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 AGED 72 . 
 
 7 
 
PHASES OF OPINION AND EXPERIENCE 
 DURING A LONG LIFE : 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 BY CHARLES BRAY, 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE PHILOSOPHY OF NKCESSITY," ETC. 
 
 " Nature, which g:overn8 the whole, will soon change all things which thou 
 Beest, and out of their suhetance M'ill make other things, and again other 
 thinjra from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever 
 new." . . . 
 
 " But in the things that are held together by Nature there is within and 
 there abides within them the power which made them ; therefore the more is 
 it fit to reverence this power." — M. Aurelius Antoninus, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., ^ S^^J" 
 
CONTENTS 
 A . \ (o t'^ M- 
 
 CIIAPTER. PAOE. 
 
 I. — EARLY LIFE ; SCHOOL DAYS 1 
 
 II. — LIFE IN LOXDON ; EELIGIO0S CONVBBSION . . 6 
 
 III.— PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AND EE-CONVEBSION . 10 
 IV. — PHRENOLOGY AND THE NATURAL LAWS OF MIND 20 
 
 v.— MARRIAGE ; INQUIRY CONCERNING THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 CHRISTIANITY 47 
 
 VI. — MY EARLIEST PUBLICATIONS .... 50 
 
 VII, — THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY ; FREE TRADE AND 
 
 THE ANTI-CORN LAW AGITATION .... 58 
 VIII. — ROSEHILL AND FRIENDS ; HENNELl's INQUIRY AND 
 
 THE TRANSLATION OF STRAUSS's " LEBEN JESU " 69 
 IX. — PURCHASE OF THE " COVENTRY HERALD ;'" LAMMAS 
 
 LAND ENCLOSURE ; LOCAL CHAEITIE.'i . . 81 
 
 X. — RETIRE FROM BUSINESS — PRIVATE AND PUBLIC j 
 PERFECT LEISURE ; SECOND EDITION OF " PHILO- 
 SOPHY OP NECESSITY ;" " FORCE AND ITS MENTAL 
 CORRELATES ;" " MANUAL OF ANTHROPOLOGY, OR 
 SCIENCE OF MAN ;" SCOIT's PAMPHLETS ; 
 " ILLUSION AND DELUSION," &C. . , . 89 
 
 XI,— MESMERISM AND SPIRITUALISM .... 107 
 
1\'- OOKTENTS. 
 
 ClIAPl'BE. PAOE. 
 
 XII. — TALKING AND WRITING 114 
 
 XIII. —SEVENTIETH BIBTHDAY ; EESTJLTS OF MY EX 
 PEEIENCE : PROGRESS DEPKNDENT UPON IM- 
 PROVED BODILY ORGANISATION ; CAUSES OP THE 
 FAILURE OF COMMUNISM ; BREEDING ; MARRIAGE ; 
 AND MATERNITY ; DISTRIBUTION OP FORCE . 117 
 
 XIV.— OUR INSTITUTIONS AND HOW FAR THEY TEND 
 TOWARDS THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR BODILY 
 ORGANISATION ; SOCIALISM AND CO-OPEBATION . 130 
 XV. — LIBERTY ; EQUALITY ; AND FRATERNITY . . 148 
 
 XVI. — THE HABIT OF LOOKING ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF 
 THINGS, AND ON THE CULTIVATION OF A TASTE 
 
 FOR GOOD READING 156 
 
 ' XVII.— ENTIRELY PERSONAL 159 
 
 'XVIII. — THE FUTURE STATE 166 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 Life— Life m Other Worlds— The Survival of the 
 Fittest— Our Own Well-Being —Creation — The Mystery 
 OF Evil— Pessimism— Death— Deity— The Ever Present 
 Spirit, the All Pervading Mind— Final Cause — The 
 Supernatural-Miracles — Theism and Pantheism— Force 
 and Inherent Tendency — Atheism — A-Pbiori Reasoning 
 and Theology— Prayer, Belief, ToLEKANrE, a>d Com- 
 promise — Revolution-Superstition-Bcddhist Infallibility- 
 Inspiration— Aspiration— Civilisation— Character — Modes 
 OF Motion and what they Bepeesent in the Mind- 
 Realism and Idealism — On the Analogy between Sir 
 Isaac Newton's Universal " Spirit," and the " Force " of 
 our Modern Disco very — The Ego— The Senses — Causation — 
 — The FoeSiative Principle, or Laws Impressed on Matter — 
 Fatalism and Automatism — Unity in Apparent Diversity 
 — Eleemosynary Charity- Origin of :Man— Conscience and 
 OUR Moral Intuitions — On Pood for the Mind — True 
 
 Freedom— We Must Live — The Ownership of Land The 
 
 Slow Growth of Truth— Criticism— The Soul and its 
 Identity — Universalism— The Communion of Saints — The 
 Power of Will on Mind— Goethe on Originality — The 
 Future State— Light and Sound —Action and Reaction in 
 Mind and Matter— Durance and Endurance— Evolution- 
 Aphoristic. 
 
PHASES OF OPINION AND EXPERIENCE 
 DURING A LONG LIFE.. 
 
 AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY LIFE : SCHOOL DAYS. 
 
 It is not my intention to give a detailed account of 
 my life, — in wMch the incidents have been of a very 
 ordinary character and little calculated to interest the 
 general reader, — except so far as this is necessary to 
 explain the course of thought and opinions of one 
 who no-w for fifty years has been zealously endeavouring 
 to discern the truth, regardless of any consequences to 
 himself ; and who has been so fortunately placed with 
 respect to its pursuit, that no special educational bias, 
 or necessity for holding or teaching one opinion more 
 than another, has influenced him. 
 
 Opinion thus honestly formed may interest and be 
 serviceable to those to whom the writer as aii individual 
 is nothing, and the hope of this seems to transform itself 
 into a duty to leave behind me some published account of 
 my' inner and outward life; and of the causes why that 
 
Zi EARLY LIFE. 
 
 "life has been happy beyond the average, although not 
 successful in the -worldly sense of the term. 
 
 I was bom January .31st, 1811, at Coventry. My 
 :father was a ribbon manufacturer in one of the leading 
 firms in that old city. He was well-to-do, and made 
 .a considerable fortune. He had eight children, and left 
 "them all tolerably provided for. When I was about 
 £ve years old I had measles, followed by whooping- 
 -cough, which left my lungs in such a weak state that 
 I could ■ not for years afterwards live in the town. 
 Consequently I was boarded at various farm-houses 
 in the neighbourhood, where I ran wild without any 
 kind of regular instruction whatever, except such as 
 I picked up among the ploughmen and farmers' boys, 
 "which was by no means of a civilising or comprehensive 
 Mnd. I can remember the scorn and air of superior 
 wisdom with which I corrected another little boy whp 
 .spoke of the ships at sea. " Ships at sea ! " I exclaimeidl, 
 " Why a ship's on the common, a ettin the graass," for 
 «uch is the local pronunciation of sheep. 
 
 Our nurse's father and mother lived at a small farm 
 ■about five miles from Coventry, and there I passed the 
 p-eater part of my time, petted, indulged and spoilt ia 
 ■every possible way. Of my mother I have no recollec- 
 tion, as I spent so little of my early days with her, 
 and she died when I. was nine years old. At this age 
 I was sent to a boarding-school in the country for the 
 next five years. Here I learned nothing but bare 
 leading, writing, and arithmetic, which was about all 
 that the school could teach. Nevertheless, after the 
 £rst three years I went about with a brass plate 
 
SCHOOL DAYS. 3 
 
 Tound my neck marked " Daily Assistant. " I waa 
 taught Latin from a phrase-book, with such sentences 
 as "Qiuipigda Vales ?" "How do you do?" &c,, and 
 the higher arithmetic and geometry by copying the 
 master's old books without understanding them in the 
 tales. These copies I had to take home as my own works. 
 There was only one book in which I took any interest, 
 -called " The Elements," containing, I believe, the 
 elements of physical science, and this book was my 
 ■constant companion. There were many mean things 
 practised by both master and boys, and as I think 
 the elements also of truth and justice were active in 
 my childish nature, I never could see an unfair thing 
 -done by either master or boy without protesting. 
 'Consequently I was continually in hot water and all 
 kinds of scrapes; in fact, during the last two years 
 of my stay there, I was in a state of chronic rebellion 
 against authority. For instance, at one time, I would 
 , not stay in when ordered to do so, consequently I was 
 . tied by the leg to the desk. I cut the cord, and then 
 a heavy logger was padlocked to my leg for weeks 
 "together. But I carried this over my shoulders, and I 
 recollect was very proud of it^=-as proud as Satan 
 iimself is supposed to have been in his rebellion against 
 authority. At lagt I ran away, and the master refused 
 to take me again, being no doubt only too glad to get 
 rid of me. 
 
 Before I was twelve the fundajnental principles :of 
 both my Philosophy and EieUgion were laid, and from 
 these I have never since departed. Before I went to 
 school, when I was a perfect little savage, my motto. 
 
4 EAKLT LIFE. 
 
 constantly reiterated, was, "Follow Natur," meaning 
 then, I suppose, not the fundamental principle of the 
 stoics, " Live according to Nature," but a sort of protest 
 against the civilised usages to which I was unaccustomed, 
 
 ^in the sense that " fingers were made before forks." 
 
 .This was my nowum, organwm. My Philosophy was then, 
 embodied in the doggrel, that, — 
 
 " For every evil under the sun, 
 There's a remedy or there's none ; 
 If there is one, try to find it, 
 If there is none, never mind it," 
 
 Here we have the swinmum hormm of all philosophy, 
 resignation to the inevitable. Spare no effort to find a 
 remedy, but if you cannot, "grin and bear it" — you have 
 then only the evil itself to bear, pure and simple, which 
 is comparatively easy when freed from all extraneous 
 worry of the mind, whether it be physical pain or 
 mental trouble. This juvenile homily was afterwards 
 , embodied in my motto, " Do your best, and leave the 
 rest to God." My religion at this period was formed in 
 this wise. My schoolmaster was a Methodist, and Mr. 
 Swan the baker, Mr. Beard the shoemaker, Mr. Pettridge 
 the saddler, and others, used to hold forth in the hall 
 on Sunday nights to the boys and such villagers as cared 
 to attend. My master had also established a Chapel in 
 a neighbouring village, where I used to go with various 
 preachers to give out the hymns. I recollect that I was 
 most taken with Mr. Beard, as a very sensible man. 
 , After full acknowledgment that " he was the greatest 
 sinner on God's earth — sureZy," and after many earnest 
 , petitions to have our "souls made fat," he generally 
 
KELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY. 5 
 
 ended his prayer in these words : " Lord, in con- 
 sequence of the depravity of our 'earts we know not what 
 to ask, but yo (you) know what's best for us in the 
 long-run, and we lave (leave) it to you." The language 
 here is certainly not classical, but the sense is good. I 
 thought so then, and I think so now. Thus, to follow 
 Nature reverently, to accept the inevitable, after doing 
 our best, and the firm conviction that under all the circum- 
 stances, and " in the long-run," God knew best what was 
 good for us, formed my earliest creed. I literally knew 
 nothing of these subjects educationally, and yet I 
 consider that in this way I was not badly grounded both 
 in religion and philosophy ; and it has been the aim of 
 rather a long life to carry out the same principles ih 
 theory and practice. 
 
 Poetry had great charms for me, and as soon as I 
 could read I learned quantities of it by heart, giving a 
 decided preference to Burns. My first, and I believe 
 Jast, effort in poetry, when I was about twelve^ may be 
 mentioned, as it was characteristic. It was to put the 
 Three Laws of Motion, which I suppose I found in my 
 favourite book, " The Elements," into verse, thus : — 
 
 " A body in a state of rest 
 Continue will imtil impressed 
 
 By some external cause. 
 But if in motion a body be 
 It will continue, you may see, 
 
 Till stopped by Nature's Laws," &c., &c. 
 
 Here we have, if worked out to its logical and legitimate 
 consequences in matter and mind, the whole secret of 
 science and philosophy. It will be evident, however, that 
 
6 LIFE Iir LONDON. 
 
 although the subject I had chosen was rather a difficult one 
 to Begin with, poetry was not my forte. At fourteen I was 
 sent lo a really good school at Isleworth, near London, 
 whore, if I could have stayed long enough, I might have 
 Been' well groundedi During the year or two that I was 
 there, I learned some Latin, French, mathematics, (fee* 
 which, so far as I knowj were never of the slightest use 
 to me in after life. I had most facility in mathematics^, 
 in which the Master's nephew, who had taken high. 
 Ironours at Cainbridge, bestowed gi'eat pains upon me,, 
 and I spent most of my half-holidays in his room. But 
 nothing afterwards came of iti 
 
 My own school days afforded very decided evidence o£ 
 the superiority of kindness over brute force in the 
 training even of boys who seem to be by nature refrac- 
 tory. I was considered to be a very bad boy, whom it 
 was impossible to render amenable to any authority, 
 and for whom, of course, nothing could be done but to 
 Send him to sea. At this last Islewcrth School, however, 
 'wTkat little talent I possessed was drawn out, and for the 
 first time in my life kindness was tried instead of 
 coercion. Although I never could be driven, a word of 
 kindness was irresistible. The better part of my nature 
 being now appealed to, I came off with flying colours. 
 
 CHAPTER IIJ 
 
 LIFE IN LONDON : EELIGIOUS CONVERSION. 
 
 At seventeen I was placed in a large warehouse ih. 
 London, and articled for three years. After months of 
 
RELIGIOUS CONVERSION. T 
 
 MIeness, luxury, and indulgence at home, the work waS- 
 certainly very hard. The boys were expected to be at- 
 work an hour before breakfast, to sweep, and tidy up» 
 and thus the working hours were from seven in the 
 morning tiU eight at night, standing all the time, there 
 not being a chair or stool about the place. A quarter of 
 an hour was allowed for breakfast and tea, and twenty" 
 minutes for dinner. In Spring and Autumn, when retail 
 men came up to purchase their stocky the hours were 
 much longer. It required much persuasion and the 
 great kindness of my friends in London to induce me to- 
 stay, but in less than six months I got used to 
 it, and became interested in the business, and sittingy 
 and not standing, it was that tired me. After the first 
 year my hours were reduced from nine to eight, and to 
 ^ow how little exhausting was the day's work, I often 
 walked, on a cold winter's night, two and a half miles 
 and back to see a certain lady's shadow on the window- 
 bUnd, and frequently went to sup with friends at 
 Camber well, four miles out. After a while my 
 condition was improved by lodging away from the 
 htJiise, although the change involved a daily walk of five 
 miles. Then for the first time I had quiet and leisure, 
 and read more steadily than I have ever done since. I 
 could get to my books at nine at night, took strong cofiee 
 to keep me awake, and filled volumes of manuscript with 
 &e opinions of the Greek Philosophers. 
 
 Bat a friend lived near,, about five years old«r thap. 
 mysblf, under whose influence I was "converted," or 
 "convinced of sin," and then the philosophers had to 
 give way to Dwight and Doddridge. Hitherto I had. 
 
8 LIFE IN LONDON. 
 
 been indifferent to so-called religious influences, notwitt- 
 standing my early Methodist training. It is true I -went 
 regularly to church, but it was to see the young lady in 
 the next pew, whose shadow on the blind tempted me 
 out on cold foggy winter nights. My friend who 
 "converted" me Was a medical man, and a highly 
 intelligent Evangelical Dissenter. I went through the 
 usual process, — a period of exceeding depression, followed 
 by the customary reaction when I began to feel myself 
 among the elect. At the same time my health gave 
 way, owing no doubt to over- work and this new mental 
 ■strain, and I was ordered to the sea-side by a physician, 
 who feared consumption. At Eyde, where I spent three 
 months, I enjoyed the privilege of " sitting under" the 
 Rev. Mr. Sibthorpe, a most eloquent preacher, who 
 wonderfully fed my new enthusiasm, and I can recoUect 
 how at that time there was not a line of the Church 
 service which did not seem specially adapted to my 
 particular case. Being quite alone at Ryde, with not a 
 soul to speak to except my landlady, who seemed to 
 delight in dilating upon her religious experiences, there 
 was nothing to disturb the current of my new impres- 
 sions, and with a nice little edition of the poets which I 
 had purchased, and with my new views, I wanted no 
 other companionship. The poems of Henry Kirke 
 White had a special charm for me, no doubt enhanced 
 by the fact that the young author had died early of 
 consumption, and I read these so frequently that I can 
 still repeat nearly all of them by heart. No three 
 months of my life were happier than these, and to this 
 not only the cessation from too hard work, but my new 
 
FIRST APPEARANCE IN PUBLIC. 9 
 
 religious views greatly contributed j and they also 
 enabled me to break away from bad habits, and to, with- 
 stand temptation, as I am sure nothing else would have 
 done. I returned to London to work out the remainder 
 of my term after this time of pleasant seclusion, but 
 although my position was higher and the work lighter, 
 and I was more interested in it, my health broke down 
 again, and I joined my sisters and some relations in visits 
 to Teignmouth, Ilfracombe, Swansea, and Tenby. This 
 must have been in the summer and autumn of 1830. 
 My health now being tolerably re-established I was 
 installed in my father's warehouse at Coventry to apply 
 my London ideas to an old country practice ; for I had 
 certainly learned more in the two-and-a-half years I 
 spent there than I could have done in seven years 
 elsewhere. 
 
 My Religion was now my great delight ; my sisters 
 were also what is called " Evangelical " ; and my first 
 appearance in public was on the platform at a meeting 
 
 of the Bible Society, the Bishop of in the chair. 
 
 In strict accordance with my opinions I avoided general 
 ■society in a world to which I did not belong ; to me it 
 was "the unclean thing." "Come out from among them 
 and be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing, and I 
 wiU receive you," I accepted literally as applicable to 
 aU convivialities. 
 
 My leisure time at night was spent principally in my 
 own room, either in religious reading or devotional 
 fexercises, and the intense fervour and glow which 
 frequently accompanied the latter I regarded as the gift 
 of the Spirit in answer to prayer. This form of 
 
10 PHILOSOPHICAl NECESSITY AND EE-CONVEESION. 
 
 excitement was indeed my sheet anchor, and I always 
 said to myself that if ever sceptical doubts should trouble 
 my mind, here was practical, positive proof of the truths 
 of my religious belief. Of course, as I was a very general 
 reader, sceptical thoughts would occasionally arise, but I 
 most resolutely shut my eyes to them, regarding them as 
 the temptation of the Devil through the pride of humaa 
 reason. Gibbon and Hume were objects of my pity, 
 and especially did I wonder how so large and practical 
 a mind as Benjamin Franklin's could possibly doubt. 
 Naturally this attitude of mind engendered an immense 
 amount of self-sufficiency and religious pride, which led 
 to what many wiU regard as my fall, and which I look 
 upon as my emancipation. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AND RE-CONVEESION. 
 
 Among our Coventry acquaintances who were frequent 
 visitors at our house was the Unitarian minister of the 
 Great Meeting House. Of course, the members of our 
 family, including myself, who belonged to the strictest. 
 Evangelical sect, regarded him as worse than an infidel ;. 
 — for an infidel might sin by his unbelief in ignorance, 
 but to this heretic the truth had been made manifesti 
 and he ought to have known better than to reject it. 
 He was an exceedingly modest, intelligent, and well- 
 informed man, and I felt great interest in him, and 
 determined in consequence to convert him, feeling 66 
 certain of the infallibility of my own views, that I had 
 
REVISION OP dOD's WORD. It 
 
 not the least doubt of my power to do so. I did not for- 
 d moment think that his worldly interests would stalid in 
 the way, any more than they would have done with 
 ilayself. So I prepared myself with " Jones on the 
 Trinity," and a great many other books which 1 deemed 
 unansweiHEtble. My own view of the Trinitarian doctrine- 
 had been formed on Dr. "Watts' Sabellian interpretation,. 
 viz., that God the Father was our Creator and Preserver; 
 God the Son was the only mode of directly manifesting 
 Himself to creatures like ourselves, and God the Holy 
 Ghost was the pervading Spirit of the Universe. This, 
 appeared to me to be the most reasonable way of inter- 
 preting the mystery of the Trinity. But I soon found how- 
 little I was prepared for the task I had undertaken. The- 
 passages upon which I most relied the Unitarian did riot- 
 admit. The " Three Witnesses " was an interpolation, 
 shown by Sir I. Newton to be such, and for others he 
 had a different interpretation. I could have beat him 
 with my own Bible — the English, but he had the Latin 
 or the Vulgate, used by Roman Catholics, and a special 
 interpretation of the "New Testament for his own par- 
 ticular sect. Since then our English version has been 
 revised, and in May, 1881, the Bishop of Gloucester and 
 Bristol presented to the Convocation of the Province of 
 Canterbury the revised version of the Hew Testament. 
 *',What has actually taken place," he said, "i? an average 
 for the Gospels of between eight or niae changes for every 
 five verses, of which three changes in every ten verses 
 were changes of importance. In the Epistles, of course, 
 the number of changes had necessarily been larger ; they 
 had been fifteen changes in every five verses, but still 
 
12 PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AND EE-CONVEESION. 
 
 only three changes in every ten verses were changes of 
 importance." How can that be the Word of God which 
 requires so many important changes ? In fact it became 
 clear to me that if we had the "Word of God" we 
 required also an inspired translation, and more than that, 
 since all the world interpreted differently, an inspired 
 interpretation. Both of these the Romish Church pro^ 
 fess to have, if you choose to take their word for it. 
 The first inroad on my faith was the being obliged to give 
 up plenary inspiration. I began to read the Bible 
 critically, venturing here and there to put a different 
 interpretation from that which I had been taught by my 
 own narrow Evangelical sect. But I did this with fear and 
 trembling. I looked upon such freedom of thought as a 
 direct temptation of the Devil, and morning and evening 
 I prayed fervently to be delivered from " the pride of 
 human reason." But reason would be heard, and 
 ultimately got the upper hand. Notwithstanding the 
 straining which I had hitherto practised with respect to 
 the Mosaic account of the Creation, as to the six days 
 meaning indefinite periods, — ^ultimately I was obliged to 
 agree with the Rev. Baden Powell, that " Nothing in 
 geology bears the smallest resemblance to any part of 
 the Mosaic cosmogony, torture the interpretation to 
 whatever extent we may." (" Christianity without 
 Judaism," p. 257.) And may we not say the same of 
 astronomy as of geology 1 The God of the Hebrews 
 — "God's chosen people" — was a very different being 
 indeed, as painted in the Old Testament, from what I 
 Jiad hitherto conceived of Deity ; possessing man's 
 greatest vices greatly exaggerated. It is true the 
 
THE HEBREW GOD. 15 
 
 conception improves as civilisation advances, and after 
 the Jews had passed seventy years at Babylon under the 
 higher teaching of Zoroaster. He is presented to us as 
 angry, furious, cruel, vindictive, jealous, treacherous, 
 partial, easily turned from his purpose, and repenting 
 in consequence of the smell and sweet savour of 
 slaughtered beasts and birds, and of incense and 
 sackcloth and ashes. It is difficult to see in what the 
 conception differs from that of the neighbouring gods of 
 whom he is represented as being so jealous. He appears 
 as a man to Adam and to Abram, walks in the cool of the 
 evening, shows his parts behind to Moses, cmnes down 
 to prevent a tower being built wp into heaven, kc. This. 
 is certainly not the God I worshipped. It was long 
 . before I dared to give my reason full scope. What ap- 
 pears to me to be so obvious now appeared then as the 
 spirit of the Devil blaspheming. I durst not listen to it. 
 For instance, I thought if God knew what he was going to 
 do, and what would therefore take place, he would either 
 have made Eve strong enough to resist temptation, or 
 have kept the serpent out of Paradise. To make a 
 Paradise out of which he knew his new-made creatures- 
 would be immediately driven was "a mockery, a delusion, 
 and a snare.'' But it is said Eve must have been left 
 free, or there ■ would have been no virtue in resistiag. 
 What, left free to destroy herself and all her race ? 
 Surely no such fatal gifts could be safely entrusted to so 
 frail a creature ; particularly as God knew perfectly well 
 how it would end. And then again, if on the day of 
 her disobedience she had surely died, according to 
 promise, no great harm would have been done ; she 
 
14 PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AND EE-CONVERSION. 
 
 rwould simply have been as she was the da^ before her 
 -creation, and the world none the worse. We might haTp 
 had another Adam and Eve, not free, but both able and 
 willing to resist the Devil and all his works. But w^ 
 «,re told in the Westminster Confession of Paith, tha,t 
 " This their sin God was pleased, according to His wise 
 and holy council, to permit, having purposed to order it 
 "to His own glory;" i.e., He permitted the Devil to 
 -tempt our first parents in the fuU knowledge that they 
 would fall, and having already prepared a place of 
 torment, that He might order it to his own glory. This 
 scheme of redemption which was to be turned to His 
 own glory was, according to the same orthodox Con- 
 fession of Faith, the election of a few to everlasting lifp, 
 while the majority were fore-ordained to everlasting 
 death-^" ordeuvned to dishonour and wrath for their sin, 
 to the praise of his glorious justice." It was the offer 
 ■of salvation on terms which He knew would not be 
 accepted by the great majority, and of which the greater 
 part of the world would never even hear. This was 
 worse than making the Paradise out of which he knew 
 the occupants would immediately get themselves turned. 
 This way of stating the case must appear very (Jis 
 tasteful or even blasphemous to those who now think ^.s 
 I once did, but they must endeavour also to realise how 
 such a libel on the Supreme is likely to appear to those 
 who feel themselves at libierty to use their common sense 
 And yet at one time I believed this, and found not only no 
 fault with it but my joy in it ; for who was I to judge 
 the Almighty ? With all my sense of justice I did not 
 then see that both the fall and the redemption the sin 
 
JUSTICE THE HIGHEST VIRTUE. 15 
 
 and the atonement, were based upon a great injustice. 
 It -was not just that the innocent should suffer for the 
 guilty — Adam, or that the guilty should be saved by the 
 sufferings and death of the innocent — Christ. Of course 
 I believed all this to be a great mystery, that God's ways 
 were not as man's ways, &c., but the greatest of all 
 mysteries to me now is how I could ever have believed 
 it, or that greater and better men than I still continue to 
 lielieve it. 
 
 According to Natural Iiaw, which of course is God's 
 Xaw, the highest virtue — i.e., that which brings most 
 good to our race — is justice, and it is not at all probable 
 ■that God's direct dealing with us should be based upon 
 isuch a manifest breach of it. Though the Unitarians do 
 not hold the doctrine of the Fall and of the Atonement, 
 I could not stay with them. As a matter of Faith I 
 had believed, and could still believe much, but on in- 
 Testigation, although I found that the Old and New 
 -Testaments contain much that is good, I could not find 
 /evidence for their being more inspired than the sacred 
 writings of other peoples and times, and there was much 
 in Christ's doctrine that I could not accept. Of course 
 I did not go this length at once, and many efforts were 
 made to stay my progress, >both by judicious and in- 
 judicious friends. One lent me " Leland's Answers to 
 the Deistical Writers," in which it certainly appeared to 
 ine that the Infidels had the best of the argument. 
 .Another lent me Jonathan Edwards on "Freedom of 
 WiU." Here I found Philosophical Necessity clearly 
 and logically proved. The author professedly held both 
 doctrines, the one based on reason, the other on Scrip- 
 
16 PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AXD EE-CONVERSION. 
 
 ture, but I could not do this. I held firmly to the 
 first ; but what was I to do with it 1 It was funda- 
 mentally opposed to all my previously recognised 
 principles of ethics. 
 
 And here I must pause. The next year was certainly 
 the most miserable year of my life. I had given up 
 my faith, and with it many of my dearest friends. I 
 had no faith, no friends, and I had to begin to buUd 
 my life over again ; my mind was in a complete 
 anarchy, or in a state of blank despair. 
 
 Since this was written I learn from Froude's "Life 
 of Carlyle," that Carlyle, in his youth, when about the 
 same age as myself, had gone through a very similar 
 expejience. " In the Mainhill household," we are told, 
 " the Westminster Confession was a full and complete 
 account of the position of mankind and of the Being to 
 whom they owed their existence. The Old and New 
 Testaments not only contain all spiritual truths necessary 
 for guidance in word and deed, but every fact related in 
 them was literally true. To doubt was not to mistake, 
 but was to commit a sin of the deepest dye, and was a 
 sure sign of a corrupted heart. Carlyle's wide study of 
 modem literature had shown him that much of this had 
 appeared to many of the strongest mind* in Europe to 
 be doubtful, or even plainly incredible. Young men of 
 genius are the first to feel the growing influences of 
 their time, and on Carlyle they fell in their most painful 
 form. Notwithstanding his pride he was modest and 
 self-distrustful. He had been taught that want of faith 
 was sin, yet, like a true Scot, if he knew that he would 
 peril his soul if he pretended to believe what his 
 
caeltle's doubts. 17 
 
 intellect told him ■was false. If any part of what was 
 called Revelation was mistaken, how could he be assured 
 of the rest 1 How could he tell that the moral part of 
 it, to which the phenomena which he saw around him 
 were in plain contradiction, was more than a " devout 
 imagination'! " Thus to poverty and dyspepsia there had 
 been added the struggle which is always hardest in the 
 noblest minds, which Job had known, and David, and 
 Solomon, and ^schylus, and Shakespeare, and Goethe. 
 Where are the tokens of His presence 1 Where are the 
 signs of His coming 1 Is there in this universe of 
 things any moral Providence at all ? or is it the product 
 of some force of the nature of which we can know 
 nothing, save only that ' one event comes alike to all, to 
 the good and to the evil, and that there is no difference?' 
 
 Common-place persons, if assailed by such misgivings, 
 thrust them aside, throw themselves into occupation, and 
 leave doubt to settle itself. Carlyle could not. . 
 The result of it was that he was extremely miserable." 
 
 I had one Truth, however, about which I was certain, 
 ■viz., that no part of the Creation had been left to 
 chance, or what is called free will ; that the laws of 
 mind were equally fixed or determined ■with those of 
 matter, and that all instinct in beasts, and calculation in 
 man, required that they should be so fixed. I set myself 
 to work, therefore, gradually and laboriously, to build up 
 a system of ethics in harmony with this established fact. 
 I found that everythmg acted necessarily in accordance 
 ■with its own nature, and that there was no freedom of 
 choice beyond this ; consequently, if there could be no 
 ■virtue in the ordinary sense of that term, i.e., in action 
 
18 PHILOSOPHICAL NECESSITY AND EE-CONVEKSION. 
 
 that is determined, neither could there be any sin. 
 This quite settled the religious difficulty to me as to 
 rewards and punishments. What then was virtue? 
 Not that which is free, or spontaneous, or uncaused, 
 but that which does good ; that being the greatest virtue 
 which does the greatest amount of gopd, or produces, 
 most happiness. Our likes and antipathies have no- 
 relation to the question as to whether what we like or 
 dislike made itself, or could have been other than it is. 
 "We like a rose, but we disHke assafoetida ; and we are 
 influenced precisely in the same way in the moral world. 
 We love that man best who, we know, cannot, from his 
 nature, be a nasty sneak, or do a mean thing. ■ We should 
 be sorry to think he was free to be the one or to do the 
 other. 
 
 How is it that mankind generally have come under 
 this delusion as to actions being free and not determined? 
 A man feels that he is free because he can do as he likes,, 
 but that is not freedom of will, but freedom to act in 
 accordance with the dictates of the will when formed. 
 What he liked to do, i.6., what he willed, depended upon 
 his own nature, combined with the circumstances in which 
 he was then placed. " I call a thing free" says Spinoza, 
 " if it exists and acts merely from the necessary laws of 
 its own nature, but constrained if determined by some- 
 thing else to exist and act in a certain determinate way." 
 " You see," he says, " that I make freedom to consist 
 not in a free decision of the will, but in free necessity." 
 Locke's opinion on Freedom of Will was that though the 
 agent is free to act as he wills, the will itself is im- 
 movably determined by motives. Real Responsibility 
 
EEAL RESPONSIBILITY. 19 
 
 consists not in freedom, but in our being obliged to 
 accept the consequences of our actions, which conse- 
 quences, be they pleasurable or painful, are intended for 
 the guidance of the will, and a responsible person is he 
 who has power to be governed by such consequences. 
 Mad people, and those whose passions overbear all 
 restraint, are not responsible in this sense, and require, 
 therefore, physical restraint. 1 gradually worked out 
 this system into a form which I afterwards published as 
 " The Philosophy of Necessity ; or, The Law of Con- 
 sequences ; as Applicable to Mental, Moral, and Social 
 Science." I had emancipated myself and gained the 
 whole beautiful world, instead of the very limited portion 
 of it which I considered myself entitled to use when I 
 looked upon it as the mere preparation for another and a 
 better. In another sense also I was happier. I could never 
 before reconcile the Martyrdom of individual Man with 
 the justice of God; not even in the sense that the wicked 
 iom to dishonour and misery in this world, were to be 
 the most miserable in the world to come. But on the 
 doctrine of Universal Law mdwidMol men amd nations 
 were merged into one great whole, and nothing and no 
 individuality was allowed to stand in the way of the 
 general good. The pressure of population on the means 
 of subsistence was the great civUizer, and War was the 
 great organizer, which supplied mental vigour and 
 cleared out of the way old, effete, and inferior races to 
 make room for the young and vigorous, and those whb 
 could add most to the enjoyment of the whole. Man 
 did nothing before he came into the world, and he could 
 therefore claim no special position in it ; he merely iodk 
 
20 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 his place as a unit in the system, and I had no difficulty 
 in tracing the progressive good in the general effect, 
 ■where happiness was made to depep.d, not on the good of 
 one, but of all. But it is impossible to do this if man 
 is to be regarded from the Individual point of view. 
 No other -world could compensate for the inequalities of 
 this. Countless beings come into existence and go out 
 again ; to all, perhaps, -with few exceptions, this is better 
 than never to have been, and to the great majority it is 
 certainly much better. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PHRENOLOGY AND THE NATURAL LAWS OF MIND. 
 
 In 1835 my father died, and I took his place in the 
 ]business ; a large and lucrative one. On visiting again the 
 Isle of Wight with my sisters that same year I was 
 forcibly impressed with the wonderful change which had 
 taken place in my religious views and feehngs since I 
 was at Ryde in 1829, and I am now about to chronicle 
 another important mental change, if not one equally 
 important. 
 
 I had always been much interested in the cause of 
 education generally, and a warm advocate of the 
 National system. "We had established in Coventry two 
 Infant Schools on the Wilderspin system, and I had set 
 up one on my own account in an outlying district where it 
 ■was much wanted. I recollect that Dr. Hook then 
 Ticar of the Holy Trinity Church in Coventry, who was 
 very active in all good works, albeit a very bigoted 
 
LECTUEES ON EDUCATION. 21 
 
 Churchman, called the first meeting in support of Infant 
 Schools, and proposed that the Church Catechism should 
 be taught to the infants. Dr. Hook was always in- 
 fluential — no one thought of opposing him — but since it 
 was obvious that this clause would exclude the children 
 of Dissenters, I objected to it on that account, and was 
 the only person in the meeting who did not put his name 
 down for a subscription. But I helped to get up another 
 meeting for an Infant School without the Church 
 Catechism, and we consequently had two good schools 
 instead of one. This was in the days of my religious 
 fervour, when I considered myself a good Churchman. 
 The establishment of our Mechanics' Institution had also 
 my active support, and my leisure at Shanklih was 
 occupied in writing a course of lectures on education 
 for delivery at this Institution. In connection with this 
 task a circumstance occurred which again gave a new 
 direction to my inquiries. To aid me in my work I sent 
 to London for Combe's " Physiology," written by Dr. 
 Andrew Combe, but George Combe's '' Phrenology " was 
 sent me by mistake instead. Now I had at that time a 
 most supreme contempt for Phrenology, such contempt 
 being based, as it usually is, on ignorance. I was well 
 read in the old and modern works on Metaphysics and 
 Mental Science, audi prima facie nothing appeared to me' 
 more absurd than the supposition that a man's character 
 could be written in the bumps on his skull. I thought I 
 knew how our Feelings had been gradually formed by 
 Association, and that they did not therefore exist as 
 primitiVe instincts as the Phrenologists asserted. But ' 
 having no choice I began to read the book, (Combe's 
 
22 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 " Phrenology,") and soon got intensely interested, because 
 I could not but be convinced that, if true, the system 
 ■was much more practically applicable to education than 
 any other with which I had been previously acquainted. 
 My lectures were laid aside, and I got wildly excited 
 about this new view. I went to London, had my head 
 shaved, and a cast of it taken that I might examine the 
 skull of the man whose character I knew best, and I 
 purchased 100 of Deville's casts, in which special organs 
 were large or small. These I took home with me to 
 study. I found afterwards that having my head shaved 
 was quite unnecessary, as the hair, when properly dressed 
 for taking a cast, interferes very little with the taking 
 of the development ; making no greater difference than 
 there is sometimes between the external and internal 
 plates of the skull, viz., from one-tenth to one-eighth of 
 an inch, while the difference between a large and a small 
 organ of the brain is from an inch to an inch-and-a-half, 
 I never missed an opportunity of examining a head 
 where the character was at all marked, and soon arrived 
 at the conviction that there was much truth in what the 
 Phrenologists affirmed. I experienced the greatest diffi- 
 culty where I expected to find the least, in the forehead, 
 as seemingly high and large foreheads were often found 
 in combination with comparatively little intellect. 
 Two years afterwards George Combe came to stay with 
 us, and he showed me that the anterior lobe, or the part 
 of the brain connected with the intellect, was not always 
 that which appeared in the forehead, but was the part 
 of the brain lying on the supra-orbital plate, over the 
 eyes, which we have various ways of estimating; 
 
THE NATURAL LAWS OP MIND. 23 
 
 ■whereas the size of the forehead is determined by the 
 growth of the hair being more or less forward, and often, 
 particularly in women, by the feelings nearest to the 
 intellect forming part of the forehead. A more correct 
 estimate, although still a very loose one, may be formed 
 by taking the forehead above the face from the comer of 
 "the ey& 
 
 Thus, in Phrenology, I was introduced not to Free 
 WiU but to the Natural Laws of Mind, — the machinery 
 by and through which the " Soul of each and God of 
 All" worked such wonderfully varied but invariable 
 •effects. The study of these laws is surely the most 
 rnterestiBg of all studies ; for a man carries his character 
 about with him, written on his skull and reflected in his 
 iace, plainly legible to those who have qualified them- 
 selves so to read it. This study is not, however, an easy 
 ■one, and can only be pursued by GaU's method of com- 
 paring function with development, and not by any of the 
 bye-paths now attempted of anatomy and vivisection. 
 The science has now fallen into disrepute ; first because 
 the clergy have given it a bad name as leading to 
 materialism ; and secondly, it has been followed for gain 
 by incompetent " Professors," who profess to reveal a 
 .great deal more than phrenology in its present state is 
 able to tell even were such men its competent exponents. 
 The leading features of a character in the animal, moral, 
 and intellectual regions are easily discernible, but those 
 niceties of character dependent upon the mode in which 
 the faculties act in groups or balance one another, and 
 upon education and circumstances, are not so readily 
 recognised. The subject is at present ignored by our 
 
24 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 leading physiological professors, and in the absence of 
 any qualified person among them to take it up, various 
 efforts are made to carry us back to the old, exhausted, 
 and worn out field of Metaphysics ; notably in a quarterly 
 publication called " Mind," which is purely metaphysical 
 Such a -wonderful case of " reversion " cannot last, and 
 it will not be long before we must be brought back to the 
 only practical Science of Mind. 
 
 I call it a case of " reversion," because when George 
 Combe was a candidate for the Chair of Logic in the 
 University of Edinburgh in 1836, a host of the leading 
 literary and scientific men of the day testified as 
 follows : — 
 
 " That, Phrenology, viewed as the abstract science of 
 mind, is superior to any system of mental philosophy 
 which has preceded it ; 
 
 " That, Phrenology contains a true exposition of the 
 physiology of the brain ; 
 
 "That, Phrenology is specially useful in its application 
 in discriminating the varieties of insanity ; in the classi- 
 fication and treatment of criminals, and in the purposes 
 of education." 
 
 To this testimony may be added that of Dr. John 
 ConoUy, the great and humane reformer of our asylums 
 for the insane, and a valued friend of my own. When 
 he first undertook the superintendence of the Hanwell 
 Asylum, Dr. ConoUy knew no more about phrenology 
 than Huxley and other leading physiologists of the 
 present day appear to do, and would speak of " long 
 .heads and short heads, round heads and flat heads," 
 but after a few years' experience and close observation 
 
LETTER FROM DR. CONOLLT. 25 
 
 at Hanwell of the cranial peculiarities often accompany- 
 ing the different forms of madness, he became more 
 discriminating, and ultimately a decided phrenologist. 
 In a letter to George Combe, he says : — 
 
 " Many and pressing avocations leave me no time just 
 at present to express to you, in a manner at all worthy, 
 my conviction of the great usefulness of habitual regiird 
 to the principles of Phrenology, especially in my depart- 
 ment of practice, and of the confusion and imperfection 
 of the views which seem to me to be taken both of sound 
 and unsound mind, by those who reject the aid of 
 observations, confirmed now by vast experience, and 
 most of which may be daily verified in asylums for the 
 insane. 
 
 " I am also convinced, that attention to the form of 
 the head, conjoined with that cautious consideration of 
 all other physical circumstances, which no prudent 
 Phrenologist disregards, will often enable the practitioner 
 to form an accurate prognosis in cases of mental disorder 
 and foretell the chances of recovery or amelioration, or 
 hopeless and gradual deterioration. But I am aware 
 thatlam nowtakingavery Kmited view of the applications 
 of the science ; which, however, I know you will excuse, 
 in consideration of the somewhat exclusive occupation of 
 my mind on these subjects." 
 
 All real progress must depend upon the perfecting the 
 instrument upon which Life and Thought depend, and 
 this must depend upon a true Science of Man ; but our 
 scientific men of the present day, as regards the 
 physiology of the brain, the special organ of thought, 
 are not much in advance of the chaotic state in which 
 
26 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Gall found the subject nearly a hundred years ago. Our 
 most popular writers on Ethics of the present day, 
 Spencer, Lewes. Maudsley, Huxley, &o., lead directly up 
 to the subject and there leave it — they decline to follow 
 Gall's method of comparing function with development, 
 and they believe therefore that the road to truth is not that 
 way. But when we come again to the right path of the true 
 cerebral physiology it is a question whether these writers 
 will be read for the sake of the little truth they supply on the 
 science of mind. J. S. Mill is principally responsible for 
 turning a whole generation out of the way. Two 
 phrenologists, he told me, had been altogether mistaken 
 in his character by judging of it from the shape of his 
 head, and he declined to go further into the matter. We 
 have lately had one good book on the subject. Mr. 
 Jolly, one of Her Majesty's School Inspectors, has 
 edited George Combe's Views on Education, based 
 upon a real knowledge of what the being to be educated 
 is. This application of Phrenology to Education is a 
 rather lengthy but very valuable record, which cannot 
 now be destroyed or withdrawn. 
 
 One thing strikes me very forcibly, and that is, how 
 little real knowledge of character exists in this 19th 
 century, and how very little the public estimate is to be 
 relied on. I have lately purchased a photograph of 
 Thomas Carlyle, by Elliott and Fry, 55, Baker-street. In 
 this the organs of Congruity, Wit,* and Ideality, are 
 
 * The organ called Wit, or Humour, or the Love of the Ludicrous, is pro- 
 bably a double organ consisting of Congruity, a high reasoning power which 
 traces purpose or design, and is a purely intellectual faculty, and the feeling of 
 -the Ludicrous arising from Incongruity. The outside or lateral part belongs t^ 
 the Feeling. 
 
carlyle's development. 27 
 
 very large, so mucli so as to give intense pleasure in their 
 exercise. Wit is a sense of incongruity, and the 
 marked peculiarity of Carlyle's genius is humour 
 combined with sublimity — a grotesquely humorous 
 originality of utterance. It is this that has formed his 
 style. These organs are not so large in his earlier 
 photographs ; they seem to have grown enormously 
 from exercise. Those in whom these organs are deficient 
 cannot read him, — ^they thank God that they have never 
 read a page, while his style is the source of great 
 enjoyment to others. Sir Henry Taylor tells us 
 (Nineteenth Century, June, 1881) that at a time when 
 Carlyle was slowly emerging from obscurity and sadly 
 struggling for the means of subsistence, he applied for a 
 pension for him to one of our Statesmen, " who was the 
 most distinguished for the love of literature," and the 
 answer was that a man who wrote in that style ougJii to 
 starve. There are more people blind to all sense of wit 
 than there are colour-blind, and no doubt this statesman, 
 " distinguished for his love of literature," was one of 
 them. This fact also illustrates how apt men trained in 
 the orthodox and classical school of literature are to make 
 what is said quite secondary to the way in which it is 
 said. 
 
 Carlyle had a small organ of Benevolence. He had in- 
 finite Pity,butthiscamefromhisSelf-esteem. He thanked 
 God that he was not as other men. Like Socrates, he 
 found it difficult to find " the wiser man," at least the 
 man that was wiser than himself. His Firmness, Con- 
 scientiousness, Self-esteem, and Adhesiveness were his 
 largest organs, and they were very large. 
 
28 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 A writer in the Comldll Magazine (June, 1881, p. 701) 
 says, " Of Dickens I will only say this : that to my mind 
 the most melancholy record of any author's life that I 
 know is the last voL of Foster's Life, in which we see 
 how a man of fine genius may be worn to death by 
 vulgar admiration and the intoxication of pecuniary 
 success. It is bad enough that authors should be starved 
 or forced to uncongenial labour, or have to toil through 
 ten-fold gloom of despondency in forcing their way to 
 the front; but it is perhaps stiU worse for them, and 
 certainly worse for their lasting reputation, that they 
 should start with splendid success, and be stimulated by 
 the shouts of the multitude to go on making more and 
 more splendid successes till they -have exhausted them- 
 selves in spasmodic grasping at cheap triumphs." Ko 
 Phrenologist would have been surprised that this should 
 have happened in Dickens' case ; his head was very 
 flat at the top, going straight off from the anterior lobe 
 connected with the intellect. We are all greatly indebted 
 to Dickens' large and peculiar intellect, but his strongest 
 feelings were Love of Approbation and Acquisitiveness, 
 and he literally killed himself in their gratification, 
 unrestrained by the controlling power and higher 
 motives which a larger coronal region of the brain 
 would have given. 
 
 Our present leading popular statesmen, W. E. Glad- 
 stone, with a larger brain and even larger intellect, 
 although acting in an entirely different department from 
 Dickens, has the same deficiencies and the same organs 
 in excess. The Political Economy of the present day 
 wants a moral region : it is based upon unlimited com 
 
CHARACTER OP NAPOLEON III. 29 
 
 petition or the ennobling doctrine of "everyone for 
 himself and devil take the hindmost," and Gladstone is 
 its most powerful and popular repreeentative. With his 
 4:0-horse talking power he has been able to do much good 
 in this and other departments, but whether he has not 
 lowered the tone of Liberalism, of which he has been so 
 long the leader, it wiU be for history to determine. I 
 recently purchased two photos to show a large and small 
 sized organ of .Conscientiousness. The one of large size 
 was Napoleon III., the small size was Gladstone. I 
 know that the public wUl say that this shows that 
 Phrenology is wrong. "We will leave that to history. 
 The moral instincts of the upper class, throughout 
 the country at large, seem already to have 
 divined the truth in this matter. Whatever 
 was the means by which Napoleon III. became 
 possessed of empire — and probably there never was so 
 important a revolution accomplished at so small an 
 expense of bloodshed — stiU it must be admitted that with 
 all the drawbacks France was never so prosperous as 
 during his rule. WhUe he was prostrate with the most 
 violently painful illness, he was pushed, against his will 
 into the German war by the War Party and the Em- 
 press, the latter being acted upon by the Jesuits, who 
 wanted a war against the Rationalism of Germany. 
 
 A certificate given to the future Emperor when at school 
 at the CoUege of St. Anne, at Augsburg, 1821-2, when he 
 was fourteen, says "This pupil possesses an ardent feeling 
 for aU that is elevated, good, and beautifijl ; he would 
 have made great progress if illness had not on several 
 occasions prevented^him from attending the class." But 
 
30 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 the world judges by success only. During his reign, 
 before the war, he was supposed to be the wisest and 
 most astute man in Europe; afterwards he was spoken of 
 only with contempt. 
 
 In the time of Socrates it was as difficult to find the 
 wise man. In " The Apology of Socrates," he gives us 
 the result of his search, " Athenians," he says, " I 
 must tell you the truth, the whole result of my inquiry 
 was this : all those who passed for the wisest men, 
 appeared to me to be infinitely less disposed to wisdom, 
 than those who were not so esteemed ; " and a wise man of 
 the present day, Thomas Carlyle, says " Human intelli- 
 gence means little for most of us but Beaver Contrivance, 
 which produces spinning mules, cheap cotton, and large 
 fortunes : Wisdom, unless it gives us railway scrip, is not 
 wise." 
 
 We have just lost a great man, Charles Darwin (April, 
 1882), who has most deservedly been placed among other 
 great men in Westminster Abbey. I do not grudge him 
 the reward of his long, laborious, patient assiduity, or 
 underrate the fruits of his labour ; but surely in their 
 bearing upon the advancement of our race they are 
 nothing to Gall's. Gall spent a long Ufe in the study of 
 Man, and laid the foundation of a system of Mental 
 Science more needed than anything else, if Psychology is 
 ever to take rank with the Physical Sciences, or is ever to 
 emerge from what it is without GaU — mere Metaphysics. 
 In real importance Gall's discoveries come before Dar- 
 win's as much as man is of more importance than plants 
 and animals, — and there is more of real importance in 
 the book to which I have previously alluded, based on 
 
LORD AMBERLET. 31 
 
 Gall's discoveries, and published by Mr. Jolly, than in all 
 Darwin has ever written ; and yet of all -who rushed to 
 do honour tb Darwin there was probably not one who 
 knew anything of Gall. Mr. Darwin had a brain above 
 the average size, with an active temperament, very large 
 Perceptive faculties, with only moderate Reflective. His 
 Mrmness and Conscientiousness were very large, his 
 Benevolence moderate. The development indicates pre- 
 dominant perceptive power, with great love of truth, and 
 indomitable perseverance. 
 
 " The survival of the fittest " in the present day does 
 not mean the survival of the highest type of humanity, 
 but the onemost inharmony with the moral character of the 
 age, which is not high. Lord Amberley, Earl Russell's 
 eldest son, had one of the finest coronal regions of the 
 brain I have ever seen, and he could not live in the 
 moral atmosphere of our House of Commons. 
 
 Thomas Carlyle, in a letter to Dr. Chalmers {Oood 
 Words, July 1881, pp. 477-8), says "We find, in all 
 healthy ages, men have used their intellect, not for 
 looking into itself (which I consider to be naturally 
 impossible, and a mere morbid spasm), but to look out, 
 as an eye should, over the universe, which is not we, 
 and there to recognise innumerable things, and to 
 believe and do, and to adore withal, as in that case is a 
 very universal and infallible result among other blessed 
 ones ! This I privately maintain as a very irrefragable 
 article of faith to myself highly important and pregnant 
 with results quite boundless. From time to time, too, 
 I meet with gratifying confirmations. Goethe says once 
 of himself, ' I never thought about thinking. I know 
 
32 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 a better trick than that.' . . . "Without the 
 visual faculties," Carlyle says, " there could be no vision; 
 yet is there no antecedent necessity to become acquainted 
 ■with the visual faculty ere we see. Without the know- 
 ing faculty there could be no knowledge ; yet there is 
 not, on that account, the antecedent necessity for our 
 making acquaintance with the knowing faculties ere we 
 can know." Carlyle, however, himself says elsewhere 
 (" French Revolution," vol. 1, p. 9), " In every object 
 there is inexhaustible meaning ; the eye sees in it what 
 the eye brings means of seeing." But unless we make 
 acquaintance with the visual and knowing faculties, how 
 are we to know what the eye brings means of seeing, or 
 natural power to see ? If a small part of the brain, 
 under the centre of the eyebrow, is deficient, people 
 cannot distinguish some colours from others ; and if it is 
 very deficient they are colour-blind — the world has no 
 colour for them, let them "look out," with Carlyle, "as an 
 eye should, over the universe," as sharp as they like. It 
 is the same with aU our other perceptive faculties, and 
 we may be equally blind to form and size and all the 
 other so-called properties of matter, if the brain and 
 mental faculty upon which these depend be deficient, so 
 that we require to think about " thinking " that we may 
 know what we cannot think, and if Goethe knew a 
 better trick than that he should have told us what it 
 was. If the brain is deficient a person may be as much 
 morally blind as colour-blind, and in neither case is he 
 often aware of his own. deficiency. Such persons judge 
 others by themselves, and they put down an active 
 benevolence, veneration, or a scrupulous conscience, to 
 
THE SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVK 33 
 
 sentimentality, or shame, or deference to public opinion. 
 
 " The intellectual faculties are of _ two kinds, those 
 which are acted upon by external causes, through the 
 medium of the senses, and the ideas belonging to which, 
 therefore, are modified by the senses ; and those faculties 
 that act upon these ideas where so furnished by the first 
 class. They have been very properly divided into ideas 
 of Simple and Relative Perception. 
 
 "All the knowledge, therefore, that we acquire of our 
 external world is of its action through the medium of 
 the senses upon only a few of the mental faculties, and 
 which action of the perceptive faculties alone would be 
 quite insufficient to give us the idea of nature as we now 
 conceive of it. The world, as it appears to us, is created 
 in our own minds by the action of the faculties of 
 Relative Perception and of Reflection upon the com- 
 paratively few ideas furnished by the faculties of Simple 
 Perception." " Philosophical Necessity," p. 203. 
 
 Carlyle, we are told, differs from Kant, who regards 
 " primitive judgments " as wholly subjective conceptions. 
 With him, as with Reid, they are beliefs which have an 
 objective counterpart." Oood Words, July, 1881, p. 478. 
 
 Surely our " primitive judgments " are the creation of 
 the mind — subjective. There may be an objective reality 
 that causes our sense of colourj but colour cannot be its 
 counterpart : one cannot, in any sense, be like the other_ 
 The world is created within us by the action of some- 
 thing without, but what that something is in itself we 
 cannot know. We know only of its action upon he 
 brain, of its capability of causing sensations within us. 
 We know only thoughts, not things, and each thought 
 
■ 34 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 may have its cause without, not its counterpart. 
 "Natural Science can only be the science of human 
 modes of thinking." Is it not, then, of the first impor- 
 tance to know how this world within us is created — -to 
 "think about thinking," to study the machinery through 
 
 ' which this takes places ? The perfection of our thinkitig 
 depends upon the more or less; perfect development of 
 this instrument of thought ; in proportion as that is 
 defective will be the world it creates within us. The 
 only way to find this instrument of thought, is the 
 phrenological one of comparing function with develop- 
 ment. And yet this method is utterly neglected by the 
 physiologists and psychologists of the present day. Like 
 our schoolmasters, who have too many subjects for 
 examination to take up any new one, they have not 
 time, — ^for it takes time to devote to it.. The physiologistu 
 
 . who have ventured to give an opinion. on the subject 
 show that they have, not followed Gall's method, and, 
 therefore, know nothing of the subject practically,, and 
 their theoretical objections they will find fully answered 
 
 . in the 20 volumes of the Fhrenologieal Journal, published 
 from the year 1823 to 1847, when the subject and its 
 -great importance occupied the public mind not only in 
 
 •this country but on thejjContinent and America. 
 
 To Mr. G. H. Lewes's objections to Phrenology in the 
 third edition of his "Biographical History of Philosophy," 
 I replied in the second edition of my " Philosophy of 
 Necessity," and in his^fourth edition he withdraws many 
 of his objections, and considerably modifies others. 
 His reasonings were mainly based on the false assumption 
 that Intellect is dependent upon the general size of 
 
LEWi:S ON GALL. , 35 
 
 brain, — whereas it depends upon only a small portion jof 
 the brain connected -with the anterior lobe, — ^aiid thftt 
 therefore we may have very stupid people with very 
 large heads. Of course no correct conclusions could be 
 drawn based upon so fundamental an error. In his last 
 work, published since his death, " The Study .pf 
 .Psychology," he says, "Another great step was taken 
 by Gall in his search for the particular organs by which 
 particular functions were effected. His localization ,of 
 these organs in the cerebral convolutions was. indej^d 
 definite in principle, since it ignored the- organism as a 
 whole, and assigned to one particular complex arrange- 
 ment the results due to many parts ; moreover his 
 anatomical and iphysiological data were inaccui^te. 
 Nevertheless his hypothesis was truly scientific -. in 
 character, and it gave an immense impulse to research. 
 He taught men to keep steadily in. view the constant 
 relation between structure and function ; he taught.them 
 the necessity of objective analysis; he. taught them .the 
 futility of looking inward, and neglecting the vast mass 
 'of external observations which animals and societies 
 afforded; he taught where to seek the primary organic 
 conditions — ^in inherited structures and inherited, apti- 
 tudes. 
 
 "The effect of this teaching is conspicuous in modern 
 works, however little of his special system they Eftay 
 reproduce. - Indeed, we may now say that the biologigal 
 attitude has displaced the metaphysical : .mental 
 phenomena are everywhere regarded as vitalj and not 
 as having a source which is independent, of the living 
 organism " (p. 77, et seq.) Phrenologists do not "ignore 
 
36 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 •the organism as a whole, or assign to one particular 
 complex arrangement the results due to many parts," for 
 although they hold that vigour of function is propor- 
 tionate to the size of the organ, they yet find that organs 
 seldom act alone, but rather in groups, the result of 
 association, education, and circumstance. 
 
 Dr. Andrew Wilson has an anti-phrenological article, 
 very flimsy and shallow, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 
 January, 1879, to which there is an answer in the 
 Januarynumber(1881)of the Phrenologiaal Magazine. He, 
 like Mr. Lewes, assumes that intelligence is measured 
 by the general size of brain ; of course, therefore, he 
 can know nothing of Phrenology. Mr. Froude tells us, 
 in his Life of Thomas Carlyle, that old John Welsh, of 
 Penfillan, Mrs. Oarlyle's maternal grandfather, was himself 
 a tall man, and had a fixed notion that size of body and 
 size of mind went together, and he would never admit a 
 new friend tUl he had measured him. This is not a bit 
 more absurd than that intelligence depends upon general 
 size of brain. The Doctor makes other absurd state- 
 ments ; he teUs us, • for instance, that the organ of 
 " Calculation " is a solid bony process, and that " Form " 
 and " Language " are the result of bony processes. Dr. 
 WUson can never have seen a marked skull, — and fancy 
 GaU, Spurzheim, and the Combes mistaking bony 
 • processes for brain! He must have had great faith in 
 the ignorance, prejudice, and credulity of the public to 
 venture upon such a statement. 
 
 Dr. H. Cha,rlton Bastian makes a similar misstatement 
 in his work on " The Brain as an Organ of Mind." He 
 says, " If we take the organ of ' Philoprogenitiveness,' 
 
DE. bastian's objections. 37 
 
 whose assigned situation at the back of the head may be 
 seen in any phrenological bust, we find that it corre- 
 sponds with a bony prominence, which varies greatly in 
 thickness in different individuals, whilst internally it 
 corresponds to the point of union of four great venous 
 sinuses, and within these as much to the tips of the 
 Occipital Lobes as to a part of the upper and posterior 
 borderof the Cerebellum." Every Phrenologist knowsthis 
 is not true. I have never met with a Phrenologist, who, 
 ike Dr. Bastian, is so ignorant as to mistake the Ocoi-' 
 pital spinal process, the bony prominence to which I 
 suppose the Doctor alludes, for Philoprogenitiveness. 
 That organ lies above that process, and occupies at least 
 an inch of irain on each side of the head. Dr. Bastian. 
 says, "It would have been almost needless to have 
 dwelt so long upon this subject (Phrenology) but for the 
 fact that amongst the general public there are probably' 
 very many who, if not actual believers in this Phre-' 
 nology of Gall and Spurzheim, may be glad to know 
 upon what precise grounds this system should be re- 
 jected." I fear that if the " general public " follow Dr. 
 Bastian on this subject they will follow a blind guide. 
 The illustration I have given above furnishes a very 
 correct measure of the Doctor's knowledge. In fact, if 
 47 years' practical study of the subject entitles me to' 
 give an opinion, I should say that Dr. Bastian literally 
 Jcnbws nothing at all about The Brain as an Organ of the 
 Mind. He is like a man with a lantern seeking for" 
 truths which Phrenologists have made clear as noon-day 
 fifty years ago. He has never followed Gall's method, a 
 long and laborious process, of comparing function with 
 
Sffi PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 develdpttient — for which he has either no time, or is -too 
 prejudiced to attempt.' His objections are the "spon^^ 
 tatieous generation" of his own brain, and do not in the 
 least affect the thousands of facts upon which the ' 
 Phrenological System is founded. 
 
 In Germany opinion seems very much divided on this- 
 subject of Phrenology among its Professors. Thus Lange ' 
 says (" History of Materialism "), " it is always note- 
 worthy, however, that our Materialists, and among them 
 men of whom it would certainly not be expected, have 
 expressed themselves surprisingly in favour of Phreno^' 
 logy. So B. Cotta ; so, too, especially, Vogt, who, in his 
 ' Bilder aus dem TMerleben,' wrote the characteristically" 
 hasty words : ' Is phrenology, therefore, true in its 
 minutest application ? Must every change of function 
 have been preceded, or rather simultaneously accom. 
 panied, by a material change of the organ 1 I cannot 
 but say, Truly it is so.'" Vol. 3, p. 118. 
 
 Lange himself is an Anti-Phrenologist. He says, 
 " There are even cases in which quite unequivocally 
 loth frontal lobes of the cerebrum have been seriously 
 affected and destroyed, and in which not the least dis- 
 turbance was observed. Longet reports two such cases 
 which had been thoroughly observed. One such instance, 
 however, is enough to overturn the whole system of 
 phrenology." Vol 3, p. 117. Of course it is, if, as he 
 says, it had been thoroughly and correctly observed 
 but if he had spent nearly 50 years of his life in observing 
 th? connection between the anterior lobe of the brain and 
 the intellect^ both in general and in special organs, he 
 might have some doubt about this. He says, also, " But 
 
COLOUR BLINDNESS. 39 
 
 it has been forgotten that even if a large frontal develop- 
 ment coincides as a rule with great intelligence, there is 
 as' yet not the slightest proof of a localised .activity in 
 these p9.rts of the brain." Vol. 3, p. 117. Now it has been 
 found from an investigation on the railways, arising from, 
 fatal mistakes made in signalling, that 1 in 25, or 4 per 
 cent, of the people employed, cannot distinguish some 
 colours from others, and in them the organ, of bolour. 
 oyer the centre of the eyebrow, is invariably deficient. 
 To all who have qualified themselves to , observe, other 
 " localizations," areequally obvious. 
 
 I think if- Physiologists, both at home and abroad, 
 have no practical knowledge of Gall's system, they had 
 beitter say nothing about it, and not expose their igno- 
 rance, and help to lead the public away from the most. 
 imj)ortant truths that have ever yet been discavered-;r-- 
 from that Science of Mind upon which all real advance- 
 ment of the race depends. 
 
 The Hatters' Gazette says : — 
 
 "The heads of the people are certainly getting less. This is 
 simply indisputable, and in support of this the Bristol 
 Njituralists', Society have recently been collecting some interesting , 
 particulars. In the early part of this month the following papers 
 were read before the members of the Society, under the presi- 
 dency of Dr. Burder : — ' Evidence as to the gradual diminution 
 in the dimensions of the human head in this country,' by Mr. 
 F. , f . Tuckett. ; which was followed by another, on the same 
 subject, entitled 'Additional evidence of the same,' by Dr. 
 Bepldoe, f.R.S. In the absence of the., author, Dr. Beddoe read ; 
 Mr, Tuckett's paper. His attention had first been directed to 
 th^ subject of his communication by a remark made to him some 
 time ago by Mr. Castle, hatter, of St. Augustine's Parade, to the 
 effect that during the last twenty-five years the sizes of hats, as 
 
40 . PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 regards the dimensionB of the head, had been gradually diminish- 
 itig, the difference of the circumferential measurement during 
 that period amounting to as much as half an inch. Other hatters, 
 both in Bristol and in different parts of England, were requested 
 to communicate whatever information they might possess on the 
 subject, and it appeared that their experience was similar to that 
 of Mr. Castle. Messrs. Lincoln and Bennett, the well-known 
 London hatters, kindly supplied a tabulated form, showing the 
 progressive rate of diminution since 1855, from which it appears 
 that the average size of hats sold by them had fallen from No, 
 7 1-25 in 1855 to 6 19-21 in 1880. The average shrinking in size 
 being l-7th inch, or rather more than one size, which is repre- 
 sented by J inch. One hat manufacturer writes : — 'Fifteen 
 years ago the usual sizes of hats in England were from 6| to 7f , 
 and even 7J was not imcommon ; but now if a 7§ hat was wanted, 
 we should have to make a block purposely. While in Scotland 
 last summer Dr. Beddoe inquired of the principal hatter what his 
 experience was, and he also fully corroborated what has been 
 stated ; so that the change appears not to be confined to the 
 southern portion of the island. Several theories have been pro- 
 posed to account for it, but none are satisfactory, and Dr. Beddoe 
 was inclined to attribute it to a gradual decrease in development." 
 
 There are many causes that account for apparent de- 
 crease in sizoj besides decrease in development. In the 
 first place the hat does not correctly measure cranial 
 capacity. Sir Walter Scott's was undoubtedly a large 
 brain, and yet he took the smallest hat of 24 people with 
 whom he was dining. There can be no doubt that civili- 
 zation, from the greatly induced activity of the brain, 
 increases the size of the head. But the great object of 
 civilization is to transfer the brain from the base of the 
 brain connected with mere animal propensity, and, 
 measured by the hat, to the higher or coronal region, of 
 which the hat takes no account. No doubt there are 
 
SIR WALTER SCOTT'S HEAD. 41 
 
 considerable exceptions to this rule in -which there may 
 be decrease in development. From the division of labour 
 and in proportion as work becomes in. consequence more 
 automatic, there is less activity of brain and decreasing 
 size. Thehabits of ourfactory population, also in our great, 
 cities, lead to degeneration of the species, and to dimin- 
 ished size both of body and brain. These people marry 
 early, and beget children before their own growth is 
 completed. When the mothers go to their factories to 
 work, these children are badly nursed and badly fed, and 
 one-half of them quieted out of the world with Godfrey's 
 Cordial, a mild form of opium. The other half would 
 most likely require less hats .than their fathers did, in 
 the good old times, to which Ruskin seems so anxious to 
 return. 
 
 The following letter, which I sent to the Phrenological 
 Magazine, may be interesting as illustrating the fact that 
 the size of the brain is not always correctly indicated by 
 the size of the hat, and also as illustrative of practical 
 Phrenology : — 
 
 "A oast of Sir Walter Scott's head is now before me. It is a 
 very good one, although by whom it was taken I do not 4aiow. 
 I believe it came to me as one of a. hundred others I had of 
 Peville in 1835. It is a most extraordinary head, and if he wer& 
 not an extraordinary man there cannot be much in phrenology.' 
 It is 6 inches wide, measured above the ears, and 74 inches high 
 from the opening of the ears to the top of the head (i.e., to the 
 middle of Veneration, not of Firmness.) Allowing half an inch 
 for the hair and the cap in which the cast was taken, it would 
 give 7 inches in height to Veneration — a full inch more than the- 
 average of the best heads. The head slopes down rapidly from 
 this, with the exception of Firmness, which is nearly as large, 
 giving the peculiar sugar-loaf appearance for which it was noted^' 
 
42 PHEENOLOGY. 
 
 Itdi£fersesaentially from Chantrey's bust, the Veneration being 
 larger and tUe self-regarding organs-r-Love, of Approbation, and, 
 Se)tf-Esteem— much Bmaller; in fact, the two last organs are 
 small. The , forehead is high and broad, but not deep, with the 
 organ of Human Nature, as it is called, and which is supposed to 
 give an intuitive knowledge of character, larger than in any head 
 I tave seen, except Bacon's, or perhaps, Shakespeare's.. The 
 organ of Number appears to me to be very small, I don't know 
 whether this, had anything to do with his financial difficulties. . 
 Scott's is a very largebrain, but his hat was the smallest of 24 
 pepple with whom he dined on one occasion. It is not the head 
 of a philosopher. What I want to point out is that the apex of 
 the head, the enormous Veneration, was also the apex of the 
 whole character. 
 
 ".Helvetius says: 'There is no memory without attention, and 
 no attention without interest ; and Scott's interest in the past 
 amounted to an intense love, so great as to impress all he learned 
 with respect to it indelibly upon his memory. His early life, we 
 know, was spent in poking, into whatever had the rime of age. 
 Wherever a building was old and noted, he searched for all the 
 stories coimected with it, and he never forgot them ; so that 
 when he came long after to write his world-famed novels and 
 romances he had all the material at hand ; he never had occasion 
 to, read up or to refer ; his material was all spun out of the then 
 existing -state of his own mind ; whatever had been consecrated 
 by time aad situation, whatever there was of antiquated custom, 
 was then ready to hand, with the intuitive knowledge of ,human 
 nature to hang it upon. This it was that enabled him to write 
 BO rapidly. Scott had a much larger Vgneration than any I 
 have seen or known, and with less talent, and under other con- 
 ditions it might have -shown itself only in abuse, or a senseless 
 love of the past ; but he turned the stream of departed time over 
 the whole world, to its great delight and improvement. The 
 moral region generally was also very large in Scott. No one 
 perhaps has given so much pleasure, and no one in the past thfit. 
 we can love so well, and upon whose character, as exhibited in 
 
LETTER FROM DE. JOHN WATTS. 43 
 
 Lockhart's life of him-and elsewhere, we delight so much to dwell. 
 His was certainly, however, a singular head and a singuilar 
 character. The moral of what I have to say, or the point of my 
 story is this : you must hang what you want to remember on your 
 strongest facilities, upon those things you love best, or in which 
 you take most interest, and if one intellectual faculty is small, 
 ^ve it the aid • when you can of a larger one ; some people can 
 remember best by associating events with a larg^ Individuality 
 (I.e.,: .minute knowledge of things) ; while others, with a large. 
 Causality, so connect them with that, and reason up to them from 
 cause to effect. No doubt by such means a defective memory 
 may be much strengthened." 
 
 In August, 1882, I received the letter below, which, 
 
 with my reply, I think worth insertion in the present 
 
 place : — 
 
 18th August, 1882. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have thought much of a remark of yours 
 when we last met and talked of the possibility of a resurrection 
 for Phi'enology. 
 
 I complained of the want of method in Phrenologists, and 
 said that I had never yet seen a character chart which would 
 bear mathematical examination ; that most of them gave more 
 than a head to each subject,- that is to say, if the numbers 
 ^ut down as representing the size of- each organ were totalised 
 they would make more than the medium number in the scale 
 multiplied by 35. You thereupon remarked that it was possible 
 Jbr all the organs in a given head to he large ; and this remark 
 seemed to me to show such absence of method, where method 
 is essential, that it has -troubled me ever since, and I take this 
 course to relieve my mind. 
 
 I can understand how a head may be large as a whole, and 
 how the whole of the organs in that head may, be uniformly., 
 developed, and how, therefore, any and every organ in that 
 head may be large, compared with the organs in a, smaller 
 head which is equally well developed. But this would probably 
 'be, only a comparison of a strong with a weak man, a bilious 
 
44 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 with a nervous temperament, and would tell nothing as to th© 
 
 general character of either subject. 
 
 The object of Phrenological examination is, I take it, to get 
 
 at the tendencies of the individual by a comparison of the 
 
 development of the various organs in the same head ; and if 
 
 they be unequally developed, then a standard of comparison 
 
 is requisite ; and for this purpose the practical Phrenologist 
 
 sets up a scale of 5, 10, or 20 to indicate the various sizes of 
 
 the organs as compared with each other. Of course if the 
 
 organs be all equally developed the scale is useless, for the 
 
 result is the same whatever the figure assumed as a standard. 
 
 But method would say, look out an organ which is moderately 
 
 developed, and put that and all which are equally developed 
 
 with it under the middle number in the scale, and range the 
 
 more prominent above it and the less prominent below it, 
 
 thus : very small, small, moderate, large, very large, making 
 
 5 terms. In this scale "moderate" would stand for ZJ, whilst 
 
 "large" and "very large'' would rank above it, and "smaU" 
 
 and " very small" below it, but so that when added up the 
 
 whole would be equal to 35 (the number of organs) x 2J (the 
 
 size of the middle term) = 87i. 
 
 It seems to me that if a practical Phrenologist accustomed 
 
 himself to assign such numbers in his examinations as would 
 
 make this total, he would soon achieve such accuracy a3 would 
 
 very much increase the value of his science. 
 
 Please excuse my freedom in thus taking you to task, and 
 
 assuming that I am able to teach you, and believe me it only 
 
 arises from my interest in your permanent reputation, and my 
 
 desire for posterity that your work should approach as nearly 
 
 to perfection as may be. 
 
 I am, yours faithfully, 
 
 John Watts. 
 Charles Bray, Esq. 
 
 Coventry, August 24, 1882. 
 Dear Dr. Watts,— 
 
 Thank you for your notes on development ; but no one that I 
 
 know of, or ever knew, pretends to mathematical accuracy in- 
 
LETTER ON ORGANOLOGY. 45 
 
 taking developments, and if you reduce it to nutnhers no doubt 
 they will either come short of, or exceed, the average, and 1 
 think always must ; no more than an approximation can even be 
 aimed at, and it is going for more, by quacks, that has got the 
 Science into its present disrepute among men of Science — never- 
 theless a good organologist will give you all the leading points of 
 a character. I don't use numbers, except for celerity, for used as 
 you use them they must add up wrong. I use small (2), 
 moderate (3), full (4), large (5). I seldom have occasion 
 to use very small or \rery large (1 and 6), and the 
 numbers corresponding to the others are as marked. The 
 sizes are relative only to the same head. If a head is large, 
 and is equally developed, all must be large in that 
 head : the same in a small head, all must be small — although in 
 practice this never happens ; for if you made the average size in 
 the large head 6, and in the small head 3, one would be twice the 
 size of the other, which also never happens. It is of no use 
 attempting to use figures as you propose — ^we cannot do it. It 
 might bring us a little nearer to the truth perhaps, — but the 
 proximity would more probably be forced at the expense of the 
 development. There is no mistaking a head like yours, mode- 
 Tate size, nervous, bilious temperament, with greatly predomi- 
 nating perceptive faculty and moral region, with large firmness — 
 although no one could have predicted that it would have forced 
 itself into the public notice that it has, although all must know 
 it must have excelled in something. I have had 47 years' ex- 
 perience as a phrenologist, and with all its shortcomings have 
 found it very useful to me, and it has enabled me to put many 
 square pegs foimd in round holes into better fits. 
 
 Many thanks for the trouble you have taken with me ; we 
 
 wiU see when we meet if anything more can come out of it. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Believe me, very sincerely, 
 
 Your old Friend, 
 
 Chahles Beat. 
 In a letter since received from Dr. Watts, he says .■; — 
 " That manipulators are at present far from accuracy may be 
 
46 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 demonstrated by any enquirer who will take the trouble to add 
 up the numbers assigned in any chart of character which n^ay 
 come in his way. 
 
 "In my experience I have found a universal tendency to 
 exaggeration; there are always more organs found large than 
 small, and there are many cases where the addition of numbers 
 instead of making just a head, viz., 35 times half the scale, make 
 a head and a quarter, or even a head and a half ; and I have 
 never found one mathematically accurate. 
 
 " I think it probable that the quackery thus indicated has 
 done much to depreciate Phrenology in public estimation, and 
 that a generation of observation and accurate manipulation will 
 be needed to restore it to its proper place as an Art, and to 
 realize and confirm the functions of some of the organs. 
 
 It is a curious fact that a Science which has introduced method 
 into moral philosophy, thus redeeming it from chaos, has itself 
 failed as an Art, for lack of the very quality which it has estab- 
 lished elsewhere. 
 
 Phrenology must be judged rather as a Science than 
 an Art, although I have known several gobd organ- 
 ologists and careful manipulators, notably the 
 late Cornelius Donovan, but -whose book on 
 Phrenology is well worth consulting as containing a 
 good deal that is new, the result of a life-long experience; 
 also, we have at the present time a Mr. Nicholas Morgan, 
 of Sunderland, who bears the highest character inJiis 
 native city, and who has given us several very useful 
 books— "Phrenology, and How to Use it in Analysing 
 Character," crown 8vo., 380 pp. ; " The Skull and Braih: 
 Their Indications of Character and Anatomical Rela- 
 tions," 224 pp., and othet minor works, all of which 
 show a man of highly cultivated intellect, who -well 
 understands his subject, and who might be consulted 
 ■with advantage. 
 
MABBIA6E, 47 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MAERIAGE : " INQUIRY CONCEENING THE ORIGIN OF 
 CHRISTIANITY." 
 
 Marriage is a question of elective affinities, of recipro- 
 city, of give and take. Even the Vitality is divided-, for 
 it is well known among the poorer classes, where the prac- 
 tice sometimes necessarily prevails, that when children 
 sleep with their grandparents, or other older relations, the 
 young life is abstracted to feed the old, and the children 
 get prematurely old ; so in man and wife the vital power 
 is shared between them, the stronger giving to the 
 weaker. And if this is the case physically, much more 
 is it the case mentally, where the union is a real one ; 
 the higher mind raises -the lower and is itself lowered 
 proportionally in doing so, or there is a mutual raising or 
 sharing of good and bad qualities. "Where ' the union is 
 intimate the individuality is soon lost, and it is difficult 
 •to say what each person was originally^ or would be 
 again if alone. Each character, however, estimated by 
 the world,- has all its borrowed strength or reflected 
 weakness. I was very fortunate in my matrimonial 
 connection. My wife and I were of very different 
 dispositions, she possessing what I most wanted. She 
 was exceedingly reserved, I too open j (Cautiousness and 
 Secretiveness small) " a leaky fool " as George Eliot calls 
 Mri Brooke in " Middlemarch " ; but even now 1 cannot 
 tell which is best in a moral or even in a mere worldly 
 point of view-^the close box or the sieve. I think the 
 world likes the " leaky fool " the best, if it has to choose 
 
48 MARRIAGE. 
 
 between the two extremes. There is no doubt, however, 
 that my wife's character tended to bring out all that was 
 best in mine, as my greater self-confidence gaye to her's 
 the support that her small self-esteem and utter unselfish- 
 ness required. She had very small Perceptive Faculties, 
 and very large Reflective. Her judgment morally and 
 inteUectually was very sound, so much so, that I doubted 
 my own where we seriously differed. If ever a person 
 lived for others, she did. She was determined to do all 
 she did do well, consequently the books she has written, 
 her "Physiology for Schools," "Duty to Animals," 
 " Elements of Morality," &c., have been well received, 
 and have done much good. 
 
 I was married in 1836, and we made our wedding-tour 
 iu North "Wales. The same confidence in what then 
 appeared to me to be the truth, which made me think I 
 could convert the Unitarian Minister, made me now think 
 that I had only to lay my new views on religious matters 
 before my wife for her to accept them at once. Conse- 
 quently I had provided myself with Mirabeau's " System 
 of Nature," Volney's " Ruins of Empires," and other 
 light reading of that sort to enliven the honey-moon. 
 But again I was mistaken, and I only succeeded in 
 making my wife exceedingly uncomfortable. She had 
 been brought up in the TJnitarian faith, and, as might be 
 expected in a young person of one-and-twenty, religion 
 with her was not a question of theological controversy or 
 Biblical criticism, but of deep feeling and cherished home 
 associations, and of convictions instilled into her mind 
 from chUdhood under the influence of one of the most 
 cultivated and powerful Unitarian preachers of the day, 
 
ORIGIN OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 
 
 the Rev. Robert Aspland. She ultimately referred the 
 critical part of the matter to hor elder brother, Charles 
 G. Hennell, who had already gone very fully into the 
 subject, and had come out completely convinced on the 
 Unitarian stand-points. He refused at first to rer> 
 consider the question, but influenced more by my philo< 
 sophical arguments — for I knew nothing of Biblical 
 criticism — he at length consented to investigate the evi-> 
 dences once more. The result of his study was 
 "Hennell's Inquiry concerning the Origin of Chris- 
 tianity," a work which had a considerable influence as 
 being one of the flrst attempts to regard Christianity 
 from a purely historical point of view, and to analyse 
 the life and work of its Founder in a reverent, truthful, 
 and appreciative spirit, while separating from it aU that 
 was obviously, legendary or mythical. 
 
 The change in our religious convictions seemed to 
 necessitate a change in outward observance, and 
 although, contrary to the inclination of my wife, wp 
 took our place in the old famUy pew at Church on phe 
 first Sunday after our settling down in our Coventry 
 home, we soon discontinued the habit of attending any 
 place of worship. Hitherto I had considered that the 
 National Religion ought to be supported for the good of 
 the poor, and for those who, like thein, had nothing else to 
 fall back upon. But to me now the service was a complete 
 sham : it was impossible for me to countenance it for the 
 sake even pf an indirect social benefit. This singularity 
 however, has, I believe, interfered much with my utility 
 in public life, 
 J was often asked, "Why don't you go to Church or 
 
So riEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 •to any place of worship 1 Could you learu nothing ?" 
 I saidj " Nothing that I could not learn better from 
 •books at home." But it -was said, " Do you want no- 
 thing 1" I said, " Nothing. I don't want forgiveness of 
 •siiis, because as I believe in no punishment here or here- 
 •after that is not reformatoryj that is, for my good, for- 
 giveness of sins, that is, to be absolved from such punish 
 ment, would be doing me an injury. As to other things, 
 •I have no occasion to ask for them. God has placed 
 ■everything I wailt so completely within my reach thsit 
 ■I have only to make the needful exertion to take it ; and 
 in making this exertion. I secure my bodily and mental 
 ■health, and happiness. If, therefore, God were to give me 
 ithese things without this exertion, it would again be doing 
 me an injury." So much for prayer ; I believe also that 
 God will always do- what is right without ashing, and not 
 tJie more for askimg. As to " praise," such as is usually 
 tfffered, it appears to me a pure impertinence. How 
 dare we ! I by no means, however, disapprove of the 
 "tfommunion of Saints," as the individual mind is 
 strengthened and exalted by congenial minds moving 
 together. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MY EARLIEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 My first publication was in 1837, and was a pamphlet 
 which I caUed " The Educsttibn of the Body," and which, 
 slight and ephemeral though it was, gained me more credit 
 thtaanytHihgl have since published, owing, probably, to 
 
HEALTH OP towns' ACT 51 
 
 the circumstance that the subject was then new.* Its 
 origin was this. I had gathered together the parents of 
 the children who belonged to our Iniant School and 
 other Schools, and had addressed to them a lecture on the 
 Laws of Health, and afterwards, aided by the works of 
 Dr. Andrew Combe and Dr. Southwood Smith, I put 
 the simplest of these laws together in the form of a 
 pamphlet. I lived to see good fruits from this in the 
 acknowledged better health of many persons in. the 
 neighbourhood, who traced much benefit from this first 
 practical insight into the relation of good air, cleanliness', 
 temperabce, exercise, to our well-being, and I never let 
 the subject drop till the Health of Towns' Act enabled 
 us to save four people's lives in every thousand, that is^ 
 160 lives a year of the 40,000 in Coventry. By 
 improved sanitary arrangements the mortality fell from 
 27 in the thousand to 23. This prevention was bettet 
 than cure, or even than "visiting the sick," and admirably 
 illustrated the diiSference between Natural Law and 
 •'eleemosynary charity ; that is, between ray new views 
 and Christianity. If the natural laws were obeyed^ 
 •charity would not be wanted. Good Christians are 
 always standing between people and the natural cons&' 
 quences of their actions, and, as Herbert Spencer so well 
 puts it, " The ultimate result of shielding men from the 
 *fiects of folly is to fill the world with fools." 
 
 *Soon after its publication a gentleman well known in those days for hia 
 philanthropic experiment to improve the condition of ttie people, drove up ta 
 our house in a grand carriage and pair, and requested my wife, I being from 
 home, that she would be good enough to present a copy of his own worlcs to 
 bei father. Dr. Bray. Also a lady, distinguished by her benevolence tnit 
 writings foi; the people, re-published my little work, and adding a page or two 
 tOt remedies lor chilblains, whooping-cough, Sic, allowed it to be considertil 
 iier own. 
 
.52 EABLIEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 My first Education Lectures had been laid aside 
 from a conviction of their comparatively impractic- 
 ahle character ; but having satisfied myself that 
 Phrenology was the best and most practical system 
 of Mental Science that the world has yet known, 
 I re-cast them upon a Phrenological basis, and by the 
 aid of my wife's sound sense and her eldest sister's 
 long experience, the work on "The Education of the 
 Feelings" was produced. In that book each menttd 
 faculty — ^propensity and sentiment, is treated separately ; 
 showing its use and abuse ; how it may be strengthened 
 when weak and repressed when too strong. The feelings 
 or faculties rarely act singly, but in groups, and the 
 object of their education or training is so to group theiq 
 that to do right (i.e.) what we think right, becomes 
 instinctive ; it should be acted upon at once without 
 thinking. "The Education of the Feelings" was pub- 
 lished in 1838 ; it is now in the 4th Edition, and it has 
 been, I have reason to think, of considerable utility. In 
 dthe last edition I tried to simplify it by withdrawing the 
 phrenological nomenclature and by adding questions and 
 answers to each chapter ; I also added to the title " A 
 Moral System for Secular Schools." This last addition I 
 find has considerably interfered with the sale of this 
 edition, but I retain it upon principle as a sort of protest 
 against Government taking my money and teaching with 
 it in the common schools a religion of which I dis- 
 approve, or rather in which I do not believe. It is aU 
 W.ery well to say that the Bible is to be read without note 
 or comment. This was to be the case with the British 
 -Schools ; but evangelicalism was always taught there, 
 
PHILOSOPHY OP NECESSITY. 5 j 
 
 as the National religion is now taught in our Board 
 Schools. All schools supported by a public rate ought 
 to be secular and in time will be ; and it will also be 
 found that all secular knowledge is religious knowledge ; 
 that a knowledge of Natural Law is knowledge as high 
 and as important, and as much a knowledge of God, as 
 so-called moral and religious knowledge.* 
 
 My " Philosophy of Necessity" was not published till 
 1841. In the preface to that work I say, "The writer isin- 
 duced to lay his own reflections on the subject before the 
 public, in the hope that the result of that labour which was^ 
 necessary to satisfy his own mind may be in some degree 
 a saving of labour to others. ... It may not be 
 without its use to make brief mention of the steps by 
 which these conclusions were forced upon him. Many 
 years ago the writer felt altogether unable to satisfy 
 his mind with the prevailing systems, either of Meta^ 
 physios or Morality, as based upon the popular Theology.- 
 ■The more he reflected the more he became convinced' 
 that the nature of man, and the object and aim of his^ 
 existence were misunderstood ; that the ways of Provi- 
 dence were misinterpreted, and that the foundations of' 
 morality were laid upon the sand, being based upon the. 
 supposition that man is capable of acting contrary to 
 the particular constitution with which his Creator has 
 endowed him, and independently of the circumstances in" 
 which he is placed. The perusal of Edwards' " Inquiry": 
 
 * The Americans have recently brought out an edition of " The Education 
 «t the Feelings," (1881) published by S. B. Wells and Co , New York, and-^ 
 edited by Nelson Sizer. Tills is Plirenologically illustrated by heads in which 
 different organs are large or small. It has been done without consulting me ; ' 
 but I am sufficiently paid by the good that it may do, and the compliment, 
 implied. 
 
§4", EARLIEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 ijito Freedom' of "Will,' and the convictiou that the. 
 doctrine of Philosophical Necessity is there demonstrated, 
 ftnd .tha,t, therefore,- every system built upon an opposite 
 principle, by whatever authority supported, cannot be true, 
 first led him to the investigation of opinions which he 
 h^.been brought up to consider as established. The 
 most uncomfortable of all states, — a state of doubt and 
 Unbelief, — ^followed : for consciousness of error is not the 
 same as the discovery of truth. The " Deontology " of 
 Bentham presented the first land-mark to direct his 
 course. It soon became evident to him that the laws of 
 the moral world are, through the instrumentality of 
 pleasure and pain, . and of the definite constitution given 
 to man by his Maker, as fixed and determinate as the 
 laws of the physical world. . . . The writer has 
 only to add that the views which he has attempted to set 
 forth in the following pages have brought much consola- 
 tion and satisfaction to his own mind, in afibrding him 
 something definite to believe on subjects which at first 
 sight seem despairingly mysterious and unfathomable ; in 
 expanding and clearing his views of Providence ; in 
 making known God as the Universal Father — revealing 
 Himself in a language that cannot be misunderstood or 
 misinterpreted, to every sect and every clime ; and it- 
 will be one of his greatest sources of happiness if they 
 afibrd grounds of equal hope and trust to any of his. 
 fellow creatures.'' 
 
 , I recollect, however, that when I was fumbling about 
 and not knowing at all what to do with the doctrine of 
 " Necessity," or how to apply it to other ethical beliefs 
 ■frhich I held, it was Shelley's " Queen Mab," or rather 
 
SQUARE PEGS IN BOUND HOLES. 5^. 
 
 the Notes to it, which gave me the first hint as to its' 
 practical application. When I first read it I was worked 
 up to a great state of enthusiasm, and sat up till threei 
 o'clock in the morning reading, re-reading, and thinking. 
 
 The doctrine of Philosophical N"ecessity, that every thing < 
 necessarily acts in accordance with the laws of its own 
 nature was by no means a barren truth to me, nor was , 
 Phrenology or the cerebral machinery by which this 
 takes place in man ; I introduced my principles into my 
 daily practice. The world to me becanje a great men- 
 agerie where I treated, and mentally fed, each creatur^ 
 according to its nature ; not expecting to get from thg , 
 C9,t-nature the generous unselfishness of the dog, or from 
 the human wolf what belonged to the lamb, or from, any > 
 one more than what was in him. I knew the deep rut 
 that Society had dug for us all to run in, and the 
 ".semblance" or " seeming" paid to conventional usages> 
 but I never expected "to make a silk purse out of a sow's 
 ear," To me every person carried his character pretty 
 clearly marked by nature upon him, and I chose my 
 servants and friends accordingly, and have continued to, 
 do so to this day ; and I have made very few mistakes 
 ia this direction. I have found many square pegs in , 
 round holes and round pegs in square holes, and I have 
 altered them. I have set at least a dozen young men in 
 the path for which they were eminently fitted by nature, 
 and they have done well and availed themselves- of the 
 tide that leads on to fortune. 
 
 It is a great thing to know what to expect and so not ' 
 to expect too much. It is well to know the good there 
 is in aU, and to make the best of their shortcomings. 
 
56 EAELIEST PUBLICATIONS. 
 
 The study of character, on Gall's method of comparing 
 function with development, is the most interesting of all 
 studies. 
 
 It is a grand thing in the ordering and culture' 
 6i our own mind to be able without reserve to accept the 
 inevitable. The past is inevitable ; for God himself 
 could not MOW prevent that. What then is the use of 
 fretting over it 't— for not only is it past but it could not 
 possibly have been otherwise. The then conditions or 
 circumstances must have produced the effects they did ; 
 if we are dissatisfied with the effects we must alter the 
 causes in the future. Future consequences only are in our 
 power, the past never. I often hear it said, however, 
 "Oh ! but ' you can alter the past, and I will." If I 
 have made a bad bargain and have been treated unjustly, ' 
 I'- will have it altered and amended. But this is not 
 altering the past, it is mending the present or future 
 from a knowledge of the past.* 
 
 In the preface to my second edition of my "Philosophy ' 
 
 * The notices of the Press were, as they often are, a little at variance. I give 
 only two to show how great was the divergence. 
 
 The Spectator of November 13th, 1841, says, " In the part devoted to , 
 Moiul Science, the author is, if possible, still more common-place : his remarks 
 on the advantages of evil are not merely trite but feeble ; a grown-up youth 
 would have selected more etrilcing illustrations for a college theme. Indeed a 
 greater misapprehension of a person's own qualities and capabilities we have 
 rfurely seen than in Mr. Bray's ' Philosophy of Necessity.' " 
 
 The Athenceum, on the contrary, says, "The book is skilfully put together, 
 arid contains passages of remarkable sagacity. ... He (Mr. Bray) is a close 
 retasoner and an acute observer ; his quotations (which, by the way, are - 
 unconscionably numerous) display an inclination to grave study, and we think 
 the philosophical phrenologists may congratulate themselves on the acquisition 
 of a champion of superior ability." ' 
 
 The Spectator misses the point altogether, as the book was written to 
 reconcile Philosophical Necessity with Morality and true Responsibility ; but of 
 this the Spectator seems to have no conception ; neither ,ot the present time, 
 40' years' after, has it been able to effect any such reconciliation for itself, and 
 
tETTKE FROM CAKLTLE. 57 
 
 of Necessity," I say, "If that doctrine be accepted and 
 logically used, -we get rid at once of Revenge, Remorse, 
 and Punishment, except such punishment as is good for 
 the individual offending : for then revenge would be 
 absurd, like a child beating a table against which it had 
 knocked its head, remorse useless, as the recognised aad 
 experienced consequences of our actions are sufficient for 
 our future guidance, and " forgiveness," or remission of 
 punishment that was /or ow good, would be simply an 
 injury. Revenge, remorse, and retributive punishments 
 are the sources of half the crime and misery in the 
 world." There is no such constant source of worry as 
 the feeling that things might have been otherwise and 
 ought to have been otherwise; we must learntofeelthat 
 such was impossible ; Repentance, therefore, is proper and 
 useful only in so far as it induces us to alter our conduct 
 in the future. The logical consequences of Philosophical 
 Necessity had a wonderfully tranquillising effect upon 
 my own mind, while at the same time they weakened 
 
 18 consequently Libertarian. I give the accompanying letter from T. Carlyle 
 as rather siding with the view the AtkeTuxum takes ; — 
 
 S, Cheyne Row, C!helBea, 11 June, 1843. 
 Bear sir,— Yesternight I had the pleasure to receive your kind gift. I return 
 nany thanks for the book ; many thanks for the feeling that has prompted you 
 to send It. 
 
 Glancing over your pages, I find much curious and useful information, 
 lucidly presented ; earnest thought, inquiry ; traces everywhere of a candid, 
 humane, at once resolute and modest spirit ; — worthy of much praise ; sure to 
 do good and not evil In its day and generation. 
 
 I wish you many years of such manful labour, and fruit In its season, seen 
 ^ by you or not seen. 
 
 With many thanks and regards, 
 
 Touts very sincerely, 
 
 T. Cabltlb. 
 Sir Bobert Peel also says (Whitehall, January 5th, 1842) :— " I have read 
 enough, during the short Interval that has elapsed since the receipt of the 
 volumes, to encourage me to proceed with the complete perusal of the work." 
 This, considering how much Sir Eobert was engaged, I consider as high testi- 
 mony la their favour. 
 
58 ORGANISATION OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 none of the higher springs of action. On the contrary j 
 I knew that law was as unvarying in mind as in 
 matter, that nothing was left to chance, or " free- 
 will," and that we have only to apply the proper 
 causes to produce the effects we require. 
 
 Superstition, in my opinion, is the expectation of 
 effects from any but the natural means (Natural Law:) . 
 appointed to produce them, and as there is a natural 
 cause for every effect, our duty is to seek this out, and 
 Erayer, therefore, partakes of the nature of superstition^ 
 it is asking God to do what we ought to do for ourselves. ; 
 Still prayer subjeetwely (for we cannot suppose that God 
 ■would do for asking what he would not do without), has 
 heen a powerful instrument of good, and as defined by si, , 
 very clever lady friend of mine, " as the means whereby 
 we assimilate our wishes with the Supreme "Will, and so 
 put ourselves into the condition to act for the best," may 
 be still useful. In so far, however, as it is allowed to 
 take the place of Natural Law it is injurious. It is this 
 that makes the acknowledgment of the Reign of Law in 
 Mind, as in Matter, so important. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE ORGANISATION OF INDUSTRY. 
 
 About the time that I published my " Philosophy of 
 Necessity " I was very much interested in Owenism, or 
 rather in the Organization of Industry. I was struck, as 
 everyone is who thinks about it, by the great inequality 
 
THE WOELD OF WOEK. 59, 
 
 of condition in the •world, by the great extremes of . 
 riches and poverty ; and it certainly did seem to me that 
 the workman did not receive his fair share of the joint 
 product. Political Economy seemed a cunning device, 
 under the plea of paying a man his share in wages, for 
 cheating him out of his birthright and giving him 
 instead a mere mess of pottage. And even the earning- 
 of those wages depended upon the merest chance. It in 
 no case depended upon what a man could by his labour 
 produce, but upon the chance sale of that produce in all 
 the markets of the world. A man's labour might thus, 
 by the aid of improved machinery, produce 20 times 
 more than he could possibly consume, and yet he might be 
 starving. In fact, his earnings seem to bear very littlo 
 relation to what he did or could produce. 
 
 The consequence of this system has been what T. Carlyle 
 so graphically described, " We find," he says, " all man- 
 kind heaped and huddled together, with nothing but a 
 little carpentry or masonry between them ; crammed in 
 like salt fish in a barrel — or weltering (shall I say) like 
 an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each striving to get 
 his head above the rest." This was written 30 years ago 
 but is as true of the present time. In 1874 all the world 
 was at work, producing largely, making large profits, and 
 the working men spending their greatly increased wages. 
 in champagne and other luxuries — making little or no 
 provision for the future. Now, 1879, all the world seems 
 out of work, the markets everywhere seem overstocked. 
 There are thousands of bare backs every where, and 
 millions of shirts, but no means by which one can find its. 
 way to the other. It is not want of capital — the world 
 
€0 ORGAlflSATION OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 is very rich, but it is want of system. The facility of 
 Distribution has not kept pace with the power of Pro- 
 duction. In fact, as Carlyle says, " All human interests, 
 combined human endeavours, and social growths in this 
 world have at a certain stage of their development re- 
 quired organization ; and work, the grandest of human 
 interests, does now require it." 
 
 We must not suppose, however, that we are without 
 organization of some kind. Thus, Dr. Neil Arnott, 
 drawing a picture of what civilization has done for us in 
 that respect, truly says — 
 
 " Everyone feels that he is a member of one vast civilised 
 society, which covers the face of the earth ; and no part of the 
 earth is indifferent to him. In England, for instance, a man. of 
 small fortune may cast his looks around him, and say with truth 
 and exultation, ' I am lodged in a house that affords me con- 
 veniences and comforts which, some centuries ago, even a king 
 could not command. Ships are crossing the seas in eveiy direc- 
 tion, to bring me what is useful to me from all parts of the earth. • 
 Jn China, men are gathering the tea-leaf for me ; in America, 
 they are planting cotton for me ; in the West Indies they are 
 preparing my sugar and my coffee ; in Italy, they are feeding 
 silk-worms for me ; in Saxony, they are shearing the sheep to 
 make me clothing ; at home, powerful steam engines are spinning 
 and weaving for me, and making cutlery for me, and pumping 
 the mines, that minerals useful to me may be procured. 
 Although my patrimony was small, I have post-horses running 
 day and night, on all the roads, to carry my correspondence ; I 
 have roads, and canals, and bridges, to bear the coal for my 
 winter flre ; nay, I have protecting fleets and armies around my 
 happy, country, to secure my . enjoyments and repose. Then I 
 lave editors and printers, who daily send me an account of what 
 is going on throughout the world, among all these people who 
 serve me. And in a comer of my house I have Books ! the 
 
MILLENNIUM AT HARMONY HALL. 61 
 
 miracle of all my possessions, more wonderful than the wishing* 
 cap of the Arabian Tales, for they transport me instantly, not 
 only to all places, but to all times. By my books I can conjure 
 up before me into vivid existence all the great and good men of 
 antiquity ; and for my individual satisfaction I can make them 
 act over again the most renowned of their exploits : the orators 
 declaim to me ; the historians recite ; the poets sing ; and from 
 the equator to the pole, or from the beginning of time until now, 
 by my books, I can be where I please. This picture is not over> 
 charged, and might be much extended, such being God's goodness 
 and providence that each individual of the civilised millions 
 dwelling on the earth may have nearly the same enjoyments as if 
 he were the single lord of all." — Introduction to Elements of 
 Physics. 
 
 It is true this only applies at present to " men of small 
 fortune," but the great question ■with me was whether, if 
 a man's earnings could be secured to him, every one 
 might not be a man of small fortune. 
 
 As each man can produce so much more than he can 
 consume, by organization this appeared possible.. Now, 
 the income of the wage class is never secure, but is 
 dependent upon many chances, Consequently all schemes 
 that had for their object this organization had a special 
 interest for me, and I attended Robert Owen's opening 
 of the Millennium at Harmony Hall, Queenwood, Hants 
 in May, 1842. 
 
 As early as 1830 societies were formed in most of our 
 great towns of those who caUed themselves Socialists, 
 and who sent out missionaries all over the country. These 
 societies held yearly Congresses. At one of these early 
 Congresses it was resolved that the only constitutional 
 basis upon which societies could he permanently and suc» 
 cessfully established, whether engaged in trading, manu- 
 
■62 OKGANISATIOH OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 facturing, or agricultural pursuits, was community m 
 land ; and to this important end a -weekly subscription, 
 ■either in money, goods, or labour, from a penny to any 
 amount agreed upon, is indispensably necessary to be 
 continued from year to year, until a capital sufficient to 
 accomplish the object of the society be accumulated. 1 
 ■don't think any minute calculation was made as to how 
 many pennies a week it would take to put all the 
 Socialist members on land ! But in 1840, at the Con- 
 gress in Leeds, it was announced that the estate 
 of East Tytherly, in Hants, had been secured for the 
 purposes of a community — the Queen-frood Community, 
 as it was afterwards called. Mr. Joseph Hansom, a 
 very clever architect — who built the Town Hall at 
 Birmingham, and a good man, was employed to provicfe 
 suitable buildings. 
 
 It was at the formal opening of this building, as I 
 bave said, that I attended in the early part of 1842. I 
 liad no interest in it but as a visitor. Every thing was 
 very beautiful, — a perfect paradise it seemed to me, witii 
 the hopes I then entertained — the estate of about 1,200 
 acres in all was finely wooded, had fine avenues and 
 l)eautiful views. The house — Harmbiiy Hall — seemed 
 all that could be desired; having a large diniti'^ hall 
 with a railway from the kitchen to the head of the 
 table ; an extensive garden in front, with artificial lake 
 &C., &c. 
 
 We had beautiful lady visitors in Bloomers, and we had 
 nightly balls, and nothing could be more harmonious. 
 Mr. Owen was the Father of the Community, a sort of 
 Dictator, with the power of choosing his administratioii 
 
PAILTJBE. 63 
 
 and changing it at his discretion. He was also a sort df 
 infallible Pope, for with him was " the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth, without mystery, 
 mixture of error, or fear of man." I was present at his 
 christening of the first child born at Harmony, who was 
 called Primo Communis Flitcroft. I should like much 
 to know what has been the fate of Primo Oommunis !* 
 
 But, alas ! this beautiful picture was soon to vanish, 
 and " like the baseless fabric of a.vision leave not a wreck 
 behind." It did not pay. The members that were drafted 
 into the Millennium from the " Old Immoral World " to 
 work upon the land were not worth their salt. The 
 agricultural labourers of the district at about 9s. a week 
 could do twice as much work, and were therefore obKged 
 to be employed, and the would be co-operators after one 
 taste of their Paradise were drafted back again. This of 
 course did not please the Branches. A good deal of 
 money had been borrowed, and some good people had 
 invested their all, and came to end their days there. 
 The finances got more and more out of order, 
 so that the last of the Socialist Congresses was held at 
 Queenwood Parm, June 30, 1846. The whole thiaghad 
 •to be disposed of to pay its debts, and all the weekly 
 'pennies that had been for so many years accumulating 
 
 ''At the cdebration of the seventy-first anniversary of the birthday of 
 Bobert Owen, Qneenwood, Saturday, May 14th, 1842, Mr. Owen proposed 
 'Health and prosperity to the visitors who have favotired the Society with 
 their eompany on the present occaaoni" all of whom he was most happy to see, 
 and he hoped they would frequently visit the establishment. Mr. Bray, of 
 Csventiy, and Mr. W. O. Lewis, of London, briefly replied, &c., &C..— JVeui 
 Moral World, May 28, 1842. 
 
 " Those who have narrowly inspected the north end ef the new buldingg 
 will have discovered some letters upon it— they are ' C. of M.,' which means 
 'Commencement of Millennium,' which is just begun to-day,"— iSoterf Owen. 
 
04 OBGANISATION OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 were lost, I believe a good school for the education of 
 Socialist children might have been made to pay, but this 
 was not what the Branches had been so long subscribing 
 for, and the delegates to the Congress would not agree to 
 it. Harmony Hall is now Queenwood College — a good 
 educational establishment, I never knew the particulars 
 of the failure, nor ever saw a financial statement. I 
 came, however, to the conclusion that Community was at 
 present impracticable ; that Co-operation was all that 
 was possible ; and that there are ages between these first 
 steps and Community. 
 
 Accordingly the next year, 1843, 1 helped to establish 
 ;•' The Coventry Labourers' and Artizans' Co-operative 
 Society." The first aim of this Society was to furnish 
 working men with gardens, as healthy occupations, and to 
 help them to counteract in part the ill effectsof confinement 
 at the loom. The physical and moral benefit was much 
 greater than the pecuniary, although a man could make 
 about2s. aweekoutof theSthof anacre. The great difficulty 
 was to procure land, as most of the land round the city 
 was Lammas, that is, subject to the Preemen's right of 
 pasturage during part of the year. Landholders would 
 not let land to working men, nor to a Society, but 
 they agreed to let it to myself, either as individually 
 responsible or in conjunction with Mr. Cash, of Sherborne 
 House. Ultimately we were able to get about 400 
 gardens, the gardens were much in demand, and the rent 
 was paid in advance, so that I did not run any great 
 risk. Besides the rent each member paid a penny a week 
 towards the expenses of the Society and this soon 
 •amounted to a considerable sum. This was put out 
 
A CO-OPEEATIVE SOCIETY. 66 
 
 in. loans at a high rate of interest to buy looms, 
 pigs, pay rent in advance, &c. The Society then began 
 to trade on its own account. Boat-loads of coal were 
 brought direct from the pits |and distributed among the 
 members at cost price, thus effecting a considerable 
 saving. Then, flour mills were taken, for the rent of 
 which, I, as President, was again obliged to be 
 (individually) responsible. A store was afterwards 
 opened for the sale of flour, bread, groceries, &c. Of 
 course this took several years to accomplish, and so far 
 we had a time of uninterrupted prosperity. At least 
 1,000 of the leading and most respectable working men 
 of the city belonged to the Society ; all had shares on 
 which a large interest was paid, so that the difficulty was 
 to keep men out for whose benefit it was not intended. 
 But one fatal error mixed up with the business by whidi 
 we ultimately were wrecked. Our Society was on the 
 Credit System. The Societies that gave credit were 
 failing all over the country, and this fact I was con- 
 stantly pointing out to our Committee. But the 
 transition from Credit to a Ready Money System was 
 not easy, particularly as old and leading members, who 
 were on the Committee, as I afterwwrds discovered, were 
 largely in debt to the Society. I was always met with 
 the reply, " You're a gentleman, and don't require 
 ■ credit — a working man does" — a great mistake, for the 
 chief benefit conferred by Co-operative Societies depends 
 on the Ready Money System — the provident habits 
 involved in not getting into debt. And so it proved in 
 our case. In 1859 ribbons went partly out of fa,shion, 
 and there was a great strike of the operatives to keep up 
 
■66 ORGANISATION OP INDUSTRY. 
 
 ■wages when ribbons were not wanted. This, of course, 
 failed. In 1860 and following years ribbons went more 
 and more out of fashion ; ladies wore their bonnets on 
 the neck and not on the head, and then they wore none 
 at all, or only an apology for one, and we had a time of 
 great distress, ribbon-making being then the staple 
 .'industry of the place. Of course the Protectionists, the 
 ^.political opponents Jof the Government, attributed this 
 ■distress to Free Trade and the French Treaty, but the 
 '.real fact was simply that ribbons were not wanted. At 
 the close of 1859 the Society showed a loss of about 
 £400, equal to 4:S. in the pound of each man's capital. 
 This led to a panic. It was said everywhere by the 
 members themselves, in their ignorance of business, that 
 theSociety was insolvent, although it had£l,600morethaii 
 ■was required to sati^ aU demands upon it. Every one 
 wanted his money ; every one wanted to sell out. But 
 the money of course could not be had, being invested in 
 ■Mills and Stock, and consequently every one got into 
 debt to the Society to the amount of his shares if lie 
 could, and then refused to pay. One man would order a 
 sack of flour, another a flitch of bacon, and as no money 
 ■was coming in the concern soon collapsed. Efforts were, 
 of course, made^to bring these debtors to book, hut such 
 ■was the distress La the town that they were attended 
 ■with little success. The looms and other securities on 
 ■^hich money had been advanced by the loan depart- 
 inent of the Society. had vanished,. as also in many cases 
 tad the people owning them ; ior a population of 41,000 
 ;liad been reduced to 37,000. Debts put into the Court 
 didnot produce Is, in the :pound, and distress warrants 
 
WORKING men's CLUB. 67 
 
 ■were mostly . returned endorsed " No effects." On 
 January 1st, 1864, there were still 322 persons indebted to 
 the Society.to the amount of £316 15s. 6d. Of these 
 .it was reported that some had gone through the 
 Debtor's Court, others had left the town or die'di, 
 others were at work on the Commons, or on the mills 
 at the workhouse, and others were too poor to pay a 
 farthing. I conclude enough inoney was got in to pay 
 .-all the liabilities of the Society,' for ■ I was never called 
 upon to advance any part of the sum for which 
 I had become responsible, but I doubt if ar^ 
 of the shareholders who had not scrambled for the 
 •stock ever got anything. It is quite impossible that 
 such- societies can succeed except upon a ready money 
 ^system. 
 
 In 1845 or 6, I forget the exact date, I set up a 
 Working Manfs Club. Many of my workmen (ribbon 
 weavers) came from the country, and having oftsa 
 when they brought in their woi'k to wait till the afternoon 
 for something they wanted - from the warehouse, were 
 thus forced to go to the public-house. I found a 
 .Reading-room, with the papers and periodicals, a smoking- 
 room, with tea, coffee, or lunch ; rooms upstairs for 
 friendly assemblies or smaller social gatherings, and beds 
 for people coming from a distance. This I afterwards 
 opened to the operative class at large. But it did not 
 prosper. My own weavers evidently ■ preferred the 
 public-house, and were glad of any excuse to go ' there, 
 Nor was it so weiU managed as . it should have 
 "bee^i, and there was a refinement about it that was' in 
 advance of the. time, so that after losing about iSl GO 
 
68 ANTI-COEN LAW AGITATION. 
 
 by it I was obliged to close it. Such clubs are- 
 succeeding everywh.ere now, and are helping forward the 
 educational progress of the age. But this club and the 
 Co-operative Store gave great offence to the publicans, 
 and small shopkeepers, who combined, and at the next 
 election turned me out of the City OouncU. I was. 
 never afterwards returned. The year before a wish was- 
 expressed by a majority of the Council to make me 
 Mayor, but I declined the honour in favour of a frienii 
 older than myself, who I thought was in every way 
 much better suited to the office. I did not regret my 
 forced retirement from the City Council, except that, 
 being the special advocate of Sanitary Reform, . I 
 was particularly anxious to get the Health of Town's Act 
 applied to our district. But I left it in the hands of a 
 friend who had more discretion than myself, and who 
 judiciously secured a majority before the matter was 
 brought before the Council. 
 
 ANTI-COEN LAW AGITATION. 
 
 Prom my tastes of course I could not help being 
 mixed up with the Anti-Corn Law Agitation. In 1842, 
 3-4 and 5 we held several public meetings, at which I was 
 Chairman, and I had the honour afterwards of 
 entertaining the speakers, Messrs. Cobden, Bright, 
 Moore, Colonel Thompson, George Thompson, &c., to 
 . whom I expressed freely my own views. I was not a 
 Pree Trader only. As regards Protection every one can 
 see that artificially to raise the price of a commodity 
 must be at the expense of the general consumer, but I 
 looked upon Pree Trade or TJnlunited Competition, 
 
EFFECTS OP FREE TRADE. 69 
 
 though a necessary step in the right direction, as 
 •containing much evil as -well as good. We have passed 
 through the fighting age in which the protection of life 
 and limb being secured we have gone on to the 
 commercial age, in which the " survival of' the fittest" 
 is found in the great manufacturers, with the merchants, 
 •and the largest employers of labour. The highest 
 minds are not the " fittest" for the present age. The 
 effects of Free Trade have been exactly what I 
 ■anticipated. There has been an enormous increase of 
 wealth, and the social condition of all has been improved 
 thereby. Still the fluctuations from great prosperity to 
 ^eat distress, about every ten years, appear to me to be 
 ■a, necessary part of the system, and must continue till 
 trade is truly organised. Supply and demand are now 
 Jeft to chance and selfish instincts only. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EOSEHILL AND FRIENDS. — HENNELL's INQUIRY AND THE 
 TRANSLATION OF STRAUSS' LEBEN JESU. 
 
 In 1840 I bought a smaU property in the neighbour- 
 hoodj called Rosehill, consisting of a house, with large 
 lawn shaded by noble groups of trees, and especially by 
 ■&, fine old acacia, the sloping turf about whose roots 
 made a delightful seat in summer time. We spread 
 there a large bear-skin, and many friends have enjoyed ^ 
 seat there in that wooded retreat, far enough from the 
 town for country quiet, and yet near enough to hear the 
 sweet church bells and the chimes of St. Michael's, with 
 
70 EOSEHILL AND FRIENDS. 
 
 ih.e distant huia of the city, which gave a cheerful sense 
 of the ■world being alive on week-days, and the. peaceful 
 lull which told that it was enjoying its respite on the 
 Sunday. There was a free-and-easy mental atmosphere,' 
 harmonizing , with the ahsence of all pretension and 
 convenitionaJity, which I believe , gave a peculiar charm 
 tpi'this modest residence. "When the bear-sHn is. 
 under the acacia," our friends used to write, " then we 
 will come to you,'^ and the spot is - stiU associated with 
 the flow of talk nnrestrained, and the interchange of 
 ^deas, varied, and peculiar according to the character and 
 niood of the talkers and thinkers assembled there j for 
 eivery one who came to Coventry with a queer mission^-' 
 or a crochet, or was supposed to be a " little cracked, "" 
 was sent up to Eosehill. , 
 
 It is a sad pleasure now to call to mind how some of 
 those who have left their mark on the world and are 
 gone, entered for a time within our small circle at- 
 Coventry in those by-gone days. 
 
 Dr. CpnoUy. was always an honoured guest, but he 
 vanished from among us after he had settled at Hanwell," 
 where te introduced those reforms into our Lunati© 
 Asylums and into the treatment of the insane which 
 have made his name famous. George Combe and his 
 hajidsome wife, so like the portraits of her mother, 
 Mrs. Siddons, used to stay with us on their way from 
 Edinburgli to the Continent, where he went annually for 
 health's sake. The calm, wise discourse of the great 
 j)|irenologist, his Kindly manner, his philosophical' acceptt 
 aiice of the arrangements of Providence, made hi& 
 p'reseiice a wholesome sedative to our spiirits, althougii 
 
HEPWOETH DIXON. 71, 
 
 it did not surprise us sometimes -when his devoted wife 
 dropped asleep in the middle of his discourse, her head 
 inclined towards him in a reverent attitude of atten-, 
 tion. When Mr. Combe told us that he had written 
 his " Constitution of Man " in a sort of " fever of 
 enthusiasm," it showed us how little we can judge of 
 the working of a man's mind by any external indication, ' 
 and how little meaning there is in the common phrase, 
 " He is a bom enthusiast." 
 
 Then there was James Simpson, of Edinburgh, the 
 work of whose life was to promote National Education, ' 
 aaid the play of whose life was to tell good stories, such 
 as he only could tell. 
 
 Then the true-hearted George Dawson, unrivalled as a 
 popidar lecturer and preacher, but loved and esteemed 
 most by those who knew him best. He was among my 
 heroes, and I could find very few. I regarded him as 
 one of the most upright of men, honest and straight- ; 
 forward in word and deed. We delighted to see him 
 epjoying a little rest from labour, stretching his length ■ 
 upon the lawn, in the sunshine, or lying on the floor, his ; 
 favourite posture, while his beautiful wife kept up a: 
 flow of talk — one of the few women who are both greati 
 talkers and great doers. 
 
 One morning a young man presented himself at; 
 Hosehni in answer to an advertisement of mine for ani' 
 editor to the Coventry 'Herald. His name was Hepworth 
 Dixon, a slight, pale-faced; man, and he jn:oduced from-j 
 Ms ' pocket a maiiuscript tragedy with a queer title, as. 
 credential for his fitness for the situation. Indeed; he^. 
 looked more like a poet than editor, and as he walked. 
 
72 EOSEHILL AND FEIBNDS. 
 
 after dinner, up and down the lawn, throwing his head 
 back as if with the consciousness of infinite possibilities 
 within him, we thought him either too transcendent or 
 too conceited for every-day work. In other respects the 
 arrangement was found unsuitable. 
 
 In 1848 Emerson paid us a short visit. The 
 "Essays'' introduced into England by Oarlyle in 1841 
 had been welcomed by us with an enthusiasm only second 
 to what we had felt on the appearance of "Sartor 
 Resartus" three years before, and the advent of the 
 "origiaal veridical" man himself was an event in our 
 lives., A Coventry gentleman meeting Emerson in the 
 north soon after his arrival in England invited him to 
 visit the old city. Emerson replied that if he came to 
 Coventry it would be to see Charles Bray, the author of 
 the " Philosophy of Necessity." Accordingly he came to 
 EosehiU. There was an exceeding simplicity about him 
 and utter absence of pretension, so that you felt at home 
 with him at once. I have met no man to whom I got 
 so much attached in so short a time. Carlyle says, 
 speaking of his first visit to him, " Of course we could, 
 do no other than welcome him ; the rather as he seemed, 
 to be one of the most loveable creatures in himself we 
 had ever looked on." We should have liked to have 
 seen more of Emerson, but some Stratford friends came 
 over and impressed upon him that he was bound to pay 
 homage at Shakspeare's tomb, like a true American, and 
 accordingly carried us all ofi". Miss Evans included, to 
 their home near that church on the Avon where tha 
 great bard lies, and he left the same day for London. 
 
 I consider- my intimate friendship of nine years with; 
 
MISS M. A. EVANS. 73 
 
 Miss Evans (George Eliot) among the bright spots of 
 my life. I saw a great deal of her, we had long frequent 
 walks together, and I consider her the most delightful 
 companion I have ever known ; she knew everything; 
 She had little self-assertion ; her aim was always to show 
 her friends off to the best advantage — ^not herself. She 
 would polish up their witticisms, and give them the fuM 
 credit of them. But there were two sides ; hers was the 
 temperament of genius which has always its sunny and 
 shady side. She was frequently very depressed — and 
 often very provoking, as much so as she could be agree 
 able — and we had violent quarrels ; but the next day, or 
 whenever we met, they were quite forgotten, and no 
 allusion made to them. Of course we went over all 
 subjects in heaven or earth. We agreed in opinion 
 pretty well at that time, and I may claim to 
 have laid down the base of that philosophy which she 
 afterwards retained. " One of her recent critics has 
 stated that she held as a solemn conviction — the result 
 of a lifetime of observation — ^that in proportion as the 
 thoughts of men and women are removed from the earth 
 on which they live, are diverted from their own mutual, 
 relations and responsibilities, of which they alone know 
 anything, to an invisible world, which can alone be 
 apprehended by belief, they are led to neglect their duty 
 to each other, to squander their strength in vain specula-, 
 tions, which can result in no profit to themselves or their 
 fellow-creatures, which diminish their capacity for 
 strenuous and worthy action during a span of life, brief.^ 
 indeed, but whose consequences will extend to remote 
 posterity." — Tlie GongregaUonalist, April, 1881, p. 297, 
 
7*4' EOSEHILL AND FEIENDS. 
 
 Such were my opinions then, whicli " a lifetime of. 
 obBervation and experience" has tended to confirm in her 
 case as in mine; In the best notice that has appeared of 
 Geotge Eliot's " Life and Writings" (Westminster, July, 
 1881), the Reviewer says: — "We have found, in her 
 teaching, the enforcement of the doctrine of conse- 
 quences, more richly illustrated, more variously applied,, 
 more scientifically stated than ever it was before." !• 
 am glad this is the writer's opinion ; still I do not give i 
 up my claim to having made the hest scienUfio statement; 
 of "The Law of Consequences as Applicable to Mental, 
 Moral, and Social Science." George EUot always also; 
 held with me as a sequence to ^such doctrine of conse- 
 quences that one of the greatest duties of life was 
 unembittered- resignation to the inevitable. At that 
 time we were both very much interested in Phrenology, 
 aird in 1844 she had a cast taken of her head by Deville, 
 ii the Strand, which is stiU in my possession. We ■ 
 afterwards took lessons of Mr. Donovan, on Organology, 
 when he was staying at Coventry and converting aU the ' 
 leading men of the city to the truth of the science by- 
 the correctness of his diagnosis of character. Miss' 
 Evans's head is a very large one, 22 J inches round; 
 George Combe, on first seeing the cast, took it for a, 
 nian's. The temperament, nervous lymphatic, that is, ■ 
 afttive without endurance, and her working hours were^ 
 never more than from 9 a.m. tiU 1 p.m. The 3rdi 
 volume, of Strauss was very heavy work to her, and she 
 required much encouragement to keep her up to it; 
 In her brain-development the Intellect greatly predomi- 
 nates; it is very large, more in length than in itSi 
 
J. ANTONY FROUDE. 75^' 
 
 periplieral surface. In the Peelings, the Animal and 
 Moral regions are about equal ; the moral being quite 
 sufficient, to keep the animal in order and in dug' 
 subservience, but -would not be spontaneously active. 
 The social feeUngs were very active, particularly the 
 adhesiveness. She was of a moat affectionate disposition, 
 sSways requiring some one to lean upon, preferring what 
 lias hitherto been considered the stronger sex, to the other' 
 Etodmore impressible. She was not fitted to standi 
 £flone. Her sense of Character — of men and things, . is- 
 a predominatingly intellectual one, with which the^ 
 Eeelings have little to do, and the exceeding fairness, for 
 wMch she is noted, towards all parties, towards all sects 
 stod denominations, is probably owing to her little feeling: 
 on the subject, — at least not enough to interfere with her, 
 judgment. She saw aU sides, and they are always many,', 
 clearly, and without prejudice. In 1845 she went withi 
 us to Scotland, and when at Edinburgh we were called' 
 home suddenly by the tidings that her father had met 
 ■^ith an accident, and required her immediate presence. 
 ia 1849 her father died ; she was exceedingly depressed, 
 amd'we took her abroad to IVancej Italy, Switzerland^ 
 (fee. Sympathy wili J. Antony !Froude on the publicar- 
 ^6n of his " iN'emesis of !Faith" led to some little visiting 
 acquaintance with him, and he had arranged to go with 
 us abroad, and was to have joined us at the station ; but 
 instead of himself came a letter to say that he was going 
 to. be. married, which we thought a sufficient excuse, and 
 we have seen nothing of him since. We left Miss Evans 
 at' Geneva for the winter, but in 1850 she again joined 
 us, and was a member of my family for about twelve 
 months, after which she went to London. 
 
76 EOSEHILL AND FEIENDS. 
 
 We had rather a large circle of acquaintsuices at 
 Eosehill, of the better sort of literary people, for most, 
 of whom, however, we were obliged to go beyond the 
 town. 
 
 Although I had known Mary Ann Evans as a child at 
 her father's house at Griff, our real acquaintance began in 
 1841, when after she came with her father to reside near. 
 Coventry, my sister, who lived next door to her, brought; 
 her to call upon us one morning, thinking, amongst other 
 natural reasons for introducing her, that the influence, 
 of this superior young lady of Evangelical principles 
 might be beneficial to our heretical minds. She was 
 then about one-and-twenty, and I can well recollect her 
 appearance and modest demeanour as she sat down on a, 
 low ottoman by the window, and I had a sort of surprised, 
 feeling when she first spoke, at the measured, highly- 
 cultivated mode of expression, so different from the usual 
 tones of young persons from the country. "We became, 
 friends at once. We soon found that her mind was, 
 already turning towards greater freedom of thought in 
 religious opinion, that she had even bought for herself 
 Hennell's " Inquiry," and there was much mutual interest 
 between the author and herself in their frequent meeting 
 at our house.. She said of him, " Mr. Hennell seemed to, 
 me a model of moral excellence."* 
 
 Hennell's " Inquiry " is thus described by Miss Evans in one ot the notices 
 whioli she wrote in Mr. Chapman's " Analytical Catalogue," 1862 :— " The 
 first edition of this work appeared in 1838, when the present strong current ot 
 jmblic opinion in favour of free religious discussion had not yet set in, and it 
 probably helped to generate the tone of thought exhibited in more recent 
 
 works of the same class, to which circumstances have given a wider fame 
 
 works which, like the above, in considering questions of biblical criticism and 
 the philosophy of Christianity, combine high refinement, purety of aim, and 
 tandour, with the utmost freedom of investigation, and with a popularity ot 
 
LEBEN JESTJ. 77 
 
 In November, 1843, we went to London to be present at 
 Charles Hennell's marriage with Miss Brabant at 
 Pinsbury Chapel, where W. J. Fox, one of the most 
 eloquent preachers of the day, was the officiating 
 minister. Miss Evans went with us, and was one of the 
 bridesmaids, and she afterwards paid a visit to Dr. 
 Brabant, the bride's father, at Devizes, in order to cheer 
 him upon the loss of his only daughter. Dr. Brabant 
 was a personal friend of Dr. Strauss and a profound 
 German, scholar, and under his direction, his daughter 
 had begun to translate the " Leben Jesu.'' But after 
 translating two chapters, her marriage interfering with 
 the work. Miss Evans was persuaded by Mr. Hennell to 
 undertake the completion of it. The English translation 
 of the "Leben Jesu" appeared in 1846, and it is well 
 known how admirably Miss Evans fulfilled her task. 
 
 After the publication of the " Nemesis of Eaith," Miss 
 Evans wrote to Eroude to express her sympathy with 
 and admiration of the story, signing herself " Translator 
 of Strauss.'' Froude, through the publisher, wrote 
 begging the translator to reveal herself. She made no 
 reply, but shortly after wrote a notice of the " Nemesis" 
 in the Coventry Herald, which Froude saw and recognised 
 the style as the same as that of the writer of the letter, 
 
 stifle which wins them the attention, not only of the learned, but of the prac- 
 tical." 
 
 In a letter to Sara S. Hennell, dated Foleshill, Sep. 16th, 1847, Miss Evans 
 thus speaks of the same book ;— " I have read ' The Inquiry ' again with more 
 than interest— with delight and high admiration. My present impression from 
 it far surpasses the ono I had retained from my two readings about 6ve ytiara 
 ago. Apart from any opinion of the book aa an explanation of the existence 'of 
 Christianity and the Christian documents I am sure that no one fit to read it at 
 all could read it without being intellectually and morally stronger— the 
 reasoning is so close, the induction so clever, the style so clear, and vigorous, 
 'and pointed, and the animua so candid and even generous." 
 
7S HOSEHILL AND FRIENDS. 
 
 ■^nd was much interested to be introduced to Ms 
 ^reviewer, when he came to ' Coventry and ■ met Miss 
 .'Evans at our house. 
 
 For more than 20 years I corresponded with Mr, 
 -H. G. Atkinson, the joint author with Miss Martineau 
 oi " Man's Nature and Development." He was very 
 ■fond of writing, I suppose, as I generally received two 
 ■or three letters a month. Those who know his hand- 
 writing and style of composition, without stops or 
 -capitals, may perhaps pity me, hut there was always 
 something original that made his letters worth decipher- 
 ing. We had some fundamental agreements, as he was 
 a Phrenologist and Mesmerist, and so was I, but I leaned 
 V towards Idealism, and he decidedly towards Materialism, 
 and I learned more from what appeared to me to be his 
 errors than from his truths. I had a great respect and 
 .liking for him notwithstanding — respect, from the 
 i straightforward way in which he always stood up for 
 ';"what he considered to be the truth, however unpopular 
 'such truth might be. Bacon's -Works were -his Bible, 
 aand he was as well read in Shakespeare, a/nd he was 
 decidedly of opinion that Bacon, not Shakespeare, 
 . "wrote what have always passed for Shakespeare's Plays, 
 ,1 give, as below, from a recent letter i of his (AprU, 
 . 1882) on the subject : — 
 
 "Nothing," said Bulwer (the late Lord Lytton) to me once, 
 ■"is more difficult than ■for a literary man to cease his occupa- 
 tion!" What say. you ? But if we are to believe the story, 
 ■Shakespeare did, that is, retire to absolute idleness in the full 
 possession of his amazing faculties, and without library or papers 
 , of any .Jand, -and the. writer of his life thinks such a feat 
 " delightful to co&template," .&c. ; and taking no further 
 
BACON AND SHAKESPEARE. 7j9 
 
 fcaie lor the plays as though they were not, and twelve, of the 
 'finest not published until the folio of 1623 — seven years after his 
 death, and with the whole amended and some remodelled ! In 
 Bacon's last years of retirement, when the " Novum Organum " 
 came forth, and the "Essays and the Advancement of Learning, 
 with additions," under the new title of the " De Augmentis," 
 and at the same time the plays appear, while the William 
 Shakespeare lays mouldering in his grave, he having ended his 
 life in careless comfort out of the way of literature altogether, 
 while Bacon in his last years could not keep his pen from verse 
 making, but in spare hours cast the Psalms of David into fine 
 Shakesperian poetic form — a metrical version ; having secured 
 !the great works of his life in finished form f6r all time, with the 
 ; jlays as " types and models " to illustrate human character, and 
 ' his philosophy included. And I say, " Look on this picture and 
 on that," &c. The empty illiterate man of the play-house, axLi 
 the rich and ripe fullness and labour of Francis Baeon, who' had 
 name enough without the plays, and they in those days, and 
 -maybe in these, would not Jiave added credit to his grand schenie 
 of the renovation of philosophy for the benefit of man's estate 
 for all ages to follow ! Bacon, wanting a favour at Court, writes 
 to Davis (himself a poet) that he ought to be kind to so-called 
 pods, Davis being in the secret, of course. What is clenched 
 ^"by Sir Tobie Matthew's celebrated P.S. in a letter to Bacon :^- 
 "" P.S. The moai prodigioits wit that ever I knew of my nation 
 and of this side of the sea, is of your Lordshi^p's name, though 
 ■ lie be hnovm by another." The secret-required -him to be careful 
 oven in letters. Surely this is as clear and certain as that two 
 and two make four, and both Sir Tobie and Ben Jonson omit the 
 name of Shakespeare in their account of the literary magnates of 
 their time, and both refer to Bacon as the greatest man in 
 •literature "since the world was a world." There ; really seems 
 no room for a doubt- on the question, and yet the idea from 
 custom seems outrageous — ^the very deposing of a god, and 
 putting up a phantom figure in "his place. And here we find 
 Carlyle comparing the phflosophy and style of the plays, or 
 
80 EOSEHILL AND FBIENDS. 
 
 writer of the plays, with the " Novum Organum " of Bacon, and 
 Professor Fowler, in his later work, " Bacon's Novum Organum," 
 most emphatically asserting over again that the style of thought 
 in the " Novum Organum" can only be compared with Shakes- 
 peare, and with no other writer ; and neither supposing the two 
 writings to be by one and the same author. Let as many read 
 this as may be — ^no, no, not two gods but one god, and 
 Atkinson is his prophet. 
 
 Yours for ever, 
 
 Henbt Gr. Atkinson. 
 
 This is curious if true — a man has two immortalities 
 bestowed upon him and he gives one — ^probably the most 
 lasting, away. All I can say is that Bacon's head, as 
 given us in the well known bust by Roubiliac, is thel 
 •only one that I have seen out of which Shakespeare's 
 Plays could have come. But what is the value of pos- 
 thumous fame ! An old friend of miue, a Dr. C. B. 
 Nankivell, did the most towards the establishment of 
 Provident Dispensaries, and I see in the London report 
 upon the subject the credit is given to a Dr. Tankivell. 
 A letter in the spelling of our name may make all the 
 difference as who shall have the fame, when we are gone. 
 What is left to the wise is to " Be good and do good" 
 now. Do your best and leave the rest, is my motto— 
 " Permitte csetera Deo." 
 
 On my pointing out to Atkinson that Lord Campbell ia 
 his life tells us that he was reading Shakespeare through 
 that he might note his numberless allusions to law and 
 their great correctness, he writes : — 
 
 Lord Campbell says :— " On the retrospect I am amazed not 
 only by their number, but by the accuracy and propriety with 
 which th?y are uniformly introduced." And he adds : — " There is 
 
THE LATE BENJAMIN POOLE. •SJ 
 
 nothing SO dangerous as for one not of the craft to tamper -wit}j 
 our freemasonry." Again : — " While novelists and dramatists 
 are constantly making mistakes as to the law of marriage, ojE 
 ■wills, and of inheritance, in Shakespeare's law, lavishly as he 
 propounds it, there can be neither demurrer, nor bill of 
 exceptions!, nor writ of error,"' &o. j 
 
 Dr. Backnill finds the same complete knowledge of medicajl 
 learning in the plays, and in Bacon's, essays and the "Advance- 
 ment of Learning," &c„ and compares the astonishing list of 
 flowers in the cottage scene of the " Winter's Tale" and Bacon's 
 "' Essay on Gardens." '• 
 
 CHAPTER IX. ; 
 
 PURCHASE OP THE " COVENTRY HERALD " ; LAMMAS LAN!) 
 ENCLOSURE ; LOCAL CHARITIES. 
 
 In 1846 I purchased the Liberal newspaper, TJie 
 '{joventry Herald cmd ObseraeY, established 1808, an8 
 ■which afterwards, by amalgamation with a recently, 
 started penny paper of large circulation, became TAe 
 Coventry Herald and Free Press. The Tory paper be- 
 longed to a company, but its editing was left almost 
 entirely in the hands of a Mr. Poole, who had formerly- 
 been reporter to the Herald, but who was dismissed by 
 me iu consequence of his proved misrepresentation of the 
 speeches of political opponents. Through his agency the 
 Standard now lent itself to a systematic misrepresentation 
 of my actions, writings, opiaions, and even private 
 affairs,' and of course this had its effect. I recollect that 
 after a series of garbled extracts from my "Philosophy 
 
82 LAMMAS -LANDS. 
 
 of Necessity," in the votes for the committee of our 
 .tibrary Society, I fell from the top but one to the 
 tottom. As I did not attend any place of -worship 
 many good people -were puzzled to know what to mate 
 of me. It was reported that I belieyed in neither God 
 nor devil, and I pleaded guilty to the latter impeach- 
 ment, — ^because I believe in God I do not believe in a 
 devil. But not to believe in the devil was very bad, 
 and I was supposed to be guilty of all the immoral acts 
 ■which it is thought everyone else would be guilty of if 
 there were no devil. Some people put me down as 
 crotchetty, because I always advocated reforms before 
 public opinion was prepared for them ; almost aU my 
 crotahets, however, have now passed'into Laws. By my 
 Party — and I was never a strong party man, — I was 
 pronounced indiscreet, because I had a habit of speaMn^ 
 the truth, when it was not always thought prudent to do 
 80. I was too many-sided to come under any nick-name, 
 and the Tory paper, from the personal animus of its 
 editor, was always on the alert to put a false construc- 
 tion on what I said and did. I mention this because it 
 had a tendency to make public life distasteful to me, and 
 no doubt had considerable influence in inducing my early 
 retirement from it. Especially in one of my efforts to 
 benefit, as I believe, my native city, I was unfortunate 
 in reaping a harvest of unpopularity. 
 
 ;poventry was surrounded by what were called T.a.TnTnn.!^ 
 Lands (besides extensive Commons), which could 
 not be built upon, as the JVeemen had a right of 
 pasturage over them during part of the year. This 
 limited the extension of the city and injured it in many 
 
BILL FOE ENCLOSURE OP LAMMAS. 83 
 
 ways, — ^preventing the growth of a suburban population, 
 and the higher public opinion dependent upon it. 
 Although only about 300 Freemen out of 3,000 could make 
 any use of this right of pasturage, these few were very 
 jealous of it, and would not consent to the inclosure 
 except upon terms to which landowners would not 
 agree. Our city Parliamentary members were dependent 
 upon the Freemen's vote, and no one who valued his • 
 political influence dared to interfere. 
 
 In 1843 I set myself to obtain this inclosure by ' 
 obtaining the consent of the Freemen on condition that 
 they should receive one-third of the value of the land in 
 money. I carried a resolution to this effect in twelve 
 out of the thirteen Wards' of the city. The cowkeepers, 
 who derived nearly the whole benefit from the land, ' 
 showed hard fight, but I had some sturdy supporters. 
 "We were obliged to meet in the large room of some 
 public-house, and there, from eight at night till often 
 after twelve, in an atmosphere of beer and tobacco, we 
 fought it out. But I was not satisfied with this. I had 
 the city canvassed, and got the signatures of two-thirds 
 of the Freemen in favour of the enclosure on the above 
 terms. By these resolutions and signatures, the City 
 Council was induced to take up the matter and apply to 
 Parliament in 1844 for an Act sanctioning the enclosure 
 on these terms. But now we were doomed to have an 
 illustration of the fickleness of public opinion. The few 
 whose interests were opposed to the enclosure, backed by 
 a clever lawyer, persuaded their fellow Freemen that' 
 they were about to be robbed, and that I was in the ' 
 uiterest of the landowners ; and they returned to their 
 
84. ; LAMMAS LANDS. 
 
 original standpoiat,-;v-their determination to receive com- 
 pensation for tjieir right in land only. To this the land- 
 owners were still determined nqt to agree. The BUI there- , 
 fore was opposed, and, after about £500 had been spent on - 
 each side, was thrown out. Of course I was myself not 
 popular on either ,side, and at one time I could scarcely , 
 go from my home to business without being abused and : 
 sometimes pelted. Going home one night, when it was 
 very dark, I heard a knot of , workmen discussing the ■ 
 question. It was asked what I wanted with the 
 inclosure. One repeated the old tale that I was in , 
 the interest of the landowner ; another said that I was 
 rich and wanted the land round my house for a park j 
 another that they were both wrong, for I was what they , 
 call a " phe-lanthropi'st." "What's thatl" they asked.- 
 " Why," says the man, "it's a man who acts from no 
 motive at all." An unselfish motive, a motive that 
 was in no way personal, was with them " no motive at 
 all." But we have gone on fast since then, and most- 
 working-men know better than that now, although lihey ■ 
 have little faith in the practice of unselfishness. 
 
 But the question of the enclosure had been thoroughly, 
 stirred, and was never allowed again to sleep till it had 
 been effected. I never let the subject drop, although I, 
 coiild not move in it publicly. Our member, the Right 
 Hon. Edward Ellice,, gave me an introduction to Lord,, 
 
 Morpeth— Lord Carlisle I think he had then become 
 
 who had worked so hard . in promoting the health of 
 towns. He said that no one could tell, till he tried to 
 effect sanitary reforms, how strong the vested interests 
 in stinks were ! He promised to include the Coventry 
 
LOCAL CHAEITIES. 85 
 
 inclosure in one of the Bills for other to^wns f oi^ ' wliioh 
 he was about to apply — York, for instance. But in 
 the meantime it was discovered that the ineldsure might 
 ■be effected under what was called Lord Lincoln's Act, 
 and a petition was got up by the Freemen to the 
 Inclosure Commissioners praying them to take the 
 matter in hand. This they did, and an Assistant 
 Commissioner was sent down in 1855. After the 
 •customary delay the Freemen had assessed to them in 
 lieu of' their herbage rights 7-24:ths of the Lammas, 
 and l-5th of the Michaelmas lands, in all about 273 
 ■acres ; and thus the inclosure was at last effected, to 
 the great good of all parties concerned, except, perhaps, 
 the few Freemen who hitherto had monopolised all 
 the interests. 
 
 As Coventry was an ancient city, and as one of our 
 Mayors observed, always was an ancient city, it -^ras 
 cursed with a great many other charities besides these 
 Lammas Lands. There were "gifts" innumerable, and 
 consequently a class of people who made it their 
 business to look after these gifts. The effect was most 
 pauperisiug and demoralising. The foundation of all 
 other viHues in working men, as in most other men, 
 is providence, and these gifts were decidedly a pre- 
 mium on improvidence. A man trusted to a "gift'' 
 instead of to his own savings, and often lost more 
 time in running after it than it was worth, even if 
 he were successful in obtaining it; and two out of 
 three applicants were doomed to disappointment and 
 consequent difficulty and distress; to say nothing of 
 loss of independence and the toadying habits thus 
 
,86 LOCAL CHARTIES. 
 
 engendered. Perhaps the worst of these kind df 
 charities is what is called the Ladies' Charity, sup- 
 ported by an annual ball, the profits of which go 
 towards providing that children may be brought into 
 the world without any preparation being previously 
 made for them by their parents. Here, in case of a 
 child to be bom^ is plenty of notice given, 
 plenty of time to make preparation, and provide what 
 is necessary, and the educational influence of the pro- 
 vidence required is incalculable for good ; but the ladies 
 step in with their ill-judged charity, and a woman, 
 instead of trusting to her own savings to make pro- 
 vision, trusts almost to the last hour to getting a 
 lying-LQ ticket. The young ladies and gentlemen who 
 annually dance for the benefit of this charity do not know 
 the mischief and misery that are too often the conse- 
 quences; but it is the fashion, and no one dare dissent. 
 
 In 1855 and 1856 the Charity Commissioners proposed 
 to divert some of the worst of these charities to 
 educational . and other useful purposes. This raised a 
 perfect storm of indignation, not only among the 
 recipients of the charities, but also among the patrons, or 
 those who had the dispensing of them. This loud 
 expression of opinion carried along with it many who, 
 las Trustees of the Charities, admitted that they had for 
 years witnessed the mischief resultiag from them. The 
 excuse for their objection was that they did not Uke this 
 particular Bill ; it included charities of which they were 
 the special patrons, which it ought not to have done, && 
 I am proud to say that with my newspaper I stood alone 
 in the support of a Bill, — this Bill even, if we could not 
 
THE PROVIDENT DISPENSAET. 8T 
 
 get it amended. This support damaged the news- 
 paper for a time, but I am sorry t<S say -we have since 
 ■foeen let alone — ^the Charity Commissioners must be 
 " sent to Coventry" before they wiU try their reforming 
 hand here again. 
 
 Coventry' possesses one admirable institution in its. 
 Provident Dispensary, establisheid 1830. The memberSj 
 yrho must be exclusively of the -working class— i.e., those 
 who are in receipt of wages, pay Id. a week, and less for 
 children ; and this supplies them with medical advice, 
 attendance, and medicine, in sickness. (There is no 
 begging here, — ^it is a man's own provident and indepen-r 
 dent provision for a time when he is most likely to want 
 medical advice and assistance, and not to want the doctor's 
 biU. I have been on the Committee of this Institution 
 for 45 years. It now numbers, according to the last 
 report (1882), 16,000 members, and its receipts from its 
 Free Members were £1,640, paying each pf its three 
 Surgeons above £300 a year. It has now four Surgeons* 
 There was great opposition to this Institution when it 
 was first established, so that medical men iTequired to be 
 Tirought from a distance to work it. Not one of our 
 city practitioners would have anything to da with it ; 
 except the Honorary Physician. It was said that the 
 Institution would admit other than working men, and 
 would thus interfere greatly with medical practice. But 
 certainly no jvst cause of complaint has ever been 
 brought against the Institution on this ground, — ^the 
 only apparent exception to the rule arises from the fact 
 that where working men have raised themselves to be 
 Masters they are not obliged to- retire, this being, left to 
 
§8 ■ LOCAL CHARITIES. 
 
 theii' own Tgood sense: also that there may he a few 
 Members of Provident Clubs, and whose cireumstances 
 We are not able to inquire' intoj who belong to the 
 Provident Dispensary as members of those Clubs. "We 
 were very fortunate with respect to the first medical mefl. 
 Employed by the Institution, the great good sense and 
 indomitable firmness of Dr. 0. B. Nankivell haviri^ 
 Carried us over many difficulties and pit-falls* In a 
 :tecent history of these Institutions, which have now 
 very much increased throughout the country, this credit 
 ■liras given' to a Dr. rantiveU ! as I have' before men-^ 
 tibned. ' 
 
 ' An opposition Institution was set Up on the old unprovi-" 
 dent eleemosynary principle. The members were supplied 
 With reKef gratuitously — ^no subscription being required 
 on their part, provided they could teg a ticket, which 
 ■Was supplied at the expense of Honorary Subscribers* 
 This was not a very thriving concern, and on the 
 Establishment of a Hospital it was joined to that 
 Institution, doing as much harm by this system of out- 
 door medical relief as the Hospital itself did good. 
 Perhaps no organised charity is so altogether unobjec- 
 tibnable, or so useful even, as a Hospital, where people 
 can have their arms and legs cut ofi", and other surgical 
 Operations performed, and diseases treated that could not 
 •be so well attended to in the confined homes of the poor ; 
 -but when an improvident, eleemosynary system of out- 
 door relief is added to this, the charity does as much hann 
 -as good. At the Coventry Hospital half the out-door cases 
 who begged tickets could afford to pay for themselves, 
 >and the other" half being too poor to pay a penny a week 
 
COVENTRY HOSPITAL. 89- 
 
 to the Provident Dispensary, properly belonged to the 
 Parish doctor. The Governors, I believe, are quite 
 aware of this, and the difficulty in making the very 
 desirable change lies with the subscribers, who, it i& 
 thought, wiU not give up their patronage. Nevertheless, 
 the very principle of the Charity requires that tickets, 
 should admit to the Hospital only. A Hospital ought 
 to be a Hospital, and not an improvident Dispensary for 
 out-door relief as well, and I think probably the public 
 ihight be made to see this if the out-door attendance 
 were done away with. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EETIRE FROM BUSINESS — PRIVATE AND PUBLIC ; 
 PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 " In 1856, having secured, as I considered, a small 
 competency of about £400 a year, I gave up manufac- 
 turing. For several years my position in the trade had 
 been excellent, the goods we sent out were acknowledged 
 to be first-rate, and twice during that time I had reason 
 to believe I might have made a large fortune from inven^ 
 tions of my own. But the ribbon-trade is a fluctuating 
 concern at its best, and the worry and uncertainties 
 connected with it leave a man no time or repose for such 
 pursuits as I now more than all things coveted the 
 needful leisure for. Besides this, I had not capital 
 of my own sufficient to conduct a large business liable tO' 
 great reverses and sudden depressions, and it was contrary 
 to my principles to risk the capital of others. In the' 
 years 1860-3, when Coventry passed through its severest 
 
90 PERFECT LEIStJEE. 
 
 crisis of depression, and respectable firms broke do'wn 
 one after another like so many houses of cards, 1 had 
 reason to congratulate myself that I had pulled up. I 
 left my larger house, and went into a cottage of my own 
 adjoining it, of about half the size, but •with the same 
 pleasant surroundiiigs. Many people considered I had 
 come down in. the world, but, in my opinion, I had 
 decidedly gone up. 
 
 In 1860, when the Labourers and Artizans'- 
 Co-operative Society failed, and I was no longer required 
 as President, I gave up public life altogether. I was a 
 very popular Chairman so long as the Society was paying 
 from 15 to 25 per cent., but no one tolerates want of 
 success. In fact, I had not been successful anywhere, 
 whatever ultimate good may have come out of my 
 efforts, and the thanks I received were proportionate to 
 my success and my deserts. I never was thanked by 
 anyone at any time for anything I ever did, or perhaps 
 I ought rather to say, attempted to do. It has been the 
 same with my books. I never made a penny by any- 
 thing I ever wrote ia my Ufe, and I have no doubt many 
 who differ from me wiU say I never deserved to do. 
 Well, I never worked for either thanks or pay, but the 
 payment I have received — certainly not a pecuniary 
 one — I now, at the end of a rather long life, pronounce 
 to be ample. But to this I shall return. The popular 
 road, broad enough certainly, was open to me, but I 
 never could follow it, and even when the majority came 
 over to my side I generally left it and went on to 
 something else. 
 
 I now possessed the leisure I had always desired, with 
 
PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY. i)l 
 
 friends in proportion to our smaller house and means. 
 i now had, and have had ever since, the power of doing 
 what I liked best all day long, which I deem a consider- 
 able privilege ; a degree of liberty and emancipation 
 from conventionalism rarely attaine^,, 
 
 In 1861 I published a second edition of' my 
 
 "Philosophy of Necessity" in one volume. It had 
 
 taken twenty years to seU the first edition. But its 
 
 truths were as new and as unacknowledged as when it 
 
 was first published. It had a small but steady sale, 
 
 and Longmans said it was the book upon the subject, 
 
 which I took to mean the best book because there was 
 
 no other ; like the boy who was top but one in his class 
 
 of two. The appendix, which was not the least valuable 
 
 part of the first edition, was now omitted. It consisted 
 
 of " An Outline of the various Social Systems and 
 
 Communities which have been founded on the principle 
 
 ■of Oo-operation," by Mary Hennell, my sister-in-law, 
 
 and had already been re-pubKshed separately. I made 
 
 many other alterations. The Socialist Utopia was 
 
 handed over to the other Utopias of Plato and More 
 
 as altogether impracticable for ages to come. The 
 
 philosophy I had tested in practice. Just as much 
 
 as it dismissed the past to the inevitable did it put 
 
 the future in our power, as mind was not subject to 
 
 free-wiU or chance, but was as much the subject of law 
 
 as matter ; and whatever therefore we disapproved in 
 
 the past might be altered for the future by obedience 
 
 to such laws. Merit and demerit represent our likes 
 
 and antipathies, and we praise or blame, reward or 
 
 punish, as a means of producing one line of conduct 
 
 rather than another. 
 
92 PERPKCT LEISUBIl. 
 
 ■ *' A man's character is formed for him and not by 
 him," is the Socialist formula for expressing the doctrine 
 "of " Determinism," as it is now called, but by the study 
 "of, and obedience to, the Laws of Mind, a man has as- 
 much power over his own Mind as he has over any de- 
 J)artment of physical natute. He may greatly improve 
 "the original constitution upon which his character 
 'depiends, and what a man will do depends upon this, 
 'character and the circumstances in which he is placed. 
 'The " Philosophy of i^ecessity " puts the mental and 
 tnoral philosopher on a par with the student of physical 
 'Science. The calm that belong^ to the one belongs to 
 the other. A physicist in his laboratory doeS not excite 
 hiinself because his experiments are not always success- 
 ful, and the true Mental Philosopher in his apprehension 
 of,' and dealings with, his fellow men, knows that the 
 laws that govern them are unvarying, and that he has 
 but to employ the proper means on all occasions to pro- 
 duce the results he desires. Nothing tends more than 
 this conviction to the calm and quiet which is essential 
 to the formation of that habit of mind upon which the 
 Hghest happiness depends, and nothing tends more to 
 "worry and disquiet than the assumption that things 
 might have been and ought to have been different in the 
 past. Nor is this worry and disquiet at all necessary to 
 produce a different result in the future ; the conviction 
 that all happens and must happen in accordance with 
 invariable law is sufficient for that. The object of my 
 " Philosophy of Necessity," published in 1841, was to 
 show that Law reigned equally in Mind and in Matter ; 
 that there could be no mental, moral, and social s&ienoe 
 
LAW IN MIND. 93, 
 
 if it did not. We are now told by J3r. Bridges^ a leading 
 Apostle of Comtism, that this was the principal aim of , 
 Comte's Philosophy. In a published address given on. 
 January, 1, 1879, called " Prayer and Work," he says,- 
 *' The PMlosophie Positive, that work which has made 
 such a stir, amongst 'men of culture, but of which they 
 miderstood the bearing so very dimly, had no other 
 purpose whatever than this, to present all the principal 
 truths affecting men's life in an orderly series, and to ' 
 show that the laws and condition of spiritual health were 
 precisely of the same positive, scientific, ascertainable- 
 kind as the laws of his bodily health ; that the conditions 
 of harmony among man's variable passions were as" 
 definitely fixed, though far more difficult to realise, as 
 the conditions of harmony in the vibrations of musical 
 strings ; that misery wiU follow injustice with the same , 
 ■certainty that a stone set free from the hand will fall to .. 
 the earth. The first and the last object of Comte's life 
 ■Was to instil that sense of steady firm conviction which - 
 scientific truth establishes in the regions of man's- 
 ■emotions and conduct. ... It is. the one specially ^ 
 new thing that we have to teach men, that goodness and 
 justice, truthfulness and purity of life, do not rest on 
 the mysterious revelations of this or that prophet, be he- 
 Buddha, Christ, or Mahommed, but on laws of nature, 
 ■on an order of the world which the followers of all these 
 ■can recognise in common." It is this "new thing" that 
 I have been preaching for this last forty years, but I 
 was not aware that I had so strong an ally in. Positivism 
 —certainly none of its disciples have ever recognised me., 
 I cannot forbear quoting here a letter X received from. 
 
94: PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 Dr. Conolly, as a specimen of his playful style, and also 
 another that contains much worth preserving, on his 
 receipt of the second edition of the "Philosophy of 
 
 Necessity. 
 
 " Lawn House, Hanwell, London, W., 
 
 " April 5, 1863. 
 
 " My dear friend,— I most truly thank you for the copy of 
 your ■ great book.' First, I must say that I do not believe th^t 
 dear Mrs. Bray (who lives in my memory as a kind of angel)— I 
 say that I, do not believe dear Mrs. Bray finds the subjects treated 
 6i really ' distasteful ;' but that, as to myself, they sometimes 
 seem a little beyond the reaches of our souls. Perhaps not quite 
 so, however, only life is short, and to discover truth may be the 
 Tyorkof eternity. You are a young man, you know : but when, , 
 we have passed a certain portion of our existence here we begin 
 to ask ourselves what ' upon earth ' we are, wherefrom, where-! 
 fore. We acquire some knowledge of the things around us, their 
 vastness and grandeur, their minute and exquisite beauty ; we 
 consider our own faculties, their extent, and their limitation ; our 
 marvellous organization and life, its progressive development, its 
 inevitable decay— and much more, which I need not suggest to 
 you— and then we say, is not all this physical universe created 
 for some universal scheme and purpose — and we try by means of 
 our highest faculties to imagine whit the purpose can he. We 
 try also to attain some wise notion of our part in the plan, and in 
 what manner we ought to conform to the Creator of all around 
 us, and of ourselves. 
 
 " To pursue truth and to do good seems to be felt as our 
 clear duty. Of the Great First Cause we can still but say — 
 
 ' Thoq great First Cause, least understood. 
 Who all my sense confined 
 To know but this— that Thou art good, 
 And that myself am blind. 
 
 " We finxiously seek to know the height to which the highest 
 iiitellects have hitherto arrived in this matter — ^we ' unsphere 
 tlie spirit of Plato ' — ^we commune with his almost divine master, 
 
LETTER FEOM DE. CONOLLT. 95 
 
 pocntes ; we read the eloquent pages of Cicero, ' Bome's least 
 mortal mind ' — we peruse the fervent Epistles of Paul, as far as 
 geuiuue, and turn over all forms of faith, with all the supersti- 
 tious and venal attempts to ' circumvent God ' all over the worl^'i 
 and what then ? In truth we have not fair play. For most of us, 
 that is to say, speaking at least for me and all the orthodox, we 
 have been carefully taught what to think, but not at all how to 
 jihink. ''The magazine of the memory is stored and stuffed 
 betimes ; but the conduct of the understanding is all along 
 neglected, and the free exercise of it is, in effect, forbid in all 
 jplaoes, and in terms in some.'^-(Bolingbroke : 'True Use of 
 Ketirement and Study,' — ^which you will find very pretty 
 reading.) 
 
 " Very well — so we go on thinking and thinking, and wonder- 
 ing that any human being can live without thinking of aU these 
 things ; until the great teacher Death shuts up all the books and 
 museums in this world, and the thinking soul, in spite of Pro- 
 fessor Huxley, takes leave of the gorillas and apes, and leaves 
 jthem in l^eir progressive meditations to discover as much as it 
 carries away with it, and more if they can. 
 
 " My impression is, that if an angel were permitted to talk to 
 OS about the whole Eternal Flan we should not comprehend him ; 
 but that there must be a Plan, or, to quote Tennyson, 
 ' One far-off divine event 
 To which the whole creation moves,' 
 
 cannot be doubted. In the meantime, how singularly from time 
 to time are what may be called revelations of science and even of 
 morals made to man ; how wonderfully is the capability of the 
 cerebral organs now and then manifested ? Mozart when a child 
 composes matchless harmonies, Kewton reveals (not all Nature's 
 law, for he knew he was but as a child gathering pebbles on the 
 shore of the great ocean of Truth) — ^but truths before unknown ; 
 and how certain it is that the world has improved even since this 
 century began — ^which I am ready to depose on oath — all which 
 being admitted (I trust I am logical), I have a great fancy myself 
 that the time witt come when every part of this [globe viU be 
 mhabted— al regions cultivated and productive, all climates 
 
96 PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 thereby ameliorated, all the faculties of all men fully developed^ 
 with many results of comfort and happiness which I leave you to 
 imagine. Even now, my friend, vexed as we are and often 
 desponding, (as I was aU yesterday, oppressed with some unavoid* 
 able griefs — and as doubtless you sometimes are) even now, we 
 sometimes enjoy what Bacon calls a heaven upon earth. ' Cer- 
 tainly,' saith the great philosopher, ' it is heaven upon earth to 
 have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn 
 upon the poles of truth." 
 
 "And now, having written myself out, and not feeling par» 
 tioiilarly sure what I have been writing about, it remains for me 
 to assure you that I shall read every word in your book ; not the 
 summary only. To be sure I wince a little at the Political 
 Kconomy part of it — ^wealth, wages, land allotments,' and' so 
 forth — ^but you write so clearly and pleasantly that I am sure I 
 shall go courageously through every page. Ah me ! those were 
 pleasant days when I talked with you and George Combe as we 
 drove about those Warwickshire lanes. I trust you are not as 
 solitary as I am. Five years in the asylum* severe* me from 
 every body ; and now I am disinclined for all society, perhapij 
 unfit for it. Business, chiefly for the benefit of others, greatly 
 occupies me, and I am conscious that I do not like it qiiite so 
 much as I used to do. The mind is dull, or the garhient which 
 envelopes it is wearing out. I am sure the soul is not itself 
 touched at all, but the folds about it grow heavier. Last April 
 I had a slight attack of what my medical friends called 
 •pressure.' I suspect it was what Mr. Waller, sen., calls 
 ' applexy.' But I am not idle, and am writing a sort o^ 
 monitorial legacy to be read at a meeting of Superintendents of 
 Asylums in July. 
 
 , " Now and then we have visitors to whom one dare talk. 
 Lately a Miss Sewell, M.D., of Boston, U.S., has been here 
 occasionally ; young, intelligent, and unafiected, and studying 
 mental disorders, and also walking ' the hospitals,' and very 
 
 *Dr. ConoUy was Superintendent and.Caiief Physician of the HanweU 
 liunatio'ABylnm. 
 
FOECE AND ITS MENTAL COEEELATES. 97 
 
 courteously received everywhere^ — Vide Bray, p. 428, and seq. 
 Very witty — and no less wise than witty ! Gastronomy and 
 Astronomy ! ! ! ' 
 
 » * » « 
 
 " Yours ever truly, 
 
 "J. CONOLLY." 
 
 The second edition of the " Philosophy of Necessity," 
 ■which has a phrenological basis, was published partly by 
 subscription, and I asked the Doctor if he could get me 
 any subscribers. His reply was characteristic. "Next, as 
 to the ' Philosophy of Necessity ' : — it would be a physio- 
 gnomical curiosity to see the elongation of the faces of 
 my neighbours in this village of slumber, and this yet 
 uncivilized region of West Middlesex, if I asked some 
 of them to subscribe to your good work. ' The Essays 
 and Reviews' have suffocated many : — ^the ' Philosophy of 
 Necessity' would finish the rest. They must first, I 
 fear, be shown the necessity of philosophy. 
 
 ' Truth would you teach, or save a sinking land. 
 All fear, none aid you, and few understand.' 
 
 So said Pope, and so, I dare say, said Paul, and David, 
 and Moses, and the gentlemen who wrote before the 
 Deluge, and whose manuscripts, like the pots and pans 
 of Tubal Gain, perished in the waters.'' 
 
 In 1866 I brought out my " Force, and its Mental 
 Correlates." I recollect on reading Grove's " Correlation 
 of the Physical Forces " I could not see why correlation 
 jshould stop at the physical forces, and why ii 
 should not be extended to mental force. Mind is ji 
 force, coming to us through the food we eat, 
 and under the molecular action of the brajh what is 
 
98 PEErECT LEISURE. 
 
 called physical force becomes subjective conscious forcCj 
 or mind, and loses then its objective character as a raodfe 
 of motion, which it resumes under the action of the will. 
 Every creature has a soul and this is its source. Heat 
 is a mode of motion, or rather it is a force known to us 
 Taj its peculiar mode of motion ; the great heat or mode 
 of motion of our early globe has been transformed into 
 «,11 the varied motions peculiar to the infinitely varied 
 .forms which distinguish the vegetable and animal world, 
 -together with (by the aid of the sun force also) th^ir 
 souls Or modes of sensibility ; the different forms or 
 .shapes, 6r individualities, which these varied modes of 
 motion take, depending upoij. the brain with its modes of 
 sensibility or forms of • thought. Thus physical force 
 creates the mind and the mind creates the world. I 
 have endeavoured to put this ipore clearly in " lUusion 
 and Delusion," a pamphlet published in the " Scott 
 Series," and also in "Natural Law : as Automatic Mind 
 or Unconscious Intelligence," a paper read to, and 
 published by, the Psychological Society of Great Britain. 
 i was indebted not only to Mr. G. Grove, but much' to 
 James Hinton in his " Physiological Riddles," published 
 "in the Comhill Magazine. The book, " Force, and its 
 Mental Correlates," excited little notice, and I am not 
 aware that its conclusions have yet been accepted by any 
 j)hiksopher of note. It is true Herbert Spencer says 
 ." Various classes of facts unite to prove that the law of 
 metamorphosis, which holds among the physical forces 
 iolds equally between them and the mental forces. 
 JChose modes of the Unknowable which we call motion, 
 .li«at, light, chemical aflSnity, &c., are alike transformable 
 
FISKE ON SPENCER. 9S(. 
 
 into each other, and into those modes of the Unknowable 
 which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought ': 
 these in their turns, being directly or indirectly re- 
 transformed into the original shapes. That no idea or 
 feeling arises, save as the result of some physical force, 
 expended in producing it, is fast becoming a common- 
 place in science ; and whoever duly weighs the evidence 
 wiU see that nothiag but an overwhelming bias in favour 
 of a pre-concerted theory can explain its non-acceptance." 
 — "First Principles," p. 280. Mr. Kske, however, in 
 his "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy," says that an 
 unfailing parallelism between the molecular action of 
 the brain and feeling is all that has yet been established, 
 and that all the physical force expended is that which 
 is required to set the brain in motion ; that he and 
 all other philosophers confine themselves to this 
 expenditure only, and among these others he. includes 
 Herbert Spencer. But in this he is mistaken. If Mr. 
 Kske will turn to p. 120 of Mr. Spencer's, second edition 
 .of his " Principles of Psychology," he will find that Mr. 
 Spencer retains the opinions as expressed above. He 
 says : — " In brief, then, the quantitative correlation of 
 feeling and nervous change holds true only within narrow 
 limits. We have good reason to conclude that at the 
 particular place in a superior nervous centre where, in 
 some mysterious way, an objective change or. nervous 
 .action causes a subjective change. or feeling, there, exists 
 • a quantitative equivalence between the two : the amoui^t 
 of sensation is proportionate to the amount of molecular 
 transformation that takes place in the vascular substance 
 affected. But there is no fixed or even approximajie 
 
100 PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 quantitative relation between this amount of molecular 
 transformation in the sentient centre, and the peripheral 
 disturbance originally causing it, or the disturbance of 
 the motor apparatus which it may eventually cau se." 
 This is certainly a rather qualified statement to the one 
 given above, but Mr. Spencer himself says in a letter to 
 me, March 7, 1881, " That in making the qualifications 
 above specified it never occurred to me that any one 
 ■would suppose that I was diverging from the doctrine I 
 originally expressed in ' First Principles,' that there is. 
 not only a correlation between physical force and that 
 which we know as feeling, but that the one is, under the 
 conditions specified, transformed into the other. In 
 fact, I can conceive no other possible interpretation of 
 the phenomena." I am glad to have this clear admission 
 from Mr. Spencer, although he now seems disposed to 
 confine this quantitative correlation of feeling and nervous 
 change "within narrow limits," and the use he would 
 make of the truth, he would confine, so far as I know, 
 to still narrower limits, for he nowhere attempts to carry 
 this truth out to what appear to me to be its legitimate- 
 and exceedingly important consequences. With him at 
 present it is a comparatively barren truth. 
 
 Prom the want of the recognition of this truth, that 
 mind is a transformation or correlation of the natural or 
 physical forces, physical philosophers are forced to the 
 conclusion that mind does not act upon the body at all. 
 The persistence of force, or that "each manifestation of 
 force can be interpreted only as the efiect of some ante- 
 cedent force," logically necessitates this conclusion. That 
 the will does riot influence the body at all ought to h&te 
 
MACCALL ON BRAYING. 101 
 
 made them suspect that there was a link wanting, in. 
 .their sequences or reasoning, that the force of mind 
 could not be left out, and that " the persistence of force 
 is thus interrupted by psychical processes." We cannot 
 explain all motion on purely mechanical principles, and 
 when a philosopher asserts that his mind does not 
 govern his body, and that his will has no power over it 
 at all, his friends ought to look after him. , 
 
 As I have said my book excited little notice. I was 
 lionoured, however, by one notice beginning, " Fitly art 
 thou called Bray, my worthy friend ! Verily thou 
 brayest in fashion unexampled ! This was by a Mr; 
 MacoaU, author of " The Individuality of the Indi- 
 vidual," and he ought not to lose the credit of it. 
 
 The conclusions come to in my book put shortly are 
 as follows : — 
 
 There is but one Reality in the universe, which Physical 
 Philosophers call "Force;" and Metaphysicians "Noumeuon." 
 It is the ' ' Substance " of Spinoza, and the " Being " of Hegel. 
 
 Everything around us results from the mode of action or 
 tnotion, or correlation of this one force, the different Forms of 
 which we call Phenomena. 
 
 The difference in the mode of action depends u|)on the difference 
 in the Structure it passes through ; such Structure consisting of 
 concentrated Force, or centres of Force, and has been called 
 Matter. " Every form is force visible ; and a form of rest is a 
 balance of forces ; a form undergoing change is the predominance 
 of one over others." — HvxUy, 
 
 Heat, Light, Magnetism, Electricity, Attraction, Repulsion, 
 Chemical AfSnity, Life, Mind or Sentience, are modes of action 
 or manifestations of Force, and die or cease to exist, when the 
 J'orce passes on into other forms. 
 . Cause and Effect is this sequence or correlation ; and each 
 
102 PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 cause and effect is a new Life and a new Death : each new form 
 being a ilew crealaon, which dies and passes away, never t* 
 SJetum, for "nothing repeats itself, because nothing can be placed 
 again in the same condition: the past being irrevocable." — W. 
 jffi. Cfrove. "There is no death in the concrete, what passes 
 away passes away into its own self — only the passing away passes 
 away.*' — Hegel. 
 
 Force pa,SBing through a portion of the structure Of the brain 
 creates the " World " of our intellectual consciousness, with the 
 ."ego,-"' or sense of personal identity ; passing through other 
 portions of the brain, the world of our likes and antipathies-— 
 called the Moral world : Good and Evil feeing purely subjective^ 
 ' The character and direction of Volition depends upon the 
 Persistent Force and the #a:uoture through which it passes, 
 fivery existing state, both bodily and mental, has grown out of 
 the preceding, and all its Forces have been used up in presenit 
 phenomena. Thus, "everything that exists depends upon the 
 past, prepares the future, and is related to the whole." — Oersted, 
 
 As no force acts singly, but is always combined with other- 
 forces or modes of action to produce some given purpose or 
 {•articular result, we infer that Force is not blind but intelligent; 
 As Force is itrtelUgent and One, it would be more properly caUed 
 'Being — ^possessing personality ; and that Being we have called 
 God. "He is the universal Being of which all things are the 
 manifestations." — Spmoza. 
 
 ' All power ifl WiU power, — the will of God. "Causation is- 
 Hie *ill. Creation the act of God."— TT. B. Cfrove. The will 
 .*which originally required a distinct conscious volition has passed, 
 .•in the ages, into the unconicious or automatic, constituting th» 
 ifixed laws and order of nature. 
 
 Vital Force exists in excess in some constitutions, and may be 
 transferred to other living organisms, often constituting a 
 curative a^ent. 
 
 . Brjiin Force, the result of cerebration, also exists in excess in 
 some nervous constitutions ; it then forms a sphere or atmo«phere 
 
THE SCIENCE OF MAN. 103 
 
 around individuals by which one brain is brought into direct 
 communication with others and mind becomes a unity 
 Individual will-power can act through this medium beyond the 
 range of individual body. In this way may be explained the 
 ilysteries of Magic and Witchcraft, the Phenomena of 
 Mesmerism, of so-called Spiritualism, and the Curative Power of 
 individuals. 
 
 In 1871 I published my " Manual of Anthropology, or 
 Science of Man, based on Modem Research." Forty 
 years before Combe's " Constitution of Man " had 
 been to me, as to many others, an important stepping- 
 stone towards the true science of man, and this 
 " Manual " was an attempt to incorporate Combe's, 
 principles with the advanced knowledge of the present 
 time. I therefore received some little assistance from 
 the Henderson Trustees, whose funds were for the: 
 promotion of such objects. 
 
 There was room under such a title for the expositioit 
 of my own views on the constitution of man, which I 
 had made my special study, and the knowledge I had 
 acquired in this direction was as yet by no means 
 common. My chief aim was to point out " the relation* 
 between our . physical and moral natures ; " how and 
 where " physics and metaphysics — physiology and 
 psychology, became united, and the study of man 
 passes from the uncertain light of mere opinion to thft 
 region of [science." In the preface I quote Professor 
 P. G-. Taib's dictum, " that it is simply preposterous to 
 suppose that we shall ever be able to understand, 
 scientifically the sources of consciousness and volition." 
 Nevertheless, I have endeavoured to show the conditions 
 under which physical force, which in my doctrine is 
 
104 PEEFECT LEISURE. 
 
 dutomatio mind, again resumes its consciousness; how 
 the Persistence of Forces, and Philosophical Necessity,; 
 or Law in Mind, are one and the same ; and how, 
 therefore, our ethical systems may and must be brought 
 into harmony with this now known fact. Lamd and 
 Water says of the " Anthropology" (and the writer reaUy 
 seems to have read the book) : — " "We are so matter-of- 
 fact that a little brilliant, even if irregular, speculation 
 is quite a relief, and although we can hardly expect a 
 general popularity for this strange and clever book, we 
 can promise its author that he wiU find, at all events, 
 a small body of unprejudiced persons who will be glad 
 to see such novel views in print, however little they may 
 be disposed to agree with them." The critic was quite 
 right — ^its circulation has been confined to " a small body 
 of unprejudiced persons." A notice of the manual in 
 the Examiner says : — " Mr. Bray's style is eminently 
 popular. He throws a good deal of humour and feeling 
 into his writing ; and he affects less to conceal himself 
 behind a veil of pure reason than do authors in general 
 From his pages we feel that we know the man, and like 
 him." I afterwards made the acquaintance of the writer 
 and I certainly could not but return the compliment. I 
 have met few towards whom I have felt myself so much 
 drawn. He afterwards became the friend of Lord 
 Amberley, and the tutor and guardian to his children. 
 He died very young, Lord Amberley was a man of the 
 highest moral sense. 
 
 Probably my heretical opinions in those days interfered 
 with my power of public usefulness. I attended no place 
 of public worship — how could I be trusted in any capa^ 
 
ILLUSION AND DELUSION. 105- 
 
 city ! It is different in London, but in the country if a 
 man does not believe in the popular religion, and lets it 
 be kno'wn, it interferes very much with his success in 
 life : he is put in no public place of trust, and he is not 
 visited. This is less true than it was. There has been, 
 a considerable change in public opinion in this respect 
 during the last few years, and this change is rapidly in-, 
 creasing. 
 
 My next publications were some pamphlets for Thonjas 
 Scott, of Upper Norwood, for gratuitous circulation. Mr. 
 Scott devoted the l9,tter part of his life, and a large, 
 portion of his income, to the cause of Free Thought and 
 Pree Expression, and has done a noble work. I trust , 
 the Scott Series will be kept together, although he has 
 thankfully " gone to his rest," having been a great 
 sufferer. The pamphlets in question are : — 
 
 " Illusion and Delusion : or Modem Pantheism v.- 
 Spiritualism." 
 
 " The Eeign of Law in Mind, as in Matter." 
 
 " Toleration : With some Remarks on Professor 
 Tyndall's Address at Belfast." 
 
 " Christianity : Viewed in the Light of our Present 
 Elnowledge and Moral Sense." In 3 Parts. 
 
 Part 1. — " Religion Primitive and Among the 
 Lowest Races." 
 
 Part 2.—" The Christian Religion." 
 
 Part 3.—" The Cosmos." 
 . I wrote also two papers for the Psychological Society 
 of Great Britain, published, I believe, in their Transac- 
 tions. They are called 
 
 " Cerebral Psychology ;" and 
 
108 PERFECT LEISURE. 
 
 " Natural Law ; as Automatic Mind or Unconsdioxis.' 
 Intelligence." 
 
 Illusion and Delusion is thus briefly summarized-^ 
 lllatter is known to us Only from its capacity of creating 
 WitHn us certain sensations or modes of sensibility, 
 wKch we call ideas and feelings. Mind is th© 
 aggregate of these id^as and feelings, their character or 
 speciality depending upon the brain. ^ 
 
 The World, therefore, is created within us, and 
 although there is something without us, the world; as we 
 concewe of it, exists only in our conception. But 
 although the world is the world of our own ideas, and 
 exists only in thought, it is not the less real, or worthy,. 
 or wonderful. It is our world. 
 
 The Will is subject to " Law," like everything else. 
 Morality regulates the laws of man's weU-beiag, and as 
 it is the law of his nature to seek his well-being, the 
 interests of morality are sufficiently assured, whatever 
 may be his opmions on the subject. The body consists of 
 forces of nature individualized and acting together for a 
 special purpose. Their action depends upon the nice 
 balance established between external and internal rela- 
 tions. It has taken ages to bring together and establish 
 this relationship, and it is the unity of these powers 
 and their united action that coiistitutes the Identity of 
 the Ego. The forces which compose the body are all 
 capable of acting separately, and are indestrucitble, but 
 ■Jrhen this unity of body is destroyed, whether the 
 identity is destroyed is a question left for everyone 
 to answer for himself, as it is usually made a question 
 of feeling and not of reasoning. 
 
MESMERISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 107^ 
 
 " Thus matter, mind, the world, the -will, in the common 
 acceptation and as commonly conceived, are mere 
 niusions, and to many Delusions. The tenor of the 
 otTier pamphlets will probably be sufficiently understood 
 from what has gone before. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MESMERISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 Mesmerism ■ and Spiritualism, and their allied occult 
 sttbjects, have always had a special interest for me. It 
 was about 1841, I think, for I have no memorandum of 
 the exact date, that a M. Lefontaiae came to lecture at 
 Coventry on Mesmerism. He was sent up to me, as 
 everybody was who was supposed to be a Httle cracked. 
 I helped him to get up a lecture. He mesmerised a 
 young lady, who thereupon became quite insensible — 
 you might prick her and pinch her and fire a pistol at 
 her ear without any manifestation of feeling ; but this 
 was aU. The audience was more select than numerous,. 
 and many were not satisfied ; they expected more than 
 they had witnessed, arid Lefontaine ofiered them their 
 inoney again. One of our leading and most learned men. 
 had brought a quarto volume in English black letter; 
 ■with him and because the poor girl, sitting on this 
 volume, could not read it as well that way as with her 
 eyes, he claimed his money again. 
 
 At another time we had Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Massey 
 istaying with us. She exhibited in public, professing .t(> 
 
108; MESMERISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 be able to read without her eyes. Her eyes -were care- 
 fully tied over, or you were allowed to put your hands 
 over her face, but I noticed that she could not read till 
 the bandage was considerably displaced, and she was 
 obliged to go to the light, and if, when you held her 
 eyes, you did it effectually, she always complained that 
 you hurt her till you gave her more space. My opinion 
 in this case was that there was no more than an exaltation 
 of the natural sense of sight, which enabled her to see 
 under conditions which she could not do in her ordinary 
 natural state. I was present at a stance with 
 Alexis Didier at Silk Buckingham's British 
 .a.nd , Foreign Institute, in Hanover Square, of 
 which I was a member. He played ecart6 with 
 his eyes really blinded, and in several games 
 ^ade but one mistake. Several members went out and 
 bought packs of cards, opened them themselves, and pul; 
 one into a box. He always told correctly what it was. 
 A watch was covered over with a thick leather covering, 
 and put back or forward, and he always told the time as 
 j-t was by the watch correctly, as well as marked the 
 position of the hands on the outside. 
 
 A Mrs. Card, late Miss Eagle, exhibited a girl of 
 about 10 or 12 years of age in Coventry Fair for a 
 whole week. Her visit was originally intended for the 
 officers at the Barracks, but finding them out and the 
 fair Ml, she went there. I attended every day. What- 
 ever Mrs. Card could see the mesmerised girl could 
 describe. Her eyes were turned back in her head, an^ 
 by no possibility could she see. She told the number of 
 pay watch of five figures, as well as read writing inside 
 
ELECTRO-BIOLOGY. 109 
 
 it, and as a test put by myself she told the numbers of 
 three watches consecutively, each of live figures. People 
 came from all parts of the country around to hear about 
 their relations or friends abroad. In my own case she 
 ■vras quite successful. She told me correctly where my 
 nephew came from in America, what he had been doing 
 there, and that he was then in London. This I thought 
 ■fras a mistake, as a friend had just told me that he had 
 seen him at his uncle's in the country. But some time 
 after I asked him if he had been in London at that time. 
 He pulled the half of an excursion ticket out of his 
 pocket which he had sacrificed, and its date showed that 
 he was in London at that time. A person I knew asked 
 after his sons who had just gone to America. She said 
 she could not see them anywhere. The Mesmeriser was 
 Tcry sharp with her, saying, " Look, look again ! " 
 After some time she said they were on board ship, 
 
 - coming home, and would arrive in Liverpool on a certain 
 date, which I was told afterwards was quite correct. 
 
 With respect to Electro-Biology, or Hypnotism, in 
 which susceptible people are brought completely under 
 the wiU of the operator, I have seen a person in my 
 own drawing-room, at 20 feet distance, completely under 
 the silent will of the mesmeriser. I have also quite 
 satisfied myself as to the fact of what is called Phreno- 
 mesmerism, where different parts of the brain are brought 
 into separate active operation by touching them ; and I 
 have proved that this is not thought-reading, as the result 
 was entirely different from that expected and intended 
 
 > by the operator, and yet from my better knowledge Of 
 Phrenology I knew the effect was what it ought to have 
 been. 
 
110 MESMEEISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 I have been less successful in what has been called 
 Spiritualism. At Mrs. Marshall's,, in London, I saw g. 
 table, around which we were sitting, rise about two feet 
 from the ground and float away from us. I employed 
 considerable force, but could not keep it down. The 
 resistance was like that of a light body floating in water. 
 But this is nearly all I have seen that was not manifest 
 ■cheating ; for instance, lattendeda rather large and highly 
 
 ■ respectable private meeting, where a celebrated medium 
 was to induce the spirits to bring us any fruit we 
 might wish for. More than a dozen people were 
 very closely packed round a table ; the room was 
 completely darkened, a small chink in the shutters 
 being stopped up. After about five minutes something 
 ■was thrown on the table. But, alas ! no one had 
 what they wis^ied for- there were a few; apples- of a 
 
 peculiar sort, such as were on the sideboard in th 
 •other room, and some Brazil nuts, which coujd be pr9- 
 cured at any stall in the neighbourhood. So. that t}je 
 
 . spirits had not given themselves much trouble. Here 
 
 ■ are the peculiarities ; we were very closely packed, y,efc 
 - room was left for another at the right hand' of ■ the 
 
 medium, where I wished to sit, but was not allowed; 
 
 ■ our, host occupied the other side of the medium. Oi^e 
 . of the Brazil nuts was misshapen, and my attentiqn 
 
 was particularly called to it, so that when the spirits 
 . were -asked to crack the nuts for us, and they com- 
 plied in the dark, my attention was again called to the 
 misshape nut in proof that they were the same as 
 we had seen before. Then the company were sepa 
 , lately asked, all except myself, what was the use .of 
 
AN AMERICAN MEDIUM. Ill 
 
 Spiricualism, and all seemed to regard it as a sort 
 of supplementary revelation, -with direct proof of our 
 Immortality. I mention no names, only I am sorry 
 to see that A. E. Wallace includes the doings of this 
 medium among his proofs in evidence of the truths of 
 Spiritualism. 
 
 At another time I was told a celebrated medium had 
 just arrived from America, and I was invited to attend 
 a special meeting got up for my particular benefit. I 
 went, taking two friends with me. There were present 
 the lady medium — a young and pretty girl, with, her 
 father or husband, husband I think, and three other 
 men, whose faces and heads were a study for the 
 Physionomist and Phrenologist. There was also the 
 ^eatleman who had invited me, and whom I was par- 
 ticularly sorry to find mixed up with such a performance. 
 Gentlemen were appointed to see fair play. The lady's 
 hands were then tied behind, first by her husband, who 
 -tied the first knot, and then the other gentlemen were 
 -allowed to tie as many knots over that as they hked. 
 : The lady then sat with her back to a door, into which. 
 ,a ring had been fastened immediately opposite where her 
 , hands would be, and which no doubt was intended to 
 assist the lady in getting her hands free. A curtain 
 was then drawn in front of the lady, the light was 
 lowered, and then we had the usual manifestations of 
 the spirits playing on instruments, with hands and heads 
 ■dimly appearing above the curtain. All this was done 
 •\rery quickly, and then the lady called light, that we 
 , might see that she was still bound. When there was 
 .more than usual exertion, dexterity, and quickness 
 
112 MESMERISM AND SPIRITUALISM. 
 
 required, the tone in -which the lady called out " light" 
 showed her to be completely out of breath. We then 
 formed a circle in the dark, the lady in the middle, and 
 clapping her hands "without ceasing to show she could 
 not be otherwise occupied, and we were particularly 
 requested by her not to be so unkemd as to loose each 
 other's hands, and then all sorts of fool's tricks were 
 played, upon me especially — the spirits evidently re- 
 senting my unbelief. All this was doubtless bare-faced 
 trickery, performed hy the aid of confederates^ss it seems 
 to me all the greatest wonders of spiritualism always are 
 — ^pious frauds in aid of the New Revelation. 1 give 
 the above merely as examples, of course I have seen a 
 great deal more, and much more than I am able to 
 account for. I reject the " spirits" altogether. Spirits 
 have been called in to account for every unknown cause 
 ever since the world began. There are no greater 
 ■wonders in Spiritualism than in Mesmerism, and we 
 don't need spirits to account for thought-reading and 
 clairvoyance. Kepler could not tell how the planets 
 could be kept to their orbits, so he assumed that there 
 were guiding spirits ; how else could it be % Newton, 
 wiser, 1 think, thought the Great, All-pervading, 
 Supreme Spirit was enough ; and so I think it will 
 prove with respect to the abnormal conditions of mind 
 called Spiritualism. "We shall not want the Spirits ; 
 Universal Mind will be sufficient. 
 
 First, we have to examine what its special mode of 
 
 manifestation through the brain can do. Look at the 
 
 capacities of the organ of number, as exhibited in the 
 
 ' late Geo. Bidder and others, of the mathematical organs 
 
THE WILL. 113 
 
 in. Sir I. Newton, &c., and then can we say what the 
 other intellectual organs might do if equally largie or 
 Unduly excited 1 
 
 Again, what is the Will, and how far can it act be- 
 yond our own bodies 1 All power being Will power, 
 what is the limit of our own individual Will power 1 
 We must answer these questions more correctly than we' 
 have done yet before we are entitled to call in the aid of 
 any other spirits than our own. Physical force under the 
 molecular action of the brain becomes conscious or mental 
 force, and as all force is persistent or indestructible, the 
 question is, what then becomes of it t We know the 
 greater part of it passes oflF through the body as Will 
 power, but facts woiild seem to indicate that tables and 
 other things may be charged with it, as Ley den jarS 
 with electricity ; that a whole room can be filled with 
 this force, through the medium of which the Will can act. 
 I have spoken elsewhere of a thought atmosphere, and 
 have been much ridiculed for so doing, but by a thought 
 atmosphere I mean an emanation of this force, which has 
 o recently been conscious or mental force. There is as 
 physical and mental atmosphere about us all, so that we 
 become better or worse according to the company we 
 keep, and the " Communion of Saints " becomes a 
 physical fact. See also J. S. Glennie's theory of Mutual 
 Influences : — 
 
 " Star to star vibrates light, May soul to soul 
 Strike thro' a finer element of its own ?" 
 
 Again, all physical force is unconscious or automatic 
 
 mind, and we know little at present of the conditions 
 
 under which it again resumes its consciousness. The 
 
 H 
 
114 TALKING AND WRITING. 
 
 opinion of Walther, the Professor at Landshut quoted by 
 Gall, is, I think, worth our consideration : "In the 
 highest stages of mesmerism," he says {i.e., in clair- 
 voyance), " time and space no longer present obstacles 
 to the penetration of the magnetised," the reason of 
 which is that, " all the nervous system is an identity and 
 a totality — a pure transparence without cloud, such is 
 universal sense, and as in the waking state the soul is 
 more closely and intimately united with the body, and 
 natural sleep is a more intimate communication of our 
 soul with the universal soul of the world, so in magnetic 
 sleep our soul is united in the most intimate manner 
 with the soul of the world and with the body, and with 
 the latter not by means of the nervous system only, but 
 immediately in all its parts and members, so that life is, i 
 no longer a particularity, but original life." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 TALKING AND WRITING. 
 
 Talking and writing are to me the great wonders of 
 the age. A man's talent is gauged by his power of 
 talking. Thus Lord Aberdeen, a wise man, late in life 
 said in a letter to the Prince Consort, " "Wisdom t why, 
 the country is not governed by wisdom, but by talk. 
 Who can talk wiU govern."* A speech in Parliament is 
 thought nothing of if it is under three hours long, and it 
 would not tell at all, that is, it would not be backed by 
 
 *LiJe of Prince Consort, vol 5, p. 855. 
 
LONG SPEECHES. 115 
 
 public opinion, if what is said had not been said many 
 hundred times before. When a subject has been before 
 the country for a quarter or half a century it becomes a 
 proper object for legislation, and we might suppose that 
 he who could then express himself the shortest upon it 
 would be the most acceptable, rather than he who could 
 spin the longest yam. It is like the repetition of the 
 Lord's Prayer five times in one service. " Speech is' 
 sUvem, silence is golden." says our great philosopher, 
 " Avoid vain repetition, for ye shall not be heard for 
 your much speaking,'' said a greater than he. Our 
 practice, both in Parliament and out, is just the reverse, 
 Mr. Roebuck, I think it was, who said, " When I speak 
 in public, I fix my eye on the most obtuse looking man 
 present, and keep on repeating my idea in various forms 
 tUl I see by his face that he has taken it in • then I go 
 on." Thus, perhaps, may be accounted for the necessity 
 for long Parliamentary speeches " An apt debater in 
 Parliament," says Carlyle, " is by no means certain to be 
 an able administrator of Colonies, of Home or Foreign. 
 Afiairs ; nay, rather quite the contrary is to be presumed 
 of him. . . . No mortal can both work, and do 
 good talking in Parliament, or out of it : the feat is 
 impossible — that of serving two hostile masters." 
 
 So in writing, people are paid to cover an immense 
 amount of paper for dailies, and weeklies, and monthlies, 
 and quarterlies, and the quality is generally in inverse 
 proportion to the quantity, and the speed at which it has 
 been produced. The hack-writers have little time to 
 read, and none to think, and we may judge therefore 
 what their work is ordinarily worth. Yet the public 
 
116 TALKING AND WRITING. 
 
 have little else to guide them. A man, probably of 
 more than ordinary capacity, may spend his life in. the 
 study of a subject, and if he publishes his opinions there 
 is not any one of these writers but can teU him, if not 
 eaactly where he is right, at least, where he is wrong. 
 Truth is judged by literary skill in the mode of 
 expression. Thus, "Public Opinion'' in noticing my 
 " Psychological and Ethical Definitions,'' says (August 
 16th, 1879) "Mr. Bray's literary skill is not great, yet it 
 seems to have induced him to step iuto the authoritative 
 position of a master-philosopher, and teach others." If 
 what I had to teach was Composition, this would have 
 been a pertinent remark, but, fancy my being " induced" 
 to teach others by a knowledge of my literary skill — of 
 which truly I never thought. I thought only of what I 
 had to say, and perhaps not enough, of how it should be 
 said. But the B.eviewer truly represents " public 
 opinion." Poor public, that never thinks for itself ! 
 George Combe never sent his books for review ; he 
 declined, he said, to allow an Editor to exercise his 
 sielf-esteem at his expense. Our periodical literature has 
 two landmarks for its guidance, first, a certain amount 
 of public opinion, that is, what will pay ; and, secondly, 
 certain names, which apart from their speciality, are 
 often only misleading. But it is like looking for a needle 
 in a bottle of hay to look for truth in all this mass of 
 verbiage. HenceJ^the infinite variety of opinion on all 
 subjects. 
 
 I found the introduction to Dr. Neil Amott's 
 " Elements of Physics" of more use to me in directing 
 aad classifying my studies, when I was young, than any 
 
SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY. J 17 
 
 other single production. He there points out the con- 
 nection and relation of the sciences, observing that fiv© 
 good books would suffice to furnish^usVith the principles 
 that would supply a sound basis for judgment in almost 
 all matters. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY ; RESULTS OP MY EXPERIENCE J 
 PROGRESS DEPENDENT UPON IMPROVED BODILY 
 ORGANIZATION ; CAUSES OP THE PAILURE OP COM- 
 MUNISM OR SOCIALISM ; BREEDING, MARRIAGE, AND 
 MATERNITY ; THE DISTRIBUTION OP PORCE. 
 
 I am seventy to-day — January 31, 1881 — a great age 
 for one of my family to have attained, since with few 
 exceptions aU have died early. My grandfather, father, 
 and father's only sister, died of apoplexy ; my father 
 died at 57, and I never expected to exceed his time, 
 since heredity greatly determines the length of life. I 
 have probably but a short time now, for although my 
 general health is good, I suffer greatly at times from 
 chronic bronchitis and asthma. The question with me, 
 therefore, now, is whether I have anything to say, based 
 on the experience detailed above, that may prove to be of 
 service to others. I think several points may possess 
 such value. 
 
 In the first place experience has taught me that all 
 permanent Progress must be measured by improved 
 organization. It is not enough to know what is rightj 
 
us PKOGRESS. 
 
 we must feel a disposition and determination to do it, 
 and this will depend upon our organization, with strength 
 of feeling in proportion to the size of the cerebral organs. 
 It is useless to expect unselfish feelings, except on quite 
 exceptional occasions, from persons in whom the, 
 selfish feelings predominate, and this predominance 
 depends far less on education or circumstances than on 
 organization. The conduct of a person in whom the 
 intellect and the selfish and unselfish feelings are equally 
 balanced, will depend upon the circumstances in which 
 he is placed ; one in whom the intellect and unselfish 
 or higher moral feeUngs predominate alone can represent 
 the highest type of man. Communism, Socialism — ^that 
 is every system involving community of interest — must 
 always fail until a man has as much appetite for what is 
 right as for food — until a man's conscience grips him as 
 painfully if he does not do right as his stomach does if 
 he neglects to take nourishment. All our " MiUenimns " 
 have yet failed — ^because unselfish conduct was expected, 
 from people in whom the selfish feelings predominated.. 
 We have witnessed the fate of Robert Owen's last 
 attempt at Tytherly, or Queenwood ; and Abram Oombe, 
 George and Andrew's elder brother, was not more suc- 
 cessful at Orbiston, but kiUed himself in the effort to 
 bring about a more perfect state of things. He did more 
 than his share of work, while more selfish people did lesa 
 than their share. We are told in George Combe's Life, 
 " that for a brief period after the death of Abram an 
 attempt was made to maintain the Community at Orbis- 
 ton under the management of William Combe. But the 
 men worked at their ease and exacted full pay ; the pay- 
 
IMPROVED ORGANIZATION. 119 
 
 ments exceeded the production, and there -was inevitable 
 loss to the proprietors. The latter began to see that 
 they had blundered, and several ■withdrew from the 
 establishment, which, therefore, collapsed, with great 
 loss to all concerned." The more tempered efforts of the 
 Revds. F. D. Maurice, Charles Eongsley, Thomas Hughes, 
 and others, to bring about Christian Socialism were not 
 much more successful. No man will place himself second 
 to the interests of the Community till his organi- 
 zation fits him for it. 
 
 New Religions, however ideal and perfect they may 
 start from their gifted founders, have always to be 
 lowered in practice to the lower organization and moral 
 status of the community among which they are attempted 
 to be introduced. Great were the hopes entertained* 
 among the highest minded people every where, as to the 
 effect of the great French Revolution. Principles were 
 perfect, but the people by their organization were not 
 prepared for them, and the hurricane left the masses 
 very much as it found them ; a little improved, perhaps, 
 in material condition, but morally no higher. " I once 
 thought," says Carlisle, " that the French Revolution 
 was the abolition of rubbish. I find it has been only the 
 kindling of a dunghUl. The dry straw on the outside 
 bums off ; but the huge damp rotting mass remains 
 where it was. — Froud^s Life, vol, 2, p. 54. 
 
 The late Professor Clifford tells us, " Actions are good, 
 or bad as they tend to improve me as an organization." 
 We want to make an organic thing more highly organic j 
 and the question for all reformers is. How can this be 
 brought about 1 It must necessarily be a slow process. 
 
120 BREEDING, MARRIAGE, AND MATERNITY. 
 
 If an advanced public opinion enabled us to pay the same 
 attention to breeding in man as we have done in animaJs 
 we might go faster. Our Savants scarcely dare allude to 
 this even in the most distant way. Thus, Huxley at the 
 meeting of the British Association, held at Dublin (1868) 
 says : — 
 
 The whple tendency in the present direction [i.e., towards the 
 above burning questions of anthropology), was given by the 
 publication of a single book, and that not a very large one — 
 namely, " The Origin of Species." It was only subsequent 
 to the publication of the ideas contained in the book that one of 
 the most powerful instruments for the advance of anthropological 
 knowledge — namely, the Anthropological Society of Paris — was 
 fpunded. Afterwards the Anthropological Institution of this 
 country and the great Anthropological Society of Berlin came 
 into existence, until it may be said that now there is not a branch 
 of science which is represented by a larger and more active body 
 of workers than this science of anthropology, and the whole of 
 these workers are engaged more or less in working out as their 
 ultimate general and great problem whether the ideas which 
 Darwin has put forward in regard to the animal world are 
 capable of being applied in the same sense and to the same extent 
 to man. That question, I need not say, is not answered. It is 
 an enormous question, and one for which a definite answer may 
 possibly be looked for in the next century ; but the method of 
 inquiry is understood, and the mode in which the materials are 
 now being accumulated bearing on the inquiry, the processes by 
 which results are now obtained, and the observation of these 
 phenomena led to the belief that the problem also, some day or 
 other, will be solved. In what sense I cannot tell you. I have 
 my own notion about it, but the question for the future is the 
 determination by scientific processes and methods in what way 
 that question will be solved. 
 
 However at present imperfectly understood, no one 
 can dispute the laws of Heredity on both the father's 
 
MATERNITY. 121 
 
 and mother's side. The perfection of the instrument on 
 which mind depends probably has more to do with ther 
 time before a child's birth, and the first t'welve months 
 after, than upon any other period of its existence. Yet 
 how little attention is at present paid to this J The; 
 physical, mental, and moral force that ought to go to- 
 form the coming child is diverted in every possible 
 foolish way. Look for instance at the conventionalities, 
 that surround the young wife who may be expecting to 
 become a mother, in the upper and middle class, and the- 
 physical toil that is required of the wife of the poor man. 
 Comparatively very little can be done to mend or repair; 
 the deficiencies of an originally defective constitution 
 often originating at this period. " Art and industry 
 may get much music, of a sort, out of a penny whistle ; 
 but when all is done it has no chance against an organ. 
 The innate musical potentialities of the two are infinitely 
 difierent." . The evolution of a world is not more com- 
 plete or wonderful -than the evolution of a chick in the 
 egg, from the germ to the perfected feathered creature., 
 The mind too of the chick is also bom in the egg, for the 
 bird pecks its way out at the proper time and discrimi- 
 natingly pecks up its food immediately afterwards., 
 During the period of gestation in the human subject the 
 nervous system goes through all the stages of animalcule,; 
 worm, fish, reptUe, beast, and man, and it depends very 
 much upon the mother at what stage this evolution 
 shall stop, at least as regards the more or less perfect 
 development of the man. It may stop at the stage of 
 the idiot, with a brain only 19 iuches round, or go on to 
 a Newton ; it may stop at that of a mere brute beasj;,^ 
 
122 BREEDING, MARRIAGE, AND MATERNITY. 
 
 •with every selfish feeling predominant, or it may go on 
 to that of a Howard or a Shakespeare : for a sensibility 
 or power of feeling increases in proportion to the enlarge- 
 ment and complexity of the nervous system. The 
 nervous substance is the same in all, and as part after 
 part is added to it the range of its function extends ; 
 every faculty that gives superiority being attended with 
 addition to its mass and texture, until in man we find it 
 possessing some parts of which animals are destitute, and 
 wanting none which they possess. 
 
 Now If we are to adopt Darwinism, and are to admit 
 a principle of Natural Selection in aid of unproved 
 organisation, matrimony must be' entered upon with very 
 difierent views and feelings to what it is at present.' 
 Phrenologists have especially recognised this principle in 
 practice, and in that respect are as superior with respect 
 to their physiology as their abstract science of mind is 
 superior to any system of mental philosophy that yet 
 exists. At present a large proportion of mankind pro- 
 ceeds in utter ignorance and disregard of the organic 
 laws which regulate both paternity and maternity ; and 
 the consequences in unhealthy children, in bad or mad 
 children, are laid upon the fall of Adam or upon 
 Providence, who is supposed to send such miseries to 
 prepare us for another and a better world.* I suppose 
 
 *" Speaking of the young inmates of the houses of correction, Dr. 
 Legrand du Saulle calls attention to an entire category among them of 
 creatures who are whimsical, irritable, violent, with little intelligence,' 
 refractory, ungovernable and incorrigible." These are the children " sometime, 
 of old men, blood relations, drunkards, epileptics, or lunatics. Sometimes, and 
 this is the more frequent case, their father is unknown, and their mother is 
 Borotulous, rickety, hysterical, a prostitute, or a lunatic."— Professor Th. Kibot, 
 on Heredity. 
 
MORAL BLINDNESS. 12 J 
 
 any allusion to too many children would be actionable I 
 A thought, a -word, is sufficient to bring the blood into 
 the face in what we call a blush. To do this the mind 
 must act upon the nerves, the nerves upon the muscles, 
 and thus dilate and enlarge all the small blood vessels. 
 Another word may contract and empty them, making a 
 person as pale as death, and every wave of thought and 
 feeling may act, through the nervous system, upon the 
 coming child. How carefuUy therefore ought the mother 
 to guard herself and to be guarded against all unnecessary 
 work and mental worries during the period of gestation. 
 The bees can turn a common working bee of no sex into 
 a queen bee by judicious treatment, and we may learn 
 something of their secret. The organs upon which the 
 highest feelings depend are but very imperfectly 
 developed at present in the mass of mankind. There is a 
 moral blindness as well as a colour blindness, both arising 
 from the same source — deficiency in the organ. Men 
 foUow their predominant faculties six days in the week 
 and on the seventh pass from worldliness to other-world- 
 liness ; and with respect to any disagreeable duties to 
 which their organisation indisposes them they are so ww- 
 educated and so clever now-a-days that they can always 
 find good reasons for not doing what they do not like to 
 do. The Clergy inay preach and practice too, and we 
 may get the language and semblance of virtue, but so 
 long as the selfish feelings predominate, men , will be 
 selfish, and help themselves at other people's expense 
 under whatever fine names of Social or Political Economy 
 they may do it. Let our moral and spiritual guides 
 bear in mind what George Eliot has so well expressed : — 
 
124 THE DISTRIBUTION OF FOROK 
 
 " Threats and promises 
 Depend on each man's sentience for their force : 
 All sacred rules, imagined or revealed, 
 Can have no form or potency apart. 
 From the percipient and emotive mind. 
 God, duty, love, submission, fellowship. 
 Must first be framed in man, as music is, 
 Before they live outside him as a law." 
 
 As without the organ of Tune we can get no music out 
 of a man, so without a predominently moral organisation, 
 no music of the soul. 
 
 Having, by every means in our power, procured as 
 perfect an organisation as we can to start with, our next 
 care must be to attend to its full growth and develop- 
 ment. The food supplies the Force that works the whole 
 system bodily and mental. Under the varied action of 
 the body this force takes the form of Vital, Electrical, 
 Muscular, Nervous, and Mental Force. Of course these 
 forces are all intimately connected, but it is that to 
 which they are all made subservient, the mental force, 
 with which we have principally to do ; and that which I 
 want especially to call attention to is the fact that all force, 
 derived principally from the food, is a limited quantity, 
 and that what is expended in one direction cannot be 
 used in another, so that even muscular exercise, more 
 than is sufficient for bodily health, must be at the 
 expense of mental power. More attention requires to be 
 paid than has ever yet been paid to this " dissipation of 
 energy." Thought and feeling are by far the greatest 
 consumers of this force, and the way in which the young 
 brain, in process of growth, is now pushed into too early 
 intellectual exercise in all sorts of passings and examina- 
 
AMATIYENESS. 125 
 
 tions cannot be too much reprobated. It is doing- 
 infinite mischief in drawing ofif the force from the perfect- 
 ing the instrument of thought — the brain, and in complet- 
 ing the general growth. "The educational abomination 
 of desolation of the present day," says Huxley, "is the 
 stimulation of young people to work at higher pressure 
 by incessant competitive examinations. . . . The 
 vigour and freshness which should have been stored up 
 for the purposes of the hard struggle for existence in 
 practical life, has been worked out of them by precocious 
 mental debauchery, by book-gluttony and lesson- 
 bibbing."* It is true that the intellectual faculties, 
 attended with little feeling, consume comparatively little 
 force, but any strong passion absorbs an immense 
 amount. The strongest feeling, and the largest organ — 
 the cerebellum — is that connected with the carrying on of 
 species, that is, the sexual feeling or Amativeness, and 
 this is therefore the largest consumer of force in the 
 whole system, and requires the most careful regulation 
 and restraint. In early life, before the age of puberty, 
 there is little or no feeling connected with the organ ; the 
 force is then engaged in perfecting the parts belonging to it ; 
 afterwards it is very undesirable that the feeling should 
 be exercised before the growth of the whole bodily 
 system has been completed. Where it is so exercised it 
 is at the expense of some other part of the bodily or 
 mental system ; and when in excess, which is too often 
 the case, it drains the body of an amount of force which 
 is absolutely necessary to complete the growth. In fact, 
 the too great indulgence of this feeling is always bad» 
 
 *See note on J. S. Mill, at the end of the Chapter. 
 
126 NATURAL DEATH. 
 
 "but the too great early indulgence stops the growth of 
 the body, and leads to mental imbecility, to partial or 
 even complete idiocy. Complete knowledge of the 
 physiology and psychology of this subject is perhaps the 
 best check ; most of the mischief proceeds from 
 ignorance, and this often among the best-disposed, whose 
 moral sense would not admit of a,ny objective or outward 
 manifestation. In my view one man and one woman 
 are required to make one human being ; they are each 
 incomplete by themselves. Matrimony is the law of our 
 being, and it is in that state that Amativeness comes 
 into its proper use and action, and is the least likely to 
 be indulged in excess; and it is there also that the 
 feeling, as it ought to do, acts only in association with 
 the social and higher feelings. 
 
 I have dwelt on this feeling as the strongest and most 
 liable to abuse ; but all our powers of both body and 
 mind require regulating on the same principle. " You 
 ■cannot eat your cake and have it," and you cannot spend 
 energy in one direction and have it for use in another. 
 Tranquility therefore, of body and mind is much to be 
 desired, as constituting a great reservoir of force. 
 Irritating noises and all sources of irritation are as much 
 as possible to be avoided. 
 
 When all this force is used up, and from imperfection 
 in the machinery by which it was supplied, it caimot be : 
 restored, death is the consequence. "When at last, in 
 old age, the bodily powers are worn out, and less and 
 less force is supplied, almost imperceptibly we fall asleep . 
 — ^we have " entered into our Rest," never ending, with 
 as little suffering in going out of the world as we had in 
 ■coming into it. 
 
J. S. MILL. 127 
 
 Note.— James Mill and his more celebrated son John both iived in complete 
 ipnoranco of cerebral physiology, an* this ignorance might have been fatal to 
 the latter. The father determined to make his son an example of the highest 
 torm of intellectual education, and he began a system of forcing that with a 
 toy of different temperament or average capacity must have resulted in idiocy. 
 At three years old he -began to learn Greek, from four to eight he read all 
 Herodotus and took long notes of the works of Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, and 
 other histories. Between eight and twelve ho read Virgil, Horace, part of 
 Livy, the whole of Sallust, &c., Aristotle's Rhetoric. At twelve he entered on 
 a more advanced sta^e in the course of instruction with logic. At the age of 
 thirteen he went through, with his father, a complete course of political 
 economy. Fortunately for him this unnatural forcing of the young and 
 mmature frame was suspended by a residence of a year in France in the house 
 of, Sir Samuel Bentham, brother to Jeremy Bentham. Here the brain lay 
 fallow, and regained something of its natural tone and growth. He wandered 
 Among the mountains, cultivating a sense of their natural beauty, bringing 
 other parts of the brain, besides the intellect, into activity. This no doubt 
 saved him for a time, but about the age of twentj', as might have been expected, 
 he fell into a state of despondency, from which he was again relieved by- 
 bringing the feelings into activity. His own description of this state as given 
 in his autobiography, is very interesting and very instructive, " It was in the 
 autumn of 1826. I was in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody is 
 occasionally liable to ; unsusceptible to enjoyment or pleasurable excitement ; 
 -one of those moods when what is pleasure at other times, becomes insipid or 
 indifferent ; the state, I should think, in which converts to Methodism usually 
 are, when smitten by their first * conviction of sin.' In this frame of mind it 
 -occurred to me to put the question directly to myself : *' Suppose that all your 
 objects in life were realised ; that all the changes in institutions and opinions 
 which you are looking forward to could be completely effected at this very 
 instant : would this be a great joy and happiness to you ? * And an irrepres- 
 sible self -consciousness distinctly answered, *No!* At this my heart sank 
 within me : the whole foundation on which my life was constructed fell down. 
 All my happiness was to have been foimd in the continual pursuit of this end. 
 The end had ceased to charm, and how could there ever again be any interest 
 in the means ? I seemed to have nothing left to live for. At first I hoped that 
 the cloud would pass away of itself ; but it did not. A night's sleep, the 
 sovereign remedy for the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke 
 to a renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried it with me into all 
 companies, into all occupations. Hardly anything had power to cause me even 
 a few minutes' oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow 
 thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's * Dejection '— I was not then 
 ■acquainted with them — exactly describe my case :— 
 
 * A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear, 
 A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief. 
 Which finds no natural outlet or rehef 
 In word, or sigh, or tear.* 
 
 In vain I sought relief from my favourite books ; those memorials of psat 
 nobleness and greatness from which I had always hitherto drawn strength and 
 animation. I read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling 
 mmtfs all its charm and I became persuaded, that my love of mankind, and 
 
128 J. S. MILL. 
 
 of excellence' for Ita own soke, had worn itself out. I souijht no comfort by 
 speaking to others of what I felt. If I had loved any one sufBoiently to make 
 oonflding my giiefs a necessity, I should not have been in the condition . Two 
 lines of Coleridge, in whom alone of all writers I have found a true descrip. 
 tion o( what I felt, were often in my thoughts, not at this time (for 1 had never 
 read them), but in a later period of the same mental malady :— 
 
 * Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve. 
 And hope without an object cannot live.? 
 
 In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar as I fancied it, and I 
 doubt not that many others have passed through a similar state ; but the 
 idiosyncrasies of my education had given to the general phenomenon a special 
 character, which made it seem the natural effect of causes that it was hardly 
 possible for time to remove. I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was 
 bound to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner. I generally 
 answered to myself, that I did not think I could possibly bear it beyond a 
 year. When, however, not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, 
 i small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was reading, accidentally, 
 Marmontel's ' Memoires,' and came to the passage which relates his father's 
 death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by 
 which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel, that he would be every- 
 thing to them — would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid con- 
 ception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. 
 From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought 
 that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless ; I 
 was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of 
 which all worth of character, and all capacity for happiness, are made. Re- 
 lieved from my ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness, I gradually 
 found that the ordinary incidents of life could again give me some pleasure ; 
 that I could again find enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness, 
 in sunshine and sky, in books, in conversation, in public affairs ; and that 
 there was, once more excitement, though of a moderate kind, in exerting 
 myself for my opinions, and for the public good. Thus the cloud gradually 
 drew off, and I again enjoyed life ; and though I had several relapses, some of 
 which lasted many months, I never again was as miserable as I had been." 
 
 A few tears shed over Marmontel's ' Memoires,' and a few doses of Word- 
 worth's poetry, which^recalled his mountain experiences when in France, six 
 years previously, and the fit passed away. Had Mill learned something of the 
 physiology of the brain, as well as Greek, he would have known that you can- 
 not exercise one part of it exclimvely without causing disease in the other 
 parts. He burst into tears — the feelings were brought into great activity, and 
 the overtasked anterior lobe of the brain connected with the intellect waa 
 i-elieved. Had Mill laid his books aside and taught himself to observe men and 
 manners, on Gall's method of comparing function with deve[opment, he might 
 have put the Science of Mind forward instead of carrying it bock for half-a- 
 century, which he certainly has by returning.to the old Metaphysics where Gall 
 found it fifty years before. Mill knew very little of men, and still less of 
 women, if we may judge^of what he says of Mrs. Taylor, afterwards Mrs. Mill. 
 In his estimate of T. Carlyle, he says—" I knew that I could not see round him, 
 and could never bo certain that I saw over him, and I never presumed to judge 
 «im with any dcfiniteness, until he was interpreted to me ;by one greatly the 
 
MR. J. S. MILL, 129; 
 
 superior of both, who was more of a poet thin hOi and more of a thinker than 
 If whose own mind and nature included his. and infinitely more." 
 
 It ia singular that when the social feelings of these book-worms at last 
 come into activity with what vigour they act, amounting to monomania ; as id ^ 
 instanced in Gomte and his Clotilde, and Mill, and Mrs. Taylor. Feelinga 
 decrease in power if unexercised, but it really looks in these and some similar 
 cases as if they were making up for lost time by doing double work and tbufs 
 upsetting the mind's equilibrum. 
 
ISO OUR INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OUR INSTITUTIONS, AND HOW FAR THEY TEND TOWARDS 
 
 THIS IMPROVING OF OUR ORGANIZATION ; SOCIALISM ; 
 
 CO-OPERATION. 
 
 The Rev. Charles Kingsley gives us as a new doctrine 
 of his own, which, notwithstanding, he says, is as old as 
 the Greeks, " that souls secrete their bodies, as snails do 
 shells." This is trueu Exercise begets habit, habit 
 increased size of organization, and this increased size 
 is, as a general rule, transmitted to the offspring ; and 
 thus the race is improved by the higher feelings being 
 brought into increased strength and activity. 
 
 Let us now examine some of our institutions with, 
 reference to their tendency thus to improve the race. 
 Unlimited Competition, or the Devil's Gospel of " Every 
 one for himself, and Devil take the hindmost," has done 
 much to increase the wealth of the world and to widen 
 the gulf between rich and poor, and perhaps our im- 
 perfect civilization is not as yet prepared for anything 
 better. Pure Free Trade may serve us for some time 
 yet, and it may be long before the world has nothing to 
 give in exchange for the produce of our industry, but it 
 is a most chaotic state of things, attended with awful 
 uncertainty. "We have our upward movement, and 
 people get rich and spend their earnings in riotous 
 living and every species of foolery ; trying only how 
 they can outshine each other in every kind of extrava- 
 gance ; while the poor, instead of saving against bad 
 times, imitate their betters and drink champagne. Then 
 we have the downward movement, occurring about every 
 
EFFECTS OP FREE TRADE. 131 
 
 ten years, attended with bankruptcy and ruin, -with 
 misery, madness, and despair ; and among the poor 
 partial starvation, with public charity and soup-kitchens, 
 and this when every man if set to work could earn 
 twenty times as much as he could consume. Compare 
 1873, the height of the upward movement, with January, 
 1879, when all the world seems out of work. The Eight 
 Hon. the Earl of Dunraven says. Nineteenth Century. . 
 August, 1 881 : — " Reverting to the question of the depres- 
 sion in trade, we find a very different state of things. 
 The cry of the agriculturist is that wheat cannot be 
 grown without protection. The cry of the manufacturer 
 is that protection is ruining him. All that he wants is 
 liberty to sell at a natural competition price. The 
 agriculturist has plenty of customers, but cannot pro- 
 duce what they want. The manufacturer can produce 
 to any extent; but he has got no customers. ... It . 
 is useless for the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 
 (Mr. Bright) to sit, like King Canute, defying the tide, 
 and using rather strong language ; the tide is rising in 
 spite of him, and is already lapping round the feet of his 
 ducal throne. In vain do the veterans of Free Trade 
 flourish their forty-year-old mops ; they cannot keep out 
 the sea." (p. 198.) Surely something is wrong, and 
 work, "the grandest of human interests," as Carlyle 
 says, " now requires organising ; that this they call 
 'organisation of labour' is the problem of the whole 
 future for all who would in future pretend to govern 
 men." In the far distant future, I am afraid. It is the 
 imperfect apprehension of this want of organization tha,t 
 hak given rise to the much dreaded Socialism on the 
 
132 OUE INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 Continent. The Socialists hold that, this organisation 
 could be brought about by force ; but this idea must be 
 repressed at all hazard. A forced system of this nature 
 could lead to nothing but disaster, as all such previous 
 attempts have done. The masses are not yet fit to 
 govern themselves, and almost any Government would 
 be better than theirs, even so far as their, own interests 
 only are concerned. From Lassalle's Working Man's 
 Programme we learn (German Socialism, Contemporary 
 Eeviett', June, 1881) that society has long since declared 
 no man shall be enslaved ; society has more recently 
 declared no man shall be ignorant j society now declares 
 no man shall be without property. (936.) A most 
 desirable consummation, doubtless, but where is it to 
 come from 1 This is not perhaps, however, so bad as it 
 seems ; for the problem of this age, according to LassaUe, 
 is this, whether the rnimade property of the futwre 
 should not become genuine labour property, and its value 
 in the hands that actually produced it remain greatly 
 more than at present. If this is all that is meant by " no 
 man's being without property," viz., that the workman 
 shall have a fair share of all that his labour is mainly 
 instrumental in producing — that his property, which he 
 is not to be without, should be the produce of his own 
 industry, is a reasonable proposition to which many now 
 are prepared to assent. 
 
 As regards strict right I think it must be laid down as 
 an axiom that no one has a claim to anything more than 
 he has himself produced, or that some one else has produced 
 for him. No one can have a right to live on the earnings 
 of another. No one can have a right to bring a child 
 
CO-OPKEATIVE CONGRESS. 133 
 
 into the world for which he has not made provision or 
 that must be kept out of another's earnings. As to any 
 common right to the land, the land, like all other pro- 
 perty, belongs to those whose labour and capital have 
 made it what it is. 
 
 Since the Co-operative Congress in May, 1869, great 
 progress has been made in Co-operation, which is at least 
 a step in the right direction towards a more perfect 
 "Organisation of Industry." The 13th Annual Co- 
 operative Congress was held at Leeds, Whit-Monday, 
 June 6th, with Lord Derby, the King of Common 
 Sense, as Lord Houghton very appropriately calls him, 
 as President. On the Sunday morning previous a special 
 service was held by the Rev. C. Hargrave at the Uni- 
 tarian Chapel, and in the evening by Harvey Goodwin, 
 Bishop of Carlisle, at the parish church of Leeds, to both 
 of which the Delegates were officially invited, thus leav- 
 ing a wide space for theological toleration and sectarian 
 differences. In his Inaugural Address, Lord Derby 
 began by saying : — 
 
 " It is not in the language of idle flattery, but as the expres- 
 sion of a deliberate and sincere conviction, that I begin by telling 
 you that the subject which brings this Congress together, the 
 subject of co-operation, is in my judgment more important as re- 
 gards the future of England than nine-tenths of those, discussed 
 in Parliament, and around which political controversy gathers. 
 . . . Given the condition that nearly all political power 
 is virtually in one class — as under a system of household suffrage 
 it is — whenever that class chooses to take it, and that nearly all 
 the surplus wealth which men desire to possess is in the bands of 
 another class, how long will you be able to avert an explosion ? 
 It is an awkward problem — and like a nasty brook or fence to a 
 hunting man — the longer you look at it the bigger it seems. Yet 
 
134 OUK INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 in one way or another we have to face it ; anxt it is my deliberate 
 belief that you, the co-operators, if you have not solved the diffi- 
 culty altogether, are at least moving in the direction whiteh 
 promises the most effectual and the most equitable solution. 
 (We have seen how the German Socialists propose to get over the 
 difficulty. " Society now declares that no man shall be without 
 property.") 
 
 " I should have no great faith in the permanence a,nd extension 
 of a movement which required on the part of its promoters a 
 standard of morality and character considerably higher than that 
 which generally prevails. To frame a society perfectly unselfish, 
 in which a man should consider his neighbour's interest as he 
 does his own, is a pleasant dream. Under the stimulus of 
 religious enthusiasm it seems to be sometimes realised on a small 
 scale, and for a limited time ; but so far as the world has gone 
 yet, experience has not been favourable to such a;ttempts. Their 
 success, so far as they have succeeded at all, has greatly depended 
 pn the personal infinence of one or two men, and has ceased when 
 that influence was withdrawn. I have no wish to discourage 
 people who look forward with confidence to the operation of 
 influences which will profoundly ameliorate human character. 
 I only contend that in the meantime and for the present we m\ist 
 deal with men as we find them, and remember that changes 
 
 which are lasting are generally of slow growth 
 
 Taking stock of the present situation, I presume we may lay 
 down that co-operation for distributive — that is, for trading — 
 purposes is an accomplished success ; that co-operation for pro- 
 ductive purposes, though doing well and flourishing, is on the 
 whole still in the experimental stage, and that co-operation in 
 a^cultural matters is still practically untried.' ' 
 
 On Agricultural Co-operation Lord Derby made some 
 very judicious remarks He said : — 
 
 This is a wide field to enter upon, and possibly you will not 
 think the present time a favourable one to approach it, I 
 certainly should hesitate to advise anyone to take to farming 
 just now who looked for large returns. Yet there is something 
 
CO-OPERATIVE FAKMING. 135 
 
 to be said on the other side. Land is cheaper to rent or to bny 
 •than it has been for the last twenty years. Estates are in the 
 market in every county. Money is exceptionally cheap if yoii 
 have occasion to mortgage. The diflSculty, as I see it, does not 
 Jie in smallness of returns ; the farmer's chief trouble of latia 
 years is the increased cost of labour, and that will not concern 
 you. In. that part of England which I know best — in the rural 
 districts of Lancashire — it has been observed, contrary to 
 -expeqtation, that the smalt farnier, working with his own hands, 
 has suffered less from hard times than his bigger. neighbouiv 
 That is a point in your favour, nor, will foreign imports of grain 
 and lower prices materially affect cultivators who make it part of 
 their system to live as far as may be on the produce of their own 
 fields. The difficulty, as far as I can see, for co-operative farm- 
 ing is of quite a different kind. Social reformers, men of new 
 ideas, are apt to be strong in the assertion of their views, and 
 not very tolerant of interference or contradiction. Now, for 
 joint action, where everybody cannot be in command, you 
 require readiness to be directed, and an almost mechanical 
 obedience to discipline and rule. Without that quality, and 
 without familiarity with rural life — ^which is not easily acquired 
 «xoept in youth — ^farming cannot be a success. Thereupon 
 arises the question — Have you got the men — men accustomed to 
 the work, willing to put themselves under orders though they 
 are their own masters, and intelligent enough not to be dis- 
 heartened and throw up the game if they are not lucky at the 
 outset. If you can find men of that sort, the experiment will 
 probably answer ; if you cannot, it had better not be tried. 
 
 (Oompare this -with the experience gained at Tytherley 
 to which I have previously alluded.) 
 
 I have spoken of what you are to do, but experience is better 
 than theory, and I ought not to conclude without a, summary of 
 what you have actually accomplished. I find that in 1861 
 {twenty years ago) you had in round numbers 48,000 members,' 
 that in 1871 your members were 249,000, and in 1879 (the last 
 year for which we have a return) they had increased to 504,000. 
 
136 OUR INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 -Now, as a large majority of these are married men, it ia not an 
 over-estimate to reckon co-operators and their families as includ* 
 ing at least one million and a half «f the population. The 
 capital, taking shares and loans together, was in 1862 (there is no 
 return that I could find for 1861), £365,000; in 1871, 
 £2,530,000 ; and in 1879, £6,700,000 nearly. The net profits 
 were in 1862, £166,000; in 1871, £670,000; in 1879, nearly 
 £1,600,000. 
 
 . His Lordship ended his admirable address by 
 saying : — 
 
 " I, for one, look forward to the progress of this movemant 
 as one of the most hopeful signs of our times, and as a not 
 inconsiderable set-off against the many dangers and difficulties, 
 which surround our ancient civilisation under the disintegrating 
 influences of new opinions and ideas." 
 
 At the Congress held at Oxford in 1882, we are told 
 by Mr. R. J. Milbume "that to-day we have a 
 capital of six millions, with a trade of upwards of 
 twenty millions, and a profit of more than two millions." 
 
 Lord Houghton, in seconding the rote of thanks to 
 the President, Lord Derby, in 1869, regretted 
 much that the enthusiasm of his youth had 
 been damped by experience, but still he was a 
 little disposed to resent the too much common sense of 
 the Presidentian address. He said he was one of the 
 oldest supporters of the co-operative principle in this 
 country, was an intimate friend of Robert Owen, and 
 witnessed his excellent work at New Lanark, and in 
 i^act was very nearly a Socialist, as we know were many 
 other good men at that time. His Lordship gave some 
 excellent advice ; among other things he said : — 
 
 "There is before me, among the maxims round the room, one 
 in front, which I wish you to regard with great determination — 
 
LORD reay's address. IZT 
 
 "In things doubtful, Hberty." That is the rook upon which such- 
 institutions as yours should stand— that is the difficulty which 
 you have to meet, not only in competition with the individual 
 trader, but in your own relations with one another. The real 
 danger of the coming democracy is lest the great cause of indi- 
 vidual liberty, for which Englishmen have fought and suffered so 
 long, may run greater peril than it has ever done before under 
 kings and nobles. Never forget this principle, which lies at the 
 base of the social fabric. You must show that respect for- 
 intelligence and superiority to which you will be required to 
 submit your judgment on all doubtful occasions, while if you 
 ever come to think that your business can be conducted by the 
 co-operation of small wills instead of great ones, you will your-^ 
 selves fall to the ground." 
 
 Lord Reay, in his admirable and exhaustive inaugural 
 address at Oxford, May, 1882, says : — 
 
 "Though I attach great importance to the lessons of history, 
 I am not prepared to admit the sole right of the historical school 
 as against the dogmatic school of political economists. I can 
 quite fancy that the historical school of political economy would 
 declare the Germans fit for co-operative credit, ourselves for co- 
 operative distribution, and the French for co-operative 
 production. . . . Excess of thrift may constitute a danger 
 in France : absence of thrift is undoubtedly a peril in England. 
 • . . Co-operation is an immense step in advance ; it is a 
 great social revolution, and it has a great future before it. But 
 why ? Because co-operation is firmly rooted in those abstract 
 propositions which the historical school treats lightly. Orthodox 
 political economy has no greater ally than co-operation ; and I 
 may add that no social reform can be successful — ^I mean, of 
 course, permanently successful — which attempted to run counter 
 to those abstract truths, which are not the result of vain 
 imaginings but of the experience of centuries." 
 
 ' Co-operation is one of the highest forms of inteUeotual 
 
138 OUE INSTITUTIONS. . 
 
 democracy. But, like Mr. Hughes, Lord Eeay aJsb 
 sounds the note of warning ; he says : — 
 
 I " For the success of a productive co-operative association i 
 combination of circumstances and persons must arise which pre. 
 supposes a rather high civilisation, and a number of virtues, such 
 as perseverance, self-sacrifice, and discipline, in all its members. 
 The principle of productive co-operation is undoubtedly legiti- 
 mate ; but the success of its universal application does not follow. 
 Where — as in Paris — you find a large section of the working 
 classes imbued with the doctrine that capital is their enemy ; 
 that inequality of wages is a monstrous abuse ; that the highest 
 skilled labour of a civil engineer does not tax the brain more than 
 that of a railway porter is taxed by the arrangement of bags and 
 trunks on his truck, the application of co-operative production 
 would, perhaps, lead to no very satisfactory results, though it 
 has succeeded in France, When the productive association ' of 
 masons in France was realising a net profit of about £8,000, the 
 three men to whose intellectual labour this result was chiefly due, 
 hardly got more remuneration than the other members, and it 
 was only out of fear that they would retire that their associates 
 laid aside their malice and envy, and increased their salaries." 
 
 The pressure of popidation on the means of subsistence 
 has certainly, notwithstanding all the misery attending 
 it, been our great civUiser ; and competition equally 
 tends to draw out all our energies and to educate- some 
 of our higher faculties. We are gradually acquiring the 
 perception that "honesty is the best policy," and are 
 Uius getting a glimmering of a sense of justice and a love 
 for truth ; also when a man is prosperous he ordinarily 
 likes to make others happy : for nothing pays so well^ 
 and meets with such a direct and immediate return as 
 kindness. Thus, as regards improved organization, w6 
 find that the Benevolence and Conscientiousness of the 
 •world are increasing even under unlimited competition. 
 
FEOtJDE ON RELIGJOK. ■. 139 
 
 I cannot say that I think the Religion of the present 
 day does much towards the cultivation of Vener&itioa, 
 or the counteraction of the systemised and legalised 
 selfishness of the age ; still it has its conyentional usages 
 and ceremonies that cannot be dispensed with. Births, 
 .deaths, and marriages, the Parson's three toll-gates, must 
 , be passed through decently. Froude, in his inaugural 
 address at St. Andrews, said : — 
 
 "We have had thirty years of unexampled clerical activity 
 among us ; churches have been doubled ; theological books, 
 magazines, reviews, newspapers, have been poured out by 
 ' hundreds of thousands ; while by the side of it has sprung up 
 ' an equally astonishing development of moral dishonesty. From 
 . the great houses in the city of London to the village grocer, the 
 commercial life of England has been saturated with fraud. 
 So deep has it gone, that a strictly honest tradesman can hardly 
 hold his ground against competition. You can no longer trust 
 that any article you buy is the thing which it pretends to be. 
 We have false weights, false measures, cheating and shoddy 
 everywhere. Yet the clergy have seen all this grow up in abso- 
 lute indifference ; and the great question at this moment agitating 
 , the Church of England, is the colour ^of the ecclesiastical petti- 
 coats. Many a hundred sermons have I heard in England ; many 
 a dissertation on the mysteries of the faith, on the Divine mission 
 of the clergy, on apostolic succession, on bishops, and justifica- 
 tion, and the theory of good works, and verbal inspiration, and 
 the efficacy of the Sacraments ; but never during these thirty 
 wonderful years, never one that I can recollect on common 
 honesty, or those primitive commandments — 'Thou shalt not lie,' 
 and ' Thou shalt not steal.' " 
 
 It is but right, however, to admit that there has been, 
 a great advance in active usefulness in the Church since 
 . this address was delivered. 
 
 A man's earnings must be made to depend upon whajt 
 
140 OUB INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 he can produce and not upon his competition -with 
 foreign workmen. By the aid of improved machinery 
 and extra energy and fitness, the British -workman has 
 been able to reduce the hours of labour, — a most 
 desirable thing; but competition may even take this 
 from him again. I see that (January 19, 1879) Mr. 
 Forster strongly suggested that the employers in the 
 leading industries and the great Trades Unions should 
 appoint a joint committee to ascertain the comparative 
 effect of our short hours and foreign long hours upon 
 production. He had himself always been, he said, in 
 favour of short hours, as who is not ? That I think, 
 . however, can only permanently be brought about by a 
 .change of system. This change is gradually taking 
 place, and the fortuitous concourse of our commercial 
 atoms is slowly crystallising. The Continental people 
 seem to think that they have only to recognise a great 
 principle to carry it out at once, ignoront of the great 
 fact that all permanent institutions are of very slow 
 growth. Here in free and liberal England we have no 
 great "principles," and never had any, but a slowly-gained 
 experience has forced our population into the right path 
 so far as it has been yet attained. Our working-people 
 themselves are now establishing Co-operative Stores for 
 Distribution, and as experience, wealth, and credit 
 increase, these will extend themselves to Production and 
 Farming : and among capitalists, we find individual 
 enterprise transferred to public companies in our woollen, 
 iron, and other trades. Companies can do what indi- 
 viduals cannot, and so much of advantage is gained by 
 even so little orgtoisation, that competition is beginning 
 
GOOERNM-ENT ORGANISATION. 141 
 
 to pass away before it, or at least to give us advantages 
 in competition over our neighbours. If we want to 
 know what Government organisation can do, when 
 judiciously and properly applied, we have only to look at 
 our Post Office, in which a penny will take a letter any 
 number of miles and leave a profit. To what extent this 
 might be profitably extended to other departments it is 
 impossible to say. Government have bought up the 
 Telegraphs, and there is no reason to doubt that Govern- 
 ment management might be profitably extended to other 
 departments. If the Rail — or travelling, had been from the 
 first in its hands, the ways would have cost but half the 
 price, and the profit might have paid the interest of the 
 National Debt. Many other of the requirements of the 
 community might be as well supplied by similar machinery. 
 But this kind of centralisation would only be safe where 
 the Government means the people., In whatever unfair 
 way Property may have been originally acquired, of 
 course no good could come from a forcible interference 
 with it now. No one holds here the French Socialist 
 dogma " that Property is Robbery," but Capital has too 
 predominating an influence in this country in all the 
 relations of life. The State even is too much influenced 
 by its political power, and in return for the exclusive 
 privileges it has conferred upon itself, it might do much 
 more for the labourer through whose instrumentality all 
 this wealth has been accumulated. It would pay better 
 to build workmen's houses, upon a co-operative principle, 
 than to spend profits on additional factories and work- 
 shops, and thus leading to the over-production to which 
 the downward progress is so much owing. Workmen 
 
H2 OUR INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 might be surrounded by ievery educational and civiEsiiig 
 influence at lest cost than they now pay for their con- 
 fined and unhealthy d-weUings. If great weialth were so 
 employed there would be less cause to complain of the 
 increasing gulf between rich and poot, and this disparity 
 might go on for some time longer with advantage to the 
 community, for the poor might be better cared for hf 
 the rich, if they were so disposed, than they could care 
 for themselves at present. The workmen, at present, with- 
 out a higher moral development, cannot govern themselves, 
 and they would be best under a really philanthropic 
 despotism of the capitalist. This opinion is based upoti 
 a rather large! experience, to -which I have already 
 alluded.* • In a paper that I read at the first meeting of 
 the British Association for the Advancement of Social 
 Science, October, 1857, 1 thus sum up ; 
 
 "I have worked with the working-classes at all measures for 
 improving their condition for a quarter of a century, but have 
 
 *Id 1852, Mr. John C^ellibrand Hubbard, Deputy Governor of the Bank 
 Ot England, contested the Parliamentary Election with Messrs. ElUce and 
 Geach, as a Free Trade Liberal-Conserratiire. I recollect a );reat handbill was 
 pribted by the Liberal Committee that had the very decided approval ef its 
 leading members. Ah, that's the thing 1 " Tote for the Cupboard and not for 
 Hiibbard." This was carried round the town at the head of the rallying party, 
 and to bring its ennobling sentiment within the comprehension of all, even the 
 dullest of the electors, a lai:ge loaf and a little one were carried on two poles, 
 the small loaf representing Hubbard and the larger one the cupboard. The 
 cupboard carried the day. Another election has just been decided (March 12, 
 1831) on the Same principle, when the cupboard has again been victorious. 
 The contest this time was between Sir Ughtred Kay-Shnttleworth (L.) and 
 Mr. Eaton (C ). Sir Ughtred's father was a very distinguished man, and of 
 great use to the country as Secretary ot the Committee of Privy Council on 
 Education, and we are told that the son, "educated under the eye of his father 
 by private tutors carefully selected from Cambridge, his political training began 
 in earnest, his father's ambition being that he should— having first been 
 thoroughly prepared — enter Parliament young, and make politics his pro- 
 fession." The son has done honour to such a father, and to such a training, 
 and has devoted his lite to the public service of his country. For 13 years, I 
 believe, he has been in Parliament, and on the questions of Education, 
 
THE WORKING CLASSES. 143 
 
 never yet found them capable of conducting their own affairs. 
 If their affairs were of a trading kind, they were jealous and 
 niggardly of the pay of those who were principally instrumental 
 in making them succeed, and what waa ordered by a Conrmittee ' 
 one week or month was too frequently undone the next. There 
 was no permanency or persistency. If their affairs were of other 
 kinds they fell out among themselves, and could not long be kept 
 together. The worst feature of ignorance is intolerance, and the 
 worst of the working classes is that they cannot [agree to differ. 
 They are for the utmost freedom of thought and liberty of 
 Opinion, but denounce as knave or fool every one who does not 
 think as they think. They are too generally suspicious of each 
 other's motives, and find it very difficult to rise to the com-> 
 prehension of a disinterested feeling. I have heard a philan- 
 thropist defined as a person who acts from no motives at all. I ' 
 have heard the most damning denunciations of government pay 
 and patronage, ^of aristocrats helping themselves and their 
 relations out of the public purse ; but I have known the same 
 persons order a larger quantity of tea and sugar for a tea-drinking ' 
 than could possibly be used, that they might divide what was 
 left among themselves at Jmlf price afterwards. Of course there 
 are many and .glorious exceptions. During the last 20 years I 
 
 Improved Dwellings for the Poor, dec, has shown himself to be an eloquent, i 
 earnest, and powerful Social Reformer ; just the sort of man the country is 
 most in want of. Mr. Eaton is a eilkxnan, understands his business, no doubt, 
 a»he is very rich, and a good private gentleman, but with no pretensions to 
 be a legislator. He is not much of a speEkker, and he does not attempt to make 
 speeches, but brings down a barrister (Mr. A. 8. Hill, Q.C.) to put his case 
 before his constituents, just as when young Nerval having lost his voice, 
 another actor was appointed to speak for him— "This young gentleman's name 
 is Norval, &c." But Mr. Eaton is rich and he has spent his money in previous- 
 years freely upon the place, and no doubt, if returned, will freely do so again. ' 
 The Coventry Herald truly says — " If Eatonism were to spread, the House of . 
 CCmmons would be reduced to the intellectual level of a parish vestry— political 
 capacity would be superseded by purse capacity, the test question for eveiy 
 candidate would be, not what he can do in the service of his country and in 
 the legitimate interest of his constituents — but what he can do in ministering 
 to their material wants." The " material wants" have prevailed, Mr. Eaton has , 
 been returned, and the people have voted, as they were taught, for the " cup- 
 board." The Giant Democracy, our future ruler, is still very yowngi and its > 
 representatives, Parliamentary Election and Parliamentary Government, ara 
 not in veiy high repute just now. ' . - 
 
144 OUR INSTITOTIONS. 
 
 have witnessed great improvement in the condition of the work- 
 ing classes ; year by year the state of a large number is 
 permanently improved, and with a peaceful and prosperous state 
 of the country this must rapidly increase. I have shown from 
 the small number of producers and the unequal mode of dis- 
 tribution that there is ample room to improve the physical - 
 condition of the operatives, and although I have lost all faith in 
 «uy single remedy for all their ills, I have an increasing convic- 
 tion that no effort is thrown away, but that all measures iai 
 their improvement are working together for their good ; 
 gradually and slowly bringing about a time in which all may 
 enjoy what hitherto has been the exclusive privilege of the 
 favoured few. I say slowly, because conduct depends more upon . 
 the organization of the individual than upon opinion, however ' 
 -enlightened, and the improved organizations have yet . to be 
 ^rown." 
 
 I admit that very great improvement has 
 -taken place in the working - classes since this 
 was written. The representatives of the Free 
 Members — the Wage Class — on the Committee of the 
 Provident Dispensary, are of the highest class of 
 development — fine heads, superior generally to the 
 Honorary Members on the same Committee. 
 
 Ultimately, in the far distant future, I hope and 
 expect that this garden of England may be distributed 
 into happy villages, with some little return to Arcadian 
 simplicity, where each man's labour will be certain to 
 secure his comfortable support One agriculturalist can 
 produce fifteen times more than he can consume, and ten 
 therefore would support 140 more people than them- 
 selves ; these 140 could produce 15 times more than they 
 could consume, and if therefore they lived in a village 
 they might take their produce to one great store and 
 
VILLAGE COMMUNITIES. 145. 
 
 there change it for what else they required. One man, , 
 by what he produced and wh^t he wanted, would thus be 
 the means of emplnyiny and mairdaining some other man. 
 Everything required by the Commune would be produced 
 on the spot, as far as practicable, and only the surplus 
 exchanged for foreign and colonial produce ; and political 
 economy might then realhj be to the State what it pro- 
 fesses to be, and what domestic economy is, to the family. 
 The foundation of all improved condition must be the 
 produce of the land, and there must be no more people 
 
 n the village than the land will keep.; the present 
 surplus population -wDl no doubt find its way to our 
 colonies, when competition with all the world will no 
 longer keep them here ; and there need be no further 
 surplus population, as each family may - be confined, as 
 now in Prance, to as many as there is room for, viz., as 
 many as died off; the births being in proportion to the 
 deaths. We might keep our fine parks and country 
 houses and their owners, for such villages could afford to 
 pay a higher rent than farmers will be able to do under- 
 foreign competition. This seems very simple, but simple 
 as it is. I have no doubt such a system is capable of 
 adoption among a well disposed people, and would 
 result in a very superior state of society to. that which 
 we have at present. By organisation and connection 
 with other communities or villages, no advantage from 
 the division of labour need be lost. Some narrow-minded 
 and short-sighted person has said that Cobden's policy 
 never rose above a "bagman's millennium." In fact, 
 
 Cobden's view of the external relations of our Empire,- 
 
 ■was I purely commercial and economic. It was in the 
 
 K 
 
146 OUR INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 spirit that he estimated the value of our foreign 
 possessions. In order to be worth keeping they must 
 pay, and pay in a manner as easily demonstrable as the 
 profits of a bank or the yield of a mine. Not only must 
 they pay, but it must be shown that they would not pay 
 as well if they belonged to someone else." — Nineteenth 
 Century, Life of Cobden, p. 50-1. Mr. Cobden no doubt 
 thought that to unite people together by their material 
 interests was the most ready and direct means of 
 civilising and making them love one another and thus 
 preventing war and many similar evils. I go further 
 than Mr. Cobden, for in some sense I am an Imperialist 
 and even a Jingo, 1 would take possession of every 
 available foot of land on -w^hici'I could plant an English- 
 man, and when in possession I' 'would defend -him there. 
 I would inoculate the whole world' with the English race, 
 with its innate sense of liberty and justice, bred in and 
 in for a thousand years. It is the best race we ■ have, 
 taken altogether, and it would furnish the best civilizer. 
 This is how I would propagate the Gospel in foreign 
 parts, by propagating a superior race. England has not 
 been placed in its high position among the nations 
 only to make the cheapest cotton, or to supply the best 
 iron, and to spend its wealth thus acquired in high- 
 living and conventional foolery, but for a far better 
 purp9se. 
 
 Sir Samuel Baker (he is among my Heroes, and his 
 wife 7ftore so), says, that "as travellers they might well 
 be proud of the part which England had taken in the 
 last few centuries— at any rate, since the reign of Eliza- 
 beth — in civilizing the globe. The new world of 
 
SIE SAMUEL BAKER. l^jf 
 
 America had been almost peopled by Englishmen, so 
 had Australia ; and it was curious to notice the enor- 
 mous spread of English-speaking communities in various 
 quarters of the universe. Those were the results more 
 of commercial enterprise than the discoverers of 
 travellers, and they afforded an augury of how, by 
 degrees, countries hitherto barbarous might become 
 civilized. The greatest travellers and discoverers were 
 the Portugese and the Dutch ; but it was mainly, if not 
 .entirely, through commercial enterprise that Uig 
 .discoveries of travellers became permanently valuable .tj> 
 jnankind ; and he had returned to this country perfectly 
 certain, after the little he had done, that if England toc^ 
 in hand the development of the resources of Central 
 Africa, the day would come, and was not far distant, 
 when countries hitherto inhabited only by savage tribes 
 would by degrees be brought within the pale of civiliza- 
 tion ; and that would be done simply by commerce." — r 
 "Duty," Dr. Smiles, p. 158. 
 
 Cajlyle has told us that " our most cherished ideas of 
 political liberty, with their kindred corollaries, are mere 
 illusions, and that the progress that has seemed to go 
 along with them is a progress towards anarchy and social 
 dissolution." History has told us how Kings, Nobles, 
 and Priests have used their power ; how Democracy will 
 use its power when it becomes conscious that it is master^ 
 it is impossible to say, but if we are to be delivered from 
 "anarchy and social dissolution," it ^11 be, I think, 
 through Co-operation and Emigration. 
 
148 LIBERTY. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 LIBERTY, EQtJALITY, AND FRATERNITY, 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the subject of the last 
 chapter, because the reconciliation between Capital and 
 Labour is the question of the day, but of course there 
 are other interests beside those by which we may be best 
 lodged and clothed and fed. Liberty, Equality, and 
 Fraternity have been words of great significance on the 
 Continent for the last century, as the motto on the 
 banner of the advance party — of Democracy. The 
 question is what they really mean in relation to the 
 improved organisation we are advocating. 
 
 Liberty. — Of course liberty is only valuable to those, 
 and olily to be granted to those, who know how to use 
 it. The liberty that Eve is said to have possessed to 
 damn herself and all her posterity might have been — at 
 least, so it appears to the eye of unassisted human reason 
 —judiciously curtailed. Liberty to a madman is not 
 thought desirable, and we are aU more or less cracked. 
 The Anglo-Saxon idea of liberty in the West : — " the 
 
 grand idee that every man should do just what he d ■ 
 
 pleases," is rather too wide, as freedom must be limited, 
 by the equal freedom of others ; for, as J. S. Mill says, 
 " All that makes existence valuable to any one, depends 
 upon the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of 
 other people." Unfortunately, the advance party have 
 not yet decided what these restraints shall be. As Mill 
 says again, "No two ages, and scarcely any two 
 countries, have decided it alike." An inhabitant of this 
 
LIBERTY. 149 
 
 country feels " that in America freedom makes much too 
 free with him;" the Prench idea is that the majority 
 should cut off the heads of the minority, if they can ; 
 and the Japanese that where a Ministry was dismissed, it 
 was considered incumbent upon them to perform the 
 hari-kari, or happy despatch, by cutting themselves open, 
 after dining sumptuously together ; none of these can be 
 called perfect ideals of Liberty, either social or political. 
 Freedom is a very good thing when we know how to use 
 it, but a very dangerous thing when we do not ; and 
 there are many nations to whom despotism, an 
 enlightened despotism if possible, is the best system of 
 government " Liberty," Mill says again, " has no 
 application to any state of things anterior ^to the time 
 when mankind have become capable of being improved 
 by free and equal discussion. . . . The'only purpose 
 for which power can be rightly exercised over amy 
 member of a civilised community, against his will, is to 
 prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical 
 or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. . . . The 
 only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is 
 answerable to society, is that which concerns others. In 
 the part which merely concerns himself, his indepen- 
 dence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over Ids own 
 body and mind, the individual is sovereign." In this I 
 perfectly agree. This comprises full liberty of^conscience 
 < — ^the liberty to think and feel for ourselves on all 
 subjects. The liberty of expressing and publishing 
 opinions, although this may concern others, must be 
 conjoined with this, since free and equal discussion is the 
 only safeguard of liberty, the only test of truth, the 
 
ISO EQtTALITY. 
 
 only prereiitative against either Liberty or Authority' 
 being carried to excess. 
 
 There is more true liberty iii England, probably, than 
 in any other country, because here there is full and free 
 aiscufesion and more perfect liberty of the ^iress. The 
 liberty of ignorance is a' dangerous thing ; and authority; 
 ■frhich has always shown a universal tendency td 
 legislate in its own favour, is no less dangerous. Both 
 require to be carefully watched, and a free press is our 
 only safeguard. Liberty and Authority are the two 
 sides of the shield of politics, which, when distorted by 
 party feeling and carried to excess we call Radical aiid 
 Tory ; both are equally necessary to true liberty^ 
 although Authority becomes less and less necessary as 
 we are capable of becoming a law unto ourselves. We 
 have the two extremes of Authority and Liberty in 
 China! and America. In China Authority has stereo- 
 typed an imperfect civilization,' and' in America we have 
 Liberty run mad. 
 
 As for Equality, there is no such thing in the world ^ 
 no two things are eq'ual. Things exist, and we live only 
 hf their differences. What is meant by Equality, 1 
 firesume, is Justice, the greatest of aU the moral laws J 
 for we must, in the true interests of society, be just be- 
 fore we are generous — be just before all things. Justicei 
 would give the perfect equality of all men before the 
 law ; justice would give a more equal division of the 
 joint produce of labour, and prevent the extremes of 
 riches and poverty that now exist, with all the miseries' 
 of vice and igUorance, that attend upon this disparity of 
 "Condition. The world wants' justice, not mercy— not 
 
FEATEENITY. 151 
 
 eleemosynary charity to put it to rights. 
 
 "True' strength is with the just. 
 Who would be rich must work ; who would be free 
 Must first by wisdom earn their liberty-r- 
 Must be self -governed, must self-balanced be 
 
 Checking all sensual lust. — Geoboe Eliot." 
 
 What of Fraternity ? By a process of evolution and 
 development it now seems highly probable that all thfe 
 living forms on this earth have been evolved from one', 
 or at least from some few primoi'dial tyj)es. The lowest 
 type of animal is all' stomach, and can digest as well 
 when turned inside out as before. New conditions 
 produce new parts — a respiratory surface and limbs ; a 
 circulation and heart as its centre, and as part is added 
 to part it is transmitted to offspring, establishing 
 co-ordination of parts for unity of purpose ; hundreds of 
 muscles requiring to act together in the simplest action 
 "The mental powers are inherited products of accumu 
 lated experiences which moulded the nervous systerfl, 
 and through it act intuitively." This has taken more 
 millions of years than are calculable to bring about, 
 man having probably come last upon the scene, and 
 being a comparatively recent production, ha'ving been 
 here only about 100,000 years. Man is the first and 
 only one of his type, superior to all other animals, " for 
 is not his reason all their powers in one 1 " As an' 
 individual, man may be inferior in many respects to 
 some other living organisation in certain points, but his 
 reason enables him to combine experiences, so that the 
 strength of all may become the Strength of each. ManV 
 strength depends upon co-operation ; he is powerless 
 
152 FRATERNITY. 
 
 when he stands alone. This combination produces what 
 we call Society, and a social organism and an individual 
 organism are greatly alike ; to each mutual dependence 
 of parts is an essential characteristic. The circulatory 
 system of Society is nearly as perfect as the circulatory 
 system of the body, and our bread is brought to our 
 cloor with the same regularity as the blood to the 
 heart. As successive improvements in organisation have 
 indirectly resulted from the antagonism and competition 
 of organisms with each other, so have the successive 
 improvements which have taken place in Society resulted 
 from war and competition. As " through the ages one 
 increasing purpose runs," and as the highest aim of 
 -Nature during the ages seems to have been to produce 
 bian, having first tried all his varied parts in other 
 animals, under other conditions, before they were, by 
 hereditary descent, gradually put together in him, so 
 now its aim seems to be to perfect Humanity. To this 
 object individuals are quite secondary, and whoever 
 would judge of the purposes of Creation must judge of 
 these by this standard. It is mankind, not man, that 
 must be considered. Nature takes little account of the 
 individual as such, but merges his good in the greater 
 good of all. As the first or lowest type of animal was 
 all stomach, so was the first or earliest society of man all 
 hunters ; and with whatever horror we may now look 
 upon war, it was the first civiliser, that is, the beginning 
 of organisation. Separately, as a single stick, man is 
 weaker than, other animals ; collectively only, as a 
 bundle of sticks, is he strong. It is war that first bound 
 the sticks together. For offence or defence, an army 
 
FEATERNITY. 153 
 
 must have a head, and also subordinate officers, all 
 dependent upon the head. Thus authority is established, 
 and men learn to act together as one man. * In such 
 a state of society, ■where the protection of life and 
 property was the first consideration, the strong man was 
 looked upon as most virtuous, and heaven was only for 
 the brave ; as at present among the Comanches, where 
 food men only go to heaven, i.e., those who are daring in 
 taking scalps and stealiag horses. " In remote times," 
 as Dr. Neil Arnott says, " the inhabitants of the earth 
 were generally divided into small states or societies, 
 which had but few relations of amity among themselves, 
 and whose thoughts and interests were confined very 
 much within their own little territories and rude habits. 
 In succeeding ages men found themselves belonging to 
 larger communities . , . until every one now feels 
 that he is a member of one vast civilised society, which 
 covers the face of the earth, and no part of the earth is 
 indifierent to him." StiU, whatever progress we hava 
 made, the civilisation of the present age must be rated 
 very low ; and it is upon the " martyrdom of man" 
 quite as much as upon the love of man for man that 
 such advance has been founded. Man has feelings that 
 unite him to Humanity almost as strong, when fully 
 developed, as those which belong to him as an individual ; 
 but as we have seen, these in the great majority are 
 very weak, and it is only as these are strengthened, and 
 the brain organisation upon which they are dependent 
 enlarged, that Fraternity can become possible. This can 
 
 *For a better exposition of this principle see Herbert Spencer's 
 " Sociology." 
 
tgi FEATEENITT. 
 
 only come from' culture, arid that must be the work of 
 time. 
 
 By combination and co-operation^ six hours a day -woUld 
 give the working man all that he now gets from ten, amd 
 w6ifld leaVe' tifiie for the cultivation of all his higher 
 JbwerS j and when so cultivated would leave them fi'ee. 
 A man would require to give up a portion of that liberty 
 by whicfe hie now does " as he damn pleases," but it 
 would be in exchange for the liberty to exercise freely 
 the powers which peculiarly distinguish him as man. As 
 1 have said, a stjtfial organism and an individual organism 
 are alike, and as the heart, the lungs, the stoniach, and- 
 6ther organs of the body, act intelligently,, yet uncon- 
 sciously, so that the brain may be left free for thought 
 and feeKng, so in the social body, by a combination as 
 perfect as the Post Office, all our material wants might 
 be supplied automatically, leaving the soul free. It is 
 in this way only, and from leisure so attained, that we 
 can lodk for true individuality, and for human develop- 
 ment in its richest diversity. By the natural process of 
 evolution and development this is what must take place^ 
 and is even now taking place. We have at present far 
 too much of the individuality of the individual — each' 
 atom of a man floating free in the social atmosphere ; 
 but already, as we have seen, faint signs of crystalisationi 
 ftre beginning to appear in our Co-operative and other 
 Societies, and it is becoming evident to many, as well as 
 to Carlyle, that " this that they call ' Organisation of 
 labour ' is, if well understood, the problem of the whole 
 future for all who would in future pretend to govern 
 men." Pratemity means Organisation and Co-operation,* 
 
THE CHUECH OP THE FUTURE. 155- 
 
 and must precede the Christian doctrine of the Brother- 
 hood of Humanity. 
 
 Our " Liberal Party," I fear, do not as yet look at 
 things in this light. They have -worked up their 
 programme of CivU. and' Keligrous Liberty, Education, 
 Free Trade, Votes and Ballot-boxes, and have done much 
 good, but they seem' quite at a loss as to what is to come- 
 next, and do not appear to recognise that there is a tim& 
 to " rest and be thankful," so that good seed may grow ; 
 a policy that naturally belongs to the Tories. Church. 
 Disestablishment seems the next favourite move ; but in 
 fact we are in want of a Church, a true Church in which, 
 Society being no longer based on antaigonism anld! 
 competition, men may learn really to love one another.' 
 "Ms true Church must be the social organisation: of 
 humanity for the development of our moi'al, reKgiouS,* 
 fed aesthetic nature. Mr. W. M. W. Call, once a 
 clergyman of the Church of England, and who,' like 
 myself, left the Church for want of sufficient faith in 
 dogma, says in the second edition of his " Reverbera- 
 tions : — 
 
 " 0, priests who mourn that reverence is dead ! 
 Man qviiia a. fading faith, and asks instead 
 
 A worship great and lame. 
 I know that there was once a Church where men 
 Caught glimpses of the gods believed in then ; 
 I dream that there shall be such Church again. 
 dream, come true, come true ! 
 * ♦ » * 
 
 So all intolerable wrong shall fade, 
 No brother shall a brother's rights invade, 
 But all shall champfon all ; 
 
156 GOOD BEADING. 
 
 Then men shall bear, -with an unconquered will 
 And iron heart, the inevitable ill. 
 O'er pain, wrong, passion, death, victorious still. 
 And calm though suns should fall. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 *HE HABIT OP LOOKING AT THE BRIGHT SIDE OP THINGS, 
 AND ON THE CULTIVATION OP A TASTE POE GOOD 
 BEADING. 
 
 What I have to say farther relates to matters a little 
 more personal. Habit is as supreme in mind as in body, 
 and the object of moral culture is to make virtue into a 
 habit. There are two habits, which, although they have 
 not yet been classed among the virtues, are yet each 
 ■worth a fortune in itself. One is a habit of looking at 
 the bright side of things ; the other is a taste for good 
 reading, which may be formed into a habit by cultiva- 
 tion. I have cultivated both, on principle, and my 
 happiness is now mainly dependent upon them. The 
 habitual state of my mind is one of cheerfulness, which 
 the external world now finds it very difScult to depress. 
 However untoward outside things may be, my mind soon 
 springs back to its natural state, which is a happy one. 
 For this I claim no merit ; I cannot help it ; the mind 
 does so unconsciously, and this, I maintain, is the effect 
 of culture, and is dependent in great measure upon the 
 way I have accustomed myself to look at things. I 
 will not deny that something may depend upon natural 
 constitution, but probably very little, for I am told that 
 
THE BRIGHT SIDE. 157 
 
 as a boy I was of a most unhappy turn — always crying 
 and complaining. I attribute the change to my 
 Philosophy. Under my "Religious" phase I was not 
 particularly happy; I had always a sense that I had 
 " done the thing I ought not to have done, or left undone 
 the thing I ought to have done." But with my " Philo- 
 sophy of Necessity" came a new era. I never fretted 
 about the past j it was past, and could not be undone, 
 and, moreover, under the conditions, it could not have 
 been otherwise than it had been. Oarlyle, in his 
 " Reminiscences of his Father," Vol. 1, p. 9, says, " A 
 virtue he had which I should learn to imitate. He 
 never spoke of what was disagreeable and past I have 
 often wondered and admired at this. The thing that he 
 had nothing to do with, he did nothing with." I took 
 people for what they were, and was not annoyed that 
 they were not better ; consequently I gave no admission 
 to envy, hatred, malice, or any kind of uncharitableness. 
 I turned such feeHngs out of my mind, because they 
 were both painful and unphilosophical ; when fostered 
 they are vipers sure to sting. I knew there was good 
 in all, and I appealed to that when I could find it, and 
 if I could not find it, or if people, whether good or bad, 
 were distasteful to me, and tended to create bad feeling 
 in me, I kept out of their way. It may have been 
 cowardly, but I dodged the evil rather than contend ; I 
 did not see that anyone had a right to disturb my 
 habitual calm. It is better to wait, if you can, and 
 many evils will cure themselves, or you will get used to 
 the new circumstances. As the Spanish proverb says, 
 " If you cannot have what you like, you must try to 
 
158 GOOP REAPING. 
 
 Jike -what you have." I always tried never to look ait 
 what I had lost, but at what I had left. The proper 
 frame of mind to cultivate is, that if any one poked out 
 one of your eyes by accident, not to get into a passip^ 
 about it, which would make matters worse, but thank 
 God that he had given you two eyes, so that yfm ha/ve got 
 mie left. But there are always two ways of looking at 
 "things. An Irishman fell from his horse, and the wholg 
 troop went over him ; however, he was not much the 
 worse, and the Colonel told him to go down on his knees 
 and thank God for it. " Thank God !" says Pat, " for 
 what ? For being ridden over by a troop of horse ?" J 
 repeat, that the tone of mind, as to whether joy or 
 sorrow shall habitually prevail, depends upon culture ; 
 and culture means exercise, and exercise begets habit, 
 and in this case, habitual cheerfulness is the result. 
 
 I must say also that I think a habit of speaiing the 
 truth without any second thoughts about its prudence or 
 ^discretion or consequences to yourself tends much to your 
 own comfort and the general good in the long run ; for 
 yourself you feel you have done right, and you don't 
 wony. I'rom this absence of reserve as to actions and 
 opinions, I have always been considered indiscreet by 
 .my party, but I am satisfied, nevertheless, that truth is 
 the best for all parties. 
 
 Tfee second thing, as already mentioned, upon whi^h 
 my happiness has been greatly dependent, is t^he 
 ,tas.te ;E9r good reading. By good reading I mean 
 _.j^ot mere newspapers, magazines, novels, and ligjht 
 lit^i:ature, but such first-class worjks as enable 
 jou to Ijravel not only over the whole world qf 
 
PERSONA,L. 159 
 
 nature, but over the whole world of thought, past 
 present, and, to a certain extent, future. A man who 
 has acquired such a taste has never a spare moment or a 
 dull one, unless when dreadfully bored by society, from 
 which he escapes as much as possible. People are in 
 general far too busy to read to serious purpose when 
 they are young, except when studying for a profession : 
 they think there will be time for higher reading when 
 they get old, and have made their fortunes. But, like 
 many other things so deferred, that time never comes to 
 most of us, since it is the result only of early cultiva- 
 tion. We ought always to have a good book on hand 
 which we make time to read every day. In this way the 
 more we know, the more we want to know. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ENTIEELT PEESOlfAI.. 
 
 A few personal details illustrative of the foregoing 
 may be allowable here. I began housekeeping with 
 ^bout £1,200 a year. I had everything that couldmake 
 -life pleasant, good health, a good wife, a house in the 
 country in the six summer months, as well as our com- 
 fortable -house in town ; favourite horses, dogs, carriage, 
 and, best of aU, many friends, and the means of enterr 
 taining them pleasantly. 
 
 In 1840 I bought a house a little out of town, and 
 descended to £800 a year. In 1856 I gave up business, 
 and in 1857 I went to live in the cottage I have men- 
 
160 GOOD BEADING. 
 
 |ioned on £400 a year; and for some years now my 
 income has been less than that. 
 
 In 1874 I made over the Coventry Herald newspaper 
 to Mr. John Moir Scott, and I think the Liberal Party, 
 that the paper represented, were fortunate in the 
 acquisition of a champion of far more intellectual power 
 than is ordinarily to be found in the Provincial Press. 
 
 Each of these seemingly downward movements 
 has been attended with increased happiness to my- 
 self. " The essentials of even elegant comfort are 
 not difficult to procure. It is only vanity that 
 is insatiable in consuming." — T. Garhjle. Reduced 
 means cut off only, what with increasing years, I not 
 only did not want, but what had become rather burden- 
 some to me than otherwise. Conventionalities restrict 
 our liberty, and often tie us down as tight as poor 
 Gulliver was by the Lilliputians with an infinite number 
 of smaU ties. We gained an increase of liberty with 
 each move ; for acquaintances may be many, but real 
 friends are few, and it may be an advantage to be obliged 
 to do with only the latter. No doubt it is a qualifying cir- 
 cumstance that with diminished income comes diminished 
 power of doing service to others — ^but even in this 
 respect the loss is not an unmitigated one, for what I 
 have given and lent in the days of my comparative 
 affluence, has as often brought fruits of bitterness and 
 disappointment as of positive benefit. What I have 
 thus thrown away would now make a little fortune, and 
 the result of my experience is that the pecuniary aid 
 you may give to those who are going down in the world, 
 is generally thrown away, as it is spent in trying to 
 
OLD AGE. 161 
 
 maintain tlie accustomed social position ; you must let 
 , them come down to the ground, and begin to feel thfiir 
 own legs in getting up, and then pei:haps you may help 
 them. The sympathy and the small helps that a man of 
 humble fortune who has known difficulty can bestpw, 
 often go farther than the charity and patronage of the 
 rich. 
 
 I am now in my seventy-first year, and perhaps was 
 never happier at any period of my Uf e. My sensations 
 are not so vivid, or my feelings so strong as formerly, but 
 they are more tranquil, more equable, and less mixed 
 with pain. The friends of my generation are falling 
 around, like leaves in wintry weather, but I am going 
 myself directly, and there is no time left to fret. We 
 have had our day ; that it should come to an end is only 
 the condition on which life was given to us, and I, at least, 
 am thankful and satisfied. I am not yet weary, but 
 when I am, the weary will soon be at rest. I am not 
 strong enough now to travel much about, neither have I 
 the means or inclination, but if I cannot go over the 
 world, the world goes over me, or rather by me, daily, 
 weekly, in all its new beauty ; a fresh creation every 
 year. I do not envy those who have health and strength 
 to " do " the world otherwise. 
 
 Here is a good illustration of some of its much- 
 , coveted advantages : — " The traveller who comes to 
 Egypt without preformed theory of the Great Pyramid 
 and its purpose," says the Saturday Review of January 
 18, 1879, " and who canters out from Cairo on a glaring 
 • day, is dragged to the top, hustled through passages of 
 the diameter of a gas-pipe, alternately exposed to the 
 
162 PERSONAL. 
 
 brightest sunshine and the blackest darkness, who is 
 next hurried down across the hot sand to stare at the 
 Sphinx, and finally chased through the dust by a yelling 
 donkey boy the long seven miles back to Cairo, supposes 
 he has thoroughly ' done ' the whole thing," &c. 
 
 I would rather do my travelling now by deputy ; the 
 GfrapMc, the Illustrated London News, and others journals 
 give me a sufiiciently lively idea of what is to be seen, 
 and my experience of travelling was, even when I was 
 young, that its joys were always either in the prospect 
 or the retrospect. 
 
 As regards my present condition, I never have a 
 minute to spare, or a minute that I cannot fill 
 pleasurably. I have a heap of books for every varied 
 mood, so that they never bore me. Books to me, that is 
 those of our best writers, are ever new ; the books may 
 be the same, but I am changed. Every seven years 
 gives me a different, often a higher, appreciation of those 
 I like. Every good book is worth reading three times at 
 least, and often each time brings increased profit and 
 enjoyment. 
 
 After 60 years of age, if a man has previously done 
 his duty to society, he has, I think, a right to do as he 
 likes best, that is, to lay out his time for his own 
 comfort and quiet. We are no longer in society; we 
 neither go out to dinner nor give dinners at home ; in 
 fact we only lunch, we never do dine, that is, we dine 
 early. We breakfast about half-past eight ; from nine to 
 one is my working time for reading heavy books, or 
 writing ; from one to two or half-past is walking time ; 
 from two to four, dinner, nap and novel ; from four to 
 
PEACE AND QDIET. 163 
 
 half-past five, idleness, loimging, gossiping, calling or 
 receiving callers ; then tea ; and then comes the time, 
 whether in winter or summer, that I enjoy the most — 
 the three hours between tea and a light supper : head 
 clear, and digestion finished. I could not have this 
 luxury if I dined late ; that to me would take all the 
 poetry and music out of a summer's evening, and leave 
 only sleepiness by the fire in winter. I always have a 
 novel or other light reading on hand to which I can 
 generally give from one to two hours a day. I must not 
 omit, as the greatest enjoyment of all, that when " the 
 evening shades prevail" my wife plays to me on the 
 piano from memory tiU the first star comes out. 1 have 
 no technical knowledge of music, but the oftener I hear 
 good music the more I like it. Nothing that society can 
 give can ever equal this peaceful half-hour. ■ Of course 
 many, who have their work to do from home, must give 
 up their evenings to dining, ei cetera, but those who do 
 so from fashion I think are wrong. I admit that there 
 is a certain amount of self-indulgence in my life, but I 
 am supposing that a man has eal'ned the right to do as 
 he likes in his old age ; the punishment of this indulgence 
 is the small degree of irritation, when this monotonous 
 mode of life, as it will be called, is broken in upon. As 
 the rule I should like one day to be, objectively, exactly 
 like another. We must make up our miuds as to what 
 we will have ; we cannot have every thing. If a man 
 chooses my kind of life he must not regret that he cannot 
 make a great display, and show his power either as 
 Chairman or Magistrate, or as a great man in any 
 ■capacity. "Along the cool- sequestered vale of life" ha 
 
: 164 PERSONAX. 
 
 must be content " to keep the noiseless tenour of his- 
 way." A taste for reading, however, is not the less 
 valuable even when you can only fill up your leisure 
 ihours with it. As regards a small income, if we decide 
 to throw lOver snobbery and conventionality and injurious 
 artificial wants, it is astonishing how little we need. I 
 should be a long. time before I could think of any thing 
 I wanted that a larger fortune could give me ; I mean 
 personally. Of course I could spend a large fortune 
 upon other people ; but for my own sake, at my age, I 
 am sure I am better as I am — I have not the fortune 
 and I .have not its responsibilities. I have " the golden 
 mean " and can " live contentedly between the little and 
 the great." 
 
 In a speech that was made by Prince Leopold — a 
 speech that was worthy of his father, Albert the Good 
 (and I must be allowed to add, the Great — great in 
 , every way that really ennobles a man) — in this speech, 
 on TJnivei'sity Teaching, February 19, 1879, speaking of 
 Professor Buskin, the Prince says : — " Among all the 
 lessons which those who have had the privilege of his 
 •teaching and lof his friendship must have gained to carry 
 with them through life none, I think, can have sunk 
 deeper than the lesson that the highest wisdom and the 
 highest pleasure need not be costly or exclusive, but may 
 be almost as cheap and as free as air; and that the 
 greatness of a nation must be measured, not by her 
 wealth or her apparent power, but by the degree in 
 which all her people. have learnt to gather from the world 
 of books, of art, of nature, a pure and an ennobling 
 joy." As Dr. Smiles says :— " That of which our age 
 
THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 165 
 
 ■stands most in need, is a man able to gratify every just 
 desire, and yet be 'contented with little. "^Dwiy. 
 
 I ought to add that for 22 years, from 1859 to 
 1881, I had a house at Lawrie Park, Sydenham, 
 near to the Crystal Palace, -where I resided for a part 
 of each year. At the Crystal F^ace, for a guinea a 
 year, you have the use of a palace and grounds that 
 cost a million and a half of money, and where everything 
 that is beautiful in flowers and in landscape and high 
 in Art is to be found. All the fine statues of the world 
 are there coHecfed, and under Herr Manns all the best 
 music is performed in perfection. But here,, as every- 
 where else, the eye sees only what it brings with it 
 the power to see, and the Crystal Palace, presenting as 
 it does all that is highest and best, has to be lowered, as 
 a public institution, to suit the taste of the uneducated. 
 During all these years, as connected with the Press, I 
 have had a ticket to admit myself and friend, and I 
 here return my thanks to the Directory for all the 
 •enjoyment they have given me, and add my testimony 
 to the excellence of the management, under the very 
 •diflB-Cult and exceptional circumstances. 
 
1^66 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 'i What is incredible to thee, thou shalt not, at thy soul's peril, attempt to- 
 believe.— 2". CaHyle. 
 
 , And now I have come very near to the end of 
 tlie journey ; I have exceeded the allotted term, the 
 three score years and ten, and the question is what is to 
 come after the end 1 Is there any Future State for me 
 as an vndiwidual 1 I must say I have not the slightest 
 hope or expectation of it, nor let me add, any wish for it; 
 I have had my innings ; let some one else now take up 
 the running. I have had a very pleasant time of 
 it here altogether. I am thankful, and would willingly 
 do it all over again, but I have no wish to begin again 
 under entirely new conditions, neither can I see how, 
 with a new body and under such altered circumstances, 
 the recollection of my existence here could be of the 
 slightest service to me. No, " What has been has 
 been, and I have had my hour !" 
 
 I have been accustomed to say when questioned on 
 this subject that " If it is better, all things considered^ 
 that I should live again, or, rather, continue to live, I 
 shall certainly do so ; but if it is not better, on the whole, 
 I ought not to wish it." But I think now that this, 
 answer is a sort of prevarication, as I feel certain that it 
 
THE FUTURE STATE. 167 
 
 -vf ould not be better, and that the present order of things, 
 ■with -which we are all familiar — a succession of being — is 
 the best. If man had been made immortal here, the -world 
 -would soon have been full, arid all the people -who have 
 lived for some thousands of years past could not have 
 come into being at all, and there is not much difference 
 in effect between keeping people out of being and putting 
 them out. I should not like to be guUty of putting out 
 of existence or of ie&ping out of existence all who may 
 come after me. It would be manslaughter at least. 
 
 But putting aside this rather fanciful -view of things, 
 as it may be called, is there any reason whatever for 
 supposing that death here is not really death, but only a 
 change of scene ? As Professor Huxley says, " Our sole 
 means of kno-wing anything is the reasoning faculty 
 which God has given us ; and that reasoning faculty not 
 only denies any conception of a future state, but fails to 
 furnish a single valid argument in favour of the belief 
 that the miud will endure after the dissolution of the 
 body." Hume also says, " If any purpose of nature be 
 clear, we may affirm that the whole scope and intention 
 of man's creation, so far as we can judge by natural 
 reason, is limited to the present life." I quite agree 
 ■with Hume and Huxley. Our Ego, our Indi-viduality, 
 consists of the aggregate of our whole being, of body and 
 soul united, and acting together. Separate them, and 
 the indi-vidual no longer exists ; for the soul is entirely 
 dependent for its mode of manifestation on the body. 
 No doubt both body and soul are equally indestructible 
 in their elements or essence, but when they take new 
 forms they constitute new individuals. If my soul took 
 
16^ THE FHTUEE STATE. 
 
 a neW- body it would manifest itself differently, and would 
 not be I, and it would be a mere delusion to suppose that 
 it was, and to call it by my name. Without the Resur-^ 
 rection of the Body the continuance of Individuality 
 would be an impossihility. Now, although this reten- 
 tion of our Individuality, after the body is dead and 
 buried, would appear to be impossible, yet we are told b^ 
 the Priest that, however apparently opposed to our 
 reason, we must believe in it; that the belief is so deeply 
 implanted in our nature that we cannot help it. As 
 J. S. Mill says — "The great boast of man is, that he alobe 
 yearns for something that neither sense nor reason can 
 supply." No doubt it will appear natural to a people 
 who for 2,000 years have beeti taught to hold this 
 doctrine ; so it was quite as difficult at one time 
 not to believe that the sun went round the earth. There 
 was some sense in this belief, for people saw that it did. 
 But no one has yet seen any of the inhabitants of this 
 new and better world. 
 
 " Tell us, ye dead, if ye in pity can, 
 Beyond this sphere what is the future plan ? 
 Some courteous ghost, if any such there be, 
 Tell us, in after-life, what things ye see !" 
 
 — Blaik's " Grave." 
 
 But what is this new and better world in which, in 
 reason's spite, we are told we must believe ? In the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the creed 
 of Pi-esbyterian Scotland, we are told that " by 
 the decree of God, for the manifestation of his 
 glory, some men and angels are predestinated utita 
 
THE WESTMINSTER CONFESSION. 169 
 
 everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting 
 death. 
 
 " As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath 
 He, by the eternal and free purpose of His will, fore- 
 ordained aU the means thereunto. . . . 
 
 " The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to 
 the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he 
 extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the 
 glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass 
 by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their 
 sin, to the praise of his glorious justice. . . . 
 
 " So shall this doctrine afford matter of praise, rever- 
 ence, and admiration of God, and of humility, diligence, 
 and abundant consolation, to all that sincerely obey the 
 Gospel." 
 
 "We must recollect that this " everlasting death " does 
 not mean ceasing to be, but is supposed to be continued ' 
 existence in everlasting torture, and when some years 
 aigo there was a sort of hope expressed that poor sinners 
 might be let off with something less than " everlasting," 
 say a few million years of torture, there was a general 
 cry out among the English clergy, 10,000 of whom 
 signed a Declaration in favour of the eternity of 
 punishment. Their Heaven might not be everlasting, 
 if Hell were not so ! 
 
 I cannot say that the prospect of such a "Future 
 State" affords me "abundant consolation," or any 
 consolation at all — ^neither do I feel that I must believe 
 in it. 
 
 Think only of one entirely sleepless night and then 
 think of that as unending. A little Hell Fire and 
 
170 ■ THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Brimstone under such circumstances would be as 
 agreeable diversion. The idea of the possibility of , 
 such an everlasting consciousness is horrible, and could 
 only furnish " abundant consolation " to the utterly 
 selfish and unfeeling. A Heaven would be impossible 
 with an everlating Hell, and yet this Westminster Con- 
 fession of Faith continues to be the creed of Christendom 
 —of the Catholic Church, and of our National Church, 
 as expressed by their Creeds, but it is so abhorrent to 
 the natural sense of all that is good and great, that little 
 is now said about it, by the English Church at least. 
 
 A Scotch clergyman, in that pleasant, gossipy 
 twaddle, which he calls " The Recreations of a Country 
 Parson," says " A dignified clergyman told me that an 
 old woman, a parishioner, once called upon him, and 
 sitting down by his study fire, cheerfully told him that 
 her son was dead, and had gone to hell. . . The good 
 clergyman, not a little startled, said he trusted that her 
 son, however little he might have looked Uke it, might 
 have so repented of his ill-doings as not to have come to 
 that awful condition ; but the old woman grimly put 
 away the hopeful suggestion and clung to her first state- 
 ment as to the present state of the child she bore. Then 
 my friend went on to say that if this were certain it 
 must surely be a dreadful matter of reflection to the- 
 mother, and that he wondered much at seeing her look 
 so cheerful. ' Not at all,' replied the grim old 
 Christian : at first she was vexed by thinking of her 
 son, but now she was perfectly happy ; because it was 
 all for the glory of God. At this point my informant 
 paused, and sitently shook his head. ' Now was that 
 
A COUNTRY PAKSON. 171 
 
 hypocrisy or [was it want of heart ?' was the natural 
 inquiry that [followed. ' Neither' ; was the wise and 
 good man's reply. ' It was just that she did not know 
 the meaning of the words she said.' " On the contrary, 
 I. should ask, was not this good woman acting up to the 
 devil-worship in which she had been instructed ? Had 
 she not been taught that the majority " had been fore- 
 ordained by God to everlasting death, fcyr the manifestation 
 of Ms glory.'' I should like to know what meaning " the 
 wise and good man " himself put upon these words. The 
 "W^estminster Confession ' of Faith is a purely logical 
 deduction from the belief in an Almighty and Omniscient 
 God, and a Future State of everlasting Rewards and 
 Punishments. 
 
 The " Country Parson " goes on to tell us that 
 " Farther than the blank absence of reasons for the 
 belief in a future life, there are against it the strongest 1 
 unlikelihood. The soul seems to grow and strengthen as 
 the body grows and strengthens ; it seems to weaken, 
 and decay as the body weakens and decays. It seems to 
 be gradually extinguished. Feeling goe.i : consciousness, 
 and thought, and affection : a lifeless lump is left, and 
 that soon goes back to the elements. The doctrine is 
 that this spiritual principle which has faded away is to 
 start afresh somewhere else : where we do not know, 
 how we do not know : no one has ever come back to tell 
 us anything. In another place, perhaps far away, and of 
 necessity in a very different mode of life, the soul is to 
 begin again. Now, notwithstanding Bishop Butler, 
 this is not in the analogy of things : it is a case wholly 
 without parallel. It does not look likely." All this is. 
 
172 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 exactly what I say. " And yet," says the rev. gentle- 
 man, " in the presence of all that has been saidi, I hold 
 by this : we are so made that we must believe there is a 
 future life. Everybody does believe in it. The most 
 desolate teacher of materialism, who tella us that when 
 the brain decomposes the individual man is blotted out 
 aind annihilated, does not believe it himself. He could 
 not hourly look at his wife and children if he did. 
 Unless he were an utterly heartless brute, the most 
 inferior of all inferior animals, he would hasten to blow 
 his brains out. ' Not to be, is best of all,' if his unspeak- 
 ably wretched message were true.' " Now, I think we 
 may fairly ask, does this " wise and good man " really 
 know the meaning of Ms words ? If so, must not all 
 that he affirms be just the reverse % What is this 
 " future state," according to his professed creed — ^the 
 creed of the Church to which he belongs, in which he 
 says we all must and do believe ? One, to the happiness 
 •of which many are called, but few are chosen j in which 
 the road to destruction is broad, the road to Kfe narrow ; 
 one in which the great majority will be miserable, if not 
 in torture ? Would any " wise and good man," or any 
 man, " unless he were an utterly heartless brute, the 
 most inferior of all inferior animals," venture to have a 
 wife and children who would be subjected to such risks ? 
 Would he not rather "hasten to blow his brains out," and 
 feel " not to be, is best of all," rather than bring beings 
 into the world who ran such risks ; i.e., if the " un- 
 speakably wretched message " of the damnation of the 
 gfeat majority were really true 1 I must say I have 
 little patience with that pharisaical selfishness that looks 
 
THE PAGAN TRADITION. 173. 
 
 upon its own wife and cliildren as necessarily among the- 
 elect, and can go comfortably to heaven leaving the great 
 majority, or, indeed, any one, out in the cold. Surely 
 if only one little one of his family were missing it would 
 destroy the happiness even of heaven. My only refuge 
 is, not that men must ^believe and do believe in such a 
 Future State^ but that they cannot and do not believe in 
 it, and that men are not such selfish brutes as they would 
 thus make themselves out to be. Better far that alt 
 should be as tliey were hefore tliey were horn, than that one 
 should be eternally miserable. But I am told that this 
 horrid nightmare of eternal damnation is no longer be- 
 lieved in by any sensible person ; that all now repudiate 
 so gross a libel upon God. Thus the Rev. F. W. Fowle 
 says, " Get rid of the Pagan Tradition (the doctrine of 
 future rewards and punishments in heaven and hell), and 
 what is the Christian Church but the organization of 
 humanity for mutual purposes of help and deliverance," 
 and Dr. Donald Macleod, editor of Good Words, in the 
 February number, 1879, also says, " There may be cer- 
 tain aspects of religious truth, resting on what appears 
 sufficient authority, and which we cannot harmonize with 
 just* conceptions of love. There may be theological 
 statements which savour rather of capricious power than 
 of spotless goodness. How are we to deal with these ? 
 . . . Even among such perplexing questions as some- 
 times overwhelm, almost madden us, as we consider the 
 possible destiny of those who may in this life have 
 ' preferred the darkness to the light,' and sinned against 
 their own souls ; and as we feel the crushing weight of 
 all such dogmas as would leave not a ray of light on the- 
 
174 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 liorizon of their misery, let us equally fall back on Him 
 whose name is love, and whether we ' trust the larger 
 hope" or not', let us be assured that nothing will be left 
 undone which Divine goodness can possibly accomplish in 
 order to ' bring back his banished.'" Now, there can be 
 nothing that Divine goodness, if Omnipotent, cannot 
 •accomplish, and we may reasonably ' trust the larger 
 hope,' and Dr. D. Macleod may safely, as far at least as 
 his conscience is concerned, throw over the Westminster 
 Confession. A man, however, who, like myself, is not 
 bound by creeds, may reasonably ask. Are any good 
 enough to be " saved," and as to the bad, is it not easier 
 to make new ones than to mend the old ones ? Such, at 
 least, appears to me to be the order of Nature ; and if 
 Nature here has not revealed to us her method' of pro- 
 -ceediag, she never can do so, for nothing can ever be 
 made more plain. 
 
 But we, who do not believe in a Future State for 
 Individuals, are threatened with that terrible word 
 annihilation, as if that were something worse than 
 -damnation. Now, what does this dreaded annihilation 
 mean ? Neither body nor mind has ceased to exist. 
 Both have only taken other forms ; the individual, of 
 little consequence to any one but himself probably, has 
 alone vanished. At death the body and soul dissolve 
 partnership; the body returns to its constituent • ele- 
 ments, the soul to the universal reservoir of unconscious 
 force or automatic mind from which it came. We 
 return, in fact, to what we were before we were born, 
 having enjoyed our brief term, and having left the world, 
 -let us hope, a little better than we found it. We were 
 
ANNIHILATION. 175 
 
 not unhappy before -we were born, and why should we 
 be so when we return to that state, and why should the 
 thought of it make us unhappy now ? Some one will be 
 living, and we shall not envy them ; our wish to make a 
 selfish monopoly of life in our own favour will have gone 
 out with us. W. R. Greg, in his lately published 
 volume of Essays, says : "If we may venture to speak, 
 limited as we are, of anything whatever being important, 
 we may say that the important thing is that the universe 
 should be full of life, as we suppose it to be, under the 
 eternal laws of the universe ; and, if the universe be full 
 of life, I cannot see how it can signify whether the one 
 human faculty of consciousness of identity be preserved 
 and carried forward, when all the rest of the organization 
 is gone to Dust, or so changed as to be in no respect 
 properly the same. In brief, I cannot see how it matters 
 whether my successor be called H.M., or A.B., or G.Z. 
 I am satisfied there will always be as much conscious Kfe 
 in the universe as its laws provide for ; and that cer- 
 tainly, even for my narrow cdnception, which, however, 
 can discern that caring about it at all is a mere human 
 view and emotion. The real and justifiable and honour- 
 able subjects of interest to human beings, living and 
 dying, is the welfare of their fellows surrounding them or 
 surviving. About this I do care, and supremely." The 
 Buddhists, at least a fourth of the human race, above all 
 things seek to give up their individuality and to be re- 
 absorbed into Deity or the Universal ; it is the Christians 
 principally who have cultivated this idea of a future 
 life, although it is to be what the Buddhist fears, a state 
 of misery to the great majority. 
 
176 THE FUTUEE STATE. 
 
 But many of my friends who think as I do on this 
 subject say, " Why stir this question of the Future State 
 at all ? It is better let alone in the present state of the 
 world." Others deprecate my publishing anything that 
 may tend to weaken another's faith in our continued 
 existence, and this is why I have felt myself obliged to 
 . allude to it. I have never proselyted ; if I have found 
 people comfortable and satisfied in their religious convic- 
 tions I have always let them alone ; but when they have 
 brought their doubts to me, I have helped them to the 
 best of my ability. I have lately published my " Psycho- 
 logical and Ethical Definitions," which no one can accept, 
 I think, and retain their belief in continued Identity and 
 Individuality after Death. I have set myself then 
 seriously to consider what is the efiect at the present 
 time of this belief in a Hereafter, and what mischief, 
 therefore, may ensue from weakening or destroying that 
 belief. I think that its influence is much less than is 
 ordinarily supposed. By the great majority the theory 
 is neither accepted nor rejected, but is received with 
 other conventional faiths, without thought as to its 
 validity. No one would like to say they do not believe 
 in a Future life, but they do not think of it, and it has 
 no practical effect. It could never take an inch from 
 the fashionable length of a lady's tail, or in any other 
 way influence fashion, either in man or woman. It had 
 not the slightest efiect on duelling when that was fashion- 
 able. It has not the smallest effect on a man's daily 
 occupations — " other-worldliness " has no chance in com- 
 petition with worldliness. In consequence of this, when 
 people come to die, the idea of another world is more a 
 
THE EFFECT OF THE BELIEF. 177 
 
 source of anxiety and discomfort than of happiness, 
 although it is no doubt a source oE consolation to many 
 of those who are left behind, and perhaps to many others, 
 is an excuse for showing less feeling than the occasion 
 would otherwise seem to require. I am speaking now of 
 the influence of the belief on the great majority. "With 
 reference to the few with whom' the belief is a reality, I 
 fear it causes much more anxiety to the good than to the 
 bad. The fear of God predominates greatly over the love 
 of Him, although it is wonderful how certain many pious 
 people are of their oirni salvation, and the great consolar- 
 tion they say that it affords them, notwithstanding many 
 of their friends and relations have no grounds for the 
 same hope. But in many, if not in most, the fear predomi- 
 nates. Carlyle tells us of his father (Beminiscences, 
 Vol. I. pp. 14, 17, 287) how "through unutterable 
 depths of silence flickered a trembling hope," and that 
 when " in the last agony, with the thick ghastly vapours 
 of death rising round him to choke him, he burst through 
 and called with a man's voice on the Great God to have 
 mercy on him." Yet this was a good man, doing always 
 diligently what he thought to be right according to the 
 best of his ability. His life, Carlyle says, was " no idle 
 tale, not a lie but a truth, an earnest, toilsome life." 
 " In all things he was emphatically temperate ; through 
 life guilty (more than can be said of almost any man) of , 
 no excess," and yet he had to call upon his God in his 
 last hour to have meroy upon him. What God was this 1 
 The supposition that such supplication was necessary 
 would be a libel upon the Father of All, and I should 
 say even upon the Devil himself. I cannot conceive of any 
 
 M 
 
178 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 idea more dreadfully depressing than this " Future 
 State," which is thought to be so great a boon. That 
 any fool or idiot can have the power to bring into 
 existence perhaps a dozen beings that shall be immortal, 
 that is, who can never end, and the state of whom for happi- 
 ness or misery, during an eternity, is left in uncertainty, 
 is to me, instead of being at all comforting, a horrible 
 conception. The eternal misery of one soul would be to 
 make evil absolute, and who is to know that he himself 
 is certainly among the elect ? For we are told that 
 broad is the road that leadeth to destruction ! Carlyle, 
 speaking of his father, says : " Alone, left alone, with 
 only a tremulous and fitful, though eternal, star of hope, 
 he had to front that adventure for himself — with an 
 awe-struck imagination of it such as few or none of men 
 now know. More valiant soul I have never seen : nor 
 one to whom death was more unspeakably ^the King of 
 Terrors.' Death and Judgment, bar of the Almighty 
 following it, may well be terrible to the bravest.'' 
 Beminiscences, Vol. II., page 4-9, Broad is the road 
 that leadeth to destruction, we are told, and narrow the 
 path that leadeth to life, and in the same breath " that 
 he who weakens our hope of a future existence robs us ■ 
 of our most precious treasure," i.e., a state of misery for 
 the great majority. Surely "silence" is better than this, 
 even though we could ensure that we ourselves should 
 be among the saved ! We may safely bury away this 
 horrid night-mare, the curse of so many, principally of 
 the best amongst us. For myself, I have never had any 
 fear. I have never seen cause to believe in any punish- 
 ment that was not for the good of the offender. Now I 
 
EVIL ABSOLUTE. 179 
 
 feel that nothing can happen to me that I need fear — 
 Death is all, and I do not fear death — what all the 
 world before me has done I can do. Then I shall be as 
 I -was before I was born, and I am willing to leave to 
 others their share of the enjoyment that is to come ; 
 since such appears to be the order of Nature, i.e., 
 God's will. 
 
 " Out of Eternity 
 This new one is bom, 
 Into Eternity- 
 It soon will return." 
 
 A cycle of small earthquakes seems just now (Spring, 
 1881) going the round of the world, and hundreds and 
 thousands are carried out of existence. But suppose 
 they had never been born, who would have known 
 anything about it, and who would have been the worse 
 for it 1 
 
 But as to this Future State the Country Parson says, 
 " We have to start afresh somewhere else : where, we do 
 not know, how, we do not know : no one has ever come 
 back to tell us anything." In another place, perhaps far 
 away, and of necessity in a very different mode of life, 
 the soul is to begin again, and Dr. Donald Macleod tells 
 us that " The future world and the solemn step which 
 is to usher us into the presence of the Redeemer are 
 associated by us with terror rather than with that joy 
 which made St. Paul exclaim. To me to die is gain. 
 . . . . When we search out the grounds of popular 
 beliefs, or try to put into clear shape the vague 
 expressions which content the unreflecting, we are 
 appalled at the darkness which still enshrouds the> 
 
180 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 momentous change from the seen to the unseen." — Good 
 Words, March, 1879. So vague and uncertain is this 
 prospect that even the most religious people I have ever 
 known seem in no hurry to begin the journey, and those 
 who have been in preparation for this " other and better 
 world " all their lives will give their doctors any amount 
 to keep them here another day or even hour. A friend 
 tells me of an educated woman of the upper class who, 
 when she was old, between 70 and 80, could not rest, 
 day or night, but was constantly swinging herself back- 
 wards and forwards in a rocking chair, and moaning, " I 
 want to know where I am going to ! " "I want to know 
 where I am going to ! " Nor must we wonder at this, 
 even putting aside altogether the place provided, as we 
 are told, for the great majority. Divine service and 
 worship, and prayer and praise, and what, in fact, is 
 ordinarily called Religion, is little more than fear of this 
 life to come, and a selfish deprecation of God's power to 
 harm. Each seeks his oion salvation or safety and a good 
 place in the world to come. How often has it been said 
 to me, as an inducement to believe, or to pretend to 
 believe, " if we are wrong it will not matter, but if you 
 are wrong what an awful thing it will be for you ! " — an 
 appeal to a slavish fear and self-interest, and not to truth. 
 Astronomy has dispelled the very primitive notion of 
 a heaven above the skies and a hell below somewhere,* but 
 has left certainly plenty of room in infinite space ; which, 
 
 * Is it not perfect despair to thinl; that we have now neither Heaven nor 
 Hell? Copernicus and Galileo, more fortunate than the Titans, have stormed 
 Heaven. The stars nearest to us are dark bodies like the earth, and the earth 
 tar otC is as bright aa the twinkling stars; our star-decked carpet is gone, 
 where now can we place the threne of Ood ! Hell, too, we have no more. 
 
A HEAVEK ABOVE AND HELL BELOW. 181 
 
 indeed, seems to be wanted. Forty million people die in 
 
 this world every year, and forty hundred millions every 
 
 century, so that the prospect of finding our own wives 
 
 and children and friends seems attended with as much 
 
 . uncertainty as the place we are going to ; and there 
 
 might be some little difficulty in identifying them in 
 
 their new bodies and new growth. The Rev. F. W. Fowle 
 
 [Bivine Legation of Jhrist) finds the natural difficulties 
 
 in favour of a Future State altogether insurmountable, 
 
 and he says, " Whether I am to live after death is a 
 
 problem just as perplexing and troublesome as the 
 
 former, how I came to live at all." He falls back, 
 
 however, upon Revelation and the Resurrection of the 
 
 Body as illustrated in Christ Himself, with which he 
 
 professes himself perfectly satisfied. St. Mark says, 
 
 " So then, after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was 
 
 received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of 
 
 Ood; " and "The Acts'' tells us whUethey (the Apostles) 
 
 beheld he was taken u;p ; and a cloud received him out 
 
 •of their sight. This going bodily wp into heaven was 
 
 not so difficult to believe ia the time of the Apostles, 
 
 but we now know that to reach the nearest star. Alpha 
 
 Centauri, travelling with the speed of light, 192,000 
 
 miles a second, would take three years and seven months j 
 
 to reach the brightest star — Sirius, it would take 20 years 
 
 to reach, and the Pole Star 50 years. " To be with Christ' 
 
 seems as difficult as that Christ Himself should be able 
 
 to see all the kingdoms of the round world from the 
 
 There we used to think, below, far below, roasted and stewed the godless, till 
 Columbus steered ever Westward, and now we know that people live there too, 
 just as we live ; what shall we do now with our pious and godless ones 2 " — 
 ■*• Sjiinoza" by Berthold Auerbach. 
 
182 THE FUTUEE STATE. 
 
 top of a mountain — millions of times more difficult than 
 if Christ were stiU at Jerusalem and we were here. 
 But I know it is considered impious to reason about 
 such things. 3f I never used to do so in my most 
 "religious" phase — such things are discerned by faith 
 and not by reason, and all is possible that God wills. As 
 far as I can now recall my own feeling then about a 
 future life, I never thought of it at all — I made 
 God as perfeet as I was able to do, and loved 
 and worshipped that ideal, and strove to be like 
 it ; but I never thought of a future state as 
 one of future rewards and punishments — and I 
 think that this is the case generally with the really good 
 and pious ; they do not think of reward hereafter, and 
 they would soon be reconciled to the idea of our present 
 state being all there is for us, if that were God's will and 
 in the order of His Providence. They would be sensible 
 enough to feel that if they were again to be non-existent 
 as they were before they were bom, others would be 
 living, and they would never be oonsoious of any loss to 
 themselves personally. 
 
 As to future punishment as a deterrent from vice, I 
 think it has very little influence. The good Parsons have 
 made Hell fire too hot and too everlasting for people 
 really to believe in it. It is too revolting to all moral 
 sense to be accepted ; and when the Scotch woman 
 mentioned by A. K. H. B. said her son was gone to 
 Hell, all for the glory of God, it is evident the good 
 parson himself, to whom she told it, didn't and couldn't 
 believe it. It is the good and not the bad that are 
 frightened by it. It is too far ofi", too contingent, with 
 
FUTURE PUNISHMENT. 183 
 
 too many ways of escape, to a^ct as a deterrent or to 
 stand much in the way of temptation to evil. The 
 smallest apparent present pleasure has a stronger 
 influence, and if the bad are frightened at this horrid 
 chimsera at all, it is on their death bed, when it can do no 
 good, but can only add to the misery of those who have 
 already suffered from being bad. The natural con- 
 sequences of our actions here, without reference to an 
 hereafter, are, or should be, suificient to keep us in the 
 right path, if they are made sufficiently plain by edu- 
 cation. 
 
 I have^been accustomed hitherto to consider that the 
 belief in a world to come was beneficial to mankind ; but 
 on fuller consideration I am inclined to think that, taken 
 altogether, it has been hurtful. It has weakened real 
 responsibility — that is, it has stood between our actions 
 and their natural consequences. Instead of cultivating 
 the tody, as the true instrument of our highest mental 
 faculties and of our highest enjoyment here, we have 
 been cultivating a soul for some fanciful, fictitious, 
 imaginary world elsewhere. I am asked, however, " Has 
 not this ' Soul' cultivation tended to the growth of our 
 best faculties — to their best use and enjoyment here 1" 
 Certainly indirectly it|has, but the direct cultivation of 
 our higher faculties would have been better. It is well 
 that our instincts or intuitions are stronger than our 
 opinions, otherwise the belief that this world was but 
 the beginning of an immortality for us would completely 
 paralyze all useful efforts here. It was this belief which 
 lighted the fires of the Inquisition, and has been the 
 source of all honest religious persecutions since the world 
 
184 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 first entertained the idea. Probably the worst error that 
 has cursed mankind is the belief that Salvation depends 
 upon Faith, and that a man is free to believe what he 
 pleases. Hence aU the persecutions between different 
 sects. The Inquisition was a matter of conscience. In 
 every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side by side. 
 In morals a man can love only that which is loveable ; in 
 ethics he com believe only that which is credible — he 
 could not believe black to be white if he were damned 
 for not doing it ; but he might shut his eyes and 
 hypocritically profess to believe anything. It is, how- 
 ever true, as the old saying says, " A good will helps to 
 a full understanding,'' and it is wonderful what a near 
 approach black makes in appearance to white if we very 
 much wish it. Notwithstanding the supposed necessity 
 for our training for " another and a better world," it 
 must be admitted that knowledge to us is only experience 
 — experience of this world and applicable only to like 
 conditions, and although I know it has often been 
 asserted to the contrary, all our faculties have relation to 
 this world, and can attain to their highest perfection 
 here. Although, however, the cultivated illusion as to a 
 Future life has not been beneficial, yet as morality has 
 thus been based upon religious sanction instead of upon 
 Natural Law, the illusion cannot be dispensed with until 
 the people have been taught what Natural Law is, and 
 the necessity for their obedience to it. Morality has no 
 relation, so far as we are concerned, to any other world, 
 but consists simply of the rules and regulations by 
 which people can live most happily together here. 
 Religion may continue as a profession if its priests, 
 
BELIEF NOT VOLUNTARY. 185 
 
 instead of training people for another world, 
 •will teach them how to be truly happy here; 
 acknowledging a succession of beings instead of the 
 continuance of the individual; and showing that we 
 are quite as near to God here as we can possibly be in 
 any other world ; since God is Everything and Every- 
 where, and His Will constitutes the Laws of what we 
 call Nature. The Clergy should make it their business to 
 transfer the religious sanction to such Laws, instead of 
 banning them as merely secular. We are quite willing 
 that the Toll-gates of Birth, Death, and Marriage should 
 be kept up as much for the public benefit as theirs, and 
 that all things be done decently and in order. When 
 we recognise that this life is all we are to have, we shall 
 all the better know how to make the best of it, and not 
 go off on a false scent. If to " eat, drink, and be merry' 
 were the highest happiness here, why then let us eat, 
 drink, and be merry. But it is not the highest happiness 
 of a man, but only of a pig, and people made like pigs. 
 Professor CHfford says : — " Do I seem to say : let us eat 
 and drink, for to-morrow we die 1 Ear from it ; on the 
 contrary, I say, ' Let us take hands and help, for this day 
 we are alive together.' " — First and Last Gatastrophe. 
 Man's highest happiness wiU lie in the developing and 
 perfecting of all his faculties, and that is the highest 
 state of civilization which admits of bringing all the 
 faculties into activity in their best direction. Holding 
 these views regarding a Future State, I think it my duty 
 to proclaim them, feeling certain in this case, as in all 
 others, that our highest good can only be assured by an 
 unfaltering, unequivocal expression of the truth as it 
 appears to every one of us. 
 
186 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 At present it seems almost impossible to get at the 
 truth as regards people's opinions on this subject. 
 George EUot had Christian burial, although claimed by 
 the Positiyists, and no doubt her opinions came nearer to 
 theirs than to any other recognised sect. Charles Darwin 
 was buried in "Westminster Abbey. A dear friend of 
 mine, lately dead, and who held very much my own 
 opinions, used to go to chapel, and all the great good that 
 was in him was publicly claimed by the Minister as the 
 result of what he heard there ; and the same Minister, 
 whose great friend was the Unitarian Minister, and 
 whose views were what are usually supposed to 
 distinguish the Broad Churchman, has since, at his late 
 funeral, been claimed by the strictest sect of Evangelicals. 
 A Christian burial seems the only one possible except at 
 great trouble to survivors. 
 
 Truth travels thus very slowly ; the path of new 
 truths is always much beset, and all permanent change 
 is necessarily very gradual. Superstition has been very 
 Tuseful in the absence of science, and it will be long before 
 science can take its place. Mental science is just where 
 physical science was before the days of Copernicus and 
 Galileo. Man now considers himself the centre of the 
 universe, and free from the laws that govern it, instead 
 of a part of the great whole. Free-will and science is a 
 contradiction. There can be no Mental Science until the 
 reign of Law is recognised in Mind as in Matter. 
 
 It often appears to me that all that I have wribten in 
 the foregoing pages contains but the merest truisms, and 
 that there are many who must feel this to be so ; still, 
 
A PSYCHOLOGICAL SYSTEM. 187 
 
 trite as they are, it will be long perhaps before the world 
 at large grows up to them. It may, however, I think, 
 be fairly asked have you nothing new to tell "To- 
 advance thought's infinite march a footpace more 1" (The 
 Ode of Life).. I think I have, although it is possible 
 what I have to say, if true, may have been told befote. 
 Aa acute metaphysician says " An attempt to relate the 
 li9,ws of thought to the processes of nature and to resolve- 
 them into one common source seems to me the greatest 
 conception of modern philosophy." — G. 0. Massey. This 
 I have attempted, however imperfectly. 
 
 The late Professor the Rev. Baden Powell is also of 
 opinion that " In the present state of science, of all 
 subjects that of which we know least is, perhaps, the 
 connection of our bodily and mental natures, the action 
 of the one on the other." This I have endeavoured to 
 show. 
 
 In 1879 I published my "last thoughts" in the form 
 of " Psychological and Ethical Definitions.'' I intended 
 this to be " a Psychological System based on the postulate 
 that the essential difference supposed to exist between 
 Physical and Mental Force is a pure assumption, as 
 proved by the fact that one is constantly changing into- 
 the other in the brains of the whole animal creation, 
 force is Mind, and aU power Will-power, conscious or 
 automatic, and Universal Force is God. There is no 
 bridge to pass over from matter to mind or from mind to 
 matter. Matter and Mind are transformations, or 
 different manifestations only, of the same entity. The 
 Natural or Physical Forces are correlations of Mental 
 Force and vice versa." This view, I think, is new, and. 
 
188 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 is surely deserving of some notice. The above is very 
 tersely expressed, and requires explanation. This 
 exposition had previously appeared in 1866 in "Force 
 and its Mental and Moral Correlates," and it has been 
 further explained in all I have written since. Mr. G. H. 
 Lewes, although well-disposed towards me, refused to 
 notice " Force and its Mental Correlates," on the ground 
 that I had used " Force" in a diflferent sense to that in 
 which it had hitherto been used by men of science. 
 But if Mr. Lewes had accepted my view of force, and in 
 "The Problems of Life and Mind" had made force 
 identical with feeling, instead of motion, he might have 
 helped forward an important discovery. — (See " Problems 
 of Life and Mind," Vol. 2, p 459, 456, 488, &c.) 
 
 Physicists will insist upon it that the bridge from matter 
 to miud is impassable ; but this is because they work the 
 problem the wrong way, from the phenomena of lifeless 
 matter through living matter where there was no con- 
 sciousness, &c. They ought, however, to begin with 
 consciousness, the only thing we can really be said to 
 know, and work downward to [its supposed origin and 
 cause. The modes of motion, the order of nature, the 
 ' whole objective world, are more or less probable inference, 
 known to us only in thought. Physical force is known 
 to us only as a mode of motion, but when a stream of this 
 •cosmic energy passes through the organism and becomes 
 Thought and Feeling, it loses its characteristics as a mode 
 of motion, and is in reality Force separate from Matter. 
 As Mind, it stUl has its attributes, and Will-power is the 
 power of which we can most easily conceive. Professor 
 G. J. Allman, in his late address as President of the 
 
DR. , ALLMANS ADDRESS. 189 
 
 British Association at Sheffield, 1880, says : " Have we, 
 it may be asked, made one step forward towards an 
 explanation of the phenomena of consciousness or the 
 discovery of its source 1 Assuredly not." I think we have. 
 Also, he says, " The power of conceiving of a substance 
 different from that of matter is still beyond the limits of 
 human intelligence." On the contrary. Consciousness is 
 aU we know, and matter is known to us, not as the only 
 substajice, but merely from its possibilities of affecting 
 our consciousness. In fact, mind is the only reality or 
 " substance," and all other things, however they may 
 appear to us, are but modes of its manifestations. The 
 " substance " of Spinoza is a higher generalisation than 
 either matter or spirit, and includes them both. Again, , 
 the Professor says : " The physical or objective conditions 
 which are the concomitants of thought are the only ones 
 of which it is possible to know anything, and the only ones 
 whosestudyisof value." Butthese "physicalandobjective 
 conditions " are known to us only as they are translated 
 into thought, and thought has its own laws dominating 
 these conditions — ^ruUng as well as being ruled. Psycho- 
 logy, not physics, is of the'first importance, for natural 
 science, after aU, can only be the science of human modes 
 of thinking. Without, objectively, the world, to us, is 
 only what we have made it. What it is in itself — in 
 reality, we do not know, and the world has not yet deter- 
 mined whether mind is not an exception to aU else in 
 nature, and acts without cause in what is called Pree 
 Will. Till this is settled there can be no Science of 
 Mind, and when it is, it will work as great a revolution 
 in Ethics and Theology as the Oopemican System in 
 
190 THE PUTUBE STATE. 
 
 Astronomy. Dr. AUman, however, says, in conclusion, 
 that " we are not on that account (the connection of mind 
 ■with physical condition) forced to the conclusion that 
 there is nothing in the universe but matter and force. 
 The simplest physical law is absolutely inconceivable by 
 the highest of the brutes, and no one would be justified 
 in assuming that man had "already attained the limit of 
 his powers. "Whatever may be that mysterious bond 
 which connects organisation with psychical endowments, 
 the one grand fact — a fact of inestimable importance — 
 stands out clear and freed from every obscurity and 
 doubt, that from the first dawn of intelligence there is 
 with every advance in organisation a corresponding 
 advance in mind. Mind as well as body is thus 
 travelling onwards through higher and still higher 
 phases ; the great law of Evolution is shaping the 
 Destiny of our race ; and though now we may at most 
 but indicate some weak point in the generalisation which 
 would refer consciousness as well as life to a common 
 material source, who can say that in the f ar-ofi" future 
 there may not yet be evolved other and higher faculties 
 from which light may stream in upon the darkness, and 
 reveal to man the great mystery of Thought ?" 
 
 The Natural Physical Forces are correlations of 
 Mental force and vice versa. Then what are we, if this 
 is true 1 Our bodies are composed of millions of organic 
 units, each with its separate individuality and force or 
 soul, and the force of these cellular units having served 
 its purpose in the system is transferred to the . new 
 matter taken in with the food ; the organic units are 
 "then dead, and are carried as waste out of the system 
 
CONTINUED IDENTITY. 191 
 
 and take other forms; it is precisely the same with 
 respect to the mind ; under the molecular action of the 
 hrain physical force resumes its consciousness as separate 
 specialized thoughts and feehngs^ — and it is the aggregate 
 of these thoughts and feelings which we call our minds, 
 in the same way as the aggregate of the organic units 
 form our bodies. Each thought and feeHng is a separate 
 existence or entity, and when it loses its consciousness it 
 again returns to automatic action or physical force. 
 Consciousness is to the brain what the flame is to the 
 candle; it lights up aU around it, giving the objective 
 world definite form and shape, causing motion every- 
 where, and dissipates itself in space — " Terar dum prosim- 
 may I be so wasted, if only I be of use" — as Carlyle puts 
 it. There is nothing more constant about the mind than 
 about the body ; all is perpetual change. The sense of 
 Identity, dependent like all our other feelings upon 
 the brain, is a delusion, for nothing in either mind or 
 body is tJie same for any two seconds together. It is 
 this ever changing body and mind that constitute the 
 "Ego" or self, and these are held together by the mysterious 
 power of Life, which dominates the organism and obliges 
 its forces to act together towards a definite purpose. It 
 is this life which properly constitutes Identity, and so 
 long as it continues the animal may be said to be the 
 same, however varied the form — the grub, the chrysalis, 
 and the butterfly for instance ; but when Life departs, 
 and the forces of body and mind are no longer bound 
 together by this mysterious tie, they return to their 
 original inorganic unconscious elements and the Indi- 
 vidual and Identity go with them and depart also. A 
 
192 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 stream of Force has been momently diverted from the 
 great whole of cosmic force, has been made to flow 
 through the organism, and returns to the ocean whence 
 it came. " The dust returns to the earth as it was, and 
 the spirit to God who gave it." The resurrection of the 
 body has long been given up ; the resurrection of the 
 individual mind, composed as it is of units of sensibility 
 dependent for their specific character on the brain, is 
 equally inrvpossiUe. If it were posssible for the mind's 
 identity to be continued after death with a different 
 body, it would not constitute the same person, as our 
 identity or personality is made up of our body and mind. 
 " Everything that exists depends upon the past, prepares 
 the future, and is related to the whole." — Oersted. Here 
 properly resides our Immortality. Here is the immortal 
 Bums as painted by Longfellow : — 
 
 " For now he haunts his native land 
 As an immortal youth ; his hand 
 
 Guides every plough ; 
 He sits beside each ingle-nook, 
 His voice is in each rushing brook. 
 Each rustling bough. 
 
 His presence haunts this room to-night, 
 A form of mingled mist and light. 
 
 Prom that far coast. 
 Welcome beneath this roof of mine ! 
 Welcome ! this vacant chair is thine, 
 
 Dear guest and ghost !" 
 
 UUima Thule. 
 
 Tennyson thus writes of his late dear friend : — 
 
 " What art thou then ? I cannot guess ; 
 But tho' I seem in star and flower 
 
WHENCE, WHY, AND WHITHER. 193 
 
 To feel thee some diffiisive power 
 I do not therefore love thee less.'' 
 
 The authors of " The Unseen Universe" are of opinion, 
 that is, they say we can very well imagine that the trans- 
 formed force of thought and feeling, or at least a portion 
 of it, may be stored up in the brain, on the principle of 
 the necessary Continuity, so as to constitute a "soul" 
 that shall continue after the death and dissolution of the 
 body, and that the memory of past events being stored 
 up in it, " thus preserve the two essential requisites of a 
 continuous intelligent existence" (pp. 159-160). It is 
 true we can very weU imagine all this, but are there any 
 facts to support the theory of the localising this energy 
 in a supposed spiritual body, or any proof even if there 
 were of the transference of memory from one body to 
 the other, or any reason to suppose that one body would 
 be more permanent or immortal than the other 1 Force 
 we know is indestructible, but, like matter, it is always 
 changing its form. 
 
 The mysterious Whence, Why, and Whither is 
 answered. 
 
 Whence ? The Soul is part of the Cosmic Force or 
 Universal Mind ; everywhere around the Mind is this 
 force transformed, or resuming its consciousness under 
 the molecular action of the brain, as the aggregate of our 
 thoughts and feelings. 
 
 What is the purpose of existence? Why? "It is 
 •manifest, or Bishop Butler says, that nothing can be of 
 consequence to mankind or any creature, but happiness." 
 It seems, indeed, as if the support of life was Nature's 
 great purpose. Land, water, air, teem with life. In 
 
 N 
 
194: THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 the bitter cold of Artie Regions, -with strange alternations 
 of long sai^mier day, and long winter night, frozen 
 seas, perennial ice, life has a hundred forms. The torrid 
 zone, blazing with heat, parched with drought, fierce 
 raging hurricanes driving away oppressive calms, contains 
 myriads of living things. Mountain summits, depths of 
 Talleys, mid-ocean, arid desert, warm and salt springs, are 
 all inhabited. So, likewise, in past ages, there was 
 abundant life. No trace remains of millions and millions 
 of the primitive living creatures in the earliest eras ; yet, 
 from the remains of other eras we know that life 
 abounded in the sea — ^forming strata after strata ; and that 
 multitudes fed on the land. — (Rev. J. "W. Reynolds " The 
 Stipematttral in Nature," 196.) But what is the good 
 of life unless attended with consciousness, and what is the 
 good of consciousness unless it were a pleasurable one 1 — a 
 painful one would be worse than none. 
 
 Whither ? To whence we came before we were bom. 
 As individuals, while alive, we are part of everything 
 around, of the All in One ; our bodies in direct 
 connection with all the physical forces, and our minds 
 with aU the mental ; and it is only by making ourselves 
 acquainted with the action of these forces — ^with th© 
 " Order of Nature," and acting in harmony with them, 
 that we can fulfil the object of our being, and make our- 
 selves and others happy. " What is the essential nature 
 of that which is around us 1 What are we ourselves, and 
 what is the universe 1 Are all things such as they seem ; 
 or, if not, what is the reality of them 1" « This," James 
 Hinton says, "is the question of philosophy." — ("The 
 Art of Thinking," p. 132.) I have endeavoured to 
 
ESSENTIAL NATURE. 195 
 
 answer this question as far as we are able. " Wliai we 
 liave done is the only mirror that can show us what we 
 are," says Carlyle ; but our thoughts are all we know, 
 and they teU us nothing of the essential nature either of 
 themselves or of anything else. We cannot tell what 
 things are in themselves. It would seem that all is of 
 one stuff — mind stuff, as Professor Clifford calls it ; but 
 what is its essential nature we do not know. We are 
 such stuff as dreams are made of. We know they all 
 are but parts of one stupendous whole, from the 
 remotest star to the smallest atom, that : 
 
 " Nothing in this world is single ; 
 All things, by a law divine. 
 In one another's being mingle.'' 
 
 This is aU we know, and probably all we can ever know. 
 What can I do ? What ought I to do ? What may I 
 hope for ' Kant says the ultimate object of all know- 
 ledge is to reply to these questions : — 
 
 What can I do 1 That depends upon the faculties, 
 mental and bodily, with which I have been endowed. 
 Of these faculties Phrenology gives us the best account. 
 
 What ought I to do ? To eiiercise every faculty in the 
 legitimate direction for which it was evidently intended. 
 
 What may I hope for 1 That pleasure will attend 
 the legitimate exercise of each faculty — ^the aggregate of 
 which pleasures constitutes happiness, the only thing 
 "that can be of consequence to mankind or any 
 creature." 
 
 I know it is customary among those who do not 
 accept a Revelation still to hold the opinion as to a 
 
196 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 Future State as an open question. Schiller, perhaps, 
 well expresses the feeling of the many thoughtful, and 
 advanced minds on the subject. He says : — 
 
 "What went before and what will follow me, I regard as two 
 black inpenetrable curtains, which hang down at the two 
 extremities of human life, and which no living man has yet 
 drawn aside. Many hundreds of generations have already stood 
 before them with their torches, guessing anxiously what lies 
 behind. On the curtain of futurity manyj see their own 
 shadows, the forms of their passions enlarged and put iu motion ; 
 they shrink in terror at this image of themselves. Poets, 
 philosophers, and founders of states have painted this curtain 
 with their dreams, more smiling or more dark as the sky above 
 them was cheerful or gloomy ; and their pictures deceive the eye 
 when viewed from a distance. Many jugglers, too, make profit 
 of this our tmiversal curiosity : by their strange mummeries they 
 have set the outstretched fancy iu amazement. A deep silence 
 reigns behind this curtain ; no one once within will answer those 
 he has left without ; all you can hear is a hollow echo of your 
 question, as if you shouted into a chasm." 
 
 But if tho advance of science shows that the con- 
 tinuance of the Individual after death is an 
 impossibility, had we not better at once try to reconcile 
 ourselves to the fact ? The truth surely must be best for 
 us all, in this as in everything else. What is the use of 
 leaving as uncertain that which is so evident? 
 Uncertainty is always painful, and if it is so with 
 reference to the short life here, what must it be if 
 extended into an endless future? "The primary 
 religion of mankind," says Hume, "arises chiefly 
 from an anxious fear of future events." The key 
 to these future events, for good or ill, of which there 
 is such anxious fear, the priests, in all ages, have 
 
THE LOVE OP LIFE. 197 
 
 possessed themselves of. The instinct of the love of life, 
 so effectual here in the prevention of suicide in paroxysms 
 of despair, or intolerable suffering, has been extended by 
 them beyond this life, in the interests as they think of 
 religion and humanity. It is rather singular that the 
 Buddhists, the most numerous religious sect in the world, 
 numbering nearly a fourth of mankind, seem as anxious 
 to get rid of their individuahty and to be absorbed into 
 Nirvana, as Christian and other sects seem anxious to 
 retain it. But the Buddhist cannot even seek anni- 
 hilation and be iadividuaUy absorbed in universal Being 
 ■without the aid of the Priest. This " future state " has 
 been made the key stone of religion, and has been 
 sedulously presented to our race for this two thousand 
 years, so that the belief is born in us, and but few think 
 of doubting it, however little the evidence in its favour, 
 and however strong the facts on the other side. To 
 proclaim that this world was made so badly, or that its 
 Creator allowed one of his creatures so to spoil it, that 
 another was required to compensate for its deficiencies, 
 is certainly not praising God. It is computed that some 
 97,790 people die daily throughout the world, and in the 
 face of this fact the popular view of heaven — of God sitting 
 on a throne and Christ at his right hand — is a very childish 
 conception^indeed ! Surely God is enthroned equally here 
 and everywhere, and it should be the mission of the Minis- 
 ters of Religion to make this evident, and not carry us, 
 even in imagination, to worlds unknown. Walking in my 
 garden I stopped to look at a poppy which had set itself 
 among the potatoes, and thus forced itself upon my notice^ 
 It was white, its fringed edges tipped with scarlet, the other 
 
198 THE FUTUEE STATE. 
 
 part of the flowerwasbeautifullyandsymmetrically striped; 
 inside was the perfectly-shaped seed vessel surrounded 
 with its little stamens and crowned with its pistil. I 
 could not but think, with wonder, who made this, and 
 who made it so beautiful to me 1 " The new biology 
 shows us that every living thing has been slowly moulded 
 into its existing shape by surrounding circumstances, and 
 that it bears upon its very face a thousand traces of its 
 earlier stages," and I am told that the insects make the 
 flowers, but surely there must be some power behind the 
 insects that has painted them so beautifully, and has 
 established the relationship between them and me. Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall tells us that it takes 477 millions of 
 millions of vibratory waves to produce the sensation of 
 colour we call red, and 577 millions of millions to pro- 
 duce green ; surely then it must require some nice ad- 
 justment to colour and stripe the flower so symmetrically 
 and harmoniously. In the Pansey or Heartsease, the 
 sap running up its narrow stem immediately turns off 
 and so arranges itself as to produce on the velvet 
 petals of the flower the exquisite violet colour which 
 takes 100 millions of millions more vibrations to produce 
 than other colours. It takes, according to Tyndall, 699 
 milHons of millions of ether waves to enter the eye in a 
 single second to produce the impression we call violet in the 
 brain. There is no jumbling together or mixing of these 
 millions of millions of forces, no " fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms," but all are " confederate and linked together to 
 produce a pleasurable sense of beauty in us. Here is 
 both power and purpose. And the world is covered with 
 flowers, and surely we might leave off thinking of our own 
 
DIVINE MYSTERY. 199 
 
 Salvation and anotlier world in admiration, gratitude, and 
 awe for the Supreme Power that made and unceasingly 
 upholds this. It is a beautiful world, and I am sorry to 
 leave it. My love for Nature has increased with each 
 passing year, and God and Nature are the same to me 
 " Our caresses, our tender words, our still rapture under 
 the influence of autumn sunsets or calm majestic statues, 
 or Beethoven Symphonies, all bring with them the con 
 sciousness that they are mere waves and ripples in an 
 unfathomable ocean of love and beauty. Our emotion in 
 its keenest moment passes from expression into silence 
 our love at its highest flood rushes beyond its object and 
 loses itself in the sense of Divine mystery." — (George 
 EKot.) Who finds not God in this world, in the " un 
 speakable beauty, the illimitable splendour, the infinite 
 play of force " here, would never find him in any other. 
 I am no Agnostic ; to me God is not an unknown God ; 
 I may not know the mode of his Being or Working, but 
 He is known to me as everything else is, by what He 
 does. In the flower, in the insect, in the bird, I say 
 here — ^this is God — His immediate work and presence. 
 " It is my true and real feeling,'' says Uhlich, " when I 
 bow down and gaze at a flower, that the Deity looks 
 at me from it, and sends towards me a sweet perfume." 
 "Lucretius denying God and deifying Nature," is not 
 denying God at all, but simply saying that Nature is 
 God. Each year I Uve, " The whole creation seems more 
 and more Divine to me, the Natural more and more Super- 
 natural." — (Oarlyle.) As James Hinlon says — " Now we 
 say ' individuals and God in them,' hereafter we shall say. 
 *God and in this form ' : " and here James Hinton passes 
 
200 THE FUTURE STATE. 
 
 from Theism toPantheism. It has beensaid that man isthe 
 highest intelligence with which we are acquainted in this 
 world, but could man have made a flower, or any of these 
 things ! I find Mind in Nature everywhere, and with 
 Bacon, " I had rather believe all the fables of the legend, 
 and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this uni- 
 versal frame was without a mind ; and, therefore, God 
 never wrought miracles to convince Atheism, because his 
 ordinary works convince it. It is true that a little 
 philosophy incliaeth men's minds to Atheism, but depth 
 in philosophy bringeth men's mind about to religion ; for 
 while the mind of man looketh on second causes scattered, 
 it may sometimes rest in them, and go no further ; but 
 when it beholdeth them confederate and linked together 
 it must needs fly to providence and deity." "Matter 
 can never exist and be active without mind," says Goethe, 
 and Hume bears testimony that " The whole frame of 
 Nature bespeaks an intelligent author." That mind in 
 Nature need not resemble in any way what is called mind 
 in us. Ours is specialised by organization for a special 
 purpose, as in fact is all other mind in what we call the 
 properties of matter. God's power acts upon every 
 atom, and thus " the universal frame " — the cosmos — the 
 universe, is the body of God. No doubt I shall be called 
 an Atheist, for I do not believe " in God, the Father 
 Almighty," for God " acts not by partial, but by 
 general laws," and there is much evil or suffering in the 
 world, but it seems to be necessary to the greater good, 
 that is, God could not give us the greater good without 
 it. Thus we not only have among insects the silk- worm 
 and the bee, with the " burnished Dragon-fly, with steely 
 
THE WAR OF NATURE. 201 
 
 blue mail and shield," but bugs and fleas and mosquitoes 
 — ^but the world nevertheless could not exist without the 
 insects. " From the war of nature, from famine and 
 death,'' says Charles Darwin, " the most exalted object 
 which we are capable of conceiving — namely, the produc- 
 tion of the higher animals — directly follows. There is 
 grandeur in this \ view of Uf e, with its several powers, 
 having been originally breathed by the Creator into a 
 few forms or into one ; and that while this planet has 
 gone cycling on, according to the fixed law of gravity, 
 from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful 
 and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." 
 — (Origin of Spedes.) Why this " war of nature, this 
 famine and death " were necessary to this " most exalted 
 object," why all should proceed so slowly from one or a 
 few germs, why an age of great toads and other reptiles 
 should precede the advent of man on this earth, why this 
 " martyrdom of man," with war the great organizer, this 
 pressure of population on the means of subsistence, have 
 been necessary to his progress, is stUl a mystery, but it 
 certainly cannot be reconciled to -Almighty Power. To 
 us also it would seem that the power that produced one 
 germ could just as easUy have produced hundreds, and 
 have saved some millions of years in bringing about our 
 present state ; so also the conditions that produced one 
 man might as easily have produced, and most probably 
 did produce, all the marked varieties. 
 Still we find the Supreme Source of all 
 
 " From seeming evil still educing good, 
 And better thence again and better still 
 In infinite progression." — Thomson. 
 
202 THE FUTOEE STATE. 
 
 " Where'er I looked a younger hour 
 Trampled his fellow gone before ; 
 Change was in all, but evermore 
 Power did succeed to other power. 
 Life ever Uved. The vital store 
 Exhaustless did itself renew 
 IVom death, whereout there always .grew 
 Fresh forms of life which Nature bore. 
 * * » * 
 
 And it shall be 
 When earth is old, and He who gave 
 Resumes her essence, I can have 
 No being in eternity." — Maurice Penderrich, 
 
 Such is my conviction as regards myself, and I am 
 perfectly reconciled to it. 
 
 Francis Quarles, writing in 1634, says : — 
 
 "Let wit with all her studied plots effect 
 
 The best they can ; 
 Let smiling fortune prosper and perfect 
 
 What wit began ; 
 Let earth advise with both, and so project 
 
 A happy man ; 
 Let wit or fawning fortune vie their best ; 
 
 He may be blest 
 With all the earth can give ; but earth can give no rest. 
 
 Whose gold is double with a careful hand. 
 
 His cares are double ; 
 The pleasure, honour, wealth of sea and land 
 
 Bring but a trouble ; 
 The world itself, and all the world's command. 
 
 Is but a bubble. 
 The strong desires of man's insatiate breast 
 
 May stand possest 
 Of all that earth can give ; but earth can give no reit. 
 
REST. 203 
 
 If this were true, and I am not disposed to take this 
 pessimist view of things, what man requires in early 
 life, when he is young and strong, is not rest, but full 
 activity in the path of duty, and when he gets old and 
 has finished his allotted term of threescore years and 
 ten, what he wants is Rest. Life is dependent upon 
 " the continuous adjustment of internal relations to 
 external relations." With much time and trouble this 
 adjustment has taken place here much to our advantage, 
 but we do not know to what extent this adjustment 
 might be disturbed in any other world, or even on the 
 road to other worlds, particularly when we have left our 
 bodies behind us, and some 40 millions of naked soul^ 
 are going the same way every year. What I seem to 
 require, and to long for, is Rest, and not to begin life 
 again in some new world. Altogether I would rather 
 not face the uncertainty, but would prefer to be as I was 
 before I was born, particularly as there will be many to 
 take my place here, and no want of increasing happy 
 life. W. R. Greg seems to have felt on this subject 
 very much as 1 do. He says : — " Jge cannot, from the 
 very law of its nature, conceive itself endou-cd u-Uli 
 hounding energies of youth, and without that vigour, both 
 of exertion and desire, renewed existence can offer no 
 inspiring charms. Our being upon earth has been 
 enriched by vivid interests and precious joys, and we 
 are deeply grateful for the gift ; but we are wearied 
 with our life, and feel scarcely qualified to enter on the 
 claims, even though balanced by the felicities and glories, 
 of another. It may be the fatigue which comes with age 
 • — fatigue of the fancy as well as of the frame ; but 
 
204 CONCLUSION. 
 
 somehow, what w,e yearn for most instinctively at last 
 is rest, and the peace which we caa imagine most easily, 
 because we know it best, is that of sleep." — Miscellaneous 
 Essays, p. 258. I^have enjoyed my term and am thank- 
 ful, and I do not complain that the term of life allotted 
 to us is so short. If there were any real or reasonable 
 cause of complaint those have most to complain of who 
 have never come into existence at all. In a very short 
 time now I shall be gone, 
 
 " Quiet at last reposing 
 Under the moss and fern." 
 
 and they shall write upon my grave 
 
 The Weary abe at Rest. 
 Permitte ccetera Deo. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Sept. 18th, 1884. 
 
 The last stage of all that ends this " strange, eventful 
 history " has novr come to me : not in the Shakspearesin 
 sense of the seven ages, since I suppose I am only in the 
 sixth stage. But my time is come, and in about a month 
 in all probability, it will be finished. From the nature 
 of my disease there must be a gradual wasting of flesh 
 and strength till the end comes. This process does not 
 appear to me to be attended with much pain. I shall 
 get weaker and weaker till the weary is at rest. For 
 fifty years and more I have been an unbiassed and un- 
 prejudiced seeker after truth, and the opinions I have 
 
CONCtUSION. 5 
 
 come to, liowever difierent from those usually held, I am 
 not now-, at the last hour, disposed to change. They 
 have clone to live by, they will do to die by. I have 
 long been of the same opinion as that recently expressed 
 by Herbert Spencer, " that the one absolute certainty 
 that remains is that we are in the presence of an Eternal 
 Energy, from which all things proceed." And also, 
 " that the Power that manifests itself in consciousness 
 is ■ but a differently - conditioned form of the power 
 which manifests itself beyond consciousness." It has 
 been seen I have endeavoured to carry this out in some 
 little detail, and to show that — 
 
 " The Poet, faithful and far-seeing, 
 
 Sees ahke in flowers and stars a part 
 Of that same Universal Being, 
 That is tirobbing in thy brain and heart." 
 
 As to the question of the continued individuality in some 
 other world after death, I have no hope or expectation, 
 or belief even in its possibility. Body and soul make a 
 man : when they are separated neither can retain its 
 identity. I am very thankful for the long term of happy 
 life that has been allotted me. I am qiiite willing to 
 retire and make room for some better fellow to come 
 after me. We cannot die. Our individuality may be 
 lost. But is the individuality of the very best of us 
 worth retaining ? Much less that of the great multitude. 
 " We live in the Eternal Order, and the Eternal Order 
 never dies," I do not know where this has been better 
 expressed than by Constance C. W. Naden in her " Songs 
 and Sonnets of Spring-time," in the concluding verses of 
 her " Pantheist's Song of Immortality " : — 
 
206 CONCLUSIOX. 
 
 " Yes, thou shall Uie ; but these almighty forces, 
 That meet to form thee, live for evermore : 
 They hold the suns in their eternal f ourses, 
 Andjshape the tiny sand-grains on the shore. 
 
 Be calmly glad, thine own true kindred seeing 
 In fire and storm, in flowers with dew impearled ; 
 
 Kejoice in thine imperishable being, 
 
 One with the essence of the boundless world. " 
 
 Mr. Bray lived scarcely three weeks after the above 
 Conoliision was written from his dictation, and Sunday, 
 October -5th, A^as his Day of Rest. 
 
APPENDIX, 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 My autobiography was printed October, 1882. This 
 ■was done to save trouble, as it was so interlined, (fee, 
 that it would have been very difficult for any but the 
 writer to make it out correctly. I am 73 years old this 
 month — January, 1884 — and I may yet live to add many 
 " wise saws and modern instances " to what has already 
 been written. My memory for names is fading, the mind 
 acts more slowly, or stands stiU — that is, time passes 
 without consciousness, but my judgment, when my 
 health is at its best, is, I think, as strong as ever, 
 What I may add will be illustrative or confirmatory of 
 what I have already written ; it is seldom at my time 
 of life that new thoughts arise. If I have found a 
 thought which I think calculated to interest, or to be 
 of service to the reader, I have given it in the words of 
 the author. 
 
 Life. 
 
 Life is dependent upon "the continuous adjust- 
 ment of internal relations to external relations." 
 Mind is dependent upon Life, and happiness is 
 a condition of the mind to be reached only through 
 the path of duty. The path of duty is not 
 confined to the following of a few moral maxims which 
 regard only our relations to our fellow creatures, but it 
 must include all upon which life depends, as all depends 
 upon life. In order to effect this nice adjustment of our 
 internal to the external a knowledge of Natural Law in 
 
 o 
 
208 APPENDIX. 
 
 all departments is required. From ignorance of these 
 natural laws, and consequent want of obedience to them, 
 most of the ills of life arise, and good people often do 
 wrong from ignorance, as weU as the bad who do wrong 
 knowingly and intentionally. The nice relationship of 
 our bodies to Physics, Chemistry, Animal and Vege- 
 table Physiology, and Mental Science, is very imper- 
 fectly understood by the wisest, and little, if at all, by 
 the multitude. To the want of such knowledge George 
 Combe traces not only a general deterioration of consti- 
 tution in his own person, but some permanent struc- 
 tural injuries. " The bones," he says, " were im- 
 perfectly developed; and bent clavicles and a slight 
 distortion of the spine, with chronic irritability of the 
 mucous membrane of the lungs, were the consequences." 
 To the suffering caused by his inability to sit upright 
 during the long hours of confinement at the High School 
 on the backless seats he attributes the distortion of 
 the spine. Combe's parents were among the most en- 
 lightened of their day, and most religiously anxious to 
 do their duty to their children, yet, he says, " Neither 
 in church, nor school, nor in the family circle, was one 
 solitary rational idea communicated to me concerning 
 my own nature, or the nature of men and things, or my 
 own relationship to them." Things are not quite so bad 
 now as they were in George Combe's time, thanks to the 
 wide circulation of his Constitution of Man, his brother 
 Dr. Andrew Combe's Principles of Physiology, and 
 similar works, stiU it is a question whether in ignorance 
 or forgetfulness of the fact that the brain is the organ 
 of mind, as much mischief is not being done to young, 
 unmatured, growing brains by overwork as was done to 
 George Combe's spine at the High School. 
 
 No connection can be traced between cause and effect 
 in the world, except one of purpose for the benefit 
 of the whole sensitive creation. This connection was 
 originally ordained, and is constantly upheld with that 
 view, and it is our duty to place ourselves in harmony 
 with that Divine Order. "We are definitely related to 
 everything around, we have to learn what that relation 
 
LIFE. 209 
 
 is, and our well-'being depends upon the more or less 
 perfection with which we can adjust our internal rela- 
 tions to these external ones. 
 
 It is quite true, as George Combe says, that " a conse- 
 quence of good or evil is attached by the Creator to every 
 action of man, and that the. good follows actions which 
 conform to reason, morality, and religion, while evil is 
 the consequence of error, passion, and injustice in its 
 every form." " There is no stronger conviction in this 
 age," says Max Miiller, " than the conviction of the 
 scientific men that all happine.ss depends upon the 
 knowledge of the Laws of Nature and the careful 
 adaptation of human life to them. (" Natural Religion," 
 p. 365.) 
 
 We go now to church, and in our prayers ask God to 
 interfere with those laws which he has thus established 
 for our benefit. We hear there of Ten Commandments : 
 eventually we shall learn that the whole Order of Nature 
 is Divine and God's Laws, and the difference between 
 the religious and secular will completely disappear. We 
 shall go to church, then, to learn what these Laws are, 
 and Science will take the place of Superstition. The 
 earth travels at a fearful rate, both in its orbit and on 
 its axle, and we go with it in perfect safety. Why ? 
 Because we move with it. It is precisely the same 
 with all its other movements, called the laws of Nature ; 
 if we move with them we are unhurt, if we do not we 
 suffer. " We are bound," says J. A. Picton, " to con- 
 form ourselves with the Divine order of the world, and 
 to sacrifice pleasure, profit, life itself, if necessary, for 
 the working out of that order into higher forms of 
 human society." "It is only by the identification of 
 ourselves, body and mind, with Nature, that we truly 
 live : all non-identification is error, disease, death." We 
 are going that way, although not fast : thus Sir W. Siemens, 
 President of the British Association, 1882, in the con- 
 cluding words of his address, says, " We shall thus find 
 that in the great workshop of Nature there are no lines 
 of demarcation to be drawn between the most exalted 
 speculation and common-place practice, and that all 
 
210 PAPENDIX. 
 
 knowledge must lead up to one great result, that of 
 an intelligent recognition of the Creator through his 
 works." And Emerson says : — " I look for the new 
 Teacher that shall follow, and for those shining laws (the 
 Hebrew and Greek Scriptures), that he shall see them 
 come in fuU circle ; shall see their rounding complete 
 grace ; shall see the world to be the mirrors of the soul ; 
 shall see the identity of the law of gravitation with 
 purity of heart ; shall show that the Ought, that Duty, 
 is one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with Joy." 
 — " Emerson at Home and Abroad," by Moncure D. 
 Conway, p. 137. 
 
 [George Combe has left a portion of his property in 
 Trust, that the Trustees "may as seems best in their 
 judgment," inculcate and carry out the above doctrine.] 
 
 Life m Other Worlds. 
 Professor Whewell, the great mathematician, wrote a 
 very learned essay to show that in the whole Universe 
 the Earth is most probably the only habitable globe. 
 The Professor's idea of the stars, as to their utiUty 
 at least, seems very much to resemble that of the little 
 child who thought that they "were little gimlet holes 
 to let the glory through." Fancy, — of all the 
 countless worlds our own the only inhabited one, and 
 with such creatures ! " We now know that our earth 
 is but a fraction of one out of at least 75,000,000 
 worlds." — " Sir Jno. Lubbock." Force is everywhere, and 
 Force is Mind ; acting intelligently, and from the fiery 
 mist evolving a beautiful world like ours. Given Life, 
 which is one of the modes of manifestation of this 
 universal force or mind, and there is no reason why 
 there should not be " the continuous adjustment of the 
 internal relations to the external relations," as with us, 
 in as varied conditions as there are varied worlds. 
 Conditions have greatly varied with us in the geological 
 eras. In the times of the great toads the atmosphere 
 that supported life was probably very different to what 
 it is now ; as also is the difference now between land 
 and water. The differences in Light and Heat and 
 
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 211 
 
 Cold in Mercury, Venus, and Mars are scarcely greater 
 than these. And -why are we to suppose that Man is 
 the most perfect creature that can be made 1 What is 
 wanted is the creation of happiness — the evolution of 
 pleasurable sensibility; and there is no reason to suppose 
 that this requires conditions in any way resembling our 
 own. Our instincts and mental powers are inherited 
 experiences, and probably transmissible in states differ- 
 ing widely from animal structure here. 
 
 The Survival of the Fittest. 
 
 " Nature, which governs the whole, will soon change all things which thoa 
 seeBt, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other 
 things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever new." 
 
 — M. Antoninus. 
 
 " It is a condition of our race that we must ever wade 
 through error in our advance towards truth ; and it may 
 even be said that in many cases we exhaust almost every 
 variety of error before we obtain the desired goal. But 
 truths once reached by such a course, are always most 
 highly valued ; and when, in addition to this, they have 
 been exposed to every variety of attack which splendid 
 talents quickened into energy by the keen perception 
 of personal interests can suggest ; — when they have 
 revived undying from unmerited neglect ; when the 
 anathema of spiritual, and the arm of secular, power 
 have been found as impotent in suppressing as their 
 arguments were in refuting them, then they are indeed 
 irresistible. Thus tried and thus triumphant in the 
 fiercest warfare of intellectual strife, even the temporary 
 interests and furious passions which urged on the contest 
 have contributed in no small measure to establish their 
 value, and thus to render these truths the permanent 
 heritage of our race." — "Babbage'sBridgewater Treatise. 
 Our race is a part of Nature, equally, with all other 
 things, obedient to its laws, and Man, Mind and Body, 
 is " part of the great series of cause and effect, which, 
 in unbroken continuity, composes that which is, and has 
 been, and shall be — ^the sum of existence." Minds are 
 born very much as bodies are, and in each case we have 
 to recognise the survival of the fittest. " Of fifty seeds 
 
212 APPENDIX. 
 
 she often brings but one to bear." Nature seems as 
 much to require experience as Man does. She seems to 
 try all modes of being, and all forms of life, and infinite 
 numbers of these forms, and the best only are retained 
 and become permanent. The weak have always gone to 
 the wall, and the least profitable have been " stamped 
 out." It is by the martyrdom of Man that his highest 
 interests have been assured. 
 
 " Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 And love Creation's final law." 
 
 Whatever we may hope as to the final triumph of love, 
 it is probable that up to the present time more progress 
 has been derived from strife. Whatever is best worth 
 having we must fight for, and in that fight is found 
 health and strength of body and mind, and space is 
 cleared for the exercise of all our highest faculties. 
 The strong thing, m the long rwn, is the right thing, and 
 might is right, for that only can endure. The survival 
 of the fittest, that is, that the weakest should go to the 
 wall, does not accord with our sense of justice, but if it 
 is best for the interests of the whole it must be right, 
 and we must educate our moral sense up to the point in 
 which we shall be willing to stand aside and make room 
 for the " fittest ; " but if we are not willing, Nature will 
 not cease to act upon the law. The highest law of life 
 is subordination to the universal good. It is this law 
 that has raised such a cry from the sufierers, who do 
 not feel at all willing to retire and make room for the 
 better endowed, but demand " another and a better 
 world." But surely to live at all is more than any of us 
 have a right to demand. True philosophy sets itself to 
 face the facts of this life, however disagreeable to us as 
 individuals, rather than at once to proceed to make 
 another world more to our liking. 
 
 Our Own Well-being. 
 
 The Ant and the Bee, we are told, have risen to the 
 virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism, but if it gives as 
 much pleasure to these creatures, as it evidently does, to 
 
OUR OWN WELL-BEING. 213 
 
 devote themselves to the care of other individuals' 
 offspring, as to their own, and to the good of the 
 community as to their own individual good, where is the 
 self-sacrifice 1 So, as a rule, men are not likely to divest 
 themselves of moral restraints so long as it is the law of 
 their nature to seek their own well-being — the highest 
 enjoyments. If they please themselves, and know their 
 own interest, they will seek their highest enjoyment in 
 the highest and strictest morality. " Virtue," according 
 to Shaftesbury ,"is a part of the existing harmony of the 
 world, and may be left to take care of itself." " Supreme 
 Wisdom," he says," has made it to be according to the 
 private interest and good of everyone to work towards 
 the general good." Sacrifice has hitherto been the base 
 of all religions, but self-sacrifice is ordinarily our highest 
 good; where it is not it cannot become a moral law, for 
 that only can be a moral law that admits of universal 
 application ; and if self-sacrifice were the law in any 
 other sense than our own good what would become of 
 the race 1 Vicarious atonement has .hitherto been an 
 essential doctrine of Christianity, but as the breach of 
 necessary laws entails inevitable penalties, such penalties 
 being for our good could not be suffered vicariously. 
 
 Creation. 
 
 The Kumis of Chittagong believe that their Deity 
 made the world and the trees and the creeping things, 
 and lastly he set to work to make one man and one 
 woman, forming their bodies of clay ; but each night, on 
 "the completion of his work, there came a great snake, 
 which, while God was sleeping, devoured the two images, 
 At length the Deity created a dog, which drove away the 
 snake, and then the creation of man was accomplished. 
 We might suppose that this account of the creation was 
 taken from the Hebrew, according to Moses, only the 
 Kumis Deity appears to be so much wiser than the 
 Hebrew, who set no watch, but allowed the snake to 
 enter and seduce poor Eve into an act of disobedience for 
 which single act the earth was cursed, and she was damned 
 with all her posterity. That all should suffer for the sin. 
 
214 APPENDIX. 
 
 of our first parents does not seem just according to our 
 ideas of justice, any more than we can reconcile it to our 
 sense of justice than any should afterwards be saved by 
 the suflFerings of an innocent person. No doubt the giving 
 a religious sanction to this account of the fall and the 
 atonement has done great injury to the greatest of all 
 virtues — justice. But we are now told that such 
 " records of barbaric thought and life, as contained in the 
 Hebrew Scriptures, have passed into the culture of the 
 19th century." Dr. Norman Macleod (" Good Words," 
 June, 1875) tells us that " the Bible practically says to 
 all seekers after God, ' Whom ye ignorantly worship, 
 Him declare I unto you.' ... It professes to give 
 a true history, in harmony with reason, conscience, and 
 experience of God's revelation of Himself during past 
 ages, culminating in Jesus Christ, and continued in the 
 Church of His Spirit." It is to be hoped that the good 
 Doctor did not often read his Bible, but was satisfied 
 with as much of it only as had passed into " the culture- 
 of the 19th century." Dr. Macleod tells us that "God 
 has manifested in humanity the same kind of joy He- 
 Himself had in beholding the works that H6 had made 
 very good, and in which He rested and reposed." ( Idem. 
 p. -421.) Why, while He was thus resting and reposing 
 in beholding the Paradise he had made very good, Eve 
 was just about to get herself turned out of it, and to 
 bring upon herself and posterity all the evils that were 
 the supposed consequences of such fall. The Kumis Diety 
 created a dog to keep out the snake, but nothing was 
 provided here, because the woman was to be left per- 
 fectly /ree. But if she were realhj free, then what she 
 would do would be undetermined, uncertain, might 
 happen or might not happen, and Omniscience itself 
 could not forsee that which was left contingent, that is, 
 uncertain as to what would happen or not, and thus the 
 Deity would not know of the approaching catastrophe, 
 and this would account for His joy and rest and repose 
 in what he had made very good. If God did foresee 
 what would happen, and that Eve would certainly get 
 turned out, then Paradise was only "a mockery, a 
 
THE MYSTERY OP EVIL. 215 
 
 delusion, and a snare." But doubtless Dr. Macleod had 
 his own way of satisfactorily accounting for the Fall. 
 I trust it was not that of his brother Calvinists in 
 Scotland as expressed in the Westminster Confession of 
 Faith, " That this their sin Grod was pleased, according 
 to His wise and holy counsel, to permit, having pur- 
 posed to order it to His own glory." 
 
 TJis Mystery of Evil. 
 
 As all actions are equally " determined " or " neceis- 
 sary," there is nothing in the actions themselves that 
 renders them either good or bad, their character must 
 depend upon their tendency (ie.), their tendency to pro- 
 duce either pain or pleasure, and the only evil then is 
 pain. But is pain an evil, or rather has not all the good 
 in the world been produced by it ? As I have previously 
 shown, " a consequence of good or evil is attached to every 
 action of man, and the good foUows actions which 
 conform to reason, morality, and religion, while evil is 
 the consequence of error, passion, and injustice in its 
 every form." " Evil deeds must bear bitter fruits " — 
 " an evil deed, like a newly-drawn milk, does not all at 
 once turn sour ; yet, smouldering like fire covered by 
 ashes, it follows the food," — " a man speaks or acts 
 with an evil thought, pain follows him, as the wheel 
 follows the foot of the ox that draws the carriage." — 
 (Gotama the Buddha.) This pain is the most efficient 
 corrective of the error we can conceive. "Pains are 
 the subjective concomitants of such organic changes as 
 are harmful to the organism, while Pleasures are the 
 subjective concomitants of such organic changes as are 
 beneficial to the organism-or, we must add, to the species." 
 [MentalEvolutionin Animals, p. 106, G. J. Eomanes.] All 
 finite intelligences are liabletoerror,andallrequire a correc- 
 tive. But the question is. Could we not have the good 
 without the evil, the pleasure without the pain ? It 
 would appear not, for what can we reason but from 
 what we know. As to man, pain has made a " man " of 
 him, ajid raised him from a savage to his comparatively 
 proud position. As Fiske says, " Thus, with Michelet, 
 
216 APPENDIX. 
 
 we come to regard pain as in some sort the artist of the 
 ■world, which fashions us with the firm edge of a pitiless 
 chisel, cutting away the ill-adjusted, and leaving the 
 nobler type to inherit the earth. (" Outlines of Cosmic 
 Philosophy," vol. 2, p. 462.) It is long since all things 
 began to evolve themselves or to grow out of, as we are 
 told, " the fiery mist." Different creatures have appeared 
 as the world has become prepared for them, and we have 
 had to pass through an era of great toads before man 
 could live here. In each case the internal and external 
 environment had to be nicely adjusted before life was 
 possible, and the earth is suited to its inhabitants, be- 
 cause they have thus grown out of it. Man is the last 
 and the highest creature that has come into the world, 
 and this adjustment, that has made his life possible, is 
 yet very imperfect. Much, of what is called Evil is 
 owing to this ; man, as yet, is ill-adapted to the physical 
 changes going on around him, but it is the efforts 
 towards a more perfect adjustment, as we have seen, 
 that have made man. The world acts as our bodily 
 functions' do, unconsciously, by what we call physical 
 laws. Our bodies are liable to derangement, and when 
 this takes place, a bell does not ring inside as in our 
 machines, but pain, proportionate to the possible injury, 
 advises us of it. It is the same in the world, but the 
 storms and tempests, hurricanes and earthquakes are 
 necessary to put things right ; it is beyond man's power 
 to do so, but he may anticipate their coming and evade 
 their consequences. 
 
 Pain, if an evil, appears to be a necessary one, 
 and the only one ; and man, as usual, has made the 
 mystery. He is free to act as he wills, but he is not 
 free to will ; his will is determined by motives, by the 
 laws of his mind, but if he is not free then there can be 
 no " Sin," and if no sin it is said no " Virtue." But if 
 there is no sin there is error that requires correcting : 
 and virtue is not that which is free, but that which gives 
 pleasure — produces happiness. 
 
 " But note," says Mr. Piske, " that such a solution 
 (as the one I have given above) of the mystery of pain 
 
THE MYSTERY OP EVIL. 217 
 
 is attainable only by the complete elimination of anthro- 
 pomorphism from the problem, . . instead of postu- 
 lating a quasi-human Will as the source of phenomena, 
 we must rest content with an Inscrutable Power, of 
 which the properties of matter and motion, necessitating 
 the process of evolution, with pain and wrong as its con- 
 comitants, are the phenomenal manifestations." — Vol. 2, 
 p. 463. As I have shown, I do not agree with Mr. Fiske, 
 but I agree still less with those who connect Infinite 
 Power and Benevolence with pain and suffering, or a 
 Perfect God with an Imperfect World — these to me are 
 not mysteries, but contradictions. Neither do I agree 
 with those who hold that God made a perfect world and 
 then allowed one of His creatures to spoil it, in order, 
 as the Westminster Confession of Faith says, " That he 
 might turn it to his own glory ;" but I believe the best 
 has been done that could be done ; and herein I do not 
 make a mystery, as the facts seem plain enough, but 
 limit God's Power rather than his Benevolence. 
 
 The Spectator seems very much exercised to 
 reconcile the catastrophe at Sunderland, June, 1883, in 
 which some 200 children were crushed to death, with 
 Theism. " It is an inexplicable Will, it says, especially 
 to those who believe, as we do, that God governs as well 
 as reigns. What should we say of a man who, merely 
 by putting a thought into Mr. Fay's head, the thought to 
 stand at the gallery-door and see the children out in 
 batches, could have prevented that ghastly massacre, and 
 did hot put it 1 Yet that must be true of the Almighty, 
 if any one of our ideas about his attributes is true, if he 
 foresees, if he is all-powerful, if he has free-will. . . . 
 The Theologian, like every other man, is studying the 
 Infinite, and when he has thought himself out, he can 
 only acknowledge that he is always at last face to face 
 with a mystery past his solution." To assume that God 
 could prevent all the evil in the world and does not 
 would be a mystery indeed, but the mystery is of our 
 own creation by assuming that He could do so by our 
 increasing His power at the expense of His goodness. 
 By so doing we make God responsible for the evil, for to 
 
218 APPENDIX. 
 
 permit evil that you can prevent is the same as causing 
 it. Out of compliment to what we assume to be 
 Almighty Power we hand over the government of the 
 world from the principle of Good to the principle of 
 Evil. Then as to Prayer and Special Providence, we 
 are wise enough to see that interference with general 
 law would make the exercise of both Instinct and Kesison 
 impossible. If parents could bring themselves to believe 
 that their children were under God's special care, it is 
 very little care that they would take of them themselves. 
 The consequences of wrong-doing must be inevitable if 
 we are to learn to do right. 
 
 James Hinton says, " Abstract the love of a mother 
 for her babe and what have you '? Pain, weariness, 
 wakefulness, anxiety, toil. But add the mother's love, 
 and you have the unspeakable joy of a mother over her 
 first-born." So the presence of pain in the world, the 
 only evil, may it not be entirely absorbed in the greater 
 pleasure ? Force, the active element in the world, which 
 underlies all change or phenomena, is everywhere present, 
 and being spiritual in its nature may thus constitute a 
 Spiritual Unity, and the happiness that grows out of it 
 may be one also ; if so, the great aggregate of happiness 
 must completely obliterate the pain. The necessary evil 
 is swallowed up in the greater good. 
 
 The Laws of Natwe are simply God's mode of working, 
 or rather, may they not be supposed to indicate His 
 Nature and Attributes ? Nature and God are insepar- 
 able ; as Dr. Caird says, " When God has constructed 
 this machine of the universe (or should we not rather say 
 on the principles of evolution, grown into it), he can- 
 not so leave it, or the minutest part of it, in its 
 immensity and intricacy of movement, to itself ; for, if 
 He retires there is no second God to take charge of this 
 machine. Not from a single atom of matter can He who 
 made it (or rather whose body it is) for a moment with- 
 draw His superintendence and support ; each successive 
 moment all over the world the act of creation must be 
 repeated." 
 
PESSIMISM. 219 
 
 Imperfect as the world is at present and full of the 
 pain requisite to set us going and to keep us in the right 
 path. Pessimism is a madness. The world is the worst 
 of all possible worlds says Schopenhauer ; and existence 
 is in itself an evil says Von Hartmann. Will; in its 
 nature, we are told, is striving, and all striving is neces- 
 sarily suffering. How stand the facts ? As Locke says, 
 all volition originates in uneasiness, and where the end 
 desired is a necessary one to our existence, pain may be 
 necessary to set us going, but it is only to set us going in 
 the path of pleasure. If we forget to eat the pains of 
 hunger remind us of it ; but eating is not suffering, and 
 the pain bears but small proportion to the pleasure. It 
 is the same with all our feelings and faculties — their 
 legitimate gratification is attended with pleasure, and 
 the striving necessary to attain this gratification is itself 
 often pleasurable, and is the means of keeping the body 
 in the health required to secure the pleasure. The 
 aggregate of the pleasurable feelings we derive from all 
 our faculties constitutes happiness, always naturally 
 greatly in excess of the pain. These facts are so plain 
 that I wonder any can be found to deny that happiness 
 is the rule and pain the exception. Still there is a great 
 deal of pain and suffering in the world greatly exercising 
 the facilities of those who try to reconcile so imperfect^ a 
 world with a Perfect and Almighty Creator. In 
 " Reasonable Apprehensions and Reassuring Hints," the 
 Rev. H. Footman (Simpkin and Co.) tells us what we 
 ought to think about it, and in places seems to me, with 
 much candour, to come nearer to the truth than his 
 brethren of the cloth generally. Mr. Footman says 
 " The thought of the pain, of the apparently undeserved 
 and hopeless and useless suffering of which the earth has 
 been for countless ages the theatre, is a thought which 
 generates harrassing and harrowing questions, as 
 to the goodness of God ; and apart from the Revelation of 
 God in Christ, I must own I know of no answer to those 
 questions, no answer which even hope itself can seize on as 
 
220 APPENDIX. 
 
 completely reassuring.'' How " the Revelation of God 
 in Christ " can affect the countless ages before man so 
 recently came upon the earth, or how it can affect the 
 vast majority of men in the world who never heard of 
 Christ, I cannot imagine, but the rev. gentleman gets 
 more comprehensible and nearer the truth as he goes on. 
 He says " I speak with great diffidence, with great defe- 
 rence, but as far as I can see, the law, which is para- 
 mount, and the furthest reaching in Nature, is the one 
 which combines into one decree these two clauses : Be 
 fruitful cmcL multiply — slay and eat. And the main 
 object, if I may venture to construe in inadequate 
 language the apparent object of an Infinite Mind 
 proclaimed in facts, seems to be the production, through 
 sacrifice, of higher life out of the death of the lower. 
 The more I read and think and try to observe of 
 ' Nature,' the more deeply does this view of God's work 
 seem ' ingrained in me.' " Others of our highest minds 
 have I'eached the same conclusion by a different and more 
 scientific route. Thus Sir W. W. Gull tells us that 
 " Suppression and reappearance in a new and higher form 
 was to him the fundamental law of physiology." The 
 object aimed at in " Nature " seems to be a higher and 
 still higher degree of life, not as an end, but as the 
 means of producing a still higher and higher degree of 
 happiness. Death, which we consider the greatest evil, 
 but which in fact is the greatest good, is simply the 
 invisible way in which this law of progress is passed on 
 from one form to another. It is our self-conceit, our 
 wish to retain our own individuality and personality, 
 which makes the good here less clear. 
 
 Mr. Footman is no Pessimist, he says, "ifwefuUy 
 recognise the purpose which, as I have said. Nature 
 seems to lead us to infer is paramount in the mind of her 
 Author, we shall be very much struck with the immense 
 and incalculable amount of happiness which prevails in 
 the sentient creation at any given moment, and which 
 has prevailed upon the earth through countless ages of 
 pre-historic times. The feeling which will then attend 
 our contemplation of Nature will be one of wonder, that 
 
PESSIMISM. 221 
 
 a design and a method, which, prior to experience, we 
 should have said must be attended at every turn by 
 individual suffering, and which must almost exclude 
 pleasure from the universe, should yet have been 
 executed in a manner so wise and so kind as to have 
 filled the earth with such a vast aggregate of pleased and 
 enjoyable existences." 
 
 " Generally speaking, the preservation of the happiness 
 of sensitive creatures appears to be the great object of 
 creative exertion and conservative providence. The 
 expanding of our faculties, both bodily and mental, is 
 accompanied with pleasure, the exercise of those powers 
 is almost always attended with gratification ; all labour 
 so acts as to make rest particularly delicious ; much of 
 labour is enjoyment ; the gratification of those appetites 
 by which both the individual is preserved and the race 
 is continued, is highly pleasurable to all animals ; and 
 it must be observed that instead of being attracted 
 by grateful sensations to do anything requisite for our 
 good or even our existence, we might have been 
 just as certainly urged by the feeling of pain, or the 
 dread of it, which is a kind of suffering in itself. Nature, 
 then, resembles the law-giver who, to make his subjects 
 obey, should prefer holding out rewards for compliance 
 with his commands rather than denounce punishments 
 for disobedience. But nature is yet more kind ; she is 
 gratuitously kind ; she not only prefers inducement to 
 threat or compulsion, but she adds more gratification 
 than was necessary to make us obey her calls. How 
 well might all creation have existed and been continued, 
 though the air had not been balmy in spring, or the 
 shade and the spring refreshing in summer ; had the 
 earth not been enamelled with flowers, and the air 
 scented with perfumes ! How needless for the apprecia 
 tion of plants was it that the seed should be enveloped in 
 fruits the most savoury to our palate, and if those fruits 
 serve some other purpose, how foreign to that purpose 
 was the formation of our nerves so framed as to be 
 soothed or excited by their flavour ! "We here perceive 
 Design, because we trace adaptation. But we at the same 
 
 p 
 
222 APPENDIX. 
 
 time perceive Benevolent Design, tecause we perceive 
 gratuitous and supererogatory enjoyment bestowed." 
 (Henry Lord Brougham.) 
 
 " You write," said a popular novelist, " as if you 
 believed that everything is bad." " Nay," said the 
 other, " but I do believe everything might be better." 
 (" Fortnightly," Jno. Morley's valedictory address.) The 
 Kev. Footman evidently does not believe that everything 
 is bad, only that everything might be better. This is the 
 proper feeling, and it is our duty to help to make it so. 
 The world has been greatly improved by others for us 
 before- we came into it, and it is our duty to leave it a 
 little better for our having been here, for those who are 
 to come after us. It is the function of Dominant WUl 
 thus to act upon matter, and the evils in the world retire 
 before it. Discarding optimist and pessimist, George 
 Eliot suggested the word Meliorist. 
 
 If we choose to dwell on Death and not on the life 
 preceding it, we may make out a case for Pessimism. 
 Schopenhauer says, " Life is only a struggle against 
 Death, with the certainty of being conquered." If, as 
 is so often the case, in the passion of Love, which fills 
 the world with the most intense happiness, we dwell 
 only on the present too frequent cross loves, we may 
 also make out a case for Pessimism ; but we might as 
 well do away with fire because some people burn them- 
 selves or burn down their houses." 
 
 Natural Selection and the Survival of the Fittest, 
 and the Pressure of Population on the means of sub- 
 sistance have been God's principal means of producing 
 the Greatest Happiness in the world, but we must judge 
 J?y the end, not the means. 
 
 BeatTi. 
 
 " Seath'is here, deatb is there, death is'bUBy everywhere." 
 
 " AH things that we love and cherish. 
 Like ourselves must die and perieh. 
 Such is our rude mortal lot, 
 Love ilztlf would did they not."— SAeJiey. 
 
 Everything dies that it may be born again in a new 
 and improved form, from a monad to a man, from an 
 atom to a world. 
 
DEITY. 223 
 
 St. George Mivart mates Frankland say in " Nature 
 and Thought," why may not the universe be Eternal 1 
 Why may not the whole myriad suns and systems have 
 pulsated rhythmically, through an eternal past, to and 
 from a state of nebula to a state such as that in which 
 they now exist, or, (as is perhaps more probable) why 
 may they not so alternate, bit by bit, first one and then 
 another system of worlds collapsing into nebula, to be 
 again slowly rechurned into suns and planets ? I see no 
 reason why such a process should ever cease or ever not 
 have been, or why life may not be ever repeating and 
 •creeping, as it were, over the face of the cosmos as one 
 cosmical body after another happens, here and there, to 
 get into a state fit to give origin to and sustain it^a 
 state in which it may continue for a passing moment of 
 a few billion years." p. 181. 
 
 Death is simply a mask of Life's transformation. 
 Whatever grows in time is the child of time, and is 
 born, and lives, and dies, at its appointed day. We are 
 no exception to this law. Dr. Darwin was more 
 impressed than Bufibn with the evenness of personality 
 between parents and offspring, so that these latter were 
 not " new " creatures, but " elongations of parents," and 
 hence " may retain some of the parent system." 
 
 "And, oh ! how blessed it will be when it is all over 
 to lie down in that dear churchyard." (Charles Kingsley, 
 Life and Letters, p. 245.) 
 
 " Twenty times a day death is present to my thoughts, 
 and even in my happiest moments I contemplate it wit^ 
 satisfaction, without any reference to a future state 
 whatever, as a mere dismission of this mortal body when 
 its powers of usefulness and enjoyment are exhausted." 
 So writes Geo. Oombe, and he there expresses my feeling 
 exactly, 
 
 Deiiy. 
 
 Professor Tyndall tells us that " Matter contains the 
 •promise and potency of every form of terrestrial life." 
 " By supposing the present material world," says 
 Huxley, " to contain the principle of its order witHik 
 
224 APPENDIX. 
 
 itself, we really assert it to be God ; and the sooner we 
 arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. When 
 you go one step beyond the mundane system you only 
 excite an inquisition which it is impossible ever to 
 satisfy." (Hume's Life, p 151.) 
 
 The author of " Ecce Homo " says that if men have 
 ceased to believe in anything beyond Nature, the best 
 thing for them to do, if they must have a God, is t» 
 deify Nature. Lucretius affirms " That Nature is seen 
 to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the 
 meddling of the gods," i.e., of man-made gods, made- 
 after man's own image. If God is set aside in the name 
 of universal evolution is this more than saying that the- 
 Universe is God, and that evolution or growth is the- 
 main attribute of His Being t 
 
 God dwells within, and moves the w orld and moulds, 
 Himself and Nature in one form enfolds. — Ooethe. 
 
 Bishop Butler also, in other words, says the same- 
 thing, " What is natural as much requires and 
 presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to 
 affect it continually, or at stated times, as what is super- 
 natural or miraculous does to affect it for once." 
 Analogy, part 1, c. 1. 
 
 " But examine the matter from first principles, from 
 'this : If all things are not mere atoms, it is Nature 
 ■which orders all things : if this is so, the inferior things, 
 exist for the sake of the superior, and these for the sake 
 of one another." (M. Antoninus.) 
 
 The Ever Present Spirit, the All Pervading Mind. 
 
 God is all, "the ever-present power — that presents- 
 itself to us as force — a power that does everything .and 
 assumes all forms." It is universal gravitation ;. it is the 
 all-pervading luminiferous ether — ^the light of the uni- 
 Terse. There is nothing apart from the totality of 
 things. God is known to us, not in essence or mode of 
 Being, but in the history of evolution. He tries all 
 forms of Being and all forms of Life, and insures the 
 "survival of the fittest." May we not even believe 
 that life is a lesson, and God is the learner ; 
 
FINAL CAUSE. 225 
 
 that like ourselves He is guided by ' experience. 
 The world, like everything else that has a beginning, 
 must die ; but its animating. Spirit will not die with it, 
 and the progress it has made may be retained in other 
 worlds, which may be made, through th6 experience 
 gained here, in less time, and without the great to*da. 
 
 Sir H. Davy, under the influence of Nitrous Oxide! ex- 
 claimed, " nothing exists but thought? — the universe is 
 composed of impressions, ideas, pleasures, and pains." 
 Judge Holmes, of America, when not dreaming, says 
 "all Nature is God's thought, without forethought." 
 Both Bacon and Newton hold that there is an universal 
 spirit-investment, the source of all movement, but Bacon 
 knew nothing of the universality of gravitation. Gravi- 
 tation governs matter and not matter gravitation, and 
 gravitation with Newton was a Divine action. 
 
 Final Cause. 
 
 "It is manifest that nothins^ can be of consequence to mankind, or any 
 creature, but happiness." — Bishop Butler. 
 
 I look upon the world, and the universe, as far as we 
 are acquainted with it, as a great spiritual organism for 
 the manufactory or evolution of happiness of which God 
 is in some way the recipient, and of which he is the soul 
 ■ or intelligent moving power. A.s all things are equally 
 necessary, one is not before or after, or higher than 
 another ; but as the true, the good, and the beautiful pro- 
 duce most happiness, we deify them and give them a pre- 
 ference, but they do not differ in kind, only in degree, 
 from our other feelings. Virtue and piety, truth and 
 • duty, are erroneously treated as ends in themselves and 
 not means towards the production of happiness. 
 
 " The object of Being is to create Deity," Deity being 
 the centre of all the happiness which it is the function 
 of all Being to produce. 
 
 The Supernatural. — Miracles. 
 
 If God and Nature are one, of course there can be 
 
 nothing supernatural or above Nature, although there 
 
 may be interference with Natural Law. All power is 
 
 Will Power — conscious or automatic. There is no 
 
226 APPENDIX. 
 
 iiecessary connection between cause and eflFect, invariable- 
 sequence is all we find. The connection is one of purpose, 
 and will continue probably only so long as the purpose is- 
 answered. All life is dependent upon this invariability, 
 being the nice adjustment of organization to things 
 without, instinct being this experience organized. Of 
 course, life would cease if this adjustment were disturbed by 
 the laws of nature being altered. Hume says " the whole 
 frame of Nature bespeaks an intelligent author," and 
 Goethe is of opinion that " Matter can never exist and 
 be active without mind," but. we must not suppose that- 
 this "intelligent author"— this "mind," is altogether 
 passive and content with merely upholdiag the laws 
 which it has established. In the evolution of this 
 beautiful world from the fiery mist much direct inter- 
 ference must have been required. From the first 
 appearance of life upon the globe, from the monad to 
 man, the plan has been to replace an inferior type by a 
 superior one. The growth of the world has been constant 
 in this direction, that is, to pass iuto higher and higher 
 forms of existence. This evolutionists call "inherent 
 tendency," by which they really mean the " intelligence " 
 and " mind " of Hume and Goethe, and which aU the 
 world has imperfectly recognized as God, however 
 widely it may differ from the God of the Theist. All the 
 wonderfully complicated functions of our bodies go on 
 unconsciously and act perfectly, but if there is anything 
 wrong with them we become conscious of it, and the 
 mind is called upon to interfere ; and so it is in the great 
 body of the universe, the Supreme Intelligence is always 
 present, not to interfere with the established order of 
 things, as that would be destroying its own work, but to- 
 supply any necessary interposition, or " necessary link," 
 in the chain of progress. As the Will of man dominates 
 the mere mechanical tendencies of the body, so does the 
 Supreme Will the mechanical tendencies or laws of the 
 universe — physical science and physicists notwithstand- 
 ing. Of course this interference must be rare, and in 
 accordance with the recognised order of nature. I 
 believe, then, in the possibility of miracles (i.e.) in an 
 
THEISM AND PANTHEISM. 227 
 
 interference with the established order of nature, and 
 which may take place as frequently as the Supreme 
 Intelligence may see reason for interposing, but 
 "Miracles" could not be brought in evidence of any 
 Revelation, they could prove nothing but the presence of 
 a power capable of interfering with the established order ; 
 but of the nature of that power, whether it was supreme 
 or not, whether it was good or evil, true or false, it could 
 tell us nothing. The Rev. Mr. Reynolds tells us that 
 "jGod forsees all things, but forces nothing." How God 
 forsees that which, if left free, may never happen, or how 
 the Rev. Gentleman reconciles God's not forcing any- 
 thing with Special Providence or Prayer, I am not able 
 to understand, except that there are no contradictions 
 that theologians cannot reconcile, and the Rev. 
 Reynolds shows a most remarkable talent in that way. 
 
 Theism and Pdntheism. 
 
 Some of my friends, principally among the Positivists 
 have accused me of going back to Theism. There ought 
 to be no mistake about this. I am not a Theist, as I 
 understand the term, neither am I a Pantheist according 
 to its usual acceptation. No Pantheist, I think, would 
 accept the views of ■' The Supreme " contained above. 
 The Theist believes in a God apart from Nature — infinite, 
 and yet not including all ; to me, God is everything or 
 nothing. "In the things that are held together by 
 nature there is within, and there abides in them, the 
 power which made them ; therefore the more is it fit to 
 reverence this power, and to think, that, if thou dost live 
 and art according to its wDl, everything is in corformity 
 to intelligence. And thus also in the universe the things 
 which belong to it are in conformity to intelligence." 
 (M. Antoninus.) To me God is the ever present power, 
 that presents itself to us as a force, a Power which does 
 everything and assumes all forms. The world, which is 
 all I know, is a growth towards higher and higher perfec- 
 tion — an evolution of higher and higher types of being, 
 culminating at present in man. One underlying force, 
 which is mental, supports and unites the whole — giving 
 
228 APPENDIX. 
 
 Unity and perhaps Personality. I know of no other God 
 than this, and the more we know, the more does this 
 unity become apparent. Good and EvU are purely 
 subjective, indicative only of man's pleasures and pains, 
 and Morality is the indication of man's relation to each 
 other, and comprises the rules and regulations by which 
 they may live together in the most happy manner 
 possible. The perfection of the whole is measured by 
 the amount of happiness evolved, for " it is manifest," as 
 Bishop Butler says, " that nothing can be of consequence 
 to mankind, or any creature, but happiness," and this 
 must apply equally to creator as to creature, for in 
 reality they are one, all parts of the Great Whole. 
 Happiness must constitute the essence of His being, — the 
 evil being lost in the good, the pain in the pleasure. 
 The Theist says " Individuals and God in them," the 
 Pantheist " God and in this form," for to him, all " is the 
 varied God." This is all we know, and yet the world 
 will scarcely hold the books that have been written on 
 Theology and Ethics. 
 
 We talk of "the great mystery " with respect to death 
 and its consequences, but all creatures are born and die, 
 and personally no more is heard or seen of them, and if 
 chat is not plain and without mystery I do not know 
 what can ever be made so. I go farther, and take the 
 optimistic view of the Irish Parson, " that it is a very 
 Providential thing, for ' which we have reason to be 
 thankful, that death has been placed at the end of life, 
 instead of at the beKinnins." 
 
 Farce and Inherent Tendency 
 " No form of matter that we are acquainted with can 
 originate action : matter can only obey the forces that 
 act upon it. . . . In Nature there is no inherent 
 tendency whatever, nor can be — it is simply the denial 
 of causation. All tendencies whatever are manifestations 
 of effects ; are the result of operant forces, either present 
 or past. ... Through all inorganic bodies force 
 passes ; it enters them, affecting them more or less 
 intimately, continuing in for a longer or shorter time, 
 
ATHEISM. 229 
 
 and then leaves them, being transmitted onwards to 
 another recipient; but within organic bodies it circulates " 
 — (James Bintoii.) The fact is that the office of matter 
 is not to originate action or motion, but to direct its 
 mode of manifestations, giving to inorganic matter its 
 peculiar properties or attributes, its " inherent tendencies" 
 ^s they are called, to organic matter its functions. Thus 
 force passing through the brain becomes conscious force 
 or mind ; it is then no longer known to us as a mode of 
 motion, but it retains its force — mental force (Will- 
 potver) being the strongest of all forces. What is thus 
 capable of becoming mind it is reasonable to suppose 
 must always have been of the nature of mind, so that 
 physical phenomena and mental phenomena, although 
 .apparently diverse, are really identical, and all physical 
 motions, resulting from force, which is mind, are really ■ 
 mental. It seems to be the nature of mental acts, often 
 repeated, to create their own body, by means of which 
 they become automatic, that is, pass from the conscious 
 to the unconscious — " adaptive actions always originating 
 in conscious volition — ^by repetition may become mecha- 
 nical or unconscious," — (U. J. Romanes) — and thus all 
 power becomes Will-power, conscious or automatic. 
 "Mind," says Fiske, and his is the current opinion 
 " still continues to us a something without any kinship 
 to other things." On the contrary Mind is the only- 
 thing known to us— we know only our own conscious- 
 ness, and " other things " all resolve themselves into 
 forces which are transformed into mind, and are there- 
 fore directly akin. Thus all is mind, or if we prefer to 
 .say, force is material, why then, all is matter. In this 
 way matter creates mind, and mind creates the world,, 
 that is, the world of our Perception. 
 
 Atheism. 
 Atheists admit the progress that has been made since 
 the beginning of the world, but they ascribe this con- 
 tinued°change for the better, not to Mind in Nature, 
 which is called God, but to " inherent tendency " in 
 things themselves to take " form " like the crystal and 
 
230 APPETfDIX. 
 
 snow-flake, with increasingly improved form everywhere 
 When Topsey was asked who made her she said, " She 
 s'pose she growed," and this is exactly the answer these 
 philosophers give to the question. Who made the World I 
 They suppose it grew. In this I quite agree with them, 
 for evolution and growth are the same things. But the 
 question is. Whence came the power by which it grew, 
 and the direction of that power so as always to secure its. 
 progress ? The persistence of force, or, that " each mani- 
 festation of force can be interpreted only as the effect of 
 some antecedent force," shovs that the power was not in 
 things themselves, or in what we call matter, for " no 
 form of matter that we are acquainted with can originate 
 action ;" Mind only can do that ; but matter appears to 
 condition it or to determine the direction of the force — • 
 that is, its mode of manifestation. The Atheist says this 
 tendency was always there, that is, that it was inherent ; 
 the Pantheist says that ever-present Mind only can ac- 
 count for it, as there is so much more to account for than 
 these tendencies, viz., their combination to produce th& 
 order and beauty now everywhere present. The Universe 
 is One — a great Personalty : it grows like as our bodies 
 grow, is directed by Mind in the same way as our bodies 
 are, and acts both consciously and automatically in what 
 is called Natural Law. We are parts of the Great Whole, 
 with all our powers of mind and body borrowed from the 
 Supreme Power. I can form no other conception of this 
 Supreme Power. Most of the epithets applied to it, to 
 me, are either contradictory or inconsistent with all we 
 kpow of things. We are told the Divine Being is eternal, 
 unchangeable, immaterial, omnipresent, omniscient, al- 
 mighty. 
 
 The author of " Ecce Homo " says of the men who 
 call themselves Atheists : " Whether they say God, or 
 prefer to say Nature, the important thing is that there 
 minds are filled with the sense of a Power to all appear- 
 ance infinite and eternal, a Power to which their own 
 being is unseparably connected, in the knowledge of 
 whose ways alone is safety and well-being, in the con- 
 templation of which they find a beatific vision."— Natural 
 
ATHEISM. 231 
 
 Eeligion, p. 23. " That reign, of Science which is an- 
 nounced in these days as a kind of ultimate Reformation, 
 what is it but the general diffusion, and the acceptance 
 as a practical rule, of this very conception of God in 
 Nature." — Idem, p. 92. If the order of Nature is studied 
 and its invariability acknowledged, it seems to make little 
 difference practically as to whether men ascribe the source 
 of this order to God or to self-evolution or " inherent 
 tendency ; " " the name of God may be dispensed with 
 provided the reality that answers to that name is not- 
 wanting." I know of no better man among the Christians 
 than Dr. Richard Congreve, the Positivist. Professor 
 Tyndall tells us that, " though he has now rejected the 
 religion of his earlier years, yet, granting him proper 
 health of body, there is no ' spiritual experience ' such as 
 he then knew, no resolve of duty, no work of mercy, no 
 act of self -renouncement, no solemnity of thought, no joy 
 in the life and aspects of nature, that would not still be 
 (his), and this without the least regard to any personal 
 reward or punishment looming in the future." So also 
 Professor Huxley says " that come what may to our 
 intellectual beliefs and over-education, he sees no reason 
 to doubt that the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of 
 sin are, for those who have eyes to see them, ' no mere 
 metaphors,' but real and intense things." [Nineteenth 
 Centimj, No. 3, p. 537.) " None have reached," he says, 
 " the lowest depths of immorality so long as they hold to 
 the plain rule of not pretending to believe what they 
 have no reason to believe, because it may be to their' 
 advantage to pretend." Idem, p. 539. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton's great discovery was not of gravita- 
 tion, but of the Unity which furnishes the proof of God's 
 existence. Modern discovery has made this clearer, in 
 its recognition of force as an entity, and of its indestruc- 
 tibility and persistence. Force is everywhere, and the 
 active cause of everything. It rolls the planets in their 
 sphere, and keeps them in their course, filling the inter- 
 stellar spaces. Light and Heat, we say, are modes of 
 motion— modes of motion of what ? What moves ? For- 
 there cannot be motion without something moving. The 
 
Zio:i APPENDIX. 
 
 •entity Force moves. We can dispense with the Ether, 
 in which the phantom atoms are theoretically supposed 
 to swing. But this Force, what is it 1 Under the 
 molecular action of the brain it everywhere resumes its 
 ■original form, that of sensibility, consciousness, or mind. 
 Force is Mind, — what we have hitherto called spiritual ; 
 — it is universal, and Universal Mind is God. As Sir I. 
 Newton affirmed, the power or force that acts upon our 
 earth, through 90 millions of miles, the distance from the 
 sun, is spiritual. 
 
 A Priori Reasoning in Theology. 
 
 The late Professor Clifford, in his review of the " Un- 
 seen Universe," says : — "Our authors assume as absolutely 
 self-evident the existence of a Deity who is the creator 
 •of all things." The common theological arguments the 
 Professor represents as follows : — " Because atoms are 
 exactly alike, therefore manufactured articles, and 
 apparently indestructible, they must at one time have 
 come into existence out of nothing. This can only have 
 been effected by the agency of a conscious mind, not 
 ■associated with a material organism," the logic of which 
 the Professor illustrates by the following parody : — 
 " Because the sea is salt and will put out a fire, there 
 must at one time have been a large fire lighted at the 
 bottom of it ; this can only have been effected by the 
 agency of the whale who lives in the middle of Sahara." 
 Spectator, Nov. 8, 1879, p. 1412. 
 
 Kant's religious instincts, it has been suggested, drove 
 Mm to seek for proofs of the fundamental doctrines of 
 Theology, after he had destroyed the old demonstrations 
 of their reality in his " Critique of Pure Reason." 
 
 From the indications of order, of adaptation to end, 
 •of the greatness and majesty of Nature, we may infer 
 the existence of a Divine Personality, who is wise and 
 good and powerful, but we cannot infer that he is 
 mfmte in power, wisdom and goodness. The conception 
 of such a Being, however, is, Kant contends, legitimated 
 by the agency of the Moral principles, which requires for 
 its purposes the existence of a Being of supreme perfec- 
 
A PRIORI REASONING IN THEOLOGY. 233 
 
 tion. He must be Omniscient, that he may be intimately 
 acquainted with the profoundest mysteries of the human 
 heart, and that not only in the past and present, but in 
 the future. He must be Omnipotent, that he may award 
 to aU appropriate retribution. Similarly he must be 
 Omnipresent and Eternal, and be possessed of all the 
 other attributes which the Practical reason demands. 
 
 The idea of God is thus the creation less of the 
 intellect than of the Conscience. The Conscience insists 
 that Justice, according to its own notion of Justice, shall 
 be done. It insists that every good man has a right to 
 be happy. It argues that as he is not happy here he is 
 to be happy hereafter, and that he is not only entitled 
 to a future Ufe, but to an eternal existence, because 
 perfect virtue and perfect happiness demand an eternity 
 for their conjunction, though even in eternity this, 
 ideal is never really attained. . . . Thus while the 
 intellect is pronounced bankrupt, the solvency of the 
 Conscience is affirmed. Such in substance is Kant's 
 celebrated argument for the existence of God, the Soul, 
 and Immortality. (See an admirable article on Kant's 
 Moral Philosophy in Westminster Meview for July, 1882. 
 
 In two articles on The Religious Future of the "World 
 in the January and February Nos., 1883, of the Contein- 
 porwry, by W. S. Lilly, the conclusion the writer comes 
 to is that "the two great facts of human nature are the 
 ^ense of the Absolute and the sense of sin." He says 
 also " The voice of conscience is mainly an accusing 
 voice. Self-disapproval, guilt, remorse — these are its 
 most notable phenomena ; it speaks of a law broken and 
 of a Lawgiver outraged ; and thus it is the creative 
 principle of natural religion." 
 
 Thus out of conscience Kant makes a Heaven ; Mr. 
 Lilly a Hell ! 
 
 Hume says " ' that all doctrines are to be suspected 
 -which are favoured by our passions,' and the doctrine 
 that we are immortal, because we should extremely like 
 to be so, contains the quintessence of suspiciousness." 
 " If any purpose of nature," he says, " be clear, we may 
 affirm that the whole scope and intention of man's 
 
234 APPENDIX. 
 
 ■creation, so far as we can judge by natural reason, is 
 limited to the present life." Hume's Life hy Huxley, p. 
 176. 
 
 He also says experience certainly affords no presump- 
 tion that the strong desire to live after death, -which we 
 oall the aspirations after immortality, is any more likely 
 to be gratified than that of the mother's wish that her 
 ■child may live. 
 
 He also adds his testimony to the logic of Theologians. 
 He says, " to oppose the logic of scholastic religion by 
 such feeble maxims as these, that it is impossible for the 
 same thing to be and not to be, that the whole is 
 greater than the part, that two and three make five, 
 is pretending to stop the ocean with a bulrush. Will 
 you set up profane reason against sacred mystery?" 
 Idfe of Hume, p. 143. 
 
 Our Love of Life and yearning for continued existence 
 is ordinarily in proportion to what Phrenologists have 
 called the organ of Vitativeness ; this differs greatly 
 among different nations and different individuals. It is 
 small in the Chinese and large in Europeans, where it 
 has been cultivated by Christianity for some two thousand 
 years. This instinct must be very strong in Miss Oobbe, 
 who would like her friends' spirits to visit her on her 
 death bed to assure her of this Life to Come, and she sees 
 no reason, she says, why she should "not indulge so 
 ineffably blessed a hope." 
 
 Let us hear what another of our first women says 
 upon the subject. Mrs. Carlyle, in a letter to her 
 husband, July, 1846, says : " The most outrageous 
 sceptic — even I, after two nights without sleep, can- 
 not go ahead against that fact — (the belief in 
 death)— a rather cheering one on the whole — that, let 
 one's earthly diflSculties be what they may, death will 
 make them all smooth sooner or later, and either one 
 shall have a trial again under new conditions, or sleep 
 soundly through all eternity. That last used to be a 
 horrible thought for me, but it is not so any longer. I 
 am weary, weary to such a point of moral exhaustion, 
 that any anchoragie were welcome, even the stillest, 
 
PEAYEK. 235 
 
 coldest, where the wicked should cease from troubling, 
 «nd the weary be at rest, understanding both by the 
 wicked and the weary myself." But " our difficulties, 
 be what they may," in another world are to be unending. 
 An awful thought ! which I, either for myself or friends 
 -dare not face, but Miss Cobbe without the prospect of 
 such a responsibility is driven to despair. That dear 
 Mrs. Carlyle. The 3 vols, of her letters are not a page 
 too much. Of all the women in the past I think I love 
 her the most. She had all the genius of her husband, 
 -although it was of a dififerent gender — feminine, his 
 masculine : she had all his wit, and more than his 
 wisdom. 
 
 Hear what another great woman, Harriet Martineau, 
 has also to say on this subject. " When once Christianity," 
 she says, " ceases to be entertained as a scheme of salva- 
 tion, the question of a future life becomes indeed one of 
 which every large-minded and unselfish person may and 
 should say, — 'what does it signify"! Amidst many 
 .alterations of feeling, I soon began to enjoy breathings of 
 the blessed air of freedom from superstition, — which is 
 the same thing as freedom from personal anxiety and 
 selfishness ; — that freedom under a vivid sense of which 
 my friend and I, contrasting our superstitious youth with 
 our emancipated maturity, agreed that not for the 
 universe would we again have the care of our souls upon 
 •our hands." Autobiography, vol. 2, p. 219. 
 
 A Priori Seasoning in TJieology — Trayer. 
 "William George Ward, D.Ph., in a rather celebrated 
 Essay, reprinted from the Dublin Beview, of April, 1867, 
 on the subject of Prayer, says, " It is a most certain 
 truth of that religion— (the Christian and Catholic)— it 
 is declared so repeatedly in Scripture that it would be 
 absurd even to attempt ain enumeration of texts— that 
 the most available of all methods, for averting temporal 
 calamities and for obtaining a healthy proportion of 
 temporal goods, is prayer to God. . . . On the 
 other hand, modern physical science has added strength 
 to the proof otherwise existing of another and supple- 
 
236 APPENDIX. 
 
 mentary truth ; viz., that external phenomena proceed 
 uniformly and invariably on fixed laws. There is no 
 inconsistency whatever, nor any approach to inconsis- 
 tency, between these two truths ; and the only reason- 
 able course, therefore, is heartily to embrace them both." 
 Certainly it is only in proportion as we do embrace them 
 both that we can expect any answer to prayer. Tem- 
 poral calamities are not likely to be averted, or a healthy 
 proportion of temporal goods obtained, without obedience 
 to the uniform and invariable fixed laws by which alone 
 such things are to be achieved. A man may say the 
 Lord's Prayer five times over in one service, stiU he 
 never expects his " daily bread " to be given to him 
 "unless he takes the natural and proper means to obtaia 
 it. God only blesses the means — that is, maintains the 
 uniformity of the laws by which we may supply our own 
 ■wants. 
 
 Belief,' Tolerance, and Compromise. 
 
 Can we believe that which appears to us to be 
 incredible or untrue? Can we believe black to be 
 white, whatever may be the penalty for not doing so ? 
 The Early Church thought we could, and persecution 
 with it was a matter of conscience, and consequently 
 " in every prison the crucifix and the rack stood side 
 by side ; " and what was a little temporal burning to 
 the eternal fire which awaited the unbeliever t and slow 
 burning at the stake with green wood was accorded as a 
 favour, as it gave more time for faith and repentance, 
 and for that clear judgment which enabled the heretic 
 to see what he could not see before ! Lecky tells us 
 that according to the unanimous belief of the Early 
 Church, all who were external to Christianity were 
 doomed to eternal damnation, not only on account of 
 their own transgression, but also on acconnt of the 
 transmitted guilt of Adam, and therefore even the new 
 bom infant was subject to condemnation until baptism 
 had united it to the Church. As some theologian 
 expressed it, " he doubted not there were infanta, not 
 a span long crawling about the. floor, of Hell.," St. 
 
BELIEF, TOLERANCE, ANt) COMPROMISE. 237 
 
 Thomas Aquinas afterwards suggested the possibility of 
 the infant being saved who died within the womb — 
 " Almighty God," he says, '"may have means of saving 
 it for aught we know." It is only a Saint who dare 
 have suggested this, as the contrary was thought a mere 
 truism, consequent on original sin and transmitted guilt. 
 But all this, and much beside, is gone by ; the increas- 
 ing moral sense of the world has been too strong for it, 
 and the question now arises, what, and how much, can 
 be retained ? Matthew Arnold is of opinion that we 
 may give up " the existence of a personal God, the 
 consubstantiality of Jesus Christ with this personal God 
 who is, his Faliier, the miraculous birth, resurrection, 
 and ascension of Jesus," and yet that there will be more 
 that " makes for righteousness " left in Christianity than 
 has been, or is still to be found, elsewhere in any other 
 religion in the world. But there are not many who go 
 so far as this with respect to what may be left out, or as 
 to what may be retained. Lecky (Eationalism) tells us 
 that " men have come instinctively and almost uncon- 
 sciously to judge all doctrines by their intuitive sense of 
 right . . . and that where Bible doctrine does not accord 
 they re-translate it to make it fit." This, I think, is very 
 true, and the question is, considering the good that is in 
 Christianity, and that we have nothing as yet to take its 
 place, how far we can be a party to it, how far our 
 " tolerance " may extend, or whether we are justified in 
 making any " compromise " with our conscience on the 
 subject ] May a man, who believes as Matthew Arnold 
 does, that there is more that makes for righteousness in 
 Christianity than in any other religious system, still call 
 himself a Christian, although he is obliged to drop the 
 supernatural and also the dogmas that have been added 
 by the Church at different times'! I leave every 
 man to his own conscience in this matter, but for myself 
 I agree with J. Allanson Picton, who in "The Essential 
 Nature of Religion," says:— "It may occur to some 
 readers of these pages that in the present state of opinion 
 a good deal of this discussion might well have been 
 spared. The notions with which we have been deaUng 
 
238 APPENDIX. 
 
 "belong, it may be urged, to a day gone by ; and though 
 the words -which embodied them may remain, the feelings 
 answering to them are irrevocably dead. That this is so 
 to a very large extent amongst the thinking portion of 
 religious people has been already admitted. But it is 
 not so with the unthinking numbers, who form of 
 course a very large majority. And it never will be so 
 with these, until those who think for themselves have 
 the courage to speak according to their thoughts, and 
 not according to the supposed necessities of a time which 
 really requires nothing so much as plain speaking." 
 ■ On the question of " compromise," howeTer, Mr. 
 Picton says, with equal wisdom, in his " Life of Oliver 
 •Cromwell," alluding more to politics than to religion, 
 "Whenever the break-up of old institutions inspires 
 half-educated men with the idea of judging everything 
 l>y first principles, the best and bravest amongst them 
 will often go farthest wrong. Knowing nothing of the 
 conditions that make the process of evolution necessarily 
 slow and apparently tortuous, they want to accomplish 
 in a day, and at a stroke, what can only be achieved in 
 a thousand years, by the slow co-operation of countless 
 forces. They cannot understand that the fall of institu- 
 tions leaves human nature stUl what those institutions 
 have made it. Hence, the more daring and earnest 
 and honest such men are, the more intolerant do they 
 show themselves of accommodations, adaptations, and 
 delays.— p. 282. 
 
 BevohMon, 
 
 The author of Ecce Homo in " Natural Religion " 
 tells us as of a thing of awful importance, which almost 
 threatens the death of European civilization itself, " of 
 a vast rebellion of the less prosperous classes against the 
 ■whole system which has nursed them, a fierce repudia- 
 tion on their part of the whole system or law way of 
 viewing the universe, or worship, which lies at the basis 
 of the civilised world. It , includes a mortal hatred 
 against all visible authority, a complete political revo- 
 lution. , . . These are not reformers or progressists. 
 
SUPERSTITION. 239 
 
 Their conceptions are of the archaic or primitive kind. 
 They hold that happiness is a fixed thing within easy- 
 reach of all, and that civilization is the mass of frauds 
 by which it is appropriated to the few. Their object, 
 therefore, is not to advance civilization, but to destroy it 
 by assassination and massacre." — p. 220. 
 
 No doubt the present phase of civilization favours too 
 much the interests of the few at the expense of the many, 
 but that can not be remedied by violence. Democracy 
 must advance — nothing now can stop it, and power has 
 passed and is still slowly passing into the hands of the 
 people, and it is not likely that they will be satisfied 
 with our present social system, and it must pass away. 
 But if mechanical invention or new social arrangements 
 cpuld free the working classes from labour before they 
 are morally and intellectually prepared for it, it could 
 only be to the retarding of real progress. What we 
 want and must have to render all progress safe and 
 permanent is the development and perfecting of every 
 mental and moral faculty. This is necessarily a slow 
 process, and every real reformer will throw his weight 
 . into the machiue so that we shall not attempt to go 
 faster than this can take place. 
 
 Sv/pemtition. 
 
 " For no more can he who understands but one religion 
 
 understand even that religion, than the man who knows 
 
 only one language can understand only one language.'' 
 
 Primitive Culture, Edward B. Tyler. Sir Samuel Baker, 
 
 writing of the Kytch, says, "Nor is the darkness of 
 
 their minds enlightened by even a ray of superstition," 
 
 No doubt superstition has had, and still has, its uses, arid 
 
 it must continue till science takes its place ; but it has 
 
 also its dark side; thus Martin Luther thought the 
 
 ■ witches spoiled the farmer's butter and eggs, and he said 
 
 • " I would have no pity on these witches; I would bum 
 
 ' them all." As Tyler says, "As men's minds change in 
 
 progressing culture, old customs and opinions fade 
 
 ^ gradually in a new and uncongenial atmosphere, or pass 
 
240 APPENDIX. 
 
 into states more congruous with the new life around 
 them." 
 
 Buddhist InfallibilUy, 
 
 " He was called omniscient by his earliest pupils ; but 
 when in later times it was seen that on several points. 
 Buddha had but spoken the language of his age, and had 
 shared the errors current among his contemporaries with 
 regard to the shape of the earth and the movement of 
 the heavenly bodies, an important concession was made 
 by Buddhist Theologians. They limited the meaning of 
 the word omniscient, as applied to Buddha, to a know- 
 ledge of the principal doctrines of his system, and con- 
 cerning these, but these only, they declared him to be 
 infallible. . . . Within the domain of sense and' 
 reason Nagasena does not claim omniscience and infalli- 
 bility for Buddha, but he claims for him both ia all that 
 is to be perceived by meditation only, or, as we should 
 say, in matters of faith." Max Muller, Leatures on the 
 Science of Tieligion. Precisely the same change has 
 been, and is still, taking place with respect to our 
 Scriptures. [See Cardinal Newman's and Canon. 
 Ourteis's articles in the Nineteenth Century for Febru- 
 ary, 1884 
 
 Inspiration, 
 
 "It is a simple fact," says the Westminster Beview 
 July, 1875, " that nearly two centuries elapsed before it 
 occurred to any one that any book of the New Testament 
 ought to be called Scripture, or was either of divine or 
 inspired origin. Then the four Gospels were separated! 
 from a multitude of other accounts of Christ's life. 
 ( Allotropio Ohristicmity. ) The Church at first 
 necessarily took the place of the Scriptures, and the 
 Pope represented the Church, and he was supposed to be 
 inspired and infallible. He abused his power, and at the 
 Reformation Luther put the Scripture — Old and New 
 Testament— in the place of the Pope. It was the. 
 Scriptures then that were supposed to be inspired, every 
 
ASPIRATION. 241 
 
 word the Word of God and " put by the Spirit of God 
 in its right place." We know how the Scriptures have 
 been abused by Calvinists, Puritans, and the many sects 
 into which Protestants have been divided. J. S. Mill 
 says in his Autobiography, " I have a hundred times 
 heard him (his father) say, that all ages and nations have 
 represented their gods as wicked, in a constaptly 
 increasing progression; that mankind have gone on 
 adding trait after trait till they reached the most perfect 
 conception of wickedness which the human mind can 
 devise, and have called this God, and prostrated them- 
 selves before it. The ne plus ultra of wickedness he 
 -considered to be embodied in what is commonly presented 
 to mankind as the creed of Christianity," p. 41. The 
 Christianity, however, of the present clay has been 
 modified by the renovating force of reason and Free 
 'Thought so as to be practically a new religion. " The 
 freethinking of one age, says Matthew Arnold, is the 
 common sense of the next." Dr. Elam, in Man and 
 Science, gives it as his opinion, "that when the history of 
 modern thought comes to be written in the future, 
 nothing will appear more remarkable to the student of 
 those times than the great divergence, or rather the 
 irreconcilable antagonism, between, the utterances of 
 philosophy and the revelations of exact science." This 
 is doubtless mainly owing to philosophy being trammelled 
 by a belief that is supposed to have a higher source than 
 -observation and experience. It is owing to the difficulty 
 of reconciling science to the traditions of a so-called 
 divine revelation. Science, however, must take the 
 place of Christianity, but it must be very slowly, for 
 until we get rid of spontaneity or free-will there can be 
 no Science of Mind. 
 
 Aspiration. 
 
 " Heaven lies about us in our infancy." 
 
 " The dove cleaving the thin air, and feeling its resist- 
 ance, might suppose that in airless space her movements 
 would be more rapid. Precisely in this way Plato thought 
 
242 APPENDIX. 
 
 that by abandoning the sensuous world, because of the^ 
 limits it placed to his understanding, he might more- 
 successfuUy venture into the void space of pure intellect." 
 {James Hinton.) It is precisely the same with the 
 religious aspirations of our most pious people, and for 
 ■which they take so much credit as being above the world.. 
 The atmosphere of their other world is far too thin and 
 et.ierial for any of the virtues with which we are 
 acquainted to soar in. The love of God, we are taught 
 to suppose, will be all sufficient. Mr. Hutton says 
 (S'lmposium, Nineteenth Gentun/, Sep., 1877,) that "as far 
 as he knows, his thoughts, affections, and volitions are not 
 likely to perish with the body." Now, whatever may be the 
 nature of the force called the soul, its special " thoughts, 
 affections, and volitions" are entirely dependent upon the 
 body, (i.e.) upon the brain, and they perish, or do not 
 exist even in this world if the brain is imperfect. If 
 the organ of colour is defective people are colour-blind, 
 and it is the same with all our other thoughts and 
 feelings, they exist only in proportion as the brain is 
 perfect. The soul has been defined as our conscious 
 personal self, which in spite of change remains always- 
 one and the same ; but as far as we know it changes with 
 the changing condition of the body and brain, from youth 
 to old age. 
 
 Instead of dreaming of another world, with all its 
 improbable and impossible conditions, and thinking that 
 we are raising ourselves by such "aspirations," we 
 require to come nearer to earth, and by the study of 
 its "order," to do our duty more perfectly there. It 
 depends upon ourselves very much as to whether we 
 make a heaven there or a hell. If we seek God, He is 
 everywhere; here is Heaven: "all is but the varied 
 God." 
 
 Civilization. 
 
 It is still much disputed as to what constitutes civili- 
 zation. It has been said to be measured by the quantity of 
 soap used in a country, and that the question, " How 
 
CIVILISATION. 24S 
 
 are you off for Soap ?" is not altogether irrelevant. 
 Tried by this test England would' probably greatly 
 exceed France. The French say the English must be 
 dirty people to require so much water and washing ! It 
 is said to be that which decreases the evil, and which 
 multiplies and extends the range of the good. This is 
 a good definition ; we may say also that it is measured 
 by the happiness in a country, but then are not the 
 savages of Central Africa — the laughing, careless, irre- 
 sponsible Negro, for whom nature has provided almost 
 all that he requires, happier than the hard-worked, 
 toil-worn people of what are said to be more civilised 
 countries 1 Still, happiness is the only test, and as 
 pleasure attends the action of all our faculties, the 
 aggregate of which -pleasures constitutes happiness, 
 then that must be the highest state of civilization which 
 tends to develope, and provides for bringing into 
 legitimate activity, all our faculties. 
 
 It is to Christianity that we owe our civilization, it is 
 said. This is stated as a mere truism, but I think it 
 very doubtful. The difference between Europe and 
 Asia is owing more to Race than to difference in Re- 
 ligion. Civilization comes first, and then Christianity 
 is civilised to accord with it, and the Bible, both Old 
 and New Testaments, is translated to meet the cul- 
 ture of the age. No doubt they may help one 
 another, still if this were not the case, and we had 
 attempted to act literally upon Christian doctrine, 
 its principle of non-resistance, its avoidance of provi- 
 dence and forethought, its condemnation of riches, 
 would have made Society impossible. What is it, then, 
 to which civilization is owing 1 Simply to observa- 
 tion and experience — experience of what tends 
 to decrease the evil and to increase and perpetuate the 
 good — observation of the " order of nature " and ex- 
 perience of the good that comes from obedience to its 
 unvarying course. This experience is registered for our 
 present and future benefit;" first as instinct, which is 
 experience organised, both intellectual faculty and 
 feeling creating the conscience ; then as oral tradition ; 
 
244 APPENDIX. 
 
 afterwards in written records. It is this that constitutes 
 progress. Science is the true civilizer. This shows us 
 the right path, and it is practice in the right path that 
 makes perfect. Herbert Spencer truly says, " countless 
 illustrations have shown us that' all strength, all faculty, 
 all fitness, presented by every living thing, has arisen 
 partly by a growth of each power consequent on exercise 
 of it, and partly by the more frequent survival and 
 greater multiplication of the better endowed individuals, 
 entailing gradual disappearance of the worst endowed." 
 All perfection, bodily and mental, he says, has been 
 achieved through this process. He is probably right, 
 and it is to this, and not to religion, that our 
 civilization, such as it is, is owing. Religion has hitherto 
 been too much mixed with superstition ; but even that 
 has had its use, and must continue till Science can take 
 its place. , 
 
 In practice we do not go to the Priest or to the 
 Philosopher for guidance, for in opinion all philosophers 
 differ, and it is long before opinion becomes workable. 
 It is seldom, either, that we trust to a principle. If a 
 farmer, a man looks over his neighbour's hedge to see 
 what he is doing ; and the same in all departments of 
 life we seek the highest experience. It is our Priestleys, 
 Paradays, Newtons, Watts, Stephensons, Smeatons, 
 Baltons, Bridgewaters, Comptons, Arkrights, Wedg- 
 woods, Franklins, Adam Smiths, Bacons, Lockes, 
 Benthams, who form and fashion the age. The Clergy 
 are all too busy making their tenets square with the 
 culture of the 19th century, and the Catholics seem to 
 think that the greater the contradiction the more merit 
 there is in believing it ; it requires more faith ; in fact, 
 any one can believe what is credible ! 
 
 Gharacter. 
 
 Mrs. Poyser says : — " It's hard to tell which is old 
 Harry, when everybody's got boots on." {Adam Bede, 
 Oeo. Eliot.) Education and conventional habits supply 
 all with " boots " to hide the cloven foot, and a man can 
 
CHAEACTEE. 245 
 
 readily assume the character he thinks most likely to 
 please the company he is in. A great desire to please 
 <;an, in a clever person, talk any language and take any 
 part which it is thought will be most likely to accom- 
 plish this purpose. There is, consequently, nothing in 
 which so great mistakes are made as in the estimation 
 of character, so often fatal to young people who have to 
 choose partners for life, and almost as fatal to all who 
 have to choose partners for shorter periqdsj or friends or 
 servants. Experience is a very slow teacher, and 
 written characters are almost worthless, for a man will 
 give another a character ^here he would not give him a 
 shilling. I recollect a leading man in our town giving 
 an old and used up tailor a character for Master of the 
 Workhouse, because he was an honest man, and in the 
 village they both came from, years ago, he had made his 
 father's breeches. Competitive examinations furnish no 
 test of character, only of the amount and degree of 
 cultivation of the intellect. How then, where all are so 
 well furnished with the boots that hide the real character 
 •are we to tell the false from the true, the mere seeming 
 from the real ? The knowledge of character is the most 
 valuable of all knowledge, and this can only be based, 
 not upon the limited experience which we all possess, 
 but upon a true Science of Man. There is nothing on 
 which so many mistakes are made as upon character, 
 when judged by our own experi-ence or by popular report. 
 But have we such a science of man 1 Certainly we have. 
 'Gall and his followers, by comparing function with 
 ■development, have given us a very complete knowledge 
 of a man's mental faculties, and of the groups which 
 form character. Bulwer Lytton says, " there are two 
 lives to each of us, gliding on at the same time, scarcely 
 -cortnected with each other ! the life of our actions, and 
 the life of our minds. . . . History reveals men's 
 deeds, men's outward characters, but not themselves. 
 There is a secret self that has its own life ' rounded by 
 a dream,' unpenetrated, unguessed." Is not one man as 
 good as another 1 said a stump orator. "To be sure he 
 is," said Pat, " and bether." Notwithstanding Pat's real 
 
246 APPENDIX. 
 
 discrimination, people are all thought to be very much 
 alike, and very much like ourselves — as the Negro 
 woman said of her twins, " dem bery, like, 'tickler 
 Pompey." There never was a greater mistake. A man 
 who has a deficiency of brain under the centre of the 
 eyebrow is colour blind, and with a similar deficiency of , 
 brain in other places he may be equally blind to every- 
 thing else ; to wit, to music, to number, to the properties 
 of matter, especially to those required by an artist or 
 sculptor, to localities, and to reasoning, &c., and this 
 deficiency is often not known or suspected by the de- 
 faulters themselves. I have known a man, for instance, 
 eloquent in several languages, who saw everything, and 
 knew everything, but who was so deficient in reflective 
 faculty, that he was blind in reasoning power, and his- 
 judgment could never be trusted. He, however, did not 
 know this, nor did the people who were charmed by his. 
 learning and eloquence. Where his instincts or his 
 memory could not guide him, his reason could not. It 
 is the same with the feelings as with the intellectual 
 faculties, and people may be blind in conscience, and 
 often are blind to "the true, the good, and the beautiful." 
 
 " The other day a deaf man got one end of a telephone- 
 and a dumb one the other. They both went away 
 believing that the telephone was'nt up to much." This 
 is. only a slight caricature of opinion in general, formed 
 as it is on imperfect faculties and imperfect knowledge, 
 and is quite sufficient to account for its divergence and 
 variety. But a man carries his real character about 
 with him in the shape of his head, and the corresponding 
 expression of face. If people will not qualify themselves, 
 to read what is so plainly written, they must sufier from 
 the consequences. Those who v«^ant a knowledge of 
 character, based on the true Science of Man, must go- 
 to Gall and his followers. 
 
 Marcus Antoninus says, " The voice ought to be 
 plainly written on the forehead. Such as a man's, 
 character is, he immediately shows it in his eyes, just 
 as he who is beloved forthwith reads everything in the 
 eyes of lovers. The man who is honest and good ought 
 
MODES OP MOTION. 247 
 
 to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the 
 bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell, 
 whether he choose or not. But the affectation of 
 simplicity is like a crooked stick. Nothing is more 
 disgraceful than a wolfish friendship. Avoid this most 
 of all. The good and simple and benevolent show all 
 these things in the eyes, and there is no mistaking." 
 They show them more unmistakeably in the shape of the 
 head, and the Phrenologist smells them out at once. 
 
 In confirmation of what I have said before, Dr. Words- 
 worth (Autohiography'j affirms that Mr. Gladstone's father, 
 while most cordial with his son, and fully acknowledging 
 his abilities, thought him wanting in stability, an opinion 
 in which Dr. Wordsworth subsequently heartily con- 
 curred—and in which every Phrenologist would agree. 
 
 Modes of Motion, and xohat they represent in the Mimd. 
 
 All science is only varied modes of motion ; but these- 
 modes of motion, to become known to us, must all first 
 be transformed into thoughts. These thoughts depend 
 upon the more or less limitation of our mental being, 
 and that depends upon the brain. Should the organ of 
 colour be defective we are colour-blind. Our own 
 thoughts only are known to us. By an apparatus con- 
 structed for the purpose, Sir George Grove has shown 
 that a single sunbeam may be made to exhibit itself as 
 light, heat, magnetism, chemical action, each in turn 
 shewing so far the unity of force ; but by a more cunning 
 apparatus of the eye and brain these varied modes of 
 motion are converted into thoughts, and this, the most 
 important half of the chain of sequences, has hitherto 
 been ignored by our physical philosophers. However 
 perfect the musical instrument may be, it is but a mass 
 of wood and strings, the music is in us— we ma,ke the 
 music. This is admitted, but it is not equally admitted 
 that it applies to all other creations of the mmd. We 
 know only thoughts, and space and time to us are only, 
 thoutrhts, and we do not know for certain that they have 
 any existence apart from mind— thoughts may be all. 
 
^48 APPENDIX. 
 
 What we call matter is now said to be force, our highest 
 physical philosophers having abolished the atom and put 
 a centre of force in its place — and force is mind. If 
 there is no space, objectively, then there can be no 
 motion, as motion is a change of place, and force, said 
 to be known to us only as a mode of motion, translated 
 into the language of our thoughts, means only mental 
 change. Our world is the creation of our own percep- 
 tions, and our perceptions are dependent upon our bodies, 
 and the question is, what are our bodies, and what is the 
 world, independent of our perceptions ? We have no 
 means of knowing. Suppose, as James Hinton says, we 
 perceived all light and heat and sound as only so many 
 varieties of motion, what would the world be worth? 
 Our thoughts are real, and so are their relation to things 
 without us, and that is all that concerns us. " 1 hold it 
 quite as absurd to say that thought is material, as to say 
 it is immaterial," says James Hinton ; the fact is we 
 know only thoughts, and they tell us nothing of their 
 own essential nature or essence. The world is what it 
 is in itself, but our world is what we make it. 
 
 On challenging my friend Atkinson to tell me of any 
 knowledge he had but of his own thoughts, he replies, 
 "You utterly perplex me about knowing nothing out- 
 ward. We know nothing else, or how could we exist or 
 correspond, or the cat or dog, or bird, fish, or insect V 
 Of course this is the common-sense view, but , he adds, 
 " directly we only know our feelings and perceptions, 
 but through these have information of all around." Mr. 
 Hinton puts it best. " I think," he says, " with respect 
 to all phenomena and all the ideas we can form of 
 things, although we do not believe in them as existing, 
 we believe in some existence which we perceive dn and 
 through them. Matter and motion, for example, cannot 
 be existing, they are but phenomena ; but in this way — 
 as matter and motion — we perceive that which is exist- 
 ing."—" The Art of TJiinJcing, and other Essays," ip. 178. 
 
 " To know external objects, says F. A. Lange, is a 
 contradiction : it is impossible for a man to go outside 
 himself. When we believe that we see things we see 
 
IDEALISM. 249' 
 
 only ourselves."' "We can, properly speaking, know 
 nothing of anything in the world except ourselves, and 
 the changes that take place in us." . . 
 
 " What is the Body "i What is Matter ? What is the 
 Physical ? And modern physiology, just as much as 
 philosophy, must answer that they are all only our ideas ;. 
 necessary ideas, ideas resulting according to natural laws, 
 but still never the things themselves." . . . 
 
 " The consistently Materialistic view thus changes, 
 round, therefore, into a consistently idealistic view." . . . 
 
 " It is enough to establish that genuine Idealism, in 
 the whole sphere of the explanation of nature, as far as 
 the relations between phenomena are concerned, goes at 
 least as entirely hand-in-hand with natural science as 
 Materialism by any possibility ever can." — History of 
 Mat&nalism. 
 
 " The great fact insisted upon by Descartes, that no like- 
 ness of external things is, or can be, transmitted to the 
 mind by the sensory organs; but that, between the external 
 cause of a sensation and the sensation, there is interposed 
 a mode of motion of nervous matter, of which the state 
 of consciousness is no likeness, but a mere symbol. . . . 
 A more or less complete Idealism is the necessary conse- 
 quence. . . . Sensations (muskiness or any 
 other odour) have no attribute in common with those 
 which we ascribe to matter ; they are, in the strictest 
 sense of the word, immaterial entities. . . . Our 
 consciousness tells us nothing of its own nature or 
 essence, as to whether, therefore, it is material or 
 immaterial. . . . We know, however, more of 
 mind than we do of body ; that the immaterial world 
 is a firmer reality than the material, the one is known 
 immediately, the other only by inference or mediately. 
 And, if beliefs are properly termed 'testimonies of 
 consciousness,' then undoubtedly the testimony of con- 
 sciousness may be, and often is, untrustworthy." — 
 BJuxley. 
 
250 APPENDIX. 
 
 Realism and Idealismt 
 
 " The intellect the pioduet of matter, and the whole world of matter the 
 product of intellect." 
 
 In the above -wre have the unity or the blending of 
 realism and idealism, but there must have been a time 
 when they stood alone. The world has gradually been 
 evolved from a fiery mist, its present comparative 
 perfection has been a very slow growth, and, as we have 
 previously seen, it would have been impossible that it 
 could have arrived at its present state of adaptation 
 without the aid of mind. It seems to have taken long 
 ages to prepare the world for the existence of life upon 
 it, and surely its existence, during that J)eriod, did not 
 depend upon its being perceived in the Berkeleian or 
 Idealist sense. It may be said that not being perceived 
 is the same as non-existence ; not, however, if things 
 were preparing the way for their perception. It took 
 long ages even to fill the coal-cellar for our future use. 
 But time is nothing, for you might take any amount of 
 it from eternity, without eternity being any the less. 
 Then again, as to the Idealist dogma that things are not 
 ■ existent that are not perceived, how long have the fossil 
 bones been lying in the earth that have only just now 
 come to light 1 Surely they were existent although not 
 perceived. The perception only was non-existent, not 
 the things afterwards perceived. But let us see what 
 actually has taken place, as far as science will now guide 
 us. When the world ■v^'as at last prepared for life upon 
 it, comparative anatomy is now able to trace an unbroken 
 chain from the formless spec of protoplasm to the highest 
 mammal, man, the last term of the long series ; and if 
 comparative anatomy can show us the bodies, compara- 
 tive psychology can show us the degree of sensibility 
 (i.e.), the mind, dependent upon each. Spurzheim, in his 
 " Anatomy of the Brain," gives us in eleven excellent 
 plates a general view of the Nervous System, to which 
 this sensibility is attached, from a caterpillar to man. 
 We have the brains of fishes ; of reptiles and of birds ; 
 of mammiferous animals ; of cats, dogs, and monkeys; of 
 
REALISM AND IDEALISM. 251 
 
 idiots ; and finally of a complete human brain in all its 
 forms and phases. As they increase in size and complexity 
 so is the increased power of feeling and thinking; but the 
 -cat and dog, the monkey and the man, are so alike that it 
 is simply ridiculous to affirm that they differ in kind, and 
 not in degree only. In the progress of evolution one 
 organ would appear to grow out of another, and becoming 
 modified and adapted to present purposes by the 
 surrounding conditions, becomes a new organ, with a new- 
 faculty, and we have thus the wonderful complexity of 
 man's brain and its varied functions ; and, as Herbert 
 Spencer has pointed out, the mental powers are inherited 
 products of accumulated experiences which thus moulded 
 the nervous system, and through it act instinctively ; 
 conscience and our moral intuitions being slowly organised 
 •experience of utility thus received by the race. 
 
 Matter having thus produced the brain and through it 
 the intellect, it having grown out of the world as the 
 world has gradually been prepared for it, let us see how 
 the intellect returns the compliment and creates the 
 world. The beauty of the world depends upon its 
 Colour, but colour is a perception, a feeling in us, 
 ■dependent upon the brain, and if the part ' of the brain 
 immediately over the eye is absent or defective, there is 
 no sense of colour, and people are what is called colour- 
 blind. It is the same with the other properties of 
 matter, the form, size, weight, order, number, locality, 
 motion, and individuality — they are creations of 
 the brain, and if the brain is not there neither are the 
 ideas, and the ideas are vivid in proportion to the size 
 and quality of the brain. The sense sets the brain in 
 motion, and its molecular action transforms the force 
 supplied to it by the blood into these ideas, which we 
 transfer to the object and call matter and its properties ; 
 but what it really is that acts upon the sense we do not 
 know. We thus carry the world of our own intellectual 
 creation about in our own head ; what there is without 
 and besides our own consciousness we do not know. 
 With respect to colour we are told that it takes millions 
 ■ of millions of vibratory motions acting on the eye to 
 
252 APPENDIX. 
 
 produce it, so that the sense, as well as the brain, requires, 
 to be in good condition. But what is it produces these, 
 vibratory motions 'i There must be something in things 
 themselves to do it, as they are produced alike in all 
 persons similarly organized. The perception alone is not 
 all there is, as Idealists affirm. " If Idealism is true," as. 
 Herbert Spencer says, " evolution is a dream ;" still we 
 must admit that " the various sensations, or ideas, 
 imprinted on the sense, cannot exist otherwise than in 
 the mind perceiving them." This Bishop Berkeley con- 
 sidered, as we also must do, as self-evidently true. 
 
 With reference to colour, we know the relation of the 
 perception to the brain, of the brain to the eye, of the 
 eye to the vibratory motions of the ether causing 
 light, and we reasonably suppose there is something^ 
 sets the ether in motion. But this relationship 
 is all we know, we do not approach anywhere 
 near to objects themselves, to know anything about- 
 them. As George Combe says, " We cannot tell what 
 matter is, and we are travelling through a world in which 
 all that we can comprehend is truly relationship and 
 nothing more. We know that the relationship established 
 between things, and between our own mind and them, 
 gives rise to certain impressions in us, but we can 
 penetrate no deeper into the mysteries of nature." " No- 
 relation in consciousness," says H. Spencer, " can 
 resemble or be in any way akin to its source beyond con- 
 sciousness." " Colours, forms, or sounds, are not so mach 
 beautiful in themselves as rather the vehicles or channels 
 by which certain spiritual attractions are suggested to 
 our spirit. . . . The Beautiful is God. ' Is it 
 possible,' Newman says, ' that the inexhaustible evolu- 
 tion and disposition of notes, so rich and yet so simple, 
 so intricate and yet so regulated, so various and yet so 
 majestic, should be a mere sownd which is gone and 
 perishes 1 ' " — Proteus and Amadeus. 
 
 A statement about the nature of our perceptions, 
 and not about the things perceived, is all of which we 
 are papable. As illustrative that " the mental powers 
 are inherited products of accumulated experiences 
 
IDEALISM. 253 
 
 -which have moulded the nervous system," I would men- 
 tion the fact that the Esquimaux see only blue and white 
 in the sky and snow — they have no perception of any 
 other colour. Here is an illustration that there is some- 
 thing more than perception. Mrs. Oroad was deaf, 
 dumb, and blind. A very interesting biographical 
 account of her is given by Mr. F. G. Westlake. (iV. 
 Mack, 4, Paternoster Square). Although blind she 
 could distinguish colours, and this is her explanation of 
 how she did it. Colours, she says, are known to her by 
 their degrees of heat, smoothness or roughness — white 
 being cold ; black, hot or raised ; red, very hot and 
 smooth ; blue, hot and grating, edging my teeth ; brown, 
 very grating ; and so on. It would be curious to know 
 whether Mrs. Croad had any real perception of colour, or 
 only of these differences of " heat, smoothness or rough- 
 ness," dependent upon the sense of touch. As colour is 
 dependent upon an organ of the brain, it is most 
 probable, I think, that these differences brought that 
 organ into activity, and that she had a real perception ,of 
 colour; it brings us at least a step nearer to things 
 themselves, and shows that there are real differences to 
 account for the different vibratory motions that alone 
 affect us. 
 
 The beauty of Sirius, however, we are told, is con- 
 veyed to our senses through the medium of atomic shivers, 
 kept up during the past 22 years, at the average rate of 
 six hundred millions of millions per second. 
 
 It would take, Tyndall tells us, 57,000 waves of violet 
 colour to fill an inch, and as light travels at the rate of 
 192,000 miles a second, it would take 699 millions of 
 millions of such waves to enter the eye in a single second 
 to produce the impression of violet on the brain. 
 
 These vast numbers are known to us only as ideas or 
 mental changes, and it is very difficult indeed to conceive 
 that they have any objective existence, that is, anything 
 at all corresponding to them out of ourselves. We 
 cannot but suspect that our faculties in some way deceive 
 us. We know only our own consciousness, that is, mind, 
 and if everything is of the same nature, then these 
 
254 APPENDIX. 
 
 immeasurable distances and motions can have no reality, 
 for a thought cannot be millions of millions of miles long. 
 It is more easy to take an ideal view of the thing, and to 
 believe that the two apparently diverse classes of pheno- 
 mena may be only one, and that the material order may 
 exist only as mental. James Hinton says, " We have 
 to learn why an existence that is not a material world 
 should impress us as if it were — the material universe 
 "being the appearance to us of some existence not yet 
 recognized." 
 
 Is Matter more than a mere assumption to account for 
 our sensations '? Huxley says " every form is force 
 visible ; a form of rest is a balance of forces ; a form 
 undergoing change is the predominance of one over 
 others." In fact all is Force, and that is Mind. 
 Schelling also is of opinion " that Matter is nothing but 
 Spirit, viewed in the equilibrium of its activities." Kant 
 supposes that Space and Time are necessary forms of per- 
 ception, imposed upon it by the perceiving mind ; that 
 things are in space and time as they appear to us, and 
 not in themselves ; and that consequently the statement 
 that all things exist in space and time is a statement 
 about the nature of our perceptions and not about the 
 things perceived," so says the late Professor W. K. 
 Clifford ; he also says, " Idealism established in a security 
 that has never yielded to attack the subjective character 
 of the world of phenomena ; that the world which I per- 
 ceive is my perceptions and nothing more. Whether 
 there is anything else quite different which corresponds 
 to it in a certain way is another question ; Berkeley said 
 there were also spirits." (Lectures and Essays, p.p. 271, 
 288.) 
 
 On the Analogy between Sir Isaac Newton s Universal 
 " Spirit " and the " Force " of our Modem Discovery. 
 
 From a Paper read before the Aristotelian Society, 
 January 7, 1884. 
 
 What Sir Isaac Newton says on this subject is " And 
 now we might add something concerning a most subtle 
 
" SPIRIT " " FORCE." 255 
 
 Spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies ; 
 by the force and action of which Spirit the particles of 
 bodies mutually attract one another at near distances, 
 and cohere if contiguous ; and electric bodies operate to 
 greater distances, as well repelling as attracting the 
 neighbouring corpuscles ; and light is emitted, reflected, 
 refracted, inflected, and heats bodies ; and all sensation 
 is excited, and the members of the animal bodies move 
 at the command of the wUl, namely, by the vibration of 
 this Spirit, mutually propagated along the solid filaments 
 of the nerves from the outward organs of sense to the 
 brain, and from the brain into the muscles." " But," 
 Sir I. Newton also observes, '' there are things which 
 cannot be explained in a few words, nor are we furnished 
 with that sufficiency of experiments which is required toi 
 an accurate determination and demonstration of the 
 laws by which this electric and elastic Spirit operates." 
 This is quoted from G. H. Lewes' " Problems of Life 
 and Mind," vol. 1, p. 52, and Mr. Lewes, in introducing 
 it, says that in the very passage that follows Newton's 
 famous denunciation of hypothesis, "he has no hesitation 
 in propounding a view which in these days must startle 
 the most speculative by its wildness." 
 
 The question is, on the contrjiry, whether in these 
 -days we have not found Newtoji's " wild hypothesis " to 
 be literally true. 
 
 The Rev. H. W. Watson, F.E.S., tells us that "the 
 crowning triumph of physical discovery in the last 'fifty 
 years is the science of Energy, the revelation of a new 
 entity indestructible like matter, and the source and 
 store-house of all physical activity." I quote this Rev. 
 President of the Birmingham Philosophical Society 
 because he does not regard this Force or Energy as a 
 mere mode of motion, or as action, as most other 
 physicists do, but as an entity in itself and the cause 
 of all physical activity or motion. Perhaps it would 
 be more correct to admit that this Force is an abstrac- 
 tion, the force of something — not of matter, that only 
 conditions it, but, as we shall see, of Spirit ; it is as 
 inseparable, however, from that of which it is the force 
 
256 APPENDIX. 
 
 as motion is from the thing moving. This entity^ 
 whatever we may call it, in its various modes of motion,, 
 is known to us as Light, Heat, Electricity, Galvanism, 
 Chemical Affinity, Attraction and Repulsion. It has 
 not yet been generally recognized in the departments of 
 Life and Mind, but Herbert Spencer says, and in this I 
 perfectly agree with him, " that no idea or feeling arises 
 save as the result of some physical force expended in 
 producing it." Mr. Spencer states that this is fast 
 becoming a common-place of science, but the science of 
 the present day does not recognise it, and considers that 
 the whole of the force we derive from the food is used 
 up in the mechanical or automatic action of the body, 
 and that the chaiu of causation, where each manifesta- 
 tion of force is recognised only as the effect of some 
 antecedent force, is complete without taking into 
 consideration the strongest force of all — mental force.. 
 AU facts appear to me to point to an opposite conclusion,, 
 viz., that what we call physical force, under the mole- 
 cular action of the brain, throughout the whole animal 
 creation, is passing into sensibility, consciousness, or- 
 mind, in proportion to the size and complexity of the 
 brain and nervous system. The vital force of the body 
 passes into mind, where it is no longer recognised as a 
 mode of motion, and passes back again, through the will, 
 into muscular force, again recognised as motion. If we 
 keep back the food, or put pressure on the brain, we 
 have no consciousness. ; and of the existence of Mind as 
 a force we may easily satisfy ourselves. PuU a man's 
 nose and he will probably knock you down with, a force 
 proportionate to his mental state of indignation. It is- 
 difficult to conceive of this as a case of mere reflex action, 
 which it must be if the mind never acts upon the body. 
 No doubt it is a plain case in which so much mental force 
 is transformed into physical ; and this transformation or 
 correlation of physical force into mental, and mental into 
 physical, is going on all day long, all the world over; 
 and yet science has not recognised it ! As simple an 
 illustration as occurs to me of the correlation of a feeling 
 into a mode of motion is where a slight tickle the in 
 
"spirit" — "POECE." 257 
 
 nose produces a sneeze. But it requires only to have our 
 attention called to this fact of the correlation of the 
 physical and mental forces to see it everywhere. "Touch 
 the smallest fibre," says the Hon. Roden Noel, " in the 
 corporeal man, and in some infinitessimal way we may 
 watch the effect in the moral man. When we rouse 
 •chords of the most glorious extasy in the soul, we may 
 see the vibrations of them visibly thrilling upon the 
 skin : " and George Sand says, " I have no enthusiasm 
 for Nature which the slightest chill will not instantly 
 •destroy." 
 
 This newly discovered force or energy, "the source 
 and storehouse of all physical activity," unconsciously 
 performs half the actions in the world ; consciously, from 
 the sensibility, consciousness, or Mind into which it is 
 transformed in the brains of animals, it performs the 
 other half. 
 
 But must not that which can thus become mind be 
 •originally of the nature of mind, and if will-power can 
 act on matter, must it not be because they are essentially 
 •of the same nature or substance 1 
 
 And if so, have we not here Sir Isaac Newton's "most 
 subtle Spirit," the very supposition of which Mr. Lewes 
 tells us must startle the most speculative by its wildness "? 
 
 Force and mind, although apparently diverse, are as 
 w have seen, really identical, and the material order pro- 
 bably exists, as the Idealists say, only as mental. The two 
 apparently diverse classes of phenomena, the mental and 
 physical, are only one. Mind is all, and all things are 
 known to us only as they exist in our consciousness, and 
 ourideaof force or energy, objectively considered, is merely 
 the reflex of our own minds, of the force or energy which 
 we are able to exercise as Will. I can form no other 
 idea of power but as Will-power. Now it is the nature 
 of Mind, judging from the small spark that has been 
 lighted in our own consciousness, on frequent repetition, 
 to pass from conscious action into automatic or un- 
 conscious, — and this fact throws considerable light on 
 the nature of things around us. Our physical philosophers 
 
558 APPENDIX. 
 
 of to-day say there is no such thing as "design;" following 
 Kant they say that reflecting reason brings design into 
 the world, and then admires a wonder created by itself. 
 But in the evolution or growth of the world, from the 
 original state of chaos to the comparative present 
 perfection, was there no purpose or design? The power- 
 at work was a spiritual one, and each purposive action in 
 bringing this about was most probably attended by a 
 distinct conscious volition, which, according to the nature 
 of mind, has passed, on frequent repetition, in the ages,, 
 into the unconscious or automatic, constituting the fixed 
 laws and order of nature. Bacon thought that all 
 mechanical and physical movement of bodies had alway.s 
 been preceeded by perception — i.p., conscious action in 
 those bodies (De Augm. Sclents. L 4), and Kepler was 
 of opinion that the planets must have had knowledge in 
 order to keep their elliptical courses so correctly, and 
 to regulate the velocity of their motion so that the 
 triangle of the plane of their course always remains 
 proportioned to the time in which they pass through its- 
 base. — l<^ssay De Planeta Mortes. 
 
 The Universal Spirit is not, then, the less present 
 because in Natural Law it appears to us as Force and 
 acts unconsciously. 
 
 The discussion on this Paper by the Society turned' 
 principally on the nature of Force — on Force as Energy 
 , — on Force, Static and Dynamic, &c., and it may be 
 interesting therefore to know what view J. S. Mill takes 
 upon the subject, he says : Mind is the only possible cause- 
 of force — or rather. Mind is the force and all other 
 derived from it being the only thing capable of originat- 
 ing change. In inanimate nature the force which works 
 is always a preexisting force, not originated but trans- 
 ferred. One physical object moves another by giving out 
 to it the force by which it has been itself moved. . . . 
 As far as anything can be concluded from human experi- 
 ence Force has all the attributes of a thing eternal and 
 uncreated. (Ussays on BeUgion, p.p. 146, 147.) Force- 
 
THE SENSES. 259 
 
 is only known to us physically as a mocle of motion, that 
 is, from its connection -with a medium, but that -which 
 can be transferred, muSt, during the time of the transfer 
 at least, however limited that time may be, have an inde- 
 pendent existence. Mill says "It is self-evident that 
 nothing can have produced Mind but Mind. — Ihid, p. 150. 
 
 TU Eao. 
 
 The Fichtian Ego is no individual Ego, but the 
 universal World -Ego come to consciousness. The 
 Fichtian process of thought is not the process of thought 
 of the individual, of a definite individual called Johann 
 Gottlieb Fichte ; it is in the universal process of thought 
 which manifests itself in the individual. Then, as one 
 says, it rains, it thunders ; so would Fichte say not " I 
 think but it thinks — the universal world-process of 
 thought thinks in me." ("lyife, Work, and Uprnions of 
 Heinrich Heine," vol. 1, p. 4.35.) 
 
 Fichte seems to me, in the above, more corractly to 
 represent facts, as we now know them, than any other 
 writer on the subject. Force, the active and immediate 
 cause of all motion or change, represents the universal 
 World-Ego ; passing through the brain under its mole- 
 cular action it lights up into consciousness and assumes 
 various forms of thought and feeling, the individual Ego 
 or feeling of personal identity being one of the forms of 
 thought. A stream of Force flows through the organism 
 from the great cosmic force, and returns, by various 
 channels, to the ocean whence it came. Gogito ergo sum, 
 is a delusion, there is no " I." The " Ego " is a mere 
 form of thought ; all that w;e know is that thinking is. 
 The universal Force, which resumes its consciousness, 
 thinks in me — 
 
 " All is but the varied God." 
 
 rfc Senses. 
 
 Professor Tyndall tells us that two-thirds of the rays 
 emitted by thel sun fail to arouse in the human eye the 
 
260 APPENDIX. 
 
 sense of vision, and must be known therefore from their 
 action upon something else than the eye ; the rays exist, 
 but the visual organ requisite for their translation into 
 light does not exist. " And so," he says, " from this 
 region of darkness and mystery which surrounds us, 
 rays may now be darting which require but the develop- 
 ment of the proper intellectual organs to translate them 
 into knowledge, as far surpassing ours as ours surpasses 
 the Iguanodon and his contemporaries." — Fragments of 
 Sciencp. 
 
 " What," the Professor asks, " will be our material and 
 spiritual powers when our senses are more opened 1 . 
 For it must be remembered that the five senses are five 
 hindrances to the full perception even of matter ; they 
 limit us in sensibility to certain forms of existence only." 
 
 The fact is that it is not to the senses but to the "proper 
 intellectual organs " that we owe such knowledge as we 
 possess ; the senses are only the medium by which these 
 organs are acted upon from without, and our knowledge 
 of the external world is confined to only modes of motion 
 (vibrations), that affect our senses of hearing, feeling, and 
 seeing, and so act upon the brain. The intellectual organs 
 are the slowly organized results of these actions from 
 without, giving us certain forms of thought which we 
 transfer to the things without, although in reality there 
 can be no real resemblance between them. If the part 
 of the brain upon which our perception of colour is 
 dependent is not there we cannot see colour, and so of all 
 our other perceptions of form, size, etc., whether they are 
 called primary or secondary. Certain vibratory motions, 
 acting through the eye upon the brain, give us the 
 perception of colour, hut there can be no possible 
 resemblance between the sensation and the vibrations. 
 The difference between our knowledge and that of the 
 Iguanodon is that it is infinitely more varied, admitting 
 of infinitely more varied modes of action on our part, 
 but we know no more of the real nature of the world 
 without than it does ; we know only how our brain is 
 affected by it, — of its modes of motion. " All our know- 
 ledge springs from, and is limited by, Feeling. The universe 
 
CAUSATION. 261 
 
 represented in that knowledge can only be a picture of 
 a system of things as those exist in relation to our 
 sensibility . . Undulations cannot become colours, 
 even the undulations themselves are to us only forms of 
 feeling . . . Matter is for us (as for the Iguanodon) 
 only the Felt; its qualities are diflferences of Feeling." 
 6. H. Lewes. 
 
 " The world is what it is in itself, and also what we 
 make it," but it is what we make it that is alone known 
 to us, {i.e.) we know only our own feelings, what the world 
 is in itself we don't know, neither do we know what 
 our feelings are in themselves, nor why they should 
 appear to us as a whole external world. We are limited 
 to our requirements and we may be thankful that we 
 are, for if, as George Elint says, we had a keen vision and 
 feeling of all ordinary life, it would be like hearing the 
 grass grow, and the squirrels heart beat ; and we should 
 die of that roar which lies the other side of silence. 
 May there not oe cause then for congratulation in the 
 limitation of our senses, and perhaps also of our other 
 powers'! And yet what would madden or kill us now is 
 what we imagine will be our normal condition after death. 
 It is well man did not make himself or his world either, 
 or his heaven would have been an hell indeed. 
 
 Causation. 
 
 " Man the minister and interpreter of Nature," says 
 Bacon, " can only understand and act in proportion as he 
 observes or contemplates the order of nature ; more he 
 can neither know nor do." That is the question. Is the 
 " order of nature," or invariable sequence all that we can 
 know ? Most of our physical philosophers accept Bacon's 
 aphorism, and as Jno. Fiske says, "what Comte did not 
 see was the hidden power underlying and sustaining the 
 world of phenomena." (Ouilines of Cosmic Philosophy, vol. 
 1, p. 171.) It is the inherent power of matter itself that 
 produces all effects, say our physicists, when the fact is 
 that matter does not and cannot act upon matter or exer- 
 cise any power at all, but " each manifestation of force can 
 
262 APPENDIX. 
 
 be interpreted only as the effect of some antecedent force." 
 In all volition, mind as well as matter, forms a part of 
 the sequence of cause and effect. This presence of mind 
 appears in our consciousness as a sense of effort. When 
 we put out our arm, for instance, to move a chair, there is 
 not only the nervous and muscular force, but this sense of 
 effort, often stronger than the other forces. Philosophers, 
 are not able to discover any, connection between cause 
 and effect, only invariable sequence ; is it not, therefore, , 
 reasonable to suppose that the only connection of which 
 we are conscious is the real one, viz., mental effort ; that 
 the connection between cause and effect has been 
 voluntarily established to serve a purpose, that it is not 
 neof-ssary but will be continued and substained only so 
 long as that purpose is, and requires to be, answered ?■ 
 May we not also infer this from what we now know of 
 the nature of force itself! It is iudestructible, and 
 what we call physical force under the molecular action of 
 the brain becomes conscious or mental force, and what 
 can thus become mind must be of the nature of mind, 
 and all power may be will-power, conscious or automatic. 
 " Each atomic force is a striving," says Hartman, " and 
 what he asks is this ? "Will. A something striven after. 
 The activities of the atomic forces are simply individual 
 acts of volition." This living Force is the hidden Power 
 underlying all phenomena, — is the active cause of all 
 things, and has been called God. The Order of Nature, 
 as man developes all his faculties, makes his well-being to 
 dopend upon the exercise of his higher powers, or those 
 which peculiarly distinguish him as man, and the 
 interests of morality are thus assured without any facti- 
 tious aid, as he necessarily seeks his own happiness or 
 well-being. But Hume says " the doctrine of a future 
 state is so strong and necessary a security for morals that 
 we ought never to abandon or neglect it." That is we are 
 to accept that which may be false, because of its supposed 
 good consequences : this is not necessary, " for true it is, 
 ias all reason and experience teaches, that as easily may 
 the course of the earth round the sun be stopped, as the 
 progress of humanity towards a yet unimagined perfection 
 
THE FORMATIVE PRINCIPLE. 263 
 
 of freedom and true civilization. Souls cannot, like bodies 
 be embalmed to withstand the influence of time." 
 Autohiogrcvphy of Hemrich ZscJiokke. 
 
 Also it is said that if the doctrine of Necessity be true, 
 still the doctrine of Free Will is morally beneficial. Again 
 this is not true ; for if Necessity, or law in mind, is not 
 true there can be no Science of Mind— the thing of all 
 most wanted. The order of Nature is God's special 
 doing. He arranged it and he supports it. To me it is. 
 a more marvellous power which makes things create 
 themselves by evolution or growth, rather than by special 
 creation. Hegel recognized in the Life of the universe 
 only God's self-development. " Now I see," says James 
 Hinton, " that there is no special creation, because all is 
 God's direct and special act. . . Why does the 
 silkworm produce silk ? Because it acts out its nature. 
 Thus all truly great and valuable deeds are done. . . 
 Do we thank the silkworm or the bee 1 Not so ; we take 
 all they do as a matter of course, and thank God. Just 
 so should we feel with the men of genius. No thanks 
 are due to them ; they have simply done what it was 
 their nature to do. Take all -that of course, and thank 
 God." Philosophy^ and Religion, p.p. 81, 123. 
 
 The Formative Principle, or "Laws impressed on Matter." 
 
 There is no physical cause discovered by the microscope 
 why ova should develope each according to its kind. Ta 
 a philosopher, a hen bringing forth a crocodile would not 
 be so wonderful as the hundred thousands of hens never 
 bringing forth anything but hens. To talk of its being 
 done, " by laws impressed on matter," is to use mere words.. 
 How can a law be impressed on matter ? Is it in the 
 matter 1 Is it impressed thereon as a seal on wax t Or 
 even as a polar arrangement of parts on a solid ? If it were 
 so found, thait would not be a Law, but only a present and 
 temporary phenomenon — an arrangement or formation 
 of particles for the time being — not the Law or formative 
 cause thereof ; and we should be just as far from the 
 ' causa causativa ' of the development as ever." . . . 
 
■264 APPENDIX. 
 
 For myself I agree with Dr. Asa Gray, in his admirable 
 pamphlet on Darwin, that the tendency of physical 
 science is " not towards the omnipotence of Matter, but 
 to the omnipotence of Spirit. And I am inclined to 
 regard the development of an ovum according to kind 
 as the result of a strictly immaterial and spiritual 
 agency." (p. 174.) That is, it is the direct, immediate, 
 never ceasing power of God acting automatically or 
 unconsciously. Working, however, through " structure," 
 although the powers of the microscope are not yet able 
 to see it — it is in this way only, probably, that " law can 
 be impressed on matter." 
 
 Fatalism and Automatism. 
 
 It is as certain that what will be, will be, as that what 
 has been, has been, and nothing can be more certain than 
 that. What is to happen cannot be altered, says the 
 Mahommedan, and he resigns himself to the inevitable, 
 and does nothing. Whatever happens, he says, is God's 
 will, which it is his duty to accept. The Christian believes 
 that everything that will happen has been foreseen, and 
 Jonathan Edwards says truly, " There is as much of an 
 impossibility but that the things which are infallibly 
 foreknown, should be (or which is the same thing) as 
 great a necessity for their future existence as if 'the 
 •event were already written down, and was known and 
 read, by all mankind through all preceding ages, and 
 there was the most indissoluble and perfect connection 
 between the writing and the thing written." It is 
 impossible to believe in this foreknowledge, for it would 
 reduce God to the same dead level of fatalism as the 
 Mahommedan ; neither could alter what it had been 
 fore seen was to happen. Everything with God would 
 be the same as if it had already happened, with no 
 possibility of change, and He could do nothing but what 
 he had foreseen was to be. It is easier to believe that 
 all life is this life of God, and all change a part of his 
 Being, of which there is no consciousness till it happens ; 
 the great aggregate of thought thus created being beyond 
 ■our conception. 
 
UNITY IN APPARENT DIVERSITY. 265 
 
 What we do however certainly know is that the 
 fatalism of Islam paralyses useful action and public 
 spirit, while science puts the future in our own power, 
 ^he one creed represents every event as immediately 
 caused by God himself, acting independently of law, 
 the other that all takes place according to laws 
 which he may learn and use for future guidance : the 
 future is no less certain, but he thus creates it. The 
 Automatism of Huxley, he affirming that the mind has 
 no more influence upon the action of the body than the 
 steam whistle upon the engine, can differ very little in 
 its consequences from the fatalism of Islam. 
 
 Schopenhaeur says, " Though everything may be 
 regarded as irrevocably predetermined by fate, yet it is 
 so only through the medium of the chain of causes ; 
 therefore in no case can it be determined that an effect 
 shall appear without its cause. Thus it is not simply 
 the event that is predetermined, but the event as the 
 consequence of preceding causes ; so that fate does not 
 decide the consequence alone, but also the means as the 
 consequence of which it is destined to appear. Accord- 
 ingly if some means is not present, it is certain that the 
 consequence also will not be present : each is always 
 present in accordance with the determination of fate, 
 but this is never known to us till afterwards." — The 
 World as Will and Idea, p. 389. The cause or means 
 is found in our own Will, which is dependent upon our 
 own knowledge and feeling. 
 
 Tfniiy vn Apparent Diversity. 
 
 The author of " Ecce Homo," in Natural Beligioriy 
 would have us suppose that there is a cord that unites 
 all creeds, however apparently differing, if we would 
 but see it, and Oellarius, in his " New Analogy," endea- 
 vours to show that discrepancies which exist in Kevela- 
 tion are only on the surface, and would disappear, if we 
 went deep enough, as they do in Nature. Certainly the 
 unity, to the unlearned, is not always so apparent in 
 Nature as the disparity. For instance, we are told. 
 
266 APPENDIX. 
 
 that the fore hoof of an ox is exactly the " same organ " 
 ■with the wing of a bat ; that pachyderms and ruminants 
 are now united in a single order, and that by numerous 
 connecting links the pig is now seen to be closely united 
 with the camel and the antelope. The difiference between 
 a Queen Bee — a true female- — and a neutral, is owing 
 principally to feeding, and probably the difference between 
 the antelope and pig is produced in the same way. No 
 notice is taken of the close affinity between the pig and 
 human beings ; but if feeding can make such a difference, 
 the lady who admitted that she was a pig at salmon, and 
 many like her for other eatables, must mind what they 
 ■are about, or there is no knowing what even outwardly 
 they may turn into ! Much more depends upon the way 
 in which we are fed than has yet been taken into ac- 
 count, and gastronomy may be found quite as important 
 to us as astronomy. 
 
 Eleemosynari/ Ghariiy. 
 
 Sportsmen complain that the grouse get weaker every 
 jear. " The explanation is that, on the lands where this 
 occurs they have been so carefully preserved by menj 
 that all the sickly ones, which ought to have fallen a 
 ready prey to the hawk and kite, the ferret and the 
 weasel, have survived, and reproduced themselves in a 
 puny progeny, until the whole breed has become infected 
 with a tendency to disease." The eleemosynary charities 
 fostered by Christianity have done for mankind what 
 game preserving has done for the grouse. We can make 
 but slow progress under a social system, however neces- 
 sary it may be, where the prudent and provident man, is 
 keeping the population within the means of subsistence, 
 and having no more children than he can support and 
 bring up properly, while the idle, vicious, and improvi- 
 <Jent, can have as many children as he pleases, and throW- 
 them on the provident men to keep in poor-rates. 
 The Irish, at least the Celtic part of the nation, are 
 idle and improvident. However comfortable they may be 
 made they soon breed up to it. Put a man upon l&nd 
 
ORIGIN OF MAN. 267 
 
 that will keep four — himself, his wife, and two children — 
 and he will soon put ten upon it, and when he meets the 
 necessary consequence in the pressure of population on 
 the means of subsistence he lays it to Saxon tyranny and 
 mis-rule; and should there come a bad agricultural season 
 or two a Liberal Government ordains that England shall 
 help to pay Irish Rents, as, I suppose, the lesser evil. 
 English rule has certainly been bad for Ireland in one 
 respect : it has prevented the Natural Law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest being carried out. Had it not been 
 ior this the South of Ireland might have been as well 
 peopled and as prosperous as the North. Charles Kings- 
 ley says (Life and Letters, vol. 2) : "I have seen also, 
 that the difference of race is so great that certain races, 
 for instance, the Irish Celts, seem quite unfit for self- 
 government, and almost for the self-administration of 
 justice involved in trial by, Jury, because they regard 
 freedom and law, not as means for preserving what is 
 just and right, but merely as weapons to be used for 
 their own private interests and passions." 
 
 Origin of Man. 
 
 Professor Tyndall gives it as his opinion that man is 
 proximately the lineal descendant of some extinct ape ; 
 that generally he is the result of the " inter-action of 
 organism and environment through countless ages past." 
 — Belfast Address. 
 
 " But until we find the missing link," says Virchow, 
 " The descent of man from an ape-like ancestor is not a 
 conquest of Science." But it is probable that the missing ' 
 link will be found in mind, not in matter. Nature no 
 more acts on all occasions mechanically or automatically 
 than man does. 
 
 Conscience and Owr Moral Intuitions, 
 
 " Good action has created the life of the world, and in 
 so doing has personified itself in humanity." ,. . . 
 " Conscience and Reason in these are bound up, em- 
 
268 APPENDIX. 
 
 balmed, and embodied, through all the struggles and 
 searchings of spirit of the countless generations which 
 have made us what we are." (" Cosmic Emotion," Pro- 
 fessor W. K. Clifford.) But as to the divine origin of 
 Conscience, " it is a purely geographical and chrono- 
 logical accident." {Captain Burton.) In short, as Dr. W. 
 Lauder Lindsay affirms, " there is no sin, however in- 
 famous, no crime, however abominable, but at some time 
 or in some part of the world has been, or is still, held in 
 the highest esteem." (Mind in tJie Lower Animals, vol. 1, 
 p. 174.) " Some races," says Herbert Spencer, " think 
 another life is earned by bravery ; as do the Comanches, 
 who anticipate it for good men — those who are daring 
 in taking scalps and stealing horses. ... In antago- 
 nism with other societies the life of the savage is a life 
 of enmity, and the -religion a religion of enmity ; and 
 the duty of blood-revenge the most sacred of all. . . . 
 And as regards domestic sexual relations those are re- 
 puted the best and noblest-tempered who, without 
 any pain or reluctancy, iwill lend their friends their 
 wives." Man is stronger than woman, and the way in 
 which these wives are obtained, and the way in which 
 Primitive Man abuses his strength and uses his gift of 
 reason and conscience in his matrimonial relations, is 
 thus described by Herbert Spencer : — " Stolen from 
 another tribe, and perhaps made insensible by a blow 
 which she may not resist ; not simply beaten, but speared 
 about the limbs, when she displeases her savage owner ; 
 forced to do all the drudgery and bear all the burdens, 
 while she has to care for and carry about her children ; 
 and feeding on what is left after the man has done ; the 
 woman's sufferings are carried as far as consists Vith 
 survival of herself and her offspring." — Principles of 
 Sociology, chap. 10. The Status of Women, p. 746. 
 
 Much has been done for the rights of women by 
 civilization since then, but certainly much more remains 
 to be done. The question is argued, however, from the 
 woman's side, as if her "disabilities" and "disqualifica- 
 tions" were of man's making, and not of God's. The 
 first step towards civilization is safety to life and 
 
CONSCIENCK 269 
 
 property, and the man only can secure this. He has to 
 fight for it ; all government must be based on brute 
 force, and for her share in this kind of government 
 woman by nature is disqualified. How far her greater 
 sensibility will enable her to assist iu the time to come 
 experience only can determine. In the meantime, as 
 the weaker vessel, she ought to be under man's special 
 protection, and to gain more from his chivalry than from 
 fighting for her " rights." 
 
 On this question of the growth of Conscience, Lecky 
 tells us that " The history of the abolition of tortures, 
 the history of punishments, the history of the treatment 
 of the conquered in war, the history of slavery, all 
 present us with examples of practices which in one age* 
 were accepted as perfectly right and natural, and which 
 in another age were repudiated as palpably and atro- 
 ciously inhuman. In each case the change was effected 
 much less by any inteHectual process than by a certain 
 quickening of the emotions, and consequently of the 
 moral judgments." — " The Rise and Influcnae of Bational- 
 ism in Europe," vol. 1, pp. 333 et seq. 
 
 " Moral Iniuiimis are the slowly organised results of 
 experiences received by the race while living in presence 
 of these conditions." — H. Spencer. 
 
 " It is the total sum of inherited tendencies that forms 
 the most solid basis of individual morality. Education 
 Jiiay develope these tendencies; it cannot supply them." 
 — " Sociology Based on Ethnology," Dr. Charles Latinneau. 
 
 " There is no absolute basis of right and wrong : the 
 verdict of society, based on the unconscious perceptions 
 of utility, transmitted through a thousand generations, 
 makes a thing either right or wrong. . . . The 
 progressive experience of the race, refined, disciplined, 
 and consolidated through many generations, has given 
 rise to the moral faculty." — "Ethical Philosophy and 
 Evolution," W. Knight. 
 
 The Fositivist Basis of Ethics. — Morality has no ab- 
 stract principles, of conscience or otherwise, but simply 
 regards our relations to each other, as to how we may- 
 live together in the most happy manner possible, and 
 
270 APPENDIX. 
 
 Positivism professes to teach how so to govern ourselves 
 as to contribute in the highest degree to the welfare of 
 the whole. 
 
 On Food Tor the Mind. 
 
 Mrs. Carlyle, writing to her husband about her friends 
 the Russells {Letters, vol. 3, p. 109), says, " Dr. Russell 
 has both an open and a close carriage, the lucky man ! 
 Indeed he ha^ as pretty and well-equipped a place here 
 as any reasonable creature could desire. But Mrs. 
 Russell has never ceased to regret the tumble-down old 
 house in Thornhill, ' where there was always something 
 going on !' Looking out on the trees and the river here 
 makes her so melancholy, she says, that she feels some- 
 times as if she should lose her senses !' " The wished-for, 
 as usual, come too late ? Ease with dignity, when the 
 habits of a lifetime have made her incapable of 
 enjoying it'i The mind requires feeding the same as 
 the body, and later in life can digest only its accustomed 
 food. But how little this is understood ! People put 
 off their " pleasuring " till they have made their fortune 
 and have more leisure, when, alas ! such pleasures," from 
 their increased age, are no longer pleasures to them ; 
 those who have spent a life in money-making can 
 turn to no new pursuit in their old age, and die from 
 want of exercise, over-feeding, and ennvi : how often 
 have I known small shopkeepers who retire and become 
 gentlefolks, as they consider, at the end of life find the 
 want of something to do intolerable, particularly the 
 women, who cannot do without the small incidents and 
 gossip of the shop. 
 
 It is the same with the love of power as with money- 
 makmg ; men having got once accustomed to it can 
 seldom relinquish it, and will sacrifice everything else to 
 it ; as Macaulay says, however, " there is little reason 
 to envy a pursuit in which the most its devotees can 
 expect is that by relinquishing liberal studies and social 
 comfort, by passing nights without sleep, and summers 
 without one glimpse of the beauties of nature, they may 
 
TKUE PBEEEOM. 271 
 
 «,ttain that laborious, that invidious, that closely-watched 
 slavery which is mocked by the name of power." 
 
 How difficult it is to choose and follow the happy 
 medium, in which all our faculties shall receive their 
 •daily food and be brought into daily exercise, in which 
 our condition and circumstances shall be adapted to the 
 changing requirements of the body. Epicurus held the 
 virtuous state to be " a tranquil, undisturbed, innocuous, 
 non-competitive fruition, which approached more nearly 
 to the perfect happiness of the gods, who neither suffered 
 vexation in themselves nor caused vexation in others." 
 This applies, however, only to advanced life, or old age ; 
 each of the seven ages has its virtues or duties, and con- 
 sequent happiness attached. Resignation, a duty at all 
 times, is, perhaps, most required in old age ; as George 
 Eliot says of a friend, " he is not yet aware that he is 
 getting old and needing that unembittered compliance of 
 soul with the inevitable which seems to me a full enough 
 meaning for the word ' resignation.' " 
 
 True Freedom. 
 
 Our freedom is subordinated to law, and then law 
 secures our freedom, i.e., the power to do as we like or 
 will, — the only freedom we have, — for the Will itself is 
 not free but determined. "There is no real 'spon- 
 taneity,' but action from within is called ours and free if 
 there is nothing external to interfere with it. . . As the 
 immediate origin of my action is in myself, I really am 
 free in the only useful sense of the word." — \V. K. 
 Clifford. 
 
 " Freedom is such a property of the Will as enables 
 living agents to originate events independently of forcing 
 or determining causes." — Kant. 
 
 Without freedom, it is said, there could be no virtue, 
 but to represent virtue and vice as equally unmeaning 
 and impossible because God is their author and not men, 
 is not to me a religious idea. 
 
 What we all possess is freedom of action, not freedom 
 «f vM. We feel that we are free, but it is of this free 
 
272 APPENDIX. 
 
 dom alone of which we are intuitively conscious. True- 
 freedom is the power to do what our own nature, or the 
 laws of our own mind, prompt or determine us to do. 
 
 The gardener turned the toad out of the strawberry 
 bed, where he was doing excellent service by eating the- 
 slugs, with the remark, " I'll lam 'ee to be a tooard." 
 If necessity or determinism is true have we any of us a 
 more rational cause of enmity 1 
 
 " Consider how much more pain is brought on us by 
 the anger and vexation caused by such acts," says Marcus 
 Antoninus, " than by the acts themselves, at which we 
 are angry and vexed." The necessarian is saved from 
 this, as he knows that nothing, under the then existing ■ 
 circumstances, could have been otherwise. A large 
 portion of the evil in^ the world is produced by the 
 ' anger and vexation " caused by the erroneous suppo- 
 sition that things might have been otherwise. 
 
 We Must Live. 
 
 There are many of us, who, like the great Minister to 
 whom this was propounded, as an undoubted truth, 
 "don'tsee the necessity," unless people can keep themselves, 
 or liveuponsuchmeans as have been previously provided for 
 them. Certainly no one has a rigid to live at another 
 person's expense, that is, on the fruits of another man's 
 labour. Nature is certainly not of opinion that all must 
 live : — 
 
 "Of fifty seeds 
 She often brings but one to bear." 
 
 She looks only after the survival of the fittest. Is man 
 an exception to this law ? 1 think not, although the 
 English nation says, through its Poor Law, that none 
 sha;ll die from actual want. Now how stand the facts, 
 which are making themselves unpleasantly prominent at 
 the East End of London, and other of our large cities, 
 at the present time. In a village near here there 
 are just as many pretty cottages as will house the people 
 who can be employed upon the estate, Some of these;. 
 
WE MUST LIVE 273 
 
 people are provident, and, like the French peasantry, 
 have no more children than they know their earnings 
 will support comfortably, others, whose earnings would 
 keep two, have six or eight, and should the wife have 
 three or four at a birth, the Royal Bounty is awarded 
 her. The question is, ought the provident man to work 
 harder every day to help to keep the children of his 
 improvident neighbour next door ; for if he does not they 
 must starve 1 The still lower animals eat one another 
 and thus keep the population within the means of sub- 
 sistence. The Poor Law that obliges him to do this, to 
 keep his improvident neighbour's children, is an injustice, 
 and it works very imperfectly, and very many of thesie 
 children, for whom no provision has been made before 
 they are brought into the world, do starve. They drift 
 into the great towns, and fill the unhealthy holes in 
 London and elsewhere which the Government still allows 
 to be kept open for them, and there they die, not of 
 positive starvation, perhaps, but of all the moral and 
 physical ills that want engenders, and then we have the 
 cry just heard, as if this state of things were the fault 
 of the Government, or of the good comfortable Chris- 
 tians who live in other parts of the town. Of those 
 who migrate to our great towns we have " the survival 
 of the fittest," and it is the weakest who thus starve. 
 They want more room, «'.«., more land, and more work. 
 No doubt they do, but where are these to come from 
 unless some provision has been previously made by those 
 who brought them into the world. The secret of the 
 great evils that afflict our great cities lies in this kind of 
 improvidence, and we, as yet, scarcely hear a whisper of 
 the necessity " for keeping the population within the 
 means of subsistence." More land, whether in our 
 towns or villages, would only find more room for people 
 who had no work. The pressure of population has been 
 a great cause of progress and civilisation, and much of 
 the world is yet unpeopled, and there is plenty of land 
 for those who want it, and can reach it; but in old 
 and thickly peopled countries like our own, it is time 
 that we gave up the old belief " that the Lord never 
 
274 APPENDIX. 
 
 sends a mouth into the -world without providing meat for 
 it," and that we took up the less easy and comfortable 
 one that no mouth should be brought into the world 
 until a comfortable provision had been made for filling it.. 
 
 ■The Ownership of Land. 
 
 An Irish Roman Catholic Bishop has lately published! 
 an announcement that land, belonging equally to all 
 men, cannot be subject to private ownership. " The 
 equal right of all men to the use of land," says Mr. 
 Henry George {Progress and Poverti/), " is as clear as. 
 their equal right to breathe the air— it is a right pro- 
 claimed by the fact of their existence. For we cannot 
 suppose that some men have a right to be in this world 
 and others no right." But that is exactly what we do 
 contend for. How does land belong equally to all men T 
 What right has any man to bring fresh beings inta 
 existence who shall have a right to share with those 
 already in possession 1 The land has most of it origin- 
 ally been reclaimed from the waste, and belongs of right 
 only to him who has thus created it. The " unearned 
 increment " having been created by the people, properly 
 belongs to them. Property generally belongs only of 
 riglit to the man who has by his labour produced it, or 
 to him to whom the original producer has made it over. 
 
 As to the Nationalization of the Land, it is a question 
 whether it could be made to produce much more than it 
 does at present, and therefore any profit to the Nation. 
 The small quantity of land the Nation does possess, that 
 is, the Crown Lands, furnish very little encouragement, 
 either by their profit or management, to take more. 
 But what is the object aimed at by those who would tak& 
 the whole ? Is it to keep the greatest number of people 
 on the land, or the greatest number who can live most 
 pleasantly 1 One-third of our population now live, not 
 on bread, but on coal ; at least the population must hava 
 been one-third less if it were not for those who spent 
 their life in a coal pit. Is this the kind of thing, in all 
 its varieties, that it is desirable to perpetuate t Must 
 
THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND. 275 
 
 our beautiful Gardea of England be turaed into potato 
 plots, that, as in Ireland, Our Hodge, like Pat, may have 
 * dozen children, when he cannot keep, even upon 
 potatoes, half that number. And when these children 
 grow up, what then 1 They will have to find other land 
 abroad, and that may as well be done at first as at last. 
 
 The land, it is said, ought to " belong to the people," 
 but who are the people? If it were taken by the Nation 
 for the people, in what way could they be benefited ? 
 If it could be made to pay a profit equal to the National 
 Debt, — and it is very doubtful whether it could be made 
 to pay a profit at all, — that would not be a shilling a 
 week all round. No doubt many alterations are required 
 to bring the land more into the hands of the people, 
 but could not those be best made under present arrange- 
 ments 1. 
 
 Tlie ahno Gmu-th of Truth. 
 
 "Every great change in the popular creed is always 
 preceded by a great change in the intellectual condition 
 of the age. . . . Reasoning which in one age would 
 make no impression whatever, in the next age is received 
 with enthusiastic applause. . . . Speculative opinions 
 which are embraced by any large body of men are accepted 
 not on account of the arguments upon which they rest, 
 but on account of a predisposition to receive them. 
 . . . The changes are effected by a sense of the incon- 
 gruity or discordance of the old doctrines with other 
 facts of our knowledge. . . . The disbelief in Witch* 
 craft presents a spectacle, not of argument or of conflict, 
 but of a silent evanescence and decay. The priests con- 
 tinued to exorcise the possessed, to prosecute witches, 
 and to anathematize as infidels all who questioned the 
 crime — but the sense of the improbability of witches 
 became continually stronger, till any anecdote which 
 involved the intervention of the Devil, was on that 
 account generally ridiculed. The Church of Rome taught 
 that tospare a Witch was a direct insult to the Almighty, 
 — an outrage to the Majesty of Heaven. . . . John 
 
276 APPENDIX. 
 
 Wesley tau ght that the giving up of Witchcraft was in 
 eflfect giviug up the Bible. . . . The belief in witch- 
 craft is a very reasonable assumption from the belief in 
 the devil and the power of his agents — evil spirits. But 
 when the l)eli(f in this active agency of Satan declined 
 it was discovered that the word translated witch in 
 the Levitical condemnation may be translated ' poisoner.'" 
 • — " 'ilui Uo!^ and Influence of Uaiionialism in Europe" by 
 W. E. U. /«.-■/.//. 
 
 Galileo was condemned because the Scripture says " the 
 sun runneth about from one end of the earth to the 
 other," and tliat '' the foundations of the earth are so 
 firmly fixed that they cannot be moved." — Leclcy. 
 
 Lactantius (an early Father) was of opinion that the 
 pursuit of astronomy was mad and senseless, and argued 
 that it was ridiculous to suppose that there are men 
 whose footsteps are higher than their heads, and that the 
 crops and trees grow downwards, and that the rains and 
 snow and hj,il fall upwards towards the earth. A friend 
 ■of the writer had a very valuable maid-servant, who had 
 been with him many years, and who had made up her 
 mind to follow her friends to New Zealand. No argu- 
 ment could induce her to remain till she was shown the 
 globe, where she saw that at the Antipodes the people 
 must be with their heads downwards. She thought this 
 would be inconvenient, if it were altogether decent, and 
 she gave up going. And the good and learned Melancthon 
 •does not appear to have been mucii wiser. " The eyes," 
 he says, " are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the 
 .^ace of twenty-four hours But certain men, either from 
 the love of novelty or to make a display of 'ingenuity, 
 Have concluded that the earth moves, and they maintain 
 thaii neither the eight spheres nor the sun revolves. 
 Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such 
 notions publicly, and the example is pernicious It is 
 the part of good men to accept the truth as revealed by 
 God, and to acquiesce in it." Lord Bacon speaks quite 
 as confidently on this question of the earth's motion, " It 
 is the absurdity of these opinions," he says, " that has 
 driven men to the diurnal motion of the earth : which I 
 
THE SLOW GROWTH OF TRUTH. 277 
 
 am convinced is most false." — Be Augmentis Scientiarum, 
 B. 111. 
 
 " Innovation of every kind by the cliurch in the middle 
 uges was regarded as a crime. If it was shown in specu- 
 lation, it was called heresy. If it was shown in the study 
 of nature, it was called magic. Roger Bacon had fourteen 
 years' imprisonment." — Lecky. 
 
 The present day is distinguished above all things by 
 •diversity of opinion among all men who attempt to think 
 for themselves. We have questions, on the conduct of 
 Governor Eyre for instance, in which we find Carlyle 
 and Professor Tyndall appearing on one side, and Mill 
 and Herbert Spencer on the other, and Carlyle says, 
 " Mill's work on Liberty appears to me the most exhaus- 
 tive statement of precisely that I feel to be untrue on 
 the subject therein treated." In fact such is the diversity 
 of opinion among our leading minds, arisinsr mainly from 
 the want of a true Science of Mind, that the public are 
 beginning to think there is no such thing as truth, or at 
 least none that is attainable, and they consequently look, 
 not to whal is said, but to ihe way in which it is said — ^to 
 style rather than to matter. 
 
 Criticism. 
 
 Pericles, at the last moment of his life, said that while 
 those about him were commending him for things that 
 others might have done as well as himself, they took no 
 notice of the greatest and most honourable part of his 
 character — " that no Athenian, through his means, ever 
 went into moilrning." Does not this pretty fairly repre- 
 sent criticism generally, and must it not always be so 
 where the larger mind is judged by the smaller? Depre- 
 ciation is, perhaps, all the critic is capable of ; if apprecia- 
 tion is wanted, that probably requires a higher power 
 than the critic possesses. The fact is that even supposing 
 the rare case of a critic being competent, he has no time, 
 
 no one is allowed time to read and think ; such is the 
 
 pressure put upon him by business requirements. Mr. 
 -John Morley gives us an illustration of this in his last 
 
278 APPENDIX. 
 
 article in the Fortrdghtly, October, 1882. " A reviewer,' 
 he says, " on the stafi" of a famous journal once received 
 for his week's task " General Haraley on the Art of War," 
 a three volume novel, a work on dainty dishes, and a 
 translation of Pindar." So that, as the SpecUitor tells us, 
 February 10, 1883, p. 179, "the class that uses its brains 
 works as it never yet worked, and is harassed as it never 
 was harassed before, till physicians are recognising ' over- 
 work' as a specific cause of disease." If we think of the 
 quantity of paper that requires to be filled with print 
 daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, we may form 
 some estimate of what its quality is likely to be. Or 
 taking another view, viz., that Great Britain contains 
 so many inhabitants, as Carlyle says, " mostly fools" and 
 writers have to suit the supply to the demand, the result 
 is not so extraordinary. Mr. Anthony Trollope tells us 
 that " Much of the literary criticism which we now have 
 is very bad indeed ; so bad as to be open to the charge 
 both of dishonesty and incapacity. Books are criticised 
 without being read, are criticised by favour, and are 
 trusted by editors to the criticism of the incompetent. 
 If the names of the critics were demanded, editors would 
 be more careful. But I fear the effect would be that 
 we should get but little criticism, and that the public 
 would put but little trust in that little. An ordinary 
 reader would not care to have his books recommended by 
 Jones ; but the recommendation of the great unknown 
 comes to him with all the weight of the Times, the 
 Sjpectaf,ni; or the Saturday." — Autobiograph/, vol. 1, p. 255.- 
 1 take this advertisement from the Spectator, 
 February 2, 1884 
 
 Fifth Thousand, in one vol. 8vo, cloth, price 16s. 
 
 FIRST PRINCIPLES. 
 BY HERBERT SPENCER. 
 "This is nothing but a philosophy of epithets 
 and phrases, introduced and carried on with an un- 
 rivalled solemnity and affectation of precision of 
 style, concealing the loosest reasoning and the 
 haziest iudefiniteness." — Edinburgh Hevirw. 
 
 This criticism furnishes an admirableillustration of how 
 
CRITICISM. 27 & 
 
 a book like " First Principles" would be likely to appear 
 to the ordinary critical mind, where the smaller 
 intellect, as is too often the case, sets itself to judge the 
 larger one. 
 
 The Soul and Its Identity. 
 
 " Visions and dreams were regarded as actual inter- 
 course with spiritual beings, and thus a morbid phantasy 
 becomes supernatural experience." (/. ii. Mill on 
 Seligion) No douDt we have here the origin of the 
 belief in the Soul and a Future State, and we find the 
 "survival" of this early faith among our modern 
 Spiritualists, one of the most intelligent of whom, 
 writing to me, says (February 1st, 1884), " I myself 
 have been in the Spirit World, and out of my body, 
 which I contemplated as if dead, not a dream or a hallu- 
 cination, but a positive experience, and therefore no 
 quantity of reasoning or argument can deprive me of the 
 conviction that my Spiritual Ego is the person I, myself. 
 
 Mind is everywhere and in everything, but its special 
 manifestation depends upon the body with which it is 
 temporarily connected, then only does it become 
 phenomenal or sensible to us. Body and Soul make a 
 man, when they are separated neither can retain its 
 Identity. " The Soul is no more man apart from the 
 body than the body apart from it." — Andre Lefevre. 
 
 " We live in the eternal order, and the eternal order 
 never dies." 
 
 The universal belief concerning the origin of death 
 (that by sin came death) is disproved by geology. — 
 Lecky, liationalism, vol. 1, p. 302. 
 
 Universalism. 
 
 " Perhaps the most acute pain the human body can 
 undergo is that of fire ; and this, the early fathers assure 
 us, is the eternal destiny of the mass of mankind. . . . 
 The sense of Divine Goodness being destroyed, the whole 
 
280 APPENDIX. 
 
 fabric of natural religion crumbled in the dust, and was 
 replaced by Dogma and every kind of intellectual dis- 
 honesty. . . . They felt, with St. Augustine, that 
 the end of Religion is to become like the object of 
 worship, and they represented the Deity as confining his 
 affections to a small section of his creatures, and' inflict- 
 ing on all others the most horrible and eternal suffering." 
 — " Leahy's HatinnaUsm," vol. 1, pp. 341, 350, 351, 353. 
 God can do everything in the orthodox belief, and C. 
 Kingsley says " To believe that God should determine to 
 torments endless one whom he could reform is an insult 
 to His love and justice which I will die rather than 
 utter." So would I ! but I also believe that all punish- 
 ment is for the good of the offender, and that all other 
 would be revenge, and it is impossible to attribute that 
 to God. 
 
 TJie Communion of Saints. 
 
 " My own belief is," says Dr. Charles S. Drysdale, 
 " that we are so many natural Leyden jars, unequally 
 -charged with electricity or magnetism, which is always 
 seeking to find its own level, so that we are always either 
 giving or taking it from those with whom we come in con- 
 tact and those with whom we live." Spiritualists affirm 
 that in their " circles " good or bad thoughts and feelings 
 arise according to the characters of the people with whom 
 they are associated. The Communion of Saints is a 
 physical fact. 
 
 A pupil of Leibig asserts that chemical analysis reveale . 
 a marked distinction between the blood of a gentleman 
 and the blood of a boor, so that modern discovery con- 
 firms the popular saying that it takes three generations 
 at least to make a gentleman. 
 
 PowerThe of Will on Life. 
 
 Dr. Beard, of New York, says, " One does not need to 
 practice medicine long to learn that men die who might 
 just as well live, if they resolved to live ; and that myriads 
 
THE FUTUBK STATE. 281 
 
 who are invalids miglit become strong, if they had the 
 nature or acquired will to vow that they would do so." 
 No doubt the brain contains a large reservoir of poten- 
 tial force that may be resolved at will, that is, consciously, 
 into active vital force. Vital, nervous, mental force is 
 <iie same power manifesting itself under varied condi- 
 tions, and readily changing from one to the others aa the 
 conditions change. 
 
 Goetlie on Originality. 
 
 " Everything that exists depends upon the past,, 
 prepares the future, and is related to the whole." 
 (Oersteaii.) Goethe frankly said. What would remain to- 
 me if this art of appropriation were derogatory to genius ? 
 Every one of my writings has been furnished to me by 
 a thousand different persons, a thousand things: wise and. 
 foolish have brought me, without suspecting it, the 
 offering of their thoughts, faculties, and expej'ience. My 
 work is an aggregation of beings taken from the whole 
 of nature ; it bears the name of Goethe." — Emerson, 
 Letters and iSocial Aims, p. 177. 
 
 Tlie Future State. 
 
 The Christian places his chief good in continued 
 existence, although the state of happiness or misery is a 
 little uncertain ; the Buddhist in Nirvana or individual 
 annihilation. The Buddhist is a pessimist, and con- 
 siders individual existence as the great evil, and the 
 highest reward for its votaries to be re-absorbed into 
 the great whole. But this is not non-existence, it is the 
 complete extinction only of the individual. 
 
 Ligld and Sound. 
 
 " Sound, under the same conditions as here, would take 
 one hundred years to reach the sun, while light reaches 
 it in Smin. and 8secs. In one second light would make 
 the round of the globe seven times." 
 
282 APPENDIX. 
 
 Action amd Beaction in Mind as in Matter. 
 
 "Though it is the higher minds that act, it is the 
 mediocre aiinds that react, and history teaches that the 
 progress of humanity is as much the result of the 
 reactions which communicate motion as of the actions 
 which first • determine it." — Professor Th. Bibot, 
 "Uerediti/," p. 351.) 
 
 Durance and Endurance. 
 
 " Who has never known durance never learns endu- 
 rance. . . But how different are the sufferings of the 
 sinner to those of the saint ! The former are an eclipse 
 of the moon, by which the dark night becomes still darker 
 «nd wilder ; the latter are a so]ar eclipse, which cools off 
 the hot day, and casts a romantic shade, and wherein the 
 nightingales begin to warble." — -Biahter, " Titan." 
 
 " Men's actions and character are far more determined 
 by emotion than by knowledge. To take an illustration 
 from the material universe : it is not the light that issues 
 from the sun, but the heat, which melts the glaciers, 
 causes evaporation, and thus maintains the vitality of the 
 universe. — Amia Hivanwich." 
 
 Evolution. 
 
 " The mystery to human intelligence in the develop- 
 ment of a feathered fowl out of the albumen of an egg is 
 not intrinsically greater than would be the evolution of 
 all the flora and fauna of the universe out of a common 
 protoplastic germ. We know that the one takes place 
 incessantly, and its mystery is forgotten in its constancy 
 -and commonness, while the other is unknown to experi- 
 ence." — " Ethical Fhilosophy and Evolution" W. Knight. 
 
 When reason is against a man, man will be against 
 reason." — Hobbes. 
 
 " When a man has made up his mind already, he can 
 prove anything whatever, from any fact whatever." 
 
APHORISTIC. 283 
 
 {OJtarles Kin<fsUy.) As for God's book, men have made 
 it to mean anything and everything. 
 
 The North American Indians believe that the Great 
 Spirit made all ^things except thunder and rice. Chris- 
 tians belieie that He governs all things but the human 
 will, which is free. 
 
 " "When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more 
 oi it he has the greater will be his confusion of thought." 
 — If. Spencer. i 
 
 When men have invented words for unknown causes 
 they think they have explained them. 
 
 " Our duty surely is to follow the truth, wherever it 
 leads us, and to leave the consequences in the hands of 
 <xod." — Dr. Colens". 
 
 If mechanical invention should free the working 
 classes from labour before they are morally and in- 
 tellectuaUy prepared for it, it can only be to the 
 retarding of civilisation rather than to its advance. At 
 present we have the triumph of steam, electricity, 
 and gas, and mechanical progress has given our age 
 many times the resources of any that have preceded 
 it, but the moral advance 'is not proportionate, and 
 people are therefore not much happier. 
 
 We take up the childish notions of a childish age, 
 and then because we cannot reconcile them with Uie 
 wisdom of the present we call them mysteries. 
 
 Eloquence. — "As soon as a man shows rare power of 
 •expression, like Chatham, Erskine, Patrick Henry, <fec., 
 ■aH the great interests, whether of state or of property, 
 crowd to hira to be their spokesman, so that he is at 
 ■once a potentate, a ruler of men." — Emerson. 
 
 Life and SetisihUify. — A gnat dies in a day, while a 
 tortoise lives two or three centuries. Is not this typical 
 in a somewhat less degree, of many human beings 
 
284 APPENDIX. 
 
 Life is properly measured hy sensibility or feeling, and 
 not by mere continued corporeal existence. 
 
 " Savages have the character of children with the 
 passions and strength of men." — Sir John Imhbocl-y 
 " Prehistoric Man," p. 465. 
 
 The brain is a musical instrument — an organ ; its 
 perfection varying according to the number of tunes it 
 can play in harmony with all around. 
 
 " In the Roman States all the teachings and exactions. 
 had reference to a future life, and in exact proportion 
 the temporal welfare of the people was neglected." — 
 Geo. Combe's Life. 
 
 Positivists consider phenomena altogether apart from, 
 their source ; we may as well consider motion apart from 
 the thing moving. 
 
 "The highest perfection of research would be the- 
 thorough spiritualisation of Natural Laws, reducing 
 them to laws of Intuition and Thought." — Schelling. 
 
 " What is Nature 1 says Pascal. Perhaps a first 
 habit, as habit is a second nature." 
 
 " The Will, as the principle of all things (the 
 universal essence), slumbers in the rock, awakens in 
 the plant, becomes fully developed in man." — Schopen- 
 hauer. 
 
 Nature is the " living visible garment of God," with 
 which he clothes himself — Nature is God, and the Laws 
 of Nature are God's Commandments. God is the only 
 Ego. 
 
 Whatever may be the Reality underlying the pheno- 
 menal world, whatever all this seeming may be referred 
 to, there is one reality to us, the happiness resulting. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 A.K.H.B.— see Country Parson. 
 
 A Priori reasoning in theology, 232. 
 
 AUraan, Prof. G. J. — on Mind and Matter, 189. 
 
 Amativeness — 125. 
 
 Ambei'ley, Lord — his phrenology, 31 ; his children's tutor, 104. 
 
 Anthropology, Manual of — published, 103 ; critiques upon, 104. 
 
 Anti-Corn Law Agitation — 68. 
 
 Antoninus, M. — on the circulation of life, 211 ; pantheism, 
 
 224, 227 ; on the outward expression of character, 246 ; 
 
 on the folly of anger, 272. 
 Arnold Matthew — on the modern creed, 237, 241. 
 Arnott, Dr. Neil — on the organisation of industry, 60 ; value of 
 
 his "Elements of Physics," 116; on cosmopolitan 
 
 feeling, 153. 
 Aspiration — 241 . 
 Aspland, Rev. Robert — 49. 
 Atheism— 229. 
 Atkinson, H. G. — correspondence with, 78 ; would identify 
 
 Shakspeare with Lord Bacon, 78 ; on materialism, 248. 
 Auerbach, Berthold — on another existence, 180. 
 Authority, and liberty, equally necessary — 
 
 Babbage, C — on the value of proven truths, 211. 
 
 Baker, Sir Samuel — on English colonization and commerce, 146 ; 
 on religion and superstition, 239. 
 
 Bacon, Lord — on atheism, 200 ; on obeying natui-e, 261 ; dis- 
 believed the rotation of the earth, 276. 
 
 Beard, Dr. — on the power of will over health, 280. 
 
 Berkeley, Bishop— idealism, 247, 252. 
 
 Brain — organ of mind, 260; importance of hai-mony with all 
 around, 284. 
 
 Brougham, Lord — on a kuowledge of creation, 221. 
 
 Buddhist infallibility, 240 ; doctrine of future state, 281. 
 
 Burton, Captain R. — on conscience, 268. 
 
 Butler, Bishop — all nature the working of God, 224 ; happiness 
 man's only object, 225. 
 
 Call, W. M. AV.— on the coming religion, 155. 
 
 Card, Mrs. — mesmeric experiments, 108. 
 
 Carlyle, T.— religious difficulties in early life, 16; his phrenology, 
 26 ; on organization of labour, 59, 131, 154 ; on the 
 French Revolution,' 119 ; on political liberty, 147 ; on his 
 father's cheerfulness, 157 : his father's fear of death, 
 177, 178 ; on cheap living, 160 ; quotations from, 191, 
 195, 199. 
 
 T 
 
11. INDEX. 
 
 Carlyle, Mrs, — on a future life, 235 ; compares her lot with that 
 
 of her neighbours, 270. 
 Causation— 261. ' ' 
 
 Cerebral psychology — 105. 
 Chance — no such thing, 17. 
 Character— 244, 
 Charities, demoralizing — 85. 
 Civilization — 242. 
 Clifford, Prof. — test of good actions, 119 ; motive for doing well, 
 
 185 ; on theological arguments, 252 ; on idealism, 254 ; 
 
 on Conscience and its work, 267 ; on Free Will, 271. 
 Cobbe, Miss — on a future life, 234. 
 Cobden — his commercial spirit, 145. 
 Colenso, Bishop — his trust and confidence in truth, 283. 
 Combe, Abram — death through efforts for social improvement, 
 
 118. 
 Combe, George — author first reads his "Phrenology," 21 ; applies 
 
 for the Chair of Logic at Edinburgh, 24 ; visits at Rose- 
 hill, 70; valuable work, 208; yearning for rest in death, 
 
 223 ; idealism, 252. 
 Commercial Immorality — 139. 
 Communion of Saints — 280. 
 Community of goods — not practicable yet, 64, 118 ; at Orbiston, 
 
 118 ; at Queenwood, 61. 
 Compromise — 236. 
 Congreve, Dr. Richard — 231. 
 Conolly, Dr. John— on phrenology, 24 ; visitor at Rosehill, 70 ; 
 
 letter from, 94. 
 Conscience and our Moral Intuitions — 267. 
 Co-operative Society started, 64 ; fails through the credit 
 
 system, 67 ; co-operative congress at Leeds, 1869, 133 ; 
 
 at Ojcford, 1882, 136. 
 Co-operation— Lord Derby on, 133; diificulties of, 138; important 
 
 .future, 147 
 
 " Cosmos, The " — pamphlet, 105. 
 
 " Country Parson, The"— 170, 179, 182. 
 
 Coventry — cursed with many charities besides Lammas lands, 
 
 85; Hospital, 88. i ; 
 
 Coventry ^emW— purchase of, 81 ; supports the diversion of 
 
 eleemosynary charities, 86; transferred to Mr. J. M. 
 
 Scott, 160. ■ 
 Creation— Hebrew account of, with that of the Fall compared 
 
 with tnat of the Kumis of Chittagong, 213. 
 Criticism— 277. ■ 
 
 '^?°^,'??,-^''^-~'^^**' dumb, 'and blind, yet distinguished ooloursi 
 
 Crystal Palace— advantages of j 165. 
 
 Darwin, Charles— his phrenology, 31 ; on tl\e results of the 
 struggle for existence, 201. 
 
IVDEX. iii, 
 
 Davy, Sir Humphry— idealism, 225. 
 
 Death— 222. 
 
 Deity — 223 ; difficulties as to his omnipotence, 217, 225 ; in 
 nature, 218, 224, 226; his happiness the final cause of 
 creation, 225 ; supposed exception to his all-pervading 
 action, 283. 
 
 Derby, Lord— on Co-operation, 133. 
 
 Design in creation — 257. 
 
 Dickens, Charles — his phrenology, 28. 
 
 Didier, Alexis — on mesmerism, 108. 
 
 Diversity of opinion — 277. 
 
 Drysdalc, Dr. C. S. — on the effect of companionship, 280. 
 
 Education in its widest sense, importance of, 125. 
 
 "Education of the Body," published, 50. 
 
 "Education of the FeeUngs," published, 52. 
 
 "Ego," The— 259. 
 
 Elam, Dr. — discrepancy between science and present philosophy, 
 
 241. 
 Electro-biology — 109. 
 Eleemosynary charity — ^66. 
 Emerson, R. W. — visits Ro-'ehill, 72 ; his high opinion of the 
 
 " Philosophy of Necessity," 72 ; optimist teaching, 210. 
 Emigration, desirability of — 146, 147. 
 Emotion — more powerful than knowledge, 282. 
 English institutions — slow growth of, 140 ; colonies deserve 
 
 supporting and spreading, 146. 
 Epicurus— his ideal of the virtuous state, 271. 
 Equality among men, no such thing as — 150. 
 Evil, mystery of — 215. 
 Evolution— 282. 
 Eyre, Grovern or — diversity of opinion on his conduct, 277. 
 
 Faith — not voluntary, 184. 
 
 Fatalism and Automatism, 264 ; untenable and mischievous, 265. 
 
 Final Cause— 225. 
 
 Fiske — on mental and physical force, 99 ; quotation from 
 Michelet on the good results of pain, 215 ; incorrect 
 opinions on the ruthlessncss of nature, 217 ; on 
 mind, 229. 
 
 Food for the mind— 270. 
 
 Footman, Eev. H. — difficulty of evil in the world, 220. 
 
 Force, distinct from matter, 228 ; mind one of its manifestations, 
 229 ; force and inherrent tendency, 228 ; the active 
 power of all phenomena, 262. 
 
 "Force and its Mental Correlates," published, 97 ; its conclu- 
 sions, 101. 
 
 Formative principle— 263. 
 
 Fowle, Eev. T. W.— on future life, 173, 181. 
 
IV. INDEX. 
 
 Fraternity, 151 ; requires high organization, 153. 
 
 Free Trade — not the highest social organization possible, 69, 130. 
 
 Free Will— no such thing, 18, 216, 271. 
 
 Freedom, true — 271. 
 
 French' Revolution — premature, 119. 
 
 Froude, J. A., 75 ; on commercial immorality, 139. 
 
 Future State, the, 166 ; author's feelings with regard to, 166 ; 
 Dr. Donald Macleod upon, 173 ; a doctrine of little 
 working influence, 176, 183 ; incredible. 182, 281. 
 
 Gall, Dr. — importance of his science, 30. 
 
 " George Eliot " — first acquaintance with, 70 ; intimate friend- 
 ship with, 73 ; a phrenologist, 74 ; her phrenological 
 development, 74 ; and character, 74 ; accompanies Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bray to Italy, 75 ; returns to their house from 
 Geneva, 75; translates Strauss's "LebenJesu," 77 i 
 on independence, 151 ; Christian burial, 186 ; on the 
 beauty of this world, 199. 
 
 George; Henry— on property in land, 274. 
 
 Gladstone, VV. E. — his phrenology, 28. 247. 
 
 Goethe — on dead matter, 200 ; on originality, 281. 
 
 Gotama the Buddha— pain follows evil, €15. 
 
 Government organization— 141. 
 
 Gravity, a spiritual force, 252. 
 
 Gray, Dr. Asa— on the omnipotence of spirit, 264. 
 
 Greg, _W. R. —on immortality, 175 ; on satiety of life, 203. 
 
 Grove's Correlation of the physical forces, 97. 
 
 Gull, Sir W. W.— death the renewal of life, 220. 
 
 Habit of looking at the bright side of things, 156 ; of good 
 
 reading, 158. 
 Happiness— the result of the author's philosophy, 157 ; a certain 
 
 reality, 284. 
 Hartmami— on will and force, 262. 
 Hats — recent reduction in'sizes used, 39. 
 Health, public— influence upon, 51. 
 Henderson Trustees— as.sistance from, 103. 
 Hennell, C. C— Unitarian brother-in-law, 49 ; publishes his 
 
 "Origin of Christianity," 49, 76 ; its influence upon 
 George Miot," 76 ; his marriage, 77. 
 Heredity— indisputable fact, 120. 
 Hinton, James— 194, 199 ; on the mother's love, 218 ; on force 
 
 and matter, 228 ; necessity to us of the sensuous world, 
 
 ^42 ; realism and idealism, 248, 254 ; direct and special 
 
 ■working of God in nature, 263. 
 Hobbes, T.— reason i-ersus interest, 282. 
 Houghton, Lord— on co-operative societies,' 136 
 Hume, D.— on a future>tate, 196, 234; onj a iCreator, 200, 226 : 
 
 on a theologian's contempt for logic, 234 ; necessity of 
 
 teaching a future life, 262. 
 
INDEX. V. 
 
 Hutton— on the soul acting without the body, 242> 
 Huxley, Prof. — on irarriage and human breeding, 120 ; on lesson- 
 bibbing, 125 ; pantheism, 224 ; morality independent of 
 religion, 231 ; idealism and realism, 249 ; every form is 
 force visible, 254 ; his automatism mischievous, 265. 
 
 Idealism, the author's — the Fichtean Ego, 259. 
 
 Illusion and Delusion — 98, 106. 
 
 Improvidence "f the poor — 273. 
 
 Individuals sacrificed to the general good— 19, 152. 
 
 Inspiration of both Buddhist and Christian scriptures limited, 240. 
 
 Jolly, W. — his utilization of phrenology, 26 ; edits " George 
 Combe on Education," 26. 
 
 Kant — on the object of all knowledge, 195 ; his teaching as to 
 the attributes of the Deity, 252 ; on free will, 271. 
 
 Kingsley, Kev. Charles — on the power of the soul over the body, 
 130 ; yearning for rest, 223 ; on Irish juries, 267 ; dis- 
 belief in eternal punishment, 280 ; foregone conclusions, 
 282. 
 
 Knight, W, — right and wrong the result of experience, 269 ; 
 mystery in small things, 282. 
 
 Knowledge — all subjective, 33. 
 
 Labour question — 59. 
 
 Labourers' and Artizaus' Co-operative Society, 64, 90. 
 
 Lactantius — his difficulties about Antipodes, 276. 
 
 Land question — 133, 274. 
 
 Lange — his estimate of phrenology, 38, idealism, 248. 
 
 Latinneau, Dr. Charles — on the growth of morality, 269. 
 
 Lefevre, Andrfe — on union of soul and body, 279. 
 
 Le Fontaine lectures at Coventry on mesmerism — 107. 
 
 Lecky, W. E. H. — on persecution, 236 ; on the growth of con- 
 science and morality, 269 ; cessation in the belief of 
 witchcraft, 276 ; death not caused by sin, 279. 
 
 Leopold, Prince — on the small cost of the highest pleasures, 164. 
 
 Lewes, George Henry — his objections to phrenology considered, 
 34 ; also to mental and moral correlates, 188 ; on Sir 
 Isaac Newton's Universal Spirit, 255 ; all sensation is 
 feeling, 260. 
 
 Liberty— 148. 
 
 Life— 207 • in other worlds, 210; probably different from ours, 
 '■- 211 ; future life, 234. 
 
 Light and Sound, different rate of motion— 281. 
 
 Lilly, W. S. — conscience the foundation of religion, 253. 
 
 Lindsay, Dr. Lauder— on the morality of the world, 268. 
 
 Literary criticisms— 116 ; worthlessness of many, 277. 
 
■ vi. INDEX. 
 
 Longfellow — on Burns, 3 92. 
 Lubbock, Sir John — on savages, 284. 
 Lucretius— denies supernatural interference, 224. 
 Luther — his belief in witchcraft, 239. 
 Lytton, Bulwer Lord — on man's inner life, 245. 
 
 Macaulay — on the desire for " power," 271. 
 
 Macleod, Dr. Donald — on " trusting the larger hope," 173 ; on 
 death, 179. 
 
 Macleod, Dr, Norman — orthodox views of the Fall, 214. 
 
 Marshall, Mrs. — spiritual seance at her house, 110. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet — depreciation of a future life, 235. 
 
 Maasey, C. C. — work of modern philosophy, 137. 
 
 Masaey, Mr. and Mrs. Gerald — lecture on mesmerism, 108. 
 
 Max MtlUer — happiness dependent upon knowledge, 209. 
 
 Melancthon — difficulty about new astronomical ideas, 276. 
 
 Memory — method of assisting, 43. 
 
 Mental and physical force — identity of, 100, 247. 
 
 Mesmerism — 107. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart — opinion of phrenology, 26 ; premature educa- 
 tion, 127 ; on liberty, 148 ; his father's opinion of 
 Christianity, 241 ; on force, 258 ; dreams the origin of 
 belief in spirits, 279. 
 
 Miracles — 225 ; author's belief in one class of, 226. 
 
 Mivart, St. George — suggests the eternity of worlds, 223. 
 
 Morality — sufficiently supported by self-interest, 106 ; weakness 
 of, 123. 
 
 Morley, John — on the overwork of literary critics, 277. 
 
 Morpeth, Lord — on the difficulty of sanitary reforms, 84. 
 
 Napoleon III. — his phrenology, 29. 
 
 Nationalization of land — 274. 
 
 Natural Law : as Automatic Mind or Unconscious Intelligence, 
 
 98 ; Pascal on, 284. 
 Natural selection— 212 ; mischievous to interfere with in Ireland, 
 
 266. 
 Nature— the outward manifestation of God, 284. 
 Newton, Sir Isaac — gravitation a divine action, 225, 231 ; analogy 
 
 between his " Universal iSpirit " and modern "Force!" 
 
 254. ' i 
 
 Noel, Hon, Roden— on the influence of body upon mind, 257. 
 
 Orbiston — Community at, 118. 
 
 Organization of Industry— 58 ; Carlyle upon, 60. 
 
 Organization of the body— all improvement depends upon, 117, 
 
 Origin of Man — 267. 
 Originality — Goethe upon, 281. 
 
INDEX. Vll; 
 
 Our own well-being— the result often of self-sacrifice, 212. 
 Overwork — mischief of, 208. 
 
 Owen, Robert- opens the Millenniiun at Hai-mony Hall, 61 ; 
 which fails, 63. 
 
 Pain— 215, 218. 
 
 Pantheism— 227. 
 
 Pascal — on rature and habit, 284. 
 
 Penderick, Maurice — on the renewal of life, 202. 
 
 Pessimism — reply to, 212, 219. 
 
 Philosophy of Necessity — first impresses itself, 17 ; quotation 
 from the prefaces, 53, 57 ; critiques upon, S6 ; tran- 
 quillising effect of, 57, 92, 157 ; second edition, 91 ; un- 
 expected agreement with Positivism, 93. 
 
 Phrenology — first introduction to, 21 ; the natural laws of mind, 
 23 ; importance of, 31, 34, 55 ; recent books on, 46 ; of 
 Lord Amberley, 31 ; T. Carlyle, 26 ; Darwin, C, 31 ; 
 Dickens, C, 28 ; Gladstone, W. E., 28 ; Napoleon III., 
 29 ; Sir W. Scott, 41 ; George Eliot, 74 ; an index to 
 character, 245. 
 
 Phreno-mesmerism — 109. 
 
 Physical force — automatic mind, 104. 
 
 Physical and mental force identical — 187. 
 
 Picton, J. AUansen — on compromise with rejected beliefs, 237. 
 
 Political economy — imperfection of our present, 59, 69, 130. 
 
 Positivist basis of ethics — 269 ; impossibility of considering 
 phenomena apart from their sources, 284. 
 
 Powell, Kev. Baden — on the connection of bodv and mind, 187. 
 
 Prayer— 58, 209, 218 ; Dr. Ward on, 235. 
 
 Provident Dispensary established in opposition to the medical 
 men — 87 ; its great success in Coventry, 87. 
 
 Psychological Society of Great Britain — papers written for, 105. 
 
 ";Psychological and Ethicil Definitions "—176, 187. 
 
 Punishment, divine — for the good of the offender, not for revenge, 
 280. 
 
 t 
 Qnarles, Francis — pessimist view of life, 202. 
 
 Reading, good — recommended, 158, 162, 164. 
 
 Ready-money system necessary in co-operative stores^67. 
 
 Realism and Idealism — 250. 
 
 Reay, Lord — on Co-operation, 137, 138. 
 
 "Reign of Law in Mind as in Matter" — pamphlet, 105. 
 
 "Religion Primitive and among the Lowest Races" — pamphlet, 
 
 . 105. 
 "Religion, The Christian "—pamphlet, 105. 
 Revolution — 238. 
 
 Reyiiolds, Rev. J. W. — on the abundance of life, 394; .diffiguUies 
 in bis teaching, 227. 
 
viii. INDEX. 
 
 Eibot, T.— on Heredity, 122 ; on the action of mediocre minds, 
 
 282. 
 Richter, J. P.— on the sufferings of^the sinner and the saint. 
 Right to live— 272. 
 
 Roebuck, A. — method of speech-making, 115.1' 
 Romanes, G. J. — on pain and pleasure, 215 ; origin of instincts, 
 
 229. 
 
 Sand, George — influence of body over mind, 257. 
 
 Sohelling — idealism, 254; highest perfection of research, 284. 
 
 Schiller on a future state, 196. 
 
 School Rates — unfair while religion is taught, 52. 
 
 Schopenhauer his pessimism, 219, 222 ; fatalism does not inter- 
 fere with cause and effect, 265. 
 
 Science knowledge and obedience to, the coming religion, 209. 
 
 Scott, Sir W. — phrenology of, 41. 
 
 Scott, Thomas — pamphlets by the author, published in his series, 
 105. 
 
 Seeley, Professor — recommends pantheism,' 224 ; Ton atheists, 
 230 ; on science, 230 ; revolution impending, 238 ; unity 
 underlying all religions, 265. 
 
 Self-sacrifice — often necessary to our own well-being^in the long 
 run, 212. 
 
 Senses, the — 259. 
 
 Shaftesbury— definition of virtue, 213. 
 
 Shakespeare — possible identity with Lord Bacon, 79. 
 
 Shelley's Queen Mab, 54 ; on death, 222. ,5,3:;., 
 
 Simpson, James, of Edinburgh — 71. 
 
 Smiles, Dr., on happiness with small means, 165. 
 
 Soul, the, and its identity — 279. 
 
 Souls secrete bodies — 130. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert — on indiscriminatejcharity, 51 ; on mental and 
 physical force, 98, 251 ; on the development of civili- 
 sation, 244 ; idealism and realism, 252|; on the morality 
 of savages, 268 ; sufierings of the wives of^savages, 268 ; 
 on the growth of moral intuitions, 269 ; Edinburgh 
 lieview on his " Firsts Principles," 278"; on confusion of 
 knowledge, 283. 
 
 Spinoza — on freedom of will, 18. 
 
 Spiritualism — 107, 110 ; theory of spirits rejected, 112. 
 
 Spurzheim — development of the brain, 250. 
 
 Success— want of, 90. 
 
 Superstition — 239. 
 
 Survival of the fittest — 211. 
 
 Swanwick, Anna— emotion more powerful than knowledge, 282. 
 
 Talk — its power in these days, 114. 
 Tennyson— on the future state, 193. 
 Theists— distinction between their creed and the author's, 227. 
 
INDEX. IX. 
 
 Tbomson — good out of evil, 201. 
 
 Translation of the Bible, argument from — 12. 
 
 Trollope, Anthony — on criticism, 278. 
 
 Truth— slow growth of, 275. 
 
 Tylor, E. B. — relationship of religions, 239. 
 
 I'yi'lall! Professor — life in matter, 223 ; finds religion not neces- 
 sary to his liighest morality, 231 ; on the invisible rays 
 of light, 259 ; on the descent of man, 267. 
 
 Unity in apparent divei-sity — 265. 
 Uhlich — on the beauty of nature — 199. 
 
 Virtue — that which produces happiness, 216. 
 Virchow, Professor — on the descent of man, 267. 
 Vogt, Professor — his estimate of phrenology, 38. 
 
 Wallace, A. E. — tou easy belief in spiritualism. 111. 
 
 Walther. Professor — of Landshut — on magnetic sleep— .114. 
 
 War — the first organiser, 152. 
 
 Ward, Dr. W. G.— on prayer, 235. 
 
 Watson, Rev. H. "'V.— on the discovery of " Energy " or 
 
 " Force," 255. 
 Watts, Dr. John — correspondence with, 43. 
 Westminster Confession of Faith— 14, 168, 171, 215, 217. 
 AVhence, Why, Whither ?— 193. 
 
 Whewell, Dr. — limited idea of the prevalence of life, 210. 
 Will, subject to law, 106 ; will-power extends beyond the body, 
 
 113 ; power of the, on life and health, 280. 
 Wilson, Dr. A. — estimate of phrenology, 36. 
 Women — their powers and rights, 268. 
 Working Classes — not fit yet for self-government, 142 ; nor for 
 
 much leisure, 283. 
 World— ideal, 106. 
 
 Zschokke— progress inevitable, 262. 
 
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