Cornell University Library 
 nthropology, or. Science of m 
 
 olln 
 
 3 1924 028 935 786 
 
Cornell University 
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 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028935786 
 
A MANUAL 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
"All our hopes now lie in a true understanding and philosophy of 
 man's nature." — H. G. Atkinson, F.G.S. 
 
 " The absolute and unholy barrier set up between psychical and 
 physical nature must be brolcen down." — De. Henry Matjdslet. 
 
 " It is manifest that nothing can be of consequence to mankind, or 
 any creature, but happiness."— Bishop Butlee. 
 
 " When religion is called in question because of the extravagancies 
 of theologians being passed off as religion, one disengages and helps 
 religion by showing their utter delusiveness." — Matthew Arnold. 
 
A MANUAL 
 
 OF 
 
 ANTHROPOLOaY, 
 
 OR 
 
 SCIENCE OE MAN, 
 
 BASED ON MODEKN KESEARCH. 
 
 CHARLES BRAY, 
 
 Author of " The Philosophy of Necessity" " Force amd its Mental 
 Correlates" •' T/ie Education of the FeeUngs," ^c. 
 
 " If these statemejits startle, it is beoaijfee matter has been 
 defined and maligned !hy philosophers, arid theologians who were 
 equally unaware that it is, at bottom, essentially mystical and 
 transcendental."— Ttstdall. ^V /, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, READER, AND DYER. 
 
 1871. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 "The savant," Emerson says, "is often an amateur. Els' 
 performance is a memoir to the Academy on flsh-worms,. 
 tadpoles, or spiders' legs ; he ohseryes as other academi- 
 cians observe ; he is on stilts at a microscope, and — ^his 
 memoir finished, and read, and printed — ^he retreats into 
 his routinary existence, which is qnite separate from his 
 scientific." 
 
 Cuvier and St. Hilaire disputed over some two hundred 
 pages upon the identity of organs: for instance, whether 
 the forehoof of an ox is exactly the " same organ " with 
 the wing of a bat. 
 
 Now we must not for a moment suppose that we have 
 no interest in such memoirs to the Academy, or in such 
 slight differences of opinion as appear to have existed 
 between Cuvier and St. Hilaire ; as Mr. Lecky ob- 
 serves, in his " History of European Morals," " in the 
 eyes of both the philanthropist and the philosopher, the 
 greatest of all results to be expected in this, or per- 
 haps any other field, are to be looked for in the study 
 of the relations between our physical and moral natures." 
 Comparative Anatomy is not the least important branch 
 of this study. 
 
 Influenced no doubt by such considerations, M. Paul 
 Bert, author of an Essay, " Sur la Vitalite propre des 
 Tissus Animaux," has instituted a series of very ingenious 
 
Tl. PREFACE. 
 
 experiments, without, however, as many will think, a 
 sufficient fear of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Animals before his eyes : " Insert," he says, " in the 
 back of a rat the end of its own tail, having first pared 
 it raw with a bistoury ; it will heal and take root. As 
 soon as the graft is complete, amputate the tail about one- 
 third of an inch from the old root. The rat's tail will 
 henceforward grow the reverse way and out of the back." 
 And again he says : " If you amputate the paw of a young 
 rat, partially skin it, and introduce it through the skin of 
 another rat's side, it will engraft, take nutriment, grow, 
 and acquire all the ordinary parts of its structure, as if 
 it had remained with its former proprietor." M. Taine, 
 in his recent work, " D' I'lntelligence," has endeavoured 
 to apply these more curious than humane experiments to 
 illustrate the relation between our "physical and moral," 
 or, at least, intellectual nature. 
 
 If the researches of the Germans have been less curious 
 than the French, they have certainly been more important. 
 It is now nearly a century since Dr. Francis Joseph Gall, 
 a physician of Vienna, when a school-boy, accidentally 
 made the discovery of a connection between certain definite 
 parts of the brain and certain equally definite mental 
 functions. He devoted his life to this study of Cerebral 
 Physiology: others have devoted their lives to the veri- 
 fication of his most important discoveries, so that the 
 physiology of the brain — " the relation between our physical 
 and moral natures" — is not untrodden and unknown ground. 
 Nevertheless, we find Mr. Lecky, after proclaiming the ne- 
 cessity for cerebral organs, declaring that "of their exist- 
 ence we know nothing." It would have been more correct 
 
PKEPAOE. Vii. 
 
 if he had said / — if he had only spoken for himself — 
 although no doubt our leading physiologists appear to 
 be still in the dark as to whether the part the brain has 
 to play is that of a pot of pomatum — its function, according 
 to the barber, being to " percolate through the skull and 
 nourish the roots of the hair" — or to perform the more 
 noble function of the organ of the mind. It is in the 
 latter capacity we recognise it, in its plurality of organs, 
 and we consider the study of the brain and nervous 
 centres, as connected with thought and feeling, quite as 
 important as M. Paul Bert's investigations into " Vitality " 
 — not that we wish to disparage his experiments. Pro- 
 fessor Huxley has shown us even the commercial value 
 of Redi's early researches into " spontaneous generation " ; 
 and no one, therefore, can say what may come out 
 cf M. Bert's transposition of rats' tails from the place 
 where nature intended them, to the middle of the back. 
 The science of the present day, however, would seem to be 
 much more taken up with such speculations, and as to 
 whether our forefathers were covered with hair, had pointed 
 «ars and a tail, or whether we began with civilisation, or 
 have ended with it, than with the discoveries of a man who 
 is able to tell us what man is, not what he was countless ages 
 ago. Gall has been forgotten, and the present generation 
 is much less interested in the head than the tail ; never- 
 theless I am bound to say, notwithstanding the scorn and 
 ■contempt to which such an assertion will probably subject 
 me, that thirty-six years' close and continued observation 
 have convinced me that the greater part of what has been 
 laid down by Gall, Spurzheim, and Combe is true, and 
 may be verified by any ordinarily well-qualified person who 
 
Till. PREFACE. 
 
 ■will follow their method of investigation. Of the additions 
 which Mr. H. G. Atkinson has made to their discoveries 
 (for which see " Man's Nature and Development"), as they 
 have been obtained by another method, I have had less 
 opportunity for observation. I can only say I should 
 think them highly probable, as they seem very necessary 
 ^arts of our mental system. Theie may be a great deal 
 more "to know, and what we do know may be more per- 
 fectly known ; but upon the facts already discovered has 
 been based a Mental Science, more clear and practical 
 than any with which the world has yet been acquainted, 
 and which is admitted to be " the only psychological 
 system that as yet counts any considerable number of ad- 
 herents." 
 
 All our faculties both of mind and body have been first 
 tried in the lower animals ; they have been transmitted to 
 us through every form of organisation ; they have appeared 
 singly, separately, or together, until they have taken their 
 last and most perfect development in man. The study of 
 the animal world, therefore, both in its physiology and its 
 psychology, is most important, and it has been too long 
 neglected. We have accepted the love and service of our 
 fellow-creatures of the brute creation, and then meanly 
 denied our relationship. It is true the Common Spelling- 
 book declares the Pig to be man's best friend, because he 
 can eat him every bit, from the tip of his nose to the end 
 of his curly tail ; but even in this rather low view of friend- 
 ship — friendship being confined generally to eating with, 
 not of, your friend — ^it is a question whether man has per- 
 formed his part. We have ignored all mental affinity with 
 our humble friends, and have suffered, as we deserved to 
 
PREFACE. IX. 
 
 do, from our ignorance of their natures and capacities. We 
 have been studying angels, not animals. In fact. 
 
 In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies ; 
 All quit their sphere and rush into the skies. 
 Aspiring to he Gods if angels fell ; 
 Aspiring to be angels, men rebel. 
 
 In our self-complacency we have carried our noses so high 
 that we have overrun the scent, and must try back. We are 
 gods here on earth ; let us not therefore from ignorance 
 fail in our duties to the creatures below us. At present even 
 the languages they speak are to us unknown tongues. We 
 are God's creatures ; they are ours to sympathise with, to 
 rule, and to make happy. In all that lives we shall find 
 something to admire, something to leam, and often some- 
 thing to love. Dr. Draper, the American physiologist, says : 
 " Nearly all philosophers who have cultivated, in recent 
 times, that branch of knowledge (Metaphysics) have viewed 
 with apprehension the rapid advances of Physiology, from 
 seeing that it would attempt the final solution of problems 
 which have exercised the ingenuity of the last twenty cen- 
 turies. In this they are not mistaken. , Certainly it is 
 desirable that some new method should be introduced, which 
 may give point and precision to whatever metaphysical truths 
 exist, and enable us to distinguish, separate and dismiss 
 what are only vain and empty speculations." 
 
 Only that knowledge which admits of demonstration will 
 endure and advance. Psychology therefore must be brought 
 within the domain of law, if that also, like the other sciences, 
 is to make any progress. This progress, however, must 
 be slow, as the deepest feelings of our nature, and even 
 common sense, have been enlisted and set in array against 
 its discoveries. If it took a century and a half to reconcile 
 
mankind to the Copernican Astronomy, it must be long before 
 it will recognise and accept an ethics founded on the Reign of 
 Law, instead of the present one based on chance, called Free- 
 will. We must be prepared for, and tolerant of, some little 
 diversity of opinion on this subject for some time to come, 
 since even the great Lord Bacon said on this question of the 
 earth's motion, " It is the absurdity of these opinions that 
 has driven men to the diurnal motion of the earth ; which 
 I am convinced is most false " (De Augmentis Scientiarum, 
 B. Ill); and Alexander von Humboldt in his early youth 
 — and the majority of the world are still very young — ^wrote a 
 learned essay to refute the notion that the pyramids of Egypt 
 were the productions of nature. Still we may hope that 
 ultimately the " new method "will establish the order of the 
 moral world on a basis as fixed and universal as that of the 
 physical. Why we have no mental and moral science at 
 present is because most people think that they have in their 
 religion a sufficient standard of both, and that all the wants 
 of human nature are included in the Bible ; but this idea 
 has long heen exploded in Physics, and it must be in Ethics 
 before we can make the same progress in Ethics as we have 
 in Physics. Men agree in Science because it admits of de- 
 monstration, but we have no recognised Science of Human 
 Nature. We have no first principles on spiritual subjects : 
 consequently on great moral questions that arise we find our 
 most talented and leading men about equally divided on 
 opposite sides. Talent without principles is rather in the 
 way than not, and interferes with the instincts that would 
 otherwise guide us aright, and 
 
 Who fastest walks, but walks astray, 
 Ib only furthest from the way. 
 
 — Prior. 
 
PREFACE. XI. 
 
 And we have a Babel of discord and a confusion of tongues. 
 
 Anthropologists occupy themselves with questions relating 
 to facts "so far off and so long since" that they scarcely 
 admit of demonstration and verification. Perhaps they do 
 not know that the exact age of the world has been determined. 
 This was accomplished, according to Venerable Bede, at a 
 council held at Jerusalem, about the year 200 A.D. After 
 a learned discussion, reported verbatim, it was finally decided 
 that the world's birthday was Sunday, April 8, at the vernal 
 equinox, and at the fall of the moon (Opera, tom 2, pp. 346, 
 347. Ed. Basil, 1563.) Here, at least. Anthropologists 
 have one valuable and important fact to start from, and this 
 question having been so satisfactorily settled, they may 
 perhaps feel disposed to take the next step onward ; so that, 
 in course of time, arriving at the idea that sensibility is 
 connected with the nervous system, and that the brain is the 
 centre of this system, they may begin to feel some little 
 interest in its varied functions and Gall's discoveries. 
 
 There are many at the present time who have been obliged 
 to disregard " the tales they have heard from their mothers," 
 and to abandon prevailing opinions, anxiously enquiring 
 what is to take their place, and they are as desirous as the 
 world has ever been to know Whence we came. Why we are 
 here, and Whither we are going. The Spectator, a paper of 
 some authority in such matters, in a notice of Mr. Maurice's 
 work on the Conscience, September 26th, 1868, remarked 
 that a large section of the ablest of our young men hold and 
 avow more or less openly, according to their courage and 
 honesty, that the attempt to solve such problems as the 
 moral philosopher deals with " can lead to no results save 
 that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, inca- 
 
Xn. PREFACE. 
 
 pable alike of refutation or verification ; " and Lord Macanlay 
 also asserted that " the best writer on Morals does not de- 
 serve half the gratitude from mankind which is due to a 
 good shoemaker.'' Nevertheless the present work is another 
 brief and humble attempt, by making use of the light of 
 podern discovery and by putting together and systematising 
 what have hitherto been detached and isolated truths, to 
 answer this question of our Whence, Why, and Whither. 
 I have endeavoured honestly to think out modem facts and 
 discoveries to what appear to be their legitimate iconclusions, 
 although it may perhaps take the labours of another genera- 
 tion of workers to test and verify the deductions that have 
 been here made. This task has been done without dread of 
 the consequences, in the firm conviction that we have no- 
 thing to fear from truth, and that whatever intuitional aid 
 we may receive from Conscience, " we must still leavn what 
 is true in order to do what is right." 
 
 The Author has been accused by former critics of being 
 too fond of " inverted commas," that is, of quotation. This 
 accusation is quite true. Having no personal ends to serve, 
 and knowing the value of authority with the general public — 
 for much that is here if given merely as his would probably ' 
 obtain little acceptance — ^he has always been glad to support 
 his position by names deservedly better known to the world 
 than his own, and to build up his edifice with bricks that 
 have the " trade mark" of science upon them. It has also 
 been said that he offers " authority" for " proof ; " this also 
 is partially true. In a single volume it is impossible in 
 many cases to do more than point to where proof may be 
 found, and those who are really in search of truth, and wish 
 to study the subject, may refer. Should such a truth-seeker 
 
meet with apparent contradictions, let him reflect how very 
 imperfect a medium language is to express new ideas, and 
 that we are frequently obliged to use old terms in a new 
 sense, which often begets an apparent contradiction. Men 
 ordinarily believe, like Shakespeare's Shepherd, "that the 
 property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn, and that a 
 great cause of the night is lack of the sun;" they believe 
 also quite as firmly that grass is green, and that there are 
 forms and bodies to which this colour belongs : they never 
 for a moment suppose that they are conscious only of their 
 own perceptions, and that that consciousness is all they 
 know, or can by possibility know ; and yet as long as 
 they continue under this illusion and delusion, and fail to 
 recognise that the greenness is in themselves, and not in 
 the grass, the same apparent contradiction must appear 
 in language as there is in that which speech is supposed 
 to represent. 
 
 It has also been said that the doctrines here propounded 
 tend to lower our ideal. This also may be partially true, but 
 our real good will be found in the proper restraint of our un- 
 bounded ideal longings within proportions commensurate 
 with the real facts of life. Much of our duty may be better 
 done by the light of a farthing candle than by that of the 
 stars. No doubt much else may be justly said, much un- 
 justly ; but 
 
 To the long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, 
 Because their natures are little, 
 
 — Tennyson, 
 
 The author has nothing to reply. 
 
 The Spectrum Analysis is affording proof to many pro- 
 
X17-. PflJSPACB. 
 
 blems in physics, and Pi'of. Tait tells us that the doctrine of 
 the Conservation of Energy is now thoroughly accepted by 
 scientific men, and that it has already revolutionised the 
 greater part of physics. Scientific men, however, have con- 
 fined this discovery to physics, and there has been little or no 
 attempt hitherto to carry it beyond. The Bishop of Glouces- 
 ter and Bristol, however, says " that we owe much to Dr. 
 Carpenter for making it perfectly clear that though there is 
 a certain amount of correlation between vital and physical 
 forces, yet that the differentia between them is distinct and 
 well defined, and that it is to be sought for in the nature of 
 the material substratum through which they work, whether 
 that be inorganic matter or organised structure. Such 
 generalisations are helpful and suggestive ; we owe much 
 to them, and in the future we may owe still more." I have 
 endeavoured to carry this generalisation a step further, to 
 the correlation between mental and physical forces, and all 
 the novelty I lay claim to in this work is the application of 
 the Conservation, Transmutation, and Dissipation of Energy 
 to Mind, Morals, and Eeligion. This doctrine of the Per- 
 sistence of Force or Conservation of Energy furnishes the 
 proof to much that has been known from the earliest ages, 
 but which has been known as mere speculation. Prof. P. G. 
 Tait tells us that it is " simply preposterous to suppose that 
 we shall ever be able to understand scientifically the source 
 of consciousness and volition." Nevertheless, I have endea- 
 voured to show the conditions under which physical force or 
 automatic mind again resumes its consciousness ; how the 
 Persistence of Force, and Philosophical Necessity or Law 
 in Mind, are the same, and how, therefore, our Ethical 
 systems may and must be brought into harmony with this 
 
PREFACE. XY. 
 
 now known fact ; and I have endeavoured also to show the 
 Unity of Force, and that all Power is Will Power, conscious 
 or automatic, or, as Mr. W. R. Grove has put it, " Causa- 
 tion is the Will, Creation the act of God." Physics and 
 Metaphysics — Physiology and Psychology thus become 
 united, and the study uf man passes from the uncertain light 
 of mere opinion to the region of science. 
 
 I wish some one with a learned handle to his name, or 
 with a better claim to the world's notice, had taken up this 
 subject ; but the fact is that literary and scientific men are 
 either too much occupied in their special department, or do 
 not like to face the odium iheologicum and all the other 
 odiums which attend speaking out on subjects which in the 
 present day belong more to feeling than to reason. It is 
 only one who has no position and reputation to lose who 
 dares venture upon this ground. Dr. Tyndall, in the Pre- 
 face to his Volume of Essays just issued, says : " Most of 
 the Essays are of a purely scientific character, and from those 
 which are not I have endeavoured, without veiling my con- 
 victions, to exclude every word that could cause needless 
 irritation." I am afraid I have not been equally cautious. 
 I bow to science, but science is only valuable as it helps to 
 solve the problems here propounded of the Whence, Why, 
 and Whither. Faraday, however, says (" Life and Letters") : 
 " I do not think it at all necessary to tie the study of the 
 natural sciences and religion together, and in my intercourse 
 with my fellow-creatures that which is religious and that 
 which is philosophical have ever been two distinct things " ; 
 and, if we are to follow Faraday's example, that which is 
 religious and that which is philosophical must ever remain 
 two distinct things. Faraday was a " Sandemanian," and 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 if we are precluded from the exercise of reason in Religion, 
 and are not " to tie the study of the natural sciences and 
 religion together," we can have no hope of finding God in 
 Nature, or of discriminating between the grossest supersti- 
 tion of the age and country in which we are born and the 
 Eeligion of the Universe. Sir John Lubbock bears his 
 testimony " that without science true religion is impossible." 
 Faraday, however, was not without precedent. " The most 
 enlightened theologians of the Catholic Church — Pascal, 
 Malebranche, Bossuet, and Fenelon, received what they called 
 Catholic doctrines, and mysterious dogmas to which no prin- 
 ciples of reason could be applied. Some even said that the 
 more the mysteries shocked the reason and the conscience, 
 the more devoutly they were to be believed." " In all super- 
 stition," says Lord Bacon, " wise men follow fools ; and 
 arguments are fitted to practice in a reversed order." Again, 
 the Duke of Argyll (^Contemporary Review, May, 1871): 
 " I do not know that the discoveries of modern science, great 
 as they have been, and much as they are vaunted, have con- 
 tributed anything towards the solution of the final problems 
 of all human speculation. These, in so far as mere specula- 
 tion is capable of dealing with them, seem to remain very 
 much where the great intellects of the ancient world found 
 them and left them." Surely Science, with those who, unlike 
 Faraday, think it right to use it, has taken many of these 
 problems out of the field of mere speculation. It has tested 
 more than one Revelation, and shown that the sun no more 
 goes round the earth in Ethics than in Physics, however in 
 the one case, as in the other, appearances may deceive us. 
 
 Coventry, Oetoher, 1871. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 The length of time that life has existed on the earth. Difficulty of 
 fixing dates. The earth originally a fiery mist. Cooling down. 
 What has become of the heat? Heat a "mode of motion," which 
 has merely changed its form : all the phenomena in the universe 
 consist but in these changes of form or transformation of energy. 
 Heat the least condensed form of force — ^mind the most condensed. 
 Sun-force and earth-force. Unity of force ; all force the force of 
 some unknown Spiritual Essence. Prof. Tyndall and the earth's 
 atmosphere. The sun's ataiosphere, and the composition of the 
 sun, planets, and stars. Earliest form of life. "To draw nutrition, 
 propagate and rot," the earliest functions differentiated. Scale of 
 Being. The difference between highest and lowest one of degree, 
 not of kind. Sensibility, Mind, or Consciousness. Connection with 
 the nervous system, which increases in weight and complexity as 
 mental power and energy increase. Each creature has a world of 
 its own proportionate to its powers of feeling. Inferiority of man's 
 mental faculties, in some respects, to insecfts and other animals. 
 Unity of sensibility in the network of nerve spread over the whole 
 world. Matter and Spirit mere names for groups of phenomena- 
 Wonderful constitution of matter pp. 1-18 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 Man probably one hundred thousand years old, and one hundred 
 miUion years in making. The creatures to whom the earth be- 
 longed before man. The missing link not yet found. Man's pro- 
 genitor according to Darwin. Advance measured by brain and 
 nervous system. The foetal changes. The functions of the brain 
 and nervous system. Mind — the highest development of force. 
 Comparative slow rate at which nerve force ti-avels. Dr. Gall's 
 discoveries in cerebral physiology. Neglect of Gall's .discoveries 
 
XX. CONTENTS. 
 
 by the physiologists of the present day, and prevailing ignorance 
 with respect to the functions of the brain. Analysis of its functions. 
 Conditions requisite to its healty action. Life — definition of it. 
 Temperaments. Dr. Eobert Bird's physiological essays. Waves of 
 heat, and waves of death. Tenacity of life and the organ of Vita- 
 tiveness. Race. Hereditary descent. Climate. Electricity. Actions 
 going on in the earth's crust, mundane emanations, consumption 
 and certain soils. Body and soul emanations. Instinct only 
 memory once removed. Definition of the propensities, sentiments, 
 and intellectual faculties. The senses the medium only by which 
 the brain is brought into action. The manner in which the world 
 is created by our faculties out of the few simple forces received 
 through the senses. The intellectual faculties give us no real know- 
 ledge — we know only the consciousness that external forces create 
 in us through them. pp. 19-106 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MOKAIITT. 
 
 Morality the science of man's duties ; it concerns the why and the 
 how, or the principles and practice. The Pbikciples of Mora.litt. 
 All action the result of pre-existent persistent force. No difierence 
 therefore in actions themselves ; the differences purely subjective. 
 We are conscious of the action of the mind and of the will, but 
 unconscious of the forces that govern both. Statistics prove these 
 forces to act as much in accordance with law in the moral as in the 
 physical world. No spontaneous act of wfll, and free-will a delusion. 
 Actions good or bad, not in themselves, but as they tend to promote 
 the general well-being, or greatest happiness of the whole sensitive 
 creation. A future state of rewards and punishments only carrying 
 Utilitarianism into another world. The Intuitionist — ^the source of 
 his error in the fact that none of our faculties seek happiness 
 directly, but have other ends, from which happiness results. Con- 
 science, an instinct based upon transmitted experience of utility, 
 requires the guiding hand of Reason to adapt it to present conditions. 
 Each age has had its own standard of right. No such things as 
 sin and evil — only pain and pleasure ; the pain the necessary guar- 
 dian of the pleasure. Natural Selection, or the preservation of the 
 fittest, the doctrine of Utilitarianism in its last form. Objuctions 
 to Darwinism. The Natural Law and the right to live. The 
 Causes of Pauperism and the Remedies. 
 
CONTESTS. XXI. 
 
 The Pkactice op Morality requires that we should make all as 
 happy as possible. Our wants point to our duties. Happiness 
 found in the legitimate and constant use of all our faculties. 
 ChristiaD and Boman morals, Lecky on European morals. Moral 
 science a pure system of dynamics ; the action of the will always 
 representing the strongest force, and as the strongest force is 
 always dependent upon the largest organs, a man's conduct must ' 
 depend upon the balance of his organisation. The Civil Service 
 Examination furnishes no test of character ; only of intellectual 
 power and aptitudes. Petition of Sir George S. Mackenzie to 
 Lord Glenelg on the classification of criminals upon these prin- 
 ciples. Lunacy and vice the same, and require the same treat- 
 ment pp. 106-153 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 PHYSICS AUD METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Our own consciousness aU that is known to us, and external objects 
 are known only as they appear in this consciousness. Our road 
 lies, therefore, from metaphysics to physics, and not fi-om physics 
 to metaphysics, for the world is created in the mind by our ' ' forms 
 of thought," which " forms " are dependent upon the structure of 
 the brain. It is this consciousness, a mere succession of thoughts 
 and feelings, tUat we call our mind, and it is induced by the mo- 
 lecular action of the brain upon force passing through it. Force 
 is inseparable from the entity to which it belongs ; it is not matter, 
 matter only conditions it ; it is not motion, but the cause of motion. 
 The natural forces are correlates — that is, they all pass readily into 
 each other. Force, therefore, is One, and that of which it is the 
 force, a Unity — Universal Mind, conscious or automatic. Thus in 
 the correlation of force we have one great heart-beat of the 
 Absolute Existence : " Being underlying all modes and forms of 
 Being pp. 154-192 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The feelings and faculties by which the religious world is created. 
 Early history of religion. The Hebrew and Christian God. Super- 
 stition. Atheism preferable to Calvinism. Lecky on the Christian 
 Hell, and on persecution as the legitimate consequence. The 
 Shakers, who have no children, alone consistent. Old creeds pass- 
 ing away. Trimming. Eeligious language metaphorical. The 
 Theological Universe. Anthropomorphism. A new reformation 
 
XXU. CONTENTS. 
 
 wanted. Buddha. The Wahhdbee, or purest doctrine of Moham- 
 medanism. Man a Cosmos. God and Nature inseparable — God is 
 Nature, not m Nature, and the Laws of Nature are Hie modes of 
 action— the manifestation of His Attributes. The Eternal Sacred- 
 ness of the universe, and of all life in it ; contains, therefore, the 
 germ of the new reformation. It is the tutored mind, not the 
 "untutored," that "sees God in clouds and hears Him in the wind." 
 Prayer. The coming religion. "Worship. . . pp. 193-246 
 
 Section — Death. Life and Death the mere synthesis and analysis 
 of nature's laboratory. The old and useless bodies are always being 
 ground up to make into new and improved ones. Nothing is lost, 
 unless it be the dreams and recollections of man in his grub state. 
 Where energy disappears, it merely changes its form. Nothing 
 really dies, for death is always the parent of life elsewhere, — the 
 energy is passed on ; the life of the aggregate being the death of 
 the atoms; "so much eloquence, so much of the body resolved 
 into carbonic acid, water, and urea." The Soul — whence ? and 
 when? and where? The difficulties attending the retention of our 
 Identity and Personality after death. The Author writes his 
 Epitaph pp. 247-263 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 The Malthusian doctrine. The competition consequent npon the 
 natural tendency to increase faster than the means of subsistence 
 keeps down the rate of wages, and causes an unfair .division of the 
 produce of industry. The relation of Capital to Labour the great 
 question of the day. Prof. Jacoby on wages and co-operation. 
 Periodical distress. Effects of free trade. The national income 
 and mode of its distribution. Evils of the great inequality. The 
 working man's legislature. The good in the present social system. 
 The British Constitution. Republicanism. Democracy must ad- 
 vance. The Income of the Queen and of the Gold Sticks in Waiting. 
 The schemes for producing a more fair and equal division. Co- 
 operation for Distribution, and in Manufactures and Agriculture. 
 Present condition of the rural population in France and England. 
 The slow growth of improvement in men and institutions. The 
 people not prepared for a Republic. Revolutions merely destructive. 
 Opinion, its various character. Does not govern, all permanent 
 charge a growth and we have to grow the brains necessary for a 
 new social system. The International Working Men's Association. 
 Communism or Positivism pp. 264-303 
 
CONTENTS. XXin. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 Eeoapitulation of principles. How best to further nature's plan in 
 the production of the largest amount of happiness. Pleasurable 
 sensibility has always increased with the increase in size of the ner- 
 vous system. We want to grow larger and more perfect brains. 
 Sexual selection. Hereditary descent. All the physical and men- 
 tal powers to be developed proportionally and exercised daily. 
 Each of the " Seven Ages "has its special enjoyments, which cannot 
 be postponed, and to which we can never return. The especial 
 cultivation of the .Sisthetic and a taste for good reading, a fortune 
 for our old age. God everything or nothing. The world created 
 anew every day, and we must be in harmony with the laws by 
 which it is effected. The " One and All " requires the resignation 
 of the Individual and Personal — of all that is selfish — to the Infinite 
 Whole. This is the new religion pp. 304-344: 
 
 lUDEX pp. 347-358 
 
A MANUAL 
 
 ANTHROPOLOGY, 
 
 Etc. 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 IN THE BEQINKING. 
 
 It is very difficult to fix dates ;n Geology ; before or after 
 certain occurrences is all that can be spoken of confidently 
 with respect to time. 
 
 If we admit, therefore, that life may have existed upon 
 this earth from one hundred millions to five hundred millions 
 of years, this latitude, great as it seems, is perhaps no 
 greater than the present state of our knowledge requires ; 
 and it is fortunate that a hundred million years, more or 
 less, make very little difference to our comfort at present. 
 Authority is rather in favour of the smaller estimate. 
 
 Our earth and planetary system, and indeed the whole 
 Cosmos, are supposed to have existed originally as nebulous 
 matter — that is, a sort of " fiery mist " like the tails of 
 comets. Our system has gradually settled down into its 
 present form, evolving in the process an enormous quantity 
 of heat, so that our earth must at one time have been 
 molten at the surface, with a fiery atmosphere like the sun, 
 and probably being to its satellite the moon what the sun is 
 
2 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 to US. The moon may be a dead and used-up world^ — 
 such as the fearth is becoming, and fnay probably become, 
 before it falls into the sun, towards which all planetary bodies 
 are gravitating. The sun may then take a habitable form, 
 and revolve as a great planet round some more distant 
 centre, and it and other stars in our " Milky Way " may 
 form Planetary Systems on a larger scale, or may, by the 
 great heat consequent on the change of their present " mode 
 of motion," be again melted into nebulous fiery mist, and 
 begin life again, as our earth is supposed originally to have 
 begun. The earth has been very gradually cooling down, 
 and is still conjectured to be in a state of internal fluidity. 
 According to Sir Charles Lyell, the heat increases as we 
 leave the surface for the interior one degree for 'every 
 65 feet. This degree of heat would boil water at a depth 
 of two miles, and melt iron at a distance of -thirty-four 
 miles. Mr. Hull, in a paper read before the Eoyal Society 
 (Jan., 1870), stated that at Rose Bridge Colliery, near 
 Wigan, the deepest mine in Britain, it appears that at a 
 depth of -808 yards the temperature of the coal is 93-^ 
 degrees. This gives an increase of temperature of one 
 degree for every 55 feet, and will render the supply of coal, 
 which geologists say exists in such large quantities, beneath 
 the new red sandstone, rather difficult to reach, until a 
 considerable farther cooling of the earth has taken place. 
 At the meeting of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Chemical 
 Society (1871) it was however stated that salt-mines at 
 nearly the same depth as the Monkwearmouth Colliery are 
 at a much lower, in fact, a comfortable working temperature ; 
 and the conclusion drawn from this was that the heat is due 
 to chemical action going on within the coal itself. As 
 respects this internal fluidity a considerable influence may 
 be expected to be exercised upon the peculiar " mode of 
 motion " which we call heat by the great pressure upon it 
 from above. 
 
But whatever may be the present peculiar state of the 
 earth's interior, it seems to have existed in a very unquiet 
 and uncomfortable condition for a very considerable period, 
 and great commotions have taken place on its surface. 
 Mountains, much higher than any at present existing, have 
 been raised, continents and islands everywhere have emerged 
 to be again submerged ; and to come as near home, as possible, 
 it is Sir Charles Lyell's opinion that at one stage of the 
 glacial period the mountains of Wales were much higher 
 than at present ; — at another stage, 2,300 feet lower ; at 
 one stage of the same period Scotland was 2,000 feet below 
 its present level, and other parts of Britain 1,300 feet ; then 
 Great Britain and Ireland consisted o4 a few groups of small 
 islands formed by the mountains of Wales, Cumberland, the 
 Scottish highlands, Munster and Connaught, and probably of 
 a larger island formed by, the portion of England south of 
 the Severn and the Thames. Thus, through the combined 
 influences of Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and Evolu- 
 tionism, — ^representing the three great schools of geological 
 theory, — the earth has settled down into the comparatively 
 quiet state in which we now find it, atmospheric and. aqueous 
 agencies having given it the varied strata so familiar to us. 
 The crust of the earth is supposed to be about 60 miles 
 thick, which bears the same proportion as one inch to a globe 
 eleven feet in diameter. We need not be surprised therefore 
 if some still further upheaval and lowering of continents 
 should take place, and in fact it is found that the Western 
 Coast of South America is steadily rising, and in ^orth 
 Europe the lands are in some places rising and others 
 falling. Much of Scotland, Scandinavia, and of the Baltic 
 shores have greatly risen in these latter times, and Cosmos 
 asserts that it has 'recently been demonstrated by a reference 
 to authentic documents that Guernsey and Jersey have sunk 
 more than fifteen yards during the last five centuries. At 
 present two-thirds of the earth's surface are covered with salt 
 water. 
 
4 IN THE BEGINNINO. 
 
 By the aid of the spectroscope it has been demonstrated 
 that planets, sun, and stars are all made of one material, — 
 that the matter of the sun is the same as the meteoric stones 
 that occasionally fall heavy and cold to our earth. In the 
 star Aldeboren nine like elements have been detected, and 
 other stars have the same elements as our earth and sun, or 
 very nearly — ^which induced a very venerable archdeacon, ever 
 on the look-out to illustrate the relation between religion 
 and science, to observe that this showed that they had the 
 same Creator, or very nearly. The sun, being a much larger 
 body than its satellites, still appears to exist in the incan- 
 descent molten state from which our earth has so gradually 
 emerged, and storms |)f fiery gases still sweep over its face, 
 causing considerable physical and mental commotion on 
 earth. The great frost at Brussels, February, 1870, in which 
 the centegrade thermometer went suddenly 10 deg. below 
 zero, and all the lakes, canals, and ponds were covered 
 with ice, was observed to be coincident with two sun 
 spots, visible to the naked eye, and measuring in diameter 
 twice or thrice the diameter of the earth. In 1866 a 
 small star in the Northern Crown was seen to flare up into 
 a most abnormal splendour, and as suddenly to collapse. into 
 its original state. This was supposed to be owing to some 
 disturbance in its fiery atmosphere ; probably from an 
 unusual conflagration of hydrogen gas. 
 
 But what has become of the heat in this process of the 
 earth's cooling down ? Professor Tyndall teUs us that 
 " ages ago the elementary constituents of our rocks clashed 
 together and produced the motion of heat, which was taken 
 up by the ether, and carried away through stellar space, and 
 was thus lost for ever as far as we are concerned." This, 
 however, is true only in a very partial and limited sense. 
 Heat is force or energy, but is known to us only as a 
 "mode of motion." " The atoms of matter," says Professor 
 
THE CORRELATIOlf OP FORCES. 5 
 
 Tyndall, " are suddenly urged together, by their own perfect 
 elasticity they recoil; and thus is set up the molecular 
 oscillation which announces itself to the nerves as heat." 
 On the principle of the Persistence of Force, or Conserva^ 
 tion of Energy, a comparatively late discovery, and which 
 Faraday pronounced to be "the highest law in physical 
 science which our faculties permit us ,to perceive," no force 
 is destructible : it merely changes its form, or mode of 
 motion, and all the phenomena in the universe consist but 
 in these changes of form or transformation of energy. Thus 
 heat, light, electricity, chemical affinity, life, mind, are forces 
 known to us only in their modes of motion, which Mr. Grove 
 has shown, at least as far as the physical forces are con- 
 cerned, to be readily transformable one into the other ; and 
 the peciiliar mode of motion, which we call heat, has not 
 been lost to us, but has merely changed one mode of motion 
 for another, and shows itself in all the varied phenomena of 
 inorganic and organic bodies around us. 
 
 Heat appears to be the most diffuse or least concentrated 
 form of force ; mind is the most condensed, and is most 
 dependent upon all the others. 
 
 The heat carried " away through stellar space " is more 
 than compensated to us by that which we receive direct from 
 the sun. It is the sun which lifts the seas from their beds, 
 with a power greater than that exerted by all animated 
 creation, and depositing them on the tops of mountains, pro- 
 duces that circulatory system upon which the vitality of the 
 earth depends. It is the sun, divorcing the carbon from 
 the oxygen in the plant, and on the restoration of this force 
 by their re-union in the animal body, which produces all the ■ 
 power, bodily and mental, that animals display. Plants 
 are fed on air, not on earth, their substance being formed 
 principally of the carbon they abstract from the atmosphere ; 
 all they get from the earth is the small quantity of ash left 
 on being burned, i.e., on being again converted into air. As 
 
b IN ,THE BKGINNI2TG. 
 
 Professor Huxley says, " Plants are the accumulators of the 
 power which animals distribute and. dispense." 
 
 Philosophers recognise at present only two sources of 
 power or energy — Sun-fprce and Earth-force ; but probably 
 there is only one, and gravitation and the special liking 
 of atoms for each other (chemical aiSnities) are dependent 
 on the sun, — all forces being equally correlates of each other. 
 
 The same force transmitted through the same impalpable 
 ether, or rather the same force and that unknown spiritual 
 essence of which it is the force, may equally hold the planets 
 to their appointed places and curve their far-off wanderings, 
 and create those undulatory and other modes of motion in our 
 atmosphere on which light and heat depend. The light of 
 day and the blue sky are owing to the comparatively solid 
 state of our atmosphere. The deep blue. Professor Tyndall 
 tells us, is produced by particles suspended in the_air, which 
 are not only invisible to the naked eye, but irreducible by the 
 highest powers of the microscope-, the light which they scatter 
 and their power of producing colour being indubitable 
 evidence of their existence. Were it not for this, we should 
 look into " the darkness of stellar space " instead of the 
 bright blue sky. These " suspended particles " are living 
 " germs," always ready to fructify under favouiable con- 
 ditions. From experiments, aided by the microscope. Dr. 
 Angus Smith, of Manchester, alid Mr. J. B. Dancer found 
 that in the quantity of the air of Manchester that a man 
 would breathe in ten hours there were 37^ millions of these 
 spores or germs of organic matter. This would make it 
 very difficult to prove the fact of spontaneous generation. 
 Professor Tyndall says, " Apart from their other effects, the 
 mere mechanical irritation produced by the deposition of 
 these particles in tender lungs must go for something. They 
 may be entirely withheld by a cotton wool respirator." 
 
 It might be thought difficult to prove that these dust 
 particles were living germs ; so also it might be considered 
 
THE SUN AND PLANETS. 7 
 
 to be at least difficult to prove their existence at all, as they 
 are invisible, and beyond the powers of the microscope ; but 
 taken en masse their existence is proved by the light which 
 they scatter, and their organic character is revealed through 
 the spectroscope, by the light which they give when burning. 
 
 Light and Heat depend quite as much upon the 
 atmosphere that surrounds a planet as upon the sun's 
 energy, and we may suppose that the atmosphere may differ 
 from ours quite sufficiently to compensate the planets that 
 appear to be left out in the cold for their greatly increased 
 distance from the sun. The mode of motion or quantity of 
 heat may therefore be the same in each planet. Saturn 
 is of about the same substance and weight as cork ; this, 
 perhaps, may be traceable to the conditions under which it 
 cooled, but this levity would probably necessitate a difference 
 in the organic form of the creatures upon it as great as exists 
 here between the inhabitants of sea and land. In the sea 
 the animals have no weight, being of the same specific 
 gravity as the element in which they live ; which must be 
 very convenient. " Eecent solar researches would indicate 
 that the solar atmosphere consists of clouds of iron, copper, 
 zinc, and other such elements, in a gaseous state ; each 
 element having its own distinct range, and the clouds being 
 consequently in layers. 
 
 Astronomers now rejoice in the knowledge of 88 planets 
 instead of 7, and how many more there are, time and our 
 telescopes can alone determine. Mars is supposed most 
 nearly to resemble our earth. Its year is almost twice as 
 long as ours ; its density less than three-fourths that of the 
 earth, and the force of gravity therefore much less than half.* 
 Friction thus being proportionally less, the same amount of 
 force would cause carriages and everything to move faster. 
 As much less force would be required for locomotion, it 
 might be used in brain work, that is in thinking and feeling, 
 * " Other Worlds than Oura," by R. A, Proctor. 
 
8 IN THE BEGINITING. 
 
 and its inhabitants would be mucli more spiritual. Velocity 
 of thought as well as of motion, and intensity of feeling, 
 would probably be the distinguishing features of life in Mars. 
 
 When the earth was without life and mind it was the 
 same as if it had no existence ; for a world that is not per- 
 ceived is the same as no world at all ; and we shall so regard 
 it, for, as we shall find, the objects of knowledge are ideas, 
 not things. Its real creation was in the perception of it by 
 the creatures upon it, and then only so much of it as was 
 perceived. Mind we find only in connection with nervous 
 matter, and it will very much simplify and shorten our 
 course if we confine ourselves principally to the gradual pro- 
 duction and increase of that nervous matter, and omit the 
 preparation for it as illustrated in geology and its countless 
 ages and guesses. 
 
 Professor Huxley considers that as worlds and systems 
 have grown out of a comparative chaos of nebulous matter, 
 so all animal life has been evolved from a shapeless mass of 
 what he calls protoplasm. To such a mode of creation we 
 have only to allow plenty of time ; and instead of one day, 
 man must have been one hundred millions of years in creating 
 at least. " Beast and fowl, reptile and fish, moUusk, worm, 
 and polype, are all composed of structural units of the same 
 character, namely, masses of protoplasm with a nucleus — 
 lower down still are particles without a nucleus " ; and 
 Professor Huxley says "it is a fair question whether the 
 protoplasm of these simplest forms of life, which people an 
 immense extent of the bottom of the sea, would not outweigh 
 that of all the higher living beings which inhabit the land 
 put together."* The earliest inhabitants of the earth 
 appear to have lived in shells, and to have carried their 
 houses about with them. A cubic inch of chalk contains 
 
 * " On the Physical Basis of Life." 
 
THE EARTH S EARLIEST INHABITANTS. 9 
 
 the bones, that is, the shells of 10 millions of these doubtless 
 highly-organised living creatures. M. Ehrenberg ascer- 
 tained that at least 57 species are still existent in different 
 parts of the earth, and if we take into consideration their 
 numbers, and even their capability of enjoyment, they are 
 probably of greater importance than higher animals. Still, 
 in calculating " the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number," on utilitarian principles, it will be scarcely fair to 
 allow each to count as one. 
 
 Professor Huxley tells us " the microscopic fungus multi- 
 plies into countless millions in the body of a single fly." If 
 a drop of water can contain 500 millions of living animal- 
 cules, each manifesting very decided volitions, and therefore 
 endowed with mind and muscle ; if the bodily and mental 
 constitution even of man can be transmitted through an 
 invisible " germ," it is evident that our senses can tell us as 
 little as to what constitutes organisation, and the degree of 
 its perfection, or of its spontaneous production, as they can of 
 the invisible floating particles in the atmosphere. The first 
 organ is a stomach, as the assimilation of food is the first 
 condition of animal life. The first animal is all stomach, 
 and it digests as well on the outside as the inside ; in the lower 
 organisms all parts being competent to perform all functions. 
 This organ has continued in almost equal importance up to the 
 present day, for not only are there men who are all stomach, 
 that organ governing if not performing all other, functions, 
 but it is the foundation not only of all physical strength, but 
 of all moral order. The source of the development of all 
 our faculties, and cause therefore of all our happiness, is 
 exercise, that is, work ; and if a man will not work, nature 
 pinches him in the stomach, and he is soon obliged to fall in 
 and do his duty in the ranks with his fellows. Hunger lies 
 at the base of all moral order. It may be a very low 
 motive, but it is the most imperative and eflScacious of all. 
 
 But if digestion was a primary condition of animal life, so 
 
10 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 was the continuatidn of the species. " To draw nutrition, 
 propagate, and rot," were therefore the first functions dif- 
 ferentiated, and some among creatures considered higher in 
 the scale appear to have been quite willing to stop there. 
 
 Eat, drink, and love, what will the rest avail us ? 
 So said the royal sage Sardinapalus I 
 
 Some of these lower creatures seem to have had rather 
 large families. Ehrenberg estimated that a single married 
 couple of Hydatina or Rotifers, or animalcules, are capable 
 of multiplying to 17 millions in 24 days* ; an oyster, a highly- 
 organised and very loving animal, has a small family of 
 about 3 millions annually ; and higher up in the scale many 
 fishes eject a million spawn in a single year ; and if justice, 
 in the human sense, were done to each individual, whether of 
 animalcule or fish, they would soon have the world to them- 
 selves.j Higher still : " A naturalist one day took a butterfly 
 that comes from a hairy caterpillar, and obtained from it a 
 brood of 350 eggs, which all hatched. He kept 80 eggs, and 
 brought up the caterpillars. All performed their changes 
 and became perfect insects, except five, which died in the act 
 of changing their skins. Among all these butterflies there 
 were 15 females coming from the 80 eggs ; the brood of 350 
 
 * " An animalcule, visible only under a high magnifying power, is 
 calculated to generate 170 billions in four days," and " these enoi-mous 
 powers of propagation are accompanied by a minuteness so exixeme, 
 that of some species one drop of water would contain as many indi- 
 viduals as there are human beings on the earth." * * This proMfic 
 power is not confined to the animal world : " Before a cocoa-nut tree 
 has ripened its first cluster of nuts, the descendants of a wheat plant, 
 supposing them all to survive and multiply, will have become 
 numerous enough to occupy the whole surface of the earth." — Herbert 
 Spencer, " Principles of Biology," vol. 2, pp. 423, 465, 431. 
 
 f Man is the only animal, however, who claims to have as large a 
 family as he pleases, without reference to whether he can keep' them 
 or not ; witness, for instance, the outcry about the separation of man 
 and wife in our workhouses. 
 
SILKWORMS AKt» FLIES. 11 
 
 would then in proportion have furnished 65 females. Sup- 
 posing that they had been as fruitful as their mother, we 
 come in the third generation to a sum of 22,750 caterpillars, 
 among whom there would have been at least 4,265 females, 
 and they would have produced in their turn 1,492,750 grubs. 
 These numbers are sufficiently oppressive ; but certainly 
 viviparous flies will show as much larger ones. They produce 
 as many as 22,000 at a single birth. For these, supposing 
 the number of females equal to that of males, we shall have 
 at the third step not a miserable million of individuals, but a 
 splendid posterity of two thousand decillions of beings, all 
 living, flying, and eating at the universal board. 
 
 " The musca carnaria, or blow-fly, in 24 hours becomes 
 200 times as heavy as at first. 
 
 " The raisers of silkworms have proved that . the cater-' 
 pillars hatched from one ounce of eggs eat 1,609 mulberry 
 leaves before reaching the perfect state. This enormous 
 consumption of eatables is necessary to the larvae, as they 
 must lay in a store of sustenance to be able to bear the long 
 fast they undergo in the state of chrysalis or nympha. Their 
 stomach changes with their nature. The greedy silkworm 
 that consumed a mass of green leaves 60,000 times its own 
 weight, when become a moth only takes a little honey by 
 way of nourishment. The digestive organs of the first had 
 very great power ; those of the second are reduced to the 
 thickness of a thread. 
 
 " Poor earwig ! unfortunate worm ! why hav6 they not the 
 impertinence of the Coach-horse, or the credit of the^ Lady- 
 bird ? Certainly it is not from man that they have learnt the 
 lesson of humility and modesty. From the time he put in 
 an appearance here below, he made the earth that he inhabits 
 the centre of the universe, and himself the point of attraction 
 to everything in this world. Believe him, and stones, 
 plants, animals, everything, have only been created with a 
 view to his employment of them. This theory still numbers 
 
12 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 many votaries, and would be pleasing to me also did not 
 some facts stand in singular opposition to it." * 
 
 " Every animal has at first the form of an egg, and eveiy 
 animal and every organic part, in reaching its adult state, 
 passes through conditions common to other animals, and 
 other adult parts. Every animal, however apparently dif- 
 ferent — ^men, horses, birds, reptiles, fishes, snails, slugs, 
 oysters, corals, and sponges — ^is organised upon one or other 
 of the five, or more, plans which zoologists have adopted for 
 their classification. The ape, the rat, the horse, the dog ; 
 and then the bird, the crocodile, the turtle, the frog, and the 
 fish are admitted into the same sub-kingdom of the Ver- 
 tebrata. 
 
 " All the great classes of animals, beasts of the field, fowls 
 of the air, creeping things, and things which dwell in the 
 waters, flourished upon the globe long ages before the chalk 
 was deposited. Very few, however, if any, of these ancient 
 forms of animal life were identical with those which now live. 
 Certainly not one of 'the higher animals was of the same 
 species as any of those now in existence. * * * TJie 
 population of the earth's surface was at first very similar in 
 all parts, and only from the ndddle of the Tertiary epoch 
 onwards began to show a distinct distribution in zones. * * 
 The constitution of the original population, as well as the 
 numerical proportions of its members, indicates a warmer 
 and, on the whole, somewhat tropical climate, which remained 
 tolerably equable throughout the year. The subsequent dis- 
 tribution of living things in zones is the result of a gradual 
 lowering of the general temperature, which first began to be 
 felt at the poles. * * There are two hundred known 
 orders of plants ; of these not one is certainly known to exist 
 exclusively in the fossil state. The whole lapse of geological 
 time has yet yielded not a single new ordinal type of vegetable 
 structure. 
 
 * "The Population of an Old Peai-Tree," by E. Van Bniyssel, 
 pp. 174, 191. 
 
THE FIRST FORM OF LIFE. 13 
 
 "The positive change in passing from the recent to the 
 ancient animal world is greater, but still singularly small. 
 No fossil animal is so distinct from those now living as to 
 require to be arranged even in a separate class from those 
 which contain existing forms. It is only when we come to 
 the orders, which may be roughly estimated at about 130, 
 that we meet with fossil animals so distinct from those now 
 Uving as to require order for themselves ; and these do not 
 amount, on the most liberal estimate, to more than about ten 
 per cent, of the whole." * 
 
 The first form of life is the simple cell and cellular 
 mass ; and passing on to these interesting creatures with the 
 large families, who try to make up in quantity what they 
 want in quality, as the conditions for the higher life are 
 gradually prepared, we go on through fishes, reptiles, birds, 
 and beasts, up to man, who himself passes through all these 
 stages in his earliest or foetal state : the mark of their origin 
 being left on the bodily form of too many of the superior race in 
 after life. In one man you distinctly trace the fish, in another 
 the bird, or other animal, and some are reptiles all over. 
 In the geologic strata, in the graves of the earliest races, a 
 clear progress is thus traced throughout from humble to 
 superior types. As suitable conditions arose — ^for the land 
 had to be elevated before its inhabitants could be — ^Ufe in 
 some form pressed in, and as these conditions were again 
 withdrawn, so were the particular forms then living. In 
 these forms, however, one fundamental plan seems to have 
 prevailed throughout, the varieties being merely modifications 
 to suit the new conditions. We find throughout the entire 
 organic world an indissoluble unity, which can only be ex- 
 plained by similarity of origin. 
 
 " Carbonic acid, water, and ammonia," says Professor 
 Huxley, " disappear, and in their place, imder the influence 
 of pre-existing Uving protoplasm, an equivalent weight of 
 * Hvpdey. " Persistent Type of Life." 
 
14 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 the matter of life makes its appearance," and he also says 
 " a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of 
 substantial composition, pervades the whole living world. 
 The difference between the powers of the lowest plant or 
 animal and those of the highest is one of degree, not of 
 kind. * * Plants can manufacture fresh protoplasm out of 
 mineral compounds, whereas animals are obliged to procure 
 it ready made, and hence, in the long ran, depend upon 
 plants. Upon what this difference depends is unknown." * 
 
 But it is with Sensibility, Mind, and Consciousness, that 
 I propose to deal ; and sensibility or feeling is everywhere con- 
 nected with the nervous system, and with complexity of 
 function is always allied complexity of structure. It is difficult 
 to say where sensibility is first added to organisation, or to 
 trace a nervous system in those minute creatures which show 
 evidence of volition, and therefore of power of mind. Mental 
 energy, however, increases as we rise in the scale of creation, 
 and always with it the enlargement and complexity of the ner- 
 vous system. " The brain, which bears an average proportion 
 to the spinal cord of not more than two to one, comes first, — 
 it is the brain of the fish ; that which bears to the spinal 
 cord an average proportion of two-and-a-half to one succeeded 
 it, — it is the brain of the reptile ; then comes the brain 
 averaging as three to one, — it is that of the bird. Next in 
 sucession came the brain that averages as four to one, — ^it is 
 that of the animal ; and last of all there appeared a brain 
 that averages, as twenty-three to one, — reasoning, calculating 
 Man had come upon the scene."! '^^^^ is the order in 
 which the four great orders of vertebrate animals appear in 
 the order of time. But there is a world of acute intelligence 
 outside these orders : or, rather, I ought to say thousands of 
 worlds, for in each creature is created a world peculiar, to 
 itself, according as the so-called qualities and pi;operties of 
 
 * " On the Physical Basis of Life." 
 
 t " Footprints of the Creator," by Hugh Miller. 
 
THE WORLD OP INSECTS AND BIRDS. 15 
 
 matter or the forces without it play upon its more or less 
 varied neiTous system. Every minute space has its living 
 creature whose wants are adapted to its peculiar locality and 
 condition, and whose mind or intellect is sufficient to guide it 
 towards the full fruition of those wants. Man's intellect is 
 very inferior in certain departments to either that of the Insect 
 or the Bird. What is a man's sight, for instance, to that of a 
 fly, with its hundreds of microscopic eyes ;* or his hearing to 
 that of a gnat's, the music of whose wings is owing to their 
 making ten or fifteen thousand strokes per second ? Although 
 each stroke requires a separate nervous action, probably the 
 motion is automatic, or not attended by consciousness ; still, 
 if time is measured by motion, as with us, or even by ideas, 
 the life of a gnat may be much longer than the life of a man. 
 In smell can man equal the dog ? or the pigeon, or even 
 a poor blind seal, in finding his way about without finger 
 posts ? Not even in the same species does ihe same amount 
 of outer force or properties of matter excite exactly the same 
 kind of ideas and feeling : how much less, then, in such varied 
 organisms. " It is certain," says Darwin, " that there may 
 be extraordinary mental activity with an extremely small 
 
 * " Not only has it 4,000 eyes, instead of two ; three sets of brain or 
 nerve-centres, instead of one ; 1,000 hairs and two claws instead of 
 toes on its foot ; it has also wings, which we have not ; three pairs of 
 legs instead of one ; a mouth which would bewilder any dentist ; and 
 a proboscis as far beyond that of an elephant in complexity of struc- 
 ture as a railway engine is beyond a wheelbarrow."— Dr. Tristram, 
 
 " Insects are commonly cited to express ideas of smalVness. But to 
 innumerable creatures they are what whales and elephants are to 
 ourselves. The animal that holds the naiddle place in the scale of 
 size, reckoning upwards from the Monas crepuseulam, the minutest 
 to which our microscopes have reached, is the commpn house-fly. 
 That is, there are as many degrees of size between the house-fly and 
 the Monas, reckoning dcmmma/rds, as, reckoning upwards, there are 
 between the house-fly and the whale." — " Life, its Nature, Varieties, 
 and Phenomena," p. 81, by Leo H. Grindon. 
 
16 IN THE BEOINNING. 
 
 absolute mass of nervous matter : thus the wonderfully 
 diversified instincts, mental powers, and affections of ants 
 are generally known, yet their cerebral genglia are not so 
 large as the quarter of a small pin's head. Under this latter 
 point of view, the brain of an ant is one of the most marvel- 
 lous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more marvellous 
 than the brain of man." * • • » " Ants communicate 
 information to each other, and several unite for the same 
 work, or games of play. They recognise their fellow ants 
 after months of absence. They build great edifices, keep 
 them clean, close the doors in the evening, and post sentries. 
 They make roads, and even tunnels under rivers. They 
 collect food for the community, and when an object too large 
 for entrance is brought to the nest they enlarge the door, 
 and afterwards build it up again. They go out to battle in 
 regular bands, and freely sacrifice their lives for the common 
 weal. They emigrate in accordance with a preconcerted 
 plan. They capture slaves. They keep Aphides as milch- 
 cows."* But it is the power of feeling in man, proportioned 
 to his volume of brain, in which man's greater superiority 
 consists. Insects do many things in their worlds that he 
 could never accomplish. It is'true their field of view is very 
 limited, as they perceive only so much of the world as acts 
 upon their limited faculties ; or rather, perhaps, I ought to 
 say, the same force acting upon their limited nervous systems 
 creates but a very small world for them, but its wonderful 
 perfection is in proportion to its limitation. 
 
 A network of nerve of varying powers or functions is 
 thus gradually spread over the whole world ; consciousness 
 and feeling varying with varied structures, but all being of the 
 same substance and chemical composition and obeying the 
 same laws — ^the same molecular action of brain or nerve in 
 all cases preceding consciousness. Man equally obeys the laws 
 of his being with the minutest creatures around him, and is 
 * " Descent oif Man," vol. 1, pp. 145, 187. 
 
ULTIMATE ATOMS. 17 
 
 equally a part of one great nervous system, where " each 
 manifestation of force can be interpreted Qnly as the effect 
 of some antecedent force." The difference between the 
 lowest and the highest animal is one of degree, not of kind ; 
 and the essential differences that man creates have no real 
 existence, but are entirely the creations of his own mind, 
 that is, are purely subjective. " Matter and law have 
 devoured spirit and spontaneity. And as sure as every 
 future grows out of every past and present, so will the 
 physiology of the future gradually extend the realm of 
 matter and law until it is co-extensive with knowledge, with 
 feeling, and with action. # * * por after all, 
 what do we know of this terrible ' matter,' * except as a 
 
 * On this subject we would refer the more curious reader to " The 
 Mystery of Being; or are Ultimate Atoms Inhabited Worlds?" 
 Bj Nicholas Odgers. Redwith and London. 1868. 8vo. Also to 
 " Spectrum Analysis." Six Lectures delivered in 1868 before the 
 Society of Apothecaries, London. By H. B. Eosooe, F.E.S. Mao- 
 millan and Co. Mr. Eoscoe shows that by the Spectroscope we 
 are able to detect the eighteen millionth part of a grain of 
 sodium in a room ; to determine the constituent elements of stars 
 so remote that light, which travels some 180,000 miles a second, 
 requires more than 100 years to reach us from them ; and to note the 
 velocity with which a storm is passing over the surface of the sun. 
 See also " The Principles of Psychology," by Herbert Spencer, p. 617, 
 etc. He says, "What is the constitution of this seemingly-simple 
 matter, which thus teUs of things near and remote that remain other- 
 wise unknown ? In the minutest visible fragment of it there are 
 millions of units severally oscillating with unimaginable speed ; and 
 physicists show Us that the amplitudes of their oscillations vary from 
 moment to moment, according as the temperatures of surrounding 
 objects vary. Nay, much more than this is now inferable. Each 
 unit is not simple but compound — ^not a single thing but a system of 
 things. Spectrum-analysis has made it manifest that every molecule 
 of this so-called elementary substance is a cluster of minor molecules 
 difiEering in their weights and rhythms. Such being the complexity 
 of matters we lately thought simple, judge what is the complexity of 
 matters we knew as compounds. In each molecule of an oxide or an 
 acid, the chemist sees one of those systems united with one, two, 
 c 
 
18 IN THE BEGINNING. 
 
 name for the unknown and hypothetical cause of states of our 
 own consciousness ? And what do we know of that " spirit " 
 over whose threatened extinction by matter a great lamenta- 
 tion is arising like that which was heard at the death of Pan, 
 except that it is also a name for an unknown and hypo- 
 thetical cause, or condition, of states of consciousness ? In 
 •other words, matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary 
 substrata of groups of natural phenomena." * 
 
 three, or more systems of another kind that are similarly involved. 
 AscendJBg to orders of compounds successively more heteiogeneoiiB, 
 he finds himself obliged to recognise molecular complexities unre- 
 presentable in thought ; until, in reaching organic matter, he comes 
 to molecules each of which (taking into account the composite nature 
 of its so-called elements) contains literally more atoms than the 
 visible heaven contains stars — atoms combined, system within system, 
 in such ways that each atom, each system, each compound system, 
 each doubly-compound system, has its motion in relation to the rest, 
 and is capable of perturbing the rest and of being perturbed by 
 them ; * » * and molecules of each kind are specially affected 
 by molecules of the same kind existing in the farthest regions of 
 space. Units of sodium on which sunlight falls beat in unison with 
 their kindred units more than 90 millions of miles off, by which the 
 yellow rays of the sun are produced." 
 
 * Huxley " On the Physical Basis of Life." 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAN". 
 
 It has been calculated that life began on this earth at least 
 some 100 millions of years ago, while man, is supposed to 
 have lived here only 100,000 years. Professor Huxley, 
 a great authority on this subject, says: — "The first 
 traces of the primordial stock whence man has proceeded 
 need no longer be sought by those who entertain any form of 
 the doctrine of progressive development in the newest ter-' 
 tiaries ; but they may be looked for in an epoch more distant 
 from the age of the Elephas primigenius than that is from 
 us." 
 
 Now how far it is exactly "from everlasting to everlasting " 
 we do not know, and perhaps it would not be much less 
 difficult to settle exactly the period here indicated — ^geological 
 periods meaning only before or after certain occurrences ; but 
 we do know that millions of years before man appeared crea- 
 tures lived on this earth which exhibited most of the mental 
 phenomena displayed by him. They may not have been 
 quite so pretty, judged by our standard of beauty,* but they 
 were equally fond of their wives and families and friends, 
 
 * The inhabitants of the sea depart most from our type ; the 
 walrus, the norwal, the sea devil, or the cuttle fish are certainly not 
 beautiful. But beauty is purely subjective, and even the female toad 
 has her lovers and admirers, who are so ardent in, their affections 
 that Dr. Giinter says he has often found the lady toad dead and 
 smothered from their too close kisses and embraces. * * * In 
 fact, there is no accounting for taste, either in sight or sound, 
 Darwin says : "It is a curious fact that in the same class of animals, 
 sounds so different as the drumming of the snipe's tail, the tapping 
 of the woodpecker's beak, the harsh trumpet-like cry of certain 
 water-fowl, the cooing of the turtle-dove, and the song of the nightin- 
 gale, should all be pleasing to the females of the several species." 
 (" Descent of Man," vol. 2, pp. 26, 67.) 
 
20 MAN. 
 
 and equally provided for their support and comfort; they 
 feasted and fought, and crowed and blustered, and spread 
 their tails to be admired, just as men and women do now ; 
 and really, when we come to compare an Australian Savage 
 with Horses, Dogs, and Elephants, it is the animals, we are 
 almost inclined to think, that ought to be ashamed to own 
 the relationship.- With reference to the vast superiority 
 upon which man.prides himself, and how infinitely ridiculous 
 he makes himself in his self-importance, we should listen to 
 the great philosopher, Michael Faraday :— " What a weak, 
 credulous, incredulous, unbelieving, superstitious, bold, 
 frightened — ^what a ridiculous world ours is, as far as con- 
 cerns the mind of man ! How full of inconsistencies, 
 contradictions, and absurdities. I declare that taking the 
 average of many minds that have recently come before me 
 (and apart from that spirit which God has placed in each), 
 and accepting for a moment that average as a standard, I 
 should far prefer the obedience, affection, and instinct of a 
 dog before it." And who does not recollect Byron's beau- 
 tiful lines : — 
 
 When some proud son of man returns to earth, 
 Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
 The Sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, 
 And storied urns record who rests below ; 
 When all is done, upon the tomb Is seen, 
 Not what he was, but what he should have been : 
 But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, 
 The first to welcome, the foremost to defend, 
 Whose honest heart is still his master's own. 
 Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for Viitti alone, 
 Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth, 
 Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth : 
 While man, vain insect ! hopes to be forgiven. 
 And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven. 
 
 Faraday is speaking of the Caucasian race, and not of the 
 Mongolian, Malay, Negro, and Aboriginal American races, 
 
EARLIEST TRACES OF MAN. 21 
 
 ■which at present, perhaps, comprehend five-sixths of man- 
 kind — 
 
 But he who feels contempt 
 
 For any living thing, hath faculties 
 
 That he has never used. 
 
 The other sixth, the Caucasian, is much the highest type, 
 and admits of a high degree of civilisation ; and other races 
 had probably existed on this earth many thousands of years 
 before the yellow hair and white faces made their appearance. 
 The most civilised claim, as Christians, the particular privi- 
 lege of eternal damnation for the great majority; but we 
 think it -will be found that even they are not worth it, and 
 that the whole plan of Creation will not be altered to suit 
 the exigencies of their peculiar creed. 
 
 At present we have no data for fixing exactly the period 
 of man's first appearance in the world. The Nile deposits, 
 from which pottery has been brought up from a depth 
 of 60 feet, and red brick from a depth of 72 feet, are cal- 
 culated to represent 41,300 years, and it would be an 
 awful bore, representing thousands of centuries, to get to the 
 bottom of these deposits. No one has yet attempted to fix 
 the precise date of the much-talked-of stone, or bronze periods, 
 or of the lake dwellings ; and fossil remains at present furnish 
 very little that is definite as to time. Sir Charles Lyell is 
 of opinion that the Engis Skull found in a cave in the valley 
 of the Meuse is of the same age as the Mammoth and the 
 Woolly Ehinoceros. The Neanderthal Skull is also said to 
 belong to the same period, but no one has told us how long that 
 is ago. In the time of flint axes and arrow heads the' skulls 
 found are small and round, with large ridges over the eyes- 
 The race was small, and, it is believed, resembled the Lapps 
 of the present day. In the bronze age the skulls were larger 
 and longer. The skulls of the Egyptians, preserved in their 
 tombs and temples, closely resemble the European, but are 
 of smaller size. 
 
22 MAN. 
 
 The missing link between man and his fellow-creatures has 
 not yet been found, but one-half the earth has not yet come 
 under observation ; and it is confidently asserted that, 
 " between the highest primate and the lowest savage, there 
 will be no break, no chasm, but a perfect and complete 
 series.'' The Orang-Outang, found only in the Islands of 
 the Indian Seas, probably presents as high a claim as any to 
 be man's great progenitor. He is said to be as large as a 
 man, and very like, with a physical force equal to eight men, 
 and he is probably a less disgusting and degraded animal 
 than the cannibal Papuan found in his immediate vicinity. 
 It is highly probable, however, that Man's direct progenitor 
 is buried under the sea in the Southern Hemisphere. 
 Mr. Darwin says : — " The Simeadae branched off into two 
 great stems, the New "World and the Old World monkeys ; 
 and from the latter, at a remote period, Man, the wonder 
 and the glory of the universe, proceeded;" the early pro- 
 genitors of man being no doubt once covered with hair^ both 
 sexes having beards, their ears pointed and capable of move- 
 ment, and their bodies provided with a tail having the 
 proper muscles.* 
 
 As regards the bony structure of the body, there is the 
 closest anatomical resemblance between inan and the anthro- 
 poid apes, every tooth, 'every bone being strictly homologous ; 
 but it is in the brain — the organ of the mind — ^that the greatest 
 difference is found, and accordingly Professor Owen places 
 man ia a distinct sub-class of mammalia. It is not the 
 peculiarities of mere physical form that most distinguish ^ 
 one animal from another, but the varied development of their 
 nervous systems and the grades of mind dependent upon it. 
 Thus, according to Leuret, the proportion of the brain to 
 body is, in fishes, 1 to 5,668 ; in reptiles, 1 to 1,321 ; iu 
 birds, 1 to 212 ; and in mammals, 1 to 186. 
 
 The convolutions of the brains of apes, as of other animals, 
 
 * " Descent of Man," vol. 1, pp. 206, 213. 
 
WEIGHT OF BRAIN. 23 
 
 exhibit eyery stage of advance. The mai-moset presents an 
 almost smooth surface, while the orang has convolutions 
 differing in appearance very little frpm man ; the difference 
 being more particularly in weight as compared to size of 
 body. The lowest estimate for a healthy European brain is 
 32 ounces ; that of a gorilla 20 ounces ; while the latter is 
 twice as heavy as any European of so small a brain. Euro- 
 pean brains have weighed 65 ounces, while the average is 42 
 ounces. The brain of Sir James Simpson, Edinburgh, 
 according to the British Medical Review, was 54 ounces, and' 
 the average male brain, according to Quain and Sharpey, is 
 49-^ ounces. The European brain is much heavier than the 
 Hindoo, hence the supremacy of the former in weight of' 
 character. A man's brain is much heavier than a woman's, 
 the average being as 42 ounces to 34 ounces ; hence the 
 dominance of man, which is not, as is often asserted, based' 
 on law or education. The capacity of the smallest human 
 skull is, according to Mayner, 55'3 inches ; that of the largest 
 measured by Morton contained 114 inches, — ^the difference 
 between the brain of the gorilla and the smallest brain of ' 
 man being much less than that between the smallest and 
 the largest healthy human brain. The whole nervous system 
 of a man is twice as heavy as that of a gorilla; and "already- 
 the brain of the civilised man is larger by nearly 30 per 
 cent, than the brain of the savage." * 
 
 " Idiocy results from an insufficient development of Brain ; 
 an adult male Brain being only nineteen iiiches in circum- 
 ference necessitates mental- imbecility, and all deviations 
 from the normal shape of the Brain necessitate corresponding 
 mental peculiarities. The circumference of the adult male 
 head should not 'be under 21 inches at least, nor over 24 
 inches, the tape being passed over ' Philoprogenitiveness ' 
 and the Perceptive Organs (usually where the hat -touches.) 
 
 * H. Spencer's " Principles of Biology," vol. 2, p, 502. 
 
24 MAN. 
 
 " The width of the male head varies from 5^ in. to 6^ in., 
 measured with the calipers, from just above the ear. 
 
 " The height of the head should be exactly the same as 
 the width, measured with the calipers from the opening of 
 the ear to the vertical' point in the coronal region. The 
 length of the head should be one-third more than its width — 
 that is, if the width be 6 La. the length should be 8 in. 
 
 " The tape measurement from the opening of the ear, at 
 each side, over the coronal region, should be one-third .less 
 than the circumference, and the measurement from ' Individu- 
 ality ' over the coronal region to the occipital spine — ^the 
 bottom of the skull at the back — should be the same as that 
 from ear to ear. 
 
 " The female head is, as a general rule, from an inch to 
 an inch and a half less in circumference than the male, and 
 less also by an inch in width and heighth. The posterior lobe 
 of the female usually projects more than that of the male."* 
 
 " Physiologists have observed that each animal passes, 
 in the course of its germinal history, through a series of • 
 changes resembling the permanent forms of the various orders 
 of animals inferior to it in the scale. * * « Nor is man 
 himself exempt from this law. His first form is that which 
 is permanent in the animalcule. • » * The brain of 
 man, which exceeds that of all other animals in complexity 
 of organization and fulness of development, is, at one early 
 period, only (as quoted in ' The Vestiges from Lord's Popular 
 Physiology,') a simple fold of nervous matter, with difficulty 
 distinguishable into three parts, while a little tail-like pro- 
 longation towards the hinder parts, and which had been the 
 first to appear, is the only representation of a spinal marrow. 
 Now, in this state it perfectly resembles the. brain of an adult 
 fish, thus assuming in transitu the form that in the fish is 
 permanent,/ In a short time, however, the structure is become 
 more complex, the parts more distinct, the spinal marrow 
 * "A Handbook of Phrenology," by Dr. C. Donovan. 
 
FCETAL CHANGES. 25 
 
 better marked ; it is now the brain of a reptile. The change 
 continues ; by a singular motion certain parts (corpora quad- 
 rigemina) which had hitherto appeared on the upper surface, 
 now pass. towards the lower; the former is their permanent 
 situation in fishes and reptiles, the latter in birds and mam- 
 malia. This is another advance in the scale, but more 
 remains yet to be done. The complication of the organ in- 
 creases ; cavities termed ventricles are formed, which do not 
 exist in fishes, reptiles, or birds ; curiously organised parts, 
 such as the corpora striata, are added ; it is now the brain of 
 the mammalia. Its last and final stage alone seems wanting, 
 that which will render it the brain of man. And this change 
 in time takes place. It is to Dr. John Hunter and Tiedemann 
 that we chiefly owe these curious observations." * Professor 
 Owen begins still lower down in the scale, as he affirms that 
 the human embryo is first vermiform, or worm-like. Thus, 
 as the forms of life are mere stages of development, so are 
 the different forms of brain and nervous system, and the 
 grades of mind dependent upon them. 
 
 » THE FUNCTIONS OF THE BRAIN AND NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
 
 " Manifestations of intellect, feeling, and will, to every one 
 but the subject of them, are known only as a transitory 
 change in the body." t That is, Mind, objectively, like 
 everything else, is known to us only by its mode of action. 
 " Whenever much motion is evolved, a relatively-large ner- 
 vous system exists ; wherever the motion evolved, though 
 not great in quantity, is heterogeneous in kind, a relatively- 
 large nervous system exists ; and wherever the evolved 
 motion is both great in quantity and heterogeneous in kind, 
 the largest nervous system exists." | The nervous system 
 
 * "Vestiges of the Natural Histoiy of Creation." 
 -f Huxley. J Herbert Spencer, 
 
26 MAN. 
 
 presides over the motion, the brain over the direction 
 or application of the motion. • There are two kinds of 
 nervous matter, white and grey ; the white is connected 
 with motion, the grey with its ^conscious direction. The 
 body is covered with a net-work of nerves, thick in proportion 
 to the sensibility required in the parfe They have two 
 functions, irritability aiid contractility — the one informing 
 the mind of what is going on in the external world ; and 
 the other, embedded in the muscle, executing the orders 
 of the mind in consequence. The one is called the afferent, 
 the other the efferent nerve. 
 
 The nervous system is made up of bundles of threads 
 enclosed in sheaths, which meet in local ganglia, the ganglia 
 increasing in size until they meet in the great ganglion — ^the 
 Brain. Those nerves that are acted upon by the outer world 
 are in direct relation with those that react upon it, and these 
 agaiii are connected with those vital organs, whose function it 
 is to accumulate the force which the others distribute.* " It 
 is the transported shiver of bodies countless millions of miles 
 distant," says Professor Tyndall, " which translates itself in 
 human consciousness into the aspect of the stars" j" ; and the 
 nervous system is highly-sensitive shivering stuff — " masses 
 of unstable matter, undergoing decomposition with the 
 greatest facility," through whose medium the shivering, 
 
 * " Considered as an agent for generating movements, the nervous 
 system acts by liberation of successively larger amounts of molecnlar 
 motion in the centres successively distributed. A very small change 
 at the outer end of an efferent nerve sets up a relatively-large quantity 
 of change in some adjacent unstable nerve-matter ; whence the 
 change, thus increased, is propagated to some internal ganglion ; to be 
 passed on by it immensely multiplied as before ; until there is 
 unlocked an amount of disturbance capable of causing muscular con- 
 tractions throughout the whole body, * * * enabling it to make 
 all parts of the body work together more efficiently in simultaneous 
 and successive actions." (Herbert Spencer.) 
 
 t " Heat a Mode of Motion," p. 243. 
 
SLOWNESS OF THOUGHT. 27 
 
 vibratory, undulatory motions without us translate themselves 
 " in human consciousness into the aspect " of the world ; 
 and we are told, on the high authority quoted above, that it 
 would take 57,000 waves of the ether that produces violet 
 colour to fill an inch ; and as light travels at the rate of 
 192,000 miles a second, it would take 699 millions 'of 
 millions of such waves to enter the eye in a single second td 
 produce the impression of violet in the brain. " Star and 
 nerve-tissue are parts of the same system — stellar and 
 nervous forces are correlated, * * and matter and mind 
 are bound together through measureless amplitudes of space 
 and time." * 
 
 It is commonly supposed that thought travels faster than 
 "the quick-winged arrows of light;" but this is a mistake. 
 Thought travels at the rate of the nervous fluid, force, or 
 agent in the nerves, and is dependent upon the molecular 
 action set up in the brain. The rate of transmission, as 
 measured by Professor Helmholtz, varies from 28 yards to 
 32 yards per second. In a rapidly-turning wheel we lose 
 sight of the individual spokes, and the fire at the end of a 
 stick when turned round rapidly appears to us as an unbroken 
 circle, which shows that thought, or the transmission of sen- 
 sation through the nerves, is less rapid than the motion of 
 either the wheel or stick. So in hearing, a "tone" is made 
 up of many separate sounds no longer distinguishable sepa.- 
 rately.f 
 
 * Dr. Youmans. 
 
 t A luminous impression lasts for about one-eightli of a second ; 
 whence it follows that if any two luminous impressions are separated 
 by a less interval, they are not distinguishable from one another, 
 Musical sounds at 16 per second are perceived separately. (" Psycho- 
 logy," pp. 108, 149, by H. Spencer.) 
 
 " Some lemarkable experiments have been made in France on the 
 relative rapidity with which messages pass through a telegraphic 
 wire and impressions are conveyed through the nerves to the brain ; 
 and the result established is that the electric message travels with a 
 
28 MAN. 
 
 . The Brain. — Mind is force — the highest development of 
 force, "known only, to every one but the subject, as a transi- 
 tory change in the body ; " that is, like everything else, it is 
 known objectively only by its "paode of action." Mental 
 Philosophy is a pure system of dynamics, or measuring of 
 forces. Dr. Gall, a physician of Vienna, wa's the first to 
 begin the study of it on this method. Earfy in life he 
 observed the different " modes of action " of his brothers 
 and sisters and schoolfellows arising from peculiarity of talent 
 or disposition. He soon began to connect external signs with 
 these differences ; to perceive that force of character was 
 connected with a large head, and a narrow intellect with a 
 narrow forehead. He also noticed, and was struck with the 
 fact, that these narrow intellects had often good verbal 
 memory, and stood high in the class from their great facility 
 for learning by heart, and he observed that this peculiarity of 
 taSent was accompanied by prominent eyes. Afterwards, in 
 the course of his professional studies, he discovered that this 
 prominence of. eye was owing to the comparatively large size 
 of a convolution of the brain lying at the back of the eye, 
 and which pushed it outwards and downwards. He then 
 began to look for other mental characteristics connected with 
 the brain, and whenever he found persons of very marked cha- 
 racters, either in feeling or intellect, if possible he took casts 
 of their heads. He took casts of the heads of murderers, 
 thieves, pugilists, of brave, or timid, or cunning people, of 
 artists, sculptors, linguists, calculators, &c., &c., and he soon 
 
 sflriCtness many thousand times greater than the physical sensation, 
 which is tranemittod only at the rate of thirty metres in a second. 
 Thus, supposing a whale thirty metres (about 103 feet) in length to 
 be wounded in the tail, a second would elapse before the brain would 
 be informed by the nerves of the event, and another second would 
 expire before the wiU. of the brain could be conveyed to the caudal 
 muscles and action be taken to resent the injury, thus leaving an 
 appreciable interval for the escape of the offender." (^Pall Mall 
 Oaaette, June 16, 1869.) 
 
PHYSIOLOGISTS AND THE BEAIN. 29 
 
 found that these mental differences corresponded to diflFe- 
 rences in the shape of the head, which again corresponded 
 to differences in the development of brain. By this method 
 of proceeding, by tracing mental action to its source in 
 nervous development, a very efficient and practical classifi- 
 cation of our n^ental powers — of both intellect and feeling — 
 has been arrived at, and their external signs can by competent, 
 practised observers be now very correctly indicated, — force, 
 that is force of mind, being here, as elsewhere, generally 
 proportioned to the size of the structure or organ with which 
 it is connected. Of course there are many other things 
 besides size upon which the more or less perfect action of the 
 brain depends, which we shall have to consider in their place.* 
 
 * The Physiologists of the present day generally leave off where 
 Gall began ; they have refused to follow his method, and have ignored 
 his discoveries. Sir Henry Holland says : " Still there is one impor- 
 tant fact here, which seems to be attested by as much evidence as 
 the subject admits of. In every instance where there exists any 
 corresponding lesion of disease on each side of the brain, there we are 
 sure to find some express injury or impairment of the mental func- 
 tions ; and generally permanent, whatever be its peculiar nature. 
 • * * Though absolutely unable to show, or even to conceive, 
 how nervous matter should minister to these particular functions, 
 or to others which it is better proved to maintain ; yet if we found 
 certain portions of it invariably connected with certain well-marked 
 instincts, and never present where they are not, we might fairly 
 affirm that we had gained some ground in advance." Speaking 
 of Phrenology, he says : " The principle of division adopted, if prin- 
 ciple it can be called, might have been carried greatly further." — 
 (" Mental Physiology," pp. 194, 232.) This is very true, but Gall was 
 careful to confine himself only to what his observations warranted. 
 He discovered about 26 . organs. The last edition of " Combe's 
 System of Phrenology " contains 37 ; and the Americans have sub- 
 divided or analysed these, and added others, making now about 100. 
 Finally, Sir Henry says : " In the present state of our knowledge of 
 the brain, and of its relation to the mental functions, an impartial 
 view of phrenology requires, not that the principle should be dismissed 
 from view, but that great abatement should be made of its preten- 
 sions as a system. * * To say the least, it is chargeable with 
 
30 MAW. 
 
 Pursuing this method of observation, and classifying' 
 mind by what it does — by its different modes of action, the 
 
 ■what Lord Bacon has called ' an over-early and peremptory reduction 
 into acts and methods,' and with the adoption of various conclusions, 
 not warranted by any sufficient evidence. On the other hand, we 
 must repeat the admission, founded as well on the complex structure 
 of the brain as on the diversity of mental faculties and propehsities, 
 that the relation of parts to functions in this organ are more special 
 and precise than any that have yet been unequivocally deteiTained. 
 And on a subject thus obscure, and where our actual knowledge is 
 stiH limited to detached facts and presumptions, there is enough to 
 justify the doctrine being kept before us, as one of the outlines to 
 which future observations may legitimately apply ; — not fettered, as 
 they now are, by the trammels of a premature aiTangement." — 
 (Ibid, pp. 202, 210.) Sir Henry refers us to No. 17 of the British 
 amd Foreign Medical .Review, where, he says, the argument for 
 phrenology is very ably and fairly stated. 
 
 Dr. Henry Maudsley observes that " Psychology cannot be truly 
 inductive unless it is studied objectively." He also says : " No one 
 pretends that physiology can, for many years to come, furnish the 
 complete data of a positive mental science : all that it can at present 
 do is to overthrow the data. of a false psychology. * * * The 
 recognition of this increasing specialization and complexity in the 
 function (mental) compels us to assume a corresponding development 
 in the delicate organization of the nervous structure, although by 
 reason of the imperfection of our means of investigation we are not 
 yet able to trace a process of such delicacy in these most inmost 
 recesses to which our senses have' not gained entrance." — (" The Phy- 
 siology and Pathology of Mind," pp. 27, 165.) No doubt the Doctor 
 will be delighted to hear that Dr. Gall, a physician of no less talent 
 and eminence than himself, devoted his life to " tracing this delicate 
 process," and that it is considered by many who have followed him 
 that his life was not spent altogether in vain. 
 
 Professor Huxley tells us that " the functions of most of the parts 
 of the brain which lie in front of the medulla oblongata are, at 
 present, very iU understood ; but it is certain that injury, or removal, 
 of the cerebral hemispheres puts an end to intelligence and voluntary 
 movement, and leaves the animal in the condition of a, machine, 
 working by the reflex action of the remainder of the cerebro-spinal 
 axis. ' 
 
 " Thus there can be no doubt that the cerebral hemispheres are the 
 
FACULTIES OP THE BRAIN. 31 
 
 following tolerably complete list of its faculties arid functions 
 has been obtained : — 
 
 Tbe Self-Protecting Feelings, connected with convolu- 
 tions of Brain lying at the base and sides of the skull. 
 
 The Self-Eegarding Feelings, lying above the others at 
 the back of the head. 
 
 The Social Affections, at the back of the head, giving 
 that elongated form peculiar to women. 
 
 The Moral Feelings ; 
 
 The Esthetic Feelings ; 
 
 All these lying in the Coronal Region or upper part 
 of the head. 
 
 Feelings which give Concentration, increased Power, or 
 Permanence to the others. 
 
 The Intellectual Faculties, consisting of the faculties of 
 direct and relative Perception and Reflection; these 
 all lie in the front of the head, principally in the 
 forehead. 
 
 seat of powers essential to the produotiou of those phenomena which 
 we term intelligence and will ; but there is no satisfactory proof, at 
 present, that the manifestation of any particular kind of mental 
 faculty is especially allotted to, or connected with, the activity of any 
 particular region of the cerebral hemispheres." — (" Elementary Phy. 
 siology," p. 304.) So that according to Professor Huxley we are only 
 just where we were before Gall's time, nearly 100 years ago ; all 
 the ^ laborious, careful, cautious induction of that observer have 
 been thrown away, and the supposition that he had established the 
 connection between certain mental faculties and particular regions 
 of the cerebral hemispheres was aU a fond delusion on his part, as it 
 hafl continued to be of all his numerous followers since. I have, as 
 vrill be apparent to all my readers, a great respect for Professor Hux- 
 ley's opinion, and I do not know what weight he attaches to a 
 " satisfactory proof ;" but does he mean to affirm, for instance, that in 
 the numerous cases of colour-blindness, where the organ of colour is 
 deficient, or in cases of abnormal arithmetical calculating power, 
 where the organ of number is in excess, there is no satisfactory proof 
 of connection between the function and a particular part of the 
 
32 MAN. 
 
 Before we proceed to the consideration of the peculiar 
 functions or modes of action of these faculties, it will be 
 
 cerebral hemisphere ? This connection is easily verifiable by any one 
 who chooses to look, and Phrenologists affirm that there is the same 
 verifiable connection between mental faculty and all other parts of 
 the brain ; and this affirmation, to those who depend upon authority; 
 is backed by a weight of testimony it is impossible to withstand, 
 Professor Huxley's adverse opinion notwithstanding. George Combe^ 
 when a candidate for the Chair of Logic in the University of Edin- 
 burgl\, in 1836, published a volume (Longmans and Co.) of distin- 
 guished names in testimony of the following propositions, viz. : — 
 
 " That Phrenology, viewed as the abstract science of mind, is superior 
 to any system of mental philosophy that has preceded it ; 
 
 " That it is a true exposition of the physiology of the brain ; 
 
 Also, " To the application of Phrenology in "discriminating the varieties 
 of insanity ; 
 
 " To its bearing on the classification and treatment of criminals ; 
 
 " And to its application to the purposes of education." 
 
 As far as testimony is concerned, this book of the most distin- 
 guished names in this country and abroad may perhaps be considered 
 a sufficient balance to the weight of Professor Huxley's unsupported 
 opinion, as well as to the " contemptuous antagonism " which Mr. Her- 
 bert Spencer says phrenologists "have met with from both psychologists 
 and physiologists." Mr. Spencer says : " That those who have carefully 
 investigated the structure and functions of the nervous system, should 
 have long ago turned their backs on phrenologists is not to be won- 
 dered at." I think it is greatly to be wondered at that the greatest 
 names known to science in psychology and physiology should give 
 tlieir testimony in favour of phrenology in 1836, and that all who 
 have carefully investigated si/nce have turned their backs on it — 
 unless, as the French physician said, " nous avons chang6 tout cela ;" 
 and as M. Camille Dareste has shown that transposition of viscera 
 in the fowl can be brought about by the application of heat in a 
 particular way to the egg, this may have been the case. I can only 
 say, however, that I have never met with a single person who has 
 "carefully investigated," according to Gall's method, who has turned 
 his back on it. I have ^lever even met with any of these contemp- 
 tuous gentlemen who could map out a skuU according to the phreno- 
 logisis — that is, who knew what to look for in their investigations ; 
 and there can be little doubt that posterity will return with interest 
 
MK. H. spencer's APPENDIX. 33 
 
 as well to consider first upon what their general action 
 depends. 
 
 the contempt with which they have treated Gall and the most 
 important discovery the world has yet known. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer does not so much object to Phrenology itself 
 as to its present form. He says : " Saying nothing of many minor 
 objections to the phrenological doctrine, we conclude that however 
 defensible may be the hypothesis of a localization of faculties, when 
 presented under an abstract form, it is quite indefensible under the 
 form given to it by phrenologists." — (" The Principles of Psycho- 
 logy)" P- 576.) Every one seems disposed to give the poor phrenolo- 
 gists a kick : " hit him again, he has no friends," seems the very 
 generiaJ cry. But, as Mr. Spencer says, " at best. Phrenology can only 
 be an appendix to Psychology proper " ; and " whoever calmly con- 
 siders the question cannot long resist the conviction that different 
 parts of the cerebrum must, in some way or other, subserve difEerent 
 kinds of mental action."— (Ibid, pp. 572, 573.) Could he not, in the 
 Appendix to his " Psychology," now publishing, tell the world in what 
 way that should be, and what form Phrenology ought to take i 
 Phrenologists say that, by close and continued observation for al30ut 
 three-quarters of a century, they have traced the connection between 
 certain modes of action of the mind — between certain feelings and 
 intellectual faculties,, and certain portions of the brain ; that they 
 have seen this connection thousands and thousands of times, the 
 difference between a large and small organ being often from an inch 
 to an inch and a half. Now, will Mr. Spencer say what he has seen 
 that makes him think them all wrong, and that they have not seen 
 what they say they have 1 Although casts are obliged to be definitely 
 marked, yet phrenologis' s do not assert that very "specific limits" 
 can yet be traceable in the brain ; or that in the almost infinite 
 variety of our thoughts and feelings their system of Psychology is 
 yet dbmplete. Phrenologists believe, with Mr. Spencer, in nervous 
 centres : it has been admitted also, even by an opponent, that " their 
 doctrine may now be said to be the only psychological one which 
 counts any considerable mass of adherents." — (Lewes's " Biographical 
 History of Philosophy," p. 628, library edition.) And valuable as Mr. 
 Spencer's own system may be, it can scarcely be said to be as prac- 
 tical as the much-despised phrenological one, which in comparison is 
 a " science of mind made easy." On this account alone his Phi'eno- 
 togical Appendix to Psychology proper would be a great acquisition. 
 Professor Huxley's and Mr. Spencer's present opinions on this subject, 
 
 B 
 
34 MAN. 
 
 Life. — The first requisite, of course, is Life, which, as far 
 as we yet know, proceeds only from Life. At present it is 
 only known to us as a force or vital spark transmitted from 
 one body to another ; a sort of innoculation, which gives to 
 a body what is called Vitality. " A solution of smelling salts 
 in water," says Huxley, " with an infinitesimal proportion of 
 some other saline matters, contains all the elementary bodies 
 which enter into the composition of protoplasm," {i.e., living 
 matter). > * * * "An animal cannot make protoplasm, 
 but must take it ready made from some other animal, or 
 some plant, the animal's highest feat of constructive chemistry 
 being to convert dead protoplasm into that living matter of 
 life which is appropriate to itself." But if an animal cannot 
 make protoplasm, neither can any chemical powers with 
 which we are acquainted convert dead matter into living 
 protoplasm. For, as Professor Huxley says, " Carbonic 
 acid, water, and ammonia disappear, and in their place, 
 
 considering the amount of evidence collected, will no doubt in after 
 times be classed among the hallucinations of men of genius. 
 
 Those who still prefer to look for living function in dead matter, 
 and who refuse to use Gall's method, will probably look with con- 
 siderable interest upon Dr. B. W. Richardson's late discovery. This 
 gentleman — well known to science — says that in a dry human brain 
 that he dissected he discovered membranes lining the convolutions 
 that were reaUy separable, and convolutions in which there were 
 distinct centres. 
 
 Mr. Butter has Invented a magnetoscope, and by an improvement 
 on this instrument by Dr. Leger, we are told by Dr. Ashbumer that 
 the magnetic force of each phrejiological organ may be correctly 
 indicated. "When the sums representing the organs of greatest 
 activity were added together, the inference as to the character of the 
 individual was easy, and seldom failed ia being perfectly accurate." — 
 (" Philosophy of Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism," pp. 70, 71.) 
 I have had no opportunity of verifying this discovery, but if true, as 
 it reduces the question to one of simple addition, it may bring the- 
 investigation of the subject within the capacity of some of those 
 physiologists and psychologists who now so contemptuously reject 
 Phrenology. 
 
POOD AXD VITAL POWER. SO 
 
 under the influence of pre-existing living protoplasm, an equi- 
 valent weight of the matter of life makes its appearance." 
 " Constructive chemistry could do nothing without this other 
 living influence. Chemical powers are dominated by it, and 
 only act freely when it is gone, i.e., upon dead matter. Pro- 
 fessor Tyndair, however, ageees with Huxley that " the 
 tendency of modern science is to break down the wall of 
 partition between organic .and inorganic, and to reduce both 
 "to the operation of forces which are the same in kind, but 
 whose combinations differ in complexity." Life is not what 
 Herbert Spencer describes it to be, " The continuous adjust- 
 ment of internal relations to external relations " : these are 
 only the conditions of its existence, and give no idea of 
 what the transmitted or inherited " vital spark '■' is in itself. 
 ' ' Life," says Schelling, " is the tendency to individuation," i.e., 
 the forces of nature are confined within definite limits, and 
 work towards a given object ; and all vital actions have for 
 their final purpose the elimination of nervous force, upon 
 which mental force depends. The conditions of life, upon 
 which the powers of mind depend, are the same in man as in 
 all other animals. 
 
 Food. — It is from our food that the force or power that 
 sustains vital action is derived. Sun-power divorces the 
 oxygen from the carbon in the plant, and upon these elements 
 coming together again in the bodily system an equivalent 
 power is restored. The clash of atoms and arrested motion 
 produce heat sufficient to work the whole system bodily and 
 mental — ^that is, heat, known to us as a mode of motion, pro- 
 duces the peculiar mode of motion which characterises each 
 organ, constituting what is called its function. And here let 
 us pause to note an all-important distinction. When Heat 
 is considered as a mode of motion, we are confounding the 
 effect with, the cause. Heat is not the mode of motion, but 
 the cause, i.e., the force which produces it. Much obscurity 
 and error are occasioned by thus confounding cause and 
 
36 MAN. 
 
 eifect. For instance, it is falsely assumed that matter and 
 motion originate force, whereas matter simply " conditions 
 force, or passes it on in a new form, of which motion is the 
 sign ; it never produces it ; "for every manifestation of force 
 must have come from a pre-existing equivalent force, and 
 must give rise to a subsequent and equal amount of some 
 other force. When, therefore, a force or effect appears, we 
 are not at liberty to assume that it was self-originated, or 
 came from nothing ; when it disappears we are forbidden to 
 conclude that it is annihilated ; we must search and find 
 whence it came and whither it is gone — that is, what pro- 
 duced it, and what eifect it has itself produced." * Thus the 
 body does not produce any of its forces, either Physical or 
 Mental ; the force is derived from the food, which is derived, 
 either directly through plants, or indirectly through animals, 
 from the sun. 
 
 No energy is generated by the bodily machinery ; it can 
 give out only what it has received. It passes through the 
 body, working its various and complicated orgaiis, and ulti- 
 mately appears in its most compressed form as Consciousness 
 or Mind — Mind being " the highest development of force, to 
 whose existence all the lower natural forces are indispensably 
 pre-requisite." f Throughout this work it must be distinctly 
 understood that " force " represents an entity, not a con- 
 dition. As motion cannot be separated and considered apart 
 from the thing moving, neither can force be separated from 
 that of which it is the force. The different names which we 
 give to its different forms — of heat, light, electricity, chemic&,l 
 affinity, life, mind, &c., are .dependent upon varying con- 
 ditions of structure, and are known to us only in the different 
 modes of motion of this structure, with one exception, and 
 that is when it takes the form of mind or consciousness. In 
 affirming, then, that " the Brain is the organ of the Mind," 
 
 * " The Correlation and Conservation of Forces," by Dr. E. L. Yonmans. 
 t " The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," by Dr. H, Maudsley. 
 
STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION. 37 
 
 and that " Mind is the function of the Brain," precisely tlie 
 same thing is meant. In neither case is it supposed that the 
 peculiar force we call Mind is generated by the Brain. In 
 the first case, its simple connection with the Brain is 
 affirmed ; in the latter, it assumes that the peculiar form 
 in which the force manifests itself — its sensibility and mode 
 of action — is dependent upon the Brain. This Force, or 
 rather this unknown reality or entity of which it is the 
 force, is the spiritual immaterial element throughout nature ; 
 it is the cause of all things, of all motion and emotion ; for 
 there is no reason to suppose that it is changed in its nature 
 by passing through the brain. Its action is merely qualified 
 by the matter — the atoms and molecules among which its 
 energy is distributed. Its domain is not confined to merely 
 physical phenomena ; " the wondrous dynamic chain binds 
 into living unity the realms of matter and mind." Here 
 Materialism and Immaterialism meet 
 
 As parts of one stupendous wtole, 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul.* 
 
 Structure and Pukction. — What in inorganic bodies 
 we call properties and qualities, in organic we call functions. 
 Function is a power that a body displays, manifested in 
 its mode of action. The peculiar mode of action depends 
 upon the structure ; the force or power does not ; it is derived 
 from some pre-existing equivalent force. From disregard- 
 
 * Dr. Benee Jones tells us, in his " Life and Letters of Faraday,'' 
 that in that philosopher's " search for the unity of all forces he made 
 all his great discoveries. Later in life a new image of matter came 
 into his mind. He immaterialised matter into 'centres of force,' 
 and he materialised the directions in which matter tends to move 
 into physical lines of force. What he took from matter at its centres 
 and gave to force, he partly gave back to matter in the lines of its 
 motion." He might have made greater discoveries still if he had 
 entered upoii the study of Mind as Force, but to this phase of the 
 subject he deliberately and, as I think, obtusely shuts his eyes. 
 
38 MAN. 
 
 ing this distinction there have been endless disputes as to 
 whether structure always precedes function, or function 
 structure, with about an equal amount of truth on,. either side. 
 The brain and the muscles are increased in size by exercise, 
 that is, by increased power supplied to the part. Here func- 
 tion is supposed to precede structure, for although the iri- 
 ci-eased size or addition to the part or organ generally 
 manifests the same function as the original, it does not 
 always do so, hence the great variety in plant and animal. 
 " Growth exceeding a certain rate, ends in the formation of 
 a new aggregate, rather than an enlargement of the old." * 
 Here we have a glimpse of the Law of Development ; func- 
 tion always depending upon structure, but increasing force or 
 power producing increased and, under peculiar conditions, 
 varied structure, and consequently varied function. Eveiy 
 organ seems to have grown, out of some other by a modifica- 
 tion or adaptation rendered necessary by new conditions, or 
 by some new purpose. Thus animals have been fitted to 
 conditions, .and conditions have helped to produce the 
 animals. If we give time enough, — and there is plenty of 
 time to give, and nature never seems to be in any hurry, — 
 there is nothing inconceivable, or even' improbable, in the 
 supposition that all animal forms have arisen from successive 
 modifications of one original form, however great the dis- 
 parity may at present appear.f ' It is trae it requires some 
 
 * " Principles of Biology," vol. 2, p. 27, by H. Spencer. 
 
 ■f To inquiring Negroes and Zulus, and other friends of Bishop 
 Colenso, Noah's Ark, in which all living creatures were supposed to 
 he assembled,, has presented difficulties, and some naturalists even 
 among ourselves have recently given expression to some doubts upon 
 the subject ; but we must bear in mind that it is quite possible that 
 the true significance of the fact may not have been understood. Thus 
 St. Augustine urges that the assembling of the animals in the ark 
 must have been for the sake of prefiguring the gathering of all 
 nations into the Church, and not in order to secure the replenishing 
 of the world with life. — (See " Cosmos," vol. 1.) 
 
TEJVIPERAMEST. 39 
 
 study to see this, and it is flippantly said, " Surely man, can 
 never have passed along the oyster stage of being ! " True, 
 the divergence may have begun earlier, and man has probably 
 passed -along another line. 
 
 Temperament. — Po^vrer or force is in- no case generated by 
 an organism, but is the exact equivalent only of that which 
 is taken into it from without. The amount of force derived 
 from the daily consumption of food in the full-grown body 
 of a man, it is estimated, would raise 14,000,000 lbs. a 
 foot high. This force, in the form of heat, is derived, 
 as we have said, from the slow combustion of carbon within 
 the system, in the same way as heat is derived from the 
 coal that works a steam-engine; * This amount of force 
 is required to work all the bodily machinery, and we must 
 now add, what has been too long omitted, all the mental 
 machinery too. The heart alone, contracting at the rate of 
 75 pulsations to the minute, during the 24 "hours uses up 
 about oOOjOOO, or half-a-million, foot-pounds of this force, 
 and the work of breathing has been estimated at 78,736 
 foot-pounds more. When heat is not generated in sufficient 
 quantity, or when from exposure to cold the body is depriyed 
 of it too rapidly, we are all familiar with the consequences. 
 Prolonged exposure depresses nervous action, and makes us 
 sleepy ; and hybernating animals, which as winter comes on, 
 
 * " On the constant supply of oxygen all fundamental power, and 
 therewith the continuance of life, depends. The living body and the 
 atmosphere around it constitute an inseparable whole. The once 
 united elements still retain, in reality, their coherence — put asunder 
 by force, and for temporary purposes, but pledged, as it were, to a 
 deeper and inviolable union. In the re-uniting of the parted elements 
 is effected the end and object of the whole process, the functions of 
 animal life. Complex, wonderful, and beautiful as it is; surely the 
 wonder and beauty of the organic world rise in this view to a yet 
 greater height. For in the de-oxidation and re-oxidation of the 
 hydrogen in a single drop of water we have before us, truly, so far as 
 force is concerned, an epitome of the whole of life." — (" Life in 
 Nature." James Hinton.) 
 
40 MAN. 
 
 lose heat faster than they can make it, are deprived of motion 
 and sensibility too, the heat being not sufficient to keep up 
 that molecular action in the brain on which sensibility 
 depends. If the heat is reduced still further, say to the tem- 
 perature i at which water solidifies, life and decomposition 
 both cease. But' this heat or. force in its passage through 
 the body is transformed in its character, and its " mode of 
 motion" is changed by the various structures it passes 
 through. As it was latent in the carbon and oxygen till 
 they were brought together, so also in its action throughout 
 the body it becomes alternately latent and active, and in this 
 process much organic matter is used up, that which has 
 parted. with its energy losing its value and becoming waste, 
 and requiring to be thrown out of the system. In its various 
 transformations we have mechanical, chemical, electrical, 
 odylic, vital, nervous, and mental force, the final purpose of 
 all the others being, as has been said, the last ; Mind, being 
 the highest and most concentrated development of force, to 
 the production of which all the other forces are indispensable. 
 Each force, as it rises in concentration and importance, rises 
 in the complexity of the structure required for its correlation 
 or transformation ; and mental power depends not only upon 
 the size and perfection of its own instrument, the brain, but 
 upon the degree of perfection in which all the other functions 
 of the body are performed. The great desideratum is the 
 proportional distribution- of tiis food-force throughout the 
 body, and the proper performance of each of its functions ; 
 and this depends upon the size and action of the organs or 
 structures whose duty it is to perform those functions. The 
 predominance in the system of particular organs, or set of 
 organs, has given rise to what have been called the Tempera- 
 ments. Thus we have in some constitutions the brain and 
 nervous system predominating ; in others the blood-vessels ; 
 in some the muscular system, or the stomach, glands, and 
 assimilating organs. 
 
 " The different temperaments are indicated by external 
 
TEMPKHAMKNTS. 41 
 
 signs, which are open to observation. The first, or lymphatic^ 
 is distinguishable by a round form of the body, softness of 
 the muscular system, repletion of the cellular tissue, fair 
 hair, and a pale skin. It is accompanied by languid vital 
 actions, with weakness and slowness of the circulation. The 
 brain, as part of the system, is also slow, languid and feeble 
 in its action, and the mental manifestations are proportion- 
 ally weak. 
 
 " The second or sanguine temperament is indicated by well- 
 defined forms, moderate plumpness of person, tolerable firm- 
 ness, of flesh, light hair inclining to chestnut, blue eyes, and 
 fair complexion, with ruddiness of countenance. It is marked 
 by great activity of the bloodrvegsels, fondness for exercise, 
 and an animated countenance. The brain partakes of the 
 general state, and is vigorous and active. • 
 
 " The fibrous (generally, but inappropriately termed the 
 bilious,) temperament, is recognised by black hair, dark skin, 
 moderate fulness and. much firmness of flesh, with harshly- 
 expressed outline of the person. The functions partake of 
 great energy of action, which extends to the brain ; and the 
 countenance, in consequence, shows strong, marked, and 
 •decided features. 
 
 " The nervous temperament is recognised by fine thin hair, 
 thin skin, small thin muscles, quickness in muscular motions, 
 paleness of countenance, and often delicate health. The 
 whole nervous system, including the brain, is predonunately 
 active and energetic, and the mental manifestations vivacious 
 and powerful." * 
 
 Of course these temperaments are combined in various 
 proportions in different constitutions, but they all have their 
 external signs, and the degrees in which they are possessed 
 are readily discernible. As they act upon the mind, so does 
 the mind re-act upon them, and the relative proportion in 
 which they exist may be much modified by exercise and 
 » George Combe's " System of Phrenology," 5th Edition. 
 
'1'2 MAN. 
 
 treatment. Still they furnish but a rough approximation to 
 the bodily influences affecting the action of the brain and 
 mind. 
 
 The first requisite for mental action is sufficient force to 
 produce molecular motion in the brain ; for if this is deficient 
 in quantity, as' shown by the want of heat, or from the force 
 being engaged elsewhere, as in sleep, total or partial insen- 
 sibility is the consequence. If molecular action is interfered 
 with by pressure, we have also the same result. 
 
 The temperaments act principally through the quantity 
 and quality of the blood which they supply to the brain, as 
 they regulate its rate of circulation and its elementary 
 components — ^more or less rich in the constituents of nerve- 
 substance. This fact requires much more study than has yet 
 been given to it. We know how temporarily to increase the 
 circulation, but the special food the brain requires to produce 
 the greatest evolution of perve-force has yet received very 
 little attention. If the feeders to the brain are imperfect, 
 and it is scantily supplied with nervous force, or if there is 
 an unusually large brain with, only the ordinary support, 
 that is, the brain is larger than its feeders, or if from a very 
 active temperament there is more than the usual expenditure 
 of mental force, great depression of spirits is the consequence, 
 in one case constant, in the other intermittent. 
 
 Dr. Robert Bird, of the Bengal Army, in a volume of 
 Physiological Essays, just published (Triibner and Co.,) has 
 helped to throw considerable light on this subject. He 
 shows how the slightest modification of tissue makes a 
 difference in the quality of brain, and makes one man 
 mentally energetic and distinguished, and another mentally 
 lazy and obscure. The agencies by which the tissues of the 
 body are charged, through life, are use, social condition, 
 climate,- mixed parental influence, and hereditary transmission, 
 and as through physical excellence it has been ordained that 
 w.e should attain unto moral excellence, men must necessarily 
 
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. 43 
 
 progress towards perfection, because the physical universe 
 is changing and daily becoming fitter for the growth of a 
 higher race of beings. As regards the requisites for healthy 
 tissues, he says : " The same tissue- is differently moved by 
 different external agents. Nay, each tissue appears to be 
 moved by certain agents, and by other agents not to be moved 
 at all. From this I conclude that the different tissues and 
 the different modifications of the same tissue have afiinities 
 to certain elements of our surroundings which they have not 
 to l^e other elements. When it "happens, then, that those 
 elements which only have the power to move a certain tissue, 
 are withdrawn, that tissue, for lack of exercise, begins to 
 waste. By reference to this principle, I explain the pheno- 
 menon of a man becoming idiotic while undergoing a course 
 of solitary confinement. In his cell he may have enough of 
 ■ food and fresh air, and he may be kept clean and comfortably 
 warm. But cleanliness, sufficient food, fresh air, comfortable 
 warmth, and even light, do not make up the sum of conditions 
 necessary for the maintainance of perfect health. He has 
 within him tissues and modifications of tissue which require 
 for their welfare the waving of woods and corn fields, the scent 
 of flowers, the gleam and ripple of running water, the 
 battling of wind and rain over plains and hills, the struggle 
 with our fellow-creatures for life and position, the ferment of 
 crowded cities, all the sweet variety of domestic life, and 
 much besides. : denied them, they fret and waste, and ceasing 
 to influence the economy to which they belong, they abandon 
 the poor prisoner to gloom, indifference, idiocy." * No 
 doubt this is sufficient to explain much of the benefit that is 
 said to be derived from " change of air," but idiocy is caused 
 by atrophy of the intellectual faculties only ; the derange- 
 ment of the emotions would cause, not idiocy, but insanity. 
 Dr. Bird does not at present appear to have apprehended 
 that the Intellect and the Emotions are connected with dif- 
 ferent lobes of the brain, but speaks of the mental capacity 
 * " Physiological Essays," p. 129. 
 
44 MAN. 
 
 generally as being in proportion to the size and quality of 
 brain (see p. 76). Dr. Bird believes, he says, " that the 
 greater or lesser tendency which our diseased tissues show to 
 take. on diseased conditions is the result of all the combina- 
 tions of external influences to which we in our own persons, 
 and in the persons of our ancestors, have been subjected pre- 
 viously to the time when we become diseased."* And on this 
 account I suppose it is that the same medicines act so differ- 
 ently on different constitutions. Thus Dr. Bii-d tells us 
 that " it may be stated broadly that everything external to 
 us affects us beneficially or prejudicially according to the 
 condition of our tissues at the time when it affects us, and 
 to the measure in which it is applied. Too little food is in 
 its results scarcely more disastrous than too much food, and 
 the same may be said of all stimulant substances. Then all 
 the substances named in the " Pharmacopoeia" are medicinal 
 ■or poisonous, according to the state of our tissues when they 
 are used, and to the measure in which they are used. * * * 
 Indeed, it is the rule that no two bodies are acted upon in 
 the same degree by the same dose of medicine." f | 
 
 By carefully-prepared tables Dr. Bird shows that the 
 specific gravity of Europeans is greater than that of Indians — 
 natives of Bengal. There is a higher degree of heat indi- 
 cated by the thermometer in the mouth. He mentions other 
 differences, and §ays men will have to be classed not always 
 according to their nation, but according to the nature of the 
 
 * " Physiologicsl Essays," p. 221. f Ibid, pp. 109, 187. 
 
 J Hobbes drank cold water when he was desiroias of making a great 
 intellectual effort. Newton smoked. Bonaparte took snuff, Pope 
 strong cofEee, Byron gin and water. Wedderburue, the first Lord 
 Ashburton, always placed a blister on his chest when he had to make 
 a great speech. The great Lord Erskine took large doses of opium. 
 On the trial of Queen Caroline, Erskine, anxious to make a great 
 speech, took an overdose of his favourite drug. The efEect was 
 Striking ; he dropped into the ai'ms of Lord Stanhope, who sat next 
 him. — Meiieal Timet and Gazette. 
 
THE KED CORPUHCLES. ^ 
 
 materials of which their bodies are composed.* In the Ben- 
 galee the analysis of blood shows more albumen and fewer 
 red corpuscles than in the European ; so that a man is 
 strong, I suppose, according to the quantity of iron in him. 
 These red corpuscles appear to be very important, since they 
 increase as we rise in the animal scale, until they attain their 
 maximum deyelopment in carnivorous animals and birds. 
 They increase with an improvement of the breed in animals, 
 and they, decrease with old age, and in those shut out from 
 light and fresh air, and they are less in women than in men.| 
 The blood from young people keeps sweet longer than 
 
 * Dr. Laukester, in the pages of Natv/re, has'lately drawn attention 
 to the value which should be attributed to weight in comparison with 
 height when testing the soundness of the human framed It is a well- 
 known fact that the tallest soldiers are less able to bear fatigue andi 
 exposure than those whose height is. rather below the average, and 
 that the instances are very rare in which longevity and great staturet 
 have been combined. From investigations made by Dr. Hntchinsoa 
 and Mr. Brent, it appears that a person five feet high ought to weigh 
 8st. 51b., and that a healthy man increases for every additional inch 
 of height five pounds in weight ; whenever any considerable divergence 
 from these rules is observed disease may be suspected. 
 
 f It is not generally known that John Wesley set up for the cure 
 of bodies as weU as of souls, and that he approved himself quite as 
 much in the former capacity as the latter, although knowing, as we 
 now do, the value of the blood, not, perhaps, with sufficient reason. 
 Many, however, now think his views of both equally well grounded. 
 He was not a little proud of his '■' Primitive Physiok, or an Easy and 
 Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases," printed by William Pine, 
 in Narrow Wine Street, Bristol, and sold at the New Koom in the 
 Horse Fair, and in London, 1762. Wesley announced that "every 
 man of common sense (unless in some rare cases) may prescribe either 
 to himself or his neighbour, and may be veiy secure from doing harm 
 where he can do Jio good." Among the remedies which he approves 
 as " tried " — a word which he thus made proverbial in the Methodist 
 connection — is bleeding for consumption. The patient is to lose six 
 ounces of blood every day for a fortnight if he live so long, and then 
 every other day, then every third day, then every fifth day for the 
 same time. The gout is to be cured by the applioation of a raw lean 
 beef-steak ; for twisting of the bowels, one, two, or three pounds ot 
 quicksilver in water. 
 
46 MAN. 
 
 that taken from the old, which shows a gradual advance 
 towards decay and dissolution even in the living. Dr. B. 
 Eichard'son measures this decreasing strength : " in the form 
 of heat," he says, " we have a measurement of the capacity of 
 the body to sustain force, which is only another phrase for 
 expressing the resistance of the body to death. For example, 
 if we assume that a healthy man of 29 years respires 450 
 cubic feet of air per day, and by combustion of his carbon 
 evolves as much heat as would raise 50 lbs. of water at 32 
 deg. Fahrenheit to 212 deg. Fahrenheit under all ordinary 
 temperatures, which is about the fact ; and if we assume that 
 another man at 39 shall not be able at any temperature to 
 respire so much air, and shall not be able to evolve as much 
 caloric as would raise 44 lbs. of water from 32 deg. to 212 
 deg., we see a general reasop why the latter man should feel 
 an effect from a sudden change in the temperature which the 
 younger man would not feel," &c., and so on in proportion, 
 till at 84 a man raises only eleven pounds.* 
 
 • The fact has not yet been sufficiently attended to that there 
 is no spontaneous generation of force anywhere, and certainly 
 therefore not in the human body. The contractor was quite 
 right when he said, " If you don't put a lot of stuff into a 
 navvy you can't get nothing out of him." The amount of 
 force we receive from food is a definite quantity ; it js all 
 there is to do the work of the body, and if it is used up 
 otherwise, it cannot be used in thinking and feeling. Some 
 food may be very nutritious, but if it requires a great power 
 of digestion, we are little the better for it on that account,- as 
 it requires almost as great an expenditure of force as it gives. 
 Thinking and digestion do not go on well together, because 
 the force required for active thinking is doing duty in the 
 stomach, and if we insist upon using it in the brain, digestion 
 
 * " Waves of Heat and Waves of Death," Popula/r Science Review, 
 January, 1865. 
 
MENTAL FORCE. 47 
 
 is impeded. So of tte expenditure of force in muscular 
 exercise : much out-door work is incompatible with vigorous 
 thinking, and if we have a large body of our own to carry- 
 about we require a proportionally larger brain. The same 
 may be said of every function of the body. If a large amount 
 of force is used in its exercise, there is less to convert into 
 sensibility of any kind. We see, then, how extremely im- 
 portant it is that no force should be allowed to run to waste, 
 that all the machinery should be kept in proper working 
 order, all -the joints well oiled. The animal body is by far 
 the most perfect machine that has yet been made for the 
 economical use of force. " Of the total heat given out by 
 the combustion of the food, a man can make a fifth available 
 in the form of actual work, while it has never been possible 
 to construct a steam-engine that could. utilize more than a 
 ninth of the energy of the fuel burnt under the boiler. But 
 in addition to this external work the body has constantly to 
 perform a vast amount of work in order to sustain the life. 
 There is the blood to be kept circulating and urged through 
 the lungs and capillaries ; the chest and diaphragm have to 
 be raised for the purpose of breathing ; digestion has to be 
 carried on, and the body kept erect — all these consuming 
 energy." * The brain, or thinking power, has not yet been 
 included by physiologists among the force consumers ; and yet 
 it is the most important and the most expensive of them all. 
 There is nothing so exhausting as violent pain, or strong 
 • feeling or emotion ; and, in fact, every thought or feeling 
 requires an expenditure of iirha,t we call physical force. As 
 we have said, then, the great desideratum is a large gene- 
 ration of force and the proportional distribution of it 
 throughout the body, each organ performing its proper 
 function ; for if one predominates it is at the expense of 
 the others. Thus we may have mental power at the ex- 
 pense of the vital, and muscular or locomotive at the 
 * " Animal Force and Animal Food," by J. Broughton. 
 
48 MAN. 
 
 expense of the mental. Genius, dependent upon great ac- 
 tivity of brain, often absorbs too large a proportion of the 
 vital power, at the expense of health. Genius, to be 
 safe, should be connected with a large brain, and a pro- 
 portional development of body. The causes of the great 
 power, which some constitutions possess, of bearing fatigue, 
 of longevity, of genius, of the vis medicatrix, &c., are as yet 
 quite mysteries to us, but they will probably be found to 
 depend upon the mode and proportion in which the food-force 
 distributes itself ; and this depends upon the speciality of 
 structure.* 
 
 * Mr. George Combe, in his " System of Phrenology," vol. 1, p. 294, 
 mentions that a physician in Philadelphia, Dr. George McLellan, saw 
 reason to "believe, that tenacity of life bears some relation to the 
 development of the organ of " VitatiTeness." Dr. C. Donovan 
 ( " Handbook of Phrenology," p. 120) says that his experience is in 
 favour of Dr. McLellan's notion that the condition of the skull as to 
 width in the basilar region (about the ears) antl corresponding vitality 
 is correct. He also says : — " On the size of the Brain root, the 
 ' medulla oilongata,' and on the size of the spinal column in general 
 .^for this will ever quadrate with the meduUaroblongata — the degree 
 of vital power and tenacity of life, apart from the Love of Life, 
 depends. The foramen, or round hole through which the spinal 
 column enters the skull, will Ise large or small in accordance with the 
 size of the Brain root. That this foramen varies in size in different 
 skulls is obvious. To come to the external indications of the size of 
 the Brain root, we have to refer to the root of the ear. This in some 
 persons is in a hollow or pit, as if a tablespoonful of matter had been 
 taken out to let the root of the ear be implanted, whilst, in others the . 
 ear stands out on a, level with, or even beyond, the skull. In order 
 to the better understanding of this important point, let it be supposed 
 that a modeller in forming the human head had omitted to place the 
 ear in its proper position. Let it be supposed that in supplying this 
 omission he were to scoop out about a tablespoonful of clay in the 
 side of the head, and place the ear in the hollow thus made. This 
 would give the ear a narrower space from side to side, and would 
 give it a pitted a/ppearamce. Take the reverse case, and let the 
 modeller, instead of making a hollow to plknt the ear in, place it on 
 the even mffaee, or even on a slight eminence, so as to cause it to 
 
RACE. 49 
 
 Bace. — It seems most probable that the five races, as 
 distinguished by their colours of White, Black, Brown, Red, 
 and Yellow — ^the Caucasian, Negro, Malay, American Indian, 
 and Mongolian,* were not derived from one stock, but had 
 each a separate origin ; the causes that could produce a single 
 man being quite equal to produce all the varieties. Life has 
 been described to be " the continuous adjustment of iuternal 
 relations to external relations," and this, if not life, is at 
 least the condition of its existence ; and if we consider that 
 this " adjustment " has been going on for perhaps a million 
 years before the forces that constitute the bodily and mental 
 constitution of a man could be brought to act in their present 
 
 protrude a little. In the first case the pitted ear would indicate a 
 low state of vitality, whilst the second would represent an active and 
 vigorous state of vital power. * * * Granting the soundness of 
 the pitted ear theory, it would appear that in the study of mental 
 character the size of the ' medulla oblongata,' m mhich tJie cerebral 
 nerves a/re rooted, and the degree of prominence of the ear caused by 
 such size, is a question of great importance as regards hoth physical 
 and mental vigour. In a medical point of view this question is of 
 very great consequence. Persons with low vitality when in good 
 health are obliged to eat frequently, because they cannot effectually 
 extract due nutriment from tTieirfood, When the appetite fails they 
 have recourse to fluids to sustain them. If, when ill, they are kept 
 on low diet, they are apt to slip through the doctor's fingers. All the 
 long-Uved have the ears well out on the head." 
 
 * According to Prof. Huxley, the five distinct types of Mankind 
 are the Augtralimd, found in Australia, in the Dekhan, and formerly 
 in the valley of the Mle ; the Negroid, including the Negroes and 
 Bushmen of Africa and the Negritos of New Guinea, Tasmania, &o. ; 
 the Xanthnckroie, distributed through Iceland, Eastern Britain, 
 Scandinavia, North and Central Germany, and extending through 
 Eastern Europe into Asia as far as North-western India, and found 
 also in North Africa ; the MeUmoehroic, located in an area situated 
 between the Xanthochroio and Australioid peoples ; and the Mongoloid, 
 a large and somewhat ill-defined group occtipying Central and 
 Northern Asia, the two Americas, and Polynesia. — " On the Chief 
 Modification! of iManimd, cmd their Geological Distribution." A 
 Paper read before the Eth/nologieal Society, Jrnie 7th, 1870. 
 E 
 
50 MAN. 
 
 persistence and harmony, we may then get a slight idea upon 
 what the stability of type and race depends. It takes a long 
 time to make any two forces act unconscionsly or auto- 
 matically together, and the forces that constitute the hannony 
 of the human system are infinite. Forces thus made to act 
 together to effect a definite purpose are not easily disunited. 
 If, then, the different races of mankind had a separate origin, 
 and the forces of which they are composed were brought 
 together and associated by a different environment, "the 
 structure of an organism being the product of the almost 
 infinite series of actions and reactions to which all ancestral 
 organisms have been exposed," * then such races could not 
 be expected to mix with advantage. Automatic actions 
 would clash, and there would always be the tendency, as in 
 fact exists, to return to the original types. Thus races 
 which had probably the same ancestral types, such as those 
 that now inhabit Europe, are crossed with advantage ; but 
 we obtain only mongrels, inferior perhaps to either original, 
 from the crossing of distinct races. Darwin says : " The 
 first meeting of distinct and separate people generates 
 disease.'' He also says : " If we look to the races of men 
 as distributed over the world, we must infer that their charac- 
 teristic differences cannot be accounted for by the direct action 
 of different conditions of life, even after exposure to them 
 for an enormous period of time. The Esquimaux live exclu- 
 sively on animal food ; they are clothed in thick fur, and are 
 exposed to intense cold and to prolonged darkness ; yet they 
 do not differ in any extreme degree from the inhabitants of 
 Southern China, who live on vegetable food, and are exposed 
 almost naked to a hot, glaring climate. The unclothed 
 Fuegians live on the marine productions of their inhospitable 
 shores ; the Botocudos of Brazil wander about the hot forests 
 of the interior, and live chiefly on vegetable productions ; 
 yet these tribes resemble each other so closely that the 
 * Herbert Spencer. 
 
COLOUR DEPENDENT UPON RACE. 51 
 
 Fuegians on board the " Beagle " were mistaken by some 
 Brazilians for Botocudos. The- Botocudos, again,. as well as 
 the other inhabitants of tropical America, are wholly dif- 
 ferent from the Negroes who inhabit the opposite shores of 
 the "Atlantic, are exposed to a nearly similar climate, and 
 follow nearly the same habits of life." * 
 
 Mr. Darwin, nevertheless, rather leans to the opinion that 
 we had but one ancestor. Mr. Wallace, on the other hand, 
 holds that man passed through more than one channel of 
 derivation, or transitional form, from the class of the inferior 
 mammals ; such primary differences as those of Negro, Cau- 
 casian, or Australasian, denoting the special strain or breed 
 of quadrumana from which each is supposed to have risen to 
 the dignity of man. The colour of the skin depends on race 
 more than on climate. It " depends on the pigment excreted 
 from the blood, and interposed between the cutis and cuticle. 
 This seems to be excreted from the surface of the cutis, and, 
 like the cuticle, is extravascular. It is as thick as the cuticle 
 in the negro, and, by nice manipulation, can be detached as a 
 separate membrane. According to dissections made by Soem- 
 merring and Hunter, the texture of this intermediate lamella 
 between the cutis and cuticle exists in the fairest of Euro- 
 peans ; but the pigment is not deposited, and hence the colour 
 depends on the transparency of the skin revealing the blood 
 in the capillaries beneath. From white to black, every con- 
 ceivable shade is produced by the amount of colouring matter 
 deposited in this lamella or rete-mucosum." f 
 
 As Malthus has shown, the world may be filled from the 
 good stock with which now it is everywhere inoculated, and 
 the inferior races, although they at present represent five- 
 sixths of mankind, on the principle of Natural Selection, 
 will probably be " civilised " off the face of the earth. 
 
 That he is a progressive animal is the characteristic dis- 
 
 * Vol. 1, pp. 239, 246. 
 
 t " Physical Man," p. 129. By Hudson Tuttle. 
 
§2 MAN. 
 
 tinction of man, but several of the inferior races of man seem 
 quite incapable of progress ; the Black, Brown, and Eed do 
 not appear to have advanced a step so far as we have any 
 record. From ages of locomotive hunting habits, the vital 
 and muscular forces so predominate in the American Indian, 
 that any lengthened rest would be to him painful, and any 
 settled mode of life impossible; whereas ages of patient 
 industry have as much fitted the Chinese to do the work 
 of the world as constant locomotion has disqualified the 
 Indian. In the East civilization seems to have made con- 
 siderable progress, and then to have become stereotyped. 
 He who discovers the cause of this stereotype, and by 
 removing it sets civilization going again, may perhaps 
 save one-third of mankind from extermination. Caesar's 
 description of the people of his time, contrasted with the little 
 change their descendants have undergone during the last 
 thousand years,, remarkably illustrates the permanence of 
 type, and proves that in the institutions we would give to a 
 people the first thing to consider is Race. England has failed 
 to govern Ireland, and the Emperor of the French failed in 
 Mexico from not sufficiently considering the race he had to 
 deal with. 
 
 Hereditahy Descent. — We have seen how much depends 
 on Race, but quite as much depends on hereditary descent. 
 " He comes of an honest family " is proverbial among the poor, 
 and it is astonishing how little deviation there is from this 
 rule. The same may be said of roguery — " What is bred in 
 the bone cannot be got out of the flesh." The microscopic 
 germ contains the red hair and other physical and mental 
 characteristics of the father, however modified afterwards by 
 the character of the mother, and her treatment during the 
 time of gestation.* Why in some families the characteristics 
 
 * It is a fact, settled by innumerable observations and experiments, 
 that the bees can so modify a worker in the larva state that, when it 
 
THE Q0EEN BEE. §S 
 
 of one parent entirely obliterate those of the other, or on what 
 principle they are mixed, is not yet known ; but in judging 
 
 merges from the pupa, it is found to be a queen or true female. For 
 this purpose they enlarge its cell, make a pyramidal hollow to allow 
 of its assuming a vertical instead of a horizontal position, keep it 
 warmer than other larva are kept, and feed it with a peeuliar kind of 
 food. From these circumstances, leading to a shortening of the 
 embryonic condition, results a creature different in form, and also in 
 disposition, from what would have otherwise been produced. Some 
 of the organs possessed by the worker are here altogether wanting- 
 We have a creature " destined to enjoy love, to bum with jealousy 
 and anger, to be incited to vengeance, and to pass her time without 
 labour," instead of one " zealous for the good of the community, a 
 defender of the public rights, enjoying an immunity from the stimulus 
 of sexual appetite and the pains of parturition ; laborioilg, industrious, 
 patient, ingenious, skilful ; incessantly engaged in the nurture of the 
 young, in collecting honey and pollen, in elaborating wax, in con- 
 stmcting cells and the like ! paying the most respecliul and assiduous 
 attention to objects which, had its ovaries been developed, it would 
 have hated and pursued with the most vindictive fury till it had 
 destroyed them ! " — (Kirby and Spenoe). The bees were inhabitants 
 of this earth long before man, and have had, therefore, a much longer 
 experience, and when we have been as long in the world perhaps we 
 shall take a lesson from them. When civilisation no longer requires 
 the pressure of population on the means of subsistence, then we may 
 turn our attention to making queen bees and neutrals. At the 
 present time even there are " advanced " American ladies who cannot 
 be said to be " true females." 
 
 Louis Figuier, in " The Insect World," tells us that " the working- 
 bees, unfruitful females, with a self-denial very rare in nature, seem 
 to have no other vocation than to sacrifice themselves to the welfare 
 of the larvse." Might not the strong-minded ladies who are now 
 standing up for the " Bights of Women," and seeking work, find their 
 occupation here in the development of the human larvae, and console 
 themselves with the reflection that such a condition is higher than 
 the mother's, and requires a more advanced growth both in body and 
 mind, taking four days longer to develope from the larvse 1 " Workers '' 
 at home, and the education of the rising generation, that is their 
 department, when properly understood. It is stated that in Philadel- 
 phia, out of 1,194 teachers, there are 1,110 women and 84 men 
 teachers ; while in New York, out of 26,000 teachers, there are 21,000 
 
54 MAN. 
 
 of the transmission of hereditary tendencies, we must have 
 both genealogies before us. This transmission is readily 
 accounted for — exercise augments function, this mcreases 
 structure, and this increased structure is transmitted. " Here- 
 ditary tendencies can be ascribed to nothing but inherited 
 development of structure, caused by augmentation of func- 
 tion." * Strong impressions, -which alter structure, and 
 which leave their mark upon the easily impressible substance 
 of the brain, are transmitted, and thus most peculiar idiocyn- 
 cracies run in families, showing themselves often at the 
 period of life in which they first appeared in the parent. 
 " Some fault, some contravention, some ignorance of the 
 eternal laws — ^who knows how, or how long ago committed ? — 
 has entailed this Nemesis." ^ 
 
 Sir J. Herschel says : " The disregard and ignorance of 
 the laws of human organisation manifested in the transmis- 
 sion of diseases to posterity deserves the severest censure, 
 and often receives the severest punishment," and, may we not 
 add, that the transmission of mental disease is equally 
 culpable. 
 
 women and 5,000 men instructors." — (Atheneeitm, June 2, 1870.) 
 So greatiy does instinct go ahead of reason in America, where all the 
 talk is of the " Eights of Women " to become men. 
 
 Again, might not our fast young ladies, as well as the " sluggard," 
 go to the ant and take a lesson, as well as from the bee 1 In the 
 tribe of ants " some brilliant black flies, with their delicate wings in 
 continued motion, make their appearance among the workers. These 
 are the male and female population of the colony, which must some 
 day face abroad, and go to establish new families at » distance." 
 These winged ants swaxm out into the bright sunshine, live for a 
 time a rather fast life, each seeking for one to love. Having made 
 their choice, no doubt a happy one, they settle down to the duties of 
 maternity, and mark I they then tear off their wings " by waving 
 them, so as to weaken the muscles which unite them to the corselet, 
 and pinching them off with their legs," that they may no longer be 
 tempted to roam abroad and neglect their household duties. 
 
 * Herbert Spencer, -f T. A. TroUdpe. 
 
CLIMATE. 55 
 
 Climate. — Whether climate is more important thaa race, 
 or whether race itself grows out of climate, are still disputed 
 points with ethnologists ; but surely the immense contrast 
 between the Arab and the Negro, both in body and mind, is 
 not sufficiently accounted for by the difference in the climates 
 which they respectirely inhabit. Still climate, it must be 
 allowed, is all-important. We can make little progress till 
 we give our mental and moral philosophy a physiological 
 basis, and, pbysiologically, man grows out of the earth as 
 much as the plants do. It is in vain that he tries to set 
 himself up as something distinct and apart from nature, 
 whereas he is a part only of the great whole, his present 
 always growing out of the past ; the rudiments of all his 
 highest acquisitions being found in the strata below. The 
 sun's spots even, and variable influence, affect the climate and 
 atmosphere, and through them the vegetable kingdom, which 
 again influences both animals and men, changing tissue and 
 its mental manifestations. The -sun itself is under the influ- 
 ence of other bodies in space, so that the remotest star acts 
 directly on our organisation, and we may yet have to admit 
 the astrologist within the boundaries of science, and be glad 
 to know that we are born under a favourable star. 
 
 Differences in climate. Dr. Bird tells us, may be referred 
 to differences in heat, moisture, chemical action, electricity, 
 magnetism, and light; and differences in these may be 
 referred to differences in distance froiri the sun, moon, and 
 stars, from the equator, in the relative distribution of land 
 and water, in the irregularity of the earth's surface, in the 
 composition of the earth's crust, and probably in differences 
 in the relations which exist between different portions of the 
 earth's crust and the interior of the earth, where the elements 
 of volcanic action are supposed to reside. Men take their 
 characters from contact with the physical influences among 
 which it has been their lot to be cast. Nations and tribes 
 take their places in the human family according to their 
 
56 HAN. 
 
 physical good fortune or their physical bad fortune ; the 
 inhabitants of swamps and jungles are necessarily of lower 
 organisation than are the inhabitants of breezy and well- 
 cultivated uplands. Humboldt, in his "Cosmos," and 
 others have now made these things pretty well understood ; 
 but that man is a great magnet, and sympathises with the 
 varied magnetic and electric condition of the earth is less 
 known. Changes are constantly taking place in the intensity of 
 terrestrial magnetism. Thus it is increasing in America, and 
 decreasing in Europe and As.ia ; and when from the general 
 we descend into the particular, we find that at Toronto, m 
 Canada, the total force in the dip inclination in the magnetic 
 needle increases annually 1"0, and that in London there is 
 an annual decrease of the same of 2-7. This shows, says 
 Dr. Bird, that a benefit or a loss is travelling westwards. 
 Can it be true, he says, as the Yankees continually tell us, 
 that Europe is growing old ; that, having borne the burden 
 of a high civilisation for thousands of years, she is trans- 
 ferring it to the back of the unexhausted energies of 
 America ? * It certainly admits of a question as to whether 
 Europeans are improving in America, as to whether there is 
 a " benefit or a loss ? " Anthropologists say : " We have 
 exhaustion and degeneracy, but no real acclimatation." f 
 In the American the nervous system greatly predominates. 
 This Nathaniel Hawthorne ascribes to the dry atmosphere and 
 vicious habits of life ; but both the vicious habits and nervous- 
 ness may quite as likely be owing to the difference in the 
 magnetic condition. " John Bull, on the other hand," says 
 Hawthorne, " has grown 'bulbous, long-bodied, short-legged, 
 heavy-witted, material, and, in a word, too intensely English." 
 Let us hope that both extremes may be modified by food, 
 training, and proper educational treatment. 
 
 In considering this subject we must also not lose sight of 
 
 * " Physiological Essays," pp. 144, 119, 125. 
 t " Anthropological Journal," July, 1868. 
 
MUNDANE EMANATIONS. 57 
 
 chemical action and the consequent evolution of electricity, 
 not only dependent on winds and waters on the surface, but 
 upon the chemical action going on in the crust, and in the 
 bowels of the earth. Faraday says that the chemical action 
 of a grain of water on four grains of zinc can evolve a quan- 
 tity of electricity equal to that of a powerful flash of light- 
 ning. As chemical action is daily going on to a vast extent 
 in trees, and in all kinds of vegetation and in animals, a 
 large proportion of the atmospheric electricity must come 
 from this source. The production of electricity varies 
 greatly in different localities from these and other causes, 
 giving new properties to matter, and consequently a different 
 action on, and relations to, our tissues, and we begin to 
 understand how it is that many changes take place which the 
 thermometer cannot measure ; and how the heat of one wind 
 acts differently from the heat of another wind ; and how people 
 should exclaim, How depressing this wind, and how exhi- 
 larating that ! * 
 
 The action going on in the earth's crust generates all kinds 
 of peculiar influences, which greatly affect some people, and 
 aU differently. Some are affected by metallic currents, some 
 by running water, others in passing over graves, and in 
 various other ways. Finding metals and streams of water 
 with the hazel wands, by people with abnormally constituted 
 nervous systems, has passed into a profession, and hundreds 
 of volumes have been written on these phenomena of Rhab- 
 domancy, as they are called. The emanations of these 
 mundane agents are not confined to veins of metal, or sub- 
 terranean streams, but the whole mineral kingdom has a 
 profound and mysterious relation with the organism of man, 
 and different constitutions are thus differently affected by 
 different localities. At Delphi we have prophecies, in the 
 Black Forests ghosts and demons. The jearth may be made 
 into a battery ; man is a magnet or a telegraphic wire, 
 " Physiological Essays," pp. 200, 203, 206. 
 
58 SfAN. 
 
 oftener, however, a post, and the electric currents that circu- 
 late freely through the different strata, often mixed with 
 decomposed organic matter, affect him accordingly.* 
 
 This question of climate, and especially of mundane in- 
 fluences on the tissues and brain-centres, and even on health 
 and on disease may be said to be quite in its infancy. I 
 give the following, however, as illustrations of the attention 
 which is beginning to be devoted to the subject : — 
 
 At a meeting of the Geological Society a paper by Mr. 
 Whitaker was read "On the Connection of the Geological 
 Structure and Physical Features of the South-east of Eng- 
 land with the Consumption Death-rate," in which a fact long 
 insisted upon by sanitary reformers was established from the 
 geological point of view. In fifty-eight registration districts 
 of Kent and Sussex consumption most prevails where the 
 soil is wet. This result, however, does not depend entirely 
 on the stiffness or porousness of the soil, for it is modified 
 by slope and elevation. It has long been remarked in 
 Devonshire that consumption prevails in the valleys and not 
 on the hills. Is it quite certain that the hollows are warmer 
 than the heights ? The country-folk round about Haslemere 
 all declare that the cottages on the hills are warmer than 
 those in the valleys ; and the same testimony may be heard 
 in other parts of England. 
 
 Dr. Moffat also attempts to establish the close connection 
 between certain soils and certain maladies. His experience 
 has chiefly lain in Cheshire, and he says he has there found 
 that consumption and anemia follow in a very remarkable 
 manner the course of the carboniferous system, and prevail 
 to a far less extent among the dwellers in the new red sand- 
 stone district. So far this agrees with the above observations 
 of Mr. Whitaker and with what Dr. Buchanan and Mr. 
 Simon observed in»the counties of Surrey, Kent, and Sussex, 
 
 * See " Philosophy of Mysterious Agents," chap. 6, by E. C. Eogers. 
 (Jewett and Co., Boston.) 
 
HARD WATER WHOLESOME. 59 
 
 where phthisis was most fatal upon the damp soils ; and it 
 is also supported by the fact that in large towns the disease 
 has been the first to decline in virulence after the ground has 
 been rendered dry by the introduction of main sewers. The 
 novel parts of Dr.,Moffat's theory is, however, that analyzing 
 the wheat grown upon the two geological systems, he found 
 that in that produced upon the sandstone there was a large 
 proportion of phosphoric acid and of oxide of iron, while in 
 that of the carboniferous system these constituents were 
 almost wholly wanting. He concluded therefore that the 
 prevalence of consumption and anaemia were mainly attri- 
 butable to the deficiency of these elements of blood in the 
 ordinary diet of the population. 
 
 " Hard Water. — The testimony of public waste is de- 
 cidedly in favour of hard water. It is usually rendered hard 
 by the suspension in it of calcareous substances, which are 
 rendered soluble by the presence of carbonic acid. Water 
 containing earthy carbonates is usually bright, hard, pleasant 
 to the taste, and refreshing, while pure water is soft, tasteless, 
 and affords none of that sense of exhilaration which is 
 always associated with 'the crystal spring.' The French 
 savans, when inquiring after water for the supply of Paris, 
 found that more conscripts are rejected in soft water districts, 
 on account of imperfect development and stunted growth 
 than in the hard ; and they concluded that calcareous matter 
 in water is essential to the formation of tissues. In these 
 islands, it appears that the death-rate is influenced by the 
 water supply, not only as to its sufficiency and the amount 
 of organic matter suspended in it, but also as to its relative 
 hardness. Glasgow and Manchester are supplied with soft 
 waters, and have high death-rates ; Birmingham, Bristol, 
 Newcastle, and Warwick have hard waters and low death- 
 rates. It may be said that in towns supplied with water of 
 more than ten degrees of hardness, the average mortality is 
 about 22 per 1,000, while in those supplied with softer water 
 it is about 26 per 1,000."— C% Presg. 
 
60 MAN. 
 
 Body and Soul Emanations. — I have alluded to the 
 mundane emanations, and we must not omit all mention of 
 the emanations from the body, and their action upon those 
 with whom we are brought into close contiguity. This 
 topic, it might be considered, would come more properly 
 under Mesmerism, but there is a wide field that Mesmerism 
 does not include. The sun has an atmosphere, the world baa 
 an atmosphere, and so has man, and one often evident to 
 the sfenses ; but it is not this to which I allude. We all 
 know how we are drawn to some people, and repelled by 
 others, when we are brought within their sphere. But the 
 character of the emanations surrounding us has never been 
 very definitely determined even where its existence has been, 
 admitted. Of its existence, however, there can be no doubt, 
 although it is not recognised by physiologists or medical 
 men except in some cases of disease. In Australia there are 
 large patches of the sensitive plant growing wild, which curls 
 itself up at the approach of man, not waiting for his contact, 
 and some people are equally sensitive to the approach of 
 others. We are told by Humboldt that the Peruvian Indians 
 in the darkest night can not merely perceive through their 
 scent the approach of a stranger whilst yet far distant, but 
 can say whether he is Indian, European, or Negro. This is 
 attributed to smell, but of the general character of this 
 influence less is known. Dr. Bird, however, says : " It 
 appears that every substance, while moved by heat, in turn 
 changes heat. The sun's heat, changed by everything it 
 permeates, passes on into the tissues^ and there becomes 
 transmuted into motion or organised tissue, which is bottled 
 heat of peculiar modification. This latter again becomes 
 heat when it moves and does work. This released heat takes 
 its character from the tissue which has released it. Heat 
 from brain tissue is not the same as that given out by 
 muscular tissue." Dr. Bird applies this to his own depart- 
 ment of medicine, for " as different heats yield to the 
 
BODY AND SOUL EMANATIONS. 61 
 
 influence of difiFerent things, it follows that a different sub- 
 stance is necessary to control the heat issuing from the 
 brain from what is necessary to control heat issuing from 
 muscle." This " heat or force theory rests on the broad and 
 sure basis of physical science in all its departments, and 
 by means of it we are connected and interwoven, not only 
 with the earth and everything that moves on it, but with the 
 sun, the moon, and all the radiant stars." * It is this 
 " released heat taking its character from the tissue which has 
 released it" that determines the character of the special bodily 
 atmosphere that surrounds us. In some exceptional cases large 
 quantities of this specialised force — this released heat taking 
 its character from the tissue — is given out, and we have trans- 
 mitted muscular, electrical, vital, or nervous forces in great 
 power. Of pure muscular force we have such cases as those 
 of Angelique Oattin, investigated by M. Arago. Electrical 
 force is sometimes in great excess. All chemical action is 
 attended by a generation of electricity, and this is so largely 
 developed in some people, — their bodies have been so highly 
 charged, — that it has been necessary to carry it off by 
 a regular process of conduction. Vital force is so strong 
 in others that they possess a curative power by its trans- 
 mission in cases where healthy vital force is deficient. Old 
 people imbibe vital force when sleeping with young ones, 
 and all persons deficient in vital force draw largely from those 
 with whom they sleep, causing or greatly increasing rheu- 
 matic and other pains. In the transmission of force from 
 brain tissue we not only transmit mental states, but these 
 other forces come more or less under the dominion of the 
 Wm, accounting for much in Electro-biology, Mesmerism, 
 and so-called Spiritual Phenomena. But these are abnormal 
 states ; in the natural state the " released heat taking its 
 character from the tissue," mixed with more material emana- 
 tions, forms our personal atmosphere, and people are much 
 * " Physiological Essays," " The Origin of Disease," pp. 245, 246. 
 
62 MAN. 
 
 more under its influence than they are disposed to credit. Our 
 thoughts and feelings are greatly influenced by those with 
 whom we come in contact, and especially by those with whom 
 we habitually associate, the influence depending upon the 
 particular brain tissue from which the force emanates. Envy, 
 hatred, and malice transmit themselves, as do faith, hope, 
 and charity. Good people sometimes wonder at the devilish 
 thoughts that come into their minds, and trace them to 
 evil spirits ; and such is really their origin, the evil in- 
 fluence or spirit being generated in another person's brain. 
 The extent to which we give or take depends upon the 
 constitution. Highly nervous people are very sensitive to 
 the impressions about them. " "When I am among women," 
 writes Keats, " I have evil thoughts, malice, spleen ; I 
 cannot fepeak or be silent ; I am full of suspicions, and 
 therefore listen to nothing ; I am in a hurry to be gone." * 
 He was probably more susceptible to female influence, as the 
 temperament of women is more sensitive, and approaches 
 nearer to the poetical ; but the influence he would receive 
 would depend entirely upon the character of the women he 
 was with, and upon their predominating brain development. 
 
 Shelley was equally sensitive. Medwin, writing of him, 
 says : " So sensitive was he of external impressions, so 
 magnetic, that I have seen him, after threading the crowd 
 in Lung' Amo Corsos, throw himself half fainting into a 
 chair, overpowered by the atmosphere of evil passions, as he 
 used to say, in that sensual and unintellectual crowd." These 
 phenomena are now illustrated on a very large scale in what 
 are called Spiritualist circles. All that is wanted is observation 
 and experiment; but we must look in the right direction — for 
 spirit, not spirits, and for nervous and bodily forces and 
 emanations. 
 
 The effect of one body upon another, even without contact, 
 is familiar to us in disease. Mad people, or the mentally 
 * Monckton Milnes's (Lord Houghton), Keats, p. 245. 
 
CUKATIVB POWBB. 63 
 
 diseased, are known even by their smell, and it is now very 
 generally admitted that it is very undesirable to crowd certain 
 diseases together in hospitals ; that patients recover much 
 more rapidly by separate and isolated treatment. * Mad 
 Houses are, I should think, much more likely to make sane 
 people mad than mad people sane. But we may equally 
 catch health as disease. Mr. Valentine Greatrakes, in 
 Charles the First's time, wrought great cures, and the Royal 
 Society of that time, then in its infancy, accounted for them 
 by " a sanative contagion in Mr. Greatrakes' body, which 
 had an antipathy to some particular diseases and not to 
 others." If the Royal Society had pursued this investiga- 
 tion we should not have had people, in possession of this 
 power, mistaken for impostors, and nearly torn to pieces by 
 the mob. Such an investigation would alsp have thrown 
 light upon many important kindred subjects connected with 
 our higher interests — for instance, the way in which mind 
 acts upon mind. Of the cause of our elective affinities, our 
 unaccountable bodily likes and antipathies, we know nothing, 
 and to pursue the subject would be to trench on Electro- 
 biology, Mesmerism, Spiritualism, &c. George Whitefield's 
 extraordinary power as a preacher depended entirely upon his 
 personal presence ; his published sermons read very tame, 
 
 * Eeoent returns show that the percentages of death after limb 
 amputations under different conditions and degrees of aggregation 
 and isolation are as follows : — In the large Parisian hospitals, 62 in 
 100 die ; in British hospitals, with 300 to 600 beds, 41 ; with 300 to 
 201 beds, 30 ; with 200 to 100 beds, 23 ; with 100 to 26 beds, 18 ; 
 25 beds or less, 14 ; in isolated rooms in county practice, 11. Sir 
 James Simpson argues from this that the congregation of patients 
 upon a given spot, or within a given establishment, enhances the 
 chances of death to those that are there operated upon and treated, 
 while on the other hand the more that patients are separated and 
 isolated, the more surely they recover from the knife of the surgeon, 
 and in all probability also from other accidents and disease. There is 
 safety, he maintains, in segregation, danger in aggregation. — (Pall 
 Mall Gazette.) 
 
64 MAN. 
 
 and create little impression. It was his power of throwing his 
 mind into that of others, owing to his singleness of purposp 
 and earnestness to which the effect was owing ; as illustrated 
 in an abnormal state in electro-biology. " The man was," 
 as the Athenomm says (April 22, 1871), "transparently sin- 
 cere and single-hearted. It was out of a soul at white heat of 
 emotion that the dramatisation proceeded ; and the emotion 
 that fired and fused it was the love of souls." 
 
 T. Adolphus Trollope, speaking of the influence of 
 physical love on one of his characters, says : " It really 
 seemed as if there were some physical emanation from her 
 person — some magnetic stream — some distillation from the 
 nervous system of one organisation mysteriously potent over 
 the nervous system of another, which mounted to the brain, 
 mastered the sources of his volition, and drew him helpless 
 after her, as helpless as the magnetized patient obeys the will 
 of the magnetizer." * 
 
 Instinct. — Whatever principle of agency in the animal 
 is not, recognised as an element in the human constitution 
 has hitherto been called Instinct. Instinct, however, is 
 hereditarily transmitted experience. Man can transmit his 
 experience by oral and written records, whereas animals 
 can transmit theirs only in the form of instincts. Volun- 
 tary acts many times repeated become involuntary or 
 automatic — that is, take place unconsciously. This is no 
 doubt accompanied by change, or even growth of struc- 
 ture, and this alteration of structure is transmitted to 
 offspring with its function of automatic action. In this way 
 we get the performance of an act without knowledge or ex- 
 perience, but the knowledge or experience has been acquired 
 in previous generations. Instinct is only memory once re- 
 moved. Memory is the result of impressions on the brain ; 
 these impressions are deepened by repetition till both speech 
 * " A Syren," vol. 2, p. 224. 
 
INSTINCT. 65 
 
 and action become involuntary in a recognised and definite 
 order along the path so often travelled. In old age, when 
 our animal vigour is exhausted, and less force passes through 
 the brain, and the brain itself becomes less susceptible of 
 impression, the old impressions resume their sway, and we 
 return to our old habits of feeling and thinking, and our 
 early memories. As we have said, when these automatic 
 memories are attended with alteration or increase of structure, 
 and are transmitted to offspring, they become instincts. 
 Man is thus a bundle of instincts, transmitted through every 
 form of life which has existed since it first commenced within 
 the simple cell millions of years ago. All his Feelings and 
 Intellectual Faculties are instincts, and have been thus trans- 
 mitted. Even his Eeason is an instinct — a comparing, 
 fitting, and generalising instinct, dependent upon trans- 
 mitted structure of brain in its three separate organs of 
 Comparison, Causality, and Congmity. The nearest ap- 
 proach to man in bodily form, although not in the mental, is 
 the ape ; but the ape has to be traced down to its beginning 
 in the monad. All man's instincts exist in some exaggerated 
 form in some of the creatures below him, except, perhaps, a 
 few of the highest, which have been developed only in him, 
 but which nevertheless exist in a rudimentary form in other 
 animals ; for it is impossible to affirm that brutes have no 
 Conscience, or sense of right and wrong ; or that they have 
 no Veneration, that is, respect or reverence ; or no Benevo- 
 lence ; or that they do not Eeason. The industrial and social 
 polity of the bee is superior to man's, and the ant at least 
 equals him in some of his vices, for one tribe goes to war 
 with another for the sole purpose of making prisoners, which 
 they treat as slaves, and upon whose labour they live idly. 
 Horses and Dogs, t^iough they have the germs of higher 
 affections in them, show nothing like the governing instincts 
 of ants ; and even the highest apes, Mr. Darwin tells us, 
 
66 MAN. 
 
 show nothing like the sense and love of beauty evinced by 
 many tribes of birds. 
 
 Man came last into the world, and although he has all th« 
 mental powers that distinguish other animals " in one," yet 
 he possesses some of them in a very inferior degree. His 
 pride, however, disclaims any relationship to his fellow- 
 creatures lower in the scale of being, so he makes a difference 
 in kind instead of in degree between himself and them, and 
 where he recognises this mental superiority, or indeed any 
 kind of intelligence he does not understand, he calls it 
 Instinct, which is a mere name to cover his ignorance, and to 
 support a foregone conclusion about some kind of soul which 
 the brutes are supposed not to possess. People having no 
 knowledge of their own minds cannot be expected to under- 
 stand those of animals. Our intimate union with the Dog, 
 Cat, and Horse must convince us that their feelings in most 
 cases are like our own, and that the intellectual powers that 
 guide these feelings, of perception, conception, memory, and 
 even judgment, or the adaptation of means to ends, are the 
 same as our own, diifering only in degree. Mr. A. K. "Wal- 
 lace, a most acute observer as a Naturalist, is of opinion that 
 birds learn to sing in the same way as young ladies do — ^by 
 taking lessons. He says facts " render it certain that the 
 peculiar notes of birds are acquired by imitation, as surely as 
 a child learns English or French, not by instinct, but by 
 hearing the language spoken by its parents." * He is even 
 of opinion (in which perhaps we cannot so readily agree with 
 him) that birds build their nests by their own observation and 
 experience, and not by instinct — ^that is, transmitted aptitude 
 and experience. They must be aided at least by a large 
 organ of what Phrenologists call Constructiveness, which is 
 a building instinct. He says : " During the time they are 
 learning to fly and return often to the nests, they must be 
 * " On Natural Selection," p. 222. 
 
HOW INSTINCTS AEE FORMED. 67 
 
 able to examine it inside and out in evei-y detail, and as we 
 have seen that their daily search for food invariably leads 
 them among the materials of which it is constructed, and 
 among places similar to that in which it is placed, is it so 
 very wonderful that when they want one themselves they 
 should make one like it?"* Very wonderful, we think, 
 even supposing that they should have such precocious ideas 
 of commencing housekeeping. But then Mr. Wallace tells 
 us that when they really do begin to build they are assisted 
 by the experience of the older birds ; that young and old 
 birds pair together, and that the young one consents " to be 
 guided to some extent by its partner." The fact is, we do 
 not understand the language of the creatures below us, the 
 study of which would be much more profitable, and very much 
 more interesting, than Greek and Latin ; for we should then 
 learn how Nature in its infinite experience has found out 
 best to do most of the things we wish to accomplish, has 
 stereotyped the knowledge, and handed it down to us in what 
 we call Instincts. 
 
 The principle by which Instincts are formed is very 
 simple ; it is but the law of hereditary descent in its most 
 permanent form. We begin with a creature all stomach, 
 and the simple appetite, through the instrumentality of plea^ 
 sure and pain, does all the rest. We have increased efibrt, 
 which is increased exercise, leading, as we have seen, to 
 increase of size ; and with "growth exceeding a certain rate," 
 with new conditions or outer relations, we have new organs 
 and new functions. Certain habits are acquired, and the 
 brain "grows to" the kind of activity thus become habitual, 
 both in intellect and feeling, and the character thus im- 
 pressed is transmitted to offspring. This condition of brain 
 is often acquired unconsciously in what has been called "un- 
 conscious cerebration ;" the brain grows in sleep and acquires 
 strength and firmness ; and processes of thought, originally 
 * " On Natural Selection," p. 222. 
 
68 MAN. 
 
 difficult, attain clearness and become easier. Our feelings, 
 too, are unconsciously bent, and under new circumstances we 
 often become vividly and Bometimes painfully conscious of 
 the new condition the brain has acquired — ^when the course 
 of true love, for instance, has ceased to run smooth. In this 
 way man began his education, not with the race, but with the 
 first living creature, and much of the experience he possesses 
 has not been acquired by himself, but by previous generations. 
 " The corollary here drawn from the general argument is 
 that the human brain is an organised register of infinitely 
 mimerous experiences received during the evolution of life, 
 or rather, during the evolution of that series of organisms 
 through which the human organism has been reached. The 
 effects of the most uniform and frequent of these experiences 
 have been successively bequeathed, principal and interest; 
 and have slowly amounted to that high intelligence which 
 lies latent in the brain of the infant — which the infant in 
 after life exercises and perhaps strengthens or further com- 
 plicates — and which, with minute additions, it bequeathes to 
 future generations. And thus it happens that the European 
 inherits from twenty to thirty cubic inches more brain than 
 the Papuan. Thus it happens that faculties, such as music, 
 which scarcely exist in some inferior races, become congenital 
 in superior ones. Thus it happens that out of savages 
 unable to count up to the number of their fingers, and 
 speaking a language containing only nouns and verbs, arise 
 at length our Newtons and Shakespeares." * 
 
 Although Mind, then, is dependent upon the Brain, and 
 power is generally proportioned to size, we yet see upon 
 how many other things more or less perfect mental action 
 is dependent. It depends upon the amount of Force we are 
 able to extract from the Pood we take, and the mode ia 
 which, through a more or less well-balanced structure or 
 
 * " The Principles of Psyoliology,'' p. 470, by Herbert Spencer. 
 
THE PROPENSITIES. 69 
 
 bodily organisation, that force distributes its'elf through the 
 system. The digestion, heart, lungs, liver, and other organs 
 must be sound, and these bodily conditions are easily dis- 
 cernible to the practised observer in what are called the 
 Temperaments and other appearances. Then there are 
 Race, Family, Climate, Education, and Idiosyncracies, and 
 Aptitudes, which circumstances and education give and trans- 
 mit. By these mental aptitudes the children of educated 
 parents can be distinguished from those of the uneducated. 
 These aptitudes may be transmitted without increase of size ; 
 with increase of size they become instincts. An educated 
 Phrenologist estimates and makes allowance for all these 
 conditions, in predicating the power of the Mind from the 
 organisation of the Brain, as shown in the shape of the head. 
 We shall proceexi, then, to the consideration of the faculties 
 of the Mind — its Propensities, Sentiments, and Intellect. 
 
 The Propensities. 
 
 the self-pbotbcting. 
 
 Life is the most valuable thing we possess, and 
 Nature has protected it not only by the pain which is 
 always inflicted whenever it is endangered, bnt by an instinct 
 making us vnsh to preserve it even in the midst of the 
 acutest suffering. Long-continued pain may make us wish 
 for death, but that very much depends upon the strength in 
 which this " Love of Life " for its own sake exists, and this 
 greatly varies in different individuals, and in different coun- 
 tries. Its sacredness increases with civilisation, as safety 
 fosters the feeling. Life among savages is so precarious that 
 it is little valued ; and even among the Chinese a man will 
 do another the little favour of having his head cut off for 
 
70 MAN. 
 
 him as a substitute for about £25. It is true that this head 
 may be comparatively of even less value, considering that 
 33 millions of people die annually ; but we in this country 
 are in the habit of considering that it would be a considerable 
 loss to us. We learn also from a blue-book, " Correspondence 
 Respecting Japan," lately presented to the Foreign Office 
 by Mr. Mitford, that the Japanese in full Parliament refused 
 to abolish the Seppuka, or Hara Kiri, which is suicide by 
 disembowelling, because, as it was said, such suicide was 
 "the very shrine of the Japanese national spirit, and the 
 embodiment in practice of devotion to principle." Accord- 
 ingly, when a Ministry is turned out, they make it a principle 
 to " go out " altogether ; they have their whitebait dinner, 
 and then cut themselves open. "We greatly admire " devotion 
 to principle," but trust that it may not go quite to such ex- 
 tremes among ourselves. However desirable it may seem in 
 some particular cases, we must not yield to mere expediency. 
 It is this dread of annihilation, as it is called — ^this instinctive 
 longing for continued existence — the object of which is the 
 protection of life here, making us 
 
 Suffer 
 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, 
 Bather than take arms against a sea of troubles, 
 And, by opposing, end them, 
 
 which is adduced as conclusive evidence for continued ex- 
 existence beyond this life ; for, it is said, why should we have 
 had such a strong wish to live again, or to have existence 
 continued, if there is to be no " Future State ? " Thus Dr. 
 J. H. Stirling says : " Then the dignity of the soul — ^its 
 possession of faculties far above the needs of earthly commo- 
 dity ! All the natural desires possess their natural objects, 
 and there is no desire more natural than the desire of immor- 
 tality." The noble Roman thought death by his own hand 
 preferable to dishonour, and the time may come when aU 
 
MUST EAT TO LIVE. 71 
 
 will think "painless extinction" preferable, in the highest 
 moral sense, to cureless suffering and to being a pain and 
 burden to all around us. Seneca says : " The lot of man 
 is happy, because no one continues wretched but by his own 
 fault. If life pleases you, live. If not, you have the right 
 to return whence you came." * 
 
 And, again, Julius Caesar : " In affliction and misfortune 
 death is the termination of our sufferings, and not a punish- 
 ment ; it takes away all the ills of humanity ; beyond are 
 neither cares nor joy." 
 
 But if a man wishes to live, he must eat to live — not, how- 
 ever, live to eat ; and accordingly he has a desire for Food, 
 and if this desire is not gratified he suffers the pain of 
 Hunger. If he is not regularly " stoked," i.e., supplied 
 with the carbon, the union of which with the oxygen of the 
 atmosphere supplies the force that works his machine, he 
 soon comes to a dead stop. Consequently, although it is a 
 man's first duty to take food, as he could not live if he 
 did not, yet it is not left to his conscience. He does not 
 take food because he thinks it right, but because Nature 
 pinches him awfully in the stomach if he does not. When 
 Conscience shall pinch as sharply for neglecting other duties, 
 
 * In one of the essays by members of the Birmingham Speculative 
 Club (WiUiams and Norgate, 1870,) called " Euthanasia," the follow- 
 ing proposition is enforced ; — " That in all cases of hopeless and 
 painful illness, it should be the recognised duty of the medical 
 attendant, whenever so desired by the patient, to administer chloro- 
 form — or some other ansesthetic as may by-and-by supersede chloro- 
 form — so as to destroy consciousness at once, and put the sufEerer to 
 a quick and painless death ; all needful precautions being adopted 
 to prevent any possible abuse of such duty ; and means being taken 
 to establish, beyond the possibility of doubt or question, that the 
 remedy was applied at the express wish of the patient." " Chloroform 
 smooths our way into this world ; why should it not smooth our way 
 out?" says the Satv/rday Reviem. This question, I think, is now 
 fully open for discussion. 
 
72 MAN. 
 
 these duties will be much more punctually performed, and 
 little preaching will be necessary. But Food is not only 
 requisite to the support of the body, but the necessity for 
 taking it, and providing it, is the great support to our moral 
 system. It is the foundation of all order and obedience — 
 the rod which Nature holds over us to oblige us to do most 
 of our duties. A man cannot be idle — he must work ; 
 it is of no use his rebelling and falling out of the social 
 ranks; he must come home and take his place at feed- 
 ing time. This necessity for taking food, and the hunger 
 that attends it, are the great tamers of brutes, and of man 
 no less. 
 
 But, although it is absolutely necessary that we should 
 eat, and that several times daily, it has by no means been 
 determined what we should eat. Experiments have been tried 
 in Workhouses and Prisons without at present much practical 
 result. We have dietaries and tables expressing food-values 
 which place milk at the bottom of the scale and herring at 
 the top ! Liebig's food theories have been considerably 
 shaken, and we have Letheby's Cantor Lectures " On Food 
 and its Varieties " succeeding Liebig. He deals with its 
 " chemical composition, nutritive value, comparative digesti- 
 bility, physiological functions and uses, preparation, culinary 
 treatment, preservation, adulteration," &c. ; in fact, he is as 
 exhaustive as he can possibly be in four lectures. Dr. 
 Letheby starts first with wheat, and then comes the disputed 
 question as to whether it is best eaten with the bran or with- 
 out, and this can only be decided by the requirements and 
 capabilities of each individual. The bran is considered to 
 be rich in soluble phosphates, which are especially valuable 
 in the dietary of growing children, and the bones and brain 
 require them. But although useful to some on that par- 
 ticular account, it is injurious to others from the too great 
 irritation of the alimentary canal it occasions. The hard- 
 working navvy, the doctor tells us, chooses white bread 
 
THE SCIENCE OP GASTRONOMY. 73 
 
 because he finds it not only more digestible, bnt stronger, 
 enabling him to do more work. As to Vegetarianism, or 
 living altogether on vegetable food, perhaps if man had four 
 stomachs like the ox, and the same love of, and time for, 
 rumination, he might be able to extract enough " force " from 
 a vegetable diet only; but as he is at present constituted there 
 is but little work to be got out of him upon it. He wants 
 a more nitrogenous diet, which is only found in flesh-food. 
 In fact, if you want to take all the pluck out of a man you 
 have only to keep him on vegetables. The experiment has 
 been frequently tried both on individuals and communities. 
 Meats are not to be judged altogether by their nutritious 
 qualities ; their digestibility must also be taken into ac- 
 count. It is of little use that food should contain a large 
 amount of force, if the greater part of that force is con- 
 sumed in digestion. Fish is considered to be of little value 
 as food ; but this may be prejudice, for not only does it 
 contain some 18 per cent, of nitrogen, but Prof. Agassiz 
 affirms that it supplies the best kind of food for the brain. 
 Butter is required to supply carbon, an4 " all fish, " we are 
 told, " are in their best condition at the time of the ripening 
 of the milt and roe ; for not only are they fatter at that time; 
 but when cooked they have a better flavour, and the flesh is 
 solid and opaque. On the other hand, when they are out of 
 condition, the flesh is semi-gelatinous and watery." 
 
 Gastronomy should become a science, for however much 
 ashamed some well-bred young ladies may profess to be of 
 eating and drinking, Gastronomy is of more importance to 
 us than Astronomy, and by all the difference, at least, of their 
 comparative near or distant relation to us. We know how much 
 is done among both plants and animals by judicious feeding, 
 and if the subject were properly studied the inherited defects 
 of both bodily and mental constitution might be greatly 
 diminished. No doubt it is in our power to make either 
 queen bees or workers. A German philosopher says, " No 
 
74 MAN. 
 
 phosphorus no thought," and certainly the degree of intelli- 
 gence is largely in proportion to the amount of phosphorus' 
 in the brain, rising in quantity till we reach the madman, 
 whose over-activity of brain constitutes his madness. Surely 
 food might be judiciously applied in alleviation of such cases. 
 In fact, we have no science on the subject, and, the medical 
 profession notwithstanding, we are in a state of complete 
 barbarism as to what to Eat, Drink, or Avoid. 
 
 Next in importance to taking Food, and next in the order of 
 development, is self-defence. This instinct supplies courage for 
 attack and defence ; it gives pleasure in fighting, in aggres- 
 sion, and in meeting and overcoming difficulties. It often 
 shows itself as mere Oppositiveness, as in the man who said 
 that if he had any doubt about how to act he always asked 
 his wife and did just the reverse. 
 
 Animals live upon one another, and thus the race is kept 
 ever young, and their numbers within the means of subsistence ; 
 and in harmony with this necessity of their existence they 
 have a pleasure in killing and destroying, independently of the 
 mere gratification of appetite. Man, requiring flesh-food, is 
 no exception to this law. It is illustrative of the barbarous 
 age in which we still live, that, even among what are called 
 the " upper classes, " everywhere killing is still called 
 "sport." Man never meets a fellow-creature of the orders 
 below him, placed under his protection, to whom he is as 
 God, than the first thought of his heart is murder — ^for to 
 kill anything unnecessarily is murder. It is quite time this 
 brute-beast part of our nature took a higher direction, and 
 that our sympathy was with a creature's enjoyment in its 
 world, and not in its destruction. Energy of character is 
 the best form of this feeling, and its worst is envy, hatred* 
 malice, and all uncharitableness. It gives a strong desire 
 to give pain to those who give pain to us, and so far is 
 
LOVE AND HATE. 75 
 
 self-protectiug. The existence of this Propensity, its use- 
 fulness, and indeed the absolute necessity for its existence, 
 is evidence that Love, in a world constituted as ours is, is 
 not to have it all to itself. It is as desirable that we should 
 hate ugliness — in all its forms of vice, error, untruthfulness — 
 as that we should love that which is loveable. In fact, it is 
 difficult, as things now are, to say which is the greater 
 virtue — Love or Hate ; for it is as necessary now as in St. 
 Paul's time "to be angry and sin not" ; and " hates any man 
 the thing he would not kill 7" is a right direction of feeling 
 against evil. 
 
 The feeKng of hatred and the desire to destroy the nearest 
 relatives, as well as to love them, has been transmitted as an 
 instinct, when of service to the community, and Darwin says, 
 "if men were reared under precisely the same conditions as 
 hive-bees, there can hardly be a doubt that our unmarried 
 females would, like the worker-bees, think it a sacred duty 
 to kill their brothers, and mothers would strive to kill their 
 fertile daughters, and no one would think of interfering."* 
 In fact, that it would be possible to work this world for the 
 greatest good of all on the principle of love alone is only a 
 fond delusion. You see a poetic-looking gentleman, for 
 instance, greatly admiring the young lambs, " as they skip 
 and bound as to the tabor's sound," and you think he is sym- 
 pathising with "Wordsworth. You find it is the "fore-quarter " 
 only he is thinking of ; and the sympathy of the lady when 
 meeting the butcher was probably not much more genuine — 
 " You are not going to kill that dear little lamb, are you, 
 butcher?" "Why, ma'am," said he, "would you eat it 
 alive ? " 
 
 It has been in the struggle for existence — m fighting for 
 
 dear life ; in sexual selection, or in fighting for love — 
 
 that mind has been developed and perfected. " How much 
 
 Nature seems to love us 1" says Nathaniel Hawthorne ; and 
 
 * " Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 73. 
 
76 MAN. 
 
 how readily, nevertheless, without a sigh or complaint, she 
 converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest one — 
 that of conscious intellectual life and sensibility — has been 
 ultimately baulked !"* 
 
 But an animal cannot always protect itself by open force, 
 and it must make up in cunning — our old word for wisdom — 
 what it wants in strength or courage ; "it ekes out with the 
 skia of the fox what is wanted of the lion's." 
 
 The use of this faculty is Concealment ; its abuse. Evasion 
 and Deceit. No doubt the feeling was slightly in excess in 
 the man who, on being asked by the priest on his death bed 
 if he repented, said, after due consideration, " No, he thought 
 he had done as many as had done him." 
 
 An animal, if it would take proper care of itself, must 
 not only appropriate what it requires for immediate consump- 
 tion, but must lay by something " against a rainy day," and 
 some animals, and all men, have a propensity to do so. This 
 feeling is the base of the law of Property, and greatly aids 
 accumulation ; in abuse, it makes a man who devotes himself 
 entirely to business, and a miser. There is also a mental 
 acquisitiveness — a love of knowledge for its own sake, which 
 in excess makes a book-worm. In the curiosity of monkeys, 
 (of which Mr. Darwin gives many instances,) Sir Alex. Grant 
 tells us there is the commencement of that love of knowledge 
 for its own sa,ke which is one of the noblest of attributes. 
 Women often show a laudable curiosity in things which 
 do not in the least concern them : doubtless a love of know- 
 ledge for its own sake, the commencement of a very noble 
 attribute. 
 
 No doubt man and some other animals have a propensity 
 to build both a home and a place for their store of savings — ? 
 
 " The Blithedale Romance," p, 296. 
 
AMBITION. 77 
 
 a building instinct, which greatly aids, if it does not entirely 
 direct, the bird, the bee, the beaver, &o. " Man is a tool- 
 using animal, without tools he is nothing, with tools he is 
 all," and this faculty gives him a pleasure and a power in 
 their invention. 
 
 As Love and Hate are necessary — ^if not equally necessary, 
 parts of our mental condition, so are Courage and Fear 
 equally self-protecting. An instinct that makes us avoid 
 danger is perhaps more necessary than that which induces us 
 to meet and overcome it. A child with small cautiousness is 
 always in danger. To the timid hare, with its large ears and 
 long legs, it is its principal protection. In man it produces 
 prudence and circumspection ; and in excess it induces 
 cowardice, indecision, night-mares, depression of spirits, and, 
 like pain itself, lowers vitality. 
 
 THE SBLP-EBGAEDING FEELINGS. 
 
 Pride and Vanity represent these feelings in excess ; in 
 their due proportion they are Self-respect and Love of 
 Approbation — ^personal dignity and the desire of the esteem 
 and praise of others. Our estimate of ourselves is not often 
 in accordance vrith our real worth, but dependent upon the 
 instinctive promptings of our self-esteem, and it was a wise 
 observation of Lavater, that whoever makes too much or too 
 little of himself has a false measure for everything — a trifle, 
 plus his ego, is immense ; an immensity, minus his ego, 
 is a trifle. Neither is our ambition always a laudable one. 
 The painful self-consciousness resulting from the excess of 
 these feelings is familiar to us all ; but pride and vanity are 
 the vices of the present age. All are seeking distinction in 
 some form or other, and in ways not always the most en- 
 nobling, or much above the creatures that are considered so 
 far below them. The peacock spreads its tail, and so does 
 
7€ MAN. 
 
 a lady, and both with the same object ; but the peacock has 
 this adyajatage, however, of having his tail already sufficiently 
 ornamented, while the lady has to follow all the vagaries of 
 fashion, and wear besides any kind of fools' cap fashion may 
 rec[uire. Men, and especially women, are so fond of praise 
 themselves, that they praise their gods in a way which, if 
 addressed to one of themselves, would be considered fulsome 
 in the extreme, particularly if its sincerity were at all ques- 
 tionable, and there was some object to be gained by it. In 
 the earliest ages flocks and fruits were offered as a most 
 acceptable sacrifice ; they now offer what they themselves like 
 better still, praise. 
 
 Love of Power and of the Approbation of our fellow-men 
 are the leading springs of action in the present day, and too 
 often to the exclusion of higher motives. Thank God, we 
 have those amongst us who can appreciate those higher 
 motives, and all, therefore, will learn to do so in time. W. 
 E. Grove, lecturing to the students of St. Mary's Hospital 
 (May, 1869,) said : " The road to success is often that which 
 a high-minded man cannot travel : he cannot learn to fetch 
 and carry, to subserve the interest of a patron or a mob. I 
 do not seek to undervalue success : duty to yourselves and 
 those whom you may bring into the world enjoin its pursuit 
 in moderation. But I would fain endeavour to inculcate upon 
 my younger hearers a higher motive than the mere hope of 
 fame, wealth, or power. If these come by an unswerving 
 career, make good use of them ; if not, console yourselves 
 vrith the conviction that those who are said to be in power are 
 frequently the veriest slaves in existence." And, again, our 
 Carlyle (we may be proud to call him ours) : " Power ! Love 
 of Power ? Does ' power ' mean the faculty of giving places, 
 of having newspaper paragraphs, of being waited on by syco- 
 phants ? To ride in gilt coaches, escorted by the flunkeyisms 
 and most sweet voices, — I assure you it is not the heaven of 
 all, but only of many ! Some bom Kings, I myself have 
 
THE SLAVERY TO OPINION. 79 
 
 known, of stout natural limbs, who, in shoes of moderately 
 good fit, found quiet walking handier ; and crowned them- 
 selves almost too sufficiently, by putting on their own private 
 hat, with some spoken or speechless, ' God enable me to be 
 King of what lies under this ! for Eternities lie under it, 
 and Infinitudes, — and Heaven also, and Hell. And it is big 
 as the Universe, this Kingdom ; and I am to conquer it, or 
 be for ever conquered by it, now while it is called To-day ! ' " * 
 On this much-craved approbation of our fellows, Jean 
 Paul F. Eichter said, a hundred years ago : " On the whole, 
 I hold the constant regard we pay, in all our actions, to 
 the judgment of others, as the poison of our peace, our 
 reason, and our virtue. At this slave-chain I have long filed, 
 and I scarcely ever hope to break it entirely asunder. I wish 
 to accustom myself to the censure of others, and appear a 
 fool, that I may learn to endure fools." We are told that 
 " three years after his marriage Herder was invited to Weimar, 
 to fill the place of Consistorial Eath and Court Preacher. 
 Many reports had preceded Herder of his heresy and contempt 
 of forms. They had said, among other things, that he 
 preached in boots and spurs, and that after every sermon he 
 rode three times round the church and out of the door on 
 horseback." t There is nothing too ridiculous or too vile 
 for people to say, and yet the world continues to put this 
 talk in the place of conscience, and even makes a con- 
 science of it, and a rule of right and wrong 1 
 
 THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS. 
 
 The Social or Domestic Feelings include the Love of Wife, 
 Children, Friends, and Home. 
 
 The love between the sexes is the strongest feeling in our 
 nature, as it is also the second in importance ; the continua- 
 
 * " Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," p. 228. 
 t Carlyle's " Life of Eichter," appendix, p. 214. 
 
80 MAN. 
 
 tion of the species, and the world that is to follow us, 
 depending upon it. It has a whole brain to itself to preside 
 over its functions ; and as man has a brain for himself — ^the 
 Cerebrum, so he has one for his offspring, or the world that 
 is to be — ^the Cerebellum. It is necessary, however, having 
 regard to the functions of both brains, that there should be 
 one man and one woman to make a complete human being ; 
 and ttie highest interests of humanity require that our efforts 
 should be directed towards their completeness of union. If 
 this be trtie, then the relations between the sexes, so much 
 now in dispute, must be settled in accordance with it, and the 
 kind of education and condition required is that which will 
 most harmoniously unite two people together /or life. Now, 
 what does a man want for his other half ? Not another man, 
 or anything like one, but a true woman, feminine in all her 
 attributes, modest, clinging, confiding, caressing, affectionate, 
 trusting, moved by her highest instincts, which in her are above 
 reason. And what does a woman most want to secure her faith 
 and fidelity ? Why, a true man ; manly, strong, independent, 
 courageous, upright, truthful, magnanimous. To the one 
 belongs power, to the other beauty ; one has the largest 
 brain and most strength of mind, the other is the most 
 sensitive, and can see and feel what the man cannot ; it is 
 the province of one to subdue and to rule the world, and of 
 the other to beautify it ; in the woman the social feelings, 
 which attach her to husband, children, and friends, predomi- 
 nate ; in the man, the moral feelings — faith, hope, charity, 
 benevolence, justice, ideality. The woman's head is conse- 
 quently long, the man's round and high ; * each first and 
 
 * Aristotle's enumeration of the differences between man and woman 
 does not indicate a very high opinion of the latter, but we may hope 
 that she has improved since then. "Woman," he says, "is more 
 pitiful than man, and more given to tears, and more prone to envy, 
 and more querulous against fate, and sharper with her tongue and 
 readier with her hands. The female also is more easily dispirited 
 and less hopeful than the male, and less sensible of shame and less 
 
WOMAK S RIGHTS. 81 
 
 \ 
 
 highest in his or her department. The movement in favour 
 of "woman's rights" and the "equality of the sexes" is 
 taking a wrong direction. Now the sexes are equal — each 
 first and best in their separate departments ; but a woman 
 attempting to compete with man in his department loses that 
 on which her position principally depends, and at best be- 
 comes but a weak imitation of the man. A woman donning 
 the "unmentionables" loses quite as much as a man who 
 puts himself into petticoats.* It has become rather fashion- 
 careful of truth. * * The male is more ready to help and more 
 courageous than the female ; for even among the molluscs, when the 
 cuttle-fish is struck with the spear the male helps the female, but 
 when the male is strucK the female makes off." 
 
 * Dr. Thomas Laycock is of opinion thut his method and principles 
 of psychological investigatien help to illucidate the fundamental laws 
 which govern the social relations of the sexes, and to indicate " how 
 far the organology of woman determines the education proper to her." 
 He has, therefore, in his 2nd edition of " Mind and Brain," added a 
 short chapter on manhood and womanhood. He is clearly of opinion 
 that, " strong in her maternal and moral instincts, woman will be 
 able to do more for man's spiritual and moral elevation as a wife and 
 mother than in any virile occupation whatever, however honourably 
 she may fill it." ■ The vigorous agitation in the United States for 
 equality of women with men in education, trades, profession, and 
 political power, he considers to be a proof of the fact " that a funda- 
 mental feminine instinct is enfeebled." 
 
 " The advocates of ' woman's rights ' will do well to study the pro- 
 gress of Miss Shedden'a case in the House of Lords. One can conceive 
 how terribly the Lord Chancellor must have suffered before in answer 
 to Miss Shedden's request to ' Allow her, for one moment,' he replied 
 in these awful terms, ' No, not for one moment j this has gone on too 
 long. Tell us which point you will go upon. Answer my question. 
 You are trifling most improperly with the court. It is beyond all 
 endurance.' Their other lordships concurred, no doubt with tears in 
 their noble eyes. Even Mr. Bright wiU not utterly condemn this 
 ebullition of feeling when he remembers that they have now been 
 engaged nineteen days in hearing a case which one of the viler sex 
 would probably have disposed of in as many hours. We cannot read 
 the account without deeply sympathising with the lords and the lady. 
 The proceedings have been interrupted by hysterics, and both sexes 
 
82 MAN. 
 
 able lately to question these principles. There have been so 
 many ill-assorted marriages that the institution itself has 
 been called in question, and people begin to think that a 
 wife should be taken on the same terms as a house — on lease 
 for 7, 14, or 21 years ; but the fault lies not in the institu- 
 tion, but in the ignorance and utter disregard of the laws 
 upon which two people ought ever to come together. The 
 laws of physiology and psychology — ^that is, the best interests 
 of body and mind — point to marriage for life. The sexual 
 feeling is the greatest consumer of force, and when indulged 
 in too early deprives both body and mind of. their proper 
 growth. It should never be allowed to act separately for 
 the sake of its own gratification, as it does in the brutes ; and 
 it is only in marriage that it can be put under due restric- 
 tion, surveillance, and control. 
 
 People fall in love often from no higher feeling than mere 
 animal affinity. It is this first spark that requires carefully 
 watching, that it may be stamped out at once if reason does 
 not approve, for if it is allowed to attain any head it is very 
 difficult to extinguish it, and reason is led captive. This 
 love between the sexes, the strongest passion we have, is 
 intended, in its early power, to smooth down individualities 
 and blend two people together for life — two lives merged into 
 one personality, as afterwards in the offspring. 
 
 In marriage this feeling unites itself first with the other 
 
 are utterly worn out. At the same time it cannot be denied that 
 many of us in private life would not be sorry occasionally to call in 
 the Lord Chancellor. The words ' TeU us which point you wUl go 
 upon,' will, we fear, although wrung from the bitterness of his lord- 
 ship's heart, find an echo in many a manly bosom. No woman ever 
 yet answered the question ; perhaps because they have not made up 
 their minds ; but we venture to express a hope that it is not their 
 intention to go upon the point of arguing in public as they argue in 
 private. It would be a cruel thing to take from men who suffer much 
 at home the rest and relaxation they now find in hours of business." 
 {Pall Mall Gaaette, June 20, 1869.) 
 
MARRIAGE. 83 
 
 social feelings, and then with all our highest feelings, sharing 
 its intensity of force among them, and ultimately they act 
 and can act only together. The mere physical love is weaker, 
 and put under due control ; but married love is much stronger,, 
 because it comprises all our best feelings. This is the highest 
 state, in which all our j oys are doubled — all our sorrows halved ; 
 but it cannot be attained if people come together for a term, 
 and marriage is dissoluble. " How many sins are condoned, 
 how many shortcomings overlooked, when a man certainly 
 belongs to a woman, who can tell ? But suppose the relation- 
 ship different; let him be merely her lover, whether sinfully 
 or sinlessly, the moment the glamour with which, it may be, 
 she has herself surrounded him is dispelled, she sees one fault 
 after another, and dispassionately weighing him in the balance, 
 finds him wanting." * 
 
 Of course allowance must be made for cases where such 
 growth does not, and from the nature of things cannot, take 
 place ; but for people to allow themselves to wander about, 
 seeking what they consider their natural affinities, and which 
 are generally merely animal, is to give Amativeness undue 
 prominence, and thus disturb the whole mental balance, and 
 also to deprive themselves of that blessedness which is alone 
 derivable from the complete union of two natures. Even if 
 we were to consider the sexual feeling alone, its highest gra- 
 tification, and the only lasting one, is when it is allied with 
 all that is modest, pure, and good.f " It has been esta- 
 
 * " Austin Friars," by the author of " George Geith, of Fen Court." 
 t The history of this woman question is the history of the advance- 
 ment of the race and of civilisation. Mr. Darwin's book on " Sexual 
 Selection " certainly does not tend to raise our ideas of the sex, or 
 indeed of human nature generally ; and he tells us, no doubt very 
 truly, that ""he who has seen the savage in his native land will not 
 feel much shame if forced to admit that the blood of some more 
 humble creature flows in his veins. — (Vol. 2, p. 404). 
 
 Birds have been much longer in the world than man, and marriage 
 is decidedly an institution among them. Mr. Darwin says; "The 
 
84 MAN. 
 
 Wished from an enormous body of statistics, that the unmar- 
 riejl die in a much larger proportion than the married." — 
 (Darwin's " Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 175.) 
 
 females are most excited by, or prefer pairing with, the more orna- 
 mented males, or those which are the best songsters, or play the best 
 antics ; but it is obviously probable, as has been actually observed in 
 some cases, that they would at the same time prefer the more vigorous 
 and Uvely males " (vol. 1, p. 262) ; and we are told also that pea-hens, 
 if they cannot have the male they have set their hearts upon, very 
 sensibly determine to remain single. 
 
 Women make their selections on precisely the same principles. It 
 is the males that " are most ornamented " and that play " the best 
 antics " that are chosen ; and we ai-e all familiar with the story of the 
 servant girl who spent all her savings in buying a soldier out of the 
 army, but with whom, when he had defied the red and donned his old 
 smock-frock, she refused to have anything to do. We must not sup- 
 pose that it is birds and men only who try to make themselves 
 agreeable to the ladies of their choice. Frogs and toads, and tortoises, 
 and even crocodiles and alligators sing sweetly when they are in love. 
 " Frogs and toads possess vocal organs, which are incessantly used 
 during the breeding season. * * The male alone of the tortoise 
 utters a noise, and this only during the season of love. Male alli- 
 gators roar or bellow during the same season." — (Darvrin, vol. 2, 
 p. 331). We may call it noise and bellowing, but no doubt it is sweet 
 music to the lady-love, who also has her own ideas of the beautiful 
 as well as of music. It is the same with man ; as Darwin says, " It 
 is certainly not true that there is in the mind of man any universal 
 standard of beauty with respect to the human body." — (Vol. 2, p. 353). 
 " The same fashions," he says, " in modifying the shape of the head, 
 in ornamenting the hair, in painting, tattooing, perforating the nose 
 or ears, or removing or filing the teeth, &c., now prevail, and have 
 long prevailed, in the most distant quarters of the world," (p. 343.) 
 
 Heame, who lived many years with the American Indians, and 
 who was an excellent observer, says, in speaking of the women, " Ask 
 a Northern Indian what is beauty, and he will answer, a broad flat 
 face, small eyes, high cheek bones, three or four black lines across 
 each cheek, a low forehead, a large broad chin, a clumsy hook nose, 
 a tawny hide, and breasts hanging down to the belt" (Darwin, p. 344.) 
 The Chinese think Europeans hideous with their white skin and pro- 
 minent noses (p. 446.) Judged by the Mogul race, they have been 
 described as having the beak of a bird with the body of a man. 
 
WOMAN AS GOD AND DEVIL. 85 
 
 The love of children is a strong instinct in hupaian nature, 
 and it is Tell that it does not depend for its exercise upon 
 
 " Man admires and often tries to exaggerate whatever characters 
 nature may have given him." — (Humboldt.) 
 
 In our earliest history marriage was certainly not the law in the 
 human race, and, as Sir. John Lubbock tells us, " according to old 
 ideas a man had no right to appropriate to himself that which belonged 
 to the whole tribe. — (" Origin of Civilization," p. 86.) Sir John further 
 gives a most curious body of facts showing that in old times high 
 honour was bestowed on women that were utterly licentous ; and this, 
 as he explains, "is intelligible, if we admit that promiscuous inter- 
 course was the aboriginal and therefore long-revered custom of the 
 tribe.— (Ibid, p. 361.) 
 
 Woman, even so late as the beginning of the last century, was 
 treated as a devil and burnt as a witch. She is now, in the Religion- 
 of Humanity, worshipped as a God. " To comprehend a witch-mania," 
 says Canon Kiugsley, " you must look at it as (what the witch 
 literature confesses it unblushingly to be) man's dread of Nature 
 excited to its highest form, as dread of woman. She ' is to "the 
 barbarous man — she should be more and more to ' the civilised 
 man — not only the most beautiful and precious, but the most 
 wonderful and mysterious of all natural objects, if it be only as the 
 author of his physical being. She is to the savage a miracle to be 
 alternately adored and dreaded. He dreads her more delicate ner- 
 vous organisation, which often takes shapes to him demoniacle and 
 miraculous ; her quicker instincts, her readier wit, which seem to 
 him to have in them somewhat prophetic and superhuman ; which 
 entangle him as in an Invisible net, and rule him against his will. 
 He dreads her very tongue, more crushing than his heaviest club, 
 more keen than his poisoned arrows. He dreads those habits. of 
 aecresy and falsehood, the weapons o£ the weak, to which savage and 
 degraded woman always has recourse. He dreads the very medicinal 
 skill which she has learnt to exercise, as nurse, comforter and slave. 
 He dreads those secret ceremonies, those mysterious initiations which 
 no man may witness, which he has permitted to ter in all ages, in 
 so many — if not all — ^barbarous and semi-barbarous races, whether 
 Negro, American, Syrian, Greek, or Roman, as a homage to the mysteri- 
 ous importance of her who brings him into the world. If she turn 
 against him. — she, with all her unknown powers, she who is the sharer 
 of his deepest secrets, who prepares his very food day by day — what 
 harm can she not, may she not do? And that she has good reason to 
 
86 MAN. 
 
 either our conscience or our reason, or the little brats would 
 too often be laid aside and forgotten, like their prototypes 
 
 turn against him, he knows too well. What deliverance is there from 
 this mysterious house-fiend, save brute force? Terror, torture, murder, 
 must be the order of the day. Woman must be crushed, at all price, 
 by the blind fear of the man." — (Praser, June, 1866, p. 715.) 
 
 By the Positivists, in the " Religion of Humanity," woman is wor- 
 shiped as the highest symbol of humanity. "As the symbol of 
 humanity," says its High Priest in this country, "we adopt with some- 
 what altered associations the beautiful creation of the mediaeval mind 
 — the woman with the child in her arras ; and to give life and vivid- 
 ness to this symbol, and to our worship in general, each Positivist 
 adopts as objects of his adoration his mother, his wife, his daughter, 
 allowing the principal place to the mother, but blending the three into 
 One compound influence — ^representing to him Humanity in its past, 
 its present, and its future." 
 
 M. Auguste Comte, the founder of this religion, had the merit, 
 not uncommon, of teaching on this subject both by precept and exam- 
 ple — ^by precept what we ought to do, by example what we ought 
 not. In precept he recognised " all the possibilities of true marriage" ; 
 in practice he made, in 1825, " a marriage of convenience," which 
 proved however to be no convenience to either of them, as 17 years 
 after their marriage Mme. Comte left her husband never to return. 
 It does not appear to have been a happy maiTiage : M. Comte did not 
 at all worship his wife, but seems to have expected her to worship 
 him. We are told that he was sent to school at the age of nine years, 
 and was so precocious that at ten "he criticised with severity and 
 j ndgment his teachers and their methods of instruction." Now he may 
 have carried his admirable talent for criticism into private life, and 
 his wife may not have appreciated it. We are told also that " she 
 could not forgive in him the ■ unconscious egotisms of a powerful 
 genius." It was reserved therfore for another man's wife to de- 
 velope the Eeligion of Humanity. Mme. Clotilde de Vaux had 
 been separated fro^i her husband, who had unfortunately been guilty 
 of a capital crime, and sent to the galleys ; but she became to Comte 
 '' a revelation of the power, purity, genius, and suffering of woman 
 — so that, having worked out his theory of Divine Humanity, he 
 recognised its highest development in her noble self-sacrificing life." 
 Comte himself says, in reference to her ; " Through her I have at 
 length become for Humanity, in the strictest sense, a twofold organ, 
 as may any one who has reaped the full advantages of woman's iuflu^ 
 
THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. 87 
 
 the wooden dolls. A woman considers it a great virtue to be 
 fond of her children, but it is one she shares with the tiger, 
 and a monkey is the fondest of its offspring of all animals. 
 
 " So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of 
 their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain 
 kinds kept under confinement by Brehm, in N. America. 
 Orphan-monkeys were always adopted and carefully guarded 
 by the other monkeys, both males and females. One female 
 baboon had so capacious a heart that she not only adopted 
 young monkeys of other species, hut stole young dogs and 
 cats, which she continually carried about. An adopted 
 kitten scratched the above-mentioned baboon, which certainly 
 had a fine intellect, for she was much astonished at being 
 scratched, and immediately examined the kitten's feet, and 
 without more ado bit off the claws." * 
 
 Both Darwin and Sir John Lubbock place the Social 
 among the Moral Feelings. Thus Sir John says, " We do 
 
 enee. Mj career had been that of Aristotle, I should have wanted 
 energy for that of St. Paul, but for her. I had extracted sound 
 philosophy from real science ; I was enabled by her to found on the 
 basis of that philosophy the universal religion." We perhaps ought 
 not to feel surprised that his wife, sensible, practical woman as she 
 is represented, could not forgive in him the unconscious egotisms of 
 a powerful genius. There is considerable sympathy with this article in 
 Comte's creed in the New World, although it is variously expressed. 
 The Eev. John H. Noyes, a gi-eat authority on the subject of Spiritual 
 wives, says " that when a man becomes conscious that his soul is 
 saved the first thing that he sets about is to find his Paradise and his 
 Eve." " It is a very sad fact, however," says Hepworth Dixon, " which 
 shows in what darkness a man may grope and pine in this wicked 
 world, that when these Perfect Saints were able to look about them 
 in the new freedom of Gospel light, hardly one of the leading men 
 among them could find an Eden at home, an Eve in his lawful wife." — 
 (" Spiritual Wives," Vol. 2, p. 10.) So men of genius, as a rule, have 
 no objection to take a wife, but it is generally one belonging to 
 somebody else. 
 • C. Darwin, vol. 1, p. 41. 
 
88 MAN, 
 
 not generally attribute moral feelings to quadrupeds and 
 birds, yet there is perhaps no stronger feeling than that of 
 the mother for her offspring."* We rather revolt against 
 the " moral sense '' of the tiger and the monkey. The moral 
 feelings are rather those .that unite man with his fellow-man, 
 ■vrhich turn man into humanity, upon which unity the supe- 
 rior strength of the race depends. The predominance of the 
 Social feelings would confine our sympathies to one family 
 and clan, whereas we belong to the world. 
 
 Attachment to individuals, which when fully developed in 
 the character creates a warm and affectionate disposition, is 
 the foundation of Friendship and of Society, and is as often 
 misplaced as the love between the sexes. People leave cards 
 and dine with one another, keeping the balance of such 
 visiting tolerably even, and a man boasts of his large circle 
 of friends. When he becomes poor, of course \h& friendship 
 ceasps with the dinners, and to complain then that his friends 
 have deserted him would be absurd. " Love, and love only, 
 is the loan for love," and dinners form a very imperfect sub- 
 stitute. Friendship, to be true and lasting, like love between 
 the sexes,' must be based upon the higher sentiments. 
 Women, however, in whom the instinct is very strong, often 
 prove an exception, and like a person the more for ill-treating 
 them : as Moore the poet says, " They love on thro' all ills, 
 and love on till they die." 
 
 The Love of Home is an important element in the Social 
 Group, and as an instinct, among animals, helps to keep 
 them to the places and districts to which they are best fitted 
 by their nature. Among human beings it gives attachment 
 to country and place, and indisposition to change of abode. 
 
 * " Origin of Civilisation," p. 263. 
 
SENSE OF JUSTICE. 89 
 
 THE MORAL FEELINGS. 
 
 The feelings we have considered have relation to our own 
 individual well-being, and that of our family and friends ; 
 what are called the moral feelings induce us to seek also the 
 welfare of our fellow-creatures — of our own race, and of all 
 capable of enjoyment. Man erroneously looks upon himself 
 as an individual, when he is simply a part and parcel of the 
 forces of Nature ai-ound him. By the force of gravitation 
 he is connected with every other atom in the universe ; the 
 sun prepares his daily food, and supplies the force that works 
 both his bodily and mental machine ; and if he were cut off 
 from either his food or the atmosphere around him he would 
 soon come to a dead stop. His moral feelings connect him 
 with his fellow-creatures, and make him a part of the great 
 body of Humanity. He cannot breathe properly away from 
 his fellow-creatures, and a Robinson Crusoe is a fish out of 
 water. The mind requires its food the same as the stomach, 
 and every faculty must have its natural external stimulant. 
 
 A Sense of Justice, a disposition to do what is commonly 
 called "right between man and man," is a strong . feeling in 
 human nature. Other animals respect the rights of their 
 fellows from fear of the consequences ; man from the offence 
 it gives to this sense — the pains of conscience. Of course 
 there are some in whom this feeling is very weak, and others 
 in whom it is merely rudimentary, and such have little or no 
 conscience. They are as morally blind as they would be 
 physically without their eyes, and they have to make up for 
 this deficiency with other feelings or senses. This feeling is 
 a sort of moral scales, by which we weight what is due to 
 ourselves and others. Action and reaction are necessarily 
 equal in the physical world, and ought to be so in the moral ; 
 and this faculty produces a sense of injury and injustice 
 if the scales are not kept even, and we do not get as much 
 
90 MAK. 
 
 as we give. It is all very well to inculcate disinterestedness 
 and generosity, but if we were to give only and receive nothing 
 we should soon have nothing to give ; accordingly the world 
 recognises that we should " be just before we are generous," — 
 just to ourselves as well as to others. At present we have 
 a very low standard for the rights of others ; man tranfers 
 his accountability in that respect from this world to the next, 
 like the Irishman who wished to restore the pig he had stolen 
 when it appeared in evidence against him on the judgment 
 day, as the priest told him it certainly would do. There are 
 some very delicate consciences. I knew a little girl who 
 would not throw the snails into a neighbour's garden, 
 but put them on the top of the wall with their heads that 
 way. The King of Burmah, a great theologian, explained 
 to Dr. Bastian that Buddhism forbids the taking of life, that 
 it is very wrong indeed to kill animals for food, and therefore 
 you must always get someone else to do it for you. A pungzi, 
 or, as we call him, a bonze, must not eat after noon ; therefore 
 he sits with his back to the sun, and being hungry at two or 
 three o'clock, inquires of his scholar whether it is noon yet, to 
 which the boy is trained to answer that it is not ; and, on the 
 strength of the pupil's assertion, the master eats another 
 meal.* But we need not go to Burmah for illustrations of 
 the supremacy of conscience : there are plenty of our own 
 Clergy who knowingly turn their backs upon " the time of 
 day " that they may continue to eat a comfortable meal at the 
 expense of the Church. All the world over consciences are 
 easily satisfied, resting in a few outside conventionalities ; 
 and the knowledge of what is right is generally behind even 
 the disposition to do it. There is little justice in the world at 
 present, or there would not be the great inequality in wealth 
 that now prevails. The scales have never been held evenly 
 between the different classes of society. A rich man 
 takes a pound too much from a poor man in the division 
 * Antha-opologieal Review, April, 1867, pp. 190, 191. 
 
BENEVOLENCE. 91 
 
 of the fruits of their joint labour, and returns him six- 
 pence in charity, telling him not to make a beast of 
 himself with it. Justice would make a much better ruler 
 of the world than Generosity or Benevolence. To do what 
 is right includes all the higher feelings ; but all the feelings, 
 high and low, must be put under the rule of this sense of 
 justice, for that only can be right which is just. Carlyle 
 says truly, " The just thing in the long run is the strong 
 thing." We only want the "long run." 
 
 We are also told to "Love our neighbour as ourselves." 
 Now as we cannot love from a mere sense of duty, but can love 
 only that which is loveable, if our neighbour is not loveable 
 we cannot love him. As, however, we have a natural desire for 
 the happiness of others, a sympathy even with the enjoyment 
 of all animated beings, we can try to make him happy without 
 loving him very much. But if we really love to make our 
 fellow-creatures happy, there is nothing unselfish in our doing 
 it; we are only gratifying our own desire, and our neighbours 
 therefore need not be too thankful, but gratify their de- 
 sire, and do as they are done by. We are told that " the 
 most wonderful and noble of all forces in the universe is 
 disinterested affection;" and this is the kind of stuff goody 
 people continue to talk. A cZmnterested affection, or one in 
 which we are not interested, is a contradiction, for it would 
 not be an affection at all. Such a want of feeling could never 
 be a motive to action, for there would be nothing to move us. 
 There is a love that induces us to seek our own well-being, and 
 a love that induces us to seek the welfare of others ; and it is 
 the latter that is rather foolishly called disinterested, for if we 
 have an affection for our fellow-creatures that induces us to 
 seek their happiness in preference to our own, it is our affec- 
 tion or love that seeks gratification, not theirs ; and in what 
 way is that disinterested ? In fact, we can only feel our own 
 feelings, and if we do not possess the organisation upon which 
 
92 MAN. 
 
 those feelings depend, we do not feel, and we do not act. The 
 sooner, therefore, we recognise this fact, and leave off talking 
 about " disinterested affection," and set ourselves to work to 
 grow the organisation which interests us in the happiness of 
 others, the better for the progress of morality. 
 
 All wlio joy would win 
 Must share it, — Happiness was bom a twin. — Byron. 
 
 But if a man cannot love his neighbour — and he certainly 
 cannot love by willing it — and if this desire for the happiness 
 of others is not naturally a strong feeling with him, then he 
 acts from a sense of duty, and does it by proxy or by deputy ; 
 and that is why benevolence, as it is miscalled, or charity, 
 is probably doing more harm than good at the present 
 time.* Or a man may act from a religious motive, and 
 believing that he "that»giveth to the poor lendeth to 
 the Lord," trusts in the Lord, expecting to be paid with, 
 interest in another world. I fear it must also be allowed 
 that if we have happiness in the welfare of our neighbours, 
 we have also some happiness in their misfortunes, if we may 
 judge from the lively and agreeable interest which their 
 recital often awakens in us. The Elect, too, it is to be 
 
 * The world is full of Charities, left by our well-intentioned ances- 
 tors, that are sapping the foundation of all self-reliance and inde- 
 pendence in their recipients,' and pauperising whole districts in which 
 they abound ; hut so fond are the trustees of these Charities of 
 promoting the happiness of their fellow-creatures at some other 
 person's expense, that they have resisted all efEorts to divert these 
 large funds to a useful purpose. 
 
 We have " Ladies' Charities " for bringing children into the world 
 gratuitously, and finding all necessaries, although the parents have 
 months to make such preparations for themselves ; and we have 
 School Charities, and Hospital Tickets, and Doles varying from 5s. 
 to &i ; and the poor get to think that there is no necessity for saving, 
 although such independent providence is the foundation of most other 
 virtues in them ; and they spend more time in running after these 
 charities and begging for them than they could earn double the 
 amount in ; and after all not one-third of those who have so misspent 
 
CHARITY MISAPPLIED. 93 
 
 feared, would not enjoy their heaven half so much if it -were 
 not for the lake of fire they know never can be quenched, but 
 from which they are, happily for themselves, excluded. 
 
 their time get served, and the deficiency has too often to be made up 
 out of the poor rates ; the loss of character, however, nothing can 
 restore. 
 
 " But that actual distress should be known to exist and the gifts of 
 charity be withheld seems to most Christians a violation of the precepts 
 of Christ, as weU as a quenching of natural kindness. It must be 
 right, they think, to give to him that needeth, and they will leave 
 the consequences to God. 
 
 " Another habit of the same category in that of marrying early 
 andin trust. * * Economic science, by studying the facts which 
 come within its scope, and tracing effects to causes, has arrived at 
 decided conclusions on these points. Under its teaching we know 
 now many of which the best men were formerly ignorant. We now 
 see carelessness is directly and inevitably produced by the chance of 
 obtaining alms easily in time of need ; and carelessness is the mother 
 of idleness and sensual indulgence as well as of destitution. Benevo- 
 lence on the part of the rich may create what the French expressively 
 call la misere; it has no power to remove it. Where there is a hard 
 struggle for the meads of living, to many and multiply without 
 thought of the future is the way to keep down to the lowest point 
 the condition of the whole labouring class. The accumulation of 
 capital by saving is t'je only means of providing employment ; and 
 he who makes a fortune and invests it do6s much more for the poor 
 than he who gives away all that he receives to the neediest people 
 about him. The science that establishes these conclusions points, as 
 a matter of course, to certain rules of conduct. If you wish well to 
 the mass of mankind, you will endeavour to check wasi e, to increase 
 production, to encourage industry and forethought and self-restraint. 
 Tou will be extremely cautious not to put temptations in the way of 
 the poor, by wMchr-weak as they are by nature and circumstance — 
 they may be reduced into thriftlessness. You will throw yourself 
 heartily into the industrial efforts by which the fabric of material 
 prosperity is built up." — (Rev. J. Llewelyn Davis, Contemporary 
 Review, Jan., 1871-, p. 197.) " In their readiness to minister' without 
 forethought to the bodily wants of "their neighbours. Christians have 
 really neglected the care of their souls. They have encouraged a 
 dependence upon alms and rates, in place of a dependence upon the 
 Providence of God."— (Ibid, p. 198.) 
 
94 MAN. 
 
 Veneration or Eeverence is a strong sentiment in human 
 nature, but not nearly so strong as it ought to be. The 
 little knowledge that is a dangerous thing pufifs up the 
 present generation with a self-conceit proportioned to its 
 superficiality, and " fools rush in where angels fear to tread." 
 The feeling of Veneration begets courtesy and good manners, 
 and respect for whatever is considered to be great and good. 
 But men find superiority and greatness in wealth, not worth ; 
 and there is more worship of the golden calf now than in 
 the most idolatrous times of the Israelites. From ignorance 
 finding little worthy of veneration here below, man transfers 
 his adoration and aspiration to another world, and not re- 
 cognising God in his works, he makes himself a god after 
 his own image, with his own passions aiid mental attributes, 
 and the same love of power and vulgar taste for sitting upon 
 thrones, and being served and obeyed, and praised and wor- 
 shipped. A good man ought to be fishamed to be the deity 
 that most people have thus made for themselves to worship. 
 
 " Hope springs eternal in the human breast," and, in pro- 
 poi'tion to the strength 9f the emotion, makes sunshine in 
 the mind ; and we have present happiness in the prospect of 
 that which is to come.' "It is like the sun, which, as we 
 journey towards it, casts the shadow of our burden behind 
 us." It is the counterpoise to cautiousness and fear. 
 
 The World, both intellectual and moral, as we conceive it, 
 is a great delusion, " where nothing is, but all things seem;" 
 but we nevertheless instinctively believe in its existence. 
 Thus we have a nervous sensibility which we call colour, and 
 we imagine it exists without ourselves, and not merely within 
 the mind, and we cover the whole world with it ; it is the 
 same with the forms and sizes and localities to which we 
 attach this colour : they are all created in the mind, and have 
 nothing corresponding to them outside of us, and yet we 
 
BELIEF. 95 
 
 have perfect faith in their objective existence. The action 
 of all our faculties is attended with this instinctive belief — and 
 yet there is nothing outside of us but one simple force, in vari- 
 ous modes of action, acting upon the brain. We have equal 
 faith in our own dreams, where there is no external stimulant 
 calling the mind into action. Sometimes the brain action is 
 reversed, faith, or the instinct of belief, calling into activity 
 the intellectual faculties, and thus creating ghosts and phan- 
 toms, in which the belief is quite as strong as if the action 
 were from without, from pure objective existence. We have 
 equal faith in the action of the feelings. We have a sense 
 of freedom and free-will, and we believe in it, although each 
 force, and the action dependent upon it, is necessarily depen- 
 dent upon some antecedent force. We have a sense of the 
 Identity of the body, and we believe in it, although the body 
 is never the same, but in constant flux with all around : the 
 same of the mind, we have no evidence of its existence at all, 
 except in its changes. The fact is, we may call these delusions, 
 but the result of the action of each faculty is truth to us, 
 and beyond that, i.e., of absolute truth, we can know nothing. 
 All that is intended, and that can be wished, is to produce 
 modes of action which shall result in the largest amount of 
 enjoyment. The airs that man gives himself about his 
 knowledge are simply ridiculous, when all it can amount to is 
 to enable him elaborately and laboriously to describe how 
 the various modes of action without' himself act upon his 
 organisation. 
 
 The World which our faculties have created, the blue sky, 
 the arch of heaven, the hills, the dales, the trees, the flowers 
 with all their various gorgeous colouring, give us pleasure, 
 which, connecting itself with organisation, has been strength- 
 ened in its transmission from generation to generation, 
 ultimately resulting in a Sense of the Beautiful, a faculty 
 which ought particularly to distinguish the Poet. This 
 
96 MAN. 
 
 feeling refines the character, and begets the wish for more 
 and more beauty — for higher and higher perfection. It 
 is an exotic plant, and depends much upon cultivation, 
 and it should be cultivated for the peculiar benefit of old 
 age — " the soul's calm sunshine," when the passions have 
 spent their force and are laid to sleep. The world should 
 appear more and more wonderful and beautiful to us as we 
 grow older, as knowledge removes the veil, and as we "recog- 
 nise " the varied God." 
 
 PACTTLTIBS WHICH MAT EQUALLy AID ALL THE FBBLING8 
 ACCOKDING AS THET AKE ALLIED. 
 
 There is a Feeling that gives a pleasure in retaining, and 
 therefore a desire to retain, whatever feelings and ideas may 
 at any time be uppermost in the. mind. It is one of the 
 most important feelings we have, as it gives a power of Atten- 
 tion, of concentrating the mind on one object — and of forming 
 Associations and Habits. A small active brain will often 
 excel a larger one without the power that this desire for 
 permanence of emotions and ideas gives. 
 
 Firmness is another provision which nature has made for 
 permanence. Evolution and growth, Nature's mode of pro- 
 gress, are slow, and we have feelings in harmony. Power of 
 will depends upon this feeling, and we should learn to dis- 
 crimiilate bet^reen firmness and obstinacy ; the former being 
 a strong will, the latter only a strong won't — the one a living 
 force, the other a dead weight. 
 
 There is an instinct that induces us to copy the ways of 
 the people around us ; it helps to make the various members 
 of the great body of society move harmoniously ; the differ- 
 ence it alone makes between an Englishman and a China- 
 man is very marked. It helps to make a good mimic. 
 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 97 
 
 There are feelings, as it seems to me, that have relation to 
 the world within and to the world without our own minds. 
 Thus there is a desire for permanence of emotions and ideas ; 
 there is also a desire for permanence of place, or love of home. 
 There is a desire for the acquisition of property, and we have 
 also a desire for the acquisition of knowledge ; in excess the one 
 making the miser, and the other the book-worm. We have 
 a faculty that gives us pleasure in imitating the bodily pecu- 
 liarities and actions of others ; we have also one that reads 
 and appreciates the natural language and characteristics of 
 their different mental states, giving an intuitive power, with 
 other faculties, of delineating character, as illustrated in 
 Shakespeare and Scott. 
 
 The feeling of Personal Identity, or the " I " of conscious- 
 ness, is also an instinct dependent upon the action of the 
 brain, although phrenologists are not agreed as to its locali- 
 sation, or even as to whether it is a primitive faculty at all. 
 George Combe says : " Looking at the facts presented to 
 us by observation, the most obvious inference seems to be^ 
 that the mind consists of an aggregate of powers, and that 
 one of them supplies the feeling of Personal Identity, or the 
 ' I ' of consciousness, * * and it is extremely difficult to 
 determine whether the feeling of personal identity indicated 
 by the pronoun I is connected with a particular organ, or the 
 result of the general action of the whole organs."* On the 
 other hand, Mr. H. G. Atkinson says : " The I which re- 
 presents the individualism seems to arise from a faculty 
 whose organ is situated near to the Conscious sense and the 
 Will, and close beneath Self-esteem and Firmness ; ' I think ; 
 therefore I am,' is a conclusion from the Conscious sense and 
 the sense of Personality. " ■(■ The organ is liable to derange- 
 ment and disease, when the feeling of identity is lost or 
 
 •"A System of Phrenology," 6th edit. vol. X, page 172 ; vol. 2, 
 p. 247. 
 
 t "Man's Nature and Development," p. 274. 
 H 
 
98 MAN. 
 
 double, and "one false case of identity takes away all reliance 
 or arguments, as to the continuity or unity of being from tbe 
 ordinary sense of identity."* Mr. Atkinson also gives a 
 special organ to the Will, which he places next to the " I, " 
 under Firmness, and, what is quite as important, near Con- 
 centrativeness. As I have said elsewhere, " The Will is the 
 trigger of the mind. Upon the 'last dictate of the under- 
 standing' it lets off the accumulated mental force in the 
 direction of the object or purpose aimed at. The stveflgth 
 of the Will 'is in proportion to the force to be discharged, 
 which force depends upon the size and quality of the organs 
 in which the determination originates. * * The will no 
 more lets itself off than the trigger of a gun does : it is 
 generally pulled by the stronger motive, as understanding 
 or mere feeling may prevail." ^ 
 
 The above is a tolerably complete list of the instincts or 
 intuitive feelings at present known to us. No doubt these 
 admit of more complete analysis and subdivision, and others 
 may be added. We must bear in mind their entirely sub- 
 jective character. They are strong in proportion to the size 
 of the part of the brain with which they are connected, and 
 not at all in proportion to the size or worth of the object of 
 their desires. A little girl loves her headless or eyeless doll 
 quite as much as she loves her children in after life. She 
 will not change it for a new, more perfect, or better dressed 
 one, any more than in after life she would change a damaged 
 or spoilt child for a better one ; her love supplies'^its imagi- 
 nary attributes, and is stronger generally as it wants her 
 love and assistance. It is precisely the same in her " first 
 love ; " the feeling is within herself, and transfers its perfec- 
 tions to the object, however wooden he may be intellectually, 
 
 * " Man's Nature and Development," p. 188. 
 f On " Torce and its Mental Oorrelates," p. 43. 
 
FEELINGS BUT BLIND IMPULSES. 99 
 
 or one-eyed moraHy. It is the same with other feelings — a 
 man is angry and oppositive, and looks upon all the world as 
 at war with him. A peaceable citizen (as the story goes) 
 venturing to address a Scotsman in this state of mind with 
 the mild remark, " A fine day, Sir," was met with the rather 
 unexpected reply, " And wha said anything against the day, 
 I should like to know ; you'd quarrel with a stone wa'." 
 When feelings are much in excess, they constitute mono- 
 mania — such as the homicidal mania, and a tendency to steal 
 (kleptomania), which cannot be resisted, and all our feelings 
 and emotions are occasionally in excess, and proportionally 
 uncontrollable — in fact we are all a little cracked, though 
 individually we are unconscious of it, and can only see the 
 crack in others. 
 
 We must always bear in mind that these Propensities and 
 Sentiments are blind impulses, requiring the Intellect for 
 their guidance. They impel us to action by the pleasure 
 we find in their gratification, or the pain in their denial ; 
 but they in no case tell us what to do. A mother's love for 
 her child does not tell her how to treat it, nor does a love of 
 right and justice tell us what is right and just. There is a 
 strange jumbling together, in the minds of Physiologists and 
 Psychologists, of the action of these faculties. The intuitive 
 moralist says, that because a man has an instinctive love of 
 justice, that love tells him what is just. Another says that 
 there is no action of the feelings without an action of the 
 intellect at the same time ; whereas it is notorious that an 
 irritable, combative person knocks a man down, and thinks 
 and reasons about it afterwards ; there is a blow and a word, 
 not a word and a blow. And so of all the feelings — we often 
 act upon their mere instinct or impluse ; self-consciousness, 
 or reflection, comes afterwards. Of course it is quite true 
 that there is no self-consciousness, which means reflection on 
 consciousness, without ideas or the action of the intellect: 
 and probably that is all is that meant. 
 
100 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES. 
 
 The Senses, although they have each their own peculiar 
 sensation attached to them, of light, sound, smell, touch, and 
 taste, yet must be regarded principally as the medium by 
 which the brain is brought into action and ideas created. 
 Take, for instance, our ideas of colour. Professor Tyndall 
 tells us that " the atoms of luminous bodies vibrating, com- 
 municate their vibration to ether in which they swing, being 
 propagated through it in waves ; these waves enter the 
 pupil, cross the ball, and impinge upon th« retina at the 
 back of the eye. The act, remember, is as real, and as truly 
 mechanical, as the stroke of sea waves upon the shore. The 
 action of the ether is communicated to the retina, transmitted 
 thence along the optic nerve to the brain, and then an- 
 nounces itself to consciousness, as light." * * * "It 
 would take 57,000 waves of violet colour to fill an inch, and 
 as light travels at the rate of 192,000 miles a second, it 
 would take 699 million of million of such waves to enter the 
 eye in a single second to produce the impression of violet in 
 the brain."* Thus it is the action of a portion of the brain, 
 stimulated by the optic nerve, that gives us the idea of violet, 
 or the nervous sensibility we call colour; and if the organ 
 of the brain is not there we have no idea of colour, and 
 many people with deficiency of this organ cannot distinguish 
 some colours from others, or are even colour blind. What 
 would the world be if every one had this deficiency of brain 
 and all colour were taken away ! Colour appears to be at- 
 tached to certain forms, sizes, weights, in certain relative 
 positions, order, and number, and the sense of these things — 
 that is our ideas of them — are all equally dependent on the 
 action of the brain, and if the brain is not there the ideas 
 are not, and the ideas are vivid in proportion to- the amount 
 * " Heat a Mode of Motion," pp. 235, 243. 
 
THE POEMS OF THOUGHT. 101 
 
 of brain in each separate organ. Now it is absurd to sup- 
 pose that there can be any possible resemblance between the 
 wave motion, producing the 699 million of million knocks 
 on the eye, and the nervous impression or idea we call violet, 
 or the more or less millions of other knocks required to 
 produce other colours. It is precisely the same with respect 
 to all our other ideas : they are produced by the brain being 
 set in motion by some mode of action from without, or one 
 part of the brain sets another part of it in motion, inducing 
 a set of ideas or a succession of consciousness, which we 
 believe to be a world without ; but as we have said, there 
 can be no possible resemblance or analogy between such 
 consciousness and the mode of action which produces it. 
 The idea of a thing and the thing itself, or the idea and its 
 cause, whatever that may be, are certainly not one and 
 the same, nor can we conceive even how there can be any 
 possible resemblance ; for if even, as it may afterwards ap- 
 pear, the motion, or rather the cause of motion, and the idea 
 it causes, may be a correlation of the same force, yet they 
 differ essentially in form or condition, if not in essence. 
 The world is created within us by the action of our own 
 faculties. All we know is our own consciousness, and the 
 modes of action that produce it. 
 
 These modes of action we classify, and show their relations 
 to each other, and we call this Science, 
 
 Our "forms of thought" connected with, and dependent 
 upon, certain portions of the brain, first, out of a simple and 
 probably a single force, create what are called the properties 
 and qualities of bodies, corresponding in our speech to the 
 adjective — the form, size, weight, colour, order, number, and 
 locality ; another faculty gives unity and individuality to 
 these properties, and creates the substantive, or individual — 
 it gives the idea of the thing or person, while another faculty 
 takes cognizance of its mode of action, corresponding to the 
 
102 MAN. 
 
 verb ; another traces analogies, and resemblances, and dif- 
 ferences ; another congruities or incongruities, upon which 
 wit and humour depend ; while another faculty traces out 
 permanent relations of cause and effect, as opposed to mere 
 sequence, and gives the sense of power upon which this per- 
 manence, or law as it is called, is supposed to depend. "We 
 haye ideas also of space and time, and must, therefore, have 
 faculties that create them ; but however difficult it may be to 
 conceive, they are not entities, but pure creations of the mind, 
 and have no existence out of ourselves. " An entity," says 
 Luke Burke, "must exist in some condition, it must also 
 exist in some where, in some place, in some space. Place and 
 space, therefore, are not entity, nor conditions or properties 
 of entity, nor any reality whatever ; they merely express the 
 emptiness which entity fills or might fill. They are purely 
 terms of negation." * * « Time, like space, is a term of 
 relation merely, and has no reality corresponding with, it."* 
 As substances may be so combined as to produce a sense 
 of harmony and beauty, so also sounds may be so related and 
 combined as to produce a sense of harmony of sound. Of 
 the faculties to which these are related, the one has been 
 called Ideality, the other Tune. We have also another 
 faculty by which we are able to associate our feelings, 
 emotions, and ideas with audible sounds, and to express 
 them in what we cal^ Language. Other creatures have also 
 their languages, unfortunately unknown tongues to man. 
 I say unfortunately, because man makes his ignorance the 
 measure of their capacity,, and what he loses by such igno- 
 rance is incalculable. By this simple action of all these 
 faculties the world is created within us ; and as an instinctive 
 belief, as we have seen, attends the action of each faculty, we 
 believe in its objective existence, and not in its mere ideal 
 existence. That is, we believe that there is something in 
 
 * Principles of Ethnology. 
 
MENTAL FACULTIES OP BRUTES. 103 
 
 bodies themselves corresponding to what we call colour ; 
 whereas there is merely a yibratory motion which communi- 
 cates itself to the ether, which communicates itself to our 
 brain ; colour is therefore more the property of the brain 
 than of the distant luminous object by which it is affected. 
 And so with all our other ideas ; as brains differ in relative 
 size in different individuals, so do such persons differ in the 
 clearness of their ideas, and their talents and dispositions ; 
 and as persons may be colour blind from want of brain, so 
 may they be equally blind in Tune, in Keasoning Power, and 
 in fact in all their other faculties. This is why people take 
 such different views of things * — ^because their faculties, differ- 
 ing according to the size of the parts of the brain with which 
 they are connected, they are differently affected by the forces 
 without. But the mode in which each person is affected con- 
 stitutes the truth to him. v, 
 
 Perception, Conception, Memory, Imagination, Judgment, 
 are not themselves faculties of the mind, but mere modes of 
 action of the primitive faculties. 
 
 The brutes possess these faculties as' well as man, and 
 some of them in a much higher degree than man. The in- 
 stances of Reasoning we notice in some of them are probably 
 mere Memoiy of what they have seen, or Judgment, for each 
 faculty has an intuitive Judgment belonging to it, inde- 
 pendent of Eeason. If any of the brutes have reason, it is 
 probably in a very minor degree, as some power of progres- 
 
 * Of course there are other reasons why people differ so widely in 
 opinion besides their peculiar or subjective mode of viewing things. 
 Objectively every question has a hundred sides at least in which it 
 may be viewed. The ordinary observer perhaps sees only one or two ; 
 the man whd studies the question may see fifty, and differs propor- 
 tionally with the one who sees only two, and whose dogmatism and 
 bigotry ai'e generally in proportion to his ignorance ; but public 
 opinion is with the latter, he being in the majority — on the principle 
 that'nothing multiplied a sufficient number of times comes to some- 
 thing, or that a hundred fools make one wise man. 
 
104 MAN. 
 
 sion always attends reason or reflection. It gives the power 
 of looking before and after — of anticipating events, and 
 would not suit the brutes, for as Pope says : — 
 
 The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, 
 Had he thy reason, would he skip and play 1 
 
 The intellectual faculties give us no real knowledge of any- 
 thing — ^we know only the consciousness that external forces 
 create in us through them ; and even of the real nature of 
 that consciousness we know nothing. Neither is it necessary 
 that we should know more ; all we require is as much know- 
 ledge, and of that kind, as will guide us towards the objects of 
 our being, as indicated by the Propensities and Sentiments, 
 the ultimate objects of which are our enjoyment, and the 
 production of a generation to follow us when we are gone. 
 Our knowledge is thus Relative, not Absolute.* 
 
 * " That we know matter only as relative to our own susceptibility 
 of being affected by it, does not lessen the value of the knowledge of 
 it which we are able to acquire ; and indeed it is only as it is capa- 
 ble of affecting us that the knowledge of it can be of any direct and 
 immediate utility. It would indeed be the very absurdity of contra- 
 diction to suppose ourselves acquainted with qualities which cannot 
 affect us." — (Dr. Thomas Brown, " Philosophy of the Human Mind," 
 Lecture 9.) 
 
 " How short soever our knowledge may be of a universal or perfect 
 comprehension of things, it yet secures our great concernments, that 
 we have light enough to lead us to the knowledge of our Maker and 
 the sight of our own duties. * * As to myself, I think God has 
 given me assurance enough as to the existence of things without me ; 
 since by their different application I can produce in myself both 
 pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of our present 
 state. * * Out faculties serve our purpose well enough, if they 
 will but give ua certain notice of those things that are convenient to 
 us." — (Locke.) 
 
 " What if I am indeed no other than this fine bodily instrument 
 made sensitive to a thousand impulses — ^what if I am indeed this 
 ' living lyre,' swept over by every wind, and tremulous to every ray 
 of light — living lyre conscious of its own melody ? I am still nothing 
 
FACTS AND FIGURES. 105 
 
 In the vast chain of Being between man and the world of 
 animalculas existing in a drop of water, no doubt there is an 
 equally vast variety of Intellectual faculty, creating for each 
 creature a world of its own, directing each to the objects of 
 its being, and fitting each for a life of pleasurable enjoyment 
 in its own peculiar sphere, however limited that sphere may 
 be : making up probably in quantity of pleasurable sensations 
 what it wants individually in quality. 
 
 less than that wondrous instrument that has converted motion into 
 melody — ^the thirig into a tJumght. Or, to change my metaphor, I am 
 that sensitive mirror in which the reflected world becomes a con- 
 scious world, and knows itself as the creation of God." — (Thomdale 
 on " The Conflict of Opimon," p. 359. 
 
 According to a recent estimate the population of the globe is about 
 1,228,000,000 souls. Of this number 552,000,000 belong to the Mon- 
 golian race; 360,000,000 to the Caucasian; 190,000,000 to the 
 Ethiopian ; 176,000,000 to the Malay, and 1,000,000 to the Indo- 
 American. The annual mortality is over 33,000,000, or more than 
 60 every minute. 
 
 According to the calculations of Prof. Wappaus, the average dura- 
 tion of human life is 28.19 years in Austria ; 30.80 years in Sardinia ; 
 31.10 years in Prussia ; 31.16 years in Saxony ; 32.16 years in Bavaria ; 
 34.72 years in Holland ; 36.92 years in England ; 38.35 years in Bel- 
 gium ; 40.36 years in France ; 40.49 years in Denmark ; 40.66 years in 
 Sweden ; and 43.64 years in Norway. 
 
 The number of languages spoken in the world amounts to 3,064. 
 The inhabitants of the globe profess more than 1,000 different reli- 
 gions. The number of men is about equal to the number of women. 
 The average of human life is about 33 years. One quarter die pre- 
 vious to the age of seven years ; one half before reaching seventeen ; 
 and those who pass this age enjoy a felicity refused to one-half the 
 human species. To every 1,000 persons only one reaches 100 years 
 of life ; to every 100, only six reach the age of 65 ; and not more 
 than one in 500 lives to 80 years of age. The married are longer 
 lived than the single, and above all, those who observe a sober and 
 industrious conduct. Tall men live longer than short ones. Women 
 
106 MAN. 
 
 have more chances of life in their favour previous to fifty years of 
 age than men, but fewer afterwards. The number of marriages is in 
 proportion of 75 to every 100 individuals. Marriages are most fre- 
 quent after the equinoxes ; that is, during the months of June and 
 December, and depend not on love, but on the price of bread. Those 
 born in the spring are generally more robust than others ; so are those 
 born from parents in middle life. Births and deaths are more fre- 
 quent by night than by day. The number of men capable of bearing 
 arms is calculated at one-fourth of the population. 
 
 " It is well known to all Frenchiiien that in England our climate is 
 so dreary and detestable that there are more suicides among us than 
 in any other country of Europe. Statistics show, however, that for 
 a long period of years the average number of persons who have de- 
 stroyed themselves has been at the rate of 110 per million inhabitants 
 in lajoyeuse Frcmce, and only 69 per million in spleen-smitten Albion. 
 During the past year no less than 5,011 persons committed suicide 
 in France — i,008 men, and 1,003 women. Of these, 960 men and 407 
 women drowned themselves ; 1,972 men and 335 women chose death 
 by hanging ; 488 men shot themselves, while but 5 women owed their 
 deaths to firearms; 192 men and 113 women made use of the fumes 
 of charcoal ; knives were ased by 176 men and 33 women ; pmson by 
 74 men and 44 women ; 99 men and 55 women met death by jumping 
 from windows, towers, &c. ; 31 persons flung themselves in the way 
 of ti-ains. One individual starved himself to death. It thus appears 
 that hanging is the most prevalent method of self-destruction in 
 Prance, then comes drowning, then suffocation by charcoal, and lastly 
 by poison. It is a well-known fact that, so far from decreasing, the 
 number of suicides increases in a direct ratio to the spread of educa- 
 tion and civilisation. In Prussia, the most highly educated country 
 in Europe, the annual average of persons per million inhabitants 
 who- destroy themselves is 240 — more than double the average of 
 France, and nearly fourfold that of England. On the other hand, in 
 Spain the average of suicides is only 14 per million inhabitants." — 
 (^Pall Mall Gaaette.) 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MORALITY. 
 
 Morality is the Science of man's Duties. It concerns, in the 
 first place, Why he. should act in any particular way, or the 
 Principles of Morality ; and secondly. How he should act 
 under the guidance of such principles, or the Practice of 
 Morality. 
 
 THE PEINCIPLES OP MORALITY. 
 
 In considering the question why a man should act in one way 
 rather than in another, we have first to ask, is there anything 
 in actions themselves that makes one line of conduct more 
 desirahle than another ? I reply, certainly not. The differ- 
 ences that man has created in this respect are purely 
 subjective, having no existence whatever without himself : in 
 fact, the Moral World is as much the creation of the mind as 
 we have shown the physical world to be. All actions are 
 equally Necessary, that is, they are the result of antecedent 
 irresistible force or cause, and therefore there can be nothing 
 in the actions themselves to distinguish them from each other, 
 or to make one action more a duty than another. Of course 
 this is hard of belief; it has been, and still is, much disputed ; 
 we must give some little space therefore to its elucidation. 
 The modem expression of this doctrine of " Philosophical 
 Necessity," as it has been rather erroneously called, is to be 
 found in the comparatively recent discovery of the Persistence 
 or Conservation of Force. In deference to theologians and 
 others bound to support special views, this doctrine of the 
 Persistence and Correlation of Force has been hitherto con- 
 fined to the physical forces, but Herbert Spencer and others 
 
108 MAN. 
 
 have shown that it equally applies to Mind or mental force, 
 and " that each manifestation of force can be interpreted only 
 as the effect of some antecedent force ; no matter whether 
 it be an inorganic action, an animal moyement, a thought, or 
 .feeling. Either this must be conceded, or else it must be 
 asserted that our successive states of consciousness are self- 
 created. Either mental energies, as well as bodily ones, are 
 quantitatively correlated to certain energies expended in 
 their production, and to certain other energies which they 
 initiate ; or else nothing must become something and some- 
 thing must become nothing." * 
 
 " The grand point permanent throughout all these considera- 
 tions is that nothing is created. We can make no movement 
 which is not accounted for by the contemporaneous extinction 
 of some other movement." ■(■ 
 
 The more ancient expression of the same truth is given in 
 various ways by various eminent authorities. I shall give a 
 few only. Thus : " Nothing comes to pass without a cause. 
 What is self-existent must be from Eternity, and must be 
 unchangeable ; but as to all things that iegin to he, they are 
 not self-existent, and therefore must have some foundation 
 of their existence without themselves." { 
 
 " In no mind is there an absolute or free volition ; but it 
 is determined to choose this or that by a cause, which likewise 
 has been fixed by another, and this again by a third, and so 
 on for ever. * * * Human Liberty, of which 
 all boast, consists solely in this, that man is conscious of his 
 will, and unconscious of the causes by which it is determined." § 
 
 " Every action or phenomenon, so far as it produces an 
 event, is itself an event or occurrence which pre-supposes 
 another state wherein the cause is to be met with ; and thus 
 
 * Herbert Spencer. 
 
 f " Heat a Mode of Motion," third edition, p. 499 ; Tyndall, 
 
 X Jonathan Edwards. § Spinoza. 
 
THE STREAM OF LIFE. 109 
 
 everything that happens is but a continuation of the series, 
 and no beginning which occurs of itself is possible : conse- 
 quently, all the actions of the natural causes in the succes- 
 sion are themselves again effects." * 
 
 " Everything that exists depends upon the past, prepares 
 the future, and is related to the whole." f 
 
 " Eejecting, then, the metaphysical dogma of free-will, and 
 the theological dogma of predestined events, we are driven 
 to the conclusion that the actions of men, being determined 
 solely by their antecedents, must have a character of uni- 
 formity, that is to say, must, under precisely the same 
 circumstances, always issue in precisely the same results." % 
 
 " The life of man is, therefore, like a stream of events or 
 changes in linked sequence, flowing on as necessarily as the 
 waters of Niagara. It is true that, in common language, 
 the will is spoken of as the first cause of conscious thoughts 
 and acts ; but no acts of will (that is, of mental energising) 
 can occur without its necessary co-existents and antecedents 
 — ^that is, its causes ; and such as these are, so will the act 
 be. There is, in fact, no more a spontaneous act of will than 
 there is spontaneous generation." § || 
 
 * Kant. t Oersted. 
 % H. T. Buckle. § Dr. Laycock. 
 II Suppose even that in a million people no two are aUke, still, if 
 that is the extent of their difference, aU beyond that 'number would 
 be like some in the million — one at least ; so that in every 10 mil- 
 lions there would be 10 persons who would do exactly the same in 
 similar circumstances. The fact is that none are exactly alike ; still 
 they are sufficiently so as to predicate actions with certainty in a 
 given number. Experience or Statistics can alone point out what 
 that number is. In a given number the crimes that will be com- 
 mitted, and the character of those crimes, are exactly known. The 
 number of people who go mad, the number who commit suicide and 
 the exact method, the number even who will put their letters into the 
 post without any addi'ess, are certainly known. There is no chance, 
 or contingency. Or free-wiU anywhere : the same causes, under the 
 
110 MAN. 
 
 If then all actions are " Necessary," that is, if each mani- 
 festation of force, mental and bodily, can be interpreted only 
 as the effect of some antecedent force, (which the persistence' 
 
 same conditions, always produce the same results. In the Registrar- 
 General's Annual Report there are certainly some things that look 
 like chance. For instance, one person died through terror produced 
 by a thunder-storm, one from the sting of a wasp, one from the bite 
 of a donkey, and one was choked by swallowing a set of artificial 
 teeth. A good many people may die from the bite of a donkey — 
 witness the lamented death of the poor poet Keats ; but the last-men- 
 tioned cause of death perhaps is not sufficiently general to assume the 
 form of a law at present, and it may not be known with absolute cer- 
 tainty how many people will die next year from swallowing their teeth 
 — at present they are too expensiTe to make the liability very great. 
 The Registrar of KiUin mentions that an old bachelor who died at the 
 age of 91 years " fire or six years ago cut six new teeth, which he said 
 were quite serviceable and as sharp as lancets." — (The Registrar- 
 General for Scotland, llth Annnal Report.) It certainly would be 
 a great convenience, and save considerable expense and, as it ap- 
 pears, danger, if nature would provide a set of teeth for our second 
 childhood, as it does for our first ; but as this gentleman was 91 years 
 old and a bachelor, I fear we have not much to hope for from 
 " Natural Selection" in this case. It may sound like a paradox, but 
 it is nevertheless true, that all History is false, but aU Fiction is true. 
 It is almost, if not quite impossible, to say truly what happened to 
 pa/rticular individuals at some definite ijpecified time and place, but 
 it is probably equally impossible to state anything in fiction that has 
 not occurred, and that is not most likely occurring at that very 
 moment, somewhere in the world. Sixty people die every minute 
 and in the 12 hundred millions of the human race — as like causes pro- 
 duce like effects — there is probably nothing we can imagiue that is 
 not taking place many times over somewhere during that minute. 
 The motives that move us are similar, constant, and in constant action. 
 Young people fall in love, and mothers are certain there are not, and 
 never were, such darlings in the world as their children &c., and they 
 think it all new and quite original ; but the same thing is happening 
 all the world over, and has been from time immemorial. There are 
 the same murders, the same suicides, the same number of fools putting 
 their letters into post without any address ; Babbage could do it all 
 by a machine. 
 
FREE NECESSITY. Ill 
 
 of force implies;) and " free-will " is consequently a delusion, 
 ■whence does this delusion arise ? The freedom uniyersally 
 recognized is the power which every creature has, in common 
 with everything else, organic and inorganic, to act in accord- 
 ance with its nature or the laws of its being, when free from 
 external constraint ; which power, however, equally in mind 
 and matter, is derived from without. Our consciousness it 
 is that is guilty of the delusion in this case, as in so many 
 others ; the fact being that the persistence of force doe's not 
 appear in consciousness, but only its correlation. The discus- 
 sion on this much-vexed question would not have continued so 
 long, and be yet undecided, if there were not some misunder- 
 standing of the terms in which it is expressed. Persistent 
 force or cause is always from without, but its mode of action 
 or manifestation depends upon the nature of the substance 
 or organ through which it passes, and when this action is 
 unconstrained — that is, not interfered with or interrupted — 
 it is called free. But everything has a nature of its own, 
 and its mode of action is determined by that nature. In 
 mental action we are thus compelled by our nature to do 
 things voluntarily. This has been called a free necessity. 
 Thus it is said, " God is free because He acts from the neces- 
 sity of His own nature."* But everything has this freedom, 
 which is no freedom at all, as everything, and everybody, and 
 every mind, necessarily acts definitely in accordance with the 
 laws of its nature or being. It is this which has been mis- 
 taken for freedom, as distinguished from the condition in 
 which some impediment has been imposed to such action. 
 Thus a thing is said to be free when it is determined to action 
 by itself alone ; but that self, whatever it may be, acts neces- 
 sarily in accordance with the laws of its own nature. It is 
 thus that people delude themselves into believing both in 
 free-will and necessity, or in free necessity. It is necessity, 
 not freedom, that increases as we ascend in the scale of being. 
 
 * Spinoza. 
 
112 MAN. 
 
 The flight of a swallow seems freest of all, and yet every 
 devious motion has a cause, and might be calculated by 
 superior intelligence. There are a hundred ways open to 
 man by which he may go wrong ; but according to the ordi- 
 nary conception of God, there is but one way open to Him : 
 Hemust always necessarily do thatwhich is riglit, and onlythat. 
 " Outward things cannot compel the gods," says Seneca, " but 
 their own eternal will is a law to themselves." Seneca also 
 says — and the remark illustrates what is commonly meant 
 by freedom — " God is not hereby less free, or less powerful, 
 for He Himself is His own necessity." A man feels that 
 he is at liberty to do as he pleases when he is free from 
 external compulsion ; but what he pleases always depends 
 upon the nature of his bodily and mental constitution, or, as 
 Buckle puts it, " all the vicissitudes of the human race — their 
 progress or their decay, their happiness or their misery, must 
 be the fruit of a double action ; an action of external phe- 
 nomena on the mind, and another action of mind upon the 
 phenomena." If we have not Freedom, then, what have we? 
 Law — law in Mind as in Matter. Man always acts in ac- 
 cordance with the laws of his being, and if we would control 
 him we must ascertain what those laws are. He is included 
 in the realm of Science. Mr. J. S. Mill says : " The con- 
 viction that phenomena have invariable laws, and follow with 
 regularity certain antecedent phenomena, was only acquired 
 gradually, and extended itself 33 knowledge advanced, from 
 one order of phenomena to another, beginning with those 
 whose laws are most accessible to observation. This pro- 
 gress has not yet attained its ultimate point ; there being 
 still one class of phenomena (human volitions) the subjec- 
 tion of which to invariable laws is not yet universally recog- 
 nised. * * At length we are fully warranted in considering 
 that law, as applied to all phenomena within the range of 
 human observation, stands on an equal footing in respect to 
 evidence with the axioms of geon^etry- itself." Accordingly, 
 
FREEDOM OF WILL. H^ 
 
 we find our most advanced physiologists and psychologists 
 now recognising this truth. Thus Dr. "Henry Maudsley 
 says : " If it were .possible for any one to enter thoroughly 
 into the. inmost character of another person, and to become 
 exactly acquainted with the moving springs of his conduct 
 in' his particular relations of life, it would be possible not 
 only to predict his line of action on every occasion, but even 
 to work him, free-will notwithstanding', like an automaton, 
 by playing on his predominant passion, interest, or princi- 
 ple. * * It would be possible to foretell with certainty 
 his. mode of thought and conduct under any given circum- 
 stances. * * Necessity is, in truth, confessed in- every 
 deliberation and in every act of our life." * 
 
 It cannot be, then, in actions themselves that we are to 
 look for that which constitutes them either good or bad, as 
 they are all equally necessary — all the effect of an efficient 
 cause ; and under the circumstances they must happen. Thus 
 of the various kinds of killing and the various kinds of 
 love-making which mankind approve or disapprove : the 
 acts themselves may be precisely the same, and yet one is 
 
 * "The Physiology and Pathology of Mind," pp. 183, 143, 141. 
 
 This question of "freedom of will" is closely analogous to the 
 question as to whether the sun went round the earth or the earth 
 round the sun in the 15th centui-y. All men then believed the sun 
 to go rotmd the earth, for did they not see it do so every day.! And 
 do not all men now feel that they are free I A young 'gentleman in 
 Galileo's time, going up for examination, was asked whether the sun 
 went round the earth or the earth round the sun, and, in deference to 
 the public opinion of his day, said, " Sometimes one and sometimes 
 the other." And such is the present attitude of men of science to 
 this question of Necessity or Freedom of Will. President Edwards, 
 the clearest and most powerful reasoner of his or any other day, in 
 accordance with the behests of his theological creed, held both doc- 
 trines to be true, and our men of science, in obedience to an equally 
 imperative public opinion, also profess to hold both doctrines, or 
 that volitions are sometimes necessary and soraetimgs not — " some- 
 times one and sometimes the other." 
 I 
 
114 MOEALITY. 
 
 called murder, another merely homicide ; the one mamage, 
 another adultery. * If, then, there is nothing in actions them- 
 selves, they being all mere modes of motion, governed by 
 law, what is there to distinguish one action from another, 
 to mate it good or bad, our duty or not ? This question can 
 only be answered by another, for how can we test actions ex- 
 cept by their "reference to some end? The question, therefore, 
 is, what is the end or object of all action? and an action may 
 then be described as good or bad, our duty or not, as it best 
 tends to promote that object. It seems to me that there 
 is but one answer to this question, namely, that the sole 
 end and aim of existence and of all action is pleasurable 
 consciousness or happiness. Eeasoning a priori, we can 
 come to no other conclusion. Thus a world without con- 
 sciousness, of which no being was percipient, would be the 
 same as no world at all. Now consciousness is a feeling, and 
 a feeling must be either pleasurable or painful, however 
 slightly so. No feeling would be no consciousness ; a pain- 
 ful feeling would be an undesirable consciousness ; and 
 consequently, there is nothing left worth having but the 
 pleasurable consciousness. Life ! what would be the good 
 of that if it were not enjoyable ? Knowledge ! what is that 
 but a record of how things affect us, pleasurably or painfully, 
 — a mere register of the few modes of action that are capa- 
 ble of setting our brains in motion through the senses, and 
 which is different in each creature, as that brain is modified 
 to suit the various requirements of its being ? In fact it is 
 impossible to conceive of any other object in creation but 
 Happiness, either present or to come. Practically and intui- 
 tively all actions are tested by their conduciveness to this 
 end. What is 'the use of it ? what is the good of it ? mean 
 ultimately, Will it make anybody happier ? Actions that 
 were " free " would not only have no virtue in them, because 
 of that freedom, but th-e gift would be a fatal one, " a mockery, 
 a delusion, and a snare," if that freedom could be used by the 
 
THE TWO SCHOOLS IN MORALS. 115 
 
 majority of . mankind to damn themselves to all eternity, as 
 some very good people suppose. The predominance of what 
 are called the higher feelings over lower ones — of the unselfish 
 over the selfish — is only desirable because it makes more 
 people happy. Heavenly aspirations, when they take the 
 direction of asceticism, are only sacrificing happiness now 
 that more may be had hereafter ; it is a mere exchange of 
 worldliness for other worldliness. A future state of rewards 
 and punishments is only carrying utilitarianism into another 
 world. 
 
 How is it, then, that on a question apparently so self- 
 evident there should be still two schools — the Intuitionists 
 and the Utilitarians ? It is from ignorance of human nature ; 
 from the too prevalent want of a true psychological system. 
 None of our faculties seek happiness for its own sake, although 
 happiness results from their attaining their ends. A woman 
 loves and tends her children, and it makes her happy to do 
 so; but she does not love and tend them that she'may be 
 happy. And so of all our other motives to action : they 
 none of them have happiness directly for their object, but if 
 pleasure did not follow from the pursuit, or pain from the 
 neglect, they would cease to be motives. It is in this sense 
 only that we can accept Jeremy Bentham's dogmatic asser- 
 tion that " No man ever had, can, or could have a motive 
 differing from the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of 
 pain." No doubt these are the ultimate springs of all 
 action, although they are hidden from us. Again he says, 
 " the first law of nature is to seek our own happiness." 
 Now we never seek our own happiness, but rather the objects 
 of our desires, and we fin J happiness in doing so. A man 
 seeks to do what is right, and has pleasure in doing it : he 
 seeks to make others happy, and if he succeeds that makes him 
 happy ; but his own happiness, in either case, is the last 
 thing he thinks of. But the error of the Intuitionists is 
 here : because there is an innate love of right in the abstract, 
 
ir6 MORALITY. 
 
 and a man has pleasure, therefore, in doing what is right, 
 consequently they infer he knows what is right. On the other 
 hand, the Utilitarians, seeing that men, in all time, have every- 
 where differed in opinion as to what is right, have come to 
 the equally erroneous conclusion that there is no instinct or 
 faculty that makes us desire or love right for its own sake. 
 It is true we have certain likes and antipathies, amounting 
 in some cases to idiosyncracies ; it is true also that certain 
 things naturally, and at once, approve themselves to us as 
 right or wrong, but that is no reason why they should be 
 right or wrong ; and ^s all men differ with respect to them, 
 or at some time or other have differed, we do not the less 
 Require some external standard by which to test our feeling 
 on the subject ; and if there is a fact in history well established 
 it is the gradual formation of the Conscience on the external 
 Standard of utility, that utility not being the mere expression 
 of the intellect, but of all our intuitions of feeling as well as 
 reason. So the love of our fellow-creatures does not teach 
 us how best to promote their interests. It is true, however, 
 that in proportion to our love of right and of our fellows, do 
 we earnestly seek the right and that which will do them good, — 
 still all our instincts are mere blind impulses, requiring the 
 guiding hand of reason to lead them to their objects. The 
 love a mother has for her child does not teach her how to 
 treat it; and the love of truth and right, and the preference 
 we naturally give to some actions, does not tell us what is 
 true and right, for through all time " what one nation views 
 as a crime another praises as a virtue ; what one nation glories 
 in as a legitimate pleasure, another reprobates as a shameful 
 vice: there is scarcely a crime or vice that has not been 
 exalted in a religious obsbrvance by one nation or other, at 
 one period or other of the world's history." * The fact is, 
 the Conscience, like all the other intuitions or instincts, is 
 transmitted experience of utility — ^it is " the gathered-up 
 * " The Physiology and Psychology of the Mind," p. 15r, Dr. Maudsley. 
 
DAEWIN ON CONSCIENCE. 117 
 
 experience of by-gone generations, transmitted to us by in- 
 heritance," requiring to be brought by the intellect up to the 
 light of the present age. The kitten, immediately it opens its 
 eyes, sets up its back at its natural enemy, the dog ; the cow 
 tosses its head at every dog it sees, because bull-dogs in pre- 
 vious ages "baited" its sire; and a man's conscience would 
 toss everything that previous ages has proved to be injurious 
 to his race and therefore wrong : it is a power that enables 
 him to recognise intuitively actions whose tendency in times 
 past was to produce happiness or misery. 
 
 But suppose we admit, contrary to all that experience teaches, 
 that we have some internal monitor that on all occasions tells 
 us what is right, why should we do right, when we do know ? 
 We are all aware how .easy it is to know what is right and 
 not to do it. The answer is, that if we did what was right 
 it would give us pleasure ; or if we did not, conscience would 
 give us an awful pinch ; so that it is pleasure or pain, that is 
 utility, that must set conscience in action, supposing even that 
 it is a perfect monitor, instead of a mere blind impulse. Con- 
 science, after all, is only, one among other motives to action j 
 there are religion, law, benevolence, fear of consequences 
 here and hereafter ; and the weighing of consequences is utili- 
 tarianism. 
 
 Mr. Darwin bases Conscience upon Sympathy, by which 
 he really means sympathy with these other motives — .religion, 
 law, benevolence, and the others. But sympathy is no special 
 faculty, but like memory it belongs to every faculty. Thus, 
 a mothfir sympathises with maternal feeling in another in 
 proportion as her own love of offspring is strong, and so of 
 all our other feelings. A man with small conscientiousness 
 has little sympathy with truth and justice ; but still if he has 
 other feelings strong, his conscience may include them, and 
 he may not only sympathise with the love of children and 
 friends, and of his fellow-creatures, but with self-respect, self- 
 
118 MOKALITY. 
 
 command, deference to others, a chivalrous sacrifice of self, &c. 
 A love pf right includes sympathy with all these higher mo- 
 tives, but conscientiousness is the love of truth and justice, 
 and they properly only allow these other sympathies to be 
 .exercised in accordance with truth and justice. Conscience, 
 with Mr. Darwin, evidently means the dictates and predomi- 
 nance of the moral feelings, although he does not distinctly 
 see what those are. Still, this highest conscience is built on 
 utility, for, as he tells us, " Fo tribe could hold together if 
 murder, robbery, treachery, &c., were conunon ; consequently 
 such crimes, within the limits of the same tribe, ' are branded 
 with everlasting ignominy,' but excite no such sentiments 
 beyond these limits. * * It has even bepn recorded that 
 an Indian Thug conscientiously regretted that he had not 
 strangled and robbed as many travellers as did his father 
 before him."* It is quite true that man's conscience, or 
 sense of right and wrong and duties to others, begins in 
 the family, and gradually extends itself to the tribe, then to 
 the human family, then to the whole sensitive creation, and 
 lastly to the Euler of the Universe, as ultimately he learns 
 to regard the Natural Law as God's will and mode of action. 
 But why, on Utilitarian principles, should a man do right 
 when apparently it is against his individual interest on some 
 special occasion? To take an extreme case, why. should 
 Eegulus, for instance, return to his barrel of spikes ? There 
 are three ways in which we may see distinctly Eegulus would 
 have been a gainer. In the first place, if he had not pos- 
 sessed all the higher attributes of mind, he never would 
 have returned to his spikes, and he had, therefore, been a 
 great gaiter by the possession of the highest class of mind 
 all his life ; for 
 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. 
 In the second place he had been a gainer by the higher 
 Vol. 1, pp. 93, 94. 
 
MERE HAPPINESS DI8PI8ED. 119 
 
 moral atmosphere in which he had lived all his life, conse- 
 quent upon others having previously acted upon the same 
 high sense of honour ; and, lastly, if he had not returned, 
 the sense of having acted unworthily would have mad.e life 
 to him not worth having — a pain instead of a pleasure. 
 
 This shows that the calculation of right and duty should 
 be based on the general happiness, and that in the long run 
 will best secure the happiness of the individual, although it 
 must be admitted Nature pays small regard to individuals, 
 and never hesitates' to sacrifice the interests of the individual 
 to that of the race. It is the province of moral science to 
 lay down general rules, based on the public good, which 
 people should follow implicitly, without calculation of the 
 specific consequences of their own actions to themselves indi- 
 vidually. Happiness depends upon habits of mind, and the 
 great object of moral training is to niake the moral law automa- 
 tic — that is, we should be trained to do at once unconsciously 
 what is right, and good, and true, and generous, without 
 tiiinking at all about it, much less stopping to calculate con- 
 sequences. Undoubtedly that is the happiest man who if 
 his friend fell into the water would go in after him at once, 
 whether he could swim or not, and who, if he had given his 
 word to return even to a death of torture, would certainly 
 do it. 
 
 But some people, knowing that after all happiness is but 
 the aggregate of pleasurable sensations, despise poor happi- 
 ness so compounded, and think it beneath them to live for 
 it ; and they tell us the object of life is progress, or know- 
 ledge, or evolution, or moral perfection, or spiritual growth, 
 aspiringness, and sublimation ; but they do not tell us what 
 use these things are if they do not lead to happiness. As 
 one class despise mere pleasure and pursue happiness, others 
 discard happiness and contend for blessedness ; but this is 
 all talk. No one has yet shown us anything better than 
 
120 MORALITY. 
 
 happiness, and all pursue the line of conduct that they think 
 most likely to lead to it.* 
 
 * Bentham says : " The various systems that have been formed 
 concerning the standard of right and wrong, may all be reduced to 
 the principle of sympathy and antipathy. One account may serve 
 for aJl of them. They consist all of them in so many contrivances 
 for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external standard, 
 and for prevailing upon the reader to accept of the author's senti- 
 ment or opinion as a reason, and that a sufficient one, for itself. 
 The phrases are different, but the principle the same." 
 
 See also Bentham's note' on this passage : '' If, therefore, a man 
 wants to know what is right and what is wrong, he has nothing to do 
 but come to me," because, he says, he has a moral sense or conscience, 
 or a common sense, or an understanding, or a rule of right, or an 
 intuitive knowledge- of the Fitness of Things, or of the. Law of 
 Nature, or of God's WiU, which always tells him what is right,' but 
 which in truth is nothing more than his ipse dixit. 
 
 Lecky is a professed Intuitionist, yet the whole of his very valuable 
 work, " History of European Morals," points to the opposite conclu- 
 sion — ^viz., that the Conscience or Sense of Eight varies,^and has 
 varied at all times and in all countries ; proving the necessity, beyond 
 all doubt, for an appeal to some external standard. The Conscience 
 has been a thing of very slow growth, eanh age applying a difEerent 
 external standard in' accordance with its advance in civilisation and 
 refinement. Much requires to be done in the present day. Half the 
 philanthropy in the world is' eleemosynary, and has been proved to 
 be doing mischief. But let us follow Mr. Lecky, to see how far Con- 
 science may be trusted as a standard of right. He tells us (vol. 2, 
 p. 19) that Nature does not tell men that it is wrong to slay without 
 provocation his feUow-man. Look at the Hebrew law : " And if a man 
 smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand ; 
 he shall be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day 
 or two he shall not be punished : for he is his money." Exodus, chap, 
 xxii., V. 20-21. Here we have murder and slavery condoned, or rather 
 " the right of every one to whop his own nigger " to death, if he does 
 not kill him at once, recognised by Law, by God's chosen people. 
 
 Aristotle, and we have none greater among the ancients, taught that 
 Greeks had no more duties to barbarians than to wild beasts (vol. 1, 
 p. 241). Aristotle, however, only reflected the Consciences of his age. 
 As Lecky says, " At first, the range of duty in the family, the tribe, 
 the state, the confederation. Within these limits every man feels 
 
LKCKY A8 AN. INTUITIONIST. 121 
 
 A priori, then, there would seem to' be nothing better than 
 happiness or pleasurable consciousness, and whatever may- 
 be said in theory, it is evident that in practice all the 
 
 himself under obligations to those about him ; but he regards the 
 outer world as we regard wild animals, as beings upon whom he may 
 justifiably prey. Hence Brigand and Corsair, in the early ages of 
 society, conveyed no notion of moral guilt" (vol. 2, p. 271). The 
 public conscience had not greatly advanced even up to our Elizabeth's 
 times if we may judge from the adventures of Drake and Sir Walter 
 Ealeigh. Also during ages of the Christian era, according to the 
 popular belief, all who differed from the teaching ,of the orthodox 
 lived under the hatred of the Almighty, and were destined after death 
 to an eternity of anguish, and no moral or intellectual excellence 
 could atone for their crime in propagating error (vol. 1, p. 206). Per- 
 secution to the death was therefore both logical and right. 
 
 Aristotle also not only countenanced the practice of abortion, but 
 even desired that it should be enforced by law, where population had 
 exceeded certain assigned limits (vol. 2, p. 22). In the present day 
 we think it right to allow half the children that are bom to die before 
 their fifth year, for want of proper sanitary and other arrangements. 
 There, may, however, be some nice distinction between Aristotle's 
 method of killing and this allowing to die. ' 
 
 The right of conquerors to massacre their prisoners was universally 
 admitted (vol. 1, p. 302). 
 
 The Gladiatorial Shows of the Komans were originally religious cere- 
 monies at a funeral ; then we have Caesar and Pompey competing with 
 each other by greatly multiplying condemned criminals, who killed each 
 Other.at these shows, till, as Mr. Lecky says, the main amusement of all 
 classes was this spectacle of bloodshed, of the death, 'and sometimes 
 of the torture of men, " and all this continued for centuries without 
 a protest " (vol. 1, p. 287). Nero, on account of his munificence in 
 this respect, was probably the sovereign who was most beloved by 
 the Roman multitude (p. 298). Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch, &o.f "of all 
 the great historians who recorded them (the shows), not one seems to 
 have been conscious that he was recording a barbarity" (p. 308) J and 
 Suetonius quite thought he was called upon to apologise to the people 
 of "Perona for refusing them " a show." " After so general a request," 
 he said, "to have refused would not have been firmness — it would 
 have been cruelty." 
 
 To come a little nearer to our own time,. Mr. Leeky. tells us that 
 Sir Thomas Moore was fampus for his skill at Cock-throwing, which 
 
122 MORAJfjITY. 
 
 world admits this, and that ihat is right which "best tends to 
 promote it. 
 
 Keasoning a posteriori, we find that as far as we are able 
 to trace and understand all that has been going on, from the 
 beginning of the world, there has bqen a gradual preparation 
 for the largest possible amount of enjoyment, until the whole 
 earth has been covered with one net-work of nerves throbbing 
 with pleasurable sensation. If man does not see this it is 
 
 was a famous English game, and is said to be ooimected with the 
 denial of St. Peter. As Sir Charles Sedley said : — 
 
 Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter's crime, 
 
 And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime." — (Vol. 2, p. 174.) 
 
 The national conscience does not appear to have spoken very loudly 
 either as to the cruelty or the still greater iDJustice. 
 
 In Queen Elizabeth's time a decided preference was given to Bear- 
 baiting over Shakespeare's Plays. Dr. Parr was fond of Bull-baiting ; 
 Windham and Canning strongly defended it, and the late- Sir Robert 
 Peel argued strongly against its prohibition. 
 
 But if Conscience, or the Sense of Eight, seems to have been very 
 dead in some directions, it appears to have been very lively in others. 
 Thus, the "efEusionof blood" was unscriptural, therefore the' Inquisi- 
 tion burnt to death all those who differed from them on theological 
 points ; in obedience to the same command, we are ordered to abstain 
 from the use of the sword, so certain sects beat to death those who 
 differed from them with massive clubs. Unchaste vestal virgins were 
 buried aUve, because they were so sacred that it was unlawful to lay 
 violent hands upon them (vol 2, p. 44) ; and a woman was actually 
 executed for undressing before a statue of Domitian (vol. 1, p. 275). 
 
 The same delicacy of Conscience in EeUgious matters has come 
 down to our own day. Thus the King of Burmah thinks> as before 
 mentioned, it a damnable offence .to kiU anything, but he does not 
 object to inferior people killing animals and endangering their souls 
 that he may have meat to eat. 
 
 Dr. C. J. Vaughan seems to think that in the burial service, which 
 is read alike over saint and sinner, the words " sure and certain 
 hope," &c., should be read ironically over a notoriously wicked soul 1 
 (see Atheneevm, March 21, 1868, p. 414) ; and perhaps, also, we 
 ought to wink ! No doubt this will quiet many uneasy consciences. 
 
THE NET-WORK OF NERVES. 123 
 
 from the narrow, perverted, purely subjective way in which 
 he regards things. He has a pre-established theory to sup- 
 port. He sets himself up as the centre of all creation, at 
 least in this world, and regards everything from the narrow 
 point of view of his own individual interest or that of his 
 race, whereas it is the nervous system of the world that 
 nature cares for, and not the individual creatures of which 
 that system is composed.* As we have seen, all action 
 results from pre-existing force, and as all action, therefore, 
 is on a par — ^being all equally necessary — all creatures must 
 be so too, and we have one great throb of the heart of nature 
 surging through the whole, and pleasure and pain regulating 
 the conscious world as attraction and repulsion do the physi- 
 cal. As in the individual body there is one unceasing action 
 of renovation and decay, an intense stream into which new 
 matter is for ever flowing, and from which the old is -ever 
 moving out, and the intensity of life of the whole body is 
 in proportion to the death of the parts ; so in the great 
 body of sensitive existence the intensity of life and enjoy- 
 ment is in proportion to the degree in which new life is 
 
 * Fleas there are that bite men, 
 And fleas that bite those fleas again ; 
 These little fleas have fleas that bite 'em, 
 And fleas bite fleas ad infinitem. 
 
 And no doubt the biter has more pleasure than the bitten has pain, 
 Man is not necessarily included in this scale. If he keeps himself 
 clean, and has the additional health and happiness that cleanliness 
 will give to him, he is free from such inroads ; but if he does not he 
 becomes the feeding ground for other creatures, and nature thus re- 
 stores the balance of enjoyment. Probably this applies to the internal 
 parasites that are so great a difficulty with those who can see no end 
 in Hfe, no purpose or design in creation. These creatures point to 
 some obstruction in the bodUy constitution — some impediment to 
 more perfect enjoyment that requires to be removed. Animals live 
 upon one another, thus avoiding " the slow and snake-like life of dull 
 decay," and the pang that deprives them of life is a mere flea bite to 
 the long period of enjoyment they have previously had. 
 
124 MORALITY. 
 
 introduced, and the old, and comparatively unconscious, car- 
 ried out. Life and Birth, Death and Decay, are the means 
 by which the whole sensitive world is kept ever going and 
 vigorous and capable of the largest amount of enjoyment. 
 Of course this does not take place without a great outcry on 
 the part of those who, having had their day, and having 
 little capability of enjoyment left, would yet stop the way of 
 the young and vigorous, who are equally entitled to their day, 
 and whose term of life and turn for enjoyment have now 
 come.* 
 
 But there are pains in the world as well as pleasures, — » 
 misery as well as happiness. We call this pain " evil," and 
 as Ggd can produce only good, man makes a Devil as the 
 author of theevil — although God is supposed to have made 
 the Devil in the full fore-knowledge of the consequences of 
 what he was doing. But is Pain an evil ? If the pleasures 
 decidedly predominate, and the pains are absolutely necessary 
 
 * Neither must we he misled by the word " individuality," because 
 it appears from the many facts and arguments in this book that our 
 persoualities are not so independent as our self-oonscionsness leads 
 us to believe. We may look upon each individual as something not 
 wholly detached from its parent source — as a wave that has been 
 lifted and shaped by moral conditions in an unknown, illimitable 
 ocean. There is decidedly a solidarity as well as a separateness in 
 all human, and probably in all lives whatever ; and this considera- 
 tion goes far, as I think, to establish an opinion that the constitution 
 of the living universe is a pure Theism, and that its form of activity is 
 what may be described as co-operative. It points to the conclusion 
 that all life is single in its essence, but various, ever varying, and 
 inter-active in its manifestations, and that men and aU other living 
 animals are active workers and sharers in a vastly more extended 
 system of cosmic action than any of ourselves, much less of them, can 
 possibly comprehend. It also suggests that they may^contribute, 
 more or less unconsciously, to the manifestation of a far higher life 
 than our own, somewhat as — I do not propose to push the metaphor 
 too far — the individual cells of one of the more complex [ammaJs 
 
 contribute to the manifestation of its higher order pf personally. 
 
 (" Hereditary Genius," p. 276, by Francis Gallon, F.B.S.) 
 
PAIN NECESSARY. 125 
 
 to the production and protection of those pleasures, then pain 
 is not an evil, but a good ; although the sooner we are able 
 to do without its aid, and the less we have of it, the better. 
 Dr. Neil Amott says: "Man, like other warm-blooded 
 animals, must always have the four prime essentials to life — 
 Jit air, nvarmth, aliment, and rest after action ; and that to 
 obtain the pleasure from using, and to escape the pain from 
 wanting these, are the chief motives to his voluntary action."* 
 The " pleasure from using," however, would often not be 
 enough to insure voluntary action without the pain, and life, 
 from pure forgetfulness, would not be maintained. The plea- 
 sures of appetite are all very well, but if it were not for 
 the pains of hunger we should often forget the necessary ■ 
 " aliment." Nature tries pleasures first, and then if we do 
 not do what is necessary for our existence arfd even well- 
 being, she gives us an awful pinch somewhere. Is this an 
 evil or a good ? 
 
 Pain is necessary, then, as a sufficient and efficient motive 
 to action where pleasure alone would not insure even con- 
 tinued existence. It is necessary also as a guardian to that 
 delicate system of organisation, which is " so fearfully and won- 
 derfully made," upon which our life and happiness depend. 
 No surveillance, no admonition, would so well keep a child 
 out of the fire as the pain that comes from being burnt, and 
 the world is full of things that' have a tendency, if not an 
 equal tendency, to injure us, and of whose injurious qualities 
 we know nothing till pain warns us of them. Pain and plea- 
 sure guide our choice among the infinitely varied constitutions 
 of the things around us ; and we are obliged to attend to the 
 pain, if not to the pleasure. If the nerve is destroyed in the 
 hand and foot, which nerve tells us when we are injuring it, 
 the hand and foot, no longer having the protection of pain, 
 are often destroyed too, as is so generally the case where the 
 
 * " Survey of Human Progress." 
 
126 MORALITY. 
 
 nerve is cut in torses' feet. The more delicate the organisa- 
 tion, and consequently the higher the susceptibility to enjoy- 
 ment, the greater is the liability to injury. The eye^ the most 
 important inlet to the mind, is the organ most easily damaged. 
 " The nerve of the coat of the eye is sometimes injured, and 
 is no longer sensitive to the dust which adheres to the ball. 
 Then the lid is not excited to wink, or the' tears to flow. The 
 particles which are carried into ' the eye cease to pain, and 
 being allowed to remain, they set up inflammation, and the 
 inflammation renders opaque the transparent covering through 
 which the light flows. Blindness is the result, and the sight 
 itself is found to be dependent upon the refined sensibility of 
 • the outer membrane." * 
 
 Pain is thus the strongest motive we caii have, the best 
 guardian, and the wisest schoolmaster. It constitutes that 
 Necessity which is the mother of invention, and is the base 
 of all Progress. No doubt we suffer,, and have always suf- 
 fered, from being a little too thick upon the ground ; but as 
 Herbert Spencer says, " From the beginning, pressure of 
 population has "been the proximate cause of progress."! 
 
 Pain then, if it is an evil, is a necessary one, and we can 
 no more do without it than a child can do without its nurse. 
 No doubt the child objects to the necessary constraint, and 
 considers its nurse an evil. Pain or punishment follows 
 error whether we do wrong voluntarily or not. No distinc- 
 tions are made with reference to moral guilt, or actions that 
 are supposed to be free. Punishment follows on all alike, 
 the object of all punishment being the good of the persons 
 punished — ^to teach them that they have done wrong, and to 
 oblige them to do better in future. " Zeno, the founder of 
 the Stoics," says Toplady, " one day thrashed his servant for 
 pilfering. The fellow, . knowing his master was a fatalist, 
 thought to bring himself off by alleging that he was destined 
 
 * " Sense of Pain in Mam and Animals." Quwrterly Review, Jan., 1858. 
 t " Principles of Biology," vol. 2, p. 506. 
 
PROBABLY NO WORLD WITHOUT PAIN. 127 
 
 to steal, and therefore ougtt not to be beat for it. ' You 
 are destined to steal, are you ? ' answered the philosopher 
 ' then you are no less destined to be thrashed .for it.' But 
 the necessitarian is not a fatalist ; what therefore is more to 
 the point is, that a school boy, knowing his master's opinion 
 that no action could possibly have been otherwise under the 
 circumstances, pleaded, for some great fault of which he had 
 been guilty, that he could not help it, ' I know you. could 
 not,' replied the master, ' I do not blame you, I only pity 
 you ; and when I have giyen you a good flogging, the remem- 
 brance of it, and that it must always recur if the fault is 
 committed, will enable you to help it in future.' " To be 
 ^aved from punishment that is for our good is to do us a 
 mischief, and yet that is what all are constantly praying for. 
 Punishment 'that is not for our good is revenge, and to sup- 
 pose that God, either in this world or in any other, revenges 
 Himself upon His creatures, is a gross libel upon our Creator. 
 To suppose that God can have any other object than the good 
 of His creatures, or any attributes that are opposed to it, 
 such as the vindication of His sovereignty, or authority, or 
 supreme justice, is also a libel. 
 
 To the Necessitarian there is no such thing as sin and evil ; 
 only pains and pleasures. The distinction between physical 
 and moral evil cannot be maintained. Sin, vice, and moral 
 guilt are only evils from their tendency to produce pain and 
 misery. Eepentance and Eemorse Sre foolish regrets over 
 what certainly cannot now, and under the circumstances conld 
 not then, possibly have been otherwise, and are to be indulged 
 only so far as they furnish a sufficient motive for our doing 
 better in the future. As we get wiser and better we shall be 
 more and more able to dispense with our nurse and school- 
 master, Pain. Probably there is no world altogether without 
 pain, as there is no finite creature not liable to error; and pain, 
 as far as we know, is the best, and perhaps only, corrective of 
 that error. In a world in which there was no pain, it is 
 
128 
 
 MOKALITY. 
 
 probable there would be but little pleasure ; certainly in those 
 that haTe been created by ourselyes, to supply the supposed 
 deficiencies of our Creator here, life would be very slow, and 
 nothing would so certainly take us back to the savage state 
 as the imitation on earth of what we suppose to be the order 
 in heaven.* In an island in the Pacific a little heaven on 
 earth was supposed to be formed by the descendants of the 
 mutineers of the " Bounty," and Mr. Edward Maitland has 
 given us a description of their present condition. He says : 
 " The principal characteristic of the islanders wag their lan- 
 guid indifference to everything. They had never been forced 
 to take trouble about anything, and they knew of nothing 
 Worth taking trouble about. It had cost them little toil or 
 ingenuity to provide for all their bodily wants, and of mental 
 wants they had absolutely none. They had nevet been allowed 
 to know that there were two opinions in the world, even about 
 religious matters. And so, without object of desire or am- 
 bition, without necessity of making a choice between Better 
 and Worse, Eight and Wrong, with no lack in the present, 
 and secure of the future, they existed in a state of listless- 
 ness, more like vegetables than beings . endowed with high 
 faculties for happiness, for intellectual dominion, for moral 
 excellence. And all I learnt only confirmed me in my idea, 
 of the meaning of man's history ; that- life is a force which 
 has to be disciplined and educated by experience : that with- 
 out temptation there can be no virtue, without pain no 
 pleasure, without evil no good, without freedom no pro- 
 gress." f 
 
 * A little- girl being threatened with heaven, which she supposed 
 was to be all Sundays and collects, remonstrated and said, " Oh, but 
 Ma, if I am very good I may have a little devil to play with some- 
 times, mayn't 11" . 
 
 t " The Passion for Intellectual Freedom," p.- 30, a Lecture de- 
 livered before the Sunday Lecture Society, Jan., 1871 ; published by 
 ThoB. Scott, Bamsgate. 
 
NATURAL SELECTION. 129 
 
 Natural Selection. — The views contained in this Chapter 
 were published by me some thirty years ago. Since then the 
 works given to the world by Mr. C. Darwin and Mr. A. E. 
 Wallace on Natural Selection, or Survival of the Fittest, 
 have illustrated them in practice, and in this form they have 
 obtained a wide acceptance. 
 
 It has been clearly shown that among animals, even among 
 the least prolific, the tendency is to increase greatly beyond 
 the means of subsistence, and that consequently, notwith- 
 standing this great increase, the animal population of the 
 globe is about stationary. This stationary state is effected 
 mainly by animals living upon each other, one fitting com- 
 fortably into another — the eater by this arrangement probably 
 having more pleasure than the eatee has pain. The conse- 
 quence of this scarcity of food and of this necessity for 
 defence is a struggle for existence, in which all the powers, 
 bodily and mental, are exercised to their greatest stretch.. 
 Come, look alive ! says Nature ; and it is a struggle for 
 dear life itself. We presume there can be no stronger mo- 
 tive for the exertion of all the energies. A system on which 
 all are eating up each other, and on which the weakest 
 always go to the wall, does not look as if it were based upon 
 either love or justice ; but it admirably promotes the largest 
 amount of enjoyment, by developing to their fullest extent 
 all the faculties upon which enjoyment depends, and keeping 
 the world full of those only who are the most capable of 
 tojoyment. 
 
 In this struggle, and under this pressure. Useful Varieties 
 tend to increase, and useless ones to diminish, and thus 
 Superior varieties ultimately extirpate and take the place of 
 the original Species. •" A wild animal," Mr. Wallace remarks, 
 "has to search, and often to labour, for every mouthful 
 of food — to exercise sight, hearing, and smell in seeking it, 
 and in avoiding dangers, in procuring shelter from the incle- 
 mency of the seasons, and in providing for the subsistence 
 
130 MORALITY. 
 
 and safety of its offspring. There is no muscle of its body 
 that is not called into daily and" hourly activity ; there is no 
 sense or faculty that is not strengthened by continual exercise. 
 The domestic animal, on the other hand, has food provided 
 for it, is sheltered, and often confined, to guard it against the 
 vicissitudes of the seasons, is carefully secured from the 
 attacks of its natural enemies, and seldom ever rears its 
 young vfithout human assistance. Half of its senses and 
 faculties become quite useless, and the other half are but 
 occasionally called into feeble exercise, while even its mus- 
 cular system is only irregularly brought into action."* No 
 doubt, consequently, as vf e leani from Darwin, " the brains of 
 domestic rabbits and hares decrease in bulk, but increase in 
 length, under domestication."! The self-protecting organs, 
 Combativeness, Destructiveness, Secretiveness, Cautiousness, 
 which give breadth to the brain, are diminished, and the Social, 
 which give length, are enlarged. Man hasonly to apply these 
 principles to himself, for the laws in his case are equally 
 operative. He would deteriorate if deprived of the lower 
 motives to action, if those that peculiarly distinguish him as 
 man were not strong and active. A prize pig is a very dif- 
 ferent animal to a pig shaking down the acorns to its little 
 ones in its native forest ; and our aldermen should take a 
 lesson ! Mr. A". R. Wallace thus summarises his facts and 
 inferences : — ^ 
 
 " A DemoTtstration of the Origin of Species by Natural Selection. 
 
 PBOVBB FACTS. NECESSARY CONSEQVENCm 
 {afterwards talten as Proved Facts). 
 Eapid Incbbase of Oegan- 
 
 ISMS. 
 
 1 
 
 Stkugglb for Existence, 
 Toiir NUMBEB OF INDIVI- \ ^\, ^^''^}^ equalUng the 
 DUALS Stationaey. J births On the average. , 
 
 Struggle foe Existence. 
 
 Heredity with Variation, 
 or general likeness with indi- 
 vidual differences of parents 
 and offspring. 
 
 SUEVIVAL op the FITTEST, 
 
 - or Natural Selection ; mean- 
 ing simply that on the whole 
 those die who are least fitted 
 to maintain their existence. 
 
 ' On Natural Selection," p. 38. f " Descent of Man," vol 1, p. 146. 
 
stjevival of the fittest. 
 Change of External Con- 
 ditions, univei'sal and un^ 
 
 nature a utilitarian. 131 
 
 Changes of Organic Forms, 
 to keep them in harmony 
 with the Changed Condi- 
 tions ; and as the changes 
 of conditions are permanent 
 changes, in the sense of not 
 
 cea8ing.-See ' Lyell'^ Prin- 1 ^eyertmg back to identical 
 
 ciples of Geology.' 
 
 previous conditions, the 
 changes of organic forms 
 must be in the same sense 
 permanent, and thus origi- 
 nate Species."* 
 
 Mr. Darwin also thus summarises : " It may be metapho- 
 rically said that Natural Selection is daily and hourly scru- 
 tinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the 
 slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding 
 up all that is good, silently and insensibly working when- 
 ever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of 
 ea,ch orgaiiic being in relation to its organic and inorganic 
 conditions of life." He also says, " The term general good 
 may be defined as the means by which the greatest possible 
 number of individuals can be reared in full vigour and health, 
 ■with all their faculties perfect, under the conditions to which, 
 they are exposed." f 
 
 Surely the most bigoted ' Intuitionist must admit that 
 Nature, so far at least, is a Utilitarian ; but Mr. Wallace 
 avows his conviction that the theory of Natural Selection 
 must be modified in its application to man in accordance 
 with the facts of Mental Philosophy. Now should Mr. 
 Wallace ever consider the discoveries made by Gall worthy 
 of his attention, he will probably find that it is his idea 
 of mental philosophy that requires modifying, and not the 
 law of Natural Selection. Man is an exception to the rest 
 of 'the animal creation, inasmuch as by his faculty of reason 
 he changes Nature and adapts it to his requirements ; but an 
 animal having no such power of adaptation, is changed by 
 Nature. But at the expense of a little more space let us give 
 * " Natural Selection," p. 302. f " Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 98. 
 
132 MOHALITT. 
 
 Mr. ^Wallace's own clear statement. He says : " From those 
 infinitely remote ages, when the first rudiments of organic 
 life appeared upon the earth, every plant and every animal 
 has heen subject to one great law of physical change. As 
 the earth has gone through its grand cycles of geological, 
 climatal, and organic progress, every form of life has heen , 
 subject to its irresistible action, and has been continually, 
 but imperceptibly moulded into such new shapes as would 
 preserve their harmony with the ever-changing universe. 
 No living thing could escape this law of its being ; none 
 (except, perhaps, the simplest, and most rudimentary organ- 
 isms), could remain unchanged and live, amid the imiversal 
 change around it. At length, however, there came into exist- 
 ence a being in whom that subtle force we term mind, be- 
 came of greater importance than his mere bodily structure. 
 Though with a naked and unprotected body, this gave him 
 clothing against the varying inclemencies of the seasons. 
 Though unable to compete with the deer in swiftness, or with 
 the wild bull in strength, this gave him weapons with which 
 to capture or overcome both. Though less capable than 
 most other animals of living on the herbs and the fnaits tiiat 
 unaided nature supplies, this wonderful faculty taught him 
 to govern and- direct nature to his own benefit, and make her 
 produce food for him, wheu and where he pleased. From 
 the moment when the first skin was used as a covering, when 
 the first rude spear was formed to assist in the chase, when 
 fire was first used to cook his food, when the first seed was 
 sown or shoot planted, a grand revolution was effected in 
 nature, a revolution which in all the previous ages of the 
 earth's history liad had no parallel, for a being had arisen 
 who was no longer necessarily subject to change with the 
 changing universe — a being who was in some degree superior 
 to nature, inasmuch as he knew how to control and regulate 
 her action, and could keep himself in harmony with her, not 
 by a change in body, but by an advance of mind. » * * 
 
THE MORAI, TIE. 183 
 
 Here, then, we see the true grandeur and dignity of man. 
 * * * Man has not only escaped ' Natural Selection ' 
 himself, J)ut he is actually able to take away some of that 
 power from nature which before his appearance she univer- 
 sally exercised." * Natural Selection, however, has only 
 been transferred from the body to the brain and mind ; but 
 this Mr. Wallace denies. He says : " Among civilised 
 nations at the present day, it does not seem possible for 
 natural selection to act in any way so as to secure the per- 
 manent advancement of morality and intelligence; for it is 
 indisputably the mediocre, if not the low, both as regards 
 morality and intelligence, who succeed best in life and mul- 
 tiply fastest. Yet there is undoubtedly an advance — on the 
 whole a steady and a permanent one — both in the influence on 
 public opinion of a high morality, and in the general desire 
 for intellectual elevation ; and as I cannot impute this in any 
 way to ' survival of the fittest,' I am forced to conclude that 
 it is due to the inherent progressive power of those glorious 
 qualities which raise us so immeasurably above our fellow 
 animals, and at the same time afford us the surest proof that 
 there are other and higher existences than ourselves from 
 whom these qualities may have been derived, and towards 
 whom we may be ever tending." f 
 
 Now in what does man's great strength consist in compa- 
 rison with other animals ? As an individual naked savage he 
 is probably inferior to several of the higher brutes. But man 
 is not an individual only : by the ties of mind, the strongest 
 of all ties, he is united through his social instincts, as the 
 brutes are, with the family ; and through his moral senti- 
 ments, which the brutes are not, with his race. It is with 
 the great body of humanity, therefore, and not with indi- 
 vidual man, 'that nature and brutes have to contend. It 
 is this unity with his fellows that constitutes man's strength, 
 and to this unity Justice, Courtesy, and Kindness, Faith, Hope, 
 * " On Natural Selection," p. 321. f Ibid., p. 330. 
 
134 MORALITY. 
 
 and Charity, the peculiar functions of the coronal region of 
 the brain, are necessary. It is to his power of combination 
 and co-operation that his great superiority may be traced, 
 and "natural selection" is driving him in this direction as 
 fast as the world can be prepared for him ; and the superior 
 minds, to which Mr. Wallace alludes, are the pioneers, to- 
 wards more perfect unity. In the meantime nature continues 
 to secure the " survival of the fittest." In the age of war, 
 when the most necessary thing was the protection of life and 
 limb and property, the strong man — the warrior — was the 
 fittest. We have passed on to the commercial age. What 
 is now wanted is to conquer the earth, and to people it 
 with the best breeds, and this is best done by unlimited com- 
 petition, or free-trade, which means every one for himself and 
 Devil take the hindmost ; and the " fittest " fpr this is by no 
 means the highest type of man — ^very nice feelings are only in 
 the way. At present we have no more organisation than what 
 fits us for this state of things, but with a more complete and 
 perfect " Organisation of Industry," which Carlyle says is 
 the question for this 19th century, we shall " secure the per- 
 manent advancement of morality and intelligence." 
 
 Mr. Wallace argues that the practice of virtues on the 
 ground of their utility could not account for the sanctity 
 which attaches to them even among savage tribes. Now 
 " the' sanctity attributed to moral distinctions" is owing' to 
 their being associated with religious feeling, in the same way 
 that sanctity is given to the " fetish," and argues nothing in 
 its favour. 
 
 Mr. Wallace, in his review of Darwin in the Academy 
 (March 15, 1871,) says : " Mr. Darwin concludes that the 
 moral sense is fundamentally identical with the social in- 
 stihcts, and has been developed for the general good of the 
 community, father than for its greatest happiness. ' General 
 good ' is defined as ' the means by which the greatest possible 
 number of individuals can be reared in full vigour alid health, 
 
DISTINCTION BETWEEN SOCIAL AND MORAL. 135 
 
 with all their faculties perfect under the conditions to which 
 they are exposed' ; and it Is quite conceivable that this may 
 not be always identical with ' greatest happiness.' If so, the 
 present theory will be a step in advance-in the history of the 
 ' utilitarian philosophy." I cannot, however, agree with Mr. 
 Wallace. Just in proportion as such a theory was not 
 "identical with the greatest happiness " would it be a step 
 backwards instead of in advance. The greatest number of 
 individuals may consist of savages or brutes, or creatures 
 capable of even less enjoyment than they are. To rear the 
 greatest number of them would certainly not be for the 
 greatest happiness, and would therefore be a step backwards. 
 To be a step in advance we must rear the greatest number 
 capable of the greatest enjoyment. 
 
 Better fifty years of Europe than a cy(^e of Cathay. 
 
 " A moral sense fundamentally identical with the social in- 
 stincts " would be just such a step backwards. The social 
 instincts are possessed in full strength by the brutes, and 
 would not raise us a single step above them. The social 
 instincts — the love of wife, children, and friends — seek their 
 aims at the expense of the community. The true moral 
 sense, which alone has raised man, and is a step in advance, 
 makes the social instincts — the interest of our own wife, 
 children, and friends — secondary to the good of the commu- 
 nity, to the general happiness. It is justice, courtesy, love 
 of the race, and not of our own families, upon which the 
 moral sense must be based. 
 
 It is " quite conceivable," however, that raising the lowest 
 and most numerous class in society to their rightful position 
 might not at first be identical with " greatest happiness ;" 
 but this would be only the common case under utilitarianism 
 of sacrificing a present good to a greater in the future. 
 
 Again, Mr. Wallace tells us that the Brain of the Savage 
 is larger than he needs it to be. The question of course is, 
 
136 MORALITY. 
 
 what does he need his brain for? For the sensibility of 
 which it is the organ — ^for his enjoyment, for feeling, and for 
 as much intelligence as will direct his feelings towards their 
 proper objects or enjoyments. Now the power of feeling is 
 in proportion to the size of the brain, so that with increased 
 size goes increased power of enjoyment. Mr. Wallace s error 
 is the common one of those who neglect Gall's discoveries, 
 and reject the knowledge his followers have attained of 
 cerebral physiology and the nervous centres. He believes 
 that the brain is the organ of the mind, but by mind he 
 evidently means the intellect or intelligence. He confounds 
 general size with special function : for the part of the brain 
 connected with the intellect is a very small proportion of the 
 whole, and bears in the savage a much nearer relation in size 
 to the ape than to the philosopher. The phrenologist sees 
 in the savage skull only indications of a more powerful 
 animal — of power in the direction of the brute beast, with 
 great degtructiveness, courage, cunning, caution, and love of 
 offspring such as peculiarly distinguishes the ape tribe ; but 
 of intellect he finds very little more than the brutes them- 
 selves possess. Both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Darwin would 
 start from a much higher stand-point in their valuable re- 
 searches if they would acquaint themselves with what has 
 been already done by phrenologists in the same field. The 
 comparative anatomy and physiology of the brain and nervous 
 system, and of mental function in connection wiCh structure, 
 have been their study for 80 years and more, and most valu- 
 able atlases of plates have been published by Dr. Vimont, ■ 
 of Paris, and others. To me it is a most wonderful thing 
 that to such men all this labour should have been labour in 
 vain. 
 
 In reply to certain objections which I have heard against 
 what is now often called Darwinism, I would observe that 
 Instinct, which is organised and transmitted experience, is 
 often more correct in its intimations, and goes straighter 
 
THE ©JiJECTlONB TO DABWINISM. 137 
 
 to its aim, than the j&rst dawnings of reason among men. 
 Reason is a 'generalising instinct, and in the first attempts 
 of this new and untried faculty to guide experience and to 
 attain its results at once, it often goes wrong ; and as that 
 wrong is fixed and made permanent by law and' custom, or 
 sanctified by religion, men, in some particulars, are worse oif 
 than the brutes. The instincts of many of the lower animals 
 are far nobler than the habits of savage races of men, and 
 this Mr. Darwin clearly shows.* 
 
 * Of coarse I am not unfamiliar with the objections that have been 
 bTought, and which may fairly be brought, against Mr. Darwin's 
 theories. Still, Nature's plan seems to have been one of experiment ; • 
 she has tried all ways, and retained the best. As Prof. Huxley says, 
 " For the notion that every organism has been created as it is and 
 launched straight at a purpose, Mr. Darwin substitutes the conception 
 of something which may fairly be termed a, method of trial and error. 
 Organisms vary incessantly ; of these variations the few meet with 
 sumounding conditions which suit them and thrive ; the many are 
 unsuited and become extinct." — (Huxley's " Lay Sermons." p. 302.) 
 I think it is impossible to deny this much, or that external conditions, 
 with inheritance, reversion, natural selection, &c., play an important 
 part. Still, as regards the transmutation of what, as yet, we call 
 species, we cannot get over the general sterility of hybrids, and Prof. 
 Macdonald is of opinion that " a due consideration of the progressive 
 development of an embryo or germ within- the Graafian vesicle mili- 
 tates against Darwinism in any attempt to press hybridism beyond 
 the boundary of nearly allied species." It has also been truly said : 
 " If species have developed through successive increments of minute 
 variations, we ought to discover in the stone records of the earth's 
 history very distinct evidence of transitional and intermediate forms. 
 Not only so, but the number of such progressive steps having been 
 innumerable, the intermediate forms should be discovered in prepon- 
 derating numbers." "It is incredible," says Mivart, "that birds, bats, 
 and pterodactyls should have left the remains they have, and yet not 
 a simple relic be preserved, in any one instance, of any of these different 
 forms of vring in their incipient and relatively imperfect functional 
 condition." — ("On the Genesis of Species.") On Specific Genesis, 
 Mr. Mivart is inclined to attribute great power in the origination of 
 
138 MOKALITY^ 
 
 The Natural Law and the Eight to Live. — A little 
 boy, whose mamma had just blessed her husband with twins, 
 was called in to admire his new relatives. He looked them 
 carefully over, and then said, " I think we will keep this 
 one." He had evidently heard of the drowning of super- 
 numerary puppies or kittens. 
 
 " The Empress Elizabeth of Russia, during the war with 
 Sweden, commanded the Hetman, or chief of the Cossacks, 
 to come to Court on his way to the army in Finland. ' If 
 the Emperor, your father,' said the Hetman, ' had taken my 
 advice, your Majesty would not now have been annoyed by 
 the Swedes.' ' What was your advice?' answered the Em- 
 press. ' To put the nobility to death, and transplant the 
 people into Russia,' calmly replied the Cossack. ' But that,' 
 -the Empress observed, ' would be rather barbarous.' ' I, do 
 not see that,' said he ; ' they are all dead now, and they would 
 only have been dead if my advice had been taken.' " * 
 
 Both these, ways of dealing with surplus population seem 
 
 new forms to an internal tendency, real, but as yet inexplicable — not, 
 liowever, inexplicable to him who feels obliged to believe that 
 
 " There lives and works 
 A soul in aU things, and that soul is God," 
 
 But whatever difficulties we may meet with, probably consequent on 
 the imperfect state of our present knowledge of this subject, it is 
 impossible to watch the progress by which mind is formed, and the 
 gradual co-ordination of mind and body so as to work harmoniously 
 together, without coming to the conviction that this laborious work 
 of nature, taking almost infinite time, must have been transmitted 
 from one form to another in the way at present familiar to us. Mind 
 must have been perfected and transmitted to us through every variety 
 of form, from the monad to the man ; but how the gaps have been 
 got over — ^hOW we have passed from one form to another— ^we do not 
 at present know. But we are at the very commencement of the 
 Investigation. 
 
 * " Life of Sir James Mackintosh," vol. 2, p. 51. 
 
THE RIGHT TO LIVE. 139 
 
 reasonable enongh. ; still they are not such as we are at liberty 
 to follow. A farm labourer or weaver witli 12s. a week, on 
 getting a marriage license, thinks that licence enough to beget 
 a dozen children, although he knows his own earnings cannot 
 support one-half of them, and that his more thrifty and provi- 
 dent fellow-labourers must work harder every day to help to 
 keep them ; and yet we cannot drown half of them, which 
 would seem natural. So of a savage race that is dying out 
 before civilisation : we are not at liberty to kill them off at 
 once, although Cossack philosophy might say it would be all 
 the same 30 years hence. 
 
 A deputation of workmen, waiting upon one of our Prime 
 Ministers, pleaded in extenuation of their petition that they 
 had " a right to live." The Minister said " he did not see 
 the necessity" ; and such seems to be the opinion of a good 
 many people at the present day. They think otir Poor Law, 
 that prevents every one from starving, a mistake, and op- 
 posed to Natural Law, which they consider to be that only 
 those that can keep themselves ought to live. But although 
 this is the law as it relates to other animals, it does not 
 equally apply to man. He is an exception, as we have seen. 
 With the brutes it is a struggle for life ; with man only for 
 that which will make life desirable, a bare subsistence being 
 guaranteed to him. Man is a faggot of Sticks, and it is 
 not to his interest that the sticks should be parted and 
 broken separately. His Strength and happiness depend upon 
 his unity, and this depends upon the full development of that 
 part of his mental system — his moral sense — ^upon which this 
 unity depends. It would give a most violent wrench to this, 
 system if any were allowed to starve while he could prevent it. 
 It may be proved to be our interest, and therefore our duty, to 
 do all we possibly can for our fellow-men ; for by so doing 
 only can we bring all our moral faculties into activity : by 
 this means only can we exercise that part of our nature upon 
 which our greatest happiness depends. " If a man will not 
 
14(f 
 
 MORALITY. 
 
 work, neither shall he eat," says St. Paul ; hut as the German 
 Professor said, " Ah, Paul ! he was a clever man, but I do 
 not agree with him." A man unable or refusing to work is 
 the same in our view-, the only difference between a physical 
 and moral impediment being that the latter probably may be 
 removed by a little gentle coercion when the former could 
 not. We suffer in a variety of ways from the shortcomings 
 and delinquencies of our fellow-men, and we may think it 
 very unjust that we should do so, or that the industrious and 
 provident should work to keep the idle and improvident ; but 
 it is not unjust, inasmuch as we gain in a thousand ways by 
 the union with our fellow? for one in which we lose. And if 
 we suffer, it furnishes the most direct interest in the removal 
 of all those impediments, physical, moral, and intellectual, to 
 a more perfect union. The Social law, which is the Natural 
 law, binds all together for good and for evil. We cannot 
 oppress our fellow-creatures without injuring ourselves, or 
 make slaves without enslaving our higher feelings. Before 
 the abolition of slavery a worthy Alderman of London, an 
 M.P., to prove the advantage of slavery to this country, told 
 the House that it afforded a market for the refuse fish and 
 corrupted food, which could be sold for no other description 
 of persons.* This was certainly not taking the most en- 
 lightened view of the matter — only an aldermanic one. 
 England in her commercial policy has still, however, too 
 much of this spirit left as applied to the Slavery of nations. 
 It is true we have a commercial age through which we must 
 go before we can reach a better. 
 
 Nathaniel Hawthorne says : " It takes down the solitary 
 pride of man, beyond most other things, to find the imprac- 
 ticability of flinging aside affections that have become irksome. 
 The bands that were silken once are apt to become iron fetters 
 when we desire to shake them off. Our souls, after all, are 
 not our own. We convey a property in them to those with 
 
 * " Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Eomilly," vol. 2; p. 426. 
 
CAUSES OF PAUPERISM AND REMEDY. 141 
 
 whom we associate ; but to what extent can never be known, 
 until we feel the tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to 
 resume an exclusive sway over ourselves." * We would not, 
 however, give up all the pleasures of Friendship because our 
 friends may be false or die, and the same applies to all our 
 other human ties ; and fortunately we are not often called 
 upon " to resume an exclusive sway over ourselves." Here, 
 as elsewhere, " all which we enjoy, and a greater part of what 
 we suffer, are put in our own power." | 
 
 The causes of Pauperism are unlimited competition in the 
 " struggle for existence," in which the weakest necessarily 
 go to the wall ; our Endowed Charities, including the 
 Poor Law, by which the self-reliance, self-dependence, 
 and self-respect of the poor jre undermined; and the 
 systematic breeding of paupers by the Poor Law autho- 
 rities — for there is a class to whom the workhouse is an 
 inheritance, the recipients of parish relief consisting prin- 
 cipally, not only of the damaged and spoilt ones, but of the 
 children of paupers to the third and fourth, generation. The 
 remedies are a free circulation of labour from where it is in 
 excess to where it is wanted, in all parts of the empire ; the 
 absorption of our eleemosynary charities into Provident and 
 Educational Institutions ; and a more careful rearing and 
 training of the rising generation of paupers ; good food, good 
 air, and good education being provided at whatever cost real 
 efficiency requires. Recollect we have a deteriorated consti- 
 tution, bodily and mental, to deal with, and the first loss to 
 the conununity will be the least. 
 
 THE PRACTICE OP MORALITY. 
 
 If, then, all reason and all facts point to the conclusion 
 that the end and aim of creation is the production of the 
 "■ " The Blithedale Romance," p. 235. f " Butler's Analogy." 
 
142 MORALITY. 
 
 largest amount of enjoyment, the question is, how may that 
 be best brought about ? We have seen that man has no 
 faculties that induce him directly to seek happiness : all his 
 faculties have other objects, but happiness is the result when 
 such objects are attained. He has certain wants, and has 
 pleasure in gratifying them ; and it is the aggregate of such 
 pleasures that constitutes what we call happiness. The sum 
 of enjoyment, then, will be in proportion to the gratifica- 
 tion of all the wants, and it has hitherto been supposed to be 
 the peculiar function of Morality to see that these wants are 
 not gratified at the expense of other people. But this has 
 been a narrow and restricted view of the subject, as the 
 great object of Morality is to make all as happy as possible. 
 " Thou shall is written upon Life in characters as terrible as 
 thou shalt not, although popr Dryasdust reads almost nothing 
 but the latter hitherto." * 
 
 Morality has been defined as " the Science that teaches men 
 to live together in the most happy manner possible." They 
 have been tied up, like a bundle of sticks, with their fellows, 
 and upon this unity their strength and happiness mainly 
 depend, and what has especially been called Morality are 
 the laws which best enable them to fulfil the objects of this 
 uiiity, and move harmoniously with their fellows. A special 
 sanctity has been given to these laws, as if they existed 
 independently of man ; but that has been a mistaken and 
 shortsighted view of the matter, and we are beginning to 
 learn now that the observance of all law is equally our duty 
 and equally sacred. We have to organise such conditions as 
 will best enable each creature to gratify all his wants and 
 bring all his powers into active operation, and this consist- 
 ently with the equal rights of others. We are here, however, 
 necessarily mixing Moral and Social Science ; for it is the 
 duty of Moral Science to teach us what our duties are, and 
 of Social Science to place, us in the circumstances in which 
 * " Cromwell's Life and Letters," by T. Carlyle, p. 228. 
 
OBEDIENCE TO NATURAL LAW. 143 
 
 they may be best performed. We have shown what our 
 wants are, and these point directly to our duties : the facul- 
 ties and attributes with which we have been endowed all show 
 for what we have been made, and what therefore are our 
 
 duties : — 
 
 All declare 
 For what the Eternal Maker has ordained 
 The powers of Man. — AJtenside. 
 
 We have to ascertain, then, what are the faculties, and what 
 constitutes the proper use of them, and what their abuse. 
 I have endeavoured to give a list of them, and therein have 
 forestalled many of the remarks that properly come under 
 this head. It will be impossible here to do more than lay 
 down a few general principles. 
 
 Our object is to produce the largest amount of enjoyment. 
 Obedience then is required to all the laws, physical, organic,, 
 and mental, as well as moral ; for suffering follows equally a 
 breach of any of them. We find a sound mind only in a 
 sound body : obedience to ■ the laws of health, then, is the 
 first moral duty. Pious people live in ignorant disregard of 
 all nature's laws, and thus necessarily bring misery on them- 
 selves and families ; and because' they go regularly to church 
 or chapel, and pray a good deal, and keep the ten command- 
 ments, they talk of the mysterious dispensations of Provi- 
 dence. It does not matter how good a person may be in all 
 other respects, if he puts to sea in a ship that is not sea- 
 worthy, he will go to the bottom ; if he marries a sickly 
 wife, however pious she may be, he will probably have sickly 
 children ; if the mind is uncultivated, and he is too ignorant 
 to guide his wish to do right and all his other instincts, which 
 are mere blind impulses, he will suffer accordingly, however 
 moral he may be in the common acceptation of that term. 
 
 Our capacity for enjoyment is dependent upon our fresh- 
 ness. A jaded and over-used faculty is capable of little enjoy- 
 ment. All pleasures pall upon too frequent repetition. This 
 
144 MORALITY. 
 
 is well known with respect to all our Propensities, and even 
 the Esthetic feelings tire with too much use. A month's 
 travel in a beautiful country, with attention directed only to 
 its beauties, reduces the pleasure first to indifference and 
 then even to a pain. This is why we should vary our occu- 
 pations, so as daily to exercise all our wants and feelings, 
 and call alL our faculties into activity. If " one franc's worth 
 of coal does the work of a labourer for twenty days," and 
 work is properly directed, apd its produce fairly divided, 
 surely that ought to give time for every variety of mental 
 and -bodily labour and enjoyment. If we use one faculty, or 
 class of facfulties, too much, it must necessarily be at the ex- 
 pense of others, as there is only a certain amount of force 
 available for the exercise of all. A man who pays exclusive 
 attentipn to money-making, which he calls business, soon 
 disqualifies himself for the use of all those higher feelings 
 which peculiarly distinguish him as man. These feelings are 
 delicate plants, and soon fade unless they receive their proper 
 aliment and exercise : imperfect nutrition attends enforced rest, 
 and atrophy follows. A man who puts off his enjoyment till 
 he has made his fortune, finds that age has deprived him of 
 many pleasures of which he was once capable, and that he 
 has also sold the best part of his soul to the devil of acqui- 
 sition. In fact, he has lost the end in the means. " Politics 
 were never moi'e corrupt and brutal ; and Trade, the pride 
 and darling of our ocean, that educator of nations, that bene- 
 factor in spite of itself,- ends in. shameful defaulting, bubble, 
 and bankruptcy, all over the world. * * But the great 
 equal, symmetrical brain, fed from a great heart, you shall 
 not find."* This is why we rise so little above Dinners 
 and Display, -and the prudent effort to secure a good place 
 in another world, which we call Religion. A man may 
 make money, but he often limits rather than extends his 
 
 * Bssaj, " Work and Days," Emerson. 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF THE HIGHER PACULTlSS. 145 
 
 power of happiness in so doing. He may make a mountain 
 of gold, but 
 
 Can gold gain friendship ? Impudenre of hope 1 
 As well mere man an angel might beget. 
 Love, and' love only, is the loan for love. 
 All like the purchase ; few the price will pay ; 
 And this makes friends such miracles below. 
 
 If we depend upon the selfish feelings for our enjoyments 
 they will fail us in our old age. It is the predominance of 
 the unselfish feelings that is required, and this is only to be 
 had by their daily exercise. The man who is habitually 
 just, courteous, and kind, who creates all the happiness he 
 can, is making an atmosphere around him of respect and 
 love, and a bed which he will find easy as he grows old. 
 Selfish enjoyment is an unit ; to the unselfish is added the 
 reflected enjoyment of all around. If to this is joined a cul- 
 tivated love of the beautiful, and an acquired taste for the 
 best reading, so as to place us en rapport with all the great 
 and good that have lived before us, with all that is so won- 
 derful in art and science in the world around, and with all 
 that is high in modem thought as it arises, we have made 
 a fortune for our old age, larger in amount than all the gold 
 in the world, for all the gold in the world could not purchase 
 these things. It is a too common and fatal mistake to sup- 
 pose that it can, and it is also a fatal mistake to suppose 
 that we can put off the acquisition of these aptitudes till we 
 are old. It is the daily exercise of all our faculties that 
 alone can give them. Sir Joshua Eeynolds says " that a 
 relish for the higher excellencies of art is an acquired taste 
 which no men ever possessed without long cultivation and 
 great labour and attention." It is habitual dispositions 
 that we require to form. Virtue should be a habit, auto- 
 matic in its action. We should do right without thinking 
 about it. A mean, lying, untnithful, unjust, unkind, or 
 cruel thing should be an impossibility to us ; and it is only 
 
146 MORALITY. 
 
 constantly repeated action of the highest feelings, where 
 they are not naturally strong, that will induce this state. 
 
 Of course this kind of training is based on the supposi- 
 tion that there are certain general rules that experience has 
 tested and shown to be right, and which we have admitted 
 to be right, and from which, therefore, there should be no 
 appeal. It will not do to be constantly calculating con- 
 sequences in individual acts, or in what may be considered 
 particular circumstances ; for the heart is a very special 
 pleader, and character, much more than is supposed, deter- 
 mines opinion. We must make up our minds on the best 
 calculation that we individually are able to make, joined to 
 the experience of all the great and good, and then the per- 
 formance of duty, i.e., doing on all occasions what we have 
 thus previously determined to be right, regardless of present 
 consequences, will be found to be the most direct and safest 
 road to happiness. 
 
 There are many commandments or general rules about 
 which there is no doubt, but there are many questions — the 
 relations between man and wife, the relations between 
 capital and labour, for instance — yet to be settled. " Thou 
 shalt not steal." True; but is taking from, the labourer an 
 unfair share of that which capital and labour have jointly 
 produced, because competition enables us to do it, stealing ? 
 Because, if it is, most of the large fortunes now in the world 
 have been thus acquired. Is it right to lie that good may 
 come, as the Jesuits do ? No ; because in the long run no 
 good ever can come from it. If the principle were admitted, 
 the trust and reliance on each other upon which society is 
 founded could no longer exist ; and this is infinitely more 
 valuable than any good that could come from deceiving in 
 special cases. 
 
 " To do to others as we woiild they should do to us," is 
 far too general a rule for special guidance, and can only be 
 acted upon in its broadest spirit. This moral axiom is based 
 
MORAL MAXIMS. 147 
 
 on the supposition that all characters, and therefore all 
 wants, are alike ; whereas, all characters dififei", as much as 
 a pig from an angel, and what would suit a pig to have done 
 to it would not at all suit the higher nature. No doubt an 
 alderman', when he is inviting a large company to dinner, is 
 doing as he would others should do to him. " We are to do 
 as we would be done by" — as the young gentleman said 
 when he kissed the pretty girl — does not point to much self- 
 sacrifice, and is certainly not indicative of the highest order 
 of morality ; and yet such an application of the rule is in 
 the spirit of at least half the practice that would be brought 
 under this law. A moral system in the present day requires 
 something much more definite. Our own wants are a most 
 imperfect standard of what would produce the largest amount . 
 of enjoyment to others. 
 
 The doctrine of non-resistance is opposed to the whole of 
 nature's teaching. Nature resists and makes us sufi'er 
 whenever we do wrong, with the direct object of teaching us 
 we are doing wrong, and of making us do better in future. 
 " To return good for evil," " to heap coals of fire on our 
 enemies' heads by kindness," is again a question of character, 
 and is very well when. applied to the higher natures, but it 
 is only a premium for ill-doing in the lower. Kindness and 
 reason to an unjust but generous enemy make him repent 
 at once. A man insults you, the object is to prevent any 
 repetition of the act, not to revenge the past. Kindness and 
 reason are the most direct way to this where you have to 
 deal with a good man, but they would be thrown away upon 
 a bad one, and the only way to prevent a repetition, pro- 
 bably, of the insult, would be to knock the latter down. If 
 so, knock him down ; he will abstain another time from fear, 
 when he would not from any more generous motive. Love 
 and kindness would not prevent aggression in a tiger, and 
 there are many men with tiger natures. 
 
 We have seen that the afeject of pain or suffering is 
 
148 MORALITY. 
 
 reformation — to teach when we have done wrong that we 
 must amend it. To relieve the suffering, without securing 
 the amendment, is not always " going about doing good." 
 The entire character and practice of our eleemosynary charity 
 require modification in accordance with this law. Most of our 
 charitable institutions are at present only premiums for im- 
 providence ; they make a man's well-being depend upon any- 
 thing but his own efforts, guided by intelligence and cha- 
 racter ; they attack at the base — ^they cut up by the root — 
 self-reliance, self-dependence, and self-respect, upon which 
 all good character, all tendency to rise, is founded among 
 the poorest classes. If a man once takes to charity-hunting 
 — if, indeed, he is taught to depend upon anything but his 
 own efforts, it is moral death to him and physical misery. 
 In the cities where these eleemosynary charities abound, 
 their pauperising and demoralising influence is incalculable. 
 • For three who trust to such charity only one succeeds ; the 
 effect on all is bad, but to the unsuccessful it Is most disas- 
 trous. Their own ' efforts would have given them what they 
 wanted in half the time they have spent in begging ; but the 
 greatest loss is in character. Only those charities, then, 
 that help the poor to help themselves are really doing good. 
 Lecky tells us that " Magnanimity, self-reliance, dignity, 
 independence, and, in a word, elevation of character, consti- 
 tute the Koman idea of perfection; " while humility, obedience, 
 gentleness, patience, resignation, are Christian Virtues. 
 " The duty," said St. Jerome, " of a Monk, is not to teach, 
 but to weep." " The business of the Hermit was to save his 
 own soul." " The serenity of his devotion. would be impaired 
 by the discharge of the simplest duties to his family." * "A 
 law of Charlemagne, and also a law of the Saxons, con- 
 demned to death any one who ate meat in Lent, unless the 
 Priest was satisfied that it was a matter of absolute necessity " 
 (p. 257). Among the Poles the teeth of the offending per- 
 » "European Morals," vol. 2, pp. 72, 186, 134, 143. 
 
MORAL BCIEKCE A SYSTEM OP DYNAMICS. 149 
 
 Bon were pulled out. When martyrdom was the reward of 
 Christianity, in its early stages, none but the higher minds 
 joined it; but when it became a State Religion it was joined 
 by the world, the flesh, and the devil, and was lowered in its 
 tone proportionally ; 'SO that, as Mr. Lecky-tells us, the 1,000 
 years after Constantine were the most contemptible in his- 
 tory. There has been no other enduring civilisation so abso- 
 lutely destitute of all the forms and elements of greatness, 
 and none to which the epithet mean may be so emphatically 
 applied (pp. 14, 72). To religious ignorance and bigotry, to 
 "the doctrine that correct theological opinions are essential 
 to salvation, and that theological error necessarily involves 
 guilt," may be traced almost all the obstructions they have 
 thrown in the way of human progress — adding immeasurably 
 to the difficulties which every searcher after truth has to en- 
 counter, and diffusing far and wide intellectual timidity, 
 disingenuousness, and hypocrisy (pp. 377, 420). So that 
 " not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries 
 to the universities, not till Mahommedan science, and clas- 
 sical free-thought, and industrial independence broke the 
 sceptre of the church, did the intellectual revival of Europe 
 begin" (p. 219). 
 
 We are glad to find Mr. Lecky leaning so decidedly to 
 our views. He says: " In the eyes both of the philanthropist 
 and the philosopher, the greatest of all results to be expected 
 in this, or, perhaps, any other field, are, I conceive, to be 
 looked for in the study of the relations between our physical 
 and our moral natures." This relation alone goes to the 
 root of the matter, and the strongest force is always con- 
 nected with the largest organs or combination of organs. 
 Moral Science is a pure system of dynamics — the action of 
 the Will always representing the strongest force. The Ro- 
 mans were nothing but a nation of robbers, the strongest of 
 their time : their strength depending upon the perfection of 
 
150 MOBALITY. 
 
 their training and organisation. Patriotism was a necessary 
 part of this organisation, making the good of one dependent 
 on the good of all ; and patriotism was their strongest vir- 
 tue, and the foundation of all their others. They made war 
 upon weaker nations, killed the men or made slaves of them, 
 stole all their goods, and carried them with the women and 
 children in triumph to Eome, till Eome hecame so rich from 
 these spoils that luxury ultimately destroyed the nation 
 itself. For ages among the Eomans • Combativeness and 
 Bestructiveness were the feelings in predominant activity — 
 to fight and to destroy were their business, their daily occu- 
 pation, so that at last, as we have before said, the main 
 amusement of all classes were the gladiatorial shows, the 
 spe%tacle of bloodshed, of death and torture. The heads of 
 noble Eomans all show predominating Bestructiveness, with 
 small Benevolence. 
 
 It is the same with our criminal classes. They are merely 
 powerful or cunning animals, and with greatly predominating 
 propensities nothing better ought to be expected of them, 
 and they ought to be treated as such. At large, they are as 
 certain to prey upon society as a tiger. " The relation 
 between our physical and our moral nature" has long been 
 evident enough to the Cerebral Physiologist. He has long 
 known, beyond all doubt, that in proportion as the animal, 
 moral, or intellectual region of the brain-predominates, does 
 the man or mere animal predominate in the character. If 
 the intellect and moral region prevail, we have a moral man 
 according to his lights. If the three regions are equally 
 developed, the man will depend upon education and the cir- 
 cumstances in which he is placed ^ with the animal region 
 decidedly in excess, we have a brutal animal ; with the animal 
 region and intellect predominating, a clever rogue. These 
 various degrees of brain development are evident at once to 
 the practised Phrenologist ; and in 1836 Sir G. S. Mackenzie 
 petitioned Lord Grlenelg, then Secretary to the Colonies, that 
 
CLASSIFICATION OP CONVICTS. 151 
 
 our knowledge on the subject might be used in the classifica- 
 tion of criminals ; of course, however, without effect.* In 
 the state of public opinion, then as at present, the peti- 
 tion could not be granted. The conclusion we have arrived 
 at 34 years later is no further advanced than that some 
 kind of Intellectual test should be applied in the choice 
 of applicants for the Civil Service, apparently however in 
 ignorance of the fact that such an examination furnishes no 
 test of character whatever. It gives a very imperfect indica- 
 tion of the quality of the instrument, but none whatever as 
 
 * " At present," he said, " our criminals are shipped cS, and distri- 
 buted to the settlers, without the least regard to their character or 
 histoiy." * * " There ought to be an officer qualified to in- 
 vestigate the history of convicts, and select them on phrenological 
 principles. That such principles are the only secure grounds on 
 which the treatment of convicts can be f ovmded, proof may be de- 
 manded, and it is ready for produption," etc. In a separate lettfei, 
 Sir George said, " men of philosophical understanding and habits of 
 investigation have been brought to perceive that a discovery of the 
 true mental constitution of man has been made, and. that it furnishes 
 us with an all-powerful means to improve our race. * * Differences 
 in talent, intelligence, and moral Character, are now ascertained to 
 to be the efEects of difEerenoes in orgarusation. * * The diffierenoes 
 of organisation are, as the certificates which accompany this show, 
 sufficient to indicate externally general dispositions, as they are pro- 
 portioned among one another. Hence, we have the means of esti- 
 mating, with something like precision, the actual natural characters 
 of convicts (as of all human beings), so that we may at once deter- 
 mine the means best adapted for their reformation ; or discover their 
 incapacily of improvement, and their being proper subjects; of con- 
 tinual restraint, in order to prevent their further injuring society, * * 
 And if, as thousands of the most talented men in Europe and America 
 confidently anticipate, experience shall convince yon, your Loldship 
 win at once perceive a source from which prosperity and happiness 
 will flow in abundance over all our possessions. In the hands c£ 
 enlightened governors, phrenology will be an engine of unlimited 
 improving power in perfecting human iiistitutions, and bringing 
 about universal good order, peace, prosperity, and happiness." 
 
152 UORALITY. 
 
 to how it may be used. Such an examination is as likely to 
 furnish a clever rogue as an honest, persevering, good man. 
 Of course it is better than none, as it keeps the fools out, if 
 it lets the knaves in. 
 
 ■ When these views are appreciated they will lead to 
 the introduction of the same reforms into our Prisons that 
 have, with much labour, been introduced into our Luna- 
 tic Asylums, and upon precisely the same principle — 
 namely, that the criminal is not responsible, and must, 
 be reformed with as little suffering as possible ; and where 
 reform, as in very many cases, is impossible, he must be 
 sorted and caged as other wild animals are at the Zoological 
 Gardens. " It is society prepares crime, and the guilty are 
 only the instruments by which it is executed." * Although 
 Cerebral Physiology has almost stood still for the last 30 
 years, yet here and there we are not without evidence 
 of a glimmering of light on this subject among physiolo- 
 gists. Thus Dr. Robert Bird says : " Men are great or 
 little, good or bad, not by the influence of their schools and 
 colleges, but in spite of them. Then is education of no avail 
 at all, and are we to give it up ? No, but let us give it its 
 proper place and just weight in the general estimate. It is 
 the oil to the wheels, and the varnish to the surface, but not 
 the substance. It seems to me that we shall make little pro- 
 gress in the improvement of our race till we give our moral 
 and mental philosophy a physiological foundation, instead of 
 the metaphysical and sandy one upon which it now rests ; till 
 we judge and treat our brains as we now judge and treat our 
 livers. There was a time when insanity was looked on as 
 the work of a devil, and holy men were called on to exorcise 
 him. Now, what should we think of a nation which believed 
 and acted on such a doctrine in these days ? We should pity 
 it, and pronounce it plunged in barbarism and superstition. 
 
 • Qnetelet. 
 
LUNACY AND VICE. 153 
 
 But here we are asked what has vice to do with lunacy 7 
 What have they in common ? My answer is, they are the 
 same ; they differ in degree, but they are the same in kind, 
 and the sooner we admit and act on this, the better for our- 
 selves. The phenomena of vice are as much the consequences 
 of conditions of our tissues as are the phenomena of lunacy."* 
 
 * " Physiological Essays," p. 226. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS.* 
 
 In metaphysics each disputant has his own language, and all 
 controversy ought to begin by mastering each other's dic- 
 tionary. Let us begin, however, at the very beginning, and 
 see if modern science has thrown any light on this subject. 
 
 Hume says : " We may observe that it is universally 
 allowed by philosophers, and is, besides, pretty obvious of 
 itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind 'but 
 its perceptions, or impressions, and ideas, and that external 
 objects become known to us only by those perceptions they 
 occasion. Now, since nothing is ever present to the mind 
 but perception, and since all ideas are derived from something 
 antecedent to the mind, it follows that it is impossible for us 
 so much as to conceive or form an idea of anything specifi- 
 cally different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our 
 ideas out of ourselves as much as possible ; let us chase our 
 imaginations to the heavens, or to the utmost limit of the 
 universe, we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, 
 nor can perceive any kind of existence but those perceptions 
 which have appeared in that narrow compass." 
 
 This, however true, and, as Hume observes, now " univer- 
 sally allowed by philosophers," is not, however, true to common 
 apprehension, which still believes in an external world, ex- 
 actly as it appears, and knows nothing of consciousness, and 
 that the objects of knowledge are in reality not things, but 
 
 * The substance of this Chapter has already appeared in the 
 Anthropologioal Beviem for October, 1869. 
 
DEFINITION OF CONSCIOUSNESS. 155 
 
 ideas. But if, as Hume says, " texternal obj ects become known 
 to us only by those perceptions they occasion", then we ought 
 to be consistent in our inductions and deductions from this 
 fact, and not attempt to raise whole systems on supposed 
 knowledge beyond. We know nothing of Matter and 
 Motion, of Spirit and Force; our own consciousness is all 
 that is known to us, and all else is only more or less probable 
 inference. Every external fact requires to be translated into 
 the language of our thoughts ; into our peculiar, and definite, 
 and very limited " modes of thought." The longest chain 
 of physical causation necessarily has its last link in the mind. 
 The bridge to be built, or the road to be travelled, is not from' 
 physics to metaphysics, but from metaphysics to physics. The 
 ego produces the non-ego. This, as I have said, is not the com- 
 mon apprehension : no doubt the first question is. What is the 
 world without ? The next. What am I ? and thus on reflec- 
 tion we come to consider the medium or instrument by which 
 the world becomes known to us, and which we call the mind, 
 but which in reality is merely our consciousness. We ask, 
 then, what is this consciousness ? Whence comes it, or what 
 is the cause of it ? and lastly. What is the good of it — ^what 
 is the use of it — ^what is the object of it ? Here we have 
 the questions of being or existence, of efficient cause or final 
 cause, all questions of pure metaphysics, all requiring to be 
 answered before physics can be properly pursued ; for as we 
 know of an external world only through the medium of our 
 consciousness, how do we know that consciousness tells us 
 truly, or to what extent its indications may be trusted ? 
 
 We ask first, then, what is consciousness ? It is a succes-' 
 sion of varied feelings and ideas, and this only ; differing, 
 however, greatly in intensity. We call this variety of sen- 
 tience by the names of sensation, propensity, sentiment, ideas, 
 perception, conception, memory, imagination, and judgment. 
 We speak of ideas and feelings passing through the mind, 
 
156 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 but there is no evidence of their passing through anything. 
 The aggregate of these ideas and feelings is the mind, and 
 there is nothing else. CouBciousness is supposed to be a 
 general term denoting states of mind, but mind has no exist- 
 ence in itself, but consists of these " states", or stream, or 
 succession of thoughts and feelings. Consciousness, and 
 sentience or feeling, in one sense are the same ; but what i» 
 generally meant by the term is self-consciousness, which is 
 the action of one faculty upon another — that is, reflection on 
 consciousness. With Dr. T. Brown and James Mill, to have 
 a feeling, and to be conscious of that feeling, are the same 
 things ; and this may be said to be the case with animals 
 generally, who have feelings, but do not attend to them ; but 
 with J. S. Mill it is one thing to have a feeling, and another 
 to recognise and reflect upon it, and refer it to one's-self, and 
 to the series that make up our sentient existence. Self- 
 consciousness probably requires another intuitional feeling 
 besides reflection to be associated with the train of thought. 
 It then induces us to refer all our states to the " I," or self, 
 and is an element in our belief in personality. 
 
 But what do we know of consciousness 7 Being conscious 
 and knowing are to us the same things. Consciousness in 
 its several states of thought and feeling, of pleasure and 
 pain, is the only real and absolute knowledge we have ; all 
 else is relative. Metaphysics we know ; physics we only 
 know in the relation to metaphysics, and as the facts and 
 laws of physics are translated into ideas, the language of our 
 consciousness. Phenomena and their laws are known to us 
 but as parts of our consciousness. Much is said about obser- 
 vation and facts as opposed to mere thought in apparent 
 forgetfulness of this truth, that every fact must become a 
 thought before we can know it. All that may or may not 
 be without ourselves, whatever properties such existences may 
 possess, or whatever may be their real nature, all we know of 
 
IDEALISM. 157 
 
 tkem, or cau know, is what appears in these thoughts, and 
 although the space is very limited — almost as confined as our 
 five senses — ^yet we cannot possibly go beyond.* 
 , But whence comes this consciousness ? What is the cause 
 of it ? The common answer is, that it is the action of the 
 soul or of the mind ; but we do not find either soul or mind 
 in our consciousness, and that is all of which we have any 
 knowledge ; that is, if there is anything more than the suc- 
 
 * Prof. Huxley says : " It is conceivable that some powerful and 
 malicious being may find his pleasure in deluding us, and in making 
 us believe the thing which is not, every moment of our lives. What, 
 then, is certain ? What even, if such a being exists, is beyond the 
 reach of his powers of delusion ? Why, the fact that the thought — the 
 present consciousness, exists. Our thoughts may be delusive, but 
 they cannot be fictitious. As thoughts, they are real and existent, 
 and the cleverest deceiver cannot make them otherwise. Thus thought 
 is existence. More than that, so far as we are concerned, existence 
 is thought, all our conceptions of existence being some kind or other 
 of thought. * • The necessary outcome of Descartes's views is 
 what may be termed Idealism ; namely, the doctrine that, whatever 
 the universe may be, all we can know of it is the picture presented to 
 us by consciousness. This picture may be a true likeness — though 
 how this can be is inconceivable ; or it may have no more resem- 
 blance to its cause than one of Bach's fugues has to the person who 
 is playing it ; or than a piece of poetry has to the mouth and lips of 
 a reciter. It is enough for aU the practical purposes of human exist- 
 ence if we find that our trust in the representations of consciousness 
 is verified by results ; and that, by their help, we are enabled to walk 
 surefootedly in this life. * * But it is also that Idealism which 
 refuses to make any assertions, either positive or negative, as to what 
 lies beyond consciousness. It accuses the subtle Berkeley of stepping 
 beyond the limits of knowledge when he declared that a substance of 
 matter does not exist ; and of illogicality, for not seeing that the 
 arguments which he supposed demolished the existence of matter were 
 equally destructive to the existence of soul. And it equally refuses 
 to listen to the jargon of more recent days about the Absolute, and all 
 the other hypostatized adjectives, the initial letters of the names of 
 which are generally printed in capital letters j just as you give a 
 Grenadier a bearskin cap, to make him look more formidable than he 
 is by nature," 
 
158 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 cession of our consciousness, either soul, or mind, or spirit, 
 consciousness does not recognise,^and, indeed, has no know- 
 ledge of it. We find, however, a body, and that body has a 
 brain, and pressure on that brain puts a stop to consciousness 
 at once, and on further inquiry we find that whatever affects 
 the brain affects our consciousness, and consequently tre are 
 obliged to come to the conclusion that there is a direct and 
 immediate connection between them'. Upon this philosophers 
 are pretty well agreed, but as regards the nature of.^ the con- 
 nection there is at present very little agreement, if, indeed, 
 there is any definite opinion at all. " If there is one thing 
 clear about the progress ■ of modern science," says Prof. 
 Huxley, " it is the tendency to reduce all scientific problems, 
 except those that are purely mathematical, to problems of 
 molecular physics — ^that is to say, to the attractions, repul- 
 sions, motions, and co-ordination of the ultimate particles of 
 matter. Social phenomena are the results of the interaction 
 of the components of society, or men, with one another and 
 the surrounding universe. But, in the language of physical 
 science, which, by the nature of the case is materialistic, the 
 actions of men, so far as they are recognisable by science, 
 are the results of molecular changes in the matter of which 
 they are composad ; and, in the long run, these must come 
 into the hands of the physicist."* Dr. Henry Maudsley 
 tells us ^hat " With every display of mental activity there is 
 a correlative change or waste of nervous element ; and 
 on the condition of the material substratum must depend 
 the degree and character of the manifested energy, or the 
 mental phenomena."! -^^^ ^° ^^^o Professor TyndaU: 
 " I can hardly imagine that any profound scientific thinker, 
 who has reflected upon the subject, exists who would not 
 admit the extreme probability of the hypothesis, that for 
 
 * "The Scientific Aspects of 'Positi.-nBm."—Mrtnightly Beiiiem, 
 June, 1869. 
 
 t " The Physiology and Psychology of Mind," p. 13. 
 
FUNCTION OP NERVOUS CENTRES. 159 
 
 every act of consciousness, whether in the domain of sense, 
 of thought, or of emotion, a certain definite molecular con- 
 dition is set up in the brain ; that this relation of physics to 
 consciousness is invariable, so that, given the state of the 
 brain, the corresponding thought or feeling might be inferred ; 
 or given the thought or feeling, the corresponding state of 
 the brain might be inferred." * From this acknowledged fact 
 the erroneous conclusion is often drawn that thought is a phe- 
 nomenon, or mode of action, of the brain ; but although con- 
 sciousness is connected. with molecular motion in the brain, 
 that motion does not constitute it ; it is something sepa- 
 rate and distinct, and may be exhibited apart from that 
 motion. As Professor Tyndall says, " molecular forces deter- 
 mine the/on?i only which the solar energy will assume ; " and 
 Dr. 'Bird also, " This, is the chief function of all nervous 
 centres, that they should in some way change the modes of 
 motion communicated to them from without. And having 
 conceived this, we begin to understand how the motion of 
 the nerves of special sense are transmuted in the brain-tissues 
 into those nervous conditions known as pain and pleasure, 
 hope and joy, anger and love, memory, reasoning, and the 
 play of fancy, &c." f When we say that thought is a func- 
 tion of the brain, we do not mean that it is the motion of the 
 brain, but the power of the brain. Motion is nothing in 
 itself, that is no entity ; it is merely the transference of sub- 
 stance or entity from one point in space to another ; it is the 
 cause of this, or agent, which concerns us, and this we call 
 Force. 
 
 To say that motion is a condition of matter, and that one 
 body conditions, or sets in motion, another, is no explanation, 
 for it still leaves unexplained how does it condition it ? Let 
 us take a simple illustration. A grindstone is set in motion, 
 and we are told that the movement is something distinct from 
 
 * " Opening Address at Norwich," 1868. 
 t "Physiological Essays," p. 142. 
 
160 PHYSICS AND MKTAPHYSICS, 
 
 the grindstone, and that there is nothing more real than 
 ".movement." Beal, — ^but no-thing, i.e., no entity ; but ho^ 
 can a thing be real which is no-thing, i.e., nothing? A 
 moving grindstone is simply a grindstone moving, as distin- 
 guished from a grindstone at rest ; it is the same grindstone 
 in another or altered condition. Motion is mere change of 
 place, and adds nothing, and takes nothing away from a body ; 
 but the cause of the motion does. When the grindstone was 
 set in motion, something was added to it which is indestruc- 
 tible, and the motion is simply the indication of its presence. 
 It is no part of the grindstone, and may be passed on, the 
 grindstone simply determining the mode la which it is passed 
 on. This something we call force. But whence was it de- 
 rived? If the stone was set in motion by the hand, the force 
 came from the food, and the force of the food from the sun ; 
 if by steam, from the coal, which again came from the sun ; 
 if from falling water, again from the sun, which lifted the 
 water. This force is a measureable quantity ; . it is measured 
 by its ability, or by what it can do. It is the same with the 
 function, or power, or force of the brain. It is derived from 
 the food, and after passing through various modifications 
 which intensify it, it enters the brain, producing what is 
 called molecular motion, and passing on as consciousness, as 
 special thought and feeling, and each thought and feeling 
 using up or expending an amount of force in proportion to 
 its intensity. This thought or feeling is not a power of the 
 brain, the force only passes through ; the brain conditions it, 
 or turns it into thought or feeling. Thus Herbert Spencer 
 observes, " That no idea or feeling arises, save as a result 
 of some physical force expended in producing it, is fast 
 becoming a common-place of science ; and whoever truly 
 weighs the evidence will see that nothing but an overwhelming 
 bias in favour of a preconceived theory can explain its non- 
 acceptance ; " and Dr. Henry Maudsley says, " Mind is the 
 highest development of force, and to its existence all the 
 
MIND CONSCIOUS AND AUTOMATIC. 161 
 
 lower natural forces are indispensably prerequisite.* Dr. 
 Tyndall, however, says : " The passage from the physics of 
 the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness, is un- 
 thinkable." Why so ? Of course that that which we believe 
 to be the unconscious force of the brain can never think how 
 it is it begins to think, is true enough ; but in reality we 
 have no such passage to naake. Consciousness is all we 
 know, or can know, and we cannot know, therefore, of any- 
 thing differing from it ; and we may reasonably object, 
 therefore, to any argument based upon any supposed differ- 
 ence between mental and physical force, and to such terms as 
 " physical " forces, and lower " natural forces ", when they 
 are made to imply a difference in essence, of which we can 
 know nothing.f 
 
 Dr. Biichner says, " It is by the brain that we ascend from 
 matter to mind." Now, the force that becomes conscious in 
 the brain is not matter, but what is usually called spirit : 
 matter does nothing but condition or transform force from 
 unconscious to conscious. The proper way of expressing it 
 would therefore be, it is by the brain that we ascend from 
 automatic or unconscious mind to conscious. Surely this is 
 thinkable, as conscious action is so frequently passing into 
 unconscious. There is no instance in which we can be said 
 to ascend from matter to mind. There is the transmitted 
 vital spark, and the forces that bring it into activity. Dr. 
 Tyndall truly says, " Given the state of the brain, the cor- 
 
 » " The Physiology and Pathology of the Mind," p. 67. 
 
 t Hume says : " We have no perfect idea of anything, but a percep- 
 tion. A substance is entirely different from a perception. We have 
 therefore, no idea of a substance. Inhesion in something is supposed 
 to be requisite to support the existence of our perceptions. Nothing 
 appears requisite to support the existence of our perceptions. We 
 have, therefore, no idea of inhesion. What possibility, then, of an- 
 swering the question, WTiether perceptions i/nJiere m a material or 
 immaterial substance, when we do not so much as understand the 
 question ?" — "A Treatise of Human Nature," vol. i, p. 311. 
 M 
 
162 PHYSICS AND MBTAPHYSICS. 
 
 responding thought or feeling may be inferred," and vice 
 versd. It is found that our varied consciousness of thought 
 and feeling is connected with different parts of the brain, 
 with intensity proportioned to the size and structure of the 
 part, and to the extra force thereby employed. Let us take 
 a less simple illustration of our meaning than the one I have 
 given of the grindstone. Let us take a kaleidoscope. With 
 each turn we get a new form. Now, what is the result ? Let 
 us never forget that force is indestructible ; now, what force 
 is there, and what has become of it ? The force required for 
 the turning of the instrument has probably passed into sur- 
 rounding objects ; "the form" taken by the glass in the in- 
 strument — ^the phenomenon, the appearance — the result of 
 the action, passes away never to return, but the force that 
 produced the form, the momentum underlying the pheno- 
 menon, is still in existence. Where ? Certain waves of 
 ether, or force, strike upon the glass, and producing a reac- 
 tion of 477 millions of millions of waves upon the retina in 
 a second, set the brain in motion, and produce the sensation 
 which we call red ; other parts of the glass produce 577 mil- 
 lions of millions in a second, producing the sensation of green, 
 and 699 millions of millions produce violet, &c. Colour, 
 then, is a sensation or idea; in the object it is a reactionary 
 force, which passing through millions of millions of waves ; 
 its mode of action is changed by a nervous centre, and it 
 becomes a sensation of red, green, or violet. But what then 
 becomes of it ? It is still a force, and a force that can pro- 
 duce 699 millions of millions of wave motions in a second 
 must be a very strong one. This force, then, first sets other 
 portions of the brain in motion, which give us ideas of form, 
 size, position, &c, for we cannot think of colour apart from 
 extension and figure, or of more than one figure without the 
 idea of relative position, and it is from this mental state we 
 derive our idea of space ; and in this way a few simple forces 
 received through our five senses from without, by the aid of 
 
COLOUR A SENSATION. 163 
 
 the cunning machinery of the brain, are created into a irhole 
 world which we rather foolishly believe to have a real exist- 
 ence independently of the sensations, ideas, and feelings of 
 which it is composed. This sensation of colour, as we per- 
 ceive, is within us, and not attached to the object, as most 
 people believe ; it is correlated or transformed force, reflected 
 from, and modified by the something without or object ; some 
 objects in which we can perceive no more difference than we 
 perceive in different bits of glass producing some millions of 
 millions of vibrations more than others. As we started by 
 affirming, the sensation, as part of our consciousness, is all 
 we know, and, as Hume says, " we can never really ad- 
 vance a step beyond," for what possible resemblance can 
 a sensation of colour have to the motion of the brain, or 
 to the waves of ether, or to the reflected force from the ob- 
 ject that caused those waves, and which is the only relation 
 between the object and the sensation ? It is impossible, 
 then, that in any sense we can know things themselves, for 
 we never come near them ; there is always a long chain of 
 antecedent and consequent between them and the conscious- 
 ness they cause ; the action of the brain, 'the action of the 
 sense, the action of the atmosphere or the ether upon that, 
 and the action of the object upon them ; and how, therefore, 
 the object, affects the atmosphere or ether, and through them 
 us, is all we know, or can know : i.e., all the knowledge we can 
 attain of things without our consciousness, of the non-ego, is 
 simply how they affect, not ourselves even, but other things a 
 long way off. Of course there is a world without us, but the 
 world in which we believe is created by a correlation of forces 
 in the brain, which forces are received in different quantities, 
 and are variously modified before they reach the brain ; and 
 the study of these quantities and modifications, which we call 
 phenomena and their laws, and which are known to us only 
 as they are further changed and form part of our conscious- 
 ness, is science. Mind, then, is correlated force : a few simple 
 
1 64 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 impressions are received through the senses, which are worked 
 up by the complicated machinery of the brain into what we 
 intuitively believe to be the world without us. A real world 
 without consciousness would be the same as no world at all ; 
 and the world existing only in our consciousness is quite as 
 good as if it had objective reality, and requires quite as much 
 wisdom and power in its creation. 
 
 But what is Force ? It is time we answered that question. 
 Force is everything. ' It is known to us only as the ability 
 or power to produce certain changes ; but by force I mean 
 the entity to which this ability or power belongs, from which 
 it is no more separable than motion from the thing moving. 
 It is not motion, but the cause of motion. It is not the 
 action, but the agent. Deceived by appearance, we erroneously 
 suppose force to result from the action of matter, whereas the 
 action of matter in all cases is the result of force. We think 
 the power is in the motion,, but motion is merely the sign of 
 the presence of the force. In the instance we have given, the 
 grindstone, its working force seems to be in the motion, but 
 the free force has been transmitted to the grindstone, and as 
 soon as that has been used up — that is, has passed on — its 
 grinding power and motion cease. To say in this case the 
 force results from the action of matter, is a delusion of the 
 senses — a vulgar error. It is altogether illogical ; it is con- 
 founding the entity with its mode of action — ^the cause with 
 the effect, the phenomenon with the noumenon, the motion 
 with the thing moving. It is equally an error to confound 
 the action or molecular motion of the braiu with thought. 
 The brain, like the grindstone, simply passes the force, or 
 mental power, on, in the peculiar condition known to us as 
 consciousness ; the force is not the creation or the result of 
 the action of the brain ; it existed before it entered the 
 brain, and it exists afterwards. We are told that " to sup- 
 pose mental phenomena to be anything but phenomena is 
 nonsense;" the nonsense must be in the supposition that 
 
FORCE IS EVKUYTHING. 165 
 
 phenomena are separable from noumena, or motion from the 
 thing moving. We are told that " force viewed separately 
 from matter is nothing :" this is merely a repetition of the 
 same error, and is only true in one sense, viz., that force 
 cannot be viewed separately from itself, for matter is force. 
 " The phenomenon called matter arises from two forces, 
 the one acting towards, and the other from a point or 
 centre."* The existence of matter is based upon its sup- 
 posed extension and solidity, but extension is an idea insepa- 
 rable, as we have seen, from the sensation of colour, and 
 solidity is in the same way based upon the sense of feeling, 
 and that is mere repulsion — resistance to motion. J. S. Mill 
 says, " when the question arises whether something that 
 affects our senses in a peculiar way is, or is not matter, what 
 seems always to be meant is, does it offer any, however 
 trifling, resistance to motion?" In fact, solidity is a mere 
 mental hypothesis invented in order to explain resistance, 
 which is force. " We never touch matter even if it exist, and 
 that we never see it is admitted alike by physiologist and 
 metaphysician, for vision is merely a mental affection, called 
 up by an impulse on the optic nerve, made by the movement 
 of the luminous ether, which not the chair or table, but the 
 force existing and acting external to the chair or table, or 
 other object, radiates o£f."f Huxley says, " every form is 
 force visible ; a form of rest is a balance of forces ; a form . 
 undergoing change is the predominance of one over others." 
 Science now reduces all things to " the attractions, repul- 
 sions, motions, and co-ordination of the ultimate particles of 
 matter;" but these ultimate particles of matter — molecules 
 and atoms, are the unknown quantities, the x, y, of certain 
 forces, or centres of force — they are creatures of the imagi- 
 nation, and as pure assumptions as the spirits of the spi- 
 
 * " The Philosophy of Theism," p. 73. 
 
 f " On the World as a Dynamical and Immaterial World," bj- 
 E. S. Wyld. 
 
166 PHYSrCg AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 ritualists. If force viewed separately from what we call 
 matter is nothing, what is it fills the interstices between 
 these Supposed atoms ? Sir Isaac Newton supposed that all 
 these atoms in our globe, if they could be brought together, 
 would not occupy the space of a square inch ; what, then, is 
 the rest ? in fact, what is compressibility ? What draws the 
 needle to the magnet ? What fills the space between star 
 and star, and draws each to the other 1 What draws the 
 waters of the ocean to the moon ? Is it the moon, at 240,000 
 miles away, or something that really exists between and 
 unites the two ? It is true that force may not be evident to 
 our senses, except through its connection with what we call 
 matter ; but we mean by force the principle of action, the 
 unseen cause of all change or motion, and as everything is in 
 motion, so force is the universal interpenetrating medium 
 throughout the universe. The forces at present known to 
 us we call heat, light, electricity, galvanism, chemical affinity, 
 attraction, and repulsion, — ^these, in their modes of action 
 and manifestations, produce half the phenomena around us ; 
 the forces of life and mind produce the other half. These 
 forces are indestructible and persistent, and as they pass 
 readily into each other, we reasonably infer that they are in 
 reality only one and the same force. Force is divided into 
 active and passive. The active has been called spirit, the 
 passive matter. The latter never originates, or is the cause 
 of motion, but it determines the mode of motion — it " con- 
 ditions " the active force, that is, regulates the manner 
 in which it is manifested. This correlation, or transmu- 
 tation, or change of force, takes place by the effect upon 
 it of the medium through which it passes. The medium 
 we call matter, and it is the " forrci " or visible force, or form 
 of rest, or balance of forces before mentioned. Force is 
 supposed to be produced by this matter or medium, but the 
 "persistence of force" shows that this is an error; it is 
 changed or conditioned only by the solidified or concentrated 
 
LAW ONLY ORDER, NOT POWER. 16? 
 
 medium through which it passes. Force, and cause, and the 
 ability to produce a change, are the same thing : but a cause 
 implies two things — power or ability, and direction or deter- 
 mination ; for every change or beginning has a purpose, a 
 direction towards a definite object, and the force then includes 
 both power and intelligence. This is not necessarily conscious 
 intelligence. It may very reasonably be asked, what is 
 unconscious intelligence? In automatic action, which is 
 voluntaiy conscious action often repeated, we have the 
 power, and all the effects of intelligence, where consciousness 
 has ceased to attend it. We know nothing of mind in its 
 essence, and can judge only by analogy as to its mode of 
 action ; and if, therefore, we may judge of universal mind 
 by the small glimmer that appears in our own consciousness, 
 we find conscious action constantly passing by repetition 
 into unconscious ; what at first requires a separate and dis- 
 tinct volition, goes on now without. Secondary Cause, or 
 Natural Law, is thus simply automatic action of Universal 
 Mind. That which originally required a distinct conscious 
 volition, has passed, in the ages, into the fixed order of nature. 
 We have thus intelligent action without consciousness or 
 volition. * 
 
 * There is a class of philosophers who think that when they say a 
 thing takes place " According to Law " they have explained the whole 
 matter. Kow " according to Law " means only the definite and un- 
 varying order in which phenomena occur. The " Laws of Nature '' 
 are not the powers of Nature. Nothing is accomplished by them ; 
 they merely indicate the regulated way in which Nature works. Law 
 tells us nothing of either cause — except as immediate antecedent —or 
 direction, or purpose. Yet a whole school is content to stop there, 
 and pronounce any further knowledge not only useless, but unattain- 
 able. Cause in Science is this order — this series merely of antecedent 
 and consequent ; but Cause in Metaphysics is the origin of this series 
 or order, To say we know only phenomena is not correct. Conscious- 
 ness is all we really know. We infer that consciousness is the result 
 of molecular motion in the brain, but we also justly infer that there 
 cannot be motion without something moved ; and if that is a just 
 
168 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 There is no bridge, then, from physics to metaphysics, — 
 there is no road that way ; the only road is from metaphysics 
 to physics ; for all force is mental force, such " will-power " 
 as we are conscious of exercising in our small indiriduality. 
 Universal Mind passes into unconscious action in general law, 
 and again becomes conscious in the brain of percipient beings, 
 in brains so modified that each sentient existence has its own 
 special world, created by the correlation of the same external 
 force in its own brain and nervous system. " The old specu- 
 
 jnference we may with the same truth infer that there must be force, 
 power or ability causing motion, and that as motion is inseparable 
 from the thing moved, so is force equally inseparable from that of 
 which it is the force. To say that we know only phenomena, is to 
 infer the existence of motion without anything moving ; to affirm the 
 existence of force only as the cause of motion, is to separate the force 
 from that of which it is the force, and it is as impossible to do that 
 as to separate motion from the something moved. What feels — what 
 is conscious 1 Not the brain, or the motion of the brain, but that 
 which is passing through the brain which we call force, and which is 
 the force of some entity unknown, and which must probably for ever 
 remain unknown. But if we know nothing of its essence, we know 
 something of its attributes. Now if we may go beyond Conscious- 
 ness at all, and infer Motion, and say therefore we Imom phenomena, 
 it seems to me to be equally reasonable to infer the cause of motion, 
 and also to infer that origmaUy there was a reason (beyond the line 
 of least resistance) why it took place in one direction rather than 
 another — that is, that there was purpose or aim or object in it. If 
 there is no design or purpose in creation, then is there no guarantee 
 for the stability of present Law and Order ; if all has come to pass 
 by chance, without what are called the "inherent" qualites of mat- 
 ter having received a difinite direction, then one more turn of the 
 screw, one more change in the ceaseless motion, might take us back 
 to Chaos. If there is purpose, there must be mind and intelligence, 
 and probably power to enforce that purpose : and so in fact, wherever 
 we find Force it is Force acting towards a special or definite purpose ; 
 it is therefore acting intelligently, and is mind automatic or con- 
 scious. In the universe aU is motion or phenomenal, which motion 
 is not chaotic, but acts in accordance with unvarying laws, which 
 laws are everywhere combined to produce particular objects or results. 
 
GOD S POWER AND ESSENCE THE SAME. 169 
 
 lations of philosophy, which cut the ground from materialism 
 by showing how little we know of matter, are now being daily 
 reinforced by the subtle analysis of the physiologist, the 
 chemist, and the electrician. Under that analysis, matter 
 dissolves and disappears, surviving only as the phenomena of 
 force ; which again is seen converging along all its lines to 
 some common centre, sloping through darkness up to God."* 
 Berkeley denied the existence of an external world, and 
 declared that our perceptions were mere ideas evoked in the 
 mind by Deity ; and we find that each brain creates iits own 
 world by the correlation of force from without, and as its 
 conciousness is modified by its own structure. But force or 
 power without cannot be separated from that of which it is 
 the force or power, — that is, of Deity. Dr. Thomas Brown 
 holds that the entity that has this ability is this ability ; and 
 Spinoza says, " God's power is the same as his essence " ; 
 and thus all manifestations are manifestations of the one 
 Supreme Power, and all change " the varied God." Berkeley, 
 in denying the existence of an external world, did not deny 
 that there was nothing external ; he admitted God's power, 
 or mind, both conscious and automatic. 
 
 " Add intelligence to Force, and you arrive at conscious Force. What 
 else is this but Will 1 What right have you to deny that wherever you 
 find Force, there also is intelligence 1 " — " Higher Law," vol. 2, p. 164, 
 by the Author of the " Pilgrim and the Shrine." 
 
 We separate the organic from the inorganic, the vegetable from the 
 animal, &o. ; but looking deeper we find all' these individualities grow- 
 ing out of one root and moving towards one common purpose — life 
 and enjoyment. Nature knows nothing of these distinctions made 
 by man. Everywhere and in every part we are connected with the 
 forces around us ; growth and consciousness are the simple play in 
 and out of us of these forces ; if we could be out off from them our 
 individuality would collapse at once, life and feeling would cease. Our 
 absorption of nature, and identity with the great whole, is perpetual. 
 Our growth and the remotest star are inseparable. One unity under- 
 lies the whole. 
 
 • " The Eeign of Law." By the Duke of Argyll. 
 
170 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 Let US now consider what the bearing of these principles is 
 upon certain physico-metaphysical questions of long standing. 
 " Locke had shown that all our knowledge was dependent 
 upon experience. Berkeley had shown that we had no ex- 
 perience of an external world independent of perception ; nor 
 could we have any such experience. He pronounced matter 
 to be a figment. Hume took up the line where Berkeley had 
 cast it, and flung it once more into the deep sea, endeavouring 
 to fathom the mysteries of being. Probing deeper in the 
 direction Berkeley had taken, he found not only was matter 
 a figment, mind was a figment also. If the occult substra- 
 tum, which men had inferred to explain material phenomena, 
 could be denied, because not founded on experience ; so also, 
 said Hume, must we deny the occult substratum (mind) 
 which men have inferred to explain mental phenomena. * * 
 Matter is but a collection of impressions. Mind is but a 
 succession of impressions and ideas."* This was felt to be 
 unanswerable ; but then it was not to be judged by its truth, 
 but by its supposed consequences. It led to scepticism, 
 whatever that may be, and the efforts of almost all metaphy- 
 sicians since have been directed to the evasion of this truth, 
 Lewes says : " Eemark, also, that Hume's scepticism, though 
 it reduces philosophy to a singular dilemma, viz., that of either 
 refuting his sceptical arguments, or of declaring itself and its 
 pretensions to be vain and baseless, nevertheless affects in no 
 other way the ordinary judgments or actions of mankind." f 
 Now, the only dilemma to which philosophy was reduced was, 
 that it had found a truth that it did not then know how to 
 use ; but if, instead of being frightened, we had allowed it 
 " to affect our ordinary judgments and actions", it would have 
 shown that as we know only consciousness, the assumed differ- 
 ences between spirit and what has been called gross matter are 
 pure assumptions, as are also all the arguments and supersti- 
 tions that have been based upon these groundless assumptions, 
 * Lewes's " Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 481. f Ibid. 
 
FORCE AND MIND IDENTICAL. 171 
 
 and it would have placed mental science on the same firm 
 basis of induction as physical. We now know that " no idea 
 or feeling arises, save as the result of some physical force 
 expended in producing it"; that each idea and feeling is a 
 separate correlation of force, and that the mind is merely, as 
 Hume says, a succession of those ideas and feelings. There 
 is but one entity in the universe, which Spinoza called Sub- 
 stance and physicists call Force. Mind is force, matter is 
 force ; consciousness tells us nothing of their essence, but 
 they are the same in their manifestations and obey the same 
 laws. The strongest force prevails equally in mind as in 
 matter. The will is but the trigger that lets off this force in 
 the direction of the object aimed at. The strength of the 
 mental force is in proportion to the size of the organ through 
 which it passes on its road to consciousness, and whose 
 molecular motion induces that consciousness. 
 
 But mind is not a mode of action or motion — it is an entity 
 itself ; it is so much force, it is indestructible ; it may change 
 its form, but cannot cease to be. Each thought is a separate 
 and indestructible existence. Mind, however, has no ex- 
 istence apart from these thoughts and feelings. It is not 
 mind, then, that is indestructible, but these thoughts and 
 feelings, or rather the force of which they are composed. 
 If they cease to exist as thought and feeling, consciousness 
 has again become automatic, and the force has passed on int» 
 some other form. The aggregate of these 'thoughts and feel- 
 ings form the general or universal mind, and the universal 
 mind is the only Individual Mind. Hume says : " 'Tis still 
 true, that every distinct perception, which enters into the 
 composition of the mind, is a distinct existence, and is dif- 
 ferent, and distinguishable, and separable from every other 
 perception, either contemporary or successive." The question 
 is, what becomes of those " distinct existences " ? Our own 
 ideas of the world — our thoughts and feelings — are supposed 
 to exist only in the percipient, in the " ego," but the force of ; 
 
172 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 •which the ideas are composed existed separately from the 
 " ego,'' and may, indeed must, do so again. That this mental, 
 or voluntary, or will power, is in great part again conyerted 
 into physical force, as heat and muscular motion, there can 
 be no doubt. We have, as Mr. E. S. Wyld says, " a direct 
 experience that the amount of physical power obtained is, 
 cmteris paribus, in constant proportion to the amount of the 
 mental effort which we are conscious of exerting in producing 
 this physical power." * Certain narcotics and stimulants act 
 directly upon the mind, greatly intensifying its action, and 
 these immediately show themselves again in the expression 
 of the eye, and in every muscle of the body. Tobacco sus- 
 pends mental activity ; opium and hashish greatly increase 
 it. The venom of a snake that is sluggish, and only just 
 awake, takes half an hour to prove fatal ; but when excited 
 and made angry its venom kills instantly. Illustrations 
 of the direct connection between mental and physical 
 force are everywhere around us, only little attention has 
 yet been called to them. The torpedo strikes its prey at a 
 distance of some feet. Here is mental force, or voluntary 
 will power, acting at a distance through the medium of the 
 water ; and Prof. Owen tells us that the amseba draws its 
 prey towards it as rubbed amber draws light substances. The 
 mesmerist by voluntary effort can act upon others at great 
 distances, through what medium he does not at present know, 
 or whether any medium is required other than the all-per- 
 vading force around. Still the force that passes into con- 
 sciousness in thfe brain is at present by no means sufficiently 
 accounted for as to what afterwards becomes of it. I know 
 that it is the orthodox opinion among men of science that 
 "thought cannot exist without brain ;" but this proposition, 
 I hold, is by no means proved. Thought is not a motion of 
 the brain, or a mere mode of action at all, for " it is force 
 
 * Paper read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, " On Free, 
 Anatomic, or Transmissible Power," May 3rd, 1869. 
 
SPlRITtjALISM. 173 
 
 which causes the movement, and not the movement which 
 causes the force ;" and it must exist as force after the move- 
 ment of the brain ceases, and why not as mental or conscious 
 force ? And if so, the question is what becomes of it ? This 
 inquiry becomes deeply interesting when at the present time 
 we have many scientific men declaring that they recognise, 
 in so called spiritual manifestations, both power and intelli- 
 gence apart from brain.* A perception or idea is a positive 
 
 * I have seen very little myself of these so-called Spiritual Mani- 
 festations that I consider to be reliable. I have seen a man take my 
 umbrella and get raps attended with extraordinary vibrations from 
 the looking-glass, the door, the table and the floor ; when he tried to 
 get the same through the medium of a small walking stick, he failed 
 till he took another person's hand. As the raps were always three, 
 the number expected, it showed, I think, that the force, whatever it 
 was, was volitional, or under the power of the mind. I have seen 
 a table rise from the ground and settle again like a feather, no one 
 touching it. I have seen people cured of nervous pains and afiections 
 by another's silent will at the distance of a large drawing room. I 
 have also seen all the wonders of electro-biology, in which Dr. H. 
 Maudsley tells us " the mind of the patient is possessed with ideas 
 which the operator suggests, so that his body becomes an automatic 
 machine, set in motion by them." I have seen also the organs of the 
 brain brought one after the other into activity, by mere touch on the 
 surface, under cu-cnmstances in which suggestion or thought reading 
 was impossible. Mr. H. G. Atkinson has employed this method of 
 Phreno-mesmerism to make many important discoveries in the func- 
 tions of the brain which could not be made by Gall's method of 
 comparing function with structure, the structure of the base of the 
 brain and some other parts being but very imperfectly observed from 
 without. This method, like anatomy and pathology, may supplement 
 Gall's, but we must know more of mesmerism before it can be made 
 equally reliable. For the discoveries made by Mr. Atkinson I must 
 refer the reader to Chapter 10 of his work on " Man's Nature and 
 Development." I have seen also, as I have said, thought-reading in 
 which a mesmerised person who could not see, yet described all that 
 was seen by another — ^the mesmeriser. The numbers of three watches, 
 consisting of five figures each, were told consecutively ; and probably 
 precisely the same action was produced at the same time in both brains 
 while thus m^ra/pport. The concentrated force emanating from the 
 
174 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 entity ; and again, I say, what becomes of all those ideas 
 that pass through the brain ? Do they retain consciousness, 
 or merely possess the power to create the same ideas in 
 others ? Are they packed up somewhere in the brain for 
 
 brain, both conscious and unconscious, is sufficient to account for much, 
 if not all, that I have seen. The curative power is probably the trans- 
 mission of nervous force from one person to another, the pains of 
 rheumatism being caused by the deficiency of such force. If two 
 people sleep together, the one most deficient in vital and nervous 
 force always draws from the other. This was clearly understood in 
 King David's time, although the rationale might not be equally clear. 
 I have also seen many other wonders produced by fruit, flower, seeing, 
 and other mediums, and the only way I can account for them is the 
 supposition that the love of deceiving amounts to a mania in some 
 women, the same as kleptomania and other idiosynoracies manifest 
 themselves in others. I should pronounce " Spiritualism " to be a 
 nervous epidemic, based on powers of the mind at present unknown. 
 Dr. Maudsley says : " It is most certain that there may be a reaction 
 outwards of an ideational nerve-cell, independently of volition, and 
 even without consciousness." — ("The Physiology and Pathology of 
 the Mind," p. 126.) We may expect fresh light to be thrown upon 
 this subiect every day, now that attention has been called to this inti- 
 mate connection between Psychical and Physical Nature. 
 
 Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., has called attention to this subject in the 
 QuaHerly Journal of Science, July, 1870. He says : " A man may 
 be a true scientific man, and yet agree with Prof. De Morgan, when 
 he says : ' I have both seen and heard, in a manner which would 
 make unbelief impossible, things called spiritual, which cannot be 
 taken by a rational being to be capable of explanation by imposture, 
 coincidence, or mistake. So far I feel the ground firm under me ; 
 but when it comes to what is the cause of these phenomena, I find I 
 cannot adopt any explanation which has yet been suggested. * * 
 The physical explanations which I have seen are easy, but miserably 
 insufficient. The spiritual hypothesis is sufficient, but ponderously 
 difficult.' Regarding the sufficiency of the explanation, I am not able 
 to speak. That certain physical phenomena, such as the movement 
 oj material substances, and the production of sounds resembUng 
 electric discharges, occur under circumstances in which they cannot 
 be explained by any physical law at present known, is a fact of which 
 I am as certain as I am of the most elementary fact in chemistry. 
 
THB CNIVBRSAL FORCE. 175 
 
 future use ? or. have we souls made of them ? As the body- 
 is made of protoplasms, or infinitely small vital cells, so may 
 our spiritual body be made up of these forces called thoughts 
 and feelings. 
 
 My whole scientific education has been one long lesson in exactness 
 of observation, and I wish it to be distinctly understood that this 
 firm conviction is the result of most careful investigation. But I 
 cannot, at present, hazard even the most vague hypothesis as to the 
 cause of the phenomena. Hitherto I have seen nothing to convince 
 me of the truth of the 'spiritual' theory. I confess that the reason- 
 ing of some Spiritualists would almost seem to justify Faraday's 
 severe statement — that many dogs have the power of coming to much 
 more logical conclusions. Their speculations utterly ignore all theories 
 of force being only a form of molecular motion, and they speak of 
 Force, Matter, and Spirit, as three distinct entities, each capable of 
 existing without the others ; although they sometimes admit that 
 they are mutually convertible." 
 
 Here Mr. Crookes, like other physicists, confounds " a form of 
 motion " with its cause, the sign or symbol with the thing signified, 
 a condition with an entity, and it is only dogs he thinks who would 
 not! I am glad, however, that he has taken the subject in hand. 
 Mesmer, like Gall, was a physician of Tienna, and his inaugural ad- 
 dress was on the Universal Force, and Astral Influences on the 
 Temperament and Destinies of Mankind : he must have believed in 
 something else than mode of motion. The attitude of men of science 
 towards this subject is anything but scientific. They ought to know 
 that the study of the irregularities — and here are irregularities suffi- 
 ciently well attested — Pleads to the knowledge of the true law. It was 
 by the irregularities of the pendulum that the figure of the earth 
 was determined ; and it was by what first seemed to be eamalities 
 that polafised light was discovered ; certain irregularities in the 
 motion of Saturn and Herschel led to the discovery of the planet 
 Neptune by Leverrier and Adams. "By mathematical reasoning 
 and analysis they were enabled ultimately to poi|rit their telescope 
 to that part of the heavens where the disturbing body ought to 
 exist — where it did actually exist, and so to extend the knowledge 
 of our planetary system twice as far into space as before," (Jowmal 
 of Psychological Medicine, New Series, No. 2, April, p. 240) ; and if 
 any physiologist or psychologist can but point his telescope in the right 
 direction of these " spiritual phenomena," it may be of much more 
 
176 PHYSICS AND METAFHYSICS. 
 
 I am told that Mr. C. P. Varley, the electrician, who sees 
 ghosts, thinks that all the thoughts of onr lives make up the 
 body of the spirits. If a single drop of water may contain 
 five hundred millions of animalcules — living creatures, and 
 
 importance than the discovery of the planet Neptune, and may ex- 
 tend our knowledge of mind, and of the conditions of happiness, twice 
 as far as before. 
 
 Since this was written Mr. Crookes, as he promised, has been inves- 
 tigating, and he has given the results to the world in an article in 
 The Quarterly Jownalof Science toiJulj, 1871, of which he is Editor, 
 called " Experimental Investigation of a New Force." He has had 
 sittings with Mr. Home, and by the aid of a " delicately poised bal- 
 ance" he has shown that Mr. Home was able, by merely resting the 
 tips of his fingers on the table, to exercise a greater force than he 
 himself could with his whole body ; and by putting an accordion in 
 a cage constructed for the purpose he has shown that it was played 
 " without direct human intervention, under conditions rendering con- 
 tact or connection with the keys impossible." Dr. Huggins, the 
 astronomer, and Mr. Serjeant Cox were present, and bear separate 
 testimony to the truth, fidelity, and accuracy of the experiments. 
 Serjeant Cox says : " The results appear to me conclusively to'establish 
 the important fact, that there is a force proceeSing from the nerve- 
 system capable of imparting motion and weight to solid bodies within 
 the sphere of its influence. I noticed that the force was exhibited in 
 tremulous pulsations, and not in the form of steady continuous pres- 
 sure, the indicator moving and falling incessantly throughout the 
 experiment. This fact seems to me of great significance, as tending 
 to confii-m the opinion that assigns its source to the nerve organisa- 
 tion, and it goes far to establish Dr. Richardson's important discovery 
 of a nerve atmosphere of various intensity enveloping the human 
 structure. Your experiments completely confirm the conclusion at 
 which the Investigation Committee of the Dialectical Society arrived, 
 after more than forty meetings for trial and test. Allow me to add 
 that I can find no evidence even tending to prove that this force is 
 other than a force proceeding from, or directly dependent upon, the 
 human organisation, and therefore, like all other forces of nature, 
 wholly within the province of that strictly scientific investigation to 
 which you have been the first to subject it. Psychology is a branch 
 of science as yet almost entirely unexplored, and to the neglect of it 
 is probably to be attributed the seemingly strange fact that the exist- 
 
NERVE-FORCE ASD THOUGHT-FORCE. 177 
 
 if these "have organs of locomotion, the mode of which 
 leaves no donbt that they each possess sensation and will, 
 and that consequently they must have organs and tissues 
 accordingly," there must be plenty of room to pack any 
 amount of ideas in the brain. 
 
 Prof. Owen, in the last volume " On the Anatomy of Ver- 
 tebrates," summing up his general conclusions, says : " Life 
 is a sound expressing the sum of living phenomena. * * These 
 phenomena are modes of force. * * Into these modes of force 
 other modes of force have passed from potential to active 
 states." Nerve force and electric force are convertible ; and, 
 asks the Professor, "may there not be conversion of force, 
 magnetic, electric, thermotic, nervous ? Is not thought to the 
 brain what electricity is to the battery ? Nerve force rises 
 from reflex acts to volitional acts : the quiver of the pricked 
 muscle to the desire to write a book. With the size and com- 
 plexity of the brain centres, from Aztecs to Europeans, cor- 
 respond the intellect and will." The Professor, subsequently, 
 writing about what he calls " thought-force," says, " if lines 
 of thought-force were visible, the ghost (of Samuel) would 
 not therefore be more material." May, then, thought-force 
 ever become visible ? It is evident Prof. Owen does not think 
 
 ence of this nerve-force should have so long remained untested, 
 unexamined, and almost unrecognised. Now that it is proved by 
 mechanical tests to be a fact in nature (and if a fact it is impossible 
 to exaggerate its importance to physiology and the light it must 
 throw upon the obscure laws of life, of mind, and the science of medi- 
 cine), it cannot fail to command the immediate and most earnest 
 examination and discussion by physiologists and by all who take an 
 interest in that knowledge of ' man' which has been truly termed 
 ' the noblest study of mankind.' To avoid the appearance of any 
 foregone conclusion, I would recommend the adoption of some appro- 
 priate name, and I venture to suggest that the force be termed the 
 ' psychic force ;' the persons in whom it is manifested in extraordinaiy 
 power ' psychics ;' and the science relating to it ' psychism,' as being 
 a branch of psychology." 
 N 
 
178 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 it impossible. Does what is called by spiritualists " a medium " 
 supply the conditions ? * 
 
 If consciousness or thought, as Prof. Owen says, t' is to the 
 brain what electricity is to the battery," no one believes that 
 electricity ceases to exist when discharged from the battery, 
 and yet the positive school of physicists always reason as if 
 thought being discharged ceased to exist. Thus Dr. Louis 
 Biichner, in " Matter and Force," says, " The brain is, then, 
 only the carrier and the source, or rather the sole cause of the 
 spirit, or thought ; but not the organ that secretes it. It 
 produces something which is not materially permanent, but 
 which consumes itself in the moment of its production." How 
 the brain can be merely the carrier of that of which it is the 
 source or sole cause, or how something consumes itself, is not 
 clear, but this passage furnishes a pretty fair sample of the 
 Doctor's ordinary style of reasoning on Matter and Force. 
 
 The force that works the body is derived from the food, 
 and is originally derived from the sun, in the divorce of the 
 carbon from the oxygen in plants ; and as " nerve-force and 
 electric force are convertible," no doubt we are sensibly alive 
 to the electric states around us. Temperature does not affect 
 us as it does the thermometer, but according to the electric 
 condition of the atmosphere. We often feel colder with the 
 
 * A Mr. Muuder, of Boston, now of 630, Broadway, New Yort, was 
 put upon his trial last spring for obtaining money upon the false pre- 
 tence of taking spirit photographs. The trial lasted four days and 
 he was acquitted, as his brother photographers, after eveij^ facility 
 offered to them for investigation, had failed to detect any imposition. 
 The New York Sun, of February 26 , 1869, reports the case at con- 
 siderable length. The reporter to this paper says he watched the 
 process from beginning to end. After various sittings, with various 
 results, always taking care that the glass was well cleaned and polished, 
 " he thought he would try the efiect of calling to mind the appearance 
 of his father, as he looked just before he died, some eleven years ago. 
 This time the negative gave a face in profile rather dim, buj in general 
 outline, he must confess, very like his father, as he thought of him." 
 
ON SLEBl'. 179 
 
 thevmoraeter at 50 deg. than at 40 deg. The Spectator (July 
 3, 1869), speaking of the intimate relation between the sun's 
 spots and perturbations and the magnetic currents of our own 
 earth, says : " Could we really establish any periodic law of 
 electric excitement on the earth, it would not be irrational, 
 but in the highest degree rational, to expect marked human 
 phenomena in connection with it — either a great concurrent 
 depression or a great concurrent stimulus to the energies of 
 the human brain. * * In point of fact, it is by no means 
 impossible that the issues of peace or war, of a financial crisis, 
 or a religious agitation, may be closely bound up with these 
 phenomena." 
 
 The force supplied to our organism is a definite quantity, 
 and it has to work the whole machine. People who spend 
 much time out of doors are ordinarily not great thinkers, and 
 thinking and digesting cannot go on actively together ; but 
 the most important vital process is the putting in the new 
 material to replace the old and worn out, and although I 
 suppose assimilation and decay are always going on, yet 
 they go on most actively during sleep, when the force to the 
 brain is turned off and consciousness ceases.* 
 
 Dreaming is the consequence of the partial supply of 
 force to the brain, some parts of it being thus brought into 
 activity while others are asleep. The greatest incongruity 
 in thought and feeling is the consequence, and yet the wqrld 
 
 * Mr. Charles Moore, in an Essay " On Going to Sleep," brings 
 ■together, from'difEerent quai-ters, various facts which appear to him 
 to justify the conclusion that a contraction of the cerebral arteries, 
 shutting off to some extent the supply of blood to the brain, is the 
 physical occasion of sleep ; this contraction being due to the unim- 
 peded energy of the sympathetic ganglia which comes into play when 
 the inhibitory action of the brain upon them is withdrawn. He con- 
 jectures, also, that states of somnambulism and double conscious- 
 ness may be produced by the separate contraction of particular 
 arteries, the area of the brain dependent upon other arteries not being 
 asleep. 
 
180 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 of our dreams is quite as real to us as as that of our waking 
 hours. Sometimes, the force being absent from other parts 
 of the brain, is supplied in unusual quantities to the intel- 
 lectual faculties, and there is a greater intellectual vigour 
 than when awake. Thus one-third of our time we are liable 
 to a derangement of the mental powers, which would place 
 us in a lunatic asylum if it occurred during our waking 
 hours. One-third of our existence we are either mad or dead, 
 i.e., dreaming or insensible. 
 
 The world, as we hare already shown, is created within us. 
 Certain forces derived from the food set the brain in motion, 
 and other forces from without, coming through the senses, 
 act upon these, and produce within us perception, or ideas, 
 or nervous impressions of colour, form, size, a sense of 
 resistance or weight, order, number, relative position, mo- 
 tion, likeness and unlikeness, and connection. These are 
 called ideas of Simple and Relative perception, and Re- 
 flective Faculties. Simple ideas are real entities, formed or 
 conditioned by the brain, and having no resemblance to any- 
 thing out of the mind, or in the world : these simple ideas 
 are by other faculties of the mind worked up into our con- 
 ception of the world : for what would the world be without 
 colour, or form, or size, etc. ? and yet colour, form, size, etc., 
 are ideas or feelings, not things.* 
 
 * The world obiectively is Force and its correlations, or transmu- 
 tations and modes of action ; and Mies Martineau says : " Nothing 
 in the experience of my life can at all compare with that of seeing 
 the melting away of the forms, aspects, and arrangements under 
 which we ordinarily view nature, and its fusion into the system of 
 forces which is presented to the intellect in the magnetic (mesmeric) 
 state." — (" Letters on Man's Nature and Development," p. 122.) Now 
 Force is the force of Mind — that is. Mind is Force ; and Mr. Atkin- 
 son says, " when etherised myself, I felt all nature dissolved away, 
 leaving only Mind." — (Ibid, p. 162.) And yet both Miss Martineau 
 and Mr. Atkinson, in their natural state, are still what are called 
 Materialists. 
 
INDIVIDUALITY GIVES UNITY. 181 
 
 Properties, which, we call of matter, are separate and dis- 
 tinct forces, but they are united by association in the mind, 
 and rarely act singly, one generally calling the other into 
 activity. Unity is also given to them in the mind, that is, 
 by the faculty of Individuality, and we say these properties 
 belong to body or matter. The same faculty individualises 
 or givej unity to our separate ideas and feelings, and we say 
 they belong to the mind ; and more, we individualise each 
 separate act of power or ability, dress this image in our 
 attributes, and thus create a god after our own likeness, with 
 our passions and modes of thought. 
 
 It is this unity of body and mind, which is a mere form of 
 thought, to which we give the name of " I," and which 
 assumes importance in proportion as it is associated with 
 more or less of the feeling of self-esteem. All that is meant 
 by this " Ego " is the succession of ideas and feelings which 
 constitutes consciousness. " I am," means only, these ideas 
 and feelings are.* " I think," is a pure assumption, or 
 
 * Huxley says, " Some of these states we refer to a cause we call 
 'self;' others to a cause or causes which may be comprehended 
 under the title of ' not-self.' But neither of the existence of ' self,' 
 nor that of ' not-self,' have we, or can we by any possibility have, 
 any such unquestionable and immediate certainty as we have of the 
 states of consciousness which we consider to be their effects. They 
 are not immediately observed facts, but results of the application of 
 the law of causation to those facts. Strictly speaking, the existence 
 of a 'self' and of a 'not-self' are hypotheses by which we account 
 for the facts of consciousness. They stand upon the same footing as 
 the belief in the general trustworthiness of memory, and in the 
 general constancy of the order of nature — as hypothetical assum ptions 
 which cannot be proved, or known with that highest degree of cer- 
 tainty which is given by immediate consciousness ; but which, never- 
 theless, are of the highest practical value, inasmuch as the conclusions 
 logically drawn from them are always verified by experience. 
 
 " This, in my judgment, is the ultimate issue of Descartes' argu- 
 ment ; but it is proper for me to point out that we have left Descartes 
 himself some way behind us. He stopped at the famous formula, ' I 
 think, therefore I am.' But a little oonsiderationwill show this for- 
 
182 PHT8IC8 AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 taking for granted of the " I ; " all we know is, thinking is. The 
 percipient, as when we say " I perceive," is one class of facul- 
 
 mula to be full of snares and verbal entanglements. In the first i^lace, 
 the 'therefore ' has no business there. The ' I am ' is assumed in the 
 'I think,' which is simply another way of saying 'I am thinking.' 
 And, in the second place, ' I think ' is not one simple proposition, but 
 three distinct assertions rolled into one. The first of these is, ' some- 
 thing called I exists ;' the second is, ' something called thought exists ;' 
 and the third is, ' the thought is the result of the action of the I.' 
 
 "Now, it will be obvious to you, that the only one of these three 
 propositions which will stand the Cartesian test of certainty is the 
 second. It cannot be doubted, for the very doubt is an existent 
 thought. But the first and third, whether true or not, may be doubted, 
 and have been doubted. For the assertor may be asked, How do you 
 know that thought is not self -existent ; or that a given thought is 
 not the effect of its antecedent thought or of some external power? 
 and a diversity of other questions, much more easily put than answered. 
 Descartes, determined as he was to strip off all the garments which 
 the intellect weaves for itself, forgot this gossamer shirt of the 'self ;' 
 to the great detriment, and indeed ruin, of his toilet when he began 
 to clothe himself again." 
 
 Prof. Hegel holds : First, that thinking thinks ; that there is no 
 thinker — no Ego, except what we call thought ; that Thinking and 
 Thinker are but the two names for the same thing' — not that that 
 which is thought of is also that which thinks of it. Second, that 
 every object of thought is a phenomenon, that the subject and the 
 object are inseparabl*, that to be thought of (or to be perceived) and 
 to be, are correlative terms ; that as there can be no perceiving with- 
 out an immediate object, so there can be no immediate object — no 
 sound, no colour, for instance, without there being some act of per- 
 ceiving — i.e., of thinking, associated with it. — ("Hegel and his 
 Connection with British Thought," by Dr. T. CoUyus Simon. Con- 
 tempora/ry Review, January, ,1870.) Hegel held that there is nothing 
 but thought, and that thought and force are functions of the Unknow- 
 able. Mr. Lewes remarks on Hegel, in his " Biographical History of 
 Philosophy:" — "But, the system itself we may leave to all readers to 
 decide whether it be worthy of any attention, except as an illustration 
 of the devious error of illustration. A system which begins with 
 assuming that being and non-being are the same, because being in 
 the abstract is the unconditioned, and so also is non-being ; therefore 
 both, as unconditioned, are the same — a system which proceeds upon 
 
LEWES ON HKGBL. 183 
 
 ties acting upon the others — it is reflection on consciousness, 
 i.e., on perception : one part of the mind becomes an " object" 
 
 the identity of conb-aries as the method of philosophy ; a system in 
 which thought is the same as the thing, and the thing is the same as 
 the thought ; a system in which the only real positive existence is 
 that of simple relation, the two terms of which are mind and matter — 
 this system, were it whoUy true, leaves all the questions for which 
 science is useful as a light, just as much in the dark as ever,, and is, 
 therefore, unworthy the attention of earnest men working for the 
 benefit of mankind." 
 
 It is impossible to say what the unconditioned is in itself, but Mr. 
 Lewes must admit that it is nothing to us, and, therefore, the same 
 as " non-being." But we cannot accept Mr. Lewes's estimate of the 
 worth of the Hegelian Philosophy. A system in which " thought is 
 the same as the thing, and the thing is the same as the thought," is 
 simply putting physics and metaphysics on the same inductive foun- 
 dation, and showing that the assumed difEerenoe between them is not 
 founded in fact. " This absolute and unholy barrier set up between 
 Psychical and Physical nature must be broken down." Physics is 
 the study of forces and their mode of action ; metaphysics is the 
 study of the same forces and their mode of action when made con- 
 scious by passing through the brain. Force, or the unknown entity 
 of which it is the force, is thought, and thought is force — the thought 
 is the same as the thing, and the thing is the same as the thought, 
 i.e., mind, conscious and automatic. 
 
 According to Scnelling, " Nature is Spirit visible ; Spirit is invisible 
 Nature : this absolute Ideal is at the same time the absolute Real. 
 
 '■ Hence Philosophy has two primary problems to solve. In the 
 Tra/nscendental PMlosoplvy the problem is to construct Nature from 
 Intelligence — .the Object from the Subject. In the Philosophy of 
 Nature the problem is to construct Intelligence from Nature — the 
 Subject from the Object. And how are we to construct one from the 
 other ? Fichte has taught us to do so by the principle of the identity 
 of Subject and Object, whereby the productivity and the product are 
 in constant opposition, yet always one. The productivity is the 
 activity in act ; it is the force which developes itself into all things. 
 The product is the activity arrested and solidified into a fact ; but it 
 is always ready to pass again into activity. And thus the world is 
 but a balancing of contending powers within the sphere of the abso- 
 lute." —(" Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 594.) This is 
 . exactly what we have shown it to be. Again : " Psychologists tell 
 
184 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 to itself. It is this also that acounts for the unity of con- 
 sciousness ; for although our ideas and feelings are simul- 
 taneously various, the reflective faculty that attends to 
 them is one, and they can therefore only be attended to in 
 succession one at a time, whether they be simple or complex. 
 But it is said that '' how consciousness arises cannot be 
 explained, either from the scientific or from the philosophical 
 side." But is this so ? I think the knowledge we now have 
 admits of its explanation — at least so far as we can explain 
 anything. Force, or automatic mind, passing through the 
 brain, by means of the peculiar molecular action of each ner- 
 vous centre, resumes its conscious as an idea or feeling, and 
 passes from unconscious to consciousness, and back again, 
 as illustrated by the action of our own minds. A certain 
 amount of vital energy or force passing through Destructive- 
 ness gives rise to the feeling of anger, and this concentrated 
 energy is all accounted for when it returns through the 
 muscles and knocks a man down in consequence. The brain is 
 acted upon through the eye or the ear, pulls the trigger called 
 the Will, and releases a reservoir of internal force, derived 
 from the food, from the region of the brain between the ears, 
 which passing along the motor-nerves of the arm, expends 
 
 us that there are three things implied in one act of vision, viz., a tree, 
 an image of that tree, and a mind that apprehends that image. 
 Fichte tells me that it is I alone who exist : the tree and the image 
 of the tree are but one thing, and that is a modification of my mind. 
 This is Suijectwe Idealism. iSchelling tells us that both the tree and 
 my Ego are existences equally real or ideal, but they are nothing less 
 than manijEestations of the Absolute. This is Objective Idealism." 
 And this is our idea. " But, according to Hegel, all these explana- 
 tions are false. The only thing really existing (in this one fact of 
 vision) is the Idea — the relation. The Ego and the Tree axe but two 
 terms of the relation, and owe their reality to it. This is Absolute 
 Idealism." — (" Biographical History of Philosophy," p. 607.) The force 
 reflected from the object or tree, meeting the force within the brain, 
 or the Ego, passes into consciousness, forming the idea. This is the 
 fact of which Hegel had at least a dim perception. 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS HOW DIVIDED. 185 
 
 itself upon the cause of anger. Whether we shall ever, as 
 Prof. Huxley supposes, arrive at an exact mechanical equi- 
 valent for facts of consciousness, it is impossible to say ; 
 although it is highly probable we are far from it at present. 
 Huxley says: "I believe that we shall, sooner or later, 
 arrive at a mechanical equivalent for facts of consciousness, 
 just as we have arrived at a mechanical equivalent of heat. 
 If a pound weight, falling through a distance of a foot, gives 
 rise to a definite amount of heat — which may properly be 
 said to be its equivalent — the same pound weight, falling 
 through a foot on a man's hand, gives rise to a definite 
 amount of feeling — which might, with equal propriety, be 
 said to be its equivalent in consciousness." It will probably 
 be later rather than sooner that this problem will be solved, 
 for it is much complicated by the fact that the consciousness 
 evolved is the joint produce of the brain or nervous force, 
 and that from the pound weight, the one derived from the 
 arrested motion of the atoms of oxygen and carbon, as they 
 clash together in the body ; the other from the arrested 
 motion of the pound weight. 
 
 " The broad distinction between nerve-energy and mind- 
 energy has been distinctly maintained by many of the most 
 distinguished promoters of scientific inquiry." * 
 
 The sequence and variation of our consciousness, which we 
 call modes of action of the mind, are divided into Perception, 
 Conception, Memory, Imagination, and Judgment. The first 
 of these — ^perception, is composed of the force within and the 
 force from without, and therefore has a double intensity to 
 any of the others, which proceed from the action of the brain 
 alone without the sense. Intensity of thought and feeling 
 is always in proportion to the amount of force expended in 
 producing it, and this furnishes a good criterion of externality, 
 that is, of the difference between the ideas we receive from 
 
 "■ C(mtem^or(mj Review, "Physical Science and Mental Philosophy," 
 p. 230, January, 1871. 
 
186 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 without througli the senses and those that are the production 
 of the mind alone. The external world has thus double the 
 reality of mere ideas : a child lives a life of sensation and 
 perception, an old man one of ideas. The difference between 
 Primary and Secondary qualities is not that generally recog- 
 nised by metaphysicians between colour and extension, &c., 
 as the latter is as much in the mind as the former, but be- 
 tween the ideas of simple and relative perception — that is, 
 between the ideas received directly from without and those 
 manufactured in the mind out of these. 
 
 Belief — does it belong to the intellect, the emotions, or 
 the will ? James Mill resolves it into purely intellectual 
 elements, but it is a feeling — as Hume says, an act of the 
 sensitive part of our nature, rather than the cogitative, and 
 we necessarily believe in the intuitions of our faculties. We 
 take the results of their action for granted as fundamental 
 truths, and as nature obliges us to eat without reasoning 
 upon its necessity, so she obliges us to believe what is 
 equally necessary for our action and well-being, without re- 
 ference to its absolute truth or even speculative reasonings. 
 We reason and doubt afterwards, and begin to suspect that 
 ■our faculties do not always tell us the truth. We believe in 
 the real existence of the external world of our consciousness, 
 and do not doubt till we find it is created within us. We 
 believe in matter and in mind, and not in a correlation of 
 forces or manifestation of Divine Power. We believe that 
 •every effect has a cause, but that is no reason why it should 
 be true ; there may be only sequence. We believe in Space 
 as an objective reality, when,. like motion, it is nothing in 
 itself — it is that in which an entity exists, and is as insepa- 
 rable from the entity as motion from the thing moving, or 
 power from that of which it is the power. 
 
 As to the necessary connection between cause and effect, 
 of unalterable laws, of the immutability of the laws of na- 
 ture, consciousness tells us nothing about this. The higher 
 
PRESENT LAW NOT NECESSARY. 187 
 
 probability is that this connection has been established for a 
 purpose, and will continue as long as that purpose is required. 
 J. S. Mill says: " Any must in this case, any necessity, other 
 than the unconditional universality of the fact, we know 
 nothing of. * * All I know is, that it always does." Eeason 
 is based upon the invariableness, upon the knowledge that 
 what has taken place, in the same circumstances and under 
 the same conditions, will take place again. Law, in my 
 opinion, as I have said before, is caused by automatic Will- 
 power, and is changeable should circumstances or conditions 
 require. Oersted says, " the world is governed by an eternal 
 reason, which makes known to us its actions by unalterable 
 laws." I object to such terms as "eternal" and "unalter- 
 able," as we can know nothing about them. As far as 
 we know, the same laws exist throughout the universe, but 
 that is no reason why they should continue to do so. . Laws 
 of nature are attributes of Deity, and the manifestations, if 
 not the attributes, are ever changing. 
 
 The sense of Personal Identity is, like faith or belief, a 
 feeling, and not a mere intellectual perception. It is an 
 instinct, an intuition, a pure creation of the mind. The "I" 
 of which we are conscious, and which we say "thinks, wills, 
 and feels," is, as we have seen, the aggregate of our bodily 
 and mental states, to which unity has been given by a faculty 
 of the mind. Any kind of sameness or identity must be a 
 delusion, an anthopomorphism, for we are never the same for 
 any two seconds together. In both mind and body we are 
 part and parcel only of the ever-varying forces around us. 
 This notion of " self " and identity is not dependent upon 
 memory, for it remains when all memory is lost ; past sen- 
 sations give no such feeling. That it is dependent upon a 
 condition of the brain is evident, as under certain states of 
 excitement this sense is lost altogether, as in the case of the 
 two gentlemen who had been dining out: in passing through 
 a ford one of them fell into the water and called out tO' 
 
188 PHY8ICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 his companion, " I say, Bill, there is some one fallen into 
 the water." The feeling also of personality is sometimes 
 " double," and otherwise deranged. 
 
 Having seen, then. Whence comes Consciousness, we have 
 now to inquire, What is the object of it ? This brings us 
 face to face with final cause, and the question is. Do we know 
 anything, or can we know anything of final cause? The 
 Athenomm, in its review of Prof. Owen (July 17, 1869,) says, 
 " long ago philosophers have proved both final causes, and 
 innate ideas and tendencies, to be mere assumptions." Dr. 
 Biichner says, " the motion of matter is as eternal as matter 
 itself. Why matter assumed a definite motion at a definite 
 time is as yet unknown to us ;" but if matter ever began to 
 move towards any definite aim, this is admitting voluntary 
 action and intelligence, which I think the Doctor denies. 
 The question then is, what was the object when matter began 
 to move towards the production of organised beings ? Is it, 
 as the Doctor says, unknown to us ? We have already con- 
 sidered this subject, and, as I have said, a world without 
 consciousness is practically non-existent — the same as no 
 world at all ; and that therefore the production of conscious- 
 ness is more desirable than the production of a world. But 
 consciousness that was merely cognisant and took no interest 
 would be no better than none at all ; it must be either plea- 
 surable or painful. No one desires a painful consciousness, 
 and a pleasurable consciousness therefore is the only desirable 
 end in the production of sensitive organised creatures. This 
 is the final cause ; this is " why matter assumed a definite 
 motion at a definite time," and things are right or wrong as 
 they tend towards this object — that is, towards pleasurable 
 consciousness. 
 
 The world, as we conceive of it, is no more a reality than 
 our dreams ; each creature creates its own world and carries 
 it about in its own head ; outside itself there is nothing but 
 
GOOD AND EVIL SUBJECTIVE. 189 
 
 the play of forces on the nervous centres of each being. This 
 creates a thousand worlds adapted to the different wants of 
 each, and is so much better, therefore, than if it had objective 
 reality; and man stupidly thinks it was all made for him, 
 and that the way these forces affect him is the absolute 
 measure of truth: whereas a very few only of the forces 
 around him reach him through his five senses or otherwise, 
 and produce those impressions and ideas which are sufficient 
 to guide him towards the objects of his being, towards his 
 real world — that of his pleasures and pains, and which he 
 calls his moral world. In reality he knows very little indeed 
 of all that is going on without him, as he is cognisant only 
 of the influences that can penetrate through his thick skin ; 
 and whole worlds of beings may exist without his intellectual 
 ken. If our faculties, then, are few and limited, and not 
 designed to penetrate into the inward essence and constitution 
 of things, they are yet sufficient for our purpose, the use of 
 our intellectual consciousness being not to teach absolute 
 truth, but to guide us towards our wants, which in their ful- 
 filment are always pleasurable, and thus contribute towards 
 the stock of happiness in the world. 
 
 Good and evil are purely subjective, and the moral world 
 is as entire a creation of the mind as the physical world. It 
 is merely a record of man's pleasures and pains, of his likes 
 and antipathies, and of the various fine names by which he 
 distinguishes the different varieties of feeling as he wishes 
 to promote the one and to prevent the other. As our thoughts 
 and ideas compel a reference to objects out of self, so do our 
 feelings, aud we talk of the eternal aud immutable distinctions 
 between right and wrong, whereas these distinctions have no 
 existence out of ourselves, and one action is as good as 
 another in itself, and is good, pure, holy, &c., in proportion 
 as it tends to carry out the purpose of creation, which is not 
 man's happiness alone, but that of all of sensitive existence. 
 Morality is the science of living together in the most happy 
 
190 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. 
 
 manner possible ; at present it is confined to men alone, but 
 we must widen its sphere of action so as ultimately to take in' 
 all living creatures. Do not let us be be alarmed, then, for 
 the interests of morality, for as J. S. Mill says, "a volition 
 is a moral effect, which follows the corresponding moral 
 causes as certainly and invariably as physical effects follow 
 their physical causes." 
 
 Physical science has made rapid progress since the intro- 
 duction of the inductive method, while mental science, to 
 which it is supposed not to apply, is little further advanced 
 than it was two thousand years ago ; but on the recognition 
 of this great truth, that causation is as constant, and that 
 law reigns as much in the realm of mind as of matter, our 
 future progress in this department must depend. This truth 
 occupies, in the present day, much the same position in 
 mental science, as the earth's position with respect to the 
 sun in the days of Copernicus did in physics. Men saw that 
 the sun went round the earth, and the Bible said it did, and 
 Galileo was imprisoned for saying it did not. Men say they 
 now feel that they are free, as they before saw that the sun 
 went round the earth ; and theologians say that responsi- 
 bility, which, according to them, is the right to take revenge 
 for past misconduct, depends upon this freedom, and that 
 morality depends upon this kind of responsibility ; and when 
 our philosophers are appealed to as to whether man is free, 
 or subject to law, like everything else, they say, " Sometimes 
 one, and sometimes the other." To give an instance in each 
 class : B'roude, the philosopher, says : " The foolish and the 
 ignorant are led astray by the idea of contingency, and ex- 
 pect to escape the just issue of their actions ; the wise man 
 will know that each action brings with it its inevitable con- 
 sequences, which even God cannot change without ceasing to 
 he himself." * Praise and blame " involve that somewherfe 
 or other the influence of causes ceases to operate, and that 
 * Froude's Ess^s, " Spinoza," vol. ii, p. 48. 
 
THE ABSOLUTE EXISTENCE. 191 
 
 some degree of power there is in man of self-determination 
 by the amount of which, and not by their specific actions, 
 moral merit or demerit is to be measured." * How " inevit- 
 able consequences " are to be expected where " causes cease 
 to operate," he does not tell us ; but no doubt the earth goes 
 round the sun in physics, and the sun round the earth where 
 man's volition is concerned. Huxley, the man of science, 
 says : " Theology in her purer forms, has ceased to be anthro- 
 pomorphic, however she may talk. Anthropomorphism has 
 taken her stand in its last fortress — man himself. But 
 science closely invests the walls ; and philosophers gird 
 themselves for battle upon the last and greatest of all specu- 
 lative problems. Does human nature possess any free voli- 
 tional or truly anthropomorphic element, or is it only the 
 cunningest of all nature's clocks ? Some, among whom I 
 count myself, think that the battle will for ever remain a 
 drawn one, and that, for all practical purposes, this result is 
 as good as anthropomorphism winning the day." I 
 
 Notwithstanding, we are slowly, but surely, coming to the 
 conviction that in nature there is no beginning, — merely 
 pre-existent and persistent force and its correlates — ^that is, 
 " that each manifestation of force can be interpreted only as 
 the effect of some antecedent force, no matter whether it be 
 an inorganic action, an animal movement, a thought or 
 feeling "; J that all force, or power, or ability is derived and 
 inseparable from that of which it is the force — the Supreme 
 Cause of all. If we have lost matter, we have found force ; 
 if we have lost mind — a suppositious, capricious existence, 
 governed by nothing — we have found universal law, and " a 
 supreme and infinite and everlasting Mind in synthesis with 
 all things." In the correlation of force, we have one great 
 heart-beat of the Absolute Existence. " Being underlies all 
 
 * Froude's Essays, " Spinoza," vol, ii., p. 59. 
 
 f Fortnightly Meview, June, p. 664. 
 
 J " First Principles," by Herbert Spencer. 
 
192 PHYSICS AND METAPHYSICS. * 
 
 modes and forms of being."* "Nature is an infinitely di- 
 vided God. * * The Divine One has dispersed itself into 
 innumerable sensible substances, as a white beam of light is 
 decomposed by the prism with seven coloured rays. And a 
 divine being would be evolved from the union of all these 
 substances, as the seven coloured rays dissolve again into 
 the clear-light beam. The existing form of nature is the 
 optic glass, and all the activities of spirit are only an infinite 
 colour-play of that simple divine ray."f 
 
 * Hegel. f Schiller. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 RELIGION. 
 
 We have seen how the physical and moral worlds have 
 been created within us by our forms of thought, and by out 
 likes and antipathies ; the latter constituting a World based 
 on the Chemistry of Sensibility. We have now to consider 
 in what way and by what faculties the Religious World is 
 created. Morality defines our relation to our fellow-man, 
 religion our relation to .God. The properties of matter, 
 regarded as separate and distinct forces acting upon our 
 organisation, give rise to our " forms of thought." The 
 niental faculty of Individuality gives unity to these pro- 
 perties of matter, creating what we call substance ; the same 
 faculty gives unity to our separate thoughts and feelings, and 
 to that unity we give the name of Mind ; but the process 
 does not stop here ; for every change or effect we see that 
 there is a cause which is always equal, under like circum- 
 stances, to produce the same effect. This force, or this power 
 or ability to produce change, is unseen and unknown to us 
 except in its effect, but we necessarily conclude that it is the 
 force of something, and Individuality again gives unity to 
 alt these separate powers or causes of effects, and to this unity' 
 we give the name of God. Examination into the nature of 
 this Force shows that it is Persistent, — ^that is, is the effect, 
 or correlate, or equivalent of some antecedent force, and that 
 what we call matter and mind are known to us only from the 
 changes that take place in it, its mode of action or pheno- 
 mena ; " in other words, matter and spirit are but names 
 for the imaginary substrata of groups of natural pheno- 
 mena,"* These changes or phenomena do not persist, but 
 
 * Huxley. 
 
194 EELieiOJT. 
 
 pass away, but their Unknown Cause, or the power that pro- 
 duced them, continues to exist,, and as far as we know has 
 existed, and will continue to exist, without beginning or end. 
 This Unknown Cause — this abstract conception of Force or 
 Power — we immediately proceed to invest with all our own 
 mod-es of thought and feeling, and as these have varied with 
 the progress of intelligence, so have the attributes we have 
 ascribed to the unknown Source. 
 
 Although " the Eeality behind the veil of appearances " is 
 unknown to us, yet we infer its nature from its manifesta- 
 tions, and its character, as we judge of all character, by the 
 tendency of its actions. 
 
 This idea of Supreme Power, originating in the intellect, 
 is the bage of all Religion ; although the Feelings to 
 which it gives rise and with which it is associated more 
 properly constitute Religion. Thus, as hidden power and as 
 the cause of all things it excites Wonder ; as supreme 
 power it creates Veneration or Reverence, Hope, and Fear. 
 Again, we have a strong " lote of life,'' and a great dread of ■ 
 ceasing to be ; we cannot bear the thought of parting for 
 ever from those who are dear to us ; we have an intuition of 
 pe'rsistent force — of the something that continues to exist 
 independently of all change in ourselves, which we feel is 
 indestructible, and which we call our immortal soul; and as 
 we. strongly wish for another world, or state of existence 
 after it is apparent we have done with this, our feelings of 
 Hope and Faith give reality to what we so much desire, and 
 we believe in this other world. Each religion, then, peoples 
 this future state with beings of its own creation. Strong 
 feelings beget myths. The Bard and the Prophet in the 
 earliest ages were the same ; the Bard expressing and har- 
 monising public feeling, and the people necessarily believing 
 as inspired that which so harmonised. In this way religions 
 are formed and religious feeling is generated. 
 
A PCTtTRB STATE. ■ 195 
 
 It is said that this dread of ceasing to be, and this yearning 
 for a " future state," are evidence that that future state is to 
 be, since God would not have implanted within us a feeling 
 that was not to be gratified, and " certain it is that man alone 
 yearns for something that neither sense nor reason can 
 supply;" but we must recollect that such feelings have their 
 uses in this life, and that this dread of ceasing to be induces 
 lis to do all we can to keep both ourselves and our friends 
 in existence here, and that therefore the transference of such 
 feelings to another world may be a misdirection of them. 
 Veneration also, which is worship as applied to God, has 
 also its useful application here, as it is the source of polite- 
 ness and of that courtesy which we owe and pay to one 
 another. Society could scarcely exist without it ; in fact, 
 what are called the Keligious Feelings — Veneration, Hope, 
 Wonder or Faith — have, as we have previously seen, their 
 application here. 
 
 This hidden, and therefore mysterious, Power — a Power 
 behind and beyond and exceeding his own in all his chief 
 interests, appears to have been recognised in all stages of 
 man's existence. At first there were supposed to be separate 
 powers for all the more mysterious and powerful phenomena 
 in nature, and we had gods of the earth and of the heavens, 
 of the winds and of the waters, of war and of wisdom ; and 
 unity was only given to these powers with increasing intelli- 
 gence ; * and thus unity can only be said to be recently proved 
 
 * In the Kigveda, a collection of ancient Hindu Hymns, &c., the old 
 authority for religious and social Institutions, made 2,000 years before 
 Christ, the principal deities mentioned are Agni, the god of fire ; 
 Indra, the regent of the firmament, who shatters the clouds with his 
 thunderbolt, and dispenses rain ; Nitra and Varuna, the representatives 
 of day and night ; Sfirza, the sun ; Vaezu, the wind ; the Marats, or 
 tempests ; Asvins, &c., together witti Vishnu and Kudra, who play so 
 prominent a part in the later mythology, but so small in the Vedic 
 pantheon. 
 
196 RELIGION. 
 
 in the modern discoveiy of Pre-existent and Persistent Force 
 and its Correlates. 
 
 It is said that God made man in his own image. It is cer- 
 tain that man has made God in his own image: the character 
 and attributes thus given to him varying from those of 
 the lowest savage to the highest ideal of the present day.* 
 Pear of this unknown power at first predominated over hope 
 •and love. The source of much that was good and evil was 
 hidden, and people feared the evil,f the attention being most 
 called to it ; good being the rule, evil the exception. Eveiy- 
 thing was done to propitiate the supposed source of this evil : 
 
 * " The ' stages ' of religious thought, according to Sir John Lubbock 
 are : — Atheism, understanding by this term not a denial of the exist- 
 ence of deity, but an absence of any definite ideas on the subject ; 
 Fetichum, the stage in which man supposes he can force the deity to 
 comply with his desires ; Nature Worship, or Totenism, in which 
 natural objects — trees, lakes, stones, animals, &c. — are worshipped ; 
 Shamamum, in which the superior deities are far more powerful than 
 men, and of different nature, their place of abode is also far away, 
 and accessible only to Shamans ; Idolatry, or Anthropomorphism, in 
 which the gods took still more completely the fonn of men, being, 
 however, more powerful. They aie still amenable to persecution; 
 they are -^ part of nature, and not creators ; they are represented by 
 images or idols. The next stage the deity is regarded as the author, 
 not merely a part, of nature ; he becomes for the first time a really 
 supernatural being. The last stage to which I will refer is that in 
 which morality is associated with religion." — (_The Student, October, 
 1870, p. 398.) 
 
 f " If the mere sensation of fear, and the recognition that there are 
 probably other beings wore powerful than himself, are sufScient alone 
 to constitute a religion, then we must, I think, admit that religion is 
 general to the human race. But when a child dreads the darkness 
 and shrinks from a lightless room, we never regard that as an evidence 
 of religion. Moreover, if this definition be adopted, we can no longer 
 regard religion as peculiar to man. * » » xhe baying ef a dog to 
 the moon is as' much an act of worship as some ceremonies which 
 have been described as religion by travellers." — (" The Origin of 
 Christianity," by Sir John Lubbock, Bart., pp. 124-5.) 
 
Jt«X ITLATTER THErU GODS. 197 
 
 the best of all the flocks aJid herds, and even human beings, 
 were offered to it ; and particularly, as praise and worship 
 were most acceptable to themselves, men thought they could 
 not be less acceptable to the mysterious Power- they were 
 anxious to propitiate. They flattered their gods, as men do 
 one another, for what they could get out of them. They 
 called them all sorts of fine names, thinking it would please 
 them. They were thought to be immoderately fond of power 
 and glory, like some poor vain mortal, and they were even 
 supposed to have created the world, not for the good of the 
 creatures on it, but for their " glory," as a Frenchman might 
 have done. The reflex of such childish notions is to be found 
 even in the present day. Sir John Lubbock tells us (British 
 Association Meeting, 1870,) that " the natives of Kamschatka 
 insult their deities if their wishes are unfulfilled : they even 
 feel a contempt for them. If Kutka, they say, 'had not been- 
 stupid, would he have made inaccessible mountains and too 
 rapid rivers ? The Lapps made images of their gods, put- 
 ting each in a separate hox, on which was written the name 
 of the deity, so that each might know his own box."* This 
 
 * At the close of Ms lecture on " Savages " Sir John Lubbock said : — 
 "Gradually, however, an increased acquaintance with the laws of 
 nature enlarged the mind of man. He iirst supposed that the Deity 
 fashioned the earth, raising it out of the water, and preparing it as a 
 dwelling place for man ; and subsequently realised the idea that latiS 
 and water were alike Created by Divine power. After regarding 
 spirits as altogether evil, he rose to a belief in good as well as iji evil 
 deities, and, gradvially subordinating the latter to the former, wor- 
 shipped the good spirits alone as gods, the evil sinking to the level of 
 demons. From believing only in ghosts, he came gradually to the 
 recognition of the soul : at length uniting this belief with that in a 
 beneficent and just Being, he connected morality with religion, a step 
 the importance of which il is scarcely possible to over-estimate. 
 Thus we see that as men rise in civilisation their religion rises with 
 them ; that far from being antagonistic to religion, without science 
 true religion is impossible. 
 
198 RELIGION. 
 
 also is exactly what is going on among more civilised people : 
 each sect makes a temple fov its God, hoping that he will 
 know his own, and that the mistakes that have, in some un- 
 accountable way, been made in this world,, will be rectified in 
 another. God's government is even supposed not to begin 
 in this world, but in the next ; but if, as theologians 
 affirm, i^iherent disorder reigns here, what just and sufficient 
 reason is there to suppose that order reigns. elsewhere ? 
 
 The Jews are supposed to have had the most perfect con- 
 ception of this Supreme Power, but the Hebrew Scriptures 
 represent their God as existing in the form of a man ; walk- 
 ing in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening ; and 
 on one occasion it is related of Moses that he saw a portion 
 of God's person like the hinder parts of a man.- But not 
 only do the Jews suppose themselves to be juade bodily in 
 the likeness of God, but they give to God the likeness 
 of all their worst passions. He is unjust, visiting on one 
 man the sins of another. He is proud, jealous, revengeful, 
 the commander-in-chief of their armies, ordering whole towns 
 and peoples to be put to death — ^men, women, children, and 
 even the cattle — because they called their god by another 
 name ; and ordering the sun and moon to stand still that the 
 Jews might make a greater slaughter of their enemies ; but 
 at the same time easily turned from His purpose by obedience 
 and flattery. To these vices were certainly added all the 
 human virtues, and some of the highest attributes which the 
 human mind is capable of conceiving, and several that are 
 beyond man's conception. 
 
 The Christian God is all this, and, if we are to judge from 
 the prevalent creeds, infinitely worse. The ancient Hebrews, 
 at least, believed that evil was confined to this world, not 
 believing in a future state ; but the Christians make evil 
 Absolute, as, according to them, the torture of the wicked 
 and unbelieving, who are supposed to be the great majority, 
 
THE ATHANARIAN TREED. 190 
 
 is to en Awxe /or ever and ever. The Creed of St. Athanar 
 sius, read in all our churches, says : — 
 
 " Whosoever will b'e saved ; before all tilings it is necessaiy that he 
 hold the Catholic Faith. 
 
 " Which Faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled : 
 witJwwt douit he shall perish everlastingly. » * * 
 
 " He (Christ) suffered for om- salvation : descended into hell, rose 
 again the third day fi-om the dead. 
 
 " At whose coming all men shall rise again mith tlieir bodies : and 
 shall give account for their own works. 
 
 " And they that have done good, shall go into life everlasting : and 
 they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. 
 
 " This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully 
 he cannot he saved. 
 
 " Glory he to the Father, and to the Son : and to the Holy Ghost : 
 As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be : world without 
 end. Amen" 
 
 This ready accession, this amen, or so be it, in so awful a 
 sentence — ^this thankfulness even, or " glory to God," would 
 be ludicrous, if it were not really lamentable, as . indicative 
 of the greatest possible debasement and servility of mind. 
 Belief is not voluntary : we, cannot believe black to be white, 
 whatever may be the consequences. And it is precisely the 
 same in all minor degrees of faith : we can only believe that 
 ■yvhich is credible, and which approves itself to us as truth, 
 whether we " perish everlastingly " or not. 
 . But it may be supposed that this is a Creed that does not 
 approve itself to Christians of the present day. Quite the 
 contrary. The Church is by noipeans prepared to give up 
 this cheering article of faith. In the debates in the House 
 of Lords (March, 1871,) on the Lectionary Bill, in which 
 bill the Athanasian Creed was retained, Earl Grey charac- 
 terised this Creed " as the barbarous production of a barbarous 
 age, to which he never listened without feelings of horror and 
 disgust." Earl Beauchamp, on the contrary, described it as 
 a source of comfort and consolation to many generations of 
 
200 KELIGION. 
 
 churchmen. Upon which the Pall Mall Gazette remarked that 
 " Those to wliom it is a ' source of comfort and consolation' 
 to anathematise large portions of the human race may surely 
 fortify themselves in this way in private without compelling 
 the participation of those who find in the repetition of com- 
 prehensive anathemas nothing which either comforts or con- 
 soles." The Church is even less prepared to give up the 
 eternity of punishment. When some time since, on the pub- 
 lication of " Essays and Eeviews," the Church was thought 
 to be in danger, ten thousand of the clergy " held it to be 
 their bounden duty to the Church, and to the souls of men," 
 to declare their firm belief that the "punishment" of the 
 "cursed," equally with the." life" of the righteous, is " ever- 
 lasting." Max Miiller says : '' There is no religion — or if 
 there is I do not know it — which does not say, ' Do good, 
 avoid evil.' There is none which does not contain what 
 Rabbi Hillel called the quintessence of all religions, the 
 simple warning, ' Be good, my boy.' ' Be good, my boy,* 
 may seem a very short catechism ; but let us add to it, ' Be 
 good, my boy, for God's sake,' and you have in it very nearly 
 the whole of the Law and the Prophets."* The principal 
 article of faith, however, of the English religion is, " Be 
 good, my boy, or Bogie 'II have you." The magistrate asks, 
 as the sole test of orthodoxy, " Do you believe in a future 
 state of rewards and punishments ? Do you know where you 
 will go to if you do not tell the truth ? " 
 
 The Boman Catholic lipids the same doctrine, and Mr, 
 Furness, "permissu superiorum," informs us that "as the 
 devil is king of hell, he is also judge. When a soul comee 
 into hell, condemned by the judgment of God, he executes 
 the judgment. He fixes whereabouts in hell the soul is to 
 be, how it is to be tormented, and what devils are to tor- 
 ment it." 
 
 " Science of Religion," JPraser, July, p. 104. 
 
THE WESTMINSTER CONKESBION. 201 
 
 Of the Scotsman's idea of God we may judge from the 
 Westminster Confession of Faith : this tells us that 
 
 " God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counselof 
 his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to 
 pass : yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is 
 violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or con- 
 tingency of second causes .taken away, but rather established. 
 
 " Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon 
 all supposed conditions ; yft hath he not decreed any thing because 
 he foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon 
 sucb conditions. 
 
 " By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some 
 men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life', and others 
 foreordained to everlasting death. 
 
 " These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are 
 particularly and unchangeably designed ; and their number is so cer- 
 tain and definite, that it cannot be either increased or diminished. 
 
 " Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before 
 the foundation of the world was laid, according to his eternal and 
 immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good' pleasure of his 
 will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of his mere 
 free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or 
 perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as 
 conditions, or causes moving him thereunto ; and all to the praise of 
 his glorious grac^. 
 
 "As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath he, by the 
 eternal and most free purpose of his will, foreordained all the means 
 thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, 
 are redeemed by Christ ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ 
 by his Spirit working in due season ; are justified, adopted, sanctified, 
 and kept by his power through faith unto salvation. Neither are 
 any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, 
 aanctifiied, and saved, but the elect only. 
 
 " The rest of mankind, God was pleased, according to the unsearch- 
 able counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth 
 mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his 
 creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wjath for 
 their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice." 
 
 And of the state of men after Death, and of the Resurrection 
 of the Dead, the same Confession of Faith tells us 
 
202 EELIGION. 
 
 " The bodies of men after death Teturn to dust, and see coiTuption ; 
 but their souls, (which neither die nor sleep,) having an immortal 
 subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them. The souls 
 of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received 
 into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God in light 
 and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies ; and the 
 souls of the wicked are oast into hell, where they remain in torments 
 and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day. Be- 
 sides these two places for souls separated from their bodies, the 
 scripture acknowledgoth none. . 
 
 " At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be 
 changed : and all the dead shall be raised up with the seLf-same 
 bodies, and none other, although with different qualities, which shall 
 be united again to their souls for ever. 
 
 " The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised 
 to dishonour ; the bodies of the just, by his Spirit, unto honour, and 
 be made conformable to his own glorious body." 
 
 And of the Last Judgment we are told 
 
 "God hath appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in 
 righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgment is 
 given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels 
 shall be judged, but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth 
 shall appear 'before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their 
 thoughts, words, and deeds, and to receive according to what they 
 have done in the body, whether good or evil. 
 
 " The end of God's appointing this day is for the manifestation of 
 the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect, and of his 
 justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and dis- 
 obedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and 
 receive that fulness of joy and refi'eshing which shall come from the 
 presence of the Lord ; but the wicked, who know not God, and obey 
 not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and 
 be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the 
 Lord, and from the glory of his power." 
 
 Of the Fall of Man this confession says ; 
 
 " Our first parents being seduced by the subtilty and temptation of 
 Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God ivai 
 
THE U. P. OHUROH. 203 
 
 pleased, according to hu wise cmd holy cotinsel, to j)en>iit,, having 
 purposed to order it to Ms own glory I ! "* 
 
 To show that these creeds still belong to the present time, 
 take the following illustration : — The Rev. Fergus Ferguson, 
 of Dalkeith, had been indulging in certain interpretations of 
 Scripture and the Westminster Confession, which, in May, 
 1871, brought him under the lash of the United Presbyterian 
 Synod, the governing body of what is called in Scotland' the 
 U. P. Church. The following propositions were submitted 
 to Mr. Ferguson : — 
 
 " 1. That all who shall ultimately be saved were chosen of God in 
 Christ before the foundation of the world. 
 
 "2. That all who are saved are accepted of God, 'by His grace, 
 through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,' at or befqre the time 
 of their death ; and that none dying unsaved will, after death, have 
 an opportunity of obtaining salvation. 
 
 " 3 That whatever new revelations of Christ or of the truth are 
 made after death to the saved are made, not to free them from sin, 
 but to increase their, knowledge and blessedness. 
 
 "4. That, notwithstanding the inability of the will through sin, as 
 taught in our Confession,, tmielievers are fully answerable for their 
 rtgection of the offer of salvation which the gospel makes to them." 
 
 * Mr. Disraeli evidently takes a more hopeful view of things. The 
 right hon. gentleman says : " If the Jews had not prevailed upon 
 the Romans to crucify our Lord, what would have become of the 
 Atonement ? But the human mind cannot contemplate the idea that 
 th^most important deed of time could depend on human will. The 
 immolators were preordained, like the victim, and the holy race sup- 
 plied both. Could that be a crime which secured for all mamikind 
 eternal joy ; which vanquished Satan and opened the gates of Para- 
 dise 1 Such a tenet would sully and impugn the doctrine that is th6 
 foundation of our faith and hope. Men must not presume to sit in 
 judgment on such an act ; they must bow their heads in awe and 
 astonishment and trembling gratitude." — (" Life of Lord George 
 Bentinck," p. 489.) So that, according to the right hon. gentleman, 
 Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate must have been the greatest bene- 
 factors the world has ever known, and " his holy race" supplied the 
 former at least I 
 
204 RELIGION. 
 
 " These four propositions,'' says the report of the committee 
 who framed them, " having been read over in Mr. Ferguson's 
 hearing, he intimated his unqualified assent to them." And 
 at the call of the committee. Dr. Cairns " offered thanks to 
 God for the harmonious and happy result." 
 
 This is called the " Religion of Love," the " Gospel of Glad . 
 Tidings ; " but may it not more properly be asked. Is it 
 Theism or Demonism ? We should have thought it was im- 
 possible to conceive anything so horrid — so vile a libel on our 
 Creator. We are told that God from all eternity ordained 
 the everlasting torment of creatures that he was at full liberty 
 to bring into existence or not ; and " according to this wise 
 and holy counsel " allowed Satan, whom he also had created 
 in the full knowledge of all the evil he would commit, to 
 seduce our first parents, " having purposed to order it to his 
 own glory." Also that the Almighty doomed some men 
 from eternity to damnation, and then sent his Son on earth 
 to mock them with the false promise of redemption he had 
 previously decreed for them should never be ; and this is called 
 a great mystery. It is simply not true,- and the only mystery 
 about it is that any one, even in the most barbarous and savage 
 age, could be found to believe it. " How," asks Froude, in his 
 lecture on C.alvinism (Mar. 17, 1 871), " are we to call the Euler 
 who laid us under such an iron code, wise, or just, or mer- 
 ciful?" He is simply an almighty tyrant, who claims the right 
 " to torture the innocent to all eternity." " There is one thing 
 worse than a world without a sun — Humanity without a 
 God," says the Eev. W. Jackson ("Positivism," p. 61) ; but 
 how can humanity be without a God ? A man by shutting 
 his eyes does not produce " a world without a sun ;" ieither 
 does a man who sees only what are called second causes 
 obliterate a single ray of God's . power and influence. One 
 would think, from the language of theologians, that the very 
 existence of God depended upon our belief in it, or that if we 
 
SUPERSTITION. 205 
 
 could not see God, He would be equally blind to us, -when 
 we know that " He makes His suri to shine on the evil and 
 on the good." It is time this kind of thing was withdrawn 
 from addresses to the enlightened men of the 19th century, 
 and confined to the women. What we want above all things 
 are truthfulness -and sincerity, and there is no fear that frail 
 Humanity will be without God, because of its blindness and 
 shortsightedness. A child that cannot see its own father 
 is to be pitied, and not left to grope about to its own 
 destruction. Surely Atheism is infinitely preferable to this 
 Calvinistic creed, and if we are to be damned for riot be- 
 lieving it, all I can say is, I would rather be damned. " \t 
 were better," says Bacon, "to have no opinion of God at all, 
 than such an opinion as is unworthy of him ; for the one is 
 unbelief,, the other is contumely: and certainly superstition 
 is the reproach of deity. Plutarch saith well to that pur- 
 pose : ' Surely- 1 had rather a great deal men should say there 
 was no such man at all as Plutarch, than that they should 
 say that there was one Plutarch that would eat his children 
 as soon as they were born.' "* Canon Kingsley defines 
 Superstition as "fear of the unknown," and he says " man 
 can; what the lower animals (happily for them) cannot — 
 organise his folly, erect his superstitions into a science, and 
 create .a whole mythology out of his blind fear of the un- 
 known. And when he has done that — Woe to the weak !"f 
 The fear of God originally meant literally " fear," not rever- 
 ence, as it does now, and sacrifice and atonement were its off- 
 spring. Children and other human victims have been offered 
 up by millions to this fear, and in the hope of propitiating 
 this dread unknown ; but it is impossible to conceive that it 
 could have culminated in anything half so horrible as this 
 Calvinistic creed. Its legitimate children were the Inquisi- 
 tion and Witchcraft. 
 
 * Essays, 17, " Of Superstition." 
 
 f "Superstition." A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution, 
 April 24, 1866. M-aser, June, 1866. 
 
206 HELIGION. . 
 
 The Atheism of the present day is not so munh a denial 
 of the existence of the Universal Spirit of the Universe, as 
 a protest against such views of God, and the too prevalent 
 anthropomorphism. Prof. F. W. Newman says: " If a na- 
 tional religion be totally corrupt, widespread Atheism is 
 nothing but the natural death of a creed which has lost moral 
 vitality. If the Atheism springs from moral indignation, I 
 believe that it can only be a temporary winter of the national 
 soiil in preparation for a more fruitful summer. If a very 
 corrupt national creed — say, like that of Hindooism — ^were 
 swept away by Atheism, when other agencies had failed, we 
 pgrhaps ought to regard the Atheism as a beneficial visita- 
 tion, like a hurricane which destroys pestilence."* 
 
 Theologians set up a baseless theory of their own, derived 
 from a savage and barbarous age — an age of ignorance and 
 superstition — and when facts do not correspond; it is regarded 
 as a great mystery, which can never be solved, as we see 
 only in part, and we are asked to put out our own eyes that 
 we may see more clearly. " The idea of a universal and 
 beneficent Creator of the universe does not seem to arise in 
 the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-con- 
 tinued culture ; on the other hand, a belief in all-pervading 
 spiritual agencies seems to be universal, but then they have 
 generally been cruel and malignant spirits. f" 
 
 Lecky, speaking of the Christian ideas of Hell, says : " It 
 is impossible to conceive more ghastly, grotesque, or mate- 
 rial conceptions of the future world than they evince, or 
 more hideous calumnies against that Being who was sup- 
 posed to inflict upon his creatures such unspeakable misery ; " 
 and of the influence of such ideas, he says they were " well 
 fitted to transform the man who at once realised it, and who 
 accepted it with pleasure, into a monster of barbarity." 
 According to the popular belief, all who differed from the 
 
 * " Causes of Atheism," Thomas Scott, Eamsgate. 
 t " Descent of Man," vol. 2, p. 395, C. Darwin. 
 
PERSECUTION. 207 
 
 teaching of the orthodox lived under the hatred of the 
 Almighty, and were destined after death to an eternity of 
 anguish, and no moral or intellectual excellence could atone 
 for their crime in propagating error ; and, according to Saint 
 Gregory, the elect "will be sated with joy as they gaze on 
 the unspeakable anguish of the impious, returning thanks 
 for their own freedom. * * * The just man will rejoice 
 when he shall see the Tengeance."* Surely Nirwana were 
 preferable to this. To this portion of the received Theo- 
 logy, viz., " that correct- opinions are essential to salvation, 
 and that Theological error necessarily involyes guilt," — may 
 be traced, as Mr. Lecky says, " almost all the sufferings that 
 Christian persecutors have caused, almost all the obstructions 
 they have thrown in the path of human progress,'' religious 
 ignorance and bigotiy " adding immeasurably to the difficvilties 
 which every searcher after truth has to encounter, and diffusing 
 far and wide intellectual timidity, disingenuousness, and hy- 
 pocrisy. "f The Shakers are the only people who can be said 
 to have acted in any respect consistently with this creed. They 
 had no children. " They had put to themselves this question : 
 If all men born into the world are boi-n into sin, and made the 
 heirs of death in the world to come, how can the saint, when 
 raised from his fallen nature, dare to augment this empire of 
 sin and death ?"J Here is the modern Christianity logically 
 based on this creed : — 
 
 " Nothing is worth a thought beneath, 
 But how we may escape the death 
 
 That never, never dies. 
 How make ow omn salvation sure, 
 And when we fail on earth, secure 
 
 A mansion in the skies." 
 
 But the Rev. F. W. Robertson, of Brighton, says, "the 
 popular religion represents only the female element in the 
 national mind, at once deyotional, slanderous, timid, gossip- 
 
 * Lecky's " Morals," vol., 2, p. 241. f Md. pp. 420, 376, 377. 
 % " New America," vol. 2, p. 118, by Hepworth Dickson. 
 
208 RELTGIOS. 
 
 ping, nan-ow, shrieking, and prudish."* The great Mr. 
 Martin F. Tupper, that wonderful reflex of the popular mind, 
 has also given us his " Creed." He solves the question of 
 the origin of evil, and it is pleasant also to find that the poor 
 ill-used hrutes, as well as man, are to have their " future 
 state" and full compensation. He says : 
 
 So then, in brief, my Creed is truly this, 
 Conscience is our chief seed of 'Woe or bliss, — 
 God, who made all things, is to all things Love, 
 BalancLng wrongs below by rights above, — 
 Evil seemed needful that the Good be shown. 
 And Good was swift that Evil to atone, 
 * * * * # 
 
 And the meek lamb may enter into life 
 Ueside its butcher with his bloody knife ; 
 That cruel costermonger and his drudge 
 Alike shall ^and before their righteous Judge. 
 
 " No inquirer," says the Eev. James Martineau, " can fix a 
 direct and clear-sighted gaze towards truth, who is casting 
 side glances all the while on the prospects of his soul " ; and 
 H&rhert Spencer as truly says it is impossible to believe in 
 the " sinfulness of an unselfish sympathy or a pure love of 
 rectitude — or that that conduct is only good whose only 
 motive is other worldliness." f 
 
 The world has- probably suffered as much from Christilin 
 Creeds and the dogmas of divinity as it has gained from the 
 principles and precepts of the Christian Morality. It was 
 held that " the Moors and Gentiles being condemned in the 
 principal part, which is the soul, that part of them which it 
 animates cJmnot be privileged with the benefit of our laws, 
 because they are not members of the evangelical congrega- 
 tion." J In Spain dogma has spoilt one of the finest races 
 
 • " The Genius of Solitude," p. 324, by W. B. Alger. 
 
 t " First Principles^" p. 120. 
 
 X Vasga de Gama's "Voyages," 15th century. 
 
THE EFFECT OF DOGMA. 209 
 
 in Europe. It was drained, as Mr. Galton tells us, of frue- 
 thinkers at the rate of 1,000 persons annually, for the three 
 centuries between 1471 and 1781 ; an average of 100 persons 
 having been executedj and 900 imprisoned every year during 
 that period. The actual data during these 300 yrars are 
 32,000 burnt, 17,000 persons burnt in effigy ( I presume they 
 mostly died in prison or escaped from Spain), and 271,000 
 were condemned to various terms of imprisonment and other 
 penalties.* Besides, the celibacy in the Church and in the 
 ecclesiastical institutions checked the transmission of the 
 highest minds and of the highest phases of civilisation. 
 The best men had no families, and the deterioration of the 
 race was the inevitable consequence. 
 
 Dr. Dollinger, commenting on the recent " Infallibility of 
 the Pope," gives us his testimony as to the effect of dogma 
 on the general interests of humanity. He says : "As a 
 student of history I cannot accept it, for as such I know that 
 the persistent endeavour to realise this theory of universal 
 dominion has cost Europe rivers of blood, has disordered 
 whole countries and brought them to ruin, has shattered the 
 beautiful structure of the earlier Church, and in the Church 
 of modem times has generated, nurtured, and maintained the 
 worst abuses. As a citizen I must reject it, because by its 
 pretensions to the subjection of States and monarchs and of 
 the whole political system to the Papal power, it leads to 
 endless destructive conflict between Church and State, between 
 clergy and laity." 
 
 But the Calvinistic phase of Christianity is fading even in 
 Scotland. J. S. Mill says truly that " what is called Christian, 
 but should rather be termed theological morality, was not 
 the work of Christ or his apostles, but is of much later 
 origin, having been gradually built up by the Catholic 
 Church of the first five centuries, and though not implicitly 
 adopted by modems and Protestants, has been much less 
 
 * Hereditary Genius, p. 359. 
 P 
 
210 KELIGION. 
 
 modified by them than might have been expected." " The 
 institutions and rites by which Polytheists had testified vene- 
 ration for their fictitious deities, were now adopted with some 
 slight alterations by Christian teachers, and blended with 
 their worship, on the inadmissible pretext that Pagans would 
 receive Christianity with more facility when they saw the 
 rites and ceremonies to which they were accustomed adopted 
 in the Church, and the same worship paid to Christ and his 
 martyrs which they had paid to their idol deities."* 
 
 The fact is', we want a New Eeformation. "What little 
 recognition," says Mr. Mill, " the idea of obligation to the 
 public obtains in modern morality, is derived from Greek 
 and Roman sources, not from Christian ; as, even in the 
 morality of private life, whatever exists of magnanimity, 
 highmindedness, personal dignity, even the sense of honour, 
 is derived from the purely human, not the religious part of 
 our education, and never could have grown out of a standard 
 of ethics in which the only worth, professedly recognised, is 
 that of obedience."! " Magnanimity, self-reliance, dignity, 
 independence, and, in a word, elevation of character, con- 
 stituted the Eoman idea of perfection ; while humility, 
 obedience, gentleness, patience, resignation, are Christian 
 virtues."! 
 
 But old creeds are passing away, and there is even a doubt, 
 as we have seen, among enlightened chui'chmen, whether the 
 Athanasian Creed shall be retained in the Church services 1 
 Some people, not able to accept the anthropomorphic idea of 
 God, reject Him altogether ; others, as the Secularists, seeing 
 how much Religion is now made to stand in the way of real 
 progress, reject Religion altogether; and educated people 
 generally, finding Religion and Morality inextricably bound 
 
 * Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, cent. 3, part 2, chap. 3. 
 t " On Liberty," pp. 88, et seq. J Lecky, vol. 2, pp. 72-155. 
 
THE NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES. 211 
 
 together, are everywhere trying to put the " new wine into 
 old bottles," to build the new ideas, as before, in the early 
 centuries of Christianity, on the old foundation. Creeds are 
 seldom now accepted in the literal, but in a non-natural 
 sense ; keeping the same words, but giving them a different 
 meaning. The Pall Mall Gazette, however, says truly (Mar. 
 2, 1871) : " The sincerity and the amiable desire to reconcile 
 conflicting schools is obvious and praiseworthy ; but it results, 
 to speak plainly, in producing such a hash of new theories and 
 old dogmas, such transformations of definite statement into 
 hazy metaphysics, and such unexpected returns to fact from 
 metaphysical theories, that we can find no satisfactory resting 
 place for an ordinary human being." On this Rational Move- 
 ment in the Church the Eev. J. Llewelyn Davies observes : 
 " If we add to the conclusions of physical science that of his- 
 torical research, and of the comparative criticism of religions 
 and myths, it is impossible not to feel that an implicit belief 
 in the Old Testament narratives is exposed to most serious 
 difficulties. Any creed, therefore, which is built on the 
 assumption of the perfect authenticity of the earlier Scrip- 
 tures, is likely to be rudely shaken. « • « Tlie faith 
 taught us by Christian theology is that he whom we know 
 through Christ is the life and order of the universe; and 
 our apprehensions of the mode in which God is related to the 
 universe will rightly vary with our knowledge of the universe 
 itself. It would have been wise for Christians not to tie 
 themselves down to anything more technical and precise on 
 this subject than the broad ' Pantheism ' of St. Paul : 'One 
 God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and 
 in all.' ' Of him, and through him, and unto him are all 
 things.' "* 
 
 But while, on one side, men are turned out of the 
 Church for attacking the doctrines of the Incarnation, the 
 
 * "The Debt of Theology to Secular Movements," p. 203. Con- 
 tempm'ary, January, 1871, 
 
212 RELIGION. 
 
 Atonement, and the Inspiration of the Bible, and others still 
 in the Church hold opinions that would seem even to indi- 
 cate that the very foundations of the faith were giving way 
 beneath us; on the other side we have a solemn judgment 
 (the Purchas case) expected with profound anxiety, that a 
 clergyman must not wear a tunicle, alb, or chasuble in per- 
 forming divine service ; he must not mix water with the 
 sacramental wine ; he must use bread and not wafers ; and 
 he is to stand on the north side of the communion-table and 
 to look south ; and by the north side is not to be understood 
 that part of the west which is nearest to the north. These 
 things appear trifling, but the Ritualist really believes that 
 he is performing a miracle when he is consecrating the bread 
 and wine. But this latter injunction that a clergyman must 
 stand on the north side, and not at the north end of the west 
 side, has caused quite a rebellion, and we shall probably have 
 a Free Church of England in which the State can take no 
 part. " We see the same effect produced at opposite poles 
 of the Church. The Rationalist tries to prove that he may 
 contradict every Article of the Church so long as he avoids 
 contradicting it in a particular form of words. The Ritualist 
 tries to prove that he may twist every ceremonial to the 
 likeness of the Roman Catholic practice so long as by dex- 
 terous interpretations he can keep on the windy side of 
 certain elastic rubrics." Prof. Huxley says: "The clergy 
 are at present divided into three sections : an immense body 
 who are ignorant and speak out, a small proportion who know 
 amd are silent, and a minute minority who know and speak 
 according to their knowledge." (Athenssum, July 23, 1870.) 
 Thomas Carlyle, speaking of the effect of creeds in the 
 1 7th century, says : " The Christian doctrines which then dwelt 
 alive in every heart, have now in a manner died out of all 
 hearts — very mournful to behold ; and are not the guidance 
 of this world any more. * * Nay, worse still, the cant 
 of them does yet dwell alive with us ; little doubting that it 
 
THE DOMAIN OP SENSE AND REASON. 213 
 
 is cant. * * In which fatal intermediate state, the eternal 
 sacredness of this universe itself, of this human life itself, 
 has fallen dark to the most of us." 
 
 We want a new Eeformation : the old Religion now " stops 
 the way " and bars the path of progress. Priest-made law 
 has taken the place of Natural law. Impracticable, incredible 
 dogmas have been associated with religious feeling ; our vene- 
 ration and reverence have been connected with certain books, 
 and creeds, and words, and phrases, and formalities, and it is 
 not easy to break the connection ; so that religion is altogether 
 an exercise of feeling, and not of the intellect — an aspiration 
 and a prayer, and not a logical demonstration. As such it is 
 very difficult to deal with, as it prevents inquiry, narrows 
 the scope of the intellect, and renders error sacred. But we 
 are not without precedent as to the course we must pursue. 
 " Buddha was called omniscient by his earlier pupils ; but 
 when in later times it was seen that on several points he had 
 but spoken the language of his age, and he had shared the 
 errors current among his contemporaries with regard to the 
 shape of the earth and the movement of the heavenly bodies, 
 an important concession was made by Buddhist theologians. 
 They limited the meaning of the word ' omniscient,' as applied 
 to Buddha, to a knowledge of the principal doctrines of his 
 system, and concerning these, but these only, they declared 
 him to be infallible. * * * Within the domain of sense 
 and reason, Nagasina does not claim omniscience and infalli- 
 bility for Buddha, but he claims for him both in all that is 
 to be perceived by meditation only^ or, as we should say, in 
 matters of faith." * 
 
 It is to be hoped that Roman Catholics will take the lately- 
 declared dogma of the Infallibillity of the Pope in this sense, 
 and that theologians will consent to leave to the laity the 
 domain of sense and reason, if we make over the domain o^ 
 faith to them. In the department of Physical Science this 
 Max Miiller. Fraser, May, pp. 589,590. 
 
214 RELIGION. 
 
 has already been conceded, and the sun is no longer supposed 
 to go round the earth, and it is admitted that " Nothing in 
 geology bears the smallest resemblance to any part of the 
 Mosaic cosmogony, torture the interpretation to whatever 
 extent we may" ;* and what we have now to dois to claim 
 the same liberty to extend the domain of sense and reason 
 to mental and moral science. There must be a divorce 
 between religion and morality ; they must no longer be pro- 
 claimed as necessarily dependent upon each other. There 
 can be no religion without morality, but there may be morality 
 without religion. 
 
 Man knows not his whence and whither, and it is to his 
 sacred books that he looks for this revelation ; but we must 
 separate metaphor and pure imagination from what we know 
 of fact and reality. Max Miiller says : " It is impossible in 
 human language to express abstract ideas except by metaphor, 
 and it is not too much to say that the whole dictionaiy of 
 ancient religion is made up of metaphors. With us these 
 metaphors are all forgotten. * * The language of anti- 
 quity is the language of childhood ; aye, and we ourselves, 
 when we try to reach the Infinite by means of mere abstract 
 terms, are but like children trying to place a ladder against 
 the sky." f " Theology," the Rev. J. Llewelyn Davies ob- 
 serves, " has natural tendencies towards corruption. For 
 example, religious enthusiasm gives birth to exaggerated 
 and figurative language; it becoiries a point of honour to 
 hand down such language, which is gradually stiffened into 
 propositions ; and thus Unreality is introduced. Again, 
 nothing is more natural than that men should attribute to 
 God their own modes of thought and feeling, supposing all 
 the while that these have been declared by revelation to be 
 Divine ; and it is not long before such corruptions receive 
 the stamp of common acceptance and Church authority. 
 
 * " Christianity without Judaism," p. 257, by Rev. Baden Powell. 
 f " Fourth Lecture on Science and Eeligion." Prater, July. 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF METAPHOR. 215 
 
 Christian tradition, therefore, is no competent guardian of 
 theology." Eeligioiis language, although apparently we 
 have forgotten it, can be accepted only as purely meta- 
 phorical. For instance, we speak of Heaven and Hell — 
 " and besides these two places for souls separated from their 
 bodies, the Scripture knoweth none " — as above and below, — 
 of ascending into one and descending into the other ; but 
 where is above and below in a world that turns round every 
 twenty-four hours ? What is above one twelve hours is below 
 the next. Christ is represented as " sitting on the right hand 
 of the Father," and we " cannot be saved " if we do not 
 believe it ; but has the Father a right hand ? And then, 
 " all the dead shall be raised with the self-same bodies, and 
 none other," although the same bodies must have served half- 
 a-dozen men at least ; and there is to be a day of judgment, 
 " in which day not only the apostate angels shall be judged, 
 but likewise all persons that have lived upon earth shall 
 appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of 
 their thoughts, words, and deeds." Certainly this must be a 
 very long day, and it is not easy to believe in it, unless, like 
 Kant, we disbelieve in time and space altogether. We speak 
 of the presence of God in Heaven, and of seeing Him there 
 face to face, as if He were not equally present everywhere. 
 We speak of God's sitting on a Throne, surrounded by the 
 Angels of Heaven; of His Majesty, &c., &c., as if our 
 highest ideal were an Eastern Monarch, with all his pomp 
 and state. Surely all this is " the language of childhood," * 
 
 * " Beligious language is not only the language of cMldtiood, it is 
 the language of the childhood of the race. The theological universe 
 no longer corresponds to that which physical science presents for our 
 contemplation. It was quite different with the Jew. His concep- 
 tion of the abode of Jehovah and the angels, and of departed souls, 
 was exceedingly simple and definite. In the Jewish theory the 
 universe is like a part of a three-storey house. The flat earth rests 
 upon the waters, and under the earth's surface is the land of graves, 
 called Sheol, where after death the souls of all men go, the righteous 
 
216 RELieiON. 
 
 but how conld any religion that we have at the present day- 
 exist without it? There is no religious language that can be 
 
 as well as the wicked, for the Jew had not arrived at the doctrine of 
 heaven and hell. The Hebrew Sheol corresponds strictly to the 
 Greek Hades, before the notions of Elysium or Tartnms were added 
 to it — a land peopled with flitting shadows, sufiering no torment, but 
 experiencing no pleasure, like those whom Dante met in one of the 
 upper circles of his Inferno. Sheol is the first storey of the cosmic 
 house ; the earth is the second. Above the earth is the firmament or 
 sky, which, according to the book of Genesis (chap. v. 6, Hebrew 
 text), is a vast plate hammered out by the gods, and supports a great 
 ocean like that upon which the earth rests. Eain is caused by the 
 opening of little windows or trap-doors in the firmament, through 
 which pours the water of this upper ocean. Upon this water rests 
 the land of heaven, where Jehovah reigns, surrounded by hosts of 
 angels. To this blessed land two only of the human race have ever 
 been admitted — Enoch and Elijah — the latter of whom had ascended 
 in a chariot of fire, and was destined to return to earth as the herald 
 and forerunner of the Messiah. Heaven forms the third storey of the 
 cosmic house. Between the firmament and the earth is the air, 
 which is the habitation of evil demons, ruled by Satan, the " prince 
 of the powers of the air." — ("The Jesus of Dogma." The Modern 
 Thmlter, p. 30.) 
 
 Perhaps we have not a more useful and sensible book than " Life : 
 its Nature, Varieties, and Phenomena," by Leo H. Grindoii, as long 
 as the author confines himself to what is really, known — to observa- 
 . tion and experiment ; but it is lamentable when he tries to patch his 
 new truth to the above old garment of tradition, which he appears to 
 adopt almost literally. His idea is the common one that God reigns 
 apart from nature in heaven, and he tells us that " God desires that 
 all men should be united to him," but he does not tell us how any- 
 thing can be disunited from the cause of all things, "in whom we 
 live, and move, and have our being ;" or how Omnipotence can desire 
 anything that it cannot have. Again, he tells us that " the inalien- 
 able and irrepressible recollection of the deeds and feelings played 
 forth while in the flesh, provide a beatitude or a misery for ever," 
 (p. 290). Fancy the endless progress of the future being occupied 
 solely with the stupid feelings, deeds, and ideas of the present, and 
 their providing a " beatitude 1" We are also told that to deny the 
 existence of spiritual substance is to assert that heaven is an empty 
 void, whereas St. John represents it as a plenitude of objects amd 
 
ANTHK0POMOEPIII8M. 217 
 
 used that will bear to be translated literally : still must every 
 man who does not believe in such a human personality as- 
 the above be called an Atheist, or believe himself to be one I 
 Matthew Arnold truly says " matters are not much mended 
 by taking their (the Scripture writers') language of approxi- 
 mative figures and iising it for the language of scientific 
 definition ; or by crediting them with our own dubious science,, 
 deduced from metaphysical ideas which they never had." * 
 But it is questionable whether the most advanced ideas are 
 in any way applicable to God, inasmuch as they can only be- 
 our own attributes, extended beyond limit, — what we call 
 infinitely. Max Miiller says that, "closely connected with 
 the belief in a personal God of holiness, is the pursuit of a 
 holy life;" but are we justified in lowering God that we may 
 raise ourselves? He says, " however imperfect and however 
 
 scenery, of the most substantial kind. It is to depopulate it also of 
 its angels, who if they be real enough to be persons, must assuredly 
 be real enough to consist of substance. Unless always upon the- 
 wing, they. must likewise have a substantial surface whereon to 
 stand," (p. 121.) Now an American, in showing ofE his favourite mare, 
 said, we may suppose as the highest praise he could bestow upon her, 
 that she " cooked her tail like an angel ;" and whether he had any 
 special knowledge on the subject, or only an intuition of the demands 
 of comparative anatomy, he was more likely to be right than Mr. 
 Grindon, for if angels have wings they must have tails as rudders,, 
 and if not "always upon the wing," would require to perch, not 
 stand. Surely it is time that all this was left out of such exceedingly 
 intelligent and useful books as " Life : its Nature, Varieties, and Phe- 
 nomena," and confined to books of poetry or mythology. There may 
 be worlds greatly superior to our own, and superior intelligences: 
 inhabiting them ; but to suppose in this universe, where this world of 
 ours is but as a grain of sand, there is some special spot where the 
 Power that sustains all things is specially present, sitting on a throne, 
 surrounded by angels, who are perpetually flying about doing His be- 
 hests, was all very well for the childhood of the race, but is too 
 childish a conception for the present age. God is equally present 
 everymhere, and we must learn to recognise Him, or He -will be recog- 
 nised, as is at present the case with too many, nowhere. 
 * " Literature and Dogma," p. 48, ComMU, July, 1871. 
 
218 RELIGION. 
 
 childish the conception of God may be, it always represents 
 the highest ideal of perfection which the human soul, for the 
 time being, can reach and grasp. Keligion therefore places 
 the human soul in the presence of its highest ideal ; it lifts 
 it above the level of ordinary goodness, and produces at 
 least a yearning after a higher and better life — a life in the 
 light of God."* We may fairly ask whether, as Eeligion 
 is now understood, this is not placing owr ideal a little too 
 high, and whether it does not lift " the level of ordinary 
 goodness " too much above this world altogether ? In the 
 New Reformation religious duty will assume quite a new 
 aspect. Let us see what light we have to guide us on the 
 subject. "What do we know of God ? 
 
 To the Physicist and Comtist there is nothing in the 
 world but Force, Matter, and Motion — or its modes of 
 action. " Every form is force visible ; a form of rest is a 
 balance of forces ; a form undergoing change is the predo- 
 minance of one over others." But this force must be the 
 force or power of something ; this something is unknown to 
 us but as the Source of all power, and therefore the cause of 
 everything — the Theist calls it God. Although not known 
 to us, however, in its essence, it is partially known to us in 
 its Attributes and Manifestations. We speak of the power 
 of God, as if it could be delegated or separated from Him ; 
 but to separate power or force from that of which it is the 
 force, is clearly as impossible and inconceivable as to sepa- 
 rate motion from the thing moving. This " Unknown " 
 entity is the " Substance " of Spinoza ; and the " Being " 
 that underlies all forms of Being, of Hegel ; and in creation, 
 as Hegel says, " Being — Becomes." Mind and Matter are 
 only phenomenal modifications of this common " substance." 
 " There is but one infinite Substance," says Spinoza, " and 
 
 * Fraser, July, p. 107. 
 
UNIVERSAL DIVINE AGENCY. 219 
 
 that is God. He is the universal Being, of which all things 
 are the manifestations. * * * Extension and Thought 
 are the objective and subjective, of which God is the Identity." 
 We know nothing but our own Consciousness, and the dif- 
 ferent "modes of motion" which we infer (or are conscious of) 
 are the cause of it. We know nothing outside this consci- 
 ousness — that is, we know nothing of the universe but 
 as "a manifestation of Power from something that is not 
 I " (Fichte). The classification and arrangement of these 
 " modes of motion," of these manifestations of Power, we 
 call Science. A change of position, a change of form, a 
 correlative of force, is all that is going on, and the difference 
 between chaos and order, between barbarism and civilisation, 
 is simply a difference of arrangement. Now it is with the 
 Cause of this change, with the Power that affects it, with 
 the tendency of the arrangement, that Religion has to deal ; 
 and we necessarily come to the same conclusion as Saint 
 Paul, that " There are diversities of operation, but the same 
 God worketh all in all." " When we view the world as one 
 universal effect, we are at once led to the contemplation of 
 a universal Divine Agency. Does not the Infinite act on 
 every atom ? God never delegates His power ; He cannot 
 transfer divinity to a substance : there is no power, therefore, 
 separate from Himself. In Him all things have their 
 being."* 
 
 This idea is much more purely and perfectly expressed in 
 some of the Eastern religions ; and apart from the abuses 
 that were afterwards grafted upon it, it is without that ma- 
 terial, anthropomorphic element which distinguishes the 
 religions of our Western nations. Mr. W. R. Alger, in his 
 notice of Buddha, says : " To stigmatise such a man, in the 
 opprobrious sense of the words, as an atheistic eulogiser of 
 nothingness, a godless unbeliever, is manifestly unjust. 
 
 * " The Philosophy of the Bible," pp. 35-40, by Bev. J. White 
 Mailler, M.A. 
 
2^0; RELIGION. 
 
 Absolute pure being is nothing definite, is no thing. It is 
 All. As Spinoza, with other metaphysical masters before 
 and after him, has said, every determination of being is a 
 negation; every attribute or quality affirmed of it is a limit- 
 ation. Now Gotama Buddha's doctrine of the extinction 
 of existence means the removal of limitations, the destruc- 
 tion of all obstacles to the return into that pure being, 
 ■whereof, as indicated by the word Nirwana, he himself says : 
 We can affirm nothing, neither that it is nor that it is not, 
 since it has no qualities. It is that conditionless state, the 
 idea of which it bewilders the faculties of thought to con- 
 ceive, and baffles the' resources of language to express ; 
 although the writings of every deep speculative philosopher, 
 from Heraclitus to Hamilton, deal familiarly with it. The 
 scientific idea of force is the idea of as pure and mysterious 
 a unity as the One of Pdrmenides. It is a noumenal integer 
 phenomenally differentiated into the glittering universe of 
 things. The Christian who asserts that the unknowable 
 cause of all is an intelligent and affectionate Father, a per- 
 sonal counterpart of himself dilated to immensity, would 
 brand as an atheistic nothingarian the scientist who pauses 
 with the idea of a unit of force, and denies substantive vali- 
 dity to everything else. And yet to the philosopher who 
 has adequately thought his way to that conception, with the 
 fit emotion, it is unquestionably a conception of overwhelm- 
 ing religiousness, capable of yielding an unsurpassed measure 
 of authority and trust, of awe, sweetness, and peace. * * 
 The perception of the indivisible unity of real being, and the 
 purely phenomenal nature of the self — in the.faith of Buddha 
 this is the matchless diamond whose discovery sets every 
 prepared slave free. * * Like Hume, Spinoza, and 
 other subtle masters of thinking, Buddha fancied he saw the 
 delusiveness of all selfhood; saw that the soul is no substan- 
 tive unit, but merely a current of states ; its sole identity 
 consisting of the accumulated mass of associations in expe- 
 
BUDDHISM. 221 
 
 rience, the organic conditions of memory."* Mr. Alger 
 tell us that "the system spread rapidly over one nation after 
 another, drawing swarms of converts, until it became, as it 
 is at this moment, after the lapse of twenty-five hundred 
 years, the most numerously followed of all religions that 
 have ever prevailed on the earth. The ignorant myriads of 
 his followers, unable to understand or be satisfied with the 
 transcendent, abstractions of the system, deformed its teach- 
 ings by the addition of their superstitious notions, and ended, 
 in many cases, by deifying the sage himself, and painting a 
 new paradise in the abyss. Sljll, in all its forms, the reli- 
 gion retains much of the metaphysical speculation, and more 
 of the sublime ethics of its founder."| " Buddha is One, 
 the One ; and it is only with the inward eye, purged from 
 sensual corruption, and steadily fixed on the contemplation 
 of unity, that he can in anywise be apprehended. For the 
 natural eye of the ordinary man views a multiplicity of 
 things, each thing separate and divided from the other. The 
 natural eye takes account only of appearances ; it requires 
 the severest discipline for a man to behold the Reality. * * 
 The one infallible diagnostic of Buddhism is the belief in the 
 infinite capacity of the human mind. * * Lastly, the- 
 idea of deified man is there; but this loses itself in another, 
 that there is in man, in humanity, a certain Divine Intelli- 
 gence, which at different times, and in different places, mani- 
 fests itself 'more or less completely, and which must have 
 some central manifestation."! It is curious how some of 
 the sayings and parables of Buddha resemble those attributed 
 to Christ, thus : " Let a man overcome anger by love, evil 
 by good, the greedy by liberality, the liar by truth." 
 
 " What is the use of platted hair, fool ? What of the 
 
 • " The Genius of SoUtude," pp, 201, 202, 191. f Ibid. p. 200. 
 X " The Religions of the World, and their Kelation to Christianity," 
 by Eev. F. D. Maurice, pp. 76-85. 
 
22S RELIGION. 
 
 raiment of goatskins ? Within thee there is ravening, but 
 the outside thou makest clean,"* and many others. 
 
 We have the same idea in the Wahhabee or purist Doc- 
 trine of Mohammedanism. " La Ilah ilia Allah ; there is 
 no God but God ; their full sense is, not only to deny abso- 
 lutely and unreservedly all plurality of nature or of person 
 in the Supreme Being, not only to establish the unity of the 
 Unbegetting and Unbegot, in all its simple and uncommu- 
 nicable Oneness, but besides this the words, in Arabic and 
 among Arabs, imply that this one Supreme Being is also 
 the only Agent, the only Force, the only Act existing 
 throughout the universe, and leave to all beings else, matter 
 or spirit, instinct or intelligence, spiritual or moral, nothing 
 but pure unconditional passiveness, alike in movement or in 
 quiescence, in action or in capacity. The sole power, the 
 sole motor, movement, energy, and deed is God ; the rest is 
 downright inertia, and mere instrumentality, from the highest 
 archangel down to the simplest atom of creation." This 
 Mr. W. G. Palgrave calls the Pantheism of Force, and cer- 
 tainly it ip the scientific idea run to its greatest abuse in 
 Eastern Fatalism, and carried on, as we find, to Calvinistic 
 fatalism. "This Force or Power is supposed to be exercised 
 according to the capricious Will of a human Autocrat, being 
 especially jealous of his creatures, lest they should attribute 
 to themselves something of what is His alone. When God, 
 so runs the tradition, resolved to create the human race. He 
 took into His hand a mass of earth, the same whence all 
 mankind were to be formed, and in which they after a manner 
 pre-existed ; and having then divided the clod into two equal 
 portions, He threw the one-half into Hell, saying, ' These to 
 eternal fire, and I cafe not;' and projected the other into 
 Heaven, adding, ' and these to Paradise, and I care not.' "f 
 
 * Palgrave's " Central and Eastern Arabia," vol. 1, p, 366. 
 f " Science of Eeligion," M-aser, July, 1870, p. 106. 
 
FORCE AND GOD THE SAME. 223 
 
 This is the Calvinistic doctrine in its simplest and most 
 merciful form ; for with the Calvinist, broad is the road that 
 leadeth to destruction, and narrow the path of life, and all 
 has been preordained by an eternal and immutable decree, 
 not from mere indifference, but " out of his mere love, for 
 the praise of his glorious grace." Thus, we are told by the 
 Larger Catechism of the Church of Scotland, established by 
 Act of Parliament, and which the great majority of Scotch 
 children ai"e taught to venerate as an unquestionably correct 
 interpretation of Scripture, that " God, by an eternal and 
 immutable decree, out of his mere love, for the praise of his 
 glorious grace, to be manifested in due time, hath selected 
 some angels to glory ; and, in Christ, hath chosen some men 
 to eternal life, and the means thereof : and, also, according 
 to his sovereign power, and the unsearchable counsel of his 
 own will (whereby he extendeth or withholdeth favour as he 
 pleaseth) hath passed by and preordained the rest to dis- 
 honour and wrath, to be for their sin inflicted, to the praise 
 of the glory of his justice." 
 
 The Science of the present day recognises but one Force, 
 and its Correlations, or transformations and modes of action. 
 What is this the Force of? Unknown, says the man of 
 Science, except in these modes of action. It is the Force 
 of Matter, says the Materialist ; of Mind, says the Spiritu- 
 alist ; but Mind and Matter are but " phenomenal modifica- 
 tions of the same common substance." But what is this 
 common substance ? " There is but one infinite Substance," 
 says Spinoza, " and that is God," and so say all the great 
 religions of the world. The one infinite Substance and the 
 Force of our modern scientist is the same, and the question 
 is, what do we and can we know of it ? ' It is known to us 
 in its unity, its manifestations or modes of action, and in its 
 purpose or design. 
 
 Science proves the Unity of Force; for throughout the 
 
224 RELIGION. 
 
 Universe, as far as observation extends, every atom is pulling 
 at every other atom, and that with set purpose, which proves 
 both intelligence and volition. " Their movements, their 
 interchanges, their ' hates and loves,' their ' attractions and 
 repulsions,' their ' correlations,' their what not, are all deter- 
 mined on the very instant. There is no hesitation, no 
 blundering, no trial and error. * * The presence of Mind 
 is what solves the whole difficulty; so far, at least, as it 
 brings it within the sphere of our consciousness, and into 
 conformity with our own experience of what action is."* But 
 this intelligent action, as far as we know, is not now attended 
 with consciousness, but has passed out of its sphere, and how 
 can we account for that? " The necessity may be disguised, 
 but can never be escaped, of interpreting the universe by 
 Man." In man a voluntary action, often repeated, becomes 
 involuntary, or automatic — that is, is performed unconsciously. 
 We have thus intelligent action without consciousness ; and 
 " in conformity with our own experience of what action is," 
 all force or power is Will power — the will of Ood. The will 
 which originally required a distinct conscious volition has 
 passed, in the ages, into the unconscious or automatic, con- 
 stituting the fixed laws and order of nature.f Natural 
 
 * Sir J. F. W. Hersche]. 
 
 f " Causation ia the will, Creation the act of God." W. B,. Grove. 
 
 " In putting forth our Will (using the term for the whole activity 
 that may become voluntary), we certainly know the self as Force; 
 we get behind the phenomena which we produce, and are let into the 
 secret of their oijgin in a way which we should miss if we only looked 
 upon them. In other words, we know oui'selves as Cause of them. 
 It is then under the form of Will that we are introduced to Causality ; 
 and the axiom resolves itself into the proposition. Every phenomena 
 springs from a Will," &o.— (" Is there any Axiom of Causality?" by 
 Eev. James Martineaii. Contemporcm/ Review, July, 1870. 
 
 "1. Matter, as an .entity distinct from forces which alone we 
 perceive, cannot be proved to exist, and is beside inconceivable, and 
 utterly unnecessary. 
 
MAN A COSMOS. 225 
 
 Causation, therefore, and God's Will are the same, and can- 
 not be separated. This Will does not in any case, as far as 
 we know, act by way of special creation, but by the " law " 
 or order by which everything is made to make itsell — the 
 present dependent upon the past, the future dependent upon 
 the present. Everything necessarily acts according- to its 
 nature, and it is the Creator's nature always to act in the 
 same way. It is ignorance and uncertainty only 'that change 
 and vary ; hence harmonious order and fixed laws, or what 
 we call " Harmonious order governing eternally continuous 
 progress." "A phenomenon is explained," says Huxley, 
 " when it is shown to be a case of some general law of Na- 
 ture ; but the supernatural interposition of the Creator can, 
 by the nature of the case, exemplify no law." If I might 
 venture to differ from so high an authority, I should say, 
 yes, it can ; it can exemplify a higher law, the law of the 
 Creator's own nature, not acting blindly, but intelligently ; 
 whereas, what we call " a general law of Nature " is where 
 the Creator's intelligent and intellectual attributes have 
 passed into unconscious or automatic action. 
 
 Man is a Cosmos — the whole world exists in Mm in minia- 
 ture ; and judging great things by small, so far as we can 
 understand him, so far can we understand how the world has 
 been made and is governed. * 
 
 " 2. Ibrce is the one thing our senses are cognisant of, and there- 
 fore the one tiing our reason has any foundation for believing in. 
 
 " 3. We are conscious of exerting force, while we have no know- 
 ledge that matter (which is force) has any power to exert force. 
 
 " 4. The inference is, that force is produced in the only way we 
 know force to be produced, by the will of conscious beings." — (A. K. 
 "Wallace.) 
 
 * " To know ourselves is to know God, for we are a similitude of 
 the Deity — a living image of the eternal divine nature. That which 
 is the triune God is manifested in nature and creation ; and of this 
 entire nature and creation man ia the epitome." — (Jacob Bohme.) 
 
 " The human body : that wonderful machine, the richest, the most 
 Q 
 
226 KBLIGION. 
 
 The world began in a nebulous mist: so man began in proto- 
 plasm — the nebulous matter of life. Each living function, 
 beginning with an animal all stomach, at first was probably 
 a voluntary action. As part was added to part, and function 
 to function, in different forms of life, and as these functions 
 descended to one animal after another, and rose in the scale 
 of being, they gradually lost their voluntary character and 
 became automatic, as the functions of brain do now when 
 they pass into instincts. The action of the stomach, heart, 
 lungs, &c., at first voluntary, by frequent repetition became 
 involuntary; the action of the brain and nervous system, also, 
 upon which intelligence depends, passed, in many cases, 
 from voluntary, to involuntary, and in automatic action 
 we have intelligent action without consciousness. Every 
 atom in the body performs its action intelligently yet un- 
 consciously-7-even the brain itself when healthy, for we have 
 no consciousness that the action of the brain is necessary to 
 thought. It is curious and instructive to watch, both in the 
 child and in the man, the stages by which the conscious gra- 
 dually passes into the unconscions — ^the voluntary and volitional 
 into the automatic, in walking, winking, talking, touching, 
 seeing, writing, &c. Co-ordination of mind and movement 
 is at first effected with difficulty, and requires a mental effort, 
 and then becomes so easy that it has a tendency even to usurp 
 
 diversified, the most complete of all, yea, that masterpiece of nature 
 which contains all the forms of combination and organisation which 
 nature can produce ; that little world in whicli is reflected the entire 
 universe. The whole of nature is one individual. The parts vary 
 infinitely, but the individual in its totality undergoes no change." — 
 (Spinoza.) 
 
 " External nature has a body and soul like man, but the soul is the 
 Deity."— (Ruskin.) 
 
 " If there be any work in Nature which reflects any image of the 
 Creator, the human mind is that work. And the highest light which 
 these faculties supply is that by which mind recognises in Nature the 
 working of a spirit like its own." — (" On Variety as an Aim in Nature," 
 by the Duke of Argyll. Cmteiivpirm-y Heviem, May, 1871.) 
 
HABIT AND MOTIVE IN NATURE. 227 
 
 the action of the mind. * So what we call the Laws of Nature 
 were probably at first voluntary action of Divine Will power, 
 but are now no longer attended with consciousness. In man 
 this liberated consciousness is required for higher purposes, 
 or enjoyment ; and if we trftce progress in Nature, it must 
 exist in God its Author also. Force in this way becomes 
 blind, and some of those apparent exceptions to design occur 
 upon which certain philosophers ground so much. Organs 
 that were useful lower down in the scale are sometimes passed 
 on to higher grades, where they are no longer of any use. 
 Man's rudimentary tail, the os coccyx, for instance, is not 
 now of much use to him, whatever it may have been to his 
 possible progenitor — ^the monkey. The guinea-pig, Huxley 
 tells us, has teeth which are shed before it is born, and hence 
 can never subserve the masticatory purpose for which they 
 seem contrived ; and in like manner the female dugong has 
 tusks which never cut the gum. f We have animals that 
 never swim, and yet their fingers are provided with the re- 
 quisite membranous apparatus, and numberless other mon- 
 strosities and structures, which, so far as we can judge, are 
 neither injurious nor beneficial, but which furnish, in my 
 opinion, illustrations of the automatic character of the volun- 
 tary, conscious Will power, by which they were originally 
 brought about. It would seem as if Nature, having got into 
 a habit (automatic action) of making teeth, and so of other 
 organs, makes teeth sometimes, in the guinea-pig for instance, 
 when they are not wanted : we have the continuance of habitual 
 actions when the motive for them has ceased. But is not this 
 exactly what we might expect from our knowledge and expe7 
 rience of the action of the little spark of mind in ourselves 
 which has been parcelled off from the infinite whole ? 
 
 The Unknown, the one Infinite Substance — that which 
 underlies all Force and all phenomena — ^is known to us in 
 
 * See Dr. W. B. Carpenter's Article in Contemporm-y Review, May, 1871. 
 t "Lay Sermons," p. 284. 
 
228 RELIGION. 
 
 its manjfestatioiis or modes of action ; all Power being thus 
 Will power, conscious or automatic. All Science is a mere 
 classification of a difference of arrangement and modes of 
 action, and the real source of this action is hidden in what 
 are called' secondary causes, whei^jn fact there are no secondary 
 causes — unless we designate conscious and what appears to 
 us as unconscious volition as primary and secondary cause. 
 All is immediately from God. " And this immediate action 
 of God is not limited to the mind of man. It is the same 
 through all nature. God has not given up his creation to 
 secondary causes. God never leaves His world. He is 
 presejit in it now as much as in the first moment of creation ; 
 in fact, creation never ceases. The same will, the same power, 
 and the same presence that were required to create the world, 
 are required every moment to preserve it. What we call the 
 laws of nature are but the expressions of the will of God. 
 He works by laws, but the working is not therefore less 
 immediate or less dependent on His will and power." * "A 
 human mechanist may leave the machine he has constructed 
 to work without his further personal superintendence, because 
 when he leaves it God's laws take it up ; but when God has 
 constructed his machine of the universe he cannot so leave it, 
 or any the minutest part of it, in its immensity and intricacy of 
 movement, to itself, for if He retire there is no second God to 
 take care of this machine. Not from a single atom' of mat- 
 ter can he who made it for a moment withdraw His super- 
 intendence and support ; each successive moment all over 
 the world, the act of creation must be repeated." ■!• 
 
 " There is but one infinite Substance, and that is God." 
 There is but one Force of that Substance, and Heat, Light, 
 Magnetism, Electricity, Attraction, Repulsion, Chemical Affi- 
 nity, Life, Mind or Sentience, are the names by which we dis- 
 tinguish the manifestations or different modes of action of this 
 
 * Malebrauclie. 
 t " Au Essay on Pantheism," p. 212, by Bev. John Hunt. 
 
eOD AND NATURE TNSKPjlRABLE. 229 
 
 Force. This Substance or Force is constantly passing into 
 new forms, the old forms ceasing to exist. This sequence 
 or correlation we call cause and effect, and each cause and 
 effect is a new Life, a new Death : each form being a new 
 creation, which dies and passes away, never to return ; for 
 nothing repeats itself. " All Nature and Life are but one 
 ffafment, a ' living garment,' woven and ever a-weaving in 
 the Loom of Time."* God and Nature are inseparable. 
 God is Nature, not in Nature. The Laws of Nature are the 
 Attributes of Deity, and all action His consequent and 
 necessary mode of working.']' 
 
 * Sartor Besartus, p. 210, T. Carlyle. 
 
 f Of course these conclusions may not be acoepteoi, and may not be 
 even comprehensible, but by those who are acquainted with the last 
 results in Physics and Metaphysics. "We know only our own con- 
 soionsness, which we call spiritual, and the world is created in that 
 consciousness by a manifestation of Power or Force from something 
 which is not I, but which power or force is equally spiritual. Ha; 
 nihilo nihil fit, the world cannot have been made out of nothing ; it 
 muBt therefore be an Evolution from God, Or rather is God. The 
 common notions on the subject ai'e the delusions of the senses, and 
 of our intellectual faculties or modes of thought. 
 
 " Evolution notions are absurd, monstrous, and fit only for the 
 intellectual gibbet in relation to the ideas concerning matter which 
 were drilled into us when young. Spirit and matter have ever been 
 presented to us in the rudest contrast, the one as all noble, the other 
 as all vile. But is this correct ? Dofes it represent what our mightiest 
 spiritual teacher would call the Eternal Fact of the Universe ? Upon 
 the answer to this question all depends. Supposing, instead of having 
 the foregoing antithesis of spirit and matter presented to our youthful 
 minds, we had been taught to regard them as equally Wbrthy and 
 equally wonderful ; to consider them, in fact, as two opposite faces of 
 the self-same mystery. Supposing that in yonth we had been impreg- 
 nated with the notion of the poet Goethe, instead of the notion of the 
 poet Young, looking at matter, not as brute matter, but as ' the living 
 garment of God,' do you not think that trnder these altered circum- 
 stances the law of Relativity might have had an outcome different 
 from its present one 7 Is it net probable that our repugnance to the 
 idea of primeval union between spirit and matter might be consider- 
 
230 RELIGION, 
 
 What, then, is the necessary inference? The Eternal 
 Sacredness of the Universe, and of all Life in it, which, as 
 Carlyle says, "has fallen dark to the most of us." 
 
 Religion must be brought into harmony with Philosophical 
 Necessity. All is God, and therefore all is Good. Good 
 and Evil are purely subjective — that is, the differences we 
 make in this respect are of our own creation, and exist only 
 in ourselves. They indicate only the different way in which 
 we are affected by the manifestations of power without us, 
 and to which it is our first religious duty to adapt ourselves. 
 They are the mental springs of action — the pleasure and 
 pain, that is, the good and evil being at present equally 
 necessary, although as we progress we shall less and less 
 require the evil. As Shakespeare says, "Virtue itself turns 
 vice, being misapplied," or to put it differently, vice is only 
 virtue in the wrong place. All the sets of laws. Physical, 
 Moral, and Intellectual, are equally sacred, spiritual, and to 
 be obeyed, "Nature is conquered by obedience" only, and 
 by knowledge and obedience are we enabled to choose the 
 good and refuse the evil. 
 
 Everthing has received a definite constitution, which is 
 unalterable by us ; but knowing what this constitution is, we 
 can regulate our conduct accordingly. If we put ourselves 
 in opposition to this fixed order of things we are punished — 
 that is, are made to suffer for it ; but this punishment is not 
 vindictive or revengeful, but for our good. All pain or 
 punishment in Nature is for the good or reformation of the 
 person suffering, and no one, either in this world or another, 
 would wish to be " saved " from that which was for his own 
 good. Forgiveness of sin would be an injury. And this shows 
 us the real nature of that much-abused word, "Responsibility." 
 
 ably abated ? Without this total revolution of the notions now 
 prevalent, the Evolution hypothesis must stand condemned ; but in 
 many profoundly thoughtful minds such a revolution has already 
 taken place."— .(Prof. Tyndall on the " Scientific Use of the Imagina- 
 tion.") 
 
RKSPONSIBILITY. 231 
 
 Responsibility does not mean the vengeance to which we are 
 liable for the past, which cannot now be altered, and, indeed, 
 could not at any time have been different under the existing 
 circumstances. The same causes must always again produce 
 the same effects. Responsibility simply means that we must 
 always bear the natural and necessary consequences of our 
 actions. From these we can never get away. But as the 
 order of nature is fixed, as we say — according to Law, we can 
 in most cases by study know what these consequences are, 
 and by altering our conduct avoid them where they are dis- 
 agreeable. This is the standard by which all opinions must 
 be tested — ^viz., the results which they produce when reduced 
 to practice. 
 
 The Law of Consequences is the Law by which the world 
 is everywhere governed. It is the Revelation given to all 
 without respect of persons. But this Revelation has been 
 neglected by Divines in favour of the horrid, inhuman dogmas 
 of the dark ages : they prefer rather to tell us what is going 
 on, and what is to go on, in other worlds rather than in this. 
 God, they say, is only to be found in heaven, not here. But 
 the rightly-tutored mind sees God everywhere, and in every- 
 thing. " There is no other revelation than the ever continu- 
 ing." * All is sacred, and the proper function of Religion 
 is to trace the good in everything — to trace all things to 
 God ; to try to discover His mode of working, and what the 
 experience of probably millions of years has found to be the 
 best and fittest, and which a " Natural Selection " has estab- 
 lished. 
 
 But man does not thus humbly wait upon God, but makes 
 a world of his own, from which all the blunders he thinks he 
 recognises here shall be omitted ; and this brings us to the 
 third way in which the Great Unknown is known to us — viz., 
 the " purpose " in His manifold " manifestations and modes 
 of action." 
 
 * Jean Paul Kichter to his Son, 
 
232 RELIGION. 
 
 Although it is impossible to conceiTe a " beginning," yet 
 the present order of -things had a beginning, and " matter 
 assumed a definite motion at a definite time." By a definite 
 amotion we mean a motion in one particular direction rather 
 than in another ; and the question is why it began to move, 
 and for what purpose.* As we have already seen, the purpose 
 we find in creation, the object of the creative Principle, is 
 the production of the largest amount of pleasurable con- 
 
 * " I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, 
 and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind."-^ 
 (Bacon, Essays, 17.) 
 
 " The whole frame of Nature bespeaks an intelligent author ; and 
 no intelligent inquirer can, after serious refiection, suspend his belief 
 a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism 
 and Eeligion." — (D. Hume, '' Dialogues concerning Natural Keligion," 
 part 10.) Hume, however, rejected with scorn the appeal to the solu- 
 tion which another world was to give to the difficulties of this, which 
 he designated as " building on air, and establishing one hypothesis 
 upon another." -^(Ibid.) 
 
 " The birth both of species and of the individual are equally parts 
 of that grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as 
 the result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a con. 
 elusion."— (" Descent of Man," part 2, p. 396.) 
 
 " If we cannot believe in the relations which He has established 
 between the Mind of Man and the rest of His creation, we can believe 
 in nothing. We are ourselves ' magnetic mockeries ' in a world of 
 lies." — (Duke of Argyll, Oontempormry Review, May, 1871.) 
 
 " Overpoweringly strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent design 
 lie all round us, and if ever perplei^ities, whether metaphysical or 
 scientific, turn us away for a time, they come back upon us with irre- 
 sistible force." — (Sir W. Thomson's Inaugural Address at the British 
 Association, Edinburgh, August, 1871.) 
 
 " Nor will men easily loosen from their errors, and enter the temple 
 of nature, and of the God of nature, which is, that infinite cause in 
 natm'e, eternal, omnipresent and without change — the principle of 
 matter and of the properties of matter, motion, and the mind of 
 matter, but neither matter, nor property, nor mind. What it is, is 
 beyond our comprehension, and folly to suppose. The finite cannot 
 grasp the infinite, nor phenomena a cause. — (" Letters on the Laws of 
 Man's Nature and Development," p. 343, by H. G. Atkinson.) 
 
INFINITE PROGRESSION. 288 
 
 scipusness. All unconscious action is, as we have seen, the 
 effect of automatic Will power ; so that a previous conscious 
 action must have underlaid this unconscious, and probably 
 afterwards passes through certain " modes of motion " from 
 the automatic to a higher state of pleasurable consciousness. 
 The " individuality " by which this takes place is created in 
 our own minds ; unity must be behind it. This, it may be 
 said, is making the nature of God progressive. Certainly 
 I do not see how we are to resist the inference. If the 
 World is progressive, if the Universe is progressive, God is 
 the Universe. The opposite idea, that God is separate from 
 the Universe, is derived from our experience of our own 
 creations, which work without our personal power or aid, 
 forgetting, as we have previously seen, that we have borrowed 
 the power by which they work from the Source of all power. 
 Besides, there cannot be the world and God : that would be 
 a limitation of the Infinite. The author of " The Pilgrim 
 and the Shrine" truly says (vol. 2, p. 18) : " Had absolute 
 perfection existed prior to the 'creation' the universe had 
 never been. For why create, unless to produce a state of 
 things better than before existed ? For the greater Glory 
 of God ? Then His Glory was capable of increase, and 
 therefore was not complete. Therefore there was no perfec- 
 tion ; and therefore no God ! Into this maze of contradiction 
 do the theologians lead us, by detaching God from the uni- 
 verse, and making Him a thing apart.'' 
 
 God's supposed " Foreknowledge " presents a much greater 
 and more incomprehensible difficulty than the supposition 
 that He is one with the Evolutionary Progress that we 
 see. Infinite Foreknowledge implies that everything must 
 come to pass as it has been foreseen it will. As Jonathan 
 Edwards says : " There is as much of an impossibility but 
 that the things that are infallibly foreknown should be, (or 
 which is the same thing), as great a necessity of their future 
 existence as if the event were already written down, and was 
 
234 RELiGias. 
 
 known and read, by all mankind through all preceding ages, 
 and -there was the most indissoluble and perfect connectiou 
 between the writing and the thing written. In snoh a case it 
 would be as impossible the event should fail of existence, as 
 if it had existed already ; and a decree cannot make an event 
 surer or more necessary than this."* Everything with God, 
 therefore, would be the same as if it had already happened, 
 with no possibility of change. Surely this is the deadest fatal- 
 ism, although it is certainly no more than saying that what 
 will be will be, whether it is known what it is that will be 
 or not. But then it is the knowing: " Surely rather than 
 this," says the author of " The Pilgrim and the Shrine," 
 " it is easier to believe that the existing series of things is 
 the actual first thought or life of God ; * • otherwise to 
 the infinite foreknowledge all is still certainty : there is no 
 trust and no hope." " One everlasting Now " sounds very 
 fine, only it is a little inconceivable. The Will and every 
 mental state grows out of what we call physical power or 
 force, and obeys its laws ; and it is most probable therefore 
 that the " ego," the "individuality," is a delusion — a mere 
 creation of the mind, and all happiness and joy is a unity, 
 like the force of which it is the correlate. 
 
 Alphonso the Wise, of Castile, constructed the Alphonsine 
 Tables on the Ptolemaic hypothesis that the sun went round 
 the earth, then universally received ; but he suspected there 
 was something wrong, and ventured to suggest that if the 
 Creator had consulted him, he should have recommended a 
 solar system far more simple and beautiful, with the sun in 
 the centre, etc. •■ So theologians now place man in the centre 
 of their system, making everything to revolve round him, 
 and when they find things do not square with this hypothesis, 
 they think the world a very bungling contrivance, and make 
 another on the pattern of that which they think this ought 
 to have been if it had not been spoilt. Man by his pride 
 * *' Inquiry conceming the Freedom of the Will." 
 
THE PHENOMENAL WORLD. 235 
 
 and self-conceit makes it dark, and then complains that he 
 cannot see. It is true this world to our ignorance is " a 
 mighty maze, but not without a plan." Man is but a small 
 part of a much larger system, even on this planet, and is 
 moved — ^notwithstanding the ridiculous airs he assumes, and 
 all the fine names and supposed differences by which he dis- 
 tinguishes himself — ^by the same laws as all the rest of the 
 sensitive creation. The world — supposed to be made for him 
 alone — was inhabited hundreds of thousands of years before 
 he came upon it, and at this time there is a whole Ocean 
 World, and world within world besides, of sensitive exist- 
 ences in which he can take no part. The phenomenal world 
 is not a reality : each creature creates its own world and 
 carries it about in its own head ; outside itself there is no- 
 thing but the play of forces on the nervous centres of each 
 being. This creates a thousand worlds adapted to the differ- 
 ent wants of each, and is so much better, therefore, than if it 
 had objective reality; and man stupidly thinks it was all 
 made for him, and that the way these forces affect him is the 
 absolute measure of truth : whereas a very few only of the 
 modes of action of the forces around him reach him through 
 his five senses or otherwise, and produce those impressions 
 and ideas which are sufficient to guide him towards the ob- 
 ject of his being, towards his real world — that of his pleasure 
 and pain, and which he calls his moral world. In reality he 
 knows very little indeed of all that is going on without him, 
 and he is cognisant only of the influences that can penetrate 
 through his thick skin ; while whole worlds of beings may 
 exist outside his intellectual ken. 
 
 The " plan " being to create the largest amount of enjoy- 
 ment in all these worlds of varied sensibility, the mode of 
 proceeding is altogether different to the rule or laws which 
 men lay down for the regulation of their intercourse with 
 each other, and which they call moral laws. God proceeds 
 upon a principle of Natural Selection, by which only the 
 
236 BEtlOION. 
 
 strongest and fittest and those most capable of enjoyment 
 are preserved, and there are as many of them always pre- 
 served as there is room for. The weak are evidently in the 
 way, and are squeezed out of existence — ^not, however, without 
 some little outcry on their part, and the making of another 
 world in which more justice is to be done to them. It is 
 evident, however, that it is only selfishness that makes them 
 stand in the way. Nature cares nothing for individuals : 
 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 So careless of the single life.* 
 
 The wish, that of the living whole 
 No life may fail beyond the grave, 
 Derives it not from what we have 
 
 The likest God within the soul ? 
 
 Are God and Nature then at strife, 
 That Nature lends such evil dreams 1 
 So careful of the type she seems, 
 
 So careless of the single Ufe ; 
 
 That I, considering everywhere 
 Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
 And finding that of fifty seeds 
 
 She often brings but one to bear, 
 
 I falter where I firmly trod, 
 And falling with my weight of cares 
 Upon the great world's altar-stairs 
 
 That slope through darkness up to God, 
 
 I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope. 
 And gather dust and chaff, and call 
 To what I feel ia Lord of all, 
 
 And faihtly trust the larger hope. 
 
 liV. 
 
 " So careful of the type " ! but no. 
 From scarped cliff and quarried stone 
 She cries 'a thousand types are gone: 
 
 I care for nothing, all shall go. 
 
THE NK0K8SAEY DESTRUCTION. 237 
 
 The whole surface of the earth is one network of nerves 
 quivering with enjoyment, so greatly exceeding the pains 
 that it is probable that in the aggregate they are not per- 
 ceived at all. Life is thus always preserved at a high pres- 
 sure. " There is no exception to the rule," says Darwin, 
 " that every organic being naturally increases at so high a 
 rate, that if not destroyed this earth would soon be covered 
 by the progeny of a single pair." 
 
 It is this necessary destruction — by which the fittest only 
 are preserved, and life ever kept at a high pressure and the 
 greatest possible capability of enjoyment — ^that man finds 
 
 'Thou makest thine appeal to me: 
 I bring to life, I bring to death: 
 The spirit does not mean the breath : 
 
 I know no more.' And he, shall he, 
 
 Man, her last work, who seem'd so fair, 
 Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 
 Who roU'd the psalm to wintry skies, 
 
 Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer. 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 
 And love Creation's final law — 
 
 Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed — 
 
 Who loved, who suffier'd countless ills, 
 
 Who battled for the True, the Just, 
 
 Be blown about the desert dust, 
 Or sealed within the iron hills ? 
 
 No More? A monster then, a dream, 
 
 A discord. Dragons of the prime, 
 
 That tare each other in their slime, 
 Were mellow music match'd with him. 
 
 O life as futile, then, as frail ! 
 
 O for thy voice to soothe and bless ! 
 
 What hope of answer, or redress ? 
 Behind the veil, behind the veil. 
 
 — Tennyson's " In Memoriam." 
 
238 RELIGION. 
 
 SO difiScult to reconcile to the character he has formed of 
 God. He 
 
 Who trusted God was love indeed, 
 And love Creation's final law — 
 Tho' Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 
 With ravine, shriek'd against his creed. 
 
 It is evident his creed is a wrong one, and that if he will 
 reconcile his belief with the actual phenomena of the world 
 he must alter it. In fact, the terms which we have been in 
 the habit of applying to God, such as holiness, purity, truth, 
 justice, and love, have no meaning as applied to the creative 
 Principle. They apply to man alone, and to his relations 
 with his fellow-creatures, and are no more properly applicable 
 to God than to give Him a man's bodily form, and to 
 speak of His head and arm, and of His sitting upon a 
 throne. They are man's mental form. The Universe is 
 God's form; and our Eeligious duty is, by better know- 
 ledge of it, to be able to see in it that which is really 
 worthy of Him. The stars of earth are quite as wonder- 
 ful and as beautiful as those of heaven, but the darkness 
 that reveals the one obscures the other ; the mental darkness 
 of open day being as great as night itself.* He who sees 
 
 * Baron Bunsen, in his "God in History; or, the Progress of Man's 
 Faith in the Moral Order of the World," says: "The God of the 
 Israelitish and Christian Judaisers, from Ezra to Moses Mendelssohn, 
 is the so-called 'personal God' or ' Supreme Being,' consequently a 
 being, like other beings. They may contrive as many fine phrases 
 as they wiU to designate God as the Spirit ; their God is still, only 
 in the highest conceivable sphere, a venerable, corporeal patriarch, 
 who dwells outside the universe, though He is called the all-pervading 
 Spirit ; severed by an impassable gulf from the universe and from 
 the human spirit which he is yet said to inhabit ; not distinguished 
 from the universe, as the Infinite from the Finite, but as mutual 
 exclusives, like the watchmaker and the watch ; out of space, and 
 therefore banished from the universe, or else dwelling in a space by 
 himself, as the Soul does, according to the view of certain physiolo- 
 gists. Such a God can have no other cultus than an external and 
 
BEHIND THE VEIL. 239 
 
 not God " face to face " in this world is not likely to have 
 any clearer insight in another. The "splendour in the grass, 
 the glory in the flower," does it belong to the grass or flower, 
 or to God ? Tennyson himself does not leave us without 
 one look " behind the veil." Thus he says : 
 
 And forHi into the fields I went, 
 And Nature's living motion lent 
 The pulse of hope to discontent. 
 
 I wondered at the beauteous hours, 
 The slow result of winter showers: 
 You scarce could see the grass for flowers. 
 
 I wonder'd, while I paced along : 
 
 The woods were filled so full with song, 
 
 There seemed no room for sense of wrong. 
 
 So variously seem'd all things wrought, 
 I marvelTd how the mind was brought 
 To anchor by one gloomy thought ; 
 
 And wherefore rather I made choice 
 To commune with that barren voice, 
 Than him that said, " Eejoioe, Rejoice !" 
 
 ritualistic ; the truly ethical element in worship is as much repressed 
 and driven into the background by the externality of craemonialism 
 as by the breaking up and materialising of our conception of Him 
 whom the conscience recognises to be One and Sole. Nay, that 
 spurious monotheism is in some respects still further removed from 
 living faith; namely, in so far as it betokens a narrowing of the 
 highest apprehension of God, the Eternal. Up to the time of Ezra, 
 the safeguard of the Mosaic conception of God lay in the spirit 
 animating the Law and the Prophets, and the testimony which these 
 bore against ceremonialism and justification by works, against priest- 
 craft and tyranny, as they did in later times Pharisaism and Saddu- 
 ceeism ; consequently, in the spirit of the written, traditional, historical 
 word of God, proclaiming the mighty acts of Jehovah among the 
 children of men. Now, in every age, such a prophetic guild and such 
 documentary testimony had been wanting to the Greeks ; and, as we 
 have seen, they lost nothing in this respect by not erecting the Orphic 
 hymns and Sibylline oracles into a word of God, but rather allowing 
 scope for a free intercourse of the living mind with the Deity." 
 
240 RELIGION. 
 
 Lord Palmerston, in 1854, was applied to by the Presby- 
 tery of Edinburgh, to be informed whether he intended, as 
 Home Secretary, to advise the Queen to order a day of 
 fasting, humiliation, and prayer, to be held in Scotland, in 
 order to supplicate Divine Providence to stay the cholera 
 which then afflicted the people. His reply is memorable as 
 a step in high quarters towards the initiation of the New 
 Reformation. He said : 
 
 " The Maker of the universe has established certain laws of nature 
 for the planet in which we live, and the Weal or woe of mankind 
 depends upon the observance or the neglect of those laws. One of 
 those laws connects health with the absence of those gaseous exhala- 
 tions which proceed from over-crowded human beings, or from decom- 
 posing substances, whether animaJ or vegetable ; and those same 
 laws render sickness the almost inevitable consequence of exposure 
 to those noxious influences. But it has at the same time pleased 
 Providence to place it within the power of man to make such ajTange- 
 ments as will prevent or disperse such exhalations, so as to render 
 them harmless ; and it is the duty of man to attend to those laws of 
 nature, and to exert the faculties which Providence has thus given to 
 man for his own welfare. 
 
 " The recent visitation of cholera, which has for the moment been 
 mercifully checked, is an awful warning to the people of this realm, 
 that they have too much neglected their duty in this respect, and that 
 those persons with whom it rested to purify towns and cities, and to 
 prevent or remove the causes of disease, have not been sufficiently 
 active in regard to such matters. Lord Palmerston would, therefore, 
 suggest that the best course the people of this country can pursue to 
 deserve that the further progress of the cholera should be stayed, will 
 be to employ the interval that will elapse between the present time 
 and the beginning of next spi-ing in planning and executing measures 
 by which those portions of the towns and cities which are inhabited 
 by the poorest classes, and which, from the nature of things, must 
 most need purification and improvement, may be freed from those 
 causes and sources of contagion, which, if allowed to remain, will 
 infallibly breed pestilence, and be fruitful in deatfi, in spite of all the 
 prayers and fastings of a united but inactive nation. Wben man 
 has done his utmostfor his own safety, then is the time to invoke the 
 btessiugs of Heaven to give effect to his exeitionB." 
 
PRAYER. 241 
 
 Oui' religious duty thus lies, not in preparing ourselves 
 for another world, but it lies very often under our very nose 
 in this, and our nose points out the direction in which it 
 lies, and we have only to follow it. The majority of the 
 Presbytery were much scandalised by being told this by Lord 
 Palmerston, and doubtless would have preferred prayer and 
 fasting as much easier, if not so efficacious ; but, neverthe- 
 less, the civic rulers of Edinburgh acted upon his lordship's 
 advice with very beneficial effect. 
 
 But what of the efficacy of prayer and fasting ? The exer- 
 cise of the reason of man, no less than the instinct of the 
 bnite, are dependent upon the " order of nature " being to- 
 day as it was yesterday ; for reason infers that which will be 
 from what has been, and the delicate relationship between 
 instinct and object, which it has taken ages to establish, 
 must be maintained, or animal life must cease to exist. All 
 depends upon the uniformity of Nature's law, and this uni- 
 formity cannot be interfered with at man's intercession. It 
 would destroy all order if it could. Law must be inexorable. 
 If men knew that they could depend upon anything but their 
 own efforts, those efforts would not be made. We cannot 
 expect, then, that God will alter his laws, or be turned from 
 his purpose by man's prayers, and prayer can only be effi- 
 cacious when, in accordance with mental law, it answers 
 itself. Concentrated desire and earnest aspiration, attended 
 by faith, has a strong tendency to answer itself. All power 
 is will power, and at present we by no means know the limit 
 to which our small borrowed portion of it can go. That it 
 extends far beyond what is commonly supposed there can be 
 no doubt, and fasting, within ascertain limit, greatly increases 
 this power, by withdrawing the force required for mental 
 effort from vital processes. 
 
 More things are wrouglit by prayer 
 Than this world dreams. 
 
 —Alfred Tennyson. 
 
242 RKLIOION. 
 
 The power of prayer, then, is very great, but it must be in 
 accordance with law, and not in the breach of it, or in what 
 is called " special providence." The noises that savages 
 make with pots and pans and old kettles to avert an eclipse 
 are not likely to have the desired effect; neither are the 
 noises made to bring about rain or to alter any other of the 
 laws of nature likely to produce any effect. But the noises 
 that people make to bring about any mental or moral change 
 are likely to be more efficacious ; as, although not the most 
 direct, th«y are themselves among the motives or causes by 
 which the mind is moved. It is now pretty generally ad- 
 mitted "that all prayer for Divine intervention in, or modi- 
 fication of, events due to physical laws is absurd ;" but this 
 limitation to physical laws is only made in ignorance of the 
 fact that the laws of the mental and moral world are as fixed 
 and definite as the laws of gravitation and light, and we 
 have no more right to expect God to interfere for our special 
 benefit in one department than in the other. Throughout the 
 universe there are fixed antecedents to fixed consequents, and 
 it is much more religious to ascertain what these are, as they 
 have been established by God, than to ask Him to break 
 this order in our behalf. Beyond earnest desire and aspira- 
 tion, and faith in the order of nature, prayer is a breach of 
 that Eeverence which alone is the proper attitude of true 
 Beligion. 
 
 It is upon our knowledge of, and obedience to, this fixed 
 order, that our Health and Happiness depend. The Phy- 
 sical, the Moral, the Intellectual, the Social, the Political, 
 the Economic laws — these are God's Will and Word ; the 
 extent to which they are revealed depending upon our own 
 research, obedience to them constituting a sacred Keli- 
 gious duty. Veneration or Eeverence has its natural 
 expression towards parents and those who, when we are 
 children, "are set in authority over us," as knowing more 
 than, we do ; as children of a larger growth this feeling 
 
THE COMING RELIGION. 243 
 
 should be transferred to Natural Law, which is the auto- 
 matic Will of the Greater Parent of all. " The further back 
 we push the idea of a Creator, and the more we conceive 
 His ' interference ' to be limited to the ordaining of ' Laws,' 
 the more certain it becomes that in these lawfe at le&st, if 
 anywhere, we have the expression of his Mind and Will." * 
 " I cannot too often repeat," says George Combe, " that unless 
 the Christian morality be sustained and enforced by the order 
 of nature, it is in vain to teach it as' a rule of conduct in 
 secular affairs. And how can this study be Commenced and 
 prosecuted, how can new truths be turned to practical account, 
 except by reverencing Nature and her adaptations as Divine 
 institutions, teaching them to the young, and enforcing theiti 
 by the authority of the moral and religious sentiments. "f In 
 this ancient city of Coventry, containing some 40,000 inhabit- 
 ants, the Sanitary Reformers, by the introduction of the 
 Health of Towns Act, reduced the deaths from 27 in the 1,000 
 to 23 ; that is, they saved 4 times 40, or 1 60 lives annually, with 
 about 18 cases of sickness that on the average attend each 
 death. The labour was a hard one for the Sanitary Reformers, 
 the Clergy and their adherents doing little to help, although 
 they most assiduously visited the sick, fed the hungry orphans, 
 gave spiritual consolation to the dying, and when dead 
 buried them in '' the sure and certain hope of a glorious 
 resurrection." Theirs was the practice of true Christianity ; 
 the Sanitary Reformers represented the Nfew Reformation — 
 the practice of the Coming Religion. 
 
 Religion itself is the expression of simple Reverence and 
 Trust, accompanied by Awe and Wonder, as we stand in the 
 presence of constant, and unvarying, and irresistible Power ; 
 and all other phases of it are purely anthropomorphic, arising 
 from the natural tendency we have to make Gx)d in our 
 
 * The Duke of Argyll, Contempora/ry Beviem, May, 1871. 
 f ." Science and Eeligion," p, 178. 
 
244 RELIGION. 
 
 likeness, converting His Unity into a personality like our 
 own. 
 
 Trust, "faith that the future would be as the past, we could 
 not have, unless we recognised God — that is. Intelligence 
 and Plan in Creation. It has taken millions of years to 
 bring the world to its present state of perfection, to produce 
 all its varied life and enjoyment; and unless that were 
 designed, unless there were both Intelligence and Power to 
 support that purpose, there would be no reason that we can 
 see why one turn of the screw — one additional change — 
 should not make life again impossible in this world as in the 
 beginning. All the possible combinations of our elements 
 cannot have yet taken place, and one adverse combination 
 might take us back to chaos. Let Nature but once be at 
 fault in her arithmetic, and all life and enjoyment would again 
 be at an end. And better thus, infinitely, than that one should 
 continue to exist in endless suffering ; that absolute evil should 
 have been introduced into this world. Better blind chance, 
 and the havoc it would make, than the life and immortality 
 which Christianity, according to the orthodox creed, has 
 brought to light, in the eternal enjoyment of the few and the 
 endless misery of the many. 
 
 " ' What is man capable of discovering and compreliending concern- 
 ing God ?' — ^is not a barren speculation, but cue of a practical and 
 important nature. 
 
 "Dr. Johnson defines the substantive 'WprshAp' to mean 'Adora- 
 tion; religious act of reverence ;' ' to MwrsAip' is 'to adore; to honour 
 or venerate with religious rites.' Again, 'to adore' is 'to worship 
 with external homage.' Now, the external rites in which we embody 
 our 'worship,' 'reverence,' or 'homage,' will obviously bear a relation 
 to our motives in worshipping ; and these will be influenced by our 
 opinions of the character of the Being whom we adore. Tribes who 
 ascribe the lower passions to their Deities institute immoral rites and 
 ceremonies in honour of them. Those nations who regard God as 
 cruel and revengeful, sacrifice animals and some of them men, to 
 
WORSHIP. 245 
 
 appease Him. Others, who ascribe to Him self-esteem and loye of 
 approbation, (their own predominant qualities,) oHer him praise and 
 glorification, and try to please him by expressing their own conscious- 
 ness, (generally with much exaggeration,) of abject meanness and 
 unworthiness. 
 
 " If I am right in saying that although God has not given us facul- 
 ties fitted to comprehend Himself, yet. He has given us powers which 
 enable »s to imderstand His mill in relation to owselves amd otlier 
 heings over mJtom He has given iis some degree of influence amd control, 
 and that in the order of nature. He has revealed duties which we are 
 capable of performing, then we may reasonably consider Whether the 
 rites of our reKgious worship should partake of the character of 
 attempts to please God as a Being possessing human qualities, or be 
 directed to do Him honour, reverence, and homage, by studying, 
 expounding, and obeying His will as thus revealed to us. All existing 
 forms of worship should be tried by their relation to what we can 
 comprehend of the nature of God, and of His will. If without irreve- 
 rence I might borrow an illustration from the relation between man 
 and the lower animals, I should remark that it appears possible for 
 one being to comprehend portions of the will of another, although he 
 cannot conceive adequately the nature of that other. The dog, for 
 ■ instance, cannot comprehend the nature of the shepherd, but he can 
 learn the shepherd's will to be, that he, the dog, should tend the 
 sheep ; and the dog, without attempting to know more of the shep- 
 herd's nature than this portion of his will, may obey it and preserve 
 the flock. The horses which in our circuses are trained to dance, to 
 fire pistols, to fetch tea-kettles, and to perform other surprising feats, 
 do not comprehend the nature of the men who teach them to do these 
 things, nor apparently do they understand the object or design of the 
 actions themselves ; but they seem to understand the will of the men, 
 so far as it relates to the actions required of them, for they do the 
 things they are taught. We should all agree that the dog sadly mis- 
 took his own capacities and his relations to man, .if instead of heark- 
 ening to the shepherd's voice, obeying his will,. and guarding the 
 flock, he turned a deaf ear to one and set the other at defiance, and 
 commenced a grand speculation on the natwre of his master, and his 
 attributes. We should be stiU more astonished at the want of a due 
 sense of his own deficiencies and position, if the dog, in the midst of 
 his speculation on this, to him, incomprehensible subject, and of his 
 neglect of duty, ever and anon turned up his eyes and raised his 
 fore-paws to his master, and uttered indications of intense admira- 
 tion and veneration for him, calling him a being possessed of every 
 
246 RELIGION. 
 
 faculty o( ?aajBe consoiQi]|Sne.ss in the highest state of pajfection and 
 in nnlimitedi degree. And yet, ignpraat. .and snperstitio,us men do 
 Bomethiijg analogous to this, when, instead of 'yraUfing hTjmbly' with 
 God, studyiag Hjs Imstitutjions ajid obeying His will, they ascribe to 
 him their own qualities, praise Him, and implore Him to protect 
 them as His, devoted worshippers ; they all the while viplating His 
 lavs. In the words of Dr. FeUowes (' The Religion, of the TJniveise'), 
 'The only uge which some religionists m#ie of their understanding, 
 is to perplex it by inquiring into the nature, of Sod. They leave the 
 easy and f easililS to attempt the impossible. They forsake the clear 
 apid simple to lose themselves in a region, oj elond^ and darkness. For 
 how can th/» finite hope to, comprehend the infinite, the material the 
 spiritual,, the temporal the eternal 1 Gqd, c»n be known only in His 
 ■vyorks. TmiiH! His agency is seen. Theke His will may be traced; 
 there His laws Ije developed. But, what HiS; nature is, or how He ex- 
 iatSj must ever be past finding out. It is enqngh for us to know that 
 He exists ; but Jum He exists, it is vain, and indeed presumptuous to 
 inquire.' " — (" Science Jind Eeligion," by George Combe.) 
 
Section 1. 
 
 Like leaves on trees the race of man la found, 
 
 Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; 
 
 Another race the following spring supplies. 
 
 They fall successive and successive rise ; 
 
 So generations in their course decay. 
 
 So flourish these when those have passed away. 
 
 We are such stuff as dreams are made of, 
 And our little life is rounded by a sleep. 
 
 " Thus I, considering everywhere 
 Her secret meaning in her deeds, 
 And finding that of fifty seeds- 
 She often brings but one to bear," &c. 
 
 Ask what is death, and why? Are God and Nature, then, 
 at strife ! But first, can we answer the question, What is 
 Life ? Herbert Spencer says it is " the continuous adjust- 
 ment of internal relations to external relations ; " but these 
 are only the conditions of its continued existence, and give 
 no idea of what the " vital spark " is in itself. Schelling 
 says, " Life is the tendency to individuation." I should say 
 that Life'is not only where the forces of nature are thus con- 
 fined within definite limits, but also wheris they work towards 
 a given object. But this again is only "its mode of action." 
 But is not its mode of action all that we know of anything ? 
 Alas 1 we know not what Life is, whence it comes, or whither 
 it goes. Whether, as Prof. Tyndall says, "not alone the more 
 ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone the 
 
248 DBATH. 
 
 noble forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and 
 ■wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human 
 mind itself — emotion, intellect, will, and all their pheno- 
 mena — were once -latent in a fiery cloud;" or "whether, 
 having waited until the proper conditions had set in, tte fiat 
 went forth, Let Life be," we do not know ; but we do know 
 that Life being here. Nature has made wonderful provision 
 that the spark should not be blown otit. An organic being 
 is the result of all the forces and conditions which have -been 
 transmitted from frame to frame, each an improvement on 
 the other, and nature has most bountifully provided that such 
 improvements, the result of so much time and care, shall not 
 be lost, but carried on. She brings forth at least fifty seeds 
 for every one she is able to rear, and Life is kept at so high 
 a pressure that there is not a plant or animal whose produce 
 if left unchecked would not of itself soon cover the earth. 
 " There is no exception to the rule," says Darwin, " that 
 every organic being naturally increases at so high a rate, 
 that if not destroyed, this earth would soon be covered with 
 the progeny of a single pair." The rate of increase is geo- 
 metrical. We have population always pressing on the means 
 of subsistence, and this has been the mainspring of all pro- 
 gress and all order ; for the most perfect order and arrange- 
 ment exist in the mode in which life is kept within due 
 bounds : the good and strong preserved, the weak destroyed, 
 the object evidently being to keep the largest possible number 
 in the greatest possible strength and vigour and capability 
 of enjoyment — no respect being paid to our little individual- 
 ities. In the scale of being, by a most systematic provision, 
 we are all made comfortably* to fit into each other. The 
 conversion of what is lower into what is higher is always 
 
 * Perhaps it may tie thought that "comfortably'' applies as little 
 in this case as when the hangman said his gallows would hold three 
 comforta'bly ; but the pain of death has always been greatly exagge- 
 rated for theological purposes. 
 
THE SCALE or BEING. 249 
 
 going on, each animal is eaten and eater — end and beginning 
 in succession. " The perch swallows the grub-worm, the 
 pickerel swallows the perch, and the fisherman swallows the 
 pickerel ; and so all the chinks in the scale of being are 
 filled." Man in his wisdom often tries to break this chain. 
 He exterminates the crow, and the grubs eat his crops ; he 
 kills the. little birds, and his crops fail altogether 5 he kills 
 the owl, and mice abound; he kills the weasel, and he is eaten 
 up with rats ; and although the connection is less direct and 
 the effects of less importance, if he were to get rid of his old 
 maids, he would have no red clover or heart's-ease, for the 
 old maids keep cats, and cats kill the mice, and the mice, if 
 allowed to live, destroy the humble-bees, who alone are able 
 to fructify and spread the red clover and heart's-ease. Near 
 villages and small towns the nests of humble-bees are found 
 to be more numerous than elsewhere, owing to the number 
 of cats which destroy th^ mice. Alas for the butterfly, our 
 emblem of immortality! however much he may dream of the life 
 to come, he lives only till a new generation is begotten. His 
 immortality is very short ; but as he lives on nectar and love, 
 he may consider that better than an eternity as a mere grub. 
 His wife has so many children that it would destroy all man's 
 hopes of " cabbage " if it were not for the ichneumon fly, who 
 kills the caterpillars as they are hatched from the eggs. 
 The oak alone is estimated to feed at least 200 kinds of 
 caterpillars, so that the butterfly is immortal in the race, if not 
 in the individual. Death is thus the parent of life : some- 
 thing always dies that another may live; one superabundant 
 population supporting the life of other description of beings. 
 But the new edition of life has generally been greatly im- 
 proved ; " the structure of an organism being a product of 
 an almost infinite series of actions and reactions, to which 
 all ancestral organisms have been exposed."* This conser- 
 vative- power of greatly improved transmitted influences has 
 * Herbert Spencer. 
 
250 DEATH. 
 
 again to contend with its surrounding conditions, which ulti- 
 mately again prevail, but not before all worth preserving has 
 been passed into new bodies : every vacant place being filled 
 up by some creature capable of increased enjoyment. " I 
 disbelieve in the destruction of anything," says the author of 
 the "Pilgrim and the Shrine," "of even a thought — ^but 
 leaves a germ, idea, or cell of greater capacity than had be- 
 fore been possible, as a worthy result of the .whole previous 
 universe of being." "All death is nature in birth — ^the 
 assumption of a new garment, to replace the old vesture 
 which humanity has laid aside in its progress to higher 
 being."* 
 
 In this way is Death theparentof Life, and this is necessarily 
 so, for Life is Force, and obeys all the laws of force, and the 
 " invariability of the sum of all the energies of the universe 
 forms the doctrine known as the Conservation of Energy." 
 Thus Force is a fixed quantity, so that if it begins in one place 
 it must necessarily be taken from another, or cause death else- 
 where. " Each portion of mechanical or other energy which 
 an organism exerts, implies the transformation of as much or- 
 ganic matter as contained this energy in a latent state," and 
 *'this organic matter yielding np its latent energy, loses its 
 value for the purposes of life, and becomes waste matter neetd- 
 ing to be excreted." f It is dead, but it has been the parent of 
 new life. All work implies waste ; that is, organic matter 
 yields up its latent energy, is exhausted and dies, "We 
 cannot live, as to our total organism, unless we arfe always 
 dying as to our atoms ; * * every thought involyes the 
 death of some particle of thehrain;"J or, as Huxley says, 
 ■" so much eloquence, so much of the body resolved into car- 
 bonic acid, water, and urea." This waste may be repaired, 
 but the power of repairing is imjpaired with every exercise of 
 
 • " Memoir of Fichte," by W. Smith. 
 
 t "Principles of Biology," vol. 1, p. 176, by Herbert Spender. 
 
 X Giriiidon, p. 34. 
 
THE WEARING OP THE MACHIIfE. 251 
 
 it. Thus oM age and death. But " where energy disap- 
 pears," says Prof. Tyndall, "" it changes its form merely ; 
 and if we are intelligent enough to follow it, we shall find it 
 somewhere, unaltered in amount, though perhaps with an 
 entirely new face." 
 
 This, then, is Death. Life proceeds only from Life. A 
 part of some already living organism is thrown off as a seed' 
 or germ, " the structure of such organism being the product 
 of an almost infinite series of actions and reactions to which 
 all ancestral organisms have been exposed," This "indi- 
 viduation " of special powers derives its force or life from 
 other organic matter yielding up its latent energy — that is, 
 ftom the death of something else. This " individuation,'" or 
 organism, is mqjrely an instru'ment, or machine, which is 
 supplied with energy in one formj and converts it into 
 another according to the structure or law of the machine. 
 The machine wears, and the power to repair this waste gets 
 less and less with the constant use of the machine, until at 
 last the " tendeney to individuation " is overcome, and the 
 specialised forces are again added to the other forces of 
 nature from which they were originally taken or derived. 
 
 We have thus a network of nerve spread over the whole 
 world, speoiaMsed into organisms of varying powers and 
 functions. Yet, as Professor Huxley tells us, a unity of 
 composition pervades the whole living world ; the difference 
 between the lowest in the scale, both in plants and animals, 
 being difference in degree, not of kind. All are subject to 
 the same laws of birth, growth, decline, and death, and " at 
 the earliest stages of its development no human power can 
 distinguish the hiiman ovum from that of a quadruped."* 
 
 These countless millions of nerve cells are constantly sup- 
 plied with fresh force by the life of something efee given up 
 to them, and if the old and worn-out forms are not quickly 
 removed the new ones couM not cssist.. This is. precisely the 
 
 * " The Physiology and Pathology of Mind," p. 66, by H. BTaudsley. 
 
S52 DEATH. 
 
 same whether it relates to a cell or to an aggregate of count- 
 less thousands of cells forming an organism. A body is 
 composed of cells, the great network of nerves ; the great 
 body of sensibility consists of individuals composed of an 
 aggregate of cells ; but the laws of waste and supply, of 
 life and death, are precisely the same in each. Thus death 
 in the aggregate is simply a change — a correlation of force, 
 by which more vigorous life is secured. In fact, there is no 
 such thing as d'eath. Individual cells pass in and out of the 
 body ; individual bodies pass in and out of the great organ- 
 ism for the production of sensibility, but not death, but the 
 life and sensibility are more and more ; the process being one 
 merely for the conversion of what we call physical force into 
 mind or consciousness. " All death in nature, is life, and in . 
 death appears visibly the advancement of life. It is not 
 death which kills, but the higher life, which concealed behind 
 the other, begins to develop itself. . Death and birth are but 
 the struggle of life itself to attain a higher form."* " There 
 is no death in the concrete ; what passes away passes away 
 into its own self — only the passing away passes away."| 
 Dr. Henry Maudsley says : " The nerve-cell of the brain, 
 it might in fact be said, represents statical thought, while 
 thought represents dynamical nerve-cell, or, more properly, 
 the energy of nerve-cell." | And again :' " Without doubt 
 the Will is the highest force in Nature, the last consummate 
 blossom of all her marvellous efforts." * * Thus the 
 force of the great men who worked in harmony with the 
 current of events among which they lived " was a force not 
 their own ; the power of the universe was behind them, and 
 they became the organs of its manifestation. * * If we 
 ask whence the impulse that displays itself in this upward 
 nisus, we can only answer lamely that it comes from the same 
 unfathomable source as the impulse that inspires or moves 
 
 * Fiohte's !' Destination of Man," p. 127. f Hegel. 
 
 J "The Physiology and Pathology of Mind," p. 46. 
 
A SUCCESSION OF BEINGS. 25S 
 
 organic growth throughout nature." In fact, animal bodies 
 are but the organs through which Universal Mind acts : they 
 are the machines for the conversion of mind, which has be- 
 come automatic, again into Consciousness and Will. They 
 
 Are but organic harps divinely fram'd, 
 That tremble into thought, as o'er them sweeps, 
 Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze. 
 At once the soul of each, and God of all. 
 
 — Cpleridge. 
 
 But Death to man is the extinction of his Individuality, of 
 his personal Identity, of the Ego which is the centre of -the 
 universe to him, around which everything else revolves. It 
 is evident that if man had made himself he would have made 
 himself immortal ; but he would probably have made a great 
 mistake, as he always does when he thinks himself wiser 
 than his Maker. What He has ordained is a succession of 
 Beings, as opposed to the immortality of one. Humanity is 
 immortal, not man ; and in the great Body of Humanity, 
 with its Soul, the principle of Sensation, all is preserved 
 that is worth preserving ; while all dies with man that is in 
 the way of progress, all vice and error are at once reformed, 
 all prejudice dispelled,* and " in the mortality of man lies 
 the salvation of truth." Everything dies, from a world 
 
 * During the advance from maturity to old age "the habits of life 
 grow more and more fixed ; the character becomes less capable of 
 change ; the quantity of knowledge previously acquired ceases to 
 have its limits alterable by additions ; and the opinions upon every 
 point admit of no modification." Societies pass through the same 
 successive phases. — ("First Principles," pp. 187, 188, Herbert Spencer.) 
 
 " By the necessity of the case almost, an old man becomes conserva. 
 live, and the Icmdator tempOris aoti ; for the evolution of events goes 
 on when his nature has ceased to assimilate and develop ; he has 
 accordingly no sympathy with them ; but, retreating within the shell 
 of a calcified past, obstinately brands as revolutionary what is truly 
 eiiolutwnanf."—{ " The Physiology and Pathology of Mind," p. 219, 
 Dr. H. Maudsley.) 
 
254 DEATH. 
 
 to an atom, from a man to a monad, that it may be bora 
 again in increased beauty and in increased Capability of 
 enjoyment. Our .world was probably formed out of nebu- 
 lous matter ; and we can see evidence that it must get 
 old and die like everything else. Its stores of force in its 
 coal strata are being used up ; its mountains, upon which its 
 circulatory system and vitality depend, are gradually crum- 
 bling before the action of the elements ; the internal heat is 
 lessening, the centripital force is increasing, and it must 
 ultimately give up its individuality by becoming a paft of a 
 larger system in the sun, or be dissipated by the collision and 
 arrested motion into the nebulous matter and fiery, mist in 
 which it first began.* 
 
 * " In a very remarkable, but seemingly little knowii treatise, Kant 
 expounds a complete cosmogony, in the shape of a theory of the 
 causes which have led to the development of the universe from, dif- 
 fused atoms of matter, endowed with the simple attractive and 
 repulsive forces. 
 
 " ' Give me matter,' says Kant, 'and I will biiild the world;' and 
 he proceeds to deduce from the simple data from which he starts, a 
 doctrine in all essential respects similar tq the well-known 'iTebular 
 Hypothesis ' of Laplace. He accounts for the relation of the masses, 
 and the densities of the planets to their distances from the sun, for 
 the eccentricities of their orbits, for their rotations, for their satellites, 
 for the general agreement in the direction of rotation among the celes- 
 tial bodies, for Saturn's ring, and for the zodiacal light. He finds in 
 each system of worlds indications that the attractive force of the 
 central mass will eventually destroy its organisation, by concentrating 
 upon itself the matter of the whole system ; but, as the result of thjS 
 concentration, he argues for the development of an amount of heat, 
 which wiU dissipate the mass once more into a nlolecular chaos, such 
 as that on which it began. 
 
 Elant pictures to himself the universe as once an infinite expansion 
 of formless and diffused matter. At one point of this he supposes a 
 single centre of attraction set up, and by strict deductions from 
 admitted dynataical principles, shows how this must result la the 
 development of a prodigious central body, surrounded by systems of 
 solar and planetaiy worlds in aU stages of development. In vivid 
 language he depicts the great world-maelstrom widetiing the mai'gih 
 
IMMOHTAlITY 255 
 
 We have a similar process to what we call death, on a 
 smaller scale, always before us. By a silent and imperceptible 
 force the water of the sea is raised in vapour, then descends 
 in clouds upon our mountains and upon our lands, forming 
 the circulatory system of the world, and giving life to plants 
 and animals, and then, after doing innumerable other work 
 flows on to the great ocean, again to commence its vitalising 
 course. The river is immortal, for it is the same river flows 
 on for ever, although not one drop is the same ; but had it 
 been immortal in man's sense of being the same, instead of 
 a succession, we should have had stagnation, instead of the 
 clear, bright, living water. So it has been held by Buddha, 
 and the greatest among the Hebrew and Greek minds,, that 
 God is the great ocean from which all else proceeds — that the 
 world is a manifestation of God, emanating from him, and 
 being re-absorbed into him again. " As a drop of water 
 pursues its devious course in the clouds, in the rain, in the 
 river, a part of a plant, or a part of an animal, but sooner 
 or later invariably finds its way back to the sea from which 
 
 of its prodigious eddy, in the slow progress of luiUions of ages, gra- 
 dually reclaimiag more and more of the moleciilar waste, and con- 
 verting chaos into cosmos. But what is gained in the margin is lost 
 in the centre ; the attractions of the central systems bring their con- 
 stituents- together, which then, by the heat evolved, are converted 
 once more into molecular chaos. Thus the worlds that are, lie be- 
 tween the worlds that have been, and the chaotic materials of the 
 worlds that shall be ; and in spite of all waste and destruction 
 Cosmos is extending his borders at the expense of Chaos." — (From 
 Huxley's Address to the Geological Society', 1869.) 
 
 " The doctrine of heat brings out more clearly than any previous 
 scientific theory, that whereas all life, all play of phenomena, consists 
 in interchange, the inevitable course of nature is . towards dead uni- 
 formity by the equal diffusion of heat, the destruction of difference 
 of motion by friction and collision, and the gradual establishment of 
 the most stable chemical compounds. The actual cosmos must, it 
 seems, have started supematuraUy at a definite past time, and will, ' 
 if allowed, run out its series of changes at an incalculably remote but 
 definite date." — {Contemporary Review, May, 1868, p. 68.) 
 
256 DEATH. 
 
 it came, so the soul, however various its fortunes may have 
 been, sinks back at last into the Divinity from vrhich it 
 emanated."* Then we have the life of vegetation born in fresh 
 green loveliness every Spring to die in Autumn and prepare a 
 soil for re-appearance in increased' beauty with the new year ; 
 and man has his Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, with 
 the varied happiness that attends each season, and the in- 
 creasing fertility of mind as each generation succeeds another. 
 But man thinks this a great mistake, or rather a great "fall." 
 He would have made himself immortal. He would have had 
 one everlasting Spring or Autumn, with the comparative 
 stagnation that must necessarily attend it. And for what ? 
 Why, that Dick Snooks, being in possession, might continue 
 to live instead of Tom Styles, and thus unfairly monopolise 
 all the enjoyment to himself. We have the swallows every 
 year, and the lark, with his song as sweet as it was a thousand 
 years ago, and who thinks of inquiring whether they are the 
 same swallows and the same lark as the year before ? There 
 are the same song and the same enjoyment, and that is all 
 that is worth continuing, and what does it matter, therefore, 
 in what bodies they appear. Nature's plan is to be careful 
 of the type, but the bodies waste with work, deteriorate with 
 age, and they are all ground up periodically to begin life again 
 in some of its infinitely varied forms, "f There is nothing 
 
 * Dr. J. W. Draper. 
 
 f Perhaps among the quickest instances of this re-conversion is the 
 wonderful one mentioned by the Eev. Canon Kingsley, in his " Letters 
 from the Tropics," Good Words, June, 1870. He says : — " Under the 
 genial rain and genial heat (Trinidad) the timber tree itself, with all 
 its tangled ruin of leaves and parasites, and the boughs, and stems, 
 and leaves snapped "ofE, not only by the blow, but by the very wind of 
 the falling tree — all melt away swiftly and peaceably in a few months 
 — say almost in a few days — ^into the water, and carbonic acid, and 
 sunlight, out of which they were created at first, to be absorbed in- 
 stantly by the green leaves around, and, transmitted into fresh forms 
 of beauty, leave not a wrack behind." 
 
RESURRECTION. ' 257 
 
 now living, perhaps, that has not lived in some form or other 
 at least a hundred times before. The organism melts into 
 air, or descends into the earth, again to ascend, through 
 ■ plants, and form the living system of horse, ox, or man ; or 
 it is devoured by other beings, and commences through them 
 a higher life at once. As to man, some forty millions of 
 human beings come into existence every year, and some thirty 
 millions pass out, and the great body of Humanity is thus 
 ever on the increase in size and capability of enjoyment, and 
 nothing is lost by this change worth retaining. No doubt 
 every man has lived at least a dozen times before on this 
 earth, and nothing has been lost to him but the sense of this 
 previous existence: perhaps even that has not been all 
 lost; — 
 
 Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And Cometh from afar ; 
 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 If we calculate man's existence upon this earth at 6,000 
 instead of the 100,000 years now recognised by geologists, 
 it has been calculatfed that the earth would be covered with 
 graves, each grave containing 128 persons. f But it is from 
 
 f It has been calculated by good arithmeticians that the number 
 of persons who have existed on our globe since the beginning of time 
 amounts to 36,627,843,273,074,266. Bather a large number to tell us 
 all their thoughts as well as actions on the Day of Judgment. These 
 figures, when divided by 3,095,000, the number of square leagues on the 
 globe, leave 11,320,689,732 square miles of land ; which being divided 
 as before, give 1,314,622,076 persons to each square mile. If we 
 reduce these miles to square rods, the number will be'l, 853,174,600,000, 
 which divided in like manner, will give 1,283 inhabitants to each 
 square rod ; and these being reduced to feet, will give about 6 persons 
 to each square foot of terra firma. In this vast cemetery, on each 
 s 
 
258 • DEATH. 
 
 the air that plants derive their principal sustenance, and 
 animals feed on plants, and every particle of the atmosphere, 
 therefore, must once have been living man. ' " To fancy, 
 as many do, that deaUi is not only terrible and affrighting, 
 but physically painful, is quite a mistake, being to look for 
 sensibility in the loss of sensibility. Death is a sleep rather 
 than a sensation ; a suspension of our faculties rather than 
 a conflict with them : instead of a time of suffering, a time 
 of deepening unconsciouness. Dr. Baillie tell us that his 
 observation of death-beds inclines him to the firm belief that 
 ' nature intended we should go out of the world as uncon-. 
 sciously as we came into it.' "* 
 
 It is thus evident, that as far as our own observation 
 •extends, Nature's " plan " is best accomplished by a succes- 
 sion of beings rather than by the continued existence of one. 
 The "individuation" upon which life depends is transmitted 
 from one body to another in organic structure upon which its 
 specific powers of acting depends, the forces, both bodily and 
 mental, which it displays being all derived from the elements 
 aroundus. This is the " order of Nature " in this world, but 
 man thinks that in some far distant world, to which at death 
 he will be conveyed, all this order will be reversed in favour 
 of his retaining his Identity. He believes that the speciality 
 of the body may be destroyed, but that the speciality of 
 
 square rod of it, 1,283 human teings lie buried, each rod of it being 
 scarcely suiiicient for 10 graves, with each grave containing 128 
 persons. The poet says — and taking the estimate at 100,000 years 
 instead of 6,000, and supposing the atoms to have been used but 
 once, it is not mere poetry : — 
 
 There 's not one atom of yon earth 
 
 But once was living man ; 
 Nor the minutest drop of rain, 
 
 That hangeth in its thinnest cloud. 
 But flowed in human veins. 
 
 * Grindon, p. 278. 
 
THE SOUL. 259 
 
 the thinking principle, or Soul, is indestructible. Of course 
 the Soul, like everything else, is immortal ; the question, 
 however, is, does its speciality, like that of the body, de- 
 pend upon the organism with which it is temporarily united ? 
 The poet says : 
 
 Whether the Sensitive Plant, or that 
 Which within its boughs like a spirit sat, 
 Ere its outward form had known decay, 
 Now felt this change, I cannot say. 
 
 Whether that lady's gentle mind, 
 No longer with the form combined 
 Which scattered love, as stars do light, 
 Found sadness, where it left delight, 
 
 I cannot guess ; but in this life 
 Of error, ignorance and strife, 
 Where nothing is, but all things seem, 
 And we the shadows of the dream. 
 
 It is a modest creed, and yet 
 Pleasant, if one considers it, 
 To own that death itself must be, 
 Like all the rest, a mockery. 
 
 That garden sweet, that lady fair, 
 And all sweet shapes and odours there, 
 In truth have never passed away : 
 'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed ! not they. 
 
 For love, and beauty, and delight, 
 There is no death nor change ; their might 
 Exceeds our organs, which endure 
 No light, being themselves obscure. 
 
 —Shelley. 
 
 On the question of the Immortality of the Soul — of the 
 retention of our Identity and Personality in another world ; of 
 whether the Soul be the result of organisation, and dependent 
 for its duration on the duration of conditions, or whether it 
 be in itself capable of self-existence, I leave every man to his 
 opinion. The theory of an individual separate entity, distinct 
 
260 DEATH. 
 
 from the body, and differing in essence, is attended with 
 many difficulties. If they really differ in essence how can 
 one act upon the other, that is, matter upon that which is 
 immaterial, &c. ? But we may leave that, as all now admit 
 that we know nothing of essences, and therefore nothing 
 of any intrinsic difference between body and soul ; but the 
 question is, when and where, and from whence, does the 
 "soul" originate? Darwin says: "In a series of forms 
 graduating insensibly from some ape-like creature to man 
 as he now exists; it would be .impossible to fix on any 
 definite point when the term 'man' ought to be used,"* 
 and until that is settled, I presume we cannot " fix on 
 any definite point " when man gets his soul. Darwin also 
 says, speaking of the extinction of race : "When one of two 
 adjoining tribes becomes more numerous and powerful than 
 the other, the contest is soon settled by war, slaughter, can- 
 nibalism, slavery, and absorption. Even when a weaker 
 tribe is not thus abruptly swept away, if it once begins to 
 decrease, it generally goes on decreasing until it is ex- 
 tinct." f Now, if these interesting creatures are men, I pre- 
 sume they have souls ; "but is the difference between them 
 and civilised men dependent upon their souls or bodies ? It 
 is not clear of what use the souls are ; it is quite clear it is 
 not for their advancement, as the tribe becomes extinct. 
 Sir J. Lubbock remarks how improbable it is that our earliest 
 ancestors could have counted as high as ten, considering that 
 so many races now in existence cannot get beyond four. 
 Now, these souls which cannot count four, can scarcely have 
 the dignity usually assigned to them ; they must be an infe- 
 rior sort of souls, as a magpie can count nine. The same 
 dif&culty presents itself in the foetus — at what particular 
 period of gestation does the foetus get its "living soul?" 
 The Eoman Catholics, in certain cases, think it necessary to 
 
 * "Descent 6t Mam," vol. 1, p. 235. 
 t Ibid. p. 238. 
 
THE SOUL 261 
 
 baptise the infant before it is bom, lest the devil shpuld 
 afterwards lay claim to its soul. The Mormons have not, 
 I believe, settled this point ; but they hold that there are 
 always a stock of souls on hand, waiting to be born, and 
 that the highest religious rite and duty is to beget taber- 
 nacles of the flesh for these immortal spirits waiting to b» 
 bom.* 
 
 Augustus de Morgan tells us, in those humorous Para- 
 doxes of his (Athenceum), that " it has been started that there 
 is, somewhere or another, a world of souls which communi- 
 cate with their bodies by wondrous filaments of a nature 
 neither mental nor material, but of a tertium quid fit to be a 
 go-between ; as it were a corporispiritual copper encased in 
 a spiritucorporeal gutta-percha. My theory is that every 
 soul is everywhere in posse, as the schoolmen said, but not 
 anywhere in actu, except where it finds one of its bodies." 
 
 Hegel avoided any definite expression of opinion on the 
 Immortality of the Soul. He recognised in the Life of the 
 Universe only God's self-development, and in the life of 
 individuals only the ever-changing and evanescent " forms " 
 and " modes " of that evolution. From the whole spirit of 
 his writings, we gather that he did not believe in the con- 
 tinued existence of the individual ; and Freidrich Eichter 
 says that Hegel's principles give no countenance to what he 
 calls this " ambitious craving of egoism." Strauss and 
 Michelet appear to hold the same view, and Prof. Owen 
 says, "philosophy does not recognise an immortal entity, 
 mental principle, or soul." Life is the " vital spark of 
 heavenly flame," which is the great mystery — at present we 
 know not whence it comes or whither it goes. It belongs to 
 plants and animals. No doubt the Universal Life and 
 Universal Soul are the same. 
 
 But whatever opinion we may form, it is at least certain 
 * " New America," p. 288, by Hepworth Dixon. 
 
262 DEATH. 
 
 that " where we are, Death is not ; and that where Death 
 is, we are not ; " and that the worst that can happen, should 
 there be no "future state" for us, will be that we shall 
 return to what we were before we were born, when, as far as 
 I recollect, we did not much regret that we were not alive ; and 
 this would be infinitely better than that any one, much more 
 the majority of mankind, should continue to exist in endless 
 suffering, according to the popular creed. However vivid 
 and pleasant the recollection in another world of our previous 
 existence in the grub-state here, it would not be worth this 
 endless woe to others. I have infinite faith in God's Pro- 
 vidence, and that the immense amount of enjoyment He has 
 created will be retained and increased, whether in this world 
 or any other ; and for myself, as an individual, all I can 
 say is, " If it is better, all things considered, that I should 
 continue to exist in some other world, I believe I shall be 
 certain to do so ; if, all things considered, it is not better, I 
 do not wish the order of God's Providence, by which the 
 largest amount of enjoyment is produced, to be changed for 
 me. Before I was born I did not crave for existence, and I 
 cannot do so after I am dead : I cannot even envy the person, 
 whoever he may be, or whatever he may be called, who is 
 then taking his turn in Life : for let us not forget that 
 without death all creatures in the world at present could 
 never have lived — the space would have been filled up. 
 Death to others has been life to us, and our death will be 
 life to others. We have had our time, and 
 
 Not heaven itself upon the past has power. 
 
 And what has heen has been, and I have had my hour. 
 
 — Dryden. 
 No ; if it is God,'s Will, 
 
 I to the elements 
 Eesign the principles of life they lent me. 
 
 —Sir Walter Scott 
 
THE author's epitaph. 263 
 
 And with the aid of Jean Paul Richter, I here write my 
 Epitaph : 
 
 " Great Nature, to Thee thou lettest me always come when 
 
 among men troubles gathered round me ! Thou wert my 
 
 oldest friend and my truest, and thou could'st always con- 
 
 '«ole me, until I fell from thy arms at thy feet, and needed 
 
 consolation no more." 
 
 " The weary are at rest." — (Job.) 
 Permittb coetera Deo. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 It is the function of Moral Science to frame the laws hy 
 which • men can live most happily together ; and of Social 
 Science to. establish the Institutions or conditions in which 
 those laws can be best put into practice or administered. 
 
 All animals hare a natural tendency to increase faster 
 than their means of subsistence, but as a rule they do not 
 starve to death, as they live on one another. Man is no 
 exception to this law. It is only," however, among savages 
 that men feed on each other. Civilised men eat up each 
 other's means of subsistence, so that many necessarily die of 
 starvation, or if not directly of famine, of the neglect and 
 disease and ignorance which poverty always engenders. Half 
 the children born die before they are five years of age, and 
 the average term of human existence is about thirty-three 
 years, instead of, as it should be, twice that time. Malthus 
 showed beyond all question that man possesses a power of 
 increase beyond the diminution caused by death, and that this 
 increase was greater than his food could be made to increase 
 on the same area. Consequently man must either limit this 
 natural power of increase by moral or prudential checks, or 
 he must constantly be taking fresh land into cultivation. 
 Failing these, he must die of starvation and the deteriorating 
 influences engendered by it. At present he does all three in 
 about equal proportions. Nevertheless, as I have previously 
 pointed out, from the beginning this pressure of population 
 on the means of subsistence has been the great mainspring 
 of all progress. It has been the struggle for life itself that 
 has forced into activity every intellectual faculty, and has 
 
THE EARLIEST COMPETITION. 265 
 
 spread mankind over all the globe to the cultivation of new, 
 wild, and barren regions, when they would have much pre- 
 ferred staying at home. It is this law, however hidden and 
 obscured, that has framed all human institutions, Social, 
 Moral, and Political. 
 
 As the world is not yet occupied and brought into full 
 cultivation, the means of subsistence nev?r need fall short of 
 even the natural rate of increase of the population if. proper 
 arrangements were made for production and distribution. 
 Machinery now does an immense amount of work, and if the 
 produce of a manufacturing country can be freely exchanged 
 for the produce of land in another, all may be well oif. But 
 the people in possession, who hold the land and machinery, 
 will not allow those who come into the world without either, 
 to make use of their property except upon their own terms. 
 Hence has arisen the great inequality in the distribution of 
 wealth. If some ■^orkmen are sufficiently well off to be able 
 to refuse to take less for their labour than a fair share of 
 what they are instrumental in producing, the natural rate of 
 increase of the population will always furnish some one who 
 is willing — in fact who is obliged to take whatever is offered 
 to him or starve. It is this competition among workmen 
 themselves that has hitherto enabled the capitalist to dictate 
 his own terms and to regulate the rate of wages. The posi- 
 tion admits of very simple illustration. Suppose two men 
 with potato plots, and one of them had a spade (machinery), 
 which he offered to lend to the other man on condition that 
 he should dig and plant both lots. It would evidently be 
 the interest of the latter to accept these conditions ; and 
 although he did all the work he would get at least half the 
 produce, and that upon easier terms than if he had to set 
 his potatoes without a spade. But suppose the man with 
 the spade was the stronger, and sought a cause of quarrel 
 with the other, and turned him out of his allotment. Having 
 .Hien no other means of subsistence, the dispossessed man 
 
266 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 must starve. Let us, howeyer, suppose further that the man 
 who now was sole proprietor offered him work on condition 
 that he would take only as many potatoes as he required to 
 live upon : less he could not offer, or the other consent to 
 take ; nature having regulated the rate of wages, and settled 
 the minimum that he should take— as man also might do if 
 he were so disposed. It is evident the dispossessed man, 
 being no longer a proprietor, and having no supply of potatoes 
 by him, must accept this offer of his conqueror or starve. 
 Or suppose that he had some little supply of food by him, so 
 that he could refuse the offer for a time ; but suppose also 
 that some other man had not, and that this man or one of 
 his own grown-up children was willing to accept the offer if 
 he refused, the dispossessed man must yield or ultimately 
 starve. Suppose, also, as is the case in fact, that the poor 
 man's family increased much mo.re rapidly than the family of 
 the man who had wronged him, so that ^ultimately the poor 
 man became the stronger ; he might then go and demand resti- 
 tution, or at least a fairer share of the potatoes ; and suppose 
 the other told him that an angel had been with him, and that 
 it was all right, and showed him the " revelation " that had 
 been left with him on the subject, in which it was made clear 
 that the poor were to be always with us, and that although 
 they were very hard-worked and miserable in this world, 
 they had a better chance, in consequence, of being happy in 
 the next, which was eternal, while this was only temporal. . 
 We have only greatly to extend this position to nations as 
 well as to individuals, to have a tolerably fair illustration, 
 simple as it may seem, of what has been taking place since the 
 world began. It is competition hitherto that has determined 
 the rate of wages. This wage is necessarily paid in advance, 
 while production is going on, and the fact of its being paid in 
 money hides from the labourer that he is selling his birth- 
 right for a mere mess of pottage, and that his wages bear no 
 proportion to what his labour is instrumental in producing. 
 
THE labourers' SHARE. 667 
 
 There has been very little agreement among political econo- 
 mists as to what ought to constitute the labourers' share of 
 joint produce. Adam Smith says, "the produce of labour 
 constitutes the natural recompense or wages of labour;" 
 Ricardo, that "that which is sufficient to place the workmen, 
 one with the other, in a position to exist, and to propagate 
 his species, without increase or diminution, is the true na- 
 tural measure of the natural rate of wages ; while Herr von 
 Thiiner tells us that " the labourer is valued at the cost of 
 his bringing up, as the machine is at the cost of its construc- 
 tion, and the beast of burden at that of its rearing." Lord 
 Derby, when Lord Stanley, took a much more generous and 
 right view of the question ; he told the Glasgow students 
 that " he thought a scrupulous and high-minded man would 
 always feel that to pass out of the world in the world's debt 
 — to have consumed much and produced nothing — to have 
 dined, as it were, at the feast, and gone away without pay- 
 ing the reckoning — was not, to put it in its mildest way, a 
 satisfactory transaction, however unimpeachable it might be, 
 and rightly so, in the eyes of economic or social law." A 
 statesman's labour is worth a great deal, still it may be fairly 
 questioned whether Lord Derby's labour is equal to the 
 revenues of his House — ^his production equal to his consump- 
 tion. It is true he does not himself consume all the large 
 share allotted to him, that he must share it with many others ; 
 still it is for the most part consumed non-productively, or 
 leads to the production of many useless things, instead of the 
 necessaries the community require. Mr. Mill holds that .the 
 rise in the value of land, which results from the general 
 growth in the community in wealth and population, properly 
 belongs to the state, the quantity of land being limited, and 
 its possession therefore a monopoly. " This proposition," 
 says the Fall Mall Gazette (May 31, 1871), "looks rational 
 enough and harmless enough, but it is impossible to believe 
 that it can be stated by such an authority without greatly 
 
268 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 strengthening the 'labour reformer's' doctrine that nobody- 
 should pocket any profit, rent or interest, which is not the 
 product of his personal labour, which, laughable as it sounds, 
 is devoutly held by an increasing number of Bnglfsh and 
 Continental workmen, and which, although the seed of a 
 barbarism compared to which that of the dark ages was 
 respectable and hopeful, is yet destined before it disappears to 
 give the civilisation of the Western world a severe shaking." 
 At the present time Machinery has greatly increased Capi- 
 tal or Production, and a greater approach to Freedom of 
 Trade has facilitated Distribution, and this has greatly im- 
 proved the condition of the labourer ; still competition keeps 
 down his rate of wages, and he nowhere receives a fair share 
 of the joint produce : the system still continues to create 
 enormous wealth on one side and comparative poverty on the 
 other. It is evident that as steam and machinery do most 
 of the" work, the owner of the machine, vpon the present 
 system, gets the largest amount of the produce of work. 
 Prof. Jacoby, speaking to his constituents at Berlin of this 
 tendency of capital to accumulate in a few hands, and to 
 leave at least a part of the working proletariat exposed to 
 great distress, says : 
 
 " In suoli a eondition of things, it is the iucumbent duty of every 
 honest and thoughtful man to put to himself the following question : - 
 
 " How can we modify the present relations of society and property 
 so as to realise a more equitable distribution of the common revenue, 
 and to obviate the distress of the working classes, which daily as- 
 sumes more extended proportions ? 
 
 " How can we, without restricting the liberty of labour, and with- 
 out prejudicing the progress obtained by industry (on a large scale), 
 realise a more equitable distribution of the common revenue, and one 
 more suited to the interest of all ? 
 
 " The answer for us at least cannot be a doubtful one ; there is but 
 one means which can lead to this end : The aboUtion of the wage 
 system a/ni, tlhe substitution i/n its place of BO-operative lahow, 
 
 " Whoever can read the signs of the times will not deny that this 
 is the thought which more- or less consciously is at the bottom of all 
 
PROF. JACOBY ON WAGES. 269 
 
 working men's moyements in every country of Europe. Just as 
 slavery and serfdom, which were also formerly held to be necessary 
 social institutions, have everywhere given way to the wage system, 
 so impends to-day a revolution of the same kind, and not less impor- 
 tant — namely, the transition of the wage system to labour, and labour 
 free and equal in the right of association. It is needful so to act 
 that this revolution be effected in the most peaceful manner, which 
 cannot happen except by the unanimous concurrence of all the social 
 forces interested in it. * * * * * * 
 
 " Let us now briefly summarise what we have said : 
 " The wage system answers now as little to the exigencies of justice 
 and humanity, as slavery and serfdom in former times. 
 
 " Just as it was with slavery and serfdom, the wage system was 
 formerly a progress by which society has derived incontestable ad- 
 vantages. 
 
 " The social question of our times consists therefore in the abolition 
 of the wage system, without prejudice to the advantages resulting 
 from the common labour of great collective industry. 
 
 " There is for this but one means, the system of free labour by 
 association — the co-operative system. The present time is a transi- 
 tion period from the wage system (system of production by means of 
 capital) to the system of labour by association. 
 
 " In order that this transition may be effected in a peaceful manner, 
 it is requisite that the workmen, employers, and the State act in 
 common. 
 
 " It is the duty of workmen to unite, in order to resist the oppres- 
 sion of capital and to raise themselves by education to moral and 
 material independence. 
 
 " It is the duty of the employer to engage himself in the cause of 
 the workman's well-being in a philanthropic spirit, and especially to 
 accord to him a share of the profits of labour. 
 
 " Finally the State, by the protection of association, by fixing the 
 hours of labour, and by giving gratuitous instruction, ought to favour 
 the efforts of workmen towards civilisation. Upon the State devolves, 
 at the same tim'e, the duty of protecting the system of production by 
 association on a large scale, of a reform in the system of banks of 
 credit, and of the institution of State Credit ? 
 
 " As such help can only be expected from a free State, it is clear 
 that the workmen and their friends must, before all, procure for them- 
 selves political liberty. 
 " Political liberty, social liberty, liberty of the citizen, without 
 
270 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 sacrificing the majority of mankind as wage-labourers — this Is the 
 problem of our era.* 
 
 Thomas Carlyle has long been of Prof. Jacoby's opinion ; 
 he says : 
 
 "AH human interests, Combined human endeavours, and social 
 growths in this world, have at a certain stage of their development 
 required organisation ; and 'work, the grandest of human interests, 
 does now require it." 
 
 "This that they call 'Organisation of Labour,' is, if well under- 
 stood, the problem of the whole future, for aU who would in future 
 pretend to govern men." 
 
 " We find," he says, " aU mankind heaped and huddled together, 
 with nothing but a little carpentry or masonry between them ; 
 crammed in Kke salt fish in their barrel ; — or weltering (shall I say ?) 
 like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed vipers, each striving to get his 
 head above the rest." 
 
 "What wonderful accessions have been made, and we still making, 
 to the physical power of mankind ; how much better fed, clothed, 
 lodged, and, in all outward respects, accommodated men now are, or 
 might be, by a given quantity of labour, is a grateful reflection 
 which forces itself upon every one. What changes, too, this addi- 
 tional power is introducing into the social system ; how wealth has 
 more and more increased, and at the same time gathered itself more 
 and more into masses, strangely altering the old relations, and 
 increasing the distance between the rich and poor, will be a question 
 for political economists, and a much more complex and important 
 one than any they have yet engaged with." 
 
 The present system of " unlimited competiton," or every 
 one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost, gives us a 
 million paupers who are fed at the public cost,f and to these 
 
 * A Speech delivered by Deputy Johann Jacoby to his Constitu- 
 ents of the Second Arondissement of Berlin, on the 20th January, 
 1870. Printed for private circulation. 
 
 f The Poor Kate has increased, during the last ten years, 29 per 
 cent in Ireland, 32 per cent in England, and 34 per cent in Scotland. 
 The total expendiinre for poor relief in the United Kingdom is 
 £9,793,000, or 6s. 4d. per head of the 'population. The rate per head 
 of the population is exactly double in England to what it is in 'poor 
 Ireland. — (JPall Mall Ganette, August 19, 1871.) 
 
PERIODICAL DISTRESS, 271 
 
 may probably be added a million criminals who feed them- 
 selves at the public cost. Quetelet, however, . truly says : 
 " Society prepares crime, and the guilty are only the instru- 
 ments by which it is executed." 
 
 Our imperious law of Political Economy, Supply and 
 Demand, never pays a man according to what he produces ; 
 and a brass button or a ribbon going out of fashion reduces 
 whole towns and communities to poverty and destitution. 
 As luxury increases this uncertainty increases also. "We 
 all know the periodical distresses of our staple industries," 
 says Dudley Baxter. " It may be said that these' were acci- 
 dents. They are not mere accidents, but incidents, natural 
 incidents, of our manufacturing economy. They are sure to 
 recur under different forms." Over-production, over-specu- 
 lation, change of fashion, foreign competition, are constantly 
 putting our workmen's means of living in danger ; and the 
 great increase of pauperism and crime, and the numbers at 
 present out of employ, consequent on the panic and commer- 
 cial disasters of 1866, are inducing some of our leading 
 journals to doubt whether the laissez-faire doctrine in its 
 extreme application is the right thing after all. At a large 
 meeting held at Exeter Hall on the 12th April, 1869, for 
 the purpose of promoting emigration, Mr. Torrens, M.P. for 
 Cambridge, declared that not hundreds or thousands' but 
 millions must be taken off the surplus labour of the country 
 before adequate relief can be afforded. In other words, says 
 the Pall Mall Gazette, he desires that the government 
 should do for England what famine did for Ireland, that is, 
 deliberately take a large proportion of the poorest classes 
 and transplant them to Canada or Australia. " If this be 
 sound," adds the same, journal, "it is certainly a most humi- 
 liating confession ; it amounts to saying that the growth of 
 commercial prosperity in the last half century has had for 
 its nett result the production of an unparalleled mass of 
 misery alongside of great wealth in individual cases — a 
 
272 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 misery, indeed, so great that nothing short of a heroic remedy 
 will be sufficient." The truth seems to be that our eco- 
 nomic system has divorced one-third of the population of 
 Great Britain from their food, and the land upon which it is 
 grown, and it is highly probable that we shall have to bring 
 them together again. The same system produces the same 
 results elsewhere. In December last Mr. David A. Wells, 
 Special Commissioner of Revenue in the United States, pre- 
 sented a report to Congress, the general purpose of which 
 was to prove that " the rich were growing richer and the 
 poor poorer," and Mr. Horace Greely estimated last January 
 that there were half a million persons within sight of the 
 city steeples of New York who were hungry, destitute, and 
 out of work. This evidence is confirmed by "the report of 
 the secretary of the New York Association for improving . 
 the condition of the poor, and by a number of manufacturers 
 and other employers. The results of the manufacturing 
 system are thus described in a Senate document, No. 44, 
 January, 1869: — "A helpless crowd of workers, the oppres- 
 sion of low wages; inevitable poverty, and a disguised serf- 
 dom, a rich master, a poor servant, and a mean population. 
 Such is the story of manufacturing in Old England, and 
 such is the story of manufacturing in New England." !Mr. 
 Wells finally shows that the conclusions drawn from savings- 
 banks and insurance statistics rather support than refute 
 the statements which he has laid before the public. He does 
 not discuss the condition of the West, but expresses his be- 
 lief that " like causes have produced like effects " everywhere. 
 Mr. Dudley Baxter, in summing up his admirable and ex- 
 haustive work on our National Income, says : " The Income 
 of England is the largest of any nation, and shows wonderful 
 good fortune and prosperity ; but we must not forget that it 
 rests upon an unstable foundation. The turn of trade, or 
 obstinacy and short-sightedness of our Working Classes, or 
 a great naval war, may drive us from the markets of the 
 
EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE. 273 
 
 ■world, and bring down our Auxiliary as well as our Pro- 
 ductive industries. In our present complex civilisation the 
 effect of such a calamity on a large scale can hardly be im- 
 agined. We might see our national income disappear far 
 more rapidly than it has increased, and a period of suffering 
 among our population of which no cotton famine or East 
 London distress can afford an adequate idea. England's 
 position is not that of a great landed proprietor, with an 
 assured revenue, and only subject to an occasional loss of 
 crops or hostile depredations. It is that of a great mer- 
 chant, who by immetise skill and capital has gained the front 
 rank, and developed an enormous commerce, but has to sup- 
 port an ever-increasing host of dependents. He has to 
 encounter the risk of trade, and to face jealous rivals, and 
 can only depend on continued good fortune, and the help of 
 God, to maintain himself and his successors in the foremost 
 place among the nations of this world." 
 
 Mr. Henry Pawcett, M.P., in his late work, " Pauperism; 
 its Causes and Kemedies," gives his testimony also very 
 much in the same strain. He says : 
 
 " Unless the generally recognised principles of eoonomio science 
 are a tissue of fallacies, it can he easily shown that no scheme of 
 social improvement can be of permanent efficacy if it is unaccom- 
 panied by an increased development of providence amongst the general 
 mass of the people. The truth of this is proved in a very striking 
 manner by considering the effects which have resulted from free trade. 
 If any one refers to the speeches which were made during the Anti- 
 Com-Law agitation by the prominent advocates, of the movement, he 
 will find that the most glowing anticipations were indulged in with 
 regard to the consequences which would result from the abolition of 
 protection. Mr. W. J. Fox, who was perhaps at one time the most 
 distinguished orator of the party, when addressing a large meeting 
 in Covent Garden Theatre, asserted that the abolition of protection 
 would exterminate pauperism ; and he predicted that in a few years 
 the ruins of the workhouses would mark the extinction of protection 
 just in the same way as the ruins of the baronial castles mark the 
 destruction of feudalism. 
 
274 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 " Nearly a quarter of a century has now elapsed since the adoption 
 of free trade in corn, and the present state of London, with its 160,000 
 paupers, is a cruel comment upon these prophecies. But how is it 
 that what so many confidently expected has so entirely failed to come 
 to pass 1 The advocates of free trade did not miscalculate the more 
 immediate consequences which would result from carrying out the 
 principle. The average price of bread was considerably reduced. 
 Many articles of general consumption, such as tea and sugar, became 
 much cheaper, and there was an extension of our commerce and 
 trade which must have exceeded all expectations. 
 
 " In a few years the exports and imports of this country were nearly 
 trebled. Almost simultaneously with the passing of free trade another 
 agency was brought into operation calculated greatly to promote na- 
 tional prosperity. The" development of the railway system then 
 commenced, and the greatest improvement in the means of locomo- 
 tion that haid ever been introduced was rapidly spread over the 
 country. 
 
 " K any one, a quarter of a century since, could have foreseen all 
 that was about to take place ; if he could have known that trade 
 was soon to be trebled, that railways would be taken to almost every 
 small town in the kingdom ; would it not have appeared almost in- 
 credible that all these favourable agencies should have produced so 
 little effect, that it may now be fairly disputed whether the poverty 
 of the poor has been perceptibly diminished 1 There has, no doubt, 
 been an unprecedented accumulation of wealth, but this wealth, has 
 unhappily been so distributed that the rich have become much richer, 
 whilst the poor have remained as poor as they were before. # * * 
 
 "The leading ■ characteristic of our industrial system is that the 
 thi;ee requisites for the production of wealth are provided by three 
 distinct classes. 
 
 " The land is supplied by the landowner, the capital is provided by 
 the capitalist, and the labour is furnished by those who work for 
 hire. 
 
 " Between these three classes there is the antagonism of opposing 
 pecuniary interests ; the landlord tries to obtain the highest rent for 
 his land, and the papitalist endeavours to obtain the greatest amount 
 of profits and to pay the lowest wages ; the necessary capital and 
 labour are supplied by two distinct classes, who, instead of being 
 united by the bonds of a common pecuniary interest, generally act 
 towards each other as if they were parties contending over a closely^ 
 contested bargain. 
 
 " The employer strives to buy labour as cheaply as possible ; the 
 
THE NATIONAL INCOME. 275 
 
 employed equally endeavour to sell it as dearly as possible. The 
 struggle often ends in bitter hostility : an industrial war is waged 
 which paralyses trade, and inflicts incalculable loss, not only upon 
 the parties engaged in the dispute, but upon the whole community. 
 The evil, however, is not simply confined to the mischievous conse- 
 quences which ensue from an open rupture. There must constantly 
 be a deadening influence depressing industry, as long as that anta- 
 gonism of interest continues which now exists between employers 
 and employed. Men cannot be generally expected to put forth their 
 best efiorts unless they feel that they have a direct advantage in 
 doing so." 
 
 If we now glance at our National Income I ttink it will 
 clearly appear that it is not in our case from the natural 
 tendency that population has to increase faster than the 
 means of subsistence that all are not Tyell off, but from the 
 mode in which that income is distributed. 
 
 The gross National Income Mr. Dudley Baxter estimates 
 at £814,119,000. The upper and middle classes he esti- 
 mates at 2,759,000, with independent incomes amounting to 
 £489,474,000, and 3,859,000 dependent upon them— in all 
 6,618,000. In this class we have- nearly three persons de- 
 pendent to ev-ery two with independent incomes. 
 
 The Manual Labour Class Mr. Baxter estimates' at 
 10,961,000, with . an income of £324,|p45,000, and with 
 12,130,000 dependent upon them— in all 23,091,000. This^ 
 class is almost equally composed of earners and non-earners. 
 
 The total income of the two classes just mentioned is equal 
 to affording £27 per annum to every man, woman, and child 
 in the kingdom, or if the population were divided into fami- 
 lies of five persons, £135 a year to each family. As the 
 income is at present divided, one-fourth of the people possess 
 half as much again as the other three-fourths. 
 
 Again, of the first-named class 8,500 persons have an 
 income of £126,157,000, and 48,800 have an income of 
 £1,000 a year and upwards. The £100 line divides the 
 total Income into two nearly equal portions. 1,262,000 
 
276 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 persons, with £100 a year and upwards, have a total income 
 of £408,000,000, while 12,458,000 have £406,000,000. 
 
 One-third of the total income is derived from Capital; 
 two-thirds from Profit and Earnings.* 
 
 The real income of the Kingdom, however, can only be its 
 annual produce in Agriculture and Manufactures. The Dis- 
 tributors of all grades and the Exchangers must be sustained 
 out of this fund. In fact every person who does not produce 
 either by head or hand must be kept out of it. The gross 
 income of the Kingdom is thus very much reduced, for a 
 large part of the population is engaged like two 'cute 
 American boys who spent the day in swopping jackets frith 
 each other, and although they had nothing to begin with, 
 left off with a dollar a-piece. 
 
 Mr. Baxter estimates the original earnings of productive 
 income from Agriculture and Manufactures (the fund in 
 which all the national income is at first received) at only 
 £480,000,000. Partly original earnings, and partly second- 
 hand paid out of original earnings, he estimates at 
 £196,000,000 ; and the incomes of the non-productive 
 clatises, entirely second-hand, and paid out of original earn- 
 ings, at £138,000,000. Here then we have more than a 
 quarter of our annual income consumed by non-producers. 
 The Army and able-bodied paupers ought to be producers, 
 
 * Mr. Taylor, F.S.S., read a paper at the British Assooiatioii (1871), 
 in which he tells us that " The total number of labourers in England 
 and Wales of all classes living on weekly wages and working with 
 their hands, is, including their families, 8,144,000, less than half the 
 population. Of these, 1,178,000 are skilled artisans, or say 200,000 
 grown men ; 4,009,000 are half-skilled artisans, or say 800,000 grown 
 men ; and 2,957,000 agricultural and unskilled labourers, or say 
 600,000 grown men. The average earnings of a skilled man range 
 from £60 to &73 a year ; of a half-skilled man from £46 to £52 ; and 
 of an unskilled man or agricultural labourer from £20 to £41. The 
 total earings of the working classes ai-e £276,POO,000 a year." From 
 what sources this information is derived I do not know. 
 
•EVILS FROM THE GREAT INEQUALITY. 277 
 
 i.e., self-supporting ; and this is now beginning to be 
 recognised. 
 
 " The produce of labour," says J. Stuart Mill, " is redis- 
 tributed at the present time in an almost inverse ratio to the 
 labour supplied: the greatest return falls to the lot of those 
 who never work : after these, to those whose work is only 
 nominal, and thus in a descending scale, wages are reduced 
 in proportion as the la,bour becomes more onerous and more 
 disagreeable, until at last that which is the most fatiguing 
 and pernicious to the body can scarcely secure with, certainty 
 the acquisition of the immediate necessities of existence." 
 
 The evils arising from this great inequality in the division 
 of property are — 
 
 1st. The unnecessary increase of the non-producers in 
 useless servants, &c. 
 
 2nd. The diversion of the industry of the country to the 
 production of useless and even pernicious luxuries, and, as we 
 have seen, the great fluctuation in the demand for the luxu- 
 ries, and all the privation by which it is accompanied. A 
 recent writer truly says : " The consumer of luxuries, who 
 forces the capitalist to select unproductive employment, is 
 responsible for blasting so much capital with the curse of 
 ultimate sterility." ( Gonteraporary Beview, July, 1868.) 
 
 3rd. A false style and standard of living. As Political 
 Economists aim at finding work and not rest, so in our social 
 economy we try how much we can live upon instead of how 
 little. 
 
 All our laws and institutions have tended to foster this 
 inequality of condition — this unfair division of the joint pro- 
 duce of industry. If the Manual labourer instead of the 
 Capitalist had made the laws, no doubt they would have been 
 more in his faifour. 
 
 Godwin, in his " Political Justice," puts the evils of this 
 great inequality of wealth very strongly, and it has greatly 
 increased since his time ; he says : " And here with grief it 
 
278 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 must be confessed, that however great are the evils produced- 
 by monarchies and courts — by the imposition of priests and 
 the iniquity of criminal laws ; all these are imbecile 'and im- 
 potent compared with the evils that arise out of the present 
 system of property. * * Excessive inequality of property 
 brings home a servile and truckling system by no cii^cuitous 
 method to every home in the kingdom. Observe the pauper 
 fawning with abject vileness on his rich benefactor. Observe 
 the servants that follow in a rich man's train, watchful of his 
 looks, anticipating his commands, not daring to reply to his 
 insolence — all their time, and their efforts under the direction 
 of his caprice. Observe the tradesman,' how he studies the 
 passions of his customers, not to correct, but to pamper 
 them — ^the vileness of his iiattery, and the systematic con- 
 stancy with which he exaggerates the merits of his commo- 
 dities. Observe the practice of a popular election, where the 
 great mass are purchased by obsequiousness, by intempe- 
 rance, by bribery, or drawn by unmanly threats of poverty 
 and persecution. * * The existing system of things 
 directs all the efforts of mankind to the acquisition of wealth. 
 
 * * The rich man stands forward as the only object of 
 general esteem and deference. *. * On the other hand, 
 look at the peasant and labourer, working till their under- 
 standings are benumbed with toil, their sinews contracted 
 and made callous, being for ever on the stretch — their bodies 
 invaded by infirmities and surrendered to an untimely grave. 
 
 * * The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and 
 the spirit of fraud — these are the immediate growth of an 
 extreme inequality in the distribution of national wealth ; 
 and other vices become inseparable, envy, malice, and revenge, 
 not to speak of violent offences against life and property," &c. 
 
 Partly to remedy this deficiency in more djtect represen- 
 tation, the working man has been driven into electing Par- 
 liaments of his own in the shape of International Associa- 
 tions, Trades' Unions, &c. Laws have hitherto been made for 
 
THE WORKING MAN'b LEGIBLATURE. 279 
 
 the protection of property, and few, if any, for the pro- 
 tection of labour. The Wage Class have been obliged to 
 make' these for themselves, and the penalties they have 
 inflicted for disobedience to them have sometimes been very 
 severe, and not in accordance with the law as made by 
 the Capitalist: witness the outrages that have constantly 
 taken place at Sheffield and elsewhere, but which the work- 
 men themselves are inclined to regard as only just punish- 
 ments for the attempt to reintroduce "competition" among 
 themselves, and thus take the bread out of others' mouths 
 and lower the general rate of wages.* 
 
 * Six W. G. Armstrong, in his Address, as President of the Economy 
 and Trade Department, at the Social Science Congress (1870), says : 
 " While we bow to labour as forming the essence of value, we must 
 admit, as a consequence, that the price of labour -determines the price 
 of commodities. Now, whether commodities are raised to a fictitious 
 price by protective enactments of the Legislature, or the protective 
 TestriotionB of trades' unions on labour, the detriment to the public 
 is precisely the same." At the present time one-third of the total 
 Income or Produce of the Kingdom goes to Capital, and two-thirds, 
 as we have seeu'from D. Baxter, to Profit and Earnings ; so that if 
 the public — as is too generally considered — consisted only of the two 
 first classes, the Capitalist and Profit Owner, what Sir W. Armstrong 
 says may be true, and it may be to the detriment of the public, but 
 surely a little more may be given to the labourer without any detri- 
 ment to the community at large. It is true that if the general rise 
 in commodities were equal to the rise in wages, so that the increased 
 wages would buy no more than before, it would be to the detriment of 
 everybody ; but such surely need not be the case. Sir W. Armstrong 
 also said ; " There is another species of restriction commonly practised 
 by trades' unions which is much to be regretted. I refer to the regu- 
 lations made for the purpose of establishing a uniform standard of 
 wages, without reference to difEerent degrees of skill or ability, and 
 also for the purpose of deterring the able and the strong from exceed- 
 ing a certain limit in the quantity of work they perform. There is 
 a feeling of brotherhood displayed in these regulations to which I am 
 ready to do justice, but at the same time I must declare that it is 
 impossible to conceive anything more subversive of wholesome eniu- 
 latiou, more unjust to able men, or more opposed to the public in- 
 
280 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 But in looking forward to a better system that shall more 
 completely include the interests of all, we must not forget 
 
 terest, than rules of this nature. Struggle for superiority is the 
 mainspring of progress. It is an instinct deeply rooted in our nature. 
 It shows itself in the keen interest, which contest of every kind in- 
 cites in our minds, and in the homage which we render to success, 
 even in matters of little moment. To what a dead level of mediocrity 
 would our country sink if struggle for superiority were stamped out 
 amongst us, and how completely we should fall back in the race of 
 nations I Trades' Unions would pursue a more rational policy if, 
 instead of repressing the ability and energy of individual members, 
 they were to foster and encourage these qualities, with a view of 
 organising co-operative manufacturing societies." This is very true. 
 There are many of the practices of Trades Unions that cannot be 
 defended. No doubt the establishment of " co-operative manufac- 
 turing societies" is the most effectual way to remedy the evils of 
 which the workmen most complain. Still, we have a long transition 
 state to pass through first before the people are prepared for that ; 
 and in the meantime I see no reason why a minimv/m rate of wages 
 should not be fixed by the workmen themselves, leaving the skilled 
 and talented to get as much more as they can or deserved. Oh, but 
 say the advocates of the present system, it is contrary to all the prin- 
 ciples of Political Economy to fix the rate of wages. But nature 
 fixes the rate of -wages, and why should not man 7 Nature fixes the 
 rate at as little as a man can live upon, and whatever Political Econo- 
 mists may say about the " impolicy of protection," he cannot take 
 less than that ; and surely therefore, as the rate mugt be fixed, there 
 is no reason why the law, or the workman, should not fix it at as little 
 as he can not merely live upon, but as little as he can live upon com- 
 fortably. Suppose it drove some trades away from us ; why then let 
 them go, if they would not keep the people employed in them com- 
 fortably. But the Empire is large, machinery is powerful, and there 
 is no' real fear of people wanting profitable employment when the 
 interests of labour are as much considered as those of capital have 
 hitherto been. This fear is only a bugbear set up by the capitalist to 
 frighten working men into conceding what they call " free trade in 
 labour," and which "free trade" is the instrument by which the great 
 inequality of distribution has hitherto been brought about and main- 
 tained. Sir W. G. Armstrong condemned the outrages of which trades' 
 unions have been too frequently guilty, expressed an opinion adverse 
 to patent laws, and said in conclusion : "I have thus briefly glanced 
 
THE GOOD IN TfiE PRESENT SYSTEM. 281 
 
 the good that has come out of the past. It has worked well 
 at least for the few, and, as Carlyle says, " Whoso has six- 
 pence is sovereign (to the length of sixpence) over all men ; 
 sommands cookfe ' to feed him, philosophers to teach him, 
 kings to mount guard over him — to the length of, sixpence." * 
 It has released, also, a minority from bodily labour, and has 
 developed that thought and moral feeling upon which the 
 more rapid advance of the world in the future depends. 
 Charles Darwin, however, says : " If man is to advance still 
 higher, he must remain subject to a severe struggle. Other- 
 
 at the impolicy of proteotion, whether applied to commerce, to labour, 
 or to invention. In every case the principle is the same, and amounts 
 to a restriction upon human power and energy for the benefit of a 
 section of the community. I deprecate all interference with liberty 
 of action, except in restraint of ofEeiloes ; and I maintain that the 
 greatest good to the greatest number will only be attained by leaving 
 the social world to the governance of natural laws." The " natural 
 law" to whose governance Sir W. Gt. Armstrong would leave us is the 
 law of "unlimited competition" among workmen themselves for wages; 
 but if the workman had made the laws instead of the capitalist, 
 among the offences requiring restraint would probably have been 
 paying below a certain rate for work doiie, and I am not among those 
 who think this would have been an impossible or unjust restriction, 
 I have lived among a manufacturing population where a mAmmwm 
 list price for work has been maintained, which did not prevent the 
 best yyorkmen getting more than such regulated price, but it certainly 
 had great influence in preventing the lowei ing of wages, and if the 
 list had had the sanction of law as well as of custom it would pro- 
 bably have done much more. 
 
 * On the present system a man works for his life, that is, for a. 
 " living," and consequently every vacancy is immediately filled. No 
 place is so low that there are not always many applicants for it. 
 This necessity fof living, like water, fills every social cranny. An 
 " assistant" and successor to Calcraft, the hangman, is wanted ; and 
 134 applicants are eager to prove their fitness for the post. Out of 
 these, seven, it is understood, have been selected, from whom -the 
 choice will finally be made. It is generally believed that a man 
 named Toll will be the lucky person. Toll is famous among his 
 companions as " a clever pig-killer " — ^pig-killing, it appears, having 
 been his vocation before he became a dockyard labourer. ^ 
 
282 ■ socioLeoY. 
 
 wise he would soon sink into indolence, and the more highly 
 gifted man would not be more successful in the battle of life 
 than the less gifted." ■ But we can make no great advance, 
 either Intellectually or Morally, under great bodily labour. 
 If the force supplied to us from food is used up in vital and 
 muscular action, it cannot be used in thinking and feeling, 
 and the brain does not grow and increase in power. The 
 populatioi;! of Greece under its much-vaunted civilisation 
 consisted (530 to 430 b.c.) of 90,000 freemen and 400,000 
 slaves, who did all the bodily work. The consequence was, 
 as shown by Mr. Galton, a greater development of talent and 
 of illustrious men than the world has known either then or 
 since. The free-born population was at liberty to devote 
 itself to culture, art, science, literature, philosophy, and 
 politics ; but if, at that time, they had entertained any 
 scruples about the rights of humanity as to slavery, and 
 they had had to do a fair share of the bodily work, the world 
 must have done without their schools of philosophy. Machi- 
 nery might take the place of the slaves in the present day. 
 
 Necessity, under the present system, has been the great 
 mother of invention, and it has been the foundation of all 
 order, as well as progress. Prof. Jacoby, in the speech to 
 his constituents at Berlin before alluded to, says : " Robert 
 Owen, the founder of the co-operative system in England, 
 met one day in the house of a Frankfort banker, the re- 
 nowned statesman, Frederick von Gentz. Owen expounded 
 his socialistic system and displayed its excellence ; if union 
 could but replace disunion all men would have a sufficiency. 
 ' That is very possible ! ' replied von Gentz, ' but we by no 
 means wish that the masses should become at ease and inde- 
 pendent of us ; all government would then be impossible.' 
 This, gentlemen," says the Professor, " is in two words the 
 social question of the present time 1 For Owen the enigma 
 of the solution is, 'union.' Gentz indicates the source of 
 the evil which opposes this solution, ' the spirit of domination 
 , among the privileged classes.' " 
 
THE POSITIVIST REJECTS CO-OPERATION. 283 
 
 But this " spirit of domination " has hitherto heen a neces- 
 sity, as the people are not at present at all qualified to govern 
 themselves, and all government would have been impossible 
 if people had not been kept in order by the necessity for 
 constant and regular work. How far the people are yet from 
 being able to govern themselves, was shown at the last 
 election. All power, by the Tory party, was placed in their 
 hands, and they returned a parliament of millionaires — of 
 the men most interested in the support of the present econo- 
 mical system. The town population in France would dis- 
 franchise the country population. Much greater intelligence 
 and moral power must precede all other great changes in our 
 social state, before we can safely dispense with the " domina- 
 tion of the privileged classes." The Positivists reject co- 
 operation. Dr. Bridges, a well-known Comtist, writing of 
 the difference between the Positivists and French Socialists, 
 while recognising " an important affinity," says : " They 
 rely upon legal means for the execution of their purpose. 
 We rely, in the main, upon moral agencies ; only in a very 
 secondary way upon legal. In their view, society should be 
 a vast co-operative association, engaged in a vast variety of 
 enterprises, regulating them by universal suffrage and by a 
 vast machinery of Committees. Positivists have always 
 rejected the co-operatiVe theory; We think it would result, 
 could the experiment be tried on a great scale, in feeble pro- 
 duction, in wasteful distribution, and in aggravated selfish- 
 ness. To us the concentration of wealth in a small number 
 of holders is absolutely necessary to its efficiency. With 
 some exceptions, as in the case of English land,* it is too 
 
 * Dr. Bridges excepts the English land. Mr. Motley, in an address 
 at New York, said :' "20,000,000 of men live in England, 30,000 men 
 own England. The pyramid stands on its apex." * * This number 
 was taken from the Census of 1861, and has been repeated by 
 Mr. MiU, but the controversy to which this has given rise shows 
 that 150,000 would be nearer the truth. 
 
284 SOCIOLOOY. 
 
 mucli dispersed, we think, even now. What we desire is to 
 create ail atmosphere of opinion in which the possessors of 
 wealth shall he regarded, and shall regard themselves, as 
 social functionaries, their functions being first to regulate 
 production, so that the existing amount of wealth may some- 
 what more than reproduce itself ; and, secondly, to see that 
 a share of wealth, sufficient to permit healthy life, falls to the 
 lot of the producer. And wealth concentrated will more 
 readily be made amenable to this amosphere than wealth dis- 
 persed. In bringing about this state of things, law is 
 obviously powerless. Christianity has proved ineffectual. 
 Our hope lies in the system of thought and life which Comte 
 has promulgated — ^in the religion of humanity." * 
 
 Probably we shall have to pass through some such stage 
 as this contemplated by the Positivist, as the working classes 
 have neither intellect nor moral stamina to act without the 
 aid of the classes above them. They have always hitherto 
 failed when they attempted to go alone. The elements of 
 disunion — -jealousy of each other and difference in opinion — 
 have always been the strongest. 
 
 It is clear that in taking into consideration the institutions 
 under which man can be. made most happy, we must include his 
 Political and Social Institutions as well as his Economical. 
 
 As to Government, no doubt that which is best adminis- 
 tered is best, but that it may be well administered it must be 
 adapted to the people over which it is to rule, and the degree 
 of civilisation at which they have arrived. The British 
 Government is probably the most free in the world, and it 
 is a growth, an evolution, a development out of the cen- 
 turies of conditions in which a people fitted for freedom 
 have been placed. It has been the fruit of the merest empi- 
 ricism, of the experience that has adapted each reform to the 
 immediate wants of tha people. It has been the creature 
 
 * T. H. Bridges. Bpectator, April 29, 1871. 
 
THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION. 285 
 
 of circumstance, without- reference to principle. It has been 
 formed as Nature forms everything that she intends to be 
 stable, and it has probably by this means developed, or is 
 about to develope, the best system of Government possible. 
 Government in England has passed through the Monarchical 
 and the Aristocratic or Oligarchical form, and is now evi- 
 dently approaching the Republican. From a contemporary 
 account of a levee, at the latter part of the 14th century, at 
 the court of Richard II., we learn that " the king on state 
 occasions gave orders for a throne to be erected in his 
 chamber, and thereon he used to sit,' after dinner-time, until 
 the hour of vespers, so that all might look upon him. He 
 spoke to none, but looked at each individual in turn. And 
 whenever any one, no matter what his station, encountered 
 the king's glance, he bent upon his knees and did obeisance." 
 This phase of royal^ has passed away, and " obeisance" is 
 now paid to the golden calf, and not to the throne, and the head 
 of the state rules, but governs only in theory. The govern- 
 ment of the Aristocracy ceased at the Reform Bill of 1832, 
 and the people are now supposed to govern themselves ; but 
 that also at present is only in theory. In England it is 
 wealth — the money-power that rules, guided by the public 
 opinion as expressed by the Newspapers.: and this is as well, 
 as the public are far too ill-informed at present to govern 
 themselves. The simplest and most just form of govern- 
 ment is the rule of the majority, with full freedom of discus- 
 sion to turn that majority into a minority. The people are 
 supposed by a majority to elect the wisest among them to 
 rule them, these again are governed by a majority among 
 themselves ; but this real Republican form of Government 
 can only be possible or desirable where the people are all 
 well disposed and well informed, which is far from being the 
 case in any country in the world at present. George Combe 
 truly says : " The conclusion, in regard to the republican 
 form of government, which I draw, is, that no people is fit 
 
286 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 for it in whom the moral and intellectual organs are not 
 largely developed, and in whom also they are not generally 
 and extensively cultivated. The reason is clear. The pro- 
 pensities being all selfish, any talented leader who will ad- 
 dress himself strongly to the interests and prejudices of an 
 ignorant people, will carry their suffrages to any scheme 
 which he may propose, and he will speedily render himself a 
 dictator and them slaves."* 
 
 Intellectual and civil freedom necessarily pass by succes- 
 sive stages from the one to the few, and thence to the many ; 
 and it was for the announcement of his discovery of this law 
 in history that Prof. Gervinus, in Germany, in 1853, (whose 
 death has just occurred, March, 1871), was imprisoned, and 
 ■ his book publicly destroyed. His " Introduction to the 
 History of the I9th Century" was charged with having ad- 
 vocated opinions dangerous to the State, subversive of 
 public order, and involving the crime of high-treason. 
 
 Democracy must advance. We cannot put the clock of 
 time back ; we must go on ; and this is becoming generally 
 recognised. De Tocqueville says : " Everywhere the various 
 occurrences of natural existence have turned to the advantage 
 of democracy ; all men have aided it by their exertions. 
 Those who have intentionally laboured in its cause, and those 
 who hayei served it unwittingly ; those who have fought for 
 it, and those who have declared themselves its opponents — 
 have all been driven along in the same track, have all laboured 
 to one end, some ignorantly and some unwillingly ; all have 
 been blind instruments in the hands of God." * * "Is 
 it credible that the democracy which has annihilated the 
 feudal system, and vanquished kings, will respect the bourgeois 
 and the capitalist ? Will it stop now that it is grown so 
 strong and its adversaries so weak ? " f And J. K. Shuttle- 
 worth tells us that " the tendencies to democratic changes 
 * " Moral Philosophy," p. 375. 
 t " Democracy in Ajnerica," Introduotion to the First Part. 
 
THE GOLD STICKS IN WAITINa. 287 
 
 are so obvious, and are so strongly indicated by the origin, 
 history, and theory of our constitution, that they are in some 
 form utterly irresistible."* But let those who would go too 
 fast and those who would lose heart learn something by the 
 fact that " 1,500 years have elapsed in our history, and yet 
 the theory of our Saxon Constitution is only partially real- 
 ised "; and also that Freedom, a blessing to the civilised and 
 enlightened, is a curse to the ignorant. 
 
 Our Social Institutions also will certainly require a radical 
 change if all are to be made as happy as they can be, instead 
 of merely an upper ten thousand. 
 
 The Political Economist, for "right" or "wrong", now 
 reads " tending to increase" or " tending to diminish wealth", 
 and this without reference to Health, Intelligence, or the 
 mode in which that wealth shall be distributed. What the 
 Economists seek is an ever-increasing fund for the employ- 
 ment of labour. When each shall take his share of the 
 world's work it will be found that what is wanted is an ever- 
 increasing fund for the enjoyment of rest. 
 
 The Queen is the head of our Social as well as our Poli- 
 tical State, and although she has ceased to govern in the 
 one, she is all-powerful in the other. Her Majesty has an 
 annual inconie of £385,000, that she may keep- Gold Sticks 
 in Waiting, and Lords of the Stole and Bed Chamber, and 
 other Court Attendants;! and every one, following this ex- 
 ample, tries to keep as many " Gold Sticks in Waiting" and 
 
 * " On Civilisation," p. 11, Psychological Jowmal, January, 1860. 
 
 f We find on the Civil List : Hereditary Grand Falconer (Duke of 
 St. Albans), £1,200 ; Lord Chamberlain (Viscount Sydney), £2,000 ; 
 Vice-Chamberlain (Viscount C^stlerosse),. £904 ; Keeper of Her 
 Majesty's Privy Purse, £2,000 ; Mistress of the Robes (Duchess of 
 Sutherland), £500; Groom of the Robes, £800; a Clerk of the 
 Kitchen, who receives £700 ; and a Chief Cook, at a Similar rate, &c., 
 making the grand total of salaried retainers 921. — (J. Charles Cox. 
 Spectator, July 29, 1871.) 
 
288 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 other things in proportion as they can. But the time is 
 coming when we shall try how little we can live upon, instesid. 
 of how much we can spend. 
 
 The Spectator {A]iril- 16, 1871), however, says, probably 
 with great truth as regards the present : " We doubt very 
 greatly whether the tone of English society would be much 
 changed by the disappearance of a Monarchy which has 
 ceased to exercise social influence, but as far as any change 
 occurred it would probably be for the worse. The. millionaire 
 would become the aristocrat, and the financier would lead 
 society, and the ideal of life, instead of being merely luxu- 
 rious, would be luxurious and vulgar too. Our social hierar- 
 chy, bad as it may be, does restrain that worship of wealth 
 which is the foible of Anglo-Saxons, and which threatens in 
 America to demoralise every section of the community. 
 
 There is no denying that under the present phase of civili- 
 sation our Social and Economic system does very much for 
 the favoured few, but it might, under better arrangements, 
 do as much for all. We have seen that even under the 
 present system, where so much is wasted, there is enough for 
 all were it differently distributed ; the capitalist and manu- 
 facturer, that is, about one-third of the population, now 
 taking two-thirds of the annual produce: that Is, for the use 
 of land, machinery, capital, for superintendence and liberty 
 to work, for distribution and protection, the working man 
 gives eight hours' labour out of ev'ery twelve. This is 
 rather an unfair division, but there is no immediate remedy ; 
 the privileged classes are not likely to give up their privi- 
 leges and their "spirit of domination" without a considerable 
 fight for thfem ; still, as the labouring class get more intelli- 
 gent, they ate likely to demand a fairer share of the joint 
 produce. The only effectual remedy for this unequal divi- 
 sion is fer the workman himself to become joint owner or 
 hirer of land, capital, and machinery ; but to do this a much 
 
ASSOCIATIVE INDUSTRY. 289 
 
 higher rate of intelligence and moral feeling is required than 
 he at present possesses. It has been a great mistake to 
 divorce the workman entii'ely from the soil, as is the case of 
 the artisans of our great cities. A deterioration of the phy- 
 sical stamina, and an undue predominance of the nervous 
 system, with the too great use of alcoholic stimulants and 
 tobacco, have been the consequence. Health, and security 
 from poverty and want, can only be obtained by people occu- 
 pying as much land as will furnish them with the first 
 necessaries of life. A factory or staple industry should 
 supply other necessaries and luxuries ; so that if the latter 
 should go out of fashion, the people would not be reduced to 
 absolute want in the necessary change. Associative In- 
 dustry, or Co-operation, should include a fann, a factory, 
 and a store. The profits of the producer and distributor 
 would thus be included ; and there might be no more non- 
 productive labourers than were actually required. This 
 would correct the great waste in our present system, and 
 procure for each " nearly the same enjoyments as if he were 
 the single lord of all." The farm should be cultivated by 
 skilled labour, by the aid of machinery ; and by a imion of 
 small farms, the very best and most expensive machinery 
 might be made to pay. The factory and store might employ 
 the women and children of those families who were employed 
 upon the land ; and, by a proper organisation of such facto- 
 ries, they might be made greatly to assist each other. We 
 have illustrations of farms, factories, and stores working suc- 
 cessfully on the Co-operative principle ; but they are working 
 separately. The next step must be to bring them together.* 
 ' " The working classes are believed to hold together £70,000,000 
 sterling in societies, savings' hanks, and so forth. The number of 
 co-operative societies is computed at 1,000, with a membership of 
 250,000. The yearly trade done is reckoned at £ 1 0,000,000 of money. 
 Mr. Nuttall states that he has analysed the balance sheets of 160 co- 
 operative societies, whose business was £500,000 quarterly. Of the 
 whole annual result, nearly £500,000 was in groceries, of which, how- 
 
290 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 The Co-operative system," says the present Bishop of 
 ichester, "would encourage the re-appearance of small 
 
 Manchester, ' 
 
 ever, not more than £74,000 had been supplied from their own whole- 
 sale warehouse. * * Nevertheless, the Wholesale Society, in 
 Manchester, do with the Manchester County Bank, on good terms, a 
 yearly business of £1,000,000 ; and the societies with which they trans- 
 act business do a^ toade amounting ,to £4,000,000 a year. To show the 
 close affinity already subsisting between co-operation and trades' 
 unionism, it may be stated that in the towns with *hich the Whole- 
 sale Society have dealings, the Amalgamated Engineers have 140 
 branches." — (" The Future of Capital and Labour," p. 448, by George 
 Potter. Contem/porary Review, February, 1871.) 
 
 An elaborate return about industrial and co-operative societies in 
 England and Wales was issued towards the close of the recent ses- 
 sion (1871.) The whole number of industrial and co-operative 
 societies registered up to the end of the year 1869 was 1,308 ; 
 sixty-seven new ones were placed on the roll last year, making 
 together 1,375. Of that number 406 appear to have been dissolved, 
 and 153 have neglected to send up their annual statements. The 
 following statement embraces 749 societies, with their figures up to 
 the end of 1870 : — The total number of members was 249,113, thfe 
 admissions during the year were 42,314, and the withdrawals 21,964. 
 Hence we may say that the fonner were to the latter as two to one. 
 The amount of share capital credited during the year was £783,059 ; 
 the amount debited, £582,835 ; the total capital on the 31st of 
 December, 1870, was £2,034,261 ; loan capital at the end of the year, 
 £197,128 ; cash paid for goods during the year, £7,458,000 ;■ received 
 from customers in the same period, £8,202,000. The average value 
 of stock-in-trade during the twelve months, £912,000. Hence the 
 stock appears to have been turned over nine times between the 1st of 
 January and the 31st of December. The expenses were £335,327, or 
 rather more than 4 per cent, on the money paid across the counter ; 
 interest on loans, £92,333 ; and allowance for depreciation, £42,817 : 
 total of the three items, £470,477. This brings the expenses up to 
 5J per cent. The entire liabilities of the 749 societies are placed at 
 £2,403,902 ; the entire assets at £2,649,429 : the balance over liabiU- 
 ties in favour of the societies would therefore be upwards of £245,000. 
 The value of buildings, fixtures, and land belonging to the various 
 societies is stated to be £962,276. The disposable net profit realist 
 from all sources during the year is put at £555,435. The dividends 
 declared amounted to £483,687, of which £16,523 was allowed to noa- 
 
THE fuench peasantry. 291 
 
 farms, without the re-appearaiice of a class that did neither 
 themselves nor any one else much good — that of small far- 
 mers,"* and perhaps the evils from occupation on land alone 
 are as great as those arising from isolated factory labour. 
 In a late number of the "Sevue des Deux Mondes" we have 
 an account of the rather lamentable mental condition of the 
 French peasantry : 
 
 "The peasant lives in a state of isolation, which the nature of his 
 task imposes upon him, and which has heoome hahitual, almost 
 agreeable to him. He goes through his day's work silent and alone. 
 If he has a companion by his side he seldom experiences the need of 
 interesting him in his thoughts. Meal time comes ; he still eats in 
 silence. In the evening, on his return home, he sits down weary and 
 harassed in the chimney comer. Is he dumb, or does he avoid, as 
 useless fatigue, the trouble of translating his thoughts into words ? 
 What does he think of during these long hours ? what subjects can 
 occupy him ? In such a condition there is but one : the comparison 
 of the fate he endures with that of the happy rich. Thus passes 
 middle-age. Old age, afflicted and iU-oaied for, follows ; carrying 
 its bitter lamentations from door to door, and repeating to those who 
 labour, ' This is what you will be one day.' * * Dispositions 
 bom of suffering quickly lead to a certain degree of moral de- 
 pravity. * * We find ourselves then confronted with a popu- 
 lation which, in this century of commercial and industrial progress, 
 is generally miserable, and, remaining plunged in profound ignorance, 
 deteriorates every day by contact with hurtful influences." 
 
 Take this in conjunction with the well-known condition of 
 our own rural population. Dr. D. 6. Croly, an American 
 writer, says : 
 
 " The agricultural poor of England are to-day the most debased of 
 
 members ; £3,775 was devoted to educational purposes. Lancashire 
 is the birthplace of successful co-operative societies ; we say " suc- 
 cessful," because the abortive societies established by Robert Owen 
 and some of his disciples will be remembered. In the return 155 
 societies are registered for that county — many of them veif large 
 ones. 
 * Contemporary Review, Febraary, 1871, p. 451. 
 
292 
 
 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 any class in Europe — are the worst fed, worst used, and worst paid. 
 This cheap agricultural labour lies at the very basis of the aristo- 
 cratic features of English landed property, and of their whole tenant 
 system. Let the emigration ferer once reach this lowest stratum of 
 English society^-and it is reaching it — and a heavy blow will have 
 been dealt at the great tenant farming interest of that country, and 
 at the wealth of the large aristocratic landed establishments. A very 
 small advance in the wages of English agricultural labourers will 
 make the raising of wheat and of all the cereals an unprofitable 
 business in that country. It has already to a great extent done so, 
 and hence the attention which has been paid in the last fifteen or 
 twenty years to the growth and development of superior cattle." 
 
 And Nathaniel Hawthorne, in the " Blithedale Romance," 
 that exquisite little sketch of an experiment in co-operation 
 in land alone, says (p. 76) : " The peril of our way of life was 
 not lest we should fail in becoming practical Agriculturists, 
 but that we should probably cease to be anything else. * * 
 The clods of earth, which we so constantly laboured to turn 
 over and over, were never etherealised into thought. Our 
 thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. 
 Our labour symbolised nothing, and left us mentally slug- 
 gish in the dusk of the evening. Intellectual activity is 
 incompatible with any large amount of bodily exercise." 
 
 A radical change, such as is here projected, can be but of 
 very slow growth ; at present little beyond a first step has 
 been made in the establishment of Co-operative stores, saving 
 only the profits of the retailer. Of course all the old-world 
 prejudices and privileges will be against it, but what is 
 worse, the wage-class themselves are by no means prepared 
 for it ; they will require a great educational change, and a 
 moral and intellectual advance, that very few of them have 
 at present made. Government might greatly aid in facilitat- 
 ing this change, as the great majority of mankind are very 
 timid, have few convictions of their own, are perfectly willing 
 to follow, and, in fact, almost require to lean on persons in 
 authority ; but it must be a Government for the people, and 
 
PEKMANENT CHANGE A GROWTH. 293 
 
 not, as hitherto, for a class — a Government in which the 
 interests of labour shall be as carefully considered and pro- 
 tected as the interests of capital have hitherto been. 
 
 All permanent change is a growth. " Time is required 
 for great changes, and all changes are the results of the con- 
 tinuous operation of natural forces which evolve phenomena 
 in a regular succession. Nothing endures which is not in 
 harmony with this law. The improvement in the condition 
 of any class, the growth of any institution — such for example 
 as a representative governing body — the relative powers and 
 privileges of different orders of society, all result from a 
 resolution of the great forces which create and sustain so- 
 ciety. It is impossible to overleap intervals of time, so that 
 conditions of society which a philosophic observer may fore- 
 see to be possible and to be ultimately beneficial, shall exist 
 otherwise than as the result of that irresistible development 
 to oppose which is to enter into a war with nature. Thus, 
 in our own history, no change has been permanent which has 
 not been a logical consequence of other antecedent conditions, 
 all proceeding from the same social forces, and has not also 
 been in harmony with surrounding conditions." * 
 
 Most of the actions of the individual are automatic — ^that 
 is, performed involuntarily, the result of ages of transmitted 
 growth ; and so far as they are voluntary they greatly depend 
 upon habit, custom, and public opinion : a man does what he ha s 
 been accustomed to do, or what he sees others do, and rarely 
 has an original impulse. It is very wonderful how under 
 these conditions every one, without qviestion, goes to his 
 daily toil, however hard or degrading, and how small a body 
 of police are necessary for our protection and to keep the 
 community in order. Eeleased from these ties, we have 
 French revolutions, and every one trying to set his individual 
 
 * "A Sketct of the Laws of Social Progress, illustrated by the 
 Growth of the Freedom and Political Capacity of the Manual Labour 
 Class in England," by Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, 
 
294 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 will above his fellows. Society is governed in the same way as 
 the individual. If it once loses its automatic action — if it is 
 forced into new circumstances and conditions, and is obliged 
 to think and decide for itself — all is contention, disorder, and 
 confusion. It is this which makes any advance by force 
 almost impossible. Sudden revolutions are useless, except 
 for destruction, and we can only build on the living founda- 
 tions. In a time of revolution physical force is necessarily 
 in the ascendant, and moral force in abeyance. It is well, in 
 the present absence of a Science of Man, that we are not 
 dependent for action upon opinion, but are under wiser 
 guidance. It is this transmitted experience of all that have 
 gone before, bottled up in us, that guides our actions. It is 
 an infinite consolation, in the jangle of creeds around, to 
 know that God rules ; that the right thing in the long run 
 is the strong thing, and that all the talk goes for little or 
 nothing. The great father of Idealism, Bishop Berkeley, 
 whose moral instincts and actions were perfect, who had 
 " all the virtues under heaven," had a room in his house 
 fitted up for the preparation of tar-water, which he believed 
 to be a universal balm for every physical ill, and with which 
 he physicked his family and poor neighbours, and by which 
 they were no doubt as much benefited as the world at large 
 was, at that time, by his philosophy. At the present time, 
 on all great questions, all our great men are about equally 
 divided. Look at what was the 'state of opinion on the 
 American and French Civil Wars ; on Governor Eyre and 
 Authority ; on the Franco-German War ; and at present on 
 Theology ; on Politics ; on Political Economy ; on Free 
 Trade and Communism. Our leading thinkers are divided, 
 and we have almost equal authority on each side ; and such 
 differences must continue until we have a recognised Science 
 of Man. But fortunately it is not opinion that rules, for, 
 as we have said, all permanent change is a growth. Con- 
 sequently in the change contemplated from Competition ta 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL. 295 
 
 complete Co-operation we not only have to induce the external 
 " conditions," but we have to grow the structure or brain on 
 which the greatly needed increase in intelligence and virtue 
 depends. We may have a perfect theory, but not persistent 
 and consistent action without this. The old form of Society 
 is by no means yet used up, . and all experiments towards a 
 more perfect form as yet have failed. " Time is the great 
 innovator," says Lord Bacon ; shall we then imitate time, 
 which innovates so silently' as to mock the sense?" 
 
 Prof. Beesley, in an article in the Fortnightly Reviem for November, 
 1870, gives ns an interesting account of the International Working 
 Men's Association. He tells us that the taxable income of the country 
 had increased in eight years 20 per cent. ; that the co-operative 
 movement was " a victory of the political economy of labour over the 
 political economy of capital." But the workmen are warned that 
 these one-sided efforts are not enough. " The lords of land and the 
 lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence 
 and perpetuation of their economical monopolies. The workmen of 
 all countries must enter into close bonds of brotherhood, and wars 
 must cease. It is to promote these two objects that the International 
 has been founded." 
 
 In August, 1868, 120 societies, of middle and southern Germany, 
 held a congress in Nuremberg, and affiliated themselves to the Inter- 
 national. The North German societies were prohibited by law from 
 connecting themselves with any foreign society. 
 
 A new party, calling itself Democratic Socialist, met in congress at 
 Eisenach, in August, 1869, where 263 delegates represented societies 
 numbering 150,000 workmen. The programme of the International 
 was adopted ; and, as the law prohibited corporate affiliation to any 
 foreign society, it was arranged that each member should belong indi- 
 vidually to the International, and that the central committee, having 
 its seat at Brunswick, should act at the same time as a central com- 
 mittee for the International. These were the men, we are told, who, 
 in September (1870), faithful to the programme of the International, 
 denounced Count Bismarck's claims upon France, and were, for so 
 doing, sent to prison, chained like common felons. 
 
 In Austria the working-class opened relations with the Interna- 
 tional. On December IS, 1869, at the re-opening^of the Reichstag, 
 
296 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 40,000 workmen assembled in the streets of Vienna, to make their 
 giievances heard by petition to the Ministry. On the 21st the bearers 
 of the petition were arrested. The funds of the workmen's societies 
 were arbitrarily seized and confiscated. At the end of July (X870) 
 the delegates who had been arrested in December were placed on 
 their trial for high treason, the public prosecutor stating that the 
 principles of the International Working Men's Asssociation were con- 
 sidered treasonable in Austria. Mr. Oberwinder, who had been one 
 of the Vienna delegates at B^le, and Mr. Schen, were sentenced to 
 six and five yearis' penal servitude respectively, and the rest to shorter 
 terms of imprisonment. On 50,000 or 60,000 persons meeting to 
 protest, they were dispersed by the troops, several being killed and 
 wounded, and many arrested. A similar war against labour, we are 
 told, has been begun in Hungary, the famous constitutionalist, 
 M. Deak, being reckoned among its opponents. So that it seems if 
 workmen's " petitions " or " protests " are to be heard, they must take 
 their muskets with them when they go to present them. 
 
 In France members of the International were sentenced to long 
 terms of imprisonment for "belonging to a secret society." 
 
 The fourth annual congress of the International was held at B^le, 
 in September, 1869, and was attended by 78 delegates from America, 
 Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland. 
 At its rising it resolved to meet in September, 1870, at Paris. But 
 Paris had in the meantime resolved to go to Berlin, and as Berlin had 
 come to Paris to render this call unnecessary, this meeting probably 
 has not come ofE. 
 
 Touching the principles of the International, we are told by Prof. 
 Beesley that " certainly the large mass of English members do not 
 trouble themselves much about theories of property. They devote 
 themselves simply to raising their wages, and diminishing then- 
 hours of work, by means of unions, and, in my opinion," says the 
 Professor, "they show their wisdom by doing so." Whether it is the 
 same with the mass of continental workmen I will not venture an 
 opinion. According to the leading members of the International — 
 who are, it may be observed, for the most part German — wage-paid 
 labour is destined to pass away, as serf -labour and slave-labour have 
 passed away; and it will give place to associated labour, which 
 ■ought to be developed to national dimensions and fostered by na- 
 tional means, and that where the working classes possess political 
 power, it is to produce these changes in a direct way. Others think 
 "that " where Communists went wrong was in wishing to introduce 
 social changes by political means, instead of trusting to moral means. 
 
THE FRBXCH AND GEltMANS. 297 
 
 M. MolUn, a Positivist, consequently, at the Bale meeting, proposed 
 the following resolution : " The Proletarians here assembled solemnly 
 repudiate the employment of government action, in whatever form, 
 for the establishment of social systems ; they declare that govern- 
 mental action should be reduced to the protection of the liberty of 
 all, and that no doctrine ought to prevail otherwise than by perfectly 
 voluntary acceptance, resulting from free exposition," This M. Mollin, 
 as one of the Paris Committee of the International, had been impri- 
 soned in Ste Pelagie the year before. Not only those who would vote 
 with M. Mollin, but all members of the International, are Bepublicans, 
 and all determined opponents of war. 
 
 From the meetings held in London by this party in favour of inter- 
 vention in the cause of France, it is to be inferred that through 
 France and French Eepublicanism is thought to be the nearest way to 
 the establishment of those views ; but I rather think the way will be 
 through a united and educated Germany. The French are too 
 versatile, — ^wautiug in Kefleotion, Firmness, and Conscientiousness, 
 and nothing good and lasting can grow in such a soil. Professor 
 Robert Knox, the anatomist, writing about 1850, says : " In my first 
 lecture, delivered five years ago, I said that the Celtic race does not 
 and never could be made to comprehend the meaning of the word 
 liberty. The opinion I gave had no reference to recent events, but 
 was deduced from past history : the histories of '92, of '15, of '32 — 
 add now the events of '48 and '49, and say have I erred in the esti- 
 mate I formed of this race ? On four eventful occasions the supreme 
 power has returned into the hands of the Celtic men of France. 
 Never was the destruction of a dynasty more complete. What use 
 have they made of this power ? * * As a Saxon I abhor all dynas- 
 ties, monarchies, and bayonet-governments ; but this latter seems to 
 be the only one suitable for the Celtic man." No doubt there is 
 much truth in this. " To revolutionise," he says, " is Celtic, to reform 
 is Saxon." On the other hand, the Germans are a much more solid 
 and enduring race, their distinguishing characteristics being Eefleo- 
 tion and Conscientiousness. The nation is armed, and with increasing 
 enlightenment they will discover the right and know how, if need be, 
 to defend it — the military captains becoming captains of Industry. 
 The one thing a Republican and Democrat does not understand is 
 obedience, liberty with him meaning the right of every individual' 
 to do as he individually chooses ; but real liberty is only compatible 
 with obedience to law. The drilling the Prussians are now receiving 
 is the best possible training for insuring that unity upon which the 
 greatest strength depends, and it is to Germany, not to France, that 
 V 
 
298 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 we must look for the inauguration of the new social and economic 
 world in its most complete and perfect fonn ; England slowly work;- 
 ing its own way onward in its usual empirical untheoretical manner. 
 
 Since this was written we have had a revolt of the workmen, of 
 Paris, an attempt to "introduce social changes by political means," 
 to "solve social problems by force," ending, if the principles I have 
 laid down be sound, and my estimate of the race be correct, exactly 
 as might have been expected. The ostensible object was, " the recog- 
 nition and consolidation of the Republic, and the absolute independ- 
 ence of the Commune extended to all places in France," as stated in 
 a State Paper ; but no doubt the real rising was that of the Labourer 
 -against the Capitalist, and which had been some time waiting its 
 •opportunity. The true history of this movement would be one of the 
 most instructive pages that the world has yet seen. We have all the 
 most advanced opinions. Republicans, Communalists, Communists or 
 Socialists, Positivists, to which must be added perhaps 50,000 roughs, 
 3,11 bent upon putting the world straight and bringing about the 
 millenium, in their own way. The objects, no doubt, of the great 
 majority were the highest that can be conceived — ^the regeneration of 
 the law, and quite prepared were they to become martyrs in the cause j 
 but probably the most notable thing was the construction put upon 
 "the movement by the English Press, the Times leading the way, as in 
 the great American Civil War, in the path of misconstruction. " The 
 catastrophe," says the leading journal, !(May 31st, 1871,) " is astound- 
 ing, if measured against the cause. Men do die, and have died in all 
 ages, for religion, but never for a ' religion ' like this. No God, no 
 man, no faith, no hope — nothing but better wages and more pleasure. 
 The principle of the revolution now quenched in blood was not a bit 
 grander than that of a tailors' strike." The Bpectatar (.June 3, 1871) 
 says : " The test of fraternity of the Communists of Paris has been 
 the visible willingness to recent proprietary arrangements, and they 
 have been apt to think no one deserving of being treated as a brother 
 who did not acquiesce in this narrow, not to say mean, test of brother- 
 hood. On the whole, we should say, that the terrible ferocity of the 
 -strife, as compared with the apparent smallness of the aims fought 
 for," &c. 
 
 Mazzini published an article in the JRoma del Fopolo, in which he 
 warns the Italian workmen against the theories of the International. 
 He says ; " The doctrines preached by the leaders and principal 
 members of the International are ; 1. The denial of God, who is the 
 only, eternal, and unshakeable Foundation of your duties and rights. 
 2. The denial of the Fatherland and tibe nation, namely, of the points 
 
MAZZINI ON THE COMMUNE. 299 
 
 of support which you may all employ to save your interests and those 
 of humanity. 3. The denial of all personal property, namely, of every 
 inducement to produce more than what is absolutely necessary for 
 daily life. Property, when it is the result of work, represents phy- 
 sical activity, as thought represents intelligence. These few words 
 will suffice to teach you that the International can in no way be of 
 any use to your cause." 
 
 An eminent physician present during the siege, as repoi'ted by M. 
 Sarcey, " expressed the opinion that one of the chief causes of the terri- 
 ble scenes which accompanied the final suppression of the Communist 
 outbreak was a contagious mental alienation. The minds of the Pari- 
 sians, be said, were gradually unhinged by the privations of the siege. 
 The revolt of the 18th of March gave the last blow to brains which were 
 already shaken ; and at length the greater part of the population went 
 raving ma<i." * * " Look at the citizens," he said, " who did not take 
 part in the insurrection ; they are immovable and stupid, like men 
 struck with paralysis. Yet they have on many occasions given proofs 
 of uncommon vigour and courage ; but the air of Paris is at this 
 moment poisoned by deleterious miasmata which make some people 
 furious madmen and others helpless idiots. I have seen the strongest 
 intellects stagger under this pernicious influence, and I have myself 
 frequently felt as if my reason were going." 
 
 No doubt there is considerable truth in this view of the matter, 
 and it would have, as in the great Bevolution of 1789, a very serious 
 effect upon both the bodily and mental constitution of the next 
 generation. 
 
 Besides Mr. Sarcey's " Siege of Paris," we have the testimony of 
 an American, Mr. Nathan Sheppard, in " Shut up in Paris," (London : 
 Richard Bentley and Son, 1871.) " The vain boasting of France," 
 he says, " is the only serious habit of the people." His view of French 
 democracy is given in the following significant extract : — " Republi- 
 canism cannot survive where there is not a certain degree of public 
 intelligence, a certain amount of virtue, and a certain measure of 
 self-reliance. The masses here have none of these. They have no 
 confidence in one another, and have less to fear from a ruler of their 
 own choice than from themselves in the experiment of ruling them- 
 selves. The worst ruler France can have is — 'France.' In the 
 United States and in Great Britain every man stands upon his two 
 solid legs. Here every man leans against every other man, and all 
 have an ineradicable desire to lean against some one man." 
 
 " If Germany," says Mr. Sheppard, " could have been conquered by 
 the tactics which reduced the walls of Jericho, the entire army of the 
 
300 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 Empire would now be encamped in the suburbs of Berlin." The 
 effeminacy and thoughtless excitement of the citizens, according to 
 Mr. Sheppard, were everywhere apparent. A revolution delights 
 them, but it fails to make them serious. " Such antics and frantics, 
 such grotesque contortions of rage, such gesticulating and perspiring, 
 and shaking of fingers and brandishing of fists and hats, and such 
 laughing and jesting too." They have not the least symptom, he 
 says, of possessing a back-bone, moral or physical ; they have no 
 " grit." 
 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison, a well-known Positivist, gives us his opinion 
 in the July, 1871, number of the Fortnightly Review, of the Commune, 
 the concluding passages of which are well worth attention : — 
 
 " This great crisis had stated though it had not solved the social 
 problem. What, in a few wq|ds, is this problem? It is this. In 
 this complex industrial system wealth hae discovered the machinery 
 by which the principal, in some cases the whole, results of common 
 labour become its special perquisites. Ten thousand miners delve 
 and toil, giving their laboiir, risking their lives ; ten masters give 
 their direction or their capital, oftenest only the latter. And in a 
 generation the ten capitalists are rioting in vast fortunes, and the 
 ten thousand workmen are rotting in their graves, or in a workhouse. 
 And yet the ten thousand were at least as necessary to the work as 
 the ten. Yet more. The ten capitalists are practically the law- 
 makers, the magistrates, the government. The educators of youth, 
 the priests of all creeds, are their creatures. Practically they make 
 and interpret the law — the law of the land, the law of opinion, and 
 the law of God ; they are masters of the whole social forces. 
 
 " A convenient faith has been invented for them by moralists and 
 economists, the only faith which in these days they at all believe in — 
 the faith that the good of mankind is somehow promoted by a per? 
 severing course of selfishness. Competition is, in fact, the whole 
 duty of man. And thus it comes that in ten thousand ways the 
 yrhole social force is directed for the benefit of those who have. 
 Habitually, unconsciously, often vrith what they think is a religious 
 sense of duty, they work the machinery of society for their own 
 objects. In this favoured land, whilst the ovmer of the soil knows no 
 other toil or care but that of providing fresh modes of enjoyment, the 
 peasant, out of whose sweat his luxury is wrung, lives like a beast 
 of burden, and dies like a dog in a ditch ; whilst the merchant prince 
 is courting society for a peerage, a thousand lives of seamen are lost, 
 decoyed to sea in rotten ships ; whilst mine owTiers can still paralyse 
 the Legislature, a thousand lives are lost each year in pits, 'chiefly. 
 
THE PKINCIPLES OF THE COMMUNE. 301 
 
 it is said, from preventable causes ;' and whilst fortunes are reared 
 by ironmasters, a, hundred thousand workmen are ground to the dust 
 by truck. Let us reflect what is implied in this mere finding of the 
 late Commission. One hundred thousand families in England are 
 cheated, insulted, and oppressed by being forced to barter portions of 
 their wages for some fraudulent equivalent in goods. Now all this 
 makes up in gross that which they call in France ' I'exploitation des 
 ouvriers.' They say that where in a common work labour is no less 
 necessary than capital, and labourers are as worthy of the profits as 
 managers, the system by which the gross result is appropriated by 
 capital, and under which the self-indulgence of wealth soars to yet 
 uuimagined heights, whilst the area of miseiy, ignorance, and ex- 
 haustion sinks ever deeper, is a system which is doomed to end. 
 And this their claim is good. 
 
 " Let us turn to the remedy they propose. The whole social force 
 which so long, they say, has been directed by capital in its own inte- 
 rest, shall be directed by workmen in the interests of workmen. The 
 laws shall no longer be made and administered so as to handicap the 
 labourer in the race of industry. The power of the State shall step 
 in to neutralise competition, and to restrain the selfish abuse of capi- 
 tal. The land, at any rate, they say, must be resumed by the State 
 for the benefit of the whole community, and fanned on social, and 
 not on proprietary, bases. Ultimately, in short, the whole existence 
 of capital, and the ordering the lives of the community, must be sub- 
 ject to the will of social authority. 
 
 " Such is the faith which, in spite of its extravagance, has seized 
 the foremost minds of the workmen of Europe, which in some form 
 or other receives the devotion of a religious creed. Can any one 
 doubt its strength compared with the conscious corruption of the 
 opposite creed ? Does the selfish cunning of competition in its heart 
 think it can stand a social energy like this, with all its errors and aU 
 its dangers 1 Does a society which lives in its equipages, and toils 
 only in amusement, match itself seriously with men who are ready 
 thus to die for a cause however mistaken 1 
 
 " The claim of capital to amass wealth by what means it chooSes, 
 and to spend it how and when it pleases, is so vile, the claim of the 
 workman to have his part in the social result is so unanswerable, that 
 in the end the issue is not doubtful. And since this social problem 
 must some day be faced by all, it seems time for serious men to reflect 
 what other solution remains. Communism stares them in the face ; 
 it grows and deepens. Whatever it may suit a journalist to say, no 
 sensible man believes that the 200,000 men who voted for the Com- 
 
302 SOCIOLOGY. 
 
 mune are bandits and fiends in human shape. They who think that 
 such a story as that of the Commune of Paris is explicable on the 
 ' miscreant ' theory are unfit to discuss political questions. It has a 
 great purpose, and it has great leaders. For every man who died on 
 the barricades ten will spring up hereafter. The cry of Milliere as 
 he died, 'ViveVhumanitfe I' will not be unanswered. The bones of 
 Delescluze may be burned in quicklime, but his spirit lives. He and 
 his followers have a purpose. They have sworn that the ' exploitation 
 of the workman ' shall end ; and end it must. 
 
 " They are not so clear about a substitute, but, so far as they have 
 a scheme, it is Communism. There is but one alternative —the answer 
 of Positivism. In one sense Positivism is akin to Communism, for 
 it heartily accepts its belief in social reorgani^tion ; in another it 
 is the opposite of Communism, for it exalts instead of abolishes the 
 exercise of property by individuals. Positivism teaches that the 
 highest uses of society are best served by massing capital in aggre- 
 gates, and by entrusting these masses to the free control of indivi- 
 duals. It teaches that the dignity of domestic life and of public 
 action, that moral as well as intellectual energy, demand the existence 
 of capitalists as a class. It shows that the highest functions of social 
 life and the noblest powers of the character would cease to exist 
 without the free control of capital. It insists on this freedom in no 
 grudging or unreal spirit. It looks on capital simply as power, and 
 the wise exercise of power as. the noblest function of man, and the 
 trustful respect of power as the most generous of human instincts. 
 
 " And if Positivism insists that Communism would dwarf and 
 unman every side of human nature, by destroying the infinite sources 
 of nobleness inherent in individual property, it asserts as strongly as 
 Communism itself that individual property can no longer exist on 
 its prevalent conditions. It insists that the use of property must 
 again be made a religious duty — that capital arises from the combi- 
 nation of many efforts, and must in justice minister to the common 
 wants. It would) by an education prolonged through life, teach the 
 workmen of every grade to ti-ust and aid the owner of capital, and 
 the owner of capital to look on himself as the minister of a free com- 
 munity. It would train the rich to rely on their own resources, and 
 compel them to use their full responsibility in so ordering the common 
 industry that the fewest disasters and the least suffering befell the 
 labouring community. Such is a picture of capital not extinguished, 
 but moralised ; not cut in pieces, but raised to new functions ; not 
 harassed by the fetters of law, but strong in the noble consciousness 
 of public office. Let capital, shrinking from the fires and shambles 
 
COMMUNISM AND POSITIVISM. 308 
 
 of Paris, choQse which of these two it will hare. Communism is a 
 not impossible future. Positivism is a not impossible future. The 
 status quo is impossible. The alternative is Communism or Posi- 
 tivism." 
 
 Positivism is thus a benevolent and enlightened despotism, and it is 
 probably more possible in the transition state that the few men could 
 be found qualified so to govern, than that the many could be yet found 
 capable of governing themselves. Otherwise, without the right men 
 Positivism would appear only to present all the worst features of the 
 present society in an exaggerated form, viz., a greater despotism 
 based on larger fortunes ; not but that the despotism of the many when 
 in power has always hitherto exceeded that of the individual. 
 
 If we want an admirable illustration of whiat the Capitalist may 
 do for the Workmen, when enlightened and so disposed, we must con- 
 sult " Solutions Sodales." Par Godin. (Paris : A. le Chevaher, Rue 
 Richelieu). M. Godin built a palace for his workpeople, giving them 
 all the refinements and conveniences of modern civilisation, and the 
 rents, with the profit on the Stores, paid him 6 per cent, for his out- 
 lay. 
 
CHAPTER VII, 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIOU. 
 
 Geological periods mark only epochs, not times. 
 
 Life has probably existed on this earth 100 millions of 
 years ; Man about iOO thousand. 
 
 The . faculties, bodily and mental, which man possesses, 
 hare been gradually perfecting in every form which life has 
 taken since its first appearance in the world. 
 
 So far as the history of Creation is written in the geolo- 
 gical records, it would appear that God's mode of working 
 is by evolution and development, by which all things are 
 made to make themselves, and not by special creation. The 
 whole world is one complete and living organism. " The ten- 
 dency on the part of matter to organise itself, to grow into 
 shape, to assume definite forms in obedience to the definite 
 action of force, is, as I have said, all-pervading. It is in the 
 ground on which you tread, in the water you drink, in the 
 air you breathe. Incipient life, as it were, manifests itself 
 throughout the whole of what we call inorganic nature."* 
 Every atom has its likes and dislikes, and moves with instant 
 precision to its place appointed, and the presence of mind 
 alone, as Sir John Herschel says, explains the whole diffi- 
 culty. Mind has its laws as well as what we call Matter, and 
 when we exercise the highest powers of our intellect we act 
 in accordance with certain laws of thought. In the action 
 of the Supreme mind we may expect the same to hold, and 
 God's action therefore is not an interference with law. He 
 acts as necessarily in accordance with the laws of his own 
 
 • " Fragments of Science," p. 115, by Piof. Tyndall. 
 
THE WHOLE WOULD ALIVE. 305 
 
 being as we do in accordance with ours.* The artificial 
 distinctions and divisions that have been set up between 
 inorganic and organic are becoming daily less and less visible 
 in the light of science. There is no necessity to bring the 
 torch of life from other worlds, in meteoric stones or other- 
 wise: the whole world is alive. The conditions were evolved 
 and individual life was born, although it may not be in man's 
 power to beget such conditions, and Life now proceeds only 
 from Life. 
 
 * The Rev. Prof. Caird, in a Sermon preached before the members 
 of the British Association, at Edinburgh, August 6th, 1871, says : 
 " For the more men advanced in intelligence, the more clearly did 
 they begin to see that it was only a vulgar necessity of thought which 
 identified personality with changefulness, and arbitrariness with 
 paroxysmal acts and special interferences." " What, then," he asked, 
 "to a thoughtful observer would be the kind of phenomena, the 
 aspect of things and events, which would look most like the signs of 
 personal thought and will in nature 1 Surely those phenomena and 
 that aspect from which the indications of anomaly were most com- 
 pletely banished, and throughout which, from beginning to end, 
 reigned cabn and changeless order, unbroken sequence and con- 
 tinuity, the majestic presence of power and law." 
 
 Mr. C. Staniland Wake, in a paper read before the Department for 
 Anthropology, August 8th, said : " It was simply impossible to under- 
 stand or to reason with any person who entertained a notion of a 
 creation of something out of nothing. If they could not have some- 
 thing out of nothing, they must have evolution of some kind. It had 
 been said that he had taken Pantheistic ground. Well, he believed 
 that nature was God, a personal God, and that all nature had been 
 evolved." 
 
 " Dr. Cairns : Does the gentleman hold that nature is a personal 
 God? 
 
 "Mr. Wake; Yes. 
 
 " Dr. Cairns : Thank you." 
 There seems a considerable gulf to fill up between the Eev. Drs. Caird 
 and Cairns. The latter appears to agree with Mr. James Hinton 
 (" Man and His Dwelling Place "), " that all onr conceptions are based 
 on the implied postulate that the world is as it appears," but he 
 does not equally agree with him that " the advance of knowledge 
 consists in the substitution of accurate conceptions for natural ones." 
 w 
 
306 SUMMARY AKD COSC'LUSIOK. 
 
 Sensibility, or Mind, with animals has been always con- 
 nected with the Nervous System, and has developed and 
 improved as the Nervous System has been developed and im- 
 proved in its transmission from body to body in the chain of 
 being. 
 
 Man differs from other animals, not in kind, but in degree 
 only. 
 
 The " plan," or object, in Creation would appear to be 
 to produce the largest amount of enjoyment without respect 
 to species, or individuals, or man exclusively. " Freedom " 
 is only one of the means towards this end, enabling all the 
 faculties upon which happiness depends to be brought into 
 activity. 
 
 Man knows only his own consciousness, or rather his con- 
 sciousness comprises all his knowledge. External force, 
 acting upon a portion of the structure of the brain and 
 nervous system, creates within him the " World " as he con- 
 ceives it in his intellectual consciousness, with the ego, or 
 sense of personal identity ; passing through other portions 
 of the brain, it creates those likes and antipathies upon which 
 the moral world is based. 
 
 Each creature has thus created within it a world of its own, 
 according to its susceptibility to impressions from without, 
 which susceptibility depends upon the specific nature of its 
 nervous organisation. 
 
 These " modes of action " of force without give us no 
 real knowledge of things without. We know only how 
 we are affected by them — that is, we know only |the con- 
 sciousness they create within us. All is illusion : colour, on 
 which the beauty of the world so much depends, is a feeling 
 or idea, a nervous sensibility ; and so are the forms which we 
 believe to be around us mere ideas. Nervous force only is 
 transmitted to the brain, and the brain forms the image. 
 Without us is we know not what, except that it has the 
 
REALISM AND IDEALISM. 307 
 
 power to produce these feelings and ideas, and that all power 
 is the power of God.* 
 
 * The opposite or Eealistic view is thus well expressed by Prof. 
 Donovan : " Man is brought into relation with external objects by- 
 means ofJFaoulties, each one of which corresponds with a, special 
 property of the object. Objects have ' Form ;' man has an Organ 
 of Form, by means of which he perceives this attribute. Objects 
 have '^Size ;' man has an organ by means of which he takes cogni- 
 sance of Size or Magnitude. Objects have ' Weight,' or- gravity ; 
 man nas a corresponding organ ; and so on of ' Colour,' ' Order,' 
 and ' Num'oer.' Each has its proper Organ, and these organs are 
 placed in the superciliary ridge or eyebrow." Of course our belief is 
 that the organs create the ideas to which we have given these names 
 of Form, Size, Weight, Colour, Order, and Number, without at the 
 same time giving us any real knowledge of the properties of objects 
 themselves, for it is impossible to conceive that an external force — 
 the property or quality of the object — can have any likeness or resem- 
 blance whatever to an internal feeling or idea. All we hnom is the 
 idea ; fi-om that we infer the quality, and the substance. But the 
 quality is force, and we logically infer that it is the force of some- 
 thing, but of what we do not know. We may call it substance, 
 matter, mind, spirit, but these are merely names for the unknown. 
 
 How completely our men of science have set things up on the 
 wrong^end, — ^for the external is nothing but " possibilities of sensa- 
 tion," — ^is well illustrated in the Presidential Address in the section A. 
 at the last meeting of the British Association (1871.) The President 
 says : " I conclude by quoting some noble words used by Stokes in 
 his Address at Exeter, — words which should be stereotyped for every 
 meeting of this Association : ' When from the phenomenon of life we 
 pass to those of mind, we enter a region still more profoundly myste- 
 rious. * * Science can be expected to do but little to aid us here, 
 since the instrument of research is itself the object of investigation. 
 It can but enlighten us as to the depth of our ignorance, and lead us 
 to look to a higher aid for that which most nearly concerns our well 
 being.' " No wonder Anthropology, or the Science of Man, is 
 squeezed into a mere department of Biology at the British Associa- 
 tion when this is the kind of stuff the Association considers desirable 
 to have stereotyped every year out of deference to a supposed religious 
 public opinion. The only knowledge we reaUy have, all that can be 
 of any real importance to us, is of our ideas and feelings, and thes? 
 are immediately connected with the brain ; and yet the members of 
 
308 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 The ideas thus created are not intended to give us real 
 knowledge ; only to guide us towards the objec.ts of our being, 
 upon the attaininent of which objects our happiness depends. 
 Matter and spirit are only " the names for the unknown and 
 hypothetical cause of states of our own consciousness," and 
 all controvei'sy based on their supposed essential difference 
 is so much mere babbling about that of which we necessarily . 
 know nothing. 
 
 the British Association generally do not know whether they have any 
 brains or not, (neither does anybody else), and the Science of Mind, 
 based upon Cerebral Physiology, is to this learned -body " profoundly 
 mysterious," and any study of it can but " enlighten it as to the 
 depth of its ignorance." A very likely consummation, and most de- 
 voutly to be wished, at least as far as this most important depart- 
 ment of all Science is concerned ! A knowledge of the phenomena 
 of mind, we are told, can only be attained through supernatural aid : 
 in this knowledge the British Association is no further advanced than 
 the world was more than 2,000 years ago, and there it seems likely to 
 remain. It shows how completely current superstitions stand in the 
 way of all progress. 
 
 From Prof. Tait's and Prof. Allen Thomson's allusions to the phe- 
 nomena of so-called Spiritualism it is probable that neither of them 
 have heard of Mr. Crookes's careful experiments on the new (Psychic) 
 Force ; or do they consider this gentleman. Dr. Huggins, and 
 Sergeant Cox mere impostors 1 The bigotry of orthodox science I 
 have always found equal to the bigotry of orthodox religion ; but in 
 this case the men of science might even take a lesson from the Clergy. 
 The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol would have made a better Presi- 
 dent for their sections than either Prof. Tait or Thomson, for he does 
 seem to have some little intimation of the new truths that are coming 
 upon us. The Bishop says, in an admirable paper on Death in the 
 Contemporary Reviem, for August, 1871, p. 61 : " Such terms, vague 
 as they really are, as medicatrim natv/ras and the like, are all indica- 
 tions at least of the widely spread persuasion that forces are at work 
 within us which are essentially and qualitatively different from any 
 of those with which experimental philosophy has yet come in con- 
 tact." The British Association is treating these new " forces" just as 
 orthodox science always treats new truths. 
 
 " The man of science himself is fonder of glory, and vain. 
 An eye well practised in nature, a spirit bounded and poor." 
 
 -r-Tennyson. 
 
RESPONSIBILITY. 309 
 
 On the principle of evolution the future necessarily grows 
 out of the past and present : that is, " everything that exists 
 depends upon the past, prepares the future, and is related to 
 the whole ; " according to the recently-discovered law of the 
 Conservation of Energy, " each manifestation of force can 
 be interpreted only as the effect of some antecedent force, 
 no matter whether it be an inorganic action, an animal move- 
 ment, a thought or feeling." 
 
 Consequently, all actions being equally necessary — all 
 equally the effect of some antecedent force, there can be no 
 intrinsic difference between them, the only difference being 
 one of arrangement. Good and Evil are purely subjective— 
 that is, dependent upon the way in which our sensibility is 
 affected by things without. Where we have pleasure it is 
 called Good ; where we have pain. Evil. Pleasurable sensa- 
 tion attends the legitimate action of all our faculties, whereas 
 pain or suffering is not the legitimate object of any part of 
 our organisation. Praise and blame, reward and punish- 
 ment, are not a recognition of any intrinsic difference in 
 actions themselves, but of our wish to produce one class of 
 actions rather than another, as more agreeable to ourselves. 
 They are intended only as motives to action. 
 
 Besponsibility consists in our having to bear the natural 
 and necessary consequences of our actions. The supposi- 
 tion that our responsibility consists in our liability to so 
 much suffering for so much sin or error, if not in this world^ 
 then in another — thsA justice requires that if we sin we must 
 suffer — ^however ancient, is an altogether groundless notion* 
 The object of pain or suffering is reformation, and any pain 
 or punishment that has not that object, any suffering in 
 excess of that, would be objectless and mere revenge. Every 
 sin contains its own atonement in the pain or penalty attached 
 to the natural consequences that follow it. We do not re- 
 quire an exact apportionment of so much suffering for so 
 much sin, which, it is said, only ah infinitely wise Judge can 
 
310 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 deal out in another world ; all that is required is so much 
 pain or punishment only as will prevent a repetition of, the 
 offence. It is not the sense of justice that begets the per- 
 suasion — the strong feeling within us, that evil will be pun- 
 ished, but revenge ; d you ! is not " moral purpose ; " it 
 
 is the language of destructiveness, not conscientiousness, 
 and the old Hebrew conception of so much suffering for so 
 much sin is altogether a barbarous notion originating only in 
 a savage state. That Eetribution would not be just which 
 included more punishment than was sufficient to correct the 
 offence and was therefore good for the offender. 
 
 If, as Quetelet says, " Society prepares crime, and the guilty 
 are only the instruments by which it is executed," the strict 
 demands of justice would require that the sinner, not the 
 saint, should be made happy in another world, because the 
 sinner, having been made to " dishonour"'in this world, has 
 been the most unhappy here, and requires compensation. 
 
 Morality is the law, or the rules and regulations by which 
 men may live together in the most happy manner possible. 
 It expresses the relation of man to man. The feelings that 
 induce us to seek our own well-being are necessarily strong, 
 or we should cease to exist : so strong that there is always 
 a tendency to gratify them at the expense of others ; whereas 
 the moral feelings that unite us to our fellows, that bind us 
 up in humanity, are not so strong ; we praise them therefore 
 to induce their action ; but there is no intrinsic difference 
 between them, as is usually supposed. All our feelings are 
 equally necessary for our well-being, and are equally pure 
 and good, and all equally bad when in excess. We must 
 " do justice, love mercy, and. walk humbly with God," but 
 we must not neglect our social duties and our daily work to 
 attend to the interests of humanity. What is wanted is the 
 proportionate activity of all our faculties, and for such acti- 
 vity there is full scope in this world, and we do not require 
 to wait for another to bring every faculty we possess into 
 
THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY. 311 
 
 full activity, as some religious people affirm. A man may be 
 happy as a pig, or as a peacock, happier still as lover, father, 
 or friend ; but he is happiest of all when is added to these 
 the full exercise of the moral sense — of the duties that make 
 him one with his fellows. Every feeling has its reflex 
 action — its reaction. If he is kind, others are kind to him ; 
 if he is just, others are just to him ; if he gives full measure, 
 it is measured to him again. If also he seeks God, he will 
 find him in the harmony and beauty and sunshine and enjoy- 
 ment around him. All these feelings do not differ in kind, 
 but in degree only, although what is called " moral pur- 
 pose" is only to be found in man ; they all make him more 
 or less happy, as they are intended to do. 
 
 As Morality is the relation of man to man, so Eeligion is 
 the relation of man to the ever present Spirit of the Universe. 
 God is not more present in one place than another. " The 
 true doctrine of omnipresence is that God re-appears in all 
 his parts, in every moss and cobweb ; thus the Universe is 
 alive."* " There is but one infinite substance, and that is 
 God. He is the Universal Being, of which all things are 
 the manifestation." "j" Science is the record, the classifica- 
 tion and arrangement of His " mode of action." All His 
 laws are equally sacred, and upon man's knowledge of them 
 and obedience to them his happiness depends. All, there- 
 fore, ought to have equally the religious sanction. We 
 want something to worship, and from the lichen to man, 
 through all the varied chain, we find all worthy of our 
 veneration and adoration ; but to make a Eeligion of 
 Humanity is going back to only another form of fetishism. 
 Humanity is only a small element in either our admiration 
 or enjoyment. We may be taught also to admire all that is 
 great and good in Humanity without making a Religion of 
 it. " The just may be had in everlasting remembrance" 
 without our worshiping them. When once we worship, 
 
 * Emerson. f Spinoza. 
 
312r SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 justice and due discrimination is at an end. The feeling 
 takes captive the reason. We have such a thing as Bibliola- 
 try where people worship the Bible, and " that blessed word 
 Mesapotamia" becomes the greatest source of comfort to the 
 old women. The devout worshippers of Shakspeare defend 
 his puerilities equally with his surpassing excellencies. We 
 always begin with depreciation, and end with undue apprecia- 
 tion. It is an ever-present God, as seen by the lights of our 
 latest knowledge, that we are alone safe in worshiping. 
 All worship of the past ends in retrogression and a stereo- 
 typed civilisation. 
 
 Death is a mere correlation of force ; each cause and effect 
 being a new Life and a new Death : one form gives up its 
 energy, latent or active, that another may live : it is the 
 form, appearance, or phenomenon only that passes away. 
 There is no real Death ; no such thing as annihilation. 
 Force, which we call Spirit, is persistent or indestructible. 
 What we call Death is the mere grinding up of old and use- 
 less bodies to make into new and more perfect ones. " All 
 death in nature is birth — ^the assumption of a new garment 
 to replace the old vesture which humanity has laid aside in 
 its progress to higher being." If we have gone wrong — 
 and we all have — and use has become second nature, that is, 
 habit has become organic or constitutional, the old body is 
 broken up and starts again in some new form without such 
 impediment to right action. By such a process, and for such 
 purpose, death sunders the immaterial, as it is called, from 
 the material. 
 
 Our Social and Economical System causes great inequar- 
 lity in the distribution of wealth. With better arrangements, 
 by the aid of Science and Machinery, all might be well off. 
 The great question of the day is this relation between Capital 
 and Labour, and it can only be ultimately settled by the 
 Capitalist and Labourer becoming one; by Land, Capital, 
 and Labour, working together on the Co-operative principle, 
 
BTtHSlNG THE SUNS BAVS. 313 
 
 in which all employed shall have a proprietary interest in the 
 concern, and take a fair share according to that which all are 
 jointly instrumental in producing. The sun does the greater 
 part of the work,* and it has been made to work through 
 
 * Philosopliers now recogmse but one force and its correlatives, 
 or various modes of action. For practical purposes, however, it is 
 found desirable to recognise two foroes^sun power and earth power. 
 By the silent and imperceptible force of the sun, calculated by Leslie 
 to be two hundred thousand times greater than that of the combined 
 exertions of the whole human race, water is raised in vapour, which 
 gives out the same amount of force or earth power in finding its level 
 on its way back to the ocean. The air is also rarefied by the sun, 
 which in finding its equilibrium produces a force not much less ; and 
 we have thus wind and water power — ^the sun and earth power 
 balancing each other — which, if it could be economically applied, 
 would be sufficient to do all the work of the world. But Wind and 
 Water have given place to Steam, the power of which, as a force that 
 can be generated at will, is again but bottled sun-shine. Millions of 
 years ago, perhaps, the sun divorced the oxygen from the coal or 
 carbon, which upon their re-union in what we call combustion 
 creates all the power of steam. The same sun power now at work in 
 plants separates the carbon from the oxygen, which upon their 
 coming together again in the animal system is the source of all 
 animal power. 
 
 " It is certain," says Prof. Tyndall, " that the sun bas been chilled 
 to an extent capable of being accurately expressed in numbers, in 
 order to furnish the power which lifted this year a certain number of 
 tourists from the vale of Chamouni to the summit of Mont Blanc." — ■ 
 ("Fragments of Science," p. 437.) People were beginning to suspect 
 that too much had been taken out of him in this way, this cold sum- 
 mer (1871), and they were thinking of whether it might not be de- 
 sirable to forbid such expeditions, until they were reassured by a 
 return of heat in the autumn (August) of 87 deg. Far. in the shade 
 in London. Now this force of the sun has been duly recognised, it 
 is proposed to use it directly, as well as indirectly. Mr. Ericsson, » 
 Swede, resident in New York, so weU known for his efiorts to im- 
 prove the steam-engine, has now turned his attention to the grand 
 question of utilising the sun's rays ; and he states that he has de- 
 vised apparatus by which the heat may be concentrated and used for 
 steam or air-engines. .In other words, the solar radiation accumulated 
 on a space ten feet square and perpendicular to the sun's rays will 
 
 X 
 
314 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 machinery almost exclusively in favour of the owner of the 
 machine ; and this it is that has caused the great inequality 
 of distribution. 
 
 develop somewhat more than one-horee power. Hence the sun-shine 
 that falls on the roofs of Philadelphia, he calculates, would keep 
 going 5,000 steam engines of twenty-horse power each. This sug- 
 gests many reflections ; it is at once clear that all the gloomy fore- 
 bodings about the exhaustion of our coal may be entirely dismissed. 
 The Laputians it is, I think, that Dean Swift represents as being 
 employed in extracting the sun's rays from cucumbers ; it appears 
 we need not resort to this, but every man may have a little appara- 
 tus — of one-horse power — on the top of his house, which, with ma- 
 chinery judiciously applied to every room, may do all the drudgery 
 and household work of the establishment. This one-horse will not 
 require to be fed on anything but sun's rays, and daylight always 
 contains a sufficient supply of them. It must not be supposed that 
 wives would then go out of fashion ; they might, on the contrary, 
 for the first time take their proper place. If man is the " power" in 
 the world, woman is the " beauty" — ^the sesthetio is properly her 
 department. 
 
 But such a power need not be confined to domestic uses. In India, 
 in the temples of Buddha, the prayers are done my machinery, which 
 is kept going night and day. Here it has been calculated that a one- 
 horse sun power, or even less — a one-ass power — on the top of our 
 churches, would probably be enough to preach all the sermons. The 
 ideas in our ordinary sermons are so few and simple that they might 
 readily be set to machinery, and ground out every Sunday for the 
 benefit of those very young people who are not yet familiar with 
 them — thus releasing a considerable amount of ecclesiastical force 
 that now undoubtedly might be applied to better purposes. Good 
 sermons may be purchased in lithograph at from 5s. a dozen. I am 
 rather surprised, therefore, at the following, which I take from the 
 Pall Mall Gazette, April 28, 1871 :— 
 
 " Clergymen with a small stock of sermons frequently speculate too 
 boldly on the shortness of their hearers' memories, but they probably 
 seldom cany the practice so far as the reverend gentleman whosp 
 sermons have been subjected by one of his congregation, ' a great 
 statist and an old resident,' to the following minute classification. A 
 friend of the ' great statist' thus reports the result of his inquiries ; — 
 ' His theory is that during thirteen yeai's of the present incumbency, 
 the general stock of sermons possessed by the vicar has been preached 
 
APPLICATION OP PRINCIPLES. 315 
 
 We have now only to draw the legitimate deductions from 
 the aboTe, and to see how we may best fiirthei- nature's plan 
 in the production of the largest amount of happiness in the 
 world. As far as we are individually concerned we shall 
 perhaps do this by losing sight of happiness altogether, and 
 not taking it into account at all. The objects of our desires 
 are all closely marked in our constitution and organisation, 
 and not one of these desires is the desire for happiness. It 
 is upon this partial truth that the anti-utilitarian rides off 
 
 forty-eight times, or, as he says, has made forty-eight revolutions, 
 and that they are already far advanced in the forty-ninth cycle. He 
 thinks that when they have gone through fifty revolutions they wi.l 
 be tolerably well worn out — seeing that they were ancient when they 
 came into the possession of the present owner. He considers that he 
 has accurately fixed the date of their composition, which he believes 
 to be between the thirty-fifth and fortieth'years of George III., or 
 about seventy-five years ago. Two of them, which are known as the 
 " Astronomical Sermons," he says, are taken from Derham's " Astro 
 Theology," published in 1786, and abound with the en'ors of that 
 date. Another is supposed to have been written on the occasion of 
 the earthquake at Lisbon, and is known as the " Trembling Sermon," 
 being suited to occasions of public calamity. It has already done 
 duty on tlfe occasions of two revolutions in Spain, twice for com- 
 mercial panics in England, once for the Crimean war, and recently 
 for the Franco-German War, with a few other similar occasions. 
 They are taken from some early numbers of the Ckwroh Magazine,'' " 
 We have not yet been able to tame the Lightning ; it has proved 
 itseU at present a little too eratic in its course for daily use. A cor- 
 respondent of Nature, however, draws attention to an important dis- 
 covery made by an American, which bids fair to supply the want of 
 a portable motive power for machinery. At the last exhibition of 
 the American Institute, it seems, there was shown an elliptic lock- 
 stitch sewing machine driven by an electric engine small enough to 
 fit into a common hatbox : " A series of eight magnets are set on the 
 periphery of a circle, and around these revolves an armature of steel 
 which is continuously propelled by the magnetic action, and thus 
 operates the machinery that moves the needle. Connection with this 
 motor is had by means of a small slide within reach of the operator, 
 at whose will the current may be out off entirely or the speed of the 
 needle graduated as may be desired." 
 
816 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION, 
 
 triumphantly. We love our wife, children, and friends — not 
 happiness, but the love of them produces happiness. 
 
 We have seen that from the commencement of animal life 
 in the world, pleasurable sensibility has increased with the 
 increase in size of the nervous system, and intelligence and 
 wants have increased with the happiness dependent upon 
 their gratification with increased speciality of structure. 
 This is still the law. What we want to grow is more 
 brains ; not at the expense of any other bodily powers, but 
 proportionate to them : a sound mind in a sound body. But 
 we not only want more brains, but we want those parts of 
 the brain especially developed that are connected with the 
 highest attributes of man — the intelledt and moral feeling. 
 In fact, we want to improve the breed of men, our attention 
 hitherto having been almost exclusively devoted to dogs and 
 horses, sheep and short-horns. We can produce almost any 
 variety of plants, flowers, and fruits, and almost any form in 
 animals ; but all such laws are entirely ignored as far as man is 
 concerned. Providence is supposed to take this department 
 of science entirely into its own hands. We have only to pro- 
 cure a marriage license, and we may without any kin# of censure 
 bring any number of decrepid, imbecile, insane, scrofulous, 
 and otherwise diseased children into the world ; and yet from 
 this ignorance and neglect arise half the ills that flesh is heir 
 to. Darwin says : " For my part I conclude that of all the 
 causes that have led to the differences in external appear- 
 ance between the races of man, and to a certain extent 
 between man and the lower animals, sexual relation has been 
 by far the most efficient." * But Mr. Darwin throws very 
 little additional light upon the laws that ought to regulate 
 this selection between men and women, and I must confess 
 to considerable disappointment, as I have been looking for- 
 ward with great interest, expecting great revelations in M6 
 book on sex. We have not yet got much beyond the great 
 
 * i' Descent o| Man," vol, 2, p. ,384. 
 
HEllEDITARY DESCENT. 817 
 
 principle of all breeders who have greatly improved our 
 domestic animals, viz., that " like breeds like,'' although it is 
 by the variations from this rule that the greatest improve- 
 ments are effected. " Colour, form, size, texture of hair or 
 wool, proportions of various parts, strength or weakness of 
 constitution, tendency to fatten or to remain lean, to give 
 much or little milk, speed, strength, temper, intelligence, 
 special instincts ; there is not one of these characters whose 
 transmission is not an every-day occurrence within the expe^ 
 rience of cattle breeders, stock-farmers, horse dealers, and 
 dog and poultry fanciers." * No doubt in man, as in animals, 
 we may improve a property by cultivation, and transmit it in 
 its improved form to posterity ; and this power may be greatly 
 increased by a judicious sexual selection. Mr. Darwin tells 
 us that " in the case of corporeal structures it is the selection 
 of the slightly better-endowed and the elimination of the 
 slightly less well-endowed individuals, and not the preserva- 
 tion of strongly marked and rare anomalies, that leads to 
 the advancement of a species." | He says it is surprising 
 how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to 
 the degeneracy of a domestic race ; but excepting in the case 
 of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his 
 worst animals to breed. J Much depends upoii his choice of 
 a wife, but a man's physical and mental condition also before 
 marriage, and a woman's health and whole mental State 
 during the period of gestation affect the coming child. 
 Twins are often alike bodily and mentally, and yet differ 
 widely from other members of the same family, which shows 
 how much depends upon the mother and the circumstances 
 in which she is placed. How little is at present known of, 
 and how much less even do we care for, the natural laws by 
 which beauty, health, and intellect result from certain unions, 
 
 * "Lay Sermons," p. 270. Huxley, 
 t " Descent oi Maft," p. 172. J Ibid., p. 168. 
 
318 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 and deformity, disease, and insanity from others.* We ought 
 to know at what age it is best to marry ; what physical and 
 mental temperaments should be brought together, and what 
 mode of treatment and feeding is best during the period of 
 gestation. But of these things at present we have little or 
 no record. Darwin, howerer, tells us that " children bom of 
 mothers during the prime of life are heavier and larger, and 
 therefore probably more vigorous, than those born at other 
 periods."! There can be no doubt that the military regula- 
 tions, and the laws enforced with respect to marriage in 
 many of the German States, have very much improved the 
 
 * " Our aristocracy, by exclusive intermarriages among ancient 
 families, proceed blindly to breed in contempt of deformities, of 
 feeble intellect, or of hereditary madness, under the instigation of 
 pride, or the love of wealth, until their race becomes extinct ; while 
 another portentous curse, that of unwholesome factories, threatens to 
 deteriorate the once brave manhood of England. I believe that, 
 among mankind, as well as domesticated animals, there are phy- 
 sical and moral influences which may be regulated so as to im- 
 prove or predispose both the corporeal and moral aptitudes ; and 
 certainly the most obvious cause is that of selecting the fit progeni- 
 tors of both sexes." — (Sir A. Carlisle, in a letter to Mr. Alex. Walker 
 " On Intermarriage.") 
 
 The Right Hon. B. Disraeli, in " Lothair," that rather clever satire 
 of his on the upper classes, says : " It is the first duty of a state to 
 attend to the frame and health of the subject. The Spartans under- 
 stood this. They permitted no marriage the probable consequences 
 of which might be a feeble progeny ; they even took measures to 
 secure a vigorous one. The Romans doomed the deformed to imme- 
 diate destruction. The union of the races concerns the welfare of 
 the commonwealth much too nearly to be entrusted to individual 
 arrangement. The fate of a nation wiU ultimately depend upon the 
 strength and health of the population. Both France and England 
 should look to this ; they have cause. As to our mighty engines of 
 war in the hands of a puny race, it will be the old story of the lower 
 empire and the Greek fire. Laws should be passed to secure all this, 
 and some day they will be. But nothing can be done till the Aryan 
 races are extricated fi'om Semitism." — (Vol. 1, p. 280.) 
 
 t " Descent of Man," vol. 1. p. 174. 
 
WOMEN OF GKNITJS INlfERTILE. 319 
 
 race during the last talf century. " It is considered also as 
 established, that residence in the Western States of America 
 during the years of growth, tends to produce an increase of 
 stature." The only case of "sexual selection" on record, 
 except a few experiments lately made in America, is the 
 well-known case of the Prussian Grenadiers, and this cer- 
 tainly produced a fine race of men physically, that is, judged by 
 their inches, but they were proportionally stupid, growth of 
 brain not having kept pace with grqwth of body. Where 
 tl^e vital force is used in growth of body, the thinking power 
 is often small, and tall men have proportionally small brains. 
 Mr. Galton regrets that he is unable to solve the simple 
 question whether, and how far, men and women who are 
 prodigies of genius are infertile. I have, however, he says, 
 shown that men of eminence are by no means so. Eminence 
 depends on position, circumstances, a large brain, persever- 
 ance, and power of concentration ; but genius upon activity 
 of the brain, and a general predominance of the nervous 
 system. This absorbs the vital power, and especially in 
 women prevents the due development of the generative sys- 
 tem, and Mr. Galton will find that few women of any note 
 have children. 
 
 We know so little that we do not even at present know 
 what determines sex. The only thing that seems to have 
 been established is that illegitimate births yield a smaller 
 proportion of boys than girls.* In India the proportion of 
 sexes is just the reverse to that which prevails in Europe. 
 Omitting decimals, the males are to the females as 54 to 45 ; 
 and in the North-West Provinces as 53 to 46 ; and in the 
 rest of India as 51 to 48. In England, on the contrary, the 
 ratio is 48 males to 51 females ; and in Belgium the sexes 
 are almost equally balanced. 
 
 What is wanted is a great collection of facts on this sub- 
 ject, that we may generalise the laws which control them. 
 * " Europe Politique et Social," by Maurice Block. 
 
320 SUMMARY AND CONOLUSIOS, 
 
 There has been no application at present of Darwin's very 
 valuable labours to human nature. The Phrenologists are 
 the only people who professedly have paid any attention to 
 this subject. They have studied temperaments, muscular, 
 vital, nervous, and their relation to character and to desirable 
 sexual selections ; but their knowledge is at present very 
 limited. When more is known, however, there is little fear 
 but that sensible people will attend to that upon which their 
 own happiness and the welfare of the children so much de- 
 pends. Perhaps when the world is full, and people live 
 longer, we shall breed only from our Queen Bees, and put to 
 death, as the bees do, at least for such purposes, all but our 
 finest males. 
 
 Something is owing to Mr. Galton. He has demonstrated 
 that both the physical and mental qualities are transmissible, 
 by hereditary descent, in man as in other animals. He fears 
 that the race is deteriorating under the demands that civili- 
 sation makes upon us, rather than advancing. He says, " the 
 needs of civilisation, communication, and culture, call for 
 more brains and mental stamina than the average of our race 
 possess. We are in crying want of a greater fund of ability 
 in all stations of life, for neither the classes of statesmen, 
 philosophers, aytisans, nor labourers are up to the modern 
 complexity of their several professions. An extended civi- 
 lisation like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary 
 statesmen or philosophers of our present race are capable of 
 dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our 
 ordinary artisans and labourers are capable of performing. 
 Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be drudged 
 into degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers," Men 
 are overworked, and require an artificial stimulant before the 
 jaded nervous system is capable of enjoyment ; men are over- 
 excited, and require a sedative to quiet their too active brain, 
 and both the disease and its palliative, alcohol and toba,eeQ, 
 are working infinite mischief. Over-toil, pain, sorrow, alco- 
 
MILITARY SERVICE. "21 
 
 hol and tobacco, lower the health and decrease the size of the 
 brain generally. 
 
 Under all these disadvantages, however, the child being 
 born, we must proceed to develop, as far as we are able, all 
 its physical and mental powers in harmonious projjortion, 
 depressing those that are too strong, and cultivating those 
 that are weak. Our economical system aims more at the 
 creation of wealth than the making of men. No doubt we 
 might lose much in productive power by a general liability 
 to military service, as is customary in Germany ; but what 
 we lost in wealth, we might gain in health and happiness. 
 We turn our men into tailors and men-milliners, and keep 
 them to occupations behind the counter, fit only for women ; 
 but it would tend greatly to the development of both their 
 physical and mental powers if they were trained to handle a 
 sword and rifle, instead of a needle and yard measure. 
 Volunteering is only playing at soldiers. The attention 
 given in this country to mere money-making is too exclusive, 
 and a term of military service might well supplement the ordi- 
 nary education, and give to Anglo-Saxon liberty what it most 
 wants — a power of obedience, order, and organisation. It is 
 true that our system of hiring people to fight for us absorbs a 
 large and restless class that is little fit for any other occu- 
 pation, and which might endanger the interests of the com- 
 munity by being let loose upon it ; and neither is it likely 
 that so large an interference with our money-making habits 
 will be tolerated willingly for a moment ; but still, should 
 we ever be forced into it by self-defence, we may find some 
 compensation in the physical training, and in the prevention 
 of those early marriages which, with steam factories, are 
 doing so much for the deterioration of the race in large 
 towns. 
 
 All moral advance must be based upon improved physical 
 conditions. What is called education exercises only the intel- 
 lectual faculties, but it is health, prosperity, and happiness that 
 y 
 
322 SUMMARY AND CONCLUBION. 
 
 are required to increase the strength of such feelings as make 
 us wish to do justice and to love mercy. When a man is happy 
 himself he wishes to make others so, and we are too apt to 
 mete to others such measure as is given to us. More, how- 
 ever, after all, depends upon breeding than on culture, and 
 it is as difficult, by taking thought, to add an inch to the 
 mental as to the bodily stature. At present we systemati- 
 cally breed a race of paupers and criminals, for which the 
 only palliative is a National System of compulsory education 
 and training, and allowing labour to find its level, as water 
 does, or as the price of other commodities, by affording every 
 possible facility for its flowing freely from where it is in excess 
 to where it is wanted. Our old system might be much mended, 
 and last till we are better prepared for a new one, if all re- 
 ceived a good technical education, and all could get easily to 
 where their work was wanted, whether in this country or in 
 the colonies. 
 
 Our happiness depends upon the exercise of all our 
 powers, bodily and mental ; and our Social System, as it 
 at present exists, is by no means favourable to the divi- 
 sion of our time and energies this varied exercise requires. 
 Doubtless we have made some progress, but it is more in 
 seeming than in reality. The Tagespresse, of Vienna, gives a 
 curious extract from the Court regulations of the Hofburg for 
 the year 1624, on the etiquette to be observed by officers when 
 invited to the royal table. The regulation begins by stating 
 that usually officers behave under such circumstances " with 
 great politeness and good breeding, like true and worthy 
 cavaliers ; " but that the Emperor thinks it necessary to 
 issue the following directions for the use of inexperienced 
 cadets : — 1. Officers should come to the palace handsomely 
 dressed, " and not enter the room in a half-drunken state." 
 2. When they are at table " they should not rock about on 
 their chairs, nor sit back and stretch out their legs." 3. 
 They should not " drink after each mouthful, as by so doing 
 
COURT REGDLATIONS. 323 
 
 they will very soon get drunk ; nor drink more than half a 
 glass at a time ; and before drinking they should wipe their 
 lips and moustachios." 4. They should not put their hands 
 in the dishes nor throw bones under the table. 5. They 
 should not " lick their fingers nor spit on the plate ; nor 
 wipe their noses with their napkins ; nor drink so brutally 
 as to fall off their chairs." 
 
 About the same time, or a little earlier, we hare a Pro- 
 clamation by the Lord Mayor of London, in which he set 
 forth " that in divers places the players (Shakespeare and 
 Company) do use to recite their plays to the great hurt and 
 distraction of the game of bear-baiting, and such like pas- 
 times, which are maintained for her Majesty's pleasure" ; 
 and a contemporary writer gives us a description of how our 
 aristocracy at that time managed to get through their time 
 in the country. " There are also of those," says Vincent, 
 the defender of rural usages, " that can shoot in long-bows, 
 cross-bows, or hand-gun : yea, there wanteth not some that 
 are both so wise, and of so good audacity, as they can, and 
 do (for lack of better company) entertain their master with 
 table-talk, be it his pleasure to speak either of hawks or 
 hounds, fishing or fowling, sowing or grafting, ditching or 
 hedging, the dearth or cheapness of grain, or any such mat- 
 ters whereof gentlemen commonly speak in the country, be 
 it either of pleasure or profit, these good fellows know some- 
 what in all." The brightest of them knew the rules of every 
 game at dice and cards, could act in interludes, drink deeply 
 for hours at a sitting without getting drunk, sing songs, 
 make jests more pungent than those of professional fools, 
 and on winter evenings, for the entertainment of august com- 
 pany, " read in divers pleasant books and good authors : as 
 ' Sir Guy of Wai-wick,' ' The Four Sons of Aymon,' ' The 
 Ship of Fools,' ' The Budget of Demands,' ' The Hundred 
 Merry Tales,' ' The Book of Riddles,' and many other excel- 
 lent writers both witty and pleasant." Yet further, a model 
 
324 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIOIf. 
 
 serving-gentleman could in his master's absence play the part 
 of host to visitors. In pre-Elizabethan times, we are told, 
 these superior serving-men were always of gentle lineage. 
 
 The picture of the last century, also, is not very bright if 
 we may trust Mr. Forsyth. iHe says : " As regards, however, 
 the social aspect of the age, and the general tone of thought, 
 it is, I think, impossible to deny that the bygone century is 
 not an attractive period. There was little of the earnestness 
 of life and quick invention and active benevolence which are 
 the characteristics of our own age. The questions that have 
 stirred the hearts of the present generation then slumbered 
 in the womb of time. Eeform, Free Trade, Education, and 
 Sanitary Laws occupied no part of the thoughts of states- 
 men, and excited no interest in the people. The miracles of 
 change which have been wrought by Steam, Electricity, 
 Chloroform, Photography, and Breechloading Artillery, revo- 
 lutionising Mechanics and Science, and Medicine, and Art 
 and War, were not even suspected as possible."* 
 
 Our present advance, hqwever, is not to be measured by 
 these discoveries. It is not the physical but the moral ad- 
 vance with which we have to do. The ideal of our Upper 
 Class tends to luxury and effeminancy ; the suppression of all 
 feeling and all mental power whatever ; a noiseless anticipation 
 of all personal wants by servants ; enormous expenditure and 
 display ; and an unfailing adherence to a scale of social supre- 
 macy having little or no relation to goodness or talent. The 
 country to this class, without sport, is . still unquestionably a 
 severe trial — the sport consisting, not in sympathy with 
 the enjoyment around, but in killing and being their own 
 butehers.| 
 
 * " The Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century in Illus- 
 tration of the Manners and Morals of the Age." By William Forsyth, 
 M.A., Q.C. (London : John Murray, 1871.) 
 
 t A writer on " Social Slavery," in the Cornkill Magazine, tells us : 
 " We stand at an evening party like skeletons in patent-leather boots. 
 
SOCIAL SLAVERY. 325 
 
 Ouv Middle Class pass all their time in making money, 
 that they may famish a poor imitation of this. There is all 
 the folly without the refinement. 
 
 and moralise upon the humbug and hoUowness of tie festivity that 
 is going on around us. If all the crowd Who are treading upon each 
 other's toes could for one moment be induced to speak the truth what 
 strange revelations would be made in a few minutes ! What a quan- 
 tity of petty jealousies and of mean ambitions would come to light I 
 How small would be the results in real happiness to anybody con- 
 cerned ! How frankly we should confess that we were all boring 
 each other to the very verge of despair, and that we would infinitely 
 rather be at home, if it were not for some vague and unaccountable 
 impression that it is the proper thing to bore and to be bored. Add 
 all the toad-eating and the match-making and the place-hunting 
 which, as novelists inform us, is taking place in every direction, and 
 we shall be half inclined to believe that society is nothing but an 
 organised system of hypocrisy, whose rules are made by clever rogues 
 in order to provide a decent veil for their own trickery and selfish- 
 ness. If people avowed their real motives the world would be toO' 
 ugly a place to inhabit, and therefore an external decency is strictly 
 enforced to cover its real deformity." 
 
 The Saturday Review remarks that sensational dramas, burlesques, 
 and obscene dances are popular, not because Shakespeare and Sheridan 
 arc not played, but because Shakespeare and Sheridan are unintelli- 
 gible and slow to the generality. The modem stage has not corrupted 
 morals so much as our morals have corrupted the modern stage. Has 
 it really come to this, that the middle-class, and indeed much of the 
 higher, is incapable among us of more serious and ennobling amuse- 
 ments? Is it that the sense of better aims, purer enjoyments, and 
 intellectual pursuits is dying out among us 1 There axe ominous signs 
 that patriotism is old-fashioned and out of date. A cynical contempt 
 of a noble life, of higher literature, and of enthusiasm in any solid 
 convictions is exhibited in the repose, as it is called, and indifference 
 of manners and speech, which belong to high society. The highest 
 culture among us is represented by a polite and superb contempt for 
 any reality and heartiness ; and among the middle classes the exces- 
 sive devotion to wealth, and all that goes to creating personal Wealth, 
 absorbs the whole nature. Under these circumstances popular amuse- 
 ments and popular literature, burlesque, travesty, and comic journalism, 
 the English stage and the English novel, are unpleasant phenomena. 
 If the stage and the drama of the day reflect the morals of the day 
 
326 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Lower and more numerous Class work so hard to 
 furnish the means for the above most rational style of living 
 (8,500 persons having an income of £126,000,000) that all 
 their higher faculties get absorbed in their work — that is, in 
 the vital and muscular force required for it. 
 
 The present tendency of our political institutions is towards 
 disintegration, where every man, as an atom of society, shall 
 have full power to do what he likes and to move about as 
 he pleases ; and this the Anglo-Saxon race in England, 
 America, and elsewhere call freedom, although each man 
 may still be the slave to his primary wants, and have to work 
 hard for their gratification. When every one, however, has 
 been so' far freed it is to be hoped that Society will crystalise 
 into a more perfect form. Real freedom is in obedience to 
 law, under which we are compelled to act voluntarily. What 
 is required to give real freedom to all, and to release the 
 great body of the people from their too great and incessant 
 toil, is organisation, under which a portion of our liberty 
 would have to be given to the community that we might 
 insure the larger part. The enormous saving of labour by 
 organisation at the present time is well illustrated by the 
 Post Office, where a letter is put in a hole in a wall, or pillar- 
 post, and the answer to it, from any part of the kingdom, is 
 dropped into a hole in your door next morning perhaps, one 
 penny being sufficient to pay for the transit of this letter, 
 and to leave a handsome profit on the transaction. Another 
 illustration is where a Newspaper, which perhaps cost the 
 proprietor from £,'10 to £100, is left at any man's door for a 
 
 we may almost begin to think that — at least as regards certain classes, 
 the classes who want cheap amusements in great cities — we are on 
 the verge, if not in the act of national decline. The ancient mimes 
 of the dark days of the Triumvirs were almost identical with our 
 farces and burlesques. The loose harlequinade and the looser dances 
 of the Eoman stage coincided with the days of the death struggles of 
 the better Eoman life. Aliit omen ! 
 
THE FRUITS OF CIVILISATION. 827 
 
 penny. In fact, there is no want of this kind of organisa- 
 tion, by which, as Dr. Neil Arnott says, " each individual of 
 the civilised millions dwelling on the earth may have nearly 
 the same enjoyments as if he were the single lord of all" ;* 
 but unfortunately these advantages are not at present given 
 to each individual, but are confined to a favoured few — ^to 
 men of " small fortune." Under better arrangements they 
 might be extended to all. Society at present is a conglo- 
 meration of opposing interests. By the aid of machinery 
 
 * Dr. Neil Amott, diawiug a picture of what civilisation has done 
 for us, says : " Every one feels that he is a member of one vast civi- 
 lised society, which covers the face of the earth ; and no part of the 
 earth is indifEerent to him. In England, for instance, a man of small 
 fortune may cast his looks around him, and say with truth and exul- 
 tation, ' I am lodged in a house that afEords me conveniences and 
 comforts which, some centuries ago, even a king could not command. 
 Ships are crossing the seas in every direction, to bring me what is 
 useful to me from all parts of the earth. In China, men are gathering 
 the tea-leaf for me ; in America, they are planting cotton for me ; in 
 the West Indies, they are preparing my sugar and my cofiee ; in Italy 
 they are feeding silkworms for me ; in Saxony, they are shearing the 
 sheep to make me clothing ; at home, powerful steam-engines are 
 spinning and weaving for me, and making cutleiy for me, and pump- 
 ing the mines, that minerals useful to me may be procured. Although 
 my patrimony was small, I have post-horses running day and night, 
 on all the roads, to carry my correspondence ; I have roads, and 
 canaJs, and bridges, to bear the coal for my winter fire ; nay, I have 
 protecting fleets and armies around my happy country, to secure my 
 enjoyments and repose. Then I have editors and printers, who daily 
 send me an account of what is going on throughout the world among 
 all these people who serve me. And in a comer of my house I have 
 Boohs ! the miracle of all my possessions, more wonderful than the 
 wishing-cap of the Arabian Tales, for they transport me instantly, 
 not only to all places, but to all times. By my books I can conjure 
 up before me into vivid existence all the great and good men of an- 
 tiquity ; and for my individual satisfaction I can make them act over 
 again the most renowned of their exploits ; the orators declaim for 
 me ; the historians recite ; the poets sing ; and from the equator to 
 the pole, or from the beginning of time until now, by my books, I can 
 be where I please.' " 
 
328 SUMMARY AN-b CONCLUSION. 
 
 more work is now done in the cotton trade alone than for- 
 merly could have been done by the whole population of Great 
 Britain. By such means we have become rich, but we have 
 not yet learnt how to divide things fairly, or to make a right 
 use of riches when acquired. The present system deprives 
 the working man of the full benefit he might and ought to 
 derive from such civilisation as we have. What is wanted 
 is to carry the organisation further : to unite Capital and 
 Labour, so that they should both work under one proprietor- 
 ship. This would give to each individual the small fortune 
 required, and the large surplus would not be wasted as it is 
 now. 
 
 The small fortune that all might have under better arrange- 
 ments would be quite sufficient to bring all our faculties into 
 full activity. A large fortune is rather an impediment than 
 an aid to the greatest happiness. Increase of luxuries does 
 not mean increase of happiness, but decrease. It is not in 
 possession, but in acquisition, that happiness is found — not 
 in gratified wants, but in gratifying them. Fatigue is often 
 only the too great strain on particular faculties ; and rest is 
 best found, not in inactivity, but in change of occupation, by 
 bringing other faculties into use. A person actively engaged 
 in the path of duty all day long is probably nearly as happy 
 as he can be, while one who has nothing to do is nearly as 
 miserable. " We are made up of activities nine parts, and 
 passivities one^being capable of only one part in pleasure to 
 nine parts in duty ; and unless we prey upon something 
 external, internal cravings will prey upon us. In other 
 words, the satisfaction of active and benevolent exertions is 
 almost inexhaustible ; whereas pleasures cloy, and by repeti- 
 tion souring turn to pain. Labour is the doom of all. You 
 may avoid the manual, but you increase the mental. You may 
 avoid the burden of the shoulders, but you increase the burden 
 of the heart and spirits." * 
 
 * " Elkinton Rectory," p. 416. 
 
OUR WANTS. 329 
 
 The question is, what are the wants that will bring all a 
 man's faculties into daily activity ? A man wants food, 
 lodging, and clothing ; a wife, children, and friends ; a daily 
 occupation, by which, with either head or hand, he produces 
 something more than he consumes, or otherwise does his 
 share of the world's work ; and these should bring into ac- 
 tivity all the energy of his nature, his love of overcoming 
 difficulties, his policy, his planning, contriving, and con- 
 structing, and his love of acquisition so as to create some 
 saving or surplus. A man has also pleasure in perseverance — 
 in fii-mness ; and he also requires a position in which he shall 
 acquire, by truthfulness, honesty, and fair dealing, the appro- 
 bation of his fellows and his own self-respect. 
 
 All this will bring one-half of a man's nature into full acti- 
 vity, but it is the lower half — the part he has in common 
 with other animals. He requires some occupation that shall 
 give him a strong interest in humaniifcy — strong, if not as 
 strong as he has in wife, children, and friends : an unselfish 
 interest, as it is called — a hobby : an idea, as the French call 
 it — an enthusiasm of humanity — something that will exer- 
 cise his respect and veneration, and call out the faith, hope, 
 and poetry of his nature. Above all, there must be the 
 daily, serious, systematic cultivation of the intellect. To 
 the well-cultivated intellect a single hour of the unveiling of 
 nature by Science, of recreation in Art, or Music, or Poetry, 
 is worth all the rest of the day. " Eefined taste may be an 
 equivalent for half an income, and a sense of what is beauti- 
 ful in God's world may make a poor man 
 
 ' Passing rich on forty pounds a year.' " * 
 
 " To have always," says Disraeli, " some secret, darling idea 
 to which we can have recourse amid the noise and nonsense 
 of the world, and which never fails to touch us in the most 
 
 • Kev. F. W. Bobertson's " Lectures and Addresses." 
 z 
 
380 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 exquisite manner, is an act of happiness that fortune cannot 
 deprive us of." 
 
 Frederick Robertson says most truly that "there is 
 something worse than death : Cowardice is worse. And the 
 decay of enthusiasm and manliness is worse. And it is 
 worse than death, aye, worse than a hundred deaths, when a 
 people has gravitated down into the creed that the ' wealth 
 of nations ' consists not in generous hearts — ' fire in each 
 breast and freedom on each brow ' — in national virtues, and 
 primitive simplicity, and heroic endurance, and preference of 
 duty to life ; — not in men, but in silk and cotton, and some- 
 that they call ' capital.' Peace is blessed. Peace arising 
 out of Charity. But peace, springing out of the calculations 
 of selfishness, is not blessed. If the price to be paid for 
 peace is this, that wealth accumulates and men decay, better 
 far that every street in every town of our once noble country 
 should ran blood."* 
 
 But mankind generally at present do not get much beyond 
 the activity of the lower half of their faculties. It is true 
 that on Sundays they do their Religion, but this is too fre- 
 quently little more than a selfish and prudent endeavour to 
 " make the best of both worlds." They put off till a more 
 convenient season the action of their higher powers, but that 
 convenient season never comes, or if it does come, the higher 
 powers have disappeared for want of cultivation. " Capacity 
 for the nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant, 
 easily killed, not only by hostile influences, but by mere 
 want of sustenance." (J. S. Mill.) 
 
 Herbert Spencer defines life to be " The continuous adjust- 
 ment of internal relations to external relations." These un- 
 doubtedly are the conditions of life, but more especially is 
 this adjustment essential to the harmonious development of 
 mental life. There is no fact perhaps more overlooked than 
 
 * Rev. F. W. Robertson's " Lectures and Addresses," p. 196. 
 
THE SEVEN AGES. 331 
 
 this in the plans we lay ont for our own well-being. There is 
 a time for all things, but when that time is passed, tliose 
 things are gone from us for ever. In the eager pursuit of 
 certain objects in life, the end is often lost in the means. 
 In the pursuit of wealth the use of that, wealth is too often 
 forgotten, till not the use, but the pursuit alone gives pleasure. 
 The moral and aesthetic nature has been crippled, if the soul 
 has not been sold altogether to the devil of this world — the 
 god Mammon. Each of the seven ages of life has its joys 
 allotted to it, which, if not taken at the time, are lost to us 
 for ever. Some people never catch the proper time ; they are 
 always an age behind, and the true enjoyments of life are, 
 consequently, never known to them. The continuous ad- 
 justment of external relations to internal relations is for- 
 gotten, and procrastination robs them of joys which have 
 been put off until constitutional changes have rendered such 
 joys no longer possible. It is this harmony of faculty and 
 circumstance that is essential to happiness. Few know how 
 much depends upon the nice adjustment of our pursuits to 
 our varying bodily and mental capacities : it is useless to 
 try to put old heads on young shoulders, or to do in old age 
 what only youth fits us for. That " some place their bliss in 
 action, some in ease, " depends upon age. If we would not 
 throw away happiness, and indeed make ourselves miserable, 
 we must make careful note of these changes, and adapt our 
 pursuits to our altered or changing capabilities, or we shall 
 soon discover that " all is vanity." In youth the propensi- 
 ties are active — " we draw nutrition, propagate," and if no 
 higher faculties are cultivated, "rot," at least mentally. 
 
 Ah me ! what wonder-working, occult science 
 Can from the ashes in our hearts once more 
 
 The rose of youth restore 1 
 What craft of alchemy can bid defiance 
 To time and change, and for a single hour 
 
 Eenew this phantom-flower 1 
 
332 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 "0 give me back I" I cried, the vanished splendours, 
 The breath of morn and the exultant strife, 
 
 When the swift stream of life 
 Bounds o'er the rocky channels, and surrenders 
 The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap 
 
 Into the unknown deep I 
 
 And the sea answered, with a lamentation 
 Like some old prophet wailing, and it said, 
 
 " Alas ! thy youth is dead I 
 It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation, 
 In the dark places with the dead of old 
 
 It lies for ever cold 1 " 
 
 — ^Longfellow. 
 
 But " though nothing can bring back the hour of sunshine 
 in the grass, of glory in the flower," this sunshine and 
 glory are more dependent upon cultivation than upon 
 age, and ought to increase rather than decrease as we 
 grow older. The .Esthetic feelings are the result of 
 careful cultivation, and should be the solace of old age. 
 The largest fortune we can lay by for our old age is a 
 taste for good reading, the result of careful cultivation. To 
 keep the company of all the great and good men that have 
 lived is the best " society" we can have. The stores of 
 literature are inexhaustible, and he who has acquired a taste 
 for literature has never a minute that he cannot spend 
 pleasurably. The proper love of advancing age is the love 
 of truth, and the proper business of old age is its discovery. 
 The wealth of such a love and such a pursuit is endless. 
 The world is full of new books and new truths, and fresh 
 store is laid at our feet every morning. We have only to 
 put ourselves en rapport with all that is great, wise,'and good 
 in the world to form a part of it. A mere intellectual sen- 
 sualism is not what I mean. Gobbling up a great number of 
 books without order, or arrangement, or digestion, is of 
 
THE HIGHEST OBJECT IN LIFE. 333 
 
 little use. We should read good books, pencil in hand, to 
 note what we wish to return to, and retain and put down 
 thoughts that may be suggested. We gain more by the 
 latter often than the former. With a habit of good reading, 
 a good novel, as an occasional relaxation, may, perhaps, give 
 to others, as it does to me, the greatest possible enjoyment; 
 and it is certainly the pheapest pleasure we can have, because 
 if we do not indulge too freely there is no expense and no 
 drawback. We must lay down a plan of life, and have 
 strength of will enough to keep it ; and to do this it is essen- 
 tial that we should know definitely what we would have, and 
 if we attain to that we must be satisfied, and not be disap- 
 pointed if we cannot also have other things that are incom- 
 patible with it. For instance, if truth is our object, we must 
 learn to do without the " stupid staring and the loud huzzas" 
 of the multitude. " The highest object in life," says Samuel 
 Smiles, " we take to be, to form a manly character, and to 
 work out the best development possible of body and spirit — 
 of mind, conscience, heart, and soul, &c. That is, therefore, 
 not the most successful life in which a man gets the most 
 pleasure, the most money, the most power or place, honour, 
 or fame, &c."* We must get out of the deep rut of conven- 
 tionalism, and only move in it when it saves time instead of 
 fritters it away, or we may have no solitude, and our 
 leisure be at the mercy of any person who may choose to 
 inflict his idleness or ennui upon us. Who cannot feel with 
 Longfellow, his " Day of Sunshine " has not yet learned to 
 Live ! — 
 
 gilt of God 1 O perfect day : 
 Whereon shall no man work, but play ; 
 Whereon It is enough for me, 
 Not to he doi/ng, but to be ! 
 
 # « Self Help," p. 253. 
 
334 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 Through every fibre of my brain, 
 Through every nerve, through every vein, 
 I feel the electric thrill, the touch of 
 Life, that seems almost too much. 
 
 I hear the wind among the trees 
 Playing celestial symphonies ; 
 I see the branches downward bent 
 Like keys of some great instrument. 
 
 And over me unrolls on high 
 The splendid scenery of the sky. 
 Where through a sapphire sea the sun 
 Sails like a golden galleon. 
 
 As we get older we live more in the ideal world than in 
 the real. Present impressions are weak, memory fails, and 
 we fall back upon our early life. The secret of our emotions 
 never lies in the bare object, but in its subtle relations to our 
 own past. No wonder the secret escapes the unsympathising 
 observer, " who might as well put on his spectacles to discern 
 odours."* How much, then, depends upon the preparation 
 we have made — upon cultivation and association. " A youth 
 of follies, an old age of cards," is the too common lot, when 
 we ought to be reposing in " the soul's calm sunshine and 
 the heartfelt joy." 
 
 In old age we also lose the elastic spring of youth 
 and our disposition to wander. As the breeze over the trees, 
 as the sunshine over the flowers, as the waves over the sea- 
 anemone as he remains fixed to the rock, so the panoramic 
 world passes over us, instead of our passing over the world ; 
 and, like the anemone, we spread out our feelers, absorbing 
 all that is requisite for our mental assimilation. 
 
 And let us not forget that for the cultivation of the higher 
 
 feelings, especially of the .Esthetic, Solitude is a necessity. 
 
 It is good to be alone. What prayer is to the fervour of 
 
 devotional feeling, to be alone with Natm-e is to the .Esthetic. 
 
 ' George Eliot. 
 
THE UNIVERSAL LIFE. 335 
 
 All appearance, whatever we see in the world, is hut as a 
 vesture of that which lies at the base of appearing — God ; 
 and there are moments when we give ourselves up to solitude 
 and nature, in which the veil seems partially withdrawn, and 
 everything around us takes a Divine aspect, and every lichen, 
 moss, and flower, every bird and buttei-fly, the blue sky and 
 the first peeping star, are received into our bosoms in a spirit 
 of universal love, — when all that is individual and personal 
 is felt to be a part of, if not absorbed into, the Infinite 
 Whole. This is true Religious feeling. F. Eobertson, who 
 knew well this feeling, says : " I am alone, lonelier than 
 ever, — sympathised with hy none, because I sympathise too 
 much with all. But the All sympathises with me — a sublime 
 feeling of a Presence comes over me at times, which makes 
 universal solitariness a trifle to talk about."* 
 
 * George Sand speaks under similar influences : " The moments 
 in which, possessed and carried out of myself by the power of 
 external things, I can abstract myself from the life of my species, 
 are absolutely fortuitous, and it is not always in my power to 
 make my soul pass into beings which are not myself. When this 
 phenomenon produces itself spontaneously, I could not tell whether 
 any particular circumstances, psychological or physiological, has pre- 
 pared me for it. It certainly requires the absence of strong preoccu- 
 pation ; the least cause for solitude keeps away this kind of inward 
 ecstasy, which is like an unforeseen and involuntary forgetfulness of 
 my own vitality. No doubt this happens to everybody, but I should 
 like to meet with some one who could say to me : ' This also happens 
 to me in the same manner. There are hours when I escape from 
 myself, when I live in a plant, when I feel myself grass, bird, ti'ee- 
 top, cloud, running water, horizon, colour, form and sensation chang- 
 ing, moving, indefinite ; hours in which I run, I fly, I swim, I drink 
 the Aiw, I expand in the sun, I sleep nnder the leaves, I soar with 
 the larks, I crawl with the lizards, I shine in the stars and the glow- 
 worms — in short, I live in all that is the medium of a development 
 which resembles an extension of my being.' I have never met one 
 who spoke thus, or have met him without knowing him. I could, 
 however, have wished to meet him on condition that he was wiser 
 than I, and could tell me whether these phenomena are the result of 
 a bodily or mental condition ? whether they arise from the instinct 
 
336 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 We may plan our relations to our fellow-man ;■ but our 
 relation to God is our relation to the Universe, and that 
 properly is the Religion of the Universe, the most important 
 to us of all. We see that Worlds are all governed from a 
 centre by what we call the attraction of gravitation, but we 
 do not equally recognise that every atom is so also. Victor 
 Cousin truly says, " En eflfet si Dieu n'est pas tout, il n'est 
 rien." God is everything or nothing ; and " the conception 
 of the Universe is incomplete, if not comprehended as the 
 entire and continuous work of the eternally-creating Spirit."* 
 " Science is the history of the Divine operations, and the 
 world with all its antiquity is yet every moment a new 
 creation." But this is accepted by Theologians only in 
 theory. It has never been, as it ought to have been, a prac- 
 tical proposition. The universe must be regarded as the 
 " manifestation of some transcendent life, to which our sepa- 
 rate individual life is related," and from which indeed it 
 cannot exist apart. Man is nothing in himself : he is a part 
 only of a larger system to which he must conform. He 
 must work in this, or be forced out of it altogether. If he 
 works smoothly he is happy ; if he does not he is miserable. 
 He is part of the elements around him, and can only work in 
 conjunction with them, from which his power is derived. 
 He borrows as much of this power — which is God's power — 
 as is necessary to effect his purposes. To do this he must 
 act in accordance with the laws by which this power is mani- 
 fested. It is lent to him only on these conditions. If he 
 accepts these conditions, he may succeed ; if he does not, he 
 must certainly fail. His true interest, then, is to learn 
 
 of universal life whicli physically resumes its rights over the indi- 
 vidual, or if they have a higher parentage, an intellectual relation to 
 the soul of the universe which reveals itself to the individual de- 
 livered at certain hours from the ties of personality. My opinion is 
 that there is some of both the one and the other, and even that it 
 cannot be otherwise." — [Pall Mall Gazette, Sept, 23, 1871.) 
 * Oerstead. 
 
FOLLOW NATURE. 337 
 
 what these conditions are, and the Eeyelation and its true 
 interpretation are placed within his reach.* As we are con- 
 nected by the force of gravitation to all around, so our other 
 forces, odylic, electric, vital, mental — although this is not 
 so evident to us — are equally connected with all around, and 
 we must put ourselves en rapport, and act harmoniously with 
 them. " The universal soul is the alone creator of the useful 
 and the beautiful ; therefore to make anything useful or 
 beautiful, the individual must be submitted to the universal 
 mind."-!- ^^ must follow Nature, who in the infinite ages 
 has tried all ways, and transmitted only the best to us. 
 " DoUand formed his achromatic telescope on the model of 
 the human eye," and man is never left without precedent if 
 he will seek for it ; and if we will imitate our Father in 
 Heaven we must follow Nature. 
 
 * " Everything good in man leans on what is higher. This rule holds 
 in small as in great. Thus all our strength and success in the work 
 of our hands depend upon our borrowing the aid of the elements. 
 You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad axe chopping 
 upward chips from a beam. How awkward ! at what disadvantage 
 he works ! But see him on the ground, dressing his timber under 
 Mm. Now, not his feeble muscles, but the force of gravity brings 
 down his axe ; that is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The 
 farmer had much ill-temper, laziness, and shirking to endure from 
 his hand-sawyers, nntU one day he bethought him to put his saw-mUl 
 on the edge of a waterfall ; and the river never tires of turning his 
 wheel : the river is good-natured and never hints an objection. * * 
 
 " Now that is the wisdom of a man, ia every instance of his labour, 
 to hitch his waggon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods 
 themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might 
 of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, Ught, 
 magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing. * * 
 
 "All our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the 
 heavenly powers to us ; but, if we will only choose our jobs in direc- 
 tions in which they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest 
 pleasure. It is a peremptory rule with them, that they never go out 
 of their road : they never swerve from their preordained paths, — 
 neither the sun, npr the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote of 
 dust." — (Emerson, " Society and Solitude. Civilisation," pp. 22, 2i. 
 t Emerson. 
 
838 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 The adyance of the race must be measured by the increased 
 and increasing size of the nervous system, and civilisation 
 by the increased facilities for bringing that system into legi- 
 timate action, and for keeping this "harp of a thousand 
 strings " in tune. " The -wovld. is an organic whole under 
 natural laws," and civilisation* — about the true meaning of 
 which there is still so much dispute — must be measured by 
 the extent to which this whole can be brought into har- 
 monious action. Man must continue to advance : what may 
 be his ultimate destiny it is impossible to say.^f 
 
 As nine months go to the shaping an infant ripe for his birth, 
 So many a million of ages have gone to the making of man : 
 He now is first, but is he the last ? is he not too base 1 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 * It was suggested in the Statistical Section of the British Associa- 
 tion that the degree of civilisation at present existing in any country 
 is proportioned to the quantity of soap there consumed, so that, as it 
 was observed by the noble lord presiding, the question " How are you 
 off for soap ? " is not perhaps so irrelevant and inappropriate as it may 
 sometimes seem. 
 
 f Some of our philosophers consider man. at present only in the 
 grub state. Thus Mr. .J. W. Jackson, F.A.S., tells us {Anthropo- 
 logical Reviem, 1867,) that " every mode of being has its own 
 sphere," and that Man " is the beginning of a new order, the 
 bipedal and aerial type of the mammal, but of this he is obviously 
 an immature and merely germal specimen," and that as the grub 
 becomes a butterfly and the reptile a bird, so will man, in the process 
 of development, drop his too predominant vascular arrangements and 
 alimentary functions, and fly too." "And," says Mr. Jackson, "what 
 a stupendous vista of progress and possibility is thus opened to our 
 wondering gaze ! Man but the unfledged begiMnmg of a new order 
 of being, the callow nestling of the future eagle of the skies ; the 
 precursor, and in a sense the progenitor, of earth's manifold types of 
 intelligent being. # # * Thus contemplated, then, we 
 also see that existing Man is not the Divine idea of Humanity in its 
 final form, but only that idea in the process of realisation." 
 
 I must leave Mr. Darwin, Mr. Wallace, and Mr. Jackson to settle 
 this between them, having no opinion of my own. No doubt much 
 may yet be expected from Natural and Sexual Selection. Electro- 
 biology, Mesmerism, the so-called Spiritual Phenomena, &c., point to 
 
TABLE OF man's KNOWLEDGE. 339 
 
 " There are diversities of operations, but the same God 
 worketh all in all." Now, what are these " diversities of 
 operations," or, as Science calls them. Modes of Motion ? 
 The best arrangement and classification of things or objects, 
 and of the changes going on among them, have been given 
 to lis by Dr. Neil Arnott : — 
 
 A GENERAL OuTLINE MaP OK TaBLE OF Man's 
 
 Knowledge op Nature. 
 
 First Division. — Natitrai, Things ok Objects. 
 
 The Three Kingdoms of 
 Nature. 
 
 r A ^„,, . , ' I Man and lower races 
 TAnimal. . I of Animals. 
 
 VTrrTPTABT F i '^^^^' Pl^nts, Flowers, 
 VEGETABLE ^ and Fruits. 
 
 I Stones, Earths, Metals, 
 Mineral . < and other lifeless 
 ( things. 
 
 Second Division. — Natural Chajjgbs going on 
 among Objects. 
 
 ^ ^ , J. , I Physical, — ^Natural Philosophy. 
 
 The four orders of changes I ' ^ •' 
 
 or phenomena among J Chemical,— ElementarySubstances. 
 
 things, knowledge of j Vital, — Life and Health. 
 
 which is called Science. ( MBNTAL,-Intelleot and Happiness.. 
 
 Third Division. — ^Artificial Changes produced by 
 HuMAJT Ingenuity. 
 The Arts by which man ( Language with Alphabet, 
 facilitates and stores .j Counting and I 
 knowledge. ( Measuring | 
 
 I Agriculture. 
 Rearing tame Flocks and Herds. 
 Engineering, as spinning, weaving, 
 &o., &c., &c. 
 
 a great advance in the direction Mr. Jackson has indicated; showing 
 that the nervous force, that resumes its conciousness in the brain, 
 need not necessarily come through the stomach, but that this result of 
 cerebration might be derived by way of inspuation direotty from 
 without. In such case we might, as Mr. Jack.ion observes, "drop 
 our too predominant vascular arrangements and alimentary func- 
 tions," and our low habits of eating and drinking, and, coming events. 
 
840 SUMMARY AND OONCLUSIOlf. 
 
 Here is a clear chart of all the knowledge we can attain. 
 It will all come under these heads,* and fire good books 
 might contain it all. The sciences are so mutually related 
 that if a person has not mastered five such books he is not 
 fully qualified to give an opinion on any subject, as he will 
 necessarily be ignorant of the laws and principles upon which 
 a competent opinion should be based. We have here an 
 account of all the motions going on around us to which our 
 knowledge yet extends, and our existence and well-being will 
 be secured in proportion as our own motions harmonise with 
 these. Our own Consciousness is alone directly known to 
 us, but these motions are known to us by inference, and the 
 cause of these motions are equally known to us by inference. 
 For as " where there is motion something is moved," so 
 where there is power there is something of which it is the 
 power, and this is God. Behind this phantasmagoria of a 
 
 having cast tneir shadows before, we should probably resemble the 
 cherubs we have so long been accustomed to see floating over our 
 altar-pieces, all head and wings ; and as in the process of transforma- 
 tion the greedy silkworm spins his entrails into silk, alone worthy to 
 cover the most divine form in nature, so may man spin his into 
 etherial cat-gut for some superior kind of instrument to harmonise 
 with the music of the spheres ; and as, also, " the silkworm spins its 
 cocoon by a decomposition or retrograde chemical action, which im- 
 parts to the remaining blood a higher vital status fitted for the more 
 elevated grade on which it is about to enter, and the vital condition 
 of the insect is elevated to a ooiiespondence with the demands of the 
 higher organisation it is destined to assume," (" Life in^Natuie," J 
 Hinton, pp. 73, 241) ; so may man's brain be praised to a higher 
 power and temperament, and Inspiration and Clairvoyance be its 
 normal condition. Not being able to sit down, not having de quoi, 
 may necessitate some little altei'ation in our present social customs. 
 But as this desirable change is not expected to take place immediately, 
 every one may safely be left to form his own views, which must 
 undoubtedly at present contain a considerable amount of speculation. 
 * See Dr. Amott's fuller exposition of this Table in the Introduc- 
 tion to his " Elements of Physics ;" the most useful single acquisition 
 perhaps that the mind can make. 
 
A NEW WORLD EVERY DAY. 341 
 
 world — this ever-changing Kaleidoscope — we find a God pro- 
 ducing a real world of enjoyment. " This fair universe, in 
 the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star-domed 
 City of God ; through every star, through every grass-blade, 
 and most through every living soul, the glory of a present 
 God still beams. But Nature, which is the Time-vesture of 
 God, and reveals Him to the wise, hides Him from the 
 foolish."* We have " Creation" going on all around us, for 
 every fresh effect is a new creation. " The breezy, incense 
 breathing morn" is born afresh every day, so is young love ; 
 the " primrose by the river's brim" and the lark are immor- 
 tal, and yet are new creatures every spring, so are our affec- 
 tions and emotions ; if we all die, we are all young, and all 
 that is good and beautiful and profitable, as the days and 
 seasons change, are laid at our feet for our acceptance. The 
 breeze is as fresh as that which passed over Eden, and the 
 sun-sets as glorious as those which accompanied " still even- 
 ing" to our first parents. It is we are changed, not they : 
 our power of appreciation has increased and must continue 
 to increase with each succeeding generation — with each 
 change of body. We are not obliged to rest in a problema- 
 tical history of Creation 6,000 years ago. The supposed dif- 
 ference between secular and religious has no real existence. 
 Whatever other Eevelation we may have, we have God ever 
 present revealing Himself in every cause and effect, in every 
 evolution, in every manifestation of power, and in every 
 change or mode of motion that attends it. We must give a 
 sacred and religious character to His mode of working, and 
 read a chapter in the Bible of His doings every day, and thus 
 every day turn some new leaf in Science. Here we may see 
 God face to face, for His laws are His attributes, and we 
 must break through the anthropomorphism of our childhood 
 and learn to recognise Him, It is not the " untutored 
 
 * Carlyle, " Sartor Eeeartus," p. 274. 
 
342 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 mind" that " sees God in clouds and hears Him in the 
 wind,'' but the most cultivated and the most religious. 
 
 The " One and all " requires the resignation of the indi- 
 vidual and personal — of all that is selfish — to the Infinite 
 "Whole. Man loses himself in the Divine, and he must act 
 harmoniously with it. " In the Church of the latter days," 
 says St. Simon, " man is to feel and realise the divinity of 
 his whole nature, material as well as spiritual." This is the 
 Key-stone of the New Religion, of which Spinoza, as he 
 has done most to embody the idea, and Atheist as he has 
 been called, must be accepted as the High Priest. " Naturae 
 convenienter vivere " is our motto, and true humility is the 
 recognition of the greatness of the whole. 
 
 The practice of this Religion is very simple. " We must 
 learn whatis true that we may do what is right." Eight must 
 take precedence of everything else, and that only is right which 
 is in accordance with Natural laws — ^that is, with God's mode 
 of working ; for that most directly leads to the greatest good. 
 It is this that makes it right. The Calvinists have put 
 " Sovereign Will" as the measure of right, but that would be 
 no rule of right for us unless it tended to the general good ; 
 right must always govern will, not will right, even in the 
 Highest. As right is obedience to Law upon which the gene- 
 ral happiness depends, and as nothing can continue long to 
 exist that is not in harmony with such Law, right and might 
 are the same. Of course this practice very much extends the 
 boundary of ordinary morality and duty, for right claims equal 
 obedience to all law — ^physical, moral, and intellectual. We 
 cannot break any law, either voluntarily or involuntarily — 
 from free will or necessity — without being made to suiFer what 
 has been called punishment; but the suffering is to teach us 
 what is right and to enforce obedience. It is of no use 
 praying to be let off: God makes no exception. He is no, 
 respecter of persons ; He never forgives ; and as punishment 
 is for our good, it would be an injury to us if He did. 
 
JUSTICE BEFORE ALL. 343 
 
 From its earliest days a child should require no other reason 
 for its conduct than because it is right. It will often have to 
 trust to its parents to say -what is right, and the same trust 
 and faith and reyerence should be transferred in after life to 
 Natural Law — that is, to God. "I hold," says Prof. Huxley, 
 in his letter to the Key. W. H. Freemantle on the duties of 
 the London Education Board, "that any system of education 
 which attempts to deal only with the intellectual side of a 
 child's nature, and leaves the rest untouched, will prove a 
 delusion and a snare, just as likely to produce a crop of 
 unusually astute scoundrels as anything else. In my belief, 
 unless a child be taught not only that doing what is. right is 
 wise (which is morality), but also that the right is above all 
 things beautiful and lovable (which, as I understand the term, 
 is religion), education will come to very little." With this 
 I think we all ought to agree. As the business of infancy 
 is to connect the bodily movements with the mind, so the 
 main educational business of later life is to connect all 
 our movements in the same way with our sense of right. 
 Justice is the great key-stone of the moral arch, and should 
 take precedence of all other virtues — that is, it is more 
 " right" than all others. We may be often willing to put 
 up with less than justice, and to take less than actually be- 
 longs to us, but it should be always under protest. It is 
 this system of exact equivalents upon which the moral world 
 moves, and is as necessary as the balance of action and re- 
 action in the physical world. It is justice, or what is due to 
 others, that prevents our passions and individual interests 
 from trespassing upon their equal rights. Love is the sun- 
 shine of life, and hard though it may be, we can live without 
 it ; 'butwe can no more live without justice than without the sun 
 itself. It is this system of equivalents upon which moral 
 chemistry is based. We must not only be just before we 
 are generous, but just before all; for anything short of the 
 claims of justice is so much taken from others to which they 
 
344 8UMMAKT AND CONCLUSION. 
 
 are entitled. We may please ourselves whether we will give, 
 bat we have clearly no right to take away that which belongs 
 to another. What a change it would immediately make in 
 the world if no man by speech or action robbed another of 
 what was due to him, — of neither his time, his fair fame, his 
 labour, or his goods. 
 
 I have been the more solicitous thus to insist upon the 
 claims of Justice, because a spurious Benevolence during 
 the Christian era has been sapping the very foundations of 
 morality. A charity that is not just, has been undermining 
 self-reliance, self-dependence, and self-respect, and damaging 
 the best interests of society. We are constantly placing 
 ourselves between a man's actions and their natural conse- 
 quences, and the effects have been such that it cannot be 
 too often repeated that we must learn what is true, that we 
 may do what is right. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Absolute, The, 191. 
 
 Acquisitiveness, 76. 
 
 Ages, the Seven, necessity for the adjustment of qui external relations 
 to our internal relations at the different periods of life, 331. 
 
 Alcohol and Tobacco, their effects, 320. 
 
 All the physical and mental powers to be developed in harmonious 
 proportion, 321. 
 
 Alphonso the Wise recommended an improvement in the Solar System 
 as then conceived on the Ptolemaic hypothesis, so theologians 
 make another world as an improvement upon this, 234. 
 
 Animalcules, 10. 
 
 Animals, their long existence on the earth before man, 19 ; Animal 
 bodies are but the organs through which Universal Mind acts, 253. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 217 ; 238. 
 
 Argyll, Duke of, on matter and force, 169 ; on mind in nature, 232. 
 
 Aristotle on the difference between man and woman, 80. 
 
 Armstrong, Sir W. G., on Protection, Trades' Unions, Competition, 279. 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, on the language of metaphor, 217. 
 
 Amott, Dr. Neil, on the four essentials to life, 125 ; on what civilisa- 
 tion has done for us, 327 ; table of man's knowledge of nature, 339. 
 
 A Science of Man not yet recognised, 294. 
 
 Associative Industry, or Co-operation, should include a farm, a fac- 
 tory, and a store, 289. 
 
 Atkinson, H. G., on Personal Identity, 97 ; on Will, 98.; on Phreno- 
 mesmerism as a method of discovery of mental function, 173 ; on 
 the God of Nature, 232. 
 
 Atheism, 206. 
 
 Atmosphere, 6 ; our body's atmosphere, 60. 
 
 Atoms, 17. 
 
 Automatic Action, or unconscious intelligence, 167. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, on an unworthy opinion of God, 205 ; on Atheism, 232. 
 Baxter, Dudley, on our periodical distress, 271 ; on the National 
 
 Income, 272 ; 275. 
 Beauty, subjective, 19 ; standard of among American Indians, 84. 
 Benevolence, 91 ; misapplied, 92. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, on the springs of action, 115 ; on the necessity for 
 
 an external standard of morals, 120. 
 Berkeley, Bishop, 169 ; on tar water as a medicine, 294. 
 Belief, a feeling or emotion, 186. 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
348 INDEX. 
 
 Beesley, Prof., on the International Working Men's Association, 295. 
 Bird, Dr. Robert, on modification of tissue and quality of brain, 42 ; 
 
 the agencies by which tissue is changed, 42 ; on differences of 
 
 climate, 55 ; on terrestrial magnetism, 56-57 ; force or heat takes 
 
 its character from the tissue that has released it, 60 ; on vice and 
 
 lunacy, 226 ; on nervous centres, 159. 
 Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, on the vis medicatria; natwrte and 
 
 similar forces, 308. 
 Blood : value of red corpuscles, 45. 
 Breeding : want to injprove the breed of men, 316 ; can produce 
 
 almost any variety of plants and lower animals, 216, 317 ; how 
 
 much depends upon the choice of a wife, 317 ; facts wanted, 319 ; 
 
 systematically breed paupers and criminals, 322. 
 Bruyssl, von E., on natural rate of increase among caterpillars and 
 
 flies, 11. 
 Brain : comparative weight, 22 ; in man and woman, 23-24 ; its 
 
 functions, 25-28 ; list of faculties, 31 ; dependent on the blood, 42 ; 
 
 conditions necessary for its perfect action, 68 ; we want to grow 
 
 more brains, 316. 
 Broughton, J., on animal force and animal food, 47. 
 Brown, Dr. Thomas, on the relativity of our knowledge, 104 ; on 
 
 consciousness, 106. 
 Bridges, Dr., on the difference between Positivists and French 
 
 Socialists, 283. 
 British Association, on the profoundly mysterious nature of the phe- 
 nomena of mind, 307. 
 British Constitution, how formed, 284. 
 Burke, Luke, on space and time, 102. 
 Buckle, H. T., on necessity, 109. 
 Butler, Bishop, aU which we enjoy, and a greater part of what we 
 
 suffer, in our own power, 141. 
 Blichner, Dr. Louis, on the ascent from matter to mind, 161 ; on the 
 
 brain, 178 ; on final cause, 188. 
 Buddha, allowed to be not infallible within the domain of sense and 
 
 reason, 213 ; his doctrine of Nirwana, 220 ; Buddhism, 221. 
 Bunsen, Baron, on the God of the Israelitish and Christian Judaisers, 
 
 238. 
 Butterfly, its immortality very short, 249. 
 Byron, Lord, on the dog, 20. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, on Life and Death, 71. 
 
 Cautiousness, 77. 
 
 Carlyle, Thomafi, on Power and Ambition, 78 ; thou shalt as impera- 
 tive as thou shalt not, 142 ; on organisation of labour, 270 ; on the 
 latitudinarianism of the age, 21". 
 
 Caird and Cairns, Eev. Drs., on God and Nature, and on God's action 
 in accordance with law, 305. 
 
 Carlisle, Sir A., on Marriage, 318. 
 
 Causation ; aU power is will power, conscious or automatic, 224, 228 .; 
 Causation is the WiU, Creation the Act, of God, 224. 
 
INDEX. 349 
 
 Cerebellum, function of, 80. 
 
 Children, love of, 85. 
 
 Christianity and the Coming Religion, the difiference illustrated, 243, 
 
 Civilisation, in what it consists, 338. 
 
 Civil Service examinations furnish no test of character, 151. 
 
 Climate, its importance ; man grows out of the earth, 55 ; influence 
 of sun spots, 55 ; differences in climate, causes, 55 ; its influence 
 on Europeans in America, 56 ; Consumption, in connection with, 58. 
 
 Combe, George, book of testimonials in favour of Phrenology, 32 ; on 
 tenacity of life, 48 ; on Personal Identity, 97 ; on Eeligion and 
 Worship, 244 ; on BepubUcanism, 285. 
 
 Constructiveness, 76. 
 
 Comte, Auguste, his religion, 86 ; rejects Communism, 283. 
 
 Conscience, 90 ; Ulustrations of deUoate consciences, 90, 122 ; how 
 formed, 116. 
 
 Concentrativeness, 96. 
 
 Colour, a mental impression, 100 ; how created, 116, 162. 
 
 Compensation, 123. 
 
 Consciousness, what it is, 155 ; its objects, 188 ; all we know, 154 
 whence it comes, 157 ; how it arises, 184. 
 
 Competition, its earliest form, 265 ; determines the rate of wages, 266 
 its results, 270, 281. 
 
 Co-operation, its results, statistics, number of societies, &c., 289, 290 . 
 so great a change necessarily slow, 292 ; not yet prepared for com- 
 plete Co-operation, 295. 
 
 Communism and Positivism, 300. 
 
 Court regulations and etiquette at Vienna in 1624:, 322. 
 
 Cousin Victor, " si Dieu n'est pas tout, U n'est rien," 336. 
 
 Crookes William, F. R. S., on the new Psychic force, 174, 176. 
 
 Creeds, the Athanasian, 199 ; the Westminster Confession, 201 ; the 
 U. P. Church, 203 ; Mr. Martin F. Tupper's, 208 ; accepted now in 
 a non-natural sense, 211 ; man's creed a wrong one, 238. 
 
 Creation, ever new, 341. 
 
 Curative Power, 61, 174. 
 
 Darwin Charles, on Ants, 16 ; Descent of Man, 22 ; Race, 50 ; on De- 
 Btructiveness among hive-bees, 75 ; on Sexual Selection, 83, 316 ; 
 on Natural Selection, 129, 131 ; objections to Darwinism, 137 ; on 
 conscience, 117 ; on belief in evil spirits, 206 ; on the necessity for 
 struggle, 281. 
 
 Davies, Rev. J. Llewelyn, on charity misapplied, 93 ; on the Rational 
 movement in the Church, 211 ; on theological corruption, 214. 
 
 Derby, Lord, on the labour question, 267. 
 
 Democracy, its necessary advance, 286. 
 
 De Tocqueville on Democracy, 286. 
 
 Development, law of, 38 ; all animals may have arisen from modifica- 
 tions of one original form, 38, 
 
 Destructiveness, 74. 
 
350 INDEX. 
 
 Death, 247 ; the parent of life gi'eatly improved, 249 ; every thought 
 involves the death of some particle of the brain, 250 ; every thing 
 dies, from a world to an atom, from a man to a monad, 263 ; the 
 river emblem of death and immortality, 255 ; we ought to go ai 
 unconsciously out of the world as we came into it, 258. 
 
 Disraeli, Et. Hon. B., on the crucifixion, 203 ; on breeding, 318. 
 
 Dixon, Hepworth, on the Shakers, 207. 
 
 DoUinger, Dr., on the effects of dogma, 209. 
 
 Donovan, Dr. C, on measurements of brain, 23 ; the pitted ear and 
 tenacity of life, 48. 
 
 Dreaming, how caused, and in what it consists, 179. 
 
 Earth, the, originally a fiery mist, 1 ; internal heat, 2 ; crust sixty 
 miles thick, 3 ; rise and fall in its surface, 3 ; its earliest inhabi- 
 tants, 8, 9. 
 
 Edwards, Jonathan, nothing comes to pass without a cause, 108 ; on 
 Foreknowledge, 234. 
 
 Ego, or I., whence derived, 181, 187. 
 
 Bhrenberg on Animalcules, 9, 10. 
 
 Electric engine and portable motive power, 316. 
 
 Emanations, mundane, 57 ; from the body and mind, 61. 
 
 Emerson, R. W., on Political and Commercial Corruption, 144 ; on 
 using the forces of nature, 337. 
 
 English Press on Communalism, 298. 
 
 Epitaph, the Author's, 263. 
 
 Evolution, a revolution in thought, 229. 
 
 Facts and Figures, 105 ; 
 
 Faraday on Persistence of Force, 5 ; Intelligence of animals as com- 
 pared to man, 20 ; search for unity of force, 37 ; on chemical action 
 and electricity, 67. 
 
 Fawcett, Henry, M. P., on the results of Free Trade, 273 ; on our in- 
 dustrial system and its opposing intereste, 274. 
 
 Faith, 94. 
 
 Foetal Changes, 25. 
 
 Feelings, objective and subjective, 97 ; entirely subjective, 98 ; blind 
 impulses, 99. 
 
 Fichte, on Death, 250. 
 
 Pinal Cause, 188. 
 
 Firmness, 96. 
 
 Force, its Correlation and Conservation, 36, 40 ; not separable from 
 that of which it is the force, viz., the spiritual element throughout 
 nature, 37 ; sole cause, 37 ; amount derived from daily food, 39 ; 
 proportional distribution throughout the body, 39, 40 ; mental 
 force, 47 ; vital force a cilrative power, 61 ; the kaleidoscope, 162 ; 
 definition of force, 164 ; divided into active and passive, or spirit 
 and matter, 166 ; vital and nervous force transmissible, 174 ; Force 
 or Energy and God inseparable, 218, 219 ; and identical, 223 ; its 
 unity, 223 ; aU power Will power, conscious or automatic, 224, 228 ; 
 we must put ourselves en rwpport, and harmonise with the forces of 
 nature, 337. 
 
INDEX. 351 
 
 Food, the force that sustains vital antion, 35 ; necessity for taking it 
 the foundation of all order and obedience, 72 ; varieties, what to 
 eat, drink, and avoid, 72. 
 
 Forms of Thought, 101. 
 
 French and German race compared, 297, 299. 
 
 Forsyth, William, M.A., on the social aspect of the last century, 324. 
 
 Friendship, 88. 
 
 Free Will, how the delusion arose, 110, 113. 
 
 Free Trade, effects of, 273. 
 
 Freedom, a blessing to the civilised and enlightened, a curse to the 
 ignorant, 287. 
 
 Function, definition of, 37. 
 
 Future State, A, 262. 
 
 Gall, Dr., discovery of the functions of the brain, 28 ; his method, 29 ; 
 on the universal force, 175. 
 
 Gastronomy, science of, 73 ; of more importance than astronomy, 73. 
 
 Galton, Francis, F.E.S., on Individuality, 124 ; on persecution in 
 Spain, 209 ; on the tendency of civilisation to degeneracy of the 
 race, 320. 
 
 General good, not sovereign wUl, the measure of right, 342. 
 
 Genius, cause of, 48. 
 
 Geology, difficulty in fixing dates, 1 ; the three great schools, 3. 
 
 Gervinus, Professor, on the necessary advance of intellectual and civil 
 freedom from the few to the many, 286. 
 
 God, known to us in his Attributes and Manifestations ; inseparable 
 from Nature, 228 ; is Nature, not wi Nature ; 229 ; His Fore- 
 knowledge a greater difficulty than His Evolutionary progress, 233 ; 
 His conscious action a Higher Law than His unconscioub or auto- 
 matic, called Laws of Nature, 225 ; acts in accordance with law — 
 the laws of His own nature, 304 ; God of the Hebrews, 198 ; of the 
 Christians, 198 ; He never forgives, as punishment is for our 
 good, 342. 
 
 Godwin on the evils attending the great inequality of wealth, 277. 
 
 Gold Sticks in Waiting, 387. 
 
 Good and Evil, purely subjective, 189. 
 
 Government, the British Constitution based on experience, not 
 theory, 285 ; now approaching the Republican form, 285. 
 
 Greata'akes, Valentine!, great curative power of, 63. 
 
 Grindon, Leo H., on Angels, 217 ; on Death, 250. 
 
 Grove, W. E., on the conservation of energy, 5; Lecture to the 
 Students of St. Mary's Hospital, 78. 
 
 Habit in Nature, 227. 
 
 Happiness, or Pleasurable Consciousness, the end and aim of exist- 
 ence, 114 ; depends upon haUts of mmd, 119 ; not one of our 
 desires the desire for happiness, 315. 
 
 Harrison, F., on the present crisis — Positivism v. Communism, 300. 
 
 HaU on the heat of the deepest mine in Britain, 2. 
 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on American climate, 56 ; on social unity, 
 140 ; on too exclusive agricultural employment, 292. 
 
352 INDEX 
 
 Hara Kiri, 70. 
 
 Hebrew Cosmogony, 215. 
 
 Hegel, no Ego, only Thought, 182 ; on the Soul, 261. 
 
 Heat, what becomes of it, 4-5 ; a Force, known to us as a mode of 
 motion, 35. ^ -, «■ 
 
 Helmholtzon the rate of transmission of the nervous fluid, 27. 
 
 Hereditary Descent, 52 ; law of transmission, 54. 
 
 Herschel, Sir John P. W., on transmission of disease, 64 ; on mind in 
 nature, 224. 
 
 Hindu Gods, 195. 
 
 Hintou, James, life in nature, 39 ; on mere appearance and the 
 
 • advance of knowledge, 305. 
 
 Hope, 94. 
 
 Holland, Sir H., on Phrenology, 29. 
 
 Hospitals, effects of aggregation and isolation, 63. 
 
 Home, love of, 88. ^ 
 
 Humanity, the great body of, its constant change of form, 257 ; the 
 number of persons who have existed on the globe, 267. 
 
 Hume, David, on consciousness as all we know, 164 ; no idea of sub- 
 stance, 161 ; each distinct perception a distinct existence, 171 ; on 
 belief, 186. 
 
 Humboldt on smell in the Peruvian Indians, 60. 
 
 Hunt, Kev. John, on the necessity for the direct power of God, 228. 
 
 Hunger the base of all moral order, 72. 
 
 Huxley, Prof., plants accumulate power, animals distribute it, 6 ; on 
 protoplasm, 8, 14 ; scale of being, 12 ; on matter and spirit, 17 ; 
 age of man on the earth, 19 ; manifestations of mind known only 
 as transitory change in the body, 25 ; on life, 34 ; race, 49 ; con- 
 sciousness, 157 ; on molecular physios and social phenomena, 158 ; 
 on force, 165 ; on the " ego," 181 ; on anthropomorphism as trans- 
 ferred now from theology to man, 191 ; on the clergy, 212 ; on 
 supernatural interposition and law, 225 ; on rudimentary organs, 
 227 ; on the human ovum, 251 1 on breeding, 317. 
 
 Ideality, 96. 
 
 Imitation, 96. 
 
 Instinct, transmitted experience; memory once removed, 64; how 
 
 formed, 67. 
 Intellectual Faculties, 100; of brutes, 103. 
 Intelligence of insects and birds, 15 ; of animals, 20. 
 International Working Men's Association, 295 ; the nearest way to 
 
 its objects through Germany, not through France, 297. 
 Irregularities lead to a knowledge of the true law, 175. 
 
 Jack Ketch, competition for the office, 281. 
 
 Jackson, J. W., on man in his grub state, and on his future progress 
 
 here, 338. 
 Jacoby, Prof., on capital, labour, wages, and co-operation, 268 ; on 
 
 the spirit of dominatipn among the privileged classes, 282, 
 
INDEX. 353 
 
 Jones, Dr. Bence, Life and Letters of Farady, 37. 
 Justice, sense of, 89 ; the key-stone of morality, 343 ; must take pre- 
 cedence of all other virtues, 343. 
 
 Kant, no beginning which occurs of itself is possible, 108 ; bis cos- 
 mogony, 254. 
 
 Kingsley, Kev. Charles, on superstition, 205 ; on the rapidity of death 
 and reconversion into life in the tropics, 256. 
 
 Knowledge, relative, not absolute, 104 ; science a mere classification 
 of arrangement and modes of action, 228 ; table of, 33 'J. 
 
 Labourers' share of the joint produce, 267. 
 
 Lankester, Dr., on value of weight in comparison to height, 45. 
 
 Laycock, IDr. Thomas, on woman's rights, 81 ; no spontaneous acts of 
 
 will, 109. 
 Language, 102. 
 Lewes on phrenology, 33 ; on Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, 170 ; on 
 
 Hegel, 182 ; on Fichte and Schelling, 183. 
 Lethdby on food and its varieties, 72. 
 Lecky on morals and conscience, 120 ; on Christian Morality, 148 ; 
 
 on the union of our physical and moral natures, 149 ; on the 
 
 Christian idea of hell, 206 ; on dogma, 207. 
 Life, term of its existence on the earth, 1 ; definition of, 35, 247 ; 
 
 dependent upon the supply of oxygen, 39 ; its natural rate of in- 
 crease, 248 ; proceeds only from life, 250. 
 Light dependent upon the atmosphere, 7, 100. 
 Love of approbation, 77. 
 
 Locke, John, on the boundary of our faculties, 104. 
 Longfellow, his " Day of Sunshine," 333. 
 Lubbock, Sir John, on the stages of religious thought, 196-197 ; on 
 
 Kamschatka deities, 197. 
 Lyell, Sir Charles, on internal heat, 2 ; on height of mountains in 
 
 Wales, Scotland, and England during the glacial period, 3. 
 
 Man, period of his existence on the earth, 19 ; earliest traces, 21 ; 
 probable descent, 22 ; a bundle of instincts, 65 ; his strength 
 dependent upon his unity with his fellows, or his moral ties, 133 ; 
 a cosmos, 225. 
 
 Maudsley, Dr. Henry, on free-will and necessity, 113 ; on conscience, 
 116 ; mind the highest development of force, 160 ; on electro- 
 biology, 173 ; mental reaction without consciousness, 174 ; on the 
 conservativeness of old age, 253. 
 
 Maitland, Edward, on the necessity for strong motives, 128 ; on con- 
 scious force, or vrill, 169. 
 
 Mackenzie, Sir G. S., on the classification of convicts, 150. 
 
 Matter is force, or mere resistance to motion, 165. 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, on the objective world, a system of forces as 
 perceived in the mesmeric state, 180. 
 
 Materialism ends in absolute Idealism, 183. 
 
 Max Miiller on Religion, 200, 218 ; on the necessity for metaphor, 214. 
 
354 INDEX. 
 
 Magnetoscope, 34. 
 
 Mazzini on the theories of the International and on Communism, 298. 
 
 Marriage, 80. 
 
 Mailler, Eev. J^ White, on the inseparability of power from God, 219. 
 
 Maurice, Kev. F. D., on Buddhism, 221. 
 
 Malebranche on the immediate presence and power of God, 228. 
 
 Malthus on our powers of increase and production, 264. 
 
 Machinery must take the place of slaree, 282. 
 
 Metaphor in Religion, 215 ; the language of the childhood of the 
 race, 215. 
 
 Memory, cause of the return of early memories, 65. 
 
 Medicine, its difEerent effects at difEerent times on the same person, 
 44 ; John Wesley's system, 45. 
 
 Mill, J. S., on the invariableness of the laws of mental phenomena, 
 111 ; on consciousness, 156 ; on matter, 165 ; law not necessary, 
 known to us only as invariable sequence, 187 ; theological morality 
 not Christian, 209, 210 ; on the rise in the value of land, 267 ; on 
 the capacity for the nobler feelings, 330. 
 
 Mill, James, on consciousness, 156 ; on belief, 186. 
 
 Mind, the most condensed form of force, 5, 36, 160 ; connected with 
 nervous matter, mental energy increasing with its enlargement 
 and complexity, 8, 14, 25 ; known objectively only by its mode of 
 action ; slowness of thought, 27 ; transmission of mental states, 
 1 1 ; Keats and Shelly, 62 ; and the torpedo, 172 ; developed by 
 fighting for life and love, 75 ; mental faculties of brutes, 103 ; 
 mental blindness, 103. 
 
 Military service, what we lost in wealth by might be made up in 
 health and in power of obedience, order, and organisation, 321. 
 
 Morality, 106 ; the principles of, 107 ; practice of, 141 ; difference 
 between moral and social science, 142 ; moral feelings, 89 ; moral 
 maxims, 147 ; a system of dynamics, 149 ; secure as man neces- 
 sarily seeks his own happiness, 190 ; moral advance must be 
 based on improved physical condition, 321. 
 
 Moon, probably a dead and used-up world, 1. 
 
 Morals, the two schools, whence derived, 115. 
 
 Motion not separable from the thing moving, 36 ; nothing in itself, 
 a condition, not an entity, 160. 
 
 Mosheim on the Polytheistic rites blended with Christianity, 210. 
 
 Morgan, Augustus de, on the soul, 261. 
 
 Munden, Charles, on sleep, 178. 
 
 Murder, the killing anything unnecessarily, 74. 
 
 Natural selection, 129. 
 
 Natural law, obedience to all law equally necessary, 143. 
 
 Natural income, 275 ; its mode of disbibution, 275 ; the wages of 
 the workifig classes, 276 ; evils from the great inequality of distri- 
 bution, 277. 
 
 Nature's summary dealings with us, 75. 
 
 Nervous system, 26 ; sensitivenes of Keats and Shelley, 62 ; nerve 
 force and electric force convertible, 177. 
 
INDEX. 355 
 
 Necessity, philosophical, 107 ; persistence of force the modern expres- 
 sion of it, 107 ; known to ua only as invariable sequence, 187. 
 Newman, Prof. F. W., on Atheism, 206. 
 Noah's Ark prefiguring the gathering of all nations into the Church, 38 
 
 Oerstead on necessity, 108 ; the universe the work of an eternally- 
 creating spirit, 336. 
 
 Old Age, 263. 
 
 Opinion nearly equally divided on all great questions, 294 ; few of 
 our actions dependent upon it, 22i ; no recogmsed science of man, 294. 
 
 Order greatly dependent upon instinctive or automatic action, 293. 
 
 Organisation, the great saving efEeoted by it, illustrations, 826 ; capital 
 and labour to be united under one proprietorship, 328 ; under such 
 an arrangement the small fortune attained would be sufficient to 
 bring all our faculties into full activity, 328. 
 
 Our social institutions, income of the Queen and of the gold sticks in 
 waiting, 287 ; the time coming when we shall try how little we can 
 live upon instead of how much we can spend, 288. 
 
 Owen, Prof. Richard, classification of man, 22 ; on foetal changes, 25 ; 
 on the amoeba, 172 ; on life, 177 ; on nerve force and thought force, 
 177 ; on final cause ; on the soul, 261. 
 
 Paul, Saint, his broad Pantheism, 211, 219. 
 
 Palgrave, W. G., on the Wahhabee doctrine of Mahommedanism, 
 
 which he calls the Pantheism of Force, 222. 
 Palmerston, Lord, on a day of fast and humiliation, and the natural 
 
 law, 240. 
 Pauperism, its causes and remedies, 141 ; the right to live, 138. 
 Pain, necessity for, 125 ; probably no world without it, 127 ; pains 
 
 and pleasures only, not sin and evU, 127. 
 Peasantry, the French, their condition, 291 ; the English, 291. 
 Permanent change a growth, 293. 
 Personal Identity, 97, 187. 
 
 Persistence or conservation of force applies to mind as to matter, 107. 
 Physiologists, their ignorance of the functions of the brain and 
 
 neglect of Gall's discoveries, 29. 
 Phrenology, opinions of SirH. Holland, Lewes, and H, Spencer, 29, 33 ; 
 
 testimonials in favour of, 32 ; the only psychological system which 
 
 counts any considerable number of adhei'ents, 33. 
 Phenomenon, or appearance, or form, passes away, and is alone de- 
 structible, 162. 
 "Pilgrim and the Shrine," "had absolute perfection existed prior to 
 
 the ' creation ' the universe had never been," 223 ; also, " in infinite 
 
 foreknowledge there is no trust, no hope, only still certainty," 234. 
 Plutarch on Atheism, 205. 
 Planets and planetary systems, 2 ; all of one material, 4 ; numbei' and 
 
 density of planets, 7. 
 Plants feed on air, 5. 
 
 Powell, Eev. Baden, on the Mosaic cosmogony, 214. 
 Poor-rate, increase during the last ten years, 271, 
 
356 INDEX. 
 
 Positivism, 167, 283, 300 ; an enlightened despotism, 303. 
 
 Primary and secondary qualities, in what they consist, 186. 
 
 Prayer, its eiEcacy, 241 ; should be confined to earnest desire and 
 aspiration, and faith in the order of nature, 242. 
 
 Pressure of population the mainspring of progress, 264. 
 
 Property, its unequal division, the only real remedy for this in- 
 equality, 288. 
 
 Proctor, K. A., on other worlds than ours, 7. 
 
 Propensities, the self-protecting, 69 ; the self-regarding, 77. 
 
 Purpose of design in creation — Bacon, D. Hume, C. Darwin, Duke of 
 Ajgyll, and Sir W. Thomson, on intelligence or mind in nature, 
 232 ; the " plan " heing to create the largest amount of enjoy- 
 ment, 235. 
 
 Punishment always for our good, 127. 
 
 Queen Bee, how made, 53 ; passions of, 53 ; great mental difference 
 from the worker, 63. 
 
 Eaces, their specific gravity, 44 ; varieties, 49 ; probably not' derived 
 from one stock, 49 ; colour — what dependent upon, 51 ; some in- 
 
 . capable of progress, 52. 
 
 Eevolutions are mainly destructive, we can build only .on living 
 foundations, 294. 
 
 EeaMsm and Idealism, 307. 
 
 Eeligious world, how created, 193. 
 
 Eeynolds, Sir Joshua, on art culture, 145. 
 
 Eeligion must be harmonised with philosophical necessity, 230 ; the 
 Coming Eeligion and Christianity, 243 ; the expression of simple 
 reverence and trust, 243 ; the Eeligion of Humanity only another 
 form of Fetishism, 311 ; all "law" ought to have equally the reli- 
 gious sanction, 311 ; the New Eeligion the resignation of the indi- 
 vidual and personal to the infinite whole, 342. 
 
 Eesponsibility the natural and necessai'y consequences of our actions, 
 231, 309. 
 
 Eighi^ right and might the same ultimately, 342 ; to do what is right 
 the great end of moral training, 343 ; " we must leam what is true 
 that we may do what is right," 342. 
 
 Eichard II., account of his levies, 285. 
 
 Eichardson, Dr. W. B., on the discovery of distinct centres in convolu- 
 tions of the brain, 34 ; measure of vital force at different ages, 46 ; 
 on a nerve atmosphere, 176. 
 
 Eichter, Jean Paul, on the slavery to opinion, 72 ; no other revelation 
 than the ever-continuing, 231. 
 
 Eobertson, Eev. F. W., on the female element in religion, 208 ; on 
 refined taste and sense of the beautiful, 329 ; on the something 
 worse than death, 330 ; on solitude, 335. 
 
 Sand, George, on the universal life, 335. 
 Seneca on life and death, 71 ; on free-vrill. 111. 
 Self-defence, 74. 
 
INDEX. 357 
 
 Secretiveness, 76. 
 
 Self-esteem, 71. 
 
 Sermons, their revolutions, 315. 
 
 Sexual love, 79 ; its natural and necessary control, 82. 
 
 Sheppard, Nathan, an American, " Shut up in Paris," view of the 
 French character, 299. 
 
 Shakespeare and bear-baiting, competition between in Queen Eliza- 
 beth's time, 323. 
 
 Shakers, their conduct consistent with their creed, 207. 
 
 ShutUeworth, Sir J. K., on democracy, 287 ; on the great time re- 
 quired for aU. great changes, 293. 
 
 Sleep, its cause, 179. 
 
 Smith, Dr. Angus, on suspended particles and living germs in the 
 atmosphere, 6. 
 
 Smiles, Samuel, on the highest object in life, 333. 
 
 Social feelings, 79 ; not moral, 87. 
 
 Solitary confinement, effect of, 43. 
 
 Society, in the country about the time of Queen Elizabeth, 323 ; our 
 upper, middle, and lower class, 324, 325, 326. 
 
 Solitude, the necessity for in the cultivation of the higher feelings, 334. 
 
 Soul, its speciality dependent upon the organism, 259 ; the question 
 of its immortality, 259. 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, on animalcules, 10 ; atoms, 17 ; civilised man's 
 brain, 23, 68 ; on the nervous system, 25, 26 ; impressions of sight 
 and sound, 27 ; on phrenology, 32, 33 ; on life, 35 ; growth, 38 ; 
 on persistence of force, 107 ; on pressure of population as cause of 
 progress, 126 ; feeling an equivalent of physical force, 160 ;. on 
 other-worldliness, 208 ; on latent energy and waste matter, 250 ; on 
 old age, 253. 
 
 Space purely subjective, not an entity, 102. 
 
 Spinoza on free-will and necessity, 108 ; God's power and essence the 
 same, 169 ; high priest of the new religion, 342. 
 
 Spiritualism, 173. 
 
 Stirling, J. H., on the desire of immortality, 70. 
 
 Statistics, 109. 
 
 Sun, 2 ; its spots, 4 ; how they influence the brain, 179 ; power, 5 ; 
 fun force and earth force, 6 ; atmosphere, 7 ; various ways of 
 utilising its power directly, 313. 
 
 Suicide, defence of in cases of hopeless and painful illness, 71. 
 
 Supply and demand, uncertainty in the application of the law, 271. 
 
 Superstition, 205, 206 ; effects of in Spain, 209. 
 
 Taste for good reading, equal to a large fortune, the result of oai'eful 
 
 cultivation, 332. 
 Temperament, 39 ; description of, 41. 
 Temperature, we are affected by according to the electric condition 
 
 of the atmosphere, 178. 
 Tennyson, Alfred, on the purpose in creation, 236, 237, 239. 
 Tissues, drugs medicinal or poisonous according to their state, 44. 
 Torrens, Mr., M.P., on emigration, 271. 
 
358 INDEX. 
 
 TroUope, T. A., on the influence of physical love, 64. 
 
 Twins alike, while other children differ, showing how much probably 
 depends upon the period of gestation, 317. 
 
 Tyndall, Prof., on the earth's heat, 4 ; on the deep blue in the atmos- 
 phere, 6 ; on human consciousness, 26 ; on the tendency of modem 
 science to break down the partition between the organic and the 
 inoi-ganic, 36 ; on sense of light, how formed, 100 ; nothing created, 
 108 ; consciousness and molecular motion in the brain, 159, 161 ; 
 on evolutian, 229 ; where energy disappears it changes its form 
 merely, 251. 
 
 Vestiges of the natural history of creation, on fcetal changes, 25. 
 Vitativeness, tenacity of life dependent upon the organ, 48. 
 Vice and lunacy require the same treatment, 152. 
 
 Unconscious intelligence, 167. 
 
 Unity of God and Nature, 169. 
 
 Universe, eternal sacredness of, and of all life in it, 230. 
 
 Wallace, A. E., on race, 51 ; on instinct, 66 ; on natural selection, 129 ; 
 man an exception, 132 ; on the moral sense, 134 ; on the brain of 
 the savage, 135 ; on force and its source, or how produced, 224. 
 
 Water, hard water wholesome, 59 . 
 
 Wages, nature fixes the minimum at as little as a man can live upon, 
 it ought to be altered to as little as he can live comfortably upon, 280. 
 
 Wants that wiU bring all our faculties into daily activity, 329. 
 
 Wesley's, John, " Primitive Physiok," 45. 
 
 Whitefield, George, effects of his preaching, causes of, 63. 
 
 Will, how determined, has special organ, 98. 
 
 Women, in what she differs from the man, 80 ; woman's rights, 81 ; 
 burnt as witch, 85 ; worshipped by the Positivists, 85 ; women of 
 genius infertile, 319. 
 
 World, the, idea of it how formed, 163, 180 ; governed by consequences, 
 a revelation given to us all, 231 ; dissatisfied with God's world, we 
 make a woild of our own, 231, 234 ; the phenomenal world not a 
 reality, but each creature creates its own and carries it about in its 
 own head, 235. 
 
 Workmen's parliament, trades' unions, &c., 278. 
 
 Wyld, E. S., on force as alone existing, 165 ; physical power propor- 
 tioned to mental effort, 172. 
 
 Youmans, Dr. E. L., on unity in creation, 27 ; on force, 36. 
 
 Zeno, the Stoic, on Fatalism, 126. 
 
 Y. CALDICOTT, PBINTEK, EARL STKEET, COVENTRY.