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Cornell University Library 
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 Law in nature, &c., &c., &<:Fo>"'„PaP?,r,f > 
 
 3 1924 002 923 179 
 
LAW IN NATURE, 
 
 &C., &C., &0. 
 
 FOUR PAPERS, 
 
 READ BEFOKE THE 
 
 
 jiiHliU!!! . 
 
 BX 
 
 EIOHARD DAVIES HANSON, ESQ. 
 
 OfilEF JDSTICE 01? SOUTH AUSTBALIA. 
 
 •HINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 ADELAIDE : 
 
 J'rjNTED BY W. K. THOMAS, KEGISTEE AND OBSEEVBE. OFFICES, 
 
 GKENTBII, STKEET. 
 
 1864. 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002923179 
 
LAW m NATURE, 
 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 
 FOUR PAPERS, 
 
 BEAD BEFOBE THE 
 
 BY 
 
 EICHAKD DAVIES HANSON, ESQ., 
 
 CHIEF JnSTIOB OF SODTH ADSTEALIA. 
 
 PRINTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 
 
 ADELAIBE : 
 
 PRINTED BY W. K. THOMAS, fiEGISTEK AND OBSEEVER OFFICES, 
 
 GKENFEIL STEEET. 
 
 1864. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The following Papers were read before the Adelaide Philosopliical 
 Society, and are printed at their request. In preparing them for 
 the press I have preserved as much as possible their original form, 
 because I am desirous that they should appear what they are — 
 Papers read before a limited audience, members of a Society formed 
 for the encouragement and prosecution of scientific investigation, 
 and familiar to some extent with the topics discnssed and the prin- 
 ciples attempted to be established. Begarded in any other light, 
 these Papers would scarcely be suited for publication ; if for no 
 other reason, because of their incompleteness. They do not pretend 
 to exhaust the subjects upon which they treat, even under the 
 aspects iij which they are presented, but only to suggest and de- 
 velop certain lines of thought, and the conclusions to which these 
 seem to lead, so far as they appeared to fall within the objects of 
 the Society. 
 
 The second and third Papers, " Law in Creation" and " Law in 
 History," ai-e printed almost as they were read ; though in the latter 
 I should have liked to develop more fully the last section — that 
 which relates to the influence of former civilizations upon modern 
 thought. I found, however, that this could not be done at all ade- 
 quately without an amount of additional matter which I did not feel 
 justified in inserting. I have, therefore, left it in its original state. 
 In the first Paper I have added one or two paragraphs in order 
 to elucidate more fully the sense in which the term " law" is used 
 in scientific discussions, and the ambiguities which arise from 
 the other senses in which the word is habitually employed. And 
 in the last Paper I have expanded the earKer portion for the 
 purpose of exhibiting more completely what appears to me to be 
 
the essential independence of science and theology, as well as the 
 reasons for considering such a discussion not merely legitimate but 
 even necessary. The latter part, however, remains almost verbally 
 as it was originally written. 
 
 It may be thought, as was suggested by one of the members of 
 the Society, that the views I have endeavoured to establish involve 
 the impossibility of miracles. This, however, appears to me to be 
 a misconception ; and certainly I do not hold such an opinion. I 
 conceive, undoubtedly, that nature ddes not and cannot witness to 
 any supernatural interposition ; and further, that the prevalence of 
 law which wfe trace wherever our investigations extend furnishes a, 
 strong presumption against the occurrence of any such interposition. 
 But this, I imagine, would be conceded by the most unhesitating 
 asserter of miracles. It is indeed the impossibility of accoimting 
 for an occurrence on natural grounds, and its intrinsic improbability 
 as a fact, which gives to it its evidential character and value as a 
 miracle. If we could in any manner explain it, or show that its occur- 
 rence was naturally to be looked for, it would to that extent become 
 worthless as a symbol of divinity or an attestation of doctrine. But 
 I do not, therefore, conclude that miracles cannot have occurred, 
 or even that there may not be considerations resting upon other 
 than natural grounds which may diminish the intrinsic improbability 
 of their occurrence. I do not doubt the power of God to work 
 miracles, and certainly I do not assume that I am able to decide 
 whether he will or wiU not exercise that power. It seems, however, 
 to me, that in any enquiries upon the subject the question whether 
 or not the alleged phenomena were manifested is a question of evi- 
 dence — whether or not they were miraculous is a question of faith ; 
 and therefore that miracles as such are beyond the scope of science. 
 I imagined, therefore, that any discussion of the subject would not 
 fall within the limits of the enquiries in which I was engaged ; but 
 I have thought it right to guard myself from being supposed on that 
 accoimt to deny the possibility or the actual occurrence of miracles. 
 
 These Papers have no pretensions to originality. Although I 
 should have some difficulty in referring the various arguments and 
 illustrations to the sources from which they were taken, it is pro- 
 bable that all have been suggested in the course of reading ; and 
 
■with regard to the greater portion, they would be found in works 
 readily accessible to most of my hearers. Still I have not im- 
 plicitly followed any authority. I have stated my own conclusions 
 in my own language ; hut the grounds of my conclusions have not 
 been the result of original investigation. My object, however, in 
 these Papers has been not to discover new facts, but to show the 
 principles which we are to apply in drawing conclusions from facts 
 already known. 
 
 It only remains to add that, as I understand it, the printing of 
 these Papers by the Adelaide Philosophical Society does not imply 
 any agreement with the particular views I have pronounced. It 
 is, I believe, nothing more than an acknowledgment that the im- 
 portance and interest of the questions discussed, and, to a certain 
 extent also, the manner in which they have been treated, justify 
 the Society in securing for the members a more permanent and 
 available record than would otherwise exist. 
 
 Adelaide, June 24, 1864. 
 
EEEATUM. 
 
 Page 26, third line from tlic bottom, between "otherwise" and "is,"' insert 
 'is supernatural." 
 
THE IDEA OF LAW IN NATURE. 
 
 I PROPOSE in the course of the present, and of two or three 
 Bucceeding papers, to offer a few observations for the purpose of 
 explaining and illustrating the operation of law in nature, and of 
 discussing how far it may be traced in what we know or can infer 
 with regard to the plan of nature and the history of mankind ; as 
 ■well as the relation which these subjects, and science in general, 
 bear to theology. The present paper is chiefly introductory, and 
 its object is to illustrate what, in default of a more appropriate term, 
 I have designated " The Idea op Law in Natttee." 
 
 The first impression produced by the aspect of external nature is, 
 that almost everything is capricious and irregular. With the single 
 exception of the succession of day and night, and the position and 
 courses of the heavenly bodies, there is nothing that, to the unin- 
 structed eye, bears the impress of order or method. The wind 
 bloweth where it listeth — the clouds arise and the rains descend — 
 seasons of drought and of flood succeed or alternate with each other 
 — ^hurricanes and calms, sunshine and storms, come and go fitfully 
 and irregularly, according to no assignable or intelligible order. 
 And these events are not merely irregular, but they seem also to 
 be isolated. There are between them no signs of mutual inter- 
 dependence; and even when experience has shown that there 
 is practically a connection between two events, this connection is 
 often, so far as appears, altogether arbitrary ; there may be a connec- 
 tion in fact, but there is none in reason. And all this is the case 
 
even more emphatically with the phenomena of life and organi- 
 zation; while these latter have further a mystery of their own. 
 Generation, nutrition^ growth, and decay — ^birth, life, and death — 
 are still among the imsolved problems of science ; and it is no 
 marvel, therefore, that they should, to the earliest thinkers, have ap- 
 peared not only to be beyond their powers of investigation, but to 
 belong to quite a difierent order of phenomena from those of inor- 
 ganic matter. The first rude division of objects, therefore, would 
 be into those which possessed and those which were destitute of 
 life : the former being supposed to be endued with an animating 
 spirit, which would account for all the appearances which they 
 presented — the latter having no internal power, but their opera- 
 tions being caused by the active energy of some Divine agency 
 external to themselves. 
 
 It is not necessary now to attempt to trace the steps by which 
 this primitive conception has been gradually changed into that with 
 which we are now familiar. It has been argued by Comte, in his 
 Philosophie Positive, that the human intellect in every science has 
 passed, or is passing, through three stages, which he designates as 
 the theological (or supernatural), the metaphysical, and the posi- 
 tive. " In the first (the supernatural) phase the mind seeks causes ; 
 it aspires to know the essences of things, and the absolute reason 
 of their operation. It regards all effeets as the production of super- 
 natural agents. Unusual phenomena are regarded as the signs of 
 the pleasure or displeasure of some god. In the metaphysical 
 stage a modification takes place : the supernatural agents are set 
 aside for abstract forces or entities supposed to inhere in various 
 substances, and capable of producing the appearances which they 
 manifest. In the positive phase, the mind, convinced of the futility 
 of all enquiries into causes and essences, restricts itself to the obser- 
 vation and classification of phenomena, and to the discovery of the 
 invariable relations of succession and similitude which things bear 
 to each other ; in a word, to the discovery of the laws of pheno- 
 mena." There can be no doubt, I ime^ine, that this conception 
 truly represents one aspect of the progress of the human mind ; 
 and it is not necessary to go to the past for illustration of these 
 different methods of viewing the same actual fact: since not merely 
 at the present time are there some sciences — sociology for instance — 
 which are, so far as the great majority of thinkers are concerned, 
 stiU in the supernatural stoige ; and others, such as biology, in the 
 metaphysical ; but if we extend our survey beyond a comparatively 
 narrow circle, we shall find that the vast majority of the human race 
 
are still in one or other of the preliminaly stages in regard to every 
 class of phenoiriena. The idea that pestilence is the result, not of 
 the neglect of sanitary laws, but of the Divine displeasure, and is 
 to be averted or removed by propitiatory rites, is as familiar to the 
 modern as it was to the ancient mind, and to civilized as to un- 
 civilized communities. In fact, with the greater part of mankind, 
 every unfamiliar occurrence, especially if its results are widely 
 injurious, is at once imagined to be supernatural ; and as the method 
 of education in every country is still theological instead of scientific, 
 it can be no matter of surprise that this should be the case. The 
 positive conception, so far as it is realized, can only be attained in 
 after life by the process of discarding the lessons which the mind 
 has first been taught ; and this is beyoad the power of the many. 
 It should, however, be observed that the conception of the positive 
 philosopher, that is to say, of the enquirer who seeks exclusively 
 to ascertain the laws which regulate the relations of phenomena, 
 does not necessarily contradict either the theological or the 
 metaphysical notion. It does not pretend to investigate the ab- 
 solute cause of anything ; it confesses that any such enquiry is 
 beyond its province, and that it has neither methods nor instruments 
 of investigation applicable to the purpose. All that it can perceive 
 is certain appearances ; all that it can discover is in what relation 
 of coincidence or succession these appearances stand to each other. 
 These relations it abstracts and generalizes, and the results are the 
 laws which it seeks to trace and define. What imderlies these 
 appearances — what gives efficiency to these laws — what is the 
 ultimate principle or the efficient cause of phenomena — as it 
 cannot discover it is content to be ignorant of; but it asserts that, ^ 
 whatever this unlcnown something may be, it always operates in- 
 variably, the same antecedents producing the same results, and 
 every change in the antecedent being accompanied by a corres- 
 ponding change in the result. And in confirmation of this sbssertion 
 it appeals to its power, in proportion as these laws are understood, 
 to predict or to produce results. It assumes, moreover, as a 
 necessary hypothesis, that all phenomena have analogous relations 
 which are capable of being ultimately ascertained by the application 
 of appropriate methods of investigation. This, however, does not 
 exclude the supernatural conception, excepting upon the hypothesis 
 that a supernatural cause must necessarily be capricious and irre- 
 gular — a hypothesis for which few would now care to contend. 
 
 The idea, then, of Law in Nature implies that certain definite and 
 constant relations subsist between all classes of phenomena — that 
 
there is nothing isolated and nothing anomalous — that any apparent 
 irregularities are only seeming, and relative to our ignorance ; and 
 that, although it may well happen, either owing to the complexity 
 of the phenomena, or to their unusual character, that certain 
 classes of facts may be, for an indefinite period or for ever, beyond 
 the po ler of the scientific method, yet that this would be simply 
 because of the limitation of our faculties, and not because these 
 facts are really of a different order. 
 
 Whatever may be the truth or error of this idea, there can be no 
 doubt that it is only in so far as it is capable of realization 
 that there can be any science. If there be any classes of facts, or 
 any single facts, which stand isolated and apart from the general 
 scheme of nature — ^not being, if I may so express myself, links in 
 the chain of causation — they are by that very isolation rendered 
 incapable of being the subjects of scientific investigation. The 
 essential object ef science — that without which it has no meaning 
 and no value — is to ascertain those very relations of cause and effect 
 which, by supposition, these facts do not possess. They are pheno- 
 mena which we may observe and register, and upon which we may 
 speculate, but we can assign them no place in the order of nature. 
 Science implies prevision ; its formula is — given certain conditions 
 and arrangements, and certain results follow as the invariable effect — 
 but with regard to these assumed facts no prevision is possible. 
 Take, for instance, as illustration, acts which depend upon human 
 volition. It is well known that there are two classes of thinkers 
 upon this subject, the one of which asserts and the other denies the 
 absolute freedom of the will in man. Into this controversy I have 
 no intention to enter ; in part it is a more question of words, there 
 being no difference of opinion as to the actual phenomena, but only 
 as to the phrases in which they should be described ; and in part it is 
 bound up with questions which science, as I understand it, does not 
 profess to be able to solve. But it is obvious that, on the hypothesis 
 of the absolute freedom of the will, in the sense for which one 
 class contends, it is impossible to make the acts which freely result 
 from the will the subject of calculation. We may guess, but we 
 cannot with any consistency venture to predict; since although 
 these acts, when performed, become themselves causes, and in their 
 operation differ in no wise from similar acts produced by known and 
 calculable laws, yet the volition of which they are the result, being 
 self-determined, is therefore beyond law. And under whatever 
 modifications the idea of the freedom of the will may be entertained, 
 it must necessarily be the case that, in so far as it is free and self- 
 
determined, its acts are incapable of prediction; and this, not be- 
 cause of the complexity of tbe phenomena, or of our ignorance of 
 some of the conditions of the problem, but because this element of 
 self-determination is on that very account beyond the reach of the 
 method of scientific investigation. I have instanced this merely as 
 an illustration of the necessary limits of science ; which can only 
 be concerned with phenomena which are themselves determined 
 by their antecedents, and can therefore, to the extent of our know- 
 ledge and faculty, be predicted. But I may go on to remark that, in 
 reality, this question of the freedom of the will is one which, in its 
 scientific aspect at least, is speculative rather than practical. In 
 our personal and individual experience we always find our know- 
 ledge of men's character and circumstances sufficient to enable us 
 so far to foresee their conduct in the ordinary transactions of 
 life, as to form a safe guide to ourselves ; and in public affairs, 
 though prediction is more difficult as to the particular dii-ection 
 which the popular feeling may take, or the extent to which it may 
 be embodied in action, yet on looking back we are for the most 
 part able to trace clearly the nature and the mode of operation of 
 the causes which have led to any great national movement, and thus 
 to gather rules for future guidance. More than this, it is not pro- 
 bable we shall ever be able to do, since the most unbending 
 advocate of the doctrine of necessity can never expect that he will 
 be able to bring under any mathematical formula all the various 
 causes which contribute to determine the will of an individual or 
 the collective wiU of a people ; and less than this no rational observer 
 of himself and others can be satisfied to claim. And this being 
 the case, I confess that it appears to me to be altogether imma- 
 terial, for the purposes of science, whether we employ the word 
 freedom or the word necessity. If the word necessity is used, its 
 conception must be enlarged so as to admit the well-nigh infinite 
 variety and play of motive and of feeling which go to make up 
 the individual man ; and if the word freedom be used, it must be 
 so understood as to allow that, in fact, the acts of all men are 
 capable of being predicted just in proportion as we understand 
 their character and the circumstances in which they will be placed. 
 No doubt it is the case, that when the particular term, freedom or 
 necessity, is abstracted from the phenomena which it represents, and 
 then made the basis of a train of deductive reasoning, founded upon 
 the meaning of the term, and not upon those phenomena, very 
 different results will be arrived at, according to which of the two 
 terms is employed. This, however, is only a particular instance 
 
of a very general source of error — reasoning upon the symbol in 
 forgetfolness of the things symbolized — an error which none can 
 wholly escape in cases where the symbols \ised have any meaning 
 of their own, and which is prevalent in proportion to the force and 
 vitality of the expressions employed. And as we probably never 
 shall, and certainly need not wish to, come down to abstract signs 
 — ^to the a and b and x and y of the algebraist — ^we must be content 
 to remain liable to this error, only endeavoiu-irg, by a constant 
 remembrance of the liability, to escape, as far as possible, its 
 actual commission. 
 
 This is perhaps a digression, but it is so nearly connected with 
 the topic of this paper, and appears to me so to illustrate some of 
 the aspects of the question, that I trust it may be pardoned. 
 
 Now, this being the idea of law in nature as a subject of science, 
 and this its ideal limitation, the question arises, is there such a 
 limitation in fact ? Are there any phenomena in nature which are 
 really without a natural cause ? Before attempting to give any 
 answer to this question, it is right that I should explain the sense 
 in which 1 employ the word cause. I have said that with absolute, 
 or what has been termed efficient causation, science properly so called 
 has nothing to do ; but we are nevertheless compelled to use a word 
 which in the general mind connotes these ideas. But I use the word 
 here to express the sum of the conditions which determine any 
 particular phenomenon. These conditions may precede or be co- 
 incident with the phenomenon, or, as is very frequently the case, 
 they partly precede and partly coincide with its manifestations, so 
 that the word antecedents is in many cases inapplicable. To state 
 the question, then, in somewhat different language, but expressing 
 the same meaning — are there any phenomena in nature which are 
 not determined by certain known or knowable conditions ? 
 
 In the first place it would seem certain that aU phenomena, 
 however exceptional their origin may be supposed to be, do, in 
 reality, so soon as they are manifested, take their place in nature, 
 and at once become part of the network of causation. It would 
 seem, therefore, to be improbable that they did not originate in 
 accordance with the laws which, when once manifested, they obey 
 and harmonize with. To take, for instance, the origin of a new 
 species. However originatiag, the individuals of which it is com- 
 posed are, from the very instant of its existence, subject to all the 
 natural laws, material and vital. They are nourished in the same 
 manner ; their frame is composed of the same constituents ; they are 
 affected by the same influences and in the same degree; they propa- 
 
gate their like, and they die, in preciselj- the same manner aa those 
 whose origin is confessedly owing to natural laws. If the first in- 
 dividual or pair of a species differed in any assignable character 
 from their successors, if they were differently affected by all or by 
 any natural laws, there would be a ground in reason for assigning to 
 them a different origin ; but the very idea of a species according to 
 the definition of those who argue for its supernatural origin excludes 
 any such difference, since it implies that the parents beget offspring 
 which in all essentials and in all specific distinctions resemble 
 themselves. To infer, therefore, a supernatural cause for what, 
 tried by any test we can apply, appear to be natural effects, would 
 seem in reality to be only a confession of ignorance ; at any rate 
 there is nothing in the observed phenomena to warrant any such 
 inference. All that we see, all of which we can find the trace, tells 
 the same tale. The phenomena of ora;anization and Hfe manifest 
 themselves in orderly development and succession according to 
 definite laws, and nothing affords the faintest indication of that 
 period of disorder and disorganization which some persons, it may 
 be surmised more devout than intelligent, have assumed as the 
 necessary proof of the existence of the Supreme Being. — And, in the 
 second place, it is obvious that if there are such, it is to us, not 
 merely as men of science but as men of action — men whose business 
 in this world is emphatically to do, whatever other business we may 
 have — just the same as though there were not. I have said that if 
 there are such they are beyond the domain of science — they can 
 neither be foreseen nor accounted for — no precautions on our part 
 can avoid — no power can produce them. Hence we must leave 
 them out of consideration. In fact, the dilemma appears to me to 
 be inevitable : either events occur according to some law, in which 
 case we may, in proportion to our knowledge and power, so conform 
 our conduct to the reqtiirements of that law as to enable us to pro- 
 cure the advantages which it offers and to escape the evils which it 
 threatens ; or we must leave them out of our consideration altogether, 
 excepting in so far as it may be within the scope of our abUity to 
 provide against the inconvenience which their occurrence, whenever 
 it does take place, may occasion. If we cannot tell whether an event 
 will happen or not, or whether there is any assignable probability 
 that it will happen : and if its happening or the reverse can neither 
 be averted or procured by any act of ours, then we may indeed 
 attempt to provide against any consequences which in the natural 
 course of things may follow from its happening ; but otherwise we 
 must arrange our plan of life and form our theories of nature without 
 
reference to it. Our practical position in this respect would be, for 
 all time, analogous to that of those who, in the existing stats 
 of knowledge, live in the neighbourhood of a volcano. They 
 may know that at any moment an eruption may occur which wiU 
 destroy all the fruits of their labours and perhaps their lives ; but 
 they cannot prevent it — they cannot tell how soon or how long 
 deferred its coming may be, or whether, if it does come, they or 
 others will be the sufferers. Hence they go on sowing and reaping, 
 planting and pruning, and gathering in the vintage, buUding houses 
 and bams, marrying and giving in marriage, just as though no erup- 
 tions were to be feared. They may take precautions against any of 
 the preventible evils which may be produced by the eruption, but 
 otherwise they live and act as those do who are exposed to no such 
 dangers. Undoubtedly the idea of the imminence of such an event, 
 or of any event which can neither be foreseen nor averted, would 
 have an inevitable tendency, in so far as it was realized, to paralyze 
 effort, and to destroy that feeling of security which is the encourage- 
 ment of exertion and the best earnest of success. Happily, how- 
 ever, the classes of phenomena which can now be regarded as thus 
 anomalous are few, and they are daily being brought nearer even 
 in common apprehension to the same conception which we apply to 
 ordinary events. 
 
 There is, however, an ambiguity in the employment of the term 
 law in reference to this subject which it is important always to bear 
 in mind, and which it will be weU to elucidate. The word 
 law in fact is in itself misleading, since its primary, or at at any 
 rate its ordinary use implies something external to the phenomena 
 which are to be regulated by it. The term law, however, as applied 
 to designate what are called laws of nature, is only an explicit 
 statement of the observed uniformity of relations existing among 
 the phenomena themselves, and resulting, so far as we can observe, 
 from the very nature of the phenomena. Certain uniformities of 
 coincidence or succession are observed, which are summed up in one 
 general expression, and this general expression is termed the law of 
 the phenomena. Thus, that all unsupported bodies fall to the ground, 
 is a law ; but it is obvious that this does not imply any force external 
 to the phenomena, by which this result is caused ; it is merely the 
 statement in one formula of the observed phenomena. So long as it 
 remains, however, in this first stage, it is a mere empirical law. When, 
 however, we go a step farther and say that all unsupported bodies fall 
 to the ground because they are attracted by the earth, and that they 
 are attracted by the earth because all bodies attract each other in 
 
proportion to their mass, this first law ceases to be empirical, be- 
 cause we are able to deduce it from some mere geoeral law ; but 
 then the latter law, of which the particular law is the consequence, 
 must, I imagine, be called an empirical law, unless we can show 
 that it is the consequence of some law yet more general. But how- 
 ever wide may be our generalization, and however many particular 
 uniformities may be included in one general expression, still each 
 particular law, as well as the general law in which they are all 
 included, is only an expression or formula which describes the 
 actual observed relation subsisting between the phenomena which 
 it embraces. 
 
 It thence follows that to talk of a violation of a law of nature, or 
 an exception to it, is something like a contradiction in terms. Since 
 the law, or what we term by that name, is nothing more thau a 
 general expression of the observed relation, if anything occurs 
 which is really an exception to that expression, it only shows that 
 the expression does not truly represent the actual facts, and requires 
 to be corrected. Thus, to take an illustration which has been used 
 by Professor Kingsley — suppose it to be stated as a law that all 
 heavy bodies fall to the ground ; but it is found that I or any one 
 can catch a stone as it falls and prevent it from reaching the ground : 
 it is clear that this proves, not that a law of nature is violated, but 
 that we had not accurately expressed the actual relations of the 
 phenomena, since our formula did not include the cases in which the 
 tendency to fall to the ground was counteracted. We have only . 
 then to correct our formula by stating it, that all bodies, unless 
 supported, will fall to the ground, or that all bodies have a tendency 
 to fall to the ground, and there is no exception. 
 
 It is, however, in moral relations that the ambiguity is most 
 apparent. There are then, in fact, three senses in which the word 
 is used — the scientific sense, as explained above ; the sense of a law 
 imposed by some external authority ; and the sense of the rules 
 which we deduce from the observed uniformities of nature as guides 
 to our own conduct. And as the same word is used to express all 
 of these diiferent conceptions, it constantly happens that the con- 
 clusions which are proper to the one sense are erroneously trans- 
 ferred to another. Thus, I have seen it argued by an eminent 
 modern professor, " As for laws which work of themselves by an 
 irresistible movement, how can we discover such in a past in which 
 every law which we know has been outraged again and again ?" In 
 the first place, it appears to me that the phrase " laws which work 
 of themselves," whether by an irresistible movement or not, does not 
 
w 
 
 express what is contended for by those who seek to discover a law in 
 events. At any rate, it does not express my conception of the 
 subject. I see certain f6rces in inorganic and in organic natnre, 
 and I see that these operate with a certain uniformity which admits 
 of their modes of operation being combined into general expres- 
 sions. These general expressions, in accordance with ordinary 
 usage, I call laws. But I attribute no inherent or intrinsic power, 
 nor even any independent existence, to these laws. When I say 
 that the attraction of two bodies to each other is directly as the 
 mass and inversely as the square of the distance, I express a law of 
 nature ; but that law is not the impelling or controlling force ; it is 
 merely an expression of the mode and condition of action of the 
 force. And the same is the case with regard to moral or mental 
 laws, though, from the ambiguities of language, it is less clearly 
 perceived. When I say that interest is one of the motives by 
 which men are influenced, I state what is assumed to be a law of 
 nature ; but then this law, so far as it is such, is only an expression 
 of one manner in which the sum of the forces which exist in 
 and constitute a human being do actually operate. A law, therefore, 
 in this sense, is not a force ; it is not self-acting, nor does it con- 
 stitute or confer an impulse ; it is simply the general expression 
 which describes the manner in which a given force acts. 
 
 It is, however, true that a law of nature as generally stated im- 
 plies the'cxistence of the- force, the mode of whose action it defines. 
 But though it implies rhe fact that such a force exists, it does not 
 express anything as to its nature, excepting in so far as that nature 
 is implied in or may be conjectured from the mode of its operation. 
 The scientific expression, therefore, would be, not " laws which 
 work of themselves," but that all forces work according to some 
 ascertainable method, which method we call the law of the force, 
 and which we include in the term " laws of nature." But 
 again, when it is said " Every law which we know has been 
 violated over and over again," it is obvious that the sense in which 
 the term law had been used in the former part of the sentence is shifted 
 in the latter, and it is used either in the sense of rules which men 
 frame for themselves, or of the law which God has revealed.* Un- 
 questionably every rule of morahty or prudence, whether deduced 
 by the human reason or taught by divine revelation, has been "out- 
 raged again and again ;" but the laws of nature, meaning by that 
 
 * Tliis will be clear ty just supplying the definition in each case. "As for laws" 
 (uniformities of relation) " which work of themselves by an irresistible movement, how 
 are we to discover such, in a past in which every law" (rule of action either commanded 
 by God or deduced by reason) " which we Isnow has been outraged again and again ?" 
 
11 
 
 the actual relation between phenomena ; the manner in which the 
 human will as a determinino; force manifests itself in the various 
 circumstances of country, race, climate, government, religion; and 
 the relations between the acts which the human will originates, and 
 their consequences, have never been interrupted : since all these 
 alleged violations of moral or prudential rules — all from which they 
 result and all that they produce — are in reality just the very facts 
 whose relations of sequence or coincidence we have to comprehend 
 in certain general expressions, which expressions, when accurately 
 deduced, will be the law. Thus, the kings of Egypt, in employing 
 the labour of tens of thousands of men for generations in building 
 the' Pyramids — Solomon, in expending a sum slightly exceeding the 
 national debt of England in erecting and decorating the Temple of 
 Jerusalem — the kings of Babylon, in depeopling provinces to fiU. 
 the new capital which they had built — in a sense violated the laws 
 of political economy. So, in the same sense, the vast majority of 
 wars are violations of the laws of justice and humanity, and all vices 
 violate the laws of morality, and most of them the laws of prudence — 
 that is to say, they violate the rules of practice which we should 
 deduce for the guidance of human conduct from our experience of 
 the result of certain courses of action. And yet in reality none of 
 these laws are broken; because, being only expressions of the re- 
 lations of phenomena, they do, so far as they truly express those 
 relations, manifest themselves as clearly in these alleged violations 
 as they do when they are most carefully observed. For, in fact, the 
 law is not that such and such things will or must be done, but that 
 whatever things may be done such and such results follow from their 
 doing. And these results inevitably follow, in so far as we have 
 accurately expressed the law. And beside this every one of these 
 acts was itself the result of forces acting in a determinate order. 
 The conduct of the monarch or of the nation, or, perhaps more ac- 
 curately, the combined action of the two, resulted from individual 
 character and surrounding circumstances and influences. However 
 little we may be able to indulge the expectation of determining the 
 character or the law of these forces, it can hardly be suggested, 
 since men were the instruments, that there is any other possible 
 cause than individual character, and the circumstances of whatever 
 kind external to the individual by which that character is made to 
 embody itself in action. 
 
 It is only necessary to add to this, that every law truly stated 
 implies only a tendency, which will be eflFectual if not counteracted, 
 but which is liable to counteraction by other forces operating in a 
 
12 
 
 different direction. The forms in wliicli the forces of nature mani- 
 fest themselves are innumerable, though it may be that the ultimate 
 force is one; and every form implies a separate mode of action. The 
 first laws are those which express these ■ modes of action by them- 
 selves, making abstraction of everything else ; but these laws, though 
 accurate in so far as they express tendencies, are probably never 
 absolutely realized in practice : since, although the law for every 
 form of force holds good for that so long as it operates by itself the 
 conjoint action of two or more forms of force is the result not of the 
 law of action of any one, but of the conjoint effect of the laws of 
 action of all. 
 
 It follows from this that the idea of law in nature implies that all 
 the forces of nature work according to determinate laws — not by 
 any means that there is symmetry, or what we might conceive of as 
 order, in the results. A tree may grow irregularly ; different trees 
 of the same species, planted at the same time, may grow taller or 
 more spreading, feebly or vigorously, according to the soil, shelter, 
 aspect, and other conditions of the place in which they were planted. 
 But the processes of assimilation — the attraction of carbon from 
 the atmosphere, and the exhalation of oxygen ; the forces of gravi- 
 tation, of capillary attraction, and the rest ; all of these operate ac- 
 cording to fixed and invariable laws. The effects which the conjoint 
 operation of these forces may produce will be modified by the 
 favouring or counteracting influences of other forces to which the 
 plant is exposed ; but all the forces — those which result from, or which 
 produce organization, as well as those which act externally to the 
 organization, operate in a definite method, and with unvarying 
 regularity. Always, for instance, when a piece of carbonate of lime 
 is exposed to a certain heat in contact with air containing oxygen, 
 will a portion of the carbon leave the lime to unite with a portion 
 of the oxygen ; always will the various elementary bodies combine 
 chemically in certain definite proportions, and in no other ; alwavs 
 does living organized matter assimilate, either directly or indirectly, 
 inorganic substances, forming out of them the same ternary or quater- 
 nary compounds which go to build up the fabric of the plant or 
 the animal ; always, that is, do the forces of nature act in exact 
 conformity with the laws which the Author of nature has imposed. 
 It is, in fact, as inconceivable, in the absence of a disturbing cause, 
 that two bodies oppositely electrified should not attract each other 
 when brought into the requisite proximity, or that the opposite 
 poles of a magnet should not attract, and the corresponding poles 
 repel, each other, as that the three angles of a triangle should be 
 
13 
 
 equal to more or less than two right angles, or that two and two 
 should not make four. And although some very ingenious gentlemen, 
 two at the least, have lately been endeavouring to convince the 
 world that upon a sufficient amount of evidence we might believe 
 that two and two did make five, and by inference therefore that 
 we might believe all the other impossibilities which I have in. 
 stanced ; yet there is, I imagine, no danger of such a speculation 
 ever taking the form of practice. When it does it will be a for- 
 tunate day for those who have to pay, and an unlucky one for those 
 who receive. 
 
 If then we are justified in the assumption that the forces of na- 
 ture — if in truth there is more than one force, of which heat, elec- 
 tricity, gravitation, and the rest are specific manifestations — work 
 according to fixed laws, it is a necessary inference from this that 
 they have so worked in all time. We cannot upon any ground, 
 scientific or otherwise, assume that there was a time when these 
 forces did not exist wherever matter or life existed, or that they acted 
 in any other manner or according to any other laws than those by 
 which they are now regulated. And so far as an inference of this 
 kind is susceptible of proof, we have proof of it in the disclosures 
 of geology. In the records of the rocks we see the same results of 
 mechanical and chemical laws — the same type of organization 
 showing that the external nature to which that type was adapted 
 was essentially the same as at present. The structure of the eye, 
 for iastauce, shows that the laws of light were similar ; and the 
 vaiious contrivances adapted to fit the animals of the early world 
 to walk or to swim or to fly, show that there were air and water 
 and solid earth. And these facts furnish not merely the only proof 
 that can be given, but a proof which is abundantly satisfactory, 
 that into whatever remote depths of the past we may be enabled to 
 gaze, we shall see there the same orderly working of harmoniously 
 adjusted laws, the same marks of order, regularity, and design. 
 
 It is not, of course, intended by this assertion of the uniformity 
 of the laws by which natural phenomena are regulated to assert any 
 uniformity in the phenomena themselves. On the contrary, as- 
 suming, as some have assumed, upon grounds which have com- 
 manded the assent of probably a majority of geologists, that the 
 earth was originally a diflfused nebulous mass, and was, when first 
 condensed, fluid with the liberated heat, and that since then it has 
 gradually cooled down until it has reached a point at which the 
 heat received from the sun balances, or nearly balances, that which 
 is lost by radiation — it is obrious that, though the laws according to 
 
14 
 
 which the natural forces operate have remaiued identical, yet the 
 amount and direction of the forces themselves must have greatly- 
 changed. Or, to take another hypothesis not so generally prevalent, 
 that all the carbon in the earth originally existed in the air, from 
 which it has been absorbed by vegetation, it is obvious that, although 
 the laws of vegetable and of animal life were the same, the forms in 
 which they would be embodied must have been very different in order 
 that they might be adapted to the different circumstances in which 
 they were placed. In such a case the manifestations of the forces 
 of nature would, under some aspects, be more and in others probably 
 less energetic than they are at present ; but the forces would be iden- 
 tical and the laws which regulated them unchanged. It is often as- 
 sumed that those who assert the same laws have operated through 
 all time, have therefore asserted or implied that their manifestations 
 were uniform. On the contrary, the very identity of the law would 
 necessitate a change in the amount or character of its effects in pro- 
 portion as the circumstances were changed in which it operated. 
 
 Another, but less certain, inference is that these laws operate 
 likewise in all space. There is undoubtedly proof that two of the 
 forces operate so widely as to make it a matter of safe inference 
 that they operate universally — the forces of gravitation and of light 
 — and this gives scientific grounds for the conclusion that all the 
 other forces which have been shown to be wholly or partially 
 convertible with, or correlated to them, are at least as extensively 
 diffused. At any rate, if upon our earth the force of gravitation, 
 as manifested in a falling body, when arrested is converted into 
 heat ; the same amount of force existing under this new form as has 
 been stopped in the other ; if heat is convertible into light, and if 
 light, electricity, magnetism, chemical attraction, and vital force, 
 under certain aspects, touch and pass into each other, there is a 
 fair ground of inference that when one of these forces is found to 
 exist the others are also present. An able and ingenious attempt 
 to show that the laws which regulate the forces of nature on our 
 globe exist not only in all parts of the solar system, but through- 
 out the whole stellar universe, and that this is true of the 
 particular laws by which intelligence and the capacity of moral 
 and spiritual ideas are, or seem to be, connected with a particular 
 tjrpe of physical organization, which is that of the minority of the 
 human race, is to be found in a work, not bearing the name, but 
 known to be the production of Professor Whewell, "The Plurality 
 of Worlds." And this attempt is the more noticeable considering 
 the general views of the author and the object with which that 
 
particular work was composed. The argument of that work consists, 
 so far as relates to this topic, of statements which appear to show- 
 in a very clear and irrefragable manner, that in fact the capacity 
 of intellectual progress and of adequate moral and spiritual ideas, is 
 not merely limited to the human species by virtue of its organization, 
 but even among mankind is limited to particular races and families, 
 as must be assumed in consequence of their organization, since other- 
 wise the argument would lose its point. The author then shows that 
 this organization is essentially related to the constitution of the world, 
 to its amount and proportion of heat and cold, to the pressure 
 exerted by gravitation, to its atmosphere, and to its other conditions. 
 He then proceeds to indicate the essential difference that exists be- 
 tween these conditions upon the earth, and upon the other planets of 
 our system, and in the stars ; and from this he argues that such organi- 
 zation as we find essential to the possession of a power to conceive 
 worthily of God, and to worship him aright; to receive intellectually 
 and to embody in action the revelation which God has given ; could 
 not exist in these planets or in the stars, and that as a consequence 
 the capacities which result from this organization would also be 
 wanting. And from this he deduces, as a conclusion, that the motive 
 which has been so often assigned why these worlds should be in- 
 habited, that their inhabitants might know, and love, and worship 
 God, is devoid of force, because there is every ground in analogy to 
 conclude they would not possess the requisite faculties to enable 
 them to do this. Of course it would be out of my province to enter 
 into any discussion of the validity of this argument as affecting the 
 conclusions which the essayist has deduced from it. But it is 
 relevant to my present subject to remark that he appears to have 
 confounded uniformity of law vrith identity of result. In our world 
 we see that organized beings have existed from times inconceivably 
 remote ; that they have gradually changed from their original 
 type in the direction of a greater specialization of organ and 
 frincticn ; and that as the highest and probably the latest organiza- 
 tion man has appeared: as it would now seem in a low type at the 
 first, but in one which, as it was capable of the improvement it has 
 received, we may also conceive to be capable of yet further 
 elevation; and all this in strict relation to the external 
 influences of every kind to which they have been subject. Now 
 we may have from this a right to argue that the human organiza^ 
 tion, and even the higher types of that organization, are, under the 
 circumstances in which living creatures are placed upon this earth, 
 a necessary condition to the enjoyment of certain capacities and 
 
16 
 
 fkculties; but since we have no experience and no analogy which 
 can guide us upon the subject, one of the terms being wanting, we 
 have no right to say that these are necessary in worlds differently con- 
 stituted. The same laws operate there as here, and we may presume 
 that they work towards similar results ; but we know that they work 
 under different conditions and possibly upon differently-arranged or 
 differently-proportioned materials. But are we, therefore, to con- 
 ceive that they cannot result in the gradual perfecting of organiza- 
 tion to as high a degree as has been attained in our earth ; this per- 
 fected organization being as harmom'ously adjusted to the size, 
 gravity, temperature, and composition of each particular world as is 
 man to the world which forms the place of his habitation ? The 
 ultimate difference in the composition of the brain and nerve tissues, 
 and of other bodily tissues, is, as I understand, that in the former there 
 is a certain proportion of phosphorus which is wanting in the latter. 
 And I am not aware of any ground for supposing that element to be 
 absent in Jupiter, or, if it were, for supposing that mind cannot 
 come into relation with the worlds of matter and of spirit, imless 
 phosphorus be present in the animal tissue. But though in this 
 respect I think the essayist has carried his inferences beyond their 
 legitimate scope, I recognize his philosophical Adew of the univer- 
 sality of law ; that it pervades all space as well as all time ; and I 
 have no doubt that when the particular controversy to which this 
 essay gave birth has died away, the beneficial effect of these 
 philosophical conceptions will continue to be felt. 
 
 I have thus very imperfectly completed the object of this paper. 
 I had hoped, when I first thought of the subject, to have treated of 
 -the idea of law in nature under other aspects, and to elaborate more 
 fully those to which I have referred ; still I trust that I have at 
 least said sufficient to show the general bearings of the subject. 
 The idea of law in nature implies no knowledge of anything but 
 the relations which exists between phenomena ; but it implies 
 that these relations are constant ; that all changes are the results of 
 the forces of nature ; and that these forces act according to invariable 
 laws, which are coextensive with nature in time and in space. If 
 I have leisure I propose, with your permission, to devote one or two 
 other papers to particular manifestations of these laws, under the 
 titles of " Law in Creation" and " Law in History," and then I 
 hope to be able to read one last paper on " The Relation of Science 
 and Theology." 
 
LAW IN CREATION. 
 
 In my former Paper I attempted to show that in nature, so far as 
 our investigations are able to extend, either in time or in space, we 
 find everywhere phenomena manifested according to certain definite 
 laws ; and that this, in fact, is our only conception of nature. In 
 the present Paper I propose to examine what grounds there may be 
 for supposing that the maintenance of organic life upon the earth, 
 and its successive manifestations in the various geological formations 
 in which we are able to trace its appearance, as weR as in the almost 
 infinite variety of living things by which the earth is now peopled, 
 can be brought under the same conception. It is, however, right 
 to state that, though, in the title of this Paper, I have used the word 
 " creation," I have not any intention of suggesting any theory with 
 regard to the origination, of matter or of force. The beginning of 
 things is altogether beyond the domain of science, as I understand 
 it. My enquiries refer only to the law, if any can be shown to exist, 
 of the changes in organized beings, which have occurred since their 
 first appearance on the earth. 
 
 In entering upon the discussion of this question, however, we are 
 met upon the threshold with objections arising out of the theological 
 views which prevail in reference to the idea of creation, and which, 
 if we may judge from the temper in which every theory upon the 
 subject has been attacked, would seem to render its calm and dispas- 
 sionate investigation almost impossible. It appears to be assumed 
 that there is something peculiarly mysterious and sacred in the 
 origination of species — that it stands apart and isolated from all 
 phenomena — and that, whatever may be the case with other and 
 meaner matters, for which the laws of nature may be allowed to 
 oflfer a sufficient explanation, here at least nature must be considered 
 to stop, and something superior to nature must be invoked. The 
 sun may shine and the winds may blow in obedience to law ; the 
 thunderstorm and the earthquake may be traced to natural pro- 
 
18 
 
 cesses ; mountains may rise and valleys be excavated, tides may ebb 
 and flow, the mightiest and the most minute inorganic changes, in- 
 volving as they do the welfare or the destruction of miUions of 
 organized beings, may occur in accordance with and may be the 
 necessary result of the laws to which nature is subservient. This 
 the theologian who knows anything of science wiU admit. But 
 the minutest organism that peoples the water, or as a weU-nigh in- 
 visible speck is seen upon the weathered face of a rock, or hastening 
 the decomposition of what was once a living substance, must, he 
 insists, have required for the origination of the trivial characters by 
 which it is distinguished from allied species, a direct supernatural 
 intervention of the Supreme Being. And he who denies or even 
 doubts this runs no small risk of being denounced as an atheist. 
 Happily, however, in this room we may piirsue our enquiries without 
 any fear of being subject to such imputations. 
 
 The first notion of creation which certainly most, and probably all, 
 of those who hear me received, was contained in that version of 
 the fourth commandment which ia given in the Book of Exodus — 
 " In six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that 
 in them is." This, taken by itself, was complete and satisfactory. 
 There was no distinction between organized beings and inorganic 
 matter — all ahke owed their being in their present form to the fiat 
 of the Almighty, at a date not quite six thousand years ago. With 
 this view the question of development or of creation by law could 
 have no meaning ; there was, in fact, no place for any such idea. 
 But though this continues to be taught in schools, and, I suppose, 
 also in colleges — ^for error is often thought to be safer than truth — 
 it is a view which no person acquainted in any degree, however 
 slight, with the discoveries of geology during the last half century 
 continues to hold. It is as certain as any conclusion of reason can 
 be that the world has existed as the habitation of organized beings 
 for unknown millions of ages, and that the various species of animals 
 and plants by which it is now peopled are comparatively of very 
 recent introduction, though the existence of some of them must be 
 calculated by probably miUions of years. I cannot better illustrate 
 this part of my subject than by a brief quotation from Professor 
 Owen's recent work on Palaeontology ; and I quote firom him in 
 preference to other authors whose words I might employ because 
 he has been an opponent of every proposed theory of development. 
 
 " Palaeontology teaches that the globe allotted to man has re- 
 volved in its orbit through a period of time so vast that the mind in 
 its endeavour to realize it is strained by an effort like that by which 
 
19 
 
 it strives to conceive of the space dividing the solar system from the 
 most distant nebtdae. 
 
 " Palaeontology has shown that from the iaconceivably remote 
 period of the depositioa of the Cambrian Eocks the earth has been 
 vivified by the sun's light and heat, has been fertilized by refreshing 
 showers and washed by tidal waves — ^that the ocean not only moved 
 in orderly oscillation, regulated, as now, by sun and moon, but was 
 rippled and agitated by winds and storms — that the atmosphere, 
 besides these movements, was healthily influenced by clouds and 
 vapours rising, condensing, and falling, in ceaseless circulation. 
 With these conditions of life, palaeontology demonstrates that life 
 has been enjoyed during the same countless thousands of years, and 
 that with life, from the beginning, there has been death. The 
 earliest testimony of the living thing, whether coral, crust, or shell, 
 in the oldest fossiliferous rock, is at the same time proof that it died. 
 At no period does it appear that the gift of life has been monopo- 
 lized by contemporary individuals through a stagnant sameness of 
 untold time, but it hasbeen handed down from generation to genera- 
 tion and successively enjoyed by the countless thousands that con- 
 stitate the species. Palaeontology further teaches us that not only 
 the individual but the species perishes^-that, as death is balanced 
 by generation, so extinction has been concomitant with the creative 
 power which has continued to provide a succession of species ; and 
 fia:thermore, that as regards the various forms of life which this 
 planet has supported, there has been an advance and progress in 
 the main. Thus we learn that the creative force has not deserted 
 the earth during any of the epochs of geological time that have suc- 
 ceeded to the first manifestation of such force, and that in respect 
 to no one class of animals has the operation of creative force been 
 limited to one geological epoch ; and perhaps the most important 
 and significant result of palseontological research has been the 
 establishment of the axiom of the continuous operation of the or- 
 dained becoming; of living, things." 
 
 These being the facts, the view taken of them by those who 
 insist upon the supernatural origin of species — or what I might 
 call the theological view — appears to be that, as soon as, by the slow 
 operation of natural causes, the world had become fitted for the re- 
 ception of organic life, the lowest forms of vegetables and of animals 
 were introduced by a direct supernatural creative act of the Deity. 
 That, being so introduced they increased and multiplied until, by 
 some catastrophe — whether the' result of natm-al law or of miracu- 
 lous interposition is left doubtful, though presumably it must 
 
20 
 
 have been the latter — they were all destroyed. That, after this des- 
 truction, when the forces of nature had recovered their equilibrium, 
 another set of animals and plants suited to the new conditions of the 
 elrth was again miracidously created. And that, this process has 
 been repeated from time to time imtil the commencement of the 
 present order of things ; since which period there have been successive 
 miraculous creations of new species of animals arid of plants to take 
 the place of those species which have successively in the slow pro- 
 gress of time become extinct, the creation of man being the last of 
 these. This, so far as I can gather, appears to be the view most in 
 favour, though it is gradually losing its hold of more advanced 
 thinkers, and it may have been superseded by some newer views 
 which have not yet reached me. In any modification which it may 
 receive, however, the essential idea must remain ; and that is, that, 
 whether by a gradual decay of vital force in the individuals of which 
 the species is composed, or by a change of the conditions in which 
 they are placed, either sudden and catastrophic or gradual and 
 regular, all extinct species have perished without leaving any pos- 
 terity; and that, the miraculous intervention of the Creator has been 
 required, by the creation of new species, either to supply the gap thus 
 occasioned, or to prevent its being filled up by other surviving 
 species. This view, in its general results, suggests order and regu- 
 larity as the rule, both in the inorganic and organic world; all things 
 going on in accordance with natural laws for thousands or for millions 
 of years ; then, suddenly, a breaking up of the whole system, for some 
 unexplained and inexplicable reason, and in some incomprehensible 
 mode ; then a period, longer or shorter as the fancy of the individual 
 speculator may determine, of lawlessness and confusion ; and then, the 
 beginning of a new era of order and regularity in a world of changed 
 conditions and peopled by new inhabitants organically adapted to the 
 change. I must say it appears to me that to make this conception 
 complete it requires the old Persian view of two opposite powers — 
 Ormuzd ruling during the periods of repose and order, and Ahriman 
 obtaining the mastery in those of confusion and destruction. To 
 suggest that the Supreme Being becomes dissatisfied with the result 
 of his labours and so breaks up the system he has established -^ or to 
 suppose that the machinery he has set in motion gets out of gear 
 and knocks itself to pieces, or becomes worn out with age — and 
 one of these conceptions appears necessarily involved in the hy- 
 pothesis I have described — does seem to me to introduce low and 
 unworthy views of his character and works. Thewhole view, how- 
 ever, is thoroughly anthropomorphic. It is the conception of an 
 
21 
 
 artificer, hampered by his materials, who has to make essay after 
 essay until the elements with which he has to deal grow plastic 
 under his hands, and he can at length mould them into a form which 
 adequately embodies his conception. This is not the view of God 
 which either reason or revelation suggests or sanctions ; and that 
 such a view should ever have been adopted, and especially that it 
 should have been supposed to save the credit of revelation and to 
 satisfy the requirements of reason, is a marvel to me ; and none the 
 less so that I once myself held very similar views. 
 
 The history of this theory is, in fact, something like that of the 
 Ptolemaic theory, which, starting from the assumption of the im- 
 mobility of the earth in the centre of the system, and accounting for 
 the movements of the sun and the planets by " cycle on epicycle, 
 orb on orb," grew more and more compKcated with every improve- 
 ment in the means of observation, until Alphonso of Portugal could 
 say, with the avowed or silent assent of all astronomers, that if God 
 had consulted him in arranging the motions of the heavenly bodies 
 he could have shown him a much better way. So here, starting from 
 the assumption that the origin of species is necessarily a phenomenon 
 altogether beyond any force or law of nature, either known or un- 
 known, and therefore one that could only have been produced by a 
 miracle, the result has been that, to explain the succession of species 
 from the first manifestation of life upon the earth up to the present 
 moment, theories more and more complex have required to be in- 
 vented ; until every idea of order and regularity is lost in the profu- 
 sion of perpetually recurring miracles, and the conception presented 
 of the Creator is a good deal more like that of a workman putting his 
 hand to his work, than that of such a Being as revelation discloses 
 and reason recognizes. 
 
 It must, however, at the same time be admitted that most of the 
 theories which have been put forth on the other side have been, to 
 use the mildest term, of a highly speculative and fanciful character. 
 The theories of LaMarck and DeMaillet were as little accordant with 
 observed phenomena, and as little capable of proof, as that theory of 
 immediate creation which they were invented to supersede ; and they 
 were easily capable of being presented in a ludicrous point of view. 
 The description of them in the lines of Mr. Hosea Biglow when 
 
 he says — 
 
 "That the fears of some monkey whose holt chanced to fail 
 Drawed his vertebrae out to a prehensile tail," 
 is scarcely an exaggeration of some of the processes which were 
 supposed to have been opei'ative in order to bring about the observed 
 
22 
 
 modification of organs and habits in allied classes of animals. And 
 in the recent work in which the theory of development has been 
 temperately and ably supported, with many modL6.cations drawn from 
 more extensive observations of facts, "The Vestiges of Creation," 
 there appears to me still to be the same weakness. All of these 
 various theories, although they shadow forth with more or less com- 
 pleteness what we may conceive might have been, are deficient 
 under two aspects — they do not rest upon causes which we can ac- 
 tuaUy see in operation, or can infer certainly fi-om the analogies of na- 
 ture ; and theyleave unexplained certain classes of facts which any 
 complete theory is bound to accoimt for. With, regard to the former 
 objection, it is not the rule that a change of circumstances or habits 
 involves a change of organization ; and with regard to the latter, 
 sudi phenomena as those of the colour of some insects being ad^ted 
 to the colour of the leaves or branches where they are usuallyfoimd — 
 the colour of the eggs of some birds being similar to that of the 
 places where they are deposited — the peculiar organization and 
 habits of neuter insects, and other analogous facts — are left unac- 
 counted for. But it should in fairness be remembered that these 
 defects are no more than we must expect to find in the first attempts 
 to explain phenomena so complicated and so far beyond the limits 
 of our ordinary experience as those with which this theory professes 
 to deal ; and that it is the necessary, or at any rate the invariable 
 course of the human intellect, to attain to a complete and satisfactory 
 theory upon any subject, only after framing and abandoning many 
 imperfect and erroneous theories. It might almost be said that we 
 can only reach truth -through the gate of error. And these theories 
 have answered some important purposes. They have brought under 
 one general view all the phenomena which they profess to explain — 
 they have shown to a certain extent the relation and interdependence 
 of these phenomena ; and by their very failures they have pointed to 
 the path in which a true explanation of the facts is most probably 
 to be found. 
 
 In attempting to form any theory upon the subject the first ques- 
 tion to be determined is, whether in reality there has been any real 
 development or progress — whether the plants and animals of the' 
 present time are of higher classes and more perfectly organized than 
 those of the earliest times ; and if so, whether that elevation of type 
 and improvement in organization is such as to point to a gradual 
 progress from the simplest forms, or merely to an improvement by 
 the simplifying or specialization of more complex organizations. 
 These are questions which are far from being settled ; but upon the 
 
23 
 
 whole it appears to me that the evidence, both negative and posi- 
 tive, establishes the conclusion that there has been a progress from 
 lower to higher classes of beings, and from the more simple to the 
 more highly organized forms ; and that although a part of that 
 progress has consisted in a specializationof organs, yet that this has 
 on the whole been accompanied by a gradual elevation of the type, 
 the lowest organisms standing at one end of the scale and man at 
 the other. This conclusion is asserted or admitted by almost every 
 geologist, and by none more decidedly than by those who are opposed 
 to the doctrine of transmutation of species. That, in the order of 
 creation, the invertebrate preceded the vertebrate type, and that, 
 among vertebrates, fishes preceded reptiles, and reptiles mammals, 
 and that, last of all, man appeared,- are conclusions to which all the 
 evidence points, and in which all, or almost all, enquirers agree. 
 
 When, however, the question is raised whether the same evidence 
 of progress exists among the various species of which these families 
 are composed, and still more, whether there is any indication of a 
 passage from one class to another, there is no longer the same 
 unanimity. And it is undoubtedly the case that the earliest fishes, 
 reptiles, and birds, of which we have any remains, are not either of 
 small dimensions or of the lowest organization. With regard to 
 fishes. Professor Owen, from whom I again quote, says, "A retrospect 
 of the genetic history of fishes imparts an idea rather of mutation 
 than of development to which the class has been subject in the course 
 of geological time." And again, " It (the present period) repre- 
 sents rather a period of mutation of the piscine character depending 
 upon the progressive assumption of a more special piscine tj^e, and 
 progressive departure from a more general vertebrate type." " The 
 comparative anatomist dissecting a shark, a polypterus, or a lepi- 
 dosteus, would point to the structures of the brain, heart, generative 
 organs, and, in the last two genera, to the air-bladder, as being of a 
 higher or more reptilian character than the corresponding parts 
 would present in most other fishes. But the palaeontologist would 
 point to the persistent notochord and to the heterocercal tail in 
 palaeozoic and many mesozoic fishes as evidence of an ' arrest of 
 development' or of a retention of embryonic characters in these 
 primeval fishes." Again, with regard to reptiles, he says, " A 
 retrospect of the foregoing outline of the palaeontology of the class 
 of reptiles shows that, unlike that of fishes, it is now on the wane, 
 and that the period when reptiles flourished under the greatest di- 
 versity of forms with the highest grade of structure and of the most 
 colossal size is the mesozoic. The progress of air-breathing verte- 
 
24 
 
 brates, graduating Ijy close transitional steps from the water- 
 breathing class, has been checked, as if it had been unequal to the 
 exigencies and life capacities of the present state of the planet. 
 Eeptiles have been superseded by air-breathers of a higher type 
 which cannot be directly derived from the class of fishes. A more 
 generalized vertebrate structure is illustrated in the extinct reptiles 
 by the affinities to ganoid fishes shown by the ganocephala, laby- 
 rinthodontia, and icthyopterygia, by the affinities of pterosauria to 
 birds, and by the approximation of dinosauria to mammals." With 
 regard to birds the evidence is so imperfect that scarcely any general 
 conclusion can be drawn ; but the earliest indication of the existence 
 of this class of vertebrates, the fossil footmarks found in the sand- 
 stones of Connecticut, show birds of a size apparently surpassing 
 any at present known to exist. With regard, consequently, to these 
 three classes of vertebrate animals, there appears to be no evidence 
 of any links connecting the earlier forms with any lower organiza- 
 tion, and these earlier forms are themselves highly organized and 
 many of great size. From their first appearance there are indica- 
 tions of change of specific character, which in the fishes has resulted 
 in the general establishment of true fish-like forms without any 
 of the reptilian characters found in the palaeozoic fishes, and in the 
 loss of the embryonic characters by which those paleozoic fishes 
 also appear to have been distinguished. In the reptiles there has 
 also been a similar specialization, the existing reptiles having for 
 the most part lost the fish, bird, and mammal affinities which the 
 earliest forms displayed. The evidence, then, which we possess, con- 
 fining ourselves to these two latter classes for the moment, shows a 
 change in each in a certain direction, which so far would seem to be 
 favourable to the idea of transmutation of species — at any rate 
 within these classes themselves, and possibly also of a transmutation 
 from the class of fishes to that of reptiles ; but it does not aiford any 
 support to the idea of the derivation of the class of fishes fi-om a 
 lower class. It does not, however, contradict such an idea, unless 
 upon the supposition that the evidence is complete, and that the 
 fishes whose remains we have discovered were the earliest fishes 
 that existed. With regard to mammals the evidence appears to be, 
 that the earliest known fossils of this class are found in very early 
 deposits, and are, so far as they can be identified, of the lowest type ; 
 then that there are enormous periods ol time, and deposits rich in 
 fossils of various classes, but with no mammalian remains, until we 
 arrive at the tertiary deposits, where fossils of this order abound, 
 gradually becoming more and more similar to the existing order of 
 
25 
 
 animals. Taken generally, then, it may perhaps be stated that the 
 result of the palaeoutological evidence shows there is in a certain 
 sense a progress from the earliest times to the present — ^that in some 
 cases, more especially in the invertebrate class, and most noticeably 
 as we approach the existing order of things, where the evidence is 
 more continuous and perfect, species appear to pass into each other 
 by almost insensible gradations, but that this seeming continuity is 
 frequently interrupted, and that there are intervals between the 
 various classes which contradict the theory of transmutation, if we 
 can assume that there are no missing Units which might, if pre- 
 served, have filled up the gap. 
 
 It is, of course, essential to any theory which can be received as 
 sufficient that it shall not be contradicted by the evidence. The 
 evidence may not in the first instance completely establish the 
 theory — it may not in some cases ever prove sufficient to do so, be- 
 cause the evidence itself may be hopelessly defective. And there 
 may even be facts which the theory is inadequate to explain, without 
 destroying its claim to be received, conditionally, or even absolutely. 
 As, for instance, the theory of gravitation was insufficient to explain 
 the perturbations of the planet Uranus until the discovery of the 
 planetNeptune ; and Kepler's laws to explain the observed difierences 
 in the period of the occultation of Jupiter's satellites, according as they 
 wera nearer or more distant from the earth, until the velocity of light 
 was admitted and determined. Nevertheless, these theories were 
 accepted, and astronomers addressed themselves to the work of 
 discovering the cause of the seeming exceptions. And so, in any 
 theory that may be framed in order to account for the origin of 
 species, it is no vahd objection to its soundness that there are ap- 
 parent exceptions and anomalies which it fails to explain, though it 
 would be a conclusive objection if there were any facts by which it 
 was directly contradicted. If, for instance, to refer to a work which 
 is probably well known to all of you, there was proof that the gi- 
 gantic asterolepis, discovered by the late Hugh Miller in the Caith- 
 ness Sandstones, and so graphically described by him in his " Foot- 
 prints of the Creator," was the earliest fish that ever existed, as it 
 is one of the oldest fishes of which any trace has been found ; and if 
 there were no invertebrate animals which approached nearer to it 
 than those whose remains have been discovered ; such a fact woidd, 
 as it seems to me, directly contradict and be fatal to any theory of 
 development or transmutation. But the fact that this organism is 
 the oldest fossil vertebrate discovered, in our profound ignorance of 
 the innumerable organisms which peopled the palaeozoic seas prior 
 
26 
 
 to and contemporaneous with the deposit of the old red sandstone, 
 almost the only trace of which is foxmd in those Caithness Sand- 
 stones, of itself proves nothing against any theory. It only leayes 
 the application of the theory imperfect so far as these animals are 
 concerned, inasmuch as it is impossible to show whether or in what 
 manner their origiaation conformed to the theory. 
 
 Assuming, then, what no one will now deny, that the materials 
 of evidence are incomplete; that, whatever theory we may adopt, its 
 appUcatian must inevitably be ia a great measure conjectural ; the 
 questions for our decision are, first, what is the apparent bearing of 
 the evidence so far as we can trace it — and second, is there anything, 
 in the nature of the case or in the seeming exceptions, which should 
 prevent us from adopting this apparent conclusion as true ? Before 
 attempting an answer to these questions there are, however, certain 
 general considerations which it is necessary to bear in mind. 
 
 In the first place, then, birth and death, extinction and repro- 
 duction, are correlative, and in the order of nature supplement- and 
 indeed almost imply each other. The causes which produce one set 
 of phenomena are therefore presumably sufficient to account for the 
 other. If the death of individuals results from the laws of nature, 
 so also w^e may presume will their birth ; if the extinction of species 
 is due to natural causes, so we may presume is their origination. 
 Throughout the past the two processes have gone on together,"both 
 with regard to individuals and to species ; and they appear at all 
 times to have balanced each other, so that on the whole there has 
 been neither excess nor deficiency. Their conjoint operation has 
 been, moreover, a necessary condition of the progressive elevation 
 of the type of organized beings. As, therefore, we know from 
 our own recent experience that natural causes will produce the ex- 
 tinction of species, there is a strong aniecedent presumption that 
 natural causes may also produce their origination. In fact, to deny 
 this is, by an almost necessary implication, to assert that the world 
 is so arranged as that natural causes produce supernatural conse- 
 quences. The occasion in nature for the origination of a new 
 species is that there is a place for it, either by reason of its greater 
 fitness for its new position, or by reason of the diminution or ex- 
 tinction of some other species, and this is unquestionably a natural 
 cause. To assert, then, that the production of a new species, which 
 is produced because there is this place for it, and would not be pro- 
 duced, for it could not exist, otherwise, is in effect to attriUute 
 supernatural effects to natural causes. 
 
 And, in the second place, the general, if not the universal, rule is 
 
27 
 
 that there is now no origination of the vital force. Excepting with 
 ihe BJiost elemental^ forms, if even they are to be excepted, it ap- 
 pears now to be established, or at any rate it is the almost universal 
 opinion of naturalists, that there is no such thing as spontaneous 
 generation — ^that the whole organic life of the globe, in all its com- 
 plexity and profiision, is a continuation of former life without any 
 interruption or break. Myriads of germs possessing vital force are 
 never developed — myriads of living beings in every generation die 
 without reproducing their species ; but organic life is always the con- 
 tinuation of previously-existing life. The life of the offspring is a 
 prolongation of the life of the parents — the germ developing itself 
 according to definite laws, so as in its full growth to be specifically 
 identical with the parent, though individually distinct, and within 
 certain limits different. "Whatever doubts may rest upon other 
 questions connected with this subject, upon this there is none — that 
 organic life, in all but th% most elementary forms, is but the mani- 
 festation in new elements of the same life which before existed. 
 There can be no break in this chain. If a seed die, it rots and 
 nothing springs from it. In order to the growth of the plant it is 
 essential that the vitality of the germ remain unimpaired; and then, 
 by some power, which in our ignorance of its nature we call the 
 vital force, and by some process, which as yet we are unable to ex- 
 plain, it attracts from the surrounding inorganic elements the mate- 
 rials for building up a perfect plant. Now this fact, which is most 
 strongly insisted upon by the opponents of all theories of develop- 
 ment or transmutation, appears to me at any rate to involve a very 
 strong argument against their theory of the origination of species 
 in some unexplained manner, but not in the course of ordinary 
 generation. For, assuming, as they assert, that all new species are 
 formed independently ; either by infusing life into some newly-formed 
 germ which shall develop itself into mature and complete being by 
 assimilating from the surrounding elements the necessary materials ; 
 or else by shaping those elements at once into the perfect form of 
 the new animal or plant — and it must be presumed that one or the 
 other of these metiiods is intended — then spontaneous genera- 
 tion is just what we should have a right to expect ; and in the con- 
 ditions of the globe, changing as they are in every locality from 
 year to year, we should always be on the watch to detect these new 
 manifestations of creative power. From the earliest ages of which 
 the crust of the earth presents a record, down to the present time, 
 there has been a change in the two directions of extinction and 
 renovation — species dying out, and their places being supplied by 
 
28 
 
 new species ; and as at tte present moment the process of extinction 
 of species is going on, we have a right to presume that the cor- 
 responding process of the origination of new species is going on too. 
 If, therefore, this origination is not in the way of ordinary genera- 
 tion, to ns it must necessarily appear as spontaneous generation. 
 It would consequently be wise in the opponents of the idea that 
 species can be originated as a result of the ordinary laws which 
 regulate the succession of organized beings, to re-examine their ob- 
 jections to the theory of spontaneous generation, and to consider 
 whether, by their opposition to that theory, they may not have de- 
 prived themselves of opportunities of seeing the actual manifestation 
 of that miraculous creative energy in which they believe. 
 
 It may, no doubt, be said that there is yet a third method. The 
 animal or plant might be created in the theological sense — that is, 
 formed out of nothing ; the very elements of which it is composed 
 might be called into existence ; and the being thus miraculously origi- 
 nated might be placed upon the earth, perfect in organization, with 
 matured instincts and powers, supematurally implanted and directed. 
 And this appears to be the view of the learned author of the Eclipse 
 of Faith, at least with regard to man. But even in this case, since 
 it would be necessary, in order that the being thus created should 
 be nurtured, and Uve, and propagate its species, that the elements 
 of which it is composed — ^the carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 
 phosphorus, iron, sulphur, and the rest — should be absolutely the 
 same in their nature and properties with those which already ex- 
 isted, so that the most minute chemical analysis should fail to detect 
 the slightest difference, there would be no possibility of verifying 
 this supposed method of origination, and, to the spectator who wit- 
 nessed the phenomenon, it would stiU, if he could believe his eyes, 
 be no more than an apparent case of spontaneous generation. Whether 
 it be a germ into which a new principle of vitality is infused, and to 
 which a new form of development is given ; or whether the inorganic 
 elements suddenly flash into the organized tissues which constitute 
 the perfect form ; or whether the very substances of which these 
 organized tissues are foi-med are contemporaneously called into 
 existence, to our observation and to our understanding there is and 
 can be nothing but the appearance of spontaneous generation. 
 
 Undoubtedly, however, there are considerations connected with 
 the idea of spontaneous generation which account for the disfavour 
 in which it is held by the opponents of the idea of the transmuta- 
 tion of species. For, inasmuch as this spontaneous generation would 
 be nothing more than the apparent evolution of the vital force by 
 
29 
 
 the union or combination of certain elementary substances, in no way 
 to be distinguished from the evolution of the electrical force, or of 
 chemical forces, from similar imions and combinations ; nothing to 
 the common apprehension would more tend to connect the idea of 
 life with the idea of law than such an occurrence. And however 
 miraculous the occurrence in fact might be, there would be no pos- 
 sibility of the most eloquent theologian, or the most acute controver- 
 sialist, proving upon scientific grounds its supernatural character. 
 
 We may, however, for the purposes of the present discussion, assume, 
 as a fact resting upon all the evidence which in the nature of the 
 case it is possible to bring to bear upon the subject, that at any rate, 
 excepting in the case of the most simple and elementary organism, 
 spontaneous generation does not exist. Every living thing has sprung 
 from a parent by the process of ordinary generation. And, upon the 
 other hand, it is an admitted fact that generally, if not imiversally, 
 species remain constant for many thousands of years ; that no case 
 of the passage of one species into another has ever been verified ; 
 and that the divergencies between known species are in very many 
 instances so great as to negative the idea that they can have passed 
 one into the other without having also passed through transitional 
 stages of which no traces can be found. On each side there are 
 unquestionable and admitted difficulties. The question, then, is 
 whether it is more probable that, we will say, the first pair of 
 elephants was produced by ordinary generation from parents dif- 
 fering slightly from themselves, who had themselves been similarly 
 produced; or whether they were the outgrowth of germs inde- 
 pendently originated, and miraculously developed into the form of 
 an elephant, by a process of assimilation which we not only do not 
 know but cannot even by any process of imagination represent to 
 ourselves ; or whether the various elements of which their bodies 
 ^ere composed were suddenly brought together from the surrounding 
 earth and air and plants and water, and formed into the complete 
 forms of a male and female elephant, into which forms life was mi- 
 raculously infused, and which were also at the same time and by the 
 same miracle endowed with all the instincts necessary for their own 
 preservation and the propagation of the species. Tried by the test 
 of reason, and by their conformity to the laws of nature, which are 
 to us the expression of the Divine plan, there can be no doubt that 
 the first of these suppositions is the most probable — nay, is the only 
 one conceivable. There may be difficulties in the way of any theory 
 that may be framed to accoimt for the precise mode in which the 
 species of elephants has originated — ^how the specific differences by 
 
30 
 
 wliich that species is characterized and defined could have been 
 produced, and how, being produced, they could have remained so 
 permanent ; but these difficulties, great as they nndoubte?ily are, 
 almost disappear by the side of those by which either of the other 
 theories or any that can be substituted in their place is surrounded. 
 It may, no doubt, be said that the cases are different — that ia the 
 one case, when we undertake to explain, and account for the pheno- 
 mena, the theories which we frame for this purpose are properly 
 amenable to reason and must satisfy the conditions of science ; but 
 that when reason is con&ssedly abandoned, and science pronounced 
 incompetent either as a clue or as a test, and when it thus becomes 
 necessary to invoke the direct supernatural iuterposition of the 
 Deity, we have no right to subject the mode of his operation to 
 criticism upon rational or scientific grounds. I do not enquire how 
 far this objection may be well founded in principle, but it is obvious 
 that it proceeds upon the assumption that the supernatural character 
 of the phenomenon is demonstrated, at least negatively by the ex- 
 clusion of every other hypothesis ; while, in feet,, that is the very 
 question at issue. And, until this demonstration is furnished, we of 
 course are entitled to examine the apparent appropriateness and 
 adequacy of the processes which it is proposed, or which it is pos- 
 sible, to substitute for those which we have suggested. 
 
 But, to revert for a moment to the case of the elephant, there is a 
 further diffilcully suggested by his peculiar organization. In his 
 massive foot, enclosed, in one continuous integument, and combined 
 together into a solid mass, there is- tiie same number of separate 
 bones, occupying the same relative positions, as in the human hand. 
 How or why this should have occurred on the theory of supernatural 
 creation, no one has ever suggested, excepting upon the anthropo- 
 morphic idea that the Creator has, throughout the whole animal 
 kingdom, designedly limited himself to a certain type, and has, if I 
 may venture to employ the phrase, shown his skill and ingenuity 
 by the innumerable modifications of that type whieh adapt it more 
 or less; perfectly to the circumstances of the particular animal : thus 
 accomplishing indirectiy what might otherwise have been accom- 
 plished directly — ^imperfectiy what might have been accomplished 
 completely, and even creating, useless appendages and rudimentary 
 structures, such as, for instance, the abortive teeth in the young 
 whale, for no other purpose than to preserve this unity of type. 
 
 That this unity of type does exist is no doubt incontestable, as 
 well as that it has existed from all time. In tiie past, as well as in 
 the present, there is nothing at variance with this plan. Whatever 
 
31 
 
 discoveries may have been made, and however widely the forms dis- 
 covered may depart from those with which we are familiar, they are 
 all part of the same system, and take their place in the series — 
 generally tending to bridge over the intervals which were previously 
 supposed to exist between known forms. As it has been said, we 
 never come upon a fossil centaur or a palaeozoic mermaid. Every 
 new discovery in fact only tends to bring into greater union and 
 harmony the existing forms, and to demonstrate yet more com- 
 pletely the unity of plan which pervades all nature. The only 
 question here is, what inference are we entitled to draw from its 
 universality and permanence ? It is scarcely necessary to say that 
 this unity of plan, at any rate, becomes intelligible on the supposition 
 that aU species are connected through the medium qf a common an- 
 cestry, if it does not even furnish a presumption in favour of that 
 conclusion. It is a fact eminently consistent with such an idea, as- 
 taken by itself it may be supposed to be also consistent with the 
 opposite idea of direct creation, all forms having their origin in the 
 same creative mind. But while on a general view this observed 
 unity is consistent with the latter conception, the manner in which 
 it is carried out is full of difficulties. When, for instance, the same 
 bones in the same relative positions are found in the hand of man, 
 the " trowel" of a mole, the paddle of a whale, and the hoof of sta. 
 elephant — when the same multiplied points of ossification in the skuU 
 of the human foetus which are so usefid in parturition are also 
 found in similar order " in the skull of the embryo kangaroo which 
 is born when an inch in length, and in that of the callow bird which 
 breaks the brittle egg," these facts, which are significant on the Mie 
 supposition are meaningless and unintelligible on the other ; and 
 these, though among the most striking, are only an insignificant 
 fraction of the vast number of similar instances. 
 
 Another fact which points in the same direction is the existence 
 of what have been termed specific centres of creation. It is well 
 known that whenever any two tracts of land, whether large or small, 
 are entirely separated from each other, then whatever may be the 
 analogy of soil, climate, and natural conditions, there is almost always 
 an absence of specific identity between the animal and vegetable forms 
 found in the one and in the other, while at the same time there is 
 a strong general resemblance between them. Thus, in tiie temperate 
 regions of Europe, of Asia,, aai of North America there is a striking 
 resemblance in the general aspect of the flora and faima, while 
 there are comparatively very few plants or animals specifically 
 the same. And, in connection with this, there is the additional 
 
32 
 
 circumstance that, in small islands, the plants and animals found 
 there generally resemble those 'which are found in the nearest con- 
 tinent, though they diiFer specifically. Nor can it now be said, as 
 once used to be said, that there is such a relation between the or- 
 ganisms found in any country, and its conditions of soil, climate, 
 and temperature, as that they are better adapted the one to the 
 other, than without these specific differences could have been the 
 ease. For it has been foimd that both plants and animals, when 
 introduced by the agency of man into a new country, and there left 
 to themselves, have spread themselves over the face of the land to 
 the exclusion and consequent destruction of the native races ; thus 
 proving themselves better adapted to their new home than species 
 which upon this theory were created specially for it ; and even some- 
 times showing that their new home was better adapted to themselves 
 than that from which they- had been transplanted, and where they 
 were first found. 
 
 There are two other general facts pointing to the same general 
 conclusion to which I may advert, merely mentioning them. The 
 one is the existence of apparent imperfections in organizations, 
 which may be illustrated, to select one instance only, by the circum- 
 stance that the bee loses its sting and so its life when it uses it ; 
 and the other is the manner in which animals are adapted to habits 
 of life apparently at variance with their organization, as in the case 
 of the water ouzel ; or in which the purposes of the organization 
 appear to be missed, as in the case of the musk duck of the Murray, 
 which, though having wings, is unable to fly, and only uses them 
 to paddle itself along more quickly. All of these are inexplicable 
 on the theory of specific acts of creation, but they are capable of 
 explanation on the hjrpothesis, which they aU in their turn tend to 
 support, of the transmutation of species. 
 
 It may be said in answer to these last suggestions that it is 
 nothing uncommon in nature to find phenomena for which we are 
 unable to account, and that imperfection is the universal attribute 
 of finite beings. I admit this, and I admit also that it would be 
 an Unusual and, so to speak, a suspicious circumstance if anything 
 were found not having these marks of obscurity and incomplete- 
 ness. The analogy of nature leads us necessarily to anticipate their 
 existence ; but, if any opponent of the theory of creation according 
 to law refers to the analogy of nature and relies upon it, he must be 
 content to be bound by the witness to which he has appealed. And 
 that gives no support to his view. On the contrary, we see every- 
 where in nature general laws operating; working, as we believe, on 
 
the whole, for the general good, but causing in their influence much 
 individual suffering — everywhere we see evidences of the highest 
 wisdom as shown in the establishment and maintenance of perma- 
 nent order and regularity ; but we look in vain for any marks of in- 
 terruption or violation of those laws or of that order. Everywhere 
 we see natural causes working to the accomplishment of the Divine 
 purposes ; nowhere do we find anything to show us that those 
 ordained causes are inadequate, or that they require special inter- 
 positions to prevent their failure. The analogy of nature leads us, 
 therefore, irresistibly to the conclusion that whatever we see around 
 us owes its origin to the same laws to which obviously it owes its 
 preservation ; and there is nothing in nature, whatever there may 
 be in the regions of speculation or of sentiment, to lead to any other 
 conclusion. 
 
 I had intended to have said something in detail of the theory of 
 Mr. Darwin, which, though confessedly incomplete, at any rate 
 offers a solution of the problem of the origin of species strictly in 
 accordance with what we know from experience, and can infer from 
 analogy, of the operations of nature : but I find that I have not left 
 myself space for the purpose. His theory is based upon the ob- 
 served fact that in all, or almost all, organizations there is a tendency 
 to slight variation, and that, by taking advantage of this tendency 
 and selecting for breeding those animals which vary in any par- 
 ticular direction, we are able to accumulate these variations and to 
 cause in the course of a comparatively few generations very percep- 
 tible differences of structure and habit. And from this, taken in 
 connection with the constant struggle for existence among indi- 
 viduals of the same and of different species, arising from the cir- 
 cumstance that in general only a fraction of those who are born can 
 live and propagate their kind, he argues that in the battle of life 
 any variation, however slight, which gives any Individual an ad- 
 vantage, will tend to the preservation of that individual, and to his 
 having offspring, some of whom at least, on the principle of the 
 hereditary transmission of Individual peculiarities, would partake 
 of the peculiarity of their progenitor, possibly in a greater degree, 
 and would thus be more likely to survive and to bear offspring re- 
 sembling themselves in the characters to which their own preser- 
 vation was owing. And in this manner, time being allowed, he 
 assumes that any amount of deviation from the original species is 
 capable of explanation. Stated In this general manner, there is 
 nothing in the theory which is not within the limits of a sound 
 analogy ; but whether, when applied to the facts, it wUI suffice for 
 
34 
 
 their explanation, is an altogether different question, and one upon 
 which it would be premature to pronounce confidently. But at any 
 rate it has the merit of proposing a vera causa, something that we 
 know to exist, and whose operations we are, within certain limits, 
 able to trace ; and in the sketch of his theory which Mr. Darwin 
 has published, he has accumulated an immense amount of facts, of 
 many of which I have already availed myself, which tend to show 
 that at any rate this principle has the merit of offering a probable so- 
 lution of the question. And although his theory, from the extent to 
 which it rtms counter to cherished prepossessions, is certain to excite 
 strenuous opposition, I have no doubt that it will be ultimately 
 recognized as having commenced a new era ; and that it will be 
 conceded to Mr. Darwin that if he has not himself effectually solved 
 the problem, yet that he has opened up the true way to its ultimate 
 solution. 
 
 There is one objection to this theory as developed by Mr. Darwin 
 proceeding from the pen of Sir Jphn Herschel, to which, however, 
 I may before concluding briefly advert, because it is a type of much 
 that has been vrritten against the theory, and of more that has silently 
 operated to prevent its reception. Sir John says, " we can no more 
 accept the principle of arbitrary and casual variation and natural 
 selection as a sufficient account per se of the past and present 
 organic world, than we can receive the Laputan method of 
 composing books (pushed a Voutrance) as a sufficient one of 
 Shakspeare and the Principia. Equally in either case an intel- 
 ligence guided by a purpose must be continually in action to 
 bias the direction of the steps of change — to regulate their 
 amount— to limit their divergence— and to continue them in a 
 definite course. We do not believe that Mr. Darwin means to deny 
 the necessity of such intelligent direction. But it does not, so far 
 . as we can see, enter into the formula of his law, and without it we 
 are unable to conceive how the law can have led to the results." 
 So far Sir John, and there is no doubt that he expresses the senti- 
 ments of very many persons, though I confess there is scarcely any 
 person from whom I should not have been less surprised to hear 
 such sentiments than from him. This objection seems to me to 
 ignore all that has been accomplished, in no small degree by his own 
 labours, to show how the laws which the Creator has impressed 
 upon matter are sufficient of themselves, and enable us to dispense 
 with the imaginary vortices of Descartes, or the angelic intelligences 
 of Kepler, that kept the planets spinning on their axis. It leaves 
 out of consideration what Bishop Butler had said of the superior 
 
35 
 
 evidences of wisdom and power furnialied by a law which executes 
 itself, as contrasted with one which requires the perpetual inter- 
 vention of the Lawgiver in order that it may be executed. And, in 
 reference to the special subject, it forgets that, inasmuch as this law 
 of variation can only work in so far as it tends to give to the indi- 
 vidual some advantage which otherwise he would not have pos- 
 sessed, it has within itself the necessary guide and check. The 
 theory assumes that variations, hurtful as well as beneficial, may 
 occur, and perhaps with equal frequency ; but that only those which 
 are advantageous to their possessors have any tendency to per- 
 petuate themselves ; while those which are injurious have a direct 
 tendency to prevent their own perpetuation; inasmuch as they place 
 the individuals in whom they occur at a disadvantage in the struggle 
 for life, and so on the whole ensure that they shall not survive or 
 propagate their species. This law, then, if established, does not 
 require that an intelligence guided by a purpose should be con- 
 tinually in action to bias the directions of the steps of change, for 
 the intelligence which has established the law has rendered it self- 
 executing and self-regulating. And this surely gives us a higher 
 conception of the Divine wisdom and power than a system which 
 was so imperfect as to need perpetual interference and adjustment. 
 Once it was thought that the planetary perturbations were such as 
 to threaten the system with ruin, unless the Creator should interfere 
 to restore order ; and there were not a few who looked upon this as 
 one of the proofs of the existence of a Deity. But now that we know 
 that God has made these worlds fast for ever and ever — that he has 
 given them a law which cannot be broken — ^that by this law they 
 win, so. far as our foresight extends, continue harmoniously in their 
 courses for all time — have we not a higher and a worthier concep- 
 tion of his wisdom, and even a more convincing proof of his ex- 
 istence, than could be derived from any fancied imperfection in his 
 plans, because that imperfection might, to our limited view, appear 
 to require his personal interposition ? The highest evidence of the 
 wisdom, and the most adequate, or I would rather say the least in- 
 adequate, idea of the character of God, appear to me to be derived 
 from the eontemplation of all things, whether inorganic, vital, mental, 
 or spiritual, working together, obscurely perhaps but unerringly, 
 towards the accomplishment of results which he has preordained, 
 in obedience to laws which he has established. 
 
LAW IN HISTOEY. 
 
 The idea of Law in History implies little more tlian the application 
 to communities of the conception involved in the familiar phrases 
 which we so frequently employ in speaking of individuals — " one 
 would not have expected it of hini," and, " what else could he 
 expect?" It implies that the conduct of nations, no less than that 
 of individuals, and just because nations are made up of individuals, 
 is the result of the character and circumstances of the nation ; and 
 that its destiny is, to a certain noticeable extent, the result of its 
 conduct. It however implies, further, that the character and circiun- 
 stances of the nation are themselves the orderly result of something 
 that has gone ])efore, which has made them what they are ; and 
 that, whatever may affect its destiny, not as the direct result of its 
 own character and conduct, must either result from physical causes, 
 which again result from the operation of physical laws, or from the 
 contact of other nations, whose conduct towards it is in the same 
 manner determined by their own circumstances and character. But 
 in all these respects the idea of natural laws as applied to nations 
 resembles, in its essential particulars, the conception which we form 
 .with regard to individuals. And it is so much a matter of common 
 experience that the conduct of any individual is determined, first, by 
 what he is in himself, and secondly, by the circumstances in which 
 he is placed and the motives which arise out of those circumstances ; 
 and that, just in proportion as we are acquainted with these, we 
 should be able to anticipate what he will feel and do in any par- 
 ticular conjuncture ; that few would experience any difficulty in 
 extending the conclusion which is thus found applicable to indi- 
 viduals to the case of nations. The object, then, of the present 
 Paper will be, first, to enquire whether a general survey of the 
 observed facts of history supports this first impression, and what 
 are the elements of the law thus deduced. 
 The first general conclusion, which springs from the most ele- 
 
37 
 
 mentary acquaintance with history, is that, among what we call 
 civilized nations, there has been, on the whole, a progress in all 
 subjects — ^material, mental, and moral ; and that this progress has 
 resulted from the circumstance that, as a rule, each generation has 
 been enabled to avail itself of the experience of those which have 
 gone before ; and to make the acquisitions and discoveries of its pre- 
 decessors the starting point for new discoveries and gains. No 
 doubt there have been numerous and signal exceptions to this. 
 Wars and despotisms have not only at aU times checked progress, 
 but they tave sometimes even thrown nations back to a condition 
 of barbarism in which they have lost the knowledge which their 
 ancestors possessed, and have almost forgotten its existence. But 
 these are the exceptions ; and in spite of these the human race has 
 continued to advance. This is so obvious that it is unnecessary to 
 attempt to prove it, and scarcely necessary to give any instance by 
 way of illustration. A railway train with its engine anH carriages, 
 as compared with the carriages, or rather cars, which are figured 
 on the monuments of Thebes or Nineveh ; and these latter as con- 
 trasted -with the entirely primitive and, I presume, patriarchal 
 methods of locomotion employed by the natives of this land ; or the 
 gas lights which in almost all the large towns of the civUized world 
 render the streets as passable by night as by day, and the moderator, 
 argand, paraffin, kerosine, and other lamps for domestic use, as com- 
 pared with the torches and lamps of Egypt and Assyria, or of Greece 
 or Rome ; as these latter, with the absence of aU means of artificial 
 illumination among our natives, whom we may perhaps take as types 
 of the primitive man — not indeed in colour or in organization, but 
 in knowledge— may be referred to for the purpose of illustrating 
 the reality and the extent of this progress in the material elements 
 of civilization. And it is also obvious that, in the very nature of 
 things, this progress implies that every successive step is contingent 
 upon those which have preceded it. The knowledge of auy given 
 fact is the necessaiy condition for the acquisition of the knowledge of 
 all other facts dependent upon it — the possession of an instrument is 
 the necessary condition for the execution of aU the works which, 
 without that instrument, could not have been accomplished. Thus, 
 the knowledge of the properties of fire in smelting metals, and in 
 reducing them into such a form as that tools could be manufactm-ed 
 from them, necessarily preceded the formation of those tools ; and 
 the possession of those metal tools was a pre-requisite to the erection 
 of temples and palaces, the construction of ships, the making of 
 armour and weapons, and, in fact, for the accomplishment of all the 
 
38 
 
 •various purposes to whicli these tools were devoted. Under this 
 aspect, therefore, the development of humanity must have been, as 
 it must continue to be, progressive. And it may be added, that the 
 first steps of that progress must have been almost inconceivably 
 slow. Let any one compare, for instance, the mode of melting and 
 forging iron at the present moment in use among the natives of India, 
 with that which is shown to have been in use in Egypt, certainly 
 some three thousand years ago, and observe the little improvement 
 which has been made 'in that long interval, and he will then be able 
 to form some estimate of the smallest period necessary in order that 
 the art of metallurgy should have been raised to that rude stage, 
 even after the possibility of fusing and employing metals had 
 been discovered. And, if we may judge by analogy, the period 
 which must have elapsed before that discovery must have been even 
 yet more extended ; since it would seem inevitable that the first 
 stages of invention, unguided by theory, and unaided by the imple- 
 ments which invention itself creates, must have been the slowest 
 and longest. 
 
 With regard to the mental progress of manMnd it may be 
 sufficient to adduce by way of illustration the differential calculus 
 as compared with the arithmetical methods known even to the 
 most advanced of the Greek mathematicians, and this with the 
 primitive method of counting by the fingers and toes ; or, better 
 stiU, we may refer to the general amount of knowledge, difiused 
 through the majority of the inhabitants of every civilized country, 
 as contrasted with the inevitable ignorance of the peoples of an- 
 tiquity, upon all subjects excepting those of a directly practical 
 character, and, even upon these, outside of the class which needed to 
 employ the knowledge in practice. And, with regard to the moral 
 progress, it is sufficient to refer to the wide difference between such 
 conceptions of the character of the Supreme Being as are involved 
 in the phrases " Jehovah smelled a sweet savour," " Jehovah rested 
 and was refreshed," " It repented Jehovah that he had made man," 
 and those which are conveyed by the words " God is a spirit," 
 " In him there is no variableness nor the shadow of turning,'' 
 " Jehovah, the maker of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither 
 is weary ;" or, under another aspect, to contrast the idea of the 
 Divine government involved in the accormt of the slaughter of all 
 the first-bom of Egjrpt to punish the obstinacy of their king, the 
 command to exterminate the people of Canaan, and the sacrifice of 
 the grand-children of Saul to stay a famine, with those implied in 
 ' the phrase " God willeth not the death of the sinner, but rather 
 
39 ' 
 
 tltat he should turn from his wickedness and live," or this, " He bath 
 showed thee, oh man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require 
 of thee but to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
 thy God ?" or this, " Suppose ye that those upon whom the tower 
 of Siloam fell were guilty above all who dwelt in Jerusalem" — ^in 
 order to see how great is the progress under this aspect. And, as 
 the conceptions which men actually form of the Being whom they 
 worship, however those conceptions may have originated, or from 
 whatever source they may have been derived, constitute the ideal 
 to which they, for the most part, seek, consciously or unconsciously, 
 to conform their own life, and the test by which character and con- 
 duct are tiied ; this progress in the ideas formed of the Divine 
 character forms a standard by which we may approximately estimate 
 the moral progress of man. And this is the more noticeable when 
 we remember by how wide an interval even the earliest of these 
 conceptions, involving, as they did, the idea of the Unity of God, 
 and that he is the moral Governor of the world, were separated from 
 the fetichism and polytheism of the surrounding nations, and from 
 the degrading idolatry and shameless practices with which this 
 fetichism and polytheism were associated. 
 
 And not merely do we thus find proofs of a progress of our race 
 under these aspects ; and all progress implies causes, and suggests 
 laws, according to which those causes operate ; but we are also able 
 to trace, to a certain extent, the causes of the growth and decay of 
 empires and of states, and to see in what manner and by what in- 
 fluences this general progress has been interrupted, and sometimes 
 apparently changed into a retrograde movement ; often by the very 
 means employed for the purpose of accelerating or securing its 
 advance. It is not necessary for the purposes of this Paper, nor 
 would it indeed be possible within the limits to which I must con- 
 fine myself, to illustrate this branch of the subject at any length. 
 It is sufficient to say, what the recollection of all wiU confinn, that, 
 in precise proportion as we are acquainted with the details of the 
 history of any people, we are enabled to trace the various phases of 
 growth and decay, of prosperity and suffering, to intelligible and 
 ascertainable causes, and to see how the laws of human nature and 
 ' the influence of circumstances have asserted themselves against the 
 most skilfuUy-planned attempts or the most elaborate policy. Illus- 
 trations from ancient history might be found in the early vigour, the 
 uniformly succeeding corruption, and the rapid fall of the Empires 
 of the East ; in the brilliant but brief career of the Greek Republics ; 
 and in the slow growth, the long vigorous maturity, the gradual 
 
40 
 
 decay, and the ultimate dissolution of the Roman Empire ; but aU of 
 these would require more detailed explanations than my time will 
 allow me to afford. I will, therefore, select orily , one illustration, 
 which I will take from the Jewish history, and which has appeared 
 to me to be one of the most striking instances of the influence of 
 circumstances as prevailing over, at once, the intentions of those who 
 originated the movement, and the feelings and wishes of those who 
 were the agents in its accomplishment. I refer to the causes 
 which led to the establishment of the kingdom of Israel as a separate 
 kingdom, and the consequences of that separation. 
 
 There can, I imagine, be no doubt that Ahijah in anointing 
 Jeroboam, and in thus preparing the way for the revolt of the 
 ten tribes against the successor of Solomon, had in view the 
 establishment of a kingdom, in which the pure worship of Jehovah 
 should be maintained. The idolatry of Solomori — his introduc- 
 tion, or public sanction, of the worship of strange gods, had 
 been the causes why the kingdom ihat his father had founded, 
 or rather consolidated, was to be broken up ; and it might 
 naturally be supposed, and was no doubt confidently anticipated, 
 that, with such an example before him, the man who was selected 
 by the prophet of Jehovah, speaking in his name, to rule over 
 the separated people, would have established and maintained a 
 pure worship ; which his successors would have preserved as their 
 best inheritance and their surest safeguard. We may, moreover, 
 reasonably presume that Jeroboam himself was known as a sincere 
 worshipper of Jehovah, and as one who had, privately at least, pro- 
 tested against the melancholy defection of Solomon from the faith 
 of his youth and his early manhood. And yet, no sooner was the 
 revolt successful, no sooner was the separation of the ten tribes 
 coiiipleted and the kingdom of Israel established, than the inevitable 
 jealousy of the ruler and of his people against the metropolis of the 
 old kingdom ; the jealousy of the priests of the high places against 
 the priests of the temple ; and the anticipations of the new king and 
 of his advisers of the probable consequences of allowing his subjects 
 to go up year by year to worship in the temple ; thus bringing them 
 under the influence of associations connected with the line of 
 David and the supremacy of Jerusalem, prevailed over every other 
 feeling : and Jeroboam set up, with the cordial acquiescence of the 
 whole separated nation, the golden calves at Bethel and at Dan, 
 and presented them to his people as representatives of the Elohim 
 who brought them up from the land of Egypt. Nor was this feeling 
 confined to him ; for when, at a later period, under Ahab, the wor- 
 
41 
 
 «liip of the sanguinary and obscene deities of the Phoenicians was 
 introduced, and the struggle between the servants of Jehovah and 
 the partizans of the idolatrous worship culminated in the massacre 
 of the priests of Baal in the deep clefts of the Kishon, and in the 
 anointing of Jehu to be king of Israel ; the latter, although receiving 
 his commission from a prophet of Jehovah, and although he quenched 
 the fires of the altars of Baal in the blood of their priests, and des- 
 troyed or suppressed every manifestation of foreign idolatry, was 
 impelled by the same motives or coerced by the same influences 
 that operated upon Jeroboam, to maintain the worship which 
 Jeroboam had established. And thus the result of a measure which 
 had for its object to found a kingdom dependent upon Jehovah, and 
 in which Jehovah should be peculiarly worshipped, led to the almost 
 entire apostacy of the majority of the Jewish people, and to their 
 ultimate absorption into the population of the kingdoms into which 
 they were carried captive. And this happened as the natural result 
 of the instinct of self-preservation, the feelings of national and 
 priestly rivalry, and the dictates of policy, necessarily springing out 
 of the position in which the new kingdom was placed. 
 
 It must not, however, be forgotten that other consequences of this 
 division have been of the highest importance to the history of the 
 world. It separated the kiagdom of Judah from those countries 
 whose alliance had been most injurious to the religion of the nation — 
 it rendered impossible those projects of forming a kingdom which 
 by its intrinsic strength might maintain itself against the monarchies 
 of Assyria or Egypt, which the successors of David would otherwise 
 have entertained — it cut oflF the channels of the commerce which, 
 under Solomon, was sapping the foundation of the Hebrew nation- 
 ality — and it therefore cleared the ground for that complete religious 
 reform or development, under whichever aspect it may be viewed, 
 which characterized the reigns of Hezekiah and of Josiah; and 
 which, finding its fullest expression in the writings of the prophets, 
 enabled a portion of the exiled Jews to maintain their unity and 
 their faith in the land of their captivity, and through the stormy 
 times that intervened between the return from exile and the birth 
 of our Saviour. Had the kingdom which David left been continued, 
 it can scarcely be doubted, from the conduct of Solomon, and the 
 subsequent history of the kingdom of Israel, that its great worldly 
 prosperity and the necessary blendiag of foreign elements with the 
 Jewish nationality, would have destroyed the essential peculiarities 
 of the character and religion of the Jews. And if this had been the 
 case, they too would have passed away, as so many nations more nu- 
 merous, powerful, and united than they have done. 
 
42 
 
 In modem history tlie instances are scarcely less striking. The 
 decay of Spain, as contrasted with the prosperity of Holland — ^the 
 fatal divisions which have hitherto prevented Italy from ranking as 
 a nation — the loss of the American Colonies by England — the French 
 Revolution — and last, but not least instructive, the disruption of the 
 United States of America^aU are so many illustrations of the 
 operation of causes which we can trace in the character, conduct, 
 and circumstances of each nation. And, in fact, owing to our more 
 intimate acquaintance with, the events of modem history, we are 
 able to follow that operation into more minute details, and to see 
 that it applies not only to the broad general facts of history, but 
 also to the separate incidents of which these genei-al facts are com- 
 posed. 
 
 This is not, of course, suggested as a scientific demonstration of the 
 fact that aU events in history are due to the operation of natural causes 
 working in a definite direction and producing certain results — ^nor 
 even as a complete enumeration of facts from which such an inference 
 might be deduced. I have rather proceeded upon the assumption 
 that the conduct, and consequently the fate, of nations is determined 
 by the character of the individuals of whom it is composed, of course 
 according to the degree of efiective power which they possess ; and 
 by the circumstances in which they are placed ; and I have referred 
 to these few familiar instances not by way of proof but of illustra- 
 tion. And I anticipate no dissent from this assumption, whatever 
 may be the view taken of the actual bearing of any of the examples 
 to which I have referred. Possibly, in fact, I might have spared all 
 illustration, and have proceeded upon the supposition not merely 
 that the general conclusion would be admitted, but that it did not 
 need any reference to particular instances in which its tendencies 
 were exemplified. But even if superfluous, I trust that the manner 
 in which I have attempted to Ulustrate the subject will not be found 
 altogether uninteresting. 
 
 Proceeding, then, upon the basis of this assumption, we have to 
 consider whether we can take a further step, and ascertain, in the 
 first place, what it is that determines the character of a people. 
 And here we enter upon a question upon which very wide difierences 
 of opinion exist. The question may perhaps be thus stated — Is 
 human nature, so to speak, a constant quantity ; so that if any people, 
 whatever their organizationprovided they are men, are placed in given 
 circumstances of soil, climate, and aspects of nature, we may expect 
 them to be similarly affected by these, and to develop a corresponding 
 civilization ; or, do different races so vary as that, if they could be 
 
43 
 
 placed in the same circumstances in all respects, so far as regarded 
 soil, climate, and aspects of nature, they would nevertheless manifest 
 a different degree and character of civilization, or might never attain 
 any civilization whatever ? This question has received various 
 answers ; and many eminent men — among whom I may mention two 
 of a past generation, Locke and Turgot, quoted by Mr. Buckle, and 
 two of the most profound thinkers of the present time, Mr. Buckle 
 and, if I mistake not, Mr. John Stuart Mill — support the former 
 view. Nor can it be denied that there are many very powerful 
 arguments in support of that conclusion. The effect of these ex- 
 ternal circumstances to which I have referred is unquestionably 
 immense ; and it appears to be established beyond all reasonable 
 doubt that, if two divisions of the same people could be separated 
 from each other, and placed, the one, for instance, in such a country 
 as Greece, and the other in such a country as Bengal, their develop- 
 ment must take different du-ections ; and theii- ultimate character, 
 when they had grown up into nations, must differ very widely from 
 each other. In fact, it , may almost be considered as proved that 
 this experiment has been made. The analogies of the Greek and 
 the Sanskrit languages have led all who have studied the subject to 
 conclude that the ruling class in Hindostan, and the Greeks, were 
 two branches of the same family, who were not separated untU they 
 had reached a certain amount of civilization : so that the wide dif- 
 ferences which existed between the development of the Greeks and 
 of the Hindoos — ^between their modes of thought, form of govern- 
 ment, religious ideas, and philosophical spirit — must be due to the 
 influence of the circumstances in which they were respectively 
 placed. And if we were to suppose two colonies of Englishmen, 
 the one placed in a land like that which we inhabit, where 
 everything is to be procured as the result of labour, and where 
 the productive powers of nature are rather deficient than excessive, 
 and the other placed in the vaUey of the Amazon, where little labour 
 is required, and where the powers of nature operate with such in- 
 tensity as to dwarf by comparison the results of the labour of man ; 
 and if we further suppose both shut out from communication with 
 other countries, so that their development should depend entirely 
 upon themselves and upon the circumstances by which they were 
 surrounded, we could scarcely doubt that at the end of a few cen- 
 turies the actual character of the two commimities must be widely 
 different. 
 
 And not only is there this ground for assuming that a dif- 
 ference would be produced between members of the same family 
 
u 
 
 as a result of their being placed in different circumstances, but there 
 is also the seeming fact, that, when individuals of different families 
 of the human race are brought under the same influences, their 
 character is what we might predict from the known operation of 
 these influences, unmodified by the influence of race. For instance, 
 few topics have been more insisted upon by modern writers than 
 the essential difference in organization and character between the 
 Celtic and the Teutonic races. Innumerable events in history are 
 referred to this difference as their cause, and the political and social 
 position of Ireland, and of France — the two great representatives 
 of Celtic nationality at the present day — has been explained on this 
 assumption. Now, it is said, not merely that the character of these 
 nations, and especially of France, has undergone great changes con- 
 sequent upon changes in their constitution and government, but also 
 that, if individuals of either nation became citizens of other countries, 
 under circumstances which expose their children freely to the same 
 influences which operate upon the other inhabitants of their new 
 country, there is no perceptible difference in their character. It is 
 not, of course, denied that if the French, for instance, form a separate 
 establishment, like that formed by the Huguenot Refugees in Spital- 
 fields, or the Irish, like those which they have formed in many of 
 the principal cities of Great Britain and the United States, that 
 they may for an indefinite period continue to manifest perceptible 
 traces of their original character ; but it is said this is due to the 
 effect, not of race, but of education, meaning by this, the sum of all 
 the external influences which contribute to form the chai'acter. 
 And in support of this view may be instanced the Lefevres, the 
 Eomillys, and many others of Celtic descent both in England and 
 the United States, who, it is said, are now in all respects as 
 thoroughly English or American as though they had been Anglo- 
 Saxon by descent instead of by adoption. Without pretending to 
 give an opinion upon this branch of the question, so far as the dif- 
 ference between the Celtic and Teutonic races are concerned, I would 
 suggest two considerations which appear to me to render these 
 assumed facts of little value in determining the general enquiry. 
 In the first place the same reasoning which led to the conclusion 
 that the Greeks and the Hindoos were branches of the same family 
 leads also to the conclusion that the Celts are another branch which 
 separated from the original stock at some earlier epoch : in which 
 case the difference in character might be attributable to the effect 
 of the different circumstances in which they have been placed, and, 
 of course, would be susceptible of obliteration by analogous causes 
 
45 
 
 operating in a reverse order ; and, in the second place, it is a 
 question -vvhetlier the difference between the character of the English 
 people, and that of the other branches of the Teutonic family, may 
 not be in some degree dependent upon the greater infusion of Celtic 
 blood, and whether the character of the American people may not 
 even now be in course of alteration from the same cause. 
 
 Still, whatever opinions we may adopt with regard to such 
 original differences of organization, if any, as may prevail between 
 the different peoples who now inhabit Europe, excepting the 
 Laplanders and their cognate races, it is very difficult for anyone 
 who has seen the Australian and Polynesian races, to say nothing 
 of the North American Indians and the negroes, to adopt the 
 opinion of Mr. Buckle when he says, " The child born in a 
 civilized land is not likely, as such, to be superior to one bom 
 among barbarians ; and the difference which ensues between the 
 acts of the two children will be caused, so far as we know, 
 solely by the pressure of external circumstances, by which I 
 mean the surrounding opinions, knowledge, associations — in a 
 word, the entire mental atmosphere in which the two children 
 are respectively nurtured." That a child of European parents born 
 among'the native Australians, and, from the moment of his birth, 
 separated from its parents, and brought up among those natives ex- 
 clusively, never seeing any other practices or hearing any other 
 sentiments than those of the tribe among which he grew up, would 
 show no marks of superiority either intellectual or moral, is possible ; 
 though it is also possible, and, I am inclined to think, probable, that 
 he would be their superior in intellect and energy ; but that the chUd 
 of natives of this country, brought up in England, and never hearing 
 or learning anything but what English children hear and leam, woiJd 
 be undistinguishable, mentally and morally, from an Englishman, is 
 a proposition which I confess I greatly doubt. It is easy to repress 
 tendencies and to dwarf growth, but not so easy to infuse tendencies 
 which are not proper to the organization or to increase the growth 
 beyond certain well-defined limits. It is said that the Chinese have 
 an art of growing oaks in flower-pots, so that the mature tree should 
 not be larger than a cabbage ; and this, by withholding the appro- 
 priate nourishment and constantly repressing the growth, is con- 
 ceivable ; but I never heard of any people persuading a cabbage to 
 grow to the size of an oak. 
 
 And, taking a general survey of history, it appears to me there 
 are innumerable facts that point to the same conclusion. Thus, in 
 many coimtries in the old world, the actually civilized race by which 
 
46 
 
 we find them to have been inhabited within the historical period 
 was not the earliest possessor of the soil, but dispossessed some 
 anterior occupants who had never raised themselves above bar- 
 barism ; and in many of the countries which were once civilized, 
 and whose soil and climate and aspects of nature remain the 
 same, the new conquering race, although it had the example of 
 anterior civilization by which to profit, has not in fact ever raised 
 itself abovfe its original condition. In the new world, too, it is 
 true that we find the two comparatively-civilized empires of 
 Mexico and Peru grown up just where the theory of Mr. Buckle 
 would require that they should ; and yet we see, in the more 
 temperate parts of North America, the Indian himting over plains 
 dotted with mounds marking the sites where once stood large cities, 
 and where the material elements and incentives to civUiiation lie as 
 ready to his hand as they did to those of the extinct population by 
 whom these mounds were erected, without any attempt to elevate 
 himself above his existing condition, and without even the curiosity 
 to enquire how these mounds were formed. 
 
 It would seem, too, that the view which regards difierences of 
 race as important elements in the formation of character is war- 
 ranted by the analogies of nature. Making every allowance for 
 the power of adaptation among animals, by which they are, to a 
 certain extent, enabled to accommodate themselves to new con- 
 ditions of life, it is manifest that their habits and instincts, their 
 mode of hfe, their food, and their methods of obtaining it, are 
 dependent upon or intimately correlated with their organization, 
 and that, for the most part, any change in the former must be 
 accompanied by a corresponding change in the latter, if the animal 
 is to sin:vive. And as man is certainly an animal, though with 
 faculties, powers, and feelings which no other animal possesses, 
 there is a strong ground in reason for supposing that those faculties, 
 powers, and feelings, if not directly dependent upon, yet would be 
 found to be correlated with his physical organization. And when 
 we find that, ia fact, there are gradations of form and structure in 
 the races of man, from the Australian negro up to the Caucasian — ^to 
 employ a much-abused term — and that, for the most part, if not uni- 
 versally, these gradations in organization are associated with and 
 indicate corresponding gradations in actual progress, if not in in- 
 herent capacity, there seems to be all the proof which the nature 
 of the case admits, that the two are in some degree agsoeiated as 
 cause and effect ; though we may be very far at the present ti,me from 
 knowing the nature of the connection or the mode of its operation. 
 
47 
 
 And this conclusion appears to me to be strengthened by the 
 analogous phenomena which we observe with regard to individuals. 
 There is in them the same variation in organization and the same 
 difference, in mental capacities and in moral character. And there 
 appear to be the same general grounds for supposing that the one 
 class of phenomena is dependent upon the other. Upon the whole, 
 therefore, I have arrived at the conclusion that difference of race is 
 one of the elements which enter into the formation of the character 
 of nations; and aid in determining the course of their history. 
 
 It must, however, be confessed that this conclusion, if true, leads 
 us a very little way, for, of all matters, those of which we know least 
 are perhaps the causes which determine the varieties of organization 
 of the human famUy, whether as regards individuals or races. We 
 must, for the present, accept the existence of these varieties as an 
 ultimate fact. That such differences do exist is undeniable — that 
 they are connected with, and are the causes of, mental and moral 
 differences, I think that I have shown to be probable : but further 
 than this we are at present unable to penetrate. The only conclu- 
 sions I can here venture to draw are, that any laws, deduced from 
 the observed effects of external causes upon the races which have 
 actually become civilized, are not necessarily nor even probably 
 applicable to other races ; and that it is at the least presumable that 
 some of the observed differences in different civilizations are due to 
 difference of race, instead of being due entirely to the operation of 
 the circumstances in which a nation has been placed. In analyzing, 
 then, and defining the physical and mental laws which favour the 
 growth of civilization and determine its character, we have to bear 
 in mind that their result is not an absolute quantity, but one which 
 varies in some unknown degree with the organization of the people 
 upon whom they operate. 
 
 Subject to this exception, however, ifc seems to me that the view 
 given by Mr. Buckle in his history of civilization in England of the 
 circumstances which render civilization possible, and which deter- 
 mine its course, is mainly correct. He conceives the first requisite 
 to have been a soil and climate which enabled the unskilled labour of 
 primitive man to raise a larger portion of food than was required for 
 the subsistence of the labourer, in order that the surplus produce 
 might be available for the support of an unemployed class. Until this 
 was the case, no organization beyond the rude organization of the 
 family and the tribe, no division of employment, and no combination 
 of labour could exist ; and, as a consequence, there could be no cre- 
 ation of capital and none of the works which can be produced by the 
 
48 
 
 power wliicli capital furnishes of commanding combined labour. He 
 then shows how the character of the food which is the staple pro- 
 duct of the various countries in which the principal civilizations 
 of the East and of America have originated — by its cheapness and 
 abundance, has encouraged a dense population, which has therefore 
 been poor, and the labour of which has been at the command of the 
 ruling class upon easy terms. And he has shown how, by the side 
 of these, other civilizations have arisen, later in their development, 
 because less aided by the powers of nature, where food was neither so 
 cheap nor so plentiful, requiring more labour for a scantier return, 
 but in which a freer scope was given for the play of the human facul- 
 ties, and in which there were no such wide differences between the 
 conditions of the various classes of free men as those which gave 
 their character to the older civilizations. He shows also in what - 
 manner those other influences, which he calls the aspects of nature, 
 operate : how, when men feel themselves powerless beside the results 
 of natural forces, the hurricane, the earthquake, or the volcano ; 
 or when the fertility of nature is so exuberant, as that the results 
 of what man does are insignificant in comparison with what' nature 
 does for him ; or when the climate is pestilential ; certain concep- 
 tions with regard to the objects of worship naturally arise, essentially 
 distinguished from those which spring up in other countries, where 
 these natural conditions are reversed. It is not, however, my 
 purpose to pursue these investigations. It is sufficient to say that 
 under these combined inflaences of external circumstances and of 
 national character thus originated or modified, Mr. Buckle considers 
 that the various early civilizations of Egypt and the East, and the 
 later of Judea, Greece, and Rome, sprung up and obtained their 
 separate development : and, as the result of these difierent influences, 
 he shows that while the one kind of civilization chiefly depends 
 upon and is to be explained by physical laws, the other, including 
 that of modern Europe, chiefly depends upon and is to be explained 
 by mental laws. 
 
 The question then arises — What are the mental laws that regulate 
 the progress of European civilization ? Is the guiding power the 
 perception of moral or of inteUeotual truth ? One or the other of 
 these it must be, since all mental laws may be classed under one of 
 the two heads of moral or intellectual — the one relating to our duties, 
 the other to our knowledge. To this Mr. Buckle has answered — 
 Intellectual truth ; and the argument by which he supports this 
 conclusion may be very briefly stated. He observes that the 
 standard of conduct in nations is perpetually varying, and on the 
 
49 
 
 ■wHole progressive, and he thence infers that, whatever it may be 
 that determines conduct, must itself he variable and progressive. 
 He then shows that the truths which are recognized as the ultimate 
 rules in morals have been long known, and have for many centuries 
 received no addition, and that hence it cannot be these which furnish 
 the varying rule necessary for the purpose of the enquiry. On the 
 contrary, intellectual truths, or what are apprehended as such, are 
 constantly varying and constantly progressive, and hence supply 
 such a standard as is required. He therefore concludes that the 
 latter are proved to be the cause and measure of change and of pro- 
 gress. In this conclusion I am disposed on the whole to concur, 
 at any rate so far as nations are concerned. Allowing for occasions 
 such as that of the French Revolution, and that of the war now 
 raging, in America, where the passions become so excited as to 
 sUence for the time aU. considerations of expediency, there can be no 
 doubt that national action is, in the great majority of cases, if not 
 in all, determined by a consideration of what is conceived to conduce 
 to the national interest. And under this view it may be doubted 
 whether even the instances to which I have just referred are excep- 
 tions, since both of the movements originated in an instinctive 
 feeling that the deepest national interests were involved ; and it is 
 the nature of all powerful impulses to action to carry the agent far 
 beyond what would be the limit fixed by a mere consideration of 
 the object sought to be obtained. But if this is the case, then 
 whatever tends to enlighten mankind as to their true interests — to 
 make them feel that religious persecution, war, slavery, oppression, 
 injustice, never in the long run accomplish even the objects for which 
 they are undertaken or sanctioned, and that they are as injurious to 
 the progress of a nation as they are to the happiness of individuals — 
 must tend to render the occurrence of these scourges of the human 
 race less frequent, and so far to improve the conduct and the cia-cum- 
 stances of nations. At the same time, I conceive that this conclusion 
 is stated too absolutely. I doubt if sufficient allowance is made for 
 the different degree of force with which the same truth is appre- 
 ciated, according to the time and circumstances in which it is pre- 
 sented to the individual ; or for the effect of example in stimulating 
 to virtuous conduct ; or even for the probabiKty that these intel- 
 lectual truths, which are supposed to be the sole guide, owe no small 
 degree of their operative force to the perception that their -dictates 
 practically coincide with the old moral truths. No doubt, how- 
 ever, Mr. Buckle would have been quite ready to admit all these 
 considerations. But in a work which was intended to lay the 
 
50 
 
 foundation of a science of history, he pursued the scientific method 
 of making abstraction of all but one chief element, in order that its 
 distinct and separate effects might be traced and decided, leaving 
 the other subsidiary elements to be afterwards estimated and 
 allowed for. 
 
 There is one corollary from this view of the determining cause of 
 human progress to which it may be usefiil to advert. Intellectual 
 progress, and moral progress, too, so far as it depends upon the 
 conclusions of the intellect, imply the substitution of true views 
 for erroneous, or the elimination from partial truths of the errors 
 which they contain. Now, it is obvious that this is impossible to 
 anyone who is impressed with the conviction that what is received 
 as truth is not to be questioned. To substitute a new view for an 
 old one it is necessary that the old view should be foxmd to.be no 
 longer tenable ; and this demands, as its previous condition, enquiry 
 and investigation ; which again wiU not be undertaken excepting as 
 the result of doubt. It is true that the actual course of the discovery 
 of new truths does not always appear to take this form. They often 
 seem to flash upon the mind "as intuitions coming we know not how 
 or whence ; but these intuitions of new truths never come excepting 
 to those who, consciously or unconsciously, have felt the barrenness 
 and insufiiciency of the received beUef. Hence this conclusion 
 follows — that doubt is the great instrument of progress, and that 
 sceptics are among the great benefactors of the world. 
 
 It ought not to be necessary to show the limitations of this state- 
 ment, but to prevent misconception I will do so. In the first place, 
 then, I do not regard doubt as either the necessary or the appropriate 
 condition of the great majority of mankind. Action is the essential 
 function of humanity, and doubt always tends to impede action. 
 And there are few, comparatively, who have either the leisure for ori- 
 ginal investigation or the faculties which its successful pursuit de- 
 mands. Not many of our race have the intuitions which enable them 
 to discover new truths, or the logical training which fits them to 
 judge of the sufficiency or completeness of the proof which is offered 
 in support of the old. All of us upon some topics, and most of us 
 upon all, must take our opinions upon authority, accepting as suffi- 
 cient proof of their correctness the general agreement among those 
 who have investigated the subject. And, with regard to those 
 questions in respect of which no such agreement exists, though 
 opinions are and must be adopted by the many without enquiry, yet 
 in these cases they, for the most part, practically adopt only such 
 part as they feel to be suitable to their condition and wants, and more 
 
51 
 
 or less consciously reject or modify the rest. They are benefited, 
 consequently, by doubt and enquiry, only at second hand, when 
 results are obtained which can be embodied in popular teaching : 
 but they are thus benefited. And, in the second place, mere doubt, 
 excepting for its indirect efiect of making us tolerant both of the 
 doubts and the convictions of others, is useless. It is useful only 
 when it has led to an enquiry which has either established some old 
 opinion on a firmer basis, or has unseated it and substituted some- 
 thing better in its place. But the essential condition of progress, 
 and the proper attitude of every reasonable being, is that the intellect 
 should be kept open to new truths or new views of truth, from what- 
 ever quarter ; and that no enquiry should be rejected or forbidden 
 upon the ground that the subject to which it relates is established 
 beyond the possibility of question. 
 
 In order to complete the view which I propose to take of this 
 subject, there are still two topics to which I wish to advert, and 
 which I shall briefly illustrate. The first is, the influence exerted 
 upon the course of history by individual character and action j 
 and the second, the manner in which the actual condition of the 
 civilized world is dependent upon and moulded by all preceding 
 civilizations. 
 
 It is a complaint of the poet that " the indijyidual lessens and the 
 mass grows more and more," and there is undoubtedly some truth 
 itt this ; though there probably was never a time in which the mass 
 was not liable to be swayed by common motives and to obey a 
 common impulse ; and, even now, the influence of individual genius 
 and energy is a perceptible power in the progress of human know- 
 ledge and conduct. And no theory of history can be complete 
 which does not include this influence of individuals as well as the 
 more general causes which operate upon a people as a whole. 
 Take a not very great number of men out of modem history, and 
 how difierent would have been the intellectual condition of the 
 nations of Europe. One may enumerate less than a dozen — 
 Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Bacon, Descartes, Newton, Leibnitz, 
 Flamsteed, Lagrange, Laplace. Where, without these, would the 
 science of astronomy have been ? Without Cromwell, how different 
 would have been the history of England ; without Napoleon, how 
 different that of France. It is no doubt true that all of these 
 were, in a certain sense, the product of the age— they could not have 
 been what they were, nor have accomplished what they did, had it 
 not been for the actual condition of the circumstances in which they 
 were placed ; but the subsequent course of science and of history 
 
52 
 
 would have been different had they not lived. I will select two 
 illustrations of this effect — one from ancient and one from modern 
 history — the one connected with the histoiy of the Jews, and the 
 other with thai of the Roman Church. 
 
 One of the most perilous times for Jewish nationality was the 
 reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. An able, energetic, and liberal ruler, 
 he entertained the project of establishing a united monarchy upon 
 the principle which he had seen practised with so much success at 
 Rome, where he had long been a hostage, of absorbing aU nation- 
 alities in a common"- organization. In this projected kingdom he 
 proposed to establish the policy pf Rome and the arts and philosophy 
 of Greece. To the accomplishment of this design there was one 
 obstacle — ^that of Judsea ; and to overcome that obstacle he put in 
 motion the various means which were familiar with the rulers of 
 that day, and which have not yet become entirely obsolete. He 
 tempted the pliant by the offer of place and power ; he awed the 
 indifferent by the display of force ; and to the malcontent he gave 
 the alternative of submission or death. At first he was suc- 
 cessful. The high priest was won over to the side of the monarch, 
 and signalized his adhesion by adopting the name of Jason in place 
 of that of Joshua ; and the majority of the priests and of the people 
 of Jerusalem followed his example. The Temple was polluted : for 
 a moment the statue of Olympic Jupiter was erected within its walls ; 
 and thpugh this provoked tumults, they were put down by the 
 troops of Antiochus. And it almost seemed at one time that 
 the attempt would be crowned with ultimate success. In this ex- 
 tremity, however, the members of one heroic family- — the Mac- 
 cabees — offered themselves as leaders for the adherents of the ancient 
 faith, rallied round them the patriotism of the nation, and organized 
 and maintained a resistance which aU the power and policy of 
 Antiochus were unable to overcome. It is not easy to over-estimate 
 the consequence to the civUized world of these events. Had 
 Antiochus succeeded, the material prosperity of Judeaa might have 
 been much greater, but it could not have been the birthplace of 
 Christianity : and yet but for this one family his success was all but 
 assured. Never, perhaps, has any conflict been fraught with more 
 momentous results. Great as were the interests involved in the battle 
 of Marathon, where, as has been forcibly stated, the contest was 
 whether Europe should be civilized or barbarous, they appear to me 
 to become well nigh insignificant in comparison with that which 
 was at stake in the almost nameless battles of the Maccabees ; for 
 there the question was, whether the long progress of those religious 
 
53 
 
 ideas wtich formed the iuheritance of the Jewish nation, and which 
 found their completion and fulfilment in the work of Christ and the 
 preaching of St. Paul, should run their course, or should be checked, 
 and be absorbed in the civilization and philosophyof Greece. And 
 beside the intrinsic importance of the events, I have been induced 
 to select them because, owing to the break in Jewish history which 
 is occasioned by our habitually passing over the period which 
 elapsed between Malachi and John the Baptist, this is a pei'iod 
 which seems to me scarcely to have received the attention to which 
 it is entitled. 
 
 I select now, as another illustration, the founder of the Society of 
 Jesus — Ignatius Loyola. For though, possibly, the personal in- 
 fluence of Luther was as great or greater, that influence displayed 
 itself more in accordance with the obvious tendencies of the age. 
 And though the Reformation either would not have occurred when 
 it did, or would have run a different course had Luther never lived, 
 yet he did not set so unmistakeable an impression of his own indi- 
 viduality upon the movement which he originated, as did Loyola. 
 The Society of Jesus has been, almost ever since its foundation, a 
 power in the world ; and it has been so by maintaining the organi- 
 zation and observing the rules prescribed in the first instance by its 
 founder. The celebrated reply of one of its generals, vrhen urged 
 to make some concessions for the purpose of neutralizing the hos- 
 tility which the Society had provoked, " Sint ut sunt aut non 
 sint," has always been the governing principle of the body ; and it 
 shows the profound knowledge of human nature, sagacity, and de- 
 termination of its founder, that he shoxild have thus framed a system 
 which contained these elements of perpetuity and strength, and should 
 have succeeded in procuring its adoption. The first results of the 
 operations of the Society are soon told. When the Jesuits entered the 
 field, Protestantism was everywhere in the ascendant. It had pene- 
 trated into every country in Europe, and though opposed and pro- 
 scribed in some, was stiU gradually working its way even in Italy and 
 Spain, while in France it was supposed to number one third of the 
 population. Within little more than half a century it was extin- 
 guished in Spain and in Italy, was checked in France, and was only 
 saved from annihilation in Germany by the intervention of Gustavus 
 Adolphus, and at the price of the thirty years' war which reduced 
 to a desert the most flourishing portions of the empire. And of this 
 reaction the Jesuits were the authors and the agents. If the Refor- 
 mation in its actual form and results was due to Luther, still more was 
 the reaction in its actual form and results due to Loyola. 
 
54 
 
 Of course I do not suppose that in either of these instances the 
 individuals whom I have thus selected for the purpose of illustration 
 could have effected vrhat they did if they had not represented and 
 embodied an actual existing feeling and tendency. Had not the 
 feelings of nationality and patriotism, of love for the national religion 
 and faith in the national God, existed in the minds of the bulk of the 
 Jewish people at the time of the Maccabees, their zeal and courage 
 and energy would have been fruitless. But, by means of that 
 family, these feelings were stimulated and developed ; the weak 
 were roused, the wavering fixed, the timid encoirraged, and, what was 
 above all essential, leaders were pro^-ided equal to the occasion, 
 around whom all might rally, and who were able to unite the scat- 
 tered elements of resistance into combined and mutually supporting 
 action. And without such leaders the feelings which prompted the 
 resistance would have evaporated in fruitless repinings, or would 
 have wasted their strength in isolated tumults that would have 
 been easily suppressed. And so, in the case of Loyola, the elements 
 of the reaction were already there. The Reformation had from the 
 first aroused the hostility of all who were interested in the ancient 
 abuses, or were sincerely attached to the ancient faith ; and in its 
 progress it provoked a wider opposition. It is a necessary, or at all 
 events an universal, tendency of human nature, that no principle, 
 hovrever pure in its character, can maintain its purity when at- 
 tempted to be realized in practice through human instrumentality. 
 The early history of Christianity — I might say its entire history — 
 is a striking exemplification of this ; and assuredly the history of the 
 Keformation formed no exception. The wildest excesses in doctrine 
 and practipe, of which the proceedings of the Anabaptists at Munster 
 are examples, too often disfigured the movement. Many, taking 
 literally the precept, " The truth shaU make you free," imagined 
 themselves freed from the restraints of law and custom, as well as 
 from the errors of doctrine and practice against which the Refor- 
 mation was directed. The negative character of much of the 
 teaching of the reformers, and the logical aspect of their doctrines, 
 were felt as unsatisfying and repugnant by the sincerely devout. 
 And all who considered it meritorious to surrender their reason to 
 faith, and who deemed it impious to subject the claims of the Chiirch 
 which they had so long been taught to regard as infallible, to the 
 same investigation which they would have allowed in the case of 
 mere human institutions, regarded the free spirit which the Refor- 
 mation encouraged as a mark of infidelity, or rather of atheism. 
 But an organization was wantea to combine all these scattered 
 
55 
 
 elements — something roucd wlaicli, so to speak, tliey might crys- 
 tallize, and this was given by the Society of Jesus. That there would 
 have been a reaction — that the progress of Protestantism must have 
 been checked — -is an infel-ence that no one probably can fail to draw 
 from the feelings which the Reformation had provoked ; but that 
 reaction would have been very different in its character, and far less 
 complete and durable in its results, if Loyola had not lived. 
 
 I need hardly say that I do not consider this influence of the 
 great men of every age upon their contemporaries, and the character 
 which they thus impart to the history of their time and of future- 
 times, as an exception to the order of nature. It is a part of that 
 order. But I deem it not unnecessary to call attention to the fact, 
 of this influence because, in referring to general laws, there is a 
 tendency to ignore the freedom of human action and the infinite 
 variety of human character, and to argue as though the laws which, 
 in the long I'un and in the mass, are seen to regulate human affairs, 
 and determine the course of events were inconsistent with, instead 
 of being the exponents of, the free choice and self-determined action, 
 of individuals. 
 
 The present condition of mankind is the result of its past history.. 
 There is scarcely any people that has lived that has not contributed 
 something to the formation of the character of the existing genera- 
 tion. "We ourselves have received our religion primarily from the 
 Jews, our laws and institutions partly from our Saxon ancestors and 
 partly from Kome, our logic and mathematics and philosophy from 
 Greece. And each of these nations, in that which it has thus 
 transmitted to modern times, has been indebted in part to influences 
 derived from the nations who preceded or were contemporaiy with 
 its history. Nor can anyone say that one of these gifts to modern 
 society is less important or less influential than another, so far as its 
 progress is concerned. If there are those who would depreciate the 
 sectdar elements of our civilization as contrasted with the religious, 
 I would request them, before they definitively pronounce their 
 opinion, to trace out the result of all the attempts which have been 
 made to establish a state upon « theological basis ; and, either to 
 deduce the laws of government and the maxims of society, not from 
 the laws of God as taught by experience, or from the example of 
 those who had made the science of government their study, but from 
 the Bible ; or to exclude all science as profane, and all free enquiry 
 as ti-eason against God and an affront to the infallible rule which he 
 has afforded, whether in the Chm-ch or in the Scriptures. They 
 may take New England, or one party in England itself, in the time of 
 
56 
 
 the Commonwealtli, or Geneva in the time of Calvin, as illus- 
 trations of the one, and Paraguay or Spain as examples of the 
 other. And, having done this, they may say whether even re- 
 ligion itself does not gain by the admixture of those secular 
 elements which modern Christian society has derived from Pagan 
 sources, and from that spirit of free enquiry into the origin and 
 grounds of all belief of which Socrates may be taken as the most 
 signal, though very far from the only, example and teacher. For, 
 under another form, and with a different method, which prevent 
 its being generally recognized, the same spirit was as fully ex- 
 emplified in Isaiah and St. Paul ; to take them as types of Hebrew 
 and Christian teachers. In truth, both Hebrew prophecy and 
 Christian teaching were founded upon the inalienable right of man 
 to reject or to modify any views of truth, however sanctioned, which 
 were found inconsistent with improved knowledge or inapplicable 
 to existing circumstances. And whether they, to whom I am ap- 
 pealing, admit this or not ; since they caimot be blind to the fact 
 that these secular influences exist, and that they have modified and 
 are even now modifying religious opinion ; they cannot but see that 
 there are natural causes operating ,by their own intrinsic force in 
 accordance with the laws of human nature which affect the faith 
 and feeling and character of men — even of religious men. If 
 acquainted, even in a small degree, with the history of controversy 
 they wiU know how much of what is now received as Christian doc- 
 trine is in reality the result of the application to the language of the 
 New Testament, of the ideas of Plato, or the mystical conceptions 
 of the schools of Alexandria, or the juridical maxims of Eome ; if 
 altogether unlearned in this history, they may at least, if they watch 
 the current literature of the day, see how, under the influence of 
 secular ideas, the views even of systematic theologians have changed 
 from those which were current only half a century ago, and are stiU 
 in process of change. And, seeing all this, I ask them, will they 
 retain the current view which supposes that, of many causes thus 
 operating to produce a common effect, the one is the result of the 
 watchful and overruling providence of God, and all the rest the result 
 of what, under this aspect, is equivalent to chance ? WUl they 
 believe, in opposition to St. Paid, what the current theology implies, 
 that God was the God of the Jews only and not of the Gentiles ; or 
 will they not rather see a proof in aU this, that the laws which God 
 has ordained; which rule the conduct of men no less than the forces of 
 nature ; which, being framed by infinite wisdom, can find no emer- 
 gency unprovided for, no contingency overlooked ; which, being 
 
57 
 
 the representative to us^ of a Being in whom is no Yariabloness, 
 cannot admit of change ; of a Being almighty, cannot allow of 
 violation ; have been operative in all times of history and in all 
 countries which have been peopled by man ? Law, under this 
 aspect, is not the antithesis but the manifestation of will, and since 
 that win is the will of a Being perfect in wisdom, knowledge, power, 
 and goodness — the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever — all its 
 operations, rightly interpreted, will manifest these attributes of its 
 author. 
 
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 I PKOCEED on the present occasion to attempt to redeem my promise 
 to read a Paper on the relations between Science and Theology ; 
 but I confess that I have entered upon the task with much reluc- 
 tance. The subject is one of great intrinsic difficulty, and it is not 
 easy so to speak as to avoid misconstruction ; nor do I feel that I 
 am competent adequately to deal with it. Still, the topic is not 
 merely interesting, especially at the present moment, but it possesses 
 a close practical relation to the great majority of the subjects which 
 from time to time occupy our attention as members of this Society. 
 Every scientific investigation, whether physical, physiological, or 
 historical, runs up into regions which have been at one time or 
 another monopolized by theology ; and it is consequently almost 
 a matter of necessity that the respective claims of the two should 
 be adjusted. Whether this can be satisfactorily accomplished may 
 be doubted ; or rather, it is quite certain that no present adjust- 
 ment is practicable, which shall secure freedom to the enquiries 
 of science and at the same time preserve the peace of the theo- 
 logian. It may be permitted, however, to investigate the nature 
 of their relations, and the points in which they apparently conflict, 
 in the hope that something towards the solution of the question 
 may be accomplished in this case as in so many others, by an 
 attempt to exhibit in calm and unexaggerated language what the 
 question really is. 
 
 It can, I imagine, scarcely be doubted at the present time, that 
 in many particulars the cqjjclusions of modern science conflict with 
 the dogmas of theology ; and even if it were possible to dissemble 
 the fact of this contradiction, either by denying the conclusions of 
 science, or by modifying the theological dogma so as to bring the 
 two into apparent juxtaposition, yet there would still remain an ab- 
 solute difference between the theological and the scientific basis and 
 method as they are at present understood. Theology rests upon 
 
59 
 
 authority : science upon investigation. Theology is always based 
 upon a revelation either universal or special : science upon reason. 
 Theology presupposes the absolute insufficiency of the human facul- 
 ties : science their relative sufficiency. Theology proceeds from 
 certain facts or principles which are held to be above all need of 
 proof, and to be exempt from investigation : while science assumes 
 nothing excepting by way of hypothesis and conditionally, accepts 
 nothing as true excepting upon the appropriate evidence, and re- 
 gards no assertion as raised above investigation. Even, therefore, 
 when the conclusions of the theologian and of the philosopher 
 coincide, they rest upon diiferent foundations and have been attained 
 by a different process. 
 
 And yet it would appear, a priori, that there need not be any 
 such conflict : for the appropriate domain of theology lies altogether 
 beyond or at any rate apart fi-om that of science, and those ultimate 
 truths upon which theology pronounces so absolutely are truths 
 which science confesses itself without instruments either to prove 
 or to confute. What is the origin, and what the essence of mind 
 or of matter — what the cause and principle of the forces which per- 
 vade nature — what the essential being and attributes of God — what 
 the ulterior destiny of man — these are questions which science, 
 properly understood, can scarcely propound to itself, and which, 
 when proposed, are by their terms beyond the reach of a scientific 
 solution. Some of them, no doubt, are not beyond the reach of 
 analogical conjecture ; but, as these conjectures have no basis of 
 certainty, and are beyond the possibility of verification, they cannot 
 pass into the domain of science. They may raise a faint presumption 
 in favour of one set of views or against another, but that is all. 
 And thus there cannot be properly, and there is not, I imagine, in 
 fact, any opposition between science and theology upon these essen- 
 tially theological subjects. 
 
 It may even be said that science, by the very limitations which 
 it confesses, and the contradictions in which it is involved when it 
 attempts to pass these limits and to speculate upon subjects which 
 transcend its sphere, bears unconscious testimony to the central 
 truths of theology ; that there exists a great first cause from which 
 proceed every thing that we see and all that we are, and that this 
 cause is unsearchable and past finding out. No doubt this tes- 
 timony is, under most of its aspects, rather negative than positive, 
 and under every aspect imperfect. But it is not therefore the less 
 valid, so far as it extends. In every direction in which our en- 
 quii'ies are prosecuted, we find ourselves encountered by insoluble 
 
60 
 
 mysteries. We are absolutely unable to conceive the possibility 
 either of the origination of matter or of its eternal existence, and 
 yet are of necessity compelled to conclude that one or the other of 
 these must have been the case ; and similar difficulties surroimd the 
 question of the cause and origin of spirit. We cannot conceivp of 
 force as an essential attribute of matter, and yet cannot conceive of 
 matter otherwise than as possessing force, for matter is incon- 
 ceivable without resistance, and resistance is a manifestation of 
 force. And these are only samples of the contradictions in which 
 we are involved when we attempt to form any conception of "things 
 in themselves." But, then, the very impossibility of any solution 
 derived from our own faculties appears to involve the idea of some- 
 thing, or rather of some being, the cause and t\e reason of all 
 existence, in whom all these seeming contradictions are harmonized, 
 but whose nature and essence are on that very account inscrutable 
 to our imperfect conceptions. And when we see how a few 
 elementary substances, manifesting or acted upon by various 
 forms of force, result in all the variety and order and beauty of 
 organic and inorganic nature — how every part is dependent upon 
 and adjusted to the whole, as the whole is adjusted to the various 
 parts — how all creatures, from the lowest to the highest, are adapted 
 to their circumstances, and all apparently exhibit a marked pre- 
 ponderance of enjoyment — we cannot, as it appears to me, do other- 
 wise than regard all these phenomena as so many manifestations, 
 relative to our faculties, of the wisdom and goodness of the Being 
 to whom they are owing ; though we still confess our inability to 
 conceive of Him as he is. 
 
 And further, although, as I have attempted to show in my pre- 
 vious Papers, everything around us, everything that science dis- 
 closes of the past or can conjecture of the ftiture, displays the same 
 obedience to law — although nothing in nature warrants the as- 
 sumption that there have been emergencies which infinite wisdom 
 had failed to foresee in the adjustment of these laws, or against 
 which infinite power had been unable to provide, and in which, 
 therefore, some suspension or violation of law was needed in order 
 to prevent or to remedy disorder — yet there is nothing in this con- 
 ception which contradicts the theological idea of a personal God, 
 or excludes the notion that he works in aU things according to his 
 wiU. Impossible as it is for us to think of absolute being as per- 
 sonal, or to predicate of it such an attribute as that of will, yet 
 these difficulties are metaphysical, not scientific. So far as science 
 is concerned, there is nothing in the conception of causatiojj^'mat 
 
61 
 
 necessarily contradicts personality — nothiing in the universality of 
 law wliicli excludes will. On the contrary, knowing that with men, 
 the higher their moral and intellectual faculties the more nearly do 
 they approach to consistency, and the more rarely do they manifest 
 anomalies and imperfections, we are naturally, if not necessarily, led 
 to regard this connection as essential, and to suppose that in propor- 
 tion J;o the wisdom, goodness, and power which any being possesses 
 will be the uniformity of the procedure in which his will is manifested. 
 And hence, assuming the absolute wisdom, power, and goodness of 
 God, we should deduce from that assumption an absolute uniformity 
 in the processes of nature and the dealings of providence, supposing 
 that these are the results of his will. No doubt, to those who place 
 God outside of nature, and conceive of him as in some respect an- 
 tagonistic to it, this view of the universality of law is repugnant, 
 because it appears to exclude God from the universe. So far from 
 this being the case, however, it negatives the idea of the occasional 
 intervention of the Deity only because it regards him as always and 
 everywhere present and active. 
 
 It is not, therefore, upon any of these great truths which underlie 
 all theology, that the oppositions to which I have referred arise. 
 The questions which are now at issue between men of science and 
 theologians stand upon another and a lower ground. They are, for 
 the most part, reducible to one, or, rather, they are different aspects 
 of the same fundamental question : — ^what, in matters of science, 
 meaning by this everything which the human intellect is competent 
 to investigate, is the authority of the Hebrew and Christian Scrip- 
 tures ? Either directly or incidentally these writings contain no- 
 tices, or descriptions, or narratives, which refer to matters susceptible 
 of investigation, and which are more or less at variance with the 
 results of scientific enquiry. And, as the first consequence of the 
 perception of these variances was the denial of the conclusions at 
 which men of science had arrived and a condemnation of the method 
 of enquiry which had led to these obnoxious conclusions, it followed 
 necessarily that those who had proved the soundness of their method 
 of investigation in a hundred fields of research, and who could not, 
 without renouncing the exercise of their reason, doubt the truth of 
 the conclusions at which they had arrived, were drawn to examine 
 their position in reference to the Bible. This examination took at 
 first the form — Is the teaching of science in these matters, especially 
 in geology, at variance with the teaching of the Bible ? In this 
 enquiry many persons, among whom I may name Granville Penn, 
 Chalmers, Buckland, Pye Smith, Hugh MiUer, proposed various 
 
62 
 
 methods ofreconciling the apparent discrepancy — some by moulding 
 the facts of science so as to make them harmonize with the language 
 of the Bible, and some by moulding the language of the Bible so as 
 to make it harmonize with the facts of science. But as all of these, 
 however decided and however sincere their professions of belief in 
 the inspiration and infallibility of the Bible, virtually conceded by 
 the very attempt at reconciliation that, in matters of science, science 
 was the ultimate authority, a farther question necessarily was raised : 
 Is the Bible to be regarded as infallible in matters of science ? And 
 this latter question became connected with others which resulted 
 from contemporaneous investigations into the origin of the Bible 
 itself, and which concerned the date, authorship, authenticity, and 
 genuineness of the various books of which it is composed. And 
 aU these questions have gradually been investigated with more 
 boldness and earnestness as their importance to the interests both 
 of science and of religion has been more appreciated, and as the 
 materials for forming a conclusion have become more abundant and 
 accessible. 
 
 The question, therefore, between science and theology has a two- 
 fold aspect. It regards, on the one hand, the facts narrated in the 
 Bible — its cosmogony, chronology, ethnology, and history, and 
 examines into their accordance with the laws of nature, and with 
 the inferences derived from a complete induction of known fects. 
 And, on the other hand, it regards the origin of the Bible itself — 
 at what time, by what authors, under what circumstances, were its 
 various books written. And under each of these aspects science comes 
 into collision with theology. Theologians assume that these books 
 are the direct utterance of the Supreme Being, and that whatever is 
 therein narrated must not only be received as literally true, but 
 must, if needs be in order to its reception, be considered as with- 
 drawn from the operation of the ordinary laws of nature, and as 
 being in the strictest sense miraculous ; and this, if admitted, would 
 be fatal to the pretensions of science. It is true that, in deference 
 to the opinions of the day, from the influence of which no man can 
 wholly escape, there has been on the part of many theologians a 
 recession from these extreme pretensions ; but this is at variance 
 with the theological spirit, and those who have made such conces- 
 sions are often regaijded as only a shade less dangerous than those 
 who frankly adopt the scientific method throughout. This, then, is 
 the theatre of conflict, and the question is whether science in its 
 enquiries upon these subjects has invaded the domain of theology, 
 or theology, in attempting to exclude them from investigation, has 
 intruded into that of science. 
 
63 
 
 It cannot, of course, be pretended that the great majority of these 
 subjects, relating, as they do, to results of physicial agencies, and 
 to human conduct, are not in themselves properly the subject of 
 scientific investigation. Whether, for instance, at any time within 
 the last 4,000 or 5,000year3the whole of the earth has been covered 
 with water to the depth of some miles, and for a period of many 
 months, is a question of the effect of physical agents, and properly 
 to be investigated by the methods of physical enquiry. Whether 
 a book, such, for instance, as Genesis, appears to be the production 
 of one individual, or of more than one — whether it exhibits a unity 
 of conception and of execution — whether the language is all of one 
 age or in parts of different ages, and to what age the language is to 
 be referred — and whether the date of the composition, in whole or 
 in part, can be approximately fixed by a consideration of the pecu- 
 liarities of the language, or of other internal evidence — are questions 
 of crititism, and are prima facie to be decided by the same canons 
 as are applicable to other ancient writings. Whether a particular 
 people belonged to one branch of the human family or to another 
 is a question of ethnology, and to be decided by considerations of 
 their language, institutions, and history. Whether events are 
 probable or the reverse, and whether the evidence of their having 
 actually occurred is of such a nature as to overbear any antecedent 
 presumption against them on the ground of their improbability, is 
 a question of evidence, and to be decided by the same principles as 
 would guide us in investigating any contemporary narrative. At 
 least, this must be the case, unless some reason can be shown for 
 applying different methods and tests to the investigation of the 
 books of the Bible and the events therein narrated from those which 
 would be applied to other books and events. 
 
 There is, however, a widely-spread feeling that the Bible and 
 everything that it contains ought to be exempted from enquiry. 
 Apart from those, aad they are many, who think that the teachings 
 of the Bible are to be taken as conclusive upon all subjects, and that 
 it is impious to enquire, when, as they conceive, God has spoken, 
 because enquiry implies a doubt either of his knowledge or of his 
 truth, there are many who would willingly ignore all these topics. 
 They admit the right and the competence of the human intellect to 
 prosecute such enquii-ies, but they fear, possibly, that the results 
 may tend to weaken their own faith, or, at any rate, to weaken 
 the faith of the multitude. Both of these classes are entitled to 
 much consideration, but neither of them has a place within the walls 
 of this room. The very object of this Society is to investigate the 
 
64 
 
 laws of nature, in their practical and in their speculative aspects, 
 and this implies, necessarily, the absence of all bias and of all limit. 
 In other societies, philosophical or scientific investigations may be 
 followed only to a certain distance, and always with a tacit regard 
 to consequences. Here we have no object but truth, and no limit 
 but that which results from the necessarily progressive character 
 of all knowledge. In fact, it is obvious that any such limits as 
 theology would impose are inconsistent with all enquiry. In geo- 
 logy we should have to stop with the last division of the recent 
 period, because that may possibly, with a little management, be 
 brought within, or nearly within, the received chronology, and must 
 exclude from our investigations everything beyond. In ethnology, 
 we should have to limit our enquiries to the mere classification of 
 the existing varieties of the human family, "without venturing to 
 speculate upon their origin and affinities, because these speculations 
 must, or, at any rate, may result either in attributing an antiquity 
 to the human race far beyond that warranted by Genesis, or in as- 
 suming an original diversity of races. In the science of language 
 we should have to shut our eyes to the evidences lying before us of 
 the existence, so to speak, of one stratum of language underlying 
 another, because, tracing these downwards, we may, in the dim dis- 
 tance of an unknown antiquity, far beyond the records of history or 
 ■the dawn of tradition, faintly surmise some original language spoken 
 by our primeval fathers, from which all existing languages have been 
 ■derived by natural processes. In history, we should have to leave 
 •out of our investigations the origin, course, and results of the two most 
 pregnant facts in the development of our race — ^the Jewish and 
 Christian religions. I might extend the list of these limitations 
 indefinitely, but these are enough to show how narrow would be the 
 range, or, rather, how impossible would be the prosecution, of philo- 
 sophical investigation if we should really determine to avoid all those 
 points in which the Bible and science may come into collision. 
 
 It may however be said, granting all this, the investigations of 
 science should be conducted apart. Philosophers may pursue their 
 speculations and form their conclusions, but they have no right to 
 Taring these conclusions into comparison with the dogmas of theo- 
 logy. This is the task and the function of theologians only, and 
 therefore all such enquiries as the present are beyond the legitimate 
 objects of a philosophical society. There might be some fairness 
 in such a suggestion if men of science were left to pursue their en- 
 quii'ies without encountering opposition or obloquy from the men 
 of theology, but even then it would be alike unwise and impracti- 
 
65 
 
 cable. For, in the first place, why should science be condemned to 
 be irreligious ? There can surely be no reason why the man who 
 before all others is familiar with proofs of the marvellous adaptations 
 of nature — ^who sees above, around, and within him evidences of 
 wisdom and benevolence which increase with every increase of his 
 knowledge, should be compelled to exclude from his consideration 
 all the lessons which he may thence derive. It has been too often, 
 though unjustly, the complaint against science that it is irreligious ; 
 but this would be to compel it to remain so in the supposed in- 
 terests of religion itself. And, in the second place, it must be 
 remembered that after all members of philosophical societies are 
 men, and as such are as much interested in theology as anyone 
 can be. It is for us individually as important, to know whether 
 there is or is not any conflict between science and theology as it 
 is for the man who repudiates all science as profane. We do not 
 drop our personality when we enter this room, nor are we able 
 to draw a sharp line of demarcation between our scientific and theo- 
 logical belief, much less to assume the same thing to be a theological 
 truth and a scientific error. Whatever may be our creed, it is the 
 same person who believes and who investigates ; and it is therefore 
 our right as enquirers, if it is not also our duty, to attempt to ascer- 
 tain the relations between our faith and our science. 
 
 That there is such a duty, whether it devolves upon us or not, 
 must be taken to be admitted, for otherwise it would be impossible 
 to account for the large and increasing number of works professedly 
 devoted to this subject. It must, however, be confessed that there 
 appears something of inconsistency in the manner in which these 
 questions are treated by different persons who have discussed them 
 from the theological point of view, and even by the same person at 
 different times. Sometimes what, for the sake of distinctness, I 
 may call the orthodox view, is supported by arguments appropriate 
 to the subjects of enquiry, regarded under their scientific aspect, 
 while sometimes the application of similar arguments to the deter- 
 mination of the same questions is denounced as irreverent, if not 
 impious. It would reaUy seem that the true solution of these ap- 
 parent inconsistencies is to be found in the assumption, that the 
 scientific method is permissible in reference to questions of theology 
 only when it is employed to establish the truth of the received 
 opinions, and in no wise when it is employed simply to investigate 
 whether they are true or not. I do not suppose that in fact the 
 majority of orthodox writers have consciously represented their own 
 principles to themselves under this definite formula, but it is diificult 
 
66 
 
 not to imagine that some such feeling is more or less unconsciously 
 underlying all their conceptions on the subject ; and there are some 
 who undisguisedly avow their adhesion to this rule. 
 
 It is, however, obvious that all arguments addressed to the reason 
 presuppose that reason is the ultimate judge of the truth of the con- 
 clusions to which these arguments are designed to lead, and it would 
 seem equally obvious that any claim to authority which shall exclude 
 the employment of the reason in reference to any particular subject 
 must, in the first instance, vindicate itself by arguments addressed 
 to the reason. However much we may be disposed to concede to 
 authority when its claims are established, it wotdd seem to be un- 
 questionable that the establishment of these claims is a necessary 
 preliminary to our submission, and that this must, or rather should 
 be (for often it is not) the result of arguments addressed to the 
 reason. Whatever form, therefore, the argument may assume, 
 whether the truth and divine authorship of the Bible are attempted 
 to be proved inductively from an examination of its contents, and 
 from the characters of the persons by whom it was written and the 
 miracles by which it is alleged to have been authenticated, or whether 
 the truth of everything it contains is established deductively upon the 
 basis of its divine authorship, the appeal is ultimately made to the 
 human reason ; in the one case as to the validity of the induction, 
 and in the other as to the truth of the assumed basis. And if the 
 reason of each man is to be for himself the ultimate judge of the 
 conclusions he shall adopt, then those conclusions must be tested by 
 the same methods, and the evidence adduced in their support must 
 be subjected to the same processes of examination as are applicable 
 to all other questions. 
 
 There is probably nothing in this which would not receive the 
 formal assent of all Protestant theologians, since the very right to 
 protest against the doctrines and the practices of the older Church 
 must be founded upon, or, at any rate, can only be justified by, the 
 right of private judgment — that is, the ultimate supremacy of the 
 human reason — with regard both to the grounds and the objects of 
 belief. It too often happens, however, that the supremacy thus 
 conceded in theory is denied in practice, and men are permitted to 
 enquire and examine only upon the tacit condition that they shall 
 arrive at certain predetermined results. But this is an inconsis- 
 tency which by no means derogates from the soundness or value of 
 the admitted principle. 
 
 Taking it, then , to be admitted, at least in this room, that there is a 
 right of enquiry into the grounds of theological belief, both as re- 
 
67 
 
 gards the authority of the Bible and the conclusions to be drawn 
 from its teaching, and knowing that there are many persons who 
 have, as the result of such enquiry, arrived at the conclusion that the 
 Bible is not only inspired but also absolutely authoritative upon all 
 subjects, it is not, perhaps, irrelevant to remark that any inferences 
 to be deduced fi-om this conclusion must partake of the uncertainty 
 of the conclusion itself, as well as of the added uncertainty of the 
 reasoning by which the inference is reached. It would often appear 
 as if, by a natural confusion of ideas, men upon this subject transfer 
 the attribute of infallibility which, as the result of their investiga- 
 tion, or sometimes prior to all investigation, they attribute to the 
 Bible, to the process or act by which the conclusion has been reached, 
 and thus not merely conclude that the Bible is infallible but that 
 they are infallible in making that conclusion. In fact, however, it 
 is only necessary to state the proposition in order to secure its re- 
 ception, viz., that whether, in point of fact, the Bible be or be not 
 infallible, our conclusion that it is so, being simply the result of our 
 own mental processes, has no greater certainty than belongs to other 
 conclusions arrived at by similar processes. The stream cannot rise 
 above its fount. There can be no infallible conclusions of fallible 
 reason, and therefore the assertion of the infallibility of the Bible 
 being only a deduction of reason, cannot logically be used to bar 
 any course of enquiry or to prove, a priori, the unsoundness of any 
 conclusions to which that enquiry may lead. 
 
 And, as has been well shown by Archbishop Whately, in reference 
 to another subject, it is impossible to escape this dilemma. Whether 
 a man siirrenders his reason to the Bible, or to the Church, or to a 
 priest, or to the witness of the spirit within, and however complete 
 the surrender or abnegation of reason may be, there is one exercise 
 of reason which he cannot escape — -he must decide what shall be 
 the authority to which his reason shall be subservient, and that 
 choice must be determined explicitly or implicitly by his reason. 
 As a late writer has said, to attempt to avoid being ultimately de- 
 cided by reason in choosing a faith is like a man attempting to jump 
 off his own shadow ; and thus the uncertainty which attaches to all 
 processes of argument necessarily attaches to the decision in favour 
 of this or that authority. Any conclusion, consequently, formed 
 upon the basis of any authority has necessarily no greater validity 
 than the act of reason by which that authority was recognized. 
 
 I have said this because it appears to me that many persons con- 
 ceive, either that there is something in the fact that theology has 
 claimed any subjects as being within its domain, which renders the 
 
68 
 
 human reason incapable of forming a judgment upon them ; or that 
 there is a peculiar certainty in the conclusions which may be formed 
 or accepted by the human reason in relation to them. And, sin- 
 gular as it may appear, it often happens that these two somewhat 
 contradictory conceptions are held by the same person, who thus 
 both denies the competency of his reason to form an opinion, and 
 asserts the absolute truth of the opinions which, as he alleges in the 
 absence of his reason, he has adopted. And I have therefore 
 attempted to show that, on the contrary, the points upon which 
 scientific investigation is now exercised are matters especially within 
 the domain of science ; and that every opinion which may be formed 
 on the subject is an opinion which, in the nature of things, must 
 rest upon individual reason, and consequently can at any rate have 
 no greater certainty than belongs to conclusions of reason in general. 
 
 I might, if it were necessary, go even further and say that, from 
 the nature of the subject, there is necessarily a smaller amount of 
 certainty attaching to theological conclusions than to conclusions 
 upon any other subject, because, in addition to the difficulties which 
 are common to those subjects and to theology, there are added diffi- 
 culties arising from the very nature of the objects of theological in- 
 vestigation. And, in support of this view, I might quote largely 
 from Mr. Mansel, whose new defence of the faith excited so much 
 attention a short time since, and having answered its end of puzzling 
 some and amusing others, is gradually sinking out of notice. But 
 I refrain from dwelling upon this view of the subject, which is be- 
 sides immaterial under that aspect of the question which I am con- 
 sidering, and content myself with remarking that these admitted 
 difficulties may at least serve to inspire theologians with reserve and 
 diffidence in stating their conclusions, and with some consideration 
 for those who, upon matters so important and so difficult, may have 
 arrived at views difierent from their own ; even though this should 
 appear to admit the possibility that their own views were not abso- 
 lutely complete and accurate. 
 
 But if, in fact, it is competent to anyone to investigate the age, 
 authorship, and authenticity of the various books of which the Bible 
 is composed, to examine upon independent grounds the historical 
 truth of the narratives which it contains, and to pursue the study 
 of sciences, though their conclusions may conflict with the plain 
 language of the Bible — ^then it would seem that no theological con- 
 siderations ought to be allowed to influence the course of enquiry 
 or to affect its result. A scientific investigation is utterly worthless 
 imless it is absolutely unbiassed. And, if so, it. would appear further 
 
69 
 
 that no real theological principle can be involved in the enquiry. 
 For instance, the uniform course of opinion during the last half 
 century among all competent enquirers has been in a direction ad- 
 verse to the historical character, at least of the early part, of the 
 Book of Genesis. Geology has, I believe I may say, utterly exploded 
 the notion of creation in six days as given in the first chapter, as 
 well as the idea of a universal deluge, and it is gradually throwing 
 back the date of the first appearance of man upon the globe to an 
 antiquity which, according to present appearances, will ultimaitely 
 be measured by hundreds of thousands of years. The science of 
 language and ethnology both tend to show that the separation of 
 the human family, if, as is probable, it was one family originally, 
 must be thrown back for tens of thousands of years ; and that the 
 people of Canaan, whom the Israelites drove out, belonged, no less 
 than the Israelites themselves, to the Semitic race instead of being 
 Hamites, while the Persians belonged to the Indo-European family 
 instead of being, as the author of the tenth chapter of Genesis makes 
 them, Semitic. And, at the same time, oriti^^l investigations as 
 to the age and authorship of the book are leadia^g unmistakeably to 
 the belief that, whoever its compiler might be, and whatever ancient 
 documents might be embodied in it, there were, at any rate, more 
 than two persons concerned in its authorship, the earliest of whom 
 could not have lived much before and probably did not live after 
 the time of David. I do not now put forward these conclusions as 
 true, though personally I consider the evidence such as to warrant 
 our belief of their truth, but I mention them as those conclusions 
 to which the current of opinion is now leading, and which the ma- 
 jority of independent thinkers who devote themselves to these 
 enquiries will be likely to adopt. In fact, but for the theological 
 interests supposed to be at stake and the theological passions there- 
 fore aroused, I believe that there would at this time be no more 
 doubt as to the general truth of the conclusions which Bishop 
 Colenso is enouncing with regard to the uncertainty of the early 
 history of the world and of the Jews than there is with regard 
 to those put forth by Niebuhr as to the uncertainty of the early his- 
 toiy of the Romans. But however this may be, it cannot be denied 
 that among independent thinkers who have directed their enquiries 
 to this subject the tendency is towards the conclusions which I have 
 indicated, in spite of strong early prepossessions, and of no slight 
 present inducements to maintain the contraiy views. Now, is it to 
 loe supposed — ^will anyone venture to assert — ^that these views, if 
 adopted, can affect the relation of man to God, or the purposes of 
 
70 
 
 God to man ; that the inducements to virtue or piety -will be 
 diminished, or that virtue and piety will be less acceptable to God ; 
 or even that these opinions, if honestly formed and manfully pro- 
 claimed, will be less pleasing in the eyes of the God of truth than 
 the contrary opinions taken at second hand without enquiry, or ob- 
 tained as the result of an enquiry whose conclusion was foredeter- 
 mined. No doubt it is true that many opinions which we have been 
 accustomed to hold, rather, though, upon the authority of the school- 
 men and of Milton than of the Bible, will fall if these views ulti- 
 mately prevail ; and those who insist upon having their theology in 
 a systematic form may have to remodel their systems : but these are 
 the necessary consequences, in every branch of enquiry, of the dis- 
 covery of new truths, whenever systems have been prematurely 
 formed. But whatever may be their results, unless we are prepared 
 to prohibit all scientific investigation ; and though outside these 
 walls there may be many who would do so, yet the very character 
 of this Society is a proof that aU here would repudiate such a pro- 
 posal ; these enquiries are demanded by the very importance and 
 sacredness of the subject ; and, if instituted, they must be carried 
 on with no other purpose than that of following truth whithersoever 
 it may lead us. 
 
 But there is another aspect of science, of which the previous 
 Papers that I have read have been partial illustrations, and that 
 is, that all things are conducted according to invariable rules, and, 
 to use the common phraseology, through the instrumentality of 
 second causes, which even more conflicts with the theological spirit. 
 But apart from the question of miracles, with which I do not here 
 intermeddle, only remarking that the evidence to prove a miracle 
 must be strong in proportion to the exceptional character of the 
 fact to be proved, 1 imagine there is no well-informed person (I beg 
 pardon, I must except modern spiritualists, but excepting them) 
 who does not admit that the course of nature is now uninterrupted, 
 and that all results are brought about by the sUent operation of 
 natural forces working in definite and prearranged directions, and 
 producing, no doubt, their appointed results. The Hebrew poets 
 regarded thunder as the voice of Jehovah, and lightning as the 
 breath of his nostrils ; hail and snow were laid up in his storehouses 
 to be poured forth at his will ; and, in fact, every occurrence, whether 
 helpful or hurtful, was referred to his direct agency. We, however, 
 see in thunder and lightning and hail the effect of electrical agencies. 
 Even the courses of the winds and the fall of rain are found to be 
 regulated by laws as definite as those which cause the succession 
 
71 
 
 of day and niglxt ; and in all surrounding circumstances we are able, 
 altogether or proximately, to refer them to their causes and to show 
 the manner in which those causes operate. But we do not, on that 
 account, deny the being of God, or conceive of nature as existing 
 independently of him. We are unable, doubtless, to represent to 
 ourselves the mode of his existence, or the character of his relation 
 to the phenomena by which we are surrounded and the sum of which 
 we call nature, but we look upon all manifestations of power or 
 beauty as tokens of his presence, and we regard the laws which we 
 are able to trace, not as hiding him from us but, as revelations of his 
 method of government, and as enabling us, however imperfectly, to 
 conceive of some of his attributes. And if we are to believe what 
 reason, no less than revelation, would seem to teach, that he is the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, then this may be presumed to 
 have been the method of his government from the beginning. And 
 yet whenever attempts are made to suggest the manner in which 
 the existing order of things may have been developed by the opera- 
 tion of laws which still subsist, there is always more or less of sus- 
 picion attaching to the attempt, as if it were derogatory to God to 
 show that he was not like man, and that his operations have none 
 of those marks of weakness and i^lperfection which characterize our 
 own. 
 
 It is probable, however, that one great source of the objection 
 felt to these views is the fact that they conflict more emphatically 
 than even the views as to the antiquity of the human race, or as to 
 the non-occurrence of the flood, with the Book of Genesis, and with 
 theological deductions from it, especially as to the fall. For, if the 
 world has existed under the same laws from the first moment of its 
 formation; if all things have been slowly shaping themselves 
 into fitness for the existence of higher and higher classes of being, 
 organic and inorganic nature gradually assuming improved forms ; 
 and if, as the culmination of the long progress, Man appeared, at 
 first in a low animal form, but gradually elevated to higher and 
 higher types — then the whole doctrine of the faU, as represented in 
 eur systems of theology, and of the present degradation of our race 
 as compared with its early elevation, and of the deterioration of ex- 
 ternal nature as a consequence, is obviously erroneous. 
 
 I may, however, venture to observe upon this point that, although 
 this view is inconsistent with the historical truth of the narrative in 
 Genesis, yet the idea of the fall answers to facts lying deep in the 
 human consciousness, and to which the experience of every man 
 will testify. The contrast between faith and practice — between 
 
72 
 
 resolve and performance^-lietween the excellence which we are 
 able to conceive and that which we can embody in action — ^is a real 
 and permanent fact in the natvire of man, whatever be the language 
 in which it is expressed or the cause to which it is to be referred. 
 Whether we say, with St. Paid, " To will is present with me, but 
 how to perform that which is good I know not," or with the heathen 
 poet, " I see, and I approve the things which are better : I follow 
 the things which are worse''— whether, with Augustine and his 
 modern followers, we regard it as a predestined result of the sin of 
 Adam, which was itself predestined, or, with some recent thinkers, 
 as a proof of the growing supremacy of the human reason and con- 
 science, an increasing knowledge of good and evil which brings with 
 it an admiration of the former, accompanied by a consciousness of 
 subjection to the latter, or in whatever other forms it may be repre- 
 sented or embodied-t-iJit remains as a fact. And, consequently, no 
 theological doctrines which are based upon its existence would seem 
 to be affected by the result of any scientific investigation, though 
 dogmas which rest entirely upon the form of the narrative must faU 
 if the narrative itself is shown to be at variance with fact. 
 
 There is, then, even at the present time, an opposition upon these 
 various grounds between science and theology. And, while theology 
 has been stationary, at any rate since the Beformation, for the 
 same questions are agitating theologians now as were then raised, 
 and are apparently as far from settlement as ever, science has con- 
 tinued to advance ; and, regarding the signs of the times, it would 
 seem destined to continue its progi-ess, unless stopped by some 
 catastrophe such as that which overwhelmed the civilizations of 
 Greece and Rome. For, however much it maybe distrusted or de- 
 nounced, the obvious practical benefits which it confers upon society, 
 and the political, intellectual, and material superiority of those 
 countries in which its unfettered cultivation is permitted, as com- 
 pared with those where the theological spirit is in the ascendant, 
 are too plain and palpable to allow any doubt of its utility and value. 
 The nations fox whom science has done and is doing so much 
 will never wiflingly consent to dry up the so\irces of their progress 
 by throwing impediments in the way of its further development. 
 Whatever, consequently, may be its effects, they are inevitable, and 
 must be accepted as necessary elements in any scheme for the future. 
 If science stood in need of State patronage or of artificial fostering 
 of amy kind, there might be some uncertainty as to its permanence 
 and progress. . It needs, however, no other encouragement than to 
 be let alone, and then its inherent attractions will secure for it a 
 
73 
 
 crowd of ■willing votaries by whose efforts it is advanced in every 
 direction. And whenever any obj ect requires for its accomplish- 
 ment more than isolated individuals can perform, the results to be 
 attained are such as to ensure the ready union of private persons 
 or to command the support of the public. And as a result of this 
 progress, we may expect to see every occurrence in nature and every 
 historical record explained and accounted for by being referred 
 either certainly or probably to natural circumstances acting in obe- 
 dience with or in analogy to known laws. No doubt the time of 
 the complete fulfilment of this anticipation is far distant, but every 
 year will see some progress made towards it, and every step in the 
 progress is an earnest and a prophecy of its ultimate realization. 
 
 But, in this case, what is to be the attitude and what the function 
 of theology ? For the last four centuries theologians have been 
 fighting a losing battle in every country in which free thought has 
 been permitted. They have been compelled to concede one point 
 after another, always after having continued the defence when im- 
 partial bye-standers could clearly discern that the point was already 
 lost. And they have at last retired unwillingly and under protest, 
 not seldom anathematizing those by whose labours they have been 
 compelled to recede. And in countries in which thought has been 
 fettered and enquiry forbidden or its results stifled, theology has 
 been able to hold its ground only on the condition of arresting the 
 mental progress of the nation. So that a very few years since (as 
 late as 1857) a Spanish archbishop could denounce the whole circle 
 of modem science, including the discoveries which have immor- 
 talized the names of Newton, Laplace, and others as only a renewal 
 and reproduction of errors which had been a thousand times refuted 
 and denounced by the Church !* Might we not fancy this to be an 
 echo of recent orthodox denunciations in England ? Are theo- 
 logians prepared to continue a conflict in which defeat is assured if 
 the terms of the combat are equal, or in which victory, or rather 
 escape, is only possible on the terms of prohibiting all enquiry into 
 the subject ? Or will they not rather recognise the fact that nature 
 
 * I subjoin a translation of the passage so far as material. It occurs in a note in 
 ■'Buckle's History of Civilization in England," vol. ii., p. 147. "Firstly, that the schools 
 of Holland, Germany, England, and France, hostile to Catholicism, have commenced 
 and prosecuted with the utmost zeal certain philosophical discussions, presenting them 
 as a triumph of reason over religion, of philosophy over theology, and of materialism 
 over spiritualism. Secondly, that these maxims are, for the most part, nothing more 
 than the reproduction or further development of errors a thousand times refuted and 
 condemned by a holy philosophy and by the Church, so that instead of having to con- 
 gratulate themselves upon their progress, they should far rather blush for their retro- 
 gression." 
 
74 
 
 is as truly a revelation of God as any book can be : that the reason 
 of man is a God-implanted faculty and its free exercise a sacred duty, 
 and that, in the exercise of his reason for the purpose of discovering 
 the laws or elucidating the phenomena of nature, man is only bringing 
 into broader light the proofs of the wisdom and goodness of God ? 
 This alternative is open to them, and in spite of the clamour which 
 a few have raised, and which the many have echoed, I think there 
 are some symptoms that no inconsiderable portion of the theologians 
 of the present day will adopt the latter course. ' 
 
 In this case the task of the theologian is marked out before him. 
 He has two objects to keep in view. The first is to show that the 
 essential doctrines of theology are and will remain unaffected by 
 any scientific conclusions, to separate them from all extraneous or 
 adventitious elements with which they may have become mingled, 
 and to present them in their purity and simplicity ; and the second 
 is to consecrate, so to speak, the conclusions of science by showing 
 their harmony v/ith these essential truths and by bringing out their 
 religious significance. The attitude which theology in Protestant 
 countries has long since assumed with regard to astronomy may be 
 taken as an illustration of the spirit in which this twofold task 
 should be perfoi'med. There can be no doubt that in the first in- 
 stance the system of Copernicus was regarded as eminently anti- 
 theological and atheistical. It was at variance with the letter of 
 the Bible, with the teaching of the Church, and with the doctrines 
 of the Fathers, and, by destroying the localities in which mediaeval 
 theology had placed its heaven and its hell, it seemed to annihilate 
 the belief in those future rewards and punishments of which thej' 
 were to be the theatre. But now-a-days no one, in England at least, 
 even dreams of there being any such contradiction, and the dis- 
 coveries of astronomy are referred to as a sort of common place for 
 illustrations of the infinity, power, wisdom, and goodness of the 
 Creator. It is true that more is involved, or rather, perhaps, more 
 seems to us to be involved, in admitting the antiqidty of man — the 
 origin of all species, including man, by development out of lower 
 organisms — the late date and uncertain authorship of the Penta- 
 teuch — to take only a few of the matters which are still the battle- 
 field of science and theology. Nor do I assert or assume that these 
 are now proved, or that ever they will be proved, at any rate, with 
 the same absoluteness of demonstration as belongs to the dis- 
 coveries of astronomy. But, if not proved, these opinions are held 
 by men eminent for ability, learning, patient investigation, and a 
 reverent spu-it, and they are winning their way into an ever widening 
 
75 
 
 circle of disciples. They demand recognition, then, as plausible, 
 and even as probable hypotheses ; not proved, but coming year by 
 year nearer to proof; and as such a theologian might deal with 
 them. And surely there are aspects under which all of these might 
 be made to subserve the purposes of theology. I am no professional 
 theologian, but I might, perhaps, suggest as appropriate and as 
 sanctioned by precedent such as these. The enlarged view which 
 they present of the period during which the divine energy and 
 superintendence has been manifested on our globe — the confirmation 
 which they give to the Divine wisdom and immutability in showing 
 'that one system of laws has prevailed from the very commencement 
 of organization, and that system so arranged as gradually to evolve 
 all that we now see — the manner in which instrumentalities of the 
 most varied and seemingly unlikely kind have been employed for the 
 education of the world and in preparing it for higher and purer 
 teaching — these are some of the lessons which might be deduced, 
 and which, whether or not the most appropriate or edifyingthat might 
 be drawn, may at least suffice to show that theology need not lose 
 anything essential, or any instrument for elevating or purifying the 
 intellect or the character, even were these conclusions adopted. 
 
 To me the opposition between science and theology has always 
 appeared most unfortunate. The implied stigma cast upon science, 
 by denouncing its enquiries as presumptuous and unwarranted and 
 its conclusions as u-religious and atheistical, is injurious to the mental 
 tone of those to whom it is addressed, and the consequent injury to 
 theology when it is perceived, as in many cases it is, that what has 
 been so denounced is nevertheless demonstrably true has been at 
 least equal. If I could believe that the opposition was necessarily 
 inherent in the nature of the two conceptions, I should have no 
 prospect before me but on the one hand the destruction of theology 
 or on the' other the enslavement of the human intellect, either of 
 which I should regard as. a misfortune of almost equal magnitude ; 
 though undoubtedly the former would be the roBre tolerable and 
 the more hopeful condition : for man, by his very constitution, if left 
 free, would frame a theology for himself, not, we may believe, 
 without the guiding spirit of God, while the enslaved intellect might 
 struggle for ages without ever raising itself to a worthy conception 
 of its author, its nature, or its destinies. But I do not think that 
 there is any such essential incompatibility between the two, and it 
 appears to me, therefore, that their present conflict arises from mis- 
 taken views on one side or the other, which a calm and dispassionate 
 investigation may help to remove. 
 
W. K. THOMAS, PKIKTBB, EEGISTER OFFICE, ABELAIBE, 
 
"I' 
 
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