Class SD^Si 
 
 Book . F5"' 
 
 Copighl N? 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE PHYSICAL BASIS 
 
 OF 
 
 MIND AND MORALS 
 
 BY 
 
 M. H. FITCH 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY 
 
 1906 
 
*v> 
 
 \ 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 OCT 20 '906 
 
 CoDyrigfht Entry 
 $W //. / f o G 
 CLASS <X XXc, No, 
 
 /S77 *+y 
 
 COPY B. ' 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1906, BY M. H. FITCH. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. A Short Outline of The Principle of Evolution.. 12 
 
 II. Charles R. Darwin — The Exponent of Evolution. 45 
 
 III. Herbert Spencer and his Mistaken Disciples 70 
 
 IV. The Rhythm of Motion 91 
 
 V. Human Knowledge and its limitations 110 
 
 VI. The Phenomenal Ego 144 
 
 VII. The Essence of Phenomenism 167 
 
 VIII. A Natural Code of Ethics 186 
 
 IX. Limitations and Impediments 215 
 
 X. Summary 238 
 
THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF 
 MIND AND MORALS 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 There is nothing at rest. This is evident to the most 
 casual observer. It is at the same time very significant. 
 It is the basic principle of evolution. The immense bod- 
 ies of granite, which seem to be the solid foundation on 
 which, not only the mountains are laid, but the very 
 earth itself is built, have all the molar motions of the 
 earth and also the slow change of molecular motion im- 
 plied in the principle of evolution. 
 
 As the latent heat of the earth is slowly radiating into 
 space all the constituent elements, the rocks, soil, water, 
 and atmosphere, are correspondingly changing. The 
 "fixed stars" are not permanent in one place for a mo- 
 ment, although the human eye can perceive no change in 
 their relative positions during the lifetime of man. And 
 yet nothing is changed either in quality or quantity. It 
 is only a change of form. -All past combinations of mat- 
 ter and motion have given way to the present status and 
 this is fast changing to forms better adapted to new cor- 
 relations. Form is evanescent, substance is immortal. 
 These changing forms contitute function or phenomena. 
 These are the only objective things, which being repre- 
 
 5 
 
6 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 sented to our senses produce in us what is termed con- 
 sciousness. Phenomenism is really the relation all things 
 hold to each other. 
 
 I have tried to show in the following pages that the 
 real meaning of these facts cannot be comprehended by 
 the human brain, and that wisdom teaches us to waste 
 no time in conjecture about the ultimate reality. Our 
 senses, however, do perceive these phenomena or appear- 
 ances and upon these alone we must rely for knowledge. 
 Upon such knowledge alone can we base our lines of 
 reason, memory, and will. The rules of our personal and 
 social lives must be derived from such knowledge as our 
 brains can acquire from these phenomena. The psychol- 
 ogy of our lives consists of the correspondence between 
 ourselves and the relation these phenomena bear to each 
 other in the environment. In other words we know 
 only the relativity of things. Our consciousness is the 
 aggregate of the images these objective relationships 
 make upon our very complex nerve structure, and the 
 brain centers of reason, memory, imagination and will 
 are stations in the neural arc co-ordinating these images 
 into ideas. 
 
 The avenues of this correspondence are the special 
 organs of sense, and the presentations thus made become 
 transformed by the very complex structure of the brain, 
 by the molecular motion of its atoms, into all the various 
 forms of cognition, heretofore miscalled faculties. It 
 seems impossible to study the psychological phenomena 
 without assuming a subjective and an objective aspect. 
 But both are one phenomenon in their co-relation to all 
 other forms of matter and motion. It seems plain that 
 the impression made by the transformed image upon the 
 sense organ, e. g. the eye, is a natural mechanical opera- 
 tion, similar to the image in a mirror. But the instant- 
 
INTRODUCTORY 7 
 
 aneous reproduction of the same image on the cortex of 
 the brain centers and the simultaneous production there 
 of similar and contiguous images of memory, the fusion 
 of these like images into a condition called perception or 
 feeling, is a process so obscure as to appear to the un- 
 scientific the act of a supernatural power. 
 
 How the feeling comes and how the ideas are formed 
 and recalled are as much unsolved problems now, as they 
 were in the days of Descartes and Kant, except upon 
 the hypothesis that the images are the feelings, and the 
 ideas in due order are the fusions of like images. The 
 process is wholly natural and physiological. However 
 mysterious the appearance of the psychic effect may be 
 the fact remains that apparently only those organisms 
 with a certain development of central nervous material 
 centers, are capable of ideationally initiated motor sen- 
 sations ; yet Wm. Wundt contends, in Vol. I, "Physiologi- 
 cal-Psychology," that we cannot interpret the psychical 
 processes themselves as molecular processes. But the 
 other fact also remains that cessation of the phenomena 
 of movement we call life inhibits all psychical phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 It may be therefore that the energy, or force mani- 
 festing in vital movements, is the causative of both the 
 physiological and psychological phenomena in the living 
 organism, and that they are two aspects of the same 
 force working through differentiated plexuses of nerv- 
 ous structure. This seems to be the view of Herbert 
 Spencer. But he is called a materialist. If I understand 
 Ribot, this is his view, and perhaps to a less extent An- 
 gell. But they are all silent as to the real process that 
 occurs after the sensation reaches the cerebrum and is 
 apparently there transformed into the psychical element 
 of consciousness. 
 
8 HYSICAI, BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The actual connection, the nature of the method of 
 the differentiation of the thing perceived and the per- 
 ceiver seems to be the unknown process; all other pro- 
 cess is objective to scientific investigation. This view 
 of the method of thought is metaphysical, not either psy- 
 chological or physiological. If this is so, one opinion 
 concerning its nature is as good as another. It is of the 
 standing in knowledge that Spencer's "Unknowable Ab- 
 solute" is. It belongs to the catagory of agnosticism. 
 
 Having said this much, it seems superfluous at pres- 
 ent to say more. Yet I assume, in the pages following, 
 that this connecting link between the sensation and the 
 perceiver of it, being unconscious to ourselves and un- 
 observable in the organisms of others, is simply a con- 
 tinuation of the same physiological process that we ob- 
 serve up to that point, and from that point to the physi- 
 cal effect in external muscular movement. 
 
 The following chapters endeavor to place limitations 
 upon the imagination and to bring within the operation 
 of reason the phenomena of the primal emotions — fear, 
 affection, and anger. When one discovers that his or- 
 ganism is only a part of cosmic phenomena and is en- 
 tirely dependent on these for its existence, he will then 
 turn his thoughts in full upon the great importance to 
 his welfare, that he acquire correct ideas of such relation- 
 ship. If he is to acquire such ideas as his brain is cap- 
 able of producing, he will then have no time left for 
 thinking of unknowable causes behind the phenomena, 
 by which alone he cannot arrive at any idea. In this 
 sense these chapters are strictly utilitarian. 
 
 One of the most interesting features of the. study of 
 a subject like psychology is the discovery of the intellect- 
 ual tendencies of different authors. Herbert Spencer, 
 Th. Ribot, Romanes, Angell, Wundt and Hseckel, use 
 
INTRODUCTORY 9 
 
 different terms frequently to express the same meaning. 
 Haeckel, Romanes, and Angell are simple, direct and 
 easily understood. Ribot and Wundt are very learned 
 and extremely scientific. Wundt goes into the most 
 elaborate diagramatic explanations of the anatomy and 
 physiology as well as the psychology of the organism, 
 resolving all three elements into still other elements and 
 working out what he calls a schema, and finally establish- 
 ing an hypothesis that neither the anatomy nor the phys- 
 iology will account for the psychology, although he ad- 
 mits that without both there would be no psychology. 
 As anatomy treats of material substance and physiology 
 of function, a form of motion, the two being the ele- 
 ments of every organism, if psychical phenomena re- 
 quire still another unknown element to account for them, 
 Wundt may in future volumes not yet published in Eng- 
 lish and unread by me, be able to find something more 
 in them than matter and motion. Spencer discovers 
 nothing more and does not hesitate to say that matter 
 and motion, or structure and function, are sufficient to 
 account for all phenomena, including what is called 
 mentality in man. 
 
 Wundt says that the association centers of the brain 
 are connected by innumerable conduction paths. That 
 it is probable that every idea, while initiated by the 
 sensory paths, yet is contributed to by numerous other 
 associative centers through which run the nerve fibre 
 conducting the particular sensation. Not only the ana- 
 tomical centers contribute, but the contents of the idea 
 is more or less determined by the direction of the sensa- 
 tion. Now, if the character of the idea, or the contents 
 of it are thus determined by the particular center cells 
 acting upon the sensation, and also by the direction 
 taken in its passage to its appropriate center where the 
 
10 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 idea is finally formed there must be some process, chem- 
 ical or mechanical, which occurs to the grey matter of 
 these various paths of conduction that when completed 
 is the sensation, feeling, or idea. The co-incidence of 
 objective energy, forms new combinations in the mole- 
 cules of nerve tissue, these new combinations being the 
 psychical effects, the whole being a natural phenomenon. 
 Or we must assume an unknown supernatural power 
 using this complicated and ever changing neural machine 
 as a process or method of working out the raw material 
 of sensations into the ideas. The anatomy and physi- 
 ology are plainly visible to the eye of science. The re- 
 sulting psychology — or psychic phenomena — are plainly 
 perceptible. The question then is "Are the psychic phe- 
 nomena, which always accompany the plainly percept- 
 ible functions of the neural structure, the natural effects 
 of those functions, or are they really produced by some 
 other power, i. e. spiritual, working through the struc- 
 tures and functions? Ribot and Spencer say the .func- 
 tion is the idea. Wundt says he cannot find the nexus, 
 but that the idea of an independent force or power caus- 
 ing the psychical upon a physical substrate is not in- 
 compatible with the facts. He does not contend that it 
 is other than natural and in no sense spiritual. 
 
 The different chapters treat of the different aspects 
 of the same phenomenon. Evolution is a continual change 
 of form, which is the same as saying a serial differentia- 
 tion of the relational element in monism. Darwin and 
 Herbert Spencer being the most prominent exponents 
 of the principle of evolution, the chapters devoted to 
 them naturally follow that on Evolution. Rhythm of 
 Motion is a condition and a universal accompaniment 
 of all phenomena. The chapters on Human Knowledge, 
 the Phenomenal Ego, the Essence of Phenomenism, a 
 
INTRODUCTORY H 
 
 Natural Code of Ethics, and Limitations and Impedi- 
 ments are all treatments of the different aspects of the 
 relation the Ego or self holds to other things. This re- 
 lation is the determining factor in any natural code of 
 ethics and is the basis of any rational philosophy or reli- 
 gion. It is theoretically the basis of supernatural reli- 
 gion. But before there can be any relation between 
 things there must be objective realism in the things re- 
 lated. To the self this must be sensory realism, not 
 imaginary nor superstitious. 
 
 The author does not claim to have discovered any 
 new scientific facts. But as no two brains can express 
 the same facts in exactly the same way, and seldom draw 
 the same conclusion from them, he hopes that his ex- 
 pression of the well known truths of natural phenomena 
 may be new to some readers. He has made use of as 
 simple language to express the ideas as seemed to him 
 compatible with accurate thought. 
 
 He hopes the readers will not conclude that they 
 were written with any idea of pointing a way to avoid 
 the responsibilities of life, nor to blast the hopes and 
 aspirations now entertained by the most of Christendom. 
 They are intended rather to meet the responsibilities in 
 what the author thinks is the only way they can be met 
 successfully. The successful meeting and solving of 
 life's problems alone can bring happiness to the indivi- 
 dual, and a more desirable civilization to the world. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 A SHORT OUTLINE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EVOLUTION 
 
 There are two theories of the method by which the 
 perpetual apparition of natural phenomena throughout 
 what is called the visible universe has been produced. 
 One is the theory of special creation; that is, that a 
 Supreme Being, called God, created out of nothing all 
 that is. This does not pretend to give the real origin 
 of matter and motion. Because saying that they came 
 out of nothing is not accounting for them. It is the 
 same as saying that the subject is beyond our mental 
 capacity. 
 
 The other theory is called evolution. This theory 
 assumes the existence of matter and force, but does not 
 pretend to account for their origin, and that from these 
 two always acting together have evolved the perpetual 
 apparition. "Evolution is a change of form, through 
 the production of new configurations." * The most 
 comprehensive definition, however, one that covers both 
 organic and inorganic evolution, is that given by Her- 
 bert Spencer in his "First Principles." "Evolution is the 
 integration of matter and the concomitant dissipation of 
 motion, during which the matter passes from an inde- 
 finite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent he- 
 terogeneity; and during which the retained motion un- 
 dergoes a parallel transformation." 
 
 It will be seen that this definition describes, in tech- 
 nical language, the transformation of a nebula into the 
 
 * Dr. Paul Cams. 
 
 12 
 
A SHORT OUTUNE OF EVOLUTION 13 
 
 solid bodies of the solar system, as well as the integra- 
 tion of a condensed form of matter, prohably by chem- 
 ical combination, into forms of life. The integration 
 of matter composing the nebula into globes, and the con- 
 comitant dissipation of motion in form of heat and 
 energy — the same as is now going on in the sun — is a 
 theory accepted by all physicists so far as I know. The 
 nebular theory of Kant, Laplace, and William Herschel, 
 in accounting for inorganic evolution, presupposes the 
 homegeneity and gaseous condition of all matter; and 
 from that nebular condition the present heterogeneous 
 stellar universe has been evolved. The greatest ad- 
 vances in astronomy made in late years have been the 
 disclosures by photography of nebulosity existing 
 throughout space. More than 120,000 nebulae are now 
 known; and by observing these, astronomers are study- 
 ing the phases through which our earth and solar system 
 seem to have passed. 
 
 The theory presupposes that the nebula from which 
 the sun and the planets, for example, have integrated, 
 filled the space within the orbit of Neptune with homo- 
 geneous matter in a gaseous state. Or it is likely the 
 nebula extended a sufficient distance beyond that orbit 
 to leave Neptune in the relative position it now occupies 
 in the solar system after the subsequent concentration of 
 his arm of the original nebula. Granted the existence of 
 this nebula and the force of gravitation, and it can be 
 proved that condensation would begin. In the process 
 of condensation * a rapid circular or spiral motion 
 would be set up; and by the force thus generated the 
 different planets would eventually be formed upon self 
 appointed centers in succession ; each planet representing 
 
 * "Condensation," in J. C. Vogt's "Principle of Matter. 
 
14 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 a minor center of condensation, and being at first a mass 
 of incandescent gas. The momentum of each planet 
 given it while remaining a part of the nebula would keep 
 it moving. ' The velocity would increase as the planet 
 solidified; and the pull of the central mass would con- 
 vert this forward motion into motion in an elliptical 
 track; the law of moment of momentum would perpetu- 
 ate the character of the motion begun in the nebula, re- 
 sulting in the course of untold ages in the separate 
 planets as we now behold them, moving in perfect har- 
 mony in their co-ordinated orbits around a central sun. 
 The sun is a more condensed portion of the original 
 nebula, still shrinking, and its heat is produced by the 
 friction of condensation. It is said there is still exist- 
 ing the original amout of energy in the solar system, and 
 that whatever occurs none of it is lost and none gained 
 in the aggregate. This is the conservation of energy. 
 Yet, energy seems to be lost when it takes the form of 
 heat and is radiated into space. In other words the 
 condensation of the matter of the nebula into solid bo- 
 dies was the overcoming of certain resistances and thus 
 a part of the energy was lost. Is it lost or has it taken 
 some form not apparent to our senses? But the mo- 
 ment of momentum remains always the same and this is 
 the product of mass multiplied by the velocity, and that 
 product again multiplied by a perpendicular drawn from 
 the center (such as the sun) to the line of direction of 
 the moving body. The moment of momentum of a 
 system like the solar is the aggregate of that of all the 
 bodies composing it. This is the same as saying there 
 is no beginning and no end to the phenomena. It is 
 saying, again, that there is no special creation of energy, 
 the same as no special creation of anything. 
 
 Energy is the aggregate work represented in phe- 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 15 
 
 nomena. The multiplicity of effects in the process of 
 evolution as well as the process itself are phenomena. 
 The energy of the solar system is represented in the quan- 
 tity of work which could be done if all its bodies came 
 together. The energy of each of its bodies can be ascer- 
 tained by multiplying one-half of its mass into the square 
 of its velocity. I conceive that the persistence of force, 
 which is the most important law of physics, and is per- 
 ceptible to our senses in attraction of gravitation, molar 
 and molecular motion, chemical attraction, in short in 
 the sensory perception the eye has of environment, is the 
 manifestation of energy — it is the same power that the- 
 ology has personified and given intelligent control of 
 phenomena. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to 
 say that the first conception by man of an omnipotent 
 power was not that of natural energy, or the persistence 
 of force, but of a personality above or beyond and pro- 
 ducing phenomena. 
 
 It must be understood also that a separate system, 
 like the solar, or any nebula, is constantly losing energy 
 in the form of heat by condensation. As it loses energy 
 its motion decreases, and as its motions change so does 
 the relative position of its bodies, at the same time the 
 relativity of its atoms changes, but there is no evidence 
 that they will ever come to absolute rest even when all 
 its matter comes together in one body. The movement 
 of the atoms in the process of condensation is called ar- 
 rested motion. (See "Rhythm of Motion" in chapter IV). 
 The term "separate system" used must be taken to mean 
 separate in form only. There is no "system" in reality 
 separate from the general monistic system, constituting 
 what we call Nature. 
 
 Chemists have known for many years that all the 
 matter of our earth can be reduced to about eighty ele- 
 
16 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ments. There are many facts which indicate that these 
 are merely varying forms of one primeval element, yet 
 undiscovered. "The elements that form one per cent or 
 more of the earth's crust are only eight in number. They 
 are given in the following table : 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Oxygen 47.02 
 
 Silicon 28.06 
 
 Aluminum 8.16 
 
 Iron 4.64 
 
 Calcium 3.50 
 
 Magnesium 2.62 
 
 Sodium 2.63 
 
 Potassium 2.32 
 
 Total 98.95 
 
 The elements forming less than one per cent but 
 more than one-tenth of one per cent of the earth's crust, 
 are titanium, hydrogen and carbon. It will be seen from 
 these figures that neither the common compounds nor 
 the common elements are bewildering in number. Ex- 
 amples af the chief rock-forming minerals can be found 
 in nearly every locality. * 
 
 The materials of the sun, planets, stars and nebulae 
 are essentially the same as those of the earth. The 
 spectroscope has revealed this fact. The elements of 
 which the earth is composed, when heated to incan- 
 descence, produce in the spectrum the same lines that 
 the light of the sun and the stars and the nebulae pro- 
 duce. "Is not this a weighty piece of evidence in favor 
 
 * Carl H. Paddock of Colorado in an article entitled, "An 
 Introduction to Geology," in the Mining Record of September 
 23, 1905. 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE) OF EVOLUTION 17 
 
 of the theory that earth, sun and planets are all portions 
 of the same primeval nebula in which these elements 
 are blended?"* Neither Laplace nor Kant knew of 
 this evidence, yet they gave the theory the support of 
 their names upon the evidence of other facts; Laplace 
 deducing it from the theory of probabilities. One fact 
 in nature strikes one very forcibly as at least a strong 
 inference in favor of the nebular theory. Heat in suf- 
 ficiently high temperature resolves all solids into gases. 
 In the sun's photosphere the spectroscope shows that 
 many metals and simple elements that are in a solid form 
 on the earth are components of the gases of the sun. It 
 is not only known that the gases of the sun are gradu- 
 ally condensing as heat is radiated, but that when, under 
 the blow pipe in the laboratory, a solid is converted into 
 gas, that the reverse process occurs when the heat is 
 withdrawn, viz., the gas naturally condenses into the 
 former solid condition. Even the atmosphere can be 
 condensed into a solid. All heat has its origin in the 
 sun and is produced by the condensation of its units ra- 
 diating heat by friction. The inference is that all matter 
 has been condensed from a nebulous condition in this 
 way. 
 
 The other evidences of inorganic evolution are the 
 remarkable concordance of the planes of the orbits and 
 the motions of the planets therein around the sun, and 
 the still further concordance of the orbits and motions 
 of the satellites of the planets with the orbits of the 
 planets. The greatest inclination that any of the planes 
 of the orbits of the planets have to the plane of the 
 ecliptic is 7 degrees, that of Mercury. All the bodies 
 move in the same direction, and this direction is that in 
 
 *Ball, "Earth's Beginnings." P. 290. 
 
18 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 which the law of mechanical motion in a nebula proves 
 they would move on the nebular theory. The satellites of 
 Uranus and Neptune alone revolve in a direction oppo- 
 site to that of the others, but the motions of those plan- 
 ets themselves correspond with the theory. There is a 
 sufficient explanation of this anomaly; and the conclu- 
 sion of astronomers is that these satellites will revolve 
 later on in the true direction. 
 
 The satellites of Uranus revolve around the planet in 
 one plane inclined 83 degrees to that of the ecliptic, and 
 in an opposite direction from the motion of the planet 
 in its orbit. The law of dynamics implies that this means 
 an excess of energy — the inner satellites making a rev- 
 olution in one and a half days — which in the course of 
 ages will be regulated by gradually lessening this angle 
 of plane and decreasing the velocity. At first the angle 
 will rise to 90 degrees, and then continue on the other 
 side until it reaches 180 degrees. 
 
 This would bring the motion in the right direction, 
 not by any change in the absolute direction of movement 
 of the satellite, but by lessening the energy of the move- 
 ment and at the same time increasing the angle of its 
 plane to more than 90 degrees. This will bring the mo- 
 tion that now appears to be in the opposite direction 
 into the same direction with that of the planet, or from 
 retrograde to- direct motion. This is likely what will oc- 
 cur to the satellites of Uranus as well as those of Nep- 
 tune. The latter are now only at an angle of* 35 degrees 
 to the ecliptic, but it is supposed that this plane will 
 pass through movements parallel to that of the satellites 
 of Uranus. 
 
 'The movements of the satellites of Uranus and Nep- 
 tune do not disprove the nebular hypothesis. Rather 
 they illustrate the fact that the great evolution which 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 19 
 
 has wrought the solar system into form has not yet fin- 
 ished its work; it is still in progress. The work is very 
 nearly done and when that work shall have been com- 
 pleted, the satellites of Uranus and Neptune will no 
 longer be dissociated from the general concord." * 
 
 ORGANIC EVOLUTION. — In the earlier stages 
 of the evolution of the earth there could have been no 
 organic forms, such as we know them now. But if the 
 nebular theory is the correct one there came a time in 
 the condensation of our globe, after it had passed through 
 a gaseous, then a fluid, and then assumed a comparatively 
 solid form, that the surface temperature became greatly 
 reduced. At some favorable juxtaposition of earth, air, 
 temperature, and moisture, life must have arisen from 
 inorganic substance in a manner entirely unknown to us 
 except by scientific inference; at first in a very lowly 
 form by a combination of elements which we find in all 
 organisms — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. 
 The evolution of living forms, as we now behold them, 
 from the first true moner, which perhaps came into ex- 
 istence in a natural way in many places at the same 
 time, is what we mean by organic or biological evolu- 
 tion, as distinguished from the older theory of special 
 creation. It followed after inorganic evolution as a na- 
 tural result of the upward or progressive change of 
 matter from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 
 Probably life began in the water. Certainly the lowest 
 forms of life are marine. From these by gradual here- 
 ditary variation in form and the integration of matter 
 from the immediate environment, all species were de- 
 veloped. 
 
 All organisms now develop from an egg-cell. All 
 
 'The Earth's Beginnings." P. 347. 
 
20 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 animals begin their development from a cell from i|i20 
 to ijioo of an inch in diameter having the same forma- 
 tion and the same composition in every instance. The 
 worm that crawls on the ground and man who is the 
 most complex and heterogeneous of organisms have pre- 
 cisely the same beginning in an eg-cell. The unicellular 
 protozoon, which never develops beyond one cell, but 
 grows in bulk only, differs from the multi-cellular meta- 
 zoon in its beginning not in the size or form or substance 
 of the cell, but in the absence of fertilization of its 
 nucleus and the consequent addition of new cells in 
 building up a multicellular organism. A multicellular 
 organism may grow by fission, but in doing so the birth 
 of new cells is accompanied by a membrane that holds 
 the cells together. The important fact is that in its be- 
 ginning every animal, also every vegetable, is a cell 
 analogous, if not homologous with every other. That 
 fact coupled with another fact in embryology, viz., that 
 all mammals, including man, in their embryological de- 
 velopment, before they arrive at the mammalian form, 
 pass through all the embryological forms of all the ani- 
 mals below the order of mammals; viz., radiata, articul- 
 ata, mollusca and vertebrata, is very strong evidence that 
 they were at some period of their development existing 
 in the adult form of these lower orders. This is per- 
 haps the most convincing evidence of derivation from 
 lower orders by variation and inheritance. 
 
 Classification, Morphology, Embryology, Paleontol- 
 ogy, and Geographical distribution all contribute in- 
 numerable facts to the theory of evolution. These are all 
 mentioned by Darwin in his "Origin of Species," or by 
 some of his numerous disciples. It seems almost trite 
 to the students of these exceedingly interesting and im- 
 portant sciences to recite any of them here; but I think 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 21 
 
 it will be instructive to give one or two facts from each 
 of these five great divisions of Natural History. They 
 are wonderfully interesting evidences of the principle of 
 evolution. 
 
 Linnaeus, Cuvier, and all naturalists who undertook 
 to reduce the innumerable living organisms on the earth 
 to an orderly system, soon discovered analogous struc- 
 ture and function in all. They easily divided them into 
 two kingdoms, the vegetable and the animal. Space will 
 not permit citations from the vegetable kingdom. But 
 the animal kingdom is made up of such innumerable 
 diverse forms that, unlike vegetable forms, move from 
 place to place, that it required wonderful intellectual abil- 
 ity and judgment to so arrange them in like groups, hav- 
 ing such abiding characteristics in common, that the mem- 
 bers of each group could always be properly placed by 
 means of these characteristics. At first it was thought that 
 those structures whose functions were of the widest use 
 to the individual should be taken as the abiding charac- 
 ters for classification. But experience demonstrated that 
 really the most persistent structures — and the most help- 
 ful in classification — were the more obscure and the least 
 useful. This is also a very strong proof of evolution, or 
 derivation by variation and inheritance; because if, for 
 example, all the vertebrates have backbones internally, 
 and the subdivisions of that order include such wonder- 
 ful differences of form and structure otherwise, as fish, 
 reptiles, birds and mammals, then all these differences 
 must be variations of and derivations from a common 
 ancestor, having only one form and a backbone. Man's 
 vertebral and mammalian structure does not dissociate 
 him from the order of vertebrate mammals.. He there- 
 fore must be classified as a family of the order of mam- 
 
22 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 malia. He was therefore not created at the head of the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
 Classification of plants and animals are made in 
 groups subordinate to groups. This can be done only 
 because of structural resemblances and structural differ- 
 ences. For example, a porpoise lives in the water and 
 has the form and habits of a fish. Under the biblical 
 classification it would be called a fish. Yet it gives suck 
 to its offspring and is therefore a mammal. It is rare 
 to find a mammal an inhabitant of water. The order as 
 a whole is terrestrial. Yet it is clear that the whale and 
 the porpoise, on the theory of descent from a preceding 
 form common to all mammalia, by so decided a change 
 of habits from land to water, changed only such struc- 
 ture as was necessary to adapt them to marine habits. 
 But the structure necessary to suckle the young per- 
 sisted in the new habitat. It is this persistent but less 
 apparent structure that classifies them and not the more 
 apparent structure of legs and feet changed to paddles, 
 and the terrestrial general form changed to the shape 
 of fish. 
 
 The advances made in the method of classification 
 from time to time, from the purely artificial plan of Mo- 
 ses down to the more natural system of Cuvier, while 
 not so intended by the classifiers, yet at every step showed 
 more clearly the close genetic relation of all plants and 
 animals. Had these naturalists entertained the theory of 
 descent by modification, as taught subsequently by the 
 theory of evolution, they could only in a few instances 
 have made their classification more complete evidences 
 of that theory. All classification not only shows close af- 
 finity, accompanied by modifications, but a gradual ad- 
 vance from the earliest fossil forms, in heterogeneous- 
 ness — a constant multiplication of effects and a develop- 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE: OF EVOLUTION 23 
 
 ment from the simple to the complex. These are the 
 cardinal principles of the theory of evolution. 
 
 As to morphology all animals are remarkably alike 
 in form and growth. A tiny round cell in the embryo 
 is common to all at first. From that period to the adult 
 form there are innumerable points of homology and more 
 of analogy. The embryological form common to all ani- 
 mals is the first to be developed in any vertebrate; this 
 is the formation of a round ball of cells held together 
 by a membrance. Then follow in regular order the 
 structures common to the radiata, articulata, mollusca, 
 and then the vertebrata; and lastly, appear the charac- 
 teristics marking the species to which the embryo be- 
 longs. And on the upward march, each species carries 
 with it in vestigial form many structural organs, useful 
 in the lower forms, but useless, or even harmful in the 
 higher. In the human body we have hair covering the 
 foetus and shed prior to birth; the thymus gland; the 
 muscles moving the scalp, the ears and other parts of 
 the skin; the peculiar fold in the tip of the ear; the hair 
 on the arms; the valves in the horizontal and not in the 
 perpendicular veins; the pineal gland in the brain; the 
 semi-lunar fold in the eye; the coccyx, or trace of tail 
 at the end of the vertebral column; the milk teeth. All 
 these are what are called rudimentary organs. None of 
 them — save possibly the pineal gland — plays any ap- 
 preciable part in the human economy. Some of them, 
 as the hair on the arms and the valves in the (now) hori- 
 zontal veins, would have been useful to an animal walk- 
 ing on all fours. Others, as the vermiform appendix 
 would be useful to an animal whose diet was chiefly 
 fruit. On the theory of special creation how shall these 
 rudimentary organs be accounted for? Being of no use 
 to the organism why should they have been created in 
 
24 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 it? But on the theory of evolution, by variation and 
 heredity, they are understandable. 
 
 "Comparative anatomy proves to the satisfaction of 
 every unprejudiced and critical student the significant 
 fact that the body of man and that of the anthropoid ape 
 are not only peculiarly similar, uut they are practically 
 one and the same in every important respect. The same 
 two hundred bones, in the same order and structure, make 
 up our inner skeleton; the same three hundred muscles 
 •effect our movements; the same hair clothes our skin; 
 the same groups of ganglionic cells build up the marv- 
 elous structure of our brain ; the same four chambered 
 heart is the central pulsomer of our circulation ; the same 
 thirty-two teeth are set in the same order in our jaws; 
 the same salivary, hepatic and gastric glands compass 
 our digestion; the same reproductive organs insure the 
 maintenance of our race." * 
 
 It is a well known fact that in the decline of vitality 
 accompanying old age, the functions last developed are 
 the earliest lost. The term "second childhood" is the 
 popular recognition of a profound psychological truth. 
 The highest intellectual functions soonest fade while the 
 instincts and emotions, which existed almost at birth, 
 remain to the latest breath. These phenomena which 
 accompany normal senile decay in man are strikingly 
 similar to those which the vivisectionist is able to pro- 
 duce with his knife. 
 
 Remove the cerebral hemisphere of a pigeon and it 
 returns to a condition closely resembling that of the 
 newly hatched bird — it will swallow food placed in its 
 mouth, and if you turn it on its back it will regain its 
 normal position. But it cannot pick up food for itself, 
 
 'Riddle of the Universe." P. 37. 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 25 
 
 it cannot avoid danger — indeed it does not recognize 
 danger — it cannot fly. These powers depended on the 
 co-ordinate action of its higher brain cells, and the re- 
 moval of these cells reduces its activities to the condition 
 of the pigeon far below the normal. 
 
 No one has been able to carry on' similar experiments 
 with the higher mammals, because of the resulting shock, 
 and the uncontrollable hemmorrhage; and of course ex- 
 periments on human beings are out of the question. But 
 there is good reason to believe that if these normal and 
 technical difficulties could be eliminated, the trained 
 physiologist could carry a man back by the successive 
 steps of his evolution from lower orders, first, in the 
 scale of civilization, and then in that of organic life, by 
 simply destroying in succession the physical centers of 
 the brain from the highest to the lowest. There are 
 many cases in medical literature of insanity resulting 
 from injury to the brain, and disappearing when the in- 
 jury was cured. In some of these cases the injured 
 person while retaining nearly complete control of his 
 mental faculties lost all sense of moral accountability 
 and committed grave offences. Certain diseases, espe- 
 cially paretic dementia, produce the same affect, and 
 these diseases have for their constant lesions the destruc- 
 tion of the brain tissue. 
 
 The phenomena of anaesthesia furnish similar evi- 
 dence. Physically the person going under chloroform or 
 ether loses first conscious sensibility, then unconscious 
 sensibility in the voluntary muscles, then the peristaltic 
 action of the involuntary muscles of the coats of the 
 intestines stops, and finally, if the anaesthetic is pushed, 
 the heart ceases to beat. Mentally the same order is 
 followed — the reverse order of development. The pa- 
 tient loses first his judgment and self control, his ethical 
 
26 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 instinctive and carefully taught manners disappear and 
 he laughs, cries, or swears in utter abandon long before 
 he has ceased to be able to repeat, parrot-wise, the mo- 
 notonous counting of the anaesthetist. The qualities 
 which can best be spared go first. Judged by this grimly 
 practial test our mentality depends upon the physical 
 development at the time and must have been an evolu- 
 tion from lower forms of mentality. 
 
 PALEONTOLOGY— Darwin says that the evidences 
 from geology are few and scattered, that only a small 
 portion of the earth's crust has been penetrated, and that 
 fossil remains are not so satisfactory as he could wish. 
 But when he was in South America during the voyage 
 of the Beagle he noticed that the fossil species of that 
 region were only modifications of the living species. 
 Romanes on the contrary says that the geological record 
 is very rich in evidence, and in his work entitled "Dar- 
 win and After Darwin," gives a large number of very 
 convincing proofs. Among them are the following : 
 "There is a general concordance of fossilized animals, 
 from the Cambrian formation to the Post-Pliocene, 
 with the requirements of the evolutionary theory. There 
 is an evident adaption of the animal to its habitat ; a cor- 
 respondence of its structure with the nece&sary function 
 of obtaining sustenance in the peculiar conditions of 
 each geological period. There is a gradual progression 
 from the simple to the complex; from homogeneous 
 structure to specialized or heterogeneous structure." 
 
 "The earliest ruminants were hornless. Then in the 
 middle Miocene the first antelopes appeared with tiny 
 horns which progressively increased in size until the 
 present day. But it is in the deer tribe that we meet 
 with even better evidence touching the progressive evo- 
 lution of horns. For deer's horns or antlers are arbor- 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 27 
 
 escent. Among the older members of the tribe in the 
 lower Miocene there are no horns at all. In the mid- 
 Miocene we meet with two pronged horns. Next, in the 
 upper Miocene and extending into the Pliocene we meet 
 with three pronged horns. Then in the Pliocene we find 
 also four pronged horns, leading us to five pronged. 
 Lastly, in the forest beds of Norfolk we meet with ar- 
 borescent horns. The life history of existing stags furn- 
 ishes a parallel development; beginning with a single 
 horn (which has not yet been found paleontologically), 
 going on to two prongs, three prongs, four prongs, and 
 afterwards branching." * 
 
 Prof. Marsh's illustration of the evolution of the 
 horse and his progenitors from the Eocene epoch to the 
 present time is one of the strongest proofs from Pale- 
 ontology. In each epoch the feet were structurally 
 adapted to the surface of the earth for locomotion, and 
 the teeth to the mastication of the existing food of the 
 period. But the principal point is that each successive 
 form was a modified descendent of the preceding form, 
 changed by the natural method of variation and hered- 
 ity, not by special creation. In this case of the horse and 
 his ancestors the missing links are produced by Prof. 
 Marsh. On page 232, Le Conte's "Evolution," in speak- 
 ing of the missing links in general, Prof. Le Conte says 
 in reply to the question of where are intermediate forms ? 
 "We answer, the intermediate forms are eliminated in 
 the struggle for life and are not reproduced by cross 
 breeding." 
 
 I take it that this disposes of the missing link. I hold 
 that it is absurd to talk of the missing link for the further 
 reason that the gradations are supposed to be so grad- 
 
 Vol. I, pp. 167-168. 
 
28 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AXD MORALS 
 
 ual, each modification has been so slight that it could not 
 be perceived by the human senses even if it did exist. 
 Each gradual change from a low type toward a higher 
 animal, would be classified by naturalists as either a 
 variety or a new species, and would be the missing link, 
 but unrecognized as such. Were all the variations 
 through which the first form has passed in its develop- 
 ment into the species now existing, before the natural- 
 ist for classification, the whole might be called one spe- 
 cies with innumerable varieties. Agassiz examined sev- 
 eral thousand shells of one species and found no two 
 exactly alike. 
 
 Paleontology can only give evidence of the evolution 
 of species in time. But geographical distribution furn- 
 ishes arguments from the wide spread location of spe- 
 cies in space. If the theory of special creation were true, 
 then there is no reason why forms either fossil or living 
 adapted to a given environment should not be found in 
 all localities furnishing such environment. For exam- 
 ple, the rabbit when carried in ships to Australia found 
 itself so well adapted to that locality that it overran the 
 island until it was declared a nuisance. Other mammals 
 carried to the island throve as well. Yet the only mam- 
 malian life indigenous to Australia — the dingo being 
 plainly an importation — is one of the oldest and least 
 developed kinds, the marsupial. The duckbill is a very 
 low form of vertebrates. In Australia the forms of ani- 
 mal life found upon the discovery of the island consisted 
 of those found also fossolized in the Cretaceous rocks. 
 The inference is that in the Cretaceous period Australia 
 was connected with the continent of Asia, and was then 
 or soon therafter transformed into a large island. The 
 absence of mammals and the persistence of marsupials 
 are thus accounted for bv natural cause and effect It was 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 29 
 
 while on the voyage of the Beagle that Darwin noticed a 
 similar anomaly in the fauna of the Gallepagos Islands, 
 six hundred miles off the west coast of South America. 
 The fauna there consisted almost entirely of birds, with 
 three species of land tortoise and five species of lizard — 
 no mammals. But he noticed that the forms of these 
 were very closely related to those on the mainland. The 
 inference was that the islands had been colonized by 
 such of the continental forms as could cross the inter- 
 vening strip of the sea, the birds by flying, the lizard and 
 tortoise eggs transported on drift wood or carried by 
 water direct. But why, if special creation were a fact, 
 was there an absence of such forms of the animal king- 
 dom as could not have been brought in some way from 
 the continent? These islands are as well adapted to 
 mammal life as the continent is, and if all mammals were 
 specially created, why not here? 
 
 Romanes in his chapter on "Geographical Distribu- 
 tion" says,* "The conclusion to which, I . submit, all 
 the evidence leads, is, that if the doctrine of special cre- 
 ation is taken to be true, then it must be further taken 
 that the one and only principle which has been consist- 
 ently followed in the geographical distribution of spe- 
 cies, is that of so depositing them as to make it every- 
 where appear that they were not thus deposited at all, 
 but came into existence where they now occur by way of 
 genetic descent with perpetual migration and correlative 
 modification." 
 
 THE METHOD. — So far I have confined my re- 
 marks on evolution to the facts which seem to support 
 it. But the method is equally interesting, because not 
 until Darwin, did any one draw the same conclusion as 
 
 * "Darwin and After Darwin. 
 
30 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 to the method from the same well known facts as he did, 
 except Alfred R. Wallace, who published his paper on 
 Natural Selection simultaneously with Darwin's "Origin 
 of Species." But Darwin undoubtedly preceded him in 
 the conception of the theory. For in 1844 Darwin wrote 
 a foreshadowing of it, and was really at that time con- 
 vinced that natural selection was the principal method. 
 He arrived home from his voyage on the Beagle in 1837 
 and from that time on he pursued the study of the facts 
 and methods of evolution. 
 
 Naturalists prior to Darwin had busied themselves in 
 making collections of specimens and studying the facts 
 of affinity and variation, without seeming to arrive at 
 any theory regarding the origin of forms. They took 
 for granted the statements in Genesis and classified ac- 
 cordingly. Species were asserted to be immutable; each 
 the result of a definite creative act, and each separated 
 from every other by impassible differences. These were 
 the bases of the Linnaean classification. The naturalists, 
 St. Hiliare, Lamarck and Erasmus Darwin were excep- 
 tions. They conceived a crude idea of evolution. 
 
 Any classification, however, was an analysis made by 
 man as a means of logical study, and was more or less 
 artificial. Darwin and Wallace noticed that living ani- 
 mals had a close resemblance not only to each other, but 
 also to fossil animals of the same region. They experi- 
 mented by breeding animals under domestication and also 
 noticed that structural variations appeared frequently in 
 the offspring. This led them to speculate and theorise 
 until they both published at the same time the hypothesis 
 of natural selection as the method by which species had 
 been produced. Their speculation, however, was induc- 
 tive, not metaphysical. It was confined to the realm of 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 31 
 
 natural cause and effect and therefore scientifically 
 legitimate. 
 
 There is a metaphysics of science in the sense that 
 many things, like the nature of the atom, or composition 
 of matter, or of the medium called ether are speculative. 
 But these are simply assumptions of the unknown prob- 
 abilities of matter and motion based on known pheno- 
 mena. There is a very important distinction between 
 natural and supernatural metaphysics. An extreme and 
 the newest form of natural metaphysics is a statement by 
 Lodge on page 383 of the August number 1904 of Har- 
 per's Magazine, "What electricity itself is we do not 
 know, but it may perhaps be a form of or aspect of mat- 
 ter. Now we can go one step further and say matter is 
 composed of electricity and of nothing else." This use 
 of natural metaphisics is within the probable bounds of 
 knowledge. I presume this is the speculative sense in 
 which any scientist would use it. But metaphysics in the 
 ordinary meaning of that term is confined to speculations 
 in the realm of the unknowable. 
 
 Prior naturalists seemed to have confined their ob- 
 servations to mere facts, or to points of difference and 
 likeness of forms, without ever thinking even of the pos- 
 sibility that these facts contained the evidence so effectu- 
 ally used by Darwin in his "Origin of Species." 
 
 Darwin was impressed with the theory of Malthus. 
 This is, that human life increases in geometric ratio, 
 while the means of subsistence multiply only in an arith- 
 metical ratio. The theory will apply more fitly to wild 
 animals than to man, because they have no way of artifi- 
 cially increasing their food supply and adopt no methods 
 of their own to restrict reproduction. As numbers in- 
 crease there arises a struggle for existence, and that this 
 struggle results in favor of those organisms best fitted 
 
32 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 to spread out over more territory and adapt themselves 
 to new sources of sustenance and to new conditions of 
 life, is undoubtedly a fact. If animal life were permit- 
 ted to indefinitely increase, it would in a comparatively 
 short time, fill the whole earth and devour all the means 
 of subsistence. But only the best fitted have survived; 
 the less fit have been overcome. The result has been a 
 constant progress from the weak to the strong, from the 
 simple to the complex, from the homogeneous to the 
 heterogenous. The principle can be illustrated by the 
 gradations of nerve structure in the organisms from the 
 nerveless protozoa to the brain of man. The latter is 
 complex in his mental as well as in his physical struc- 
 ture, and therefore has almost infinitely wider relation- 
 ship with his environment than the former. He is there- 
 fore the better fitted to survive under any and all condi- 
 tions. This holds good with all grades of animal life, 
 in proportion to the complexity of the nerve structure. 
 
 In chapter 4 of the "Principles of Biology" Spencer 
 treats of the proximate definition of life, and shows that 
 it means the same as his definition of evolution given 
 heretofore. So that the title "From Homogeneity to 
 Heterogeneity," means the evolving of the higher forms 
 of life from the lower. The term "Higher Form" means 
 a more heterogeneous structure and function. The 
 "Moner" of Hseckel is the lowest evidence of life that 
 we read about, it being a splotch of organic matter with- 
 out form and having no cell formation. The matter of 
 the "moner" is perfectly homogeneous. From this first 
 life substance or protoplasm it is reasonable to infer that 
 the cell was slowly evolved, which probably has taken 
 more time, as geology marks time, than all the ages since 
 the first cell was formed. 
 
 Darwin made innumerable experiments on domestic 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 33 
 
 animals and plants. Of course he could only set the ani- 
 mal forms around him to doing what nature had always 
 been doing in the perpetuation of wild animals. In do- 
 mesticity, man, when making a business of producing 
 animals and vegetables, destroys the unfavorable varia- 
 tions and preserves the useful ones. This made the pro- 
 cess of artificial selection operate only more rapidly than 
 occurs in the wild state, and the changes that occurred 
 could be seen by man ; while natural selection away from 
 the vision of man occupies such long periods and oper- 
 ates' so obscurely that man can seldom note its action di- 
 rectly. The object of man's selection was entirely dif- 
 ferent from the meaning of natural selection. Nature 
 takes her own time, which undoubtedly is very long, in 
 deriving a new species, not for the benefit of man, but 
 for the benefit of the organism selected, and of the race 
 to which it belongs, by the preservation of those best 
 adapted to perpetuate the life of the species under the 
 existing natural conditions. * 
 
 * Hugo De Vries, of Amsterdam, contends that species are 
 formed by variation and natural selection, but that the process 
 is not a slow adaptation of minute variations. It is by a varia- 
 tion by heredity constituting the species almost at once. Whether 
 this is true or not, it does not invalidate the principle of evolu- 
 tion by the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. 
 The theory of De Vries, as I understand it, simply shortens the 
 process of the same essential fact of Darwin's theory. 
 
 Hugo De Vries says, "Those individuals survive that find 
 their life condition most favorable, and they are therefore the 
 most vigorous. Natural selection in the struggle for existence 
 between the newly originated elementary species is quite differ- 
 ent. These originate suddenly unmediated and multiply them- 
 selves, if nothing stands in the way, because they are for the 
 most part completely, or in a high degree, heritable. If then the 
 increase leads to a struggle for sustenance the weaker succumb 
 and are rooted out." 
 
 I do not see the difference between this contention and that 
 of Darwin's, except that Darwin thought that the variations were 
 minute and that the time required for the formation of a new 
 
34 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Natural selection then, is the preservation of the 
 favorable individual inherited differences and variations. 
 Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be af- 
 fected by natural selection, but these are frequently per- 
 petuated by heredity. The varieties of species produced 
 by artificial means, revert in time to their natural struc- 
 ture when man's control is withdrawn. It is not likely 
 that artificial selection has been in existence long enough 
 to produce a permanent species that would persist under 
 natural environment, especially when the artificial con- 
 ditions change to natural ones. 
 
 Natural selection does not produce variations nor 
 does it cause heredity, although Weisman adopted a the- 
 ory that variations are produced by the selective process 
 in the determinants of the germ plasm. But that theory 
 is not generally received. Given heredity and variation; 
 or as Haeckel calls it, adaptation; then natural selection 
 simply means the continuation of the favorable, and the 
 dying out of the unfavorable. Among the lower organ- 
 isms especially, it is apparent that favorable always 
 means those variations that can easiest procure the 
 means of subsistence, and this is called the survival of 
 the fittest. So that the full definition is, "Natural selec- 
 tion in the survival of the fittest in the struggle for ex- 
 istence." It will become evident by careful study that 
 this method is really the only one adapted to build up a 
 strong, enduring and capable organism. 
 
 While the principle is quite apparent in the physical 
 life of animals and man, it is more difficult to perceive 
 it in the psychical life of man. Man is so heterogene- 
 
 species was long.. De Vries thinks that new species are formed 
 at once. The essential principle of transformation by heredity 
 and variation is the same in both. 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE; OF EVOLUTION 35 
 
 ous, especially in his mental functions and social rela- 
 tions, that the action of the principle is much less easy 
 to trace. Yet, the more the principle is studied, the 
 stronger becomes the evidence that natural selection is 
 operating just as powerfully in man and in all aggrega- 
 tions of men ; in society, in governments, in churches, in 
 barbarism, or in civilization, as in any animal organism. 
 I can see no reason why the principle should not be the 
 essential method through all phases of organic life. It 
 is true that man seems to have a larger degree of con- 
 trol of his functions than the lower animals. Conscious- 
 ness and reflection* in the form of so-called memory, rea- 
 son and will, seem to partially supersede natural selec- 
 tion. But in my opinion this is only apparent, and cer- 
 tainly not efficient to prevent the natural survival of the 
 fittest in all organisms and methods ; not as man himself 
 would select as the fittest, but what the persistence of 
 force may determine by actual test to be so. 
 
 It is frequently asserted that physiological evolution 
 in the case of man, and especially in sociological evolu- 
 tion, which really is only a phase of biological evolution 
 in its higher forms, has been superseded, and arrested 
 by the evolution of reason. Reason as defined by such 
 asserters means the power of the organism to control its 
 own development and its own functions. It means 
 further, according to these, the ability to organize man- 
 kind socially and morally, and in that way to arrest the 
 principle of natural selection and introduce design where 
 none existed before. This seems to be viewing reason 
 as a creative entity. But the fact is, reason is nothing- 
 more than one phase of the psychical aspect of the phys- 
 iology of the brain, and can only be a result of physical 
 molecular motion in certain centers of the brain tissue, 
 and this is the product of biological evolution. Alfred 
 
36 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Binet says, "reason is a synthesis of images," and that de- 
 scribes it to me more accurately and definitely than any 
 other definition I have seen. It is sense impression, 
 arrested perhaps by not having the ordinary and oft 
 repeated channels of movement which the emotions have, 
 i. e. not being reflex, being a later evolved structure than 
 that wrMch produces emotion or instinct. The" conscious 
 psychical effect of this arrested reflex is called memory, 
 reason, or imagination, according to the particular cen- 
 ter of the cerebrum excited; and the final manifestation 
 of the energy thus aroused, in nervous activity result- 
 ing in muscular movement, is called will. The anatom- 
 ical fact that in some way unknown a variation occasion- 
 ally occurs in the way of added convolution in the cor- 
 tex of the brain, gives the organism so favored new 
 power in coordinating sense impressions. The human 
 brain has evolved by reason of these variations to its 
 present power and consciousness, or awareness, and thus 
 a subjective feeling, that the individual can exercise the 
 power of choice, has resulted. All the psychic phenom- 
 ena beginning with the simple emotions, which perhaps 
 at first were as difficult to express, as is now the highest 
 thought, or reasoning in man, have been evolved by rea- 
 son of those variations or differentiations. It is also 
 likely that when man's present memory, reason and will, 
 shall have been in use a sufficient time they will become. 
 as automatic as are now the emotions. Then the new- 
 born infant will have them as he now has fear, love and 
 hatred. Then higher, more abstruse, more complex 
 psychic phenomena will gradually appear in the mature 
 human organism. 
 
 "Civilized man enjoys an advantage over savage man 
 far in advance even of those which arise from a settled 
 state of society, incentives to an intellectual training, 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 37 
 
 and so on. This inestimable advantage consists in the 
 art of writing and the consequent transmission of the 
 effects of culture from generation to generation. Quite 
 apart from any question, as of hereditary transmission 
 of acquired character, we see in this intellectual trans- 
 mission of acquired experience a means of accumulative 
 cultivation quite beyond our power to estimate. For un- 
 like all other cases where we recognize the great influ- 
 ence of individual use or practice in augmenting con- 
 genital "faculties," (such as in the athletes, pianists, etc.) 
 in this case the effects of special cultivation do not end 
 with the individual life, but are carred on and on 
 through successive generations ad infinitum. Hence a 
 cultivated man inherits mentally, if not physically, the 
 effects of culture for ages past, and this in whatever 
 direction he may choose to profit therefrom. Moreover 
 — and I deem this an immensely important addition — 
 in this unique department of purely intellectual trans- 
 mission, a kind of non-physical natural selection is per- 
 petually engaged in producing the best results. For here 
 a struggle for existence is constantly taking place among 
 ideas, methods, and so forth, in what may be termed a 
 psychological environment. The less fit are superseded 
 by the more fit, and this not only in the mind of the in- 
 dividual, but through language and literature, still more 
 in the mind of the race. "A Newton, a Laplace, a Guass, 
 or a Cayley" would all alike have been impossible, but 
 for a previously prolonged course of mental evolution 
 due to the selection principle operating in the region of 
 mathematics by means of continuous survivals of the 
 best products in successive generations. And of course, 
 the same remark applies to art in all its branches." * 
 
 'Darwinism of Darwin." Romanes. 
 
88 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 There is no doubt in my mind but that this arrested 
 molecular motion, or reason as it has always been meta- 
 physically denned, which gives us the feeling of choice 
 or design subjectively, simply follows in its ultimate 
 course the line of least resistance. In doing this, it pro- 
 duces a feeling of satisfaction or more accurately it 
 directs the tropisms or psychical tendencies of the organ- 
 ism which results in what is called reason, just as the 
 faint reproductions of former sensations called memory, 
 are produced by a molecular movement closely allied to 
 that which originally produced the sensation recalled. 
 The line of least resistance to a sensation coming to the 
 brain, is the product of a great variety of incident phases 
 of the persistence of force, coming from the objective 
 environment. It is modified very largely by the simple 
 emotions of fear, anger, the affections, the sexual emo- 
 tion and sense of possession; and by the multitudinous 
 combinations of these in complex and secondary emo- 
 tions. The common necessity of sustentation of the 
 body and defense of life nearly always determines the 
 final channels of sensations or feelings. In all cases, the 
 final decision of so-called reason; i. e., the course the 
 molecular process producing the mental hesitation will 
 take, depends upon some motive outside of the so-called 
 mind itself, operating through the emotions or instincts. 
 Thus, in reality, what is called the mind of the organism, 
 which is nothing but the aggregation of natural feelings 
 produced by molecular or chemical motion, has no con- 
 trol whatever in forcing this new power of the brain 
 into any but natural channels, and only into such chan- 
 nels as make for the physical welfare of the individual 
 and his race. In fact, in my judgment, the former so- 
 called faculties of reason, memory, will, or any function by 
 which, according to the ideas heretofore prevailing, man 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE; OF EVOLUTION 39 
 
 seems to choose for himself how his brain or any of his 
 so-called faculties may act, are without any foundation 
 in scientific investigation. They are conditions produced 
 by objective sensations coming to the brain. The results 
 are produced by these objective influences in the aggre- 
 gate and are done so gently as to seem to the organism a 
 matter of personal choice or power within himself. The 
 facts of human existence in its utter dependence on its 
 constant adjustment to objective environment for its con- 
 tinuance, are seeming proofs of this position. The con- 
 ditions greatly differ in different brains; hence, the dif- 
 ference in the so-called reasoning power, will power, 
 etc. That is, the reason is always determined by the 
 individual nervous structure in its manner of respond- 
 ing to objective influences. If this view, that psychical 
 phenomena are produced by objective energy acting upon 
 structure in the brain tissue producing function, is cor- 
 rect in theory, then it is evident that they are governed 
 by the same law of natural selection that govern all other 
 phenomena. 
 
 Man then, as a social and reasoning organism, is still 
 evolving both biologically and psychologically. He can 
 never hope to free himself from the biological laws of 
 natural selection now, or at any future period of his 
 evolution. There seems to be an assumption on the part 
 of some authors that what we call the operations of the 
 mind, are not produced by the natural physiology of the 
 brain, but are produced in the brain through its struc- 
 ture, and parallel with its physiological operations, by 
 some unknown super-organic, or supernatural power, 
 not natural energy, that has never yet been defined, 
 superior to the primal element — matter or energy. The 
 older Cartesian idea is that the mind is a spiritual entity 
 having power within itself to freely control the force or 
 
40 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 energy of nature, working through the brain structure 
 in producing thought. 
 
 Parallelists acknowledge the most unaccountable, or 
 not understood phenomena in objective environment as 
 the natural product of matter and motion. Yet when it 
 comes to accounting for what are called psychical phe- 
 nomena they refuse to acknowledge that even the grey 
 matter of the brain acted upon by sense impressions has 
 any real power to produce them, because this is material- 
 ism. Why they are so afraid of matter and motion, and 
 why it is so necessary to go beyond the apparent or per- 
 ceptible results of molecular process to thus attribute 
 them to an unknown and ^indefinable cause, is beyond 
 my comprehension. 
 
 I think when evolution, as conceived by Darwin, is 
 fully comprehended by the mass of mankind, it will be 
 seen that all phenomena, physical or psychical, are the 
 results of evolution and its processes. They are the pro- 
 ducts of that interchange of matter and motion going 
 on everywhere, by a process of integration and dissipa- 
 tion so exceedingly slow that man can never perceive 
 either the beginning or the end of any single phase of it. 
 
 My theory is that there cannot be two separate inde- 
 pendent forces operating in the realm of what is called 
 nature — the one called natural, and therefore evolu- 
 tionary; and the other spiritual, and not subject to the 
 laws of evolution, nor the result of it. All phenomena 
 usually called spiritual, or psychical, are one in true 
 cause with other interchanges of matter and motion, and 
 matter and motion are one in reality — the Unity of phe- 
 nomena has the dual aspect of structure and function. 
 Psychical phenomena cease when that interchange of 
 matter and motion ceases. They exist only in connection 
 with nerve molecular motion. Each brain produces its 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE OF EVOLUTION 41 
 
 peculiar manifestations for that brain only. These peculiar 
 manifestations or functions are not produced elsewhere, 
 nor continued after the disintegration of the brain, un- 
 less by an equivalent quantity and quality of living brain 
 tissue. 
 
 Spencer's definition of an idea is: "A wave of mole- 
 cular motion diffused through them," ("an involved set 
 of nervous plexuses,") "will produce as its psychical 
 correlative, the components of the conception in due 
 order and degree. The idea lasts while the waves of 
 molecular motion last, ceasing when they cease ; but that 
 which remains is the set of plexuses." This means that 
 the nervous structure in the brain which has been 
 evolved biologically is the permanent determinant of 
 ideas. Therefore all laws of evolution apply to psychical 
 as well as to physical phenomena. 
 
 Every so-called action of the will, and every psych- 
 ical action, e. g., every thought, is determined either by 
 the preservation of self or of the race. Therefore the 
 law of evolution in physical biology, which is the pres- 
 ervation of the individual and the race, must apply 
 equally to all forms of psychical phenomena. Ethics 
 and esthetics both of which properly interpreted are the 
 harmonization of the ego to a higher and more perfect 
 environment, have been developed in the same way. 
 They come only with increasing heterogeneity of brain; 
 and that has undoubtedly been brought about by the sim- 
 ple principle of natural selection, the survival of that 
 type of brain which gave ability to adapt one's organism 
 to higher and larger environment. We must not lose 
 sight, in the study of this principle, of the fact that neural 
 variations are very obscure, and that natural selection 
 acts on them for the benefit of the race and not always 
 to the apparent advantage of the individual. 
 
42 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 We know from our own observations upon which we 
 base human law that whatever seems wisest and best, even 
 to ourselves, eventually survives; and whatever is wisest 
 and best should be fittest. But remember at the same 
 time that our human ideas of the best and the fittest are 
 not always the same as the wide reaching methods of 
 cosmic forces. As one instance of the operation of nat- 
 ural selection in the survival of the best in human insti- 
 tutions take the illustration of the celebrated lawyer, 
 who, in commenting on the evolution of the common 
 law of England, in its wonderful adaptation to the pres- 
 ervation of the best interests of man in his govern- 
 mental relations, said that if all the criminals who 
 were condemned by the law could be placed on a lone 
 island in mid-ocean and left to their own control, they 
 would, as a matter of self-preservation, be compelled to 
 adopt the very code of laws by which they had been con- 
 demned. This might not occur until a large number had 
 been annihilated through ignorance by a violation of the 
 natural laws of sociology and obedience to an unfit 
 criminal code. Then the common law being found best 
 fitted to preserve the natural laws, would be necessarily 
 adopted. That is, those who have a variation of struc- 
 ture enabling them to keep in harmony with natural and 
 social law survive, and those who do not, die. Man's 
 artificial selection of customs or habits must be in con- 
 formity with the natural selection of cosmic law. Eng- 
 land's common law was strong and sufficing only as it 
 co-ordinated with natural law. 
 
 Whether the process of organic evolution is accounted 
 for by natural selection, which Darwin defines as the 
 preservation of variations favorable to the individual in 
 its struggle for existence, or by sexual selection, which 
 contributes to the perpetuation of the race, or by the use 
 
A SHORT OUTLINE: OF EVOLUTION 43 
 
 or disuse of parts, yet all these processes, advanced also 
 by Darwin, are natural as contradistinguished from spe- 
 cial creation. It seems to me also that they could all be 
 classified under the head of natural selection, in which 
 case the definition should be enlarged to read : the adap- 
 tation of individual variations favorable to the organism 
 in its struggle for existence, and to the propagation of 
 the race. If there occur in the brain of a bird, for in- 
 stance, a variation of structure making it a lover of the 
 beautiful, as is the case with the Bow r er bird, while that 
 fact may not seem to us to materially aid that bird in 
 its struggle for mere existence, yet it undoubtedly does 
 so. The main point is, however, that all these differ- 
 ences are within the realm of natural cause and effect 
 and the theory does not require the investigator to 
 assume any other cause. 
 
 Such are, in very brief outlines, a few of the evi- 
 dences of the great principle of evolution and its uni- 
 versal applicability occurring to the author. Mr. Dar- 
 win in his great discovery, as set forth in the most im- 
 portant and most original book published in the nine- 
 teenth century, "The Origin of Species," discusses the 
 subject elaborately and, to me very convincingly. How- 
 ever, it is well to remark that it is a theory which scien- 
 tists have generally adopted, because it requires less 
 assumption, and is more capable of scientific proof than 
 any other. It depends upon the manifestations of phe- 
 nomena only for its verification and not upon assump- 
 tions of either cause or origin. 
 
 Evolutionists do not pretend to. account for the or- 
 igin of matter and motion, because they have no sensory 
 proof. Such very able scientists as Spencer, Huxley, 
 and Haeckel, however, say that there is very strong sci- 
 entific evidence that life is an obscure form of that nat- 
 
44 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ural interaction of matter and motion, which is con- 
 stantly going on around us. Haeckel asserts with posi- 
 tiveness, that while as yet, it is impossible to produce 
 life in the chemical laboratory, except some forms of 
 organic matter which are the excretion of organisms, that 
 is, without cell formation, yet it has been discovered 
 that organic matter is made up of inorganic substances. 
 While as yet positive proof does not exist of the manner 
 of the change of the inorganic into the organic, yet I 
 believe that all life has been evolved from the inorganic. 
 There seems to be an entire absence of proof, that any- 
 thing, even what the inaccurate thinker terms "The prin- 
 ciple of life," was specially created. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 CHARLES R. DARWIN THE EXPONENT OF EVOLUTION 
 
 I. Personality and Work. — It is an interesting co- 
 incidence, that in writing in a popular strain of Charles 
 Robert Darwin and his genius, Abraham Lincoln's 
 name should come in mind. For he and Darwin were 
 born on the same day — February 12, 1809 ; the Ameri- 
 can in poverty and obscurity in a primitive cabin in Ken- 
 tucky, and Darwin in luxury and wealth in Shrewsbury, 
 England. In many physical and mental traits, however, 
 they were very much alike, but principally in having 
 that rare quality in common, of absolute honesty per- 
 meating their whole organisms, in their three aspects of 
 physical, mental and moral. One more word about Lin- 
 coln. In any course of lectures delivered by the most 
 prominent platform orators in this nation, nine out of 
 ten, whatever may be their subjects, will have something 
 eulogistic to say of Abraham Lincoln. This is very high 
 evidence of an immortality of character attained by only 
 a few men. 
 
 Darwin was one of the gentlest and most lovable of 
 men.. He was six feet tall, awkward and unpretending; 
 modest in the extreme. He did not stand particularly 
 high in school, hated the classics, and says he learned 
 nothing valuable at Cambridge, where he graduated. He 
 was very fond of hunting, and very early developed great 
 taste for making collections of insects, and especially of 
 beetles. Prof. Henslow of Cambridge took a great fancy 
 
 45 
 
46 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 to him, and when Captain Fitzroy, of Her Majesty's 
 ship "Beagle," wanted Henslow to recommend a natural- 
 ist for the contemplated voyage of that ship around the 
 world, via Cape Horn, Henslow recommended Darwin. 
 Darwin's father objected, because, among other reasons, 
 it would spoil him for a clergyman. But he finally gave 
 his consent, and then Captain Fitzroy came near reject- 
 ing him, because his nose was not the right shape. Thus 
 between theology and the shape of his nose, the world 
 came near losing the results of the wonderful scientific 
 observations and collections made on that most import- 
 ant expedition. 
 
 Going on the voyage of the Beagle did spoil him for 
 a clergyman, but not in the way his father anticipated. 
 It made him instead a minister of the great biological 
 truths of nature to the coming generations of men. He 
 was then nearly twenty-three years old. He remained 
 on that voyage five years, collecting and working on the 
 innumerable dissections of insects, reptiles, and fishes, 
 birds and mammals, gathered both on sea and land. His 
 collection, brought home, weighed several tons. Upon 
 his return to England in 1837, he began his life work as 
 a naturalist. From the time in 1832, when he started on 
 the voyage of the Beagle until he died at the age of 73, 
 he never ceased his labor in this field of investigation. 
 However firmly convinced he afterwards became in his 
 own mind of evolution by natural selection, yet he never 
 ceased to gather new facts tending to further confirm it, 
 or if he discovered anything not in accordance with it, 
 he did not hesitate to make it as public as possible and 
 discuss its bearing. For instance, as illustrative of his 
 patient industry, in studying Geographical Distribution, 
 he experimented with seeds and reptile's eggs by soak- 
 ing them in salt sea water, to determine whether they 
 
CHARLES R- DARWIN 47 
 
 would float or sink, or lose in any reasonable time the 
 power of fertilization. He thus proved that some eggs 
 and seeds could float from continent to island, and then 
 propagate. He patiently tested them with heat, to see 
 at what temperature their fertility would be destroyed; 
 thus indirectly showing at what stage of the cooling of 
 the earth, life could exist. He scraped the mud from 
 bird's feet, tested it for the seeds or eggs of insects it 
 might contain, and carefully cultivated it to see what 
 would grow. He tested every conceivable mode of geo- 
 graphical distribution. He went among dog and pigeon 
 fanciers, among the slums, to learn their methods of pro- 
 ducing variation under domestication, and at the same 
 time would write to college professors to make experi- 
 ments for him. He planted earth worms in the ground 
 at Down, where he lived, waited for them to make the 
 loam on top of the former level, thick enough to meas- 
 ure. Noting the time, he calculated how many feet they 
 would make in a century. It is no wonder that few 
 writers on evolution at the present day, can go far with- 
 out drawing on Darwin for their facts and illustrations. 
 Think of working eight years on barnacles, so small that 
 all the dissections had to be done under a microscope. 
 
 So fond was he of field work and so absorbed all his 
 life in practical experiments, that he never found time 
 to cultivate the art of composition, and said himself, that 
 he could not express himself well on paper. He was 
 therefore frequently misunderstood, even by naturalists. 
 
 Darwin, in speaking of the teleology that some men 
 see in the 1 beauty of animals and flowers, says : "If beau- 
 tiful objects had been created solely for man's gratifica- 
 tion, it ought to be shown that before man appeared, 
 such objects were less beautiful than now." Then fur- 
 ther on he says, "Flowers rank among the most beauti- 
 
48 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ful of productions but they have been rendered con- 
 spicuous in contrast with the green leaves, and in con- 
 sequence, at the same time beautiful, so that they may 
 be easily observed by insects." 
 
 I think this is one of the lapses Darwin frequently 
 falls into. The latter statement presupposes design, 
 and in the language used is strictly teleological. Darwin 
 does not intend it so, but it is opposed to the spirit of 
 natural selection. He meant the trees or shrubs that 
 from unknown combinations of forces brought forth 
 conspicuous flowers, were the ones visited by insects, 
 who by carrying the pollen to other trees of the same 
 genus, thus perpetuated the genus. The flowers were 
 not created for the purpose of attracting the insects. 
 There was no design. Those trees whose flowers con- 
 stituted a favorable variation attracted the means of 
 fertilization and were the ones perpetuated. This 
 brings the statement within the meaning of natural 
 selection. 
 
 Darwin seems to have unconsciously written at times 
 as if there were special creation, and frequently refers 
 to natural selection, as a positive force that caused vari- 
 ation. His letters written in later life show how he 
 regretted having used language in his publications tend- 
 ing to convey the idea of design. The sense of beauty 
 in the mind of man and of the lower animals is an evo- 
 lution. The nervous system was evolved in correspond- 
 ence only with the objective realities in the environment. 
 The senses, therefore, respond to what tends to the 
 physical good of the organism — this is pleasure; and 
 repel what is bad — this is pain. What appears beau- 
 tiful to us, gives pleasure. Ugliness is the sense of 
 pain coming through the senses. The colors of the flow- 
 ers, the optical restfulness of the green of vegetation, 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 49 
 
 were not made to attract or give pleasure to man or 
 animal. But man's and animal's eyes were evolved in 
 correspondence to these objective realities, that existed 
 long before animal life — at least, the chlorophyl of 
 plants existed prior to animal life. Under the head of 
 causes of variation, Darwin says, "Considerations in- 
 cline me to lay less stress on the direct action of sur- 
 rounding conditions, than on a tendency to vary, due to 
 causes of which we are quite ignorant." 
 
 Natural selection does not apply until the variations 
 occur, therefore natural selection cannot be a cause of 
 variation. Among the illustrations of the selective prin- 
 ciple he refers to two-hundred species of beetles in the 
 island of Madeira, that are so far wingless that they 
 cannot fly. These are preserved by the operation of the 
 principle of natural selection, in that the winds of that 
 island blow those that rise on the wing into the sea, and 
 drown them, while those that do not fly survive and 
 propagate. This is natural selection not in producing 
 the deficiency of wings, but the inability to fly causes 
 the heredity of this condition. But it must have taken 
 several generations of beetles to make so radical a 
 change in the structure of the wings. In any event, I 
 do not see how natural selection can, of itself, be a 
 means of variation in structure. It is true Darwin did 
 not pretend to account for variation in the sense of de- 
 termining when a useful variation really occurs, nor on 
 what its appearance depends, nor the space of time 
 required for the fulfillment of the selective process; but 
 he established the fact that selection must be the process 
 and others, like August Weisman, have been trying to 
 solve the problems of heredity and variation. Numer- 
 ous writers upon evolution, including even Prof. Hux- 
 ley, minimize the selective theory, but as Weisman re- 
 
50 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 marks, "I am so thoroughly Convinced of its indispens- 
 abilitv as to believe that its demolition would be synony- 
 mous with the renunciation of all enquiry concerning 
 the causal relaton of vital phenomena." To my mind 
 the real reason why so many scientists neglect or decry 
 the principle, is the hold in various direct and indirect 
 ways that theology has upon human thought and mental 
 motives. 
 
 Darwin says, "Whoever is led to believe that species 
 are mutable, will do good service by conscientiously ex- 
 pressing his convictions; for thus only can the load of 
 prejudice by which this subject is overwhelmed, be 
 removed." — Conclusion of Chapter X, "Origin of 
 Species." 
 
 To my mind, the most important discovery of the 
 nineteenth century was the principle of evolution by 
 natural selection in the survival of the fittest. Prior to 
 this century, man was blindly groping after the truths 
 of natural phenomena. As soon as La Marck, Darwin 
 and Spencer discovered a natural method, at once the 
 prior mythical theories faded away from the minds of 
 scientific men. So, too, did a priori conclusions of all 
 metaphysicians, except such as were afterwards proved 
 by induction to be in consonance with the laws of evo- 
 lution. 
 
 Darwin wrote a large number of books that are 
 standards in science. His thoughts were so important 
 to the world, that other writers, by the score, have been 
 trying ever since the publication of his "Origin of Spe- 
 cies" and "Descent of Man," to enlarge and explain his 
 meaning. I have yet failed, however, to read one of 
 them with so much satisfaction as Darwin, whose some- 
 what awkward style, is yet so convincing. His works 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 51 
 
 carry upon their face the emblem of sincerity and trans- 
 cendent originality. 
 
 It was the same way with Robert Burns' poetry. 
 Notwithstanding he wrote in a dialect unknown outside 
 of Scotland, yet the world keeps delving away at it, 
 digging through the homely provincial terminology to 
 get at the precious jewels of truth hidden therein. 
 
 At the time of his appointment as naturalist to the 
 Beagle, Henslow wrote Darwin that he was no natural- 
 ist, but not to hesitate on that account; that he could 
 make collections, and fill the position better than any 
 one else then available. But Huxley says that after 
 Darwin's return from the voyage, his work upon bar- 
 nacles alone, made him a thorough naturalist. Darwin 
 at times thought that this work was largely thrown away. 
 He also became a geologist and a botanist, but he was 
 perhaps deeper, versed in zoology, than any other branch 
 of science. His work on, "Expression of Emotion in 
 Man and Animals," shows that he knew something of 
 psychology though he did not call it that. He was a 
 naturalist, pure and simple, not looking nor evidently 
 caring for the origin of life or matter, which he con- 
 sidered beyond our knowledge. ' 
 
 He was a wonderful observer, and always drew from 
 his observations some general principle that was new 
 and startling. For instance, in his "Fertilization of 
 Plants," he discovered the great principle that natural 
 selection did not favor close fertilization. Cross fertili- 
 zation produced more vigorous offspring and more num- 
 erous variations, and these survived under the principle 
 of natural selection, while the products of close fertili- 
 zation had a tendency, under the same principle, to 
 die out. 
 
 Alfred Russell Wallace, whose article on "Evolution 
 
52 PHYSICAIv BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 by Natural Selection" was read before the Linnaean 
 Society in 1858, simultaneously with Darwin's, says in 
 a recent article, "Of late years, and chiefly since Dar- 
 win's works were written, the variability of animals and 
 plants in a state of nature has been carefully studied 
 by actual comparison and measurement of scores, hun- 
 dreds, and even thousands of individuals of many com- 
 mon, that is, abundant and widely distributed species; 
 and it is found that in almost every case they vary 
 greatly; and what is still more important, that every 
 organ and every appendage varies independently and to 
 a large amount. By large variability is meant a varia- 
 tion of from ten to twenty-five per cent, on each side of 
 the mean size, this amount of variation occurring in at 
 least five or ten per cent, of the whole number of indi- 
 viduals, and in every organ or part, as yet examined, 
 external or internal." Darwin's work on "Earth 
 Worms" raised those obscure and hitherto unnoticed 
 organisms to the rank of intelligent and exceedingly 
 useful workers. They are makers of productive soil. 
 
 In the meantime he had experimented with great 
 energy and wonderful ability with domestic animals, 
 especially pigeons, in producing variations and new spe- 
 cies by artificial selection. This was easy. The prob- 
 lem then presented was how to prove that Nature did 
 approximately the same things in producing all the vari- 
 eties and species of animals in the wild state. It was on 
 the voyage of the Beagle that he was first struck with the 
 similarity of paleontological, or fossil forms, with those 
 then living in the same localities. But years passed be- 
 fore he was convinced of the mutability of species, and 
 then he still refused to see the immense consequences, 
 sure, eventually to arise from this discovery. The evi- 
 dence finally became so overwhelming to his mind, that 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 53 
 
 organic evolution by natural selection is the process by 
 which living forms have come into their present innum- 
 erable shapes, that in 1844, he first wrote a paper upon 
 the subject. The very large collection of specimens 
 and the wise observations made on the voyage of the 
 Beagle, enabled him, together with his studies subse- 
 quently from 1837 to I S58, to write what he calls, the 
 abstract of his work on the "Origin of Species," and 
 publish it in 1859, in practically the same form in which 
 we now have it, although it was added to, and sub- 
 tracted from in all the six editions, which he had revised 
 prior to his death on April 19, 1882. 
 
 His sense of fairness was so pronounced that the 
 most of the "Origin of Species" is taken up in discuss- 
 ing the numerous objections that scientists had advanced 
 against the theory. His mind was essentially inductive 
 in its reasoning. His theory was based entirely on facts 
 patent to the senses. He was, in no sense, controversial, 
 nor metaphysical. The mere debating society methods 
 of discussion, he sensibly left to others. Great truths 
 are not determined in that way. 
 
 II. His Theory and Genius. — Although his pub- 
 lished works are numerous, his great fame as a man of 
 transcendent genius rests principally upon the "Origin 
 of Species." 
 
 His genius consisted of two elements : — First, his 
 great capacity for efficient industry; Second, his ability 
 to derive from his observations and experiments the 
 principle of Natural Selection. Huxley exclaimed when 
 he first read the "Origin of Species," "Why could not I 
 have drawn the same conclusions from the same well 
 known facts." 
 
 Natural selection, or as Haeckel calls it, "adaptation 
 and heredity," or as Spencer most aptly puts it, "the sur- 
 
54 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 vival of the fittest," means that when a variation occurs 
 in the form, always, followed or accompanied by a varia- 
 tion in the function, which is beneficial to the plant or 
 animal in its struggle for existence, that form is the one 
 that survives and propagates itself. As Darwin says, 
 "Only a few of those annually born can live to propa- 
 gate their kind. What a trifling difference must deter- 
 mine which shall live and which shall die." It is this 
 trifling difference, spread over incalculable time, that 
 finally produced all the different species on the globe, 
 from one cell, or something even lower than a cell. Per- 
 haps the best illustration I can give of what is meant by 
 evolution by natural selection is that all organisms have 
 developed from lower organisms in much the same way 
 that every higher organism now developes in embryo- 
 logical growth, from a minute cell to its matured form. 
 "The embryo of a higher animal of any group, passes 
 now through stages represented by lower forms, because 
 in the evolution, its ancestors did actually have those 
 forms." * 
 
 Darwin's correspondence for the first few years after 
 the publication of the "Origin," shows how agitated he 
 was, and how fearful that his theory would be over- 
 whelmed or fall flat. But when the first day of its pub- 
 lication, the entire edition of 1,250 copies was sold, and 
 soon after another edition of 3,000, it gave him more 
 confidence. Innumerable adverse reviews appeared im- 
 mediately, or in 1860-1861. 
 
 One favorite way of holding him up to the ridicule of 
 the unscientific was to asseverate that Darwin claimed that 
 man was descended from the present race of monkeys. 
 I think Prof. Le Conte of the University of California, 
 
 * "Evolution," Prof. Le Conte. 
 
CHARGES R. DARWIN 55 
 
 has placed the answer to this in the best light by saying, 
 "No living form of animal is on its way manward, or 
 can by any possibility develop into man. The parting 
 between the ancestors of man, and those of monkeys, 
 occurred many ages ago. They are all gone out of the 
 way." Also, say the unbelievers, "If species are derived 
 by slow modifications and descent from other species, 
 show us the missing links." Darwin answered, "If you 
 will show me the missing link between greyhound and 
 bulldog, I will." In fact the missing links are apparent in 
 the mutual affinities of all organisms. The analogy of 
 function and the homology of the structure of all verte- 
 brates show their common origin. The wing of a bird, 
 and the hand of a man, are simply modifications of the 
 same structure. 
 
 Yet occasionally, a favorable review of the "Origin" 
 was given, and very unexpectedly one in the London 
 Times, of two and a half pages. When Darwin read it, he 
 thought he recognized the geinus of his friend Huxley, 
 in the scientific bearing of the logic, and at once sat down 
 and wrote him if he could tell him who the author was ? 
 Of course the truth came out, that a copy of the "Origin" 
 had been sent to the regular book reviewer of the Times, 
 who could not understand the book, and therefore could 
 not write about it. In this dilemma, the reviewer ap- 
 plied to a scientist, who happened to be a believer in 
 evolution by natural selection. He recommended him 
 to apply to Huxley, and let him write the review. Then 
 the regular reviewer could write at the beginning of 
 Huxley's review a few introductory sentences and in- 
 sert, it without further addition just as Huxley would 
 write it. This is what was done. It was just what Hux- 
 ley, as a friend of Darwin's, had been trying to accom- 
 plish, viz., to get a favorable notice of the book in the 
 
56 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Times. Huxley would afterward laughingly tell that a 
 great many of his friends, after they found that Huxley 
 wrote it, told him that they discovered his authorship 
 from the first introductory sentences, and these he did 
 not write. 
 
 As a specimen (see page 341, Vol. 1, ''Life and Let- 
 ters of Darwin," by his son) of how the unscientific 
 mind was affected by the "Origin of Species," Darwin 
 writes that Lord Stanhope said to him, "To suppose that 
 the Omnipotent God made a world, found it a failure, 
 broke it up, and then made it again, and again broke it 
 up, as the geologists say, is all fiddle-faddle. Describ- 
 ing species of birds and shells, is all fiddle-faddle." And 
 the common sailors of the Beagle called Darwin a "fly- 
 catcher." In this same letter in which Darwin writes 
 the above about Lord Stanhope to Lyell, the geologist, 
 he writes some very interesting things. He says, "I 
 work now every day at the Cirripeda (barnacles) for 
 two and a half hours, and so get on a little, but very 
 slowly. I sometimes, after being a whole week employed 
 and having perhaps described only two species, agree 
 mentally with Lord Stanhope, that it is all "fiddle-fad- 
 dle" ; however, the other day I got a curious case of an 
 unisexual cirripeda, in which the female had the com- 
 mon cirripedal character, and in two valves of her shell 
 had two little pockets, in each of which she kept a little 
 husband. I do not know of any other case, where a 
 female invariable has two husbands." 
 
 III. The Effect on Current Theology. — His life 
 work, although not undertaken with any design to sub- 
 vert the thoughts of mankind concerning creation, yet 
 logically and necessarily had that effect. But mankind 
 have always resisted with marvelous and unexplainable 
 fury, any disturbance of their settled supernatural be- 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 57 
 
 liefs. It was so when Copernicus discovered the true 
 motions of the solar bodies, when Newton announced 
 the law of gravitation, and much more so when Darwin 
 published that animals, including man, were not special 
 creations, but evolutions from lower orders. When one 
 comes to analyze the beliefs of men, it is very singular 
 that men cling so tenaciously to a mere subjective idea, 
 which when tested by the re-agent of objective truth is 
 found to be without any scientific evidence whatever. 
 Lady Macbeth said, "Tis the eye of childhood that fears 
 a painted devil." While it is possible that Darwin came 
 nearer being open to the truth as Nature teaches it, than 
 most investigators, yet so strong a hold upon nearly all 
 mankind has the belief in the super-natural as organized 
 in the different systems of theology and education 
 throughout the world, that even he shrank for years 
 after he was intellectually convinced, from making any 
 public announcement of that fact. The virulent attacks 
 made upon him soon after the appearance of his great 
 work, justified that hesitation. 
 
 Mr. Darwin himself, tried to maintain as much of 
 theistic ideas as he thought compatible with a mainten- 
 ance of his theory. So did Spencer and almost every 
 scientist. Darwin was compelled finally, after repeated- 
 ly being misunderstood and misrepresented, to write as 
 follows in one of his letters : "But I have long regretted 
 that I truckled to public opinion and used the Penta- 
 teuchal term of creation, by which I really meant, ap- 
 peared by some wholly unknown process. It is mere 
 rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one 
 might as well think of the origin of matter." * 
 
 Darwin was not the first one to mention evolution as 
 
 *Life of Darwin by his son. Pp. 202-203. 
 
58 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 a fact. But he was the first to ascertain and prove the 
 process by inductive reasoning. He established the fact 
 that species are formed in nature by gradual extinction 
 of the unfavorable and perpetuation of the favorable 
 variations. The universal belief prior to this was, that 
 species were specially created by an omnipotent creative 
 spiritual entity. A mere statement of the theory is suf- 
 ficient to show its immense purport and the astounding 
 and powerful opposition it would receive. It was such 
 a revolution in human thought, which before attributed 
 all creative power to the supernatural, that it took Dar- 
 win several years to convince his own mind, and not 
 during his life did he carry the discovery, in any of his 
 public writings, to its full logical sequence, although he 
 did in his private letters. 
 
 Huxley and some of the German scientists, in carry- 
 ing on the work where Darwin left it, show its bearing 
 upon current thought. Especially so does Herbert 
 Spencer in his great work, "The Synthetic Philosophy. 1 ' 
 Darwin's more intimate personal friends, Prof. Hens- 
 low, who was his sponsor as naturalist on the Beagle, 
 Lyell, the great geologist, Hooker, the English and Asa 
 Gray, the American botanist, bosom friends, while giv- 
 ing him every encouragement in publishing the "Orig- 
 in," never in their writings went as far in support of 
 the theory as Darwin himself ; and while this fact seemed 
 to hurt Darwin's feelings very much, yet in his letters 
 gently urging them to publicly announce the truth of 
 the ultimate effect of natural selection, he always said to 
 them that he was not surprised, knowing as he did, 
 what a struggle he had to convince himself. He was not 
 convinced until the facts became overwhelming under 
 his own investigations of natural organic phenomena. 
 At first Darwin could not give up the idea of design in 
 
CHARGES R. DARWIN 59 
 
 nature, maintained by Paley in his Natural Theology, a 
 book that Darwin had closely read with the greatest ad- 
 miration. But later he saw clearly how the idea of 
 design was incompatible with the theory, and so he 
 wrote to Asa Gray, then a professor of Botany in Har- 
 vard College, who really wanted to be- a Darwinian Evo- 
 lutionist, but could not give up the idea of design, as 
 follows : "Your question, what would convince me of 
 design, is a poser. If I saw an angel come down to 
 teach us good, and I was convinced from others seeing 
 him that I was not mad, I should believe in design. If 
 I could be convinced thoroughly that life and mind was 
 (were) in an unknown way, a function of other' impond- 
 erable force" (meaning a spiritual, supernatural force) 
 "I should be convinced. If man was made of brass or 
 iron, and in no way connected with any other organism 
 which had ever lived, I should be convinced. But this 
 is childish writing. I have lately been corresponding 
 with Lyell, who I think adopts your idea of the stream 
 of variation having been led or designed. I have asked 
 him (and he says he will hereafter reflect and answer 
 me) whether he believes that the shape of the nose was 
 designed." (He might have answered, "Yes, I believe 
 it was so designed, that Captain Fitzroy might reject 
 you as a naturalist on the Beagle.") "If. he does," Dar- 
 win says, "I have nothing more to say. If not, seeing 
 what fanciers have done by selecting individual differ- 
 ences in the nasal bones of pigeons, I must think it is 
 illogical to suppose that the variations which natural 
 selection preserves, for the good of any being, are de- 
 signed." * 
 
 Of course, it was natural that many kind hearts, who 
 
 * Life and Letters, by his son. Pp. 169-170. 
 
60 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 saw the force of Darwin's facts, connected logically by 
 his transparent and convincing reason, wrote him innum- 
 erable letters asking him, in various different ways, yet 
 all leading to the same all-pressing question, whether he 
 meant to do away in mental thought with the universal 
 belief in the omnipotent Creator. His answers uni- 
 formly gave the writers some consolation. He had a 
 horror of hurting the feelings of any one. 
 
 The theory of evolution simply changes the form of 
 our ideas of God. The ultimate reality can not be an 
 anthropomorphic God, but he is Cosmic, compatible 
 with scientific interpretation of phenomena. The only 
 conception of him possible is, subjective, phenomena only 
 not the "Unknowable Absolute" being objective. Car- 
 dinal Newman held that apart from an interior and un- 
 reasoned conviction there is no cogent proof of the ex- 
 istence of God. 
 
 "The persistence of force" or the figurative expres- 
 sion "Nature," is only another name for God. It is not 
 anthropomorphic. It never changes. Appeals for a 
 change of its laws are never heard. Whatever it does 
 is for the good of the whole universe. It is infinitely 
 kind to those who observe its laws. It works constantly 
 towards strength and harmony. Weakness is constantly 
 giving way to strength, and comparative strength to 
 greater strength. It is constantly doing the best for 
 mankind, because mankind is a part of phenomena, and 
 phenomena are the results of the cosmic operations of 
 the persistance of force. Therefore it does not answer 
 prayer. It could not do so without introducing changes 
 that would eventually cause the annihilation of man- 
 kind. It recognizes only that knowledge and wisdom 
 which control man's real relationship with phenomena. 
 It carefully protects him who knows how to avoid those 
 
CHARGES R. DARWIN 61 
 
 natural catastrophes so destructive to life on this little 
 globe. But when it does destroy individual life it is care- 
 ful that nothing essential is lost. The form only is 
 changed to other forms and all the retained energy even 
 is preserved for use in combining the elements again 
 into newer and perhaps higher and more complex bodies. 
 The processes cannot be changed by any desire that man 
 may express to have it otherwise. This is scientific 
 religion. 
 
 Charles Darwin was an absolutely honest man. He 
 would always state the case against himself. If he found 
 himself on the wrong road in his scientific investigations, 
 he would instantly turn about face and follow the trail 
 just as it was blazed by the facts, wherever they led. He 
 was a seeker after the truth only, and not to establish a 
 preconceived theory. He founded his theory upon the 
 facts disclosed by phenomena. He did not assume a 
 theory and then publish only those facts which sup- 
 ported it. He published all the facts, and all the objec- 
 tions to the -theory. Then, by inductive reasoning, he 
 connected the facts together into the most reasonable 
 conclusion that could be drawn from them. Darwin 
 simply made plainer what before was more or less dimly 
 perceived by every thoughtful observer, that the current 
 and historical theory that happiness or pleasure in the 
 creature is a design of the Creator, is a misconception. 
 He emphasized by his discoveries the fact that the appar- 
 ent design, if that word must be used, is the evolution 
 of the complex sentiency from the materials at hand, and 
 that natural selection by the survival of the fittest, 
 though harsh and painful to the unfit individuals, is the 
 only method to accomplish that end. ' But it is more than 
 probable that design, in our conception of it, does not 
 
62 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 enter into the problem. The ultimate meaning is, of 
 course, beyond the limitations of human knowledge. 
 
 There is very much published misconception of the 
 principle of evolution by natural selection. There is no 
 more striking method of emphasizing the reasonableness 
 of the principle than to first quote some of these and 
 then point out wherein they fail to reach the real mean- 
 ing of the theory. Robert Mackintosh, B. D„ M. A., 
 D. D., in his work, "From Comte to Benjamin Kidd, the 
 Appeal to Biology or Evolution for Human Guidance," 
 says, "Natural selection seems to imply transferring of 
 minute random variations into definite serviceable 
 changes. If everywhere there is movement, the move- 
 ment ought everywhere to result in progressive effici- 
 ency or adaptiveness." 
 
 Natural selection is a negative, not an active positive 
 force. It does not transform. When the variations nat- 
 urally occur and are serviceable to the organism in its 
 struggles or efforts for existence, when they become 
 hereditary, tend to establish new species. The new spe- 
 cies will be better adapted than the species from which 
 it is descended to its environment, and we may call that 
 progression. Some movement results in "progressive 
 efficiency" when there is integration of matter into com- 
 plex organic forms. But how about the "movement" 
 of disintegration, or dissipation of motion, such as death 
 brings with it? The word "ought" presupposes design 
 or teleology in the way of "progressive efficiency" as 
 man comprehends it. But man has no conception of the 
 design or meaning of the aggregate phenomena of the 
 Universe. Therefore he fails to comprehend what real 
 progress is, or what movements tend toward progres- 
 sion. 
 
 If Mr. Mackintosh cannot see progress so far in the 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 63 
 
 evolution of the Universe as it now is from the original 
 nebula, perhaps he may think there has been progress in 
 the theological hypothesis that man only six thousand 
 years ago was created perfect and so degenerated by 
 the time of the flood that his Creator had to annihilate 
 him and start man again; that he again so degenerated 
 that the Creator then sent his Son to die on the cross 
 to redeem him. If he find fault with the former theory 
 because at all points it does not show to his mind pro- 
 gressive efficiency, what can he say in favor of the latter 
 theory in that regard? 
 
 He further says, "Dissatisfied with my dwelling, I 
 built myself a house exactly suited to my personal needs. 
 That is real improvement. But forthwith I have to 
 accept an appointment in a different town, and must sell 
 my new house at a loss for whatever it will fetch." But 
 at this point his argument fails. The building of his 
 house was not a real improvement, because his volun- 
 tary acceptance of a call to another place compelled him 
 to sell his house at a sacrifice. As a "designer" of his 
 own permanent welfare he was a failure. He should 
 not have built a home that he would have to sacrifice so 
 soon. It is more than probable that natural selection in 
 the survival of the fittest does not do things this way. 
 "The improvement due to building for myself is for- 
 feited and turns to the opposite. Now, in the far-off 
 past, our planet is said to have passed through more 
 than one ice age. Of course, so tremendous a change in 
 environmental conditions involved the forfeiture of past 
 progress." (Does not this prove that progress,- as we 
 conceive it, is not a part of phenomena?) "The tests 
 were all (however gradually) altered. The last became 
 first, and the first last. The unfit were not found fit; 
 while the fit proved unfit. Physiological capital was 
 
64 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 fatally depreciated, like machinery thrown out of use by 
 a better invention. Only here there was no better in- 
 vention." This is applying theological reasoning to nat- 
 ural phenomena. The same argument will apply to what 
 seems to be Dr. Mackintosh's belief, that of a flood, in 
 place of a glacial epoch. Either an ice age or a uni- 
 versal flood "involved the forfeiture of past progress." 
 If the argument is a sufficient refutation of the theory 
 of natural selection it is also fatal to the theory of a 
 Divine Providence, as an Allwise Ruler. The glacial 
 epoch could not be interpreted as a "forfeiture of past 
 progress." Nature makes no mistakes. Whatever oc- 
 curs naturally is not only right when interpreted cosmi- 
 cally, but is undoubtedly the best for the welfare of man 
 himself. The ice age was the result of natural condi- 
 tions, which if not resulting in covering part of the earth 
 with ice would have perhaps resulted in something yet 
 more destructive. It seems to have resulted in leaving 
 a large part of the globe passed over in a condition of 
 made soil, which man took advantage of in adopting 
 agriculture as a pursuit and means of sustenance. It 
 left the surface better adapted to the evolution of a more 
 highly organized man. The proper question is which 
 theory — evolution or the theological — the better inter- 
 prets the natural well known facts and involves the least 
 inconsistency. 
 
 Progress as conceived in the human brain does not 
 express the cosmic process. Man in himself has made 
 what we term progress. He has evolved from a lower 
 order to what w T e deem a higher one. That is as changes 
 occurred in the form, the temperature, the solidity of 
 the earth's surface, the environment to which all life on 
 our globe must conform, correspondingly changed. The 
 forms of life fitted to the changed conditions were the 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 65 
 
 variations of former life best adapted to survive. Na- 
 ture selected these by the method of adaptation. This 
 is natural selection. While the record shows that bio- 
 logically man became gradually more specialized and 
 heterogeneous with an adaptation to a wider and more 
 complex environment, this may be called progress. But 
 some other lower forms of life, being adapted to all the 
 changes for several geological epochs, did not change 
 and the word progress" would not apply. The best is the 
 adapted — the fit. Our ethical idea of progress toward 
 what we term the angelic or Divine does not express the 
 observed process of Nature. 
 
 The word evolution, as defined by Spencer, better 
 defines the actual state of facts. When a glacial epoch 
 occurs that life now best fitted for its environment be- 
 comes unfit and is dissipated, only the arctic forms of 
 life then survive in the regions covered by the ice flow. 
 On the other hand, if the earth became hotter there 
 would be a corresponding change of life that man might 
 think was decidedly a retrogression, instead of progres- 
 sion. Or if it became too hot life would become entirely 
 extinct. 
 
 The principle is that the survival of the fittest is not 
 what the theologian would call the best 1 — but it is al- 
 ways the form adapted to the immediate environment. 
 It is evident then that the theologically good and moral, 
 that is, the human beings that have made most progress 
 in obeying the decalogue and the conventionalities of 
 society are not the ones whom Nature preserves in a 
 crisis like that of the glacial epoch, or of an epidemic 
 even of disease that occasionally afflicts mankind. How- 
 ever much progress such have made, if their physical 
 organisms are not adapted or fitted to the changed phys- 
 ical environment their religious orthodoxy avails them 
 
86 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 not. This is a fact patent to any intelligent observer of 
 the laws of nature, whether he is a believer in a personal 
 providence or in the law of evolution. It also shows 
 that design, as that word is applied to human affairs, is 
 not adapted to the processes of Nature. In other words, 
 that we have no brain centers capable of responding to 
 the meaning behind the well known evolutionary phe- 
 nomena. 
 
 But it is no argument against individual and socio- 
 logical progress in methods of mental development by 
 education, Man's struggle for a wider and higher re- 
 sponsiveness to his environment is a natural part of the 
 scheme. He could not stop it if he would. 
 
 So talented a botanist as Asa Gray, who wrote a 
 book entitled, "Darwiniana," asked Darwin what would 
 convince him of design. This is amazing to me. This 
 question implies that Prof. Gray, having adopted the 
 theory of design, desired to find facts or a line of rea- 
 soning to support it. The question should have been, 
 "Does a logical interpretation of all the known facts 
 exclude the idea of design?" Design is compatible with 
 creation, but not with evolution. If there is a designer 
 back of phenomena then he is the principle and not evo- 
 lution. But Prof. Gray called himself an evolutionist 
 and was a great admirer of Darwin. 
 
 IV. Honors to Him. Darwin, unconsciously to 
 himself, but following where his brain best responded, 
 finally achieved a real triumph, and left behind him a 
 name that will never die. In this sense he is immortal. 
 For, in the language of another, "Evolution, as a law of 
 derivation of organic forms by descent with modifica- 
 tions, is as certain as the law of gravitation." 
 
 Darwin was seldom in the public eye. When he did 
 appear at the Linnean Society, or elsewhere in public 
 
CHARLES R. DARWIN 67 
 
 scientific associations, he could scarcely believe that the 
 applause was meant for him. Yet no man who ever 
 lived was more entitled to it. He did not start out to 
 do a great thing, but did one of the greatest. 
 
 To hear the current comments upon Darwin, in the 
 theological world, one would think he was a man who 
 wrote the "Origin" with a fiendish design to overthrow 
 Christianity; whose hand was against every one and 
 every one's hand against him. I think the forgoing 
 pages will show how erroneous was this view of him. 
 Yet in his life he was almost universally honored, and 
 at his death was buried in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The list of societies that had elected him to honorary 
 membership covered almost every civilized country on 
 the globe. He has been mentioned by more then three 
 hundred authors, in fact by nearly every scientific writer. 
 He stands at the head of scientific investigators and writ- 
 ers. These honors were the results, without any pre- 
 conceived design, purely of patient work at Down, an 
 obscure country place where he settled on a few acres 
 for life in 1842. His inherited wealth gave him ample 
 leisure to continuously pursue his favorite experiments 
 without any interruption, the only money he ever earned 
 coming from the sale of his published works. He la- 
 bored and wrote in almost perfect obscurity, away from 
 the eyes of men, with no thought of applause, and ap- 
 parently no design other than to discover the true law 
 of natural phenomena. But he found "tongues in trees, 
 books in running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in 
 everything." 
 
 If great honor was heaped upon him by man, whom 
 his investigations and writings seemed to have lowered, 
 but in reality did not, in sociological classification, what 
 would be the tribute to his genius from all animals below 
 
68 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 man if they could convey in written language their ap- 
 preciation, of what he has done to raise them to a nearer 
 relation to the only animal that has a written language ? 
 Even the worms and barnacles, which before had small 
 place in science, and the plants that he elevated in the 
 scale until they seemed to move and think like animals, 
 would turn toward his blessed memory, as the sunflower 
 follows the sun with its admiring gaze all through the 
 day. 
 
 His ultimate standing in science was the simple result 
 of following the truth wherever it led him. If the facts 
 he beheld, proved to his mind any preconceived belief, 
 that was already popular with men, so be it. But if they 
 demonstrated a result in the opposite direction, his hon- 
 est brain no more hesitated to adopt it, than he would 
 hesitate to drink pure cold water when he was thirsty. 
 
 V. Conclusion. — The question is, not whether Dar- 
 win was absolutely correct in all his scientific views, or 
 in all his inferences drawn from his great array of facts. 
 It is probable that the wisest man although he may get 
 the truth of any phenomenon never arrives at the nou- 
 menon, not seeing the beginning nor the ending, it is 
 probable that the most ultimate conclusion he may ar- 
 rive at, has yet behind it a reality that the limited intel- 
 lect of man is incapable of knowing. But the real ques- 
 tion is, "What theory of Nature is most in accord with 
 the phenomena, as seen by the best intellects yet devel- 
 oped?" 
 
 As far as I know, all scientists accept the theories of 
 the "Indestructability of Matter" and the "Persistence of 
 force;" nearly all, "The mutability of Species;" perhaps 
 not all "The Uniformity of Nature." But very few of 
 them are open in frankly admitting, as Darwin finally 
 did, the absence of design. 
 
CHARTS R. DARWIN 69 
 
 Let us hope that other peerless minds, like those of 
 Corpernicus, Newton, and Darwin, will confine their 
 studies and writings to natural phenomena, and thus 
 bring us farther on the road to that Ultimate Reality, if 
 such there is, that Spencer says seems to lie behind all 
 appearances. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HERBERT SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 
 
 Now that Herbert Spencer is dead and his autobio- 
 graphy is published, his work is finished. An estimate 
 can be made of the scope and real meaning of his phi- 
 losophy. 
 
 Darwin confined his efforts almost entirely to biolog- 
 ical evolution. But Spencer enlarged the scope of the 
 theory to apply not only to biology, but to psychology, 
 sociology, and ethics, but not to the metaphysical or the- 
 ological. His autobiography makes plain what was be- 
 fore largely misinterpreted, namely: that he did not in- 
 tend his agnosticism or his belief in the unknowable to 
 be a part of his "Synthetic Philosophy." He did not 
 thus escape the anathema of the formalists, nor did he 
 succeed in convincing any sincere student of his work 
 that he was not essentially what idealists call a phenom- 
 enist. His weakness lay in his fear of the epithet "ma- 
 terialist," and while his contention may be true that he 
 is no more a believer in matter as a thing in itself than 
 he is in spirit as a reality, yet anyone who writes scien- 
 tifically upon the principles of evolution, must necessarily 
 use only the evidence that comes through the senses. 
 These are the phenomena of matter and motion alone. 
 Whoever approaches the investigation of psychical phe- 
 nomena, or consciousness, from what is called the physi- 
 ological side, is called by the idealists and metaphysicians 
 a materialist. It is true Spencer showed very clearly that 
 
 70 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 71 
 
 matter in its manifestations, the only way we cognize it, 
 is as wonderful and subtle as the pretended manifesta- 
 tions of so-called spirit, yet this did not protect him from 
 the scorn and vituperation of those who would not have 
 it that way. His autobiography makes plain also why 
 he did not include inorganic evolution in his philosophy. 
 His physical strength was not equal to the required ad- 
 ditional labor. 
 
 Spencer in speaking of his work called "First Prin- 
 ciples" says, "My surprise was considerable on finding 
 that in most cases" (referring to notices and reviews of 
 the work), "the important part of the book was ignored, 
 and that such notice as was taken, was taken of the part 
 which I regarded as relatively unimportant." * 
 
 "I saw it would be needful to preface the exposition" 
 (system of philosophy) "by some chapters setting forth 
 my beliefs on ultimate questions, metaphysical and the- 
 ological; since, otherwise, I should be charged with pro- 
 pounding a purely materialistic interpretation of things. 
 Hence resulted the first division 'The Unknowable.' 
 
 "To me it seemed manifest that the essential part of 
 the book— the doctrine of evolution — may be held with- 
 out affirming any metaphysical, or theological beliefs". . 
 "such attention as was given" (by reviewers) "was in 
 nearly all cases given to the agnostic view, which I set 
 forth as preliminary." ** 
 
 He further says that those who undertake to guide 
 public opinion laid more stress upon the preliminary 
 metaphysical part, than upon the real system of philoso- 
 phy, the "law of transformation, everywhere unceasingly 
 displayed by existences of all orders." 
 
 * Autobiography, 2d Vol., p. 85. 
 ** Autobiography, 2d Vol., p. 86. 
 
72 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 I regard the first part of "First Principles," "The 
 Unknowable," as weakening the force of the Synthetic 
 Philosophy. Evidently Spencer having therein to his own 
 satisfaction proved that whatever may be behind the ap- 
 parent cannot be recognized by the human intellect, in- 
 tended to dismiss the subject from his own mind. But 
 not so the great majority of his disciples. They dismiss 
 from their minds, not the metaphysical unknowable, but 
 the knowable principle of material evolution and con- 
 tinue to worship in place of the anthropomorphic Hebrew 
 God — what Spencer means by the general term of the 
 "persistency of force, or the Unknowable." No man can 
 worship the unknowable. What is unknowable does not 
 exist for the human senses. Therefore the moment a 
 religion is attempted to be organized upon that idea, it 
 at once recrystalizes into the former anthropomorphic 
 theology. 
 
 Mr. Spencer himself has also given considerable oc- 
 casion for the effect of which he complains by frequently 
 referring in different parts of his "Synthetic Philosophy" 
 to certain phenomena as manifestations of this Unknow- 
 able Absolute and thus making it to that extent really a 
 part of his exposition. In other words he frequently 
 treats the Unknowable as knowable. 
 
 When the work began to appear his neglect in Eng- 
 land by the most of the so-called educated classes was 
 contemptuous, ostentatious and largely after the manner 
 in which James Ward treats him in his "Naturalism and 
 Agnosticism." But he received somewhat better treat- 
 ment in the United States, largely through the efforts of 
 his scientific and personal friend, Prof. E. L. Youmans, 
 the writer of the article on "Evolution" in the American 
 Encyclopedia. The "Synthetic Philosophy" has been ex- 
 tensively read in the scientific world. It can be well said 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 73 
 
 that the general ideas of it have firmly established them- 
 selves in the intellects of the intelligent among even his 
 opponents. Very few now speak outright against the 
 general principle that all things have been evolved and 
 the terms used by Spencer to describe the operations of 
 evolution have become so incorporated into the ordinary 
 language used by thinkers, that they are frequently used 
 in the pulpit. In fact, now is a time of reconciliation of 
 evolution with special creation as evidenced by Dr. Ly- 
 man Abbott's "Evolution of a Theologian." He says that 
 evolution is God's way of doing things. * 
 
 But Moses did not put it just this way in "Genesis;" 
 neither did Darwin, La Marck, nor Spencer, treat the 
 doctrine from that point of view. B'ut Spencer's unfor- 
 tunate first part on the Unknowable as the assumed 
 power behind phenomena is responsible for a large num- 
 ber of evolutionists who keep up the connection in a 
 much more anthropomorphic way, who actually continue 
 to repeat the words of Spencer that such power is even 
 "welling up in consciousness." This assertion means 
 that an Unknowable Absolute is known. The ablest, as 
 well as one of the first in time, of this school of theo- 
 logical evolutionists was John Fiske. His "Outlines of 
 Cosmic Philosophy" is practically an exposition of evo- 
 lution along the lines treated by Herbert Spencer in his 
 "Synthetic Philosophy." He also indorses Darwin's 
 theory of natural selection. • Fiske, of course, saw clearly 
 how incompatible the theory of evolution is with design, 
 and especially with the anthropomorphism of current 
 theology. He seemed worried over it and devoted many 
 chapters to a reconcilliation of evolution and its corrol- 
 
 * Since writing the above Dr. Abbott has declared his unbelief 
 in a personal God. 
 
74 FHYSICAI, BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 laries to the" "religious spirit" of the people. It is signifi- 
 cant that the treatise was first given in lectures at Har- 
 vard College. 
 
 He is true therein to the teachings of science that 
 matter and motion are the only perceptible elements of 
 evolution. Their constant interchange is done by the 
 method of evolution. But in order to preserve the basis 
 of the "religious sentiment," he assumes, as does Spen- 
 cer, that these phenomena are the manifestations of an 
 unknowable power, whose form or substance cannot be 
 defined, but who takes the place of the anthropomorphic 
 God heretofore creating and ruling the creations, in the 
 beliefs of the people. But he lays very much more stress 
 upon this than Spencer did. How can we treat of or 
 with the unknowable except through its manifestations? 
 That is, a line of human action or a code of life must 
 be evolved from what we know, not from the unknow- 
 able. This is science, and on this Spencer really founds 
 his philosophy, and his code of ethics consists of man's 
 correspondence with the knowable objective environ- 
 ment. Fiske really does the same thing. But in order 
 not to be called an atheist, or a materialist, he discredits 
 Comte, Haeckel, Buchner, and all those, including Mole- 
 schott and Vogt, who insist on the same natural moral 
 code, but who also refuse to treat the unknowable as 
 knowable. They refuse to consider it as an element in 
 man's intercourse and correspondence with phenomena. 
 Man cannot propitiate an unknowable power. It is un- 
 changeable, if its asserted manifestations of persistence 
 of force mean anything. Man has nothing to fear from 
 unchangeable phenomena and nothing to hope except 
 that he may keep a proper correspondence with them. 
 Science and good hard sense both teach man that what 
 he needs for the improvement of his condition is knowl- 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPEES 75 
 
 edge of phenomena by which he can avoid those mani- 
 festations detrimental to his being and further properly 
 adjust his life, his whole organism, to the so-called laws 
 of Nature. The change of form called death is one of 
 the essential phenomena. If so, man will come to accept 
 it as such and not dread it as he does now. He will post- 
 pone it as long as possible. A God to be worshiped must 
 be knowable and hence anthropomorphic. This means 
 that he is part of phenomena. Worship, however, of a 
 phenomenon is a paradox. 
 
 The so-called religious sentiment, that is also called 
 spirituality and various other names, is the outgrowth of 
 the limited knowledge of natural phenomena, or natural 
 cause and effect, always characteristic of the mass of the 
 people. This tendency toward supernaturalism is a na- 
 tural evolution, in equilibration with the slow co-evolu- 
 tion of brain, and is a phase of the perpetual readjust- 
 ment of the organism with its environment. This read- 
 justment is going on now and will continue as long as 
 organic life exists. The worshiper of the Hebrew God 
 of the Bible is consistent with this. He clothes him with 
 knowable attributes. He personifies him in a spiritual 
 sense and appeals to him in prayer. At the same time 
 he must know that natural phenomena are persistent and 
 unchangeable. Eventually such subjective condition will 
 merge into scientific and the evolved brain will co-or- 
 dinate its functions with objective phenomena from 
 which it will derive the essential code of conduct it is 
 now seeking from behind the phenomena. Until then 
 theology will continue in some form, and ought to con- 
 tinue as the only possible condition to imperfect corre- 
 spondence. This is Fiske's philosophy when he really 
 ceases to idealize, when he gets far enough away from 
 his strong cohesion with metaphysics and theology. Any 
 
76 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 scientific thinker who confines his reasoning to the in- 
 ductive method has nothing to say of the unknowable. 
 Darwin never alludes to it. There is nothing in the re- 
 quirements of philosophy, much less in science, nothing 
 in ethics or sociology, in short, nothing hi the real wel- 
 fare of the organic world including man, that necessi- 
 tates considering an "unknowable absolute." 
 
 The position is taken by some writers upon the his- 
 torical facts of psychology, that because mankind seem 
 to have always thought in certain channels there- 
 fore there must be some truth in the beliefs thus arising. 
 But this presupposes that the validity of the truth lies 
 in the conceptions or generalizations of the average 
 human brain. The history of human advancement, the 
 changes of belief from age to age, the establishment of 
 the fallacy of the Ptolemaic astrology, the various steps 
 by which science has overthrown preconceived concep- 
 tions in physics, chemistry, biology, and psychology are 
 sufficient refutations of this position. The real fact is 
 that mankind have been controlled by delusions from the 
 beginning. 
 
 It is also true that the only criterion of truth is the 
 scientific inductions of the best brain — i. e. those brains 
 best adapted to the investigations of phenomena. Of 
 course these brains fail to reach the ultimate truth. Yet 
 their conclusions are the only reliance of man. We must 
 rest satisfied with conceptions far short of what we can 
 dimly perceive may lie beyond the limitations of human 
 intellect. 
 
 Fiske distinctly says that the molecular, or chemical 
 process of nerve tissue in the organism does not produce 
 thought. His expression is that molecular motion ac- 
 companies the thought; that physical pulsation and the 
 psychical explosion are parallel. Spencer says that of the 
 
SrENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 79 
 
 two supposable phenomena of the conversion of thought 
 or idea into matter and motion, or the transmission oi 
 matter and motion into thought or idea, he would prefer 
 to believe the latter, but is doubtful. If the thought, or 
 what Fiske calls the psychical explosion is always ac- 
 companied by the nervous shock or motion, but is not 
 produced thereby, what is it produced by? Fiske does 
 not tell us. 
 
 It would be competent for Fiske as a philosopher, or 
 for Spencer, to speculate on this connection, if it must be 
 called that, between the psychical and molecular motion. 
 William Wundt, who confines his exposition to the 
 strictly scientific, and seldom steps beyond the bounds of 
 science to that of philosophy or metaphysics, says scien- 
 tifically as follows : 
 
 "It would fall within the scope of physiology only if 
 we could interpret the psychical processes themselves as 
 molecular processes, i. e. in the last resort as modes of 
 motion or as physical energies. This, however, we can- 
 not do, the attempt fails at once under whatever guise it 
 may be made. Psychical processes refuse to submit to 
 any one of the physical measures of energy, and the 
 physical molecular processes so far as we are able to fol- 
 low them are seen to be transformed variously enough 
 into one another, but never directly into psychical quali- 
 ties." He means by this that the method of transform- 
 ing sensations into ideas and concepts is not perceptible 
 to the senses of self, nor is it observable in the brains of 
 others. I have commented on this in some of the pre- 
 ceding pages. 
 
 "In saying this we do not of course reject the idea 
 that psychical processes may be regularly attended by an 
 interchange of physical forces, which as such form a 
 proper object of a co-ordinate investigation by the molec- 
 
78 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ular mechanics of the nervous system; nor do we deny 
 what would naturally follow that psychical symptoms 
 may be taken as indicative of definite physiological mo- 
 lecular processes, and that they in their turn, if it ever 
 happens that we know more about them, may be taken 
 under certain circumstances as indicative of psychical 
 conditions. But such a relation between the two depart- 
 ments is entirely compatible with their separate inde- 
 pendence, with the impossibility at any time or by any 
 means of the reduction of the one to the other." * 
 
 I do 1 not think he is justified in making this latter as- 
 sertion. It does not follow from the statement of facts, 
 because "separate independence" of the psychical from 
 the physical cannot be proved and has never existed. He 
 wrote the above after he had previously been forced to 
 acknowledge the unity of all phenomena in a physical 
 basis, as follows: 
 
 "If physiology is obliged by the uniformity of physi- 
 cal action throughout the universe to accept the postul- 
 ate that the processes of life have their ultimate basis in 
 the general properties of matter, psychology finds it no 
 less obligatory to assume in the same matter the univer- 
 sal substrate of natural phenomena the presence of con- 
 ditions which attain to expression as the psychical aspect 
 of vital phenomena. But this latter statement must not 
 mislead us. The latent life of inorganic matter must not 
 be confused, as hylozoism confuses it, with real life and 
 actual consciousness nor must it be considered with ma- 
 terialism as a function of matter." 
 
 If the process of formation of ideas (cognition) is 
 unknown beyond the physiology of nervous structure 
 and psychologists refuse or fail to connect the psychical 
 
 * Principles of Physiological Psychology. Vol. I, p. 102. 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 79 
 
 with the material, then what advance has been made 
 since Descartes' time in attributing all thinking to a soul 
 entity. If the psychical cannot be attributed by so pro- 
 found a thinker and writer as Wundt to either a natural 
 or a supernatural cause, then it is agnostic. 
 
 The immediate results of the molecular motion in the 
 brain tissue by psychical phenomena and the immediate 
 preceding material accompaniments of it are recogniz- 
 able, but the connecting process is an unknown thing. 
 The individual cannot feel it in himself nor perceive it 
 in another any more than in himself. I presume Wundt 
 never can find a measurable test scientifically of the 
 purely psychical phenomenon, such as he found in the 
 muscular contraction resulting from an external sensa- 
 tion on pages 67 to 75 of the same volume from which 
 the above extracts are taken. But while the evidence 
 cannot be thus reduced to the same scientific basis as 
 mechanical motion, yet philosophy steps in and must 
 pronounce that such constant connections between such 
 molecular mechanics of the nervous structure and the 
 psychical phenomena of the organism, made up so larg- 
 ely of such structure, appear to be causal ones. While 
 this causal connection eludes the present scientific meth- 
 ods, as does also so many physical phenomena, e. g., the 
 attraction of gravitation, there is no other natural cause 
 yet suggested to account for it. Wundt, of course, does 
 not suggest a supernatural cause, nor in fact any other in 
 the first volume of his "Physiological Psychology," so 
 far as I have read him. As a scientific investigator it is 
 not his province to step outside of the methods of sci- 
 ence to reinforce what his actual beliefs may be. Sci- 
 ence has no beliefs. Its province is measurable demon- 
 stration through the senses. Spencer recognizes only 
 matter and motion. As yet science has discovered no- 
 
80 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 thing in phenomena but matter and motion, or perhaps 
 motion alone in the form of centers of energy. Vital 
 function is psychical phenomena. 
 
 If the brain is simply a bundle of nerves to convey 
 spirit, as copper wire carries electricity, then science 
 should turn its attention to the study of spirit as it does 
 to radio-activity, but when it undertakes to do that it 
 finds absolutely a blank. It is not unthinkable that mat- 
 ter and motion in the form of mobile nervous ganglia 
 can directly produce the common thought of mankind 
 when we see them in other combinations and relations 
 produce tints of changing sunset, the rainbow, the solar 
 spectrum, chemical attraction, the attraction of gravita- 
 tion, and the evolution of all forms. These are objective 
 phenomena that existed prior to any known psychical 
 phenomena. Their connection with their real causes are 
 as obscure as are mental phenomena with their real 
 causes. They are all the results of particular combina- 
 tions and phases of matter and motion and our senses 
 never perceive them except in these combinations. 
 Thought is simply the kaleidoscopic reproduction of 
 these things by presentations through the physical nerv- 
 ous structure. The mind is a spectrum of objective 
 phenomena produced by sensations coming through the 
 eyes, ears, nose, skin, and mouth and what is called self 
 feeling or the kinaesthetic. There can be nothing in all 
 phenomena then, but what matter and motion, in the form 
 of persistence of force produces. Feeling is the observa- 
 tion of the effect by the organism. This is consciousness 
 or awareness, or a still better definition of consciousness 
 is that it is a relation between certain objects, the number 
 being limited by the capacity for impression of the neural 
 structure. 
 
 These observations on the probable nature of psy- 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 81 
 
 chical processes may be stated in a further modified form 
 as follows : 
 
 It may be as stated by Wundt that states of consci- 
 ousness cannot be transformed directly into forms of 
 molecular, or mechanical motion, nor the latter induct- 
 ively traced as causing the former, by any measurable 
 method, such as is applied to the transforming of heat 
 into mechanical motion. At the same time he recog- 
 nizes the inseperable simultaneous or serial connection 
 of the two states, if not as cause and effect, yet as ante- 
 cedent and subsequent facts, by devoting the first volume 
 of his "Principles of Physiological Psychology" to the 
 anatomy and physiology of the nervous structure as the 
 substrate of consciousness. Having measured the ef- 
 fects the nerve substance transmits to the muscles of the 
 body, he says, "Now we have no right to suppose that 
 the laws which govern the transference of nervous mo- 
 lecular processes to the contractile substance, are at all 
 different from the laws which regulate their transmission 
 to other substances, whose properties show them to be 
 related to the nervous elements — more especially there- 
 fore to the substances that are of peculiar import for the 
 psychical aspect of vital phenomena, the elements of the 
 sense organs. Now the processes thus analyzed remain al- 
 ways physical and chemical processes. It is never possible 
 to arrive by way of a molecular mechanics at any sort 
 of psychical quality or process." * But the muscular 
 movements and the "changes set up by the action of 
 stimulus in the sensory cells" are the psychical processes. 
 The changes set up by the stimulation of the sense or- 
 gans, by the energy of the environment, e. g. light, heat, 
 resistance, — by the manifestations of cosmic energy in 
 the multitude of effects in the perpetual apparition are 
 
 *P. 101. 
 
y2 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 as Wundt says, physical and chemical — but they are also 
 the psychical — judgment, memory, and the emotions be- 
 ing some of the changes thus set up. 
 
 On page 321, Vol. I, "Principles of Physiological 
 Psychology" he says, "The simplest psychical contents 
 discoverable by analysis of the facts of consciousness al- 
 ways presupposes as their physiological substrate com- 
 plex nerve processes, the result of the co-operation of 
 many elementary parts. No psychical process can be 
 imagined, however simple it may be, which does not re- 
 quire for its origination a large number of functionally 
 connected elementary parts." Now, if the psychical 
 quality of which he speaks in a previous citation, is 
 something independent of molecular or physical process, 
 then what does the above language mean? I am not 
 able to perceive the independence and must maintain 
 the unity of the physiological and psychical. 
 
 Of course, it cannot be contended that any special 
 form of substance can produce per se, any mechanical 
 effect, e. g. the attraction of gravitation. But it can be 
 contended, on general principles, that all phenomena, 
 physical or psychical are most probably produced by a 
 natural force called cosmic energy, or the presistence of 
 force, the real nature of which is incomprehensible. The 
 peculiar phenomena called vital and that vital phenom- 
 ena called psychical cannot be separated from the men- 
 tal conception of the universal postulate. They are 
 therefore natural and governed by natural laws only. 
 The mind, or consciousness of man, is impossible with- 
 out the neural structure always accompanying it and the 
 neural structure without its function, or without its 
 genetic correspondence with cosmic energy, in other 
 words, without its excitation by the objective, is nothing 
 more than any other functionless matter. 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPEES 83 
 
 I agree with Fiske that whatever in Christianity is 
 essential to the building of individual character, ought 
 to be and will be preserved. This is found on its ethical 
 side. The present decalogue will remain the moral code, 
 except a change of permanence can come with a change 
 of intellectual conception of a natural character building 
 code of conduct, more efficient and that efficiency per- 
 ceived by mankind. His idea is that the idea of Deity 
 must not be given up, but it must be a deanthropomor- 
 phized Deity. Deanthropomorphization means the fad- 
 ing away of the personal idea entirely. The Persistence 
 of Force is a deanthropomorphized Deity. 
 
 Fiske says that Comte's and Buckle's theories of civ- 
 ilization failed because they failed to consider the his- 
 torical fact that peoples always have thought theologic- 
 ally and that evolution teaches that this kind of thinking 
 is natural under the conditions surrounding it; that it 
 cannot be changed suddenly by science and philosophy 
 both of which omit or ignore Deity. It can be replaced 
 only slowly by other thinking along scientific lines by 
 the method of intellectual evolution. This is so, but it 
 does not affect the truth of Comte and Buckle. They 
 were well aware of this historical fact, but were better 
 aware of the delusions connected therewith. Fiske's — 
 An Absolute Unknowable — is just as opposite to this 
 historical theology as that of Comte and Buckle because 
 the personal element is absent. The inconsistency of 
 Fiske in his "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy" consist 
 partly of the manner in which he first knocks down an- 
 thropomorphic theism and then sets up the Unknowable 
 Absolute as an object to satisfy men's religious spirit. * 
 
 * Chapter 2, part 3. 
 Chapter 3, part 3. 
 
84 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The error consists in supposing that the latter as an ob- 
 ject of worship is any less anthropomorphic than the for- 
 mer, except in name. The worship of an unknowable 
 does not satisfy any supposed natural inclination of his- 
 torical worship, the principle of which Fiske was so 
 fearful of violating, as he asserts Comte and Buckle had 
 done. 
 
 But what Comte and Buckle did ignore was not the 
 historical fact that mankind have believed in the super- 
 natural, but the truth of anthropomorphic theism, and it 
 is what Fiske has really ignored. Comte recognized that 
 there might be an Unknowable Absolute, but seemed to 
 know that it could not take the place of anthropomorphic 
 theism in the brains of the people. Fiske's formula is 
 this : "There exists a power to which no limit in time 
 or space is conceivable, of which all phenomena as pre- 
 sented in consciousness are manifestations, but which we 
 can know only through these manifestations." My state- 
 ment would be, "The phenomena that come to us through 
 our senses are known to us and thereori we can base our 
 lives and thoughts. Whatever may be beyond is the 
 unknowable about which we cannot postulate anything." 
 
 Fiske's formula errs, as did Spencer's in stating that 
 we can know the Unknowable through its manifestations. 
 The only way we know the knowable is by manifesta- 
 tions. We perceive the manifestations, but not the final 
 cause of them. If we can know the Unknowable the 
 same way, then there is no difference to us between the 
 Unknowable and the knowable, which is a paradox. 
 
 The Breadth of Herbert Spencer's Teaching. — 
 There is an article in the Cosmopolitan for February, 
 1904, by Logan C. McPherson, another disciple 
 of Spencer's entitled, "The Breadth of Herbert 
 Spencer's Teaching." I take exception to his assertion 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 85 
 
 therein that Spencer "has shown the design that all the 
 threads of existence are weaving." Spencer did not un- 
 dertake to penetrate the design, if any, lying behind phe- 
 nomena. He could not do so, because he says himself, 
 it is the Unknowable. He inferred there might be an 
 Unknowable Absolute, but did not penetrate the design. 
 If there is any design in the phenomena of the universe, 
 it is not perceptible to man, because that means either 
 the knowing the beginning and the end, which Spencer 
 specifically disclaims, or it means that the Unknowable 
 has communicated that design in the manifestations 
 themselves. But who can tell from the manifestations, 
 the object or ultimate meaning of the perpetual appari- 
 tion? Mr. McPherson also states in the article, "The 
 Synthetic Philosophy formulated by Herbert Spencer 
 attempts within the limits of human cognizance to ex- 
 plain why the suns and stars have formed ; why there 
 is life; why the brain has developed ;" etc. etc. This 
 assertion is the same in effect as the design above 
 mentioned. "Why," means the object in view, or the 
 reason leading to the phenomena. Evolution means 
 process only, and not why. The word Mr. McPherson 
 should have used is "how" not "why." He himself seems 
 to recognize this toward the close of the article, in which 
 he says, "In defining the boundary between the realm of 
 the knowable and the realm of the Unknowable, Mr. 
 Spencer ascertains the limit beyond which the inquiry 
 of science is and must forever be without avail, that 
 limit beyond which lies and must forever lie, the sphere 
 of religion." He divorces religion from the knowable 
 and from any connection with the phenomena which are 
 the source of all knowledge, and relegates it to a region 
 bare of facts where, man must grope forever in darkness 
 and ignorance. I hardly think any intelligent man will 
 
86 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 care to spend a moment's time of his short life in such 
 a fruitless realm, when he might formulate an altruistic 
 and ethical code within the known realm. 
 
 It is well to repeat that man knows only what comes 
 through his own senses together with what instincts he 
 has inherited by virtue of nerve structure from his long 
 line of ancestors; that is, his intelligence is his corre- 
 spondence with objective environment. But it is not nec- 
 essary to separate his religion from his intelligence. His 
 religion to be of most utility to him, should be based on 
 knowledge of phenomena. He will either do as he has 
 always done — set up a subjective Deity that he thinks is 
 knowable to him, but which in reality is not, or regulate 
 his life by known phenomena and his relations with them. 
 This is phenomenon. Man's so-called mentality is a 
 unit. He has not a scientific side and a religious side. 
 One part of his mentality cannot exist in an unknow- 
 able realm. It is all in the realm of the knowable. 
 Whatever he does from day to day must have the ap- 
 proval of his intellect. That approval cannot be given 
 to his worship of an unknowable. He now clothes the 
 Hebrew God with human attributes, in order to make 
 him knowable, writes a book, calls it God's book, as 
 a guide to his life, and in every way makes him a per- 
 sonal, knowable entity. All this meets with the approval 
 of what intelligence he has. Now, when his intellect 
 becomes so enlightened by scientific investigation as tq 
 make a Herbert Spencer of him, he perceives that the 
 Hebrew God is incompatible with objective phenomena. 
 He then writes a Synthetic Philosophy to take the place 
 of the former delusion and bases his code of ethics on 
 phenomena as Spencer does, and relegates theology to 
 faith in the unknowable. Mr. McPherson says, "Mr. 
 Spencer's utterance here is abundant proof that he is not 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 87 
 
 a materialist; that in the depth of religious instinct, in 
 the profundity of religious emotion, he yields neither to 
 seer nor to mystic, to no apostle of any faith." 
 
 Mr. Spencer says himself, that he wrote his philoso- 
 phy to take the place, in the minds of those who could 
 comprehend him, of former theological conceptions that 
 are rapidly fading away. I think Mr. Spencer would 
 be surprised to be compared in his "profundity of reli- 
 gious emotion" with seers, mystics and apostles; or to 
 be held as altogether admirable because of any supposed 
 parallelism between his views and methods and. theirs. 
 If his Synthetic Philosophy means anything, it is the 
 supplanting of the religious emotion of seer, mystic and 
 apostle of faith. I wonder if it were not grim humor 
 in him to relegate all such to that unknowable realm 
 which he claims to have discovered, where their pro- 
 fundity of religious emotion would have free course, 
 and leave the knowable' realm to science and scientific 
 religion. Undoubtedly Spencer in his autobiography, 
 when complaining of the misapprehension by his di- 
 sciples of his real philosophy, was referring to such as 
 Fiske and McPherson. Hence my dwelling so long on 
 their writings. I think that Spencerism means natural 
 phenomenism and not supernaturalism. 
 
 There is an analogy between Spencer, the synthetic 
 philosopher, and Shakespeare, the greatest poet and 
 dramatist, in that both are persistent in holding the mir- 
 ror up to Nature, and also in never scolding the status 
 quo, but in having infinite charity for those who are al- 
 ways the creatures of imagination. Everything, how- 
 ever disgusting to civilized and refined eyes, is ac- 
 counted for by Spencer as the natural effects of evolu- 
 tion; while Shakespeare tells in his incomparable man- 
 
88 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ner the exact truth of every situation and gives the lan- 
 guage of the character, not his own. 
 
 Darwin said of Spencer that perhaps he was the 
 greatest philosopher that England had produced. He 
 certainly possessed intellect of a very high order. He 
 was a voluminous author of scientific and philosophical 
 works of the most abstruse character. His accuracy of 
 expression was such that in many instances he was com- 
 pelled to invent his own terminology in order to express 
 the fine shades of meaning. His great fame will rest 
 on his "Synthetic Philosophy" in which he lays the basis 
 of correct reasoning in the second part of his first volume 
 which he entitled "First Principles." The first part of 
 it is a very ingenious and profound exposition of the rel- 
 ativity of all knowledge. But its ensemble consists of 
 what is more popularly called agnosticism. He pretends 
 to reconcile religion, or theology and science, but says 
 in his autobiography that this first part is no part of his 
 philosophy. 
 
 It is certainly apparent now to all thoughtful readers 
 of the whole work that it would have been better had it 
 begun with the second part of "First Principles," in 
 which he discusses the general principles of evolution 
 and evolves from the reasoning a comprehensive defini- 
 tion for both evolution and life. The technical treatment 
 of the subject in process and method is then divided into 
 its usual scientific branches, viz. into biology, psychology, 
 sociology, and ethics. This, of course is an artificial 
 division for the benefit of the human brain in its anal- 
 ysis and study of the natural processes constantly and 
 simultaneously operating as practically a unit in both 
 the objective and subjective cosmos. In other words 
 phenomena as apparent to the human senses everywhere 
 are simply different phases of the same process, viz. the 
 
SPENCER AND HIS MISTAKEN DISCIPLES 89 
 
 interchange of matter and motion. In reality matter and 
 motion may only be two phases of the same thing. The 
 atom may be an integration of millions of ions, whose 
 ultimate unit is an electrical discharge, the one element 
 of Faraday with two polarities. Therefore the "Syn- 
 thetic Philosophy" is monistic. 
 
 Suffice it to say that Spencer's treatment of all these 
 subjects is at once profound and exhaustive. He be- 
 gins with the basis of the whole, in the physical evolu- 
 tion of biological forms, and ends with what now seems 
 to be the crowning function of structure, the most ab- 
 stract and beautiful altruism. 
 
 His "Synthetic Philosophy" is epoch making. No 
 writer after him, who follows in his footsteps and in the 
 same method, so far as I have read, is so convincing and 
 so exhaustive. Notwithstanding an occasional lapse into 
 the mazes of the Unknowable power, "welling up in con- 
 sciousness" and his disposition to minimize the efficiency 
 of natural selection as a theory of evolution, he stands 
 as the great philosopher of natural cause and effect. 
 Spencer says himself in his autobiography that he failed 
 to grasp the method of evolution as Darwin did. He has 
 written a work that will give his name a deathless fame 
 and will do as much as any other scientific treatise, to 
 educate the masses of mankind out of false conceptions 
 and into true ones. 
 
 I think Darwin is the great discoverer of the method 
 of organic evolution and Spencer the greatest exponent 
 of its universality. In my judgment these two are now 
 exerting the widest influence in turning the thought of 
 the world into scientific and therefore natural channels. 
 Hence I follow the first chapter of this volume, "A 
 Short Outline of the Principle of Evolution," with ob- 
 
90 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 servations on these great expounders of its phenomena. 
 Every one who would like to study the evidences of 
 natural evolution, which I think is the basis of correct 
 reasoning, should read the works of these profound 
 thinkers. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE RHYTHM OF MOTION 
 
 Rhythm in the Stellar Bodies. — It is easy for one 
 familiar with uranography to determine the hour of 
 the night or the month of the year by the constel- 
 lations that come in view at any point, for example, 
 the zenith, in regular order from dark to dawn. The 
 apparent motion of the fixed stars is about one degree 
 each night from east to west, making the entire circuit 
 of the imaginary concave vault in a year. 
 
 The day and the month can also be told as accurately 
 by noting the point on the western horizon of the ap- 
 parent setting of the sun. I have often seen it disappear 
 below the south end of the Cheyenne range of the Rocky 
 Mountains' in almost exact line with the steeple of a cer- 
 tain church, frequently as red as blood, reminding one of 
 Emile Breton's painting called "St. Agnes' Eve." This 
 point is 23% degrees north of the plane of the earth's 
 equator, and the date, of course, is June 21st. It then 
 slowly moves south day by day, until on the 21st day of 
 September, it sets directly in the west on an extension of 
 an east and west line, looking just before it dsappears, 
 like the headlight of a great locomotive, coming from 
 the west to the east. It does not stop here a moment. 
 It never stops. It keeps on south until, on the 21st day 
 of December, viewed from Pueblo, Colorado, it goes 
 down behind the high point of the Greenhorn range of 
 the same mountains, just south of the Hardscrabble Gap, 
 and 23% degrees south of the equator. 
 
 91 
 
92 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 It then turns again north, setting each day in exactly 
 the same spot it did one year before, completing the 
 round trip from the northern point and back again in 
 365% days. The rising of the sun is analagous with this 
 description of its setting. All this is an optical illusion. 
 
 This apparent rhythmic motion of the sun and stars 
 tells with unerring language to astronomers, since the 
 time of Copernicus, the real motion of the earth on its 
 axis daily, and its free rapid movement in a spiral rhythm 
 in its orbit through space, marking for us the artificial 
 divisions of time. Time therefore is a measure of space 
 and we are only conscious of it by the alternations of 
 night and day or other rhythms. The spiral motion of 
 the earth in its orbit is apparent to the observer of the 
 difference in the angle of the axis of such a constellation 
 as Orion, for instance, to the plane of the horizon, be- 
 tween its apparent rising and setting. In addition to 
 these two motions, the earth has nine other — the third 
 one being the precession of the equinoxes. Fourth, 
 revolution around a common center of gravity of the 
 earth and moon. Fifth, what is called nutation. Sixth, 
 variation in the obliquity of the ecliptic. Seventh, vari- 
 ation of eccentricity. Dr. Croll and Prof. James Geikie 
 account for the probable recurrence of the Glacial Pe- 
 riod by the change of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, 
 together with the precession of the equinoxes and ap- 
 sides, the periods being perhaps 10500 years. Our 
 winters are now very gradually getting colder. Eighth, 
 the line of apsides. Ninth, perturbations. Tenth, the 
 motion caused by a displacement of the sun's center, 
 when all the planets, except the earth, are on one side 
 of the sun. Eleventh, the movement of the solar system 
 as a whole toward a point in the constellation of Her- 
 cules. 
 
the; rhythm of motion 93 
 
 Phenomena on our Planet. — The astronomer Flam- 
 marion says, "Our planet is alive with a certain stellar 
 life which we cannot understand. Magnetic currents 
 circulate in it incessantly. The intensity and direction 
 of these currents vary day by day, year by year, century 
 by century. In 1666 the compass, as observed in Paris, 
 pointed exactly to the north — after that it turned toward 
 the west. The deviation was eight degrees in 1700, sev- 
 enteen degrees in 1750, twenty-two degrees in 1800. It 
 further increased one-half up to 1814, when it com- 
 menced to return toward the north. The deviation was 
 twenty-two degrees in 1835, twenty degrees in 1854, 
 nineteen degrees in 1863, eighteen degrees in 1870, sev- 
 enteen degrees in 1878, fifteen and one-half degrees in 
 1893. It still continues to decrease and it is probable 
 that it will point again to the north about 1962." 
 
 This coming back of the needle to a point it once oc- 
 cupied is rhythm. If it make such change once, it will 
 again. 
 
 In addition to the above he notes a daily and yearly 
 variation of the needle, which appears to correspond 
 with the number of spots visible on the sun; also, that 
 "the magnetic needle enclosed in a cellar of the Paris 
 Observatory, follows the aurora borealis, which, lights its 
 aerial fires in Sweden and Norway." It has been dis- 
 covered in the last half of the 19th century, that every 
 eleven years, the sun spots wax and wane. This perio- 
 dicity affects not only the electric currents of the earth, 
 but many other phenomena, such as the rainfall, and re- 
 sulting scarcity or abundance of food products. All this 
 is rhythmical. 
 
 A tourist can sit on the front porch of the Fire Hole 
 Hotel in the Yellowstone National Park, and watch the 
 
94 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 geyser called "Old Faithful" spout hot water 125 feet 
 high, every sixty-five minutes. When the water has sub- 
 sided, he can wander away to see the exquisite tints of 
 the Rainbow Lake, or the beautiful purple of the Morn- 
 ing Glory geyser, so named because of its perfect resem- 
 blance, in the shape of its opening and color of its 
 sloping funnel-shaped sides, to that flower. By looking 
 occasionally at his watch he can so time his return to 
 the hotel as to arrive in just sixty-five minutes from 
 the last explosion, and be sure he will see another, be- 
 cause "Old Faithful" is true to its name. In fact the 
 flow of all the geysers is rhythmical. The visitor and 
 his convenyance in the regular rounds through the Na- 
 tional Park, thread along the upper waters of the Yel- 
 lowstone River. Like all rivers, its flow is in a winding 
 curve first to one side, then to another, along sloping 
 banks covered with verdure until it comes to the first 
 falls, where is pours over a declivity and soon after over 
 a much higher one with a deep toned murmur into a 
 canon whose sides are high and gorgeously tinted with 
 several shades of yellow, variegated here and there with 
 deep reds and olive greens. The prevailing color of this 
 most beautiful of all canons gives the name to the river. 
 All this is rhythmical. 
 
 The traveler leaves the park and goes to the Pacific 
 coast. 
 
 He sees the contour of the earth as it! appears, every- 
 where the eye rests on its surface, in a succession of 
 swelling hills, mountains and valleys, covered with ver- 
 dure that sways to successive breezes, watered by peri- 
 odical rains and bathed in the sunshine of day, followed 
 by the' shadow of night. He sees the water of the ocean 
 in rhythmic play upon the shore, not only by successive 
 waves produced by the wind, but in the swelling tides 
 
THE RHYTHM OF MOTION 95 
 
 that regularly follow their flow, as faultlessly as day fol- 
 lows night, by the diurnal revolution of our globe. 
 
 As he sails away to the north to visit the Alaskan 
 coast and the Muir Glacier, he follows the windings of 
 the shore among islands of all shapes, except the rec- 
 tilinear, for nowhere does he see a straight line. Every- 
 thing is rhythmical, everywhere is the line of beauty ; no 
 shore without its motion of musical waters; no space 
 without its lights and shadows, that follow each other 
 in rhythmical motion. This description of one part of 
 the surface of the earth is merely typical of the whole. 
 
 It is the same in the social affairs of men. History 
 teaches that nations rise and fall with great regularity; 
 that peoples flourish for a time, then pass away and are 
 followed by others, who are governed by the same rhyth- 
 mic law. For example, the red man of the Western Con- 
 tinent is rapidly passing away, by contact with the 
 stronger and more coherent civilization of the Indo-Ger- 
 manic race, that had previously produced the same re- 
 sult in the European half of the Eastern Continent, to 
 its primitive inhabitants. This widely roving race has 
 just struck the black races of Africa and the older civili- 
 zation of Asia. The same result must follow. The law 
 of rhythm, if it is fundamental, teaches that this Indo- 
 Germanic civilization, which modern history now calls 
 the English, must eventually succumb to a still stronger 
 one, but probably an intellectually better one. 
 
 All mankind have regulated their domestic and busi- 
 ness affairs by the rhythmic motions of the earth around 
 its axis and in its orbit. The regular succession of day 
 and night, and of the seasons, entirely control all the 
 actions and thoughts of mankind. There is an occa- 
 sional spasmodic individual effort to reverse this natural 
 order but always with more or less disastrous effect. 
 
96 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Man cannot change the night into day, nor fail to ob- 
 serve the orderly succession of the seasons, in all his 
 operations. He may as well try to overcome the attrac- 
 tion of gravitation by building a railway to the moon. 
 The equilibrium in his own organism would be quickly 
 destroyed by any change his efforts could make, while 
 the universal rhythm of all natural phenomena will con- 
 tinue without a jar perpetually. 
 
 Even the rise and fall in prices in trade follow the 
 same law. Periods of business activity and prosperity 
 are invariably followed by dullness and financial depres- 
 sion. Buckle says that marriages follow the price of 
 corn. They are governed more by what are called ma- 
 terial conditions than by sentiment. "New York city re- 
 ports about 1250 more marriages in 1901 than in 1900, 
 Baltimore about 100 more, and Cincinnati 252 more. 
 These cities can be taken as examples and when mar- 
 riage statistics are made up elsewhere they will doubt- 
 less show the same record of increase. This was ex- 
 pected. The year was a prosperous one, and according 
 to all past experience it should have shown an increase 
 in marriages. The vital statistics of civilized nations 
 illustrate this fact. So well has this become known in 
 England that the registrar general's office in that coun- 
 try looks upon the marriage rate as the barometer of 
 national prosperity and as able to point out periods of 
 good and bad times as infallibly as the money market." * 
 
 The emotions, imagination, and everything that the 
 world has been in the habit of calling the spiritual, are 
 simply functions, and we are governed entirely by so- 
 called physical laws. Try mentally to separate any one 
 of them for a moment from its physical connections and 
 
 Philadelphia Sun. 
 
the: rhythm of motion 9<j 
 
 it vanishes, it eludes the profoundest research. No se- 
 paration of these functions from their material connec- 
 tion is possible. They are simply forms of manifesta- 
 tions of motion and matter. When the philosopher makes 
 a study of his own organism, or by introspection views 
 the workings of his nervous structure he finds the same 
 rhythmic law. The heart beats, the respiratory func- 
 tions, the peristaltic action, sleep and waking, are all 
 governed by the same principle. Every well informed 
 physician is familiar with the ebb and flow of disease 
 in quantity and quality. 
 
 The mentality of the human organism is controlled by 
 the same principle. It is the rhythmic response of the 
 nervous tissue by means of molecular motion, to the ob- 
 jective environment. That environment is rhythmic, 
 therefore psychical phenomena are likewise. The corre- 
 spondence of thought to the relationship of conditions in 
 the physical environment makes it the echo of those con- 
 ditions. Therefore it is rhythmical. It could not be 
 otherwise. Even the poet's imagination, and what he 
 terms his inspiration, are periodical. His hours of in- 
 clination and ability to use his brain are regularly fol- 
 lowed by his hours of rest and disinclination. The co- 
 ordination of the organism with the subtle law of rhythm 
 is as unconscious to the ego as are the before-mentioned 
 eleven motions of the earth, no one of which he feels. 
 Therefore, the organism must have been evolved and not 
 suddenly created, else there could scarcely be such per- 
 fect accord. The law of evolution is therefore a reason- 
 able inference from the foregoing facts. 
 
 The constant ever-recurring phenomena of life and 
 death, are, perfect examples of the rhythm of matter and 
 motion. Molecules of organic matter are ever integrat- 
 ing and disintegrating. When they come together in the 
 
98 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 form of plastic physiological compound units under 
 favorable conditions, they attract units of the same or- 
 der. A growth is thus commenced and aggregates in 
 time a moving equilibrium, called an organism, which 
 attains a certain size and age, then gradually loses its 
 organic motion, until it no longer remains a moving, 
 but a perfect equilibrium — called death. Then its mo- 
 lecules responsive to the incident force of heat, rear- 
 range themselves into their original and comparatively 
 homogeneous state, only to again condense to a definite 
 heterogeneity, when the favorable conditions arise, and 
 thus repeat the rhythm of integration and disintegration. 
 
 It seems to be evident, from the few examples given 
 above, which might be extended to include every phe- 
 nomenon in organic life, that such life is essentially a 
 correspondence with the inorganic, depends on it for its 
 existence, the harmony of the connection meaning life in 
 proportion to such harmony; complete inharmony mean- 
 ing death. 
 
 Rhythm, Fundamental and Universal. ■ — It might be 
 profitable to trace in this connection, the scientific the- 
 ories now held regarding* the constant interchange of 
 matter and motion going on in the universe, as seen by 
 the best trained intellects, aided by the most efficient ap- 
 paratus now available, in reference to their universal 
 rhythm. 
 
 Kant and LaPlace first advanced the theory that the 
 matter composing the solid bodies of the universe was 
 once in a gaseous condition, that the matter of the sun 
 and planets once filled the whole space of the outer orbit 
 of the farthest planet, and was then what is called a neb- 
 ula ; that an atom of matter is an indestructible unit, 
 inconceivably small and in inconceivably rapid oscilla- 
 tion in empty space. (Now supposed to be composed of 
 
thf, rhythm of motion 99 
 
 ions or electric discharges.) This nebula contained all 
 the elements now composing the complex bodies and all 
 the pervasive ether of the visible universe. Evolution, 
 using the matter and motion existing in the nebula figur- 
 atively speaking, produced all the varied forms now ex- 
 isting. It is now as active as it ever was. New forms 
 are constantly being evolved from the disintegrated 
 matter and motion of old forms and whatever exists in 
 way of phenomena, physical or psychical, is the result 
 of evolution in the materials originally existing in the 
 nebula. No outside force or power has ever interfered 
 in any way in modifying the process, or in abstracting or 
 adding any element not originally existing in the nebula. 
 In using this language it must be understood that evolu- 
 tion is the name of the Cosmical process and is in no 
 sense an entity, nor a personality. — This is phenomen- 
 ism. 
 
 The nebula in some way, explained mathematically, 
 by Newton's principle of the attraction of gravitation, 
 which is only a process — (he does not pretend to define 
 the nature or cause of it) — assumed numerous centers, to- 
 ward which the atoms were attracted, thus initiating an- 
 other motion in addition to its molecular oscillation. 
 
 This motion toward a center would necessarily be 
 rapid and straight, except that Newton's principle teaches 
 that each atom is also attracted by every other atom in 
 inverse proportion to the distance of their centers. 
 This therefore produced a centrifugal in addition to 
 the before mentioned centripetal motion. This also is 
 what is called arrested motion, the centrifugal having 
 arrested the centripetal and resulted in producing light 
 and heat. What now remains of this arrested molecular 
 motion in the nebula of our system is the sun; and its 
 light and heat are produced by this arrested motion. 
 
100 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Now, the oscillation of the atom is rhythm. The oppo- 
 site force of centripetal and centrifugal motions, pro- 
 duced in the mass a spiral or circular motion, which is 
 also rhythmical. The theory contemplates that by grad- 
 ual integration of the atoms upon self-constituted cen- 
 ters, the planets were successively formed, and as the 
 condensation continued each planet was left in the posi- 
 tion it now occupies, with its moment of momentum un- 
 changed from what it was when it formed a part of the 
 nebula. These facts however, could not change the na- 
 ture of the atoms, nor their motions individually or in 
 mass. Therefore, the rhythm existing, before integra- 
 tion, in all the motions of the atom, continued after the 
 planets came into existence. In fact, the rhythmic mo- 
 tions mentioned appear to be genetic and cannot change 
 in whatever form any of them have assumed, by select- 
 ing new centers, either in inorganic or in organic bodies. 
 As all bodies known are made up of these same atoms 
 of the original nebula, then all bodies partake of the 
 same rhythmic motion, which, as far as scientific investi- 
 gation has gone, is common to all matter everywhere, 
 and in every form. 
 
 This is the nebular theory of LaPlace and Kant. 
 But now comes J. C. Vogt, with a work called, "The Na- 
 ture of Electricity and Magnetism on the Basis of a 
 Simplified Conception of Substance," with a theory, ac- 
 cepted by Ernst Hseckel, but so far as I know by few 
 other scientists, at present, that the primitive principle 
 of matter is not the vibration or oscillation of atoms in 
 empty space, but condensation. The centers of this 
 universal condensation correspond in general with the 
 atoms of the other theory. They differ, however, in pos- 
 sessing the functions of sensation and inclination, or 
 what Hseckel calls, will movement of the simplest form. 
 
thd rhythm of motion 101 
 
 Moreover these pyknotoms, as they may be called, do not 
 float in empty space, but are surrounded with an ex- 
 tremely attenuated intermediate substance, which repre- 
 sents the uncondensed portion of primitive matter. Thus 
 we have the ponderable substance, with its power of sen- 
 sation and inclination, and imponderable ether, which is 
 matter homogeneous. 
 
 Now, these condensed atoms and their motion or 
 function, together, form a universal substance ; substance 
 being matter and motion combined. 
 
 Chemistry, which deals entirely with substance, de- 
 monstrates the likes and dislikes of these atoms. They 
 have their loves and hatreds. These are constant. All 
 bodies, both organic and inorganic, are made up of these 
 atoms of substance. The characteristics of these bodies, 
 or aggregations of atoms, are nothing more than the dif- 
 ferentiated motion or function, always existing. Most 
 of these aggregations are capable of chemical analysis. 
 But about eighty of them are called simple elements, be- 
 cause they cannot be analyzed by man ; yet, they probably 
 are aggregations of these primitive atoms of substance. 
 Some of these "simple elements" make up all inorganic 
 bodies. Others combine in definite proportions in less 
 stable molecules and form organic bodies, that is bodies 
 with organs. But the same functional atoms, that is, 
 atoms with sensation and inclination form the content 
 of all. 
 
 Hseckel calls this discovery of Vogt's, of the principle 
 of condensation, the greatest of the nineteenth century. 
 But it does not affect the law of universal rhythm in 
 ponderable matter, which is the substance of all visible 
 forms. Imponderable ether, being homogeneous, cannot 
 be composed of atoms, otherwise it could not fill all 
 space, yet the transmitting of light and heat waves is 
 
102 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 rhythmic. Ether is a theory of scientific necessity, as a 
 support of the vibratory theory of light and heat. As 
 all the different forms of matter, from inorganic granite 
 up to organic man, are simply the differentiated aggre- 
 gations of the atoms of the nebula, after they have con- 
 densed into substance; they must all have the rhythmic 
 motion, and all, in different degrees only, respond to in- 
 cident forces. This response is what Hseckel calls the 
 loves and hatreds of substance. 
 
 The difference between the organic and inorganic, 
 seems to be one of mobility only. The four principle 
 simple elements entering into organisms, are oxygen, 
 hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. Three of these are the 
 most unstable of substances. The combination of them 
 in what is called an organic cell, a combination that only 
 the laboratory of Nature by the process of evolution has 
 heretofore produced, by first forming them into what 
 Spencer calls compound physiological units, perhaps 
 by chemical affinity, results in that obscure form of mo- 
 tion called life. But the essential original characteristics 
 of the atoms are not changed by any combination they 
 can make, and this rather obscure mobility of substance, 
 which we call life, is perhaps the aggregated mobility 
 of the atom, increased by chemical combination and 
 electricity into physiological units at present little under- 
 stood 
 
 An organism, being composed of units of the above 
 mentioned four simple substances, together with added 
 sulphur and phosphorus, in the nerve matter, is very un- 
 stable in its composition. It is therefore greatly re- 
 sponsive to incident forces in the environment. The 
 constant mobility results in an ever changing combina- 
 tion of chemical units which is termed molecular, motion. 
 In the muscular and bone tissue this molecular motion 
 
the: rhythm of motion 103 
 
 is life. In the nerve tissue, in addition to vitality, it is 
 mentality. But inorganic matter, being the segregation 
 of units, having great chemical attraction for each other, 
 are more stable and in comparative equilibrium. The 
 point to be observed is that the difference is one merely 
 of degree, the ultimate atoms of both being all alike. 
 It must be understood that the word "atom" here used 
 is a generic term covering all phases of the ultimate unit 
 — whether atom, ion or electric discharge, or a center of 
 function. 
 
 This principle of condensation of matter, which 
 Hseckel says was discovered by Vogt, is most likely the 
 explanation of the inherent tendency in everything 
 psychic as well as physical in the universe, to integrate. 
 As the organism of man is made up entirely of the atoms 
 or centers of energy which at one time formed a part of 
 the nebula from which the solar system is evolved their 
 tendency of condensation is still the characteristic prin- 
 ciple in their perpetual motion, and this tendency has 
 imparted to the grey matter of the brain the mental im- 
 pulses of mankind to cling together in the struggle for 
 existence in the aggregations of families, tribes, com- 
 munities, states, and nations. It resulted in the establish- 
 ment of not only churches, creeds and religions, but of 
 that great foundation of every religion and all ethical 
 codes — the brotherhood of man. 
 
 As early as 1871, St. George Mivart, who wrote a 
 book in opposition to the sufficiency of Darwin's theory 
 of "Natural Selection," said, "It is quite conceivable that 
 the material organic world may be so constituted, that 
 the, simultaneous action upon it of all known forces, me- 
 chanical, physical, chemical, magnetic, terrestrial, and 
 cosmical, together with other yet unknown forces, which 
 probably exist, may result in changes which are harmoni- 
 
104 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AXD MORALS 
 
 ous and symmetrical, just as the internal nature of vi- 
 brating plates causes particles of sand scattered over 
 them to assume symmetrical and definite figures, when 
 made to oscillate in different ways, by the bow of a violin 
 being drawn along their edges. In such a way the rep- 
 aration of local injuries might be symbolized as a fill- 
 ing up and completion of an interrupted rhythm." He 
 seems to think this may be a prime cause of the dif- 
 ferentiation of species. 
 
 The human, and all other organisms, are in such 
 harmony with the before-mentioned rythmic motions of 
 the earth and stars that they are unconscious of any 
 motion, and only know it by mathematical reasoning. 
 In other words, the organic and inorganic are perfectly 
 equilibrated, and form together a moving equilibrium 
 in the universe as a whole. This result is inevitable, be- 
 cause of the monistic character of the atoms, composing 
 both organic and inorganic. This law of substance ap- 
 plies to both. This conclusion must follow, whether we 
 adopt the kinetic theory of vibratory oscillation, or the 
 pyknotic hypothesis of Vogt, and the universal rhythm 
 contended for is not disturbed by either hypothesis. 
 
 This is monism, when it is found that all things in 
 the universe are composed of identical atoms or ions, 
 and these may be merely centers ^of energy or func- 
 tion. There is a certain degree of life in everything, la- 
 tent in the inorganic, active in the organic. Hylozoism 
 is true to that extent. At least there is a constant 
 change occurring in all bodies and a re-adaptation of 
 them to each other and to the universe. The difference 
 as observed before, between the life of the organic and 
 the inorganic, lies in the degree of the mobility of its 
 units. Not only rhythm, but every other phenomenon 
 characteristic of the one, is, in a certain degree, charac- 
 
THE RHYTHM OF MOTION 105 
 
 teristic of the other. While thought would seem to be 
 a function of the human brain alone, yet it is an arbi- 
 trary term to define a form of molecular motion that 
 characterizes all molecules (compound units of atoms) 
 in some degree, whether they exist in the grey matter 
 of the nerve tissue, or in the primitive and most inert 
 rocks of the earth. There is a soul of substance in all. 
 Man has no monopoly of soul. He has it in a higher 
 degree only, soul meaning psychical function or motion. 
 Molecular attraction, whether in the form of love, or in 
 the form of chemical attraction, is in substance, the 
 same. Molecular repulsion is, in the same sense, hatred. 
 These are strongest in the organic nerve tissue, less active 
 in the muscular tissue and the vegetable kingdom, still 
 weaker in inorganic compounds. But in every form of 
 substance when the proper relations are brought to bear, 
 the same results are produced in different degrees. This 
 is the connection we are seeking. 
 
 Therefore the observed phenomena, heretofore men- 
 tioned, have a fundamental basis or final cause in the 
 nature of the monistic and universal law of substance, 
 of which all things are composed. Rhythm of motion 
 in one form of matter means the same rhythm of mo- 
 tion in quality everywhere. The nebulous molecules 
 of matter and the same nebulous motion attending 
 them, make up, with only local differences of what 
 may be called attraction and repulsion, the phenom- 
 ena going on everywhere in the universe. Could there 
 be the same local attraction of gravitation and the 
 same incidence of other forms of force in quantity, 
 the identical combination of matter would occur to 
 a satellite of Arcturus, for example, as on our earth, 
 and the same forms of organisms would evolve there 
 as here. The atoms there are identical with those 
 
106 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 here. But what is termed morphology must be different 
 in degree or quantity there, from what it is here, and 
 therefore the integration of matter in the forms of or- 
 ganisms must be different, but in form only, not in func- 
 tion or "soul." Perhaps they are not exactly alike in 
 form in any two localities near or remote. All I know 
 about polarity of matter, is that inorganic matter when 
 it has integrated throughout the macrocosm has formed 
 in globular and quasi-globular forms around an axis, hav- 
 ing a positive and negative pole, and that organic mat- 
 ter in the microcosm, or organism, does likewise. For 
 instance, in the form of vegetation, it has for its type the 
 uniaxial stem, leaf and flower, with the petals arranged 
 in a whorl. Whatever variations arise from these 
 typical forms by different impacts of incident forces, 
 vary correlatively the axis; but always the body can be 
 divided through the axis into similar halves. Without 
 tediously elaborating the details, this uniformity of axial 
 integration throughout the cosmos may be identical with, 
 or caused by the rhythm of motion ; or by the causes that 
 also produce the rhythm. For there is undoubtedly a 
 close connection between this universal rhythm, and such 
 observed differentiated forms of energy, as the attrac- 
 tion of gravitation, electricity, and chemical attraction, 
 all perhaps being mere variations of one cosmic force. 
 The rhythm may be caused by the combination of all the 
 forms of this energy. When Faraday said that it is 
 likely that the numerous so-called simple substances 
 would be eventually reduced to one, with two polarities, 
 we can well imagine that the polarity meant is really the 
 same in principle as Vogt's condensation, the motion of 
 matter in its tendency to integrate or dissipate in the 
 monistic rhythmic manner now observable throughout 
 the universe; always around an axis, having attraction 
 
the: rhythm of MOTION 107 
 
 at one end and repulsion at the other. It is the evolu- 
 tion of harmonious bodies, or matter en masse. The 
 properties of radium seem to verify the prophecy of 
 Faraday. 
 
 The bearing that these conclusions have upon the 
 current ideas of "life," "soul," ''mind," and "thought" 
 is apparent to the thinker. It is generally believed in a 
 hazy indefinite way, that these four words indicate : — 
 the first three, entities that have been specially created 
 and put into matter only when it assumes certain forms ; 
 that thought is a function only of the human mind, as 
 an entity, and therefore an agent having will of its own 
 and in no way a product of matter and motion. But the 
 facts heretofore described, seem to show that all these 
 are natural effects of physical causes; that "life" is an 
 obscure form of motion, differing in no qualitative man- 
 ner from all other motions of matter ; that "soul" is the 
 attraction and repulsion of ultimate centers of function 
 wherever they may be, in the nebula or in the human 
 brain; that "mind" is the "aggregation of feelings" pro- 
 duced in all bodies possessing nerves by the molecular 
 motions of the nerve tissue; that "thought," or the proc- 
 ess of getting ideas, is the result of the same molecular 
 motion in the neural patterns of the prosencephalon. 
 
 In former times whoever wrote upon these subjects 
 used the words "mind" and "soul" as entities, or sub- 
 stances within the body of each human being. No 
 thought seemed to be given by Descartes in his treat- 
 ment of the Ego to the anatomy and physiology of the 
 organism in connection with mental phenomena. But in 
 the papers and discussions in the psychological section 
 of the Congress of Arts and Sciences of the World's 
 Fair at St. Louis in September, 1904, I did not hear the 
 word soul and I think not the word mind. The concept 
 
108 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 "consciousness" has taken their place and the new sci- 
 ence of psychology has compelled its investigators to 
 make their first approach to a study of what was form- 
 erly called "mind" and "soul" through the material 
 structure of brain and nerves. 
 
 So we conclude that all things, organic and inor- 
 ganic, have been evolved by the same combination of, the 
 different forms of force, that also produces the universal 
 rhythm of them, so as to conform at every step of their 
 evolution to this rhythm. Life itself nowhere could be 
 maintained if out of harmony with it. Viewed through 
 the eyes of philosophy the correspondence of the human 
 organism, in this rhythmic harmony with the environ- 
 ment is a necessary, and, therefore, a beautiful law for 
 the welfare of the species. If man would struggle in- 
 tellectually to make this correspondence as complete as 
 possible, he could make in that way the most of life. 
 Life must be regulated by the natural harmonious 
 rhythm, pervading all things, or it fails in completeness. 
 The intellect of man is the latest product on the earth 
 of the evolution of substance. Man is a part of and one 
 with the whole and necessarily must accord in his struc- 
 ture and function with every law that controls the earth 
 in its movements, its temperature, its polarity, its cur- 
 rents of electricity, its rhythm. He cannot change one 
 of these laws. He cannot change his location from this 
 planet to another. If he could sail through space and 
 light upon some other planet, he would likely at once 
 dissolve into the original gasses out of which he was 
 originally evolved, because he is not in accord with the 
 local rhythm there. Therefore, this earth is his. only 
 habitat. The practical study for him to pursue, there- 
 fore, is how to make the most of his location; how to 
 prolong his life, and enlarge his knowledge of himself 
 
THF, RHYTHM OF MOTION 109 
 
 and his environment; to study what his relationship is 
 to all the manifest phenomena of this cosmic force sur- 
 rounding him, and his best means of keeping his being 
 in such correspondence with them, that his organism 
 may receive, in both time * and space, all the benefits it is 
 possible to obtain in his present form. 
 
 * Time is our consciousness of natural changes in phe- 
 nomena. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 HUMAN KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 
 
 I do not want to unduly minimize the greatness of 
 man, but we must remember that all we know about him 
 comes from a very interested witness — himself. For 
 instance, Shakespeare says of him : 
 
 "What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! 
 
 How infinite in faculties ! 
 In form and moving how express and admirable! 
 
 In action, how like an angel! 
 In apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the 
 world ! 
 
 The paragon of animals !" * 
 
 This is the fulsome eulogy of a poet, who is an "in- 
 terested party," and not a scientist. Now, hear what 
 a scientist says on the other side — one who did not 
 write poetry. 
 
 Darwin in his "Descent of Man" says that, "Some 
 naturalists in classifying the animal kingdom, have given 
 man a separate order. Man having the only written 
 language among animals, was enabled to do this with- 
 out the protest of the monkeys, who are not only in the 
 same order with him, but that man is not really entitled 
 to a separate family." 
 
 That is the testimony of a scientist whose writings 
 impress me as the purest seeking after nothing but the 
 
 * Hamlet. Act 2, Scene 2. 
 
 no 
 
knowledge: and its limitations hi 
 
 truth, that I have ever read. Darwin's classification 
 would be based on the principles of evolution. In the 
 6th edition of his "Origin of Species," he gives the pref- 
 erence to embryological congenitalism as the basis of ani- 
 mal classification. This would result in classification 
 based upon comparative heterogeneity. 
 
 Cuvier's classification of the animal kingdom, (which 
 I believe is the popular one, and is a great advance on 
 that of Linnaeus), gives man the separate order of 
 "Bimana," and the monkeys a separate order of "Quad- 
 rimana." It strikes me that if the hands made a suffi- 
 cient differentiation of structure on which to base an or- 
 der, then the more hands one has, the higher would be 
 the order. But "Bimana" is placed before "Quadri- 
 mana." In this connection it would be well to remark 
 that the naturalist who from prejudice, or theological 
 predilection, makes every effort to give undue promi- 
 nence to man in the classification of the animal kingdom 
 does not thereby do so, and he cannot stretch his scien- 
 tific conscience sufficiently to find any reasonable fit place 
 for man, until he has gone down the scale from king- 
 dom, through branch and class, to order, and if Darwin 
 is correct (and I have no doubt he is) then he and 
 monkeys should be placed in the same order, and man 
 reduced to at most a family of that order. 
 
 Now, if man had been specially created at the head 
 of .the animal kingdom, he certainly could be classified 
 as such. In fact, in such event, he could not be classed 
 with other animals at all. But in order to be placed 
 biologically he has to take his organic position with ani- 
 mals having backbones and mammae. This is a strong 
 inference for his evolution from a lower order, not how- 
 ever, from the present race of monkeys, but from the 
 
112 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 same lower order from which the present family of 
 monkeys emanated. 
 
 Classification as said above will eventually be based 
 upon the facts of evolution. As a starting point : homo- 
 geneity will serve, and orders, classes, families, genera 
 and species, will be determined by the degree of evolu- 
 tion from homogeneity to heterogeneity, or by the facts 
 of common origin, as shown by the various steps of em- 
 bryology. 
 
 Nature, who is the leveler of all ranks, and who is 
 always uniform in her favors and disfavors, will not 
 allow man to arbitrarily repudiate his kinship to his 
 brother, Ourang-Outang. It would perhaps take a per- 
 sonality above and beyond human influence to place man, 
 even biologically, where he belongs. Where would he 
 place him intellectually? 
 
 Man has heretofore been appropriating the only mind 
 to himself, not only this, but he dogmatically assumes 
 that his mind, which he sometimes calls a soul, is a sep- 
 arate and distinct thing from the rest of his organism, 
 which has been specially created for him alone, and is 
 not subject to the laws governing other organisms, or 
 what is known as the physical universe. He would not 
 give the smallest modicum of soul to any organism not 
 walking upright and articulating words. A dog's artic- 
 ulation by his tail would not answer. 
 
 We dwell on one of the smaller planets of a solar 
 system, which, if placed where the Pleiades now are, 
 could not be seen by the naked eye. Our sun is only a 
 star ; not larger than the third, and some astronomers 
 say of the sixth, magnitude. Our earth is not a millionth 
 part of the solar system in bulk, and our solar system 
 is scarcely an appreciable part of the sidereal system. 
 
 'The orbit of the earth," says Edw. Clodd, "seen 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 113 
 
 from the nearest fixed star, is but a pin's point." The 
 largest telescope yet made fails to find any boundary to 
 space, and no end to the countless globes moving in it. 
 The longest diameter of our earth's orbit is more than 
 a hundred and sixty-five million miles. The fixed stais, 
 which are also suns, having systems of satellites, are so 
 far away from us, that no difference can be perceived 
 in their relative positions, whether seen from one end of 
 this long diameter or the other. Our system, we are in- 
 formed by astronomers, is moving as a whole, toward a 
 certain point in the constellation of Hercules, or toward 
 the star Vega, at the rate of four hundred million miles 
 a year. But this does not necessarily mean that Hercules 
 and the solar system will come together. For Hercules 
 may be moving as fast in the same direction. 
 
 Notwithstanding the above mentioned obscurity of 
 man's habitat compared with the universe, it is common to 
 think how wonderful it is that man knows so much; to 
 what heights of thought and imagination he can soar. 
 But when we come to analyze this supposed knowledge 
 and compare it with what phenomena evidently still re- 
 main to be known, it is apparent that these are mistaken 
 ideas. The efforts and the thoughts of the coming in- 
 tellect, should be given to the investigation of those things 
 that are within the knowable environment and are of 
 probable importance to man's welfare as a denizen of this 
 globe and to his longevity therein. It was little more 
 than three centuries ago that one man perceived that there 
 was some motion to this earth, and he was persecuted be- 
 cause he asserted that fact. In reality, man while know- 
 ing more than other animals, is yet very insignificant and 
 knows little about the reality even of his insignificant 
 abiding place. Some men, however, assume to know 
 both his origin and his destiny. 
 
114 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The fact seems to be that the sensory organs can 
 respond to only a limited number of incident phases of 
 the persistence of force. The eye or retina can receive 
 sensations of light only when the vibrations of ether are 
 of certain length and rapidity. The ear can hear only 
 when sound waves of the ether impinge on the drum 
 structure at a certain other length and rapidity. It is 
 so with touch, taste and smell. It is altogether likely 
 that the structure of our nervous system responds to 
 very few of the innumerable forms that matter and 
 motion assume throughout the cosmos. This is the true 
 reason of the limitation of our knowledge. The human 
 organism seems to have evolved in response to those in- 
 cident forms of force that contribute to its struggle for 
 existence only, and all phases of its physical aspect are 
 emanations from this utilitarian necessity. There hav- 
 ing been no necessity for it to respond to any other forms 
 of force, there is consequently no structure capable of 
 it. We have no sense organ for any response to the real- 
 ities of matter and motion. We perceive only manifesta- 
 tions or phenomena, not origin nor totality of meaning. 
 The "why" of any phenomenon is blank to us. We are 
 incapable of conceiving the nature of the attraction of 
 gravitation, or the real reason for constant molar motion 
 throughout the universe. We cannot lift the veil that 
 conceals the "whence" and the "whither," because bio- 
 logical evolution has not yet given the organs adapted 
 to receive sensations from such objective truths. It is 
 likely that our present neural structure responds to an 
 infinitely small part of the infinitely great variety of phe- 
 nomena. All beyond such response is a blank to us. 
 
 The insignificance of man as a part of the universe 
 is shown, not only by the comparative bulk of our earth 
 and man's locality upon it, and his want of high brain 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 115 
 
 structure, but also by showing upon what a narrow vari- 
 ation of temperature his existence depends. I think it 
 was President Jordan of Leland Stanford Jr. University 
 that said, "If a thermometer could be constructed as 
 high as Trinity steeple, that would measure all the de- 
 grees of temperature that probably exist in the universe, 
 that the degrees in which it is possible for life to survive 
 on the earth, would be no more than one stone in that 
 structure." 
 
 Man is scarcely a speck in the universe, and is cor- 
 respondingly ignorant, but he can at least learn more of 
 his vital relationship to phenomena within the reach of 
 his senses, and would be wise to confine his study to 
 these. 
 
 The matter on the dry plate of the photographer is 
 giving us more information of the universe than the 
 retina of the eye aided by the magnifying power of the 
 most powerful lenses, has heretofore perceived. The 
 colors of the spectroscope, produced by the motion of 
 incandescent matter, by waves of ether are giving us in- 
 formation heretofore unknown and unperceived. 
 
 Delusions have always, since the evolution of mental- 
 ity, existed in the past, for example, the "Crusades," 
 "Witchcraft," "Monarchy," Militarism," "The Craze 
 for Riches," "Appearance of Ghosts." The man in a 
 hypnotic state whose psychology is likely abnormal is 
 made to see and believe things that do not exist, and 
 could not be photographed. The human mind may be 
 fooled, but not the more intelligent matter on the photo- 
 grapher's plate. 
 
 Delusions are not confined to the so-called ignorant. 
 Sir Mathew Hale, though a learned judge of England, 
 and the Mathers, though dominating Massachusetts in- 
 tellectually, believed in witchcraft. Every delusion of 
 
116 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 the present day has its votaries among the so-called 
 learned and great, so that it has ceased to become a 
 reason for the truth that Gladstone or Bismarck, or other 
 so-called intellectual giants are devotees or believers. 
 They may be learned in many things, but be exceedingly 
 ignorant or willfully ignorant of those things most im- 
 portant for man's real welfare. 
 
 The hobgoblin beliefs of one century are naturally 
 classed as delusions by the next, although the beliefs of 
 the latter are mere modifications of the former. This 
 fact brings them within the operations of natural evolu- 
 tion, by selection of the fittest and the dying out of the 
 unfit, which is slowly bringing mankind nearer and 
 nearer, age after age, to the approximate truths of nat- 
 ural law. In other words, as man's nervous structure 
 evolves into higher responsiveness to the obscure laws 
 of natural cause and effect, his preconceived ideas fade 
 from his mind. Man at present seems to be willfully 
 and woefully ignorant. He knows the reality of nothing. 
 That he is slowly evolving into a higher correspondence 
 with phenomenon and its laws, is quite certain. To what 
 extent he will, while confined to this earth, (man being 
 a late product of the persistence of force, that long ages 
 before he was begun, produced the other apparent forms 
 of matter) eventually know the causes and affects in the 
 universe, is a problem I am incapable of solving. 
 
 What the limits of this evolution of structure and 
 function may be is one of the unknown things. But it 
 is safe to say that it will be controlled by the natural 
 limitations of locality and organic neural structure. As 
 long as the organism is held by the indissoluble ties of 
 gravitation to this earth, bounded by the little percep- 
 tions we can have from this point of view, even with all 
 the aids of optical and other inventions, such as the 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 11? 
 
 spectroscope and photography to assist the natural 
 senses, we may reasonably conclude that such corre- 
 spondence will reach but a very limited area of the un- 
 known. However, all finite things within the above limi- 
 tations that are capable of scientific investigation will, in 
 the slow process of evolution, if not already known, be- 
 come so; not in their ultimate essence, perhaps, but in 
 their relativity, the only way, according to Herbert 
 Spencer, anything is known to us. Man advances in the 
 knowable, however limited that may be, and just as he 
 advances, his delusions about what is apparently un- 
 knowable, fade from his mind. Among the monuments 
 marking such advancement heretofore, it is well here to 
 note the discovery that all phenomena are traceable to 
 one source — the persistence of force; another great dis- 
 covery is the unity of nature ; and a few of the attributes 
 only of that unknown thing called matter. 
 
 Darwin, when he discovered the principle of evolu- 
 tion by natural selection, made a long stride, (as it were) 
 into the domain of the unknown, but not of the unknow- 
 able. He paid no attention to the unknowable absolute, 
 nor to the origin of life, nor to the status after death, 
 nor of the cause of variations in organisms, by means 
 of which natural selection eventually produces species. It 
 was a long time before even scientists would consent to 
 exchange their belief in special creation for the more 
 reasonable natural processes of evolution. But the array 
 of incontrovertible facts in the "Origin of Species" 
 finally overcame their inherited prejudices, and now no 
 prominent scientist but accepts it, to some extent and in 
 some form. Since his time, however, and especially 
 at the present time, very much attention is being given 
 by scientists to the origin of life with reference only 
 however to its emanation from the inorganic, and the 
 
118 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 cause of variation, to the extent at least of brushing away 
 its mystery and its noli me tangere sacredness. 
 
 Weisman while formulating a theory of natural selec- 
 tion in germ plasm does not pretend to account for the 
 origin of the tendency of the biophor to evolve the vari- 
 ation upon which natural selection operates to produce 
 the structure; and while Professors Burke and Loeb are 
 showing by chemical combinations that life may be pro- 
 duced eventually in the laboratory from inorganic sub- 
 stance, yet they cannot pretend to experiment on the 
 origin of matter, nor of energy. It may eventually be 
 shown that life is a form of matter and motion, and of 
 course, all forms have origin. 
 
 Spencer further enlarged the knowledge of the nat- 
 ural, by showing in his "Synthetic Philosophy" that not 
 only living organisms, but all phenomena in nature and 
 society, dynamic and static, are the results of this same 
 law of evolution, and that life itself, which by some is 
 called a "vital principle," is only a differentiated phase 
 of motion and matter, more complicated and therefore 
 only less discernable to the human intellect, than other 
 aspects of this same matter and motion. In other words, 
 it is natural. 
 
 Everything called phenomenon can ultimately be dis- 
 covered in its phenomenal relation to other things, but 
 that noumenon the reality of things, or the power, 
 claimed by Spencer, to be behind and probably producing 
 the phenomena can probably never be known. The his- 
 toric origin of life will not be discovered, but the mode 
 of its arising from the inorganic will be, because it must 
 be a phenomenon of the interchange of matter and mo- 
 tion, perfectly apparent to the human senses. 
 
 With regard to the distinctive properties of living 
 matter, Prof. C. Lloyd Morgan in his article on "Vital- 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 119 
 
 ism," (see "Monist," p. 196, January 1899) says, "If by 
 'Vital Force' we mean the noumenal cause of the spe- 
 cial modes of molecular motion that characterize proto- 
 plasm, its metaphysical validity may be acknowledged, so 
 long as it is regarded as immanent in the dynamical sys- 
 tem and not interpolated from without in a manner un- 
 known throughout the rest of the wide realm of nature." 
 I take this to mean that life is not a supernatural, but a 
 natural phenomenon. 
 
 The origin of matter cannot be known because that 
 is one of the elements producing phenomena and is only 
 perceptible to the human senses by its differences and 
 relations, such as resistance, weight, form, etc. In 
 other words, man is not in possession of nerve structure 
 responsive to other than phenomena. 
 
 Every knowable thing has the relation of objective 
 and subjective. The unknowable not having this rela- 
 tion, is therefore unrelationed, or unconditioned. The 
 human mind is capable of knowing only the conditioned. 
 We can perceive that the same force that holds in place 
 the innumerable globes, making up the stellar system, 
 called gravitation, likewise holds together the atoms of 
 which these globes are composed, usually called "co- 
 hesion" or "affinity," and that these atoms are every- 
 where the same, whether in the grey matter of the brain, 
 the ether filling all space unoccupied by substance, or 
 the rocks and debris of all globes. The different combi- 
 nations of these make the great variety of effects appar- 
 ent to the senses. The power forcing these uniform 
 atoms to segregate into so many myriad forms, is the 
 unknowable. But we give it scientific shape by calling 
 it "Persistence of Force." 
 
 It would be only a repetition of the foregoing ideas 
 to say that the difference between the knowable and the 
 
120 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 unknowable can also be expressed by the more popular 
 terms of the natural and supernatural. The natural con- 
 tains both elements of the definition of knowledge here- 
 after given, the objective and the subjective; while the 
 supernatural is deficient of the objective. It is purely 
 subjective. It is what theologians call faith. Faith can- 
 not be defined scientifically because our senses cannot 
 receive impressions from its subject. Metaphysically it 
 is want of knowledge. Science, therefore, is confined 
 to the treatment of the natural I do not mean by the 
 term "science" a process confined only to the intellectual 
 few. "Scientific method consists in close observation, 
 frequently repeated, so as to eliminate the possibility of 
 erroneous seeing; in experiments checked and controlled 
 in every direction in which fallacies might arise; in con- 
 tinuous reflection on the appearances of phenomena ob- 
 served, and in logically reasoning out their meaning, and 
 the conclusions to be drawn from them." 
 
 "A previously equipped mathematical mind, a wide 
 reach of identifying force, and an indifference or superi- 
 ority to poetical and fanciful aspects, concur in all the 
 authors of discoveries that bind the conjunctions of Na- 
 ture in mathematical laws." Also, "Science is repellent 
 to the natural mind from the necessity of dissociating 
 appearances that go naturally and easily together, of re- 
 nouncing the full and total aspect of an object whereby 
 it engages agreeably the various senses, and of resting 
 upon some feature that has no interest to the common 
 eye." * 
 
 That is, the brain of man has been organized or 
 evolved, by long generations of correlations of certain 
 sensations coming from the most observable appearances 
 
 "The Senses and the Intellect," by Alexander Bain. P. 518. 
 
knowledge; and its limitations 121 
 
 of objects in the environment. Scientific observation by 
 an occasional superior brain goes beneath these appear- 
 ances and receives its sensations from the more complex 
 and heterogeneous and definite qualities and combines 
 these into a logical principle of general application. The 
 unscientific mind not having any structure of brain to 
 respond to such complex sensations, is repulsed and 
 therefore exhibits no interest. 
 
 Even Kepler, whose wonderful ability led him to the 
 discovery of the now accepted law governing the orbits 
 of the planets, was so saturated by inheritance and edu- 
 cation with superstition, that he could not see how the 
 planets were held in place, unless by a spirit at each star. 
 His intellect was far superior to most men of the present 
 day. 
 
 The inference is, that delusions fully as absurd must 
 possess the minds of the present generation of the most 
 intellectual men. But Spencer says, "As fast as experi- 
 ence proves that certain familiar changes always happen 
 in the same sequence, there begins to fade from the mind 
 the conception of a' special personality, to whose variable 
 will they were before ascribed." 
 
 In the light of evolution these historical facts as men- 
 tioned teach some important scientific and philosophic 
 lessons. They surely indicate also that the human intel- 
 lect or the human consciousness is a growth and not a 
 creation. There is no indication either in human records 
 or in the anatomy and physiology of the human organ- 
 ism, that man was ever perfect, or that ever at any prev- 
 ious period of his race development he comprehended as 
 much of his environment and the significance of phenom- 
 ena as he does now. Induction seems to have been a 
 late method in his psychology and the primitive races 
 seem now to know nothing of it, unless it may be in 
 
122 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 some unconscious processes' in which the lower orders of 
 brute organisms are equally proficient. His power of 
 abstraction and generalization has come only with the 
 evolution of nervous centers, principally in the cerebrum. 
 To these centers anatomists, physiologists, and most 
 especially psychologists, have traced the intellectual 
 power by which he is enabled to lift himself in cogni- 
 tion of his environment from his former delusions, into 
 what now seems, by comparison, a state of very high 
 correspondence with objective truth. But he still has his 
 limitations beyond which it is impossible for him to 
 ascend. These limitations are determined by his nerv- 
 ous structure. 
 
 The important thing to the individual is to have the 
 complicated machinery upon which his mental life de- 
 pends in the most complete working power. He should 
 therefore make it a profound study. What ideas and 
 abstractions it is capable of producing in his conscious- 
 ness depend for their veracity very largely upon the view 
 his own mentality takes of the machinery and its meth- 
 od. The difference between true knowledge and delu- 
 sion depends on this view. The old adage, "know thy- 
 self," was largely intended to be confined to a study and 
 control of the moral ideas of man. But since science 
 has turned its attention to psychology it means a study 
 of mental organizations and functions, for upon these 
 depend a proper comprehension of natural ethics and 
 natural religion. A few pages will therefore be devoted 
 to my conception of the present status of psychological 
 thought upon cognition and consciousness. 
 
 Human knowledge consists, scientifically, of two es- 
 sential elements, or rather one element polarized by 
 mental analysis into two conditions : First, Actual ob- 
 jectives in the environment, or realm outside the organ- 
 
knowledge; and its limitations 123 
 
 ism; Second, Sensations received through the nervous 
 system from these objectives, into the organism, and 
 there co-ordinated into feelings. These feelings are 
 again co-ordinated into abstractions and generalizations 
 by higher neural centers. This co-ordination of sensa- 
 tions into mental phenomena might be termed a third 
 element of knowledge. But the whole mental process 
 being, in my judgment, the result of molecular motion 
 it is preferable to make the co-ordinating process a part 
 only of the second element, beginning with sensations. 
 Knowledge is the psychical phase denoting the physio- 
 logical wealth of associated and systematized nervous 
 structure in the encephelon. It is the culmination of 
 sense impressions acting by molecular and chemical mo- 
 tion through said nervous structure upon the motor cen- 
 ters of the cerebrum. 
 
 The aggregate of these feelings produced by molec- 
 ular nervous motion in an organism, constitutes its 
 mind. It will be perceived that this definition includes 
 all organisms, having nervous systems. In fact, late ex- 
 periments and investigations tend toward proving that 
 the functions of nerve matter and those of ordinary 
 muscular tissue, are in no way different in kind. * The 
 only advantage the nerve tissue gives, is the greater 
 rapidity with which it conveys sensations and produces 
 responses or reactions. The nerve tissue in the human 
 individual is so large a part of the organism that its 
 activities include abstracting, discriminating, and com- 
 paring the qualities and the meaning of sensations in a 
 very much larger degree than in any of the lower forms 
 of life. But the animal without nerves, and the mem- 
 bers of the vegetable kingdom have a degree of mind. 
 
 * "Physiology of the Brain," Jacques Loeb. 
 
124 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Alfred Binet in his "Psychic Life of Micro-Organisms," 
 says that Moebius recognizes that psychological life be- 
 gins with living protoplasm. The pseudopodia there- 
 fore have mind, although there is no trace of differenti- 
 ated nerve structure. In this sense mind is coextensive 
 with life. Hseckel says it is not confined even to the 
 organic. The original atoms that make up the entire 
 inorganic as well as organic nature, themselves have the 
 function of motion, attraction and repulsion. To the ex- 
 tent that these atoms respond to their environment, they 
 have minds and knowledge. In short, all such respon- 
 siveness, whether we call it attraction of gravitation, 
 chemical affinity, molecular motion, or psychical phe- 
 nomena, is simply mind in different forms. The degree 
 or intensity of it depends upon the complexity of the 
 aggregation of atoms producing the responsive motion. 
 The atoms composing oxygen, when they leave their 
 combination with hydrogen and rush to embrace the 
 atoms composing potassium, so impetuously as to pro- 
 duce fire on the surface of water, is not a conscious proc- 
 ess in the sense of human consciousness, but the result 
 — the phenomenon of incandescence and the formation 
 of a new compound — is clearly as wonderful and as im- 
 portant as the movement of similar atoms in the human 
 brain, that result in only muscular motion, or what is 
 called will power. In only a less degree also these chem- 
 ical phenomena in the inorganic world have their sub- 
 jective and objective phases. Units of inorganic sub- 
 stance, or of organic compounds, combining in the course 
 of evolution, or disintegrating in the process of dissolu- 
 tion, appear to know, or to be conscious of the proper 
 motion to make in harmony with the pending phenom- 
 enon. This is their subjective side, and while it is very 
 limited compared with our conceptions of the same phase 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 125 
 
 in the human organism, yet we are compelled to recog- 
 nize its existence. So it is intelligence when the compo- 
 nent parts of a star brought by a ray of its light pass 
 through a lens and form a spectrum informing the as- 
 tronomer of the composition and conditions of a far off 
 sun. These star components do this whether there is 
 any astronomer to interpret them or not. They did it 
 millions of years prior to the birth of Fraunhofer and 
 Kirchhoff, who first properly conceived and interpreted 
 their meaning. 
 
 The term '"psychical" is limited to the activities of 
 the human nervous system and the analogous phenom- 
 ena in the inorganic are termed physical. But the cause 
 and the effect in both activities are similar. If at the 
 moment of the discovery of a great truth, like the attrac- 
 tion of gravitation in the brain of Newton, the bony cov- 
 ering of his cerebrum could be removed, and the most 
 powerful miscroscope applied to the operation going on, 
 nothing could be discovered but the isomeric molecular 
 motion of the units of matter composing the brain. All 
 mental phenomena, however obscure and however valu- 
 able, are simply the product, so far as experiment can 
 apply, of the interchange of matter and motion, going 
 on in the nervous structure of the body. Particles of 
 matter therein are constantly disintegrating and other 
 particles forming new units. This activity accompanies 
 every thought. The more rapid and intense the mental 
 action, the quicker becomes the integration and disinte- 
 gration. When the matter ceases to act, the differenti- 
 ated energy called mental process stops. No one has ever 
 been able to show by induction that any human mental 
 phenomena have been produced except in the neural cen- 
 ters of the organisms following and seemingly the result 
 of physical pulsations. 
 
126 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The mentality of living bodies below man is not dif- 
 ferent in kind, but in degree. The difference is deter- 
 mined by the diminished complexity of the nervous struc- 
 ture in the lower animals. If it were possible to dissect 
 the nervous systems of man and of a lower animal, and 
 exhibit them apart from the body, upon manikins, so as to 
 show them in all their ramifications, just as they lie in the 
 organisms, they would show by comparison that the su- 
 perior mentality of man results from the more complete 
 and perfectly connected network of larger nerves, per- 
 meating; every point of the human body and all connect- 
 ing in the larger and more complex ganglion, called the 
 brain (there are about 3,000,000,000 neurones) ; while the 
 same system in lower animals is less complete, and more 
 disconnected at its peripheral and other terminations, 
 and less complex and of much smaller size in the ence- 
 phelon; that the nerves and ganglionic centers, includ- 
 ing the brain, are larger, more copious and complex just 
 in proportion to the manifested mentality of the organ- 
 ism. This would be the natural and effective method of 
 teaching psychology and nerve physiology. 
 
 "We shall regard all the operations of consciousness 
 — all our sensations, all our emotions, and all our acts 
 of will — as so many expressions of organic adaptations 
 to our environment, an environment which we must re- 
 member as social as well as physical." Psychology, by 
 J. R. Angell, p. 7. 
 
 "Comparative anatomy, comparative physiology and 
 comparative psychology all converge upon another cog- 
 nate principle, i. e., that the development of conscious- 
 ness among various genera and species of the organic 
 world has been parallel with the development of the nerv- 
 ous system." Same, p. 13. 
 
 "Development in the size and interconnections of the 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 127 
 
 neurones goes on indefinitely, certainly with most per- 
 sons up to forty years of age." Same, p. 23. 
 
 "In the adult human being there are perhaps 3,000 
 million neurones in various stages of development. 
 
 "The elements of our knowledge ultimately reduce to 
 sensory activities for which the immediate preconditions 
 are specialized sense organs and a central nervous sys- 
 tem. 
 
 "The whole significance of the different stages in the 
 cognitive operation is found in the devices they represent 
 to further the efficiency of the motor responses which 
 the organism is constantly obliged to make to its environ- 
 ment. Memory, imagination and reasoning are thus 
 simply half-way houses between stimuli and reactions 
 which serve to permit the summoning of just those 
 movements which the present situation demands, when 
 interpreted in the light of the individual's past experi- 
 ence." Page 256, Angell. 
 
 As many sensations received by the organism, do not 
 reach the highest and largest ganglion of the nervous 
 system, the cerebrum, but are co-ordinated by the smaller 
 ganglia, located in the various parts of the body, it fol- 
 lows that the popular idea that the brain is the sole seat 
 of the mind, is erroneous. The cerebrum is, however, 
 the seat of what is known as intellectuality. 
 
 "The intelligence, the higher affection processes and 
 the compound voluntary actions are conditioned upon 
 the integrity of the cerebral hemispheres." * The begin- 
 ning of mind reaches back to the beginning of life. 
 
 The nervous structure permeating all parts of the or- 
 ganism and producing feelings in every part may account 
 
 * Wundt, p. 284, "Principles Physiological-Psychology. 
 Vol. I. 
 
128 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 for the evident failure of the earlier Phrenology to local- 
 ize mentality in the brain alone. Every obvious feature 
 of the organism is some expression of the mentality or 
 character of the individual. And therefore to a certain 
 degree, there is an adumbration of truth in the claims 
 of the various advocates of special localizations that the 
 shape of the head, the physiognomy, the palm of the 
 hand, the hand writing, the voice, the walk, all show 
 character. But the interpretation lies in the combination 
 of all external peculiarities of the body. 
 
 Phrenology assumed too strict a localization of func- 
 tion in the cerebral centers. Every psychical phenomenon 
 is not only the result of the sensory excitation of its ap- 
 propriate center, but is contributed to by other centers 
 connected by cross associative conduction paths. If the 
 appropriate sensory center becomes more or less abro- 
 gated from any cause, other centers in time vicariously 
 assume and perform its function. Therefore the strict 
 localizations of phrenology are illusive. 
 
 The structural neural centers furnish fixed nodi in 
 which functions operate in a very variable and unstable 
 way. The processes, while of course determined by what 
 are termed material structures, are so modified physio- 
 logically by the association fibres of conduction crossing 
 and mediating the sensory and motor centers, permeat- 
 ing every part of the brain structure, that they must not 
 be considered localized in the sense of the old phrenology. 
 It is probable that the higher the locality of neural func- 
 tion the more universal are the contributions by all parts 
 of the conduction paths, beginning at the periphery, run- 
 ning through the myel, the oblongata, mesencephelon, 
 diencephelon, the cerebrum and ending in the various 
 association centers of the prosencephelon. Psycholog- 
 ical abstraction and generalization evidently occur there 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 129 
 
 and they are the effects of the most complex functions 
 of parts of the brain structure centering in the cerebrum 
 by the cross association fibres. 
 
 By bearing in mind that the above definition of 
 knowledge gives it two essential co-existent or sequent 
 parts, which might be called obverse and reverse sides, 
 or better still, scientifically, the objective and subject- 
 ive ; the absence of either of these essentials accounts for 
 the unknown, while the two, acting normally psycho- 
 logically together, constitute the known. It is obvious 
 that if the first essential is absent, namely the objective, 
 there can be no knowledge. So the absence of the sec- 
 ond element, which may be defined as the correspondence 
 between the internal nervous centers, and the external 
 relation of things in the environment, (meaning by the 
 environment, all causes of sensation) would surely re- 
 sult in want of knowledge. The channels of this corre- 
 spondence in higher animals are the five senses of sight, 
 touch, hearing, tasting, and smelling. "Nothing is in 
 our mind which has not been before in our senses" is 
 an old saying. 
 
 "Cognition, accordingly, may be characterized as a 
 process of orientation in the world." * 
 
 This correspondence of the exterior with the internal 
 nerve centers, is the process of mind-making in its sim- 
 plest terms in the new born infant. The infant at birth 
 possesses the neural structure essential to this correspond- 
 ence; but has no knowledge until experience establishes 
 certain relations of space, time, quantity, and quality to 
 which the mind can refer all successive sensations as 
 they arise. Of course, the process of the evolution of 
 
 * Dr. Cams, p. 359, "The Soul of Man.' 
 
130 THYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 intellect or abstract generalization in man, is extremely 
 complex and involved. This comes only with years of 
 experience. The sensations that go to the complex pat- 
 terns of the cerebrum, where the data of experience seem 
 registered, that is, all the associative centers, are finally 
 co-ordinated with these data of experience into memory, 
 judgment, and will. It is not the function of the brain 
 or central innervation to "store up" ideas or sensations. 
 But a stimulation often repeated changes the more sta- 
 ble molecules of the nerve cells to less stable ones and 
 thus increases the potential work — the accumulation of 
 what we call psychical processes. When this potential 
 accumulation is released into actual work the product is 
 the more stable molecules and the psychical phenomena 
 called e. g. memory, or imagination. Thus there is al- 
 ways going on in the nerve structure a change of the 
 chemical composition of molecules resulting in ether po- 
 tential or actual work. These physiological functions 
 are the psychical phenomena of thought and feeling. 
 Herbert Spencer says : — 
 
 "An idea is the psychical side of what, on its physical 
 side, is an involved set of nervous plexuses. That which 
 makes possible the idea, is the pre-existence of these 
 plexuses, so organized that a wave of molecular motion 
 diffused through them will produce its psychical correl- 
 ative, the components of the conception, in due order and 
 degree." So that it follows, that the difference in ideas 
 expressed by different organisms, depends upon the or- 
 ganic structure of the nervous systems, and not upon a 
 separate and distinct mental entity, that may be sup- 
 posed to exist within the body. Mind is not matter nor 
 spirit, therefore, but a condition and is psycho-physical. 
 "Psychical" means the effect produced in the motion of 
 molecules of nerve tissue in the body, in response to some 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 131 
 
 incidence of force from without, such as light, heat, 
 sound, etc. 
 
 "We now know that each act of the will is as fatally 
 determined by the organization of the individual and is 
 dependent on the momentary condition of his environ^ 
 ment as every other physical activity. The human will 
 has no more foundation than that of the higher animals, 
 from which it differs only in degree, not in kind." * 
 
 The sensations received through the senses, from the 
 objective, are the primary sources of all knowledge and 
 mental development. But there must be hereditary 
 structure in the organism whose function is the co-ordi- 
 nation of these sensations into what we call knowledge. 
 The quality and scope of the knowledge depends upon 
 the structure. The quality and within limits, the quan- 
 tity of the structure determines the limitations. It may 
 with truth be said that the real difference between the 
 mind of Shakespeare, for example, and the lowest man, 
 lies not in education in the schools but simply in the dif- 
 ference between the structure and quality of their nerv- 
 ous system. And, really it is a very small difference in 
 structure. 
 
 When the child is born he is devoid of psychical ex- 
 periences but has the physical structure of a nervous 
 system organized for receiving impressions from the ob- 
 jective environment through the organs of sense. These 
 sensations have no meaning to him at first because the 
 meaning can come to his brain only after experience has 
 established or organized in his brain an associative mem- 
 ory. This experience is slowly obtained by the exercise 
 of his senses and especially that of touch. The reason 
 why Helen Keller has succeeded in knowing the relation 
 
 * "Riddle of the Universe," Haeckel. P. 131. 
 
132 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 of so many objective phenomena through the sense of 
 touch almost alone is that she was born with a finely or- 
 ganized nervous structure, which responded by the asso- 
 ciative brain centers to sensations thus acquired. The 
 auditory and optical centers existed in her brain the same 
 as in the brains of those who have these peripheral sense 
 organs. While these centers are not excited in the same 
 way they would be by normal eyes and ears, yet they are 
 not dormant by any means, in producing by association 
 very much of the contents of her consciousness, her cor- 
 respondence with environment. Her visual brain center 
 is excited not by sight but by touch and thus she has a 
 mental vision. 
 
 Educational institutions can only place the neural 
 structures of the student in contact with a superior en- 
 vironment. In other words education consists or should 
 consist of repeated presentation to the sensory nerves 
 the most important objective truths with which the nerv- 
 ous structure by constant practice can establish corre- 
 spondence and build up a method and memory. This is* 
 usually done by means of printed books containing the 
 best ideas and by oral lectures conveying the most im- 
 portant objective truths. Each student brain responds 
 to such environment in proportion to the brain's quality 
 and intensity. A certain tonicity is thus given to after 
 psychical processes and these neural associative centers 
 greatly strengthened, which produce what is popularly 
 called reason, imagination and will. Memory consists 
 of the readiness and power of the cross associative con- 
 duction paths to recall and the will, the power to apply 
 the images thus made, in all the psychical processes 
 of after life. A child gradually attains a knowledge of 
 likenesses and differences— all the relations that common 
 objects bear to each other, by the constant use of sight, 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS I33 
 
 touch, hearing, taste and smell. Upon the experience 
 thus obtained his powers of mentality in after life are 
 gradually developed. The limit of these powers is fixed 
 only by the physical complexity of his nervous structure 
 — those plexuses through which ideas are formed. Each 
 idea arises out of former ideas and gives birth to new 
 ones. The structure and quality of the higher organism 
 are the result of' what Darwin calls "Variation," brought 
 about in some way, perhaps in various ways, and princi- 
 pally by the laws of heredity not yet fully comprehended. 
 The variation in structure that enables one man to com- 
 prehend more quickly and truly the facts, and draw more 
 accurately the correct conclusions from them, than an- 
 other man is capable of doing, is what is called the better 
 mind. The ampler this responsiveness, the greater the 
 knowledge. The known to him, is just what his nervous 
 structure enables him to absorb from the outer realm, 
 and co-ordinate into ideas. The domain of the know- 
 able, is just in proportion to the development of this cor- 
 respondence. Thus structure and function go hand in 
 hand. They are simultaneous in development. 
 
 For instance, the colored children in schools are said 
 to be quite as apt in the elementary studies as the white 
 children, and in many cases, more readily absorb the 
 teachings. But when the higher branches are reached, 
 the white children usually leave behind the colored ones. 
 This is explainable only on the theory of evolution, that 
 function and structure proceed simultaneously. The an- 
 cestry of the white child for innumerable generations 
 have been surrounded by a civilization that necessarily 
 resulted from a superior nervous system, and especially 
 those higher qualities of the brain called intellect. What 
 produced the variation of larger cerebrum and of better 
 quality in the structure of the brain of the white man 
 
134 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 that eventually produced his superiority as a race, is 
 largely an unsolved problem. But it is a well known 
 anthropological fact. 
 
 This fact of the simultaneity of structure and func- 
 tion is the key to organic evolution. Because mentality 
 or consciousness is a condition produced by structure and 
 an awareness of relation. The superior form of the mat- 
 ter making up the organism of the white race, and in- 
 herited from generation to generation, must have come 
 originally as a variation from such structure in his an- 
 cestors by reason of the peculiar incidence of natural 
 forces in his immediate environment, very likely by the 
 superior sustentation, as Weissman believes, of the pro- 
 creative cell. We infer, therefore, that the white race's 
 superiority to the black race is the result of the natural 
 selection of more numerous and important variations of 
 neural structure occurring in that race brought about 
 probably by a more highly complex environment. 
 
 The energy retained in the organism that is not dis- 
 sipated in its growth and development, is function. Psy- 
 chical function is the continuing adaptation of the organ- 
 ism to relations in its environment. It is the perception 
 of phenomena by the continuity of images perpetually 
 produced by the patterns of the brain. As this adaptation 
 enlarges and becomes more complex, it is necessarily ac- 
 companied by an enlarged and more complex structure 
 of the matter of the organism. The two conditions are 
 inseparable. 
 
 Considering the first formation of a nerve in the 
 course of biological evolution as the beginning of men- 
 tality it was of course a variation favorable to the organ- 
 ism in its struggle for existence. Natural selection 
 would perpetuate this favorable variation and its prog- 
 eny inheriting the variation would naturally be the ones 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 135 
 
 to produce eventually another and still other variations 
 of more complex nervous structure. The survival all the 
 time of the best adapted or the fittest would end in a 
 superior human psycho-physical unit. 
 
 If this is the true theory of mental evolution, it be- 
 comes at once apparent that the great variety of intel- 
 ligence, or mentality we see in animal nature, has been 
 caused by different degrees of activity or motion in nerv- 
 ous structure taken on by the various organisms all 
 through their long line of ancestors. 
 
 For example two blades of grass almost side by side, 
 will often show a great difference in growth, because 
 the rapid growing one happens to be in contact at its 
 roots with a richer food than its near neighbor, this 
 richer food being a part of its environment, and imme- 
 diately its function to take in more and more sustenta- 
 tion grows simultaneously with its parallel development 
 of root and stem structure, until it overshadows its puny 
 neighbor, whose structure remains adapted only to its 
 function to take in the smaller and less nutritious susten- 
 tation. This puny blade lacks the environment of richer 
 food of its more fortunate neighbor. 
 
 The former produces large and vigorous seeds, in cor- 
 respondence with its larger function of sustentation, that 
 have the power to grow a new variety of grass, adapted 
 to a wide range of the function of sustentation; while 
 the seed of the weaker blade will barely germinate at 
 all, and perhaps die out. But the difference between 
 the successive generations of the two blades of grass, for 
 all the time they may exist, is caused by the habits or 
 functions begun by the two original blades, the differ- 
 ence of function producing the visible difference of 
 structure. Weissman's theory of heredity includes just 
 this principle of variation. He seems to think variation 
 
136 PHYSICAL, BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 is the result of the larger difference in sustentation re- 
 ceived by the biopher producing the variation. 
 
 So with the higher organism called man. His su- 
 perior mentality has been evolved as part of and simul- 
 taneously with his superior physical organism. His 
 nervous organization, composing the avenues by which 
 molecular motion, producing that complicated and ob- 
 scure aggregation called the mind, is made possible, is 
 the material or physical registration of all the previous 
 structure producing the habits, the peculiar line of ac- 
 tion; in other words, the function, of all his ancestry 
 back to the beginning of cell formation, from which 
 originally his life began. Every successive organism of 
 this ancestry inherited the essential structure and func- 
 tion of its predecessor. Occasionally one would show a 
 variation favorable to its struggle for existence, which 
 also became inherited, and the added function of this 
 variation became also inheritable, and thus the present 
 human organisms on this globe, are simply the organized 
 registration of the habits and peculiarities of all of their 
 ancestry, back to the beginning of life. The process has 
 undoubtedly been exceedingly slow. 
 
 No two members of the same species even, are alike, 
 because no two have occupied just the same space, and 
 therefore could not have exactly the same correspond- 
 ence with the relation of things or objects in the en- 
 vironment. This difference of correspondence with en- 
 vironment constitutes the difference in species as well as 
 the individual varieties, natural selection having perpe- 
 tuated the favorable variations. 
 
 Nervous structures may be compared to an Aeolian 
 harp, which produces beautiful music when the motion of 
 the air strikes its chords. If the correct arrangement of 
 the strings exists, the harmony is produced. The quality 
 
knowledge; and its limitations 137 
 
 of music depends upon the structure. The higher the 
 structure of the instrument, the higher the class of mu- 
 sic. The same air blowing on different structures of 
 harps, produces entirely different classes of music. So 
 the quality of thought in man, is determined by the struc- 
 ture of the nervous system. If the structure adapted 
 to respond to the higher and finer qualities of sensations 
 transforming these into percepts and concepts is not 
 there, there will be either no response or an abortive or 
 inharmonious psychical reaction. This high structure 
 was in Shakespeare, and in fact, in all the great think- 
 ers, and was so responsive to the most acute and truth- 
 ful sensations coming to it from the highest harmony of 
 objective relationship in the environment, that the 
 thoughts Shakespeare produced are among the most 
 satisfying that have been perpetuated in written language. 
 Why did Newton see the significance of the falling 
 apple, while other men, with brains and nerves appar- 
 ently like his, failed to make such an important dis- 
 covery? It must be, because there was a small struc- 
 ture (a variation) of grey cortex in his brain, lacking 
 in other heads, that responded to the sensation coming 
 from the falling apple through the optic nerve upon the 
 optic center forming a series of successive images, im- 
 possible to the other brains. These were memory 
 images of innumerable past sensations of falling bodies 
 and of astronomical bodies revolving in apparent circles. 
 The fusing of these images on the brain cortex produced 
 perception. The image of Kepler's three laws was one 
 of these percepts. The result was the concept or ab- 
 straction of Kepler's three laws and the great principle 
 of the attraction of gravitation. This might be the an- 
 swer to Huxley's question put to himself upon reading 
 for the first time Darwin's "Origin of Species," "Why 
 
138 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 could not I have drawn the same conclusions from the 
 same well known facts?" 
 
 How this peculiar structure of grey matter came into 
 Newton's head and not into other heads, is the moment- 
 ous question. But I suspect if the habits and environ- 
 ment of his ancestors could be minutely traced, this pe- 
 culiar variation, or differentiation, of brain structure 
 could be easily accounted for on the principle of evolu- 
 tion. It would be exceedingly interesting and most in- 
 structive, if we could trace back the line of man's evolu- 
 tion and discover the causes of the variations in the or- 
 ganic structure that first started the lower order man- 
 ward. But such speculation would give too free play to 
 conjecture and imagination. It is beyond the reach of 
 scientific induction. Some author has said no new cells 
 are added to the brain between birth and death, hence 
 a superior structure must have been inherited from his 
 ancestors and other important variations must have ap- 
 peared first in his own nervous structure at birth. What 
 we commonly call greatness is most likely produced in 
 the same way. Classical literature and scientific dis- 
 covery are the results of high structure responding to 
 high environment. Or the high quality of the brain 
 cortex produces an image of obscure qualities of objec- 
 tive things that common brains cannot produce. Just as 
 the fine French mirror reflects a more perfect image than 
 does the common mirror made of defective glass. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon brain will respond to a very com- 
 plex environment, to which the nervous system of a de- 
 scendent of a long line of African ancestry is incapable 
 of responding. Hence the difference between the two 
 in the capacity of receiving higher education. But in 
 those habits that have been common to the ancestry of 
 both, such as sustentation, procreation, physical activity 
 
KNOWLEDGE AND ITS LIMITATIONS 139 
 
 and endurance, and all the ordinary activities, there is 
 but little difference. So little seems to be known about 
 the law of inheritance, that it is perhaps better to say 
 that the habits peculiar to an individual are not inherited, 
 but the structure that produces race habits is, and when 
 that structure is placed in correspondence with the same 
 environment of its ancestors, it will respond in the same 
 way, and develop the same habits, the variations pro- 
 ducing new correspondences unknown to the ancestors. 
 
 The higher functions cannot exist without the higher 
 structure; and it is obvious to the casual observer that 
 the nervous structure of the African is very much in- 
 ferior to that of the Indo-European. Anatomists say 
 that the sutures of the African skull solidify earlier in 
 life than those of the white man. Is this significant of 
 earlier maturity and consequently arrested development? 
 
 The paucity of our language in words fitly to express 
 the shades of scientific meaning is illustrated by the fact 
 that the definition of knowledge is practically the defini- 
 tion of life, evolution and all natural phenomena and are 
 given frequently in the same language, viz : the continual 
 readaptation of the subjective and the objective. Not only 
 the physical, but what is called psychical and spiritual, 
 are all caused by one universial force. The true defini- 
 tion of one is the sufficient explanation of all. 
 
 The cognitive process is the operation in unison of 
 the entire psychical device. The same truth will apply 
 to the whole human organism, and what we have been 
 heretofore calling the attributes of it. The embryo, espe- 
 cially its nervous structure, is at first indefinite, incoher- 
 ent, irresponsive. It grows by the absorption or inte- 
 gration of matter from its environment. It could not 
 survive without this correspondence with its sustenta- 
 tion. The absorbed matter builds up into a definite com- 
 
140 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 plex structure, the bones, the muscles, and the nerves. 
 The different parts of the body retain certain motion or 
 energy, but in different forms. But these different forms 
 of motion, which are called function, are in their origin 
 and nature all the same. The motion of the muscle is 
 simply the dissipation of a part of its matter, and the 
 renewal of it, by integration of the substance constantly 
 taken into the stomach and lungs. In the same way the 
 function of the brain is performed, whether it is the ex- 
 ercise of what we call memory, which is the reproduc- 
 tion of former presentations, or the production of the 
 highest thought in the formation of ideas. It is only a 
 change in the form of the matter composing the nerve 
 tissue, and renewing the destroyed form by the susten- 
 tation taken from the objective environment by the stom- 
 ach and lungs, or in other words, molecular motion. 
 
 The common forms of muscular motion are so much 
 slower and less complex, they are so much more ap- 
 parent to our dull senses than the rapid mobile action 
 of the grey matter of the cerebrum, that it is not sur- 
 prising that to the latter is attributed a supernatural 
 cause, and to the former only a natural one. But the causes 
 are the same and only natural. A scientific study of the 
 power and effect of light, heat, or electricity will con- 
 vince the student that the operations of the mind are not 
 exceptional in either method or result, nor practically 
 different from other natural phenomena. 
 
 The connection between the psychical and the phys- 
 ical is no more mysterious than the connection between 
 physical phenomena. For example, when two simple 
 substances, oxygen and hydrogen, come together in cer- 
 tain proportions and form water — a thing entirely dif- 
 ferent from either of its elements. I acknowledge that 
 the processes in the human brain called human eonsci- 
 
knowledge: and its limitations 141 
 
 ousness : — that peculiar condition of the human organism 
 by which it is differentiated from the rest of phenomena 
 as subjective, while the rest are objective, is an unknown 
 relationship, yet to be scientifically defined. But so is 
 the principle of chemical attraction and the attraction of 
 gravitation. In fact the reality of any phenomenon is 
 unknown. 
 
 The logical sequence to a knowledge of the limita- 
 tions of the human brain, is that scientifically we must 
 test every proposition presenting itself to the brain by 
 experience. If it cannot be examined empirically, if its 
 components are not such objective truths as come through 
 our senses, it is only a waste of time and strength to 
 pursue it. There are sufficient life problems lying within 
 the reach of inductive investigation to occupy our whole 
 time and strength. These are also the most essential 
 problems. In other words, given what our senses per- 
 ceive in the universe and what they may be made to 
 comprehend by further investigation by scientific meth- 
 ods, man may be able to place his organism in such na- 
 tural adjustment with his cosmic environment as to get 
 out of existence all the possible benefits compatible with 
 his individual and racial relationships. Whatever is 
 purely subjective is unknown and most likely unknow- 
 able. 
 
 We have no consciousness of processes in the brain. 
 The sense impressions are transformed images of real 
 things objectively considered. Any irritation of a peri- 
 pheral or sense organ is not felt in the brain, but the cen- 
 tral organ sees, hears, feels, tastes or smells it at the loca- 
 tion in the environment of the object producing the irri- 
 tation. A pain is felt not in the neural center, nor in 
 the threads of the nervous matter conveying the sensa- 
 tion, but at the point of the organism where the recep- 
 
142 rHYSICAI, BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 tive nerve terminates. This may be at any point on the 
 external or internal surface of the body, but never in the 
 ganglionic centers, nor in the motor nerves. Hence the 
 neural molecular process by which all psychical phe- 
 nomena are produced are not part of consciousness. 
 
 This process is thinking, and might be called the 
 subjective ego. But we know nothing about it, consci- 
 ousness being a condition produced by it, but it is no 
 part or state of consciousness. When an arm is am- 
 putated and one of the bisected afferent nerves is irri- 
 tated at the outer end left in the body the feeling is not 
 at the point irritated, but at the former peripheral termi- 
 nation in the detached part of the arm or. hand. So that 
 consciousness is not an objective thing existing in the 
 body, but a condition produced by objective things 
 through and by the neural structure, which is also an 
 objective thing. The cerebrum of the human being, or 
 part of it can be removed without pain. But its removal 
 entire would destroy consciousness, although life and 
 motor response would still continue, at least for some 
 time. Hence we know that the processes producing con- 
 sciousness proceed in the cerebrum and that they are the 
 only processes in the organism which are not objective 
 to our senses. They are then the subjective ego not of 
 Des Cartes and the idealists, for his was a soul entity and 
 if they should be considered the self because they do the 
 thinking, then we are not' conscious of self. 
 
 We can imagine a time, perhaps long ages from now, 
 when the structure of the majority of brains will have 
 so improved as to respond more readily to complex and 
 obscure phenomena, and when the realm of delusion and 
 illusion will have faded away, and with it will have de- 
 parted all fear, idle wonder, and superstition. Mankind 
 will not then be looking for the pot of gold at the foot 
 
knowledge: and its limitations 143 
 
 of the rainbow; nor for Christmas gifts from a bearded 
 hobgoblin. Man will not then spend his life fleeing 
 from a horned spirit of evil, "A prince of the power of 
 darkness." Then he will have the ability and can give 
 the time that is now spent by him in pursuit of an "ignis 
 fatuus," the unknowable, to the study of the natural laws 
 of his being and the founding thereon of a code of ethics 
 adapted to his perceptible welfare in this world. His eth- 
 ical code will not then be based on the approbation or re- 
 probation of some one outside of himself, but upon the 
 wants of his own organism, and his relation to his fellow- 
 men, and all other things in his environment, as taught by 
 the never changing laws of Nature. Especially will his 
 actions be good or bad, under this code, as they benefit 
 or detract from the welfare of the race to which he be- 
 longs. He will then do right for right's sake, not be- 
 cause the supposed wrong is proscribed under penalty. 
 
 Science tells him that the most important problem of 
 life for him to solve, is how best to obtain and maintain 
 the amplest correspondence of his organism in all its 
 heterogeneity, with his wonderful complex environment, 
 that is as wide as the universe. This means health, hap- 
 piness, and longevity. He will then learn that a defect 
 in this correspondence is disease, which will prematurely 
 and unnecessarily lead, if not corrected by knowledge of 
 natural laws, to that perfect equilibrium called death, 
 when the law of his former evolution will be reversed. 
 There will then occur an integration of motion and a 
 concomitant disintegration of matter, when the organic 
 will revert to its original inorganic elements. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE PHENOMENAL EGO 
 
 There seem to be just two sensuous conditions in the 
 objective apparition, viz: space and resistance. The 
 space is extension, and resistances are the masses of mat- 
 ter. It is probable that these in their ultimate reality 
 may be one. Accompanying these are the sensations of 
 color and brightness. These make impression upon sight 
 alone. From the standpoint of the mass called the earth 
 to which our bodies are attached by the attraction of 
 gravitation we perceive first the earth with its atmos- 
 phere, next the sun, the moon; and the stellar bodies as 
 points of light in space. The earth, being our abiding 
 place, presents a remarkably varied contour of surface, 
 part land and a large part water. On the surface of 
 the land and in the water are innumerable forms of what 
 we call life, both vegetable and animal. This habitat of 
 man is a globe moving rapidly through space and is 
 never twice in the same locality. From the sun proceeds 
 light, heat and electricity. Telescopes and spectroscopes 
 reveal the shapes and components of the stellar bodies 
 to be the same as those of the earth. All matter is in 
 motion and all space seems filled with matter and mo- 
 tion, either in mass or in what is called ether. It is un- 
 necessary to pursue the description further, because the 
 perpetual apparation coming to the senses of each human 
 being is well known and a thing of every day occurence. 
 It is so common that the most of mankind cease to note 
 
 144 
 
the: phenomenal ego 145 
 
 it as a whole, while the scientist who makes it his life's 
 occupation to investigate its phenomena is in touch with 
 manifestations only and wondering at its grandeur and 
 meaning but entirely incapable of penetrating behind the 
 phenomena. Yet he has analyzed its appearance suf- 
 ficiently to have formulated certain scientific hypotheses 
 concerning the constant interchange of matter and mo- 
 tion in producing new forms. One hypothesis is that all 
 motion is uniform in its laws and all mass composed of 
 the aggregation of identical atoms, or perhaps, only cen- 
 ters of energy. Whatever the form of matter en masse, 
 whether in what is called the inorganic or the organic, 
 it is undergoing a constant change and that change is 
 brought about in every instance by the same force or 
 energy, while no part of the matter nor any of the mo- 
 tion is lost. Two hypotheses result, viz: the conserva- 
 tion of energy and the indestructibility of matter. It 
 also means that however different in appearance, the in- 
 numerable forms of matter may be, yet all are com- 
 posed of the same ultimate atoms and are absolutely de- 
 pendent upon the same motion or energy to preserve 
 them in their different forms from moment to moment. 
 This is the "Persistence of Force." It means also that 
 however complex the combination of atoms and however 
 various, obscure or impenetrable the retained motion of 
 any mass may be, yet it can be only a differentiation of 
 the universal unity of these elements and is in insepar- 
 able and dependent correspondence with all other mat- 
 ter and motion. Therefore there is no separate and 
 distinct entity. Whatever may seem as such, is only 
 a moving equilibrium, whose balanced status at any 
 moment absolutely depends upon its integration or dis- 
 sipation of so much matter and so much motion from the 
 fixed quantity in the universe. This, as I understand it, 
 
146 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 is the generally accepted theory of physicists. Physicists 
 are also rapidly concluding that matter and motion are 
 only two phases of one phenomenon and that the ultimate 
 ion is merely an electric discharge. Keeping in view 
 these general principles, I will say something in this 
 chapter regarding the human organism as a part of the 
 phenomena of the perpetual apparition, the Ego and its 
 environment. I believe it was Descartes who first used 
 the expression "Cogito, ergo, sum." 
 
 The term Ego was a definitition of the mind or the 
 soul. Descartes says in the "Discourse on Method" p. 
 171 Universal Classics Library, in the volume devoted 
 to Descartes' Meditation and Philosophy, "1 attentively 
 examined what I was, and as I observed that I could 
 suppose that I had no body and that there was no world 
 nor any place in which I might be, but that I could not 
 therefore suppose that I was not, I thence concluded that 
 I was a substance whose sole essence or nature consists 
 only in thinking and which that it may exist, has need 
 of no place, nor is dependent on any material thing; so 
 that "I" that is to say, the mind, by which I am what 
 I am, is wholly distinct from the body and is more easily 
 known than the latter and is such that although the lat- 
 ter were not, it would still continue to be all that it is." 
 
 Not being able to conceive of thinking without a 
 body, or that any part of the organism could exist with- 
 out a material abiding place I much prefer the modern 
 theory of evolution, and instead of beginning with Des- 
 cartes' idea of an Ego as a starting point for universal 
 knowledge or absolute truth, beginning with the neb- 
 ula, where nature must have started, and tracing from 
 that the course of cosmic evolution to the present state 
 of physics and psychics. This is the better method. If 
 man is a product of evolution, which I understand is quite 
 
the: phenomenal ego 147 
 
 universally accepted by scientists and intelligent men, 
 then he must be only a differentiated form of natural 
 phenomena. Therefore I prefer to consider him in his 
 bodily form and will consider the Ego to be the whole 
 individual organism. It is a psychophysical organism. 
 The psychical and the physical are inseparable and 
 correspond with the objective phenomena of matter and 
 motion. They are undoubtedly only differentiations of 
 the same basic unit of cosmic energy, whether this unit 
 may be the atom or the ion or an electric explosion or 
 something beyond the comprehension of the ego. The 
 Ego as thus denned appears to be an entity to a casual 
 observer, whose retained psychical and physical motions 
 are not dependent on any connections they might have 
 with the rest of the universe. But to the penetrating 
 eye of science it is a heterogeneous organism (see the 
 chapter on Evolution where the development from the 
 Nebula is given) whose specialized organs are co-ordi- 
 nated parts of the general mass of matter and whose 
 functions are determined by their connection with the 
 persistence of force. It is similar to a wheel in com- 
 plex machinery whose revolving motion depends on the 
 connection of its cogs with those of other wheels. What 
 we call human life then seems to be a correspondence 
 between an Ego, or human body, and an environment 
 with which, in order to maintain its continuance, it is 
 necessary to remain in touch. Death is a discontinuance 
 of this correspondence and I am afraid that the "I" of 
 Descartes might not then be able to think, having no 
 environment from which to receive its sensations, that 
 is, having nothing about which to think. 
 
 As each human being then is an Ego, who has to 
 some degree a different environment from every other 
 it will be interesting and perhaps profitable to endeavor 
 
US PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 to reason out the nature of this peculiar relationship as 
 a phenomenon. C. Lloyd Morgan in his article "Psy- 
 chology and the' Ego" in Vol. 10 "No. I of "The Monist" 
 says "The first decisive step in the analysis of the com- 
 plex web of phenomena is the polarization of the data 
 of experience into their objective and subjective aspects." 
 That is, notwithstanding the monism of phenomena, the 
 unity of all phases of psychical activity, yet in order to 
 study its nature, we must analyze its components, or at 
 first divide it into two parts. The subjective aspect is 
 the Ego's end of phenomena. It is the morphology of 
 the energy that the laws of nature aggregate in the in- 
 divudial organism. Dr. Paul Carus says, "Every mind 
 is the concentrated effect of the whole cosmos upon one 
 special part of the cosmos, not as it takes place in one 
 moment, but as it has taken place in a definite and con- 
 tinuous period up to date." For convenience of study 
 it is divided into two parts. One physical, by which the 
 life of the organism is maintained, the other psychical, 
 by which what is called "consciousness" is produced. 
 In reality, they are both one. The physical phenomena 
 are sustentation by which development and growth are 
 produced, excretion and procreation. The psychical 
 occur through a peculiar or differentiated structure of 
 the physical and the resulting consciousness, or knowl- 
 edge, or awareness seems to be a condition, whose real 
 nature psychologists are now studying and about which 
 there is some difference of opinion. The process of the 
 physical is termed physiological, and the psychical, psy- 
 chological. But this distinction is only one of ideal clas- 
 sification for the purpose of study and may not have any 
 real basis in the natural phenomena themselves. For 
 the material structure of the Ego includes not only the 
 bones, muscles and vital organs, but also the nervous 
 
THE PHENOMENAL EGO 149 
 
 structure as well, through, or by means of which all the 
 psychical phenomena occur. This nervous structure is 
 only differentiated protoplasm of which the whole body 
 is formed. Therefore psychology is frequently termed 
 a branch of physiology. Jacques Loeb in his "Physiology 
 of the Brain" contends that in function there is no dif- 
 ference between muscular and nervous structure, except 
 in facility of movement of its component molecules. It 
 seems the further experiment is carried the greater the 
 evidence for unity, in both function and structure. The 
 five senses attributed to the body may perhaps in ulti- 
 mate analysis be reduced to one, the primal, from which 
 all the others have been evolved. That is touch. Xow, 
 premising that the Ego, as I define it, contains more of 
 the elements of the objective than of the subjective, and 
 that physiology will and does explain the great bulk of 
 the apparent phenomena of it a few thoughts given to 
 the psychology of the Ego let us hope will disclose some 
 of its methods. A thorough investigation of the make up 
 of this Ego reveals that these sense impressions are pro- 
 duced either directly by or by means of what is called a 
 nervous system containing about 3,000,000,000 neurones, 
 permeating the whole body, having its external termina- 
 tions so arranged as to carry with much more rapidity 
 than the other structure of the body can do, certain ob- 
 jective sensations from the outside of the body, and also 
 from those parts of the Ego objective to the senses from 
 within it, that is, from all its objective organs and func- 
 tions, to certain internal terminations of this nervous 
 system called ganglia or neural centers. The largest 
 ganglion of this system is the encephalon, or central or- 
 gan, and is made up of innumerable strands of nerves 
 so interwoven as to appear a solid mass of nervous mat- 
 ter. By reason of its extreme mobility this great mass 
 
150 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 of nerve tissue, permeating every point of the organ- 
 ism, is in perpetual motion. It is probable that this 
 isomeric molecular motion constitutes the consciousness 
 of the Ego, keeping it in perpetual unity with the same 
 energy or force producing perpetual molar motion in the 
 environment — the two being differentiated phases of 
 "the persistence of force." Or I will say that neural 
 molecular motion produces a relation between objects. — 
 This relation is Consciousness. "But consciousness is only 
 an epiphenomenon, superadded to cerebral activity and 
 capable of disappearing without the corresponding nerve 
 process being altered." * But by whom is it superadded 
 unless by the brain itself? 
 
 It appears that whenever there is an impression made 
 on any of the organs of the senses, it is conveyed in- 
 wardly along the receptive nerve by what is called iso- 
 meric molecular motion, that is, there is a re-arrange- 
 ment of the little invisible particles called molecules, 
 which make up the substance of the nerve, through its 
 whole length, or through a sufficient length to convey 
 the impression to one of the ganglia. These ganglia, 
 composed of yet more mobile matter than the nerve 
 threads of conveyance, add to, co-ordinate, and discharge 
 the motion along effector or motor nerves and thus pro- 
 duce the phenomena of bodily motion and all the phenom- 
 ena called psychical. The ganglia acting, apparently, like 
 galvanic batteries of electrical energy, send the impres- 
 sion, if need be, by the molecular motion of motor nerves 
 to exhaust themselves in muscular action. But, if the 
 sensations are of a nature to require brain action instead 
 of muscular action, then the sensuous energy coming 
 from the environment seems to be registered in the 
 wonderful mazes of the central nervous organ called the 
 
 * Psychology of Reasoning, Binet, p. 126. 
 
THE PHENOMENA^ EGO 151 
 
 brain, until it assumes one of the phases of psychic phe- 
 nomena called perception, image, emotion, conception, 
 reason, memory, or will. The individual sensations are 
 co-ordinated with each other by the patterns of nerves 
 in the brain and this produces generalizations and . ab- 
 stractions. The whole is physiological in process, while 
 the result is psychological. Thus every so-called mental 
 operation is produced by impressions coming from the 
 environment by way of the senses into the nervous struc- 
 ture and then further producing a resulting molecular 
 motion which produces the psychical phenomena we be- 
 hold in man. 
 
 It is all apparently the result of natural force, the 
 persistence of force acting along the line of least resist- 
 ance. I notice that Max Miiller says that if mind is to 
 be the name of the work, "what is to be the name of the 
 worker?" I take it this is force, that does the physical 
 working everywhere in nature. But there is no neces- 
 sity to name the worker. If some personality or entity 
 outside of nature itself does the working everywhere, 
 then this same personality does it in the brain, but not 
 if evolution is true. Natural cause and effect only are 
 supposable in evolution. Max Miiller calls it the monon 
 or the Ego. Now for monon or Ego suppose we sub- 
 stitute molecular motion and make that the worker, or 
 if that should be called the working, then call the worker 
 the persistence of force. We shall then have both the 
 working and the worker, natural cause and effect. This 
 simplifies it as much as the appellation of mind and Ego. 
 But the fact is human knowledge never penetrates be- 
 yond the working and in the utility of it to the welfare 
 of, man, the working is the thing to know. I think with 
 Miiller that the old subdivisions are too cumbersome and 
 complex. 
 
152 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 "The complicated apparatus which had been postu- 
 lated by most philosophers for the performance of 
 thought in its various spheres of manifestation must make 
 room for much plainer machinery. Instead of intuition, 
 intellect, understanding, mind, reason, genius, judgment, 
 and all the rest, we want really nothing but a self-con- 
 scious monon capable of changing all that is supplied by 
 the senses into percepts, concepts, and names." It seems 
 to me that the plainest machinery for this purpose is 
 what we see in the process, that is, the "nerve structure." 
 That has been evolved and this conclusion will comply 
 with both simplicity and evolution. "Self" is the organ- 
 ized human body with its brain and nerves maintained 
 by the motion of its component- atoms as a part of 
 the living Cosmos. Its retained motion is a part of the 
 general energy, or persistence of force. A "self-consci- 
 ous monon" does not exist. The change of sensations 
 into concepts is done by nerve molecular motion. Prof. 
 Joseph Le Conte says, "If the brain of a living, thinking 
 man were exposed to the scrutiny of an outside observer, 
 with absolutely perfect senses, all that he would or could 
 possibly see would be molecular motion, physical and 
 chemical." * Even sleep, which is the period of rest to 
 the functions of the nervous system, is caused by the 
 contraction of the blood vessels of the brain, and the en- 
 largement of the peripheral termination of the circula- 
 tory system, thus lessening the activity of the molecular 
 motion which pertains to psychic phenomena. The re- 
 sulting inactivity of the senses is sleep. It is often as- 
 serted that the mind, as some call the functions of the 
 nerve tissue, never sleeps. One proof of this is the sup- 
 posed mystery of dreams. I think that dreams do not 
 come in profound sleep — that is, when the molecules of 
 
 * Work called "Evolution." 
 
the; phenomenal, ego 153 
 
 the nerve tissue which produce the psychical phenomena 
 are at rest. It is probable that those nerves that sustain 
 the physiological function of replacing the destroyed 
 molecules of nerve structure may be as active in pro- 
 found sleep as during the waking hours. Dreams seem 
 to be produced during the decreasing activity of the 
 molecular motion of the psychical patterns of the brain 
 in process of going to sleep, or by the nascent motion of 
 the same molecules in the process of waking. At these 
 two opposite periods, the sensations coming from the 
 environment are not operative, but the faint and imper- 
 fect representations of former sensations are produced 
 by the feeble movements of the molecules, not vigorous 
 and true as when first presented in the waking hours, 
 but modified and never an exact copy of the original. 
 Thus dreams seem to be of different degrees of truthful- 
 ness. As the brain approaches sleep, the first dreams 
 are likely to be. the most vivid and representative^ but as 
 sense activity gradually declines, they become fainter and 
 more fantastic and at last incoherent. This order is re- 
 versed in the period of awakening, the last dreams that 
 precede the final opening of the avenues of real sensa- 
 tions coming from real objects in the realm outside of the 
 Ego, being more definite and true to the reality than 
 those preceding. In this sense dreams are in line with 
 other psychical phenomena, having physiological marks. 
 Profound sleep may be prevented by various abnormali- 
 ties acting on the senses, such as indigestible food in the 
 stomach, aromas coming in excess to the nostrils, or un- 
 usual pressure on any part of the body. In such cases 
 there is not profound sleep and the molecular nervous 
 motions are more or less active, producing correspond- 
 ing representation of modified forms of previous sensa- 
 tions and ideas. 
 
154 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The assertion that the function of the nervous struc- 
 ture as above set forth produces consciousness includes, 
 of course, the process of thought. Thoughts, or the proc- 
 ess of forming ideas, are accompanied by the same ob- 
 jective physiological marks that characterize all psychi- 
 cal processes, they follow molecular motion. It seems 
 trite to make this assertion in view of the fact that the 
 bodily movements following sensations imply thinking. 
 Consciousness is a condition which is best described by 
 calling it a correspondence between the brain structure 
 and relations in the objective. The Century Dictionary 
 says, the word consciousness is derived from the Latin 
 conscius — knowing, aware. Therefore it is the aggre- 
 gate of knowledge or awareness possessed by the Ego. 
 This knowledge of course, includes the perception of 
 self as I define it objectively. The term subjective is as 
 a thing in itself artificial because the Ego, including con- 
 sciousness, as far as it can be scientifically studied is ob- 
 jective to the senses. The physiology and anatomy of 
 the body is perceptible to sight, hearing, touch, taste and 
 smell. Perhaps touch is most largely the sense of self 
 feeling. Pleasure is the harmonious touch of all func- 
 tion. Touch is not confined to the ends of our fingers, 
 but is an all-pervasive sense located in some degree in 
 every surface both inside and outside, and pain, which 
 is the alarm call from the outposts of the neural fortress 
 that an attack of a destructive kind is being made, ac- 
 centuates the great importance of the sense of touch to 
 the organism. Touch exists wherever there is living 
 nerve. It is the all-pervasive and primal sense. What 
 is subjective is the opposite pole to the objective in psy- 
 chical phenomena. For example, the voices heard by 
 Joan of Arc were entirely subjective, because they were 
 private to her hearing. They were heard by no one else. 
 
THE PHENOMENAL EGO 155 
 
 We are self conscious to the extent that self, or the 
 Ego, is objective to the receptive nerves and ganglia. 
 This is evident, for whatever part of the body, or its 
 functions, makes impressions on the senses is certainly 
 objective. But the method of conversion in the brain of 
 sensation into abstraction or generalization is not ap- 
 parent. Therefore whatever part of brain processes in 
 the Ego is not objective is unknown to us. This may 
 be the process of connecting the perceiver with the thing 
 perceived, or rather the thing's relationship with other 
 things. It is unknown why the same plexus of nerve 
 tissue at once receives and perceives, or of what the re- 
 action to a sensation beyond the chemical action of the 
 molecules really consists. The simple emotions, such as 
 fear, hatred, affection, self-feeling, and sexual emotions, 
 are manifested by objective physiological marks in the 
 organs that display the phenomena. The physical 
 changes constitute the emotion. In his address to the 
 Physiological Section of the British Association at its 
 meeting in 1904 at Cambridge, Prof. C. S. Sherrington 
 made the following statement * : "In the integrative 
 function of the nervous system the unit mechanism 
 is the reflex. The chain of conduction in the reflex 
 is a nervous arc running from a receptor organ to an 
 effector organ, e. g. from a sense organ to a limb muscle. 
 The characteristic of the synoptic system is that the chain 
 consists of neurones jointed together in such a way that 
 conductivity seems possible only in one direction." He 
 says that "the receptive neurone conducts only the im- 
 pulses generated at its own point and other receptive 
 points cannot use it. But at the terminus of every re- 
 flex arc we find a final neurone, the ultimate conductive 
 
 * See the October, 1904, number of the Popular Science 
 Monthly. 
 
156 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 link to an effector organ, gland or muscle. "It does not 
 subserve exclusively impulses generated at one single 
 receptive source alone, but receives impulses from many 
 receptive sources situate in many and various regions of 
 the body." Thus, "Reflex arcs arising in manifold sense 
 organs can pour their influence into one and the same 
 muscle. A limb muscle is the terminus ad quern of nerv- 
 ous arcs arising not only in the right eye, but in the left, 
 not only in the eyes, but in the organs of smell and hear- 
 ing, not only in these but in the geotropic labyrinth, in. 
 the skin and in the muscles and joints of the limb itself 
 and of the other limbs as well. Its motor nerve is a path 
 common to all these." 
 
 I consider a system of conductivity so eleborate as 
 this with functions so complex and far reaching as be- 
 ing sufficient in itself to produce all the phenomena of 
 psychic action as we feel and perceive them in our own 
 bodies, and as we perceive them in the bodies of others. 
 I will quote further from this able address of Prof. Sher- 
 rington's. "The conducting paths in the great central 
 organ are arranged in a particular pattern. The success 
 achieved in unraveling of the conductive patterns of the 
 brain and cord is shown by the diagrams furnished by 
 the works of such investigators as Edinger, Exner," and 
 others. "Knowledge of this kind stands high among 
 the neurological advances of our time. But the pattern 
 of the web of conductors is not really immutable. Func- 
 tionally its details change from moment to moment. In 
 any active part it is a web that shifts from one pattern 
 to another, from a first to a second, from a second to a 
 third, then back perhaps to the first and then to a fourth 
 and so on backwards and forwards. Locally the patterns 
 are in constant flux of back and forward change." He 
 closes the address by saying, "If we regard the nervous 
 
the phenomenal ego 157 
 
 system of any higher organism from the broad point of 
 view, a salient feature of its architecture is the follow- 
 ing: At the commencement of every reflex arc is a re- 
 ceptive neurone extending from the receptive surface to 
 the central nervous organ." Introspection means the 
 turning of the senses from external objects inward to 
 observe the workings of our own organs, including the 
 brain. But we fail to perceive the method of thought in 
 this way. Whatever we do perceive in this way is self 
 consciousness. One could observe the motion of the 
 molecules of the brain of another body, but this would be 
 purely objective and would not be self consciousness, but 
 only circumstantial evidence that the same phenomena 
 occur in the observer. It is good evidence that the same 
 thing occurs in our own brains which are similarly con- 
 structed. The study of anatomy and physiology is en- 
 tirely objective, but so must be the study of psychology 
 as the study of the relation existing between our own 
 conscious states and the relation of things in the en- 
 vironment. The question is how the excitation of a re- 
 ceptive nerve by an incident force proceeding from ob- 
 jects in the environment produces in us a state of con- 
 sciousness and the particular forms of psychical phe- 
 nomena called conception, reasoning, memory and will. 
 There seem to be no real distinct departments of these 
 functions, but they are modifications of the general psy- 
 chical method. Beyond what is objective in the method 
 there can be no knowledge. We can only cognize the 
 physiological marks accompanying the phenomena. The 
 manifestations are objective. Therefore, if we confine 
 the Ego to a thinking process and call that self, then we 
 have no self consciousness. But if we call the whole 
 body the ego then we are self conscious of the objective 
 part of the Ego. 
 
158 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 Notwithstanding all the metaphysical reasoning upon 
 the nature of the subjective I cannot see that any ad- 
 vance has been made toward differentiating it from the 
 objective, for if it is a thing in itself, an entity, having 
 real existence then it is objective. I know it is answered 
 by some psychologists — that- we are more conscious of 
 our subjective existence than we are of the objective. 
 This is true provided self consciousness is defined as the 
 knowledge of ourselves that is objective to the senses. 
 It seems to me that what we know of ourselves comes 
 through our senses as the objective, either in the shape 
 of direct sensations from our anatomy and physiology, 
 or by inference from what we observe in other homolo- 
 gous organisms, and if there is anything else left after all 
 the objective factors of the Ego are eliminated, it is 
 something of which we are not conscious and about which 
 we are not able to postulate anything. The inner world 
 of the Ego may be said to be the phenomena inaccess- 
 ible to other individuals and the ultimate nature of 
 which is just as unknown to himself except as a condi- 
 tion produced by the stimulation of the nerve tissues by 
 objectivity. Now, coming back to the physical marks 
 accompanying the act of thinking, they are very clear 
 to the perception. 
 
 "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." His 
 thougths are generally put into outward acts, in the mo- 
 tion of the muscles, e. g. in speech or in written langu- 
 age. If not in either of the preceding ways then the in- 
 tensity, of them can be determined by the following 
 marks ; expansion of the arteries leading to the brain and 
 the consequent increase of the circulation to the brain. 
 These accelerate the action of the heart which modifies 
 the whole vascular system; or by the fixedness of the 
 muscle controlling the eyes or other organs of sense. 
 
THE PHENOMENAL EGO 159 
 
 In fact in a broad sense the signs of life are the marks 
 of thought. Should these physiological manifestations 
 be prevented in any way, as by pathological conditions, 
 then there would be no thought and I suppose that inter- 
 ference with them in any degree would in the same de- 
 gree lessen the coherency and perspicacity of the think- 
 ing. I think if all the data of consciousness could be 
 enumerated from the center of attention at any moment 
 to the thousand things in the margin or sub-conscious 
 aurora of it, it would be found that all are objective and 
 come through the senses. The consciousness of one, 
 deprived of every sense except touch, would be found 
 to be made up of sensation coming from the environ- 
 ment that act only on that sense. Should that also be 
 taken away there would be no consciousness and per- 
 ihaps no life. The psychologist who contends that the 
 molecular motion or function of the nerve tissue of the 
 central organ cannot be transformed into or rather that 
 it is not thought, must account for thought in some 
 other physiological process, or by some unknown agency 
 whose seat is in some unknown locality acting directly 
 in co-operation with the molecular motion. Otherwise 
 he must declare himself an agnostic as to this phenom- 
 enon. At least the thought cannot be dissociated from 
 its physical connection, and until experience has dis- 
 closed other agency, I see no way to avoid the hypoth- 
 esis of the transformation of molecular brain cortex 
 into thought. The word "function" explains all psychical 
 phenomena. I cannot conceive of any function for the 
 molecular motion in the brain unless it does produce 
 thought. Certainly sensation produces thought, and 
 sensations are conveyed to the brain by molecular mo- 
 tion. Beyond that I have failed to discover any natural 
 explanation of the phenomenon of thinking. This theory 
 
160 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 presupposes that the operation of all his senses com- 
 bined gives man all his so called mental, moral, and 
 physical characteristics. Without a ganglionic nervous 
 system he could express none of these manifestations. 
 
 The assumption, either expressed or implied, that our 
 consciousness is produced by an agent or entity located 
 somewhere in the body and catching the sensations con- 
 veyed from the environment by nerve molecular motion, 
 as the telegraph operator formulates the messages that 
 pass over the wires, is analogous to Kepler's assertion, 
 that notwithstanding his own natural laws of the orbital 
 motion of the planets, yet there must be an angel in each 
 star to hold it in its orbital relation with the sun. New- 
 ton brushed away that idea by demonstrating the natural 
 principle ofi the attraction of gravitation. 
 
 Comparative Psychology : By observing the grada- 
 tions of complexity and definiteness in the nervous sys- 
 tems of animals, from the lowest to the highest, it is 
 plain that intellect and intelligence depend upon the 
 correspondence that these systems give the body with the 
 relation of things in the environment. In other words, 
 the psychology of the animal is the degree of perfection 
 of this correspondence. The lowest animal life is with- 
 out nerves. It has only the sense of touch, and that 
 very feeble. In this regard it is very different from a 
 human being deprived of all senses except touch. The 
 human being is possessed of the nervous structure con- 
 stituting the grey matter centers of the other senses and 
 by the associative conduction paths crossing in great 
 numbers every part of the brain these centers of the 
 other senses are excited to the vicarious performance of 
 the psychical functions of each other. So that the sen- 
 sations coming through the sense of touch alone to such 
 a brain structure produce nearly as much mentality, af- 
 
THE PHENOMENAL EGO 161 
 
 ter repeated practice or experience, as if the outward 
 sense organs were all in normal working order. The 
 reaction of its muscles to the sensation of touch is slow 
 in the animal without nerves. Such animal life is sus- 
 tained by the absorption of whatever suitable matter 
 comes casually in contact with its surface. It is with- 
 out other intelligence than sustentation and procrea- 
 tion. The difference between it and the most intellectual 
 man is the difference of complexity in physical struc- 
 ture, which of course, includes nervous structure. 
 
 It will be found also that every thought is based in 
 .physical necessity. Why does the twining vine grow its 
 first two joints rigid and the third so mobile that it will 
 vibrate in a circle, seeking an object around which it can 
 twine? Or why does the rhizopod contract and appro- 
 priate the soluble and nutritious particles coming in con- 
 tact with its surface, but rejects the insoluble and in- 
 organic, unless it is, that both phenomena in all essential 
 elements are expressive of the same choice in less degree 
 as man makes in his reasoning out a civil and moral 
 code, which man considers essential to his physical wel- 
 fare; the same essentially that similar acts by man, al- 
 though more complex, constitute what is variously ex- 
 pressed by the words thought, reason, memory, will? 
 This physical basis to all thought is the necessity of the 
 natural preservation of the organism, or of the race to 
 which it belongs. In the case of the human being, and 
 many lower animals, especially bees and ants, there is 
 the added condition of social life which man, and I sup- 
 pose the ant and the bee, consider also essential to their 
 existence. Whoever is unselfishly pursuing truth in the 
 abstract, is doing it by the compulsion or tendency of 
 his organism. Truth is essential to his organized brain 
 structure or his nerve structure is in necessary corre- 
 
162 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 spondence with a higher environment, in which truth is 
 the essential thing. To the devotee of esthetics, the 
 beautiful is a condition of natural existence, or at least 
 of social existence to him. To him harmony in sound 
 and color are necessary to the preservation of his or- 
 ganism. Whatever man does seems in the last analysis 
 to have at bottom the motive of preservation of either 
 self or the race. The principle is apparent in all com- 
 mercialism and industrialism. It is not so apparent in 
 art or poetry. Yet when the artist paints a picture like 
 the Angelus, or the poet composes a Thanatopsis or an 
 Illiad, its greatness really consists in its lessons of true 
 life, it points the way to higher, broader and deeper con- 
 ceptions of man and his relations to his fellows — that is, 
 it shows man how to preserve and prolong his life. 
 
 Auguste Comte in his positive philosophy refused to 
 recognize psychology as a science distinct from physiol- 
 ogy. The reason is not obscure. It is that every psy- 
 chical phenomenon has its physiological marks, in the 
 absence of which there is no phenomenon. The new 
 psychology is physiological. The old was metaphysical. 
 Note the material elements of a Spencerian definition of 
 an idea. "The psychical side of what on its physical 
 side is an involved set of molecular changes, propagated 
 through an involved set of nervous plexuses; that which 
 makes possible the idea is the pre-existence of these 
 plexuses," and they are the only part of the phenomenon 
 that persists. The assumption that there is any other 
 element takes the treatment of it out of the realm of 
 psychology or science into that of metaphysics. Spen- 
 cer's definition of an idea is inductive or scientific. Note 
 the contrast between that and Des Cartes' definition, in 
 which the physiological element is omited. Des Cartes 
 says, "By the word idea I understand that form of any 
 
THE PHENOMENAL EGO 163 
 
 thought, by the immediate perception of which I am 
 conscious of some thought." This seems to me no defi- 
 nition at all. No scientific definition can be given ex- 
 cept that the physiological changes constituting the phe- 
 nomenon give the psychical effect. Of a piece with Des 
 Cartes' definition of an idea is his proof of an existence 
 of a God. He says "The existence of God is known 
 from the consideration of his nature alone." Even the 
 Church of France could not abide this kind of nonsense 
 and repudiated the Cartesian proof of God. 
 
 The thought of one man is different from that of an- 
 other because the nerve structure is different. The dif- 
 ference in character among all animals is the difference 
 in physical structure. This difference produces different 
 phases of intellect and emotion. All animals are char- 
 acterized by the emotions and whichever emotion, fear, 
 anger, affection or self-feeling, predominates, gives the 
 temperament. These emotions in the lower animals are 
 unmodified, or very little modified by the brain or intel- 
 lect. But in man the superior quantity and intensity of 
 brain matter puts him in so much wider and more com- 
 plex correspondence with obscure and complex relations 
 in his environment that the impulses of the simple emo- 
 tions are greatly modified or checked, but the process is 
 molecular motion. That form of consciousness called 
 reason and memory seem to be merely arrested reflex 
 motion. The reflex arc of the nervous system in low or- 
 ders of animals consists of a receptive, neurone, a central 
 ganglion and a motor nerve running from the ganglion 
 to the muscle. The motor action follows immediately 
 the sensation. In the nervous system of man there is 
 the same unit of the simple reflex and as many or more 
 simple responses to sensory stimulation without the in- 
 terposition of consciousness. But there is also the large 
 
164 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ganglion called the cerebrum into and from which run 
 nerves in continuation of the simple reflex. Those sen- 
 sations too complex for simple reflexes to solve pass over 
 the more complex arcs into the brain centers. The re- 
 sulting perception, or conception, or abstraction is a 
 higher phase of consciousness. That is, these higher 
 centers of psychical action arrest the flow of sensory ac- 
 tivity and turn it from the motor channel into the idea- 
 tional centers. The psychical result is a relation called 
 consciousness. It is the physiology of the organism that 
 is modified by the difference in structure, and at the 
 same time there is a corresponding difference in its psy- 
 chology. Let us consider for a moment some negative 
 concrete evidence that consciousness is a phenomenon 
 and not an entity — not supernatural, and that thought 
 has a physical basis in the preservation of the individual, 
 or of the race to which he belongs. Few books account 
 for the natural truths most important for man to know. 
 A spiritual entity as the agent behind and producing con- 
 sciousness should tell him whence he came or whither 
 bound, but not in myths; or give the real reason for his 
 existence, or why it is necessary for him to develop from 
 a cell in each individual instance, grow to a certain size, 
 remain in constant activity a certain time, then cease 
 such existence in every instance and go back into the 
 original elements of inorganic matter from which he ap- 
 parently evolved. 
 
 No man is able to tell how long mankind has been 
 on the earth. The records begin a few thousand years 
 ago, but fail to give any intelligible account of how 
 this peculiar form of matter and motion called life, 
 began, or why it seems to have arisen at a late period in 
 the evolution of one of the smallest globes, of not only 
 the universe, but of the solar system. Nor do they tell 
 
the: phenomenal ego 165 
 
 whether the other globes have life, or why they evolve 
 in the way and in the localities they do; nor whether 
 there is any reality in the objective, or for that matter 
 in the subjective. These truths seem to be beyond the 
 limitations of the human intellect. It should seem to 
 those who believe the mind to be a spiritual entity and 
 part of the universal "soul" substance very peculiar that 
 the reality of matter and motion so universal and con- 
 stant to man's senses, is unknown to the highest intel- 
 lect. This want of true knowledge producing agnosti- 
 cism is not, however, surprising to a student of modern 
 psychology. It is the physical limitation of the Ego's 
 correspondence with phenomena only. The Ego has no 
 physical structure capable of interpreting the tenth of 
 phenomena. Could this correspondence be extended to 
 a supposed reality behind the phenomena, or if a part of 
 that reality existed as a monitor, as an entity in the body, 
 to produce the thoughts and ideas of that body, then 
 these insoluble questions should easily become soluble, 
 otherwise what is the necessity for other than natural 
 forces in the nerve tissue? 
 
 The Ego, being a part of phenomena, is only a dif- 
 ferentiated species of phenomena and seems to be in- 
 ferior to many of them in the power of producing re- 
 sults. For instance, matter and motion in the transform- 
 ation from the nebula to the present status by evolution, 
 has produced in physics the harmony of the stellar 
 bodies; in chemistry the atmosphere and water; and the 
 light of the sun, which falling on leaves and flowers re- 
 appears as life.* Whether the true theory of light is that 
 of Newton — the corpuscular, or that of Huygens — the 
 wave, yet we know it conveys to us by photography and 
 
 Le Conte's "Evolution." 
 
166 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 the spectrum, information of the remote parts of the 
 universe, beyond the power of any other known form of 
 matter and motion to convey. It is true before man can 
 interpret these he must have' a nervous power, yet power 
 of nerve tissue, or thought, or any psychic phenomenon 
 is tame in comparison with this phenomenon. It ap- 
 pears to me that the Ego's limitations prove it to be only 
 a part of phenomena. And these material phenomena 
 from which the brain of man derives so much knowl- 
 edge must have been in operation just as they now are, 
 ages before there was an Ego. Had there been any de- 
 sign in their evolution with reference to adapting them 
 to the use and benefit of man alone, the wonder arises 
 why they preceded the advent of man apparently so long. 
 I therefore conclude there seems to be nothing in the 
 Ego, either subjective or objective, to give it special 
 standing outside of the perpetual interchange of matter 
 and motion apparently going on throughout the uni- 
 verse. There also seems to be no other logical conclu- 
 sion from all the facts than that the mind is a relation 
 between certain objective phenomena, and that such re- 
 lation passes away with the passing of the Ego. But the 
 objective phenomena continue and do not in any respect 
 depend for their existence on the consciousness of the 
 Ego. It is quite certain also that this consciousness is 
 only a relation between a very limited number of phe- 
 nomena. An infinite number probably exist in the Ego's 
 environment whose relation is beyond the comprehen- 
 sion of human consciousness. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ESSENCE OF PHENOMENISM 
 
 The true lover of natural phenomena, especially of 
 the beauty and harmony of the usual apparition that is 
 so constantly present to the senses, cannot restrain a 
 tendency to philosophize. Nowhere is this tendency 
 more compelling than to him who wanders amid the 
 silence and grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, along the 
 banks of a clear sparkling stream, away from the common 
 haunts of man. Here Nature, figuratively speaking, 
 (meaning the combined phenomena of the universe,) 
 whispers the purest truths into the ear of the willing 
 listener, and never misinforms her votaries, although 
 those votaries may at times draw wrong conclusions from 
 the whispered truths. She is the mother of us all. While 
 lingering near her heart, my brain was greatly impressed 
 with the following ideas. They do not form a logical 
 whole, yet they may impress the reader, as they did me, 
 of the importance to the human organism to be in har- 
 monious correspondence with these phenomena from 
 which he draws all the sustentation of his moral, intel- 
 lectual, and physical being. The words "mental" and 
 "moral" used here and throughout this chapter are in- 
 tended to convey ideas only of convenient artificial divi- 
 sions of the functions of the aggregate organism. They 
 are mere definitions of certain manifestations of the nor- 
 mal working of the nerve structure as a whole, and of 
 the resulting psychic life as a unit. 
 
 16? 
 
168 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 It occurred to me that Buckle in his Introduction to 
 his proposed "History of Civilization," tried to show that 
 it was not the occult, or so-called spiritual, that was the 
 basis or the real cause of our civilization, but that the 
 soil, climate, and locality, together with hereditary in- 
 dustrialism, accounted for the difference between the so- 
 cial welfare of one people and that of another. A French 
 author has lately written a book to prove that the superi- 
 ority of the Anglo-Saxon in the battle of life, is really 
 founded on his love of the soil, as the true source of 
 his wealth and power. He claims that the Anglo-Saxon, 
 wherever he settles, fastens himself and family on the 
 all-loving mother earth, and turns her kindly productive- 
 ness into the wealth for which some other peoples are in- 
 clined to look to fictitious sources. This disposition is 
 also shown in his great desire for personal ownership of 
 the soil in fee. The sense of the exclusive possession of 
 a piece of real property is characteristic of the Anglo- 
 Saxon. * 
 
 The real meaning of these authors seems to be that 
 the fundamental basis of a true civilization is physical. 
 They do not ignore that in the higher manifestations of 
 mental life certain functions appear in so subtle a form 
 that the ordinary man calls them spiritual or supernat- 
 ural. But these authors are not misled by such appear- 
 ances and are in accord with biological scientists that such 
 appearances are the outgrowths of matter and motion. 
 They therefore advocate the supreme importance of 
 teaching mankind that natural and physical laws are the 
 true sources of their strength and power. The subjects 
 treated by them and the manner of their treatment indi- 
 cate that strength of character in the individual or a peo- 
 
 * "Anglo-Saxon Superiority," by Edmond Demolins. 
 
THE ESSENCE; OF PHENOMENISM 169 
 
 pie is derived from a proper observance of the ethics of 
 domestic economy. Industry of every kind is rooted in 
 the soil. Without a footing upon the earth no form of 
 life can long survive. These facts carried to their logical 
 sequence result in the most enduring and beautiful ethics. 
 The man who is really true to the laws of nature, is also 
 true to his fellow man. He becomes altruistic in the 
 highest sense and is a living exponent of the golden rule. 
 A study of the rise and fall of nations, as disclosed by the 
 one-sided and distorted history of them which we possess, 
 shows that no civilization yet evolved, has long endured. 
 The Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, 
 Roman, were all based upon some fatal error. They de- 
 cayed and finally fell. Civilization is made up of two es- 
 sential things, viz., man's relation to his fellows, and to 
 his environment. His relation to his fellows must be de- 
 termined according to the principles of evolution by nat- 
 ural selection, or the survival of the fittest, by which the 
 weak are replaced by the strong, and the attitude that 
 the leaders of thought assume toward this principle will 
 determine the early or tardy change of the present the- 
 ological attitude to one of naturalism. As man's intellect 
 expands changes in beliefs must come. Especially as fun- 
 damental truths reveal themselves sucessively to his en- 
 larging perception, he necessarily keeps continually read- 
 justing his moral and social functions to meet the ever 
 changing requirements. True history of ethics and so- 
 ciology should be a record of these changes from cen- 
 tury to century. Read aright, they are milestones on the 
 road from absolute superstition and ignorance, toward the 
 correct solution of natural cause and effect. It is grati- 
 fying to know that so many authors of ability have al- 
 ready written as Buckle has done. 
 
 Man's relation to his environment should be deter- 
 
170 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 mined by the images made upon his brain centers by real 
 objects. He thus only will recognize whence his organ- 
 ism derives all its power — whether called physical, mental 
 or spiritual. 
 
 My idea is that the fatal error in former civilizations, 
 as well as in the present civilization, is in popular 
 ignorance of the natural laws of the Cosmos, and that 
 the civilization of the future will be enduring in pro- 
 portion as it makes the natural its foundation and the 
 basis of its educational systems, and adopts the idea that 
 whatever may be behind phenomena is not knowable, 
 and from phenomena properly understood man can de- 
 rive the highest knowledge, and the most enduring 
 ethics. The theological conception of creation, that man 
 was created perfect after all other things had been cre- 
 ated for him and his destiny ; that the earth was the cen- 
 ter of God's special care; that the sun, moon, and stars 
 revolved around it for the purpose of contributing to the 
 pleasure and welfare of man, or that the earth is a mere 
 resting place to prepare him for a purer life beyond, is 
 what heretofore has technically been called the geocen- 
 tric idea. But my conception is that the term can be 
 much more properly used in defining the true source of 
 knowledge and inspiration, the real cause of man's reli- 
 gion and happiness. While science has long ago shown 
 that the earth is not only not the center, but a very 
 small and insignificant part of the universe, yet it is the 
 abode of our race; for mankind is confined to it irre- 
 vocably, and from it and its natural productions must 
 derive his life and everything that contributes to the 
 support of life. It is therefore of the greatest import- 
 ance that man learn all he possibly can of this source of 
 his existence. The highest education is that knowledge 
 which puts the Ego into the closest touch with his pro- 
 
 
the; essence of phenomenism 171 
 
 per relations to all of his immediate environment, in and 
 frdm which, the elements of his body and being are evi- 
 dently derived. Therefore, the geocentric idea is correct 
 scientifically, but not in the old theological sense. 
 
 My understanding of the religion in China is that 
 Confucius, whom the Chinese follow, did not teach a 
 personal God, nor immortality. Therefore, the Chinese 
 are not much saturated with the supernatural. It is the 
 same with the East Indian. His Nirvana, while profes- 
 sing to be elimination of evil, yet is practically annihila- 
 tion at death. If the above definitions of the beliefs of 
 these ancient peoples are correct, then they will exem- 
 plify, by the long reign of their peculiar civilizations, and 
 the principles here set forth, that the further removed 
 the beliefs of the people are from the supernatural, the 
 more enduring their civilization will be. 
 
 The following extract is made from an article writ- 
 ten by the British minister, Sir Robert Hart, at Pekin, 
 China, on the "Boxer movement." It is a representa- 
 tion of a civilization that is older than ours, which cen- 
 turies ago passed through our present mental habits and 
 have forgotten them, and in which Christianity, as a sys- 
 tem, has not been an element. But the Golden Rule was 
 a cardinal principle of it. 
 
 "The Chinese are a proud — some say, a conceited — 
 people, but they have very good reason for their pride, 
 and their conceit has its excuses. Far away from the 
 rest of the world they have been living their own life and 
 developing their own civilization ; while others have been 
 displaying what humanity may attain to with a revealed 
 religion for its highest law, and a Christ for its pattern, 
 they have been exhibiting what a life a race may rise 
 to, and live, without either. The central idea of their 
 
172 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 cult is filial piety; reverence for seniority, intensifying 
 with every generation that transmitted it, settles all the 
 details of family, social and national life. They are a 
 pre-eminently reasonable people, and when disputes oc- 
 cur, it is the appeal to right that solves them. For thirty 
 centuries or more, this recognized and inherited worship 
 of right has gone on strengthening, and so strong is the 
 feeling, that to hint to them right must be supported by 
 might, excites something more than amazement. The 
 relation of sovereign to subject, and of man to man, have 
 so long been authoritatively defined and acknowledged, 
 that the life of the people has been poured into and 
 shaped by a mold of duty, while the natural division of 
 the empire into provinces has been so harmoniously sup- 
 plemented by provincial and inter-provincial arrange- 
 ments, under the metropolitan administration, that law 
 reigns everywhere, and disorder is the exception. The 
 arts of peace have ever held the first place in' the estima- 
 tion of all, and, just as might should quail before right, 
 so does intellectual prowess win honor everywhere, and 
 the leaders of the people are those whom the grand na- 
 tional competitive examinations have proved to be more 
 gifted than their fellows. In no other country is educa- 
 tion so prized, so honored, so utilized and so rewarded, 
 and such is the veneration for that simple vehicle of 
 thought, the written character, that to tread on paper 
 with either writing or printing on it, is all but desecra- 
 tion." * 
 
 I have no doubt, however, that the Chinese religion 
 included the essential tenets around which the Christian 
 religion crystallized ; viz : the golden rule and the ser- 
 mon on the mount. These are the foundation stones of 
 
 * Popular Science Monthly. 
 
THE ESSENCE OF PHENOMENISM 173 
 
 every religion, and the same principles are exhibited by 
 every atom of matter in the original nebula from the 
 time of its first movement toward the integration of the 
 present forms in the universe until . men and animals 
 were evolved on this globe from the same atoms, still 
 governed by the same principles. 
 
 It is the habit of some to attribute to supernatural- 
 ism, that is, the creeds of the Christian church, all that 
 is good in the civilization of the world. But I think it 
 can be shown that there is no original, automatic initial 
 force in them ; that whatever is good in the Christian 
 religion — and no man can deny that they embody as the 
 support of their tenets, much that the world cannot do 
 without — is rather the offspring of a condition of soci- 
 ety, that has resulted from a much broader principle 
 existing in the very necessity of the interchange of mat- 
 ter and motion from the very beginning and continued 
 in that form of it which we now call man. Religion is 
 the result of civilization, not the cause of it. Jesus used 
 the parable of the seed and the sower, and said that the 
 seeds that fell upon the rocks did not produce, and that 
 which fell upon stony ground, sprang up and soon died. 
 So that the seed, (that is, the Christian principle), if the 
 illustration means anything, has no initiative power 
 within itself. It must be sown on good soil to bring 
 forth fruit and this depends upon natural law, not super- 
 natural initiative. So that the important thing to know 
 is how comes the good soil — the condition of society that 
 makes the principles of Christianity; that is, the altru- 
 istic principle — able to take any hold of the people. The 
 growth of the seed of any religion or morality depended 
 upon the conditions of the people mentally. 
 
 People who had followed unconsciously the law of 
 evolution and kept close to the lessons taught by Nature, 
 
174 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 that the struggle for existence and the survival of the 
 fittest, were the only methods of developing a strong 
 people, were the ones in which the altruistic seed could 
 generate. Those races in which the individual was made 
 strong by honest work, by agriculture in the first in- 
 stance, and then by other industries as they arose; ma- 
 nufacturing and commerce; were the ones where Christ- 
 ianity made its strongest impression. But a people thus 
 prepared by the cultivation of all those mental traits 
 that result from honest physical toil, in other words, from 
 the struggle for existence, were already moral and reli- 
 gious. They might not all be refined and intellectual, 
 but they must be just, or they would have no prosperity ; 
 they must be temperate or their development would be 
 arrested ; they must, be virtuous because labor suppresses 
 the passions ; they must be happy because happiness con- 
 sists in the satisfaction that comes from the ability to 
 overcome the difficulties of life; they are independent 
 because individual effort in the industrial pursuits brings 
 self-reliance, which is the essense of independence. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon race has made itself the ruling 
 power in the world, because it has made individual labor 
 the basis of its civilization. It began in England by fasten- 
 ing itself to the soil, with a tenacity that the Norman and 
 Danish conquerers were powerless to break. Then when 
 manufacturing and commerce, were made possible by the 
 use of coal as fuel, and the invention of the steam en- 
 gine, their activity, strength, and self-reliance, which had 
 come to them from their former agricultural pursuits, 
 enabled them to seize the wonderful possibilities for 
 wealth in these arts. But the religion and morals of the 
 church, alone, could not have enabled them to do this, 
 prior to the toning and refining influences of tilling the 
 soil for food, and not roaming as mere hunters and de- 
 
the: essence: of phenomenism 175 
 
 spoilers. It was intelligent, honest individual labor which 
 brought, first, brain and muscle, then independence, then 
 leisure for mental training. In other words, it was the 
 religion that Nature taught them by her unchangable 
 laws, as true and beautiful, so well adapted to the wel- 
 fare and happiness of man. The change from wander- 
 ing hunters and warriors to localized farmers and manu- 
 facturers, gave a character and thoughtfulness to peo- 
 ples. This of itself was the religion of the golden rule 
 and the sermon on the mount. The^ shifting tribes of 
 Arabia never did adopt the tenets of the Christian reli- 
 gion, and are far from convertible at this time to the 
 practice of the golden rule, because their habits of life 
 are incompatible with it. They are the stony places 
 where the seed fails to bring forth fruit of its kind. The 
 point is that when the seeds of Christianity bring forth 
 fruit the people have already evolved into a natural reli- 
 gion which if continued as a natural evolution of moral- 
 ity and religion would require no super-imposed spirit- 
 ualism to make it strong and enduring. 
 
 Norman kings annoyed the peaceful Anglo-Saxons of 
 England somewhat, but their agriculture had made them 
 patient and thoughtful. The struggle against the claims 
 of rulers that began with the Danes and continued with 
 Norman William, gradually developed in them more 
 mental power. It built up the Common Law of Eng- 
 land, the code of the rights of man against those who 
 would enslave him. They thus gradually conquered their 
 conquerers, and absorbed the very political masters who 
 seemed to the outside world to be absorbing them. The 
 conquest of William the Conquerer in 1066 has nothing 
 surviving in the 19th century, except the impotence of 
 a figure-head royalty, the pomp and ceremony of a pow- 
 erless House of Lords, and the cohesion of Church and 
 
176 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 State. England's true greatness lies in the initiative of 
 the Anglo-Saxon individualism, developed by honest la- 
 bor. 
 
 The United States is the apotheosis of that individu- 
 alism, greatly developed beyond that of the mother coun- 
 try, because she has left behind her the ceremony and 
 militarism still remaining there, of the Norman power. 
 I mean by this, that the greater development of the in- 
 dividual toward independent thinking, and therefore the 
 more rapid emancipation toward naturalism, or phenom- 
 enism, have been greatly accelerated by the omission in 
 our constitution and laws of those organized and legalized 
 oppressors of the people — royalty and a state church. 
 There were some of the inherited effects of the latter 
 quite apparent in certain classes of colonial society at the 
 time of the formation of our constitution. Hence the 
 compromises of the constitutional convention by which 
 African slavery was continued and the advantages given 
 in the establishment of protective tariff for the benefit of 
 the wealthy manufacturer. Yet it was an immense ad- 
 vance toward individual emancipation when a state 
 church, royalty and an hereditary upper house were 
 omitted in the original constitution. But even with this 
 advantage over the mother country the further evolution 
 of the people of the United States toward complete eman- 
 cipation from theological and economical delusions of all 
 kinds, depends upon the same material causes that have 
 heretofore produced the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon 
 over his Norman oppressors. The pending struggle 
 should be, to establish the principle that every individual 
 should receive the full benefit of that which his individ- 
 ual labor produces. There must not be either chattel or 
 wage slavery. Nor must there be militarism. But all 
 real progress in either mental or moral development must 
 
the essence; of phenomenism 177 
 
 necessarily be founded on the material or physical neces- 
 sities of both individual and race preservation. This 
 means that with our feet firmly planted on the earth, we 
 receive the sustenance from it alone, for our evolution 
 of mind and morals. The word "earth" here means the 
 organic as well as the inorganic. After "mind" is de- 
 veloped we can look toward the stars. But even our real 
 knowledge of these comes from a study of the earth. 
 
 The strongest hold that theology has upon the mas- 
 ses is that it has wisely embodied in its mysterious super- 
 natural structure, an ethical code which, while not scien- 
 tific but authoritative, yet is assented to by scientific think- 
 ers, because of inability of a large part of the people 
 to comprehend any other code. Much of the decalogue 
 and all of the golden rule are natural codes of morality 
 which every people are compelled, as a matter of self-pre- 
 servation, to adopt. They would have adopted practi- 
 cally the same ethics, had the idea of supernaturalism 
 never existed. The idea seems to prevail that if the 
 myths are swept away, the moral code will go with them, 
 and the people will be left without a guide. But a mo- 
 ment's thought will convince any one that if the change 
 is made by the slow process of education; that is, by re- 
 flection, reading, and a personal study of the facts of na- 
 ture, the same way the scientists have convinced them- 
 selves, that the same power of brain that has thus un- 
 covered the untruth, will see that natural ethics are es- 
 sential to the preservation of, not only society, but of life 
 itself; that whatever is embodied in the theological code 
 that is natural and essential to man, will remain \vhen all 
 myths fade away. The gradual change that comes into 
 the minds of trusting childhood, for instance, that be- 
 lieves anything it is told, as education teaches it to dis- 
 criminate between the real and the unreal, is typical of 
 
178 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 the change that will come into the aggregate mind of 
 mankind, as the real facts of natural phenomena become 
 apparent. Minds that are uneducated in scientific truths, 
 are in the condition of childhood — they are ready at all 
 times to attribute what to them are unknown mysteries, 
 to a mysterious origin. We are told that childhood is 
 typical of primitive man ; that is, of the condition of man- 
 kind prior to historical time, and of what we now term 
 the barbarian. In fact, scientifically, the various stages 
 of the individual development of man, from the single 
 cell in the embryo, all through its growth from the em- 
 bryological period in the womb of his mother, and after 
 his birth, through babyhood and boyhood, up to what we. 
 call the fully developed man, are typical of his racial, 
 (phyletic) physiological development. It seems that'our 
 ideas of natural cause and effect are derived primarily 
 from the activity of our own organisms as causes. Our 
 ideas of energy are derived from our sense of effort in 
 overcoming resistance. The unscientific reasoner there- 
 fore would naturally attribute all effect to a like personal 
 cause. From this idea he infers a personal creator. Like- 
 wise some philosophers do this. In fact it is the essence 
 of the theory of the immanence of the spiritual. My un- 
 derstanding of Kant is that causation is merely a concep- 
 tion of the mind and not an objective reality. 
 
 But when we come to think of it, how little less prim- 
 itive was the pre-historic man, than the one who now at- 
 tributes the origin of natural things to supernatural 
 causes. The man who lived in a cave, who wabbled in 
 his walk, and had no written language, very likely did 
 that. If the brain of man has developed in proportion 
 only as man has placed himself in correspondence with 
 the relation of things in the environment; that is, as he 
 conformed his habits or functions to the laws of nature 
 
 
the; essence; of phenomenism 179 
 
 in a wider sense at each step of improvement of brain 
 structure, any impediment to that correspondence like 
 his attribution, without thought, of all phenomena not 
 understood, to a supernatural cause, would greatly re- 
 tard his mental development. His comprehension of 
 these laws enlarged only as his brain structure enlarged. 
 Man only gradually acquired the ability to stand erect 
 and slowly acquired a language, in which the better ob- 
 servers could communicate to the duller ones. But the 
 time he gave to the vague ideas he may have had con- 
 cerning the supernatural cause of phenomena, did not 
 aid him in acquiring these important functions. It was 
 the exertion of all his natural energy in the direction of 
 natural laws and material things palpable to his senses 
 that accomplished these changes. The theologian treats 
 the mind as an entity that should rise above, nature ; that 
 the supreme realities of life are out of the realm of phys- 
 ical science. That is true only if the mind is specially 
 created and put by a supernatural power mechanically 
 into the body, and is a thing not depending on material 
 support. But if, as seems more probable, the mind is the 
 aggregation of feelings resulting from the sensations 
 coming from objective realities in the environment, and 
 has been evolved in and of, and with the body alone, by 
 the evolution of matter, in the form of nerves as numer- 
 ous as the pores of the body, as multitudinous as the 
 arteries and veins, then it at once becomes apparent that 
 it is not an entity; that it is as absolutely impossible for 
 the mind to control nature, or rise independent of its 
 laws as it is for the body to exist without material 
 sustenance. Mind is function of nerve tissue. Science 
 makes no mystery of it. If mystery is what the theolog- 
 ical mind desires to feed on, it need not go beyond the 
 apparent phenomena of Nature. It will find it in great 
 
180 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 abundance in the material universe, in phenomena whose 
 cause is yet unknown. 
 
 Rev. William Chester, in his book, "Immortality, a 
 Rational Faith," says, "Of course the question of im- 
 mortality is out of the realm of physical science. So are 
 all the supreme realities of life — God, the soul, the moral 
 sense, the affections, the beautiful, the true, and the 
 good." That is a singular combination of entities and 
 attributes ; of final causes and effects ; of the abstract and 
 the concrete. A reality is something palpable to man's 
 senses, something that has an objective reality. Will not 
 any intelligent student of physical science admit the phys- 
 ical reality of "the moral sense, the affections, the beau- 
 tiful, the true, and the good?" These are palpable at- 
 tributes of the human organism, and some of them of 
 all nature. The physical scientist will also admit that 
 "moral sense, affection, the beautiful, the true, and the 
 good" are immortal. These are effects, not causes, and 
 are attributes of matter and motion, and in no sense en- 
 tities like Mr. Chester's conception of God and soul. 
 Prof. Haeckel, the advanced physicist, admits a soul to 
 every atom, and that this soul is immortal. But probably 
 this is not the soul meant by Mr. Chester. The atoms 
 also have affection and the extreme "moral sense" of 
 choosing at all times to do the "true" thing for an atom 
 to do, which is to make the most "beautiful" combina- 
 tions with other atoms, for the aggregate "good" of the 
 universe, including man. So that these things are within 
 the "realm of physical science." If he means by "God" 
 the aggregate "good" within the comprehension of the 
 best intellect, then that also is within the realm of phys- 
 ical science. For it is within the conception of our 
 combined physical senses, which is part of consciousness, 
 
the: essence of phenomenism isi 
 
 that whatever occurs in the realm of physical nature is 
 for the best. 
 
 I believe it to be true that if we confine our data to 
 the historical experience of the race, we shall find that 
 mankind has not been able to keep in sufficient corre- 
 spondence with phenomena to avoid a subjective con- 
 ception of> a supernatural. It has not been able to form- 
 ulate a code of natural ethics for want of intellectual 
 ability to connect observed effects to natural causes. In 
 this sense I might say that naturalism is not -antagon- 
 istic to supernaturalism. Because naturalism assumes 
 two aspects of equal importance in psychology, the sub- 
 jective and objective in necessary correspondence. If 
 the correspondence is so defective for want of a proper 
 apparatus for maintaining the subjective aspect, I sup- 
 pose we must still call the subjective conception natural, 
 although it is not true objectively. Science might deal 
 with this phase of what may be called abnormal psychol- 
 ogy in the evolution of the human brain. But it can 
 have nothing to do with abstract supernaturalism as a 
 cause of phenomena. It is difficult enough for science 
 to form even a tentative hypothesis that is satisfactory 
 or adequate regarding phenomena. It is impossible for 
 it to investigate the supernatural, for that is the realm of 
 the unknowable. 
 
 If all would or could agree that everything is natural, 
 that nothing has ever occurred in opposition to or under 
 suspension of natural law then the scientist can remain 
 an agnostic as to ultimate reality, and the Theist can go 
 on believing that the persistence of force is only another 
 name for personality, and both can respect each other. 
 It is true the scientist cannot carry his experiments be- 
 yond the sensuous — he cannot trace phenomena to an ul- 
 timate cause. Neither can the Theist. But the latter 
 
182 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 may indulge his faith to any extent. Therefore why 
 cannot both agree upon that fact and confine attention to 
 phenomena only — the former being content with agnos- 
 ticism and the latter with personality in form of mind 
 or spirit as first cause? 
 
 The penetration of the human mind is very feeble at 
 best, I admit, and with all its material helps, such as 
 microscopy, telescopy, spectroscopy, photography, which 
 is proving in later days the most effective , it has not yet 
 discovered, except in the imagination of the theologian, 
 a place the mind could rise to and get above nature, even 
 if that mind should be an entity. 
 
 Another thing we must remember in the discussion of 
 this important question is, man is a late and the youngest 
 product of nature. The largest part and perhaps the 
 whole of this visible universe was here long before man 
 was evolved. If he is a product of its matter and motion, 
 then it is essential to his very existence, that he conform 
 to its laws, and it is apparent that the more perfectly he 
 is in correspondence with these laws, the less pain, dis- 
 ease, and discomfort, and the longer life he will have. Is 
 it not possible that if this correspondence could be made 
 perfect, his life might also correspond in length, with 
 that of other phenomena? Disease is a breakage of this 
 correspondence. Death is a complete cessation of it. 
 
 Now, what lesson does this teach? That his ethical 
 or moral code must consist of that line of conduct that 
 will tend to increase this natural correspondence. In 
 other words, he must derive his true conception of right 
 from the natural, and not from the supposed superna- 
 tural. When his habits are in correspondence with the 
 evident requirements of nature, then he is moral. He sins 
 only when he violates the laws of nature and suffers the 
 consequences, viz : pain. 
 
THE ESSENCE OF PHENOMENISM 183 
 
 This principle is the foundation of Herbert Spen- 
 cer's treatise on ethics, in which the subject is so elabor- 
 ated and convincingly treated. Elaborated so as to pro- 
 perly apply to all the relations that man sustains to na- 
 ture and his fellow man, it will be found amply suffici- 
 ent to account for and sustain the most altruistic condi- 
 tions. It will account for the most abstract, and appar- 
 ently disinterested love that man can have for others. 
 But a proper observance of the principle will prevent 
 what is likely to occur under a code of ethics not so 
 founded, the weakening and final breaking down of the 
 race. That is, Nature teaches by the survival of the fit- 
 test, that the species must not and cannot survive if the 
 weak or unfit are perpetuated. If a man is to build up a 
 strong race, which alone is worthy to survive, he must 
 remember this law and govern his altruistic efforts, both 
 individual and organized, accordingly. Fortunately for 
 the race, the efforts making by some misguided charities 
 to reverse this law, are evanescent and puerile, for na- 
 ture finally has her way, and the fittest only in the long 
 run survive. 
 
 This does not mean the killing off of the weak. But 
 man, by not interfering with the evident law of Nature, 
 which is a merciful law to the race, will thus place the 
 welfare of mankind where it .will be most justly and 
 mercifully dealt with by the most important natural law, 
 of which we have knowledge. The most penetrating 
 minds have discovered this to be the law, viz. the survi- 
 val of the fittest by natural selection. Now this is the 
 evident method whether it is natural or supernatural. 
 No vicarious atonement suffices to avoid it. Natural 
 morality consists in the efficiency of work whose effect 
 is the good of the whole cosmos. I presume there is no 
 personal design in the activity of a volcano that kills a 
 
184 '.PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 number of people. But the effect is likely to preserve 
 the process of earth evolution and this results in pre- 
 serving the earth as a fit habitation for man. This is 
 the highest morality and the truest religion. 
 
 The gardener takes a few plants and places them in 
 a hothouse. They grow to abnormal proportions, but 
 very tender as long as the conditions remain, but when 
 the abnormal heat, tender care and over sustentation are 
 withdrawn, they revert to their original natural condi- 
 tion. What we call "our boasted civilization," has very 
 much a parallel process. There is a tendency to produce 
 abnormal conditions by the reversal of the great iaw of 
 nature, the evident effect of attributing to the superna- 
 tural, the unreal, the source of all human happiness and 
 progress. The farther away from physical science or 
 the teaching of Nature a moral code departs, the less 
 effective it will be in building up a strong and desirable 
 civilization. The evanescent and feeble human brain 
 must necessarily be the maker and interpreter of the 
 moral code attributed to the Unknowable. The human 
 hand writes what he calls the commands of the superna- 
 tural. Emanating in theory from the unreal, not from 
 objective reality, such laws cannot be the true basis for 
 building up a real and lasting civilization. The theolog- 
 ical codes now in force having been written when all man- 
 kind was entirely ignorant of what are now plainly the 
 perceived laws of nature, cannot be, except in part, the 
 true guide to a strong, natural civilization, such as must 
 be the natural code of ethics, the human race must event- 
 ually adopt, when a proper foundation is laid in the 
 knowledge of such great truths so lately discovered, as 
 the persistence of force, the indestructibility of matter, 
 the unity of nature, and the evolution — not creation — of 
 
the: essence: of phenomenism 135 
 
 all things. That part of the decalogue and those rules of 
 conduct which the experience of mankind finds in con- 
 formity to natural laws, i. e., the laws of evolution, 
 will abide. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 
 
 Herbert Spencer says in "First Principles," that by 
 the relativity of all knowledge, man can infer that be- 
 hind the known, there is an unknowable reality. But if 
 unknowable, it is worthless as heretofore stated as a basis 
 of human action. Man must necessarily be governed 
 in his line of conduct and thought by known laws; that 
 is, by what he can conceive of the realm of nature. We 
 may have as much faith as we desire that an unknow- 
 able force is the final cause, but a working ethical code 
 must be derived from the physical facts palpable to our 
 senses. If evolution is the method of nature in produc- 
 ing the apparition that is constantly present to our 
 senses, in other words, the self and not-self, the all in 
 all, then a code of ethics must be based on evolu- 
 tion. If natural selection in the survival of the fittest is 
 the law of evolution, even unto the highest form of human 
 effort, then wherever the brain of man can perceive the 
 method of natural selection in its relation to mankind 
 that is the highest code of ethics he can adopt as his rule 
 of action. 
 
 In considering natural selection as the method of or- 
 ganic evolution, we must not forget that it is not con- 
 fined to the survival of the fittest individual, but extends 
 also to the perpetuation of the social unit, the best 
 adapted family, tribe, nation, or race. It is therefore the 
 method of sociology and, ethics. Were it confined to the 
 
 186 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 187 
 
 individual it would be purely selfish, but when its primal 
 merit consists in the preservation of the race, then al- 
 truism becomes a factor in the perpetuation of all forms 
 of social community. True altruism works for the bene- 
 fit of the community, and this means the elimination of 
 the weak and unfit in order that the community as a 
 whole may maintain and increase its adaptive strength 
 and effectiveness. This is what death means. It is the 
 elimination of the unfit, that the young and strong may 
 evolve a more specialized, heterogeneous, or complex 
 community. Human laws are based upon this principle 
 when they provide that the criminal, who is unfit to bear 
 his part of the communal duties, and refuses to become 
 unselfish to the extent of denying himself for the good of 
 the whole, shall be put where his acts shall not injure 
 the whole. This is natural selection. It is so with na- 
 tions, which, living in a warlike period and amidst war- 
 like neighbors, fail to provide means of public defense — ■ 
 they are unfit in that respect, and pay the price of un- 
 fitness by being absorbed and eliminated. It is a natural 
 law that cannot be ignored ; and the highest morality, the 
 most desirable altruism, is that which does those things 
 necessary to its fulfilment. 
 
 The present beliefs in the supernatural are simply 
 modifications of the same fundamental ideas vaguely ex- 
 pressed by our cave ancestors who wore skins for their 
 clothing, and their own skins at that ; viz : that all phe- 
 nomena, not understood, were caused by something 
 unnatural; while mankind has progressed materially 
 and intellectually, it has absolutely made no advancement 
 and necessarily can make none in the ideas of the un- 
 knowable. It has made some subjective modifications of 
 what that unknowable may really be. It is apparent that 
 the reason of this unchangeableness of the theologic idea 
 
188 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 is that the supernatural is beyond the reach of investiga- 
 tion. There is nothing that science can reach, and 
 hence there is no evidence and no growth. Therefore 
 its existence is called assumption; the scientist calls it 
 subjective. 
 
 Of course, there has been progress in ethics and mo- 
 rality, but no change in the belief that there is an ob- 
 jective supernatural, except here and there an intellect 
 asks for the proof. But the modification of ethics comes 
 with the growth of the human brain intellectually, bring- 
 ing a proper sense of what is best for the welfare of the 
 individual and society. Ethics is not a necessary adjunct 
 of the realm of the supernatural. It has been attached to 
 that belief for the purpose of giving mystical authority to 
 the code. A perfect code of morality, as much as man can 
 attain to perfection, can come only with a perfect knowl- 
 edge of nature, and must be based on man's relation 
 thereto. There need not be any fear that the fading 
 away from the human mind of the idea that there is a 
 supernatural realm independent of the laws of Nature, 
 will leave us without proper guides in morality and 
 human conduct in general. It is probable that a better 
 code of true ethics can be founded upon the well-known 
 teaching of Nature and natural laws, than can possibly 
 be based upon what the human brain can imagine may 
 be the commands of "an Unknowable Reality." 
 
 The trouble with the current code of ethics is that it 
 is a fixed written prescription, based upon the fear of the 
 unseen or unknowable. Spencer says, "Most people re- 
 gard the subject matter of ethics as being conduct con- 
 sidered as calling forth approbation or reprobation. But 
 the primary subject matter of ethics is conduct con- 
 sidered objectively as producing good or bad results to 
 self or others, or both." 
 
A NATURAL CODE, OF ETHICS 189 
 
 True morality, to produce any ennobling effect upon 
 the race, must be based on man's correspondence with 
 his environment. That is a code to which he will vol- 
 untarily conform and can obey. This puts upon every 
 action, every thought, however humble or unimportant, 
 the stamp of morality or immorality. From the uncon- 
 scious act of breathing up to the highest thought pro- 
 duced by the molecular motion of the brain tissue, there 
 is a moral and immoral way to do everything. The man 
 who breaths physiologically is more moral than one who 
 does not. 
 
 The assimilation of food, the walk, the manner of 
 wearing clothes, the expression of the face, the articula- 
 tion of words, even the selection of the proper words in 
 speech, all have an ethical bearing. If these are well 
 done, it means that they fit into the noiseless correspond- 
 ence — the life — of the organism and its surroundings; 
 the laws of nature are not violated. But if they do not 
 harmonize with the environment, then they are evil — im- 
 moral, and the violator is punished by suffering some 
 pain. 
 
 The laws of nature are uncnangeable ; therefore man's 
 welfare, his morality, consists in adapting himself to 
 these laws, and not in calling upon some unknown power 
 to change them for his special benefit. The man who so 
 controls his functions as to meet all the varying phases 
 of climate, gravitation, sustentation, etc., no more feels 
 any of these phenomena than he does any of the eleven 
 motions of the earth. 
 
 Such a man thinks and says that Nature can make 
 no mistake and does absolutely right at all times. 
 Everything Nature does is not only absolutely right, but 
 it does in every instance that which is for the best and 
 moral welfare of man himself. Such a man will not be 
 
190 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 wishing for rain when it is dry, nor for cold weather 
 when it is hot. He will be perfectly satisfied with what- 
 ever comes, because he will be in proper correspondence 
 with it. A perfect man, if such an organism were pos- 
 sible, would be in perfect correspondence with all the 
 requirements of natural law ; and death, which is the re- 
 sult of this want of correspondence, would then be post- 
 poned to the latest moment compatible with the welfare 
 of the race, and then would be regarded, as it really is, 
 only a change of form. This is an immortality which is 
 worth striving for, because it is natural and does not re^ 
 quire a miracle to make it possible. 
 
 It is true that death is now regarded as a calam- 
 ity, although an inevitable natural law. But in the 
 ultimate analysis of it, there will be found this es- 
 sential definition; it is the closing of the correspond- 
 ence between the organism and its environment, by 
 reason of that organism's violation of some of the 
 essential laws of that correspondence, or from the 
 necessity of race maintenance under the law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest. Of course, this definition of death 
 makes it an essential link in the method of evolution. 
 But its occurrence too early in life, if caused by violation 
 of physical laws that are preventable, can be avoided by 
 a wise system of education in physiology and hygiene. 
 Death from old age can perhaps be thus postponed to a 
 later average date than it now occurs, in the same sys- 
 tem of proper education. The neglect of society to avail 
 itself of these sanitary measures is the highest immoral- 
 ity. Yet the present orthodox code takes no notice of it. 
 
 It seems to me then, that the highest code of ethics 
 will be based on this necessity of maintaining a rational 
 correspondence with environment. All education should 
 be directed to that end. The perfection spoken of above 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 191 
 
 may never come, but we can make an immense advance 
 beyond our present ignorance of this great truth. 
 
 This natural code of morality is applicable to every 
 condition and to every spot on the globe. It is a uni- 
 versal religion. There will, of course, be a certain local 
 peculiarity in the environment of every people that will 
 tinge the natural morality of individual correspondence 
 with such environment. But the principle of conformity 
 to natural law, as the true basis of ethics, is not affected 
 by these local phases, any more than the universality of 
 the golden rule is affected by the organized habits of 
 any one nation which may differ from those of another. 
 The current code is largely local, for what is moral in 
 one place is now considered immoral in another. 
 This is proof that Nature is having her way, in 
 spite of written codes to the contrary. Conscience 
 cannot regulate it, because that is a creation of the 
 locality. Nor can any man strictly live up to all 
 the requirements of the present code. Any man prop- 
 erly organized can live up to the requirements of a 
 natural code. At least if he does violate some unim- 
 portant requirements, he will suffer only in proportion to 
 their importance. For instance, should he imprudently 
 expose his person to a draught he takes cold. If he eat 
 indigestible food, or drink intoxicants, his digestion is 
 upset. If he violate any social law, or legal enactment, 
 he suffers accordingly. But the present written code 
 sends him to torments eternal, for any violation of its 
 tenets, and especially for unbelief, which Nature does 
 not include in her catalogue of sins. 
 
 It is true that Nature is now enforcing this natural 
 code without the least regard for any artificial code, and 
 the punishment for all violation is being meted out daily 
 before our eyes. But we refuse to see that this punish- 
 
192 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ment is for lapses in immorality, that term being applied 
 exclusively to acts which meet the approbation or repro- 
 bation of another, and seldom if ever to lapses of natural 
 laws, or human laws founded on the laws of Nature. 
 The written code of ethics being in some of its parts so 
 impossible to obey, the attention of man is entirely taken 
 up with it, to the exclusion of what Nature teaches every 
 day to be immoral. It may be that the light punishment 
 that Nature administers for offenses that the theological 
 code proscribes as unpardonable, makes men feel indif- 
 ferent to her merciful code. But could men be aroused 
 to see that sudden, or premature death, or exclusion from 
 society for social violations are really avoidable by living 
 up to a natural code of ethics, I think it would soon come 
 to man also that the proper education is that which 
 teaches how the most health and happiness can be gotten 
 out of this life by a study of man and his relation to his 
 complete environment. If men build cities near a threat- 
 ening volcano, or on a level with tide water, and get 
 overwhelmed or destroyed, that is a punishment that Na- 
 ture metes out for ignorance and stupidity, not from de- 
 sign, but because the great law of Nature is the survival 
 of the fittest, which in this case would be those who avoid 
 the destructive forces of life in the shape of fire and 
 flood. 
 
 That is, Nature violates the sixth commandment, but, 
 of course, it is proper to prohibit man from violating it 
 individually. For otherwise society could not be main- 
 tained. The sixth commandment is correct as a rule of 
 conduct for the individual and communities. But it is 
 curious that, according to the account, God gave the 
 tables to Moses on which he had written this command- 
 ment and then as soon as the "Children of Israel" ar- 
 rived in Canaan it is alleged that he commanded them to 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 193 
 
 violate it by slaying the surrounding tribes. The law 
 has been violated ever since. The decalogue from the 
 fifth to the tenth commandment is a natural code of 
 ethics. These would have to be incorporated into any 
 civil law and are necessary regulations in every form of 
 society. 
 
 The evolutionist views man in his primitive stage as 
 little above the animal, governed by passions, desires, and 
 instincts inherited from his remote ancestors. His al- 
 truistic evolution comes from his association with his fel- 
 lows for the purpose of mutual protection and is cor- 
 related with the economic, political, and intellectual evo- 
 lution of society. But the theological conception is that 
 man himself, was specially created perfect, with a con- 
 science perfect in its power to discriminate between right 
 and wrong. But as it is historically true that man was 
 not perfect in historical time, for history as well as tra- 
 dition shows that he ever was "prone to err as the sparks 
 to fly upward," then it becomes necessary in vindication 
 of the above theological conception to create in the mind 
 another supernatural power — a personal devil — and give 
 man a so-called free will under the control of said devil. 
 The alleged perfection of Adam's creation did not pre- 
 vent his going wrong at almost the first opportunity, and 
 man has been doing the same thing ever since. It might 
 not be a natural sin that Adam committed, but only a 
 proscribed one. 
 
 To reiterate, the question is, whether as man ad- 
 vances in knowledge, and therefore in intellect, and he 
 rejects this supernatural conception of the origin of 
 moral's, and adopts that of natural evolution at the same 
 time, will civilization be jeopardized in any way? 
 
 I am sure I can anticipate the answer of every one 
 who has at all investigated the subject, that it will not 
 
194 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 be. Whatever may be the belief about former kinds of 
 civilization, we must conclude that the present imperfect 
 form of civilization will not be injured but greatly im- 
 proved thereby; that is, by a slow change of that belief. 
 For only can the change come by the gradual processes 
 of other evolutions — only as fast as other more logical 
 ideas' are evolved to take the place of those fading away. 
 
 "I have lived with communities of savages in South 
 America and in the East, who have no laws or law- 
 courts, but the public opinion of the village freely ex- 
 pressed. Each man scrupulously respects the rights of 
 his fellow, and any infraction of those rights rarely or 
 never takes place. In such a community all are nearly 
 equal. There are none of those wide distinctions of edu- 
 cation and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and 
 servant, which are the product of our civilization. There 
 is none of that wide spread division of labor, which while 
 it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests. 
 There is not that severe competition and struggle for ex- 
 istence or for wealth which the dense population of civil- 
 ized countries inevitably creates. All incitement to great 
 crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are suppressed 
 partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by 
 that natural sense of justice and his neighbor's right 
 which seem to be in some degree inherent in every race 
 of men." * 
 
 The question then resolves itself into this — whether 
 morality is a natural growth, or a supernatural creation. 
 If it is a natural evolution, then there is no occasion for 
 any conception of a supernatural power in order to main- 
 tain it. As morality is the bond of civilization, it is not 
 
 
 * "Malay Archipelago," by Alfred Russell Wallace. 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 195 
 
 essential that any other than the true conception of its 
 origin should remain in the human mind. 
 
 Of all animals, man is the least able to supply his 
 own wants. Therefore some kind of co-operation with 
 his fellow-man becomes a necessity. Only animals with 
 great power of supplying their wants can live in solitude. 
 This weakness in man is the very element that has 
 worked and is still working, not only for his higher 
 morality, but also for the most subtile altruism. Both 
 the morality and altruism, are therefore natural evolu- 
 tions from the physical nature of man. For if sociality 
 is essential to his proper sustentation and defense against 
 enemies, the increase of the number who stand together 
 for these purposes, and the tenacity with which they 
 stand together, are very important and natural results. 
 Hence, the evolution from this necessity, of love for wife 
 and children, and to a less degree of his fellow-men in 
 general ; hence, the establishment of the family, the tribe, 
 the colony, the state and the nation; hence, patriotism. 
 The highest of all is the brotherhood of mankind, which 
 will eventually come by the working of the same natural 
 evolution. 
 
 If this is a true statement, where comes in the neces- 
 sity of the conception of the supernatural, which has 
 arisen from ancestor worship, in which the living are 
 governed more by the dead than by the living? The hu- 
 man vicegerent of an unseen personal maker of a code, 
 can change the written decalogue, but the unwritten laws 
 of nature never change, and no human hand can write 
 them other than they are and always have been. 
 
 This natural kind of ethics is not confined to the hu- 
 man being. All the lower animals exhibit it in certain 
 degrees. Was it supernatural power that implanted it 
 there? It pervades all nature and is just and impartial, 
 
196 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 because governed by the natural operation of cosmic 
 forces. 
 
 As the mother presses the infant to her breast, she 
 is governed in her love for it by the instinctive and un- 
 conscious necessity for race preservation. At the same 
 time, this begets in her the personal love that preserves 
 the individual. 
 
 What is it one really most admires in the founder of 
 Christianity? Not his supernaturalism, but his human- 
 ity. His brotherhood of man, his golden rule, the ser- 
 mon on the mount and the parable of the good Samari- 
 tan. These are in accordance with the human evolution 
 of ethics. By means of its supernaturalism, however, 
 Christianity was pressed into the service of war, slavery, 
 and imperial oppression, and these were exercised gen- 
 erally against non-believers. War, slavery and oppression 
 have always been supported by the church and given 
 divine approval through the pulpit, when the majority 
 of a nation approved of them. Every tyrant who vio- 
 lates the rights of the people claims to do so by divine 
 authority. Before the Civil War in this country, the 
 pulpit of the North preached against slavery, and that of 
 the South for it. During the war the northern churches 
 gave their support to the Union, and those of the South 
 to the rebellion. Each side declared that his God would 
 vindicate its contentions. 
 
 My opinion is that if the idea of the necessity of the 
 objective existence of the supernatural, had not existed 
 in the human mind, all the fundamental truths discovered 
 by science, and now so unconsciously taken as true by 
 every one, viz., The Copernican system, attraction of 
 gravitation, Kepler's laws, the nebular theory, evolu- 
 tion, the unity of nature, the indestructability of matter, 
 and the conservation of energy, would have had no oppo- 
 
A NATURAL CODE) OF ETHICS 197 
 
 sition worth mentioning, and practically been adopted 
 at the time of their announcement. So also the religious 
 persecutions, both Pagan and Christian, would not now 
 redden the pages of history with the blood of so-called 
 unbelievers, all through historical time. 
 
 Does any sane man of intellect believe that civiliza- 
 tion would not have been greatly benefitted by the omis- 
 sion of such opposition to science, and of the persecution 
 of men because of unbelief? 
 
 "Civilization is simply the process of an adjustment 
 on a large scale whereby man's whole nature, physical, 
 intellectual, and moral, develops in all its marvelous com- 
 plexity in response to an environment, also increasing in 
 complexity." But this adjustment must be made by the 
 natural law of evolution before it can become enduring. 
 
 Mark the order of the adjustments as stated — First, 
 physical; second, intellectual; third, moral. This is the 
 natural order of evolution in general. The first develop- 
 ment of an organism from undifferentiated protoplasm 
 is into the purely physical cell — the amoeba, for in- 
 stance, consisting of one cell, and all stomach — no nerv- 
 ous structure. It is not until the organism has attained 
 considerable complexity that nerve structure is evolved; 
 then intelligence begins to dawn. But it is not until it be- 
 comes so complex in correspondence with a like com- 
 plexity of environment, that it requires what are called 
 memory, reason, and will, that the intellectual is evolved. 
 Lastly, the moral or ethical is evolved from the intel- 
 lect or develops co-ordinately with it. It is the same 
 way in the evolution of society from the primal tribe, 
 leading a purely animal life to the present complex civili- 
 zation, governed still by the code supposed to be given 
 by the supernatural in the patriarchal days. The present 
 
198 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 prescribed code of morality is not the "root but the fruit 
 of civilization." But a natural code founded on the 
 laws of evolution would be the root of a much higher 
 and more enduring civilization than the present one. 
 The reasons of this in addition to those already stated 
 may be given as follows : Since the natural code is 
 founded on the necessity for the adaptation of man to his 
 environment, the complexity of it depends on the com- 
 plexity of his nerve structure, which gives him greater 
 and greater conception of the relationship just in propor- 
 tion to the development of his nervous system. In other 
 words, the more complex the intellect the more numerous 
 and profound the objective truths revealed to it. It fol- 
 lows that these higher adaptations and correspondences 
 are the various aspects of that persistence of force, which 
 working through what intellect man has, produces more 
 numerous and stronger variations in individuals and so- 
 ciety, and these being perpetuated by the principle of 
 natural selection, a corresponding civilization would be 
 produced thereby. It does not require me to compare 
 such a system of morality with the present code to have 
 others see how far superior as a positive promoter of 
 higher civilization it would be. 
 
 New England is a fine example of the evolution of 
 the ideas of the people from the supernatural toward the 
 natural. From the time of the landing from the May- 
 flower, the Puritans, while far in advance of the reli- 
 gionists of old England, and especially those of Spain 
 and Italy, in the higher quality of their religion, neverthe- 
 less were dominated by the most fanatic supernatural- 
 ism, even to the extent of witchcraft and persecution of 
 dissenters. Now, perhaps, Boston presents the example 
 of the most advanced tolerance of religious opinion in 
 the world. Any itinerant can preach any doctrine on 
 
A NATURAE CODE OF ETHICS 199 
 
 Boston Common that is within the pale of decency and 
 good order. No one thinks of tabooing another for any 
 difference of opinion upon religious questions. So the 
 United States, the freest of political countries, is at the 
 same time the most tolerant of independent belief. It 
 is the finest example of co-development of a high civili- 
 zation, and the departure from the human mind of 
 supernaturalism. Herbert Spencer's works had their 
 first success in this country, and are now sold more 
 largely here than in England. 
 
 It has been clearly shown that industrialism, freed 
 from slavery, in which every one is allowed to enjoy 
 the fruits of his own labor, is at the foundation of all 
 social progress. In the primitive age of man, war, not 
 industry, was the means of accumulation, and industry 
 was the pursuit of slaves alone. Not until labor became 
 free and respectable did society begin to evolve along 
 the line of better civilization. It was the working of the 
 principle of natural selection that determined the best 
 method of advancement. The best method survived, 
 and the unfit died. Along with economic freedom, came 
 what was called spiritual freedom, or intellectual free- 
 dom to think as one pleased upon all subjects. So that 
 freedom being once established in any one of the organic 
 functions, by the principle of equilibration all other func- 
 tions eventually become free. 
 
 Now, the monastic and ascetic ideals of supernatural- 
 ism in the middle ages were utterly incompatible with a 
 free industrial and commercial spirit. So that it was no 
 accident that the reformation of Luther, as well as polit- 
 ical freedom, made most progress in the free towns of 
 feudal Europe. It was the natural evolution from super- 
 naturalism, co-existent with that of free industrialism. 
 
 It thus results from the logic of facts as stated, that 
 
200 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 while emancipation from supernaturalism is not the first 
 impelling cause of civilization, yet that industrialism, 
 political freedom and naturalism, as opposed to super- 
 naturalism, go hand in hand in the progress toward a 
 higher civilization, and that our own country as present- 
 ing, perhaps, the highest example the world has yet pro- 
 duced, is at the same time the freest from the old super- 
 stitions, and the farthest on the road toward the freest 
 naturalism. This proves that not only is belief in super- 
 naturalism not essential to a desirable civilization, but 
 that a really desirable civilization cannot be evolved 
 without at the same time slowly eliminating such belief 
 from the human mind. 
 
 Another proof that supernaturalism is not essential 
 to civilization is that the idea in the minds of men of 
 its attributes does not remain constant in the different 
 stages of the evolution of civilization although the idea 
 of its objective reality does remain constant. The God 
 of the middle ages was a God of war, slavery and po- 
 lygamy. The God of Jesus, as conceived now in the 
 United States, is one of peace, love and fatherhood, un- 
 til there arises what a president may consider a neces- 
 sity for war, and then the God is changed to one of war. 
 So the character of the God has always been changed to 
 correspond with the varying desires of the people from 
 time to time. The Mormon God is that of the middle 
 ages and commends polygamy. This shows that the idea 
 of the nature of God is an evolution from the civiliza- 
 tion and not the creator of it. 
 
 Says Macpherson, "Science will increase, rather than 
 diminish the feelings of wonder, awe and humility, which 
 are the real roots of religious feeling, and so long as this 
 is the case, man need not fear that with the decay of the- 
 ology, a blight will fall upon the earth." 
 
A NATURAL CODS OF ETHICS 201 
 
 The ideas of the supernatural evolved in the minds 
 of men appeared in the following order : 
 
 First, external forces take the form of a personal will, 
 like our own, residing in each object. This is fetich- 
 ism. 
 
 Second, it takes the form of several personal wills 
 controlling each phenomenon in the different depart- 
 ments of nature — polytheism. 
 
 Third, the form of one personal will controlling the 
 phenomena of the whole cosmos — the Hebrew God. 
 
 Fourth, now, in the process of reconciliation of sci- 
 ence and theology, it is proposed by such scientists as Le 
 Conte to still further remove the personality beyond the 
 realm of natural laws, and make him the entity or reality 
 beyond appearances, as the starter or creator of the nat- 
 ural, laws, but leaving those laws to work out by natural 
 evolution their natural results without his further inter- 
 ference. These are modified subjective ideas in the brain 
 of man of the form and power of the supernatural. 
 There has been no change in belief in the fact of its ob- 
 jective existence from the day of our cave ancestors, 
 among all believers in the theological idea. 
 
 The fact that when the so-called Pagans of Rome 
 were in power, they persecuted and killed the Christians, 
 and when the Christians rose to power they did the same 
 to those who did not believe as they did, proves to my 
 mind that the belief in the supernatural is accountable 
 for the persecution of each side. Had beliefs in a nat- 
 ural code been prevalent, there could hardly have been 
 this peculiar species of killing. Tolerance of opinion has 
 arisen, only as this idea of the supernatural became modi- 
 fied, but will not become perfect until the whole idea 
 fades from the mind. There is no prophesying how long 
 
202 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 it will be before the human brain will become entirely 
 free. 
 
 If evolution is true, then in the light of the unity of 
 the natural causes of all phenomena, it applies its great 
 method of development from homogeneity to heterogene- 
 ity, to every change from that of an amoeba to man, in- 
 cluding the change of man's condition from a solitary 
 roamer of the forest to his social status as the citizen of 
 a great city. 
 
 The fact is well known that ever since the beginning 
 of historical time, society has been advancing in the 
 forms and essentials of its civilization. Not in a direct 
 line but as all progress is made, rhythmically, in period- 
 ical ups and downs. Today, the conditions are almost in- 
 finitely better than they were in the dark ages, when the 
 densest superstitions ruled men, and very much better 
 than two hundred years ago, when witchcraft and slav- 
 ery were quite universal and when the death penalty at- 
 tached to a large number of simple misdemeanors, and 
 debtors were imprisoned in filthy dens. Has the idea of 
 the supernatural in men's minds correspondingly faded 
 away? 
 
 I think the facts will show that as civilization has ad- 
 vanced, at the same time many superstitions have passed 
 away, all religious ideas have become correspondingly 
 modified, the gross anthropomorphical conception of a 
 God that once obtained has constantly advanced toward 
 the abstract, and has become less and less personal. Even 
 in the last fifty years, there has been a great change in 
 the discourses of theologians. 
 
 N. S. Shaler in the "Individual," says, "Theology 
 failed in its interpretation of the universe, because it 
 busied itself with personal causes." (Metaphysics deals 
 with entities, e. g. the vital principle). "Until Spencer 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 203 
 
 began to write, the conception of nature was that of a 
 colossal machine, the various parts of which were espe- 
 cially manufactured to fit into their respective places. 
 It may be taken for granted that the conception which 
 people form of the universe, and of their relation to it, 
 will largely influence the nature of the social bond." 
 
 Evolution is a change from homogeneity to hetero- 
 geneity, and society grows just as the human body grows, 
 modified by all the circumstances surrounding it — espe- 
 cially by the degree of correspondence it has intellectu- 
 ally with the facts of the universe. The nearer it comes 
 to perceiving the truth everywhere apparent to high in- 
 tellects, the greater the number of functions society de- 
 velops, and therefore the higher is the civilization. I 
 conceive 1 that civilization is high where individual oppor- 
 tunity for growth in intellect, altruism and longevity are 
 great, and that this individualism is at the same time 
 subordinated in the proper degree to the welfare of the 
 aggregate. 
 
 When man enjoys the right of freedom, the right to 
 enjoy the fruits of his own labor without the fear of 
 spoliation, then happiness naturally follows. All he can 
 ask of the state is that it will protect him in his natural 
 rights, in return for what he contributes to the welfare 
 of the state. 
 
 Paine in his "Rights of Man" says, "The more per- 
 fect civilization is, the less occasion has it for govern- 
 ment, because the more does it regulate its own affairs 
 and govern itself." He means by this that the more the 
 intellect is developed, the less is man inclined to encroach 
 on the liberty of his fellow man. Thus intelligence and 
 altruism are evolved simultaneously. As soon as man 
 becomes intelligent enough to perceive that interference 
 with the rights of his fellows jeopardizes his own rights, 
 
204 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 then he needs much less than ever before any govern- 
 ing power to compel him to keep his hands off the per- 
 son or property of another. 
 
 When man shall fully understand the principle of evo- 
 lution, he then only will begin to comprehend that he is 
 no longer a stranger to his environment. As soon as 
 he is taught that he is not a manufactured article, set 
 down from an unknown region into a strange country, 
 for a short stay only, but that his organism is evolved 
 out of his habitat, that every apparent thing, organic and 
 inorganic is akin to him, composed of the same material, 
 shaped by the same force, and governed by the same laws, 
 he will then begin to feel at home. He will look around 
 to see what can be done to increase his correspondence 
 with this blood-relationed environment. He will find 
 that his pedigree reaches back to the very beginning of 
 the universe; that the interaction of matter and motion, 
 beginning with the atoms of the nebula, continuing in the 
 molecule, in the crystal and the sphere, did not produce 
 a unit fine enough to enter into the formation of organic 
 life until the alembic of perhaps untold eons had refined 
 the matter by the immeasurable heat of a burning uni- 
 verse. 
 
 If there was any beginning to life, it was when the 
 laboratory of nature had worked upon the material long 
 enough to first produce the universe, as we now behold 
 it, before the organic unit, now called a cell could be 
 evolved, and from that previous product of Nature's re- 
 finery, man finds himself evolved by the same slow proc- 
 ess of growth and elimination. 
 
 What dignity and nobility does this hypothesis give 
 to man ! It makes him the apotheosis of cosmic, not per- 
 sonal forces. He is the product of the ages and akin to 
 all that has gone before. There is not only reason and 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 205 
 
 dignity in this view of the place of man in the universe, 
 but warmth and glow, which no other hypothesis can 
 give. 
 
 This view of man makes him a product of nature. He 
 comes from below and his power is there. The other 
 makes him a product of something beyond nature, in 
 which shape his power would descend upon him in the 
 form of control, not growth. Our present form of civil- 
 ization, has been evolved upon the latter idea. Here and 
 there only, in the history of man, has it cropped out that 
 he is at all a natural product. The family, society, and 
 government are crystalized around the conception that 
 the universe is a personal emanation and under personal 
 laws, emanating from a central place unknown, but whose 
 variable will is the cause of all phenomena, whether good 
 or ill. This conception necessitated that man should 
 spend the most of his time propitiating this personality, 
 who, according to the theory, had it in his power to send 
 or withhold the warmth of the sun, the rain, the storm, 
 health or disease. The evolution of civilization in this 
 belief necessarily established a class who by their recog- 
 nized natural ability and assumed knowledge, were be- 
 lieved by the masses to be nearer and in closer corre- 
 spondence with this omnipotent personality than others. 
 This class became the medium through whom the com- 
 munications from the controlling personality to the 
 masses, and from the masses to him, were necessarily 
 transmitted. This class became the educators, the chiefs, 
 the priests, and the rulers of the people. They taught 
 the people what they considered it best for them to know 
 and that was always, that they must believe in the super- 
 natural personality and obey what this power communi- 
 cated through their teachers and rulers. 
 
 What a power and temptation this was! What a 
 
206 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 power it was to keep the masses in ignorance of every- 
 thing that would upset their belief in this personal gov- 
 ernment! What a temptation to communicate to the 
 masses only those things that would continue the me- 
 dium class in power, and fasten upon the masses those 
 institutions that would tend to make them slaves to the 
 medium class! This medium class became the kings 
 and priests by "divine right"; by the same right slavery 
 and polygamy were established and maintained. 
 
 It is true a moral code was interwoven in the most 
 ingenious manner with the other teachings. But this 
 prescribed moral code never interfered with the preroga- 
 tives of rulers and priests. When the moral code said, 
 "Thou shalt not kill," it did not mean that kings could not 
 kill their subjects and slaves ; nor that the church should 
 not kill those who disbelieved. When it said, "Thou shalt 
 not bear false witness against thy neighbor," it did not 
 prevent the rulers from misrepresenting to their subjects 
 and making war by deceit and lying upon neighboring 
 tribes and nations. In other words, the moral code was 
 made for the subjects and not for the rulers. These 
 teachers of the people kept them in ignorance' of every- 
 thing, except the belief in the supernatural and obedience 
 to the decalogue. They were taught those things only 
 that would not interfere with this belief. 
 
 This was the condition of affairs prior to the eight- 
 eenth century. How much of this condition still re- 
 mained in the civilization of the nineteenth century? Let 
 us recite a few facts well known, but ignored and almost 
 forgotten by everyone. 
 
 In our own country where our organic law is in the- 
 ory based on the equality of all men, the inherited taint 
 of this theological division of the people into classes — 
 one the ruling class and another the ruled — still lingers 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 207 
 
 in the habits of the people and in many of the iniquitous 
 laws that are kept upon the statutes. A natural code of 
 ethics will bear equally upon all men and not require one 
 to "bend the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift may 
 follow fawning" ; nor will it make of an elected executive 
 a ruler, but a servant of the people. Oppression in the 
 form of legal enactment can have no place in a natural 
 code, nor under it could a class of citizens who have the 
 mental power obtain possession of government for the 
 purpose of depriving another class of the benefits of its 
 own production. Under such a code human laws must 
 follow the laws of nature in bearing equally and equit- 
 ably upon all. 
 
 As to the religious habits and mental conditions under 
 the old theological conception, I will quote from Profes- 
 sor N, S. Shaler's "Individual," pp. 206-207. 
 
 "Those who have been so fortunate as to have been 
 reared in a true Christian faith can have no sufficient 
 idea of the torture to which the minds of men were sub- 
 jected by the old fashioned discourses on the punish- 
 ments that after death assail all save the few chosen ones. 
 The human fancy has ranged far, but nowhere else has 
 it gathered such a harvest as in the sulphurous realms. 
 Cruelty is a natural motive in man; it came with the 
 vast store of good and bad that was sent to us from the 
 lower stages of life. All the better influences of society 
 worked against it. The teachings of Christ should have 
 banished it from the earth, but for nearly two thousand 
 years these teachings have been made in appearance to 
 justify the endless picturings of torments upon the im- 
 mortal bodies of those he sought to save. I recall the 
 preachings of a worthy man, famous in my boyhood as 
 a great exhorter. I see and hear him even now, after 
 nearly half a century, rolling out his story of the tor- 
 
208 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ments of the doomed, with a drone of sorrow in his 
 voice, but with an evident relish of the cruelty that he 
 painted amazingly well. Men and women fell down 
 with fear and horror before the terror he forced upon 
 them, the terror of what death may open to man. 
 
 "For centuries a host of able men have been at work 
 perpetuating these brutal ideas throughout the civilized 
 world. Can we wonder that, with this endless dwelling 
 on the ancient conceptions of the brute and primitive 
 man, cruelty and fear which Christianity should have 
 cleared away still cling to man? That the altruistic mo- 
 tives which naturally lead them to put aside all personal 
 considerations of their fate should still have so small a 
 part in their actions? 
 
 "One of the best things that can be said of the cent- 
 ury (the nineteenth) that is drawing to its close is that 
 it has seen the end, or at least the promise of the end, of 
 the ancient demon-worship. The physical hell, the per- 
 sonal devil, his imps of all degrees, the fiery furnaces, 
 and all the other agents of torment are passing away 
 from the imagination of man. There is probably not an 
 educated clergyman who believes in them. There is 
 scarcely an intelligent congregation where the preach- 
 ing that was demanded fifty years ago would be toler- 
 ated today. The idea of suffering for evil done is firmly 
 rooted in the minds of all men of sound moral nature; 
 suffering in this or any other world until it has accom- 
 plished its fit work; but the old conception is now being 
 purged from our religion, which it has so long dis- 
 graced." 
 
 The character of the present civilization in the light 
 of its retarded and stunted outgrowth may be outlined 
 as follows: 
 
A NATURAL CODE) OF ETHICS 209 
 
 Men seem to have done and are now doing instinct- 
 ively those things that are concrete and are not beyond 
 their capacity. The great bulk of organized society con- 
 fine themselves to agriculture, commerce, manufacturing 
 — to money making in general. All these pursuits have 
 reference to the support and adornment of the body and 
 require the least amount of brain energy. That is, the 
 great bulk of the people are spending their lives in doing 
 in a little higher degree, just what the lower animals are 
 doing. An animal's existence in the wild state is a strug- 
 gle; that is, an effort for existence only. If he can get 
 enough to eat and defend himself from his enemies, that 
 is the sum total of his life. The man who gives himself 
 up to industry or business does practically the same 
 thing. His brain, of course, is very far superior to that 
 of the animal. But that extra brain, the difference in 
 nerve structure between him and the animal, he devotes 
 as a rule, to higher quality of struggle for existence only. 
 The philosophy of life, the science of religion, the rela- 
 tions he bears to the forces of his environment ; he hands 
 over to this medium class and refuses to think about 
 them. The animal hunts and grazes; the man cultivates 
 the ground for his vegetable sustentation and selects his 
 animal food by domestication. The animal wears the 
 dress that grows upon his skin ; the man selects his mate- 
 rial and manufactures clothing. The man makes a fire 
 and cooks his food. The animal as a rule (there being 
 some exceptions) dwells and sleeps in the places he finds 
 at hand without any contrivance or mechanism on his 
 part ; man builds himself houses of some kind in which to 
 live. The animal changes localities on foot or wing or by 
 swimming; man subdues beasts of burden, builds vehi- 
 cles, utilizes the natural power of heat or electricity to 
 carry himself, his food and clothing from place to place. 
 
210 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 These differences in the methods of bipeds and quadrupeds 
 were largely the result of man's acquired erect position. 
 This acquired function modified the anatomy and physi- 
 ology of the whole human organism. The arms became 
 shorter and unadapted to an arboreal life. The hands 
 retained their prehensile power, but the feet lost their 
 power of grasping the limbs of trees. The feet gradually 
 flattened on the soles and calves developed on the lower 
 legs, adapting them to support and steady the body in 
 the upright position. These changes contributed to the 
 better defence from enemies and the power to capture 
 other animals for food, by throwing a missile with steadi- 
 er and surer aim. 
 
 The upright position also gives a longer reach to 
 vision and must have modified the anatomy and hence 
 the physiology of the lungs and throat. In my opinion 
 it made possible articulate speech. I cannot verify this 
 anatomically. But it is scarcely possible that if man had 
 continued to the present time a quadruped, he could have 
 acquired the function of articulation of words in the way 
 words are now used. The freeing of his hands from 
 mere aids to locomotion has also enabled him to contrive 
 and construct. 
 
 He gradually acquired the power to record with these 
 free hands a written language to represent the sounds 
 of his voice by which any advance in the methods of the 
 struggle for existence can be permanently communicated 
 to his fellow men, not only to his own generation, but to 
 those of the future. The result has been that in addition 
 to the former communication of new ideas and facts by 
 direct contact and personal observation, distant peoples 
 are rapidly informed by books and periodicals of all new 
 methods and discoveries. The art of printing has thus 
 given an immense impetus to man's efforts over those of 
 
A NATURAL CODE) OF ETHICS 211 
 
 the animal in the struggle for existence. But notwith- 
 standing all this it is well to observe that the men who 
 use all these advantages that man's enlarged brain power 
 has given him over the wild animals, who still use the 
 primitive means of existence for the mere support of the 
 body, are still on a level only with the animal in the ob- 
 jects of his life. They accomplish the same object, only 
 in a human and more complex way. The human way of 
 sustenance and clothing is better in quality only. It has 
 a better effect in prolonging life. The human generally, 
 not always, dies a natural death, the animal seldom, and 
 Seton Thompson says, never. 
 
 The above remarks apply to the great majority of 
 mankind and may be called "arrested mentation." But 
 here and there an occasional human being, a natural vari- 
 ation, having more brain power than his fellows, per- 
 ceives that there is still more in the environment than the 
 mere means of bodily existence. The gratification of the 
 instincts of hunger and protection from the variations of 
 temperature, of course, are the first and most important. 
 Yet beyond the immediate environment of touch and 
 taste, there lies yet a world of sight and sound. This 
 man of enlarged brain perceives that beneath and above 
 the ken of the common utilitarian there lie the higher 
 sources of the pleasures that come only to the convolu- 
 tions of the grey cortex of the prosencephalon. I de- 
 sire to emphasize the fact that the enlargement of man's 
 correspondence with nature is made possible by the struc- 
 ture of matter only, the crown of his upright position, 
 the prosencephalon. It is only a small mass of despised 
 matter. But without it man and the lower animals would 
 be practically analogous in their psychical function. But 
 with this added structure which undoubtedly came to 
 him after he had long walked in an upright position, he 
 
212 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 calculates the motions and weights of the stars. He ana- 
 lyzes and reads the light of other worlds beside his own 
 and interpreting the facts of the universe he is evolving 
 slowly a higher and saner civilization. 
 
 It is well, however, to note that only a few men are 
 capable of doing this. The welfare of the whole is bet- 
 ter subserved for the time being, and the eventual evo- 
 lution of a better civilization promoted by each individ- 
 ual doing those things only with which the development 
 of his brain is in closest correspondence. It would be a 
 sad state of society if the majority should give their ef- 
 forts to those functions they are the least fitted to per- 
 form. A larger part of civilized society is undoubt- 
 edly rapidly advancing by means of their concrete hab- 
 its to a higher condition, where some of what is now 
 called abstract mentality will accompany the concrete. 
 That part of mankind that practices cannibalism is doing 
 just what the lower animal is always doing. It was a 
 great advance in civilization when men began to look up- 
 on life as sacred and inviolable. There is much to learn 
 in this respect yet, even in the highest forms of society, 
 which will not be learned until war and capital punish- 
 ment are abolished. 
 
 A great advance was made also when societies began 
 to be formed for the prevention of cruelty to animals. 
 But the object of this treatise is not to find fault with 
 the present state of man's evolution. It is to point out 
 that evolution is the natural result of the principles of 
 natural selection by which, and only by which a verile 
 and efficient condition of society can ever be formed. 
 The very fact that men instinctively 'do only those things 
 that their brains prompt them to do keeps their sub- 
 jective lives in correlation with a like complexity existing 
 in the objective environment. This is sanity. Every hu- 
 
A NATURAL CODE OF ETHICS 213 
 
 man being if he would maintain the harmony of organic 
 life as well as the equilibrium of society can be active 
 only as objective phenomena operate through his senses 
 upon what brain he has. This correspondence is the 
 measure not only of his life, but of his power to do 
 things. It is the measure of his ability. The aggregate 
 of it is the criterion of the current civilization. If he is 
 in correspondence with nothing higher than those condi- 
 tions which support animal life only then he instinctively 
 confines his efforts to those pursuits that sustain it, viz: 
 agriculture, commerce and manufactures. This is a part 
 of the natural moral code. But the immense advance in 
 the last century of the means of geographical distribu- 
 tion of the human races, their tendency to emigrate and 
 mingle by outcrosses together with the universal desire 
 for improved educational systems for the young will pro- 
 duce more numerous variations in brain structure than 
 ever before. These will be an irresistible power which 
 will steadily enlarge and more rapidly than ever before 
 evolve a civilization finally based on phenomenism. 
 
 After all, the civilization of the past was an evolu- 
 tion by natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, 
 handicapped by superstition and credulity. So in the 
 same manner, will the civilization of the future be 
 evolved. It seems certain to my mind that the evolution 
 toward the natural will be much more rapid in the future 
 than it has been in the past, because of the numerous 
 scientific truths revealed to the people, and because the 
 number now doing their own thinking is so much greater 
 than ever before. When the thinkers and reasoners be- 
 come numerous enough the less informed majority will 
 follow in the same line of belief. It will necessarily be a 
 higher and better type of civilization, and at the same 
 time, there will be a very much higher, or a more scien- 
 
2H PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 tific conception of man's relation to the universe. It 
 seems to me that the order of evolution will be :— 
 
 First — A better system of education, wherein biology, 
 psychology, and sociology, especially the bearings of 
 these sciences on the welfare and happiness of the human 
 race, will replace all the fantastic and unreal in the pres- 
 ent system of education. 
 
 Second — Following the above, but apparently co-ex- 
 istent with it, as the intellect expands by such studies, the 
 idea of the personal in natural and human phenomena, 
 will give place to the idea of the natural and impersonal 
 — the inductive method of dealing only with facts. 
 
 Third — Then the personal in sociology will at the 
 same time change to the general and racial, as it is now 
 doing as rapidly as feudalism is giving place to democ- 
 racy. 
 
 Righteousness, including ethics, will develop incident- 
 ally and equally with the above three evolutions. For a 
 man's proper relations to the universe become apparent 
 by scientific study in psychology. It will become equally 
 apparent that the highest ethics will be man's best cor- 
 respondence with his environment, or in other words, the 
 natural use of all his functions. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 
 
 When one reflects upon the vast amount of investiga- 
 tion that has been published in the last fifty years by 
 both scientific and literary authors upon the most im- 
 portant question that can occupy the thoughts of man, 
 viz : whether the perpetual phenomena apparent to our 
 senses, have anything more than the persistence of force 
 behind them ; the philosophic mind is amazed that the 
 scientific conclusions reached, have made so little impres- 
 sion, not only upon the mass of the people, but upon those 
 who are popularly esteemed as educated and thoughtful. 
 I presume one reason to be that scientific investigators, at 
 least the most able of them, are still in a state of scien- 
 tific speculation upon many points. They always will be 
 uncertain and agnostic upon very many of the questions 
 that will ever arise for solution. It is true that they have 
 settled as fundamental truths, such great problems as the 
 Copernican system of astronomy, the nebular theory of 
 La Place, the attraction of gravitation demonstrated by 
 Newton, the principle of evolution laid down by Darwin, 
 and the unity of all nature. These are certainly enough 
 to entirely subvert the former beliefs in their own minds ; 
 yet many problems that the average theological mind 
 thinks of importance , for instance, the origin of man and 
 his destiny after death, will ever be followed by an in- 
 terrogation point. 
 
 The origin of either matter or life is not yet settled, 
 
 215 
 
216 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 and likely never can be by man. Therefore, the word 
 "origin" in this sense is an interloper in our language. 
 There is an origin of forms only. If there was any be- 
 ginning to matter and force man was not there to see it, 
 and should an end come he will long before have ceased 
 to exist. There was no beginning to nature, and there 
 will be no end so far as man's knowledge is related 
 thereto. Not having any real control over the forces 
 that seem alone to have evolved the great variety of 
 forms around us, man cannot bring to bear in his labo- 
 ratory, the necessary agents in sufficient quantity, qual- 
 ity and power, to produce what he sees produced by na- 
 ture, in new form of substance daily before his eyes. This 
 fact is seized upon by the theologian as proof that life, 
 for instance, must have been created by a power above 
 nature. 
 
 Some writers upon these subjects assert that God 
 created and set in motion these natural forces, then left 
 them to work out the results by the method of evolution. 
 Should this be the fact, exactly the same argument that I 
 am making would still apply, viz : that mankind must 
 adapt human ethics to the laws of nature. For if God 
 does not interfere in the process, we cannot successfully 
 appeal to him for protection, but must as a necessary sub- 
 stitute adapt our lives to the phenomena by first form- 
 ulating a true conception of the phenomena, and by our 
 own efforts conforming thereto. My argument is logical, 
 whether the power behind phenomena be personal or im- 
 personal, because the lesson taught by the phenomena 
 themselves is, that that power does not interfere therein 
 for the protection of man from the operation of natural 
 law; that the only objective correspondence man has, is 
 with the natural law, not with the supposed power be- 
 hind it. We see life produced every day, evidently 
 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 217 
 
 by forces that are cosmic in their power, and be- 
 yond the control of man, and can see only a nat- 
 ural power at work in the process. Why then is 
 it necessary to assume that there is some power un- 
 perceived by our senses creating out of nothing the phe- 
 nomena? It is altogether sufficient for us to know that 
 nature, whose operations are perceivable by our senses, 
 does these things. One reason must be the fear of dis- 
 turbing the established order of current thought; for 
 fear also that the ethics of the people will be thus de- 
 stroyed. I have given in the preceding chapter my 
 reasons for thinking that ethics will be improved thereby. 
 
 Science is making wonderful discoveries now of 
 things that were as mysterious a few years ago as the 
 so-called "Origin of Life." The principle of evolution 
 has made plain many processes heretofore considered too 
 obscure and complex for man to investigate, and it seems 
 to me, will in the future unravel more so-called myster- 
 ies, and prove that truth requires that nothing is too 
 mysterious or too sacred for man's intellectual probing. 
 Evolution is gradually changing the whole current of 
 thought and reasoning of the thinking world. 
 
 Professors Hseckel, Jacques Loeb, J. B. Burke and 
 others are investigating the connection between the 
 inorganic and the organic in the origin of life forms ap- 
 parently with some success. It is likely if they succeed 
 that it will be found that life is a phase of the persist- 
 ence of force. The discovery will not advance the knowl- 
 edge of origin beyond phenomenism. It is not essential 
 to the welfare of man to consider an ultimate cause 
 which he can never penetrate. It is a common saying 
 that man, when he contructs the steam engine or the 
 electric motor, by which industrialism is so much aided, 
 controls the forces of nature. Man in the true sense does 
 
218 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 not control any natural force. "Correspondence with" 
 is the phrase to use in this connection and not "control.'*' 
 By virtue of his larger nervous structure, he is in cor- 
 respondence with a greater number of objective things 
 and their interrelationship in his environment than any 
 other animal. His erect position is in itself indicative 
 of larger brain and nerves. As stated in the foregoing 
 chapter by the freedom of his hands from the necessity 
 of quadrupedal locomotion he has acquired the power 
 to construct, with the materials so abundantly fur- 
 nished by nature, tools and implements, that still 
 further greatly enlarge his correspondence with the out- 
 side world. He is thus also enabled to manufacture 
 from Nature's abundant matter, other clothing than his 
 own skin. By constructing machinery to utilize the na- 
 tural tendency of the forces of Nature, he is greatly 
 aided. But his wheel must be turned by the natural flow 
 of the water or wind. Steam power applied to an engine 
 must follow the well known natural laws of expansion 
 and condensation. No power is created. It always 
 existed. The expansive power of heat moves the piston 
 head and this power is conveyed by the piston rod, aided 
 by a vaccuum caused by condensation of steam, to the 
 point where the work is to be done. Man simply adapts 
 his labor to the existing laws of natural physics and does 
 not modify in the least particular the operation of any 
 natural law. His dynamo must be placed in the current 
 of natural change of heat to electricity and of electricity 
 to power. By his ability to clothe himself and make 
 fire, he is enabled to migrate to any climate or 
 to any attainable altitude, and is the only animal 
 capable of doing these things. This greatly en- 
 larges his correspondence with Nature. This larger 
 correspondence is the difference between his mentality 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 2 19 
 
 and that of the lower animals. But when, by long and 
 painful effort he makes a microscope that reveals to his 
 mind by the natural laws of optics, another, and be- 
 fore inconceivable world, immediately surrounding him; 
 a telescope which brings within his vision a universe 
 seemingly unbounded, compared with which the range 
 of his natural eye is utterly insignificant, it is apparent 
 how vastly and importantly his environment and his 
 correspondence with it have been enlarged. He is thus 
 not changing or controlling a single law of Nature, but 
 by means of known natural laws, discovering those long 
 existent, but before unknown to him. 
 
 But these reveal to him no place he could attain and 
 be above nature, nor any supernatural power controlling 
 nature. They give him no control over the forces of 
 Nature. They reveal to him what before existed prior 
 to his advent on the globe, and these new discoveries 
 by reacting on his nervous system, enlarge that still 
 further for achievements in the same direction. They 
 do not reveal to him a reality beyond appearance, and 
 only teach him that still beyond their reach is a greater 
 natural and material realm, without limit, the truths of 
 which seem impenetrable to any contrivance within the 
 constructive power of man. He not only has no power 
 to change a single natural law, he cannot add to nor sub- 
 tract from Nature an iota of matter or motion. He 
 must adapt his brain, his ingenuity, himself, to the laws 
 that nature has adopted and never changes, or his tools 
 and machinery will not work. Light, heat, electricity, 
 the attraction of gravitation, the indestructibility of 
 matter, the persistence of force existed long before man 
 appeared. He is just finding them out, and very feebly 
 is adapting himself to their laws, so far to an infin- 
 itesimal extent. Yet, his true line of development, his 
 
220 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 true progress, is in that perceptible realm, and not in the 
 direction of the imperceptible supernatural. The occu- 
 pation of his mind by the latter, in trying to discover its 
 objective reality, is not only a waste of time, but prevents 
 his real progress in real things. 
 
 Another reason why scientific writers have made so 
 little impression on educated minds is that the idea of 
 the interference of the supernatural in human relations 
 by centuries of acceptance, has become organic in men's 
 thought, and gives tone and color to our whole civili- 
 zation. It may be said that nearly all men, whether 
 they really believe in the supernatural or not, nominally 
 adopt the view, because it was taught them from child- 
 hood, and they continue to believe that way in mature 
 life, because it is uncomfortable and unprofitable com- 
 mercially to be in the minority, and also because it is 
 too fatiguing to the brain to pursue the inductive method 
 necessary to connect in their minds natural cause and 
 effect. The organized opposition to new ideas on these 
 subjects is almost a conclusive power. When men, from 
 motives of what is termed "success in life," refuse to 
 investigate these questions, or refuse to declare their 
 principles if opposed to the current trend, the progress 
 of change from the dominant metaphysical to the scien- 
 tifically reasonable will be exceedingly slow. What is 
 fashionable is very hard to eradicate. We are still gov- 
 erned by impulses, not reason; or rather by reason con- 
 trolled by our self-interest. The molecular motion of 
 our brains proceeds in the organized channels inherited 
 from remote ancestry. 
 
 As long as the supposed basis of our civilization is 
 the unreal, or as long as man adjusts his laws and social 
 affairs upon the presupposed, its superstructure will be 
 to a certain extent a sham ; society will be controlled by 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 221 
 
 what will glitter and dwarf, rather than by quiet, un- 
 adorned mental capacity. Hence mediocrity is in the 
 saddle, and wealth, the accumulation of which does not 
 require high-class intellect, and which is entirely ephem- 
 eral, is the badge of honor and preferment. As long as 
 mankind is dominated by the idea of the supernatural, 
 wealth and pretention will, and ought to be, the con- 
 trolling power in society and government, and not merit 
 or reason, because the latter will upset the foundation 
 of the superstructure. As soon as the majority of men 
 have mental power to perceive natural causes for all 
 phenomena, either inorganic, organic or in the affairs of 
 society, that moment monarchies will begin to crumble, 
 wealth will lose its fascination, war, and in fact all mil- 
 itarism, will pass away and be ranked with other bygone 
 crazes, such as witchcraft, sorcery and human slavery. 
 It would likely result in the same effect if all men who 
 really believe in natural cause and effect would declare 
 such belief. When this shall occur man will find pleas- 
 ure, not so much in fiction as in the illimitable beauties 
 and variety of Nature and her laws. Just as "childish" 
 things are discarded by the mature, so further brain de- 
 velopment will change the former views and habits. 
 
 Man has been controlled from the beginning of his- 
 torical time by the dogmatism of assumption. He 
 thinks he must have a fixed, unalterable creed for his 
 religious beliefs. It does not suit his present state of 
 development to have any uncertainties in his creeds and 
 current literature supplies him with the soothing, com- 
 forting lotion of positive assumption, and in the absence 
 of evidence, calls it intuition or inspiration. A belief 
 in evolution means a new step in the progress of mental- 
 ity. Progress means the throwing aside from day to 
 day, what investigation proves untenable. The hypoth- 
 
222 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 esis of evolution has been only nominally accepted by 
 the majority of educated and thinking people in the last 
 few years. A few scientists, only, accept it in its full 
 logical meaning. The attempt now being made by those 
 interested, to treat it as a question that has no particular 
 bearing upon current theology, as akin to or not more 
 important than the discovery of a new planet, or as a 
 new application of electricity to mechanics, who assert 
 that the process was created, but not the individual 
 forms, are not in accord with those who hold that evolu- 
 tion necessarily undermines the whole structure of the 
 supernatural. 
 
 What is the use for the acquisition of new knowledge 
 by the investigation of the facts of nature, unless we 
 make a proper application of them in correcting errone- 
 ous views heretofore held? All the researches of Dar- 
 win would have been largely worthless unless the great 
 truth of the method of natural evolution, which logic- 
 ally grew out of them, had been given to the world. 
 And what is the use of evolution unless we adopt and 
 act upon its evident teaching of still greater truths? Tt 
 would be like a community of people who resided in a 
 malarial district, sending out their wisest men to dis- 
 cover a more healthy region to which they might mi- 
 grate, and leave their fevers and agues behind. When 
 the wise men report a location where disease is un- 
 known, the majority refuse to migrate, preferring to 
 suffer with the chills for the sake of the remedy — 
 whisky and quinine. 
 
 Superstition today, in a less degree only than it ever 
 did before, is devouring the valuable time and best 
 thoughts of a large majority of the people, who nomin- 
 ally acknowledge that evolution is true, yet refuse to 
 part company with the old assumption of the control of 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 223 
 
 phenomena by a supernatural cause. From the first 
 book, painfully written out by the tedious process of 
 hand writing, by the monks of old, who were the most 
 superstitious and credulous of mankind, down to the 
 latest edition of yesterday's New York dailies, the ag- 
 gregate thought expressed is based upon the unques- 
 tionable so-called intuition of mankind, that everything 
 has been specially created. Not only the ordinary, but 
 our best literature is saturated with it. No textbook 
 can be introduced into the most of our common schools 
 now, that casts a doubt upon it. Is it any wonder then, 
 that when it is suggested to our so-called educated men 
 and brightest teachers of the young, that the new the- 
 ories may be true, that the answer almost invariably 
 comes, "I prefer to believe that man was created in the 
 Garden of Eden, and let it go at that?" Myths should 
 be taught and held up as myths. Truths as truths. 
 
 There is absolutely no further excuse for competent 
 scientists to treat these great questions in a compromis- 
 ing manner. They are of too great importance to the 
 welfare of mankind to admit of an interpretation that 
 can as well be applied to one belief as another. Even 
 Darwin regretted late in life, as we learn from his pub- 
 lished letters, that he had "truckled," to use his own ex- 
 pression, to the prevailing sentiment. The only proper 
 basis of thinking is that of inductive scientific truth; 
 that is, truth established by systematic investigation 
 through the senses. As previously stated, and it cannot 
 be repeated too often, all true knowledge comes through 
 the senses, in the shape of sensations emanating from 
 objects or processes outside. The absence of real ob- 
 jects causing the sensations would eventually leave the 
 brain without true knowledge. It is true that the brain 
 has the associative power to recall former sensations, 
 
224 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 and memory thus established, would continue as knowl- 
 edge in the present mature brains should objective exist- 
 ence be suddenly obliterated. But mental development 
 in the just born infant would not occur. Infants would 
 always remain infants. Psychology teaches that no 
 ideationally initiated ideas could arise without experi- 
 ence which consists in the correspondence of the indi- 
 vidual with environment. It is certain that whatever 
 thoughts or vagaries or imaginations man indulges in, 
 when analyzed into their simple elements, are found to 
 be composed of sensations or modifications of them, that 
 came to the race, during its whole existence, from real 
 objects in the environment. No man has ever been able 
 to imagine an angel, or a spirit, or hobgoblin, or any 
 myth, fable, fiction, or any other thing that was not a 
 modification of some real thing, that at some time made 
 a sensation through one or more of his senses, upon his 
 nervous structure, or upon that of his ancestors. The 
 idol of the idol worshiper, however grotesque it may ap- 
 pear, is at least a faint resemblance to a man or ani- 
 mal. The spiritual God of the most intellectual of man- 
 kind, however far away or obscure he may be, however 
 mighty, omnipotent, and omnipresent, is the enlargement 
 to infinitude of the finite man. The human mind can- 
 not conceive of any other God. Angels have female faces, 
 wings and flowing robes. The devil himself is in the 
 form of a man, with horns and a forked tail. The most 
 imaginative work of fiction is simply a modification of 
 the real. All this proves that the mind of man cannot 
 by its utmost effort go out of the realm of the actual. 
 His true knowledge consists of his correspondence with 
 the natural. The chords that make that correspondence 
 are the human senses, and scientific knowledge consists 
 in seeing the actual, or natural, only. The inference of 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 225 
 
 these statements should be obvious to the most casual 
 thinker. 
 
 Why should mankind longer consent to attach its 
 natural code of morals, its education, its day of rest from 
 labor, more than half of its printed books, in short, its 
 thought, to a myth or a subjective idea, that has no in- 
 ductive scientific evidence of its objective existence? 
 It is a perversion of the life of man ; it excludes the study 
 of the real. The universe is full of the most important 
 truths, to which the most of mankind pay not the slight- 
 est attention. For instance, men know so little of their 
 physical organization, that half of them die in infancy, 
 yet in pure superstition they will attribute death, as they 
 do the origin of life, to the supernatural. For things he 
 does not understand, man refuses to make any natural 
 investigation, yet will devote his whole life to a blind 
 belief in and pursuit of the old fallacies giving them 
 the thought and study that should be devoted to the real. 
 There are school districts in the United States which 
 have refused within the last few years, to have modern 
 geography taught, because it is in subversion of the ac- 
 count in Genesis. Some colleges will not teach biology, 
 as modern investigation has established it, for the same 
 reason. The president of a literary club in a certain city 
 refused to have evolution considered, because the Bible 
 in a literal sense was not to be questioned. Politicians 
 are necessarily loud in their approval of the orthodox 
 view, because the majority hold it. A candidate for the 
 nomination for vice-president, before one of the political 
 conventions a few years ago, took occasion sometime 
 since, on the lecture platform to denounce the naturalists 
 of the Darwinian school because, as he conceived, they 
 advocated that might is right; meaning that the law of 
 natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, was that 
 
226 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 the strong will survive and the weak will die. Any one 
 except an idiot can see that such is the law, whether it 
 is natural or controlled by the supernatural. The facts 
 as they exist are in condemnation of his own God, for 
 Darwin only wrote what existed under everyone's eyes, 
 and not what he would desire the facts to be. My ob- 
 servation is that the advocates of, and believers in the 
 Darwinian theory are, as gentle Darwin himself was, 
 strongly opposed to the idea that might is right among 
 mankind, in the sense that the strong should oppress the 
 weak in any way. But the same politician at the same 
 time was advocating, (1899), with the same gyratory 
 eloquence, the expansion of the trade influence of the 
 United States by the use of the military arm of the 
 government in subduing weaker peoples. Thus the 
 best thought of the world is stifled by misrepresentation. 
 Its freedom in seeking for the truth is absolutely prohi- 
 bited. No man is allowed to express other than orthodox 
 views, without being made to feel the disapproval of 
 the majority, whose lives are governed by the old domi- 
 nance of fear. Is there anything strange, then, that 
 Darwin, Spencer and Hseckel have comparatively few 
 open followers and defenders? The historical fact 
 that men have heretofore always been more super- 
 stitious than now proves that the power of the average 
 human brain to discriminate the true from the false is 
 increasing. There is no question but man does the best 
 in this regard that he is mentally capable of doing from 
 age to age. But scientifically this condition is deplor- 
 able and it is the duty of every one who clearly perceives 
 the condition, to do what lies in his power to proclaim 
 the facts as shown by inductive reasoning. 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that the great im- 
 pediment in the way of a proper conception of the rela- 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 227 
 
 tion of subject and object is the historical fact that so- 
 ciety in all its forms of government, social customs, stat- 
 utory laws, literature and art is crystalized around the 
 old conception of religion as worship of some personality 
 outside of and more powerful than even the great forces 
 of nature. Phenomena have been lost sight of in the in- 
 fatuation of the masses for a form of worship or propi- 
 tiation. The church, therefore, is an evolution from this, 
 what is popularly called, the spirit of the people. The 
 Bible is the literature of it. Cathedrals, temples, and 
 fine church buildings are the physical expressions of it. 
 Sunday, the only day of rest of the mass of Christendom, 
 is devoted to it. The only recognized code of morals is 
 attached to it. In most governments it is made national, 
 and is therefore woven into the laws. The patriotism of 
 the people is made to depend on it. It is a large part of 
 the constitution of England. France only now has awak- 
 ened from its delusion concerning it. In Buddhistic 
 countries like Japan the only real thing to the masses is 
 the Buddha. The individual is lost in the communal and 
 the sacrifice of life upon the battlefield is only a shedding 
 of the outer wrapping of the soul and its birth into a 
 happier and better life. The present is of no moment. 
 All effort must be for the future life, or for the transmi- 
 gration of the soul into a higher organism. These teach- 
 ings are fascinating to the average brain. The simple 
 and guileless whose lives would be pure and beautiful 
 ethically under any doctrine or system, make the delu- 
 sion itself attractive and plausible. The Cotter's simple 
 and pure life as depicted by Robert Burns in "Cotter's 
 Saturday Night" or the faithful characters in the "Bonny 
 Brier Bush" are designed by arousing the emotion of 
 sympathy to make the highest intellect approve a myth 
 that appears to produce such happiness and contentment. 
 
228 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 It is said the Japanese are happy, cheerful, self-denying 
 to the extent of annihilating individuality and never think 
 of denying the validity of the Buddha. Competition 
 seems not to exist in Japan. Now are these conditions 
 under both Christianity and Buddhaism the ideal ones, 
 or is it better to encourage investigation and intellectual 
 development? If the masses were moved in the same 
 degree of enthusiasm for the investigation of natural 
 cause and effect what would the effect be upon civiliza- 
 tion? It is also well to remember that the cotter and all 
 similar characters would likely be the same under any 
 system, scientific or mythical. They are naturally organ- 
 ized for a contented, simple life. They can then be elimi- 
 nated from the consideration of the important question 
 at issue. In contrast with the above attractive features 
 that have crystallized around the supernatural cult let us 
 take a glance at the obverse side of the picture — the 
 spirit of intolerance that dominates the fountain heads of 
 the system. 
 
 St. George Mivart, who lately died, was an eminent 
 English naturalist, and at the same time a devoted mem- 
 ber of the Catholic church. In 1871, he wrote a work on 
 the "Genesis of Species," in criticism of, and in opposi- 
 tion to Darwin's theory of natural selection. Darwin 
 noticed him as an able opponent. Just before his death, 
 Mivart wrote a magazine article, catagorically reciting 
 what havoc science had made with certain statements of 
 the Bible, such as the whole account of the creation and 
 the Garden of Eden, yet claimed in the article that there- 
 by no breach had been made in what he termed the con- 
 tinuity of the church. 
 
 The Catholic bishop, under whose spiritual dominion 
 Mivart lived, violently attacked him in the Catholic 
 periodical, calling his integrity in question. Mivart re- 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 229 
 
 plied, demanding a retraction of the aspersions upon his 
 honor, and the bishop answered by demanding of Mivart 
 a retraction of the statements in his article, and sent him 
 a confession in writing, of the tenets of the Catholic 
 church. Mivart had the manhood not to sign the retrac- 
 tion, but was placed under the ban of the church, which 
 embittered his few remaining days. 
 
 This occurred in the year 1900. Here was a scien- 
 tist of intellectual ability, who was so influenced by his 
 life-long church complications, his family being devotees 
 also, of that faith, that he refused to see the logical con- 
 sequences of his own investigations. The statements he 
 made in his article swept away the very foundations of 
 the Catholic church, and yet he insisted that they made 
 no breach in its continuity. What he should have done, 
 was to acknowledge the logical results of his scientific 
 investigations, and say that he could not consistently re- 
 main in the church. He should have stated the truth as 
 he scientifically saw it, and should have declared that he 
 saw no evidence, and could not believe in the control of 
 a supernatural power. This would have given him the 
 respect of all sides to his memory, which he now fails 
 to have. 
 
 There is no half way station from the tenets of the 
 Catholic church to the free realm of scientific phenom- 
 enism. The continual effort to reconcile the truth to the 
 assumption, will forever prove futile. Yet if it be true, 
 which I doubt, that most mankind must have the restrain- 
 ing influence of the church to keep them from committing 
 crimes, then let the church continue for these until the 
 descendants of these become, by heredity and education, 
 convinced that doing right for the right's sake, will best 
 serve any God whether natural or supernatural. 
 
 The real question is how to produce an uncatas- 
 
230 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 trophic change. Surely not by open defiance and so- 
 called blasphemy. Not ridicule ; not controversy. Con- 
 troversy is the continued re-adjustment of definitions to 
 fit the preconceived ideas of the asserter of the theory, 
 or to ward off the ingenious objections of the adversary. 
 Great truths have been established by induction only. 
 This is the way the Copernican system of astronomy, the 
 attraction of gravitation, the evolution by natural selec- 
 tion have been established. It can not be done by direct 
 attack, but by making plain the facts of the opposite 
 truth. There must be a natural cause, the want of in- 
 clination to experiment founded on the principles of evo- 
 lution itself, which produces such beliefs, when the whole 
 world at a certain stage of its evolution adopts them. 
 Their evolution has been slow, so must their decay be 
 equally slow, because sudden changes are always fol- 
 lowed by as sudden reactions and natural evolution does 
 not operate suddenly. But nevertheless, their decay 
 seems sure. Their existence depends upon ignorance of 
 the true sources of human development, and consequent- 
 ly of the objects of life. Education should be directed to 
 the natural — to the meaning of the great principle of 
 evolution in all its phases. For the principle of evolu- 
 tion, which is now accepted as established as unquestion- 
 ably as gravitation, entirely subverts the whole accepted 
 theories of life and conduct heretofore held. 
 
 No sane man wants suddenly to upset the organized 
 beliefs of the world, even if he had the power to do so, 
 but the masses must gradually be educated into a con- 
 stant study of the natural causes, and as fast as they per- 
 ceive that there is a natural cause for every phenomenon, 
 the supernatural, before in possession of the mind, will 
 fade away; until then there may be reason for the con- 
 stabulary of the church. Many scientific men make the 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 231 
 
 great mistake of supposing that this advance can be ac- 
 complished by endeavoring to reconcile scientific truths 
 with old geocentric ideas. When the descent of man was 
 placed upon an evolutionary basis every writer, who was 
 convinced of this process, should have at once stated that 
 his special creation was a fiction. The work must be 
 bravely prosecuted in a proper manner, by the successors 
 of such scientific pioneers as Copernicus, Gallileo, New- 
 ton, Darwin, Spencer and Huxley. Herbert Spencer has 
 done a wonderful thing to uncover the false and disclose 
 the truth, by writing his great work, "The Synthetic 
 Philosophy." His readers are few, because the thinking 
 of mankind heretofore has been along lines so different 
 from his that most men do not know what he means. 
 They cannot comprehend that what has heretofore been 
 assumed, without a thought otherwise, to be the work 
 of the supernatural, has really had a natural and explain- 
 able cause, comprehensible upon proper investigation by 
 ordinary minds. He necessarily abandons the old term- 
 inology and uses new terms to express causes and effects 
 not before treated in books. 
 
 All that is necessary is to induce the people to read 
 standard works on astronomy, geology, biology, psychol- 
 ogy and natural ethics. When the works of Darwin and 
 Spencer on evolution, Huxley on the "Physical Basis of 
 Life," Hseckel's works, and Ribot's psychological works 
 shall be studied by the people there is little doubt about 
 the gradual establishment of the conception of a natural 
 cause, as the former conception of the supernatural fades 
 away, before the inductive reasoning of these great au- 
 thors. In other words, the erroneous theological beliefs 
 of a people are only changed by education along scien- 
 tific lines in the great realm of nature; not by contro- 
 versy over technicalities, nor by showing the literary 
 
232 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 falsity of human history. When the intellect is thus con- 
 vinced, there is little danger of a reaction upon character 
 in way of abandonment of the moral code. 
 
 Whoever has intellect enough to comprehend the full 
 meaning of the theory of evolution, also will perceive 
 that the wholesome checks heretofore given by the pre- 
 vailing theology through the simple emotions of fear, 
 anger, affection and the sexual feeling, and their num- 
 erous and complex combinations in the human organism, 
 are not indissolubly connected with supernatural beliefs, 
 but must be as a matter of self-preservation, as well as 
 a wholesome regulation of society, perpetuated under any 
 and every system of belief. A system of natural ethics, 
 fitted to the highest welfare of the human race, will nat- 
 urally grow out of a true conception of the laws of na- 
 ture and man's evolutionary relation thereto. 
 
 But if a man, who has heretofore kept the letter of 
 the decalogue, simply because it is prescribed by a sup- 
 posed supernatural being, who has the power and incli- 
 nation to punish him in some unnatural way for viola- 
 tions becomes convinced suddenly without intellectual or 
 scientific evolution into a higher conception that the dec- 
 alogue has not the high origin and support attributed to 
 it, he is very liable to conclude there is no morality, and 
 act accordingly. 
 
 Therefore the only hope is to educate simultaneously 
 along the parallel lines of natural phenomena, sociology, 
 and ethics. Spencer's "Synthetic Philosophy" only in- 
 cludes biology, psychology, sociology, and ethics. But 
 as there were already prior competent works on physics, 
 treating of the nebular theory, including astronomy, 
 chemistry, geology, etc., it was not necessary for Mr. 
 Spencer to include them in his system. But a complete, 
 a rounded and all sufficing education that will teach the 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 233 
 
 man, first the significance of Nature's perpetual appari- 
 tion, and second, his proper relation thereto including 
 his relation to his fellow-man as a part of phenomena, is 
 absolutely necessary to that highest and best life, in 
 which men will do the right for right's sake. 
 
 It has been said that if man is an evolution and all 
 his psychical processes are functions of his material body, 
 he is not a free agent and must be irresponsible for most 
 of his acts. He is responsible only to the natural laws 
 of his evolution. The word "responsible" implies man's 
 dependence on a superior personality who determines 
 what his punishment for violation shall be. But if Na- 
 ture only reacts on his body for violations, the word re- 
 sponsible is not applicable. An insane man is not respon- 
 sible to society for his acts. Yet, he is practically pun- 
 ished by being confined in an asylum. In the popular 
 acceptation of the word man is not responsible for his 
 birth, location upon this globe, his heredity, the size of 
 his brain, body, hands, and feet. Neither is he responsi- 
 ble for any variation in structure and consequent peculiar- 
 ity of character, which his ancestors did not have. Yet 
 it is obvious that if this variation is not useful to him in 
 the struggle for existence, he must suffer for it. This 
 is a law of Nature, and while it may seem unjust to the 
 individual, yet it is mercy to the race, because the elimi- 
 nation of the weak and unfit is absolutely necessary for 
 the welfare of the whole. In all forms of life, vegetable 
 and animal, immense numbers never arrive at maturity. 
 In fact very few survive to perpetuate themselves. The 
 greatest seeming waste is in the vegetable kingdom, but 
 all through every grade of animal life up to complex 
 man, the principle holds good that the individual is sac- 
 rificed to the welfare of the race. Seton Thompson says 
 that no wild animal dies a natural death. How many of 
 
234 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 the human race die in infancy? Those that do so, are in 
 some way unfit ; that is, when certain tests are applied to 
 them by the inexorable chemistry of Nature, they prove 
 unequal to the test. In other words, Nature holds the-m 
 responsible for all natural violation of her laws. It is 
 evident that men are not free enough agents to avoid 
 these every day occurrences. 
 
 In some way their organizations are out of proper 
 correspondence with the requirements of life. In many 
 individuals, this fact would be very difficult to reason out, 
 or to detect just at what physical point this want of cor- 
 respondence occurred, but undoubtedly that theory con- 
 tains less doubts and uncertainties in explanation of the 
 facts than any other that we can adopt. Of a thousand 
 human beings born, suppose only one lives to be eighty 
 years old. It is scarcely possible that the ablest physi- 
 cian could at the beginning of the thousand lives have 
 selected the one to survive. During an epidemic like 
 cholera, certain ones are affected with it. Some of these 
 survive and the others die. Why is it that a large num- 
 ber seemingly equally exposed do not have the disease, 
 and why do only some of those who are attacked sur- 
 vive, while the others die? Is it not something in their 
 complicated organisms, difficult to be observed by the 
 common eye, out of harmony with their environment, 
 that causes the deaths? Any latent weakness of any of 
 the organs of the body by which the functions of the 
 organs are weakened constitutes their want of corre- 
 spondence with the environment; in this sense the word 
 "environment" has a very wide and significant meaning. 
 All disease and all weakness of every nature are impair- 
 ments of that correspondence, which a strong and per- 
 fect organism maintains with equal strength and perfec- 
 tion with his perpetual environment. The brain that 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 235 
 
 does not perceive the true cause of every effect, is in pre- 
 cisely the same manner wanting in proper correspond- 
 ence with its perpetual environment. The action of such 
 a brain is subjective only, whenever it attributes to a 
 fanciful and unknown cause, any natural effect. That 
 is, it is out of correspondence with any objective cause 
 for objective phenomena. The punishment follows nat- 
 urally whether the individual is what is called a free 
 agent or the product of evolution. 
 
 That is, the facts above recited are occurring habit- 
 ually in spite of the asserted personal control from 
 above. They are consistent with the theory of evolution, 
 but not with the theory of an all-wise and loving care by 
 a personality. 
 
 England claims to be the highest type of the Anglo- 
 Saxon race. Yet, the United States fortunately in the 
 commencement of its career as a nation, discarded the 
 Norman pomp and ceremony of church and militarism, 
 which still cling to England, by separating church and 
 state, and by choosing the freedom of the simplicity of 
 republicanism, rather than the feudal relics of nominal 
 monarchy and titled nobility. To this extent, and it was 
 an immense advance, we are on the true road to natural 
 civilization. 
 
 One impediment still remaining in our country is that, 
 while theoretically there is freedom of thought on relig- 
 ious matters and while in name, and in many respects in 
 reality, we have free churches, free schools, and free 
 speech, yet a majority of the people as individuals and as 
 organized societies, have retained the spirit of exclusive- 
 ness and proscription which our fathers intended to pre- 
 vent by the words of the Constitution. Religion is not 
 free until there shall be no question made as to a man's 
 opinion upon such matters, provided he maintains the 
 
236 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 character of a moral and upright citizen. The higher 
 criticism should be encouraged. Schools are not free, 
 until they are open to the proper investigation of all sub- 
 jects, sacred and secular, along the lines of true scien- 
 tific methods. The test of morality should be a man's 
 attitude toward his fellowman and all animal life on the 
 globe, in short, his attitude in general to his environment, 
 not his beliefs or unbeliefs in the supernatural. 
 
 It is evident to the most casual observer, that the pre- 
 vailing curriculum of school and college, does not suffi- 
 ciently teach these truths. The classical and mathemat- 
 ical course does not reach them, and it occurs to me that 
 this course is perhaps unconsciously maintained largely 
 because it does not lead the mind away from the estab- 
 lished conception of the reign of an imaginary supernat- 
 uralism. 
 
 Andrew D. White, in his wonderful book, "The War- 
 fare of Science and Theology," shows that the world 
 today would be held in the strong grip of the most dis- 
 gusting theological superstition of the earliest ages, if 
 the church, either Catholic or Protestant, could have had 
 its way; and that every step of emancipation from such 
 ignorant thralldom has been forced upon theology by 
 the investigation of scientific men. None but those who 
 have made such advances, as will enable them to com- 
 prehend such writings, and do the right for the right's 
 sake, should make this change of belief, and in reality 
 none others will. Of course, there are a large number 
 who refuse to be restrained in their desire to do wrong, 
 by the fears and espionage of the church even, or by any 
 other organized constabulary, and who have no intellect- 
 ual conception of the real situation. But these will re- 
 main nominally under the control of the old belief and 
 its code of morals and also under the ban of human laws. 
 
LIMITATIONS AND IMPEDIMENTS 237 
 
 Those who are incapable of thinking, as well as those 
 who refuse to think upon so momentous a question, may 
 as well be eliminated from the problem. 
 
 All people should do their own thinking and investi- 
 gating, and not hand that duty over to a special class es- 
 tablished and protected in many countries by the laws 
 whose prime interest as professionals is to preserve the 
 old assumptions; who must necessarily oppose all educa- 
 tion, destined eventually to undermine the superstitions 
 still saturating human conceptions. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The foregoing chapters contain only the merest oat- 
 line of the great principles of Phenomenism. They are 
 designed merely to suggest. Knowing what mere sug- 
 gestion will do in the subjects of hypnotism and som- 
 nambulism, it leads one to reflect that perhaps those 
 brains uneducated in science, but properly organized, 
 may be induced by these outlines to a more profound in- 
 vestigation oi these great truths. There are certain 
 points casually referred to that should be further elabo- 
 rated, and in doing so it may be well to summarize the 
 facts and arguments. 
 
 In the realm of phenomena there are only two phases 
 — self and not-self. The perceiver and the objective phe- 
 nomena perceived are the fundamental aspects of one 
 great truth — >the integration and dissipation of some 
 thing, which for a better definition we divide into two 
 aspects, called matter and motion. What these are in 
 reality the organism called self has no peripheral sense 
 organs, and, of course, no corresponding brain centers, 
 capable of cognizing. But scientists are fast conclud- 
 ing that they are one in reality. The hypothesis has 
 been formulated that whatever this oneness of mat- 
 ter and motion may be it probably had no origin, and 
 that in its primitive state it was a nebula of attenu- 
 ated gas, from which by the laws of energy the 
 present solar system and all systems in the universe 
 
SUMMARY 239 
 
 have been evolved. This original nebula was com- 
 posed of either atoms or centers of energy. The 
 fundamental property of these centers of energy is con- 
 densation. Hence the condensation of the nebulous mat- 
 ter into the globes now moving in space and all the phe- 
 nomena thence resulting have been simply the operation 
 of a principle immanent in the matter itself. The globe 
 on which we dwell is a condensed portion of a nebula. 
 The sun and the other planets of the solar system, in- 
 cluding the asteroids, are the remaining parts of the same 
 nebula. The sun is still condensing and the heat of it 
 is produced by the arrested motion of the atoms in pro- 
 cess of condensation. All these bodies are composed of 
 essentially the same elements, and these elements are the 
 chemical combinations of the original atoms, or centers 
 of energy, in proportions varying with the nature of the 
 resulting element. After the earth had attained its pres- 
 ent outlines, density, temperature, and differentiated its 
 components into what are commonly called solid, fluid 
 and gaseous, that is, into earth, air and water, life began 
 to appear in the lowly forms of vegetation. From this 
 humble beginning all the forms of the vegetable king- 
 dom and the animal kingdom have been slowly evolved. 
 This evolution has occurred from the homogeneous to 
 the heterogeneous in apparently an undesigned progres- 
 sion from the simple to the complex, not in a straight 
 and unswerving upward line, but by rhythm of motion, 
 which seems to be functional and universal in all natural 
 phenomena. 
 
 This progressive evolution of life forms is accom- 
 plished by the methods of heredity and variation. These 
 two laws operate effectively in producing more and more 
 complex organisms by eliminating the weak, by a process 
 which we call death. A constant alternation of develop- 
 
240 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 ment by integration of matter, and death by dissipation 
 of it, during which the motion or function accompany- 
 ing the two opposite methods undergoes the reverse proc- 
 ess, has been going on from the formation of the first 
 vegetable cell to the present time. This integration of 
 organic matter occurs by a multiplication of cells and a 
 differentiation of the growth into the heterogeneousness 
 of organisms. Thus the great variety of species now ex- 
 isting have been produced by the adaptation of an occa- 
 sional variation in the anatomy and a corresponding vari- 
 ation in the physiology of the hereditary forms. When- 
 ever the variation proved of benefit to its possessor in its 
 struggle for existence, that organism proved more likely 
 than its less favored companions to live and multiply. 
 This is the principle of natural selection in the struggle 
 for existence, and is the theory now generally held by 
 scientists as one most likely to account for the evolution 
 of new species. 
 
 As Charles R. Darwin and Herbert Spencer were the 
 two most conspicuous champions in the world of science 
 of the theory of evolution a chapter is devoted to each 
 of them. It is not necessary here to enlarge upon what 
 is said in those chapters. Both have written elaborately 
 and from different standpoints the most logical and con- 
 vincing treatises on evolution. Mr. Darwin's "Origin 
 of Species" was epoch making. Mr. Spencer's "Syn- 
 thetic Philosophy" extended the application of the prin- 
 ciples of evolution to Psychology, Sociology and Ethics. 
 Lifting these sciences from the hopeless chaos of former 
 a priori theories to the high plane of scientific treatment, 
 he brought them into the reach of common sense. From 
 the meaningless gropings of so-called intuitions and 
 supernatural origins he brought the study of the human 
 mind for the first time to the basis of function of nerve 
 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 241 
 
 structure in its relation through the sense organs with 
 objective environment. 
 
 The evolution of what is called physical life has long 
 been recognized and acquiesced in by the educated the- 
 ologian. But for a long time after this acquiescence the 
 psychical life was still deemed unexplainable by natural 
 laws. Modern psychology, however, has demonstrated 
 the dependence of psychical, or as formerly called mental 
 life upon the physical, and that these phenomena are as 
 much under the operation of natural law as is physical 
 life. This is so whether psychology is to be considered 
 a science in itself or a branch of physiology. Whether 
 we view mentality as like or unlike the condition we 
 call matter, yet the facts show that the reality of 
 one is as inscrutable as that of the other. They so 
 perceptibly fuse that it is impossible to distinguish the 
 line of separation. The substrate of mental operations, 
 as Wundt calls the nervous structure, is so defined as 
 matter as to pass through certain motions simultane- 
 ously with every psychical phenomenon. This phenom- 
 enon is so closely connected with the motion of the nerve 
 tissue as not to be distinguished as a separate existence. 
 The complexity of the matter is perfectly parallel with 
 the complexity of the phenomenon. The effect of the 
 molecular motion of the living nerve tissue is the men- 
 tality and without this motion it is not apparent to the 
 senses. In fact we do not perceive anything in the 
 operation except some material fact, i. e. the movements, 
 of the material body in thinking, in articulating or writing 
 words, or in muscular motion. The whole perceptible 
 operation of reasoning is the production of images and 
 the fusing of them in the brain cortex. These images 
 are produced by molecular motion or a movement of 
 nerve elements similar thereto. 
 
242 PHYSICAL, BASIS OF MIND AND MOKAL,S 
 
 So it is of the utmost importance that the phenomen- 
 ism of mentality or consciousness be largely considered 
 in its relation to its substrate of neural structure and 
 in its conformity to the natural laws of evolution. For 
 if it is a function of neural structure and in its more 
 complex and obscure form is never manifested except in 
 connection with a like complex and obscure physical 
 structure well known to brain anatomists as the prosen- 
 cephalon, then it must be deemed as much a product of 
 natural evolution as the prosecephalon is. Here sci- 
 ence finds as in the physical realm, only phenomena and 
 postulates only a reign of natural law. Not only the 
 normal workings of the psychical life, but the abnormal 
 phenomena, such as illusions, hallucinations, hypnotic 
 states, somnambulism, etc. are shown by the experiments 
 of the psychologists to be explainable by natural law, 
 not as the work of a supernatural demon or evil spirit. 
 The idea that any psychical phenomena, although so 
 faint as to be called subconscious and therefore very ob- 
 scure, can have a doubtful thither side opening into a 
 supernatural realm is a surrender of the postulate of the 
 universal reign of natural law in all phenomena. The 
 so-called supernatural phenomena of religious conver- 
 sion, the spiritual vision, etc., are natural abnormal psy- 
 chical phenomena explainable as the psychology of reli- 
 gion. It would appear that these historico-abnormalities 
 are much less common than formerly. Later, by the 
 evolution of more intellect, under which the emotions 
 will be better controlled, these abnormal manifestations 
 will altogether cease. The joy one feels in the attain- 
 ment of any much desired condition, such as the control 
 of his appetites and passions, or the discovery of a new 
 thought, or a new method in political economy by which 
 the material, ethical, or aesthetic condition of mankind 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 can be changed for the better, depends in its outward 
 motor acts altogether upon the control the intellect has 
 of the emotions. 
 
 All real progress is a natural process of reasoning by 
 which one is converted to a new belief from a former 
 one. Reasoning being the fusing of images naturally 
 made upon the brain, whether real or hallucinative, all 
 conversions secular or religious are psychologically alike. 
 Whatever appears supernatural in the sudden change in 
 psychical life can be paralleled in the mystery once sur- 
 rounding certain physical phenomena whose natural 
 cause is now well understood. 
 
 Since Herbert Spencer wrote upon these subjects all 
 thinkers have modified their views of them. "Faculties" 
 have given place to brain function. "Mind" and "soul" 
 have been transformed to consciousness. "Reason," 
 "Memory," "Imagination," "Will" are presentations or 
 images fusing with immediate sensations forming phys- 
 iologically those psychological effects named perceptions, 
 conceptions, and ideas. The self is no longer an entity 
 that thinks. "I think" as a phrase is imperceptibly fad- 
 ing into the more logical and rational "it thinks" — being 
 the reactions of brain structure to sensations and images. 
 We cognize not by intuition but by the physiological 
 exercise of the old fashioned senses of touch, sight, 
 hearing, taste and smell. Our instincts are inherited 
 automatic reflexes of nerve structure. The emotions are 
 the same. In short, all former so-called mental acts are 
 the reactions of the brain centers to sensations by which 
 such centers are indifferently excited to produce images 
 of former like sensations. These images fusing produce 
 a new and different image which is the idea, the per- 
 ception, the conception, the abstraction, or the motor ac- 
 tion. Of course, there are idealists yet existing who 
 
244 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 refuse to believe that these psychic effects can be pro- 
 duced by the machinery of the nerve structure. They 
 say the psychic phenomena are accompanied by a nerve 
 motion, but the two are only parallel and simultaneous, 
 that the two operations are independent. They say that 
 a machine that turns out a piece of cloth different in 
 pattern from the material put in is not the maker of the 
 pattern. True, but the human brain is the maker of 
 both the machine and the pattern. This fact is apparent 
 to the senses, but the patterns of the images of the brain 
 are not seen by us to be made by a supernatural being. 
 The machine is composed of matter the same as 
 the brain is, but it is inorganic and stable; where- 
 as the brain is composed of organic matter and Is 
 very unstable. It is very responsive to incident forces 
 such as light, heat, and all forms of cosmic energy. 
 Therefore its product is psychical, that is lighter, less 
 palpable, less apparent than that of a machine made 
 of steel. The illustration of the machine turning 
 out patterns of cloth, is parallel with Paley's il- 
 lustration of the same principle by the watch. It pre- 
 supposes a personal maker. This maker in the form of 
 man is cognized through our senses. But the assumed 
 maker of natural phenomena is not thus cognized, and 
 Cardinal Newman said he could not be the result of 
 human reasoning. He is only the hope of faith. There- 
 fore the illustration not being consistent in its parts fails 
 as a proof. No one objects to the assumptions of faith 
 as long as they are confined to that basis. But when an 
 objective supernatural entity is proposed on the proof of 
 human production, the sensory proof must be demanded. 
 The limitations of human knowledge are the result 
 of man's nervous structure and its limited correspondence 
 with environment, through the five peripheral sense 
 
SUMMARY 245 
 
 organs. These sense organs receive impressions from 
 phenomena only. The resulting images formed on the 
 cortex of the brain centers and fusing into perception, 
 conception and reason are not the images of final cause, 
 or ultimate reality, but of relativity only. We do not 
 perceive the thing itself but only certain attributes or 
 properties, such as form, color, resistance, motion, sound, 
 odor and taste. We know ourselves only by the func- 
 tions of our bodies. What we have been calling mind 
 is not a thing in itself, but is best perceived as a phe- 
 nomenal ego, because its psychical phenomena only are 
 apparent to our senses. Consciousness is a condition 
 ever varying, produced by the images above spoken of, 
 forming and reforming in the sensory centers, by the 
 incidence of objective forces. 
 
 In ordinary conversation and in nearly all literature, 
 the mind is spoken of as a producing entity. Language 
 has been evolved from this conception. That is, there 
 is very little language capable of expressing other than 
 the idea of entity and the power of that entity to pro- 
 duce the psychic phenomena every moment observed. 
 For instance the phenomenon of "absent mindedness" is 
 ordinarily spoken of as the wandering of the mind. That 
 is, it is a thing — an entity — that moves away from the 
 body, or at least leaves the object to which the eyes, or 
 some of the senses, is directed. This language does not 
 express the psychical phenomenon taking place. That is 
 a process unconsciously and instantaneously occurring in 
 the appropriate brain centers, but which in consequence 
 of its being heretofore unknown to the real makers of 
 language, viz : the masses of articulate beings, requires 
 a new application of words in a very unusual and long 
 drawn out combination. In reading a book, for exam- 
 ple, the flow of thought is. maintained by a constant sue- 
 
246 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 cession of sensations of the letters and their combina- 
 tions into words, first on the retina and thence trans- 
 ferred to the optical centers of the grey cortex upon 
 which the image of them is formed. These sensitive 
 images call up or excite by the law of association other 
 similar images, but connected or fused with these latter 
 images are all the images of former sensations called ex- 
 periences with these same letters and words, by which 
 the meaning of them have been derived, such as the 
 touch of books, the hearing of definitions of teachers, 
 and all the mechanism of school education. These 
 images of former sensations by similarity and contiguity 
 have fused into a new associative image which being 
 similar to the image immediately produced by the pres- 
 ent sensation coming from the book fuses also with that 
 and forms a resulting image called a perception. This 
 is the continual psychical process of forming thoughts 
 upon not only the contents of a book in reading, but 
 upon any objective thing capable of producing a sensa- 
 tion upon the peripheral sense organs and through them 
 upon the brain. Now, if the associative image thus 
 formed from past experiences happens to be so dissimilar 
 to the present sensitive image, as not to fuse with it, 
 the resulting perception of the idea intended to be con- 
 veyed by the language of the book does not take place 
 and the attention is absorbed with the non-fusing image 
 of memory — the mind is said to "wander from the sub- 
 ject." It is plain that the latter term being based upon 
 the conception of the mind as an entity which directly 
 produced the conception is comprehensible to every one 
 who takes this view of the nature of the mind. And be- 
 ing concise as well as comprehensible is the one com- 
 monly used. It is further plain that until the majority 
 of those who make and use language, comprehend the 
 
 
SUMMARY 247 
 
 scientific and actual process of the nervous functioning 
 of thought and reasoning, there will be little effort to 
 frame a language that will convey that idea in the short 
 method expressed by the term "the mind wanders." But 
 the evolution of language is trending in that direction. 
 The evolution follows the idea and something like this 
 will express the true idea, viz. : instead of saying "the 
 mind wanders" it will be "a new image absorbs the at- 
 tention." But this will not occur until the principles of 
 physiological-psychology are nearly as well understood 
 as is now the theological or ordinary conception of mind. 
 The same argument will apply to all phenomenism. The 
 scientific view of all phenomena must replace the present 
 views, before language can be changed from the present 
 short cut but expressive terms of present perception, to 
 equally short cut and expressive terms of a scientific per- 
 ception. There lies beneath consciousness a slumbering 
 knowledge that is aroused only by the image of words 
 so arranged as to embody the elements, or at least one 
 element of that knowledge. This is the result of former 
 work in investigation of analogous theses, — the residuum 
 of education in science. 
 
 Untrained minds are incapable of understanding the 
 meaning of a profound treatise. Words alone cannot con- 
 vey the meaning without the previous work in the intel- 
 lectual field. A trained mind is therefore in correspond- 
 ence with a more complex and subtler environment, one 
 that brings to such a mind a wealth of discernment and 
 comprehension far beyond the reach of those less edu- 
 cated. But there must always exist a structural adapta- 
 tion to such training before the organized memory can 
 be established. Otherwise the conceptual images will 
 never — however long and. arduous the training — coalesce 
 into reason and will. Hence the substrate, as Wundt 
 
248 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 calls the nerve tissue, is the all important and abiding 
 half of mentality. If this structure is lacking no amount 
 of training will suffice to make potent the psychic phe- 
 nomenon which Wundt seems to think is independent of 
 organic substance. Neither will the cosmic energy that 
 assumes through the persistence of force such a multi- 
 plicity of effects in nature ever assume the psychic form 
 now commonly called the human mentality in this high- 
 est form of organized memory, unless by way of nerve 
 tissue in the cerebral centers. 
 
 Phenomenism is the psychological condition existing, 
 being the correspondence between the individual and his 
 environment. It is also denned as self and not-self. 
 Not-self is the realm of phenomena objective to our 
 sense organs and reaches all things making sensations 
 or images on the brain centers, from the rays of the 
 farthest fixed stars to the subtlest reasonings and the 
 most aesthetic judgments, as well as the most altruistic 
 relationships implied in the expression "The Brotherhood 
 of Man." Therefore it is this realm of phenomenism 
 that should receive the direct attention of consciousness. 
 It is all that is really knowable. To keep in proper 
 correspondence with it is the highest wisdom and the 
 only preventive of illusion and delusion. He who con- 
 fines his attention to it is sane. All life depends on this 
 correspondence. In this sense the term life includes 
 every phase of physical and psychical phenomena, viz. : 
 those aspects of life treated in biology, psychology, soci- 
 ology, and ethics. There is unity not only in body and 
 "mind," but in the laws of society and of ethics. 
 
 The scientific definition of one is the proper designa- 
 tion of all. Therefore a sensible code of ethics is the 
 natural correspondence of self with not-self, just as the 
 proper definition of social law is the correspondence be- 
 
SUMMARY 249 
 
 tween each individual and that part of his environment 
 included in the term mankind. Education upon these 
 vital topics must therefore be confined to the knowable 
 realm of phenomena. It was a mistake for Herbert 
 Spencer to make a part of his "Synthetic Philosophy" 
 his first part of "First Principles" entitled the "Un- 
 knowable Absolute." He states in his autobiography 
 that he saw this mistake only • when it was too late to 
 correct it, and that the conception of an "Unknowable 
 Absolute" is no part of his philosophy. Part I of "First 
 Principles" did not have the effect he intended, but ob- 
 scured in the minds of his theological readers the true 
 basis of his great work, viz : the natural biological evolu- 
 tion of all psychic, social, and moral conditions in the 
 organic world. The "Synthetic Philosophy" really be- 
 gins with Part II of "First Principles," entitled the 
 "Knowable." 
 
 The beliefs of man depend upon the development of 
 his brain structure. His discrimination between the true 
 and false depends upon the images recalled by sensation 
 upon the patterns of nerves in the higher centers, and 
 the coalescing of these images into other conditions 
 called perception. It is a process of reasoning which de- 
 pends upon the quality of his brain and the perfection of 
 his past experience; that is, the quality of his education 
 in the past. But the education of the past has been 
 largely confined to either immaterial things or supernat- 
 ural objectivity, or to the realm of the unknowable. As 
 said in one of the chapters, mankind has been in the at- 
 titude of childhood on all these questions. It readily be- 
 lieved anything concerning the reign of the supernatural 
 that was solemnly asserted by either writers or speakers, 
 who appeared to have a little more learning and boldness 
 than the masses. This condition of helpless mental de- 
 
250 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 pendence, is the same as that of childhood, which be- 
 lieves in the actual reality of Santa Claus. The child 
 grows out of this belief and is finally convinced that the 
 saint of gifts is only a subjective generic image of a 
 generous giver of good things. The same knowledge 
 will come in time to the brain of mankind concerning all 
 supernatural subjective ideas. It is not necessary to per- 
 sonify righteousness in order to believe in it. Neither 
 is it required that psychical phenomena should be given 
 a supernatural cause in order to impress their power, 
 beauty, utility and adaptability upon man. Natural cause 
 and effect will produce greater impression. The former 
 condition is rapidly changing now. There is now an 
 environment of scientific literature upon these questions 
 which fifty years ago did not exist and more and more 
 of attention is being given every year, by students, to 
 natural phenomena. While much of former educational 
 influences still linger even in the methods and ideas of 
 the ablest scientists, yet the leaven of phenomenism is 
 working. The known principles of evolution demand 
 that the probable changes in beliefs work slowly in order 
 not to be catastrophic in their affects upon future so- 
 ciety. 
 
 One of the essentials of human knowledge mentioned 
 in Chapter 5, is that impressions must be made upon the 
 peripheral organs by objectivity as a pre-requisite to 
 knowledge. These sensations are conveyed by the 
 nerves from the organs of sense to the neural patterns 
 of the brain and are there transformed into images of 
 the objective things from which the sensations are de- 
 rived. In the infant brain the image other than color is 
 comparatively meaningless. But in the mature mind it 
 immediately excites a molecular motion which produces 
 another fainter image similar to the first. This is so 
 
SUMMARY 251 
 
 readily produced that the process is unconscious. The 
 second image is a reproduction of a former experience 
 of similar sensations, and if the two images are exactly 
 similar they at once fuse and form a perception of the 
 entire thing in the environment in its generic character. 
 The whole process down to the final perception is so 
 instantaneous as to be unconscious and therefore im- 
 presses the ordinary brain as being not physiological and 
 natural, but as supernatural. 
 
 Said M. Taine, "Just as the body is a polypus of cells, 
 the mind is a polypus of images." Each sense forms 
 images, these being visual, auditory, tactile, motor, etc. 
 The type of the image resulting from the fusing of these 
 images, i. e. the percept, depends upon the type of the 
 organism. The degree of perfection of the nerve struc- 
 ture determines the type of the image. The images so 
 called by some psychologists are the same as the feelings 
 described by others and are the result of a process of 
 nerve molecular motion which we interpret as reasoning. 
 "The image is a phenomenon which results from an ex- 
 citation of the sensory centers of the cortex." "Reason- 
 ing is a synthesis of images." * 
 
 But if the image is an essential element of human 
 knowledge, it must be produced by a sensation from a 
 real thing. How then can the induced hallucinations of 
 the subject of hypnotism be explained? The experi- 
 mentor in hypnotism makes the subject see or feel or 
 hear a thing that does not exist. Likewise the hallu- 
 cinations of the insane are real images produced by the 
 diseased conductive paths of association upon the brain 
 centers, not by a demon in the supernatural realm. In 
 the subject of hypnotism the first image may be pro- 
 
 Alfred Binet, "Psychology of Reasoning." P. 31. 
 
252 THYSlCAIv BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 duced on the auditory center by the suggestion of the 
 operator, e. g., that the subject is a king. The con- 
 ductive cross fibers from the visual center* are imme- 
 diately excited by the auditory image to produce any 
 former experiences the subject may have had by seeing 
 or reading of a king and his retinue — in short, all the ac- 
 companiments and surroundings of royalty. The variety 
 and complexity of the associative image will depend on 
 the intelligence of the subject. The absurdity and in- 
 congruousness of the image, that is, its departure from 
 the normal, will depend on the degree of lesion of the 
 brain centers excited to the production of images. It is 
 in no sense supernatural. The voice of the opeiator is 
 the exciting cause. 
 
 Binet and Fere have proved by experiments in hyp- 
 notism in the Salpetriere at Paris, France, that the hal- 
 lucinations are images formed upon the sensory centers. 
 It is the same with illusions of the sane, e. g. when one 
 person is mistaken for another. The similarity of the im- 
 mediate image formed upon the visual center, to the one 
 it recalls from memory, produces the conclusion that 
 they are one and the same, by the two images perfectly 
 fusing. The illusion is not dissipated until a new image 
 formed by a closer inspection produces a new and truer 
 perception of the true objective. But the hallucination 
 whether produced in hypnotism, insanity, or in mistaken 
 identity brings no knowledge, because it lacks the es- 
 sential element of truthful objectivity. 
 
 The importance of this process of sensation and 
 images resulting from the conveyance of the sensation 
 
 ^"To know, to understand, to explain, to know the why 
 and the how of things — all this culminates in an act of vision." 
 Alfred Binet in "Psychology of Reasoning." P. 172. 
 
SUMMARY 253 
 
 to the central cortex and of the memory of former sen- 
 sations cannot well be overstated, because memory re- 
 places the absent sensation and is thus a supplementary 
 sense. It is also reasoning freed from the condition of 
 time and space.* Memory is the seeing of the past as 
 if it were in the present, and reasoning being a passage 
 from the known to the unknown is seeing the future. 
 Perception being the product of three images, is parallel 
 with the three terms of a syllogism and is thus the result 
 of reasoning and is the same as knowledge. 
 
 . A criticism made upon the chapter treating of a nat- 
 ural code of ethics, is that the author ignores the phil- 
 osophy of history when he minimizes the influence of 
 religion upon mankind. The gist of the criticism is that 
 upon the whole the aggregate influence of the church 
 and all religions has been to raise men to a higher stand- 
 ard of morality and right action. The influence of the 
 Christian religion was exerted in the churches by the 
 constant preaching — the perpetual iteration and reitera- 
 tion — of first, the creation of man perfect in the garden 
 of Eden by a personal creator of the universe; man's 
 fall; his eventual annihilation by a flood, leaving only 
 Noah and his family. When after several centuries the 
 descendants of Noah still remained as wicked as the de- 
 scendants of Adam had been, God sent his only begot- 
 ten Son, Jesus, to die for the redemption of man. That 
 man in order to avoid, the fate of the damned must 
 repent voluntarily, or be converted. This in short is 
 the Christian code of doctrine. The evidence of con- 
 version was to keep the decalogue, to which Jesus added 
 the golden rule and the sermon on the mount, both of 
 which appear to have been the essentials of all religions. 
 
 * Alfred Binet, "Psychology of Reasoning/' P. 165. 
 
254 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 The result was the so-called present Christian civiliza- 
 tion. That is, such civilization as we have is crystallized 
 around the emotions of fear in the first instance and af- 
 fection as secondary. But mingled with this subjective 
 conception of the supernatural, and really underlying it, 
 is the great natural principle of evolution that has been, 
 although unrecognized as such, the natural force that 
 has evolved the brain of man, through all its heretofore 
 uncertain and partial correspondence with natural phe- 
 nomena, to its present more complex correspondence, in 
 spite of its hallucinations that it was possessed of sen- 
 sory correspondence with the supernatural. As long as 
 this hallucination lingers in man's brain the resulting 
 civilization is perhaps the best that we can expect. At 
 least the advocates of evolution must assume that this 
 artificial and evanescent but widespread human orienta- 
 tion is a condition not incompatible for the time being 
 with the operation of natural law, in the rapidly chang- 
 ing and gradually enlarging circle of human conscious- 
 ness. In other words, it has its part to do in the natural 
 interchange of matter and motion, which we call evolu- 
 tion. All the religions of the world have a like part in 
 the great drama whose beginning, design and ending are 
 unfathomable to us. 
 
 A study of the history of such civilizations as Greece 
 and Rome shows that what we call a high intellectual and 
 esthetic civilization was evolved without church or spir- 
 itual influences as we understand those terms in the 
 Christian religion. The influence with those nations was 
 artistic, not Christian. Yet they created a literature and 
 a code of laws which are today greatly influencing our 
 Christian world. Our classical curriculum in the schools 
 is that of these so-called pagan countries. Even science 
 today refers to the conception Aristotle seemed to have of 
 
SUMMARY 255 
 
 evolution. The first expression given of a human soul 
 as an entity was not by the Hebrew religion, but by Soc- 
 rates, a pagan, 500 years before Christ. The "second 
 entelechy" used by Aristotle is now being used by some 
 authors as that best expressive of a soul entity. Also 
 compare the Christian Empire of Russia with the pagan 
 empire of Japan. Compare the civilization of the coun- 
 tries most under the influence of the church, with those 
 least under its influence, e. g. Italy, Spain, Mexico, with 
 the United States, England, France and Germany. The 
 latter countries are rising into a more desirable civiliza- 
 tion in proportion as they dissolve the bonds of church 
 and state. I have heard no expression of disapproval by 
 any one of the separation of church and state in France, 
 except by the adherents of the pope. It is plain to see 
 that the same action is slowly culminating in England. 
 This is no argument against real righteousness among 
 the people. But it is a protest against organized super- 
 natural creeds whose provisions and sanctions are pro- 
 tected from discussion by a privileged and powerful 
 priesthood. It is a protest against placing around the 
 human brain an immovable band of rigid doctrine to 
 prevent the freest expansion of the intellect. 
 
 But I repeat, that until men come to comprehend a 
 natural cause for every natural effect they should be 
 controlled in their attitude toward environment, includ- 
 ing their brother men, by some code that will have the 
 proper effect, however based that code may be. My 
 argument only goes to the extent of showing how much 
 better a natural code would be in the development of 
 man by imparting to him stronger and more efficient 
 manhood. His intellect would be very much less im- 
 peded and his morality would necessarily be of a higher 
 and broader character than it is now. Of course, this 
 
256 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 presupposes that men themselves are adapted to such 
 code. History is almost wholly a chronicle of the de- 
 lusions that have controlled mankind. These are mon- 
 archy, imperialism, militarism, constant warfare, almost 
 universal slavery. Can it be that these were merely the 
 mobile, automatic expressions of the varying limitations 
 of the human intellect? If so, of course, they were 
 better for the aggregate welfare than the ill adapted — 
 an unfit higher condition of natural law and ethics. Yet 
 if the rulers, priests, and teachers all through historical 
 time had comprehended and put in use a free democratic 
 form of society, or government, in which the natural 
 rights of man as now understood in our country were 
 enforced under the golden rule, even the ignorant masses 
 may have been much more able than they now are to 
 govern themselves independent of hereditary rulers and 
 supernatural codes. It must be understood that a better 
 and more intelligent comprehension of a code and its 
 sanction in phenomenism can come only when the ma- 
 jority are ready for it intellectually. This change will 
 be and should be only gradual, in fact, so imperceptible 
 as not to produce a single reaction. This is the way im- 
 portant evolutions take place. My theory is that the an- 
 cestral line of man has gradually evolved from the lower 
 to higher orders; not only in historical time, but in all 
 time preceding that; from the formation of the first cell 
 to the present heterogeneous organism classified by Cu- 
 vier as bimana. There never was a period of that evolu- 
 tion when the correspondence between the organism and 
 its environment was perfect in a way that would be ideal. 
 But very likely it was the best for the organism at the 
 time. It was this that maintained the survival of the 
 fittest and worked out in a natural way the general 
 
SUMMARY 257 
 
 rhythmical upward tendency of the line toward the pres- 
 ent culmination in complex man. 
 
 Said one who read the chapter on "A Natural Code 
 of Ethics," "I cannot see that altruism is accounted for 
 by evolution." Altruism, or selfsaerifice, is evidently a 
 law of nature. From the theoretical atom to the most 
 heterogeneous organism, viz. : man, the sacrifice of the 
 individual for the welfare of the race, or the process of 
 life and death, is perfectly apparent. No mere form is 
 enduring. There is a constant change of form and this 
 is called by us death. This is self-sacrifice, or in the 
 human being it is altruism. While it may in some in- 
 stances seem to be the act of free will yet when analyzed 
 it will be found to be the working of the natural law of 
 natural selection, or a natural impulse to obtain an 
 imaginary reward or to avoid a so called mental anguish 
 which would be a worse punishment than the act of al- 
 truism. All martyrdom for principle when consciously 
 done was actuated by the hope of greater reward, or to 
 avoid the obloquy and remorse certain to follow a base 
 retraction. 
 
 Another criticism of a natural code of ethics is that 
 it appears to one who has felt only the force of the dec- 
 alogue and the Christian doctrines backed by the organ- 
 ized churches as the declared demands of the Hebrew 
 God, that the natural code sanctioned only by the per- 
 ception of the individual as the best for his welfare, will 
 lack proper force to compel obedience. The natural 
 force in a natural code is the unalterable character 
 of natural law. When a man becomes intelligent 
 enough to perceive that his bodily health depends on 
 the observance of sanitary laws known to him, he 
 certainly obeys those laws for self-preservation 
 and does not seek further sanction for them. So it 
 
258 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 will be with physiological and psychical laws — social and 
 ethical. Before he can obey them he must comprehend 
 their purport. Every violation brings sure punishment. 
 He will thus soon learn by actual experience of the pun- 
 ishment that his welfare, and especially that of his race, 
 depends upon his obeying. This reciprocal action of the 
 necessity of the law and his comprehension of its adap- 
 tion to his life and welfare, will work out an individual 
 intellectual development far more rapid and complete 
 than any mere acts of faith can ever do. This is really 
 the operation of the principle of natural selection. This 
 is not the case now. For theological codes teach that 
 the punishments and rewards are not experienced in 
 most instances in this world but will be completed in the 
 next. Hence so many lapses from the straight and nar- 
 row path. The putting off the punishment to an in- 
 definite and uncertain time, weakens the character. In 
 other words, man, under a natural code of ethics, will 
 have the positive force of cosmic energy, or the persist- 
 ence of force or natural selection, to hold him in a true 
 line of action, instead of the vague threats of an un- 
 knowable supernatural power, as now. 
 
 Man has taken himself too seriously. He has meas- 
 ured up the universe and his God by his own personality. 
 His muscular power has led him to conceive all power as 
 personal. The mobility of his nerve structure in produc- 
 ing a condition called consciousness has deluded him 
 into the idea that all energy must be a conscious per- 
 sonality. His really limited intelligence has induced 
 him to make that the type and criterion of the so called 
 power behind phenomena. 
 
 It is, however, more probable that man being an evo- 
 lution fills a certain passing phase of phenomena and is 
 really but a very insignificant part of that universe which 
 
SUMMARY 259 
 
 at first he thought was created for him alone. The latter 
 thought is theology. Now science is gradually changing 
 this hallucination into a saner perception of man's true 
 place in Nature. When he perceives that he is a part of 
 phenomena and a rather insignificant one he will only 
 then begin to shape his ideas and conduct upon a true 
 basis. His thoughts, his character, his actions, his atti- 
 tude toward his fellow man, his civilization will be com- 
 pletely metamorphosed. Old things will surely then pass 
 away and all things will become far saner and more per- 
 manent. 
 
 I anticipate the stereotyped criticism that man is not 
 comforted by the propositions of philosophy and science. 
 This is the same as saying that it is more comfortable 
 to let the brain rest satisfied with ignorance and to be 
 content with the plain understandable propositions of 
 theology. Reasoning from the known to the unknown 
 is work for the brain. If we would be in correspond- 
 ence with any more than a surface environment, it is 
 necessary to penetrate beneath appearances. As above 
 stated "To see," is the highest science. But thus to see 
 requires work and self-denial; the brain must be kept 
 active, not with undisputed things, but with unknown 
 things that can be made known only by the exercise of 
 close attention and the exclusion from attention of those 
 ordinary pleasures and commercial pursuits now so com- 
 forting to average man. Life is not a comfort, but a 
 continual readjustment. Problems are ever before us to 
 be solved. There is no progress in comfort nor in con- 
 tentment. Evolution means a struggle for existence. 
 In human affairs the higher and purer is attained only 
 after a hard fight with the lower and unfit. Religious 
 and civil liberty come only by hard struggle with dog- 
 matism and oppression. It seems at times far off and 
 
280 PHYSICAL BASIS OF MIND AND MORALS 
 
 unattainable. But the light at the farthest distance 
 never entirely goes out. If we close our eyes and refuse 
 to again open them we may feel comfortable and con- 
 tent, but to such the light has surely been extinguished. 
 
 THE END. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Page 
 
 Astronomical Bodies, formed of same elements 16 
 
 Anatomy of Human Body and Anthropoid Apes, practi- 
 cally same 24 
 
 Anaesthetics, inhibit brain function in inverse order of 
 
 acquirement 25 
 
 Australia, Fauna of 28 
 
 Abbott, Lyman, — an Evolutionist 73 
 
 Angell, J. R. — Quotations from his "Psychology". 126 et seq. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, Brain very responsive 138 
 
 Agnosticism — Result of brain limitation 165 
 
 "Anglo-Saxon Superiority" 168, 174 
 
 Arabians unadapted to Christian Beliefs 175 
 
 Altruism, Defined 257 
 
 Beetles, in Island of Madeira 49 
 
 Buckle, on Basis of Civilization 168 
 
 Bible — the Literature of Spirit of the People 227 
 
 Buddha, The — OnJy real thing to I r as^es of Japan.... 227 
 Beliefs — Evolved from intellectual conditions 230, 249 
 
 Organized, should not be suddenly upset 230 
 
 Consciousness Defined 6, 80, 148, 150, 154, 164 
 
 Conservation of Energy 14, 145 
 
 Concordance of Planetary Motion 17 
 
 Cell — Defined ' 19, 20 
 
 Classification — Of Linnaeus and Cuvier 21 
 
 Man's Ill, 112 
 
 All proofs of Evolution 22 
 
 Condensation — The Principle of Matter 100 
 
 It permeates social life 103 
 
 Cognition — A Process of Orientation 129 
 
 Operation of entire psychical device 139 
 
 Colored and White Children — Compared 133 
 
 Comparative Psychology 160 
 
 Civilization — Its true basis 168 et seq. 
 
 Defined 197 
 
 Character of present 209 et seq. 
 
 Future evolution of 213 
 
 China and Confucius — Their religion 171 
 
 Chester, Rev. Wm. — His book, "Immortality a Rational 
 Faith" 180 
 
 361 
 
J62 INDEX 
 
 Church, The — An evolution of the spirit of the people. 227 
 Correspondence of subject and objec illustrated ..234 et seq. 
 
 Darwin, Charles R. — Theory of Malthus 31 
 
 Sketch of 45 et seq. 
 
 Theory and Genius 53 
 
 Classification of Man 110 
 
 On the Evidences of Geology 26 
 
 On design 59 
 
 Honors to him 66 
 
 Delusions — Of Mankind . . , 115 
 
 Not confined to ignorant 115 
 
 Dreams — Defined 152 et seq. 
 
 Death — Defined 190 
 
 Design — Discussed 234 
 
 Evolution — Defined 12-43 
 
 Subversive of the Supernatural 222 
 
 Energy — Defined 14, 15 
 
 Elements — Few in Earth's Crust 16 
 
 Embryology — Evidence in, to Evolution 20 
 
 Earth — Motions of 92 
 
 Smallness of 112 
 
 Ether — A scientific theory 102 
 
 Education — Defined 132 
 
 Ego, The Phenomenal 144 
 
 Des Cartes, "A spiritual entity" 146 
 
 Each has its own environment 147 
 
 Ethics — A Natural Code of 186 
 
 Not a necessary adjunct of supernaturalism 188 
 
 Based on man's relation to objectivity 188 
 
 Spencer's definition of 188 
 
 Not confined to man 195 
 
 Education — Along scientific lines 231, 232 
 
 Form, alone changes 5 
 
 "Fittest" — Defined 65 
 
 Fiske, John — A disciple of Spencer 72 et seq. 
 
 Faraday, Michael — On matter 106 
 
 Faith — Defined 120 
 
 Discussed .••••: • 180 
 
 Fiction — Always modification of real 224 
 
 Free Agency — Discussed 233 et seq. 
 
 Freedom of opinion not encouraged 235 et seq. 
 
 Geographical distribution 28 
 
 Gallepagos Islands — The Fauna of 29 
 
 God — The Idea of 60 
 
 Glacial Epoch — Periodical 92 
 
 Geocentric Idea — ■ Theological and Natural 170 
 
 Golden Rule — Founded on necessity 173 
 
 Horse — and his progenitors 27 
 
 Homogeneity — Defined 32 
 
 Heterogeneity — Defined 32 
 
INDEX 263 
 
 Huxley — on natural selection 49 
 
 Historical Beliefs , 76 
 
 Human Knowledge — Its limitations 110 
 
 Defined 122 et seq. 
 
 Hart, Sir Robert — On Character of the Chinese.. 171 et seq. 
 
 Hallucination — How produced 251 et seq. 
 
 Inorganic Evolution 13 
 
 Insanity — Lesion of the Brain 25 
 
 Inheritance — Long culture effecting 37 
 
 Idea — Spencer's definition of 40, 130, 162 
 
 Indestructibility of Matter 145 
 
 Introspection — Defined 157 
 
 Immortality — Natural, not Supernatural 190 
 
 Jordan, President — Quoted , 115 
 
 Kellar, Helen — Her mentality 131 et seq. 
 
 Knowledge — Definition, same as life 139 
 
 Life Forms — followed inorganic evolution 19 
 
 Universal 105 et seq. 
 
 Evolved from inorganic 44 
 
 Le Conte, Professor — On Missing Links . 27 
 
 On molecular motion .. 152 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham 45 
 
 Life — A natural evolution 107 
 
 Limitation of Cognition 122 
 
 Loeb, Jacques — On similarity of function in muscle and 
 
 nerve 149 
 
 "Limitations and Impediments" 215 
 
 Language — Evolved from prevalent conceptions 245 
 
 Moment of Momentum 14 
 
 Multiplicity of Effects 15 
 
 Man, a family of the order of Mammalia 21 
 
 Morphology — Its evidence of evolution 23 
 
 Missing Links . 27 
 
 Method of Evolution 29 
 
 Metaphysics of Science 31 
 
 Malthus — Theory of 31 
 
 Memory — Defined 36 
 
 An added sense 253 
 
 Mind — The aggregation of feelings 38, 107 
 
 Co-extensive with life 124 
 
 Not confined to man 123 et seq. 
 
 Develops only with experiences 129 
 
 Man — Still evolving socially and mentally 39 
 
 A psycho-physical organism 147 
 
 A part of phenomena 147 
 
 The evolutionist's view of him 193 
 
 His intelligence, a correspondence with environment.. 86 
 
 His mentality shown in all external peculiarities 128 
 
 Weakest of animals, physically 195 
 
 Kin to all things 204 
 
264 INDEX 
 
 His power derived from around and below, not above 
 him 205 
 
 His mental superiority , 209 et seq. 
 
 Causes of his superiortv 211 et seq. 
 
 Does not control natural forces 217 et seq. 
 
 Mackintosh, Robert — Misconception of natural selec- 
 tion , . 62 
 
 Molecular motion — In nerve tissue 76 et seq. and 125 
 
 Monism — In phenomena 82, 88, 104, 117, and 145 
 
 McPherson, Logan C. — A disciple of Spencer 84 
 
 Mivart, St. George — Quoted 103 
 
 Trouble with Church r 228 
 
 Morgan, C. Lloyd — On Vitalism 118 et seq. 
 
 On the Ego 148 
 
 Masses of Matter — Resistances 144 
 
 M tiller, Max — On the mental process 151 
 
 "Mental' and "Moral" — Defined 167 
 
 Nebular Theory 13, 98 et seq. 
 
 Neptune — The planet 18 
 
 Natural Selection 30 
 
 Its importance 50 et seq. 
 
 Defined 34, 54 
 
 In physical life 34 
 
 In social life 186 et seq. 
 
 Nervous system — How evolved 48 
 
 Of what composed 149 
 
 Natural Ethics — As viewe by August Comte and 
 
 others 74 
 
 Noumenon — Unknowable 118 
 
 Newton, Sir Isaac — His superior brain 137 et seq. 
 
 Nations — Their rise and fall a rhythm 169 
 
 Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism 177 et seq. 
 
 New England — Its evolution of free thought 198 
 
 Organic evolution 19 
 
 Origin of life forms 19, 217 
 
 Organisms — Their development from a cell 20 
 
 No two alike 136 
 
 "Origin of Species," Darwin's — Its review in the London 
 
 Times 55 
 
 Its effect on theology 56, 117 
 
 Organic substance — Its differentiation 102 
 
 Origin, of matter or life insoluble 216 
 
 Phenomena — Defined 5 
 
 Result of evolution 40 
 
 Phenomenism — ■" Defined 6 
 
 The essence of • . . 167 
 
 Perception — A condition 7 
 
 The product of three images 253 
 
 Psychical Phenomena 7, 151 
 
INDEX 26D 
 
 Processes of in cerebrum, not conscious to 
 
 man 7, 8, 141 et seq. 
 
 Evidences of nebular theory 17 
 
 Defined 128, 130 et seq., 134 
 
 Photography — Importance in Astronomy 13 
 
 Persistence of Force 15, 119, 145 
 
 Paleontology 26 
 
 Progress — Defined 221 
 
 Rudimentary organs 23 
 
 Romanes — Quoted 26 
 
 Reason — A synthesis of images 36 
 
 Arrested molecular motion 38 
 
 Equal to an added sense 253 
 
 Rhythm of Motion 91 
 
 On our planet 92 
 
 In social affairs 96 
 
 In psychical phenomena 96 
 
 Fundamental and universal 98, 108 
 
 Reflex action — Defined 163 
 
 Religion — The result of civilization 173 et seq. 
 
 The psychology of it 242 
 
 Reformation of Luther 199 
 
 Reading — The psychology of it 245 et seq. 
 
 Substance — Its immortality 5 
 
 Sense organs — The avenues of cognition 6, 114 
 
 All reducible to touch 149 
 
 Simple elements — Few in number 15, 16 
 
 Spectrum Analysis — Its significance 16, 17 
 
 Senility — Its psychical peculiarities 24 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, and his mistaken disciples 72 
 
 Agnostic and materialist 70 
 
 His "First Principles," '. 71 
 
 The breadth of his teaching 84 
 
 What Darwin says of him 88 
 
 His "Synthetic Philosophy," 89 
 
 Soul — - Defined . . 105, 107, 112 
 
 Scientific Method — Defined 120 
 
 Structure — Its development simultaneous with that of 
 
 function 133 
 
 Shakespeare — His high brain structure 137 
 
 Space — Defined 144 
 
 Self — Defined 152, 248 
 
 Sleep — ■ Defined 152 
 
 Self Consciousness — Defined 155 
 
 Sherrington, C. S. — On the brain structure of 
 
 man 155 et seq. 
 
 Supernaturalism — Its historical validity 181 
 
 Foe of progress in science 196 et seq. 
 
 Society — Its evolution 195 
 
 Shaler, N. S. — Quoted 202 et seq. 207 et seq. 
 
266 INDEX 
 
 Superstition — Its blighting effect 222 et seq. 
 
 "Summary," 238 
 
 Thought — Based on self and race preservation 41, 161 
 
 Result of molecular motion 107, 159, 243 
 
 Its physical marks 158 
 
 Time — Defined 109 
 
 Touch — Defined 154 
 
 Its psychology 160 
 
 Uranus — Non-concordance of its satellites . . . . 18 
 
 Unknowable Absolute 73 et seq. 186 
 
 United States — The apotheosis of individual struggle 
 
 against tyranny 176 
 
 Tolerant, of independent belief 199 
 
 Vestigial structures — In human body 23 
 
 Variability — Cause of 52 
 
 Wundt, Wm. — Quoted 9, 77 et seq. 
 
 Wallace, Alfred R. — Method of Evolution 30 
 
 Conditions in primitive life 194 
 
 Weissman — Selective process 34, 118, 135 
 
 Ward, James — On Herbert Spencer 72 
 
 Will — Determined by organization 131 
 
 White and Colored children 133 
 
 White, Andrew D. — His book, "The Warfare of Science 
 
 and Theology/' 236 
 
 Youmans, E. L. — Friend of. Spencer 72 
 
 Yellowstone National Park 94 
 

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