooms at St. John's, which King Charles I. occu- pied when at Oxford — deep- windowed, wainscotted rooms, with a softly-tempered light, and far from all the noise and bustle of University life — a fit home for a real student. Next, I remember him after his return from Germany. His freshness of enthusiasm and fulness of his subjects were delightful to watch. At St. John's learning such as he had acquired in Germany was perhaps not in its natural sphere at that time ; but the real attainments of Appleton, his original and vital interest , in philosophy, and the strong, warm, natural power that made itself felt in all he said and did, soon gave him his proper status in Oxford. It was about this time that he began to concentrate him- self on political philosophy. How far he really carried this study I have never ascertained ; but he certainly read the great German specialists on this subject to a great extent. One outcome of this special reading was a scheme, which went a little way, and then came to nothing, like many good schemes. Appleton had the idea that if the very best philosophical treatises of all ages — the cream and essence of thought, as it were — ^were edited and issued in a popular form, as a series adapted for the general reading of the LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 85 masses, the baser issues of practical politics would disappear, and higher standards be applied by all men ; thus leading to a thoughtful and rational progress of human development. Several of Appleton's friends undertook special books in this scheme, and, for some months in 1867, I think a good deal of work was done upo^ it. Professor Jowett also undertook the general supervision of the series. How it fell through I cannot remember ; perhaps it was the germ of the Academy idea which pushed it aside, a1| first for a time, and then permanently. The next phase of Appleton's career was the start of the Academy, in its original idea a contribution to English culture, the value of which cannot easily be exaggerated. A critical record and estimate of real work by real students was a novelty in this country ; and if it could have been carried out exactly as first designed, it would have been a permanent source of intellectual power. That the Academy, by the force of circumstances, ceased to be a simple record of students' work, and assumed the ordinary literary type, is the more keenly to be regretted, because it was obvious to all Appleton's friends that the multiplied work, the constant anxiety, and the inevitable occupation of his time in pecuniary and other organization needed for the enlarged Academy, deprived the world, to a great extent, of what might have been the best fruits and most lasting contributions of a fresh and original mind. Appleton''8 articles on philosophical subjects, about this time, were marked with a peculiar subtlety and delicacy of thought which, coupled with his equally peculiar breadth of sympathy and clearness of insight, gave an unusual promise of really great achievements in this sphere. They were not merely the productions of a cultivated follower of the Hegelian school, but, while they showed how much his mind owed to the great Germans, they showed also a peculiar mental temperament and attitude, which we cannot be wrong in thinking would have produced really great philosophical results — results which could be understood and sympathized vidth. With the development of the Academy into its larger and literary shape, Appleton's life passed from Oxford to London, from the ideal enthusiasm of the student life to the practical life of the world and society, to thought in its concrete forms. There aj'e losses and gains in all such transitions. G 2 86 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. Those who knew Appleton when in the full tide of his London life, and who passed pleasant hours with him on summer afternoons under the soft shade in the little garden of Netley Cottage, and were delighted with him in the artistic completeness of his beautiful retreat, saw how all of this went together, and was the natural filling in of the harmony of a bright, joyous, expansive nature, as well as of a refined, delicate taste, and a fresh, overflowing sympathy with all that was akin to thought and culture. To this time, it must be remembered, belongs Appleton's great contribution to the future'^welfare of Oxford in his suggestions of an endowment of research. This scheme, which was subsequently advocated in a volume of essays, is a logical necessity, and was a fitting practical development of the admirable original idea of the Academy. Of the later days, when anxiety and ill-health had cast a shadow over the brightness and warmth which ever were chief characteristics of Appleton's nature, it is hard to speak ; but the point that struck one most forcibly was the vigour and the intensity of resisting life, the resolute way in which he met and smiled away the coming evils, full of the same vivid interests, and full too of the same genial breadth and kindness as of old. 'From Basil CJiampneys, B.A., Sarrow Lodge, Hampstead. Tou ask me to put in writing some recollections of your brother, who was for many years my friend and neighbour, and whose loss I, with so many others, sincerely and deeply deplore. Though I feel that I am, of all his more intimate friends, perhaps the least able to give an adequate idea of his intellectual character and attainments, my own pursuits lying, as they do, in a totally difiereut sphere from that in which his life was mainly occupied, J should be sorry to dis- appoint your wish, or to fail to contribute some record of a long and much valued friendship. I formed my first acquaintance with your brother, I think, in 1869, at a club of which we both were members, and, knowing him first only as an agreeable acquaintance, soon learnt to identify him with the main work of his life, the foundation of the Academy. It was some time before I ceased to look on him as considerably my senior, I suppose from the habit of associating important practical achievements with LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 87 mature age. The Academy was just then making its way with considerable eclat, and it was, no doubt, hard to realize, as I did before long, how completely its foundation and success was due to the originating idea and unflinching energy of so young a man. I found later, or thought I found, the key to the success of his endeavours in this as in other schemes, not only in the talent which he brought to bear, but especially, too, in the great directness and simplicitj of a nature, which neither saw nor cared to discover minor objections and difficulties, but which, by looking directly towards the end in view, abolished the obstacles which it ignored. This characteristic struck me as especially notable in one who had been long associated with a University, whose influence often has the effect of developing the instinct of negative criticism to the exclusion of practical effort. I had many further opportunities of noting the same singleness of aim and directness of purpose with regard to other schemes in which his co-operation was enlisted, and proved him a valuable and energetic ally in any endeavour to which his assent was given. It was not long — about two years, I think — after my first acquaintance with him, that he decided to come and reside in my neighbourhood, and chose the cottage which was afterwards known to so many as his home. I remember well the great earnestness which he brought to bear upon even the minor arrangements of the details of his house, attaching to them a real importance as the external framework of his life, and as a factor in, and expression of, his personal aesthetic training. During the years he lived there, and until his increased ill- health obliged him to spend a large portion of each year abroad, I had the most constant opportunities of intercourse and companionship with him — opportunities which, I am now glad to think, I duly cultivated, with the result of learning to understand his genius and character. vJn addition to the qualities I have mentioned above, 1 to and that he possessed in a remarkable degree a large tolerance for the opinions of others. He distinctly belonged to the liberal type of thinkers, but his liberalism had a special indi- vidual note, and was clearly distinguished from the more popular phases of that school of thought. His intellectual processes were eminently metaphysical, and into these regions, from a constitutional incapability, I was precluded from follow- ing him. Nevertheless, I found it most interesting to observe 88 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. how, through his own medium of thought, he had arrived at conclusions which I held on other grounds. It would scarcely give an accurate idea of the special nature of his largeness of view to represent it as tolerance. Eather it should be said that, under the influence of a wide sympathy, he discovered subtile, ideal affinities between appa- rently incompatible tenets. As an example, I may mention that for various reasons, personal and intellectual, I had long since been led to accord more sympathy to Catholic doctrine than is usual with modem liberals ; but it was a new experience to me to hear the ultimate mysteries of the creed explained and justified by their coincidence with theses of the Hegelian system. It was certainly most interesting and refreshing to me to find in a liberal a complete freedom from the usual liberal dogmas and limitations, and to get a glimpse of a totally novel method of arriving at tolerant conclusions. He extended the same geniality to persons as to opinions, and it was rare to hear him speak, unless ex cathedrd, either severely or disparagingly of any one. A difierence between his friends was a personal distress to him, and one which he spared no pains to remove. His good temper was imperturbable. I have frequently seen him, when led by his principles to represent a minority of one, display in that unenviable situation the unruffled equanimity, which is usually conditioned by perfect agreement with the general opinion. Such qualities in one exceptionally versed, as he necessarily was, in the intellectual movement of the day, made his com- panionship equally pleasant and instructive ; and I feel, with many other friends of his, what a privilege has been lost to us by his early death. Of all my friends he was probably the last for whom I should have anticipated such a fate, and it was only towards the end of his last summer in England that I felt any serious doubt of his ultimate recovery. Though prepared to some extent for evil tidings, the news of his death was a terrible shock. I am glad to have had this opportunity of recording, though in, I fear, an imperfect and fragmentary way, the strong and abiding impression which his personality has left on my memory. It is pleasant to think that, short as his life was, he had already achieved enough to make him widely known and truly appreciated. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 'From Frances M. Owen, Cheltenham. I think you know that in losing your brother we lost one of our truest friends, and the place which he filled in our hearts wUl always be his. The times when I saw most of him were when he came to stay with us here ; his visits were always a very real pleasure, bringing many new elements of interest into a life that has a tendency to become monotonous. I think our affection for him was partly enhanced by the feeling that he " came out" to us more than he did to many people, and was thoroughly at home in our house. He was my husband's friend before we were married : they knew, each other well at Oxford. As early as 1864 he mentioned to mji husband his desire to start some literary and scientific paper. They speat a month together, at Heidelberg when your brother was attending the lectures of Bluntschli and Zeller, before he went on to Berlin. I well remember the landlord of the " Hotel de Eussie" at Heidelberg, when ho saw my husband again, inquiring with enthusiasm for " his friend" Dr. Appleton. My first acquaintance with your brother was made at Oxford in 1870, when he was inrited to meet me at dinner. He sat next to me, and one of my first questions to him was, whether he had seen the Academy ? (meaning the pictures) . I can recollect the laughter with which my question was greeted, and the kind way in which he explained the joke to me, for I did not then know of his connection with the paper. Our friendship began that evening and deepened with every year that I knew him. He often came to stay with us, and he always brought with him a large store of sympathy for all that he found going on, and claimed it in return for all that interested him. He had a pleasant genial way of taking for granted that because we were real friends we cared to know what he was doing and thinking about, and many a long talk we used to have over the work and prospects of the Academy, in which so many of his hopes were centred. But he was by no means absorbed in his own concerns. Everything had an interest for him ; one subject after another would come up for discussion, and he was never at a loss for some interesting fact or new idea in connection with each. Metaphysics, ethics, 90 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. books old and new, antiquities, music, painting — he had hia thoughts about all, and told them well. He had a habit, which I always felt to be character- istic of him, of drawing out the opinion of any one he was speaking to, on any special subject, before giving his own, and there was a humility in his way of receiving such opinions, which those who did not know him well might have imagined too conspicuous to be genuine. His playing was always a great pleasure to me, and many of our happiest conversations were in the pauses of his music. He would sit at the piano, wandering on from one exquisite melody to another, remembering from time to time special favourites of my husband's or of mine, and turning round suddenly, as he finished one of them, to ask some question which drew us into interesting talk. I remember one evening particularly, when he bad been playing in this dreamy fashion f'^r some time, he turned to me suddenly with the question, "What is the secret of a happy life?" I said I thought it would be to have passed out of oneself into the life of others. I ' never can forget how his face lit up, and how earnest his voice became as he answered, " That is it ; that is it — that is the keystone of all true philosophy." I think our friendship took a new start from the talk that followed. Very often I did not agree with what he said, and when I told him so he used to smile and say, " Ah ! but you are open to reason. I do not despair of you ; I shall convince you yet.'' But I always noticed that his most earnest discussions were tempered with mildness and calm, and I never heard him say a sharp or unkind word of anyone. He was staying with us once after I had been ill, and the patient care with which he thought of everything that could amuse or interest me, is amongst many grateful memories of him. I specially recall a large bowl full of fresh violets which he several times arranged for me before I came down, having been out early in the morning to get them. This may seem a trivial thing to mention, but it was part of the man to me. His love for artistic and beautiful things was another strong characteristic, and we spent many an hour together, hunting the old-fashioned shops for furniture, china, old prints, &c. In all literary work, his friends found him ever unselfishly and appreciatively helpful. He would go through anything LIFE OF DR. APPLE TON. 91 they bad been writing, slowly and carefully, never hesitating to criticize, but never grudging encouragement.- The last time he stayed with us we felt anxious about him, for he had begun to be ill. It was arranged that he was to come to us in Yorkshire, where we were staying in the summer ; but he was afraid of the cold winds, and I never saw him again. His last letter to me was written the day before his death. " Tell J.," he wrote, " that ancient Thebes was about as big as London, and its hundred gates were not gates in the wall — • that would have been an element of weakness— but its hundred pyl6nes standing in front of every temple. The pylon is an enormous triumphant gateway standing in front of, but separate from, the fa9ade. ' Hundred-gated Thebes' would be like hundred-spired London, and would signify the number of temples there were. This is an appendix written in bed. " Even at the last he seems to have been uncertain as to his fate, for he says in this letter, " It is not at all certain that I shall not leave my bones in hundred-gated (pyloned) Thebes. .... Hecovery is possible, but not probable. So, if it is to be so, farewell, and God bless you both and the children." "When I received that letter I felt sure he was dead, and two days afterwards J heard that so it was. It will be thought right that some illustration should be attempted of the position of Dr. Appleton's mind with reference to Christianity, the Churches and the religious questions . of the day. It is a matter on which it is naturally somewhat difficult to speak ; for conversations on such topics between two near relations, one of them a clergyman, must generally be of too private a nature to be reproduced in a memoir, connected, moreover, as they frequently are, with times of sorrow, suffering and bereavement. The task, however, must not be entirely declined, especially as I am assisted therein by the testimony of friends, and by notes and fragments extracted from commonplace books and elsewhere. The early religious influences to which Charles Apple- ton was subjected, at school and at his father's house, were of a very distinct nature, and he certainly carried 92 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. the traces of them, to a remarkable degree, throughout his career. If they can be summed up in the personality of one typical man, it is in that of John Keble, scholar, theologian and spiritual guide. " A sound rule of faith," and a " sober standard of feeling in matters of practical religion,'" were the features of our training in the old Eeading days, which stand out clear and strong, and they left their mark, defined and indelible, whatever may have been the destructive processes or the new constructions of later life. He was confirmed at the age of fifteeii by Bishop Wilberforce, and, soon after, became a regular com- municant. This religious practice he carefully observed throughout his life : indeed, as years went on, the Eucharistic Service became the one of all others which he reaUy cared to attend, whether as a worshipper only or as a communicant; and on these occasions his devout and absorbed manner was always very remarkable. He seemed to enter into what was going on with all the concentration of an unusually earnest nature : it was to him no mere survival of an old habit, but a privilege, which his intellectual growth was leading him increasingly to value. Of this strongly marked feature of his religious life it will be necessary to speak agaiu as we proceed. Before he left home he showed much interest in current religious questions, chiefly those relating to the schools of thought in the English Church, and her his- torical position with regard to the Eoman Catholic and Eastern communions. To this, as time went on, and his powers matured, he added considerations of a more philosophical nature ; so that we need not be surprised to find that, in his freshman's term at Oxford, he was prepared to attack and to press upon the acceptance of his friends so tough a morsel as Dean Mansel's Bampton Lectures on the " Limits of Eeligious Thought." ' Advertisemeiit to the " Christiau Year." LIFE OF DR.. APPLETON. 93 The evidence he gave in March, 1 871,' before Lord Salishnry's Committee on the working of Tests, at the University, may be considered to reflect in some degree his own experience at Oxford, although the facts and opinions were derived, no doubt, from a wide induction. He was strongly in favour of the complete abolition of tests, both on other grounds and because he considered that the reconstruction of belief, after the period of criticism and scepticism which had been induced by the studies necessary for the final classical school, was unduly interfered with by the operation of the test. In answer to Question 490 he replies : — I think it quite impossible for any man to throw himself into the system of education for the final classical school at Oxford at the present time — I mean, not only to study it ah extra as so much knowledge, but really to assimilate it — without haying the whole edifice of belief shaken to the very foundation. At the same time, the agencies which are brought to bear on him, the philosophical ideas and modes of criticism, not only destroy but ultimately reconstruct belief; and what I should say with regard to tests is this, that the test intervenes with a definite proposition which a man has to subscribe, just at the time when he is beginning to re-con- struct the edifice of belief naturally out of the ruins which had been undermined. After a comparison between Germany and Oxford in this respect, the question is asked : — Tour view is, then, that just at the time when he would be called upon to sign the test, he is in a state of mental soreness and sensitiveness ? I -vAiuId not call it (he replies) by that name : I should say that all the ideas in his mind have been shaken : he has taken them one by one from their place and their associa- tions, and he has been led by the books he has had to read, and by the methods of thought he has had to practise, to isolate them, to criticize them and to analyze them into their component elements. The process of re-construction, which ' See also pp. 23-24. 94 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. begins then, is a very slow one, and it is exceedingly impor- tant that it should not be interfered with whilst it is going on. Whereas now, when the process is at its height, the University comes in with its honours and emoluments, and says, " That which we have taught you how to question for the last five years, we now demand that you shall definitely and finally believe." This " intellectual probation" relates, as he explains in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette of May i6, 1871, not so much to " the material of opinion, that which is believed," as to "the form and manner of believing it," resulting in the substitution of " an edifice of independent and individual opinion" for that which hitherto had rested on hereditary and authoritative grounds : and he regarded such a process without apprehension. In answer to Question 524 he says : — I do not think there is any danger in the process of negation itself : I think it is a process of discipline, which an educated man may wholesomely go through. But the danger arises as soon as you interfere with it and stop the process of re-construction : such a stoppage produces vague- ness of mind on all questions connected with the foundations of knowledge and of religion. And again, in a letter to the Times of May 9, 1 87 1 : — But, after all, is there anything to be alarmed at in the fact that the young men of England are undergoing an in- tellectual probation, which has been held to be wholesome and necessary by almost every great writer on education of ancient knd modern times ? It were idle perhaps to mention Plato or Descartes or Eousseau, as they may be regarded as interested parties in the demolition and reconstruction of opinion. I will therefore content myself with quoting two passages, one from St. Augustine and one from Archbishop Leighton, both of them, I presume, authorities above sus- picion. In the treatise " De Magistro" Augustine says of a young man : — " Dubitationem tuam non invitus accipio : significat enim animum minime temerarium, quae custodia tranquillitatis est maxima. Nam difficiUimum est omnino non perturbari, cum . LIFE OF DR. APFLETON. 95 ea, quae prona et procliva approbatione tenebamus, contrariis disputationibus labefactantur, et quasi extorquentur e mani- bus. Quare ut aequutn est bene consideratis perspectisque rationibus cedere, ita incognita pro cognitis hahere periculosum,. Metus enitn est ne, cum saepe subruuntur quae flrinissime statura et mansura praesumimas, ia taatum odium vel timorem rationis incidamus, ut ue ipsi quidem perspicuae veritati fides babenda videatur." And Leighton to tbis effect -. — " Dubious questioning is much better evidence than that senseless dulness ■which most take for believing. Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts. He never truly believed who was not first made sensible and convinced of unbelief." That Oxford should, after centuries of torpor, be again becoming the seat of influences by which men are made, not only morally but intellectually, their own masters, is one of the most hopeful signs that she is beginning to fulfil anew her great vocation in the land. And I have the satisfaction of knowing that the testimony which I have given, to the effect that these influences do prevail, is regarded by the highest living authority on academical education .... as at once a temperate and veracious statement of the facts. I observed above that this evidence was based not only on personal experience, but also on facts derived from a wide knowledge of the working of other men's minds. Charles Appleton had rare powers of sympathy, borne witness to, as with one voice, by a large circle of friends ; and this important natural gift placed him in very intimate relations, both during his residence at Oxford and afterwards, with many who were passing through such a period of probation as he so graphically describes. It was helpful to speak with one who had gone through some such ordeal himself, who would listen without denouncing, who had breadth of view and clear- ness of expression, who evidently was in earnest in his own search for truth, and whose life, in its purity and unselfishness, had manifestly found some anchorage. It is certainly remarkable to what an extent he became a lay confessor (if I may use the term) in cases of this 96 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. delicate kind ; and, it may be added, to what an extent he was able to be of real and permanent assistance in re-constructing the edifice of belief. For the natural bent of Dr. Appleton's mind was eminently synthetic; although he had no fear of analysis and of the free action of destructive forces, yet he was himself distinctly a builder, not a destroyer. In the evidence from which I have already quoted he speaks strongly in favour of " the preservation of definiteness in the Christian doctrine," stigmatizing "a Christianity from which all definite statements have been eliminated" as an "evil" to be carefully resisted in the life of a University. And here another characteristic may be mentioned, to which attention is specially called in several letters I have received. However authoritative he might be sometimes, when the occasion seemed to demand it, nothing was more striking than the humility with which he was wont to receive the description of any real experience, especially of one within the sphere of the religious consciousness. A mere acquaintance might have thought his maimer at such a time " too conspicuous to be genuine," but those who knew him well, and were trusting him because they knew him, were never likely to fall into such an error of judgment. It was the sacredness belonging, in his eyes, to any true working of the human spirit which awakened spontaneously his deference and respect. The self-revelation might be, no doubt often was, meagre enough; yet, by whatever weakness it was characterized, it nevertheless was a revelation of the inner life, in the presence of which he took the shoes from off his feet, because, with the refined sensitiveness of an earnest and reverent nature, he knew that he was standing on holy ground. One phase of modern reHgiojis difficulties, with which, no doubt, he often came in contact, I have heard him discuss with much earnestness. If to any the assaults of criticism had made the early history of Christianity LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 97 uncertain or beyond belief, the question would arise, Need such persons cease to be Christians ? ,To this he always answered emphatically, No. The great Christian ideas — ^those, for instance, of the Incarnation and Eedemp- tion — are, he would say, too precious and life-giving to be surrendered because the records that enshriae them have become dim. In bygone ages the history may have been absolutely necessary, but to us, at our standpoint, the truths are guaranteed by the very laws of the mind itself. To some in these days a Noli me tangere'^ may be spoken, but not, let us hope, to make them give up Christ; rather, it may be, to draw them on to approach Him after a higher and more spiritual fashion. To know Christ after the flesh no longer, was regarded by the Apostle as a token of spiritual advance.^ And, in maintaining such a position, his devotion to the Sacrament of the Altar suggested a ready illustration. Observe, he would say, how, by a wonderful instinct, the CathoKc Church " has placed the Mass at the centre of the religious life."* Protestantism and the Eeformation, much as we owe them, were a departure from the main stream of development and a return to the letter, the outward, the historical. " The Catholic Mass is not, like the Protestant Lord's Supper, mainly and pre-eminently a memorial of a particular past event, but, before all things, itsdfa sacrifice which is eternal — i.e., of the Lamb slain before the founda- tion of the world."* Herein we become conscious, not so much oif historical events, as of " the cardinal facts of the spiritual world permanently present and energizing here and now," of a cosmical process ever going on without us and within us, of God giving Himself to man and again receiving back unto Himself the creature of His hand ; and this consciousness, he would add, is " eternal life," even to know "Thee, the qnly true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."^ > S. John XX. 17. = 2 Cor. v. 16. = "What is the Ego ?" p. 137. * "What is the Ego?" p. 137. ° S. John xvii. 3. 98 LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. To many persons the line of thought indicated above will seem to imply a leaning towards the Eoman Catholie Church, and the impression will not be diminished by the tenor of some interesting and thoughtful fragments which shall follow presently. He certainly did not regard Home with feelings in the least approaching those of the ordinary Protestant controversialist. He had a deep respect for her, though in many ways she repelled him, as, for instance, by her attitude, as he conceived it, towards knowledge : he was struck both by the enormous debt owed to her by European society, and by her present position and work in the world. Moreover, he considered that, in spite of many but not insurmountable difficulties, she contained in her a capacity, shared by no other Christian body, of adaptation to the advancing require- ments of mankind ; as, for example, through her doctrine of development and the importance she attaches to the living voice of her "best self" in every age. "I should have made a devoted member of the Eoman Catholic Church," he used to say, " if I had been born within her communion; but to change one's religion is another matter.'' And, in view of what he said about the Mass, he did not recognize the need of such a change. For if he spoke of the Mass, as he often did speak of it, as " the one satis- fying service," he undoubtedly did not exclude the celebration of it in the Anglican Church, which, in this country, he always attended. In this respect, though never identifying himself with any religious party, he appears to have symbolized completely with the advanced Catholic school in the English Church; his Hegelianism found itself in practical accord with the old home training of early days. In recording remembrances of conversations I have en- deavoured, so far as possible, to reproduce the exact words employed ; but I am glad to be able to add the follow- ing extracts, chiefly from Dr. Appleton's common-place books, relating to the above and to kindred subjects. LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. 99 After some considerations as to the possibility of Miracles he adds : — Is the renunciation of the miraculous necessarily connected ■with the surrender of belief in the orthodox view of the person of our Lord ? No. Assuming as granted that God was manifested in Christ in a way in which He is manifested in no other man, it is possible to have two theories (equally compatible with this doctrine) of the relation borne by the Eternal "Word to the system of Nature in which He appeared aa an Individual. "We may say, with the Church, that He could only be manifested in the world by interrupting its order, both in His entrance and ia His exit, and during His life : or, taking into consideration the Scripture doctrine that this same order of Nature is His immediate work, in which He is continually present, we may say that His entrance into and exit from such a world need involve no such interruption, and therefore may have been unequivocally real, without being attended by miraculous circumstances. Why may not the idea of such a manifestation have been present at the creation of the universe ; and why is it unreasonable or un- christian to suppose that the universe was framed so as to culminate in the Incarnation ? If two theories are equally compatible with Catholic doctrine, and science disproves one, that is no disproof of the great fact that Christ is in the world. To the objection raised by Emerson and Strauss, as to the impossibility of the Infinite being manifested in one individual adequately, and that for its manifestation an infinite series of individuals is postulated, we may answer that the Bible does not only exhibit Christ to us as an Individual. He is cer- tainly therein represented as the Soul or Head, of which the Church {i.e., all Humanity, for all are potentially Christians) is the Body; in a word, as the consciousness of Christendom. The Eoman Church, identifying Christendom with itself, yet seems nearer to this conception, in the paramount value which it gives to tradition. If the manifestation of the Eternal "Word in man is to correspond to the manifestation of the same "Word in nature, the statement of Emerson and Strauss will be true, but ceases to be an objection to Christianity. (July 26, 1867.) Is Truth an end itself, or a means to the accomplishment n loo LIFE OF DR. APPLETON. of some practical end, such as the beautifying and refining of life, the cultivation of the altruistic sentiments, &c. ? Are men to strive to know or to be ? Are they to know in order to be, or to be in order to know ? One of the points at issue between the Church and modem scienise is just that. Supposing science to be true, can it show results in sub- duing and expanding the emotions like Christian institutions, or, e.g., like the cultus of our Lady P Cf. Spinoza, " Tract. Theol. Pol.," c. xiv. — "Theology has not to do with vera, but withpja dogmata." The men of science know nothing but knowledge. The Catholic Church has always been identified with all that is dis- interested and chaste and beautiful and refined in European society, with every good thing, within the last 300 years, except with knbwledge. The industrial spirit has already destroyed the beautiful, ajid is in rapid process of mutilating the good, and of amending the true. That physical science should set itself up as the staple of the culture of the future is out of all question. It has no power of subduing the emotions. The Church in the dark ages saved science by dogmatizing Christian belief, and thus bringing it into the sphere of the intelligence ; it saved society by itself becoming a great poli- tical institution : it preserved art by the ornamentation of courts' of justice and their employment as temples for worship. See Ozanam, A. P., " La Civilisation au 5' Siecle." Nobody pretends that the E " Leben Jesu :" Sohlussabhandlung, § 149. Cf." Christliche Glaubena- lehre,"g66, p. 220. L 148 WHA T IS THE EGO ? This generalization of the doctrines of the Incarnation and Atonement is the upshot of the instructive chapter on the " Dogmatic Import of the Life of Jesus," which forms the concluding dissertation of Strauss's original " Leben Jesu," and of the " ChristHche Glaubenslehre," in , which the previous stadia traversed by the development of Christian doctrine are subjected to the same searching criticism as the historical element had been in the previous work. During the whole of this negative sifting of dogma, the new generalization, which we have en- deavoured to explain, forms the dominant conception, the background; and it is a noteworthy fact that the "Glaubenslehre," though it appeared after the "Leben Jesu," was planned before it ; thus showing that it was the attainment of this new conception which motived the elimination of the historical, and not the elimination of the historical which precipitated the new generalization as its residuum. Whatever, therefore, we may think of Strauss's specula- tive Christology as a doctrine capable of assimilation by the religious community, enough has been said to show that it represents the normal development of the Christian consciousness ; that it is of a piece with the tendency to generalization which made of the old Mosaic religion a spiritual instead of a merely national or heathen religion : which made the doctrine of the Divinity of Christ the centre of European thought, and the Mass the hearth and home of Catholic worship.' ' That the generalization of the doctrine of the Incarnation in its most complete form, as it appears in Strauss as distinguished from Hegel, was not foreign to the thinkers of the Middle Ages, might be sho\rti by plenty of quotations. I will content myself with one from St. Thomas Aquinas, which is as follows : — "Cum Deo competat summa perfectio tauto magis est Deo simile aliquid quanto est magis perfectum. Sed totum universum est magia perfeotum quam partes ejus, inter quas est natura humana ; ergo totwm universum est magis aisumptibUe qwam natura hvma'aa." Summa iii. 4, 1. Compare with this the almost identical import of Spinoza, Epist. xxi. "Dico ad salutem non esse omnino necesse, Christum secundum camem STRAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN. 149 But the importance of the specuJative Christology of Strauss does not consist solely in its normality as the latest term of a continuous development. Its special value, at the present crisis, is that it provides a hasis for the religious and specifically Christian emotions, outside and independent of the dissolution produced hy historical criticism. No one who is acquainted with the progress which historical science has made within the last half century, with the exactness of its method, and with the 'increasing internal agreement of its results, can sincerely propose to do otherwise than resign to it unreservedly the primitive records of religion. But it is impossible, in the long run, for the religious emotions to remain attached to the imagination of events which have heen called in question, even though their historical truth may be ultimately established. What religious emotion demands is the eternal and indisputable, and no historical event resting upon external evidence which may become the subject of discussion can have this character of eternity and indisputableness. Whether we will or no, emotion must disengage itself from the mutable and uncertain, and take refuge in that inner sanctuary of general doctrine which is the organic growth of the collective reason of mankind, and which, in the progress of the individual life, may be brought to the test of religious and moral experience. But it is time that we proceed to examine the second phase through which the mind of Strauss passed, and which was exhibited after the lapse of nearly thirty years in the popular revision of the " Life of Jesus," published in 1864. 2. The principal thing that strikes us in this revision noscere; sed de aetemo illo filio Dei, h.e. Dei aeterna sapientia, quae sese in omnibus rebus, et maxime in mente humana et omnium maxime in Chriato jesu manifestavit, longe aliter sentieiiduin. Nam nemo absque hac ad statum beatitudinis potest pervenire, utpote quae sola dooet, quid verum et falsum, bonum et malum sit.'' L 2 1 50 WHA T IS THE EGO f of Strauss's great work is the alteration of tone apparent in the author as he approaches Ms subject. His aim is no longer to construe a portion of past history into forms capable of assimilation by the modern •mind (erne vergangene GescMchte zu ermitteln), "but to lend a hand in the eventual emancipation of the human mind from the galling yoke of belief."' The criticism of the Gospel history has (he complains) during the last twenty years undeniably run to seed (ins Kraut geschossen), new hypotheses especially relative to the Synoptic Gospels, their sources, composition, and mutual relations, spring up fast and free ; are set up with zeal to be knocked down with zeal ; ah ob es wm NicTvts wetter Tumdelte, as if there were not a further question in the background. And the controversy is becoming so extensive in its scope that one may weU begin to be anxious whether we shall ever get clear on the main question, if its solution is to be post- poned untU the critical problem is settled.' "What, then, is this " main question" which agitates Strauss to such impatience ? On this point his characteristic plainness of speech does not desert him. In the dedication of the book to his brother he con- gratulates him on having given his life to commercial pursuits, and thus avoided aU the vexations and persecutions which beset the career of the theologian; and on having the insight to perceive " that political progress, at least in Germany, can never be secured until means have been taken to emancipate the popular mind from the religious illusion (von dem religiosen Wahn), and substitute a purely humanistic culture." It will be seen at once that the ground of aggression against popular religion which is taken here is an entirely different position from that which Strauss had occupied thirty years before. E"ot less trenchant than now, he was content then to say, " We leave the believer his belief, let him leave us our philosophy." ' Vorrede, xiv. ' Ibid. xv. STRAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN. 151 And his main endeavour was, as we have seen, to draw a line of demarcation between the ideal and permanent element and the historical creed with which it had become interwoven. In the revised and popular " Life," on the other hand, this permanent element, although not overtly abandoned, is let drop by the author, with the unsatis factory explanation that he wOl not trouble the popular reader with conceptions which it may be difficult for him to grasp; and, with the exception of a few isolated passages which recall the earlier work, but have no pretension to be called in any sense a Christology,' the revised " Life" is largely occupied with modifications of the negative results arrived at previously. One thing, however, is very remarkable, as indicative of the new stand-point taken by the author — namely this, that Strauss now attempts what he had not attempted before, a positive reconstruction of the historical Qhrist, from the residue of record which remains after the miraculous events in the Gospel history have been eliminated. This, it will be remembered, is precisely the attempt which EationaHsm had made, and which Strauss had in his first work condemned, in the strongest terms, as wnzulanglich and leer, and as unworthy of the state of knowledge in the nineteenth centiuy.^ What, then, it may be asked, were the intermediate steps by which Strauss travelled from the speculative 1 As a typical passage in Strausa's second manner, I may give the follow- ing from the Preface to the " Lebeu Jesu," of 1864 (Vorrede, xvii.) : — " We live in a crisis like that of the Reformation, the difficulty of which consists in tbe fact that a portion of the dominant Christianity has become as intolerable as another part is indispensable. To the Reformers the intolerable element was the ecclesiastical, to us it is the biblical The indispensable and indeed imperishable element which remains to us of Christianity is that by which it rescued mankind from the sensuous religion of Greece on the one hand, and from the Mosaic law on the other ; the belief, namely, that there is a spiritual and moral power governing the world, and that the service we have to render to this power is, like itself, spirituaJ and moral," &c, ' Cf. p. 235. 1 52 WHAT IS THE EGO? Christology of the first " Leben Jesu" back to the point of view of the old Kationalism I Are there any logical elements inherent in the first position, the development of which necessitates the second ? As he gives no ex- planation of the. mental procedure himself, I have most carefully considered — ^with a view of doing, so far as in me lies, complete justice to Strauss — ^what dialectical movement of ideas is conceivable from the speculative Christology to Eationalism ; and I have found none. I have found no mediation of the two stand-points but a biographical one ; a " mediation" made up of the cir- cumstances of Strauss's life during those thirty years which intervened between the publication of the two '' Lives." And although, until a complete biography of Strauss is published, my explanation may be called in question, I offer it to the consideration of the reader for what it is worth. The first effect of the publication of the first " Life," even before the appearance of the second volume, was the dismissal of Strauss from his tutorship in Tubingen. The whole theological world of Germany was up in arms against him. His teachers disclaimed the " Life" as in any sense a deduction from their prin- ciples ; many of his friends renounced his acquaintance ; those who stood by him became at once suspect, were passed over in promotion, or dismissed. He retired to a mastership in the Lyceum of his native town of Ludwigs- burg, and Kved with his parents. But here again a -fresh trouble was in store for him in the displeasure of his father, and the uneasiness of his mother at the con- tinual bickerings which took place between the two men.' After a year, in the autumn of 1836, he took refuge in Stuttgart, and occupied himself with the preparation of the second, third, and fourth editions of the " Life" which were speedily demanded. For the book had made a prodigious success, and had become the centre of a ' Zeller, " David Fi-iedrich Strauss in seinem Lebeu vmd seinen Sehriften geschildert" (Bonn, 1874), p. 44. STRAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN. 153 vigorous and embittered controversy, which raged from one end of Germany to the other. Into this controversy Strauss plunged with ardour : his opponents obtained small mercy at his hands, and he asked none from theirs. But the speedy result upon his own mind and temper was the beginning of an aversion to the subject with which he had been dealing. In December, 1837, he, wrote to his friend Eduard Zeller, that so soon as he should have finished the third edition of the " Life," " he would wipe his hands of theology altogether.'" , And for the next two years he wrote nothing but literary reviews for the newspapers. The profound exasperation at the treatment he had received on all sides seems during this interval to have partly subsided, and he again returned to his old studies. Two little works, " Selbstgesprache Uber Vergangliches und Bleibendes im Christenthum," and an article on Kerner, which he subsequently (1839) united under the title " Zwei friedliche Blatter," were the product of this altered mood, and represent the nearest approach that Strauss ever condescended to make to the point of view of the ordinary believing Christian. This sympathetic overture Jie afterwards, when other causes of exasperation supervened, condemned as a morbid outcome of the " horror of feeling himself alone in the world, which penetrated into every limb."^ In the same year he received a call to a Theological Chair at Ziirich^ but before he could enter upon it, a popular emeute, excited by the appointment, had removed the Ministry which made it, and left Strauss without further hope of getting a Professorship. Fortunately he does not appear to have ever suffered from that cruellest penalty which attends the expression of unpopular opinions — pecuniary " embarrassment. But his life-long exclusion from an academical career, for which he was adapted by tempera- ' WoUe er sobald keine tkeologisohe Feder mehr anruhren. Zeller, "D. F. Strauas in Seineni Leben," u.b.w., p. 48. '• ' Zeller, op. ci/., p. 51. 154 WHAT IS THE EGO f ment, and which by its regular succession of duties would probably have subdued a certain restlessness of character observable in him — this life-long exclusion. Professor Zeller tells us/ weighed very heavily upon him. In the parallel case of Arthur Schopenhauer there can be little doubt that the exclusion from a congenial sphere of duty conditioned to some extent the more extravagant pessimism of his writings : and I am disposed to attri- bute the altered tone in Strauss towards religion, in default of any other explanation, to these external cir- cumstances of his career. In 1839 his mother died, after a prolonged illness, increased by worry ; in 1 84 1 his father followed. Strauss plunged with energy into his old studies again, and brought out the two volumes of the " ChristHche Glaubenslehre," which he had planned before the "Leben Jesu," and anticipated to some extent in the " concluding dissertation" of that work. The " Glaubenslehre" was not a success. It appeared, at least the second volume of it, simultaneously with Feuerbach's " Wesen des Christenthums," which took possession of the public mind, as Strauss's " Leben Jesu" had formerly done, but left little chance of popularity for a continuation of a less startling kind. And now at length Strauss seemed determined to keep his resolution to write no more theology. His interest had cooled, and as a theologian he was silent for the next twenty years. " I can only write when I am in a rage," he said to a friend ; and his rage had fallen with the decay of opposition. But these years were not destined to be more fortunate. In 1 842 he married an actress of re- markable personal attractions and culture, but after a brief period of happiness, spent in the neighbourhood of Heilbronn, a growing alienation of sympathy between man and wife culminated at the end of five years in a voluntary separation. This was a terrible blow to his sensitive nature ; and, in speaking afterwards of his ' Op. cit., p. S3. STRAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN'. 155 mother's death, Strauss " rejoices that she did not live to see his life wrecked by a convulsion far more fatal than any of those theological persecutions whose virulence used to be such an affliction to her."' The lady retired to her friends in Stuttgart, where she remained till her death in 1870 ; and Strauss began a vagrant life, unable to settle in any place for more than a few years. He read with diligence, as he always had done ; but he found it impossible to write. No one subject could chain his attention; but was dropped for another. He turned himself to politics, and at length to the editing of the letters of the Swabian poet Schubart, which had been committed to him. In 1848 came the Democratic movement and the Frankfort Parliament ; and Strauss, at the urgent request of his friends, though much against the grain, allowed himself to become a candidate for his native township of Ludwigsburg. But Ms iU-luck continued to attend him : . his election failed in consequence of the country votes. However, he was soon elected to represent the same town in the Wurtemburg Chamber, the country electors having in this case no vote for the town member. In the Chamber he became sensible of his entire want of sym- pathy with the movement which was rife in Germany : he set his face steadily against the stream, and voted consistently with the small nobles and the clerical party. The Eadicals were exasperated; even his own friends de- serted him ; and a requisition was conveyed to him to give up his seat. He refused ; but a few weeks sufficed to convince him that his position was untenable. One day, on the urgent demand of the Eadical members, he suffered the indignity of being called to order in the Chamber,^ and he at once wrote to his constituents and resigned his seat. 1 "The Old and the New Faith." Translated by Mathilde Blind. ' Memoir of Strauss, ' xli. London: Asher, 1874. : This was, according to Zeller, undeserved. Op. tit., p. 72. 156 WHAT IS THE EGO f It was at this time, apparently, that he first came to entertain the opinion — ^which he afterwards expressed in the dedication of the popular " Life of Jesus," which we have already quoted — that poHtieal progress in Gerifiany was impossible until "the religious illusion" was dissipated. . Nothing can possibly be worse (he writes) than the condi- tion of Germany at the present time. My position is clear. If I have to choose between an aristocratic and a democratic despotism, I say, without hesitation, I prefer the former. One can see that in this sweeping condemnation there is not a little of personal chafing under unmerited injuries. And the experience of every one will bear witness that nothing is more easy than to construct a generality of this sort out of the circumstances of one's own private sphere. A man quarrels with his architect, and relieves his feelings by writing a paper to prove that the extinc- tion of the whole class of architects is an indispensable condition of modern progress. My grocer serves me with some adulterated commodity, and in my righteous indig- nation I feel that I am at one with all that is sound in European thought in inveighing publicly against the powerful and predatory class of licensed victuallers. Many a man who has groaned under the tyranny of the clerical majority at our English universities has been permanently ahenated, not only from the Church but from all religion. In this • respect Strauss is not very unlike those idolaters who were accustomed to chastise their deities on an access of misfortune. But it remains to ask why Strauss shoxild have selected the distinctive tenet of eighteenth century EationaHsm as the speculative accom^' paniment of his chagrin. That his mind had been tending in that direction is shown by the character of the biographies which occupied his pen during the latter part STUAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN. 157 of the interval between the two " Lives of Jesus." In TJlrich von Hutten he had found the hero of- theological conflict. The contentious, irreconcilable character of his subject was congenial to him. At the time of the con- cordats with Eome he asks himself what would Hutten have done : — " Damcds reif ich : ist denn Jcein Hutten da ?" " And because I found hone among the living, I undertook to renew the image of the dead Hutten, and present him before the eyes of the German people." Later again, the feeling of his own isolated . position leads him to seek intercourse with kindred souls in the past. In this mood he turns to the unpublished papers of Eeimarus in the WoHenbiittel library, from which Lessiag had already drawn ; and Eeimarus becomes a hero, as Hutten had been^-the hero of negative evangelical criticism. So Strauss, by following his varying moods, is brought back again to theology, but he returns to it no longer as a speculative theologian of the school of Hegel, but as a Eationalist. The metaphysic welche selig macht has evaporated along with the sweetness of the Christian temperament ; Strauss is himself scarcely con- scious that it has done so ; it does not occur to him to explain how it went. He even talks stUl, in the " Life" of 1864, about the Schten Heilswahrheiten, the genuine saving truths, as if these were still a part of his mind : but when we look for them, we come only upon the jejune trace of Deism, The place of the Schlussabhand- lunff of the earlier " Life" is occupied by a new positive factor, in the shape of a reconstruction of the evangelical history, with the miraculous threads of narrative drawn out of it ; precisely the feat which thirty years before he had pronounced impossible from a critical point of view ; and inasmuch as the result is " not the Christ in whom the Church believes," but merely an aKsgezeichneter Mensch whose Lineaments should give no offence to science, we must quote Strauss' against himself, and say ijS WHA T IS THE EGO f that this is the criticism, not of the nineteenth century, but of the eighteenth. Upon Strauss's last publication, " The Old and the New Faith," it will not be necessary to dwell at any great length. Its contents are known in this country, and are fresh in the memory of all who care for these things. Unlike the second "Life," it is not a provocatio ad jpopulum, but an esoteric " confession" addressed to the unknown "we" who have arrived at the same opinions. The opinions are not new or strange ; they exist spora- dically wherever philosophy is in decay or has not yet formed a part of education, as amongst the present gene- ration of men engaged in physical science. They have no especial interest in themselves ; but their combination, and the fact that Strauss, who had once attained the com- manding heights of philosophical speculation, should, at the end of his career, have relapsed into them, present a curious problem, but distinctli/ a problem, in individual biography, not a stage in the march of ideas in the world. Here again the immediately preceding condition to this latest phase seems to have been the study of Voltaire, as the immediately preceding condition of the mood represented by the "Life" of 1864 was the study of Eeimarus.' In " The Old and New Faith," the last vestige of the original Strauss, who made an epoch and will live in the history of thought, is swept away. In the " Life" of 1 864 the Christological element is allowed to drop, but the critical remains. In " The Old and New Faith" the critical falls to the ground also. What, for instance, can be conceived more entirely at variance with the nicety of the true critical touch, than to take the crudest and most materialistic forms of early popular belief, and bluntly ask — ^Do we believe them ? Of course we do not ; but what has become of the long march of doctrinal develop- ment, by which we have arrived at the religious ' Zeller, op. cit. 98. STRAUSS AS A THEOLOGIAN. 15^- consciousness of to-day ? Is that to count for nothing ? Axe we to be judged hy the most primitive conceptions ? What was the object of the " Christliche Glaubenslehre," if not to show that the development of the Christian con- sciousness is a reality, capable of specific description ? All this is, however, let drop without a word ; and we are confronted with the schroffer Gegensatz of the modern and the primitive mind. , It would seem a remarkable inconsistency that Dr. Strauss, after having thought himself out of every belief in development as applied to ideas and to the religious consciousness at large, should find so much repose in the contemplation of the evolutionary doctrines at which modern physical science has arrived. If there is con- tinuous development in the. inorganic and organic worlds, why not, as Hegel insisted that there was, in the world of thought ? The diremption of the two kinds of develop- ment may be possible to the individual, but in the long run, as a diremption in the consciousness of mankind, it must ultimately eliminate itself. It is on this subjective and individual point of view that Strauss, hunted, destitue, systematically tarred and feathered by fortune and the theologians, came during the latter half of his life more and more to stand. And as marking the relapse, the speculative decay, if I may use the expression, I will quote in conclusion a passage from the " Grlaubenslehre," which cuts away any objective and philosophical value from the second and third phases of Strauss, and leaves his original position, the position taken by the first " Life of Jesus," as the only historical one that he ever took, and the only one by which he wOl probably hereafter be known : — The subjective criticiam of the individual is like a hose which every child can handle for a time ; but the criticism which consummates itself in the course of centuries, rushes down like a mountain torrent, and against it every barrier is powerless. The true criticism of Dogma is its history .^ ' "Glaubenslehre," I. x. 71, quoted by Zeller. i6o WHAT IS THE EGO? CHAPTEE II. 'A PLEA FOE METAPHYSIC' In reviewing the theological works of the late Friedrich Strauss I abstained from discussing the truth or falsehood of the particular tenets which Strauss held during different periods of his life, and tried to confine myself to an appraisement of the various philosophical points of outset which he successively occupied, and of the methods which he successively used in operating and going forth from these standing-points. I now propose to employ somewhat of the same purely formal method in the case of Mr. Matthew Arnold, who appears to me to be quite the most important constructive intellect in the domain of politics and religion that we have had in Europe since Strauss. Not that Mr. Arnold has the scientific equipment of Strauss, or anything like Strauss's familiarity with the historical course of human thought. He is a man of letters, not a strict thinker ; he plumes himself, as is allowable in a man of letters, on not under- standing what is meant by accurate thinking; and he congratulates himself, not unfrequently, in his two later books, on the incoherence and inconsistency of his ideas, as on an Englishman's privilege. And thus his works, admirable, enjoyable, and important as they axe, have still this one note of insularity — ^that, while he cheapens philosophy before the great public by putting its enunciation dramatically into the mouths of absurd personages, he is himself nearly always under the influence of metaphysical ideas of one kind or another, and as he is unconscious that he is so, he uses them at > " Culture and Anarchy," by Matthew Arnold, 1869 ; "St. Paul and Protestantism," by the same, 1870 ; "Literature and Dogma," by the same, 1873 ; " God and the Bible," by the same, 1875. Published by Smith, Elder & Co., London, A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. i6i haphazard ; in his first two books, "Culture and Anarchy" and " St. Paul and Protestantism" (as it chances), well and fruitfully ; in his two later books, " Literature and Dogma" and " God and the Bible," blindly and without result. I will now try to explain and justify this criticism, and it will be convenient to do so under the following heads : — 1. The standing-point of Mr. Arnold's negative criticism of current ideas in politics and religion. 2. His assumptions and method when he leaves this standing-point, and proceeds to the positive part of his theme. 3. His criticism of Descartes' and other philosophical ideas. 4. His new religious construction, " The eternal not- ourselves that makes for righteousness." • In the course of this inquiry, and by means of it, better perhaps than in any more systematic way, I shall try to show what modern metaphysic is, what are the facts with which it deals, what it has done, and what are the problems still outstanding which it may hope to grapple with successfully in the future. And in conclusion I shaU try to ascertain why it is that Mr. Arnold, beginning as he does to philosophize well, goes on to philosophize badly, and ends by not being able to manage and control his philosophical tliinking at all. ■I. The great merit of " Culture and Anarchy" is its having translated into the language of literature the metaphysical idea, " the notion, so familiar on the Con- tinent and to antiquity, of the State," ' as the " organ of our collective best self."'' We want an authority, and we find nothing but jealous classes, checks, and a deadlock ; culture suggests the idea of ike State. "We find no basis for a firm State-power in our ordinary selves ; culture suggests one to us in our own best 1 " Culture and Anarchy," p. 51. ' Ibid. p. 80. 1 62 WHA T IS THE EGO ? self.i .... By our every-day selves .... we are separate, personal, at war ; we are only safe from one anotter's tyranny when no one has any power; and this safety in its turn cannot save us from anarchy But hy our test self we are united, impersonal, at harmony. ^ There is, we are told, a kind of philosophical theory, " a peculiarly British form of Atheism," current amongst us — that there is no such thing at all as a best self and a right reason having claim to paramount authority, or at any rate no such thing ascertainable aud capable of being made use of ; and that there is nothing but an infinite number of ideas and works of our ordinary selves. ^ But elsewhere this is certainly better understood. * Elsewhere, on the Continent for instance, this idea of the collective as distinguished from the individual reason, and standing above it, as conscience is distinguished from and stands above desire, has long been ■familiar under the names of the Ego (Ich) or common consciousness (Gemeingeist, Gemeinievmsstsein) ; in our own Hobbes we had something like it in the "Great Leviathan;" but since the seventeenth century till now, with perhaps the single exception of Coleridge, this idea of the better self has been erased from English thought. Let us see how one of the greatest of American writers describes it : — We grant that human life is mean, but how did we find out that it was mean ? "What is the ground of this uneasiness of ours — of this old discontent ? What is the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by which the great soul makes its enormous claim ? * * 4f- * * * In aU conversation between two persons, tacit reference is made to a third party, to a common nature. And so in groups, where debate is earnest, and especially on great questions of thought, the company become aware of their unity, and that the thought rises to an equal height in all ' " Culture and Anaicliy," p. 83. • Ibid. p. 80. ' Ibid. p. 116. * Ibid. p. 124. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 163 bosoms, tliat all have a spiritual property in what was said as well as the sayer. It arches over them like a temple, this unity of thought, in which every heart beats with nobler sense of power and duty, and thinks and acts with unusual solemnity. All are conscious of attaining to a higher self- And again : — What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend. When it breathes through his intellect, it is genius ; when it breathes through his wUl, it is virtue ; when it flows through his affection, it is love. And the blindness of the intellect begins when it would be something of itself. The weakness of the will begins when the individual would be something of himself. All reform aims, in some one particular, to let the great soul have its way through us ; in other words, to engage us to obey. ^ This collective Ego, this best self, this element of common consciousness in man as a member of society, standing behind and operating through the ordinary individual consciousness, is precisely, and from first to last, and nothing else than, the subject matter of Meta- physic as it has been understood since Kant. As Biology is the science conversant with life, its manifesta- tions, its kinds, and changes, and formulates the laws of them ; so Metaphysic is the science conversant with the collective consciousness of man as a member of society ; it investigates the manifestations, the kinds, and the development of those ideas which, as Mr. Arnold says in another place, " gradually and on an immense scale discover themselves and become, instead of being ready- made in precise and reduced dimensions to suit the narrow mind of the individual.''' And I have quoted 1 Emerson's " Essays, Lectures, and Orations" (London: Orr, 1851), pp. 121, follg. • " Literature and Dogma," Preface, xiv. M 1 64 WHAT IS THE EGO? these passages from Mr. Emerson at some length, hecause in spite of their rhetorical character, they state accurately, and with considerably more detail and distinctness than Mr. Arnold ever does, and moreover, in perfectly intel- ligible language, what is meant by the collective con- sciousness, and how it acts upon and through the ordinary and undeniable experience of everybody. Let us now see how a great French critic describes this common consciousness : — Le plus grand progres de la physiologie modeme a ete de montrer que la vie de la plante at celle de I'animal ne sont qu'une r^sultante d'autres vies, harmoniquement subordonnees et aboutissant a un concert unique. La vie du vertebre est la resultante centralisee de I'individualite de chaque vertebre; un arbre est la consonnance de milliers de bourgeons. La conscience est de meme une rSsultamte de millions d'autres consciences concordant a un meme hut. Le cellule est d6ja une petite concentration personneUe ; plusieurs cellules consonnant ensemble ferment une conscience au second degre (homme ou animal). Les consciences au second degre, en se groupant, forment des consciences au iroisieme degre, consciences de villes, consciences d'Eglises, consciences de nations, produites par des millions d'individus vivant d'une mfimeidee, ayant des sentiments communs. Pour le mat^rialisme, il n'y a que I'atome qui existe pleinement ; mais pour le vrai philosopbe, pour I'idealiste, la cellule existe plus que I'atome, I'individu exists plus que la cellule ; la nation, I'Eglise, la cite existent plus que I'individu, puisque I'individu se sacrifie pour ces entites, qu'un r^alisme grbssier regarde comme de pures abstractions.'^ ■ Renan : " Dialogues et Fragments Philosophiques" (Paris, Calmann L^vy, i8y6), p. 90. Compare p. 164, where he speaks of this common oonsoiousness, coeval with language, as "la constitution des groupes d'id^es qui devenus le patrimoine de chaque race, dominent encore aujourd'hui la marche de I'humauit^." On what may be called the natural history of these groups Comparative Philology and Anthropology, and what is called in Germany " Vblkerpsychologie," the Psychology of Peoples and Baces, are daily throwing important light. What metaphysic does in regard to these ideas is ubt so much to describe the external circumstances of their origin, nor the modes of their manifestation, as to determine their typical forms, by comparing those of greater with those of less com- plexity ; and by decomposing each into its constituent elements, to discover the relation they bear to one another, and the laws of their A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 165 That the common or social consciousness is more real than, existe, plus que, the individual and empirical con- sciousness, is a statement which to English modes of thought savours of the unmeaning ; and it is into thi^ " r&Hsme grossier" of English thinking that Mr. Arnold lapses at pp. 6'/ follg. of " God and the Bibl^," when he tells us that to say, as Descartes sa^s, that some things " have mbre objective reality," " partake in more degrees of being," " have more reality, more being," than other things, is to use words which " have absolutely no force at all, we simply cannot follow their meaning" (p. 69). Yet in " Literature and Dogma" we find him never tired of saying, with as great distinctness as M. Eenan, and with more iteration, that the " impersonal" self which we share with others (p. 264) is "real," whereas the individual self is "apparent" (pp. 63, 259, 359); that it is "true and permanent" (p. 88), ■ whereas the ordinary and empirical self is "lower and transient" (p. 202). Well, this more permanent reality is what we are thinking of — ^this and nothing else is our subject-matter — when we speak of metaphysic ; it is the higher self, the common conscidusness, which culture extricates from the lower and individual self, and which, as having "claim to paramount authority," we are recommended by Mr. Arnold to organize' and embody in the State. But there is another aspect which Mr. Arnold seizes in this higher and impersonal self, as he proceeds. In " Culture and Anarchy" he is arguing against " the mere doing as one Kkes, affirming one's self, and one's self just as it is,"i which we prize so much in this country, " the Englishman's heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes," marching where he likes, meeting where he likes, bawl- ing what he likes, breaking what he likes ;^ a.nd by con- developmeni. Metaphysic may be called the morphology, as dis- tinguished from the natural history, of this "third degree of con- sciousness." 1 " Culture and Anarchy," p. 80. ° Ibid. p. 95. M 2 t66 WHA T is the EGO t fronting these individualist and anarchic claims with the claim to authority of the best self by which we are all impersonal and at harmony, he is naturally led to assign ^0 the social consciousness an exclusively moral or practi- cal operation, and not any authority or even importance in confronting the intellectual anarchy which we no less prize in this country, the heaven-born privilege of the English Protestant of tlvmkmg as Tie likes. Indeed, he goes so far as to affirm positively in one place,i " Now thought and speculation is an individual matter ;" and on the next page that " man philosophizes best alone." I shall have to return to this admission hereafter, and to show how much of the unsoundness of Mr. Arnold's later speculations in " Literature and Dogma," and in " God and the Bible," is due to the fact that he sets him- self to carry out this maxim. At present it is enough for my purpose to note that philosophizing alone, is incompatible with Mr. Arnold's idea of culture as that which brings us into contact with " the best that is known and thought in the world," with the "main stream of man's advance .... towards knowing himself and the world, things as they are ;" and has been the fruitful parent of aU the " stock notions" and intellectual " petrifactions"^ which it is his aim in recommending culture to " bathe" and " float" with " a fresh stream of disinterested con- sciousness," and by this means to dissolve. It is obvious, too, that at this stage at least of his progress he is using an argumentum ad homines; for the collective thought with which the individual philosophizing is contrasted is not the collective thought of society or of the world, to which culture appeals, but the collective thought of the various sects of Protestant Dissenters. He says : " A free play of individual thought is at least as much impeded by membership of a small congregation as by the membership of a great Church Thinking by batches of fifty is to the full as fatal to free thought as » "Culture and Anarchy," pp. 185, 186. , ' Ibid. p. 184. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 167 thinking by batches of thousands ;"^ and he commends the utterance of the Ba'S.y News to the effect that " the common reason of society ought to check the aberrations of individual eccentricity," adding that "this common reason of society looks very like our best self or right reason to which we want to give authority, by making the action of the State or nation, in its collective character, the expression of it."* " Without society," he adds afterwards emphatically, " there can be no human perfection i"^ and his constant objection to " the dissi- dence of Dissent" is, that it cuts off Nonconformists from " the stream of the vital movement" of the world's thought ; so that we may be justified in supposing that when he contrasts thought with conduct, and suggests that the first is the proper function of the individual, while the latter depends, in order to be right, upon the recognition of the paramount authority of the " common reason of society," he is confronting them, as he himself says when he confronts Hebraism and Hellenism, " with what I may call a rhetorical pur- pose,"* and that the great aim of culture is not to make us foUow the authority of the best self in matters of conduct only, but to bring us into relation with " the wJiole play of the universal order/'* with the whole iutelligible law of things. But we are not long left in doubt as to Mr. Arnold's real meaning. In " Culture and Anarchy" he is seek- ing a cure for rowdyism, " doing as one likes," in prac- tice ; in his next book, " St. Paul and Protestantism," he is seeking a cure for the intellectual follies and narrowness of Dissent, and here he evidently feels that his maxim about "man's philosophizing best alone" must go to the wall, for it is in fact the very prin- ciple of private judgment upon which Protestant Dissent is founded. • " Culture and Anarchy," p. 187. ' Ibid. p. 120. * Ibid. p. 227. * Ibid. p. 130. ' Ibid. pp. 132, 184. 1 68 WHA T IS THE EGO f In " St. Paul and Protestantism" he says, as he said in " Culture and Anarchy," " The law of the moral order stretches beyond the private conscience ; is independent of it and absolute ;'" but not, it would appear from " Culture and Anarchy" at least, the law of the intellectual order beyond the eccentricities of private judgment. Yet as early as on page 1 2 of " St. Paul and Protestantism" we get, from the exigencies of the author's polemic against Dissent, a new position taken up. The resistance of the Church to the one-sidedness of Puritanism was, we are told, " as favourable to the growth of thought and to sound philosophy as it was consonant to common sense." It is, then, the national iatelligence, and not the indi- vidual, which we must confront with the eccentricities of sectarianism. Why — if it be true that thought and speculation is an individual matter ? Let us hear what Mr. Arnold has to say in praise of the National Church and of its ministers : — And thus (i.e., by not separating for differences in opinion) they do homage to an ideal of Christianity which is larg&r, higher, and better than either their notions (he is speaking of the Dean of Eipon and Bishop Eyle) or those of their opponents, and in respect of which both their notions and those of their opponents are inadequate.^ " This " larger, higher, and better" intelligence which, the nation has in its collective capacity, instead of tying itself to narrow and fixed ideas, as Puritanism does, is continually undergoing that law of transformation and development which obtains in a National Church.' We then have Dr. Newman's " Essay on Development of Christian Doctrine" quoted to show how this transforma- tion and development takes place. It takes place, as Mr. Arnold commends Dr. Newman for saying, not as " an effect of wishing or resolving, or of forced enthusiasm or of any mechanism of reasoning, or of any subtlety of ' "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 117. ' Ibid., Preface, vii. ' Ibid. viii. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 1^9 intellect," but " of its own innate power of expansion within the mind in its season^v though with the use of reflection and argument and original thought, more or less as it may happen, with a dependence on the ethical growth of the mind itself, and with a reflex influence upon it."' This example of Dr. Newman emboldens Mr. Arnold to say of the social consciousness in its intellectual aspect and operation, as standing above and having authority over the private reason, what he had hitherto only ventured to say of it in its moral and political aspect, as standing above the private conscience : — Thought and science follow their own law of development ;■ they are slowly elaborated in the growth and forward pressure of humanity, in what Shakspeare calls ' . " the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come ;" their ripeness and unripeness, as Dr. Newman most truly says, are not an effect of our wishing and resolving ; rather do they seem brought about by a power such as Q-oethe figures by the Zeit-Geist or Time-spirit, and St. Paul describes as a divine power revealing additions to what we possess- already.^ " But sects of men are apt to be shut up in sectarian ideas of their own, and to be less open to new general ideas than the main body of men ;" and thus it was by main- taining the solidarity of the Christian consciousness that the Catholic Church followed, Mr. Arnold (apparently still on the track of Dr. Newman) tells us, a true instinct : " but the right philosophical developments she vainly imagined herself to have the power to produce, and her al^tempts in this direction were at most a prophecy of this power, as alchemy is said to have been a prophecy of chemistry."^ This, so far as I am aware, is the first , appearance in Mr. Arnold's theological writings of the Zeit-Geist, or Time- .* "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 30. ' Ibid. pp. 35, 36. ' Ibid. pp. 35, 36. I I70 WHAT IS THE EGO ? spirit, which plays so important a part in " Literature and Dogma ;" and we see how he is driven upon the idea of it gradually, and away from his notion of thought and speculation being an individual matter, hy the exigencies, as I have already noted, of his polemic against the eccentricities of Puritanism. Here, then, we have the counterpart in the sphere of science and intelligence of the " best self," which, as we have seen, ia matters of conduct, has the rdle of regulating the insubordinate desires ; and whose organization in the State would have the effect of harmonizing the conflicting classes and tendencies of society. Shall we say that Mr. Arnold has here two priaeiples or one ? that he means to keep his " best self" in one pocket and his " Time-spirit" in another, just as a psychologist of the Scottish School might put the "in- tellectual faculties" in one imaginary pigeon-hole of the mind, and the conscience and " moral faculties" in another equally imaginary pigeon-hole ? He never, so far as I have seen, explicitly combines the "best self" and the Zeit-Geist ; he never says in so many words, the " best self" is the common consciousness of social man in so far as it influences practice, and the Zeit-Geist is the common consciousness of social man in so far as it controls thought and speculation. But in speaking of the one- sided enthusiasm for ideas characterizing certain nations, and notably the Greeks, which he caUs Hellenism, and after contrasting it with the one-sided enthusiasm for practice characterizing certain other nations, and notably the Jews, which he calls Hebraism, as if to obviate the inference that he is here dealing with two principles which are ultimately diverse, he says — And yet the lesson must perforce be learned that the human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is, like Hellenism, but a contribution.^ ' " Culture and Anarchy," p. 142. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 171 And just as he says elsewhere that "the law of the moral order stretches beyond the private conscience of the individual," and is independent of it and absolute ;' so here he says, speaking of a specific question, that of immortality — 'Alove and heyond the inadequate solution which Hebraism and Hellenism (here) attempt extends the immense and august prohlem itself, and the human spirit which gave birth to it.^ This common consciousness which Mr. Arnold has thus brought so vividly before us as the " best self" and the Zeit-Geist, and less felicitously perhaps, because more vaguely, as " the prophetic soul of the wide world dreaming on things to come," is, then, the fundamental principle of modern metaphysic since Kant. It is the " Ego" of Fichte and Schelling, and the " Absolute" of Hegel. And the transition from the standing-point of individual thinking to the standing-point of the common consciousness, which we have seen forced upon Mr. Arnold by the exigencies of his polemic against the Dissenters, is compared by Kant, in an often-quoted passage' in the second supplement to the " Critique of Pure Eeason," to the revolution in astronomy made by Copernicus. It is with us (Kant says) as it was at first with the idea of Copernicus, who, dissatisfied with the theories of the heavens, on the assumption that the starry host revolved round the spectator, tried whether he could not succeed better if he supposed the spectators to move and the stars to remain at rest. This, then, is what I mean when I say that Mr. Matthew Arnold is differentiated from the main and characteristic body of English thinkers by having the metaphysical point of view, and that he huUds his negaiive criticism of cwrent politics and religion on the 1 "St. Paul and Protestanism," p. 117. ' "Culture and Aiiaiohy,"p. 143. " "Werke," vol. ii. p. 670. ,172 IVI/A T IS THE EGO ? same intellectiial area as Strauss buili his constructive edifice of doctrine upon. Mr. Arnold has the true and fruitful standpoint in metaphysic, and {exempli gratid) the late Mr. Mill had the wrong and sterile one, in the same sense as Copernicus had the true and fruitful point of -view in astronomy, and Ptolemy had the wrong and sterile one. And it is this elevation in his point' of view which forms the real justification of Mr. Arnold's comparison of the metaphysical developments of the mediaeval Church to alchemy : — The right philosophical developments she vainly imagined herself to have the power to produce, and her attempts in this direction were at most but a prophecy of this power, as alchemy is said to have been a prophecy of chemistry.^ It is because the mediaeval Church worked from the wrong metaphysical point of view, the point of view of the individual, instead of that of the social conscious- ness, and not because its point of view was metaphysical at all, that justifies Mr. Arnold in saying — Every one who perceives and values the power contained in Christianity must be struck to see how, at the present moment, the progress of this power seems to depend upon its being able to disengage itself from speculative accretions which For " it was," he tells us, " inevitable that the speculative metaphysics should come'" and deyelop the Biblical data, inasmuch as " the Bible raises many and great questions of philosophy and criticism ;"* but " for the adequate development of Christian doctrine, so far as theology exhibits this metaphysically and scientifically," ,the Church, whether Ante-Nicene or Post-Nicene, "has never yet furnished a channel."* It is therefore " of capital importance" that the Church of England has " left her mind comparatively open .... for the ' "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 36. • Ibid. p. 56. > Ibid. p. 39. * Ibid. p. 35. 5 i^j,id_ p, 3^_ A FLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 173 • admission of philosophy and criticism as they slowly deyeloped themselves outside the Church and filtered into her.'" It is of capital importance for two reasons — first, because " what essentially characterizes a reli- gious teacher and gives him his permanent worth and vitality is, after all, just the scientific value of his teach- ing, its correspondence with important facts, and the yght it throws on them;"^ and secondly, because " philosophy and criticism have become a great power in the world, and inevitably tend to alter and develop Church doctrine so far as this doctrine is, as to a great extent it is, philosophical and critical ;" and whatever " hinders their filtering" into Church dpctrine from the secular world without, " and becoming incorporated, hinders truth and the natural progress of things."' For the scientific sense in man, the sense " which seeks exact knowledge," "never asserted its claims so strongly" as at the present time ; and " the propensity of religion to neglect those claims, and the peril and loss to it from neglecting them, never were so manifest.'^* We see, then, from the foregoing pages, what is the basis of Mr. Arnold's negative criticism — we see the ground which his thought covers, and the place where he stands — first, when he confronts the social anarchy, the doing each as we like, which is so much prized in this country, with the " better self " by which we are at one and impersonal ; and secondly, when he confronts the religious " Philistine," his private judgment and his " stock notions," with the Zeit-Geist, or perpetually trans- lorming influence of a larger social intelligence. "We have seen that this " best self " and this Zeit-Geist are only two aspects of one and the same fact — namely, the common consciousness of social man; and that this common consciousness has ibeen the specific subject- matter of metaphysic since the time of Kant. We ' "St. Paul and Protestautiam," p. 51. ' Ibid. pp. 71, 72. ' Ibid. p. 35. * Ibi4. p- 72- 174 W/fAT IS THE EGO? have seen that the change from the point of view of the individual in philosophizing to the point of view of the common consciousness, is that which differentiates metaphysical inquiry since the reform of Kant from metaphysical inquiry before Kant. We have seen that this change is the specific characteristic of Mr. Arnold's procedure in assailing anarchy, whether in society or in opinion ; that it is the change from the private spirit to " that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law and the heart feels after as a benefit ;"' and that this change is one of the same importance and of the same kind as that which Copernicus made in the point of view of the old Ptolemaic astronomy. Let us now try to understand, with Mr. Arnold's help, something more about this common consciousness — what it does, and how it works. And here it is very important to remember that we must beware of hypostatizing this common consciousness of society too much ; of thinking of it as a thing which is kept in the House of Commons, or in the Archbishop,'s Palace at Lambeth, or in the office of the Board of Works. It is safer not to hypostatize it at all, but to speak only of its operation. As Mr. Arnold says when speaking of God, what God is we know not — we are simply aware of his operations ; so indeed we may say of the individual man, whM he is we don't know, but we know his thoughts and we know his works. Of tiiese we can speak, and from them infer his character. Now what are the operations which this Zeit-Geist, this " best self," this com- mon consciousness of society, performs ? What are the organs through which it acts ? Well, we are all its organs. " A man," says Emerson, " is the f aQade of a temple in which all wisdom and all good abide." It is when we, each of us, act and think in a particular manner that the common consciousness is acting and thinking through us. What, then, is this particular manner ? ' " St. Paul aud Frotestantiam," p. 73. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 175 " From within and from behind," to quote Emerson again, " a light shines through us upon things^ and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all." When does this happen ? How is it to he distinguished from our manner of operating as individuals ? It will be convenient, for the sake of clearness, if we confine ourselves to the thinking aspect of this common reason, and neglect, for the present at least, its acting aspect. And we shall not be thereby making again an arbitrary distinction between the two aspects, which we saw before that Mr. Arnold does twt make, because, as we shall see presently, the ideas which the common reason has, are not, Kke the ideas which the individual reason has, merely theoretical, but are ideas which are themselves operative and influential in transforming practice and knowledge aMke. They are what we sometimes call prin- ciples, meaning by principles not merely something which is true or untrue, but something which lives and moves and operates, In speaking of the operations of the com- mon consciousness as ideas, we mean, then, to present in one view both its acting aspect as the " best self" and its thinking aspect as the Zeit-Geist. What is an idea of the common consciousness of social man, or, as we may call it shortly, a metaphysical idea ? I say "metaphysical," because these ideas are meta- physical in the same sense as the "'best self" and the Zeit-Geist are metaphysical — ^that is, not "non-natural" as Mr. Arnold says in his most recent work, " God and the Bible," but beyond the natural, in the sense in which conscience is beyond and above the natural desires, and society is beyond and above a " state of nature," and a conception scientifically adequate is beyond and above the " stock notion" of " the practical man," " who is apt to scrape the surface of things only."i We are all familiar with the comparisons which have been instituted between society, or the " body politic" as ' " St. Paul aud Protestantism," p. 83. 176 M^I/Ar IS THE EGO t it is generally called, in this connection, and the animal body. Both are organisms — i.e., hoth are composed of parts which act upon and are reacted upon by the centre of the structure. In this simple and abstract sense of the word " organism," some thinkers have maintained that the solar system is also an organism. But this general similarity of the social and the animal structures, the recognition of which marked an important advance in social science, has tempted philosophers from Plato downwards to work out all sorts of minute resemblances between the two,' which are often merely imaginary. We find Mr. Herbert Spencer, for example, after comparing the " currents of merchandise" flowing through the community to the blood, going on to compare the gold and silver coinage to the round discs or corpuscles in the blood .^ More important to notice, perhaps, for our present purpose, are the false judgments of historical events which are founded on another comparison of a similar kind. I mean the assumption that the moral duties of a community are the same in kind as the moral duties of an individual Governments representing free communities, for instaiice, are blamed for not acting towards one another, or towards the individual citizen, according to the same ethical prin- ciples as those which guide the actions of individual citizens towards one another. MachiaveUi perceived the distinction between the two classes of actions clearly, though under the influence of the ideas of antiquity he perhaps expressed it paradoxically. The resort to force which belongs legitimately to communities, both in their dealings with one another and with their own citizens, but not with the same latitude to citizens in dealing with one another, is an instance in point. One reason for this" distinction would seem to be that the duties of individuals to one another are conditioned by their having a moral superior in the community to which they belong ; whilst communities, whether in relation to one another or in' ' " Essays Scientific, Political and Speculative," vol. i. p. 414. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 177 relation to their own citizens, have no such moral superior. However this may be, the distinction is one which is ohvious to any one attending to the questioh, and has led thoughtful writers to speak of the " inherent immorality" of society as they sf)eak of " the Machiavelism of nature :" — " La nature," says M. Eeuau, " est d'une insensibilite abaolue, d'une immoralite fcranscendante, si j'ose le dire, L'immoralite de rhistoire et I'iniquit^ inherente aux Bocifetes bumaines ne sent pas moindres. La society, quoi qu'on fasse, sera toujours dans rimpossibilite d'etre juste."^ I should prefer to speak both in the one case and in the other in the spirit of the old Hebrew prophet representing the august centre of government in the community of Israel in His relation to the individual citizens : " For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."^ Indeed the comparison of the structure of society to the animal organism, with which we set out, instead of leading us to the superficial con- clusion that the ethics of the community are therefore the same in kind as the ethics of the individual, might have led us, on closer examination, to an exactly opposite result. If society be an organism, it would seem to foUow that its normal action would resemble the normal action of its unit, the individual, as little as the normal action of the animal organism resembles that of its unit, the cell of protoplasm. These considerations, if they be at aU near the truth, will have prepared us to find that ideas of the Zeit-Geid or common consciousness, what we have called meta- physical ideas, differ widely both in dimension and in 1 Renan, " Fragments Philoaopliiques, " pp. 13, 41, &o. Of. Mr. Leslie Stephen's " Confessions of an Agnostic" in Fortnightly Review for June, 1876, p. 852. " Isa. Iv. 8, 9. 178 WHAT IS THE EGO? structure from the ideas of the " ordinary self " — i.e., of the individual mind. And this is the case — (ffl) First as to dimension. "We find Mr. Arnold saying of certain ideas that " they gradually and on an immense scale discover themselves and become," instead of being " ready-made in precise and reduced dimensions to suit the narrow mind of the individual."! The essential characteristic of a metaphysical idea is that it is an idea of the wfwle of its object ; of all its aspects and condi- tions, and not merely of some of them. Now what is the character of the ordinary notion which a man has of a thing ? It is not the whole thing he has in his mind, but a bit of the thing, or, in logical language, " an abstraction" from the whole thing. It is a kind of mental picture or illustrative image of the thing as it looks from a par- ticular point of view, covering a bundle of attributes the selection and grouping of which has been determined by the same particular point of view, and registered by a name. Comparative philology has shown how these particular points of view were reached. It has shown that words, such as we know them, are a secondary formation ; that the first significant speech of man was not a word describing an isolated thing, but a composite utterance, in which many words were embedded together, describing a composite scene. Then disintegration begins (I am compressing stUl further Mr. Wallace's excellent account of this matter given in his Prolegomena to the logic of HegeP) ; and the elements of the composite utterance become independent words held together by the syntax of the sentence. These linguistic fragments then ' " Literature and Dogma," Preface, xiv. ' " Logic of Hegel," Prol., p. Ixxxvi. See also the Contemporary Review, April, i876, " The JeUy-fish Theory of Language ;" Sayce' 3 "Principles of Comparative Philology," and ed. (Triibuer), pp. viii.-x. (xii. xiii.), 136, 144, 151, 152, 159, 217, 234, 243 (215, 226) ; also Waitz, " Anthro- pologie der Naturviilker," i. p. 272, &o. (English Trans., p; 241); also Sweet on "Words, Logic and Grammar" in the Pioceedings of the London Philological Society for 1877. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 179 ■become fixed in speech as the names of the several objects which entered into the original scene ; and represent the objects, not as they are in themselves, but as they appeared from a particular point of view — viz., as parts of the scene. It is just as if we were to take the well-known figure of the kneeling acolyte in Domenichino's " Communion of Sit. Jerome" out of his surroundings in the picture, and mount him on a blank canvas by himself. This is the kind of idea that constitutes the medium of exchange in ordinary inteUeetual commerce. The Grermans oaU it a Vorstdlung or illustrative image. Mr. Matthew Arnold himself calls it "a mere notion of the under- standing," and he rightly contrasts with it a "religious idea,"^ and elsewhere " a rational idea" which is not only a part but a " chief part of our experience."'' This con- trast in the dimension of the ideas employed is the chief point in his comparison of the Epistle to the Hebrews with the genuine work of St. Paul. We have seen then what the ideas of the " ordinary self" of the individual are like: we have seen that they represent fragments of experience, and not the whole of experience, abstractions from and aspects of the object, and not the object in its totality^ not the ensemble of its conditions. Let us now see how M. Eenan describes the springing up of one Of these large-scale ideas of the common consciousness which are called metaphysical : — L'homme allait inattentif. Tout a coup un silence se . fait, comma un temps d'arret, una lacuna da la sensation : " Oh ! Dieu ! se dit-il alprs, que ma destines est etrange ■ Est-il bien vrai que j'existe? Qu'est-ce que le monde ? Ge soleil, est-ea moi ? Eayonne-t-il de men ccBur ? pare, je te vols par dela las nuages !" ' Puis le bruit du monde exte- rieur recommence : I'echappee se ferme ; mais a partir de ce moment, un etre en apparence egoiste lera des acfces inexpli- cables, agira contre son interSt evident, se subordonnera, h, une fin qu'il ne connait pas, eprouvera le besoin de s'inoliner et d'adorer." ' "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 165. ' Ibid. p. 107. ' " Fragments Philos.," pp. 40, 41. N i8o WHAT IS THE EGOf Observe that M. Eenan here describes the emergence of the social consciousness, the " better self," and dong with it and constituting it, the most simple and primitive metaphysical idea. Divested of emotional language, we have here a sense of aloofness, a certain posture taken up, a certain relation established ; we have what is called a synthesis, a putting together of two elements — on the one side the thinking and feeling man, and on the other an indeterminate and obscure but immense object of con- sciousness — the universe around him, and of which hitherto he had formed an unconscious part. This rela- tion, in which the two correlatives merely confront one another for the first time — ^nothing more, is what is called in philosophy " Being." Mr. Arnold says in his later works that he does not understand what " Being" means. It means this detachment which M. Eenan describes, mere " over-againstness" to consciousness, or, as the Germans would say, " das reine Gegeniiber." There is as yet no question as to what is over-against me, or what I am, or what is my relation to that which is over- against me, but merely the consciousness that I am over- against an immense indeterminate object, and that this immense indeterminate object is over-against me. It is merely " Est-il Men vrai que j'existe ?" " Is it really true that I am standing aloof and alone over-against this immensity ?" Experience is not yet born, this feeling of isolation is its birth-pang ; and the outline which I draw round the terms of this primitive relation, so as to include them both, becomes the rude mould into which all my subsequent experience is poured. And mere outhne as it is, we can see at once that it is more concrete than the Vorstdlwng or ordinary notion of the understanding, which serves to do the intellectual business of life, because it is an outline enclosing the whole of experience, and not, like the Vorstellung, a representative image covering a fragment of experience only. This larger idea, which emerges first at the birth of the social consciousness, A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. i8i is what is called in German philosophy a Begriff, which means what we have called " a synthesis." Now we can see at once that this primitive synthesis of Being is not our synthesis ; it is not the mould into which we of this age pour our experience. It would be more true to say perhaps that the dominant conception with us, our synthesis, is the idea of development. It is the idea of development which has been framing and moulding more and more of our experience since the time of Lamarck. Thus, we find Mr. Arnold, for instance, appealing to it against the Dissenters, with the same assurance as he appeals to the Zeit-Geist, to legitimate his assumption of the non-occurrence of miracles. To separate for opinions, we read, is worse than having, as we have in the Anglican " Articles of Eeligion," an inadequate and unsatisfactory synthesis, because it cuts the Dissenter off from the growth of the community ; it leads him to give a finality and absoluteness to his doctrines which they have not ; " it is to be false to the idea of development."^ To appeal to the Zeit-Geist of our age, and to appeal to the idea of development, are, with Mr. Arnold, the same thing. The formula of our Zeit-Geist is development. We have only to read George Eliot's last two novels to see how every phase of many- sided thought, in our times, can be illuminated by this one idea. It has transformed, as we know, or is trans- forming, the whole field of knowledge ; every science is being reconstituted by it ; it has " turned its light" upon our old problems, and shown us, not so much the answers to them, as the ineptitude of putting the great questions of life in the way we have hitherto put them ; our old distinctions and oppositions fall away of themselves, and a wholly new* order of questions has arisen. What a distance between this complex synthesis in which we stand, and the simple "0 Dieu, est-ce bien vrai que 1 " St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 24. N 2 i82 WHAT IS THE EGOf j'existe ?" with which human experience begins ! What a distance from our synthesis even to the synthesis of " Substance and Accidents" which framed and moulded the experience of the men of the thirteenth century of our era ! or again to the synthesis of expiation which- occupied the mental field when the ancient societies were falling to pieces, and, as Mr. Arnold says, " the mind ot the whole world was imbrued in the idea of blood."' How inadequate they seem ! Yet, though inadequate now, they were once adequate, and in their own age they enveloped, as with a cloud, the whole horizon of thought. (b) So much, then, as to the dimensions of meta^ physical ideas, of the syntheses of the Zeit-Geist, or con- sciousness of the community; they include, each in its turn and for the nonce, the whole of the experience of an age. Now, secondly, as to their structure. In saying " structure," I am trying to find a word for that element of resistance which we experience in thinking of all kinds. We can only move in certain directions ; and just as we cannot scratch the lobe of our left ear with the toe of our left foot, whereas a dog can, because his physical structure is different from ours ; so we cannot think anything or anyhow we please. Aristotle speaks of the reasoning process being " bound" — ^i^trai f) Stavoia. It is enclosed within the four walls, so to speak, of its thought ; and this inclosure is due to structure. When, again, we get entangled in a paradox, and we find that thinking is for the moment stopped, what stops it ? It is the resistance arising from the collision of structural elements in the ideas themselves, just as it is the interference of the structural elements in a skein of silk which stops our imwinding it. The structure of the Vorstdlung or illus- trative idea of ordinary thinking may be likened to that of a cone or convergent pencil of rays, having for its base the series of qualities in the object which are ' ' "St. Paul and Protestantism," p. 173. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 183 appreciable together from a single point of view, and for its apex the name comhined with a representative image of the object so appreciated. And whatever qualities there may be in the object which refuse to lend them- selves to this convergence on a single focus, they simply disappear; or if they appear, they obliterate by their appearance those other qualities with which they conflict. This phenomenon we are familiar with in physics under the name of " interference ;" in the logic of the notion it is thus expressed by Sir William Hamilton — " When an object is determined by the af&rmation of a certain pharacter, this object cannot be thought to be the same when such character is denied of it."^ Such, for instance, is the structure of what Mr. Arnold calls "a mere notion of the understanding, and not a religious idea," in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where it is said that Christ's death was a perfect sacrifice which consummated the imperfect sacrifices of the Jewish law.^ It is a fasciculus of that portion of the attributes of a great historical event, which can be grouped from a particular point of view, and from which all those qualities of the event which cannot be appreciated from, or which make against, thia point of view, are excluded. The structure of an idea of the Zeit-Geist, or common consciousness, as it is much more ample, is of necessity much more complex. It gets this greater complexity from two causes — from the nature of the common con- sciousness, and from the fact that it is the idea not of a part of the object, but of the whole of it. The con- sciousness of the community is not, like that of tlie individual, a single stream of thinking, but the con- vergence of many streams of thinking ; just as society itself is a convergence and conflict of many opposite tendencies. These opposing tendencies correct each other, as we know, and give to society the means of ^ " Lectures on Logic" (Blackwood, i860), vol. i. p. 81. ' "St. Paul and Protestantism," pp. 164, 165. 1 84 WHA T IS THE EGO f developing, transforming, and improving itself, whicli the individual man has not. We may say of the community, as Aristotle said of N"ature, it is "like a man who acts as his own physician."^ The one-sidedness of one stream of thinking setting in a particular direction is corrected hy meeting and mixing with another stream of thinking coming from the opposite direction ; and the Zeii-Geist, or spirit of any particular age, is the synthesis or mixture of these opposing streams. We get the same result if we contrast the view of one side or aspect of an object, such as we get in ordinary thought, with the claim which the mind of man makes to see the object as it is, in aU its aspects, on all its sides, to see the whole of it. The object itself is the result of the equilibrium of opposing forces : and its process, as we should now say in evolu- tionary language, is just the play of these forces, their conflict with one another. We cannot gather into a Vorstellung, or convergent pencil of attributes, this play of forces ; to orduiary thinking the object is not a process ; it can only be seized in one of its statical aspects ; it must be supposed at rest. On the other hand, when it is said that metaphysic conceives the object as it really is in itself, we mean that it conceives the object, not supposed at rest, but, as it actually is, in process; not as a fasciculus of attributes, but as the point in which conflicting forces meet and make reality. The metaphysical idea or synthesis of the Zeit-Cfeist will thus contain, in its very constitution and structure, those seeds of internal conflict and disruption which we find in aU living things as distinguished from artificial products, bearing the mark of the workmanship and volition of the individual. We shall see the nature of this sjmthesis of oppoSites best in a familiar example. Take the orduiary English or French notion of liberty. " What a Liberal means by ' Phyg. Ausc, B. 8. iidXurra Si SrjKov, Stcv tu larpeiji oAris javrii' • oiiT^i yi,p toiKtr ^ (pint. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 185 liberty," says M. Eenan, as Mr. Arnold quotes Mm, is " the non-iutervention of the State." It means a vacuum created and jealously maintained round about the individual citizen by a system of checks and barriers against the interference of the community with his private affairs. This was Mr. Mill's notion of liberty ; it is Mr. Herbert Spencer's : it is the ideal of the great American Commonwealth. On the Continent this enthusiasm for "the heaven-born privilege of doing as one Hkes" has gone the length in Proudhon and his followers of what is called the " Abolition of the State.''^ This is a very natural ideal in old communities like France or England, where from historical causes the State is the embodiment of the power and authority of certain classes, and not of the power and authority of the whole people. But it is for this very reason an abstraction of a part of the conditions of national well-being as appreciated from a particular point of view ; it is not a synthesis of the whole of the conditions. Over against it and in antagonism to it we have another stream of thought, descending to us from the communities of antiquity, in which the State was everything and the individual had no rights against it. "We have Divine Eight and the legal devolution of the supreme magistracy on the principles which regulate the inheritance of a private estate, and we have the theory of our Conservative party that the suffrage is a privilege to be bestowed from above and not a claim to be rightfully made from below. This too is an idea of the understanding, an abstraction of a part of the conditions of well-being made from a particular point of view. It leaves out of sight the undeniable fact of experience, that classes in possession of power habitually govern in their own interest and not in that of the people at large. But it is the historical theory as against the theory of the European revolution. ' See a little laook having thia title by Dr. Englander (Triibner, 18^3). 1 86 IVI/A T IS THE EGO f It is the theory of the seventeenth century as against the theory of the eighteenth. What then is the synthesis which shall hold together these conflicting ahstractions ? The Germans caU it the Begriff der Selbstbestimmung ; in English, the Synthesis of Self-determination. What is it that actually takes place in a community in which these counter-tendencies are operative ? Mr. Arnold's view of the " best self," as extricated by culture and organized in the State, will help us to answer. What takes place is a process, a development, something like this. The more the State becomes the expression of the "best self" of an increasing number of its citizens, the more the highest liberty of the subject will consist in the application to his own individual life of an authority of which he is becoming in an increasing measure, and according to his culture, the author. As a citizen he is not at liberty "to do as he likes," any more than he is in /oro conscientiae ; but he is free in that he determines his own actions through the middle term of his " better self," as embodied in the community. The condition of self-determination is not, like that of liberty, detachment from, but identification with the community. His accession to it adds to its authority in the same measure as it adds to his liberty. The point to note about the synthesis of freedom or self-determination through the corrvnwnity, is that it is not, like the idea of liberty, the idea of a thing ready-made, and done in a moment — " Verterit hunc dominus, momento turbinis exit Marcus Dama" — but a gradual process of political and moral development, of which no two citizens can be said to partake at the same time in exactly the same degree. Freedom is not a ready-made thing, a datum; but, to use Mr. Arnold's expression, "it gradually and on an immense scale becomes." The synthesis of self-determination I commend to the A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 187 attention of the reader, as a fair and easily understood "specimen of what a metaphysical idea, an idea of the Zeit-Geist, of the common consciousness, is like. We see how its dynamical, its developmental character, enables it to hold in solution two conflicting streams of thought which, taken apart, assume the form of immovable and sterile abstractions mutually exclusive of one another. We see too that whilst the abstractions of divine right on the one hand and of liberty on the other represent two theories about a part of the object, the synthesis represents a real process which is continually taking place in the object as a whole. This is what, I take it, is meant by saying, as philosophers say, that metaphysical ideas have an objective existence, as well as an existence in our thoughts. They are objective in so far as they are principles actually at work in transforming the world. Have I outstripped Mr. A.rnold in this exposition of the nature of the metaphysical synthesis ? No : the elements are all there. There is the element of the paramount authority of the State as we have seen throughout ; and there is the liberty of the individual m vcuiiio. Speaking of WOhelm von Humboldt, Mr. Arnold says: "He saw, of course, that ia the end everything comes to this — that the iadividual must act for himself, and must be perfect in himself ;" and then he seems for a moment to fall in with M. Eenan's formula, and to main- tain these two conflictiag elements in their antagonism, "A Liberal believes in liberty" — ^he is here quoting Eenan with approval — "and liberty means the non- intervention of the State. But such an ideal is stiU a long way off from us, and the very means to remove it to an indefinite distance would be precisely the State's withdrawing its action too soon."^ It would seem from this as if the ultimate aim is to be the eventual non-interference of the State. No : this 1 "Cultureand Anarchy," pp. 125, 127. 1 88 WHA T IS THE EGO ? is only Mr. Arnold's provisional solution : for he asks — and here we see the lineaments of the real synthesis forming themselves around the two conflicting abstrac- tions — "whether we should not try to put into the action of the State as much as possible of right reason or our best self, which may, in this manner, come, lack to us with new force and authority f ^ But although his mind, as we see, tends towards this metaphysical form of thought continually, and in this particular instance strikes upon it, yet he handles the synthesis faintly and infirmly hfivSpiog fievroi Kal ovBiv aa " Literature and Dogma," p. 32. ' P. 35. ' P 47- , P 2 214 WHAT IS THE EGO? emotional regard of conduct prove ? How do we, how did Israel, take the first step ? Let us see what Mr. Arnold says- of the limits of possible experience in ian analogous case: — When we see a watch or a honeycomb we say, It works harmoniously and. well, and a man or a bee made it. Bat a yet more numerous class of works we know, which neither man nor the lower animals have made for their own purposes. When we see the ear, or see the bud, do we say, It works harmoniously and well, and a man or one of the lower animals made it ? No ; but we say. It works harmoniously and well, and an infinite and eternal substance, an all-thinking and all-powerful being, the creator of all things, made it. Why ? Because it works harmoniously and well. But its workinff harmoniously and well does not prove all this : it only proves that it works harmoniously and well} What then does the experience of Israel, that the thought of righteousness kindled his emotions, prove ? Does it prove the existence of a not-ourselves which makes for righteousness ? Does it prove that there is a " tendency which is not ourselves, but which appears in our consciousness, by which things fulfil the real law of their being ?"^ Does it even prove that there is " a law of things which is found in conscience, and which is an indication, irrespective of our arbitrary wish and fancy, of what we ought to do ?" I apprehend not. The fact that the ancient Israelite was deeply moved when he thought of righteousness only proves that he was deeply moved when he thought of righteousness. We may put the experience how we like. We may say the thought of righteousness moved him deeply, and made him blossom out into sublime and very imaginative religious poetry, or we may say that he was of such a character as to be deeply moved by the thought of righteousness ; or we may say that the thought of righteousness is a thought 1 " God and the Bible," pp. 102, 103. See the whole passage. / » " Literature and Dogma," p. 43. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 215 •of such a kind as deeply to move a man like the ancient Israelite ; but all these are only different ways of dress- ing up the original experience with which we set ■ out, they are not inferences from it, they are not additional experiences. Aristotle describes the same phenomenon, liifferent things, he says, produce the emotion of pleasure in people of different characters : " a horse does in a man fond of horses, a spectacle in a man fond of spec- tacles ; and in the same way just things are pleasant to the lover of justice, and generally virtuous things to the lover of virtue.'" But the only inference Aristotle allows himself to make is an inference as to character. A man who likes good deeds likes them because he is good : " he would not be good if he did not rejoice in them" — ouS' iariv ayado^ o firi •^aipwv raig KaXaig irpaS,i(Tiv — and this is the only inference, if inference it be, that ean be made. We can infer a man's character from the things which he likes doing. So from the consciousness of being deeply moved at the thought of righteousness it is impossible to infer that there is anything beyond us, whether it be eternal or not, or make for righteousness or not. The ancient Israelite made no such inference, and we can make none. Israel got its original idea of God, as all other nations did, mainly from the apparition of nature outside of man, not from the emotions about righteousness within him. This is proved, as I believe all Biblical critics are agreed, by the fact that the original God of the Israelites is conceived as allowing and approving things which are distinctly wrong : things as immoral in their way as the things that Homer's gods do are in theirs. It is only gradually that the Naturgott, with which all religions begin, becomes moralized: and he becomes moralized just in so far as the community begins to take the place of nature as the immediate environment of man, and as the community, and with it the individual conscience, grows towards its golden age, its perfection. Mr. Arnold 1 " Bth. Nio." i. 8. 2i6 IVHAT IS THE EGOf himself seems to have been partly aware of this once ; for in " St. Paul and Protestantism"^ he says, " The righteous- ness of the earlier Jews of the Old Testament .... consisted mainly in smiting the Lord's enemies and their own under the fifth rib." So that when he says •? — The idea of Grod, as it is given in the Bible, rests .... on a moral perception of a rule of conduct not of our own making, into which we are born, and which exists whether we will or no ; of awe at its grandeur >and necessity, and of grati- tude at its beneficence. This is the great original revelation made to Israel, this is his " Eternal ;" — we cannot but feel that he is perhaps expanding rhetori- cally the experience of deep emotion which Israel felt in its best days for .righteousness, rather than re-stating in an inaccurate form the historical fact which in " St. Paul and Protestantism" he had stated correctly. But how the original experience groans and creaks under this added weight ! How little it is capable of such expansion we see from Mr. Arnold's own account of it, when defending it under the pressure of adverse criticism. What, after all, is the " eternal not-ourselves ?" " It is no meta- physical conception," he tells us, in " God and the Bible.'" Let us see. The word " eternal" has three different meanings, and in aU these three meanings it is used by Mr. Arnold. Two of these are philosophical, the third colloquial. First, "eternal" means that which is exempt from duration,* withdrawn from sequence and succession : it is in this sense that the Bible speaks of God as to whom " a thou- sand years are as one day." In this sense it is used once of "the Eternal that loveth righteousness" by Mr. ' Preface, xvii. ; of. p. 57. » " Literature and Dogma," p. 122. ' P. 92. * We can realize this meaning by remembering one of those moments when we have been engrdssed by some occupation, or, better, when we have been under the influence of some overpowering emotion, and have lost count of the succession of external circumstances, and of the lapse of time. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 217 Arnold.' Secondly, "eternal" is used of the whole of duraiion, regarded as an endless series of successive events — i.e., it means everlasting, the sense of eternal against which the late Mr. Frederick Denison Maurice spent his life in fighting. This is also a very common sense of the word ' eternal in the Bible, and we find it used by Mr. Arnold when, in explanation of eternal, he says, " The righteous is an everlasting foundation,"^ and that the eternal is the "unchangeable,"' or the "per- manent,"* or the " enduring."^ The two philosophical meanings of " eternal" are really two fragments or factors of the metaphysical sense of the word. The two streams of thinking, of thai which is exempt from duration, and of that which endures from the beginning to the end of dura- tion, find their proper place and meaning when held , together by means of what we have already described as the metaphysical synthesis. And it is in this complex sense, which includes and fuses the two senses of " eternal" in the Bible, that we apply strictly and scientifically the word " eternal" to God. But there is a third use of the word eternal which is colloquial — one might even say that is now a vulgarism : as when we say, " So-and-so is eternally taking snuff," meaning that he habitually does so. This use of the word was more common a few generations ago than it is now: thus, in Miss Burney's "Evelina" we read that Captain Mirvan and Madame Duval are eternally quarrelling. Mr. Arnold has restored this somewhat old-fashioned use of the word, as when he says,* " This argument of popular theology rests on its eternal hypothesis of a magnified and non -natural man," &c., meaning the hypothesis which popular theology habitually frames ; and as when he says of the German critics of the canon of the Gospels,' " They are eternally reading its literature, reading the theories of their col- ' " Literature and Dogma," p. 3Sa ' Ibid. p. 123. ' Ibid. p. 32. * Ibid. p. 48. * Ibid p. 61. • Ibid. p. 176. ' " God and the Bible," p. 179. 2i8 WHAT IS THE EGO f leagues about it." Now one would not have prophesied beforehand, on a view of Mr. Arnold's earlier works oh religion, that he would first have used the word " eternal" in the two Biblical and philosophical meanings of " beyond time and sequence" and of " everlasting," all through an elaborate work like " Literature and Dogma," to give sublimity to the idea of righteousness ; to give it outwardness as a kind of cosmical operation going on whether we like it or not, whether we obey it or not ; to bring this idea of righteousness within the sphere oc religious emotion ; to accomplish (in a word) the apotheosis of righteousness ; and then at length, when pressed by criticism, as he rests from his labours, with the objection, " You say that you go only on experience, that you bring forward nothing which is not verifiable by experience ; now this idea of the eternal is a metaphysical conception not given by experience," — would reply, " I never meant to take eternal in either of the first two senses, but only in the third or colloquial sense." I say, we could not h ive anticipated that he would answer so. And yet this is what in his reply to his critics in " God and the Bible" he does: — Tes indeed, eternal, as tliat which never had a beginning and can never have an end, is, Hke the final substance or subject wherein all qualities inhere, a metaphysical conception to which experience has nothing to say. But eternal, ceviternus, the age or life-long, as men applied it to the Eternal that makes for righteousness, was no metaphysical conception. Prom all they could themselves make out, and from all that their fathers had told them, they believed that righteousness was salvation, and that it would go on being salvation from one generation of men to another.^ Now let lis look at this passage a little closely, and let us translate it into terms of experience. The original experience was, we remember, that of profound emotion at the idea of righteousness. What part of this expe- ' " God and the Bible," p. 92. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 2S9 rience is covered by the word etenfial, or what additional element was there in the experience which had not been brought out before, but which we now emphasize by the use of that word ? This : combined with the emotion at the idea of righteousness, we now learn that there was an habitual and traditional belief in the consciousness of the ancient Israelite that other people before he was alive had felt, and that other peopje after he was dead would feel, the same profound emotion as he did at the idea of righteousness. This, then, is the solid bit of experience, an emotion at the thought of righteousness, combined with a belief that other people would feel, and had felt, the same, around which Mr. Arnold has woven his envelope of words. Yet if the irreligious and anxious-to-be-scientific Philistine, whose forte conduct is not, can be made to feel this emotion and nourish this belief, a great point will doubt- less be gained. But in the meantime is it not unfortunate that Mr. Arnold does not give him any aid in setting himself to try to excite and to nourish them ? Yet no ; at this point Mr. Arnold gives the Philistine the cold shoulder — " If you don't feel them already," he says in effect, " it's no good talking to you." Every one has some affinity for them, although one man has more and another less. But if any man is so entirely without affinity for them, so subjugated by the conviction that facts are clean against them, as to be unable to entertain the idea of their being in human nature and in experience, for him " Literature and Dogma " was not written.^ Again, it would have been something, at least, if Mr. Arnold had been able to tell the Philistine, as an encouragement, that the ancient Israelite's traditional belief that his posterity would go on feeling the emotion for righteousness as he felt it, that the emotion was so firmly grounded in his constitution by habit that he could not conceive this habit not being propagated in his • "God and the Bible," p. 157. 220 IVffA T /S THE EGO ? children, and so iDecoming what Mr. Ai-nold calls "eternal" — it would have been something if he could have told the Philistine that this expectation was not destined to be disappointed by the event. But Mr. Arnold's characteristic honesty 'will not allow him to do this. The expectation of the ancient Israelite was, after all, disappointed : in the decline of the Jewish com- munity, " righteousness had, lost, in great measure, the mighty impulse which emotion gives, and in losing this, had lost also the mighty sanction which happiness gives.'" So that, after all, the use of the Bible to the irreligious and anxious-to-be-scientific Philistine, should he be tempted to re-open it, will be not so much to show him " that righteousness is salvation verifiably," but to incul- cate " the faith that this is so" — i.e., the faith that it is verifiable !^ The little soUd bit of experience, round which Mr. Arnold has woven his envelope of Biblical words, seems thus to crumble on being touched, and to come after aU to little or nothing. But let us now examine for a moment the structure of this envelope in which it is enshrined. As often happens, the relic, when we come to get a near view of it, is inconsiderable, but the case in which it is kept is beautiful and gorgeous. In this instance the shrine is composed of nothing less than the names, or synonyms of the names, which are given in the Bible to Jehovah; viz., " unchangeable" (" Literature and Dogma," p. 32), "enduring" (p. 61), "almighty" (p. 124), "infinite" (p. 265), "extending infinitely beyond consciousness" (p. 322), "riding" (p. 323), "loving righteousness" (p. 349), and the "author" of it (P- 33 ; " perpetually intervening" (" God and the Bible," p. 93), giving a "divine sanction'' to conduct (p. 137), " the centre and source of those ideas of moral order and of conduct which are in human nature" (" God and the Bible," p. 142). These and many more are attributes of, and used as synonyms of, " the Eternal" in the two ' " literature and Dogma," p. 85. ' " God and the Bible," p. 156. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 221 Biblical senses of Him who is everlasting, and of Him in whose sight " a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past ;"■ but they are, it needs no proof to show, not in any way synonyms Of the " Eternal" in the third or colloquial sense, in which alone Mr. Arnold says that he applies it to the Israelite's hahitual regard of the thought of righteousness with emotion, and to his expectation — disappointed as we have seen by the event — that this habit would continue in his children. If we say, as Mr. Arnold says, that " God" means seriousness, and " Eternal" means habitual, then we shall have to translate the text " Hear, Israel : the Eternal our God is one Eternal," into " Hear, Israel : the habitual our seriousness is one habitual ;" and this even the Chevalier Bunsen, who did so much to give a modern and Aryan rendering to Semitic terminology, would have perceived to be absurd. There is, we must observe, no juncture of an ex- perimental or inferential kind between the piece of experience which Mr. Arnold brings forward and the magnificent edifice which he throws around it. The juncture is verbal, and is to be found in the ambiguity of the word " eternal." The God of the Bible and of modern religion is eternal: the fact of experience adduced by Mr. Arnold is also eternal: therefore the God of the Bible and of modern religion is the same as the fact of experience. Yes, but " eternal " as applied to God means one thing ; and " eternal " as applied to the fact of experience means a totally different thing. And thus it happens, as Bacon says, that while " men believe that their reason governs words, words also react upon the reason and govern it." There remains the not-ourselves which plays such an important part in " Literature and Dogma," but which in no wise, as we saw, could be made to grow out of the ancient Israelite's emotional regard for righteousness. The thing that strikes us about "the not-ourselves" is that it is a" conception purely negative ; it is not the ' Fs, xc, 4, 222 WHAT IS THE EGO f affirmation of anything beyond ourselves, but merely the negation of ourselves. Xow there is no more common confusion in logic than a confusion of the distinction between contradictories and contraries. The distinction is this : in the case of contradictories one term stands for something, and the other term stands for nothing at all. In the case of contraries both terms stand for something. " Eich " and " poor " are contraries, and both, as we know, exist ; but " ourselves " and " not-ourselves " are contradictories, and the latter term stands for nothing at all. Let me, in illustration, quote a passage from one of Mr. Goldwin Smith's writings in controversy with the late Dean Mansel.^ He says : — When we are told that " the conviction that an Infinite Being exists seems forced upon us by the manifest incom- pleteness of our finite knowledge," we fall back into the fallacy of the positive-negative Infinite. Infinite is not the complement of Mnite, but its negation. At this rate the philo- sopher might, by the simple instrumentality of a negative prefix, become the creator of intellectual entities vpithoat end. By prefixing a negative particle to Sorse, he might create the complementary entity NotSorse ; and then vre should have Not-Horse fi.lling the universe, crushing human reason into the dust, and exalting the humiUty of its enemies to the skies. And he adds elsewhere :' — If I am not mistaken, we might as well allow the frown of a negative particle, as the frown of the " Infinite," to cast its shadow over our souls. But here we are getting out of the region of mere language and its illusions — the idola fori as Bacon calls them — and into that of the illusions of logic and philo- sophy. These Bacon calls the idols of the theatre, {idola theatri.) He says : — At idola theatri iunata non sunt, nee occulto insinuata in intellectum : aed ex fabulis theoriarum, et perversis legibua demonstrationum plane indita et recepta.* ^ "Eational Eeligion" (Whittaker & Co., 1861), pp. 131,132. * Ibid. p. 121. ' Novum Orgaoum, Ixi. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 223 The " idols of the theatre" are not inhorn in man, but consciously adopted either from baseless theories or from wrong canons of reasoning. The wrong canons of reason- ing we can understand without difi&culty, as Mr. Arnold has already provided two instances of it : in the founda- tion of a would-be experimental theosophy on the ambir guity of the word eternal, and in the confusion of contradictories with contraries. So that we have been obliged to anticipate among idols of the market-place much that also belongs to our present section ; so closely intertwined are the illusions of language with those of thought. Mr. Arnold's construction of the " eternal not- ourselves that makes for righteousness" will also come under the class of illusions called fahdce theoriarum. Bacon gives instances of these fabulm theoriarum, which might be illustrated from Mr. Arnold's works ; but what he is especially thinking of under this title would seem to be an illegitimate use of the philosophical conceptions of the past. Now, what is this illegitimate use for us in the nineteenth century, living nearly a hundred years after the appearance of Kant's " Critique of Pure Eeason ?" What makes conceptions which were once true, which once carried conviction to all the superior minds of an epoch, " fables" to us ? Why should such ideas as " essence, existence, substance, finite and infinite, cause and effect, something and nothing," seem to keep round Mr. Arnold a kind of Witches' Sabbath and Walpurgis night in the air, whenever he thinks of metaphysic ? This inquiry will bring us back to the point from which we started at the beginning of this chapter, and thus give a kind of unity to what we have hitherto been saying. In our last chapter we saw that a metaphysical idea, or synthesis, is the structural form or outline which the total experience of an epoch assumes and within which it continues to grow up, until the particular synthesis becomes insufficient for it, and is then discarded for and 224 WHAT IS THE EGO? absorbed in a larger and' more complex synthesis. The metaphysical or formal element in experience is nothing by itself apart from or prior to experience ; any more than the shape of an oak, into which an acorn grows, exists apart from the oak or before the oak has arrived at maturity.' , But now suppose the Zeit-Geist, or common conscious- ness of an epoch, to have grown out of its old form into a new one, what happens ? Two things happen. The old structure is absorbed and built into the new structure ; but the old form also remains as such — i.e., unabsorbed, in the memory of mankind and in the literature of the age which is just closing, and it dominates stUl, it may be, the minds of the elder generation of men, whose thought have ceased to move with the times. Only it becomes 1 The form ultimately assumed may indeed be regarded as a kind of programme which is destined to be carried out by the growing organism ; as when M. Renan says, "II faut admettre dans I'univers oe qui se remarque dans la plante et I'animal, une force intime, qui porta le germe k remplir un cadre trac^ d'avance" ("Fra^ents Philosophiques," pp. i7J, 178) ; or as when George Eliot says in speaking of the fashion of different streams of thinking : " Has there not been a meeting among the pathways as of the operations in one soul, where ore idea being horn and breathing draws the elements towards it, and is fed and grows f" (" Daniel Deronda," vol. iv. p. 249.) This apparent distinction of the form from the contents, and priority to them, arises, I cannot but think, from an unconscious comparison of things in nature to things made by man. A man has a cadre trad d'avance in his mind or on paper of what he is going to make before he makes it ; and hence we go on to suppose the same in nature. However this may be, we have become habituated through so many generations to think in this way, that now we cannot well avoid it. The important thing is not to allow ourselves to suppose that by this kind of priority, which we cannot help giving to the form over the contents, we mean priority in time; we can avoid this by calling this kind of priority, as some writers have long ago done, priority naturS,, as distinguished from priority tempore. I should prefer to caU it apriority* as getting rid altogether of the idea of time, and preventing us from making the sort of mistake that Plato made. * Arguments a priori will then mean arguments derived from a consideration of the structure of experience ; whilst arguments d posteriori will mean arguments derived from the consideration of its contents. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 225 every day more and raore empty of experience ; the new experience will not fit into it ; until at last, when men's minds have moved still farther away from it in subsequent generations, it becomes entirely emptied of contents, a mere formula or " stock notion," as Mr. Arnold very weU says, and as such it survives to confuse and irritate mankind. Nobody knows where it came from, and yet it cannot be got rid of. It has become one of the "fdbvlm theoriarwm ;" and metaphysic is supposed by many to provide a kind of asylum in which these attenuated creatures drag out a miserable existence. For it is no good trying to put them out of their misery ; " like immaterial and aery beings they elude the sword which smites them, and part but to reunite."^ It is no good turning your back upon them, as Mr. Arnold does, and saying, " I don't know anything about them, and I don't care : on this subject I am dead to the prick of shame." For the poor shall not perish out of the land ; the meta- physical ideas are there ; we cannot escape them, any more than'we can escape the consequences of our fore- fathers' vices. Our minds are filled with the ddbris of preceding minds,^ as our bodies are fiUed with the rebellious desires which are the " survival " of our animality. And as with the rebellious desires, so with the effete metaphysical ideas; they dominate us each in its turn, all the more for our not knowing about them, and we are, all the more for not caring, their unconscious slaves. Now the man who follows his bodily desires one after the other, and is absorbed in each as each comes uppermost, we are accustomed to call the natural man, as distinguished from the moral or civilized man, to whom his place in the community has given a central principle and aim in life, so that he can methodize his desires in ' Wallace's " Logic of Hegel," Prolegomena, Ivi. " " Their thoughts the -mthered husks of all things dead Holding no force of germs instinct with life." (" College Breakfast Party," by George Eliot.) 226 WHA T IS THE EGO ? \ relation to the common good and his own. Such a methodizing of the unruly impidses within us we praise under the name of morality, as distinguished from asceticism, which turns its back upon the desires, and tries to get rid of them ; or, if it attempts their systematization, gains its principle for doing so from an imaginary environ- ment, instead of from the real environment of the com- munity. , It is the same with the (in their way) not less re- bellious and importunate " stock notions" which fiU the air into which we are born, and get imbedded in the tissue of our minds. The natural man is the slave of each as it presses its claim ; he is tossed from one to the other during his youth, and is fortunate in mature age if he has succeeded in making terms of permanent surren- der with only a select number of them, and excluding the rest. This is the ordinary mental condition of the Philistine after middle life, when he tells you, " I have made up my mind on aU-important topics, and don't wish to have it unsettled again." The " stock notions" to which he has been attracted by temperament or circum- stances have honeycombed themselves together into a kind of rookery within his thought, and seem to him to be the supporting framework of the mind itself. '' Now here comes in metaphysic to liberate us from the tyranny of fixed ideas, as morality liberates us from feeling " the weight of chance desires ;" and it liberates us in the same way. It gives us a central principle by which we may dispose of this detritus of extinct processes of thought, by showing us our place and part in the Zeit-Geist, in the movement of the collective consciousness, of which the hereditary and detached ideas are extinct forms. It tells us that none of the ideas are absolutely true, as we suppose, nor again any of them absolutely untrue: as morality tells us that none of the bodily desires are absolutely and in themselves either good or bad. The first are only true or untrue, as the latter are only good A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 227 or bad, relatively to a given stage of advancement in us. The " fixed ideas" which we cherish or by which we feel ourselves burdened have no existence, and no value, apart from the past experience of which they were the modes. It is their detachment from the onward move- ment of experience, by experience having ceased to flow through and fertilize them, and moreover from their names being handed down in language, that makes them simulate an independent existence and value which they have not. But there is another semblance which metaphysical ideas put on when detached from their nidvs in the collective consciousness, and regarded, as we are all apt to regard them, in isolation. This is their semblance of oviwardness. ^ They are supposed to be not merely thoughts or modes of thought in us, but, as Auguste Comte says, " abstract forces, veritable entities, inherent in all beings," or, as Plato fabled, having their abode in some remote and appropriate place, perhaps in heaven.^ Now, how does this outwardness come about ? Whence do we get the supposition that behind and beyond our experience there is a region of things, abstract but real, which we do not and cannot experience ? This tendency in metaphysical ideas to become the mirage, or double, of experience, has been named in past times their tran- scendental character, their capacity for " transcending" or climbing over the wall of experience to the other side of it.^ And it arises in this way : (i) The ideas have become detached from living experience; they have been shed like the shell of a cretacean that was too tight. (2) They are preserved in language, and a name always carries with it the illusion of representing a reality, whether it does or no. (3) They represent an experience which preceded the experience in which we are now living, and 1 For IriKeiva rijs oifflas, see Plato, "Republic,'' p. 509. ' Lewea's word " luetempirical " accentuates the abnormal condition of the metaphysical ideas — i.e.,. their detached condition. Q 228 WHA T IS THE ECO ? so, although now empty forms, seem to have a priority in time to experience as we know it. (4) They retain, like empty wine-bottles, the savour, so to speak, of the reality which they once contained. All these causes serve to give them an outwardness in regard to experience as it is ; but there is also another cause of apparent outward- ness as strong as all these put together, which is more difficult to understand. This cause is to be sought in the peculiar relation which the individual, as such, bears to the community of which he forms a part. By the individual (is such, I mean the individual conscious of his independent existence, his desires, his separate experience, &c., but not yet conscious, or not yet so distinctly conscious, of his existence as part of the community. To the individual, therefore, beyond the brightly- lighted chamber of his own thoughts, there looms a world of twilight filled with strange echoes which he cannot interpret ; beyond the familiar valley there lies the seat of government, and here lie London and Paris and Washington, of which he has heard, but of which he knows nothing, and yet from these seem to arrive influences operative in his own life. From this outer and dim world have come to him language and religion and law and the arts, and such changes as have grown over these and over the lineaments of his own narrow experience. Prom it too may come to him, he knows, some day, the claim of some common good for the surrender of aU that he has and of his own life; a claim which he will obey. But at present he has followed the pathways leading to this larger and surrounding world, only up to the point where they cross his own horizon. Such metaphors as these may explain, perhaps, better than the technical language of philosophy, the relation between the individual consciousness and that of the community. The relation is one of contrast and of solidarity combined ; and it is this relation which gives to the extinct modes of collective experience which we have A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 229 called metaphysical ideas, — in addition to the outwardness which we saw that they got from language, and from the other causes before enumerated — the same illusory character of " veritahle entities," of " abstract forces," which the other products of the collective consciousness, language, religion, law and morality have. To stay, then, " the eternal dance" of " essence, exis- tence, substance," and the other metaphysical ideas which keep Mr. Arnold in a state of irritable watchfulness, and which are much more numerous than those he has been at the trouble to specify, there are two remedies which the science of metaphysic, frankly embraced and attended to, supplies.'^ First, it heightens our usually low con- sciousness of solidarity with the social medium or " better self;" and secondly, it relegates to their place in the historical development of this social medium those ideas which, in their isolation and "detachment from it, have from time immemorial hoodwinked and imposed upon mankind. Mr. Arnold has and applies the -first of these remedies ; he uses it fruitfully in " Culture and Anarchy" when he applies the " better self" as a cure for social anarchy ; and in " St. Paul and Protestantism" when he applies the Zeit-Geist as a cure for the narrowness of Puritan dissent ; but he has not and cannot apply the second remedy, because in "Literature and Dogma" and in " God and the Bible" he renounces the use of method in handling ideas, and so he cannot relegate these importunate entities to their historical place in the develop- ment of the social medium. The science of metaphysic is essentially a method : not an artificial method like the method by which a man makes a clock, but a natural method like the method by which a living organism grows and makes itself. Metaphysic may thus be called the morphology of collective experience ; and its method is the process going on within collective experience itself 1 Renan comparea the "conscience de tout" with that of the polypus and the oyster. Q 2 230 WHAT IS THE EGO ? and transforming it. To appeal to experience, then, as Mr. Arnold does, is to appeal to metaphysic, the science of the formation and transformation of experience ; not, as Mr. Arnold supposes, an appeal from metaphysic to something more real and solid. And it is bad — i.&, unmethodized — metaphysic latent in his mental constitu- tion, it is the illegitimate use of the ideas of the past, it is metaphysic with its ideas detached, promiscuous, liying and buzzing around him, which makes Mr. Arnold shy at metaphysic altogether, which sends him on his embassy to experience, and, as Bacon says, " arripere ex experientia varia et vulgaria, eaque nee certo comperta, nee diligenter examinata et pensitata." It is metaphysic itself which is here playing fast and loose with him, and driving him into the dim, dismal quagmires over which hover the illusions of language, the illusions of the intellectus sibi jpermissus, the idols of the theatre and of the den. But it is time that we considered briefly, aecordiag to ovx programme, Mr. Arnold's criticisms on Descartes' philosophical ideas, which form the staple of his positive and direct attack upon metaphysic in the second chapter of " God and the Bible." These criticisms relate to two points in Descartes' philosophy — (i) the proposition cogito ergo sum, and (2) the proposition that "ideas which represent substances to us ... . contain more objective reality — that is to say, they partake by representation in more degrees of being or perfection — than those which repre- sent to us modes or accidents only."i Of the first, the cogito ergo sum, Mr. Arnold says he understands the meaning of the first word, but not of the last. " Now what to think is we all know .... a thing, says Descartes, which thinks is a thing which doubts, which understands, which conceives, which affirms, which desires, which wishes, which declines, which imagines also, and which feels." But Descartes does not explain I "God and the Bible," pp. 64, foU. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 231 his terms, I am, I exist, " because to him they carry an even more clear and well-defined sense than the term, / think- But to us they do not." Mr. Arnold then looks into Dr. Curtius's "Outlines of Greek Etymology," and gives us his philological variations on the text, "I grow," " I feel that I am alive," &c., which made everybody in England smile. N'ow here one might point out, in limine, that if to think is satisfactorily explained by an enumeration of its modes, " to doubt, to understand, to conceive," &c., it is difficult to see why to be should not also be satisfactorily explained in like manner ; to be — i.e., "to stand, to appear, to be handled, to be a stone, a man, a tree. We all exist ; we affirm it of each other every day of our lives, and of things around us." And so on, by enumerating the different modes of being. It is not necessary for me to go further, as I had originally intended, into Mr. Arnold's criticism of this dictum of Descartes, for one of the most exact and accomplished of our English philosophers, Mr. Shadworth Hodgson, has shown in a recent number of the quarterly journal called Mind} that Mr. Arnold has misconceived the meaning of cogito ergo sum through not knowing a passage in the " Meditationes de prima Philosophia," in which Descartes explains it. It means " I think" — tha.t is to say, " I am ;" " my existence means my conscious- ness ;" " I am" means " I think ;" so that all the structure bunt upon the foundation of " I grow," " I feel myself to be aHve," is superfluous, and falls to the ground. N'ow let us take Mr. Arnold's second criticism — viz., of the statement that some ideas have more objective reality than others. He gets to this second proposition of Descartes in his search for the meaning of to be in the first. "We find that with Descartes to possess more perfection means to possess, not what men commonly call by that name, but to possess more being. And this seems to be merely - No. iv pp. 568, foil. , 232 WHA T IS THE EGO f going round in a circle, and we have to confess ourselves fairly puzzled and beaten.^ Kow here, too, as in the former case, what is wanted is not any extraordinary philosophical acumen, hut merely accurate knowledge of fact The fact is this — BeiTig in the second proposition belongs to an entirely different order of ideas to Being in the first proposition, and therefore in no way helps to an elucidation of the latter. In the cogito ergo sum, " I am — i.e., I think" is the last point reached in a process of doubt, of which it is impossible to doubt — i.e., it is an idea arrived at, con- ditioned by a process of reasoning in Descartes himself. In the second proposition, on the contrary, that " more perfection" means "more being," Descartes is simply Platonizing ; he is putting forth with assurance an idea, and a false idea, which he, along with every other person educated in the scholastic controversy about " Univcrsals" had in that age imbibed, and which Descartes had not consciously abandoned. It was false — i.e., it was obsolete and meaningless — and Descartes' own cogito ergo sum, by giving philosophy a new starting-point, rendered it, if nothing else did, obsolete. But put it back into its proper place in Plato's ideal theory, and it at once has a meaning; But it is most natural for a man to appeal with assurance to hereditary ideas which are unsound, but which he has never consciously abandoned ; just as Mr. Arnold himself in this very chapter talks with assurance of objects which strike our senses, a mode of thought unsound and misleading, and having its only place in a crude realism which has long been obsolete. But the reader may ask. How did Plato get this notion of degrees of Being ? This is a long and difficult problem, scarcely appropriate for discussion here, and open, moreover, to much dispute; perhaps, however, the following remarks may throw a little light upon it. 1 " God and the Bible," p. 71. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 233 Plato, then, conceived the world as a pyramid, the base of which is formed by groups of recurring sensations similar (in each group) to one another. Immediately above this base-line is a shorter row consisting of 'particular objects of perception, corresponding each to one of the groups of exactly similar sensations in the base, chairs, tables, trees, &c., as we know and use them in actual life. Above this second line is a still shorter row, consisting of the classes to which the chairs, tables, trees, &c., respectively belong, their common properties being attended to and their individual peculiarities neglected, " chair," " table," "tree," &c. Above this row of classes is a fourth and still shorter row of wider classes, to each of which several of the narrower classes on the third row belong — e.g., "chair," " table," "tree," would all come under the class " vegetable substance ;" and similarly there would be other groups of classes, such as " mineral substance," "animal substance ;" then the different classes of substance would come under the larger class of substance; and so on, until, by throwing off differences at each stage, a single highest class, "Being," is reached, forming the apex of the pyramid. Now Plato seems to have remarked that the lowest row but one consisted of items which, as being permanent objects of perception — this chair, this table, this tree, &c. — are more real, that is, more definite and more permanent, as well as more outward, less dependent on my subjective state than the similar sensations which recur to me and then vanish, whenever I look at each of these objects and then look away again ; thus the chair itself is there whether T. am looking at it or not. Eemarking this greater reality in the object of perception than in the series of evanes- cent sensations, Plato inferred — and here he went wrong, for it was an unwarrantable inference — that because the objects of perception in the second row were more real than the group of sensations, therefore the class of ideas which form the items in the third row are more real than the objects of perception; and the wider and more abstract 234 WHAT IS THE EGO? class of ideas in the fourth row, more real than those in the third ; until he came to Being, the highest, widest and most abstract class-idea of all, which was, he thought, by a parity of reasoning, the richest and fullest of all, instead of the emptiest. Having reached the top of his pyramid, and coming down the scale again, it is very easy to see how natural it was for Plato to say that the rows of more abstract class-ideas, as being nearer to the top, partook more of Being than the rows lower down, and that the lowest row of classes partook more of Being than the row of objects of perception, until the minimum of reality was reached in sensation. This dictum about partaking of more degrees of Being thus becomes easy of comprehension so soon as we see how it arose ; how it is part of a system of thought ; and how natural it was in Plato, handling the artifice of classification for the first time, and anxious to give it importance and show its cogency, to make just the false step that he did make. This illusion of a " world turned upside down" {eirie verkehrte Welt), in which the most abstract ideas have the most reality, dominated the Middle Ages ; it is the foundation of Scholasticism ; but so soon as we can put our finger on the point where the error began, it all falls through, and Scholasticism with it ; so that we need have no uneasiness about the monu- mental fragment of it which Descartes — " math^maticien sans pareil, physicien moins heureux, moraliste et psycho- logue de second ordre"^ — Descartes, educated in the Scholastic Philosophy and not yet free from its illusions — built into his philosophical system. At the same time we may remark that Plato's ideal theory has many points of resemblance to Mr. Arnold's construction of the " Eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteousness." Like the " Eternal," it is a hollow structure built of words ; and yet both the one and the other is founded on a basis of 1 Eenan, "Fragments Philosophiques," p. 321. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 235 experience. Plato is faithful to experience wlien he says you must rise out of the chaos of sensation into the cosmos of perception, and you shall have greater reality ; Mr. Arnold is faithful to experience when he says you miist rise out of the chaos of the animal desires into the cosmos of the moral life of righteousness, and you shall have joy; Plato then makes a false but very natural inference, and takes his flight into the air ; Mr. Arnold also makes his verbal confusion of the meanings of the word eternal, and takes his flight into the air too ; we lose sight of them both at the same point, and from henceforth we hear the flapping of their wiags, but cannot follow them. In conclusion it remains to ask whether there is any thing in experience corresponding to Mr. Arnold's new religious construction, " the eternal not-ourselves that makes for righteousness ;" or, in other words, what is it that really and experimentally makes for, or promotes, righteousness in the world as we know it ? is it a not-ourselves, is it outside of owrselves ? is it eternal in any exact and scientific sense of the word? The first of these is a question upon which Mr. Arnold scarcely touches. He proinises to do two things : to show first what was the experience of the ancient Israelite, upon which he based his religion ; and to show, in the second place, what is the experience which we have in common with the ancient Israelite, whereon we can base ours. The first of these promises he performs, and we have already examined his performance of it ; but the second he never performs at all, and when in " God and the Bible," after " the God of miracles" has been dismissed, and the " God of metaphysics" has been exploded, he comes to the "God of- experience," instead of telling us what are the experi- ences of our life of to-day upon which we may base our religion and our idea of God, he gives us little more than a recapitulation of the Biblical passages by which he endeavoured before, and as we think failed, to show that 236 IVI/AT 75 THE EGO? the " God of the Bible" was an inference from the pro- found emotion with which the ancient Israelite regarded the thought of righteousness. Such a foundation could by no means be made to carry such a superstructure. But now, as to our own experience, of which Mr. Arnold, instead of considering it fully by itself, makes a problem ancillary, or, as we may say, parasitical, to the problem of Jewish experience — what are the data ? Do we experience a force outside of us always drawing us towards good, and never towards evil ? Are the righteous always happy, and the wicked never prosperous ?^ It is said that Diagoras of Melos, when he saw the offerings of the sailors in the temple of Poseidon, remarked, " We count those who were saved : no one counts those who were drowned, who yet made their vows like the rest." So we count the good who prosper, and the wicked who are miserable ; no one counts the wicked who are so insensate as to be happy, or the good who are so sensitive as to be miserable. To Schopenhauer, on the other hand, the sight of man's unhappiness, irrespective of his actions, was so overpowering that he drew from it the conclusion that the Supreme WUl was malevolent. We must at any rate not blink this side of experience, if we would be just in our estimate. It seems doubtful if we know yet what the secret of happiness is : it would appear to be very much more an affair of the nervous system, of the temperament than of conduct. It attends us unsought ; and if we seek it, it flies from us. If we pursue righteousness of set purpose to obtain happiness, we miss happiness, and our righteousness becomes immoral, because it ceases to be disinterested. If this were not so,- if to righteousness were really annexed happiness, happiness and the pursuit of it would be that which more than anything else " makes for righteousness." But this is not the case. Wljat is it then which bears us, like a stream ' " Le aoleil a vh aana ae voiler lea plua criantes iniquitfe, il a aouri aux plua granda crimes." — Kenan : " Fragm. Phil," pp. 13, 41, &c. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 237 upon its bosom, when we are acting in a certain way, and which buffets and baffles us, and gives us an intolerable sense of isolation, if we act in the opposite way ? It is the social medium, the community of which we are organic parts : not only the opinion of our immediate circle, nor the arm of the law, nor the pen of the scribe, nor the preaching of the Churches, but a certain stress and direction in the march of events themselves, which impel us to do the things which shall be of the greatest and widest benefit, whether we find them agreeable or not.^ I often think, when a criminal is punished for an offence against the law, that about one-third of the penalty he suffers is his due, and that the rest ought to be set down to the account of the community, whose imperfections in past generations and in this have made him what he is. So with laudable actions, we get praise for them as if they were our own several estate, and yet but for that larger collective life of which our own is the outcome, we should not have been capable of them. In every action of the individual, how much is due to character, and how much to thfe circumstances of his position, will vary with each case : but certain it is that as societies become more complex and firmly knit together, the part played by character becomes increasingly less. And then what is character itself but a crystallization of social conditions round a single point ? Yet man is free in his action, each in his measure, in so far as character reacts upon the social environment. That which " makes for right- eousness in the world" is the ascent of a society towards its zenith ; that which makes for unrighteousness is the decline of a society towards stagnation or dissolution. In the former case all or most of the social conditions go to the nourishment and fertilization of character ; and it blossoms naturally, like the trees in spring. In the ' Theodore Parker gave about three parts out of a hundred of the result of any life to freedom, the rest to necessity {The. Unitarian Review, Boston, Oct. 1878, p. 424). 238 IVHAT /S THE EGO? latter case, character has to subsist for the most part upon its native stamina, i.e., upon the transmission through individuals of hereditary qualities. In a declining com- munity righteousness is what the anthropologists call " a survival;" such was the righteousness of a man Kke Marcus Aurelius ; it drew its sustenance not from the present but from the past. But yet the world progresses upon the whole ? It does, and this is the reason — ^because in the intercourse of nations the principles of conduct which have characterized one society in its highest development may be taken as the starting-point of an infant community. Such were Koman institutions and Jewish religion to the German barbarians of the third century. Such were English institutions and Puritanism to the American commonwealth, so that the decay of the old communities counts for little in the history of the ■world, although it counts for much in the life of the indi- vidual citizen. Stoicism and asceticism are the forms which righteousness takes in a period of social decline ; and these before long, like plants transferred to a vacuum, living organisms placed under a receiver, begin in vaouo to lose their freshness, and decay too. Then the study and pursuit of the old righteousness, especially under the influence of a nascent society around them, begin to organize themselves anew in social v-udei apart from the main community, in brotherhoods and orders of religious. These orders then begin to simulate the changes which come over the great society outside them, at the same time that they become its teachers. " Asceticism," as I have said elsewhere, " itself the negation of all institu- tions, becomes itself an institution." Anachoretic in a time of anarchy, it comes in contact with feudalism, and becomes itself the owner of serfs and of land ; in a lettered age it becomes lettered ; in an age of chivalry chivalrous; in the dawn of physical science and of popular ideas it becomes scientific and democratic ; and then, lastly, becomes corrupt and drops off, like an aged parasite^ A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 239 from the main trunk of social life, as it expands towards its full stature. This then, I would submit, is the history of what Mr. Arnold calls " righteousness" in the world ; and this is the total fact of experience with which we have to deal. But upon this, as before upon the partial experience of the ancient Israelite, no religions tenet whatever can be foimded. The only thing that we know of by experience, as making for or promoting righteousness^ is the healthy and normal growth of a human society ; but this growth is no more a metaphysical abstraction outside of the individual, than his conscience or his actions are outside of him ; and it is no more " eternal" in any recognized or intelligible sense of the word, than human society itself. That human society is not eternal ex parte ante we know, because we have record of a time when man did not exist upon the surface of the globe ; it is not eternal eon parte post because we have every reason to suppose that con- ditions incompatible with the existence of organic life will again supervene. In the meantime, and between these two limits, we have as a fact of actual experience, communities of men, each the embodiment of a collective consciousness, of a common experience ; so that we may hope some day to give organic expression to the collective mind and conscience of mankind ; to organize not a Zeit- Geist merely, the spirit of a particular community, or group of communities, or of a particular time, but a Welt- Geist, a world-spirit, in which all that is partial shall be done away, and the race shall be as conscious of the unity of its total life as a man is now. .Such an idea, however, can only find its true expression in what we have called the metaphysical synthesis. And after all it may never be realized: the chances seem against its realization. " Both the world and society tend of them- selves by a sort of law of inertia towards equilibrium which win be their death." ' " An irremediable deca- ' "Dial Philos.," 53. 240 WHA T IS THE EGO f dence of the human species is possible."* " The exhaus- tion of coal and the generalization of the principles of egoism," i.e., the erection of selfishness into a principle, may cause the decline of man, long before the cooling of the sun shall drive him from the temperate to the torrid zones, and from the outer limits of the torrid zone to the equator. Society, character, religion, and the arts and sciences will, in that event, die before they have come to their perfection.' Is there then no God in heaven ? Must we cry with Novalis, " Children, ye have no father" ? By no means ; M. Eenan says, " Un monde sans Dieu est horrible." I say so too. But the "' eternal not-ourselves which makes for righteousness" is not what we mean by God : it is simply the disembodied ghost of the Zeit-Geist or " better self " on which Mr. Arnold enlarged so well in his earlier books ; so far as it is more than an edifice of words built on the quicksands of an ambiguity, it is the mirage or metaphysical double of the community. It is a meta- physical idea, or rather it is the moiety of a metaphysical idea. It is not the whole, it is not the synthesis, the Begriff ; it is one of the factors of the synthesis, without its complementary factor. The synthesis embraces the tendencies which promote righteousness, combined and interwoven with the tendencies which hinder it. In any given community this is the total fact of experience, if you wiU face it, and this is the fact as metaphysic interprets it. But an abstraction of the understanding, crowned with a negativeparticle, and robed with the Eternal Name, — " the eternal not-ourselves which makes for righteousness," does it not impose upon us with the illusory definiteness of an empty formula from which the contents of the actual religious consciousness have been sedulously excluded ? is it more substantial than the enunciation of Mr. Dombey's elegant and languid mother- ' "Dial. Phil." p. 64. ' "Elle mourra avant d' avoir atteintla sagessp," ibid. p. 67. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 241 in-law : — " There is no What's-his-name but Thingummy ; and What-you-may-call-it is his prophet ?'" To sum up. We have seen Mr. Arnold driven to take the true metaphysical point of view by the exigences of his polemic against the Liberal Philistine in " Culture and Anarchy," and again by the exigences of his polemic against the religious Philistine in " St. Paul and Protes- tantism ;" we have then seen his decline and faU from this point of view in " Literature and Dogma" and in " God and the Bible," conditioned by the exigences of his efforts to persuade the irreligious and desirous-to-be- scientific Philistine to reopen his Bible and to appreciate the importance of conduct. "We have seen that he tries to " get round" the irreligious Philistine by saying, " Come now, we will give up all metaphysics, and we will go only upon the ground of experience." We have seen that by thus descending to the Philistine's level, he does not really get out of the metaphysical region, but only out of the region of good metaphysic into the region of bad metaphysic, of idols and illusions such as the Philistine knows and rejoices in; and that he thereby leaves the main high road along which travels the large experience of mankind, and of which metaphysic is the formal science, and shuts himself up in the small parcel of experience, ■v^ith which the Philistine nourishes and flatters himself. And the fundamental assumption which lies at the root of all this bad metaphysic, and this frustrated appeal to experience, is to be sought in a latent tendency in Mr. Arnold himself, which appears as early as in his first book.* It is the assumption that " thought and speculation is an individual matter," it is the tendency to " philosophize alone," instead of moving in the broad pathways along I " Dombey and Son," ch. xxvii. The passage should have been quoted entire: " The idea ! my dearest Edith, there is such an obvious .destiny in it, that really one might almost be induced to cross one's arm upon one's frock, and say, like those wicked Turks, ' There is,' " &c. 2 "Culture and Anarchy, "pp. 185, 186. 242 WHAT IS THE EGO ? which knowledge is actually advancing. This assumption is at once the basis of the private judgment on which the religious Philistine relies, and of the popular empiricism upon which the irreligious Philistine builds. It is the same assumption as that of the individual as something given on the one side, and of experience as something given on the other : and this assumption is itself metaphysical, only it is bad metaphysic, it is a petrified fragment of a metaphysical synthesis, instead of the living whole of a synthesis of the Zeit-Oeist. May we not say of metaphysic in the words of the poet — " They reckon ill who leave me out, When me tlieyfiy I am the wingi; , I am the doubter and the doubt, And I the hymn the Brahmin sings." Having spoken so severely of Mr. Arnold's later works in their scientific aspect, I desire to record my enjoyment of them and gratitude for them in every other. What cau be more delightful than the passage in " Literature and Dogma" about the " Muse of Eighteousness" ?' The account, too, of St. Paul's doctrine in " St. Paul and Protestantism ;" and of the early witnesses and of the " method" and " secret" of Jesus in " Literature and Dogma ;" and again of the Bible Canon and of the Fourth Gospel in " God and the Bible," seem to me, in spite of what the learned critics have said about their inaccuracy, to be quite admirable in their way. They surely contain with sufficient accuracy all that a man of general cultiva- tion, as distinguished from a professional student, need know about these -subjects. And then the purity and freshness of the thoughts which hide from us the angular and unlovely lineaments of the Puritan rnetaphysic — how charming they are ! I always experience the same sensation in reading these books of Mr. Arnold as I have when reading Mr. Ruskin's later works ; it is the sensation ' P. 23. A PLEA FOR METAPHYSIC. 243 as of a breeze bringing health from sweet and sunny fields, and blowing for a moment across the exhausted atmosphere of a German lecture-room. But then to enjoy this refresh- ment one must turn away from the thing said to the means and manner of saying it ; and one must listen to these, not as to an exposition of fact, but as one listens to a nocturne of Chopin, or to the sound of wholesome rain dropping on a dry place. AMERICAN EFFORTS APTEK lETEEKATIOI^AL COPYRIGHT. E 2 247 AMERICAN EFFOETS AFTEE INTEENATIONAL COPYEIGHT. The questions of principle involved in International Copyright, and in the American practice of reprinting English books freely in the absence of a Copyright Con- vention with this country, have been so completely handled a year ago by Mr. Edward Dicey in this Eeview,' that I do not propose to enter upon that part of the subject. I would only add to his exposition one or two illustrative points which are generally unknown or forgotten in this country. The first is this: that the practice of freely reprinting books in the absence of inter- national copyright has been and is still common in Europe. The Irish publishers, and notably Swift's Dublin publisher, Faulkner, were accustomed to reprint Lord Chesterfield's Letters, Eichardson's novels^ and a host of other English books, without paying for them. And at the time of the Union it was put forward as a grievance by the Dublin publishers, that this large and lucrative branch of trade was taken away from them. Similarly, the Belgians, before the Convention of 1 86 1 , pirated French books by wholesale ; the Dutch to this day systematically pirate German music; the Germans, as systematically, the Eussian novels of Turguenief and Pushkin; until recently the German States reprinted each others' books ; not to mention the large number of American books which have been pirated by ourselves. But universal practice is of course no justification; and the second point to which I would draw attention is that the 1 Fortnightly Review, January, 1876. 248 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER general principle upon which the Americans defend both their opposition to a convention with Great Britain, and also their practice of reprinting freely in the absence of one — viz., that they consider themselves bound to consult- exclusively the benefit of their own people — ^is a principle which has been repeatedly laid down in cases of disputed copyright by the judges in our English courts and in the House of Lords -^ whilst it has been stated by Piitter, one of the greatest legal authorities of ,the last century in Germany, that no principle of right is violated by the mere repriating of foreign works, provided the reprints be not smuggled into the country of the original work, as was formerly done in the German States in respect of one another, and by the Belgians and Dutch in respect of France. The third point to which I would direct Mr. Dicey's attention is this. He does not seem to be aware that a practice has grown up, during the last fifteen or twenty years, with the best firms in the United States, of paying liberally for the English books which they reprint, although under no compulsion in law or equity to do so. The largest reprinting firm, that of Messrs. Harper and Brothers in New York, has paid not less than ;^5o,ooo during the last twenty years to English authors. The exact sums that they have paid for some score or more of the most famous English books I have myself, at their invitation, copied down from their ledgers. But it is time to turn to what are my especial aims in the present paper. They are twofold. I desire in the first place to bring into one view the different directions which opinion has taken of late years in the United States on. the subject of copyright, and in the second to give a connected account of the various efforts which have been made by American authors and pub- lishers to bring about a convention with England. In the course of this history I shaU lay before the reader a 1 See the oases in Short's " Law Kelating to the Works of Literature.'' London: Cox. 1871. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 249 number of documents bearing upon the subject, some ot which exist only in manuscript in the Library of Congi'ess at Washington, and many are unknown to the majority of Americans themselves. It is generally supposed in this country that, on the subject of international copyright, American opinion is homogeneous. This is far from being the case. There are half-a-dozen more or less divergent groups of opinion among different classes of persons concerned in the question, and in different parts of the country. There are, first, the authors of New England and a small number of publishers, of whom I may take the firm of Messrs. J. E. Osgood & Co., of Boston (formerly Ticknor & Fields), as the type, who are in favour of international copyright pure and simple, without restrictions or condi- tions of any kind. The highest class of newspapers, not only in New England, but throughout the country, whether Free Traders or Protectionists, whether Democrats or Eepublicans, are accustomed to advocate, with more or less of , qualification, the same liberal measures. At the other end of the scale of opinion stands the Penn- sylvanian School, which opposes international copyright of all kinds and with whatever qualification. Of this school Philadelphia is the head, and the aged and much- respected economist, Mr. Henry C. Carey, is the thinking brain. To this school one firm in New York of the first importance, Messrs. Harper and Brothers, of Franklin Square, may be said, with reservations, to belong; and it does not want friends amongst the manufacturers and farmers of the Middle and "Western States, and amongst the trades which are ancillary to the publishing trade, such as type-founders, paper-makers and binders, through- out the Union. Between these two extremes there are three or four smaller groups in favour of international copyright under conditions, but differing as to what are the best condi- tions. We may call these groups of intermediate 250 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER opinion collectively the New York School, as the prac- tical measures in which they have been embodied have issued for the most part from the leading publishing firms of New York. To begin with the extreme opponents and with Mr. Carey, a name reverenced in Pennsylvania and celebrated throughout the Union both by friends and foes, not less than is that of the late Mr. Mill in England. In this country his works are scarcely known, but in Germany they are translated and held in honour; whilst in Eussia, whose area and some of whose other conditions are some- what like those of the United States, they are, or were within the last few years, in use as a text book.^ Mr. Carey's views on copyright have at present the advantage of being the only ones based upon a coherent economical theory. The fundamental idea of Mr. Carey's social science is that of the decentralization of industry. A community, he holds, should aim at producing aU the commodities it needs, so as to be independent of its neighbours; This he regards as the condition of political independence. Secondly, in an extensive country like America the production of the necessary commodities shocdd be, as far as possible, equally spread over the whole area, so as to bring the producer and consumer into immediate relations, and eliminate "the middleman." This internal decentralization produces diversity of employments, stimulates the circulation and interchange of social elements, and is the condition of sound and progressive popular education. Now international copy- right, supposing it established, would either place the monopoly of the American market for English books in the hands of the great English firms, thus making America dependent on her neighbour, or else it would place it in the hands of five or six of the most important firms in the three chief Atlantic cities — ^New York, ' The reader will find a short but intelligible account of MrT Carey's views in the Academy of January 27, 1877. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 251 Boston, and PMadelpMa — thus conflicting with the principle of internal decentralization. Further, he thinks that the introduction of cheap reprints of English books does not Compete unfavourably with the more expensive editions of native authors, but prepares a market for them ; and this opinion is held by many practical men. As to the payment of English authors, he says he does not agree with those who protest against international copyright on the score that such payment would increase the price of these reprints. If nothing better than this can be said (he exclaims)-' we may as well at once plead guilty to the charge of piracy and commence a new and more honest course of action. Evil may not be done that good may come of it, nor may we steal an author's brains that our people may be cheaply taught. .... We stand in need of no such morality as this. "We can afford to pay for what we want ; but even were it other- wise, our motto here and everywhere should be th'e old Prench one, 'Fais ce que doy, admenne que pourra. But copyright, he thinks, is a wasteful way of collecting what is due to the author, inasmuch as nine-tenths of what is collected would go to the parties standing between the author and the reader — i.e., to the "middlemen." As Mr. Carey was in earlier life himself a publisher, this statement may be worth consideration. On the other hand, if we must have some sort of copyright, he adds finally, let it be in the form of a royalty, fixed hy law and paid to the author by every publisher who reprints his book ; and let all, on this condition, be at liberty to reprint, in the same way as all managers of theatres are at liberty, on payment of a royalty to the author of a play, to act his piece.'' Solidaire wholly or in part, and for practical purposes wholly solidaire with Mr. Carey, are three other important ' "Letters on International Copyright" (and Edition. New York : Hurd and Honghton), p. 21. ' Ibid., p. 77. 252 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER interests whioli we must now specify. The first of these is the powerful New York publishing house of Harper' and Brothers before mentioned, who hold that an inter- national copyright is objectionable because it would increase the price of books, and thus tend to bring down and narrow the popular intelligence. And it must be re- membered that, so far as any influence upon Congress is concerned, the little finger of Mr. Harper is thicker than the loins of aU the literary and scientific men in the United States put together. The second large interest which works more or less with Mr. Carey and his friends is that of the considerable booksellers of the Middle and Western States, who are not publishers to any appreciable extent, but would be glad to have their picktags, like the rest, out of the English,, and, for the matter of that, out of the native market too, and who wpuld oppose international copyright, and may so be classed along with the other constituents of Mr. Carey's phalanx. At present the bulk of the English reprints are monopolized by five or six leading firios in Boston, New York and Philadelphia. They get every- thing worth having, partly because they have exceptional opportunities of knowing at the earliest moment what is to be had, and have long established communications with England; partly because they control the channels of distribution through the whole area of the Union, whilst the Western bookseller only commands the limited area of perhaps half-a-dozen States in his immediate neighbour- hood ; and lastly, but not least, because they alone are strong enough to quash competition. After many mutual invasions and reprisals, these leading firms of the East have established what is called a "courtesy copyright" between themselves — nominally, 1 am aware, extended to all publishers being American citizens, and not repre- sentatives of London houses — but practically confined to those who are able to retaliate when the " trade courtesy" is violated. This " courtesy copyright" is a tacit under- INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 253 standing that when one great house advertises the fact that it has made arrangements with the English author or pubKsher for the reproduction of his book, the other great houses are not to reprint that particular book. This system of " courtesy copyright," which has been gradually growing up of late years, should be spoken of with respect, for it represents an improvement in commercial morality, as well as of loyalty towards each other, and of good feeling towards England ; and so far as the English author and publisher are concerned, it is an increasingly efficient substitute in the majority of cases for the benefits which they would derive from copyright. But this is not the view taken of the coalition by the booksellers who are left out in the cold, and who have scarcely a chance of getting hold of an English book before it has been snapped up in one of the Atlantic cities. These booksellers have little opportunity of coming across the English author and getting his latest book; their names are unknown in England, their solvency and sea-worthiness, and the extent of their means and appliances for making a book succeed,, and the area of their habitual operations, can only be understood by those who have visited America. Some of them nourish the greatest jealousy of the half-dozen fortunate firms, and would regard any form of inter- national copyright which has been proposed as securing for good the monopoly of the Eastern against the Middle and 'the Western cities. Their grievances would find local expression in the newspapers, and the Congress-man, who comes up to Washington with his mind, as is generally the case, a perfect blank on the merits of copyright, can- not afford to overlook the expression of opinion in the local newspaper, to which perhaps he owes his seat. Only on very stringent terms, framed expressly to break down the Eastern monopoly, would the bookseller who is ambitious to become a publisher consent to international copyright. Here is a sample proposition as it frames itself in the mind of such a bookseller. " We will only," 254 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER one said to me, " consent to the protection of English books in this country, provided you can establish some system which will give us the same chance of getting them to publish as the New York houses have. This might be done by a public agent at Washington, who should be charged to receive all English manuscripts which were for sale to American publishers. He should advertise their titles and invite tenders for them ; and of these tenders he should then be compelled to accept the highest, from whatever part of the country it came, provided it was the tender of a firm of known respecta- bility and solvency." Whatever may be thought of the economical eccentricity of this proposal, there is very little doubt that the great firms of the East would be able to bring sufficient pressure to bear upon Congress to prevent any such measures being taken for the under- mkiing of their monopoly. We must add lastly to the account of the forces and interests with which the advocate of international copy- right has to reckon in the United States, the growing conviction among the farmers and the manufacturing classes in the Western States of the inutility and injurious effects of the system of patents. Copyright, whether domestic or international, is, after all, nothing but a kind of patent, and the recognition of their identity in principle was shown in a characteristic manner by the American Act of 1 846, since superseded, which prescribed that books to be copyrighted in the several States of the Union should be deposited with the district clerks in order to be sent to the Patent Office at Washington.-^ The growing disfavour with which patents are regarded has found expression not only in the United States but also in Europe. Switzerland has abolished the system altogether, and its abolition in Holland was discussed in the Legislature of that country in 1 869. But the • Amenoan Library Journal, vol. i., Nos. 2 and 3, p. 89. Paper of Mr. A. R. Spofford, the Librarian of Congress, on Copyright. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 255 weightiest European exponent of the case against patents is Prince Bismarck, in a message which he sent to the North German Federal Parliament, Decemher 10, 1868.^ As the arguments against patents are identical With those against copyright, it may be worth while to summarize the statement of them given by the German Chancellor : — After taking the opimon of the Chambers of Commerce and the Mercantile Corporations, the Prussian Government, on the occasion of the German Pederal Assembly Session of 3i8t of December, 1863, gave utterance to the doubt whether, under present circumstances patents for inventions may be considered either necessary or useful to industry. Since then the Hpyal Prussian Government has taken tbe question once more into serious consideration and feels bound to answer it in the negative on the strength of the following arguments. The arguments then given may be succinctly stated as follows : — (a) Patents are not warranted by a natural claim on the part of the inventor, nor (&) are they consequent upon general economical principles, (c) They involve an attack upon the inalienable right which every man has of applying each and every lawful advantage to the exercise of his profession, (ci) The development of communication enables an inventor, without the aid of a patent, to make sure of a temporary profit in advance of competitors in proportion to the service rendered to the public, (e) It is the opinion of experienced officers charged with the examination of claims for patents, that it is practically impossible to master the matters submitted, or to uphold anything Kke a strict criterion of originality. (/) Patents are for the most part taken out with a view to swindling speculation ;'' and complaints are made of the abuses and impediments which they bring upon industry. (A) Patents have not proved an actual benefit either to the proprietor ''■ See his arguments in " Abolition of Patents, Kecent Discussions," &c. (Longmans, 1869), p. 185. • In Prussia, 87 per cent of the requests for patents have been non- soited during the last ten years. 2S6 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER or to the putKc, and the profits have gone just as often into the pockets of strangers as into those of the inventor; a satisfactory reform in the mode of granting them seems to be impossible. The evils are inherent in the very- constitution of the privilege, (i) The great inventions of the past were made without this stimulus, and the absence of patent-right in Switzerland has not been found at all prejudicial to the public at large. Lastly, it has not been found that where patents have been abolished inventors have turned themselves to countries still willing to protect them. I have preferred to state the arguments against patent monopoly as they are set down by the great European statesman, partly because they are here expressed with greater clearness, order, and conciseness than can be found,- so far as I know, in any Transatlantic writer, and partly because I wish the reader to appreciate the fact that the movement in opposition to patents, involving as it does precisely the same principles as the movement in opposi- tion to copyright, is not a peculiarity of the Americans, in which we in Europe have no part. Indeed it is easy to see that every argument adduced by Prince Bismarck hangs together with the economical theories just expounded of Mr. Carey and his followers. Por it should be noted that Mr. Carey's argument against monopoly carries with it not only the condemnation of international copyright, but of domestic copyright also. And he warns his countrymen, in a chai-acteristic passage, to let international copyright alone, lest they be overtaken by the demand for a discussion of the grounds upon which their own domestic copyright is based. However this may be, it seems out of the question to hope for anything but opposition to an International Convention with England from the Western farmers and manufacturers, who at present have not had their attention directed to copyright, but who are already showing signs of dissatisfaction with the kindred institution of patents. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 257 These are the various parties, interests, and directions of opinion which the advocate of international copyright finds ranged against him in the Middle States and the " great West," the two sections of the American Common- wealth which are every day more and more determining the character and policy of the whole. On such a subject as -copyright the South is silent ; since the war, it neither huys nor produces books. Which way it would be likely to go, if the discussion ever got beyond the Library Com- mittee of the two Houses of Congress into Congress itself, I know of no data for predicting. New England we have already seen to be (roughly speaking) in favour of international copyright in the same unconditional sense as international copyright is understood in Europe. Its literary men (and there are but few literary men out of New England) believe as a body in the inherent and inalienable rights of the author, just as Mr. Charles Eeade might do. We come lastly to New York, standing midway, both in opuiion and geographically, between the extreme opponents of international copyright to the south and west of it, and the extreme advocates of the same to the north and east of it. Its leading publishers unite in themselves the brilliant business qualities characteristic of the one area, with the culture and academical training of the other. From New York, then, have issued the only practical and practicable proposals that have been made for a reconciliation of these conflicting interests. Before giving an account of these prop'osals, and of the varied discussions to which they have given rise, I wiU lay before the reader a short account of the inconveniences which American publishers say they experience in the absence of a Copyright Convention with England, which one of them has put into my hands. The present system of payment for " advance sheets" of English -books, which is becoming almost universally the custom with the best houses, gives the American publisher no legal protection against competition, but 258 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER purchases for him, in fact, nothing tangible, except a week or two's start in point of time over others in the trade. Payments similar in amount, or not much greater, under an international copyright, would give the publisher the required protection, and thus enable him to issue his reprints more leisurely and in better and more uniform shape ; would enable him, in fact, to give his customer more for his money. Under the present system the lack of uniform editions of many of the best reprints is a serious annoyance to the book-buyer, and, in that it serves to diminish sales, causes material loss to the publisher. The books of Mr. George Macdonald are an example. They were very generally scrambled for, and the different volumes were published by four or five houses in very different styles. In the case of most of the books the author received payments for "advance sheets." They had a good initial sale in the United States as new books, but have failed to find a steady permanent sale, chiefly because it is the interest of no one house to push and advertise the set as a whole, and each publisher hesitates to advertise the volumes which he brings out because part of the advantage of such advertising would accrue to other firms. If these works could have been copyrighted in America, they would, in the natural course of things, have all been placed with one house, and the customer could then have obtained a decent uniform edition of the whole at a moderate price ; the series would have been permanently catalogued and advertised, and the ultimate profits much greater both for publisher and author. Under a copyright for English books a great many desirable reprinting enterprises would be undertaken by American publishers which at present they dare not touch at all, or which, if they touch, they are obliged to carry out in a hasty, superficial, and unsatisfactory manner. Any enter- prise requiring a long investment of capital is attended with special risks when subject to unscrupulous competi- tion. The issue of a numerous set of books, for instance, INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 259 may be begun with proper care and in good Style, and money may be invested in the preparation of the first few volumes, and in advertising the series. But if the undertaking promises well, there is nothing to prevent an unscrupulous neighbour from printing the volumes as rapidly as the original undertaker, and perhaps, by printing them with less care, selling them at a lower price, and obtaining the advantage of the advertising and of the literary judgment of the original undertaker. This risk prevents a great many desirable things from being done, or causes them to be done improperly, and in this way it is an injury to the buyer of books as well as to the publisher. It remains to see what practical efforts have been made on the part of the Americans to remove these in- conveniences by the establishment of a limited measure of international copyright ; and this will be the best form in which to consider the intermediate groups of opinion which we have characterized collectively as the New York school. In 1838, immediately after the passing of the first In- ternational Copyright Act (Vict . i and 2, c. S 9) of the pre- sent reign, Lord Palmerston invited the American Govern- ment to co-operate in establishing a Copyright Convention between the two countries. In the previous year the late Mr. Henry Clay, as chairman of a Select Committee, had reported to the Senate of the United States very strongly in favour of such a Convention, upon the ground that the author's right of property in his work was similar to that of the inventor in his patent. The discussion of Mr. Clay's Eeport was crowded out at the end of a Session ; and Lord Palmerston's proposal met, so far as I can learn, with no response. It is stated in an official return that at this period no less than six hundred American books had been reprinted in England.' A memorial was then 1 House Document, Ko. 76, 30th Congress, ist Session : quoted in Mr. Baldwin's Keport (1868). S 26o AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER presented to Congress to the effect that international copy- right would " derange and oppress the American hook trade, by suddenly giving the benefit of copyright to foreign books already published."i This retrospective action was, I need scarcely say, not contemplated in Mr. Clay's report. In 1843, ninety-seven firms and persons representing the book trade petitioned Congress in favour of inter- national copyright, on the ground that its absence was " alike injurious to the business of publishiag and to the best and truest interests of the people at large.'" A memorial was presented in the same year against it, setting forth amongst other things, that it would prevent the adaptation of English books to American wants;' and Mr. Baldwin remarks that the mutilation and recon- struction of American books to suit English wants was also common to a " shameless" extent. In 1853, the question of a Copyright Treaty with England was again mooted, based upon the principles set forth in the following letter fi-om five of the New York publishing firms to Mr. Everett, at that time Secretary of State : — " New York, Ml. 15th, 1853. " To THE Hon. Edwaed Eteeett, Seceetaet oe State. " Deae Sie, — As it is in contemplation to present, for the ratification of the Senate, a treaty for an international copy- right between England and the United States, we deem it proper to state some points of practical necessity in passing such a treaty. In order that a British author shall require American protection it should be insisted upon that the titles of the foreign work should be entered at the United States District Court or the Department of State before its publi- cation in England, and if within thirty days of its publication in England the work is not printed in this country, then any one in this country shall have the right of reprinting it as at present. In order to show the publisher's right of protection ^ House Document, No. 416, 251)1 Congress, and Session : quoted ibid. ' Baldwin's Report, p. 4. » Senate Document, No 323, 22nd Congress, 2nd Session, ibid. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 261 under this treaty, he must show his right to the book from the author in writing. In case the copyright is secured as aboTe, it shall be provided that the type shall be set upi" and the book printed and bound in this country. The necessity of this provision is obvious ; for if an English publisher or author may print and bind a book in England and at the same time secure a copyright without being required to print and bind his book here, then more than one-half of the mechanics and women, employed in the type-founderies, printing-offices, paper-mills, book-binderies and the various collateral branches, will be thrown out of employment and great distress must follow. The people of this country are accustomed to cheap books, and great care should be had to guard against placing the power in the hands of the English publishers to force us to buy only English copies, which, from their expensive style, must be mucb higher in price even without the duty. This provision is right, for it protects the people from high foreign prices, and gives the author all he can desire if he will only conform to its provisions. On this plan the English author is placed i^pou the same footing as the American. His rights are fially protected and the larg;est profit accrues to him from the American sale of his books, while a suitable and just protection is also given to American mechanical industry in the manufacturing department of book-making. "With great respect, we are your obedient servants," D. Appleton & Co. G. P. PrTNAM & Co. RoBEST Caeteb & Bros. Chaeles Soeibnee. Stameoed & SwOEDS. In view of this treaty, the Hon. James Cooper, a Penn- sylvania Senator, asked Mr. Carey, the eeonomist, for " information calculated to enable him to act understand- ingly in reference to the International Copyright Treaty now awaiting the action of the Senate ;" and in the autumn of the same year Mr. Carey published his six letters on International Copyright, the fundamental positions of which I have already endeavoured to expound. Mr. Carey adduced also two other considerations, the s 2 262 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER first of which he has often reiterated to me in conversation. This is, that the facts and ideas in a hook, as distinguished from the language in which they are clothed, are the common property of society. In these it is impossible to have copyright ; and the embodiment and presentment of them in words is as often as not merely mechanical book- making, unworthy of protection, whether national or international. Somewhat similar views have been enun- ciated in this coimtry by Mr. D. Eobertson Blaine, in the discussion on Lord Westbury's BUI (1836) "to extend the protection of copyright in prints and engravings to Ireland ;" and by M. Michel Chevalier in a speech before the Soci^t^ d'Economie Politique, June 5, 1869.' Mr. Carey's other objection was to a point of form. A question affecting the population so widely, he held, must not be disposed of in a treaty to be negotiated by the Senate, but must come before the more popular branch of the legislature, otherwise it would be repudiated by the people within a year.^ After this the question seems to have been shelved, or, as Mr. Carey phrases it, " evaded," for fourteen years. In 1 867, it was reopened in the October number of the Atlantic Monthly, by an article urging the same points as Mr. Clay had brought forward thirty years before. This was answered by the republication of Mr. Carey's letters of 1853 : but Congress, at the beginning of the following year, instructed the Committee on the Library " to inquire into the subject of International Copyright, &c., and to report by bill or otherwise." This committee consists of three members from each House, and is charged with the direction of the Library of Congress, an institution embracing the functions of the British Museum and of ' See " Recent Discusaiona on the Abolition of Patents, &c.," pp. 324 and 168. ' This was put still more explicitly in his subsequent pamphlet, " The International Copyright Question considered." Philadelphia : H. C. Baird. 1872. P. 4. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 263 Stationers' Hall. The three memhers from the Senate were Mr.> Morgan (New York), Mr. Fessenden (Maine), since deceased, and Mr. Howe (Wisconsin) ; those from the House of Eepresentatives were Mr. Pruyn (New York), Mr. Spalding (Ohio), and Mr. Baldwin (Massachusetts), chairman. In Mr. Baldwin's Report,^ to which I have already had occasion to refer, it is stated that "your committee feel that no country has greater need of Inter- national Copyright than ours ;" and the following con- siderations are brought forward in support of a measure : ( I ) A sense of justice to the author's right of property in his work should be sufficient to secure the establishment of International Copyright laws. (2) Such laws would contribute powerfully and successfuUy'to develop our own literature and make it national, instead of its being, as at present " it has to a large extent remained, provincial to that of Great Britain." (3) International Copyright would very much improve the business of manufacturing, pubhshing, and selling books in the United States, by giving it stability and certainty. (4) It would greatly promote the interests of American book-buyers. Copy- right is the price paid by the publisher for security in the market ; and with this security he could afford to sell cheaper, and to print and bind better. As a writer in the North American Review says, " Copyright would procure not a less, but a greater multiplication and cheap- ness of copies." The principal inconveniences alleged against International Copyright are then discussed, the most important objection, " that this policy would give British manufacturers of books entire monopoly of the American market," being thus answered : " It is enough to reply that the measure we propose would make such British monopoly of our market impossible ; for American ' Fortieth Congress, 2nd session. Report No. 16, House of Repre- sentatives. I have to thank Mr. A. R. Spofford, the courteous Librarian of Congress, for placing this and other official documents, both printed and MS., at my disposal. 264 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER editions of foreign books, to have the proposed benefit of Copyright, must be wholly manufactured here." Mr. Baldwin, from the Committee of the Library, at the same time reported a Bill to the Housed giving effect to this proviso, and adding the further one that the reprints, as a condition of their protection, shall be " issued for sale by a publisher or publishers who are citizens of the United States." The benefit of Copyright would appear also by sec. 4 to be expressly limited to "the author, and the heirs, assigns, or other legal representatives of the author." The Eeport was ordered to be printed and recommitted ; and the Bill, introduced February 21st, 1868, was read twice, ordered to be printed and also recommitted to the Committee on the 'Library. It was not until the close of the year 1871' that the subject was again mooted in the American Legislature. In the autumn, Mr. William H. Appleton, one of the partners in the New York publishing house of D. Apple- ton & Co., vn-ote to the Times (Oct. 20) explaining and defending the qualified copyright advocated in the pub- lishers' letter to Mr. Everett, and in Mr. Baldwin's BUL He also explained, in opposition to the statements made in a number of recent letters to the Times, soundly rating the Americans for unscrupulous " piracy,^' &c., that the best American houses had for some years adopted the policy of establishing direct relations with English authors, and, in default of the legal compulsion of copy- right, paying them voluntarily and regularly the same royalty on the reprints of their books as they would have received if they had been American citizens. EepHes to Mr. Appleton from Mr. E. K. Daldy (Bell & Daldy), and Mr. M. H. Hodder (Hodder and Stoughton), were pub- lished in the Times of Oct. 24, the latter admitting that the advantages to be gained by a Copyright Convention " are, no doubt, on the side of England," but addiag, from 1 H. R. 779- INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 265 his own experience as a recent visitor, that "America was never, perhaps, more ready than now to agree to what is just and right." Mr. Appleton then returned to America and expounded his views anew in a couple of letters to the New York Times, in the latter of which he answers the objection that his "idea of copyright can only be reached when Congress legislates that no Englishman shall hereafter be naturalized, and that no American shall have an interest as a partner in any English publishing house." He protests that he meant nothing of this ilUberal nature ; and that he does not believe the English publishers will endeavour, as a class, to circumvent the Americans by this manoeuvre. On the 6th of December Mr. Cox introduced a Bill into the House of Eepresenta- tives substantially identical with Mr. Baldwin's measure ; which was also read twice, ordered to be printed and referred to the Library Committee. This second com- mittee contained one member, Sepator Howe, of Wisconsin, from the previous committee of 1868, Senator L. M. MorrOl, of Maine (chairman), and Senator Sherman, of Ohio ; and from the House of Eepresentatives, Mr. Peters (Maine), Mr, Wheeler (New York), and Mr. Campbell (Ohio). At the beginning of January, 1872, Mr. Henry C. Carey again appeared on the scene with a pamphlet, " The International Copyright Question considered " (Philadelphia : H. Carey Baird), in which he reiterated the arguments of his previous letters and criticized unfavourably the chief points of Mr. Baldwin's Eeport ; whilst the new Library Committee of Congress called upon the publishers and others interested in the book trade to aid in framing a Bill. The result of this call was a meeting of publishers in the Mercantile Library, New York, on the 23 rd of January. To this meeting roi publishers from the three principal Atlantic cities were invited, 50 from New York, 27 from Boston, and 24 from Philadelphia. Nineteen firms only were 266 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER represented, 1 7 from N"ew York and 2 from Boston : Mr. Lippincott, of Philadelphia, was accidentally pre- vented from being present,^ but expressed his adhesion to the principle of copyright with the condition of re- manufacture. At this and the subsequent meeting on February 7, a memorial was presented by Mr. William Appleton from British authors, in which the condition of re-manufacture is accepted, with the remark that " it is clear that the Americans have strong reasons for refusing to permit the British publisher to share in the copyright which they are wUling to grant to the British author." The memorial is signed by Mr. Herbert Spencer, Sir John Lubbock, Professor Huxley, Mr. John Stuart MOl, Mr. Thomas Carlyle, Sir James Paget, Mr. Darwin, Dr. Hooker, Professor TyndaU, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Euskin, Mr. WiUiam Black, Mr. G. H. Lewes, Mr. Thomas Hughes, Mr. Proude, Eev. James Martineau, Miss Harriet Martineau, Mr.. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Tom Hood, Mr. Edmund Yates, Mr. Henry Labouchere, Mr. Edward Dicey, and many others, fifty in all. A report was then drafted containing the text of an International Copyright Bill under the condition of re-manufacture in the United States, and stating, amongst other considerations, that copyright would not increase the price of books to any greater extent with English than with the works of American authors. For this the following nine firms of publishers voted — ^viz., D. Appleton & Co., Eobert Carter & Bros., Sheldon & Co., A. D. F. Eandolph & Co., J. B. Ford & Co., D. W. C. Lent & Co., W. H. BidweU, Dodd & Mead (all from N'ew York), and Lee & Shepherd (Boston). The late Mr. G. P. Putnam did not remain to vote ; but his son, Mr. Haven Putnam, informs me that he was in favour of the Eeport. Three publishers from New York, and Mr. J. E. Osgood, of Boston, declined to vote. The remaining five firms dissented — viz., Charles ' See letter in New York Evening Post. I'NTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 267 Scribner & Co., Holt & Williams, Hurd & Houghton, James Miller, and E. P. Button & Co., all from New- York; and Mr. Edward Seymour, one of the managing partners in the firm of Scribner, drew up a minority- report stating the following objections to the proposed BiU:— 1 . It is in no sense an International Copyright Law, but simply an act to protect American publishers, regardless of the rights of American authors. It has so narrow a basis, therefore, that it can never receive the endorsement of the public. 2. Even if it were possible for American publishers to secure the "protection" proposed in compelling the manufac- ture of foreign copyrighted books in the United States, sudh "protection'^ would he wholly exclusive, since the copyright which the Mnglish publisher could hold indirectly through an American partner, would secure him the absolute control of this market, whether the booh was made here or in England. 3. Por the reasons above stated, the Act is objectionable in prohibiting the importation of stereos and electros (stereotype and electrotype plates), in failing to provide for the copy- righting of cyclopaedias, &c., and in giving the American pub- lisher power to exclude revised editions of works of which he may own the copyright. Tt may be remarked on these two reports that, of the signers of the former, not more than two firms are of first-rate importance, and that the firm to whose influence the minority report is due are not only publishers, but the largest importers of English books in the United States. During the same week the executive committee of the Copyright Association, consisting chiefly of authors, adopted the following draft of a Bill made by their secretary, Mr. Charles Astor Bristed, entitled " An Act to secure authors the right of property in their books." It has the merits of shortness and simplicity. After the enacting clause it proceeds : — 268 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER 1 . All rights of property secured to citizens of the United Statep of America, by existing copyright laws of the United States, are hereby secured to the citizens and subjects of every country, the G-overnraent of which secures reciprocal rights to citizens of the United States. 2. This Act to take effect two years after its passage.^ Meanwhile the opponents of copyright in Philadelphia began to stir. On the 27th of January a meeting of printers, publishers, booksellers, paper-makers, &c., was held under the presidency of Mr. Henry Carey Baird, a relative, I believe, of Mr. Carey. Mr. W. Lippincott was one of the secretaries. After the proceedings of the New York meeting had been read, the following memorial, presented by Mr. B. H. Moore to be forwarded to Congress, was adopted : — "We oppose an International Copyright for the following reasons : — 1. That thought unless expressed is the property of the thinker ; when given to the world is, as light, free to all. 2. As property it can only demand the protection of the municipal law of the country to which the thinker is subject. 3. The author of any country, by becoming a citizen of this and assuming the burdens and performing the duties thereof, can have the same protection that an American author has. 4. The trading of privileges to foreign authors, for privileges to be granted to Americans, is not just, because the interest of others than they are sacrificed thereby. 5. Because the good of the whole people, and the safety of our republican institutions, demand that books shall not be made too costly for the multitude by giving the power to foreign authors to fix their prices here, as well as abroad. 6. "We oppose the Bill as proposed in New Tork, because it would enable the foreign author and his assignee in this country, by an absolute monopoly in the production, to fix the price of his book, without fear of competition. 7. Because the great capitalists on the Atlantic seaboard would naturally and almost necessarily represent foreign authors, from their world-wide reputation, the security of ' See WeMy Trade Circular, New York, Febraary i, i8;i. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 269 authors ia dealing with them, and their greater facilities in distribution of boots, thus centralizing the publication of them in few hands. 8. Finally, because the reprints of really valuable works on science, which are now published at prices so low in this country that the day labourer can afford to purchase them, would be raised by an luternational Copyright, or any pro- posed modification thereof, beyond his means ; and he would be obliged to confine his purchases mainly to cheap literature, not impro¥ing to his mind, frequently immoral in its tendency, and inculcating not rarely principles dangerous to the peace of society."^ On the 29tli of January Mr. Morrill, the chairman of the Library Committee of Congress, called a meeting " for the hearing of all parties interested." The N"ew York publishers' meeting was represented by Mr. W. H. Appleton, Mr. Sheldon, Mr. Van Nostrand, and Professor Youmans. The Copyright Association was represented by Mr. C. Astor Bristed, its secretary, and Mr. E. L. Andrews, of the Few York bar, who also drafted the subsequent form of the Bill proposed on behalf of the Kew York publishers and the authors. This geptleman drew up a " brief," in which he founded the plea for International Copyright upon a passage in the Constitution of the United States, to the effect that Congress shall have powers " to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." Mr. Andrews contended with much ingenuity that, American authors not being specified in this clause of the Constitution, the word authors must mean all authors, irrespective of nationality." Now it is impossible to protect foreign authors except by way of International Copyright ; it follows, then, he argued, that ' From the Printer's Circular. ' It ia curious that Lord Westbury, in the case of Boosey v. Jeffreys, committed himself in the House of Lords to a similar interpretation of the English Copyright Act. See Shortt on " The Latr relating to Litera- ture" (Loudon : Cox), p. 32. 270 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER the Constitution does not leave it optional with Congress to pass or not to pass a law giving copyright to foreign authors, but " in this respect is mandatory in its charac- ter." This singular argument, there is little douht, did a great deal of harm to the cause which Mr. Andrews espoused, and it has had the further detrimental effect of creating a false impression in the pubUc mind. In the ultimate report of the Library Committee it was, of course, set aside on the reasonable ground that it could not be supposed that the framers of the American Constitution had in view any class of persons except citizens of the United States. But from this statement of the report that such an argument for International Copyright could not be construed out of the words of the Constitution, an impression has got abroad amongst Americans who have never had the actual documents before them, that the committee declared International Copyright to he unconsti- tutional ; so that this unfortunate and far-fetched argu- ment has, perhaps, done more to shelve the question than even the oppOsitidn of the Philadelphia publishers. The deputations then proceeded to lay the following documents before the committee : (a) the report of the New York publishers' meeting — not a strong production, by the way ; (b) the minority report of Mr. Edward Seymour and his friends ; (c) the memorial of the British authors ; and {d) the memorial of the Philadelphia pub- lishers. This last was presented by Mr. Willis Hazard, of Philadelphia, accompanied by three workmen connected with the manufacture of books. Messrs. Harper and Brothers, of New York, were represented by counsel (Mr. Hubbard, of Boston), and also laid before the committee the following letter : — The question now before the Joint Committee of Congress upon the Library, however it may be confused or complicated ' This document exists in the Library of Congress, in the handwriting of Mr. Spofford, the librarian. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 271 jby the conflicting claims and interests of various classes, has always appeared to us under a very simple light. ' In considering the propriety of International Copyright legislation we deem it entirely inappropriate to urge upon you the claims of authors, puhlishers, booksellers, printers, binders, press-makers, or any other body of tradesmen, to be especially and exclusively recognized in such legislation. The interests of the people at large are to be regarded, and those interests alone. It seems to us that the whole question before your honourable committee really is whether the intelligence of the whole people, or, as the Constitution calls it, "the promotion of science and the useful arts," will be advanced by granting a copyright to foreign authors. ' There are men who believe, for plausible reasons, that a protected monopoly of publishing the books of such British authors as now arrange with us for the issue of their works would be of immense value to a large publishing house like ours, and that we should therefore gain much by the adoption of one of those Bills now before your committee. But while a law enabling us to obtain several prices for our books would secure to us enormous profits for a time, it would certainly within a generation diminish our business, as publishers for the people, by narrowing the popular intelligence. Publishers who aim at a permanent business, which shall continue to prosper under successive generations, will desire above all else that general diffusion of knowledge, and conse- quent general demand for literature, which can only result from the circulation of books cheap enough to be within the reach of all. This consideration, it seems to us, must govern the con- sideration of the question before your committee. Whatever of useful work in the world has been done by the publishers as well as the authors of this country, has been done by contributing to the progress and diffusion of knowledge and culture. It has been our aim and boast to furnish in an acceptable form the best reading for the people at low prices ; and, we point with natural satisfaction to our own lists, out of which a good and handsome libra,ry of standard and recent English works can be selected, at a price less than one-fifth of that which the same or similar books would cost in British editions or under an International Copyright Law. But the reduction of the price of a good book to one-fifth means, on the average, an increase of its circulation about twenty-fold ; and it is our conviction 272 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER that, had an international copyright existed for the last quarter of a century, the works of Macaulay, Tennyson, Bulwer, Dickens, Thackeray, Lecky, Darwin, "Wallace, Kingsley, Eohertson, Beade, Collins, George Eliot, Mrs. Gaskell, Miss Mulock, and the like, would to-day be known by less than one- twentieth in number of the citizens of the United States who are now familiar with them. In view of the great results which have grown out of the freedom of literary exchange which we now enjoy, of the general education of our people, of the extent and efficiency of our common schools, the number and circulation of village and country libraries, and the liberalizing, broadening, eleva- ting influence upon the national mind of the choicest thoughts of another great and cultivated people now so freely opened to it, it is our belief that the adoption of any serious restric- tion upon this freedom would be a very hazardous experiment, and possibly an irrevocable calamity to the nation. "We have the honour to be, very respectfully, Your obedient servants, Haepee & Beothees. These were substantially all the materials at this time laid before the Library Committee of Congress. Speeches were made on the 1 2th February by Mr. Andrews and Mr. Bristed, on behalf of the Copyright Association, in favour of unqualified International Copyright; and a written statement was read by Mr. W. H. Appleton, on behalf of the New York publishers' meeting, in favour of copyright, subject to the condition of re-manufacture ; whilst Mr. Hazard stated the arguments of the Phila- delphia remonstrants. Professor Youmans followed, urging the claims of British authors upon the singular ground that they were very badly paid in their own country and desired American sympathy — falling into a smart passage of arms with the previous speaker. On the following day Mr. Hubbard " took the floor," and, after reading Messrs. Harper's letter, stated that "he came to represent no interest but one, and that one the highest — the interest of the people." His speech appears INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 273 to have excited cobsideraUe amusement, and in the course of it he admitted that his argument carried with it the repeal of the existing law of domestic copyright. The committee requested him to commit his views to paper.' On the 1 7th Pehruary Mr. H. Carey Baird sent a fly-sheet to the committee, entitled " Copyright, National and International," in. which he hrought forward the additional consideration against International Copyright, that, if it were established, the American authors and publishers would be subject to perpetual litigation with the English proprietors of copyright, favoured by the comparative cheapness of the American courts of law, whilst they would be prevented by the dearness of the British courts from maintaining their own copyrights against infringement in England. The undersigned has been informed, and he believes, that it is no uncommon thing for American inventors to find, on application for patents in England, under existing laws, that their machines and processes have already been patented by other parties. These specifications and drawings have been obtained from the Patent Office here by agents whose business it is, and forwarded to England in time to prevent the real owners from obtaining the benefit thereof. This letter came before the last meeting, a private one of the committee on the 1 9th Eebruary, at which also a final draft of what was now called the " Authors' and Publishers' Bill," based upon a compromise between the Copyright Association and the publishers, was presented. The only alteration in the amended Bill consists in the omission — after specification of the condition that the "foreign author shall enter into a contract with an American publisher, a citizen gf the United States, to manufacture the book in all its parts" — of the words " so that it shall be wholly the product of the mechanical I See Wo ex paa-te reporba of the proceedings, from opposite sides, in the Weeldy Trade Circular, March 7 and 14. 274 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER industry of the United States/" I presume, though I have no direct authority for stating, that the omission of this more stringent clause was intended to admit to copy- right foreign books, not set up in type in the United States, but printed, as is very often the case at present, from stereotype plates sent from England. This is a considerable saving of expense as well as time,, but it sacrifices the printing interest in America to the extent of the price of the setting up of the type. Along with this, Mr. Appleton, Mr. Sheldon, and Mr. Van Nostrand, as the Publishers' Committee, addressed a final statement to the Library Committee, wherein . they stated their objections to a rival scheme of copyright which had sprung up during the discussion, and which was known, from one of its apparently simultaneous pro- pounders, as the Elderkin Bill. Mr. John P. Morton, a publisher in Louisville, Ken- tucky, wrote, during the session of the Library Com- mittee,^ to the Hon. S. S. Cox, as one of the oldest publishers and booksellers in the United States, that he was not satisfied with the Bill put forth by the New York publishers' meeting of February 7th, and that, he had requested the Hon. J. B. Beck to present for the consideration of the Library Committee a Bill containing the following provisions : — A foreign author may copyright his book in the TJmted States on condition : — (a) That before his work is published or for sale in America the title-page thereof must be recorded in the office of the Librarian of Congress ; (6) The work to he free to he printed and published hy all responsible publishers ; 1 A printed copy of tbe amended Bill is to be found in the library of Congress, eudorsedpn the handwriting of Mr. W. H. Appleton: "Authors' Copyright Bill as amended by the Publishers. All rights of property secured to citizens of the United States are hereby secured to citizens and subjects of every other country, whenever the foreign author makes arrangements directly with the American publisher and the work is manufactureil in the United States." ' Letter in MS. in the Congress library, dated Tebruary 16, 1872. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 275 the copyright (royalty to be paid by publishers) not to exceed ten per cent, on the selling price ; (c) the author shall have an agent prepared to make contracts, notice of which shall be given through the public press ; {$) if the author shall fail to comply with the above requirements, the book, map, chart, or design may be republished the same as might have been done before the passage of this Act ; (e) nothing m this Act is to prevent the importation or sale of the foreign edition of said work. In this letter Mr. Morton says that he wishes to add to his Bill, on further consideration, "that the copyright (royalty) should be ten per cent, on the selling price in sheets or paper binding, leaving the (American) publisher free from any tax for the labour that may be put on the work in the way of binding. There is no reason or justice in allowing a foreign author a percentage on such labour and skiU;" At the end of his letter Mr. Morton adds — "Whether Congress ought to pass an International Copyright Law or not is another question. But if they should do so, they should look to the interests of the millions of readers, and not to the protection (I believe that is the word) of the few publishers. A similar proposal " to pay authors a fair per cent, (say five per cent.) on the retail price, leaving the privilege of reprinting open to all," was made on J'ebuary 7th, by a correspondent in the JVew York Even- ing Post. The principle involved had been stated with approval in 1853 by Mr. Carey, in his "Letters on International Copyright,"^ as removing " much of the difficulty relating to copyright." This idea, which was laid by Mr. Elderkin before the library Committee, was taken up by one of its members. Senator Sherman, and embodied in what was hereafter known as " The Sherman Bill,"^ which he introduced into ^ Page 77. See p. 251. ' S. 688, 42nd Cougreas, 2nd Session. X . 276 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER the Senate on the 2ist of February. The second section is as follows : — Sec. 2. That any person within the United States may publish, in such form or numbers as he may deem best, any book or work copyrighted under this Act, subject to the payment to the author, or to his legal representatives or assignees, during the term of such copyright, of five per centum of the gross cost of the publication of such work ; and the said author, or his legal representatives or assignees may publish such work in the United States, or contract with any publisher in the United States for the publication of such work in the United States, and demand, sue for, and recover the stipulated price for such copyright ; and, in the absence of any specific contract for such publication, such author, or his legal representatives or assignees, may demand, sue for, and recover, as liquidated damages, in any court of competent jurisdiction, the said sum of five per centum on the gross cost of the publication of such work ; and, to secure or recover the same, have the benefit' of process in law or equity, as in other cases of joint interest in the proceeds of publication. In their " final statement," Mr. W. H. Appleton and his two colleagues on the Publishers' Committee, take two objections to the principle of the Sherman BilL (i) In many cases the books would (and in all cases could) be published by irresponsible parties, and the foreign author would-be unable to collect anything. (2) The irre- sponsible publishers would reap the fruits of the advertising of the responsible one ; and the latter, therefore, would be prevented from expending the necessary capital for making the book known. The Library Committee reserved their report; mean- time "The Sherman Bill" was read twice in the Senate, referred back to the Committee on the Library, and ordered to be printed. Discussion continued in the pubHc newspapers, and especially in the trade organs in England as well as in America, during the ensuing spring, but without adding INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 277 any suggestion of importance. The single exception, perhaps, is to be found in an article, and the draft of a hill, published in the London Bookseller for April, 1872, and attributed by the Americans to Mr. Whittaker. After calling attention to the difference of conditions in the book market, not only in the United States but in Canada, where British subjects prefer to purchase the cheap American reprints to buying the expensive ^English editions of English authors, the writer very sensibly pleads for the disuse of all irritating and offensive ex- pressions towards American publishers : — Let it be conceded that the natural rights of autbors extend no further than the boundaries of their owa countries, and within these boundaries .only so long as their own laws permit. This concession made, the grouud will be cleared for further negotiation ; there will be no charges of pilfering, stealing, or piracy, nor will there then be any ugly or offensive terms used. There is no need for them. The New York or Philadelphia publisher is as free from blame in reprinting Macaulay's " History of England," as Mr. Murray is in reprint- ing the works of Alexander Pope. Neither of the works named is protected by law, and if it be wrong for Mr. Harper to reprint Macaulay, it must be equally wrong for Mr. Murray to reprint Pope. Both works are property, both are unpro- tected bv law, and both have been reprinted without- any payment being made by the publishers to the authors or their representatives ; aad therefore, all that may be said of one transaction may be said of the other. And he then suggests the following draft of a Bill, identical in its principle with the Elderkin and Sherman BiUs :— 1. All original works composed by citizens of either nation shall be considered copyright in the other's country, for the term of the author's lifetime, or for twenty-eight years, whichever may be the longer term. 2. Any person desirous of reprinting books so copy- righted may do so on the following conditions, viz. : — Before printing an American (or English) work he shall give notice to the proper authority, sayiag how many copies T 2 278 AMERICAN EFFORTS AFTER he proposes to print and the price at which such work will be sold in cloth, and pay down ten per cent, upon such selling price ; he shall then be furnished with an order for the printer named to print that number of copies. As soon as the printer has done his work, he shall certify that he has printed so many and no more, and an authorization shall then be given to publish the edition : which authorization shall be printed upon the bact of the title." This proposal, I may add, is in substance no new one, even in this country. It was set forth as early as 1837, in an article in the Mechanics' Magazine (vol. xxvii.) by the late Mr. Thomas Watts, keeper of the printed books in the. British Museum, and was advocated more recently by Mr. E. A. Macfie, M.P. for Leith, in the Ldth Herald} A similar scheme was also mentioned by M. Kenouard in his "Traits des Droits d'Auteurs" (Paris, 1838); and in Italy, after the expiration of forty, years' exclusive copy- right, the law prescribes the payment of an analogous royalty. In England it is found practicable to collect for the author of a play royalties from aU the provinciaL theatres for every night on which it is acted. On the other hand, Hon. J. Eose, the Canadian Minister of Finance, reported that it was found impracticable to collect at the custom-houses the duties levied for the benefit of the author on the introduction of American reprints into the Dominion." In the middle of the following short session of Congress, February 7, 1873, Senator Morrill produced his Eeport as ? See extracts of both these articles in " Recent Discussions on the Abolition of Patents," pp. 296-300. " See an article in the Athencsum, July 17, 1869, reprinted in "Recent Discussions on the Abolition of Patents," p. 310. An ad valorem duty, ranging from 15 to 20 per cent., was levied on behalf of the English author, on the importation of his works into nineteen of the English colonies, of which a list will be found op. cit. p. 326. But whether the collection of these duties has been successful there seems to be no evidence. A letter from Mr. 0. H. Purday, of Great Marlborough Street, the brother of the defendant in a celebrated copyright case, Boosey v. Purday, advocating the same solution of the International Copyright difficulty, will be found, pp. 314-1S of tlie same work. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 279 chairman of the Library Committee, and with this termi- nated for the time the American efforts for International Copyright. The concluding paragraph of the Eeport sums up. the opinion of the committee as follows : — In view of the whole case, your committee are satisfied that no form of Interaatioaal Copyright can fairly he urged upon Congress upon reasons of general equity or of constitu- tional law ; that the adoption of any plan for the purpose which has heen laid before us would be of very doubtful ad- vantage to American authors as a class, and would be not only an unquestionable and permanent injury to the manu- facturing interests concerned in producing books, but a hin- drance to the diffusion of knowledge among the people and to the cause of universal education ; that no plan for the pro- tection of foreign authors has yet been devised which can unite the support of all or nearly all who profess to be favour- able to the general object in view ; and that, in the opinion of your committee, any project for an International Copyright will be found upon mature deliberation to be inexpedient.^ With regard to the condition of re-manufacture, whether involving the setting up of the type afresh, or merely the printing from imported stereotypes, I think that Mr. William Appleton^ would now be prepared to make a still further concession. In the autumn of 1875 I had a con- versation with him in New York, and asked him if he was prepared, in any proposal of International Copyright, to accept the stat%s qva in respect of re-manufacture. At present the reprinting publishers occasionally have their reprints entirely manufactured in England ; sometimes wholly in America ; sometimes again the re-manufacture is partly done in England, partly in America. In any case, the American publisher follows his own convenience in this matter, and is not bound by any hard and fast line, as he would be under the proposed Bill of the " authors ' Senate Report, No. 409, 42nd Congresa, 3rd Session. • It may be well to mention that the writer of this Paper has no oouneotion by way of relationship or otherwise with any member of the New York firm. 28o INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. and publishers." Upon the supposition that the pub- lisher shall he an American citizen, holding directly from the English author as his assignee, I aSked if Mr. Apple- ton was prepared to waive the clause in his Bill about re-manufacture, and to this I understood him to assent. ATHEISM AND DOUBT. (THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS.) ON ATHEISM. Atheism is the denial of the existence of God. "Aflaoc « firi vofjilZ(ov ilvai Qtov (Glem.. Strom. 504). In discussing this subject we shall investigate — I. The Fame ; II. The Thing ; III. Its Causes ; IV. Its Arguments ; V. The Verdict of the Bible upon it ; and VI. The Books, Tracts, &c., written in favour of and against it. I. The Name has been applied variously and widely: to Mezentius (Virg. Aen. 7) and the Cyclops (Horn. Od. 9), in Beyerlinck's Magnum Theatrum, &c. ; by the Athenians to Diagoras of Melos, and thence to all the Melians, whence " Melius " is applied in the sense of a^Eoeto Socrates (Aristoph. Nuhes, 831), see Suidas, s. v. ; to Anaxagoras, Aspasia, &c. ; to Euemerus of Messena (Lactantius and Eusebius, Prep. Evan. lib. 2) ; to Theodoras and Bion {v. Cic. de Nat. Bear. i. i ) ; to the Christians by the pagan.s (Julian ap. Sozomen.Y. iS,cf- Athenagoras, Legatio, and Clem. Strom. 7, who adds, Kai o/iioXoyovficv Twv ToiovTwv Qsojv aOsoi iivai) ; to the pagans by the Christians (Clem. Protrept. p. 1 1 ; Beza ad Ephes. ii. 12); to the heretics by the orthodox ; to Eunomius by St. Jerome {Up. ad. Pammach.) ; to Arius by Athanasius, &c. ; to Anastasius the Emperor by Zosimus and Paulus Diaconus ; by Catholics to Protestants (Posseviaus, Bihliot. viii. ; Claudius de Sainctes, Tract. Pecid. ; Chiconius c. Gumllum ; Campanella, Atheismus Triumph. ; Mersenne, Comm. in Genes) ; by the Jesuits to the Machiavellians (see Voet, de Ath. p. 116; Lessius, de Provid. Dedic. p. I ) ; by Perkins to Turks, Jews, and Papists ( Works, ii. 526) ; to Vorst the Calvinist, to Socinians, to Arminians, 284 ON ATHEISi by their respective opponents (Voet, p. 120); to the Mahometans (i6. p. 122); by Calvin to the Pope and Cardinals {Inst. iv. 7, 27) ; to Erasmus by the Jesuits; to Charron by Mersenne ; to Aristotle by Tycho Brahe ; to Descartes, for rejecting Aristotle ; to TaureUus by the Heidelberg Divines (a.d. i 6 i o) ; to a usurer by Luther (Voet, I.e. pp. 1 2 1-4); to the " mystical " physicians, and to the deniers of magic (i6. 1 2 5-9) ; to Vanini, Fludd, Montaigne, J. Bruno, Cardan, Machiavelli, Charpentier, Basso, Charron, Campanella, by Mersenne (I'lm-pOti des Biistes, &c.) ; to the Socinians in Poland, Geneva, and elsewhere, by the same ; to the Sceptics, Epicureans, Cabbalists, " Hermetico-Liillistae," " Hermetico-Paracel- sistae," &c. (Voet, p. 131); to the " Enthusiastae," " Spi- rituales," &c. (*.) ; to the Anabaptists (Voet, 118); to Eanters (Somers, Tracts, 6, 24) ; to the followers of Ka- belais (Voet, I. c); by Seckendorf to Puffendorf (1685); by the Spanish theologians to the French, Venetians, &c. who favoured the House of Austria ; by the author of the Vindiciae Gallicae to the Spanish theologians (Voet, p. 1 1 6) ; to the French Deists by Voet, H. Stephanus, and Mersenne (Voet, p. 117; Mersenne, Questions rares et curiemestMologiques,&c., 1630); to the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Tatars, the ancient Prussians, the aborigines of New Spain and other American peoples, the Souldani of South Africa, the tribes of the middle of Africa, and other barbarians, &c. (Hoffmann, Lex. Univ. s. v., Lessius, de Prov. &c.) ; and lastly by Marshal to almost every eminent person who has ever lived {Diet, des Ath4es, passim). 11. The Thing is the denial, either by words, in theory, or in practioci of the existence of a spiritual cause of the universe, whether that cause be conceived as one or .many; and, as a consequence of this, the supposition that visible Nature is the ultimate fact with which the human .mind has to deal. Historically we may distinguish two kinds of Atheism — ^Atheism as a prevailing sentiment. ON ATHEISM. 285 wliicli is the resiolt of moral, political, and other causes, and Atheism as a philosophical theory, which is the conclusion of a reasoned deduction from certain premises. Speaking roughly, the Atheism previous to the middle of the eighteenth century was mainly of the former type ; that prevailing since that time of the latter. The first, as Bacon, writing at the end of the sixteenth century, said, " is rather on the lip than the heart of man," which is shown by " nothing more than this, that Atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves, and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others; nay, more, you shall have Atheists strive to get disciples as it fareth with other sects j and which is most of aU, you shall have of them that will suffer for Atheism and not recant; whereas if they did truly think that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves ?" {Essays, xvi.) It was, in fact, a fashion of feeling, speaking, and unfortunately also of living — a state of anarchy in the breast of the individual which was the natural reflex of the anarchy — religious, moral, ecclesias- tical, political, intellectual — in society at large. The contemporary writers in defence of the Being of God, of whom, especially towards the latter end of the seventeenth century, there was a prodigious number, appear therefore to have made a mistake in meeting the Atheism of their time by the direct assault of counter-argument. For, although Atheism pervaded society, it did not appear in books. Until the year 1750, when the great French JSncyclopedie was published, there is scarcely an Atheistic book or tract to be found (see Buckle's Givilimtion, i. cap. 1 4). It became necessary, therefore, both to imagine the individual antagonist, invent the arguments that he would be likely to use, and then refute them. Thus the shots went safely over the heads of the enemy ; no one was convinced ; and, as the same man played both bis own and his adversary's hand, there was no winner. The real 286 ON A THEISM and only " refutation " was that which history slowly brought about in the settlement of society and of opinion, the amelioration of the general estate of man, and the consequent elevation of European morals. The Atheism of this period was, in short, not so much an argument to be rebutted as a disease to be cured. " We must not think," says Perkins, " that this wicked thought is onely in some notorious and hainous sinners, but it is the corrupt mind and imagination of every man that cometh of Adam naturally, not one excepted save Christ alone " {Man's Naturall Imcigination, Wks. ii. 525). The natural man, as such, has no knowledge of God ; ^nd in a period of protracted social disturbance, when the spiritual support of established opinions and institutions gives way, all but the noblest and strongest have a tendency to relapse more or less into a state of Nature. It is of this kind of Atheism that Milton speaks — Unless there be who think not God at all ; If any be, they walk obscure ; Per of such doctrine never was there school, But the heart of the fool, And no man therein doctor but himself. Sams. Agon. 293. III. The Causes of Atheism. — {a) Almost all the contemporary writers agree in the connection of Atheism with a widespread libertinism of life (so Meric Casaubon, Glanvil, " Dorotheus Sicurus," Eeimmann, SpizeUus, Gras- sius, Meier, Eajcsanyi, Jenkin Thomasius, Bishop Dawes, Lessius, Mersenne, Gisbert Voet, &c.), which Bacon thus explains : " They that deny a god destroy a man's nobility ; for certainly man is of kin to the beast by his body " (^.c). It appears, however, to have been rather the cause of Atheism than its effect : for the speculative Atheism of the later French school, of which the following passage may be taken as characteristic, seems to have been in great measure free from it: — ON ATHEISM. 287 Des coupables plaisirs seetateura insensea, Des folles passions esclaves abuses, Gardez-vous de penser que ma muse novice Daigne vous elargir la carriere du vice ; Je n'ecris pas pour vous : ma morale a vos yeux, O mortels abrutis, paraltrait exaltee ; Pour votre obatiment je vous laisse a vos dieux, Iihomme vertueux seul a le droit d^etre Athee. Sylvian Marechal. Connected with libertine Atheism was also the pro- fane and sceptical wit, which is included by writers of the time under the word " drollery" (cf. Glanvil's Whip for the Broil, Fidler to the Atheist), and which gave rise to the terms " Lucianicus," " Eablaesianus " (follower of Eabelais), as synonymous with Atheist (Voet) ; the pride, security, and luxury of life (Bacon, Dor. Sicurus) ; the weakening of the family tie, and neglect of parents (Jenk. Thomasius), and unnatural conduct {cf. Massinger's Maid of Honour, Act III. sc. 3), where the king who refuses to ransom his natural brother is said — To break The adamant chains of nature and religion, To hind vf ailwism, as a defence To his dark counsels. The term "Epicurean," which occurs in the general sense of a bad man, has several shades of meaning in connection with Atheism. In a satirical address sup- posed to be presented to William III. on his accession, the signers call themselves " the Atheists or the sect of the Epicureans " {v. infr.), and go on to speak of " all religion as a cheat." But the name seems originally to indicate, along with "Stoic," "Peripatetic," "Atomist," merely a modern adhetent of the later schools of Greek Philosophy, thence an opponent of the Scholastic Aris- toteHanism, and not unfrequently of the religious belief which it had been used to defend (so Voet). The licen- tious and pagan ideal of life which came in with the 288 ON ATHEISM. Eevival of Letters found a theory ready made for itself in the philosophy of Epicurus, and hence the term " Epicurean" became synonymous with a man of pleasure who was prepared to defend his practice, and hence with the libertine Atheist : teXoc ior\ tou /hj vo(AXf.iv dsovg to fir) o^H . . modo aiunt, modo negant." (So Lessius and Voet, the last of whom remarks pertinently " Omnis religio nulla religio.") (e) The Decline of Belief in Magic was closely con- nected with the growth of Atheistic sentiment (Glanvil, A Whip, &c.). It is curious that, whilst the belief in occult science tended in the " mystical" physicists (Car- dan, Vanini, &c.) to a kind of semi- Atheism by deifying matter, its decay — due partly to the revolution against the ecclesiastical miracles of the Middle Ages, but mainly to the growth of experimental science and the explanation of many phenomena hitherto deemed supernatural — should promote Atheism by leading to a suspicion that the whole region of the supernatural was capable of being explained away. The fact is,^that Magic was regarded as a kind of outwork of religion, which it was necessary to defend, lest the citadel should be attacked. " One reason why God permits sorcery," says Meric Casaubon, ■' certainly is that men, generally so inclinable to Atheism, might certainly know, if not wilfully blind, that there is something besides flesh and blood, and what may be ON ATHEISM. 291 seen with the bodily eyes, ie. ordinary nature, to be thought upon." '' It is certainly a point of excellent use to convince incredulity," and " hence it is that they that deny or will not believe any supernatural operations by witches and magicians are generally observed to be Atheists, or well affected that way," or, at least, " it cannot be denied but that the opinion is very apt to promote Atheism, and therefore earnestly promoted and countenanced by them that are Atheists." For we may reason, he adds, with Origen, that a man who believes magic will probably believe miracles, by a kind of db fortiori argument from the power of the devil to that of God {Credulity wnd Incredulity, &c. p. 9 1 , and the SeqvM, p. 171). Similarly, Mersenne writes in defence at once of theology and alchymy, and Voet enumerates the existence of the " novi Saducaei," who refer magical operations and apparitions to natural causes, amongst the causes of Atheism {v. Glanvil, Sadu- cismus Triumphatus). (/) The Growth of Hxperimental Science and of Mathe- matics, though not perhaps in itself necessarily adverse to religious belief, operated for some time prejudicially to reli- gion, and is set down by many as a cause of Atheism. To take the last first : the study of mathematical methods led men to try to apply them to aU things in heaven and earth. They appeared to form a standard of certainty, which might serve to divide the truth from the false in common belief. Hence the attempt and failure to prove the existence of God by mathematical methods threw a haze of suspicion over the doctrine. Accordingly, we find Casaubon complaining that divinity should be tried by mathematics, and made subservient to them, and Mersenne giving up the Theistic argument as hopeless. It seems to have occurred to nobody that possibly mathematical demon- stration, and not the Theistic argument, might be at fault, and that the latter might really have an equal without having a similar kind of certainty. It was a misfortune that the rise of experimental science should have been connected with a revival of the old Atoin- u 292 ON ATHEISM. ism of Leucippus and Democritus, and its moral accompani- ment. Epicureanism: dOe'iav, drofiovg Kai aiX6cTO(j>ov ritovriv. It is against Atomism rather than against any conclusions of natural science, as such, that the great argument of Cud- worth is directed (IntellectiMd System, pref. p. 41). So Casaubon, Eajcsanyi, J. Thomasius, Voet, Bacon. Apart from this, however, as tending to draw away attention from metaphysics, or to impart an unphilosopliical character to them, and as calculated to concentrate study upon secondary and material causes, experimental science was " very apt to be abused or to degenerate into Atheism." " This is a great precipice," writes Casaubon, " and the contempt of aU other learning an ill presage." And Spizelius (DeAtheismi Bodice, p. 39) to the same effect. The idea of the constancy of natural law which was beginning to dawn upon the world seemed to many, if admitted, a fatal blow to religious belief ; as, in the existing state of speculation, the operation of Divine Providence by way of suspension and interruption seemed to be a clearer proof of the existence of Deity than the placid and orderly fulfilment of the Infinite Will through the operation of general laws. (g) The Gradual Increase of a Sceptical Spirit in regard to all things seems partly attributable to the re- suscitation of ancient Pyrrhonism, partly to the Car- tesian theory of doubt as the first step in thought. On this subject see Buckle, Mist, of Oiviliz., i. cap. viii. IV. The Arguments of Atheism. — As has been said, after the middle of the eighteenth century. Atheism becomes less a morbid habit of character and feeling pervading social ^^fe, and becomes much more distinctly a theory, and while gradually ceasing to be essentially libertine,* it becomes more distinctively Uterary. ■ We shall endeavour to set before the reader three principal types of the Atheistic argument which have appeared at intervals of half a century since 1750. * See, however, Carlyle's Description of the Society at D'Holbach's (" Diderot," p. 243.) ON ATHEISM. 293 (ft) D'Holbach's Syst&me de la Nature (1770). — Start- ing from the assumption that nothing exists but matter, and the motion which is essentially inseparable from it, the theory goes on : there is no design or order in Nature, but only necessity. The cause of motion is the tendency of things to self-preservation, and at the same time to attract and repel other things. These three 'con- ditions of motion are called in Physics — Inertia, Attrac- tion, and Repulsion ; and in Morals — Self-love, Love, and Hate. Both Physics and Morals are the same, the only difference being that whilst in some cases the motion of molecules is on a sufficiently large scale to be visible, in others it is not. It is from drawing a .qualitative, instead of merely a quantitative, distinction between the motion of the brain molecules and the other motions of the body or of the world, that man has come to regard himself as a union of two substances of different kinds, one of which, the soul, shows its unreal character by its only being capable of description by negative predicates. The soul is really only a name for a part of the body, the brain, the molecules of which are set in motion by the impact of external things, the result being what we call thought and wiU ; the motion itself being called sensa- tion in the one case, and passion in the other. Moral action is thus wholly a product of the passions, and these of the mixture of fluid and solid elements in the con- stitution. It followed naturally from this conception of himself as a compound of two substances, that man should extend the same view to the universe of which he is a part. This is the origin of the idea of God as distinguished from the world, an idea which explains nothing, consoles no one, terrifies all, and the unreality of which, as of the soul, is shown by its being a bundle of negative attributes. Theology is a mass of contra- dictions, banishing God to the utmost distance from man by virtue of His metaphysical attributes, and on the other hand drawing Him into the closest relations with u 2 294 ON ATHEISM. man by virtue of His moral. True knowledge, the privilege of tlie few, substitutes force for Deity, and natural laws for His attributes and providence. At the same time it must not be supposed that the idea of God is a pardonable error, or one useful or necessary for the government of the rude and uncultivated. It is hurtful, and its use for any purpose is as unjustifiable as to administer poison to prevent a man from misusing his bodily powers. This noxious character arises from two . illusions which it draws with it ; freedom and a future • life. The doctrine of freedom is merely an artifice to reconcile the conception of God as a moral Being with the existence of evil, and involves the absurdity that if a , man can reaUy introduce a new factor into the world, the world so modified is really a new world, and the free- agent a creator as really almighty as God Himself. The doctrine of the other world is pernicious, because it draws men away from attention to their vocation in this. Materialism, on the other hand, is at once logical and beneficent. It frees man from his fear of God, and from the pain of remorse, and of longing for what is imat- tainable ; both of which vanish before the knowledge that all action is necessitated, and that it is the part of man to live happily in the present, and not sacrifice his enjoyment to a phantom.* Such in substance is the doctrine of this remarkable book ; a doctrine perfectly logical, and commanding assent at every point from any fair mind — if the premises be admitted. But if the keystone be taken out, the whole arch falls to pieces. That keystone is the unproved assumption that matter is an ultimate fact, and capable of being known as such. (6) Mar^chal's Bidionnaire des AtMes (a.d. 1800) represents in many respects the opposite pole of Atheistic thought to the Systime de la Mature. Like the latter, it is a consistent theory of life ; but unlike it, it is whoUy * Carlyle's Misoellanies (" Diderot," p. 233, vol. iii.) ON ATHEISM. 295 unargumentative and dogmatic. There seems no reason why Mar^chal should have been an Atheist except that he was one. The instructive part of his work, however, consists in a Preface to his Dictionary, enumerating the different eminent persons who have been wholly or in part Atheists. Tiie Catalogue is framed on the loosest and most arbitrary principles, and includes, along with Oharron and Montaigne, St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Gregory, Pascal, Grotius, F^n^lon, Bossuet, and our Lord Himself. The Preface lays down the following ideas : — " Dieu n'a pas toujours 6t6." He was unknown to the child of Nature, who in the age of gold recognised no higher being than the father of the family which con- stituted the entire sphere of his activity (p. i). And the modern. Atheist is one who, disengaging himself from social bonds which were contracted without his knowledge or consent, " remonte \ travers la civOisation k cet ancien etat de I'esp^ce humaine " (p. 3). He is not the Sybarite who gives himself out as an Epicurean when he is only a debauchee, nor a follower of Machiavelli, nor a renegade priest turned savant, nor the fanatical iconoclast who preaches the .cultus of reason to the populace who cannot rise above instinct. Neither is he the hypocrite, nor the man of the world and follower of Atheistical fashion, nor the timorous philosopher who blushes at his own thoughts, nor the physician who denies God in order to have the gratification of constructing the world himself, nor, in fine, one who feels no want of God because he can be wise without one. He is no elaborate reasoner against Theism, but simply one who says, " the question as to whether there is a God in Heaven interests me as little as the inquiry whether there are animals in the moon" (p. 4). A modest and tranquil recluse, he dislikes to make a noise, or to parade his principles ; he practises virtue in order to be at ease with himself. Jealous of his honour, and too proud to obey even a Deity, he takes no commands but from his own conscience (p. 38). He 296 ON ATHEISM. does his duty as a citizen, though declining to enter into politics, but with an activity Mke that of Ifature, of which he feels himself an indispensable part, he co-ordinates himself with Nature in performing those duties which are imposed upon him by his relations with other beings (p. I o). " His life is full like that of Nature," and in the quiet uprightness of family life he perceives the nothingness of social distinctions and of the gross pleasures of the herd, while he dismisses the abject terrors of the believer in Grod (pp. 11-13), Atheism is thus the most natural and simple thing in the world, and " le plvs parfait ddsinteresse- ■ment est la base de toutes les d^tenninations de I'Athfe." In this view of Atheism, the following characteristics are remarkable : — First, that it is the picture of an ideal character and not the exposition of a theory. Secondly, it takes for granted that a discussion upon the subject has gone before, and a conclusion in favour of Atheism has been arrived at, about which argument has ceased. Its object therefore is not so much to convince the under- standing about the doctrine, as to enlist the sympathies on the side of the ideal practiser of it. Thirdly, this ideal consciously excludes any approach to the old libertine Atheism. And, lastly, it is intimately connected with retirement from social relations and duties into the seclusion of family life. In this last point it touches Eousseau on the one hand, and, while giving up all the more offensive and unphHosophical traits of popular Epicureanism, Epicurus on the other. It is therefore only on this last subsidiary point that the theory of Marshal admits of a refutation. A mere assertion, unsupported by evidence or argument, unless in itself ostensibly probable, may legitimately be met by an equally naked denial ; but an ideal of life which involves the negation of all the wider social economy of man, especially when such a view is not the vagary of the individual, but the characteristic of many of the highest minds of the age, is a fair subject of criticism. ON ATHEISM. 297 In the first place, then, such an ideal as a life for all is a self-contradiction ; for if we suppose society disintegrated into an infinite series of separate families, it is obvious that, in order to continue in this patriarchal isolation, it will be necessary for the families to unite in some system of common agreement and protection, as a substitute for that shelter which they have hitherto enjoyed in the state. And such a system is simply society over again under another name. If, on the other hand, such a life is for the few and not for all, it ceases to be a human ideal, and becomes merely a counsel of perfection for a few rural philosophers. Secondly, we may argue that, even supposing it possible for the modern citizen to return into the primitive condition of family life, such life must as inevitably develop again into the state (unless the nature of man itself could be essentially changed) as it has necessarily developed into the state in the past. Hence, even supposing such an ideal attainable by all, it could never, under existing conditions, be a permanent form of life. But, thirdly, a little attention to_^the sub- ject wiU discover that society and the state, besides being a mere shelter from violence, sum up in themselves all those laws and institutions which have arisen out of the relations of men one to another, and which therefore form a permanent embodiment of the activity of man on the unselfish or spiritual side of his nature. For a man to recede from society is, therefore, for him to attempt the attainment, of a higher life by receding from his nobler or social, into his individual or ignoble, self. And this point it is important to make, because it at once reveals the origin and weakness of the Atheistic theory which is so closely connected with it. Whether Nature reveals upon the whole a predominance of good over evil or the reverse may be a matter of question, and therefore its testimony to the existence of a beneficent Creator may be matter of question also; but it cannot be denied that society and the state are a standing evidence to the 298 ON ATHEISM. triumph of good in the -world. If N'ature, then, in one of her aspects at least, reveals a Deity, society as a spiritual creation reveals Him much more ; so that the Atheist of the Mar^chal type is open to the same confu- tation as the libertine, though from a different point of view — viz., that his inability to discern the existence of God arises from his taking too low a view of man. He fails to see the Divine image in the conscience, because he turns his back upon that social order through which (in the first instance) that image is reflected upon the " heart " of the individual. Here, then, we have as before rather to account for Atheism by revealing its cause, than to answer its arguments. That cause in the case of Mar^chal was the utter rottenness of existing political arrangements before the outbreak of the French Eevolu- tion, producing aversion from society altogether. It would follow that here, as before, the best refutation of Atheism is the growth of a sound state of the body politic. (c) Eadenhausen's Isis is important as a type of the more refined Atheism of the present generation. In a dialogue between a modern Atheistic savant and his father, the following ideas are developed : — " The Atheist and the Theist have the same facts of consciousness, feelings, &c. to interpret, which the one calls the knowledge of a Divine Being, whilst the other calls them by another name. They thus differ, as Copernicus and Tycho Brahe differed — merely in their mode of formulating the same phenomena " (p. 410). The belief in God originated in the course of thousands of years from the observation of Nature, and is the result of primitive science. The idea, once formed, was withdrawn by the priests from progress, and therefore has crystallized. These ideas about the universe as a whole,- and man's relation to it, are necessary products of the human mind, and therefore imperishable. The form which these ideas assume is that of a series of projections by man of the image of himself, differing from one another as one nation from another. The common ON ATHEISM. 299 elements in these various beliefs arise — (i) from the general similarity of the outer world as it is known to man, which subjects him more or less uniformly to a series of influences that are stronger than he ; and (2) from the general similarity of men in their capacities and defects, as possessed of limited powers of sensation, and as having a memory and an understanding capable of development. On the other hand, these influences on man differ in different regions, and these capacities are differently de- veloped in different races and indi^dduals (pp. 422—3). These differences give rise to local differences in the names and outward expression given to such natural influences, and to a gradual development in the corresponding ideas. The Fetish worshippers, the idolater, the Atheist and the Theist have thus all precisely the same material for thought — ^viz., the presence of forces and influences in the outward world, in the face of which man feels himself weak or powerless. The Fetish worshipper elevates every- thing unwonted or inexplicable into a personal agency and worships it. The idolater conceives the operation of these influences — the sirocco, the inundation, the clouds, the thunderstorm, the jungle-fire, the sand-storm, &c., under visible forms. Hence, among the Egyptians and the Semitic and Aryan races, the images of the gods bear, in their original shape, a strong resemblance to these powers in Natiire, but show a tendency to become gradually humanized, until in Greece they attain the perfection of the human form. The fusion of races and religions then eliminates in the course of ages the local character of these impersonations, or rather produces gradually the mental iihage of one Supreme Power, whom the Theist worships, and to whom the local deities are subordinate. Thus the thirty-three gods of the Vedic hymns become the Hmbs of Brahma, and the devils and inferior spirits of the Parsees : so, too, the Bible asks, " Who is there among the gods or among the clouds that can be compared to Jehovah ?" and declares, " Thou art exalted above all gods." In Christian 300 ON ATHEISM. countries, again, the saints are merely the ancient local deities of Europe under new names (p. 424). The cha- racter of this Supreme Personification was determined by the climate and natural conditions of the different locali- ties. In torrid regions, characterized by extreme fruitful- ness on the one hand, and wholesale or violent destruction of life on the other, the attributes of the one Deity are great goodness coupled with savage vengeance. In tem- perate climates, on the other hand, where the alternations are not so violent, and the conditions of life more regular, the Divine attributes are conceived as moderation, justice, certainty in rewarding and punishing, &c. The Atheist, then, has the same materials for thought as these three kinds of believers in the existence of God ; he is far from hold- ing man to be omnipotent, or from ignoring that the order of Nature is on such a scale that, compared with human motives and limitations, it may rightly be designated almighty, infinitely good, wise, omnipresent, &c. ; he recognizes also that some one pervading force lies at the root of all these powers which bear upon man. What he denies is that these powers, whether one or many, are anything distinct from Nature (p. 426). The remainder of the dialogue is ta^en up with criti- cisms of the Ontological, Cosmological, and Physico- theological (Design argument) proofs of the Being of Grod, the consideration of which belongs more conve- niently to an article on Theism. "On the principal argument, it may be remarked (i.) that it is not so much a positive theory of Atheism, such as we have had in D'Holbach and Mardchal, as an attempt to explain away Theism : (ii.) that it can scarcely be said that we know enough at present of the growth of mythology and language, or of the genesis of ideas in the mind of primitive man, to enable any sound and duly cautious reasoner to be certain that the idea of God arose in the way described ; (iii.) that even granting that it arose from a personification of the powers of Nature, the irre- ON ATHEISM. 301 sistible tendency in man to suppose a being or beings, spiritual like himself, as the creating and sustaining cause of the world, is left unexplained, and is quite capable of being explained as itSelf an evidence of the existence of a Supreme Spirit, to whom the finite spirit experiences the attraction of affinity, (iv.) Lastly, the argument is only valid against Deism, i. &., against the belief in a Supreme Abstraction remote from a world in which he has never revealed himself ; but proves nothing against the Christian doctrine of a G-od who has revealed Himself in Kature and to the human mind, and who is reconciling the world to Himself. Besides these three types of speculative Atheism, we may mention, as influencing the modern mind, the theory of Auguste Comte, and that of a host of books on natural science (too numerous to mention, but of which Dr. Biichner's little work on Force and Matter may be taken as a type), which insinuate or profess Atheistic tenets. As to the first type, which does not so much deny the Being of God, as decline the controversy, whether there be or be not such a Being, as inaccessible to the human mind, we may remark that this is an opinion shared by many Theists, as we have seen in the case of the P^re Mersenne, some of the Jesuit writers, &c. As to the second, it is important to observe that experimental science, as such, and without trespassing into the region of metaphysics, has no logical locus standi for denying the existence of Deity; for it deals confessedly with physical phenomena only and their laws, i.e., generalizations from them ; and it is not pretended by any Theist that Deity is either a phenomenon or the law of phenomena. Science, therefore, can only say with the astronomer,. " I have swept the heavens with my telescope agaia and again, and can find no God ;" it cannot decide whether or not there are other means of arriving at the kpowiedge of Him. "When it attempts to do this, and speaks of matter and force, it has gone beyond the region 303 ON ATHEISM. of phenomena, with which alone it has to deal, into the sphere of metaphysics, and must stand or faU, not as experimental but as philosophical. Its denial of the possibility of metaphysics on the ground that nothing exists but force and matter, is therefore a contradiction in terms ; and, as a matter of fact, the ground upon which such a denial is made in scientific treatises wiU almost always be found to be some modification of the theory of D'Holbach. Theology, it cannot he too often repeated, has nothing to fear from the progress of the natural sciences, hut everything to fear from the prevalence of had meta- physics. V. The Passages in Holy Scripture hearing on Atheism contemplate two classes of persons who deny the exis- tence of God : the " wicked " and the " fool." The " wicked " (Heb. rashd) is he who (Job xxi. 1 4) says unto God, " Depart from us, for we desire not the know- ledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him, or what profit should we have if we pray unto Him ?" The same word is applied (Gen. xviii. 23) to the Sodomites ; (Job ix. 24) to the violent wrong- doer, "who covereth the faces of the judges;" (ih. xy. 20) to the "oppressor" (cf. A. V. margin, and chap. xx. passim) ; (in Ps. vii. 9) to Gush the Benjamite, the per- secutor of David ; {ih. xi. 6) to " him that loveth violence ;" and (Isa. xiv. 5 , &c.) to the Gentiles as the oppressors of Israel. In a word, the " wicked " man is, like Plato's tyrant, the wrong-doer on a sufficiently large scale to override the laws and escape punishment. The " fool" (Heb. nabal) on the other hand, who (Ps. xiv. I and lui. i) "hath said in his heart that there is no God," is corrupt and filthy, eats up the people like bread, shames the counsel of the poor, &c., does not call upon God, and, as one of "the workers of iniquity, has no knowledge." The word occurs once (Prov. xvii.) in the sense of '" stupid," but in Prov. vii. 22 the "fool goeth to the correction of the stocks," i.e., comes under ON ATHEISM. 303 the hands of the law. In Jer. xvii. 11, he "getteth riches, but not by right." More often the word means " impious, wicked, abandoned ;" thus Nabal the " churl " (i Sam. XXV. esp. v. 25) is "such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him." So (2 Sam. iii. 33), "Died Abner as a fool dieth ? Thy hands were not bound, nor thy feet put into fetters." In Job ii. 10 the word is applied to Job's wife for urging him to "curse God and die." This induction seems to show that the " fool " is like the " wicked " in being impure and unjust, and differs from him in being a petty wrong-doer, whose proper place is the stocks. (Compare Ps. xxxvi. 2 ; Eph. ii. 1 2 ; 1 Thess. iv. 5 ; I Cor. xv. 32-34 ; Job xxii. 12, 13; &c.) From such passages no distinct verdict can be extracted as to the theoretical Atheist, if his speculative Atheism is dissociated from practical immorality. Nothing of course can be found in his favour : as the only denier of God there contemplated is the practical Atheist, whether great or small, whose character is the opposite of " just ;" that is, the opposite of the man who is fair, law-loving, benign, liberal, temperate, truthful, wise, and generally blameless (v. Gesenius, s. v. Tsadih). VI. Literature of Atheism. — It may be useful for pur- poses of further study of this subject to present in one chronological view the different books, pamphlets, &c. which have appeared during the last three centuries. The list does not pretend to be more than an instal- ment of the great number of treatises for and against this doctrine. (a) The Sixteenth Century. — -i 536, Calvin, Imtit. iv. 7, 27, speaks of the prevalence of secret Atheism in the Koman Court, mentioning especially Popes Julius II., Leo X., Clement VII., and Paul III. Not long after this we have the story of Cardinal Perron demonstrating the existence of God before the Emperor Henry III., and then offering to disprove it on the morrow. For this he was 304 ON ATHEISM. very properly ordered out of the room (Voet, Diss, de Atheismo, p. 1 1 8). Towards the end of the century appeared the Abb6 Charron's book, Be la Sagesse, which led to his being regarded as an Atheist by the Jesuits (v. De la Sagesse, i. 4, 366 ; see also Buckle, Eist. of Civiliza- tion, vol i. 475, foUg. ; Eeimmann, Hist. Atheismi, s. v.). In 1595, Arcana Atheismi revdata, by Cuper, appeared at Eotterdam. This was an examination of the system of Spinoza, which was erroneously supposed by many to be, or to lead to, Atheism, Cuper, in spite of his criticisms of Spinoza, is supposed by More to have been a covert Atheist (see Hoffmann, Lexicon Universale, Leyden, 1698, s. v. Athens, who classes also BoulainvilUers among the Crypto- Atheists). In 1597 appeared Bacon's Essay on Atheism {Essays xvi.), and in 1599, Atheomastige, by Guil. de Assonville (Antwerp). (6) First Half of the Seventeenth Century. — 1605. A. Confutation of Atheisme, by John Dove, D.D. (Lond.). 1608, Man's Naturall Imagination, by Perkins, Wks., ii. 446,525; Engl. WTcs.jiii. 175. 161$, Amphitheatrum aeternae providentiae divino-magicum, christiano-physicum, nee non et astrologo-catholicum adv. vett. philosophos, atheos, epicureos, peripateticos et stoicos, by Gisbert Voet (Lyons). 161 7, Be Providentia Numinis et animi immortalitate, libb. ii. adv. Atheos et Politicos, by Lessius, S. J. (Antw.). 1616, Vanini de Admirandis naturae reginae deaegue mortalium arcanis, otherwise called The Dialogues of Nature (Paris). In 1619, Vanini is said to have con- fessed at the stake that thirty Atheists had set out from Naples to propagate their views in all parts of Europe. And Mersenne, writing shortly afterwards, speaks of fifty thousand Atheists in Paris alone, who had learnt it from Vanini, and of the circulation of a number of books, partly in manuscript, partly printed, which he does not name, but which had the effect of insinuating Atheistic opinions. 1624, L'Impietd des B&stes, des Athdes et des Zibertins ; and 1625, La V^riti ON ATHEISM. 305 des Sciences contre les Sccptiques (Paris), both by the P^re Mersenne. In the latter (p. 15), he says he does not think any of the proofs of the Being of God satisfactory to the reason. 1631, Atheismtis Trmmphatus seu reduetio ad religionem per sdentiam mritatis (Eome), by Cam- panella, was accused of covert Atheism. i62g,Diqmtatio de Atheismo, by Gisbert Voet {Disput. Select, pt. i. pp. 114- 226), one of the most learned and exhaustive treatises on .the subject. 1643, L'AtMisme convamcu (Saumur), by Cappel, who says (p. 2), " II se voit plus d'Ath^es et de prophanes qu'il ne semble y en avoir jamais eu, m^me entre les payens, ce qui paroit par le desbordement estrange et la corruption horrible des moeurs qui se voit aujourd'huy si commune mesmes entre les Chretiens." (c) Lcdt&r half of the Seventeenth Century. — Gassendi, Animadversiones in Biog. LaJSrt., lib. x. qui est devita, mori- lus, placitisque JSpicuri, 3 vols. fol. 1649. This book, which is a rehabilitation of Epicurus as one " who did not fear God and yet lived well," is said to have "made many Atheists," so much so that had Gassendi " had the advice of all the Atheists that ever were, had he advised with Hell itself, he could not have lighted upon a more destructive way to all religion" (Meric Casaubon, Cre- didity and Incredulity in Things Natural, Civil, and Divine, Lond. 1668, p. 224, and Additions). The book, though confessedly written only " exercitationis gratia," was received " with so ready assent and applause" by " so many professing Christians" as to be " an argument to" Casaubon, " with many others of the inclination of the age" {ib. 226). Gisb. Voet, Apparatus ad confrotersiam adv. Atheos, Uxerc. et Bill. stud. Theol., Ultraj. 1 6 5 i ; Spizelius, Scruti- nium Atheismi historico-aetiologicum, Aug. Vindel. 1663, and Up. ad Meihon^ium de Atheismi radice, ib. 1666; Moore, Divine Dialogues, Jjondon, 1668; "The Humble Address of the Atheists or Sect of the Epicureans " to WUliam III., dated .Devil Tavern, presented by Judge Baldock, and 3o6 ON ATHEISM. " graciously received " (a squib), Nov. 5, 1668 (Bodl. Pamphl. 178); Meric Casaubon, Op. stipr. cit. 1668; Eeiserus, de origine progressu et incremento Anfitheismi, Aug. Vindel. I669 ; Malpighius (anatomist), The Micro- scope's Evidence to the Uxistence of an Intelligent Author of Nature, 1669: Howe's Assize Sermon at Northampton, against Atheists, Independents, Presbyte- rians, and Anabaptists, 1669; Sir Charles Wolseley, The Unreasonableness of Atheism, 166^; Recantation of Daniel Scargill, B.A., Fellow of Corpus Cbristi College, Cam- bridge, who confesses before the Vice-Chancellor " that he (formerly) gloried to be an Hobbist and an Atheist, . . . agreeably to which principles and positions I have lived in great licentiousness, swearing rashly, drinking intemperately, boasting myself insolently, corrupting others by my pernicious principles and example," July 25, 1669 (Somers, Tracts, vol. vii. 370) ; Glanvil, Ao-you BpnaKiia, 1670 ; also On the Tendencies of the Philosophy of the Royal Society, 167 1 ; Jo. Mliller (prof, at Wittenberg, and Lutheran writer against Jansenism), Atheismus devictus, Hamb. 4to, 1672 ; Glanvil, Sin of Scoffing, &c., Lond. 1676; Wagner, Hxamen Elencticum Atheismi Specidativi, Tubingen, 4to, 1677; Cudworth, IntellecHud System, a confutation of the reason and philo- sophy of Atheism, and a demonstration of the impossibility of.it, London, 1678, in which (c. 2) the arguments in favour of Atheism are so well stated, said Dryden, that the writer had failed to answer them in c. 5 ( Dedic. to Aeneid, ii. 378). The libertine Overthrown, or a Mirror for Atheists (undated), being the egregious vicious life and eminently aiid sincerely penitent death of John Earl of Eochester, who died 1680, "abstracted for the use of the meanest capacities " from Burnet and Parsons ; Bp. Manningham, Popery oroe great cause of Atheism, Lond. 1681 ; Glanvil, A Whip for the Droll (i.e., the scoffer), Fidler to the Atheist, being Reflections on Drollery and Atheism, a letter to H. More, with comments by More, ON ATHEISM. 307 1682 ; Dr. (Grrew (botanist), The Microscope's- Evidence to an Intelligent Author, &c. ; Eedi (entomologist), to the same effect ; .T. P. Gruneberg, de Atheorum religione pru- dent um, and Disputationes de Scientid Dei — all about this date ; Jac, Abadie, de Veritate religionis Ghristianae (pt. i. c. 18, p. 129), Rotterdam, 1684; Origine of Atheisme in the Popish and Protestant Churches, shewn by Dorotheus Sicurus, made English, with a preface by E. B., Esq., 1684; A Discourse upon the Peasonableness of Men's having a Religion or Worship of Qod, by His Grace George d. of Buckingham (Somers, Tracts, ix. pp. 13—19), 1685. To this an answer appeared, only described in Somers, and a rejoinder by the Duke, in which he says he does not understand the answer, but offers to give the author £1000 if he will prove that he is the same George Duke of Buckingham that he was twenty years ago. (The point of the Duke's tract is that matter is not eternal.) The Atheist unmasked hy a person of honour, Lond. 1685 ; Untereyk, Ber narrische Atheist, Bremen, 1689; The Second Spira, by J. S., 1693. This was an account of the last sickness of an Atheist and reprobate, the member of a club, which "within the last seven years" (a.d. 1687—92) "met together constantly to lay down such rules and method as that they might be critically wicked in everything that they could, without the laws taking hold of them." " A deal of company" came to witness his despair during eight days' illness ; and hear him " curse the day when he exchanged the Christian faith " for the Creed " of Spinoza and the Leviathan." It is said that the publisher sold thirty thousand copies of this tract in six weeks. (Lowndes' Bibliographical Manual.) By the same author, A Conference hetwixt a modern Atheist and his Friend, London, 1693; Bentley, Boyle Lectures against Atheism, 1693 ; An Anatomy of Atheisme, a poem hy a person of quality (Dawes, Bishop of Chester), 1693 ; Hoffmann, de Atheo Convincendo, an inaugural lecture delivered at Halle, WTcs., v. pp. 125-130, 1693 ; Sermon X 3o8 ON ATHEISM. hy the Archbishop of Canterbwry (Tillotson) on Atheism, circ. i6g^; Pritius, Diss, de Atheismo in se foedo et hy/mano generi noxio, Leipsic, 1695 ; Jablonsky, Stultitia et irrationdbilitas Atheismi, Magdeb. 1695 ; Edwards Thoughts concerning the causes and occasions of Atheism, 169s ; Grassius, An Atheismus necessario dticat ad corrup- tionem morwm, Eostock, 1697; Hoffmann, Zea^oM. Univ. s. v., Leyden, 1698 ; Lidgould (Fellow of Clare CoU., Cambr.), Proclamation against Atheism, 1 699. {d) First Half of the Eighteenth Century. — Abicht, De dam/no Atheismi in repvMicd, Leips. 1703; Jenkin Thomasius, Hist. Philosophica Atheismi, Altdorf, 1703 ; Jo. Eajcsanyi (S. J.), Itinerarium Athei ad Veritaiis viam (A dialogue against the Machiavellians), Vienna, 1704; Jo. Fabricius Consideratio Controversiarum, pp. 1-23, 1 704 ; Jo. Christ. Wolfius, JDissertatio de Atheismi falso suspectis, Wittenberg, 1 7 1 o ; H. More, Unthusiasmvs Triumphatus (in which Enthusiasm is shown to be one of the causes of Atheism), also Antidote to Atheism, 1 7 1 2 ; Philips, Biss. Historica de Atheismo, Lond. 1 7 1 6 ; The Third Spira, memoirs of a young English gentleman at Paris (went through two editions), 1 7 1 7 ; Buddeus, Theses de Atheismo et Svperstitione, Jena, 1 7 1 7 ; Bier- mann, Impietas Atheistica scoptico-sceptica detecta, Hanov. 1720; Jo. Jac. Syr bins. Diss, de Origine Atheismi, Jena, 1720 [v. Zedler and Jocher) ; Eeimmann, Historia Atheismi et Atheorum falso et merito suspectorum, Hildes- heim, 1725; J. Alb. Fabricius, Delectus argumentorum, &c. p. 286, ib. Phiiosophis et gentibus falso imputatus Atheismus, p. 286, ib. Scriptores adv. Atheos, from which this bibliographical notice may be considerably extended, p. 340, 1725; Warburton's Divine Legation, 'bk. i. sec. 3-5, Lond. 1738. (e) Latter Half of the Eighteenth Century. — In 1751 appeared the celebrated French Encyclopedic, " the first work in which Atheism was openly promulgated" (Buckle's Civilization, i. p. 786). " Dans un intervaUe de douze ON ATHEISM. 309 anuses, de 1758-70, la litt^rature franQaise fut souillde par un grand nombre d'ouvrages 011 I'Ath^isme ^tait ouverte- ment profess^" (Lacretelle, 18'*"° Sikh, ap. Buckle, op. cit. i. 787). In 1764, Humemet at Barond'Holbacli's a party of the most celebrated men in Paris. Hume raised the question as to the existence of a bond fide Atheist, and was told that he was in company with seventeen such (Burton's Life of Hrnne, n. p. 220, ap. Buckle). In 1764, Walpole writes of the educated Parisians, that " their avowed doctrine is Atheism" (Letters, v. 96, ed. 1 840, ibid. Boulainvilliers, Doutes sur la Religion, Lond. 1767). In 1770 appeared Le SysUme de la Nature, by Mira- baud, Baron d'Holbach (or, in part perhaps. La Mettrie). It was read very widely by " des savants, des ignorants, des femmes" (Voltaire, Diet. Phil. s. v. Bieu). " The views it contaius are so clearly and methodically arranged as to have earned for it the name of the code of Atheism" (Buckle, I. c). An extract from Voltaire's answer to it, in which he states his persuasion that the error " proceeds from no badness of heart," is translated in the Annual Register for 1771, p. 183, Characters. In '1 774, Priestley reported that all the philosophical persons to whom he was introduced in Paris were un- believers in Christianity and even professed Atheists {Memoirs, i. p. 74). In 1775, the Archbishop of Toulouse, in a formal address to the king on behalf of the clergy, de- clared that "le monstreux ath^isme est devenu I'opinion dominante" (Soulavie, Rigne de Louis XVI., vol. iii. p. 1 6, ap. Buckle, I. c). This, like all similar assertions, must • have been an exaggeration ; but that there was a large amount of truth in it is known, says Buckle, to whoever has studied the mental habits of the generation immedi- , ately preceding the Eevolution. Besides a host of inferior writers, among the higher intellects, Condorcet, D'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, Lalande, Laplace, and Mirabeau, openly advocated Atheism. X 2 3IO ON ATHEISM. Jacobi, Brief R iih. Spinom (p. 307), 1789. Plainer, Fhilosophische Aphorismen (i. p. 543j foUg-)j 1793- Heidenreich, Lettres sur VAiheisme, Leips. 1 796. Mal- ham, A Word for the Bible, being a serious reply to the speculative Deists and practiced Atheists, London, 1796. (/) The Nineteenth Century. — Sylvain Mar^chal, Diction- naire des Ath4es, Paris, 8vo, 1800, reprinted by Didot, 1855. This— "the most extraordinary of Mar^chal's books" — appeared just as French society was settling down after the Kevolution, "les moeurs dissolues du Directoire s'^taient ^purdes peu h pen," and religion was reviving under the influence of Napoleon. Silence was imposed upon all journals which desired to criticize or draw attention to the book, embargo was laid upon its circulation, and its author passed over with contempt, and deprived of the Mat of a persecution. The original edition is now only to be found in a few private libraries. Alea, Antidote de I'Atheisme, ou Examen critique du Diet, des AthAs, 1 800. Feuerbach, Das Wesen der Religion, a set of lectures delivered at Heidelberg in the winter of 1 848—9. Iconoclast, God, Man, and the Bible, three nights' discussion with the Principal of St. Aidan's College, Lon- don, 1 860 ; also, A Plea for Atheism, and Is there a God ? Holyoake, The Limits of Atheism, London, 1861. John Watts, The Logic and Philosophy of Atheism, London, 1865. Arnold Euge, Beden iib. Religion (founded upon Schwartz, Ud)er den Ursprung der Mythologie, and Dupuis, L'Origine de tous les Cultes), Berlin, 1869. Eadenhausen, Isis, vol. ii. p. 409, foUg. The modern books, on general or special points of natural science, which popularize Atheistic views in the present day are too numerous to mention in detail ; but their general character has been sketched above. ON DOUBT. Doubt is an intellectual tendency to deny a proposition resting upon a limited quantity of evidence, on the ground that the evidence is no greater; and it is always accom- panied by an opposite intellectual tendency to afSrm the same on the ground that the evidence is no less. Doubt is thus the complement of belief." If a thing is known or certain, the evidence or reason for it must be complete, and it is impossible to doubt it. If, on the contrary, there is no evidence for it, or none known to us, we know that it is false, or are ignorant that it is true, and it is impossible to believe it. If, thirdly, there is a limited amount of evidence — much or little — short of that required for certainty, we believe the proposition, because there is evidence for it, but doubt it, because the amount of evi- dence forthcoming is insufficient to satisfy the demand made by the mind as a condition of its arriving at cer- tainty. This demand varies indefinitely in different indi- viduals, and in different sets of individuals under different circumstances. Thus, the preaching of an angel from heaven would be, to the majority of mankind, conclusive evidence of the truth of a, doctrine; but for Christians, St. Paul says, this is not sufficient evidence, unle^ss the doctrine be identical with that already received (G-al. i. 8). Or, again, what is sufficient evidence to produce certainty' in an uninstructed, may be insufficient to assure an in- structed, person. But apart from this variety in the demand actually made for evidence, there is a certain amount of evidence in every case which is ideally suffi- ^ Belief is co-extenaive -with knowledge in the opinion of Prof. Flint. " Theism" (Blackwood, 1877), pp. 85-86. 312 ON DOUBT. cient, and which is always taken for granted as a standard of certainty, however opinions may vary as to what or how much it is. Doubt, then, like belief, presupposes (a) that a proposition is no longer received in childlike simplicity without question. " Absit," says St. Augustine, "ut ideo credamus ne rationem accipiamus sive quae- ramus." (&) "Doubting necessarily implies some degree of evidence for that of which we doubt " (Butler, Anal., ii. S) ; and as Archbishop Leightonhas it, "when there is a great deal of smoke and no clear flame, it argues much moisture in the matter ; yet it witnesseth certainly that there is fire within. And therefore dubious questioning is much better evidence than that senseless dulness which most take for believing. Men that know nothing in sciences have no doubts. He never truly believed who was not first made sensible and convinced of unbelief." Conversely, belief, as the acceptance of a proposition upon evidence less than the amount required for certainty, postulates a margin of doubt (cf. "Lord, I believe, help thou mine imbelief "), which exactly corresponds to the difference between the amount of evidence on which I believe a thing, and the amount of evidence on which I should be certain of it. In common parlance, whdn the evidence for the truth of a proposition preponderates over that against it, when the area, so to speak, of our belief in it is more extensive than the area of our doubt about it, we say we believe it, and omit to make record of our doubts about it. Simi- larly, when our doubts about it preponderate over our belief in it, we say in common speech, that we doubt it, and take no account of our belief in it. And this is all the more the case when, as in most instances, either doubt or belief predominates out of aU proportion to its respective opposite. But if we would describe the whole state of the mind in the consideration of incomplete evidence, we must regard it as a double ((Zw-bito, St -aToXjuv, zwev-iehi), and not a single state ; we must say that we ON DOUBT. 313 both believe and doubt a proposition which, upon the evidence, is at once probable and improbable. Doubt does not necessarily imply a state of indifference or suspension of judgment. On the contrary, this is only the case in those very few instances in which the evidence for and against a proposition is exactly equal, and our belief in and doubt about its truth are equal also. Neither does doubt involve disbelief, except in the same sense as it involves belief ; for disbelief is itself a kind of belief, the belief, namely, that a particular proposition is not true. Belief, then, whether affirming or denying, is a positive, but a limited and imperfect, state of mind, as compared with faith and knowledge. And the limit or imperfection of belief, whether large or small, is doubt. Apparent States of Belief which exclude Bouht.-^When the evidence for the truth of a proposition is complete, we are not said to believe it any longer, but to know it. And this is equally the case whether the evidence consist of an enumeration of the reasons, or rest upon the authority of an ^ absolutely veracious person. The distinction, in truth, between believing in a fact, and believing in a person, will not bear close examination. When I believe in a fact, I assent to a proposition importing that the fact is real and is of a particular kind — as true, on the strength of what appear to me to be adequate reasons ; when I believe in a person, I assent to the proposition, importing that the person in question is trustworthy — as true, on the strength of evidence, as in the former case. His trust- worthiness, thus ascertained, then becomes itself the evidence for the proposition for which he vouches. But there are several other cases in which the words " implicit" and " steadfast" are applied to belief to signify the exclusion of doubt : (a) A belief is implicit or implied when it is not explicit or explained, i.e. when there is no reason or explanation "why I be- lieve" to be given, but " that I believe" is taken for 314 ON DOUBT. granted both by myself and others. This, just like implicit obedience, is the normal condition of the chUd, and the actual condition of the vast majority of the human race, in whom the mind is in a state of mere passive receptivity in relation to truth, and who-are there- fore not yet able to ask themselves " why they believe." (6) Belief is " steadfast " when the exclusion of doubt is not so much the result of natural condition as of volun- tary effort. "Steadfast" means, first, "permanent," or " unwavering," and, secondly, that this permanence is the work of the will, bringing the mind consciously under the sway of habit. " Steadfast belief," then, supposes the emergence of doubt, and its intentional and habitual suppression ; not only the state of mind which says, " I believe," but that which, perhaps after experience of the double condition of belief and doubt, says, "I will believe," " I mean to believe," and consciously forms the permanent habit or state of believing. (c) The result of this process is again a state of implicit belief, which resembles the first in excluding any explanation or reason for believing, but differs from it in being acquired instead of natural. The child is not yet — the "steadfast" behever no longer — able to ask " why he believes ;" because the attention of the child is not yet — that of the habitual believer no longer — attracted to the fact that he does believe. To sum up : doubt can only be excluded from belief, •either when the evidence for the truth of a proposition is complete, in which case belief itself vanishes in know- ledge; or, as in the three cases last mentioned, by the interposition of some determinant external to the mental process of believing, as such, and due either (a) to natural condition, or (S) to voluntary effort, or (c) to the force of habit. In the first case, the completeness of the evidence, while it excludes doubt excludes belief also ; in the last three, the intervention of alien causes excludes, along with doubt, the conscious repose of bdlief upon evidence ON DOUBT. 315 at all. From this it follows that belief, if it rests upon auy evidence whatever, must rest upon evidence that is not entirely complete ; and as it is itself (apart from the operation upon it of external causes) essentially an imperfect assent, it postulates the co-existence of doubt, as its limit. Supposed States of Doubt which exclude Belief. — ^The attempt to make doubt absolute and thorough-going is still more illogical than the exclusion of doubt from the condition of belief. If doubt be the inherent imperfection of belief, it postulates the existence of that of which it is the imperfection ; if it be the consciousness of the incompleteness of evidence, it supposes the existence of eividence which is thus incomplete. It is the recognition of this limit to doubt which distinguishes rational doubt from scepticism. " We doubt," says Descartes, " in order to obtain a ground of absolute certitude." In other words, we traverse the region of doubt in order to arrive at the belief which is its limit. The ancient followers of Pyrrho, however, in setting up doubt as an ultimate and final principle in thought, asserted that there was nothing on which the instructed intellect should allow itself to frame a definite judgment. Such a principle, were it possible to carry it out to its legitimate conclusions, puts an end to all action, as to all thought, and is as subversive of society as it is of religion and philosophy. The consistent Pyrrhonist has no right to eat or drink ; if his house is on fire, there is no reason that he should attempt to escape. Why ? Because such an action presupposes a series of previous judgments, " I am in danger," " It is well to escape," " To escape, I must flee," &e., none of which he has any rational ground for framing. For- tunately, human instinct is better than philosophy in this case, and comes in to correct the extravagance of theory. But, also, the theory itself, if thought out, annihilates itself. When the Pyrrhonist has doubted the reality of the world and of thought, he at length 3i6 ON DOUBT. arrives at a point at ■which he has the choice of either doTihting whether or not he doubts, in which case doubt itself vanishes, or of being sure that he doubts, in which case he has found a limit to his doubt in a definite belief. It was at some such impassable limit, too, that Descartes arrived, and from which the whole of modern philosophy ■has been evolved. {See Descartes, CEuvres, torn. iii. pp. 6 3—6 8, ed. Cousin ; and the French EncydopMie of 1751, s. V. Boute.) Doubt, then, and belief are the negative and positive poles of the same mental condition, a condition charac- teristic of the imperfection of human knowledge. They spring out of the same root — viz., the awakening of the miud to the necessity of basing assent on evidence. Doubt originates, like belief on evidence, in the indi- vidual mind. Men never doubt in crowds, nor do com- munities ever beheve on evidence. If we examine the early history of every iiation, we find it generating uncon- sciously an organized system of common ideas, which, like its language or its polity, correspond to its collective character, and from which all marks of individual work- manship are absent. Eeligion and worship in primitive peoples are always of this gregarious kind, and (to take a familiar instance) it was through the medium of this col- lective consciousness that the Hebrews came into contact with the Divine revelation. God speaks through His Prophets, but He speaks to Israel at large; and con- versely, it is not as a series of individuals^ but as a people, that the Hebrews accept the Divine message, and are conscious of being collectively the subjects of the Divine favour (2 Chron. xxx. 12 ; Jer. xxxii. 39, &c.). So in the primitive Christian Church, the " multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul," and this absence of all individual and private feeling finds its natural expression ia community of goods. In all these cases doubt is impossible, because there is no detachment of the individual from the general life of the ON DOUBT. 317 community. Similarly, the " belief " of this early time is not what is here called helief, i.e., intellectual assent upon evidence, hut an immediate apprehension of Christ, as a person, by the " heart," i.e., the whole being of the " believer." So too our Lord Himself discouraged the seeking for signs, and commonly declined to constrain intellectual belief by the evidence of miracles. To St. Thomas alone, who had detached himself for the moment from the common consciousness of the first disciples, and therefore was in the real position of an intellectual doubter, is vouchsafed the evidence requisite for producing individual and intellectual belief. Accord- ingly, doubt seems to have arisen more generally in the Chxirch, when the original " unity of heart" was broken up by divisions and Tieresies, when Christianity had become matter of discussion, when " apologies" had begun to be written to produce belief on evidence, and when the saints, no longer finding rest in society, retired into the desert and the cloister. Doubt is thus to the organized autho- rity of common opinion what the monastic impulse is to the organized authority of society — viz., a revolt of the individual from the intellectual and moral world in which he lives. This characteristic is noticeable in the more prominent instances' of . doubt which are on record. The late Mr. Eobertson speaks of the " utter lonehness of spirit," the dreariness and cheerlessness of his life while in doubt. The same is true of Abelard, who, perhaps more than any other, forms a solitary figure in the Middle Ages. The causes which lead the individual so to detach him- self from the ordinary mental life around him, and to demand evidence for the truth of received ideas, lie partly in the educational effect of those ideas themselves, and partly in the fact that they have worked themselves out, and are giving place to a higher development. Plato has described this process under the image of a foster-child, who, after being carefuUy trained by his reputed parents, 3J8 on doubt. at length attains sufficient intelligence to discover that those whom he has hitherto regarded as his parents are not really so ; and is led by the discovery to question everything that he has been taught, to break away from all the influences of his youth, and to regard all moral distinctions as merely conventional. In this state of uncertainty he falls into the hands of flatterers and sophists, and becomes a lawless and disputatious person (de RepuUicd, p. S 3 8). Meanwhile, however, the foster- parents are given up for the real parents. The impulse to demand the reason for traditionary ideas, the formation and emancipation of the individual mind, the capacity of doubt and belief, are the last residts of the operation upon man of those common ideas and institutions of which he is the half unconscious author. Their very pressure calls forth the resistance which is the germ of self-conscious- ness. Man becomes aware of himself as the source of ideas and of institutions, and of his indefeasible right, as a free being, against all that is established. The very reasonableness of tradition and custom have developed in him the faculty of seeking the reasons for them in himself. And the more reason he sees for the traditional and the customary, the less authority have they over him, for he perceives that he is himself, in the last resort, the author of both. The emergence in society of the self-conscious individual is, if we regard it from one side alone, a prin- ciple of anarchy ; but regarded from the other side, the free activity which is thus called into being is itself a principle of reconstruction. The demand for reason and evidence, while it reveals the insufficiency of what has been hitherto unquestioned, discloses also the quantum of reasonableness without which it could never have been accepted at all. In referring all things to himself, the individual thus refers them not only to a solvent but to an active principle. What he has made before he can again make. The insufficiency of that which he criticizes he discovers to be the result of the insufficiency in himself, ON DOUBT, 319 its author. And conversely, the sufficiency of himself as the standard of ideas and institutions is the result of the action upon him of that which he criticizes. While he doubts, therefore, he also believes. As the " measure of all things" he creates a new order of thoughts and customs by which he wiU himself be judged. The detachment of the doubter from the common con- sciousness in which all men live is thus the natural way in which ideas and societies correct themselves. If they were wholly adequate at any given time, they could not be criticized ; if they were wholly inadequate, they could not have educated their critic. Doubt, therefore, as the characteristic of the individual mind, is at once destruc- tive and constructive, and, as the mean term between an old and a new order, essentially transitional. As transi- tional it partakes both of the old and the new, and finds its true complement in belief. The, History of the, Princvpal Periods of Doubt further confirms this view. They have all ushered in new developments in religion and philosophy. The period of the Sophists in ancient Greece represents the break-down of the old Polytheism, and introduces the spiritual Mono- theism of Anaxagoras and Plato. The sceptical Epicurism of the Sadducees in Israel represents the break-down of that " tradition" by which the " Word of God" had been made " of none effect." What the natural reconstruction might have been, we are left in great measm-e to conjec- ture, inasmuch as it was guided, dominated, and ultimately absorbed by the new supernatural principle of Chris- tianity. After the beginning of the second Christian century, the rise of patristic or argumentative, as dis- tinguished from simply or mainly religious, Christianity, points to a period of questioning which called forth the Apology of Justin Martyr, and the Stromata of Clement of Alexandria. It is characteristic of this period that Clement places the intellectual understanding of revela- tion (£7rt(ir»)^ij) as the mean term between jr/anc in 320 ON DOUBT. which douht has not yet arisen, and yvJiffic in which it has, vanished in conscious certainty. A little later, the speculations of Origen and the growth of the Arian heresy indicate the continued prevalence of douht, and the demand for reasons and evidence. In the twelfth century, again, the Sm et Non of Aboard indicates the transition from the patristic to the scholastic or metaphysical period of Christian thought. This work, the text of which was discovered and published for the first time by the late M. Cousin, is a discussion of the difficulties arising from Scripture and the writings of the Fathers, and a juxta- position of the reasons for and against all the main tmths of religion. The general point of view is thus stated : "Haec quippe prima sa.pientiae clavis definitur, assidua scUicet seu frequens interrogatio. Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus ; inquirendo veritatem percipimus" (Cousin's Fragm. de Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 220—234). This book introduces the method of Enstasis and Solution characteristic of scholastic divinity, which is seen in its perfection in the Summa of St. Thomas Aquinas. The doubt, again, of the seventeenth century, as represented by. Lord Bacon, Descartes, and Spinoza, is consciously enter- tained as a solvent of the scholastic modes of thought,, and as, what it has proved to be, the germ of the whole modem intellectual movement (Bacon, iV. 0. passim. ; Descartes, I.e. ; Spinoza, Frinc. Fhil. Cartes, Op. ed. Bruder, vol. i. 22—28). Protestantism, once more, the contemporary religious development, as the assertion of the right of private judgment, is essentially a principle of doubt ; and, while undermining the dogmas of the later Middle Ages, has in our times shown unmistakable signs of a tendency to destroy itself. Pbr the mere private judg- ment of one person has no interest for any other ; and its maintenance, as such, is subversive both of truth and society ; whilst, on the other hand, by becoming illu- minated and instructed, judgment ceases to be private, and becomes common. ON DOUBT. 321 The last and most thoroughgoing instance of philoso-, phical scepticism which the world has seen, that of Hume and Kant, illustrates the same law. Whilst annihilating the English sensational school of Locke and Berkeley, on the one hand, it is the foundation, on the other, of the vast structure of modern German thought. Doubt is thus, like revolution, an anarchical principle ; and its justification, like that of revolution, is its success — i.e., its capability of reconstructing the traditional and customary on a securer basis, " ex fumo dare lucem." The Gonsoiousness of JDoiibt in particular cases may arise from a variety of causes. In the majority of minds which have arrived at the stage of demanding evidence for belief, although in reality they both believe and doubt, yet the attention is almost exclusively concentrated" upon the fact that they believe. Belief is sustained by the inj[iuence of the unquestioning certainty of the world at large, by being more comfortable than doubt, and by the habit of continu- ally asserting or assuming belief in ordinary life. Belief is thus artificially extended, and doubt narrowed almost to a vanishing point. It is most natural to forget that our belief is imperfect, as it is most natural to forget that our actions are imperfect. Belief being not only preponderant, but active, doubt becomes obscured. But if anything occurs' to awaken examination of the grounds of belief, this residuum of doubt is brought to light ; and doubt is likely to become active for a time, without being in reality different in amount, or in proportion to belief, from what it was before. These are cases in which belief is said to be " shaken," and the occasion seeming, and indeed often being, inadequate to alter the relation of the mind to the evidence, moral perversion is taken for granted, or the inspiration of the EvU One, to account for the emergence of doubt. Whereas the fact is, that a latent condition of consciousness has been excited into activity, and while the excitement lasts — which is not unfrequently prolonged and aggravated by the surprise of the doubter at the 322 ON DOUBT. existence of doubt in his mind, by the protestation of friends, the social ostracism which he has to undergo, the embarrassment of active duty, the misunderstandings and misstatements of enemies, or, again, by the encouragements of disbelievers, and the clamour on all sides for the sup- posed doubter to commit himself to definite statements — the discovery of doubt loosens the moorings of all beliefs, or throws an atmosphere of uncertainty over them. Doubt propagates itself, just as belief had done before, and belief diminishes, for the time, to a vanishing point. It is in cases like this that the advice is good to change the sphere of life and engage in active occupation, in order to allow the mind to settle down again before taking any step. But, again, the mind may become conscious of doubt — i.e., of the imperfection of belief — by an accession of evidence on the negative side of the scale, or by the discovery that a portion of the evidence on the positive side breaks down. Here agaui the area of doubt may be artificially extended by the novelty of the discovery and consequent exaggeration of its importance, by the self-congratulation of the doubter at his own acuteness in making it, &c., so as to encroach further upon the area of belief than is actually warranted by the new evidence. On this kind of doubt, St. Augustine writes to Adeodatus: " Dubitationem tuam non invitus accipio ; significat enim animum minimi temeiarium, quae custodia tranquillitatis est maxima. Nam difiicilUmum est omnino non perturbari, cum ea quae pronS, et procliv^ approbatione tenebamus contrariis disputationibus labefactantur, et quasi extor- quentur e manibus. Quare ut aequum est bene consideratis perspectisque rationibus cedere, ita incognita pro cognitis habere periculosum. Metus enim est ne cum saepe sub- ruuntur quae firmissime statura et mansura praesumimus, in tantum odium vel timorem rationis incidamus, et ne ipsi quidem perspicuae veritati fides habenda videatur." (Be, Magistro, 31 A B, Bened. ed. vol. i. p. 558.) "The best way never to be a sceptic," says Meric Casaubon, ON DOUBT. 323 speaking of the same state of mind, " is not to be too quick of belief, and to doubt of many things" {Credulity and iTicredulity, p. i S S). The opposite and more insidious temptation is for the doubter to tamper with his mind, to endeavour to forget the new evidence, to disregard the law of intellectual honesty, and habituate himself to the profes- sion of beliefs for the sake of their comfortableness or utility, until at length he forms a new habit of believing a thing to be true, even in the teeth of a known preponderance of evidence to the contrary. The best remedy against either temptation, and against the continuance of this kind of doubt, is careful, impartial, and methodized inquiry. It is by method that a man arises out of the individual isolation of doubt, and comes into contact with the com- mon thought of all time. Lastly, doubt may emerge into consciousness owing to the natural inclination of particular temperaments. Just as many are inclined to believe simply because they shrink from the trouble of investigating evidence, others take refuge in alleged uncertainty of evidence because they are afraid of pursuing a subject to unwelcome con- clusions (see Eclipse of Faith), The remedies for doubt of this order will be the same as those for indolence in the one case, and for timidity in the other. Relation of Doubt to Action. — Doubt is too soften the paralysis of action; and commonly the necessity of action may induce a forcible suppression of doubt which leaves, for ever, a scar upon the character. Of this difficulty Bishop Jeremy Taylor gives the following solu- tion: — In the case of the unlearned, whose assurance may be destroyed by arguments which they cannot answer, he advises that " they stick to their conclusions, in despite of all objections, by a certainty of adhesion." But if the learned "be made to doubt in the under- standing by the opposition of an adversary, they are not instantly to change their practice, but inquire further. .... In these cases the practice is made sure by a Y 324 ON DOUBT. collateral light, and the ' douhter ' is defended from change by reputation and custom, hy fear of scandal and the tie of laws, and by many other indirect instruments of determination; ■which, although they cannot outwit the contrary arguments, yet they ought to outweigh the doubt, and guide the will, and rule the conscience in such cases. There is nothing but a weak man may doubt of, but if he be well, ho must not change his foot till it be made certain to him that he is deceived ; let him consider what he please, and determine at leisure ; let him be swift to hear, but slow to speak, and slower yet in declaring by his action and changed course that his doubt hath prevailed on him If the speculative doubting conscience should always prevail in practice, the ignorant might be abused and miserably in aU things, and the learned in most" {Dvctor DtiMiantinm, p. 184, sqq.). In the analogous forensic case of possession under a title discovered to be uncertain, Taylor quotes the authority of all the principal jurists for his solution, that " whatsoever hath the first advantage of just and reasonable is always to be so presumed till the contrary be proved ; a doubt, therefore, may make a man unquiet and tie him to inquire, but cannot interrupt possession .... because possession is stronger than doubt, though it cannot pre- vail against demonstration " (lb. I.e. ; see the question discussed at the end of Strauss's Life of Jesus, Eng. tr., and in Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology). Eobert- son writes that he " never allowed his bewildennent to teU upon his conduct " (see his Life and Letters, by Stopford Brooke, vol. i. pp. 1 1 1— 1 1 3), although he not only at one time doubted everything except that " it must be right to do right," but even speaks of the misery of a suspicion that even moral goodness and beauty might be a dream. His temptations and doubts he sought to solve by work- ing amongst the poor, by putting his aspirations in practice, and by keen sympathy with the suffeiing ON DOUBT. 325 of the masses. He adds (p. 203) that all questioning and doubt left him as he drew near the close of his career. The Relation of Dovht to Faith is a particular case of the relation of the individual to that spiritual community of which he forms a part. And this may be described as a relation, fii'st, of opposition ; secondly, of expansion ; finally, of reunion ; corresponding in the moral sphere to selfishness, rational self-love, and self-sacrifice, respectively. Faith is, as is knowledge, always of the True Object. But to us, who are in process of development, the true object may wear the appearance of the false. Still the true object is there as the condition of the existence of Faith at all : we throw our own shadow upon it by doubt which is the imperfection of belief. If there were no light and no object, we could not throw our shadow (cf. 2 Tim. iL 1 3). We see the truth " enigmatically and in a glass," as we see the sun through the medium of the window and the atmosphere ; and this truth is our union, in Christ, with God. This is the true object, and, at the same time, itself the reality and substance of faith. But in describing it, we obscure that which we would explain, because the oppositions of speech involve distinctions which in the spiritual sphere are distinctly negative of that which they are meant to express. Faith is a relation, and in thinking of it we cannot but regard it from our side of the relation : we are compelled to think of ourselves as first; whereas in reality God is first, and we in Him. It is this inability of faith to take a true view of itself, which brings it down into the sphere of opinion, and into contact with the divided regions of belief and doubt, which are incidents of the individual life in its state of limitation and growth. And, conversely, it is only by a kind of mental self-denial that we can rise above the region of opinions, misgivings and prejudices, of the con- tradictions of thought and feeling, and of the opposition Y 2 326 ON DOUBT. of moral and intellectual, which is the province of doubt, and from which we can only describe the truth amiss, and in terms which, so soon as used, require correction. On the distinction of " common faith," i.e. belief on evidence, and " true faith," i.e., a supernatural state of the soul, see Perkin's JSxposition of the Creed, Works, vol. i. p. 126, fol. 1608. FRAGMEIfTS 329 FRAGMENTS. We have thought that the following extracts from Dr. Appleton's common-place boots would be interesting to many, as giving an insight into the wo iking of his mind upon some important social, political, philosophical and religious subjects. These Notes and Fragments are printed almost eL'actly as written : for they will, doubt-^ less, be read with more pleasure in their present form than if any attempt had been made to remould some rapidly writcen and perhaps obscure sentences. They must, howe'ver, be taken for what they are — ^not finished compositions, not matured conclusions, but in great measure as passing thoughts arrested for future use, ofteu tentative rather than expressing formed opinions, and, of course, never intended to meet the public eye. The extracts range from 1867 to the end of Dr. Appleton's life, but only in a very few cases has it been possible to affix a date. — J. H. A. Does not every miracle involve two miracles, if not an infinite series ? Thus let x, a miracle, be supposed to interrupt the continuity ol the series of phenomena a B c D X BFG, &c., at the point between D and E. Then it follows that D as a cause has no eFect unless it be x, and E, as an eaect, has no cause e^rcept it be x. Here, then, we have on the one hand a natural cause, d, producing either no effect (which is miraculous), or else having x for an effect, in which case the cause would be equally miraculous ; and . further we have c producing such a 330 FRAGMENTS. semi-miraculous cause, B producing c, &c. ; i.e., we are lauded in a miraculous regress to infinity. In each of the terms of the regress there is a miraculous element, although a diminishing one, to infinity. This diminution does not prevent the first term of the series from being as truly miraculous as the term D, because all miracles as simh are equal ; i.e., they imply the direct action of the Infinite out of the course of nature. If then this direct action occurs at every point in the series, i.e., in emry phenomenon previous to a miracle, the distinction between X, as a direct action, and the previous terms of the series vanishes: either they are all miraculous, or else x is natural. So with the infinite series of terms succeeding x. The series starts with E, which is either the efiect of no cause at all, which it can hardly be unless it is the Infinite Being Himself ; or it is the effect of D, in which case the continuity of the series has not been disturbed ; or, lastly, it is the effect of x, a miraculous cause, and carries on the miraculous element communicated by x ad infinitum in a progressive series. This remaining series will thus be miraculous exactly in the same sense that the order of Nature, according to the common conception, is miraculous ; i.e., the first term of the series is the effect of the immediate action of the Supreme Being. The notion of substance arises from breaking the strict relativity between the thiaker and the thing; it is identical with the notion of independent " heing" i.e., of relativity which is relative to nothing, i.e., which is relative to itself alone. Substance is therefore the counterpart of mysticism : as the first is " being" divorced from its relation to the thinker, so is mysticism thought divorced from its relation to things. It would therefore •be improper to say that " substance is" because it means that that which stands out of all relation to anything but itself, stands in relation (this is the only meaning of "is") to the mind ; which is self -contradictory. FRAGMENTS. 331 The only way in which this contradiction can be avoided is by restricting our notion of substance to that which is considered the highest, and indeed which is properly the only case of substantive being, i.e., the self- conscious mind. The mind, as an object to itself, is ; i.e., is relative to a thinker ; but, in the case supposed, this thinker, to which the mind is relative, is itself. Its, being, or relativity, is thus relativity to self, and is consequently independent of all else. The mind, thinking about itself, is thus the only substance which is not self-contradictory. Here, however, we appear to be landed ia the counter- part of substance, viz., the mind divorced from things, out of relation to things or objects of thought, and in relation to itself alone. Substance is either a self-contra- dictory notion, or it is indistinguishable from its diametrical opposite and complementary ineptitude, mysticism. In other words, if we arbitrarily sever the relation between the mind and the thing, and try to isolate each member, we cease to be able to distinguish the one from the other. It is between these two ineptitudes that the mediaeval mind, so far as it was not merely commentatory on the past, is continually fluctuating. It is this false opposition which constitutes its fundamental characteristic. It is only in the sense in which the relativity of mind to itself includes the relativity of the mind to everything, and, conversely, iu which the leing of the mind for itself includes the relativity of everything to the mind, that substance ceases to be an impossible idea. The question is. Is. such a comprehension possible, and is it necessary ? Unless it be, the idea of substance falls to the ground altogether. But if it be, it proves, along with the reality of substance, the fact that there is only one substance, and that that is spiritual, i.e., neither mind per se, nor things per se, but both together; and this, not by way of addition to one another, but by way of interpenetration and indis- cerptibility. 332 FRAGMENTS. Does, then, the relativity of mind to itself involve that of everything to the mind ? and, conversely, does that of everything to the mind involve the relativity of the mind to itself? (January lo, 1868.) The substantial character of the Platonic ideas is an ■instance of the power which the mere act of contempla- tion has of giving an apparent^ external character to its object. Thought hypostasizes its idea, as the imagination personifies its image, by merely holding it out at arm's length and looking at it. The difficulty attending the assumption of initial repose prior to the creative act is exactly equal to that of 'assuming an eternal movement. That difficulty consists in finding an adequate cause for either. For supposing the creative effort to begin at a determinate time, its quiescence or obstruction up to that time ■requires to be accounted for. The difference between the two assumptions — one of which must be true, by the law of contradiction — ^is that the assumption of eternal movement will explain the world, whereas the other will not. But further : physical science reveals no cessa- tion of motion, and philosophy is conscious of nothing but movement or effort in thought. If we penetrate down to the very roots of the mind, we find there not a fixed point of outset, but an initial process. Whence, then, and what is Repose ? It is a merely relative fact, i.e., it is retarded process, as compared with greater velocity. This retardation, if it occur in exr -ternal nature, seems, owing to the want of precision and patience in our observation, to be rest. Or again, if it occur in the world of mind, the consciousness of the pro- cess is too sluggish to make any impression on the memory ; it may even be so slow as to pass out of con- sciousness altogether.. This experience and the frequent sensation of weariness, i.e., desire of repose, _leads the FRAGMENTS. 333 imagination to figure what is really only a relative retardation of the cosmic or spiritual effort as an absolute' stoppage. There is no such thing as Eest, , (January, 17, 1868.) Infinity, as envisaged in the Imagination. — The consti- tuents of the infinite of the imagination are generally the combined images of air and water. In the difference between the two we get just that minimum of determina- tion which makes, the image possible. The image of mere air or of mere water would be no realizable image at all, because there would be no distinction. We find this infinite of the imagination among non-European nations in the form of a state of vacuum immediately preceding creation. Thus in Genesis i. 2 : " The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the abyss, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." In the Hindoo account the creative Spirit is represented a^ rowing about in a boat upon the ocean. A beautifully pure expression of the imagined infinite is found in the "Popol Vuh," the sacred book of the aborigines of Guatemala : — " There was a time when all that exists in heaven and earth was made. All was then in suspense, all was calm and silent ; all was immovable, all peaceful, and the vast space of the heavens was empty. There was no man, no animal, no shore, no trees ; heaven alone existed. The face of the earth was not to be seen ; there was OTily the still expanse of the sea and the heaven above. ■ Divine Beings were on the waters like a growing light. Their voice was heard as they meditated and consulted; and when the dawn rose, man appeared." (Max Miiller, " Chips," &c., i. p. 333.) In this case the constituents of the image are empty- heaven, or space, and — which is introduced as if not at aU contradictory to the statement that " heaven alpne existed '' — the still expanse of the sea. The image of space and water differs here from the Hebrew conception in being dimly lighted as with gleams preceding the 334 . FRAGMENTS. dawn: whereas in Genesis all is dark until light is created. We have suhstantiaUy the same image of the infinite lying, so to speak, at the back of the Greek mind. But there are two differences. First, the Greek mind dis- members the image; — Thales's symbol is water exclusively; Anaximander's, the void " in sii^ense;" Anaximenes's, the air ; Xenophanes's, the oXog ovpavog and the sphere. The second difference is, that amongst the Greeks the infinite is not conceived as preceding the emergence of finite things, but as underlying the process of nature, as it is known to sensible perception. The tendency of most men is to take part in projecting immaturely a moral order which is ill-considered, in building too quickly a home for the spirit, which, when the winds begin to blow, turns out to be a log-hut full of chinks and crevices. The movement from within outwards is too quick and rash ; and these external forms, so prematurely assumed, breed discontent in the finer spirits, and set in motion the process from without inwards. In the history of Eome the two counter-movements, •■ — ^the systole and diastole of her great heart — are in the perfect adjustment of health. Stoicism, the centripetal element in the Eoman character, is part of the great expansive power that subdues the world and gives its laws -to mankind. Curtius leaps into the abyss for the sake of Eome. Marcus Aurelius is a Stoic in his camp on the Danube. The Eoman moral order was never felt as a limitation even for Christianity, which destroyed it. But what a cage for humanity has Feudalism been, and the Catholic Church, and the Treaty of Vienna ! The Greeks, like boys, were wont to build rapidly what might give way at a push. Their profoundly objective temper is seen in their philosophy. Their city-states represent the first moment in the political life of the FRAGMENTS. ^^5■ world. But the Greek notion of freedom is immature. Like Plato's Eepublic, their political structures are con- ceived, carried out, and demolished in a day. Cynics and Cyrenaics equally felt the air slipping. It is a thing not yet generally acknowledged, that the Infinite may be approached, nay, without equivocation, attained not only in Feeling and in Thought (Eeligious Philosophy), hut more than all in Action (Politics), Conscious action is the most complex of spiritual facts : it unites the whole influence of the environment of a man — and each man's environment is no less than the universe of Nature and'*Spirit in its entirety — with the reciprocal or corresponding influence of the man upon his environment. It raises this unit of interchange into the element of pure or complete Actuality, and projects the whole as a new factor into the world of Being. Every man's deed is in germ the Infinite Actuosity, actus pwrua. Thought at its highest elevation — at white heat, so to speak — is Action. " Let there be Light, and there was Light." But now go on from the act of an individual to that of a community, of the family, of society, to the highest potency of social activity, the dehberate enact- ment of a sovereign state j nay, transport yourself in thought to that supreme moment when, just as in- dividuals and families have risen out of the natural relation to one another into the political, so states shall have arisen out of international antagonism into the concrete unity of the world — and we then may conceive Action, Actuosity, at its highest power as the Deed of the Eternal Will, which (just as each man is truly said to be the author of his own moral being), as the Author of aU being, creates itself, makes itself to be. Potential and Actual. — Potentiality will not bear thinking out; it vanishes when we approach it ia the actual. 336 FRAGMENTS. When is a thing possible ? — When all the things requisite for its production are present. But when they are all present the thing takes place ; it is actual. Again, we call a thing, in common language, possible, when the majority of the conditions being present, one or more requisite to its production are absent. But their absence makes it not possible, but impossible. The assumption of imaginary entities as the vehicle (Trager) of phenomena, although commonly charged by physical science upon metaphysic, is quite as common in physics, apparently quite as necessaiy, and has lasted quite as long as in the region of philosophy proper — such a^ fluids, ethers, molecular motion, phlogiston, matter, force, &c. Bacon was the first to bring in the idea of the iisefvl- ness of knowledge as a means to material ends, instead of the old idea of knowledge as a liberal pursuit having its end in itself. The natural milieu for ethical theory to grow up in is a sound and healthful politic; when the state is un- developed or in decay ethics assume the following forms: — (i.) Commentaries upon ethical systems produced in the political atmosphere. (2.) Asceticism and the mystical ideal of life. (3.) The moralization of existing fables, &c., as of the Eomance of the Eose, The Game of Chess, the Gestd BomaTiorum, &c. (4.) The introduction of Oriental " moralities." (5.) The creation of a moralized fable-literature. The predilection for the " animal epic" in the Middle Ages is a sign of the absence of political environment normal to ethical thought; men saw a likeness between their own qualities and those of the animals. Study the anarchical society of Eeineke Fuchs. FRAGMENTS. 337 "What was the precise quality wanting to the society :of the Middle Ages which rendered it unpolitical and un- ethical ? ^ Scheme of a Book. 1. Eeligion the first phase of Civility. 2. Nature of Eeligious Sentiments. 3. Nature of Social Sentiments. 4. Parallel growth of each. 5. Dependence and connection. 6. Different forms of relation between the two : — Idea of Israel. Idea of Eome. 7. The Natural and Spiritual : — a. In Religions. 6. In Societies. (The peculiar relation which the higher bears to the lower will in Asceticism.) 8. The two factors constituting Spirituality : — The Social Consciousness The Individual Consciousness. Their analogues in Eeligion : — The idea of God; and of sin. 9. Eelations between the two : — a. In Authoritative and Sacerdotal | Eeligion. ^External.- In Paternal Government. J 6. In Christianity. . In Democracy, c. In Eeligious Dissolution. In Tyranny and Anarchy. 10. Transition to Conscience. Nature and origin of Conscience. Eelation to Eeligion and to Sociality. 1 1. Transmutation of Emotions : — a. Physiologically. h. In Consciousness. Eeciprocal. Individual. 338 FRAGMENTS. 1 2. The idea of God, a. Kature. 1 . , j -j x- i • , „ . I Are a, o, and c identical in ■ r ■ 1 their laws ? c. (Jonscience.J 13. Personality. 14. Idea of God not necessarily a religious idea. 1 5. Subordinate religious ideas and their social analogies. a. Idea of Heaven. Idea of a Golden Age. &. Crime; Immorality; Sin. 16. Conclusion. Persistence of religion as a form of sociality. Variety of these forms. Culture. Appendix. A. Identity of the monastic impulse and the social. B. Freedom and Liberty. C. The imagination, not the reason, is the true guide of life. D. Value of a religion not dependent on the truth of its theology. (December 25, 1875.) Question for Stttdy. — What are the natural facts of which we are certain, which are represented in the teachings and dogmas of religion? (January 29, 1876.) The assumption of metaphysic is the Ego or collective consciousness : that of Eeason is its own infallibility : If she be false, oh then heaven mocks itself. Personality. — The universal reason or Gemeinbewusst- sein is impersonal, like the intelligence which we seem to see active in Nature, and is perhaps simply that intelligence under the form of consciousness. The private reason, or series of the desires, is also impersonal, for they and it exist in the lower animals, to which we do not attribute personality. FRAGMENTS. 339 Personality consists in the relation between these two im- personal factors. Against this it may be said that two impersonals can no more make a personality, than two aces can make a deuce : yet it is also true that two ones can make two. Indimduality is produced by the struggle for existence, by the interlacing of circumstances, and is counteracted by the growth of political life. At present the counter- acting force is weak ; and individuality is becoming selfishness. Liherty. — When we say we are free, we mean not that human action is unconditioned, but (a) that the laws determining it are not material, and (6) that the relation of the action to the will, in which if restrained we are conscious of it, is to be distinguished from the relation of the will to the motive, in which if restrained we are unconscious of it. Liberty is thus a necessity of which we are unconscious ; or, it is liberty to do that which we are necessitated to wOl. Freedom is the expansion, it may be the necessitated expansion, of the finite wUl, which is necessitated by nature, to the stature of the infinite will., which is prior to necessity, being the operation of that general reason which expresses itself in our surroundiug conditions. Customs grow up. amongst a people Hke flowers out of the ground, and their character is determined by that of the soil from which they spring. The men who make them can give no more account of them than the bee of the honeycomb. They have grown up unconsciously as the fitting framework of particular relations and sets of re'curring circumstances, of what Tucker calls " the reason of the thing,'' until at length they become fixed by habi- tuation. The origin of each custom, the form in which alone z 340 FRAGMENTS. moral principles are first known, is the single act of one man, an act whicli, so soon as it is done by him, every- body else does, because every body else is like the doer. The repetition of acts brings with it a quasi-physical necessity of its own, and it is this fixity so attained which really constitutes its sanction as a mode of conduct, and leads men to regard it as a revealed law. Eevealed it is : but in this way, — first, a prominent individual, then imitation, then habit and custom. The British Constitution, which has sprung up within the memory of history out of the character and circumstances of the people, is a monster instance of the growth of custom in comparatively late times. Oux reverence for it is as superstitious as that of a primitive people's might be. Th/ree, views of the State. — ^As conceived by Plato and Aristotle, it is a vast lyceimi of public instruction : this seems to be an exaggeration of the Pythagorean notion of education. Eome to the Eoman is the infinite reality, of which he is but a mode, and against which he has no rights. To the Asiatic the king "liveth for ever," and the subject is not even a mode ; he has no existence save at the king's pleasure. The apparent continuity in the structural character of two metaphysical ideas does not necessarily prove that one has been derived from the other ; but may be an evidence that both owe their origin to a common parentage and have become differentiated. Scheme for a Book on Politics. Introduction. — ^The two factors which make up the moral nature of man are the universal and the particular ; the objective command and the subject which obeys. ■FRAGMENTS. 341 The universal element in thought betrays its cosmical origin. Chap. i. — The first psychological development in the history of the mind is the mere distinction of the lower factor from the higher, preserved in the traditions of the so-called fall of man. Chap. 2. — The higher factor then assumes an exclu- sively external or objective form : and is realized in the personification of the powers of Nature. Chap. 3. — ^Amongst the Oriental races it took form and organization as the Theocratic state : the higher factor being really, though not consciously identified with the collective life of the community. Chap. 4. — Amongst the Greeks the personification of natural powers passes gradually over into the imagination of a series of ideal human forms, from which the cosmical elements gradually disappear. Chap. 5. — In Rome the reverence for the state as such, as the entity to which the individual should be unreser- vedly sacrificed, ultimately reveals its fundamentally theocratic character in the cultus of the Emperors. Chap. 6.-^In Christianity, in Buddhism and Brah- manism and in the worship of Osiris the second great psychological stage is reached by the recognition of the hitherto external [and mysterious] supreme as a factor within the mind, in the same area as that occupied by the subject which obeys. "The kingdom of God is within you." Cf. the philosophical development in Greece, as ex- pressed in the psychological hierarchy of Plato — the governing and governed: Cf. also his connection of it with politics. Chap. 7. — After Christianity, the consciousness of the two moral factors becomes complicated, owing to the partial identification of the higher of them with the historical Christ (who was, of course, an example, not of one factor, but of both factors), and the consec[uent sub- z 2 342 FRAGMENTS. jection to the authority of religion not only of the lower factor in man, hut also of the higher moral imperative along with it. (Peculiar relation of higher and lower in Asceticism.) Chap. 8. — The growth of knowledge in modern times has replaced reason as a supreme factor in the human mind, and has thus brought it into unavoidable conflict with the authority of historical religion as constituting the higher. This conflict must needs continue so long as the historical element in religion is maintained as indis- pensable. The effect of the gradual undermining of it by criticism will ultimately be to replace Christianity in its tnie position as identical with the higher native factor. But in the meantime the conflict of the two forms assumed by the higher — ^^the native or internal, and the external and historical — Cleaves the lower and purely selfish factor free partly to indulgence and partly to the gradual origiuation of a new supreme factor in the shape of prudential morality. ' Chap. 9. — But when the elimination of the historical obstructions of religion shall render possible the solidarity of the moral higher and the religious higher, — then the next step will be to labour to give it a new and per- manent outward expression in the laws and institutions of society, and to recognise the reciprocal relations which, through the community, the higher has with the lower ; in other words, to recognize that the higher in man governs the lower not immediately, but through the medium of institutions. Chap, i o. — ^What place, then, will religion hold ? It is the primitive and imaginative appreciation of the dis-/ tinctness and authority of the higher factor, which is its only possible position so long as the lower is merely dis- tinguished from it OS lower, and so long as the higher is therefore regarded as mysterious and external to man. N.B. — Side by side with the imaginary rdigi/ms pro- jection of the higher factor, there is the imagiruiry political FRAGMENTS. 343 projection of it as the Jove-born and blameless king and the divinely guided legislator. Both these projections are transitory preliminaries to the true and final projection of it, the practical projection of it as the self-consciousness of the community. Chap, i i . — Have we then absorbed the idea of God into that of the state ? Not necessarily. The idea of God will then bear the same relation to the polity as it does now to the individual conscience. Only it wiU be seen that conscience is not an immediate datum, as it is commonly supposed to be, but the result, in miniature and in an in- dividualized expression, of the institutions and social rela- tions amongst which it is developed. Appendix. — The Esquimaux, as having the religious sense but no object of worship, seem to have reached the stage just anterior to that crisis which we caU the fall of man. The Ego. — Each mind projects itself. That which is a world to me I cannot know to be a world to you, T)ut as a series of impressions in you, who are merely a function of me. Your power of projection is thus only a function of me': but you say that mine is only a function of you. "We are thus reciprocally functions of one another, thus forming a single organism of thought, indefinitely com- plicated, each part interpenetrating every other. What is the unity which is the radix of this organism ? The Ego or synthesis, this pure power of self projection. The world, which is the datum we begin with, includes the personal or self-conscious life of man, as that essential part to which all other parts lead up. But, on the other hand, we find that the world of which the Ego is the climax is itself the creation of the Ego : from which it foUows that the Ego originates itself ; and the world of which, when we assumed the world as a datiim, the Ego was a part, becomes a self-contradiction when abstracted from the Ego and taken by itself. 344 FRAGMENTS. Why can we not make out the converse of this reasoning ? Thus : the world seems to be the creation of the Ego, if we assume the Ego as a datum : but, on the other hand, we see the Ego gradually being arrived at by the world. Therefore the world originates that which when taken as a datum originated it, i.e., it originates itself. These two reasonings are exactly parallel : — the world is self-originated through the medium of the Ego ; and the Ego is self-originated through the medium of the world. To decide which of these is true, we must ask, which of the two can stand in relation to itself without the intervention of the other. The Ego can do so in abstract self-consciousness, which is given in a con- crete form in the feeling of freedom, and is given to analysis in every act of thought. Whereas the world can never thus stand in abstract relation to itself, without the Ego as its middle term; because the world apart from the Ego cannot think. That is to say, the Ego originates that which the Ego says originates itself: whereas the world originates the Ego, which it (the world) has no power, apart from the Ego, to say origi- nates itself. In the last resort, therefore, the question resolves itself into the capacity of self-assertion. The question of the " cosmological argument," Can we think of a world Which did not begin ? should be more correctly stated, Can we think of a beginning of thought ? And the answer is. Thought itself must always precede any such beginning. But, if we expect to find the same contra- diction when we try to think of a beginning of matter, — as thus, matter itself must always precede any beginning of matter ; — the answer is. No ; matter must not precede such a beginning, but thought must ; for matter can be proved to be a function of thought. FRAGMENTS. 345 The Individual and the Comm/wnity, — ^A nation looks back upon the laws which it finds it has made for itself, and believes them to be the work of wise men who have become gods. But the wise man comes later in history ; he is the end to produce which the laws exist. The history of man is the history of his emancipation from the animal condition. In the childhood of the race he is emancipated from the brutishness of nature and the " weight of chance desires " by heroes and demigods, by the legislator and the " blameless " king. These are the fathers of polity and its schoolmasters. Freedom first appears in the form of one overpowering personality in a generation, who is a law to himself and to the com- munity. He is apr)Tb)p, aOifiiaroQ, aviartog, but only aS containing all these — the family, the clan, the law — ^in him- self. Like the primeval animals, there are but a few of them, but these are giants. While the many are hunting and fishing, scalping and eating each other, he goes up and down in the land and the savage becomes tame in his presence. His personality is a centre and fountain of influence, because he is the embodiment of all the Will and Eeason there is in the world, and man is framed inwardly to stand in need of these. He sees relations and utilities which are hidden from others. From him first men learn to " ride on horseback and to shoot with the bow and to speak the truth." As he sits before his door aU men come to biTti for judgment. Wild anarchy finds its com- plement in Ehadamanthus and Draco. This is the kind of king that Aristotle means when he says, "The first states were monarchical, because those who came together into them had been accustomed to a king." At length he dies, and all men are the better for his having been : none is fit to succeed him : but all men have become, in some degree, citizens. So they institute sacri- fices in his honour and put his kingship into commission. And yet, who can write his character ? Look at the 346 FRAGMENTS. statues of Eameses or the pictures of Charlemagne : they are, exact repetitions of each other, and seem to say, "I am Eameses, thou art Eameses, he is Eameses : ye all are what I am ; ye are nothing, but as embodiments of me." They have no individual traits, these statues or pictures. They represent the impersonality of the religion and manners, of the laws and inventions ; and this is nearly all we know of them. Their character is seen in the history of the nation, whose eponymous heroes they are. The question, "Whence came they? is answered by all nations in the same strain — They came from heaven. Whether they dropt out of the clouds, or whether they be an offspring, by a " natural selection," of forces which had been waiting for ages to meet together in order to originate a new type, certain it is that through these gifted persons Qua fvaii SiKT^EjoatVovTac TO dSiKstv a ray of light is shed upon the world and the germs of a new order planted in it. Like the higher breeds of animals which gradually extinguish the lower, our strong and great men are destined to ex- terminate us who are little and weak. But they exterminate us by gradually and in process of generations raising us to their owit level. It is by the complete sacrifice of himself to an external order that man does homage to heroes and rises a step towards their level. Because this external order, which we call the State, is the propagation both in time and quantity of the heroic life. The hero leaves behind him two legacies, the moral order which he has originated and the memory of himself. By the first he liberates, by the second he continues to oppress mankind ; just as when he was alive, his deeds were the emancipation, his caprices (cf. Plat. Eep. iv.) were the terror and the shame of his generation. The moral .order which he originated is the true means of emancipation from the influence of his example. To make an image of him and to fall down and worship the idol is just and fitting as well as inevitable for those who cannot fill themselves with his spirit. If they cannot become ■FRAGMENTS. 347 citizens, let them at least burn incense. When the com- munity is- really carrying on his work, it is most likely to forget its hero, as he, in the elevation of heroic endea- vour, forgat himself. These two traits, the worship of heroes — ^many of them as we should now say of " very questionable character" — and the complete immersion of the consciousness of the individual in the total life of the community, may be said to exhaust the moral characteristics of the ancient world. It is this complete immersion which makes change in early times seem so simple : it is not merely simple from the nawete or imperfection of the record, but was really simple; because the community acted en masse, and the variety of individual opposition did not exist. Such changes were the work of great men, and the community moved with the great man. The hero in the early times is the only person, i.e., he only has attained intellectual and moral manhood. He is scarcely an individual,, i.e., a character, though he has certain individual characteristics; and no doubt some only of the heroes of early history were real. A nation creates its own heroes ; they embody its total life. The nation itself is the hero ; and in looking back, during a subsequent period of reflection, on what it has itself accom- plished, it worships the imaginary fathers of letters and agriculture and music as gods. We may ask, How is the prominence of individuals to be accounted for ? It is an instance of the same law by which aU men have poetical elements in their nature, but few are poets, or which in nature has massed earth and water in continents and seas. Why again are peoples, such as the Ionian and the Dorian, different from one another ? and why are they more different in religion, language, and outward appearance than in laws and morals ? The family, in the same way, is, at first, and more con- spicuously than the state, one person ; i.e., the moral power 348 FRAGMENTS. embodied in it is not yet capable of distribution among its members. This unity of the family had its projection, its cultus in the Penates : as concentrated in the 'pater- familias, it was expressed in his autocratic rights. This made the family as arbitrary as the hero. One of the weak points of Eoman law was the shifts of the jurists to adapt and modify the patria jpotestas. Its disintegra- tion brought about thie dissolution of the family itself. Thus we find Cicero proposing to divorce his wife in order to pay his debts with the dowry of another. But the individual colouring of the collective consciousness is not so strong in the family as in the hero. He was a " natural " individual ■} his moral force was of an arbitrary and non-moral operation. The real individual, as we know him, is not the gift of Nature, but the long result of time and civilization. The Pythagorean idea of education was. Make a child the citizen of a good state. In ancient states the play of individuality, wherever it emerged, was regarded as a sign of decay (Plato). There was no idea of Nationalizing or educating it : only the idea of excluding it and whatever led to it. The Sophists, Cynics, Epicureans, Eoman law and Christianity, asserted the infinite value of the individual as a posdhility : it has been the work of subsequent history to work out that possibility into a fact. (Cf. Monachism, Protestantism, the abolition of slavery, of feudal violence and highway robbery ; change of sentiment about suicide and capital punishment ; value of human life in Europe as compared with Asia.) The relation of the individual to the state has given d, peculiar feature to modern education. What are the elements in civilization which have pro- moted the growth of individuality ? Colonization firstly, and secondly the tendency to form small states during the Middle Ages, due to the successful revolts of the greater 1 Virtues are natural when they are not yet the transformation of the desires, but their quantitative detinition, e.g., the lifaov. FRAGMENTS. 349 noblesi and the difficulty of holding large countries together without means of communication. External control, though often, severe and vexatious, thus hecame really weaker and more intermittent. Also the smaUness pf states rendered escape possible, which in the Eoman Empire would have been less so. Then, too, one part of a country subject to one set of circumstances — say a flat soU or a cold cUmate — gave rise to a different physical type from that produced in a mountainous country, or with a warm climate. The mixture, again, of different types, when migration and communication begin to take place between nations, produces individuality. The Eomans and Greeks were individualisi, as compared with Asiatic nations : the German barbarians, as compared with the Greeks and Eomans, The march of History has been from the Hero to the State, and, in the second place, to develop the individual, as we now know him. Animals of ' the same species are much more alike than men : barbarians or Asiatics — e.g., the Jews or Chinese — than civilized Europeans. (Likeness to one another of Assyrian and Egyptian faces, and of Byzantine figures, as compared with the Madonnas and Christs of modern painting). Foreign trade, again, has tended to produce individuality : change of scene, absorbing employments, risk, eagerness, &c. All great nations have pressed towards the sea. India and Egypt suffered greatly from want of a foreign trade. Corresponding to the two extremes of this process of individualization, we have the absolutism of the ancient European and of the modern Asiatic State, and the mechanical atomism of the modern French and American commonwealths. Both extremes exclude the real relation of the individual to the State, viz., the organic, — the indi- vidual acted upon by the State and reacting in his turn upon the community. The British Constitution is an elaborate system of checks and balances by which the physical individual is 350 FRAGMENTS. surrounded with as much moral vacuum as possible. iDemostheness laments the individualism of Athens; There ■was a peculiar conservatism in ancient states growing out of their abhorrence of individuality : vofiaia Kivtiv ■n-arpia is put by Herodotus along with fiiaaOdi ywaiicag, &c., as the deeds of the usurper. (Cf. the rule of the Epizephyrian Locrians which made a man who proposed strange laws appear before the people with a rope round his neck. Cf . also the laws of the Medes and Persians : permanence of Caste in India : Plato's idea of the twitoc and that change is always for the worse : also the Spartan Epitaph at Thermopylae). The Eoman regards the State as an English sailor regards his ship; he will not be saved, if the ship is to perish. (Cf. Brutus and his children : and Quintus Curtius, the "most precious thing in Eome.") 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LECTURES AND DrSSERTATIONS By LAZARUS GEIGBB, Author of " Origin and Evolution of Human Speech and Reason." Translated from the Second German Editioa hy David Asher, Ph.D., Corresponding Member of the Berlin Society for tjie Study of Modern Langua^^s and Literature. ' Vol. XIII.] Post 8vo, pp. 350, with a Portrait, cloth, 10s. 6d. DR. APPLETON : His Life and Literar/ Eelics. By JOHN h: APPLETON, M.A., \ Late Vicar of St. Mark's, igtaplefleld, Sussex ; ^ .AMO '..- A. H. SAYCE, M.A., Fellow of Queen's College, and Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology, 0.^ford. THE ENGLISH AND FOREIGN PHILOSOPHICAL LIBRARY. Vols. I.-II.] EXTRA SBEIBS. Two Volumes, post 8vo, pp. 348 and 374, wift Portrait, cloth, 21s. LESSING : His Life and Writings. By JAMES SIME, M.A. Second Edition. *' It is to Lessing that an EDglishman would turn with readiest affection. Ve cannot but wonder that more of this man is not known amongst us." — ^Thomas Carlyle. "But to Mr. James Sime has been reservtfl the honour' of presentijpg to the English public a full-length portrait of Lessing, in which no portion of the canvas is uncovered, and in which there is hardly a tojich but tells. He has studied his subject with that patient care which only reverence and sympathy can support ; he has attained the true proportion which can alone be gained by penetration and clear insight into motive and purposes. We can say that a clearer or more compact piece of biographic criticism has not been produced in England for many a day."— Westminster Reviem. " An account of Lessing's life and work on the scale which he deserves is now for the first time offered to EngUsh readers. Mr. Sime has performed his task with indiistry, knowledge, and sympathy ; qualities which must concur to make a successful biogra- pher." — Pall Mall Gazette. "This is an admirable book. It lacks no quality that a biography ought to have. 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AN ACCOUNT OP THE POLYNESIAN RACE : ITS OEIGIN AND MIGRATIONS, AND THE ANCIENT HISTORY OP THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE TO THE TIMES OP KAMEHAMEHA L By ABRAHAM PORNANDEB, Circuit Judge of the Island of Maul, H.I. LONDON : TEUBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL. jjo— 80/1S/80. ' '' .%