u
COLLECTED ESSAYS
BY T. H. HUXLEY
VOLUME I
METHOD AND RESULTS
ESSAYS
BY
THOMAS H. HUXLEY
fconfcon
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
All rights resen>ed
RICHARD CLAY AND SDKS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
First Edition 1893. Reprinted ,1894. 1898.
PEEFACE
THE fourth of the " Collected Essays " in the
volume now published gives an account of the
indispensable conditions of scientific assent, as
they are defined by the author of the famous
" Discours de la Methode."
The other eight set forth the results which, in
my judgment, are attained by the application of
the " Method " of Descartes to the investigation
of problems of widely various kinds ; in the
right solution of which we are all deeply in
terested. Hence I have given the volume the
title of " Method and Results."
Written, for the most part, in the scant leisure
of pressing occupations, or in the intervals of
ill-health, these essays are free neither from
superfluities in the way of repetition, nor from
deficiencies which, I doubt not, will be even more
conspicuous to other eyes than they are to my
vi PREFACE
own. But so far as their substance goes, I find
nothing to alter in them, though the oldest
bears the date of 1866. Whether that is evidence
of the soundness of my opinions, or of my having
made no progress in wisdom for the last quarter
of a century, must be left to the courteous reader
to decide.
T. H. H.
HODESLEA, EASTBOURNE,
January 16th, 1893.
CONTENTS
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF IMPROVING NATURAL KNOW
LEDGE 18
(Lay Sermon, St. Martin s Hall, Sunday
Evening, January 7th, 1866).
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE [1887] 42
III
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 130
(Lay Sermon, Edinburgh, Sunday Evening,
November 8, 1868).
IV
ON DESCARTES "DISCOURSE TOUCHING THE METHOD OF
USING ONE S REASON RIGHTLY AND OF SEEKING
SCIENTIFIC TRUTH " 166
(Address, Cambridge Young Men s Christian
Society, March 24, 1870).
Vlll CONTENTS
ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ANIMALS ARE AUTOMATA,
AND ITS HISTORY 199
(Address, British Association for the Advance
ment of Science, Belfast, 1874).
VI
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 251
(Address, Midland Institute, October 9th,
1871).
VII
ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN [1890] .... 290
VIII
NATURAL RIGHTS AND POLITICAL RIGHTS [1890] .... 336
IX
GOVERNMENT : ANARCHY OR REGIMENTATION [1890] . . 383
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
AND when I consider, in one view, the many things
which I have upon my hands, I feel the burlesque of being
employed in this manner at my time of life. But, in another
view, and taking in all circumstances, these things, as trifling as
they may appear, no less than things of greater importance, seem
to be put upon me to do Bishop Butler to the Duchess
of Somerset.
THE " many things " to which the Duchess s
correspondent here refers are the repairs and
improvements of the episcopal seat at Auckland.
I doubt if the great apologist, greater in nothing
than in the simple dignity of his character, would
have considered the writing an account of himself
as a thing which could be put upon him to do
whatever circumstances might be taken in. But
the good bishop lived in an age when a man
might write books and yet be permitted to keep
his private existence to himself; in the pre-
Boswellian epoch, when the germ of the photo
grapher lay in the womb of the distant future, and
, VOL. I. E B
2 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
the interviewer who pervades our age was an
unforeseen, indeed unimaginable, birth of time.
At present, the most convinced believer in
the aphorism " Bene qui latuit, bene vixit, " is
not always able to act up to it. An importunate
person informs him that his portrait is about to be
published and will be accompanied by a biography
which the importunate person proposes to write.
The sufferer knows what that means; either he
undertakes to revise the " biography " or he does
not. In the former case, he makes himself re
sponsible ; in the latter, he allows the publication
of a mass of more or less fulsome inaccuracies
for which he will be held responsible by those
who are familiar with the prevalent art of
self-advertisement. On the whole, it may be
better to get over the " burlesque of being
employed in this manner" and do the thing
himself.
It was by reflections of this kind that, some years
ago, I was led to write and permit the publication
of the subjoined sketch.
I was born about eight o clock in the morning
on the 4th of May, 1825, at Baling, which was, at
that time, as quiet a little country village as could
be found within half-a-dozen miles of Hyde Park
Corner. Now it is a suburb of London with, I be
lieve, 30,000 inhabitants. My father was one of
the masters in a large semi-public school which at
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
one time had a high reputation. I am not aware
that any portents preceded my arrival in this world,
but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a tra
ditional account of the manner in which I lost the
chance of an endowment of great practical value.
The windows of my mother s room were open,
in consequence of the unusual warmth of the
weather. For the same reason, probably, a neigh
bouring beehive had swarmed, and the new colony,
pitching on the window-sill, was making its way
into the room when the horrified nurse shut down
the sash. If that well-meaning woman had only
abstained from her ill-timed interference, the
swarm might have settled on my lips, and I
should have been endowed with that mellifluous
eloquence which, in this country, leads far more
surely than worth, capacity, or honest work, to the
highest places in Church and State. But the
opportunity was lost, and I have been obliged to
content myself through life with saying what I
mean in the plainest of plain language, than which,
I suppose, there is no habit more ruinous to a
man s prospects of advancement.
Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not
know ; but it is a curious chance that my parents
should have fixed for my usual denomination upon
the name of that particular Apostle with whom I
have always felt most sympathy. Physically and
mentally I am the son of my mother so completely
even down to peculiar movements of the hands,
B 2
4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
which made their appearance in me as I reached
the age she had when I noticed them that I can
hardly find any trace of my father in myself,
except an inborn faculty. for drawing, which un
fortunately, in my case, has never been cultivated, a
hot temper, and that amount of tenacity of pur
pose which unfriendly observers sometimes call
obstinacy.
My mother was a slender brunette, of an
emotional and energetic temperament, and pos
sessed of the most piercing black eyes I ever
saw in a woman s head. With no more educa
tion than other women of the middle classes
in her day, she had an excellent mental capacity.
Her most distinguishing characteristic, however,
was rapidity of thought. If one ventured to
suggest she had not taken much time to arrive
at any conclusion, she would say, " I cannot help
it, things flash across me." That peculiarity has
been passed on to me in full strength ; it has often
stood me in good stead ; it has sometimes played
me sad tricks, and it has always been a danger.
But, after all, if my time were to come over again,
there is nothing I would less willingly part with
than my inheritance of mother wit.
I have next to nothing to say about my
childhood. In later years my mother, looking
at me almost reproachfully, would sometimes say,
" Ah ! you were such a pretty boy ! " whence I
had no difficulty in concluding that I had not
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 5
fulfilled my early promise in the matter of looks.
In fact, I have a distinct recollection of certain
curls of which I was vain, and of a conviction that
I closely resembled that handsome, courtly gentle
man, Sir Herbert Oakley, who was vicar of our
parish, and who was as a god to us country folk,
because he was occasionally visited by the then
Prince George of Cambridge. I remember turning
my pinafore wrong side forwards in order to repre
sent a surplice, and preaching to my mother s maids
in the kitchen as nearly as possible in Sir Her
bert s manner one Sunday morning when the rest
of the family were at church. That is the earliest
indication I can call to mind of the strong clerical
affinities which my friend Mr. Herbert Spencer
has always ascribed to me, though I fancy they
have for the most part remained in a latent
state.
My regular school training was of the briefest,
perhaps fortunately, for though my way of life has
made me acquainted with all sorts and conditions of
men, from the highest to the lowest, I deliberately
affirm that the society I fell into at school was the
worst I have ever known. We boys were average
lads, with much the same inherent capacity for
good and evil as any others ; but the people who
were set over us cared about as much for our
intellectual and moral welfare as if they were
baby-farmers. We. were left to the operation of
the struggle for existence among ourselves, and
6 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
bullying was the least of the ill practices current
among us. Almost the only cheerful reminis
cence in connection with the place which arises in
my mind is that of a battle I had with one of my
classmates, who had bullied me until I could stand
it no longer. I was a very slight lad, but there
was a wild-cat element in me which, when roused,
made up for lack of weight, and I licked my
adversary effectually. However, one of my first
experiences of the extremely rough-and-ready
nature of justice, as exhibited by the course of
things in general, arose out of the fact that I the
victor had a black eye, while he the vanquished
had none, so that I got into disgrace and he did
not. We made it up, and thereafter I was un
molested. One of the greatest shocks I ever
received in my life was to be told a dozen years
afterwards by the groom who brought me my
horse in a stable-yard in Sydney that he was my
quondam antagonist. He had a long story of
family misfortune to account for his position, but
at that time it was necessary to deal very cau
tiously with mysterious strangers in New South
Wales, and on inquiry I found that the unfortu
nate young man had not only been " sent out," but
had undergone more than one colonial conviction.
As I grew older, ray great desire was to be a
mechanical engineer, but the fates were against
this and, while very young, I commenced the study
of medicine under a medical brother-in-law. But,
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 7
though the Institute of Mechanical Engineers
would certainly not own me, I am not sure that I
have not all along been a sort of mechanical
engineer in partibus infidelium. I am now occa
sionally horrified to think how very little I ever
knew or cared about medicine as the art of healing.
The only part of my professional course which
really and deeply interested me was physiology,
which is the mechanical engineering of living
machines ; and, notwithstanding that natural
science has been my proper business, I am afraid
there is very little of the genuine naturalist in
me. I never collected anything, and species work
was always a burden to me ; what I cared for was
the architectural and engineering part of the
business, the working out the wonderful unity of
plan in the thousands and thousands of diverse
living constructions, and the modifications of similar
apparatuses to serve diverse ends. The extra
ordinary attraction I felt towards the study of the
intricacies of living structure nearly proved fatal to
me at the outset. I was a mere boy I think
between thirteen and fourteen years of age
when I was taken by some older student friends
of mine to the first post-mortem examination I
ever attended. All my life I have been most
unfortunately sensitive to the disagreeables which
attend anatomical pursuits, but on this occasion
my curiosity overpowered all other feelings, and I
spent two or three hours in gratifying it. I did
8 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
not cut myself, and none of the ordinary symptoms
of dissection-poison supervened, but poisoned I
was somehow, and I remember sinking into a
strange state of apathy. By way of a last chance,
I was sent to the care of some good, kind people,
friends of my father s, who lived in a farmhouse
in the heart of Warwickshire. I remember stag
gering from my bed to the window on the bright
spring morning after my arrival, and throwing
open the casement. Life seemed to come back
on the wings of the breeze, and to this day the
faint odour of wood-smoke, like that which floated
across the farm-yard in the early morning, is as
good to me as the " sweet south upon a bed of
violets." I soon recovered, but for years I suffered
from occasional paroxysms of internal pain, and
from that time my constant friend, hypochondriacal
dyspepsia, commenced his half century of co
tenancy of my fleshly tabernacle.
Looking back on my " Lehrjahre," I am sorry to
say that I do not think that any account of my
doings as a student would tend to edification. In
fact, I should distinctly warn ingenuous youth to
avoid imitating my example. I worked extremely
hard when it pleased me, and when it did not
which was a very frequent case I was extremely
idle (unless making caricatures of one s pastors
and masters is to be called a branch of industry),
or else wasted my energies in wrong directions. I
read everything I could lay hands upon, in-
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 9
eluding novels, and took up all sorts of pursuits to
drop them again quite as speedily. No doubt it
was very largely my own fault, but the only
instruction from which I ever obtained the proper
effect of education was that which I received from
Mr. Wharton Jones, who was the lecturer on
physiology at the Charing Cross School of Medi
cine. The extent and precision of his knowledge
impressed me greatly, and the severe exactness of
his method of lecturing was quite to my taste. I
do not know that I have ever felt so much respect
for anybody as a teacher before or since. I worked
hard to obtain his approbation, and he was ex
tremely kind and helpful to the youngster who,
I am afraid, took up more of his time than he had
any right to do. It was he who suggested the pub
lication of my first scientific paper a very little
one in the Medical Gazette of 1845, and most
kindly corrected the literary faults which abounded
in it, short as it was ; for at that time, and for
many years afterwards, I detested the trouble of
writing, and would take no pains over it.
It was in the early spring of 1846, that, having
finished my obligatory medical studies and passed
the first M.B. examination at the London University
though I was still too young to qualify at the
College of Surgeons I was talking to a fellow-
student (the present eminent physician, Sir Joseph
Fayrer), and wondering what I should do to meet
the imperative necessity for earning my own bread,
10 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
when my friend suggested that I should write to
Sir William Burnett, at that time Director-General
for the Medical Service of the Navy, for an appoint
ment. I thought this rather a strong thing to do,
as Sir William was personally unknown to me,
but my cheery friend would not listen to my
scruples, so I went to my lodgings and wrote the
best letter I could devise. A few days afterwards
I received the usual official circular of acknowledg
ment, but at the bottom there was written an in
struction to call at Somerset House on such a day.
I thought that looked like business, so at the
appointed time I called and sent in my card, while
I waited in Sir William s ante-room. He was a
tall, shrewd-looking old gentleman, with a broad
Scotch accent and I think I see him now as he
entered with my card in his hand. The first
thing he did was to return it, with the frugal
reminder that I should probably find it useful on
some other occasion. The second was to ask
whether I was an Irishman. I suppose the air of
modesty about my appeal must have struck him.
I satisfied the Director-General that I was English
to the backbone, and he made some inquiries as
to my student career, finally desiring me to hold
myself ready for examination. Having passed
this, I was in Her Majesty s Service, and entered
on the books of Nelson s old ship, the Victwy, for
duty at Haslar Hospital, about a couple of months
after I made my application.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 11
My official chief at Haslar was a very remark
able person, the late Sir John Richardson, an
excellent naturalist, and far-famed as an indomit
able Arctic traveller. He was a silent, reserved
man, outside the circle of his family and intimates ;
and, having a full share of youthful vanity, I was
extremely disgusted to find that " Old John," as
we irreverent youngsters called him, took not the
slightest notice of my worshipful self either the
first time I attended him, as it was my duty to do,
or for some weeks afterwards. I am afraid to
think of the lengths to which my tongue may have
run on the subject of the churlishness of the chief,
who was, in truth, one of the kindest-hearted and
most considerate of men. But one day, as I was
crossing the hospital square, Sir John stopped me,
and heaped coals of fire on my head by telling me
that he had tried to get me one of the resident
appointments, much coveted by the assistant-
surgeons, but that the Admiralty had put in another
man. " However," said he, " I mean to keep you
here till I can get you something you will like,"
and turned upon his heel without waiting for the
thanks I stammered out. That explained how
it was I had not been packed off to the West
Coast of Africa like some of my juniors, and why,
eventually, I remained altogether seven months at
Haslar.
After a long interval, during which " Old
John " ignored my existence almost as completely
12 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
as before, he stopped me again as we met in a
casual way, and describing the service on which
the Rattlesnake was likely to be employed, said
that Captain Owen Stanley, who was to command
the ship, had asked him to recommend an assistant
surgeon who knew something of science ; would
I like that ? Of course I jumped at the offer.
" Very well, I give you leave ; go to London at
once and see Captain Stanley." I went, saw my
future commander, who was very civil to me, and
promised to ask that I should be appointed to
his ship, as in due time I was. It is a singular
thing that, during the few months of my stay at
Haslar, I had among my messmates two future
Directors-General of the Medical Service of the
Navy (Sir Alexander Armstrong and Sir John
Watt-Reid), with the present President of the
College of Physicians and my kindest of doctors,
Sir Andrew Clark.
Life on board Her Majesty s ships in those
days was a very different affair from what it
is now, and ours was exceptionally rough, as
we were often many months without receiving
letters or seeing any civilised people but ourselves.
In exchange, we had the interest of being about the
last voyagers, I suppose, to whom it could be pos
sible to meet with people who knew nothing of
fire-arms as we did on the south Coast of New
Guinea and of making acquaintance with a
variety of interesting savage and semi-civilised
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 13
people. But, apart from experience of this kind
and the opportunities offered for scientific work,
to me. personally, the cruise was extremely valu
able. It was good for me to live under sharp dis
cipline ; to be down on the realities of existence
by living on bare necessaries ; to find out how ex
tremely well worth living life seemed to be when
one woke up from a night s rest on a soft plank,
with the sky for canopy and cocoa and weevilly
biscuit the sole prospect for breakfast ; and,
more especially, to learn to work for the sake of
what I got for myself out of it, even if it all went
to the bottom and I along with it. My brother
officers were as good fellows as sailors ought to be
and generally are, but, naturally, they neither
knew nor cared anything about my pursuits, noi
understood why I should be so zealous in pursuit
of the objects which my friends, the middies,
christened " Buffons," after the title conspicuous
on a volume of the " Suites 2i Buffon," which stood
on my shelf in the chart room.
During the four years of our absence, I sent
home communication after communication to the
" Linnean Society," with the same result as that
obtained by Noah when he sent the raven out of
his ark. Tired at last of hearing nothing about
them, I determined to do or die, and in 1849 I
drew up a more elaborate paper and forwarded it
to the Royal Society. This was my dove, if I had
only known it. But owing to the movements of
1 4 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
the ship, I heard nothing of that either until my
return to England in the latter end of the year
1850, when I found that it was printed and pub
lished, and that a huge packet of separate copies
awaited me. When I hear some of my young
friends complain of want of sympathy and encour
agement, I am inclined to think that my naval life
was not the least valuable part of my education.
Three years after my return were occupied by a
battle between my scientific friends on the one hand
and the Admiralty on the other, as to whether the
latter ought, or ought not, to act up to the spirit
of a pledge they had given to encourage officers
who had done scientific work by contributing to
the expense of publishing mine. At last the Ad
miralty, getting tired, I suppose, cut short the dis
cussion by ordering me to join a ship, which thing
I declined to do, and as Rastignac, in the Pere
Goriot, says to Paris, I said to London " d notes
deux" I desired to obtain a Professorship of
either Physiology or Comparative Anatomy, and
as vacancies occurred I applied, but in vain. My
friend. Professor Tyndall, and I were candidates
at the same time, he for the Chair of Physics and
I for that of Natural History in the University of
Toronto, which, fortunately, as it turned out,
would not look at either of us. I say fortunately,
not from any lack of respect for Toronto, but because
I soon made up my mind that London was the
place for me, and hence I have steadily declined
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 15
the inducements to leave it, which have at various
times been offered. At last, in 1854, on the
translation of my warm friend Edward Forbes, to
Edinburgh, Sir Henry De la Beche, the Director-
General of the Geological Survey, offered me the
post Forbes vacated of Paleontologist and Lecturer
on Natural History. I refused the former point
blank, and accepted the latter only provisionally,
telling Sir Henry that I did not care for fossils,
and that I should give up Natural History as soon
as I could get a physiological post. But I held
the office for thirty-one years, and a large part of
my work has been paleontological.
At that time I disliked public speaking, and had
a firm conviction that I should break down every
time I opened my mouth. I believe I had every
fault a speaker could have (except talking at ran
dom or indulging in rhetoric), when I spoke to the
first important audience I ever addressed, on a
Friday evening at the Royal Institution, in 1852.
Yet, I must confess to having been guilty, malgrd
moi, of as much public speaking as most of my
contemporaries, and for the last ten years it ceased
to be so much of a bugbear to me. I used to pity
myself for having to go through this training, but
I am now more disposed to compassionate the un
fortunate audiences, especially my ever-friendly
hearers at the Royal Institution, who were the
subjects of my oratorical experiments.
The last thing that it would be proper for me
16 AUTOBIOGRAPHY
to do would be to speak of the work of my life, or
to say at the end of the day whether I think I
have earned my wages or not. Men are said to
be partial judges of themselves. Young men may
be, I doubt if old men are. Life seems terribly
foreshortened as they look back, and the mountain
they set themselves to climb in youth turns out to
be a mere spur of immeasurably higher ranges
when, with failing breath, they reach the top.
But if I may speak of the objects I have had more
or less definitely in view since I began the ascent
of my hillock, they are briefly these : To promote
the increase of natural knowledge and to forward
the application of scientific methods of investiga
tion to all the problems of life to the best of my
ability, in the conviction which has grown with my
growth and strengthened with my strength, that
there is no alleviation for the sufferings of man
kind except veracity of thought and of action, and
the resolute facing of the world as it is when the
garment of make-believe by which pious hands
have hidden its uglier features is stripped off.
It is with this intent that I have subordinated
any reasonable, or unreasonable, ambition for
scientific fame which I may have permitted myself
to entertain to other ends ; to the popularisation
of science ; to the development and organisation
of scientific education ; to the endless series of
battles and skirmishes over evolution ; and to un
tiring opposition to that ecclesiastical spirit, that
AUTOBIOGRAPHY 17
clericalism, which in England, as everywhere else,
and to whatever denomination it may belong, is
the deadly enemy of science.
In striving for the attainment of these objects,
I have been but one among many, and I shall be
well content to be remembered, or even not re
membered, as such. Circumstances, among which
I am proud to reckon the devoted kindness of
many friends, have led to my occupation of various
prominent positions, among which the Presidency
of the Royal Society is the highest. It would be
mock modesty on my part, with these and other
scientific honours which have been bestowed upon
me, to pretend that I have not succeeded in the
career which I have followed, rather because I was
driven into it than of my own free will ; but I am
afraid I should not count even these things as
marks of success if I could not hope that I had
somewhat helped that movement of opinion which
has been called the New Reformation.
VOL. I
ON THE ADVISABLENESS OF
IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE
[1866]
THIS time two hundred years ago in the
beginning of January, 1666 those of our fore
fathers who inhabited this great and ancient
city, took breath between the shocks of two fear
ful calamities: one not quite past, although its
fury had abated ; the other to come.
Within a few yards of the very spot on which we
are assembled, so the tradition runs, that painful
and deadly malady, the plague, appeared in the
latter months of 1664 ; and, though no new visitor,
smote the people of England, and especially of her
capital, with a violence unknown before, in the
course of the following year. The hand of a
master has pictured what happened in those
dismal months ; and in that truest of fictions,
" The History of the Plague Year," Defoe shows
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 19
death, with every accompaniment of pain and
terror, stalking through the narrow streets of old
London, and changing their busy hum into a silence
broken only by the wailing of the mourners of
fifty thousand dead ; by the woful denunciations
and mad prayers of fanatics ; and by the madder
yells of despairing profligates.
But, about this time in 1666, the death-rate
had sunk to nearly its ordinary amount ; a case of
plague occurred only here and there, and the
richer citizens who had flown from the pest had
returned to their dwellings. The remnant of the
people began to toil at the accustomed round of
duty, or of pleasure ; and the stream of city life
bid fair to flow back along its old bed, with re
newed and uninterrupted vigour.
The newly-kindled hope was deceitful. The
great plague, indeed, returned no more ; but what
it had done for the Londoners, the great fire,
which broke out in the autumn of 1666, did for
London ; and, in September of that year, a heap
of ashes and the indestructible energy of the
people were all that remained of the glory of five-
sixths of the city within the walls.
Our forefathers had their own ways of account
ing for each of these calamities. They submitted
to the plague in humility and in penitence, for
they believed it to be the judgment of God. But,
towards the fire they were furiously indignant,
c 2
20 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
interpreting it as the effect of the malice of man,
as the work of the Republicans, or of the
Papists, according as their prepossessions ran in
favour of loyalty or of Puritanism.
It would, I fancy, have fared but ill with one
who, standing where I now stand, in what was
then a thickly-peopled and fashionable part of
London, should have broached to our ancestors
the doctrine which I now propound to you that
all their hypotheses were alike wrong ; that the
plague was no more, in their sense, Divine judg
ment, than the fire was the work of any political,
or of any religious, sect; but that they were
themselves the authors of both plague and fire,
and that they must look to themselves to prevent
the recurrence of calamities, to all appearance so
peculiarly beyond the reach of human control so
evidently the result of the wrath of God, or of the
craft and subtlety of an enemy.
And one may picture to one s self how
harmoniously the holy cursing of the Puritan of
that day would have chimed in with the unholy
cursing and the crackling wit of the Rochesters
and Sedleys, and with the revilings of the political
fanatics, if my imaginary plain dealer had gone on
to say that, if the return of such misfortunes were
ever rendered impossible, it would not be in
virtue of the victory of the faith of Laud, or of
that of Milton ; and, as little, by the triumph of
republicanism, as by that of monarchy. But that
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 21
the one thing needful for compassing this end
was, that the people of England should second
the efforts of an insignificant corporation, the
establishment of which, a few years before the
epoch of the great plague and the great fire, had
been as little noticed, as they were conspicuous.
Some twenty years before the outbreak of the
plague a few calm and thoughtful students
banded themselves together for the purpose, as
they phrased it, of " improving natural know
ledge." The ends they proposed to attain cannot
be stated more clearly than in the words of one of
the founders of the organisation :
" Our business was (precluding matters of
theology and state affairs) to discourse and con
sider of philosophical enquiries, and such as re
lated thereunto : as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry,
Astronomy, Navigation, Staticks, Magneticks,
Chymicks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments ;
with the state of these studies and their cultiva
tion at home and abroad. We then discoursed
of the circulation of the blood, the valves in the
veins, the venae lacteae, the lymphatic vessels, the
Copernican hypothesis, the nature of comets and
new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape
(as it then appeared) of Saturn, the spots on
the sun and its turning on its own axis, the
inequalities and selenography of the moon, the
several phases of Venus and Mercury, the im-
22 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
provement of telescopes and grinding of glasses
for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility
or impossibility of vacuities and nature s abhor
rence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in
quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the
degree of acceleration therein, with divers other
things of like nature, some of which were then
but new discoveries, and others not so generally
known and embraced as now they are ; with other
things appertaining to what hath been called
the New Philosophy, which from the times of
Galileo at Florence, and Sir Francis Bacon (Lord
Verulam) in England, hath been much cultivated
in Italy, France, Germany, and other parts abroad,
as well as with us in England."
The learned Dr. Wallis, writing in 1696,
narrates in these words, what happened half a
century before, or about 1645. The associates
met at Oxford, in the rooms of Dr. Wilkins,
who was destined to become a bishop ; and sub
sequently coming together in London, they at
tracted the notice of the king. And it is a
strange evidence of the taste for knowledge which
the most obviously worthless of the Stuarts
shared with his father and grandfather, that
Charles the Second was not content with saying
witty things about his philosophers, but did wise
things with regard to them. For he not only be
stowed upon them such attention as he could
spare from his poodles and his mistresses, but,
j ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 23
being in his usual state of impecuniosity, begged
for them of the Duke of Ormond ; and, that step
being without effect, gave them Chelsea College,
a charter, and a mace : crowning his favours in the
best way they could be crowned, by burdening
them no further with royal patronage or state
interference.
Thus it was that the half-dozen young men,
studious of the " New Philosophy/ who met in
one another s lodgings in Oxford or in London, in
the middle of the seventeenth century, grew in
numerical and in real strength, until, in its latter
part, the " Royal Society for the Improvement of
Natural Knowledge " had already become famous,
and had acquired a claim upon the veneration of
Englishmen, which it has ever since retained, as
the principal focus of scientific activity in our
islands, and the chief champion of the cause it
was formed to support.
It was by the aid of the Royal Society that
Newton published his "Principia." If all the
books in the world, except the " Philosophical
Transactions," were destroyed, it is safe to say that
the foundations of physical science would remain
unshaken, and that the vast intellectual progress
of the last two centuries would be largely, though
incompletely, recorded. Nor have any signs of
halting or of decrepitude manifested themselves
in our own times. As in Dr. Wallis s days, so in
these, " our business is, precluding theology and
24 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
state affairs, to discourse and consider of philo
sophical enquiries." But our " Mathematick " is
one which Newton would have to go to school to
learn ; our " Staticks, Mechanicks, Magneticks,
Chymicks, and Natural Experiments" constitute
a mass of physical and chemical knowledge, a
glimpse at which would compensate Galileo for
the doings of a score of inquisitorial cardinals ;
our " Physick " and " Anatomy " have embraced
such infinite varieties of being, have laid open such
new worlds in time and space, have grappled, not
unsuccessfully, with such complex problems, that
the eyes of Vesalius and of Harvey might be
dazzled by the sight of the tree that has grown
out of their grain of mustard seed.
The fact is perhaps rather too much, than too
little, forced upon one s notice, nowadays, that
all this marvellous intellectual growth has a
no less wonderful expression in practical life ; and
that, in this respect, if in no other, the movement
symbolised by the progress of the Royal Society
stands without a parallel in the history of
mankind.
A series of volumes as bulky as the "Transactions
of the Royal Society " might possibly be filled
with the subtle speculations of the Schoolmen;
not improbably, the obtaining a mastery over the
products of medieval thought might necessitate
an even greater expenditure of time and of energy
than the acquirement of the " New Philosophy ; "
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 25
but though such work engrossed the best intellects
of Europe for a longer time than has elapsed since
the great fire, its effects were " writ in water," so
far as our social state is concerned.
On the other hand, if the noble first President
of the Eoyal Society could revisit the upper air
and once more gladden his eyes with a sight of
the familiar mace, he would find himself in the
midst of a material civilisation more different
from that of his day, than that of the seventeenth
was from that of the first century. And if Lord
Brouncker s native sagacity had not deserted his
ghost, he would need no long reflection to discover
that all these great ships, these railways, these
telegraphs, these factories, these printing-presses,
without which the whole fabric of modern
English society would collapse into a mass of
stagnant and starving pauperism, that all these
pillars of our State are but the ripples and the
bubbles upon the surface of that great spiritual
stream, the springs of which only, he and his
fellows were privileged to see; and seeing, to
recognise as that which it behoved them above
all things to keep pure and undefiled.
It may not be too great a flight of imagination
to conceive our noble revenant not forgetful of the
great troubles of his own day, and anxious to know
how often London had been burned down since
his time, and how often the plague had carried off
its thousands. He would have to learn that,
26 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
although London contains tenfold the inflammable
matter that it did in 1666; though, not content
with filling our rooms with woodwork and light
draperies, we must needs lead inflammable and
explosive gases into every corner of our streets
and houses, we never allow even a street to burn
down. And if he asked how this had come about,
we should have to explain that the improvement
of natural knowledge has furnished us with dozens
of machines for throwing water upon fires, any
one of which would have furnished the ingenious
Mr. Hooke, the first " curator and experimenter "
of the Koyal Society, with ample materials for
discourse before half a dozen meetings of that
body ; and that, to say truth, except for the
progress of natural knowledge, we should not
have been able to make even the tools by which
these machines are constructed. And, further, it
would be necessary to add, that although severe
fires sometimes occur and inflict great damage,
the loss is very generally compensated by societies,
the operations of which have been rendered
possible only by the progress of natural knowledge
in the direction of mathematics, and the accu
mulation of wealth in virtue of other natural
knowledge.
But the plague ? My Lord Brouncker s obser
vation would not, I fear, lead him to think that
Englishmen of the nineteenth century are purer
in life, or more fervent in religious faith, than the
! ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 27
generation which could produce a Boyle, an
Evelyn, and a Milton. He might find the mud of
society at the bottom, instead of at the top, but I
fear that the sum total would be as deserving of
swift judgment as at the time of the Restora
tion. And it would be our duty to explain
once more, and this time not without shame, that
we have no reason to believe that it is the
improvement of our faith, nor that of our
morals, which keeps the plague from our city ;
but, again, that it is the improvement of our
natural knowledge.
We have learned that pestilences will only take
up their abode among those who have prepared
unswept and ungarnished residences for them.
Their cities must have narrow, unwatered streets,
foul with accumulated garbage. Their houses
must be ill-drained, ill-lighted, ill-ventilated.
Their subjects must be ill-washed, ill-fed, ill-
clothed. The London of 1665 was such a city.
The cities of the East, where plague has an
enduring dwelling, are such cities. We, in later
times, have learned somewhat of Nature, and
partly obey her. Because of this partial im
provement of our natural knowledge and of that
fractional obedience, we have no plague ; because
that knowledge is still very imperfect and that
obedience yet incomplete, typhoid is our companion
and cholera our visitor. But it is not presumptuous
to express the belief that, when our knowledge is
28 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
more complete and our obedience the expression
of our knowledge, London will count her centuries
of freedom from typhoid and cholera, as she
now gratefully reckons her two hundred years
of ignorance of that plague which swooped upon
her thrice in the first half of the seventeenth
century.
Surely, there is nothing in these explanations
which is not fully borne out by the facts ? Surely,
the principles involved in them are now admitted
among the fixed beliefs of all thinking men ?
Surely, it is true that our countrymen are less
subject to fire, famine, pestilence, and all the evils
which result from a want of command over and due
anticipation of the course of Nature, than were
the countrymen of Milton ; and health, wealth,
and well-being are more abundant with us than
with them ? But no less certainly is the difference
due to the improvement of our knowledge of
Nature, and the extent to which that improved
knowledge has been incorporated with the house
hold words of men, and has supplied the springs
of their daily actions.
Granting for a moment, then, the truth of that
which the depreciators of natural knowledge are
so fond of urging, that its improvement can only
add to the resources of our material civilisation ;
admitting it to be possible that the founders of
the Royal Society themselves looked for no other
reward than this, I cannot confess that I was
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 29
guilty of exaggeration when I hinted, that to him
who had the gift of distinguishing between
prominent events and important events, the
origin of a combined effort on the part of man
kind to improve natural knowledge might have
loomed larger than the Plague and have outshone
the glare of the Fire; as a something fraught
with a wealth of beneficence to mankind, in com
parison with which the damage done by those
ghastly evils would shrink into insignificance.
It is very certain that for every victim slain by
the plague, hundreds of mankind exist and find a
fair share of happiness in the world by the aid of
the spinning jenny. And the great fire, at its
worst, could not have burned the supply of coal,
the daily working of which, in the bowels of the
earth, made possible by the steam pump, gives
rise to an amount of wealth to which the
millions lost in old London are but as an old
song.
But spinning jenny and steam pump are, after
all, but toys, possessing an accidental value ; and
natural knowledge creates multitudes of more
subtle contrivances, the praises of which do not
happen to be sung because they are not directly
convertible into instruments for creating wealth.
When I contemplate natural knowledge squander
ing such gifts among men, the only appropriate
comparison I can find for her is, to liken her to such
30 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
a peasant woman as one sees in the Alps, strid
ing ever upward, heavily burdened, and with mind
bent only on her home; but yet without effort
and without thought, knitting for her children.
Now stockings are good and comfortable things,
and the children will undoubtedly be much the
better for them ; but surely it would be short
sighted, to say the least of it, to depreciate this
toiling mother as a mere stocking-machine a
mere provider of physical comforts ?
However, there are blind leaders of the blind,
and not a few of them, who take this view of natural
knowledge, and can see nothing in the bountiful
mother of humanity but a sort of comfort-grinding
machine. According to them, the improvement
of natural knowledge always has been, and always
must be, synonymous with no more than the
improvement of the material resources and the
increase of the gratifications of men.
Natural knowledge is, in their eyes, no real
mother of mankind, bringing them up with kind
ness, and, if need be, with sternness, in the way
they should go, and instructing them in all things
needful for their welfare ; but a sort of fairy god
mother, ready to furnish her pets with shoes of
swiftness, swords of sharpness, and omnipotent
Aladdin s lamps, so that they may have telegraphs
to Saturn, and see the other side of the moon, and
thank God they are better than their benighted
ancestors.
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 31
If this talk were true, I, for one, should not
greatly care to toil in the service of natural know
ledge. I think I would just as soon be quietly
chipping my own flint axe, after the manner of my
forefathers a few thousand years back, as be
troubled with the endless malady of thought
which now infests us all, for such reward. But I
venture to say that such views are contrary alike
to reason and to fact. Those who discourse in
such fashion seem to me to be so intent upon
trying to see what is above Nature, or what is
behind her, that they are blind to what stares
them in the face in her.
I should not venture to speak thus strongly if
my justification were not to be found in the
simplest and most obvious facts, if it needed
more than an appeal to the most notorious truths
to justify my assertion, that the improvement of
natural knowledge, whatever direction it has taken,
and however low the aims of those who may have
commenced it has not only conferred practical
benefits on men, but, in so doing, has effected a
revolution in their conceptions of the universe and
of themselves, and has profoundly altered their
modes of thinking and their views of right and
wrong. I say that natural knowledge, seeking to
satisfy natural wants, has found the ideas which
can alone still spiritual cravings. I say that
natural knowledge, in desiring to ascertain the
laws of comfort, has been driven to discover those
32 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
of conduct, and to lay the foundations of a new
morality.
Let us take these points separately ; and first,
what great ideas has natural knowledge introduced
into men s minds ?
I cannot but think that the foundations of all
natural knowledge were laid when the reason of
man first came face to face with the facts of
Nature; when the savage first learned that the
fingers of one hand are fewer than those of both ;
that it is shorter to cross a stream than to head it ;
that a stone stops where it is unless it be moved,
and that it drops from the hand which lets it go ;
that light and heat come and go with the sun ;
that sticks burn away in a fire ; that plants and
animals grow and die ; that if he struck his
fellow savage a blow he would make him angry,
and perhaps get a blow in return, while if he
offered him a fruit he would please him, and
perhaps receive a fish in exchange. When men
had acquired this much knowledge, the outlines,
rude though they were, of mathematics, of physics,
of chemistry, of biology, of moral, economical,
and political science, were sketched. Nor did the
germ of religion fail when science began to bud.
Listen to words which, though new, are yet three
thousand years old :
" . . . When in heaven the stars about the moon
Look beautiful, when all the winds are laid,
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 33
And every height comes out, and jutting peak
And valley, and the immeasurable heavens
Break open to their highest, and all the stars
Shine, and the shepherd gladdens in his heart." l
If the half savage Greek could share our feelings
thus far, it is irrational to doubt that he went
further, to find as we do, that upon that brief
gladness there follows a certain sorrow, the little
light of awakened human intelligence shines so
mere a spark amidst the abyss of the unknown
and unknowable ; seems so insufficient to do
more than illuminate the imperfections that
cannot be remedied, the aspirations that cannot
be realised, of man s own nature. But in this
sadness, this consciousness of the limitation of man,
this sense of an open secret which he cannot
penetrate, lies the essence of all religion ; and the
attempt to embody it in the forms furnished by
the intellect is the origin of the higher theologies.
Thus it seems impossible to imagine but that
the foundations of all knowledge secular or
sacred were laid when intelligence dawned s
though the superstructure remained for long
ages so slight and feeble as to be compatible with
the existence of almost any general view respect
ing the mode of governance of the universe. No
doubt, from the first, there were certain phae-
nomena which, to the rudest mind, presented a
1 Need it be said that this is Tennyson s English for Homer s
Greek ?
VOL. I. D
34 ON IMPKOVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
constancy of occurrence, and suggested that a
fixed order ruled, at any rate, among them. I
doubt if the grossest of Fetish worshippers ever
imagined that a stone must have a god within
it to make it fall, or that a fruit had a god
within it to make it taste sweet. With regard to
such matters as these, it is hardly questionable
that mankind from the first took strictly positive
and scientific views.
But, with respect to all the less familiar occur
rences which present themselves, uncultured man,
no doubt, has always taken himself as the
standard of comparison, as the centre and measure
of the world ; nor could he well avoid doing so.
And finding that his apparently uncaused will
has a powerful effect in giving rise to many
occurrences, he naturally enough ascribed other
and greater events to other and greater volitions,
and came to look upon the world and all that
therein is, as the product of the volitions of
persons like himself, but stronger, and capable of
being appeased or angered, as he himself might be
soothed or irritated. Through such conceptions of
the plan and working of the universe all mankind
have passed, or are passing. And we may now con
sider what has been the effect of the improvement
of natural knowledge on the views of men who have
reached this stage, and who have begun to cultivate
natural knowledge with no desire but that of " in
creasing God s honour and bettering man s estate."
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 35
For example, what could seem wiser, from a
mere material point of view, more innocent, from
a theological one, to an ancient people, than
that they should learn the exact succession of
the seasons, as warnings for their husbandmen;
or the position of the stars, as guides to their
rude navigators ? But what has grown out of
this search for natural knowledge of so merely
useful a character ? You all know the reply.
Astronomy, which of all sciences has filled men s
minds with general ideas of a character most
foreign to their daily experience, and has, more
than any other, rendered it impossible for them
to accept the beliefs of their fathers. Astronomy,
which tells them that this so vast and seemingly
solid earth is but an atom among atoms, whirling,
no man knows whither, through illimitable space ;
which demonstrates that what we call the peaceful
heaven above us, is but that space, filled by an
infinitely subtle matter whose particles are
seething and surging, like the waves of an angry
sea ; which opens up to us infinite regions where
nothing is known, or ever seems to have been
known, but matter and force, operating accord
ing to rigid rules ; which leads us to con
template phenomena the very nature of which
demonstrates that they must have ,had a be
ginning, and that they must have an end, but
the very nature of which also proves that the
beginning was, to our conceptions of time,
D 2
36 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
infinitely remote, and that the end is as im
measurably distant.
But it is not alone those who pursue astronomy
who ask for bread and receive ideas. What more
harmless than the attempt to lift and distribute
water by pumping it ; what more absolutely and
grossly utilitarian ? Yet out of pumps grew the
discussions about Nature s abhorrence of a vacuum ;
and then it was discovered that Nature does not
abhor a vacuum, but that air has weight; and
that notion paved the way for the doctrine that
all matter has weight, and that the force
which produces weight is co-extensive with the
universe, in short, to the theory of universal
gravitation and endless force. While learning
how to handle gases led to the discovery of
oxygen, and to modern chemistry, and to the
notion of the indestructibility of matter.
Again, what simpler, or more absolutely prac
tical, than the attempt to keep the axle of a
wheel from heating when the wheel turns round
very fast ? How useful for carters and gig
drivers to know something about this ; and how
good were it, if any ingenious person would find
out the cause of such phenomena, and thence
educe a general remedy for them. Such an
ingenious person was Count Runiford ; and he
and his successors have landed us in the theory of
the persistence, or indestructibility, of force. And
in the infinitely minute, as in the infinitely great,
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 37
the seekers after natural knowledge of the kinds
called physical and chemical, have everywhere
found a definite order and succession of events
which seem never to be infringed.
And how has it fared with " Physick " and
Anatomy ? Have the anatomist, the physiologist,
or the physician, whose business it has been to
devote themselves assiduously to that eminently
practical and direct end, the alleviation of the
sufferings of mankind, have they been able to
confine their vision more absolutely to the strictly
useful ? I fear they are the worst offenders of
all. For if the astronomer has set before us the
infinite magnitude of space, and the practical
eternity of the duration of the universe ; if the
physical and chemical philosophers have demon
strated the infinite minuteness of its constituent
parts, and the practical eternity of matter and
of force; and if both have alike proclaimed the
universality of a definite and predicable order and
succession of events, the workers in biology have
not only accepted all these, but have added more
startling theses of their own. For, as the astrono
mers discover in the earth no centre of the
universe, but an eccentric speck, so the naturalists
find man to be no centre of the living world, but
one amidst endless modifications of life ; and as
the astronomer observes the mark of practically
endless time set upon the arrangements of the
solar system so the student of life finds the records
38 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
of ancient forms of existence peopling the world
for ages, which, in relation to human experience,
are infinite.
Furthermore, the physiologist finds life to be as
dependent for its manifestation on particular mole
cular arrangements as any physical or chemical phe
nomenon ; and wherever he extends his researches,
fixed order and unchanging causation reveal
themselves, as plainly as in the rest of Nature.
Nor can I find that any other fate has awaited
the germ of Religion. Arising, like all other
kinds of knowledge, out of the action and inter
action of man s mind, with that which is not man s
mind, it has taken the intellectual coverings of
Fetishism or Polytheism ; of Theism or Atheism ;
of Superstition or Rationalism. With these, and
their relative merits and demerits, I have nothing
to do ; but this it is needful for my purpose to
say, that if the religion of the present differs from
that of the past, it is because the theology of the
present has become more scientific than that of
the past ; because it has not only renounced idols
of wood and idols of stone, but begins to see the
necessity of breaking in pieces the idols built up
of books and traditions and fine-spun ecclesiastical
cobwebs : and of cherishing the noblest and most
human of man s emotions, by worship " for the
most part of the silent sort " at the altar of the
Unknown.
Such are a few of the new conceptions implanted
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 39
in our minds by the improvement of natural
knowledge. Men have acquired the ideas of the
practically infinite extent of the universe and of
its practical eternity ; they are familiar with the
conception that our earth is but an infinitesimal
fragment of that part of the universe which can
be seen; and that, nevertheless, its duration is,
as compared with our standards of time, infinite.
They have further acquired the idea that man is
but one of innumerable forms of life now existing on
the globe, and that the present existences are but
the last of an immeasurable series of predecessors.
Moreover, every step they have made in natural
knowledge has tended to extend and rivet in their
minds the conception of a definite order of the
universe which is embodied in what are called, by
an unhappy metaphor, the laws of Nature and
to narrow the range and loosen the force of men s
belief in spontaneity, or in changes other than
such as arise out of that definite order itself.
Whether these ideas are well or ill founded is
not the question. No one can deny that they
exist, and have been the inevitable outgrowth of
the improvement of natural knowledge. And if
so, it cannot be doubted that they are changing
the form of men s most cherished and most
important convictions.
And as regards the second point the extent to
which the improvement of natural knowledge has
40 ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE i
remodelled and altered what may be termed the
intellectual ethics of men, what are among the
moral convictions most fondly held by barbarous
and semi-barbarous people.
They are the convictions that authority is the
soundest basis of belief; that merit attaches to a
readiness to believe ; that the doubting disposition
is a bad one, and scepticism a sin ; that when good
authority has pronounced what is to be believed,
and faith has accepted it, reason has no further
duty. There are many excellent persons who yet
hold by these principles, and it is not my present
business, or intention, to discuss their views. All
I wish to bring clearly before your minds is the
unquestionable fact, that the improvement of
natural knowledge is effected by methods which
directly give the lie to all these convictions, and
assume the exact reverse of each to be true.
The improver of natural knowledge absolutely
refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For
him, scepticism is the highest of duties ; blind
faith the one unpardonable sin. And it cannot
be otherwise, for every great advance in natural
knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of
authority, the cherishing of the keenest scepticism,
the annihilation of the spirit of blind faith ; and
the most ardent votary of science holds his firmest
convictions, not because the men he most venerates
hold them; not because their verity is testified
by portents and wonders ; but because his experi-
I ON IMPROVING NATURAL KNOWLEDGE 41
ence teaches him that whenever he chooses to
bring these convictions into contact with their
primary source, Nature whenever he thinks fit
to test them by appealing to experiment and to
observation Nature will confirm them. The
man of science has learned to believe in justifica
tion, not by faith, but by verification.
Thus, without for a moment pretending to
despise the practical results of the improvement
of natural knowledge, and its beneficial influence
on material civilisation, it must, I think, be
admitted that the great ideas, some of which I
have indicated, and the ethical spirit which I have
endeavoured to sketch, in the few moments which
remained at my disposal, constitute the real and
permanent significance of natural knowledge.
If these ideas be destined, as I believe they are,
to be more and more firmly established as the
world grows older ; if that spirit be fated, as I
believe it is, to extend itself into all departments
of human thought, and to become co-extensive
with the range of knowledge ; if, as our race
approaches its maturity, it discovers, as I believe
it will, that there is but one kind of knowledge
and but one method of acquiring it ; then we,
who are still children, may justly feeJ it our highest
duty to recognise the advisableness of improving
natural knowledge, and so to aid ourselves and
our successors in our course towards the noble
goal which lies before mankind.
II
THE PEOGRESS OF SCIENCE
18371887
[1887]
THE most obvious and the most distinctive fea
ture of the History of Civilisation, during the last
fifty years, is the wonderful increase of indus
trial production by the application of machinery,
the improvement of old technical processes and
the invention of new ones, accompanied by an
even more remarkable development of old and
new means of locomotion and intercommunication.
By this rapid and vast multiplication of the
commodities and conveniences of existence, the
general standard of comfort has been raised ; the
ravages of pestilence and famine have been checked;
and the natural obstacles, which time and space
offer to mutual intercourse, have been reduced in
a manner, and to an extent, unknown to former
ages. The diminution or removal of local ignor
ance and prejudice, the creation of common
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 43
interests among the most widely separated peoples,
and the strengthening of the forces of the organi
sation of the commonwealth against those of
political or social anarchy, thus effected, have
exerted an influence on the present and future
fortunes of mankind the full significance of which
may be divined, but cannot, as yet, be estimated
at its full value.
This revolution for it is nothing less in the
political and social aspects of modern civilisation
has been preceded, accompanied, and in great
measure caused, by a less obvious, but no less
marvellous, increase of natural knowledge, and
especially of that part of it which is known as
Physical Science, in consequence of the application
of scientific method to the investigation of the
phenomena of the material world. Not that the
growth of physical science is an exclusive preroga
tive of the Victorian age. Its present strength
and volume merely indicate the highest level of a
stream which took its rise alongside of the primal
founts of Philosophy, Literature, and Art, in
ancient Greece ; and, after being dammed up for
a thousand years, once more began to flow three
centuries ago.
It may be doubted if even-handed justice, as
free from fulsome panegyric as from captious de
preciation, has ever yet been dealt out to the
sages of antiquity who, for eight centuries, from
the time of Thales to that of Galen, toiled at the
44 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
foundations of physical science. But, without
entering into the discussion of that large question,
it is certain that the labours of these early workers
in the field of natural knowledge were brought to
a standstill by the decay and disruption of the
Roman Empire, the consequent disorganisation of
society, and the diversion of men s thoughts from
sublunary matters to the problems of the super
natural world suggested by Christian dogma in
the Middle Ages. And, notwithstanding sporadic
attempts to recall men to the investigation of
nature, here and there, it was not until the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that physical
science made a new start, founding itself, at first,
altogether upon that which had been done by the
Greeks. Indeed, it must be admitted that the
men of the Renaissance, though standing on the
shoulders of the old philosophers, were a long
time before they saw as much as their forerunners
had done.
The first serious attempts to carry further the
unfinished work of Archimedes, Hipparchus, and
Ptolemy, of Aristotle and of Galen, naturally
enough arose among the astronomers and the
physicians. For the imperious necessity of seek
ing some remedy for the physical ills of life had
insured the preservation of more or less of the
wisdom of Hippocrates and his successors ; and,
by a happy conjunction of circumstances, the
Jewish and the Arabian physicians and philo-
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 45
sophers escaped many of the influences which, at
that time, blighted natural knowledge in the
Christian world. On the other hand, the super
stitious hopes and fears which afforded countenance
to astrology and to alchemy also sheltered
astronomy and the germs of chemistry. Whether
for this, or for some better reason, the founders of
the schools of the Middle Ages included astronomy,
along with geometry, arithmetic, and music, as
one of the four branches of advanced education ;
and, in this respect, it is only just to them to
observe that they were far in advance of those
who sit in their seats. The schoolmen considered
no one to be properly educated unless he were
acquainted with, at any rate, one branch of physical
science. We have not, even yet, reached that
stage of enlightenment.
In the early decades of the seventeenth century,
the men of the Renaissance could show that they
had already put out to good interest the treasure
bequeathed to them by the Greeks. They had
produced the astronomical system of Copernicus,
with Kepler s great additions ; the astronomical
discoveries and the physical investigations of
Galileo ; the mechanics of Stevinus and the " De
Magnete " of Gilbert ; the anatomy of the great
French and Italian schools and the physiology of
Harvey, In Italy, which had succeeded Greece
in the hegemony of the scientific world, the
Accademia dei Lyncei and sundry other such
46 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
associations for the investigation of nature, the
models of all subsequent academies and scientific
societies, had been founded; while the literary
skill and biting wit of Galileo had made the great
scientific questions of the day not only intelligible,
but attractive, to the general public.
In our own country, Francis Bacon had essayed
to sum up the past of physical science, and to
indicate the path which it must follow if its great
destinies were to be fulfilled. And though the
attempt was just such a magnificent failure as
might have been expected from a man of great
endowments, who was so singularly devoid of
scientific insight that he could not understand the
value of the work already achieved by the true
instaurators of physical science ; yet the majestic
eloquence and the fervid vaticinations of one who
was conspicuous alike by the greatness of his rise
and the depth of his fall, drew the attention of all
the world to the " new birth of Time."
But it is not easy to discover satisfactory
evidence that the " Novum Organum " had any
direct beneficial influence on the advancement of
natural knowledge. No delusion is greater than
the notion that method and industry can make up
for lack of motherwit, either in science or in
practical life ; and it is strange that, with his
knowledge of mankind, Bacon should have
dreamed that his, or any other, " via inveniendi
scientias " would " level men s wits " and leave
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 47
little scope for that inborn capacity which is called
genius. As a matter of fact, Bacon s " via " has
proved hopelessly impracticable ; while the
" anticipation of nature " by the invention of
hypotheses based on incomplete inductions, which
he specially condemns, has proved itself to be a most
efficient, indeed an indispensable, instrument of
scientific progress. Finally, that transcendental
alchemy the superinducement of new forms on
matter which Bacon declares to be the supreme
aim of science, has been wholly ignored by those
who have created the physical knowledge of the
present day.
Even the eloquent advocacy of the Chancellor
brought no unmixed good to physical science. It
was natural enough that the man who, in his
better moments, took " all knowledge for his patri
mony," but, in his worse, sold that birthright for
the mess of pottage of Court favour and profes
sional success, for pomp and show, should be led to
attach an undue value to the practical advantages
which he foresaw, as Roger Bacon and, indeed,
Seneca had foreseen, long before his time, must
follow in the train of the advancement of natural
knowledge. The burden of Bacon s pleadings for
science is the " gathering of fruit " the import
ance of winning solid material advantages by the
investigation of Nature and the desirableness of
limiting the application of scientific methods of
inquiry to that field.
48 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
Bacon s younger contemporary, Hobbes, casting
aside the prudent reserve of his predecessor in
regard to those matters about which the Crown or
the Church might have something to say, extended
scientific methods of inquiry to the phenomena of
mind and the problems of social organisation ;
while, at the same time, he indicated the boundary
between the province of real, and that of
imaginary, knowledge. The " Principles of Phil
osophy " and the " Leviathan " embody a coherent
system of purely scientific thought in language
which is a model of clear and vigorous English
style. At the same time, in France, a man of
far greater scientific capacity than either Bacon or
Hobbes, Ken Descartes, not only in his immortal
" Discours de la Me"thode " and elsewhere, went
down to the foundations of scientific certainty, but,
in his " Principes de Philosophic," indicated where
the goal of physical science really lay. However,
Descartes was an eminent mathematician, and it
would seem that the bent of his mind led him to
overestimate the value of deductive reasoning
from general principles, as much as Bacon
had under-estimated it. The progress of
physical science has been effected neither by
Baconians nor by Cartesians, as such, but
by men like Galileo and Harvey, Boyle and
Newton, who would have done their work just
as well if neither Bacon nor Descartes had
ever propounded their views respecting the
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 49
manner in which scientific investigation should
be pursued.
The progress of science, during the first century
after Bacon s death, by no means verified his
sanguine prediction of the fruits which it would
yield. For, though the revived and renewed study
of nature had spread and grown to an extent which
surpassed reasonable expectation, the practical
results the " good to men s estate " were, at
first, by no means apparent. Sixty years after
Bacon s death, Newton had crowned the long
labours of the astronomers and the physicists, by
co-ordinating the phenomena of molar motion
throughout the visible universe into one vast sys
tem ; but the " Principia " helped no man to either
wealth or comfort. Descartes, Newton, and
Leibnitz had opened up new worlds to the mathe
matician, but the acquisitions of their genius
enriched only man s ideal estate. Descartes had
laid the foundations of rational cosmogony and of
physiological psychology ; Boyle had produced
models of experimentation in various branches of
physics and chemistry ; Pascal and Torricelli had
weighed the air ; Malpighi and Grew, Ray and
Willoughby had done work of no less importance
in the biological sciences ; but weaving and spin
ning were carried on with the old appliances ;
nobody could travel faster by sea or by land than
at any previous time in the world s history, and
King George could send a message from London
VOL. I. E
50 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
to York no faster than King John might have
done. Metals were worked from their ores by
immemorial rule of thumb, and the centre of the
iron trade of these islands was still among the oak
forests of Sussex. The utmost skill of our mecha
nicians did not get beyond the production of a
coarse watch.
The middle of the eighteenth century is illus
trated by a host of great names in science
English, French, German, and Italian especially
in the fields of chemistry, geology, and biology ;
but this deepening and broadening of natural
knowledge produced next to no immediate practical
benefits. Even if, at this time, Francis Bacon
could have returned to the scene of his greatness
and of his littleness, he must have regarded the
philosophic world which praised and disregarded
his precepts with great disfavour. If ghosts are
consistent, he would have said, " These people are
all wasting their time, just as Gilbert and Kepler
and Galileo and my worthy physician Harvey did
in my day. Where are the fruits of the restoration
of science which I promised ? This accumulation
of bare knowledge is all very well, but cui lono ?
Not one of these people is doing what I told him
specially to do, and seeking that secret of the
cause of forms which will enable men to deal, at
will, with matter, and superinduce new natures
upon the old foundations."
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 51
But, a little later, that growth of knowledge
beyond imaginable utilitarian ends, which is the
condition precedent of its practical utility, began
to produce some effect \fpon practical life ; and the
operation of that part of nature we call human
upon the rest began to create, not " new natures,"
in Bacon s sense, but a new Nature, the existence
of which is dependent upon men s efforts, which is
subservient to their wants, and which would dis
appear if man s shaping and guiding hand were
withdrawn. Every mechanical artifice, every
chemically pure substance employed in manufac
ture, every abnormally fertile race of plants, or
rapidly growing and fattening breed of animals, is
a part of the new Nature created by science.
Without it, the most densely populated regions of
modern Europe and America must retain their
primitive, sparsely inhabited, agricultural or
pastoral condition ; it is the foundation of our
wealth and the condition of our safety from sub
mergence by another flood of barbarous hordes ;
it is the bond which unites into a solid political
whole, regions larger than any empire of antiquity;
it secures us from the recurrence of the pestilences
and famines of former times ; it is the source of
endless comforts and conveniences, which are not
mere luxuries, but conduce to physical and moral
well-being. During the last fifty years, this new
birth of time, this new Nature begotten by science
upon fact, has pressed itself daily and hourly upon
E 2
52 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
II
our attention, and has worked miracles which have
modified the whole fashion of our lives.
What wonder, then, if these astonishing fruits
of the tree of knowledge are too often regarded by
both friends and enemies as the be-all and end-all
of science ? What wonder if some eulogise, and
others revile, the new philosophy for its utilitarian
ends and its merely material triumphs ?
In truth, the new philosophy deserves neither
the praise of its eulogists, nor the blame of its
slanderers. As I have pointed out, its disciples
were guided by no search after practical fruits,
during the great period of its growth, and it
reached adolescence without being stimulated by
any rewards of that nature. The bare enumeration
of the names of the men who were the great
lights of science in the latter part of the eighteenth
and the first decade of the nineteenth century,
of Herschel, of Laplace, of Young, of Fresnel, of
Oersted, of Cavendish, of Lavoisier, of Davy, of
Lamarck, of Cuvier, of Jussieu, of Decandolle, of
Werner and of Hutton, suffices to indicate the
strength of physical science in the age immedi
ately preceding that of which I have to treat.
But of which of these great men can it be said
that their labours were directed to practical ends ?
I do not call to mind even an invention of
practical utility which we owe to any of them,
except the safety-lamp of Davy. Werner certainly
paid attention to mining, and I have not forgotten
IT THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 53
James Watt. But, though some of the most im
portant of the improvements by which Watt
converted the steam-engine, invented long before
his time, into the obedient slave of man, were
suggested and guided by his acquaintance with
scientific principles, his skill as a practical
mechanician and the efficiency of Bolton s work
men had quite as much to do with the realisation
of his projects.
In fact, the history of physical science teaches
(and we cannot too carefully take the lesson to
heart) that the practical advantages, attainable
through its agency, never have been, and never
will be, sufficiently attractive to men inspired by
the inborn genius of the interpreter of Nature, to
give them courage to undergo the toils and make
the sacrifices which that calling requires from its
votaries. That which stirs their pulses is the love
of knowledge and the joy of the discovery of the
causes of things sung by the old poet the
supreme delight of extending the realm of law
and order ever farther towards the unattainable
goals of the infinitely great and the infinitely
small, between which our little race of life is run.
In the course of this work, the physical philo
sopher, sometimes intentionally, much more often
unintentionally, lights upon something which
proves to be of practical value. Great is the
rejoicing of those who are benefited thereby ; and,
for the moment, science is the Diana of all the
54 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
craftsmen. But, even while the cries of jubilation
resound and this flotsam and jetsam of the tide of
investigation is being turned into the wages of
workmen and the wealth of capitalists, the crest
of the wave of scientific investigation is far away
on its course over the illimitable ocean of the un
known.
Far be it from me to depreciate the value of the
gifts of science to practical life, or to cast a doubt
upon the propriety of the course of action of those
who follow science in the hope of finding wealth
alongside truth, or even wealth alone. Such a
profession is as respectable as any other. And
quite as little do I desire to ignore the fact that,
if industry owes a heavy debt to science, it has
largely repaid the loan by the important aid
which it has, in its turn, rendered to the advance
ment of science. In considering the causes which
hindered the progress of physical knowledge in
the schools of Athens and of Alexandria, it has
often struck me 1 that where the Greeks did
wonders was in just those branches of science,
such as geometry, astronomy, and anatomy, which
are susceptible of very considerable development
without any, or any but the simplest, appliances.
It is a curious speculation to think what would
have become of modern physical science if glass
1 There are excellent remarks to the same effect in Zeller s
Philosophic der Gricchcn, Theil II. Abth. ii. p. 407, and in
Eucken s Die Methode der Aristotelischen Forschung, pp. 138
et seg.
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 55
and alcohol had not been easily obtainable ; and
if the gradual perfection of mechanical skill for
industrial ends had not enabled investigators to
obtain, at comparatively little cost, microscopes,
telescopes, and all the exquisitely delicate appar
atus for determining weight and measure and for
estimating the lapse of time with exactness, which
they now command. If science has rendered the
colossal development of modern industry possible,
beyond a doubt industry has done no less for
modern physics and chemistry, and for a great
deal of modern biology. And as the captains of
industry have, at last, begun to be aware that the
condition of success in that warfare, under the
forms of peace, which is known as industrial
competition, lies in the discipline of the troops and
the use of arms of precision, just as much as it
does in the warfare which is called war, their
demand for that discipline, which is technical
education, is reacting upon science in a manner
which will, assuredly, stimulate its future growth
to an incalculable extent. It has become obvious
that the interests of science and of industry are
identical ; that science cannot make a step forward
without, sooner or later, opening up new channels
for industry ; and, on the other hand, that every
advance of industry facilitates those experimental
investigations, upon which the growth of science
depends. We may hope that, at last, the weary
misunderstanding between the practical men who
56 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
7T
professed to despise science, and the high and dry
philosophers who professed to despise practical
results, is at an end.
Nevertheless, that which is true of the infancy
of physical science in the Greek world, that which
is true of its adolescence in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, remains true of its riper age
in these latter days of the nineteenth century
The great steps in its progress have been made,
are made, and will be made, by men who seek
knowledge simply because they crave for it.
They have their weaknesses, their follies, their
vanities, and their rivalries, like the rest of the
world ; but, whatever by-ends may mar their dig
nity and impede their usefulness, this chief end
redeems them. 1 Nothing great in science has
ever been done by men, whatever their powers,
in whom the divine afflatus of the truth-seeker
was wanting. Men of moderate capacity have
1 Fresnel, after a brilliant career of discovery in some of the
most difficult regions of physico-mathematical science, died at
thirty -nine years of age. The following passage of a letter from
him to Young (written in November, 1824), quoted by Whewell,
so aptly illustrates the spirit which animates the scientific
inquirer that I may cite it :
For a long time that sensibility, or that vanity, which people
call love of glory is much blunted in me. I labour much less
to catch the suffrages of the public than to obtain an inward
approval which has always been the mental reward of my efforts.
Without doubt I have often wanted the spur of vanity to excite
me to pursue my researches in moments of disgust and discour
agement. But all the compliments which I have received from
MM. Arago, De Laplace, or Biot, never gave me so much pleasure
as the discovery of a theoretical truth or the confirmation of a
calculation by experiment. "
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 57
done great things because it animated them ; and
men of great natural gifts have failed, absolutely
or relatively, because they lacked this one thing
needful.
To any one who knows the business of investi
gation practically, Bacon s notion of establishing a
company of investigators to work for " fruits," as
if the pursuit of knowledge were a kind of mining
operation and only required well-directed picks
and shovels, seems very strange. 1 In science, as
in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of
human activity, there may be wisdom in a multi
tude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two
of them. And, in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it
is to that one or two that we must look for light
and guidance. Newton said that he made his dis
coveries by " intending " his mind on the subject ;
no doubt, truly. But to equal his success one must
have the mind which he " intended." Forty lesser
men might have intended their minds till they
cracked, without any like result. It would be idle
either to affirm or to deny that the last half-cent
ury has produced men of science of the calibre
of Newton. It is sufficient that it can show a
few capacities of the first rank, competent not
only to deal profitably with the inheritance
1 " Memorable exemple de 1 impuissance des recherches col
lectives appliquees a la decouverte des verites nouvelles ! " says
one of the most distinguished of living French savants, of the
corporate chemical work of the old Academic des Sciences.
(See Berthelot, Science et Philosophic, p. 201.)
58 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
bequeathed by their scientific forefathers, but to
pass on to their successors physical truths of
a higher order than any yet reached by the
human race. And if they have succeeded as
Newton succeeded, it is because they have sought
truth as he sought it, with no other object than
the finding it.
I am conscious that in undertaking to give even
the briefest sketch of the progress of physical
science, in all its branches, during the last half-
century, I may be thought to have exhibited more
courage than discretion, and perhaps more pre
sumption than either. So far as physical science
is concerned, the days of Admirable Crichtons have
long been over, and the most indefatigable of hard
workers may think he has done well if he has
mastered one of its minor subdivisions. Never
theless, it is possible for any one, who has familiar
ised himself with the operations of science in one
department, to comprehend the significance, and
even to form a general estimate of the value, of
the achievements of specialists in other depart
ments.
Nor is there any lack either of guidance, or of aids
to ignorance. By a happy chance, the first edition
of Whewell s " History of the Inductive Sciences "
was published in 1837, and it affords a very useful
view of the state of things at the commencement
of the Victorian epoch. As to subsequent events,
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 59
there are numerous excellent summaries of the
progress of various branches of science, especially
up to 1881, which was the jubilee year of the
British Association. 1 And, with respect to the
biological sciences, with some parts of which my
studies have familiarised me, my personal experi
ence nearly coincides with the preceding half-
century. I may hope, therefore, that my chance
of escaping serious errors is as good as that of
any one else, who might have been persuaded to
undertake the somewhat perilous enterprise in
which I find myself engaged.
There is yet another prefatory remark which it
seems desirable I should make. It is that I think
it proper to confine myself to the work done,
without saying anything about the doers of it.
Meddling with questions of merit and priority is a
thorny business at the best of times, and, unless
in case of necessity, altogether undesirable when
one is dealing with contemporaries. No such
necessity lies upon me ; and I shall, therefore,
mention no names of living men, lest, perchance,
I should incur the reproof which the Israelites,
who struggled with one another in the field,
addressed to Moses " Who made thee a prince
and a judge over us?"
1 I am particularly indebted to my friend and colleague,
Professor Riicker, F.K.S., for the many acute criticisms and
suggestions on my remarks respecting the ultimate problems of
physics, with which he has favoured me, and by which I have
greatly profited.
60 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
Physical science is one and indivisible. Although,
for practical purposes, it is convenient to mark it
out into the primary regions of Physics,
Chemistry, and Biology, and to subdivide these
into subordinate provinces, yet the method of
investigation and the ultimate object of the
physical inquirer are everywhere the same.
The object is the discovery of the rational order
which pervades the universe ; the method consists
of observation and experiment (which is observa
tion under artificial conditions) for the determina
tion of the facts of Nature; of inductive and
deductive reasoning for the discovery of their
mutual relations and connection. The various
branches of physical science differ in the extent to
which, at any given moment of their history,
observation on the one hand, or ratiocination on
the other, is their more obvious feature, but in no
other way ; and nothing can be more incorrect
than the assumption one sometimes meets with,
that physics has one method, chemistry another,
and biology a third.
All physical science starts from certain pos
tulates. One of them is the objective existence
of a material world. It is assumed that the
phenomena which are comprehended under this
name have a " substratum " of extended, impene
trable, mobile substance, which exhibits the quality
known as inertia, and is termed matter. 1 Another
1 I am aware that this proposition may be challenged. It
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 61
postulate is the universality of the law of causation ;
that nothing happens without a cause (that is, a
necessary precedent condition), and that the state
of the physical universe, at any given moment, is
the consequence of its state at any preceding
moment. Another is that any of the rules, or
so-called " laws of Nature," by which the relation of
phenomena is truly defined, is true for all time.
The validity of these postulates is a problem of
metaphysics ; they are neither self-evident nor
are they, strictly speaking, demonstrable. The
justification of their employment, as axioms of
physical philosophy, lies in the circumstance that
expectations logically based upon them are verified,
or, at any rate, not contradicted, whenever they
can be tested by experience.
Physical science therefore rests on verified or
uncontradicted hypotheses ; and, such being the
case, it is not surprising that a great condition of
may be said, for example, that, on the hypothesis of Boscovich,
matter has no extension, being reduced to mathematical points
serving as centres of "forces." But as the "forces " of the various
centres are conceived to limit one another s action in such a
manner that an area around each centre has an individuality of
its own, extension comes back in the form of that area. Again,
a very eminent mathematician and physicist the late Clerk
Maxwell has declared that impenetrability is not essential to
our notions of matter, and that two atoms may conceivably
occupy the same space. I am loth to dispute any dictum of a
philosopher as remarkable for the subtlety of his intellect as for
his vast knowledge ; but the assertion that one and the same
point or area of space can have different (conceivably opposite)
attributes appears to me to violate the principle of contradic
tion, which is the foundation not only of physical science, but
of logic in general. It means that A can be not-A.
62 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
its progress has been the invention of verifiable
hypotheses. It is a favourite popular delusion
that the scientific inquirer is under a sort of moral
obligation to abstain from going beyond that
generalisation of observed facts which is absurdly
called " Baconian " induction. But any one who is
practically acquainted with scientific work is
aware that those who refuse to go beyond fact,
rarely get as far as fact ; and any one who
has studied the history of science knows that
almost every great step therein has been made by
the " anticipation of Nature," that is, by the
invention of hypotheses, which, though verifiable,
often had very little foundation to start with ;
and, not unfrequently, in spite of a long career of
usefulness, turned out to be wholly erroneous in
the long run.
The geocentric system of astronomy, with its
eccentrics and its epicycles, was an hypothesis
utterly at variance with fact, which nevertheless
did great things for the advancement of astrono
mical knowledge. Kepler was the wildest of
guessers. Newton s corpuscular theory of light
was of much temporary use in optics, though
nobody now believes in it ; and the undulatory
theory, which has superseded the corpuscular
theory and has proved one of the most fertile
of instruments of research, is based on the
hypothesis of the existence of an "ether," the
properties of which are defined in propositions,
H THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 63
some of which, to ordinary apprehension, seem
physical antinomies.
It sounds paradoxical to say that the attainment
of scientific truth has been effected, to a great
extent, by the help of scientific errors. But the
subject-matter of physical science is furnished by
observation, which cannot extend beyond the limits
of our faculties ; while, even within those limits,
we cannot be certain that any observation is ab
solutely exact and exhaustive. Hence it follows
that any given generalisation from observation
may be true, within the limits of our powers
of observation at a given time, and yet turn
out to be untrue, when those powers of
observation are directly or indirectly enlarged.
Or, to put the matter in another way, a doctrine
which is untrue absolutely, may, to a very great
extent, be susceptible of an interpretation in ac
cordance with the truth. At a certain period in
the history of astronomical science, the assumption
that the planets move in circles was true enough
to serve the purpose of correlating such observa
tions as were then possible ; after Kepler, the
assumption that they move in ellipses became
true enough in regard to the state of observational
astronomy at that time. We say still that the
orbits of the planets are ellipses, because, for all
ordinary purposes, that is a sufficiently near
approximation to the truth ; but, as a matter of
fact, the centre of gravity of a planet describes
64 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE II
neither an ellipse nor any other simple curve, but
an immensely complicated undulating line. It
may fairly be doubted whether any generalisation,
or hypothesis, based upon physical data is ab
solutely true, in the sense that a mathematical
proposition is so ; but, if its errors can become
apparent only outside the limits of practicable ob
servation, it may be just as usefully adopted for
one of the symbols of that algebra by which we
interpret Nature, as if it were absolutely true.
The development of every branch of physical
knowledge presents three stages, which, in their
logical relation, are successive. The first is the
determination of the sensible character and order
of the phenomena. This is Natural History, in
the original sense of the term, and here nothing
but observation and experiment avail us. The
second is the determination of the constant
relations of the phenomena thus defined, and
their expression in rules or laws. The third is
the explication of these particular laws by deduc
tion from the most general laws of matter and
motion. The last two stages constitute Natural
Philosophy in its original sense. In this region,
the invention of verifiable hypotheses is not only
permissible, but is one of the conditions of
progress.
Historically, no branch of science has followed
this order of growth ; but, from the dawn of exact
knowledge to the present day, observation, experi-
-II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 65
ment, and speculation have gone hand in hand ;
and, whenever science has halted or strayed from
the right path, it has been, either because its
votaries have been content with mere unverified
or unverifiable speculation (and this is the com
monest case, because observation and experiment
are hard work, while speculation is amusing) ; or
it has been, because the accumulation of details of
observation has for a time excluded speculation.
The progress of physical science, since the
revival of learning, is largely due to the fact
that men have gradually learned to lay aside
the consideration of unverifiable hypotheses ; to
guide observation and experiment by verifiable
hypotheses ; and to consider the latter, not as
ideal truths, the real entities of an intelligible
world behind phenomena, but as a symbolical
language, by the aid of which Nature can be in
terpreted in terms apprehensible by our intellects.
And if physical science, during the last fifty years,
has attained dimensions beyond all former pre
cedent, and can exhibit achievements of greater
importance than any former such period can show,
it is because able men, animated by the true
scientific spirit, carefully trained in the method of
science, and having at their disposal immensely
improved appliances, have devoted themselves to
the enlargement of the boundaries of natural
knowledge in greater number than during any
previous half-century of the world s history.
VOL. I.
66 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
I have said that our epoch can produce achieve
ments in physical science of greater moment than
any other has to show, advisedly ; and I think
that there are three great products of our time
which justify the assertion. One of these is that
doctrine concerning the constitution of matter
which, for want of a better name, I will call
" molecular ; " the second is the doctrine of the
conservation of energy ; the third is the doctrine
of evolution. Each of these was foreshadowed,
more or less distinctly, in former periods of the
history of science ; and, so far is either from being
the outcome of purely inductive reasoning, that it
would be hard to overrate the influence of meta
physical, and even of theological, considerations
upon the development of all three. The peculiar
merit of our epoch is that it has shown how these
hypotheses connect a vast number of seemingly
independent partial generalisations ; that it has
given them that precision of expression which is
necessary for their exact verification ; and that
it has practically proved their value as guides to
the discovery of new truth. All three doctrines
are intimately connected, and each is applicable to
the whole physical cosmos. But, as might have
been expected from the nature of the case, the
first two grew, mainly, out of the consideration
of physico-chemical phenomena ; while the third,
in great measure, owes its rehabilitation, if not its
origin, to the study of biological phenomena.
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 67
In the early decades of this century, a number
of important truths applicable, in part, to matter
in general, and, in part, to particular forms of
matter, had been ascertained by the physicists and
chemists.
The laws of motion of visible and tangible, or
molar, matter had been worked out to a great
degree of refinement and embodied in the branches
of science known as Mechanics, Hydrostatics, and
Pneumatics. These laws had been shown to hold
good, so far as they could be checked by observa
tion and experiment, throughout the universe, on
the assumption that all such masses of matter
possessed inertia and were susceptible of acquiring
motion, in two ways, firstly by impact, or impulse
from without ; and, secondly, by the operation of
certain hypothetical causes of motion termed
" forces," which were usually supposed to be
resident in the particles of the masses themselves,
and to operate at a distance, in such a way as to
tend to draw any two such masses together, or to
separate them more widely.
With respect to the ultimate constitution of
these masses, the same two antagonistic opinions
which had existed since the time of Democritus
and of Aristotle were still face to face. According
to the one, matter was discontinuous and consisted
of minute indivisible particles or atoms, separated
by a universal vacuum ; according to the other, it
was continuous, and the finest distinguishable, or
F 2
68 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
imaginable, particles were scattered through the
attenuated general substance of the plenum. A
rough analogy to the latter case would be afforded
by granules of ice diffused through water ; to the
former, such granules diffused through absolutely
empty space.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century,
the chemists had arrived at several very import
ant generalisations respecting those properties of
matter with which they were especially concerned.
However plainly ponderable matter seemed to be
originated and destroyed in their operations, they
proved that, as mass or body, it remained in
destructible and ingenerable ; and that, so far, it
Varied only in its perceptibility by our senses.
The course of investigation further proved that a
certain number of the chemically separable kinds
of matter were unalterable by any known means
(except in so far as they might be made to change
their state from solid to fluid, or vice versa), unless
they were brought into contact with other kinds
of matter, and that the properties of these several
kinds of matter were always the same, whatever
their origin. All other bodies were found to
consist of two or more of these, which thus took
the place of the four " elements " of the ancient
philosophers. Further, it was proved that, in
forming chemical compounds, bodies always unite
in a definite proportion by weight, or in simple
multiples of that proportion, and that, if any one
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 69
body were taken as a standard, every other could
have a number assigned to it as its proportional
combining weight. It was on this foundation of
fact that Dalton based his re-establishment of the
old atomic hypothesis on a new empirical founda
tion. It is obvious, that if elementary matter
consists of indestructible and indivisible particles,
each of which constantly preserves the same
weight relatively to all the others, compounds
formed by the aggregation of two, three, four,
or more such particles must exemplify the rule of
combination in definite proportions deduced from
observation.
In the meanwhile, the gradual reception of the
undulatory theory of light necessitated the assump
tion of the existence of an " ether " filling all
space. But whether this ether was to be regarded
as a strictly material and continuous substance,
was an undecided point, and hence the revived
atomism escaped strangling in its birth. For it is
clear, that if the ether is admitted to be a con
tinuous material substance, Democritic atomism
is at an end and Cartesian continuity takes its
place.
The real value of the new atomic hypothesis,
however, did not lie in the two points which
Democritus and his followers would have con
sidered essential namely, the indivisibility of the
" atoms " and the presence of an interatomic
vacuum but in the assumption that, to the
70 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
extent to which our means of analysis take us,
material bodies consist of definite minute masses,
each of which, so far as physical and chemical
processes of division go, may be regarded as a unit
having a practically permanent individuality.
Just as a man is the unit of sociology, without
reference to the actual fact of his divisibility, so
such a minute mass is the unit of physico-chemical
science that smallest material particle which
under any given circumstances acts as a whole. 1
The doctrine of specific heat originated in the
eighteenth century. It means that the same mass
of a body, under the same circumstances, always
requires the same quantity of heat to raise it to
a given temperature, but that equal masses of
different bodies require different quantities. Ulti
mately, it was found that the quantities of heat
required to raise equal masses of the more perfect
gases, through equal ranges of temperature, were
inversely proportional to their combining weights.
Thus a definite relation was established between
the hypothetical units and heat. The phenomena
of electrolytic decomposition showed that there
was a like close relation between these units and
electricity. The quantity of electricity generated
by the combination of any two units is sufficient
to separate any other two which are susceptible of
1 w Molecule " would be the more appropriate name for such a
particle. Unfortunately, chemists employ this term in a special
sense, as a name for an aggregation of their smallest particles,
for which they retain the designation of " atoms,"
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 71
such decomposition. The phenomena of iso
morphism showed a relation between the units
and crystalline forms ; certain units are thus able
to replace others in a crystalline body without
altering its form, and others are not.
Again, the laws of the effect of pressure and
heat on gaseous bodies, the fact that they combine
in definite proportions by volume, and that such
proportion bears a simple relation to their com
bining weights, all harmonised with the Daltonian
hypothesis, and led to the bold speculation known
as the law of Avogadro that all gaseous bodies,
under the same physical conditions, contain the
same number of units. In the form in which it
was first enunciated, this hypothesis was incorrect
perhaps it is not exactly true in any form ; but
it is hardly too much to say that chemistry and
molecular physics would never have advanced to
their present condition unless it had been assumed
to be true. Another immense service rendered by
Dalton, as a corollary of the new atomic doctrine,
was the creation of a system of symbolic notation,
which not only made the nature of chemical
compounds and processes easily intelligible and
easy of recollection, but, by its very form, suggested
new lines of inquiry. The atomic notation was as
serviceable to chemistry as the binomial nomen
clature and the classificatory schematism of
Linnaeus were to zoology and botany.
Side by side with these advances arose another,
72 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
which also has a close parallel in the history of
biological science. If the unit of a compound is
made up by the aggregation of elementary units,
the notion that these must have some sort of
definite arrangement inevitably suggests itself;
and such phenomena as double decomposition
pointed, not only to the existence of a molecular
architecture, but to the possibility of modifying a
molecular fabric without destroying it, by taking
out some of the component units and replacing
them by others. The class of neutral salts, for
example, includes a great number of bodies in
many ways similar, in which the basic molecules,
or the acid molecules, may be replaced by other
basic and other acid molecules, without altering the
neutrality of the salt ; just as a cube of bricks re
mains a cube, so long as any brick that is taken
out is replaced by another of the same shape and
dimensions whatever its weight or other properties
may be. Facts of this kind gave rise to the con
ception of " types " of molecular structure, just as
the recognition of the unity in diversity of the
structure of the species of plants and animals gave
rise to the notion of biological " types." The
notation of chemistry enabled these ideas to be
represented with precision ; and they acquired an
immense importance, when the improvement of
methods of analysis, which took place about the
beginning of our period, enabled the composition
of the so-called " organic " bodies to be determined
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 7$
with rapidity and precision. 1 A large proportion
of these compounds contain not more than three
or four elements, of which carbon is the chief ; but
their number is very great, and the diversity of
their physical and chemical properties is astonish
ing. The ascertainment of the proportion of each
element in these compounds affords little or no
help towards accounting for their diversities ;
widely different bodies being often very similar, or
even identical, in that respect. And, in the last
case, that of isomeric compounds, the appeal to
diversity of arrangement of the identical com
ponent units was the only obvious way out of the
difficulty. Here, again, hypothesis proved to be of
great value ; not only was the search for evidence
of diversity of molecular structure successful, but
the study of the process of taking to pieces led to
the discovery of the way to put together ; and vast
numbers of compounds, some of them previously
known only as products of the living economy,
have thus been artificially constructed. Chemical
work, at the present day, is, to a large extent,
synthetic or creative that is to say, the chemist
determines, theoretically, that certain non-existent
compounds ought to be producible, and he proceeds
to produce them.
It is largely because the chemical theory and
1 "At present, more organic analyses are made in a single day
than were accomplished before Liebig s time in a whole year."
Hofmann, Faraday Lecture, p. 46,
74 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
practice of our epoch have passed into this de
ductive and synthetic stage, that they are entitled
to the name of the " New Chemistry " which they
commonly receive. But this new chemistry has
grown up by the help of hypotheses, such as those
of Dalton and of Avogadro, and that singular
conception of " bonds " invented to colligate the
facts of " valency " or " atomicity," the first of which
took some time to make its way ; while the second
fell into oblivion, for many years after it was pro
pounded, for lack of empirical justification. As
for the third, it may be doubted if any one regards
it as more than a temporary contrivance.
But some of these hypotheses have done yet
further service. Combining them with the mechani
cal theory of heat and the doctrine of the conserva
tion of energy, which are also products of our time,
physicists have arrived at an entirely new con
ception of the nature of gaseous bodies and of the
relation of the physico-chemical units of matter to
the different forms of energy. The conduct of
gases under varying pressure and temperature,
their diffusibility, their relation to radiant heat
and to light, the evolution of heat when bodies
combine, the absorption of heat when they are
dissociated, and a host of other molecular pheno
mena, have been shown to be deducible from the
dynamical and statical principles which apply to
molar motion and rest ; and the tendency of
physico-chemical science is clearly towards the
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 75
reduction of the problems of the world of the in
finitely little, as it already has reduced those of
the infinitely great world, to questions of me
chanics. 1
In the meanwhile, the primitive atomic theory,
which has served as the scaffolding for the edifice
of modern physics and chemistry, has been quietly
dismissed. I cannot discover that any contem
porary physicist or chemist believes in the real in
divisibility of atoms, or in an interatomic matterless
vacuum. The term " atoms " appears to be used
as a mere name for physico-chemical units which
have not yet been subdivided, and " molecules "
for physico-chemical units which are aggregates of
the former. And these individualised particles are
supposed to move in an endless ocean of a vastly
more subtle matter the ether. If this ether is
a continuous substance, therefore, we have got
back from the hypothesis of Dalton to that of
Descartes. But there is much reason to believe
that science is going to make a still further
journey, and, in form, if not altogether in substance,
to return to the point of view of Aristotle.
The greater number of the so-called " elemen
tary" bodies, now known, had been discovered
before the commencement of our epoch; and it
had become apparent that they were by no means
1 In the preface to his Micanique Chimique, M. Berthelot
declares his object to be " ramener la chimie tout entiere . . . aux
memes principes mecaniques qui regissent deja les diverses
branches de la physique. "
76 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
equally similar or dissimilar, but that some of
them, at any rate, constituted groups, the several
members of which were as much like one another
as they were unlike the rest. Chlorine, iodine,
bromine, and fluorine thus formed a very distinct
group ; sulphur and selenium another ; boron and
silicon another ; potassium, sodium, and lithium
another ; and so on. In some cases, the atomic
weights of such allied bodies were nearly the same,
or could be arranged in series, with like differences
between the several terms. In fact, the elements
afforded indications that they were susceptible of
a classification in natural groups, such as those
into which animals and plants fall.
Recently this subject has been taken up afresh,
with a result which may be stated roughly in the
following terms. If the sixty-five or sixty-eight
recognised " elements " are arranged in the order of
their atomic weights from hydrogen, the lightest,
as unity, to uranium, the heaviest, as 240 the
series does not exhibit one continuous progressive
modification in the physical and chemical charac
ters of its several terms, but breaks up into a num
ber of sections, in each of which the several terms
present analogies with the corresponding terms of
the other series.
Thus, the whole series does not run
a, 5, c, d, e,f, g, h, i, k, &c.,
but
a, 5, c, d, A, B, c, D, a, @, 7, 8, &c. ;
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE -77
so that it is said to express a periodic law of re
current similarities. Or the relation may be
expressed in another way. In each section of the
series, the atomic weight is greater than in the
preceding section, so that if w is the atomic weight
of any element in the first segment, w + x will repre
sent the atomic weight of any element in the next,
and w -\-x-\-y the atomic weight of any element in
the next, and so on. Therefore the sections may
be represented as parallel series, the correspond
ing terms of which have analogous properties ; each
successive series starting with a body the atomic
weight of which is greater than that of any in the
preceding series, in the following fashion :
d D 8
c C y
b B
w w-\-x w-\-x-\-y
This is a conception with which biologists are
very familiar, animal and plant groups constantly
appearing as series of parallel modifications of
similar and yet different primary forms. In the
living world, facts of this kind are now understood
to mean evolution from a common prototype. It
is difficult to imagine that in the not-living world
they are devoid of significance. Is it not possible,
nay, probable, that they may mean the evolu
tion of our " elements " from a primary undifferen-
78 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
tiated form of matter ? Fifty years ago, such a
suggestion would have been scouted as a revival
of the dreams of the alchemists. At present, it
may be said to be the burning question of physico-
chemical science.
In fact, the so-called " vortex-ring " hypothesis
is a very serious and remarkable attempt to deal
with material units from a point of view which is
consistent with the doctrine of evolution. It
supposes the ether to be a uniform substance, and
that the " elementary " units are, broadly speak
ing, permanent whirlpools, or vortices, of this
ether, the properties of which depend on their
actual and potential modes of motion. It is
curious and highly interesting to remark that this
hypothesis reminds us not only of the speculations
of Descartes, but of those of Aristotle. The re
semblance of the " vortex-rings " to the " tour-
billons " of Descartes is little more than nominal ;
but the correspondence between the modern and
the ancient notion of a distinction between
primary and derivative matter is, to a certain
extent, real For this ethereal " Urstoff of the
modern corresponds very closely with the irp^Tt]
V\T) of Aristotle, the materia prima of his mediae
val followers ; while matter, differentiated into
our elements, is the equivalent of the first stage
of progress towards the ea^drrj v\rj, or finished
matter, of the ancient philosophy.
If the material units of the existing order of
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 79
Nature are specialised portions of a relatively
homogeneous materia prima which were origin
ated under conditions that have long ceased to
exist and which remain unchanged and unchange
able under all conditions, whether natural or
artificial, hitherto known to us it follows that
the speculation that they may be indefinitely
altered, or that new units may be generated under
conditions yet to be discovered, is perfectly legiti
mate. Theoretically, at any rate, the transmut-
ability of the elements is a verifiable scientific
hypothesis; and such inquiries as those which
have been set afoot, into the possible dissociative
action of the great heat of the sun upon our
elements, are not only legitimate, but are likely
to yield results which, whether affirmative or
negative, will be of great importance. The idea
that atoms are absolutely ingenerable and im
mutable " manufactured articles " stands on the
same sort of foundation as the idea that biological
species are " manufactured articles " stood thirty
years ago; and the supposed constancy of the
elementary atoms, during the enormous lapse of
time measured by the existence of our universe,
is of no more weight against the possibility of
change in them, in the infinity of antecedent
time, than the constancy of species in Egypt,
since the days of Rameses or of Cheops, is
evidence of their immutability during all past
epochs of the earth s history. It seems safe to
80 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 31
prophesy that the hypothesis of the evolution of the
elements from a primitive matter will, in future,
play no less a part in the history of science
than the atomic hypothesis, which, to begin
with, had no greater, if so great, an empirical
foundation.
It may perhaps occur to the reader that the
boasted progress of physical science does not
come to much, if our present conceptions of the
fundamental nature of matter are expressible in
terms employed, more than two thousand years
ago, by the old " master of those that know."
Such a criticism, however, would involve forgetful-
ness of the fact, that the connotation of these
terms, in the mind of the modern, is almost in
finitely different from that which they possessed
in the mind of the ancient philosopher. In
antiquity, they meant little more than vague
speculation; at the present day, they indicate
definite physical conceptions, susceptible of mathe
matical treatment, and giving rise to innumerable
deductions, the value of which can be experimen
tally tested. The old notions produced little more
than floods of dialectics; the new are powerful
aids towards the increase of solid knowledge.
Everyday observation shows that, of the bodies
which compose the material world, some are in
motion and some are, or appear to be, at rest. Of
the bodies in motion, some, like the sun and stars,
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 81
exhibit a constant movement, regular in amount
and direction, for which no external cause appears.
Others, as stones and smoke, seem also to move of
themselves when external impediments are taken
away. But these appear to tend to move in oppo
site directions : the bodies we call heavy, such as
stones, downwards, and the bodies we call light, at
least such as smoke and steam, upwards. And,
as we further notice that the earth, below our feet,
is made up of heavy matter, while the air, above
our heads, is extremely light matter, it is easy to
regard this fact as evidence that the lower region
is the place to which heavy things tend their
proper place, in short while the upper region is
the proper place of light things ; and to generalise
the facts observed by saying that bodies, which are
free to move, tend towards their proper places. All
these seem to be natural motions, dependent on
the inherent faculties, or tendencies, of bodies
themselves. But there are other motions, which
are artificial or violent, as when a stone is thrown
from the hand, or is knocked by another stone in
motion. In such cases as these, for example,
when a stone is cast from the hand, the distance
travelled by the stone appears to depend partly on
its weight, and partly upon the exertion of the
thrower. So that, the weight of the stone remain
ing the same, it looks as if the motive power
communicated to it were measured by the distance
to which the stone travels as if, in other words,
VOL. i. G
82 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
the power needed to send it a hundred yards was
twice as great as that needed to send it fifty yards.
These, apparently obvious, conclusions from the
everyday appearances of rest and motion fairly
represent the state of opinion upon the subject
which prevailed among the ancient Greeks, a,nd
remained dominant until the age of Galileo. The
publication of the " Principia " of Newton, in
1686-7, marks the epoch at which the progress
of mechanical physics had effected a complete
revolution of thought on these subjects. By this
time, it had been made clear that the old general
isations were either incomplete or totally erro
neous ; that a body, once set in motion, will
continue to move in a straight line for any con
ceivable time or distance, unless it is interfered
with ; that any change of motion is proportional
to the " force " which causes it, and takes place
in the direction in which that " force " is exerted ;
and that, when a body in motion acts as a cause
of motion on another, the latter gains as much as
the former loses, and vice versd. It is to be noted,
however, that while, in contradistinction to the
ancient idea of the inherent tendency to motion
of bodies, the absence of any such spontaneous
power of motion was accepted as a physical axiom
by the moderns, the old conception virtually
maintained itself in a new shape. For, in spite
of Newton s well-known warning against the
" absurdity " of supposing that one body can act
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 83
on another at a distance through a vacuum, the
ultimate particles of matter were generally
assumed to be the seats of perennial causes of
motion termed " attractive and repulsive forces,"
in virtue of which, any two such particles, with
out any external impression of motion, or inter
mediate material agent, were supposed to tend to
approach or remove from one another : and this
view of the duality of the causes of motion is very
widely held at the present day.
Another important result of investigation, at
tained in the seventeenth century, was the proof
and quantitative estimation of physical inertia. In
the old philosophy, a curious conjunction of ethical
and physical prejudices had led to the notion that
there was something ethically bad and physically
obstructive about matter. Aristotle attributes
all irregularities and apparent dysteleologies in
nature to the disobedience, or sluggish yielding,
of matter to the shaping and guiding influence of
those reasons and causes which were hypostatised
in his ideal " Forms." In modern science, the con
ception of the inertia, or resistance to change, of
matter is complex. In part, it contains a corollary
from the law of causation : A body cannot change
its state in respect of rest or motion without a
sufficient cause. But, in part, it contains general
isations from experience* One of these is that
there is no such sufficient cause resident in . any
body, and that therefore it will rest, or continue
G 2
84 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
in motion, so long as no external cause of change
acts upon it. The other is that the effect which
the impact of a body in motion produces upon the
body on which it impinges depends, other things
being alike, on the relation of a certain quality of
each which is called " mass." Given a cause of
motion of a certain value, the amount of motion,
measured by distance travelled in a certain time,
which it will produce in a given quantity of
matter, say a cubic inch, is not always the same,
but depends on what that matter is a cubic inch
of iron will go faster than a cubic inch of gold.
Hence, it appears, that since equal amounts of
motion have, ex hypothesi, been produced, the
amount of motion in a body does not depend on its
speed alone, but on some property of the body.
To this the name of " mass " has been given. And,
since it seems reasonable to suppose that a large
quantity of matter, moving slowly, possesses as
much motion as a small quantity moving faster,
" mass " has been held to express " quantity of
matter." It is further demonstrable that, at any
given time and place, the relative mass of any two
bodies is expressed by the ratio of their weights.
When all these great truths respecting molar
motion, or the movements of visible and tangible
masses, had been shown to hold good not only of
terrestrial bodies, but of all those which constitute
the visible universe ; and the movements of the
macrocosm had thus been expressed by a general
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 85
mechanical theory, there remained a vast number
of phenomena, such as those of light, heat, elec
tricity, magnetism, and those of the physical and
chemical changes which do not involve molar
motion. Newton s corpuscular theory of light
was an attempt to deal with one great series of
these phenomena on mechanical principles, and it
maintained its ground until, at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, the undulatory theory
proved itself to be a much better working hypo
thesis. Heat, up to that time, and indeed much
later, was regarded as an imponderable substance,
caloric ; as a thing which was absorbed by bodies
when they were warmed, and was given out as
they cooled ; and which, moreover, was capable
of entering into a sort of chemical combination
with them, and so becoming latent. Rumford
and Davy had given a great blow to this view of
heat by proving that the quantity of heat which
two portions of the same body could be made to
give out, by rubbing them together, was practically
illimitable. This result brought philosophers face
to face with the contradiction of supposing that a
finite body could contain an infinite quantity of
another body; but it was not until 1843, that
clear and unquestionable experimental proof was
given of the fact that there is a definite relation
between mechanical work and heat ; that so much
work always gives rise, under the same conditions,
to so much heat, and so much heat to so much
86 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
mechanical work. Thus originated the mechanical
theory of heat, which became the starting point of
the modern doctrine of the conservation of energy.
Molar motion had appeared to be destroyed by
friction. It was proved that no destruction took
place, but that an exact equivalent of the energy
of the lost molar motion appears as that of the
molecular motion, or motion of the smallest par
ticles of a body, which constitutes heat. The loss
of the masses is the gain of their particles.
Before 1843, however, the doctrine of the con
servation of energy had been approached. Bacon s
chief contribution to positive science is the happy
guess (for the context shows that it was little
more) that heat may be a mode of motion ; Des
cartes affirmed the quantity of motion in- the
world to be constant ; Newton nearly gave expres
sion to the complete theorem ; while Rumford s and
Davy s experiments suggested, though they did
not prove, the equivalency of mechanical and
thermal energy. Again, the discovery of voltaic
electricity, and the marvellous development of
knowledge, in that field, effected by such men as
Davy, Faraday, Oersted, Ampere, and Melloni,
had brought to light a number of facts which
tended to show that the so-called " forces " at work
in light, heat, electricity, and magnetism, in
chemical and in mechanical operations, were in
timately, and, in various cases, quantitatively,
related. It was demonstrated that any one could
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 87
be obtained at the expense of any other ; and ap
paratus was devised which exhibited the evolution of
all these kinds of action from one source of energy.
Hence the idea of the " correlation of forces " which
was the immediate forerunner of the doctrine of
the conservation of energy.
It is a remarkable evidence of the greatness of
the progress in this direction which has been
effected in our time, that even the second edition
of the " History of the Inductive Sciences," which
was published in 1846, contains no allusion either
to the general view of the " Correlation of Forces "
published in England in 1842, or to the publica
tion in 1843 of the first of the series of experi
ments by which the mechanical equivalent of heat
was correctly ascertained. 1 Such a failure on the
part of a contemporary, of great acquirements
and remarkable intellectual powers, to read the
signs of the times, is a lesson and a warning
worthy of being deeply pondered by any one who
1 This is the more curious, as Ampere s hypothesis that vibra
tions of molecules, causing and caused by vibrations of the
ether, constitute heat, is discussed. See vol. ii. p. 587, 2nd ed.
In the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 2nd ed. 1847, p. 239,
Whewell remarks, d propos of Bacon s definition of heat, " that
it is an expansive, restrained motion, modified in certain, ways,
and exerted in the smaller particles of the body ; " that although
the exact nature of heat is still an obscure and controverted
matter, the science of heat now consists of many important
truths ; and that to none of these truths is there any approxi
mation in Bacon s essay." In point of fact, Bacon s statement,
however much open to criticism, does contain a distinct approxi
mation to the most important of all the truths respecting heat
which had been discovered when Whewell wrote.
88 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
attempts to prognosticate the course of scientific
progress.
I have pointed out that the growth of clear and
definite views respecting the constitution of
matter has led to the conclusion that, so far as
natural agencies are concerned, it is ingenerable
and indestructible. In so far as matter may be
conceived to exist in a purely passive state, it is,
imaginably, older than motion. But, as it must
be assumed to be susceptible of motion, a particle
of bare matter at rest must be endowed with the
potentiality of motion. Such a particle, however,
by the supposition, can have no energy, for there
is no cause why it should move. Suppose now
that it receives an impulse, it will begin to move
with a velocity inversely proportional to its mass,
on the one hand, and directly proportional to the
strength of the impulse, on the other, and will
possess kinetic energy, in virtue of which it will
not only continue to move for ever if unimpeded,
but if it impinges on another such particle, it will
impart more or less of its motion to the latter.
Let it be conceived that the particle acquires a
tendency to move, and that nevertheless it does
not move. It is then in a condition totally different
from that in which it was at first. A cause com
petent to produce motion is operating upon it, but,
for some reason or other, is unable to give rise to
motion. If the obstacle is removed, the energy
which was there, but could not manifest itself, at
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 89
once gives rise to motion. While the restraint
lasts, the energy of the particle is merely poten
tial; and the case supposed illustrates what is
meant by potential energy. In this contrast of the
potential with the actual, modern physics is turn
ing to account the most familiar of Aristotelian
distinctions that between Sum/u? and evepyeca.
That kinetic energy appears to be imparted by
impact is a fact of daily and hourly experience :
we see bodies set in motion by bodies, already in
motion, which seem to come in contact with them.
It is a truth which could have been learned by
nothing but experience, and which cannot be ex
plained, but must be taken as an ultimate fact
about which, explicable or inexplicable, there can
be no doubt. Strictly speaking, we have no direct
apprehension of any other cause of motion. But
experience furnishes innumerable examples of the
production of kinetic energy in a body previously
at rest, when no impact is discernible as the cause
of that energy. In all such cases, the presence of
a second body is a necessary condition ; and the
amount of kinetic energy, which its presence
enables the first to gain, is strictly dependent on
the relative positions of the two. Hence the
phrase energy of position, which is frequently used
as equivalent to potential energy. If a stone is
picked up and held, say, six feet above the ground,
it has potential energy, because, if let go, it will
immediately begin to move towards the earth ;
90 THE PROGKESS OF SCIENCE n
and this energy may be said to be energy of position,
because it depends upon the relative position of
the earth and the stone. The stone is solicited to
move but cannot, so long as the muscular strength
of the holder prevents the solicitation from taking
effect. The stone, therefore, has potential energy,
which becomes kinetic if it is let go, and the
amount of that kinetic energy which will be
developed before it strikes the earth depends on
its position on the fact that it is, say, six feet off
the earth, neither more nor less. Moreover, it can
be proved that the raiser of the stone had to exert
as much energy in order to place it in its position,
as it will develop in falling. Hence the energy
which was exerted, and apparently exhausted, in
raising the stone, is potentially in the stone, in its
raised position, and will manifest itself when the
stone is set free. Thus the energy, withdrawn
from the general stock to raise the stone, is re
turned when it falls, and there is no change in the
total amount. Energy, as a whole, is conserved.
Taking this as a very broad and general state
ment of the essential facts of the case, the raising
of the stone is intelligible enough, as a case of
the communication of motion from one body to
another. But the potential energy of the raised
stone is not so easily intelligible. To all appear
ance, there is nothing either pushing or pulling it
towards the earth, or the earth towards it ; and
yet it is quite certain that the stone tends to move
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 91
towards the earth and the earth towards the stone,
in the way defined by the law of gravitation.
In the currently accepted language of science,
the cause of motion, in all such cases as this, when
bodies tend to move towards or away from one
another, without any discernible impact of other
bodies, is termed a " force," which is called " at
tractive " in the one case, and " repulsive " in the
other. And such attractive or repulsive forces
are often spoken of as if they were real things,
capable of exerting a pull, or a push, upon the
particles of matter concerned. Thus the potential
energy of the stone is commonly said to be due to
the " force " of gravity which is continually
operating upon it.
Another illustration may make the case plainer.
The bob of a pendulum swings first to one side
and then to the other of the centre of the arc
which it describes. Suppose it to have just
reached the summit of its right-hand half-swing.
It is said that the "attractive forces" of the
bob for the earth, and of the earth for the bob, set
the former in motion ; and as these " forces " are
continually in operation, they confer an accelerated
velocity on the bob ; until, when it reaches the
centre of its swing, it is, so to speak, fully charged
with kinetic energy. If, at this moment, the
whole material universe, except the bob, were
abolished, it would move for ever in the direction
of a tangent to the middle of the arc described.
92 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
As a matter of fact, it is compelled to travel through
its left-hand half-swing, and thus virtually to go
up hill. Consequently, the " attractive forces " of
the bob and the earth are now acting against it,
and constitute a resistance which the charge of
kinetic energy has to overcome. But, as this
charge represents the operation of the attractive
forces during the passage of the bob through the
right-hand half-swing down to the centre of the
arc, so it must needs be used up by the passage of
the bob upwards from the centre of the arc to
the summit of the left-hand half-swing. Hence,
at this point, the bob comes to a momentary rest.
The last fraction of kinetic energy is just neutral
ised by the action of the attractive forces, and
the bob has only potential energy equal to that
with which it started. So that the sum of the
phenomena may be stated thus : At the summit
of either half-arc of its swing, the bob has a
certain amount of potential energy ; as it descends
it gradually exchanges this for kinetic energy,
until at the centre it possesses an equivalent
amount of kinetic energy ; from this point onwards,
it gradually loses kinetic energy as it ascends
until, at the summit of the other half-arc, it has
acquired an exactly similar amount of potential
energy. Thus, on the whole transaction, nothing
is either lost or gained ; the quantity of energy is
always the same, but it passes from one form into
the other.
IT THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 93
To all appearance, the phenomena exhibited by
the pendulum are not to be accounted for by
impact : in fact, it is usually assumed that corre
sponding phenomena would take place if the earth
and the pendulum were situated in an absolute
vacuum, and at any conceivable distance from
one another. If this be so, it follows that there
must be two totally different kinds of causes of
motion : the one impact a vera causa, of which,
to all appearance, we have constant experience ,*
the other, attractive or repulsive " force " a
metaphysical entity which is physically incon
ceivable. Newton expressly repudiated the notion
of the existence of attractive forces, in the sense
in which that term is ordinarily understood ; and
he refused to put forward any hypothesis as to
the physical cause of the so-called "attraction
of gravitation." As a general rule, his successors
have been content to accept the doctrine of
attractive and repulsive forces, without troubling
themselves about the philosophical difficulties
which it involves. But this has not always been
the case ; and the attempt of Le Sage, in the last
century, to show that the phenomena of attrac
tion and repulsion are susceptible of explanation
by his hypothesis of bombardment by ultra
mundane particles, whether tenable or not, has
the great merit of being an attempt to get rid of
the dual conception of the causes of motion which
has hitherto prevailed. On this hypothesis, the
94 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
hammering of the ultra-mundane corpuscles on
the bob confers its kinetic energy, on the one
hand, and takes it away on the other ; and the
state of potential energy means the condition
of the bob during the instant at which the
energy, conferred by the hammering during the
one half-arc, has just been exhausted by the
hammering during the other half-arc. It seems
safe to look forward to the time when the concep
tion of attractive and repulsive forces, having
served its purpose as a useful piece of scientific
scaffolding, will be replaced by the deduction of
the phenomena known as attraction and repulsion,
from the general laws of motion.
The doctrine of the conservation of energy
which I have endeavoured to illustrate is thus
defined by the late Clerk Maxwell :
"The total energy of any body or system of
bodies is a quantity which can neither be in
creased nor diminished by any mutual action of
such bodies, though it may be transformed into
any one of the forms of which energy is suscep
tible." It follows that energy, like matter, is
indestructible and ingenerable in nature. The
phenomenal world, so far as it is material, ex
presses the evolution and involution of energy,
its passage from the kinetic to the potential
condition and back again. Wherever motion of
matter takes place, that motion is effected at
the expense of part of the total store of energy.
n
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 95
Hence, as the phenomena exhibited by living
beings, in so far as they are material, are all molar
or molecular motions, these are included under
the general law. A living body is a machine by
which energy is transformed in the same sense as
a steam-engine is so, and all its movements, molar
and molecular, are to be accounted for by the
energy which is supplied to it. The phenomena
of consciousness which arise, along with certain
transformations of energy, cannot be interpolated
in the series of these transformations, inasmuch as
they are not motions to which the doctrine of the
conservation of energy applies. And, for the same
reason, they do not necessitate the using up of
energy ; a sensation has no mass and cannot be
conceived to be susceptible of movement. That a
particular molecular motion does give rise to a
state of consciousness is experimentally certain ;
but the how and why of the process are just as
inexplicable as in the case of the communication
of kinetic energy by impact.
When dealing with the doctrine of the ultimate
constitution of matter, we found a certain resem
blance between the oldest speculations and the
newest doctrines of physical philosophers. But
there is no such resemblance between the ancient
and modern views of motion and its causes, except
in so far as the conception of attractive and repul
sive forces may be regarded as the modified
descendant of the Aristotelian conception of forms.
96 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
II
In fact, it is hardly too much to say that the
essential and fundamental difference between
ancient and modern physical science lies in the
ascertainment of the true laws of statics and
dynamics in the course of the last three centuries ;
and in the invention of mathematical methods of
dealing with all the consequences of these laws.
The ultimate aim of modern physical science is
the deduction of the phenomena exhibited by
material bodies from physico-mathematical first
principles. Whether the human intellect is
strong enough to attain the goal set before it
may be a question, but thither will it surely
strive.
The third great scientific event of our time, the
rehabilitation of the doctrine of evolution, is part
of the same tendency of increasing knowledge to
unify itself, which has led to the doctrine of the
conservation of energy. And this tendency, again
is mainly a product of the increasing strength
conferred by physical investigation on the belief
in the universal validity of that orderly relation
of facts, which we express by the so-called " Laws
of Nature."
The growth of a plant from its seed, of an
animal from its egg, the apparent origin of in
numerable living things from mud, or from the
putrefying remains of former organisms, had
furnished the earlier scientific thinkers with
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 97
abundant analogies suggestive of the conception
of a corresponding method of cosmic evolution
from a formless "chaos" to an ordered world
which might either continue for ever or undergo
dissolution into its elements before starting on
a new course of evolution. It is therefore no
wonder that, from the days of the Ionian
school onwards, the view that the universe was
the result of such a process should have maintained
itself as a leading dogma of philosophy. The
emanistic theories which played so great a part in
Neoplatonic philosophy and in Gnostic theology
are forms of evolution. In the seventeenth century,
Descartes propounded a scheme of evolution, as an
hypothesis of what might have been the mode of
origin of the world, while professing to accept the
ecclesiastical scheme of creation, as an account of
that which actually was its manner of coming
into existence. In the eighteenth century, Kant
put forth a remarkable speculation as to the
origin of the solar system, closely similar to that
subsequently adopted by Laplace and destined to
become famous under the title of the "nebular
hypothesis."
The careful observations and the acute reason
ings of the Italian geologists of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries ; the speculations of
Leibnitz in the " Protogsea " and of Buffon in his
" Theorie de la Terre ; " the sober and profound
reasonings of Hutton, in the latter part of the
VOL. I. H
98 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
eighteenth century ; all these tended to show that
the fabric of the earth itself implied the continu
ation of processes of natural causation for a period
of time as great, in relation to human history, as
the distances of the heavenly bodies from us are,
in relation to terrestrial standards of measure
ment. The abyss of time began to loom as large
as the abyss of space. And this revelation to
sight and touch, of a link here and a link there of
a practically infinite chain of natural causes and
effects, prepared the way, as perhaps nothing else
has done, for the modern form of the ancient
theory of evolution.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, De
Maillet made the first serious attempt to apply the
doctrine to the living world. In the latter part of
it, Erasmus Darwin, Goethe, Treviranus, and La
marck took up the work more vigorously and with
better qualifications. The question of special
creation, or evolution, lay at the bottom of the
fierce disputes which broke out in the French
Academy between Cuvier and St.-Hilaire ; and,
for a time, the supporters of biological evolution
were silenced, if not answered, by the alliance of
the greatest naturalist of the age with their eccle
siastical opponents. Catastrophism, a short-sighted
teleology, and a still more short-sighted othodoxy,
joined forces to crush evolution.
Lyell and Poulett Scrope,inthis country, resumed
the work of the Italians and of Hutton ; and the
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 99
former, aided by a marvellous power of clear expo
sition, placed upon an irrefragable basis the truth
that natural causes are competent to account for
all events, which can be proved to have occurred,
in the course of the secular changes which have
taken place during the deposition of the stratified
rocks. The publication of " The Principles of Geo
logy," in 1830, constituted an epoch in geological
science. But it also constituted an epoch in the
modern history of the doctrine of evolution, by
raising in the mind of every intelligent reader this
question : If natural causation is competent to ac
count for the not-living part of our globe, why
should it not account for the living part ?
By keeping this question before the public for
some thirty years, Lyell, though the keenest and
most formidable of the opponents of the transmu
tation theory,. as it was formulated by Lamarck,
was of the greatest possible service in facilitating
the reception of the sounder doctrines of a later
day. And, in like fashion, another vehement op
ponent of the transmutation of species, the elder
Agassiz, was doomed to help the cause he hated.
Agassiz not only maintained the fact of the pro
gressive advance in organisation of the inhabitants
of the earth at each successive geological epoch,
but he insisted upon the analogy of the steps of
this progression with those by which the embryo
advances to the adult condition, among the highest
forms of each group. In fact, in endeavouring to
H 2
100 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
support these views he went a good way beyond
the limits of any cautious interpretation of the
facts then known.
Although little acquainted with biological science,
Whewell seems to have taken particular pains
with that part of his work which deals with the
history of geological and biological speculation ; and
several chapters of his seventeenth and eighteenth
books, which comprise the history of physiology,
of comparative anatomy and of the palsetiological
sciences, vividly reproduce the controversies of
the early days of the Victorian epoch. But here,
as in the case of the doctrine of the conservation
of energy, the historian of the inductive sciences
has no prophetic insight ; not even a suspicion of
that which the near future was to bring forth.
And those who still repeat the once favourite ob
jection that Darwin s "Origin of Species" is nothing
but a new version of the " Philosophic zoologique "
will find that, so late as 1844, Whewell had not
the slightest suspicion of Darwin s main theorem,
even as a logical possibility. In fact, the publication
of that theorem by Darwin and Wallace, in 1859,
took all the biological world by surprise. Neither
those who were inclined towards the " progressive
transmutation " or " development " doctrine, as
it was then called, nor those who were opposed
to it, had the slightest suspicion that the tendency
to variation in living beings, which all admitted
as a matter of fact ; the selective influence of con-
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 101
ditions, which no one could deny to be a matter
of fact, when his attention was drawn to the evi
dence ; and the occurrence of great geological
changes, which also was matter of fact ; could be
used as the only necessary postulates of a theory
of the evolution of plants and animals which, even
if not, at once, competent to explain all the known
facts of biological science, could not be shown
to be inconsistent with any. So far as biology
is concerned, the publication of the " Origin of
Species," for the first time, put the doctrine of
evolution, in its application to living things, upon
a sound scientific foundation. It became an in
strument of investigation, and in no hands did it
prove more brilliantly profitable than in those of
Darwin himself. His publications on the effects
of domestication in plants and animals, on the in
fluence of cross-fertilisation, on flowers as organs
for effecting such fertilisation, on insectivorous
plants, on the motions of plants, pointed out the
routes of exploration which have since been fol
lowed by hosts of inquirers, to the great profit of
science.
Darwin found the biological world a more than
sufficient field for even his great powers, and left
the cosmical part of the doctrine to others. Not
much has been added to the nebular hypothesis,
since the time of Laplace, except that the attempt
to show (against that hypothesis) that all nebulae
are star clusters, has been met by the spectroscopic
102 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
proof of the gaseous condition of some of them.
Moreover, physicists of the present generation
appear now to accept the secular cooling of the
earth, which is one of the corollaries of that hy
pothesis. In fact, attempts have been made, by
the help of deductions from the data of physics, to
lay down an approximate limit to the number of
millions of years which have elapsed since the
earth was habitable by living beings. If the con
clusions thus reached should stand the test of fur
ther investigation, they will undoubtedly be very
valuable. But, whether true or false, they can
have no influence upon the doctrine of evolution in
its application to living organisms. The occurrence
of successive forms of life upon our globe is an
historical fact, which cannot be disputed ; and the
relation of these successive forms, as stages of evo
lution of the same type, is established in various
cases. The biologist has no means of determining
the time over which the process of evolution has
extended, but accepts the computation of the
physical geologist and the physicist, whatever
that may be.
Evolution, as a philosophical doctrine applicable
to all phenomena, whether physical or mental,
whether manifested by material atoms or by men
in society, has been dealt with systematically in
the "Synthetic Philosophy" of Mr. Herbert
Spencer. Comment on that great undertaking
would not be in place here. I mention it because,
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 103
so far as I know, it is the first attempt to deal, on
scientific principles, with modern scientific facts
and speculations. For the " Philosophic positive "
of M. Comte, with which Mr. Spencer s system of
philosophy is sometimes compared, though it
professes a similar object, is unfortunately per
meated by a thoroughly unscientific spirit, and its
author had no adequate acquaintance with the
physical sciences even of his own time.
The doctrine of evolution, so far as the present
physical cosmos is concerned, postulates the fixity
of the rules of operation of the causes of motion
in the material universe. If all kinds of matter
are modifications of one kind, and if all modes of
motion are derived from the same energy, the
orderly evolution of physical nature out of one
substratum and one energy implies that the rules
of action of that energy should be fixed and
definite. In the past history of the universe,
back to that point, there can be no room for
chance or disorder. But it is possible to raise
the question whether this universe of simplest
matter and definitely operating energy, which
forms our hypothetical starting point, may not
itself be a product of evolution from a universe of
such matter, in which the manifestations of
energy were not definite in which, for example,
our laws of motion held good for some units and
not for others, or for the same units at one time
104 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
and not at another and which would therefore
be a real epicurean chance -world ?
For myself, I must confess that I find the air of
this region of speculation too rarefied for my con
stitution, and I am disposed to take refuge in
" ignoramus et ignorabimus."
The execution of my further task, the indica
tion of the most important achievements in the
several branches of physical science during the
last fifty years, is embarrassed by the abundance
of the objects of choice ; and by the difficulty
which every one, but a specialist in each depart
ment, must find in drawing a due distinction be
tween discoveries which strike the imagination by
their novelty, or by their practical influence, and
those unobtrusive but pregnant observations and
experiments in which the germs of the great
things of the future really lie. Moreover, my
limits restrict me to little more than a bare
chronicle of the events which I have to notice.
In physics and chemistry, the old boundaries of
which sciences are rapidly becoming effaced, one
can hardly go wrong in ascribing a primary value
to the investigations into the relation between the
solid, liquid, and gaseous states of matter on the
one hand, and degrees of pressure and of heat on
the other. Almost all, even the most refractory,
solids have been vapourised by the intense heat
of the electric arc ; and the most refractory gases
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 105
have been forced to assume the liquid, and even
the solid, forms by the combination of high
pressure with intense cold. It has further been
shown that there is no discontinuity between
these states that a gas passes into the liquid
state through a condition which is neither one
nor the other, and that a liquid body becomes
solid, or a solid liquid, by the intermediation of a
condition in which it is neither truly solid nor
truly liquid.
Theoretical and experimental investigations
have concurred in the establishment of the view
that a gas is a body, the particles of which are in
incessant rectilinear motion at high velocities, col
liding with one another and bounding back when
they strike the walls of the containing vessel ; and,
on this theory, the already ascertained relations of
gaseous bodies to heat and pressure have been
shown to be deducible from mechanical principles.
Immense improvements have been effected in the
means of exhausting a given space of its gaseous
contents ; and experimentation on the phenomena
which attend the electric discharge and the action
of radiant heat, within the extremely rarefied media
thus produced, has yielded a great number of re
markable results, some of which have been made
familiar to the public by the Gieseler tubes and
the radiometer. Already, these investigations have
afforded an unexpected insight into the constitu
tion of matter and its relations with thermal and
10G THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
electric energy, and they open up a vast fiekl for
future inquiry into some of the deepest problems
of physics. Other important steps, in the same
direction, have been effected by investigations into
the absorption of radiant heat proceeding from
different sources by solid, fluid, and gaseous bodies.
And it is a curious example of the interconnection
of the various branches of physical science, that
some of the results thus obtained have proved of
great importance in meteorology.
The existence of numerous dark lines, constant
in their number and position in the various regions
of the solar spectrum, was made out by Fraun-
hofer in the early part of the present century, but
more than forty years elapsed before their causes
were ascertained and their importance recognised.
Spectroscopy, which then took its rise, is probably
that employment of physical knowledge, already
won, as a means of further acquisition, which most
impresses the imagination. For it has suddenly
and immensely enlarged our power of overcoming
the obstacles which almost infinite minuteness on
the one hand, and almost infinite distance on the
other, have hitherto opposed to the recognition of
the presence and the condition of matter. One
eighteen-millionth of a grain of sodium in the flame
of a spirit-lamp may be detected by this instru
ment ; and, at the same time, it gives trustworthy
indications of the material constitution not only of
the sun, but of the farthest of those fixed stars
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THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 107
and nebulae which afford sufficient light to affect
the eye, or the photographic plate, of the inquirer.
The mathematical and experimental elucidation
of the phenomena of electricity, and the study of
the relations of this form of energy with chemical
and thermal action, had made extensive progress
before 1837. But the determination of the in
fluence of magnetism on light, the discovery of dia-
magnetism, of the influence of crystalline structure
on magnetism, and the completion of the mathe
matical theory of electricity, all belong to the
present epoch. To it also appertain the practical
execution and the working out of the results of
the great international system of observations on
terrestrial magnetism, suggested by Humboldt in
1836 ; and the invention of instruments of infinite
delicacy and precision for the quantitative deter
mination of electrical phenomena. The voltaic
battery has received vast improvements ; while
the invention of magneto-electric engines and of
improved means of producing ordinary electricity
has provided sources of electrical energy vastly
superior to any before extant in power, and far
more convenient for use.
It is perhaps this branch of physical science
which may claim the palm for its practical fruits,
no less than for the aid which it has furnished
to the investigation of other parts of the field of
physical science. The idea of the practicability of
establishing a communication between distant
108 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
points, by means of electricity, could hardly fail to
have simmered in the minds of ingenious men
since, well-nigh a century ago, experimental proof
was given that electric disturbances could be pro
pagated through a wire twelve thousand feet long.
Various methods of carrying the suggestion into
practice had been carried out with some degree of
success ; but the system of electric telegraphy,
which, at the present time, brings all parts of the
civilised world within a few minutes of one another,
originated only about the commencement of the
epoch under consideration. In its influence on the
course of human affairs, this invention takes its
place beside that of gunpowder, which tended to
abolish the physical inequalities of fighting men ;
of printing, which tended to destroy the effect of
inequalities in wealth among learning men ; of
steam transport, which has done the like for
travelling men. All these gifts of science are aids
in the process of levelling up; of removing the
ignorant and baneful prejudices of nation against
nation, province against province, and class against
class ; of assuring that social order which is the
foundation of progress, which has redeemed Europe
from barbarism, and against which one is glad to
think that those who, in our time, are employing
themselves in fanning the embers of ancient wrong,
in setting class against class, and in trying to tear
asunder the existing bonds of unity, are under
taking a futile struggle. The telephone is only
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 109
second in practical importance to the electric tele
graph. Invented, as it were, only the other day,
it has already taken its place as an appliance of
daily life. Sixty years ago, the extraction of
metals from their solutions, by the electric current,
was simply a highly interesting scientific fact. At
the present day, the galvano-plastic art is a great
industry ; and, in combination with photography,
promises to be of endless service in the arts.
Electric lighting is another great gift of science to
civilisation, the practical effects of which have not
yet been fully developed, largely on account of its
cost. But those whose memories go back to the
tinder-box period, and recollect the cost of the
first lucifer matches, will not despair of the results
of the application of science and ingenuity to the
cheap production of anything for which there is a
large demand.
The influence of the progress of electrical know
ledge and invention upon that of investigation in
other fields of science is highly remarkable. The
combination of electrical with mechanical con
trivances has produced instruments by which, not
only may extremely small intervals of time be ex
actly measured, but the varying rapidity of move
ments, which take place in such intervals and
appear to the ordinary sense instantaneous, is
recorded. The duration of the winking of an eye
is a proverbial expression for an instantaneous
action ; but, by the help of the revolving cylinder
110 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
and the electrical marking-apparatus, it is possible
to obtain a graphic record of such an action, in
which, if it endures a second, that second shall be
subdivided into a hundred, or a thousand, equal
parts, and the state of the action at each hundredth,
or thousandth, of a second exhibited. In fact,
these instruments may be said to be time-micro
scopes. Such appliances have not only effected a
revolution in physiology, by the power of analysing
the phenomena of muscular and nervous activity
which they have conferred, but they have furnished
new methods of measuring the rate of movement
of projectiles to the artillerist. Again, the micro
phone, which renders the minutest movements
audible, and which enables a listener to hear the
footfall of a fly, has equipped the sense of hearing
with the means of entering almost as deeply into
the penetralia of Nature, as does the sense of
sight.
That light exerts a remarkable influence in
bringing about certain chemical combinations and
decompositions was well known fifty years ago,
and various more or less successful attempts to
produce permanent pictures, by the help of that
knowledge, had already been made. It was not
till 1839, however, that practical success was
obtained ; but the " daguerreotypes " were both
cumbrous and costly, and photography would never
have attained its present important development
had not the progress of invention substituted
n
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 111
paper and glass for the silvered plates then in use.
It is not my affair to dwell upon the practical
application of the photography of the present day,
but it is germane to my purpose to remark that
it has furnished a most valuable accessory to the
methods of recording motions and lapse of time
already in existence. In the hands of the
astronomer and the meteorologist, it has yielded
means of registering terrestrial, solar, planetary,
and stellar phenomena, independent of the sources
of error attendant on ordinary observation ; in the
hands of the physicist, not only does it record
spectroscopic phenomena with unsurpassable ease
and precision, but it has revealed the existence of
rays having powerful chemical energy, or beyond
the visible limits of either end of the spectrum ;
while, to the naturalist, it furnishes the means by
which the forms of many highly complicated
objects may be represented, without that
possibility of error which is inherent in the work
of the draughtsman. In fact, in many cases, the
stern impartiality of photography is an objection
to its employment : it makes no distinction
between the important and the unimportant ; and
hence photographs of dissections, for example, are
rarely so useful as the work of a draughtsman
who is at once accurate and intelligent.
The determination of the existence of a new
planet, Neptune, far beyond the previously known
bounds of the solar system, by mathematical
112 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE
II
deduction from the facts of perturbation ; and the
immediate confirmation of that determination, in
the year 1846, by observers who turned their
telescopes into the part of the heavens indicated
as its place, constitute a remarkable testimony of
nature to the validity of the principles of the
astronomy of our time. In addition, so many new
asteroids have been added to those which were
already known to circulate in the place which
theoretically should be occupied by a planet,
between Mars and Jupiter, that their number now
amounts to between two and three hundred. I
have already alluded to the extension of our
knowledge of the nature of the heavenly bodies by
the employment of spectroscopy. It has not only
thrown wonderful light upon the physical and
chemical constitution of the sun, fixed stars, and
nebulae, and comets, but it holds out a prospect of
obtaining definite evidence as to the nature of our
so-called elementary bodies.
The application of the generalisations of
thermotics to the problem of the duration of the
earth, and of deductions from tidal phenomena to
the determination of the length of the day and of
the time of revolution of the moon, in past epochs
of the history of the universe ; and the demonstra
tion of the competency of the great secular
changes, known under the general name of the
precession of the equinoxes, to cause corresponding
modifications in the climate of the two hemi-
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 113
spheres of our globe, have brought astronomy into
intimate relation with geology. Geology, in fact,
proves that, in the course of the past history of
the earth, the climatic conditions of the same
region have been widely different, and seeks the
explanation of this important truth from the sister
sciences. The facts that, in the middle of the
Tertiary epoch, evergreen trees abounded within
the arctic circle ; and that, in the long subse
quent Quaternary epoch, an arctic climate, with
its accompaniment of gigantic glaciers, obtained
in the northern hemisphere, as far south as
Switzerland and Central France, are as well
established as any truths of science. But, whether
the explanation of these extreme variations in the
mean temperature of a great part of the northern
hemisphere is to be sought in the concomitant
changes in the distribution of land and water
surfaces of which geology affords evidence, or in
astronomical conditions, such as those to which I
have referred, is a question which must await its
answer from the science of the future.
Turning now to the great steps in that vast
progress which the biological sciences have made
since 1837, we are met, on the threshold of our
epoch, with perhaps the greatest of all namely,
the promulgation by Schwann, in 1839, of the
generalisation known as the " cell theory," the
application and extension of which by a host
of subsequent investigators has revolutionised
VOL. I I
114 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
morphology, development, and physiology. Thanks
to the immense series of labours thus inaugurated,
the following fundamental truths have been
established.
All living bodies contain substances of closely
similar physical and chemical composition, which
constitute the physical basis of life, known as
protoplasm. So far as our present knowledge
goes, this takes its origin only from pre-existing
protoplasm.
All complex living bodies consist, at one period
of their existence, of an aggregate of minute
portions of such substance, of similar structure,
called cells, each cell having its own life indepen
dent of the others, though influenced by them.
All the morphological characters of animals and
plants are the results of the mode of multiplication,
growth, and structural metamorphosis of these
cells, considered as morphological units.
All the physiological activities of animals and
plants assimilation, secretion, excretion, motion,
generation are the expression of the activities of
the cells considered as physiological units. Each
individual, among the higher animals and plants,
is a synthesis of millions of subordinate indi
vidualities. Its individuality, therefore, is that
of a " civitas " in the ancient sense, or that of the
Leviathan of Hobbes.
There is no absolute line of demarcation between
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 115
animals and plants. The intimate structure, and
the modes of change, in the cells of the two are
fundamentally the same. Moreover, the higher
forms are evolved from lower, in the course of their
development, by analogous processes of differen
tiation, coalescence, and reduction in both the
vegetable and the animal worlds.
At the present time, the cell theory, in
consequence of recent investigations into the
structure and metamorphosis of the " nucleus," is
undergoing a new development of great signi
ficance, which among other things, foreshadows
the possibility of the establishment of a phy
sical theory of heredity, on a safer foundation
than those which Buffon and Darwin have
devised.
The popular belief in abiogenesis, or the so-
called spontaneous " generation of the lower forms
of life, which was accepted by all the philosophers
of antiquity, held its ground down to the middle
of the seventeenth century. Notwithstanding the
frequent citation of the phrase, wrongfully
attributed to Harvey, " Omne vivum ex ovo," that
great physiologist believed in spontaneous
generation as firmly as Aristotle did. And it was
only in the latter part of the seventeenth century,
that Eedi, by simple and well-devised experiments,
demonstrated that, in a great number of cases of
supposed spontaneous generation, the animals
which made their appearance owed their origin to
I 2
11G THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE it
the ordinary process of reproduction, and thus
shook the ancient doctrine to its foundations. In
the middle of the eighteenth century, it was
revived, in a new form, by Need ham and Buffon ;
but the experiments of Spallanzani enforced the
conclusions of Redi, and compelled the advocates
of the occurrence of spontaneous generation to seek
evidence for their hypothesis only among the
parasites and the lowest and minutest organisms.
It is just fifty years since Schwann and others
proved that, even with respect to them, the
supposed evidence of abiogenesis was untrust
worthy.
During the present epoch, the question, whether
living matter can be produced in any other way
than by the physiological activity of other living
matter, has been discussed afresh with great
vigour ; and the problem has been investigated by
experimental methods of a precision and refine
ment unknown to previous investigators. The
result is that the evidence in favour of abiogenesis
has utterly broken down, in every case which has
been properly tested. So far as the lowest and
minutest organisms are concerned, it has been
proved that they never make their appearance, if
those precautions by which their germs are
certainly excluded are taken. And, in regard to
parasites, every case which seemed to make for
their generation from the substance of the animal,
or plant, which they infest has been proved to
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 117
have a totally different significance. Whether
not-living matter may pass, or ever has, under any
conditions, passed into living matter, without the
agency of pre-existing living matter, necessarily
remains an open question ; all that can be said is
that it does not undergo this metamorphosis under
any known conditions. Those who take a
monistic view of the physical world may fairly
hold abiogenesis as a pious opinion, supported by
analogy and defended by our ignorance. But, as
matters stand, it is equally justifiable to regard
the physical world as a sort of dual monarchy.
The kingdoms of living matter and of not-living
matter are under one system of laws, and there is
a perfect freedom of exchange and transit from
one to the other. But no claim to biological
nationality is valid except birth.
In the department of anatomy and development,
a host of accurate and patient inquirers, aided by
novel methods of preparation, which enable the
anatomist to exhaust the details of visible structure
and to reproduce them with geometrical precision,
have investigated every important group of living
animals and plants, no less than the fossil relics of
former faunae and florae. An enormous addition
has thus been made to our knowledge, especially
of the lower forms of life, and it may be said that
morphology, however inexhaustible in detail, is
complete in its broad features. Classification,
which is merely a convenient summary expres-
118 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
sion of morphological facts, has undergone a
corresponding improvement. The breaks which
formerly separated our groups from one another,
as animals from plants, vertebrates from in
vertebrates, cryptogams from phanerogams, have
either been filled up, or shown to have no
theoretical significance. The question of the
position of man, as an animal, has given rise to
much disputation, with the result of proving that
there is no anatomical or developmental character
by which he is more widely distinguished from the
group of animals most nearly allied to him, than
they are from one another. In fact, in this
particular, the classification of Linnasus has been
proved to be more in accordance with the facts
than those of most of his successors.
The study of man, as a genus and species of the
animal world, conducted with reference to no other
considerations than those which would be admit
ted by the investigator of any other form of
animal life, has given rise to a special branch of
biology, known as Anthropology, which has grown
with great rapidity. Numerous societies devoted to
this portion of science have sprung up, and the
energy of its devotees has produced a copious
literature. The physical characters of the various
races of men have been studied with a minuteness
and accuracy heretofore unknown; and demon
strative evidence of the existence of human con
temporaries of the extinct animals of the latest
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 119
geological epoch has been obtained. Physical
science has thus been brought into the closest
relation with history and with archaeology; and
the striking investigations which, during our
time, have put beyond doubt the vast antiquity
of Babylonian and Egyptian civilisation, are in
perfect harmony with the conclusions of anthro
pology as to the antiquity of the human species.
Classification is a logical process which consists
in putting together those things which are like
and keeping asunder those which are unlike ; and
a morphological classification, of course, takes note
only of morphological likeness and unlikeness.
So long, therefore, as our morphological knowledge
was almost wholly confined to anatomy, the char
acters of groups were solely anatomical ; but as
the phenomena of embryology were explored, the
likeness and unlikeness of individual development
had to be taken into account ; and, at present, the
study of ancestral evolution introduces a new ele
ment of likeness and unlikeness which is not only
eminently deserving of recognition, but must
ultimately predominate over all others. A classi
fication which shall represent the process of
ancestral evolution is, in fact, the end which the
labours of the philosophical taxonomist must keep
in view. But it is an end which cannot be at
tained until the progress of paleontology has
given us far more insight, than we yet possess, in
to the historical facts of the case. Much of the
120 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
speculative " phylogeny," which abounds among
my present contemporaries, reminds me very
forcibly of the speculative morphology, unchecked
by a knowledge of development, which was rife in
my youth. As hypothesis, suggesting inquiry in
this or that direction, it is often extremely useful ;
but, when the product of such speculation is
placed on a level with those generalisations of
morphological truths which are represented by the
definitions of natural groups, it tends to confound
fancy with fact and to create mere confusion. We
are in danger of drifting into a new " Natur-Philo-
sophie " worse than the old, because there is less
excuse for it. Boyle did great service to science by
his " Sceptical Chemist," and I am inclined to think
that, at the present day, a " Sceptical Biologist "
might exert an equally beneficent influence.
Whoso wishes to gain a clear conception of the
progress of physiology, since 1837, will do well to
compare Miiller s " Physiology," which appeared in
1835, and Drapiez s edition of Richard s "Nouveaux
Elements de Botanique," published in 1837, with
any of the present handbooks of animal and vege
table physiology. Miiller s work was a master
piece, unsurpassed since the time of Haller, and
Richard s book enjoyed a great reputation at the
time ; but their successors transport one into a
new world. That which characterises the new
physiology is that it is permeated by, and indeed
based upon, conceptions which, though not wholly
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 121
absent, are but dawning on the minds of the older
writers.
Modern physiology sets forth as its chief ends :
Firstly, the ascertainment of the facts and condi
tions of cell-life in general. Secondly, in compo
site organisms, the analysis of the functions of
organs into those of the cells of which they are
composed. Thirdly, the explication of the pro
cesses by which this local cell-life is directly, or
indirectly, controlled and brought into relation
with the life of the rest of the cells which com
pose the organism. Fourthly, the investigation of
the phenomena of life in general, on the assump
tion that the physical and chemical processes
which take place in the living body are of the
same order as those which take place out of it; and
that whatever energy is exerted in producing such
phenomena is derived from the common stock of
energy in the universe. In the fifth place, modern
physiology investigates the relation between phy
sical and psychical phenomena, on the assumption
that molecular changes in definite portions of
nervous matter stand in the relation of necessary
antecedents to definite mental states and opera
tions. The work which has been done in each of
the directions here indicated is vast, and the ac
cumulation of solid knowledge, which has been
effected, is correspondingly great. For the first
time in the history of science, physiologists are
now in a position to say that they have arrived at
122 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
clear and distinct, though by no means complete,
conceptions of the manner in which the great
functions of assimilation, respiration, secretion,
distribution of nutriment, removal of waste pro
ducts, motion, sensation, and reproduction are
performed ; while the operation of the nervous
system, as a regulative apparatus, which influences
the origination and the transmission of manifesta
tions of activity, either within itself or in other
organs, has been largely elucidated.
I have pointed out, in an earlier part of this
essay, that the history of all branches of
science proves that they must attain a consider
able stage of development before they yield
practical " fruits ; " and this is eminently true
of physiology. It is only within the present epoch,
that physiology and chemistry have reached the
point at which they could offer a scientific foun
dation to agriculture ; and it is only within the
present epoch, that zoology and physiology have
yielded any very great aid to pathology and hy
giene. But, within that time, they have already
rendered highly important services by the explor
ation of the phenomena of parasitism. Not only
have the history of the animal parasites, such as
the tapeworms and the trichina, which infest men
and animals, with deadly results, been cleared up
by means of experimental investigations, and effi
cient modes of prevention deduced from the data
so obtained ; but the terrible agency of the para-
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 123
sitic fungi and of the infinitesimally minute
microbes, which work far greater havoc among
plants and animals, has been brought to light.
The " particulate " or " germ " theory of disease,
as it is called, long since suggested, has obtained a
firm foundation, in so far as it has been proved
to be true in respect of sundry epidemic disorders.
Moreover, it has theoretically justified prophy
lactic measures, such as vaccination, which formerly
rested on a merely empirical basis ; and it has
been extended to other diseases with excellent
results. Further, just as the discovery of the
cause of scabies proved the absurdity of many of
the old prescriptions for the prevention and treat
ment of that disease ; so the discovery of the cause
of splenic fever, and other such maladies, has given
a new direction to prophylactic and curative
measures against the worst scourges of humanity.
Unless the fanaticism of philozoic sentiment over
powers the voice of philanthropy, and the love
of dogs and cats supersedes that of one s neigh
bour, the progress of experimental physiology and
pathology will, indubitably, in course of time,
place medicine and hygiene upon a rational basis.
Two centuries ago England was devastated by
the plague ; cleanliness and common sense were
enough to free us from its ravages. One century
since, small-pox was almost as great a scourge ;
science, though working empirically, and almost
in the dark, has reduced that evil to relative in-
124 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
significance. At the present time, science, work
ing in the light of clear knowledge, has attacked
splenic fever and has beaten it; it is attacking
hydrophobia with no mean promise of success ;
sooner or later it will deal, in the same way, with
diphtheria, typhoid and scarlet fever. To one
who has seen half a street swept clear of its
children, or has lost his own by these horrible pes
tilences, passing one s offspring through the fire to
Moloch seems humanity, compared with the pro
posal to deprive them of half their chances of
health and life because of the discomfort to dogs
and cats, rabbits and frogs, which may be involved
in the search for means of guarding them.
An immense extension has been effected in our
knowledge of the distribution of plants and
animals ; and the elucidation of the causes which
have brought about that distribution has been
greatly advanced. The establishment of meteor
ological observations by all civilised nations, has
furnished a solid foundation to climatology ;
while a growing sense of the importance of the
influence of the " struggle for existence " affords
a wholesome check to the tendency to overrate
the influence of climate on distribution. Ex
peditions, such as that of the " Challenger,"
equipped, not for geographical exploration and
discovery, but for the purpose of throwing light
on problems of physical and biological science,
have been sent out by our own and other Govern-
n THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 125
ments, and have obtained stores of information
of the greatest value. For the first time, we
are in possession of something like precise know
ledge of the physical features of the deep seas,
and of the living population of the floor of the
ocean. The careful and exhaustive study of the
phenomena presented by the accumulations of
snow and ice, in polar and mountainous regions,
which has taken place in our time, has not only
revealed to the geologist an agent of denudation
and transport, which has slowly and quietly pro
duced effects, formerly confidently referred to
diluvial catastrophes, but it has suggested new
methods of accounting for various puzzling facts
of distribution.
Palaeontology, which treats of the extinct forms
of life and their succession and distribution upon
our globe, a branch of science which could hardly
be said to exist a century ago, has undergone a
wonderful development in our epoch. In some
groups of animals and plants, the extinct repre
sentatives, already known, are more numerous
and important than the living. There can be no
doubt that the existing Fauna and Flora is but
the last term of a long series of equally numerous
contemporary species, which have succeeded one
another, by the slow and gradual substitution of
species for species, in the vast interval of time
which has elapsed between the deposition of the
earliest fossiliferous strata and the present day.
12G THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE n
There is no reasonable ground for believing that
the oldest remains yet obtained carry us even
near the beginnings of life. The impressive warn
ings of Lyell against hasty speculations, based upon
negative evidence, have been fully justified ; time
after time, highly organised types have been dis
covered in formations of an age in which the ex
istence of such forms of life had been confidently
declared to be impossible. The western territories
of the United States alone have yielded a world
of extinct animal forms, undreamed of fifty years
ago. And, wherever sufficiently numerous series
of the remains of any given group, which has en
dured for a long space of time, are carefully
examined, their morphological relations are never
in discordance with the requirements of the
doctrine of evolution, and often afford convincing
evidence of it. At the same time it has been
shown that certain forms persist with very little
change, from the oldest to the newest fossiliferous
formations ; and thus show that progressive de
velopment is a contingent, and not a necessary,
result of the nature of living matter.
Geology is, as it were, the biology of our planet
as a whole. In so far as it comprises the surface
configuration and the inner structure of the earth,
it answers to morphology ; in so far as it studies
changes of condition and their causes, it corre
sponds with physiology ; in so far as it deals with
the causes which have effected the progress of the
II
THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 127
earth from its earliest to its present state, it
forms part of the general doctrine of evolution.
An interesting contrast between the geology of
the present day and that of half a century ago, is
presented by the complete emancipation of the
modern geologist from the controlling and per
verting influence of theology, all-powerful at the
earlier date. As the geologist of my young days
wrote, he had one eye upon fact, and the other on
Genesis ; at present, he wisely keeps both eyes on
fact, and ignores the pentateuchal mythology
altogether. The publication of the " Principles of
Geology " brought upon its illustrious author a
period of social ostracism ; the instruction given
to our children is based upon those principles.
Whewell had the courage to attack Lyell s funda
mental assumption (which surely is a dictate of
common sense) that we ought to exhaust known
causes before seeking for the explanation of geo
logical phenomena in causes of which we have no
experience. But geology has advanced to its
present state by working from Lyell s 1 axiom ;
and, to this day, the record of the stratified rocks
affords no proof that the intensity or the rapidity
of action of the causes of change has ever varied
between wider limits than those between which
1 Perhaps I ought rather to say Buffon s axiom. For that
great naturalist and writer embodied the principles of sound
geology in a pithy phrase of the TMorie de la Terre : " Pour
juger de ce qui est arrive, et meme de ce qui arrivera, nous
n avons qu a examiner ce qui arrive."
128 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE ir
the operations of Nature have taken place in the
youngest geological epochs.
An incalculable benefit has accrued to geo
logical science from the accurate and detailed
surveys, which have now been executed by skilled
geologists employed by the Governments of all
parts of the civilised world. In geology, the
study of large maps is as important as it is said to
be in politics ; and sections, on a true scale, are
even more important, in so far as they are essen
tial to the apprehension of the extraordinary
insignificance of geological perturbations in rela
tion to the whole mass of our planet. It should
never be forgotten that what we call "catas
trophes," are, in relation to the earth, changes,
the equivalents of which would be well represent
ed by the development of a few pimples, or the
scratch of a pin, on a man s head. Vast regions of
the earth s surface remain geologically unknown ;
but the area already fairly explored is many times
greater than it was in 1837 ; and, in many parts
of Europe and the United States, the structure of
the superficial crust of the earth has been inves
tigated with great minuteness.
The parallel between Biology and Geology, which
I have drawn, is further illustrated by the modern
growth of that branch of the science known as
Petrology, which answers to Histology, and has
made the microscope as essential an instrument
to the geological as to the biological investigator.
II THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE 129
The evidence of the importance of causes now
in operation has been wonderfully enlarged by
the study of glacial phenomena; by that of earth
quakes and volcanoes ; and by that of the efficacy
of heat and cold, wind, rain, and rivers as agents
of denudation and transport. On the other hand,
the exploration of coral reefs and of the deposits
now taking place at the bottom of the great oceans,
has proved that, in animal and plant life, we have
agents of reconstruction of a potency hitherto
unsuspected.
There is no study better fitted than that of
geology to impress upon men of general culture
that conviction of the unbroken sequence of the
order of natural phenomena, throughout the
duration of the universe, which is the great, and
perhaps the most important, effect of the increase
of natural knowledge.
[I desire to express my obligations to Messrs. Smith, Elder
and Co. for their courteous permission to reprint this essay from
" The Reign of Queen Victoria."]
VOL. I.
Ill
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 1
[1868]
IN order to make the title of this discourse
generally intelligible, I have translated the term
" Protoplasm," which is the scientific name of the
substance of which I am about to speak, by the
words " the physical basis of life." I suppose that,
to many, the idea that there is such a thing as a
physical basis, or matter, of life may be novel
1 The substance of this paper was contained in a discourse
which was delivered in Edinburgh on the evening of Sunday,
the 8th of November, 1868 being the first of a series of Sun
day evening addresses upon non-theological topics, instituted by
the Rev. J. Cranbrook. Some phrases, which could possess only
a transitory and local interest have been omitted ; instead of
the newspaper report of the Archbishop of York s address, his
Grace s subsequently published pamphlet On the Limits of
Philosophical Inquiry is quoted ; and I have, here and there,
endeavoured to express my meaning more fully and clearly than
I seem to have done in speaking if I may judge by sundry
criticisms upon what I am supposed to have said, which have
appeared. But in substance, and, so far as my recollection
serves, in form, what is here written corresponds with what was
there said.
Hi ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 131
so widely spread is the conception of life as a
something which works through matter, but is
independent of it ; and even those who are aware
that matter and life are inseparably connected,
may not be prepared for the conclusion plainly
suggested by the phrase, "the physical basis or
matter of life," that there is some one kind of
matter which is common to all living beings, and
that their endless diversities are bound together
by a physical, as well as an ideal, unity. In fact,
when first apprehended, such a doctrine as this
appears almost shocking to common sense.
What, truly, can seem to be more obviously
different from one another, in faculty, in form, and
in substance, than the various kinds of living
beings? What community of faculty can there
be between the brightly-coloured lichen, which so
nearly resembles a mere mineral incrustation of
the bare rock on which it grows, and the painter,
to whom it is instinct with beauty, or the botanist,
whom it feeds with knowledge ?
Again, think of the microscopic fungus a mere
infinitesimal ovoid particle, which finds space arid
duration enough to multiply into countless millions
in the body of a living fly ; and then of the wealth
of foliage, the luxuriance of flower and fruit,
which lies between this bald sketch of a plant and
the giant pine of California, towering to the
dimensions of a cathedral spire, or the Indian fig,
which covers acres with its profound shadow, and
K 2
132 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
III
endures while nations and empires come and go
around its vast circumference. Or, turning to the
other half of the world of life, picture to yourselves
the great Finner whale, hugest of beasts that live,
or have lived, disporting his eighty or ninety feet
of bone, muscle, and blubber, with easy roll,
among waves in which the stoutest ship that ever
left dockyard would flounder hopelessly; and
contrast him with the invisible animalcules
mere gelatinous specks, multitudes of which could,
in fact, dance upon the point of a needle with the
same ease as the angels of the Schoolmen could,
in imagination. With these images before your
minds, you may well ask, what community of
form, or structure, is there between the animalcule
and the whale ; or between the fungus and the
fig-tree ? And, & fortiori, between all four ?
Finally, if we regard substance, or material
composition, what hidden bond can connect the
flower which a girl wears in her hair and the
blood which courses through her youthful veins ;
or, what is there in common between the dense
and resisting mass of the oak, or the strong fabric
of the tortoise, and those broad disks of glassy
jelly which may be seen pulsating through the
waters of a calm sea, but which drain away to
mere films in the hand which raises them out of
their element ?
Such objections as these must, I think, arise in
the mind of every one who ponders, for the first
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 133
time, upon the conception of a single physical
basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital
existence ; but I propose to demonstrate to you
that, notwithstanding these apparent difficulties,
a threefold unity namely, a unity of power or
faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial
composition does pervade the whole living world.
No very abstruse argumentation is needed, in
the first place to prove that the powers, or
faculties, of all kinds of living matter, diverse as
they may be in degree, are substantially similar in
kind.
Goethe has condensed a survey of all powers of
mankind into the well-known epigram :
" Warum treibt sich das Volk so uml schreit ? Es will sich
ernahren
Kinder zeugen, und die nahren so gut es vermag.
* * *
Weiter bringt es kein Mensch, stell er sich wie er auch
will."
In physiological language this means, that all
the multifarious and complicated activities of man
are comprehensible under three categories. Either
they are immediately directed towards the main
tenance and development of the body, or they
effect transitory changes in the relative positions
of parts of the body, or they tend towards the
continuance of the species. Even those mani
festations of intellect, of feeling, and of will, which
134 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
we rightly name the higher faculties, are not
excluded from this classification, inasmuch as to
every one but the subject of them, they are known
only as transitory changes in the relative positions
of parts of the body. Speech, gesture, and every
other form of human action are, in the long run,
resolvable into muscular contraction, and muscular
contraction is but a transitory change in the
relative positions of the parts of a muscle. But
the scheme which is large enough to embrace the
activities of the highest form of life, covers all
those of the lower creatures. The lowest plant, or
animalcule, feeds, grows, and reproduces its kind.
In addition, all animals manifest those transitory
changes of form which we class under irritability
and contractility ; and, it is more than probable,
that when the vegetable world is thoroughly
explored, we shall find all plants in possession of
the same powers, at one time or other of their
existence.
I am not now alluding to such phenomena, at
once rare and conspicuous, as those exhibited by the
leaflets of the sensitive plants, or the stamens of the
barberry, but to much more widely spread, and at
the same time, more subtle and hidden, manifes
tations of vegetable contractility. You are doubt
less aware that the common nettle owes its stinging
property to the innumerable stiff and needle-like,
though exquisitely delicate, hairs which cover its
surface. Each stinging-needle tapers from a broad
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 135
base to a slender summit, which, though rounded
at the end, is of such microscopic fineness that it
readily penetrates, and breaks off in, the skin.
The whole hair consists of a very delicate outer
case of wood, closely applied to the inner surface
of which is a layer of semifluid matter, full of in
numerable granules of extreme minuteness. This
semi-fluid lining is protoplasm, which thus con
stitutes a kind of bag, full o f a limpid liquid, and
roughly corresponding in form with the interior
of the hair which it fills. When viewed with a
sufficiently high magnifying power, the proto
plasmic layer of the nettle hair is seen to be in a
condition of unceasing activity. Local contrac
tions of the whole thickness of its substance pass
slowly and gradually from point to point, and give
rise to the appearance of progressive waves, just
as the bending of successive stalks of corn by a
breeze produces the apparent billows of a corn
field.
But, in addition to these movements, and inde
pendently of them, the granules are driven, in
relatively rapid streams, through channels in the
protoplasm which seem to have a considerable
amount of persistence. Most commonly, the cur
rents in adjacent parts of the protoplasm take
similar directions; and, thus, there is a general
stream up one side of the hair and down the other.
But this does not prevent the existence of partial
currents which take different routes; and some-
13G ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
times trains of granules may be seen coursing
swiftly in opposite directions within a twenty-
thousandth of an inch of one another ; while,
occasionally, opposite streams come into direct
collision, and, after a longer or shorter struggle,
one predominates. The cause of these currents
seems to lie in contractions of the protoplasm
which bounds the channels in which they flow,
but which are so minute that the best microscopes
show only their effects, and not themselves.
The spectacle afforded by the wonderful energies
prisoned within the compass of the microscopic
hair of a plant, which we commonly regard as a
merely passive organism, is not easily forgotten
by one who has watched its display, continued
hour after hour, without pause or sign of weaken
ing. The possible complexity of many other
organic forms, seemingly as simple as the proto
plasm of the nettle, dawns upon one ; and the
comparison of such a protoplasm to a body with
an internal circulation, which has been put forward
by an eminent physiologist, loses much of its start
ling character. Currents similar to those of the hairs
of the nettle have been observed in a great multi
tude of very different plants, and weighty authori
ties have suggested that they probably occur, in
more or less perfection, in all young vegetable
cells. If such be the case, the wonderful noonday
silence of a tropical forest is, after all, due only to
the dulness of our hearing ; and could our ears
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 137
catch the murmur of these tiny Maelstroms, as
they whirl in the innumerable myriads of living
cells which constitute each tree, we should be
stunned, as with the roar of a great city.
Among the lower plants, it is the rule rather than
the exception, that contractility should be still
more openly manifested at some periods of their
existence. The protoplasm of Algcc and Fungi
becomes, under many circumstances, partially, or
completely, freed from its woody case, and exhibits
movements of its whole mass, or is propelled by
the contractility of one, or more, hair-like prolon
gations of its body, which are called vibratile cilia.
And, so far as the conditions of the manifestation
of the phenomena of contractility have yet been
studied, they are the same for the plant as for the
animal. Heat and electric shocks influence both,
and in the same way, though it may be in different
degrees. It is by no means my intention to sug
gest that there is no difference in faculty between
the lowest plant and the highest, or between
plants and animals. But the difference between
the powers of the lowest plant, or animal, and
those of the highest, is one of degree, not of
kind, and depends, as Milne-Edwards long ago
so well pointed out, upon the extent to which the
principle of the division of labour is carried out
in the living economy. In the lowest organism
all parts are competent to perform all functions,
and one and the same portion of protoplasm may
138 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
III
successfully take on the function of feeding, mov
ing, or reproducing apparatus. In the highest, on
the contrary, a great number of parts combine
to perform each function, each part doing its
allotted share of the work with great accuracy
and efficiency, but being useless for any other
purpose.
On the other hand, notwithstanding all the
fundamental resemblances which exist between
the powers of the protoplasm in plants and in
animals, they present a striking difference (to
which I shall advert more at length presently), in
the fact that plants can manufacture fresh proto
plasm out of mineral compounds, whereas animals
are obliged to procure it ready made, and hence, in
the long run, depend upon plants. Upon what
condition this difference in the powers of the two
great divisions of the world of life depends, nothing
is at present known.
With such qualifications as arises out of the
last-mentioned fact, it may be truly said that the
acts of all living things are fundamentally one.
Is any such unity predicable of their forms ? Let
us seek in easily verified facts for a reply to this
question. If a drop of blood be drawn by pricking
one s finger, and viewed with proper precautions,
and under a sufficiently high microscopic power,
there will be seen, among the innumerable multi
tude of little, circular, discoidal bodies, or cor
puscles, which float in it and give it its colour, a
in ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 139
comparatively small number of colourless cor
puscles, of somewhat larger size and very irregular
shape. If the drop of blood be kept at the
temperature of the body, these colourless cor
puscles will be seen to exhibit a marvellous activity,
changing their forms with great rapidity, drawing
in and thrusting out prolongations of their sub
stance, and creeping about as if they were inde
pendent organisms.
The substance which is thus active is a mass of
protoplasm, and its activity differs in detail, rather
than in principle, from that of the protoplasm of
the nettle. Under sundry circumstances the cor
puscle dies and becomes distended into a round
mass, in the midst of which is seen a smaller
spherical body, which existed, but was more or
less hidden, in the living corpuscle, and is called
its nucleus. Corpuscles of essentially similar
structure are to be found in the skin, in the lining
of the mouth, and scattered through the whole
framework of the body. Nay, more ; in the
earliest condition of the human organism, in that
state in which it has but just become distinguish
able from the egg in which it arises, it is nothing
but an aggregation of such corpuscles, and every
organ of the body was, once, no more than such
an aggregation.
Thus a nucleated mass of protoplasm turns out
to be what may be termed the structural unit of
the human body. As a matter of fact, the body,
140 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE ni
in its earliest state, is a mere multiple of such
units ; and in its perfect condition, it is a multiple
of such units, variously modified.
But does the formula which expresses the
essential structural character of the highest animal
cover all the rest, as the statement of its powers
and faculties covered that of all others ? Very
nearly. Beast and fowl, reptile and fish, mollusk,
worm, and polype, are all composed of structural
units of the same character, namely, masses of
protoplasm with a nucleus. There are sundry
very low animals, each of which, structurally, is a
mere colourless blood-corpuscle, leading an inde
pendent life. But, at the very bottom of the
animal scale, even this simplicity becomes simpli
fied, and all the phenomena of life are manifested
by a particle of protoplasm without a nucleus.
Nor are such organisms insignificant by reason of
their want of complexity. It is a fair question
whether the protoplasm of those simplest forms of
life, which people an immense extent of the bottom
of the sea, would not outweigh that of all the
higher living beings which inhabit the land put
together. And in ancient times, no less than at
the present day, such living beings as these have
been the greatest of rock builders.
What has been said of the animal world is no
less true of plants. Imbedded in the protoplasm
at the broad, or attached, end of the nettle hair,
there lies a spheroidal nucleus. Careful examina-
Ill
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 141
tion further proves that the whole substance of
the nettle is made up of a repetition of such masses
of nucleated protoplasm, each contained in a
wooden case, which is modified in form, some
times into a woody fibre, sometimes into a duct
or spiral vessel, sometimes into a pollen grain, or
an ovule. Traced back to its earliest state, the
nettle arises as the man does, in a particle
of nucleated protoplasm. And in the lowest
plants, as in the lowest animals, a single mass
of such protoplasm may constitute the whole
plant, or the protoplasm may exist without a
nucleus.
Under these circumstances it may well be asked,
how is one mass of non-nucleated protoplasm to
be distinguished from another ? why call one
" plant " and the other " animal " ?
The only reply is that, so far as form is con
cerned, plants and animals are not separable, and
that, in many cases, it is a mere matter of con
vention whether we call a given organism an
animal or a plant. There is a living body called
jflthalium septicum, which appears upon decaying
vegetable substances, and, in one of its forms,
is common upon the surfaces of tan-pits. In this
condition it is, to all intents and purposes, a
fungus, and formerly was always regarded as
such ; but the remarkable investigations of De
Bary have shown that, in another condition, the
is an actively locomotive creature, and
142 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
III
takes in solid matters, upon which, apparently, it
feeds, thus exhibiting the most characteristic
feature of animality. Is this a plant ; or is it an
animal ? Is it both ; or is it neither ? Some
decide in favour of the last supposition, and
establish an intermediate kingdom, a sort of
biological No Man s Land for all these question
able forms. But, as it is admittedly impossible
to draw any distinct boundary line between this
no man s land and the vegetable world on the one
hand, or the animal, on the other, it appears to
me that this proceeding merely doubles the diffi
culty which, before, was single.
Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal
basis of all life. It is the clay of the potter :
which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains
clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature, from
the commonest brick or sun-dried clod.
Thus it becomes clear that all living powers are
cognate, and that all living forms are fundamen
tally of one character. The researches of the
chemist have revealed a no less striking uni
formity of material composition in living matter.
In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical in
vestigation can tell us little or nothing, directly, of
the composition of living matter, inasmuch as such
matter must needs die in the act of analysis, and
upon this very obvious ground, objections, which I
confess seem to me to be somewhat frivolous, have
been raised to the drawing of any conclusions
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 143
whatever respecting the composition of actually
living matter, from that of the dead matter of
life, which alone is accessible to us. But ob
jectors of this class do not seem to reflect that
it is also, in strictness, true that we know nothing
about the composition of any body whatever, as
it is. The statement that a crystal of calc-spar
consists of carbonate of lime, is quite true, if we
only mean that, by appropriate processes, it may be
resolved into carbonic acid and quicklime. If you
pass the same carbonic acid over the very quick
lime thus obtained, you will obtain carbonate of
lime again ; but it will not be calc-spar, nor any
thing like it. Can it, therefore, be said that
chemical analysis teaches nothing about the
chemical composition of calc-spar ? Such a state
ment would be absurd ; but it is hardly more so
than the talk one occasionally hears about the
uselessness of applying the results of chemical
analysis to the living bodies which have yielded
them.
One fact, at any rate, is out of reach of such
refinements, and this is, that all the forms of pro
toplasm which have yet been examined contain
the four elements, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, in very complex union, and that they
behave similarly towards several reagents. To
this complex combination, the nature of which has
never been determined with exactness, the name
of Protein has been applied. And if we use this
144 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
term with such caution as may properly arise out
of our comparative ignorance of the things for
which it stands, it may be truly said, that all
protoplasm is proteinaceous, or, as the white, or
albumen, of an egg is one of the commonest
examples of a nearly pure proteine matter, we
may say that all living matter is more or less
albuminoid.
Perhaps it would not yet be safe to say that all
forms of protoplasm are affected by the direct
action of electric shocks ; and yet the number of
cases in which the contraction of protoplasm is
shown to be affected by this agency increases
every day.
Nor can it be affirmed with perfect confidence,
that all forms of protoplasm are liable to undergo
that peculiar coagulation at a temperature of 40
50 centigrade, which has been called " heat-
stiffening," though Kiihne s beautiful researches
have proved this occurrence to take place in so
many and such diverse living beings, that it is
hardly rash to expect that the law holds good for
all.
Enough has, perhaps, been said to prove the
existence of a general uniformity in the character
of the protoplasm, or physical basis, of life, in
whatever group of living beings it may be studied.
But it will be understood that this general
uniformity by no means excludes any amount of
Ill ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 145
special modifications of the fundamental substance.
The mineral, carbonate of lime, assumes an
immense diversity of characters, though no one
doubts that, under all these Protean changes, it is
one and the same thing.
And now, what is the ultimate fate, and what
the origin, of the matter of life ?
Is it, as some of the older naturalists supposed,
diffused throughout the universe in molecules,
which are indestructible and unchangeable in
themselves ; but, in endless transmigration, unite
in innumerable permutations, into the diversified
forms of life we know ? Or, is the matter of life
composed of ordinary matter, differing from it only
in the manner in which its atoms are aggregated ?
Is it built up of ordinary matter, and again resolved
into ordinary matter when its work is done ?
Modern science does not hesitate a moment
between these alternatives. Physiology writes
over the portals of life
" Debemur morti nos nostraque,"
with a profouiider meaning than the Roman poet
attached to that melancholy line. Under what
ever disguise it takes refuge, whether fungus or
oak, worm or man, the living protoplasm not only
ultimately dies and is resolved into its mineral
and lifeless constituents, but is always dying, and,
strange as the paradox may sound, could not live
unless it died.
VOL. I L
140 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
In the wonderful story of the " Peau de Chagrin,"
the hero becomes possessed of a magical wild ass
skin, which yields him the means of gratifying all
his wishes. But its surface represents the dura
tion of the proprietor s life ; and for every satisfied
desire the skin shrinks in proportion to the
intensity of fruition, until at length life and the
last handbreadth of the peau de chagrin, disappear
with the gratification of a last wish.
Balzac s studies had led him over a wide range
of thought and speculation, and his shadowing
forth of physiological truth in this strange story
may have been intentional. At any rate, the
matter of life is a veritable peau dc chagrin, and
for every vital act it is somewhat the smaller. All
work implies waste, and the work of life results,
directly or indirectly, in the waste of protoplasm.
Every word uttered by a speaker costs him
some physical loss ; and, in the strictest sense, he
burns that others may have light so much
eloquence, so much of his body resolved into car
bonic acid, water, and urea. It is clear that this
process of expenditure cannot go on for ever.
But, happily, the protoplasmic peau de chagrin
differs from Balzac s in its capacity of being
repaired, and brought back to its full size, after
every exertion.
For example, this present lecture, whatever its
intellectual worth to you, has a certain physical
value to me, which is, conceivably, expressible by
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 147
the number of grains of protoplasm and other
bodily substance wasted in maintaining my vital
processes during its delivery. My peau de chagrin
will be distinctly smaller at the end of the dis
course than it was at the beginning. By and by,
I shall probably have recourse to the substance
commonly called mutton, for the purpose of
stretching it back to its original size. Now this
mutton was once the living protoplasm, more or
less modified, of another animal a sheep. As I
shall eat it, it is the same matter altered, not only
by death, but by exposure to sundry artificial
operations in the process of cooking.
But these changes, whatever be their extent,
have not rendered it incompetent to resume its
old functions as matter of life. A singular inward
laboratory, which I possess, will dissolve a certain
portion of the modified protoplasm ; the solution
so formed will pass into my veins ; and the subtle
influences to which it will then be subjected will
convert the dead protoplasm into living protoplasm,
and transubstantiate sheep into man.
Nor is this all. If digestion were a thing to be
trifled with, I might sup upon lobster, and the
matter of life of the crustacean would undergo the
same wonderful metamorphosis into humanity.
And were I to return to my own place by sea,
and undergo shipwreck, the crustacean might, and
probably would, return the compliment, and de
monstrate our common nature by turning my
L 2
148 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
protoplasm into living lobster. Or, if nothing
better were to be had, I might supply my wants
with mere bread, and I should find the protoplasm
of the wheat-plant to be convertible into man,
with no more trouble than that of the sheep,
and with far less, I fancy, than that of the lobster.
Hence it appears to be a matter of no great
moment what animal, or what plant, I lay under
contribution for protoplasm, and the fact speaks
volumes for the general identity of that substance
in all living beings. I share this catholicity of
assimilation with other animals, all of which, so
far as we know, could thrive equally well on the
protoplasm of any of their fellows, or of any plant ;
but here the assimilative powers of the animal
world cease. A solution of smelling-salts in water,
with an infinitesimal proportion of some other
saline matters, contains all the elementary bodies
which enter into the composition of protoplasm ;
but, as I need hardly say, a hogshead of that fluid
would not keep a hungry man from starving, nor
would it save any animal whatever from a like
fate. An animal cannot make protoplasm, but
must take it ready-made from some other animal,
or some plant the animal s highest feat of
constructive chemistry being to convert dead
protoplasm into that living matter of life which
is appropriate to itself.
Therefore, in seeking for the origin of proto
plasm, we must eventually turn to the vegetable
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 149
world. A fluid containing carbonic acid, water,
and nitrogenous salts, which offers such a
Barmecide feast to the animal, is a table richly
spread to multitudes of plants ; and, with a due
supply of only such materials, many a plant will
not only maintain itself in vigour, but grow and
multiply until it has increased a million-fold, or a
million million-fold, the quantity of protoplasm
which it originally possessed ; in this way building
up the matter of life, to an indefinite extent, from
the common matter of the universe.
Thus, the animal can only raise the complex
substance of dead protoplasm to the higher power,
as one may say, of living protoplasm ; while the
plant can raise the less complex substances
carbonic acid, water, and nitrogenous salts to the
same stage of living protoplasm, if not to the same
level. But the plant also has its limitations.
Some of the fungi, for example, appear to need
higher compounds to start with ; and no known
plant can live upon the uncompounded elements
of protoplasm. A plant supplied with pure car
bon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, phosphorus,
sulphur, and the like, would as infallibly die as
the animal in his bath of smelling-salts, though it
would be surrounded by all the constituents of
protoplasm. Nor, indeed, need the process of
simplification of vegetable food be carried so far as
this, in order to arrive at the limit of the plant s
thaumaturgy. Let water, carbonic acid, and all
150 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
the other needful constituents be supplied except
nitrogenous salts, and an ordinary plant will still
be unable to manufacture protoplasm.
Thus the matter of life, so far as we know it
(and we have no right to speculate on any other),
breaks up, in consequence of that continual death
which is the condition of its manifesting vitality,
into carbonic acid, water, and nitrogenous com
pounds, which certainly possess no properties but
those of ordinary matter. And out of these same
forms of ordinary matter, and from none which are
simpler, the vegetable world builds up all the
protoplasm which keeps the animal world a-going.
Plants are the accumulators of the power which
animals distribute and disperse.
But it will be observed, that the existence of
the matter of life depends on the pre-existence of
certain compounds ; namely, carbonic acid, water,
and certain nitrogenous bodies. Withdraw any
one of these three from the world, and all vital
phenomena come to an end. They are as
necessary to the protoplasm of the plant, as the
protoplasm of the plant is to that of the animal.
Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are all
lifeless bodies. Of these, carbon and oxygen unite
in certain proportions and under certain conditions,
to give rise to carbonic acid ; hydrogen and oxygen
produce water ; nitrogen and other elements give
rise to nitrogenous salts. These new compounds,
like the elementary bodies of which they are
Ill ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 151
composed, are lifeless. But when they are brought
together, under certain conditions, they give rise
to the still more complex body, protoplasm, and
this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life.
I see no break in this series of steps in
molecular complication, and I am unable to
understand why the language which is applicable
to any one term of the series may not be used to
any of the others. We think fit to call different
kinds of matter carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and
nitrogen, and to speak of the various powers and
activities of these substances as the properties of
the matter of which they are composed.
When hydrogen and oxygen are mixed in a
certain proportion, and an electric spark is passed
through them, they disappear, and a quantity of
water, equal in weight to the sum of their weights,
appears in their place. There is not the slightest
parity between the passive and active powers of the
water and those of the oxygen and hydrogen which
have given rise to it. At 32 Fahrenheit, and far
below that temperature, oxygen and hydrogen are
elastic gaseous bodies, whose particles tend to rush
away from one another with great force. Water,
at the same temperature, is a strong though
brittle solid, whose particles tend to cohere into
definite geometrical shapes, and sometimes build
up frosty imitations of the most complex forms of
vegetable foliage.
Nevertheless we call these, and many other
152 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
strange phenomena, the properties of the water,,
and we do not hesitate to believe that, in some
way or another, they result from the properties of
the component elements of the water. We do not
assume that a something called " aquosity " entered
into and took possession of the oxidated hydrogen
as soon as it was formed, and then guided the
aqueous particles to their places in the facets of
the crystal, or amongst the leaflets of the hoar
frost. On the contrary, we live in the hope and
in the faith that, by the advance of molecular
physics, we shall by and by be able to see our way
as clearly from the constituents of water to the
properties of water, as we are now able to deduce
the operations of a watch from the form of its parts
and the manner in which they are put together.
Is the case in any way changed when carbonic
acid, water, and nitrogenous salts disappear, and
in their place, under the influence of pre-existing
living protoplasm, an equivalent weight of the
matter of life makes its appearance ?
It is true that there is no sort of parity between
the properties of the components and the properties
of the resultant, but neither was there in the case
of the water. It is also true that what I have
spoken of as the influence of pre-existing living
matter is something quite unintelligible ; but does
anybody quite comprehend the modus operandi of
an electric spark, which traverses a mixture of
oxygen and hydrogen ?
In ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 153
What justification is there, then, for the assump
tion of the existence in the living matter of a
something which has no representative, or cor
relative, in the not living matter which gave rise
to it ? What better philosophical status has
" vitality " than " aquosity " ? And why should
" vitality " hope for a better fate than the other
"itys" which have disappeared since Martinus
Seriblerus accounted for the operation of the meat-
jack by its inherent "meat- roasting quality," and
scorned the " materialism " of those who explained
the turning of the spit by a certain mechanism
worked by the draught of the chimney.
If scientific language is to possess a definite and
constant signification whenever it is employed, it
seems to me that we are logically bound to apply
to the protoplasm, or physical basis of life, the
same conceptions as those which are held to be
legitimate elsewhere. If the phsenomena ex
hibited by water are its properties, so are those
presented by protoplasm, living or dead, its
properties.
If the properties of water may be properly said
to result from the nature and disposition of its
component molecules, I can find no intelligible
ground for refusing to say that the properties of
protoplasm result from the nature and disposition
of its molecules.
But I bid you beware that, in accepting these
conclusions, you are placing your feet on the first
154 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
rung of a ladder which, in most people s estima
tion, is the reverse of Jacob s, and leads to the
antipodes of heaven. It may seem a small thing
to admit that the dull vital actions of a fungus,
or a foraminifer, are the properties of their proto
plasm, and are the direct results of the nature of
the matter of which they are composed. But if,
as I have endeavoured to prove to you, their proto
plasm is essentially identical with, and most
readily converted into, that of any animal, I can
discover no logical halting-place between the
admission that such is the case, and the further
concession that all vital action may, with equal
propriety, be said to be the result of the molecular
forces of the protoplasm which displays it. And
if so, it must be true, in the same sense and to
the same extent, that the thoughts to which I am
now giving utterance, and your thoughts regarding
them, are the expression of molecular changes in
that matter of life which is the source of our other
vital phenomena.
Past experience leads me to be tolerably certain
that, when the propositions I have just placed
before you are accessible to public comment and
criticism, they will be condemned by many zealous
persons, and perhaps by some few of the wise and
thoughtful. I should not wonder if "gross and
brutal materialism" were the mildest phrase
applied to them in certain quarters. And, most
Ill
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 155
undoubtedly, the terms of the propositions are
distinctly materialistic. Nevertheless two things
are certain ; the one, that I hold the statements
to be substantially true; the other, that I, in
dividually, am no materialist, but, on the contrary,
believe materialism to involve grave philosophical
error.
This union of materialistic terminology with the
repudiation of materialistic philosophy I share
with some of the most thoughtful men with whom
I am acquainted. And, when I first undertook to
deliver the present discourse, it appeared to me
to be a fitting opportunity to explain how such a
union is not only consistent with, but necessitated
by, sound logic. I purposed to lead you through the
territory of vital phenomena to the materialistic
slough in which you find yourselves now plunged,
and then to point out to you the sole path by
which, in my judgment, extrication is possible.
An occurrence of which I was unaware until my
arrival here last night renders this line of argu
ment singularly opportune. I found in your papers
the eloquent address "On the Limits of Philo
sophical Inquiry," which a distinguished prelate of
the English Church delivered before the members
of the Philosophical Institution on the previous
day. My argument, also, turns upon this very
point of the limits of philosphical inquiry ; and I
cannot bring out my own views better than by
contrasting them with those so plainly and, in
156 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
the main, fairly stated by the Archbishop of
York.
But I may be permitted to make a preliminary
comment upon an occurrence that greatly as
tonished me. Applying the name of the " New
Philosophy " to that estimate of the limits of
philosophical inquiry which I, in common with
many other men of science, hold to be just, the
Archbishop opens his address by identifying this
" New Philosophy " with the Positive Philosophy
of M. Comte (of whom he speaks as its
" founder ") ; and then proceeds to attack that
philosopher and his doctrines vigorously.
Now, so far as I am concerned, the most
reverend prelate might dialectically hew M.
Comte in pieces, as a modern Agag, and I should
not attempt to stay his hand. In so far as my
study of what specially characterises the Positive
Philosophy has led me, I find therein little or
nothing of any scientific value, and a great deal
which is as thoroughly antagonistic to the very
essence of science as anything in ultramontane
Catholicism. In fact, M. Comte s philosophy, in
practice, might be compendiously described as
Catholicism minus Christianity.
But what has Comtism to do with the " New
Philosophy," as the Archbishop defines it in the
following passage ?
" Let me briefly remind you of the leading principles of this
new philosophy.
Ill
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 157
"All knowledge is experience of facts acquired by the senses.
The traditions of older philosophies have obscured our experi
ence by mixing with it much that the senses cannot observe,
and until these additions are discarded our knowledge is impure.
Thus metaphysics tell us that one fact which we observe is a
cause, and another is the effect of that cause ; but, upon a rigid
analysis, we find that our senses observe nothing of cause or
effect : they observe, first, that one fact succeeds another, and,
after some opportunity, that this fact has never failed to follow
that for cause and effect we should substitute invariable suc
cession. An older philosophy teaches us to define an object by
distinguishing its essential from its accidental qualities : but
experience knows nothing of essential and accidental ; she sees
only that certain marks attach to an object, and, after many
observations, that some of them attach invariably whilst others
may at times be absent As all knowledge is relative, the
notion of anything being necessary must be banished with other
traditions." 1
There is much here that expresses the spirit of
the " New Philosophy," if by that term be meant
the spirit of modern science ; but I cannot but
marvel that the assembled wisdom and learning
of Edinburgh should have uttered no sign of
dissent, when Comte was declared to be the
founder of these doctrines. No one will accuse
Scotchmen of habitually forgetting their great
countrymen ; but it was enough to make David
Hume turn in his grave, that here, almost within
ear-shot of his house, an instructed audience
should have listened, without a murmur, while his
most characteristic doctrines were attributed to a
1 The Limits of Philosophical Inquiry, pp. 4 and 5.
158 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
French writer of fifty years later date, in whose
dreary and verbose pages we miss alike the vigour
of thought and the exquisite clearness of style of
the man whom I make bold to term the most
acute thinker of the eighteenth century even
though that century produced Kant.
But I did not come to Scotland to vindicate the
honour of one of the greatest men she has ever
produced. My business is to point out to you
that the only way of escape out of the " crass
materialism" in which we just now landed, is the
adoption and strict working-out of the very
principles which the Archbishop holds up to
reprobation.
Let us suppose that knowledge is absolute, and
not relative, and therefore, that our conception of
matter represents that which it really is. Let us
suppose, further, that we do know more of cause
and effect than a certain definite order of succession
among facts, and that we have a knowledge of the
necessity of that succession and hence, of neces
sary laws and I, for my part, do not see what
escape there is from utter materialism and neces-
sarianism. For it is obvious that our knowledge
of what we call the material world is, to begin
with, at least as certain and definite as that of the
spiritual world, and that our acquaintance with law
is of as old a date as our knowledge of spontaneity.
Further, I take it to be demonstrable that it is
utterly impossible to prove that anything what-
Ill ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 159
ever may not be the effect of a material and
necessary cause, and that human logic is equally
incompetent to prove that any act is really spon
taneous. A really spontaneous act is one which,
by the assumption, has no cause ; and the attempt
to prove such a negative as this is, on the face of
the matter, absurd. And while it is thus a philo
sophical impossibility to demonstrate that any
given phenomenon is not the effect of a material
cause, any one who is acquainted with the history
of science will admit, that its progress has, in all
ages, meant, and now, more than ever, means, the
extension of the province of what we call matter
and causation, and the concomitant gradual banish
ment from all regions of human thought of what
we call spirit and spontaneity.
I have endeavoured, in the first part of this dis
course, to give you a conception of the direction
towards which modern physiology is tending ; and
I ask you, what is the difference between the con
ception of life as the product of a certain dis
position of material molecules, and the old notion
of an Archeus governing and directing blind
matter within each living body, except this that
here, as elsewhere, matter and law have devoured
spirit and spontaneity ? And as surely as every
future grows out of past and present, so will the
physiology of the future gradually extend the
realm of matter and law until it is co-extensive
with knowledge, with feeling, and with action.
160 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
The consciousness of this great truth weighs
like a nightmare, I believe, upon many of the best
minds of these days. They watch what they con
ceive to be the progress of materialism, in such
fear and powerless anger as a savage feels, when,
during an eclipse, the great shadow creeps over
the face of the sun. The advancing tide of matter
threatens to drown their souls ; the tightening
grasp of law impedes their freedom ; they are
alarmed lest man s moral nature be debased by
the increase of his wisdom.
If the " New Philosophy " be worthy of the
reprobation with which it is visited, I confess
their fears seem to me to be well founded. While,
on the contrary, could David Hume be consulted,
I think he would smile at their perplexities, and
chide them for doing even as the heathen, and
falling down in terror before the hideous idols
their own hands have raised.
For, after all, what do we know of this terrible
" matter," except as a name for the unknown and
hypothetical cause of states of our own conscious
ness ? And what do we know of that " spirit "
over whose threatened extinction by matter a
great lamentation is arising, like that which was
heard at the death of Pan, except that it is also a
name for an unknown and hypothetical cause, or con
dition, of states of consciousness ? In other words,
matter and spirit are but names for the imaginary
substrata of groups of natural phenomena.
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 161
And what is the dire necessity and " iron " law
under which men groan ? Truly, most gratuit
ously invented bugbears. I suppose if there be an
" iron " law, it is that of gravitation ; and if there
be a physical necessity, it is that a stone, un
supported, must fall to the ground. But what is
all we really know, and can know, about the latter
phenomena ? Simply, that, in all human experi
ence, stones have fallen to the ground under
these conditions ; that we have not the smallest
reason for believing that any stone so circum
stanced will not fall to the ground ; and that we
have, on the contrary, every reason to believe that
it will so fall. It is very convenient to indicate
that all the conditions of belief have been fulfilled
in this case, by calling the statement that unsup
ported stones will fall to the ground, " a law of
Nature." But when, as commonly happens, we
change will into must, we introduce an idea of
necessity which most assuredly does not lie in the
observed facts, and has no warranty that I can
discover elsewhere. For my part, I utterly re
pudiate and anathematise the intruder. Fact I
know ; and Law I know ; but what is this Neces
sity, save an empty shadow of my own mind s
throwing ?
But, if it is certain that we can have no know
ledge of the nature of either matter or spirit,
and that the notion of necessity is something
illegitimately thrust into the perfectly legitimate
VOL. I M
162 ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE ill
conception of law, the materialistic position that
there is nothing in the world but matter, force, and
necessity, is as utterly devoid of justification as the
most baseless of theological dogmas. The funda
mental doctrines of materialism, like those of
spiritualism, and most other " isms," lie outside
"the limits of philosophical inquiry," and David
Hume s great service to humanity is his irrefrag
able demonstration of what these limits are. Hume
called himself a sceptic, and therefore others can
not be blamed if they apply the same title to him ;
but that does not alter the fact that the name,
with its existing implications, does him gross in
justice.
If a man asks me what the politics of the in
habitants of the moon are, and I reply that I do
not know ; that neither I, nor any one else, has
any means of knowing ; and that, under these cir
cumstances, I decline to trouble myself about the
subject at all, I do not think he has any right to
call me a sceptic. On the contrary, in replying
thus, I conceive that I am simply honest and
truthful, and show a proper regard for the economy
of time. So Hume s strong and subtle intellect
takes up a great many problems about which we are
naturally curious, and shows us that they are essen
tially questions of lunar politics, in their essence
incapable of being answered, and therefore not
worth the attention of men who have work to do in
the world. And he thus ends one of his essays :
HI ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE
"If we take in hand any volume of Divinity, or school
metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract
reasoning concerning quantity or number ? No. Docs it contain
any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and exist
ence ? No. Commit it then to the flames ; for it can contain
nothing but sophistry and illusion." *
Permit me to enforce this most wise advice.
Why trouble ourselves about matters of which,
however important they may be, we do know
nothing, and can know nothing ? We live in a
world which is full of misery and ignorance, and
the plain duty of each and all of us is to try to
make the little corner he can influence somewhat
less miserable and somewhat less ignorant than it
was before he entered it. To do this effectually
it is necessary to be fully possessed of only two
beliefs : the first, that the order of Nature is
ascertainable by our faculties to an extent which
is practically unlimited ; the second, that our vol
ition 2 counts for something as a condition of the
course of events.
Each of these beliefs can be verified experiment
ally, as often as we like to try. Each, therefore,
stands upon the strongest foundation upon which
any belief can rest, and forms one of our highest
1 Hume s Essay "Of the Academical or Sceptical Philo
sophy," in the Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding.
[Many critics of this passage seem to forget that the subject-
matter of Ethics and ^Esthetics consists of matters of fact and
existence. 1892],
- Or, to speak more accurately, the physical state of which
volition is the expression. [1892].
M 2
164- ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE m
truths. If we find that the ascertainment of the
order of nature is facilitated by using one ter
minology, or one set of symbols, rather than
another, it is our clear duty to use the former ;
and no harm can accrue, so long as we bear in
mind, that we are dealing merely with terms and
symbols.
In itself it is of little moment whether we
express the phenomena of matter in terms of
spirit ; or the phenomena of spirit in terms of
matter : matter may be regarded as a form of
thought, thought may be regarded as a property
of matter each statement has a certain relative
truth. But with a view to the progress of science,
the materialistic terminology is in every way to be
preferred. For it connects thought with the other
phenomena of the universe, and suggests inquiry
into the nature of those physical conditions, or
concomitants of thought, which are more or less
accessible to us, and a knowledge of which may, in
future, help us to exercise the same kind of control
over the world of thought, as we already possess
in respect of the material world ; whereas, the
alternative, or spiritualistic, terminology is utterly
barren, and leads to nothing but obscurity and
confusion of ideas.
Thus there can be little doubt, that the fur
ther science advances, the more extensively and
consistently will all the phaenomena of Nature be
represented by materialistic formula? and symbols.
Ill
ON THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF LIFE 165
But the man of science, who, forgetting the
limits of philosophical inquiry, slides from these
formulae and symbols into what is commonly
understood by materialism, seems to me to place
himself on a level with the mathematician, who
should mistake the xs and y s with which he
works his problems, for real entities and with
this further disadvantage, as compared with the
mathematician, that the blunders of the latter are
of no practical consequence, while the errors of
systematic materialism may paralyse the energies
and destroy the beauty of a life.
[I cannot say I have ever had to complain of
lack of hostile criticism ; but the preceding essay
has come in for more than its fair share of that
commodity. It may be well, therefore, for the
general reader to study, in connection with it, the
first chapter of the standard " Textbook of
Physiology," by Dr. Foster, making fair allowance
for the rapid progress of knowledge during the
last quarter of a century. 1892.]
IV
ON DESCARTES "DISCOURSE TOUCHING
THE METHOD OF USING ONE S
REASON RIGHTLY AND OF SEEKING
SCIENTIFIC TRUTH "
[1870]
IT has been well said that " all the thoughts of
men, from the beginning of the world until now,
are linked together into one great chain ; " but the
conception of the intellectual filiation of mankind
which is expressed in these words may, perhaps,
be more fitly shadowed forth by a different
metaphor. The thoughts of men seem rather to
be comparable to the leaves, flowers, and fruit
upon the innumerable branches of a few great
stems, fed by commingled and hidden roots.
These stems bear the names of the half-a-dozen
men, endowed with intellects of heroic force and
clearness, to whom we are led, at whatever point
of the world of thought the attempt to trace its
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 167
history commences, just as certainly as the follow
ing up the small twigs of a tree to the branchlets
which bear them, and tracing the branchlets to
their supporting branches, brings us, sooner or
later, to the bole.
It seems to me that the thinker who, more than
any other, stands in the relation of such a stem
towards the philosophy and the science of the
modern world is Re ne Descartes. I mean, that if
you lay hold of any characteristic product of
modern ways of thinking, either in the region of
philosophy, or in that of science, you find the spirit
of that thought, if not its form, to have been
present in the mind of the great Frenchman.
There are some men who are counted great
because they represent the actuality of their own
age, and mirror it as it is. Such an one was
Voltaire, of whom it was epigrammatically said,
" he expressed everybody s thoughts better than
anybody." l But there are other men who attain
greatness because they embody the potentiality of
their own day, and magically reflect the future.
They express the thoughts which will be every
body s two or three centuries after them. Such
an one was Descartes.
Born in 1596, nearly three hundred years ago,
of a noble family in Touraine, Rene Descartes
grew up into a sickly and diminutive child, whose
1 I forget who it was said of him : " II a plus que personne
1 esprit que tout le monde a."
168 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
keen wit soon gained him that title of " the
Philosopher," which, in the mouths of his noble
kinsmen, was more than half a reproach. The
best schoolmasters of the day, the Jesuits, edu
cated him as well as a French boy of the
seventeenth century could be educated. And they
must have done their work honestly and well, for,
before his schoolboy days were over, he had
discovered that the most of what he had learned,
except in mathematics, was devoid of solid and
real value.
"Therefore," says he, in that Discourse 1 which I
have taken for my text, "as soon as I was old enough to be
set free from the government of my teachers, I entirely forsook
the study of letters ; and determining to seek no other know
ledge than that which I could discover within myself, or in the
great book of the world, I spent the remainder of my youth in
travelling ; in seeing courts and armies ; in the society of
people of different humours and conditions ; in gathering varied
experience ; in testing myself by the chances of fortune ; and in
always trying to profit by my reflections on what happened.
. . . And I always had an intense desire to learn how to
distinguish truth from falsehood, in order to be clear about my
actions, and to walk surefootedly in this life."
But " learn what is true, in order to do what is
right," is the summing up of the whole duty of
man, for all who are unable to satisfy their mental
hunger with the east wind of authority ; and to
those of us moderns who are in this position, it is
one of Descartes great claims to our reverence as
1 Discours de la Mtthodc pour bien conduire sa Raison et,
chercher la Viritt. dans les Sciences.
IV DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 169
a spiritual ancestor, that, at three-and-twenty, he
saw clearly that this was his duty, and acted up to
his conviction. At two-and-thirty, in fact, finding
all other occupations incompatible with the search
after the knowledge which leads to action, and
being possessed of a modest competence, he with
drew into Holland ; where he spent nine years in
learning and thinking, in such retirement that
only one or two trusted friends knew of his where
abouts.
In 1637 the first-fruits of these long meditations
were given to the world in the famous " Discourse
touching the Method of using Reason rightly and
of seeking Scientific Truth," which, at once an
autobiography and a philosophy, clothes the
deepest thought in language of exquisite harmony,
simplicity, and clearness.
The central propositions of the whole " Dis
course " are these. There is a path that leads to
truth so surely, that any one who will follow it
must needs reach the goal, whether his capacity
be great or small. And there is one guiding rule
by which a man may always find this path, and
keep himself from straying when he has found it.
This golden rule is give unqualified assent to no
propositions but those the truth of which is so
clear and distinct that they cannot be doubted.
The enunciation of this great first command
ment of science consecrated Doubt. It removed
Doubt from the seat of penance among the
170 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
grievous sins to which it had long been condemned,
and enthroned it in that high place among the
primary duties, which is assigned to it by the
scientific conscience of these latter days. Descartes
was the first among the moderns to obey this
commandment deliberately; and, as a matter of
religious duty, to strip off all his beliefs and reduce
himself to a state of intellectual nakedness, until
such time as he could satisfy himself which were
fit to be worn. He thought a bare skin healthier
than the most respectable and well-cut clothing of
what might, possibly, be mere shoddy.
When I say that Descartes consecrated doubt,
you must remember that it was that sort of doubt
which Goethe has called " the active scepticism,
whose whole aim is to conquer itself; " * and not
that other sort which is born of flippancy and
ignorance, and whose aim is only to perpetuate
itself, as an excuse for idleness and indifference.
But it is impossible to define what is meant by
scientific doubt better than in Descartes own
words. After describing the gradual progress of
his negative criticism, he tells us :
" For all that, I did not imitate the sceptics, who doubt only
for doubting s sake, and pretend to be always undecided ; on
the contrary, my whole intention was to arrive at a certainty,
and to dig away the drift and the sand until I reached the rock
or the clay beneath."
1 " Eine thatige Skepsis ist die, welche unablassig bemiiht ist
sich selbst zu uberwinden, und dutch geregelte Erfahrung zu
IV
DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 171
And further, since no man of common sense
when he pulls down his house for the purpose of
rebuilding it, fails to provide himself with some
shelter while the work is in progress ; so, before
demolishing the spacious, if not commodious,
mansion of his old beliefs, Descartes thought it
wise to equip himself with what he calls " une
morale par provision," by which he resolved to
govern his practical life until such time as he
should be better instructed. The laws of this
" provisional self-government " are embodied in
four maxims, of which one binds our philosopher
to submit himself to the laws and religion in
which he was brought up ; another, to act, on all
those occasions which call for action, promptly
and according to the best of his judgment, and
to abide, without repining, by the result : a third
rule is to seek happiness in limiting his desires,
rather than in attempting to satisfy them ; while
the last is to make the search after truth the
business of his life.
Thus prepared to go on living while he doubted,
Descartes proceeded to face his doubts like a man.
One thing was clear to him, he would not lie to
himself would, under no penalties, say, " I am
sure " of that of which he was not sure ; but would
go on digging and delving until he came to the
solid adamant or, at worst, made sure there was
einer Art von bedingter Zuverliissigkeit zu gelangen.
Maximcn und Rcflcxionen, 7 te Abtheilung.
172 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
no adamant. As the record of his progress tells
us, he was obliged to confess that life is full of
delusions ; that authority may err ; that testimony
may be false or mistaken ; that reason lands us in
endless fallacies; that memory is often as little
trustworthy as hope ; that the evidence of the very
senses may be misunderstood ; that dreams are
real as long as they last, and that what we call
reality may be a long and restless dream. Nay, it
is conceivable that some powerful and malicious
being may find his pleasure in deluding us, and
in making us believe the thing which is not, every
moment of our lives. What, then, is certain ?
What even, if such a being exists, is beyond the
reach of his powers of delusion ? Why, the fact
that the thought, the present consciousness, exists.
Our thoughts may be delusive, but they cannot be
fictitious. As thoughts, they are real and existent,
and the cleverest deceiver cannot make them
otherwise.
Thus, thought is existence. More than that, so
far as we are concerned, existence is thought, all
our conceptions of existence being some kind or
other of thought. Do not for a moment suppose
that these are mere paradoxes or subtleties. A
little reflection upon the commonest facts proves
them to be irrefragable truths. For example, I
take up a marble, and I find it to be a red, round,
hard, single body. We call the redness, the
roundness, the hardness, and the singleness,
IV DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 173
" qualities " of the marble ; and it sounds, at first,
the height of absurdity to say that all these
qualities are modes of our own consciousness,
which cannot even be conceived to exist in the
marble. But consider the redness, to begin with.
How does the sensation of redness arise ? The
waves of a certain very attenuated matter, the
particles of which are vibrating with vast rapidity,
but with very different velocities, strike upon the
marble, and those which vibrate with one particu
lar velocity are thrown off from its surface in all
directions. The optical apparatus of the eye
gathers some of these together, and gives them such
a course that they impinge upon the surface of
the retina, which is a singularly delicate apparatus
connected with the termination of the fibres of
the optic nerve. The impulses of the attenuated
matter, or ether, affect this apparatus and the
fibres of the optic nerve in a certain way ; and
the change in the fibres of the optic nerve pro
duces yet other changes in the brain ; and these,
in some fashion unknown to us, give rise to the
feeling, or consciousness of redness. If the
marble could remain unchanged, and either the
rate of vibration of the ether, or the nature of the
retina, could be altered, the marble would seem
not red, but some other colour. There are many
people who are what are called colour-blind, being
unable to distinguish one colour from another.
Such an one might declare our marble to be
174 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD nr
green ; and he would be quite as right in saying
that it is green, as we are in declaring it to be
red. But then, as the marble cannot, in itself,
be both green and red, at the same time, this
shows that the quality " redness " must be in our
consciousness and not in the marble.
In like manner, it is easy to see that the round
ness and the hardness are forms of our conscious
ness, belonging to the groups which we call
sensations of sight and touch. If the surface of
the cornea were cylindrical, we should have a
very different notion of a round body from that
which we possess now; and if the strength
of the fabric, and the force of the muscles, of the
body were increased a hundredfold, our marble
would seem to be as soft as a pellet of bread
crumbs.
Not only is it obvious that all these qualities
are in us, but, if you will make the attempt, you
will find it quite impossible to conceive of " blue-
ness," " roundness," and " hardness " as existing
without reference to some such consciousness as our
own. It may seem strange to say that even the
" singleness " of the marble is relative to us ; but
extremely simple experiments will show that
such is veritably the case, and that our two
most trustworthy senses may be made to contra
dict one another on this very point. Hold the
marble between the finger and thumb, and look
at it in the ordinary way. Sight and touch agree
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 175
that it is single. Now squint, and sight tells you
that there are two marbles, while touch asserts
that there is only one. Next, return the eyes to
their natural position, and, having crossed the
forefinger and the middle finger, put the marble
between their tips. Then touch will declare that
there are two marbles, while sight says that there
is only one ; and touch claims our belief, when
we attend to it, just as imperatively as sight
does.
But it may be said, the marble takes up a cer
tain space which could not be occupied, at the
same time, by anything else. In other words, the
marble has the primary quality of matter, exten
sion. Surely this quality must be in the thing,
and not in our minds ? But the reply must still
be ; whatever may, or may not, exist in the thing,
all that we can know of these qualities is a state
of consciousness. What we call extension is a
consciousness of a relation between two, or more,
affections of the sense of sight, or of touch. And
it is wholly inconceivable that what we call exten
sion should exist independently of such conscious
ness as our own. Whether, notwithstanding this
inconceivability, it does so exist, or not, is a point
on which I offer no opinion. Thus, whatever our
marble may be in itself, all that we can know of it
is under the shape of a bundle of our own con
sciousnesses.
Nor is our knowledge of anything we know or
176 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
feel more, or less, than a knowledge of states of
consciousness. And our whole life is made up of
such states. Some of these states we refer to a
cause we call " self; " others to a cause or causes
which may be comprehended under the title of
" not-self." But neither of the existence of " self,"
nor of that of " not-self," have we, or can we by
any possibility have, any such unquestionable
and immediate certainty as we have of the
states of consciousness which we consider to
be their effects. They are not immediately ob
served facts, but results of the application of the
law of causation to those facts. Strictly speak
ing, the existence of a " self" and of a " not-self"
are hypotheses by which we account for the
facts of consciousness. They stand upon the same
footing as the belief in the general trustworthiness
of memory, and in the general constancy of the
order of Nature as hypothetical assumptions
which cannot be proved, or known with that
highest degree of certainty which is given by im
mediate consciousness ; but which, nevertheless,
are of the highest practical value, inasmuch as the
conclusions logically drawn from them are always
verified by experience.
This, in my judgment, is the ultimate issue of
Descartes argument ; but it is proper for me to
point out that we have left Descartes himself some
way behind us. He stopped at the famous
formula, " I think, therefore I am." Yet a little
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 177
consideration will show this formula to be full of
snares and verbal entanglements. In the first
place, the " therefore " has no business there.
The " I am " is assumed in the " I think," which
is simply another way of saying " I am thinking."
And, in the second place, " I think " is not one
simple proposition, but three distinct assertions
rolled into one. The first of these is, " something
called I exists ; " the second is, " something called
thought exists ; " and the third is, " the thought is
the result of the action of the I."
Now, it will be obvious to you, that the only
one of these three propositions which can stand the
Cartesian test of certainty is the second. It can
not be doubted, for the very doubt is an existent
thought. But the first and third, whether true or
not, may be doubted, and have been doubted.
For the assertor may be asked, How do you know
that thought is not self-existent ; or that a given
thought is not the effect of its antecedent thought,
or of some external power ? And a diversity of
other questions, much more easily put than
answered. Descartes, determined as he was to
strip off all the garments which the intellect
weaves for itself, forgot this gossamer shirt of the
"self"; to the great detriment, and indeed ruin,
of his toilet when he began to clothe himself
again.
But it is beside my purpose to dwell upon the
minor peculiarities of the Cartesian philosophy.
VOL. I. N
178 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
All I wish to put clearly before your minds thus
far, is that Descartes, having commenced by de
claring doubt to be a duty, found certainty in con
sciousness alone ; and that the necessary outcome
of his views is what may properly be termed Ideal
ism; namely, the doctrine that, whatever the
universe may be, all we can know of it is the picture
presented to us by consciousness. This picture may
be a true likeness though how this can be is in
conceivable ; or it may have no more resemblance
to its cause than one of Bach s fugues has to the
person who is playing it ; or than a piece of poetry
has to the mouth and lips of a reciter. It is
enough for all the practical purposes of human
existence if we find that our trust in the represen
tations of consciousness is verified by results ; and
that, by their help, we are enabled " to walk sure-
footedly in this life."
Thus the method, or path which leads to truth,
indicated by Descartes, takes us straight to the
Critical Idealism of his great successor Kant. It
is that Idealism which declares the ultimate fact
of all knowledge to be consciousness, or, in other
words, a mental phenomenon ; and therefore
affirms the highest of all certainties, and indeed
the only absolute certainty, to be the existence of
mind. But it is also that Idealism which re
fuses to make any assertions, either positive or
negative, as to what lies beyond consciousness. It
accuses the subtle Berkeley of stepping beyond
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 179
the limits of knowledge when he declared that
a substance of matter does not exist ; and of illogi
cality, for not seeing that the arguments which he
supposed demolished the existence of matter were
equally destructive to the existence of soul. And
it refuses to listen to the jargon of more recent
days about the " Absolute " and all the other hy-
postatised adjectives, the initial letters of the
names of which are generally printed in capital
letters ; just as you give a Grenadier a bearskin
cap, to make him look more formidable than he is
by nature.
I repeat, the path indicated and followed by
Descartes, which we have hitherto been treading,
leads through doubt to that critical Idealism
which lies at the heart of modern metaphysical
thought. But the " Discourse " shows us another,
and apparently very different, path, which leads,
quite as definitely, to that correlation of all the
phenomena of the universe with matter and
motion, which lies at the heart of modern physical
thought, and which most people call Materialism.
The early part of the seventeenth century, when
Descartes reached manhood, is one of the great
epochs of the intellectual life of mankind. At that
time, physical science suddenly strode into the
arena of public and familiar thought, and openly
challenged not only Philosophy and the Church,
but that common ignorance which often passes by
the name of Common Sense. The assertion of the
N 2
180 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
motion of the earth was a defiance to all three,
and Physical Science threw down her glove by
the hand of Galileo.
It is not pleasant to think of the immediate
result of the combat ; to see the champion of
science, old, worn, and on his knees before the
Cardinal Inquisitor, signing his name to what he
knew to be a lie. And, no doubt, the Cardinals
rubbed their hands as they thought how well
they had silenced and discredited their adversary.
But two hundred years have passed, and however
feeble or faulty her soldiers, Physical Science sits
crowned and enthroned as one of the legitimate
rulers of the world of thought. Charity children
would be ashamed not to know that the earth
moves ; while the Schoolmen are forgotten ; and
the Cardinals well, the Cardinals are at the
QEcumenical Council, still at their old business
of trying to stop the movement of the world.
As a ship, which having lain becalmed with
every stitch of canvas set, bounds away before the
breeze which springs up astern, so the mind of
Descartes, poised in equilibrium of doubt, not only
yielded to the full force of the impulse towards
physical science and physical ways of thought,
given by his great contemporaries, Galileo and
Harvey, but shot beyond them ; and anticipated,
by bold speculation, the conclusions, which could
only be placed upon a secure foundation by the
labours of generations of workers.
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 181
Descartes saw that the discoveries of Galileo
meant that the remotest parts of the universe
were governed by mechanical laws ; while those
of Harvey meant that the same laws presided over
the operations of that portion of the world which
is nearest to us, namely, our own bodily frame.
And crossing the interval between the centre and
its vast circumference by one of the great strides
of genius, Descartes sought to resolve all the
phenomena of the universe into matter and
motion, or forces operating according to law. 1
This grand conception, which is sketched in the
"Discours," and more fully developed in the
" Principes " and in the " Traite de 1 Homme," he
worked out with extraordinary power and know
ledge ; and with the effect of arriving, in the last-
named essay, at that purely mechanical view of
vital phenomena towards which modern phy
siology is striving.
Let us try to understand how Descartes got
into this path, and why it led him where it did.
The mechanism of the circulation of the blood had
evidently taken a great hold of his mind, as he
describes it several times, at much length. After
giving a full account of it in the " Discourse," and
1 Au milieu de toutes ses erreurs, il ne faut pas meconnaitre
une grande idee, qui consiste & avoir tente pour la premiere fois
de ramener tous les phenomenes naturels a n etre qu un simple
develloppement des lois de la meeanique," is the weighty judg
ment of Biot, cited by Bouillier (Histoire de la Philosophic
Carttsicnne, t. i. p. 196).
182 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD TV
erroneously ascribing the motion of the blood, not
to the contraction of the walls of the heart, but to
the heat which he supposes to be generated there,
he adds :
"This motion, which I have just explained, is as much the
necessary result of the structure of the parts which one can
see in the heart, and of the heat which one may feel there with
one s fingers, and of the nature of the blood, which may be
experimentally ascertained ; as is that of a clock of the force,
the situation, and the figure, of its weight, and of its wheels."
But if this apparently vital operation were ex
plicable as a simple mechanism, might not other
vital operations be reducible to the same cate
gory ? Descartes replies without hesitation in the
affirmative.
" The animal spirits," says he, " resemble a very subtle fluid,
or a very pure and vivid flame, and are continually generated in
the heart, and ascend to the brain as to a sort of reservoir.
Hence they pass into the nerves and are distributed to the
muscles, causing contraction, or relaxation, according to their
quantity."
Thus, according to Descartes, the animal body
is an automaton, which is competent to perform
all the animal functions in exactly the same way
as a clock or any other piece of mechanism. As
he puts the case himself :
" In proportion as these spirits [the animal spirits] enter the
cavities of the brain, they pass thence into the pores of its
substance, and from these pores into the nerves ; where, accord
ing as they enter, or even only tend to enter, more or less, into
one than into another, they have the power of altering the figure
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD
of the muscles into which the nerves are inserted, and by this
means of causing all the limbs to move. Thus, as you may have
seen in the grottoes and the fountains in royal gardens, the force
with which the water issues from its reservoir is sufficient to
move various machines, and even to make them play instru
ments, or pronounce words according to the different disposition
of the pipes which lead the water.
And, in truth, the nerves of the machine which I am
describing may very well be compared to the pipes of these
waterworks ; its muscles and its tendons to the other various
engines and springs which seem to move them ; its animal
spirits to the water which impels them, of which the heart is the
fountain ; while the cavities of the brain are the central office.
Moreover, respiration and other such actions as are natural and
usual in the body, and which depend on the course of the spirits,
are like the movements of a clock, or of a mill, which may be
kept up by the ordinary flow of the water.
" The external objects which, by their mere presence, act upon
the organs of the senses ; and which, by this means, determine
the corporal machine to move in many different ways, according
as the parts of the brain are arranged, are like the strangers
who, entering into some of the grottoes of these waterworks,
unconsciously cause the movements which take place in their
presence. For they cannot enter without treading upon certain
planks so arranged that, for example, if they approach a bathing
Diana, they cause her to hide among the reeds ; and if they
attempt to follow her, they see approaching a Neptune, who
threatens them with his trident : or if they try some other way,
they cause some other monster, who vomits water into their faces,
to dart out ; or like contrivances, according to the fancy of the
engineers who have made them. And lastly, when the rational
soul is lodged in this machine, it will have its principal seat in the
brain, and will take the place of the engineer, who ought to be
in that part of the works with which all the pipes are connected,
when he wishes to increase, or to slacken, or in some way to
alter their movements." J
1 Traiti de I Homme (Cousin s edition), p. 347.
184 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
And again still more strongly :
" All the functions which I have attributed to this machine
(the body), as the digestion of food, the pulsation of the heart
and of the arteries ; the nutrition and the growth of the limbs ;
respiration, wakefulness, and sleep ; the reception of light,
sounds, odours, flavours, heat, and such like qualities, in the
organs of the external senses ; the impression of the ideas of
these in the organ of common sense and in the imagination ;
the retention, or the impression, of these ideas on the memory ;
the internal movements of the appetites and the passions ; and
lastly, the external movements of all the limbs, which follow so
aptly, as well the action of the objects which are presented to
the senses, as the impressions which meet in the memory, that
they imitate as nearly as possible those of a real man : l I desire,
I say, that you should consider that these functions in the
machine naturally proceed from the mere arrangement of its
organs, neither more nor less than do the movements of a clock,
or other automaton, from that of its weights and its wheels ; so
that, so far as these are concerned, it is not necessary to conceive
any other vegetative or sensitive soul, nor any other principle of
motion, or of life, than the blood and the spirits agitated by
the fire which burns continually in the heart, and which is no
wise essentially different from all the fires which exist in
inanimate bodies." 2
The spirit of these passages is exactly that of
the most advanced physiology of the present day ;
all that is necessary to make them coincide with
our present physiology in form, is to represent the
details of the working of the animal machinery in
1 Descartes pretends that he does not apply his views to the
human body, but only to an imaginary machine w r hich, if it
could be constructed, would do all that the human body does ;
throwing a sop to Cerberus unworthily ; and uselessly, because
Cerberus was by no means stupid enough to swallow it.
2 Trait* de I H&mme, p. 427.
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 185
modern language, and by the aid of modern con
ceptions.
Most undoubtedly, the digestion of food in the
human body is a purely chemical process ; and the
passage of the nutritive parts of that food into the
blood, a physical operation. Beyond all question,
the circulation of the blood is simply a matter of
mechanism, and results from the structure and
arrangement of the parts of the heart and vessels,
from the contractility of those organs, and from
the regulation of that contractility by an auto
matically acting nervous apparatus. The progress
of physiology has further shown, that the con
tractility of the muscles and the irritability of the
nerves are purely the results of the molecular
mechanism of those organs ; and that the regular
movements of the respiratory, alimentary, and
other internal organs are governed and guided, as
mechanically, by their appropriate nervous centres.
The even rhythm of the breathing of every one of
us depends upon the structural integrity of a par
ticular region of the medulla oblongata, as much
as the ticking of a clock depends upon the integ
rity of the escapement. You may take away
the hands of a clock and break up its striking
machinery, but it will still tick ; and a man may
be unable to feel, speak, or move, and yet he will
breathe.
Again, in entire accordance with Descartes
affirmation, it is certain that the modes of motion
186 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
which constitute the physical basis of light, sound,
and heat, are transmuted into affections of nervous
matter by the sensory organs. These affections
are, so to speak, a kind of physical ideas, which
are retained in the central organs, constituting
what might be called physical memory, and may
be combined in a manner which answers to asso
ciation and imagination, or may give rise to
muscular contractions, in those " reflex actions "
which are the mechanical representatives of
volition.
Consider what happens when a blow is aimed at
the eye. 1 Instantly, and without our knowledge
or will, and even against the will, the eyelids close.
What is it that happens ? A picture of the rapidly-
advancing fist is made upon the retina at the back
of the eye. The retina changes this picture into
an affection of a number of the fibres of the optic
nerve ; the fibres of the optic nerve affect certain
parts of the brain ; the brain, in consequence,
affects those particular fibres of the seventh nerve
which go to the orbicular muscle of the eyelids ;
the change in these nerve-fibres causes the mus
cular fibres to alter their dimensions, so as to
become shorter and broader ; and the result is the
closing of the slit between the two lids, round
which these fibres are disposed. Here is a pure
mechanism, giving rise to a purposive action, and
strictly comparable to that by which Descartes
1 Compare Traite des Passions, Art. xlii. and xvi. .
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 187
supposes his waterwork Diana to be moved. But
we may go further, and inquire whether our
volition, in what we term voluntary action, ever
plays any other part than that of Descartes
engineer, sitting in his office, and turning this
tap or the other, as he wishes to set one or
another machine in motion, but exercising no
direct influence upon the movements of the
whole.
Our voluntary acts consist of two parts : firstly,
we desire to perform a certain action ; and,
secondly, we somehow set a-going a machinery
which does what we desire. But so little do we
directly influence that machinery, that nine-tenths
of us do not even know of its existence. Suppose
one wills to raise one s arm and whirl it round.
Nothing is easier. But the majority of us do not
know that nerves and muscles are concerned in
this process ; and the best anatomist among us
would be amazingly perplexed, if he were called
upon to direct the succession, and the relative
strength, of the multitudinous nerve-changes,
which are the actual causes of this very simple
operation. So again in speaking. How many of us
know that the voice is produced in the larynx,
and modified by the mouth ? How many among
these instructed persons understand how the
voice is produced and modified ? And what living
man, if he had unlimited control over all the
nerves supplying the mouth and larynx of another
188 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
person, could make him pronounce a sentence ?
Yet, if one has anything to say, what is easier
than to say it ? We desire the utterance of cer
tain words : we touch the spring of the word-
machine, and they are spoken. Just as Descartes
engineer, when he wanted a particular hydraulic
machine to play, had only to turn a tap, and what
he wished was done. It is because the body is a
machine that education is possible. Education is
the formation of habits, a superinducing of an
artificial organisation upon the natural organisa
tion of the body ; so that acts, which at first
required a conscious effort, eventually became un
conscious and mechanical. If the act which
primarily requires a distinct consciousness and
volition of its details, always needed the same
effort, education would be an impossibility.
According to Descartes, then, all the functions
which are common to man and animals are per
formed by the body as a mere mechanism, and he
looks upon consciousness as the peculiar distinc
tion of the " chose pensante," of the " rational soul,"
which in man (and in man only, in Descartes
opinion) is superadded to the body. This rational
soul he conceived to be lodged in the pineal gland,
as in a sort of central office ; and here, by the in
termediation of the animal spirits, it became aware
of what was going on in the body, or influenced
the operations of the body. Modern physiologists
do not ascribe so exalted a function to the little
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 189
pineal gland, 1 but, in a vague sort of way, they
adopt Descartes principle, and suppose that the
soul is lodged in the cortical part of the brain at
least this is commonly regarded as the seat and
instrument of consciousness.
Descartes has clearly stated what he conceived
to be the difference between spirit and matter.
Matter is substance which has extension, but does
not think ; spirit is substance which thinks, but
has no extension. It is very hard to form a defi
nite notion of what this phraseology means, when
it is taken in connection with the location of the
soul in the pineal gland ; and I can only represent
it to myself as signifying that the soul is a mathe
matical point, having place but not extension,
within the limits of the pineal body. Not only
has it place, but it must exert force ; for, accord
ing to this hypothesis, it is competent, when it
wills, to change the course of the animal spirits,
which consist of matter in motion. Thus the soul
becomes a centre of force. But, at the same time,
the distinction between spirit and matter vanishes ;
inasmuch as matter, according to a tenable hypo
thesis, may be nothing but a multitude of centres
of force. The case is worse if we adopt the
modern vague notion that consciousness is seated
in the grey matter of the cerebrum, generally ; for,
1 Which, however, as the remains of a Cyclopean eye possessed
by some remote ancestor of the Vcrtebrata, has lost none of its
interest. [1892.]
190 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
as the grey matter has extension, that which is
lodged in it must also have extension. And thus
we are led, in another way, to lose spirit in matter.
In truth, Descartes physiology, like the modern
physiology of which it anticipates the spirit, leads
straight to Materialism, so far as that title is
rightly applicable to the doctrine that we have no
knowledge of any thinking substance, apart from
extended substance ; and that thought is as much
a function of matter as motion is. Thus we ar
rive at the singular result that, of the two paths
opened up to us in the " Discourse upon Method,"
the one leads, by way of Berkeley and Hume, to
Kant and Idealism ; while the other leads, by way
of De La Mettrie and Priestley, to modern phy
siology and Materialism. 1 Our stem divides into
two main branches, which grow in opposite ways,
and bear flowers which look as different as they
can well be. But each branch is sound and healthy,
and has as much life and vigour as the other.
If a botanist found this state of things in a new
plant, I imagine that he might be inclined to
think that his tree was monoecious that the
1 Bouillier, into whose excellent History of tlie Cartesian
Philosophy I had not looked when this passage was written,
says, very justly, that Descartes " a merite le titre de pere de la
physique, aussi bien que celui de pere de la metaphysique
moderne" (t. i., p. 197). See also Kuno Fischer s Gcschichte
der ncucn Philosophic,, Bd. i. ; and the very remarkable work
of Lange Gcschichte dcs Mater ialismus. A good translation
of the latter would be a great service to philosophy in England.
[It now exists, 1892.]
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 191
flowers were of different sexes, and that, so far
from setting up a barrier between the two branches
of the tree, the only hope of fertility lay in
bringing them together. I may be taking too
much of a naturalist s view of the case, but I
must confess that this is exactly my notion of
what is to be done with metaphysics and physics.
Their differences are complementary, not antagon
istic ; and thought will never be completely fruitful
until the one unites with the other. Let me try
to explain what I mean. I hold, with the
Materialist, that the human body, like all living
bodies, is a machine, all the operations of which
will, sooner or later, be explained on physical
principles. I believe that we shall, sooner or
later, arrive at a mechanical equivalent of con
sciousness, just as we have arrived at a mechanical
equivalent of heat. If a pound weight falling
through a distance of a foot gives rise to a definite
amount of heat, which may properly be said to be
its equivalent; the same pound weight falling
through a foot on a man s hand gives rise to a
definite amount of feeling, which might with
equal propriety be said to be its equivalent in
consciousness. 1 And as we already know that
there is a certain parity between the intensity of
a pain and the strength of one s desire to get rid
1 For all the qualifications which need to be made here, I
refer the reader to the thorough discussion of the nature of the
relation between nerve -action and consciousness in Mr, Herbert
Spencer s Principles of Psychology, p. 115 et yeq.
192 DESCARTES* DISCOURSE OX METHOD rv
of that pain ; and, secondly, that there is a certain
correspondence between the intensity of the heat,
or wpflrniiffsJ violence, which give* lite to the
pain, and the pain itself; the possibility of the
establishment of a correlation between mechanical
force and volition becomes apparent. And the
came < inclusion is suggested by the fact that,
within certain limits, the intensity of the mechan
ical lone we exert is proportioned to the intensity
of our desire to exert it.
Thus I am prepared to go with the Materialists
wherever the true pursuit of the path of Descartes
may lead them ; and I am glad, on all occasions,
to declare my belief that their fearless develop-
meot of the materialistic aspect of these matters
lias had an immense, and a most beneficial,
influence upon physiology and psychology.
more, when they go farther than I think they are
entitled to do when they introduce Calvinism
into science and declare that man is nothing but
a machine, I do not see any particular harm in
their doctrines, so long as they admit that which
is * matter of experimental fact namely, that it
if a machine capable of adjusting itself within
certain limit*.
I protest that if some great Power would agree
to mtkr me always think what is true and do
what is right, on condition of being turned into
a sort of clock and wound up every rnor
before I got out of bed, I should instantly d
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 193
with the offer. The only freedom I care about is
the freedom to do right ; the freedom to do wrong
I am ready to part with on the cheapest terms to
any one who will take it of me. But when the
Materialists stray beyond the borders of their
path and begin to talk about there being nothing
else in the universe but Matter and Force and
Necessary Laws, and all the rest of thrir te grena
diers," I decline to follow them. I go back to the
point from which we started, and to the other
path of Descartes. I remind you that we have
already seen clearly and distinctly, and in a
manner which admits of no doubt, that all our
knowledge is a knowledge of states of consciousness.
"Matter" and " Force" are, as far as we can know,
more names for certain forms of consciousness,
" Necessary " means that of which we cannot con
ceive the contrary. " Law " means a rule which
wo have always found to hold good, and which we
expect always will hold good. Thus it is an
indisputable truth that what wo call the material
world is only known to us under the forms of the
ideal world ; and, as Descartes tells us, our know
ledge of the soul 1 is more intimate and certain
than our knowledge of the body. If I say that
impenetrability is a property of matter, all that I
can really mean is that the consciousness I call
extension, and the consciousness I call resistance,
1 Taken as the sum of states of cousciousuoss of the individual.
t.]
VOL. I. O
194 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
constantly accompany one another. Why and
how they are thus related is a mystery. And if
I say that thought is a property of matter, all
that I can mean is that actually or possibly, the
consciousness of extension and that of resistance
accompany all other sorts of consciousness. But,
as in the former case, why they are thus associated
is an insoluble mystery.
From all this it follows that what I may term
legitimate materialism, that is, the extension of
the conceptions and of the methods of physical
science to the highest as well as the lowest phae-
nomena of vitality, is neither more nor less than
a sort of shorthand Idealism ; and Descartes two
paths meet at the summit of the mountain, though
they set out on opposite sides of it.
The reconciliation of physics and metaphysics
lies in the acknowledgment of faults upon both
sides; in the confession by physics that all the
phenomena of Nature are, in their ultimate ana
lysis, known to us only as facts of consciousness ;
in the admisson by metaphysics, that the facts of
consciousness are, practically, interpretable only
by the methods and the formulae of physics : and,
finally, in the observance by both metaphysical
and physical thinkers of Descartes maxim-
assent to no proposition the matter of which
is not so clear and distinct that it cannot be
doubted.
IV
DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 195
When you did me the honour to ask me to
deliver this address, I confess I was perplexed
what topic to select. For you are emphatically
and distinctly a Christian body ; while science
and philosophy, within the range of which lie all
the topics on which I could venture to speak, are
neither Christian, nor Unchristian, but are Extra-
christian, and have a world of their own, which
to use language which will be very familiar to
your ears just now, is not only " unsectarian," but
is altogether " secular." The arguments which I
have put before you to-night, for example, are
not inconsistent, so far as I know, with any form
of theology.
After much consideration, I thought that I
might be most useful to you, if I attempted to
give you some vision of this Extrachristian world,
as it appears to a person who lives a good deal in
it ; and if I tried to show you by what methods
the dwellers therein try to distinguish truth from
falsehood, in regard to some of the deepest and
most difficult problems that beset humanity, " in
order to be clear about their actions, and to walk
surefootedly in this life," as Descartes says.
It struck me that if the execution of my
project came anywhere near the conception of it,
you would become aware that the philosophers
and the men of science are not exactly what they
are sometimes represented to you to be ; and
that their methods and paths do not lead so
o 2
196 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD TV
perpendicularly downwards as you are occasion
ally told they do. And I must admit, also, that a
particular and personal motive weighed with me,
namely, the desire to show that a certain dis
course, 1 which brought a great storm about my
head some time ago, contained nothing but the
ultimate development of the views of the father of
modern philosophy. I do not know if I have
been quite wise in allowing this last motive to
weigh with me. They say that the most dan
gerous thing one can do in a thunderstorm is to
shelter oneself under a great tree, and the history
of Descartes life shows how narrowly he escaped
being riven by the lightnings, which were more
destructive in his time than in ours.
Descartes lived and died a good Catholic, and
prided himself upon having demonstrated the
existence of God and of the soul of man. As a
reward for his exertions, his old friends the Jesuits
put his works upon the " Index," and called him
an Atheist; while the Protestant divines of
Holland declared him to be both a Jesuit and an
Atheist. His books narrowly escaped being
burned by the hangman ; the fate of Vanini was
dangled before his eyes ; and the misfortunes of
Galileo so alarmed him, that he well-nigh re
nounced the pursuits by which the world has so
greatly benefited, and was driven into subterfuges
and evasions which were not worthy of him.
1 See above, The Physical Basis of Life.
iv DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD 197
" Very cowardly," you may say ; and so it was.
But you must make allowance for the fact that, in
the seventeenth century, not only did heresy mean
possible burning, or imprisonment, but the very
suspicion of it destroyed a man s peace, and
rendered the calm pursuit of truth difficult or
impossible. I fancy that Descartes was a man to
care more about being worried and disturbed,
than about being burned outright ; and, like many
other men, sacrificed for the sake of peace and
quietness, what he would have stubbornly main
tained against downright violence. However this
may be, let those who are sure they would have
done better throw stones at him. I have no
feelings but those of gratitude and reverence for
the man who did what he did, when he did ; and
a sort of shame that any one should repine against
taking a fair share of such treatment as the world
thought good enough for him.
Finally, it occurs to me that, such being my
feeling about the matter, it may be useful to all
of us if I ask you, " What is yours ? Do you
think that the Christianity of the seventeenth
century looks nobler and more attractive for such
treatment of such a man ? " You will hardly
reply that it does. But if it does not, may it not
be well if all of you do what lies within your
power to prevent the Christianity of the nine
teenth century from repeating the scandal ?
There are one or two living men, who, a couple
198 DESCARTES DISCOURSE ON METHOD iv
of centuries hence, will be remembered as Des
cartes is now, because they have produced great
thoughts which will live and grow as long as
mankind lasts.
If the twenty-first century studies their history,
it will find that the Christianity of the middle of
the nineteenth century recognised them only as
objects of vilification. It is for you and such as
you, Christian young men, to say whether this
shall be as true of the Christianity of the future
as it is of that of the present. I appeal to you to
say " No," in your own interest, and in that of the
Christianity you profess.
In the interest of Science, no appeal is needful ;
as Dante sings of Fortune
" Quest e colei, ch e tanto posta in croce
Pur da color, che le dovrian dar lode
Dandole biasmo a torto e mala voce.
Ma ella s e beata, e cio non ode :
Con 1 altre prime creature lieta
Volve sua spera, e beata si gode : " 1
so, whatever evil voices may rage, Science, secure
among the powers that are eternal, will do her
work and be blessed.
1 " And this is she who s put on cross so much
Even by them who ought to give her praise,
Giving her wrongly ill repute and blame.
But she is blessed, and she hears not this :
She, with the other primal creatures, glad
Revolves her sphere, and blessed joys herself."
Inferno, vii. 9095 (W. M. Rossetti s Translation).
ON THE HYPOTHESIS THAT ANIMALS
ARE AUTOMATA, AND ITS HISTORY
[1874]
THE first half of the seventeenth century is one of
the great epochs of biological science. For though
suggestions and indications of the conceptions
which took definite shape, at that time, are to be
met with in works of earlier date, they are little
more than the shadows which coining truth casts
forward ; men s knowledge was neither extensive
enough, nor exact enough, to show them the solid
body of fact which threw these shadows.
But, in the seventeenth century, the idea that
the physical processes of life are capable of being
explained in the same way as other physical
phenomena, and, therefore, that the living body
is a mechanism, was proved to be true for certain
classes of vital actions ; and, having thus taken
200 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
firm root in irrefragable fact, this conception has
not only successfully repelled every assault which
has been made upon it, but has steadily grown in
force and extent of application, until it is now the
expressed or implied fundamental proposition of
the whole doctrine of scientific Physiology.
If we ask to whom mankind are indebted for
this great service, the general voice will name
William Harvey. For, by his discovery of the
circulation of the blood in the higher animals, by
his explanation of the nature of the mechanism
by which that circulation is effected, and by his
no less remarkable, though less known, investiga
tions of the process of development, Harvey solidly
laid the foundations of all those physical ex
planations of the functions of sustentation and
reproduction which modern physiologists have
achieved.
But the living body is not only sustained and
reproduced : it adjusts itself to external and
internal changes ; it moves and feels. The
attempt to reduce the endless complexities of
animal motion and feeling to law and order is, at
least, as important a part of the task of the
physiologist as the elucidation of what are some
times called the vegetative processes. Harvey
did not make this attempt himself; but the
influence of his work upon the man who did make
it is patent and unquestionable. This man was
Rene* Descartes, who, though by many years
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 201
Harvey s junior, died before him ; and yet in his
short span of fifty-four years, took an undisputed
place, not only among the chiefs of philosophy,
but amongst the greatest and most original of
mathematicians ; while, in my belief, he is no less
certainly entitled to the rank of a great and
original physiologist ; inasmuch as he did for the
physiology of motion and sensation that which
Harvey had done for the circulation of the blood,
and opened up that road to the mechanical theory
of these processes, which has been followed by all
his successors.
Descartes was no mere speculator, as some
would have us believe : but a man who knew of his
own knowledge what was to be known of the
facts of anatomy and physiology in his day. He
was an unwearied dissector and observer ; and it
is said, that, on a visitor once asking to see his
library, Descartes led him into a room set
aside for dissections, and full of specimens
under examination. " There," said he, " is my
library."
I anticipate a smile of incredulity when I thus
champion Descartes claim to be considered a
physiologist of the first rank. I expect to be told
that I have read into his works what I find there,
and to be asked, Why is it that we are left to dis
cover Descartes deserts at this time of day, more
than two centuries after his death ? How is it
that Descartes is utterly ignored in some of
202 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
the latest works which treat expressly of the
subject in which he is said to have been so
great ?
It is much easier to ask such questions than to
answer them, especially if one desires to be on good
terms with one s contemporaries ; but, if I must
give an answer, it is this : The growth of physical
science is now so prodigiously rapid, that those
who are actively engaged in keeping up with the
present, have much ado to find time to look at the
past, and even grow into the habit of neglecting it.
But, natural as this result may be, it is none the
less detrimental. The intellect loses, for there is
assuredly no more effectual method of clearing up
one s own mind on any subject than by talking
it over, so to speak, with men of real power and
grasp, who have considered it from a totally
different point of view. The parallax of time
helps us to the true position of a conception, as
the parallax of space helps us to that of a star.
And the moral nature loses no less. It is well to
turn aside from the fretful stir of the present and
to dwell with gratitude and respect upon the
services of those " mighty men of old who have
gone down to the grave with their weapons of
war," but who, while they yet lived, won splendid
victories over ignorance. It is well, again, to re
flect that the fame of Descartes filled all Europe,
and his authority overshadowed it, for a century ;
while now, most of those who know his name
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 203
think of him, either as a person who had some
preposterous notions about vortices and was
deservedly annihilated by the great Sir Isaac
Newton ; or as the apostle of an essentially vicious
method of deductive speculation ; and that, never
theless, neither the chatter of shifting opinion,
nor the silence of personal oblivion, has in the
slightest degree affected the growth of the great
ideas of which he was the instrument and the
mouthpiece.
It is a matter of fact that the greatest physiolo
gist of the eighteenth century, Haller, in treating
of the functions of nerve, does little more than
reproduce and enlarge upon the ideas of Descartes.
It is a matter of fact that David Hartley, in his
remarkable work the " Essay on Man," expressly,
though still insufficiently, acknowledges the re
semblance of his fundamental conceptions to those
of Descartes ; and I shall now endeavour to show
that a series of propositions, which constitute the
foundation and essence of the modern physiology
of the nervous system, are fully expressed and
illustrated in the works of Descartes.
I. The brain is the organ of sensation, thought,
and emotion; that is to say, some change in
the condition of the matter of this organ is
the invariable antecedent of the state of
consciousness to which each of these terms
is applied.
204 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
111 the "Principes de la Philosophie" ( 169),
Descartes says : l
Although the soul is united to the whole body, its principal
functions are, nevertheless, performed in the brain ; it is here
that it not only understands and imagines, but also feels ; and
this is effected by the intermediation of the nerves, which extend
in the form of delicate threads from the brain to all parts of the
body, to which they are attached in such a manner, that we can
hardly touch any part of the body without setting the extremity
of some nerve in motion. This motion passes along the nerve
to that part of the brain which is the common sensorium, as I
have sufficiently explained in my Treatise on Dioptrics ; and
the movements which thus travel along the nerves, as far as that
part of the brain with which the soul is closely joined and
united, cause it, by reason of their diverse characters, to have
different thoughts. And it is these different thoughts of the
soul, which arise immediately from the movements that are
excited by the nerves in the brain, which we properly term our
feelings, or the perceptions of our senses."
Elsewhere, 2 Descartes, in arguing that the seat
of the passions is not (as many suppose) the heart,
but the brain, uses the following remarkable
language :
" The opinion of those who think that the soul receives its
passions in the heart, is of no weight, for it is based upon the
fact that the passions cause a change to be felt in that organ ;
and it is easy to see that this change is felt, as if it were in the
1 I quote, here and always, Cousin s edition of the works of
Descartes, as most convenient for reference. It is entitled
(Euvres completes de Descartes, publiees, par Victor Cousin.
1824.
2 Les Passions de VAme, Article xxxiii.
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 205
heart, only by the intermediation of a little nerve which descends
from the brain to it ; just as pain is felt, as if it were in the
foot, by the intermediation of the nerves of the foot ; and the
stars are perceived, as if they were in the heavens, by the inter
mediation of their light and of the optic nerves. So that it is
no more necessary for the soul to exert its functions immedi
ately in the heart, to feel its passions there, than it is necessary
that it should be in the heavens to see the stars there."
This definite allocation of all the phenomena of
consciousness to the brain as their organ, was a
step the value of which it is difficult for us to ap
praise, so completely has Descartes view incor
porated itself with every-day thought and common
language. A lunatic is said to be " crack-brained "
or " touched in the head," a confused thinker is
" muddle-headed," while a clever man is said to
have " plenty of brains " ; but it must be re
membered that at the end of the last century a
considerable, though much over-estimated, anato
mist, Bichat, so far from having reached the level
of Descartes, could gravely argue that the ap
paratuses of organic life are the sole seat of the
passions, which in no way affect the brain, except
so far as it is the agent by which the influence of
the passions is transmitted to the muscles. 1
Modern physiology, aided by pathology, easily
demonstrates that the brain is the seat of all forms
of consciousness, and fully bears out Descartes ex
planation of the reference of those sensations in
1 Rccherches physiologiques sur la Vie et la Mort. Par
Xav. Bichat. Art. Sixieme.
206 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
the viscera which accompany intense emotion, to
these organs. It proves, directly, that those
states of consciousness which we call sensations
are the immediate consequent of a change in the
brain excited by the sensory nerves ; and, on the
well-known effects of injuries, of stimulants, and
of narcotics, it bases the conclusion that thought
and emotion are, in like manner, the consequents
of physical antecedents.
II. The movements of animals are due to the
change of form of muscles, which shorten
and become thicker; and this change of
form in a muscle arises from a motion of
the, substance contained within the nerves
which go to the muscle.
In the " Passions de 1 Ame," Art. vii., Descartes
writes :
" Moreover, we know that all the movements of the limbs
depend on the muscles, and that these muscles are opposed to
one another in such a manner, that when one of them shortens,
it draws along the part of the body to which it is attached, and
so gives rise to a simultaneous elongation of the muscle which
is opposed to it. Then, if it happens, afterwards, that the latter
shortens, it causes the former to elongate, and draws towards
itself the part to which it is attached. Lastly, we know that all
these movements of the muscles, as all the senses, depend on the
ne,rves, which are like little threads or tubes, which all come
from the brain, and, like it, contain a certain very subtle air or
wind, termed the animal spirits."
The property of muscle mentioned by Descartes
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 207
now goes by the general name of contractility,
but his definition of it remains untouched. The
long-continued controversy whether contractile
substance, speaking generally, has an inherent
power of contraction, or whether it contracts only
in virtue of an influence exerted by nerve, is now
settled in Haller s favour ; but Descartes state
ment of the dependence of muscular contraction
on nerve holds good for the higher forms of muscle,
under normal circumstances ; so that, although
the structure of the various modifications of con
tractile matter has been worked out with astonish
ing minuteness although the delicate physical
and chemical changes which accompany muscular
contraction have been determined to an extent of
which Descartes could not have dreamed, and
have quite upset his hypothesis that the cause of
the shortening and thickening of the muscle is
the flow of animal spirits into it from the nerves
the important and fundamental part of his state
ment remains perfectly true.
The like may be affirmed of what he says about
nerve. We know now that nerves are not exactly
tubes, and that " animal spirits " are myths ; but
the exquisitely refined methods of investigation
of Dubois-Keymond and of Helmholz have no less
clearly proved that the antecedent of ordinary
muscular contraction is a motion of the molecules
of the nerve going to the muscle ; and that this
motion is propagated with a measurable, and by
208 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
no means great, velocity, through the substance of
the nerve towards the muscle.
With the progress of research, the term " animal
spirits " gave way to " nervous fluid," and " nervous
fluid " has now given way to " molecular motion of
nerve-substance." Our conceptions of what takes
place in nerve have altered in the same way as our
conceptions of what takes place in a conducting
wire have altered, since electricity was shown to
be not a fluid, but a mode of molecular motion.
The change is of vast importance, but it does not
affect Descartes fundamental idea, that a change
in the substance of a motor nerve propagated
towards a muscle is the ordinary cause of muscular
contraction.
III. The sensations of animals are due to a
motion of the substance of the nerves
which connect the sensory organs with the
brain.
In "La Dioptrique" (Discours Quatrieme),
Descartes explains, more fully than in the passage
cited above, his hypothesis of the mode of action
of sensory nerves :
"It is the little threads of which the inner substance of the
nerves is composed which subserve sensation. You must con
ceive that these little threads, being inclosed in tubes, which are
always distended and kept open by the animal spirits which they
contain, neither press upon nor interfere with one another and
are extended from the brain to the extremities of all the mem-
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 209
bers which are sensitive in such a manner, that the slightest
touch which excites the part of one of the members to which a
thread is attached, gives rise to a motion of the part of the brain
whence it arises, just as by pulling one of the ends of a stretched
cord, the other end is instantaneously moved. . . . And we
must take care not to imagine that, in order to feel, the soul
needs to behold certain images sent by the objects of sense to
the brain, as our philosophers commonly suppose ; or, at least,
we must conceive these images to be something quite different
from what they suppose them to be. For, as all they suppose is
that these images ought to resemble the objects which they re
present, it is impossible for them to show how they can be
formed by the objects received by the organs of the external
senses and transmitted to the brain. And they have had no
reason for supposing the existence of these images except this ;
seeing that the mind is readily excited by a picture to conceive
the object which is depicted, they have thought that it must be
excited in the same way to conceive those objects which affect
our senses by little pictures of them formed in the head ; instead
of which we ought to recollect that there are many things be
sides images which may excite the mind, as, for example, signs
and words, which have not the least resemblance to the objects
which they signify." 1
Modern physiology amends Descartes conception
of the mode of action of sensory nerves in
detail, by showing that their structure is the same
as that of motor nerves ; and that the changes
which take place in them, when the sensory organs
with which they are connected are excited, are of
Locke (Human Understanding, Book II., chap. viii. 37)
uses Descartes illustration for the same purpose, and warns us
that " most of the ideas of sensation are no more the likeness of
something existing without us than the names that stand for
them are the likeness of our ideas, which yet, upon hearing, they
are apt to excite in us," a declaration which paved the way for
Berkeley.
VOL. I P
210 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
j list the same nature as those which occur in motor
nerves, when the muscles to which they are distri
buted are made to contract : there is a molecular
change which, in the case of the sensory nerve, is
propagated towards the brain. But the great fact
insisted upon by Descartes, that no likeness of
external things is, or can be, transmitted to the
mind by the sensory organs ; on the contrary, that,
between the external cause of a sensation and the
sensation, there is interposed a mode of motion of
nervous matter, of which the state of conscious
ness is no likeness, but a mere symbol, is of the
profoundest importance. It is the physiological
foundation of the doctrine of the relativity of
knowledge, and a more or less complete idealism
is a necessary consequence of it.
For of two alternatives one must be true.
Either consciousness is the function of a something
distinct from the brain, which we call the soul,
and a sensation is the mode in which this soul is
affected by the motion of a part of the brain ; or
there is no soul, and a sensation is something
generated by the mode of motion of a part of the
brain. In the former case, the phenomena of the
senses are purely spiritual affections ; in the latter,
they are something manufactured by the mechan
ism of the body, and as unlike the causes which
set that mechanism in motion, as the sound of a
repeater is unlike the pushing of the spring which
gives rise to it
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 211
The nervous system stands between conscious
ness and the assumed external world, as an
interpreter who can talk with his fingers stands
between a hidden speaker and a man who is stone
deaf and Realism is equivalent to a belief on the
part of the deaf man, that the speaker must also
be talking with his fingers. " Les extremes se
touchent ; " the shibboleth of materialists that
"thought is a secretion of the brain," is the
Fichtean doctrine that "the phenomenal uni
verse is the creation of the Ego," expressed in
other language.
IV. The motion of the matter of a sensory nerve
may be transmitted through the brain to
motor nerves, and thereby give rise to con
traction of the muscles to which these motor
nerves are distributed ; and this reflection
of motion from a sensory into a motor
nerve may take place without volition, or
even contrary to it.
In stating these important truths, Descartes
defined that which we now term " reflex action."
Indeed he almost uses the term itself, as he talks
of the "animal spirits" as " re fle chis," 1 from the
sensory into the motor nerves. And that this use
of the word " reflected " was no mere accident, but
that the importance and appropriateness of the
1 Passions de VAme, Art. xxxvi.
p 2
212 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
idea it suggests was fully understood by Descartes
contemporaries, is apparent from a passage in
Willis s well-known essay, " De Anima Brutorum,"
published in 1672, in which, in giving an account
of Descartes views, he speaks of the animal spirits
being diverted into motor channels, " velut undu-
latione reflexa." 1
Nothing can be clearer in statement, or in
illustration, than the view of reflex action which
Descartes gives in the " Passions de 1 Ame,"
Art. xiii.
After recapitulating the manner in which sensory
impressions transmitted by the sensory nerves to
the brain give rise to sensation, he proceeds :
"And in addition to the different feelings excited in the
soul by these different motions of the brain, the animal spirits,
without the intervention of the soul, may take their course
towards certain muscles, rather than towards others, and thus
move the limbs, as I shall prove by an example. If some one
moves his hand rapidly towards our eyes, as if he were going to
strike us, although we know that he is a friend, that he does it
only in jest, and that he will be very careful to do us no harm,
nevertheless it will be hard to keep from winking. And this
shows, that it is not by the agency of the soul that the eyes
shut, since this action is contrary to that volition which is the
1 " Quamcumque Bruti actionem, velut automati mechanici
motum artificialem, in eo consistere quod se prim6 sensibile
aliquod spiritus animales afficiens, eosque introrsum convertens,
sensionein excitat, a qua mox iidem spiritus, velut undulatione
reflexa denuo retrorsum commoti atque pro concinno ipsius
fabricse organorura, et partium ordine, in certos nervos muscul-
osque determinati, respectivos membrorum motus perficiunt."
WILLIS : De Animd Brntorum, p. 5, ed. 1763.
v ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 213
only, or at least the chief, function of the soul ; but it is because
the mechanism of our body is so disposed, that the motion of
the hand towards our eyes excites another movement in our
brain, and this sends the animal spirits into those muscles
which cause the eyelids to close.."
Since Descartes time, experiment has eminently
enlarged our knowledge of the details of reflex
action. The discovery of Bell has enabled us to
follow the tracks of the sensory and motor impulses,
along distinct bundles of nerve fibres ; and the
spinal cord, apart from the brain, has been proved
to be a great centre of reflex action ; but the
fundamental conception remains as Descartes left
it, and it is one of the pillars of nerve physiology
at the present day.
V. The motion of any given portion of the matter
of the brain excited by the motion of a
sensory nerve, leaves behind a readiness to
be moved in the same way, in that part.
Anything which resuscitates the motion
gives rise to the appropriate feeling. This
is the physical mechanism of tnemory.
Descartes imagined that the pineal body (a
curious appendage to the upper side of the brain,
the function of which, if it have any, is wholly
unknown) L was the instrument through which the
soul received impressions from, and communicated
them to, the brain. And he thus endeavours to
1 See above : p. 19, note.
214 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
explain what happens when one tries to recollect
something :
"Thus when the soul wills to remember anything, this
volition, causing the [pineal] gland to incline itself in different
directions, drives the [animal] spirits towards different regions
of the brain, until they reach that part in which are the traces,
which the object which it desires to remember has left. These
traces are produced thus : those pores of the brain through
which the [animal] spirits have previously been driven, by
reason of the presence of the object, have thereby acquired a
tendency to be opened by the animal spirits which return towards
them more easily than other pores, so that the animal spirits,
impinging on these pores, enter them more readily than
others. By this means they excite a particular movement in
the pineal gland, which represents the object to the soul, and
causes it to know what it is which it desired to recollect." 1
That memory is dependent upon some condition
of the brain is a fact established by many con
siderations among the most important of which
are the remarkable phenomena of aphasia. And
that the condition of the brain on which memory
depends, is largely determined by the repeated
occurrence of that condition of its molecules, which
gives rise to the idea of the thing remembered, is
no less certain. Every boy who learns his lesson
by repeating it exemplifies the fact. Descartes,
as we have seen, supposes that the pores of a
given part of the brain are stretched by the
animal spirits, on the occurrence of a sensation,
and that the part of the brain thus stretched,
1 Let Passions de VAine, xlii.
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 215
being imperfectly elastic, does not return to exactly
its previous condition, but remains more distensible
than it was before. Hartley supposes that the
vibrations, excited by a sensory, or other, impres
sion, do not die away, but are represented by
smaller vibrations or " vibratiuncules," the per
manency and intensity of which are in relation
with the frequency of repetition of the primary
vibrations. Haller has substantially the same idea,
but contents himself with the general term " muta-
tiones," to express the cerebral change which is
the cause of a state of consciousness. These
" mutationes " persist for a long time after the
cause which gives rise to them has ceased to
operate, and are arranged in the brain according
to the order of coexistence and succession of their
causes. And he gives these persistent "muta
tiones" the picturesque name of vestigia rerum,
" quae non in mente sed in ipso corpore et in
medulla quidem cerebri ineffabili modo incredi-
biliter minutis notis et copia infinita, inscripta3
sunt." 1 I do not know that any modern theory of
the physical conditions of memory differs essen
tially from these, which are all children mutatis
mutandis of the Cartesian doctrine. Physiology
is, at present, incompetent to say anything
positively about the matter, or to go farther than
the expression of the high probability, that every
molecular change which gives rise to a state of
1 Haller, Primce Lijiece, ed. iii. Sensus interni t dlvii.
216 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM y
consciousness, leaves a more or less persistent
structural modification, through which the same
molecular change may be regenerated by other
agencies than the cause which first produced it.
Thus far, the prepositions respecting the physio
logy of the nervous system which are stated by
Descartes have simply been more clearly defined,
more fully illustrated, and, for the most part,
demonstrated, by modern physiological research.
But there remains a doctrine to which Descartes
attached great weight, so that full acceptance of
it became a sort of note of a thoroughgoing
Cartesian, but which, nevertheless, is so opposed to
ordinary prepossessions that it attained more
general notoriety, and gave rise to more discussion,
than almost any other Cartesian hypothesis. It
is the doctrine that brute animals are mere
machines or automata, devoid not only of reason,
but of any kind of consciousness, which is stated
briefly in the " Di scours de la Me*thode," and more
fully in the "Reponses aux Quatri ernes Objections,"
and in the correspondence with Henry More. 1
The process of reasoning by which Descartes
arrived at this startling conclusion is well shown
in the following passage of the " Reponses : "
"But as regards the souls of beasts, although this is not the
place for considering them, and though, without a general
1 Reponse de M. Descartes a M. Moms. 1649. (Euvres,
tome x. p. 204. "Mais le plus grand de tous les prejuges que
nous ayons retenus de notre enfance, est celui de croire que les
betes pensent," etc
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 217
exposition of physics, I can say no more on this subject than I
have already said in the fifth part of my Treatise on Method ;
yet, I will further state, here, that it appears to me to be a very
remarkable circumstance that no movement can take place,
either in the bodies of beasts, or even in our own, if these
bodies have not in themselves all the organs and instruments
by means of which the very same movements would be accom
plished in a machine. So that, even in us, the spirit, or the
soul, does not directly move the limbs, but only determines the
course of that very subtle liquid which is called the animal
spirits, which, running continually from the heart by the brain
into the muscles, is the cause of all the movements of our limbs,
and often may cause many different motions, one as easily as the
other.
"And it does not even always exert this determination ; for
among the movements which take place in us, there are many
which do not depend on the mind at all, such as the beating of
the heart, the digestion of food, the nutrition, the respiration
of those who sleep ; and even in those who are awake, walking,
singing, and other similar actions, when they are performed
without the mind thinking about them. And, when one who
falls from a height throws his hands forward to save his head,
it is in virtue of no ratiocination that he performs this action ;
it does not depend upon his mind, but takes place merely
because his senses being affected by the present danger, some
change arises in his brain which determines the animal spirits
to pass thence into the nerves, in such a manner as is required
to produce this motion, in the same way as in a machine, and
without the mind being able to hinder it. Now since we observe
this in ourselves, why should we be so much astonished if the
light reflected from the body of a wolf into the eye of a sheep
has the same force to excite in it the motion of flight ?
" After having observed this, if we wish to learn by reasoning,
whether certain movements of beasts are comparable to those
which are effected in us by the operation of the mind, or, on the
contrary, to those which depend only on the animal spirits and
the disposition of the organs, it is necessary to consider the
difference between the two, which I have explained in the fifth
part of the Discourse on Method (for I do not think that any
218 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
others are discoverable), and then it will easily he seen, that all
the actions of beasts are similar only to those which we perform
without the help of our minds. For which reason we shall be
forced to conclude, that we know of the existence in them of no
other principle of motion than the disposition of their organs
and the continual affluence of animal spirits produced by the
heat of the heart, which attenuates and subtilises the blood ; and,
at the same time, we shall acknowledge that we have had no
reason for assuming any other principle, except that, not having
distinguished these two principles of motion, and seeing that
the one, which depends only on the animal spirits and the
organs, exists in beasts as well as in us, we have hastily con
cluded that the other, which depends on mind and on thought,
was also possessed by them."
Descartes line of argument is perfectly clear.
He starts from reflex action in man, from the
unquestionable fact that, in ourselves, co-ordinate,
purposive, actions may take place, without the
intervention of consciousness or volition, or even
contrary to the latter. As actions of a certain
degree of complexity are brought about by mere
mechanism, why may not actions of still greater
complexity be the result of a more refined
mechanism ? What proof is there that brutes are
other than a superior race of marionettes, which
eat without pleasure, cry without pain, desire
nothing, know nothing, and only simulate
intelligence as a bee simulates a mathema
tician ? 1
The Port Koyalists adopted the hypothesis that
1 Malebranche states the view taken by orthodox Cartesians in
3lm
1689 very forcibly: "Ainsi dans les chiens, les chats, et les
autres animaux, il n y a ny inte"
comme on 1 entend ordinairement.
autres animaux, il n y a ny intelligence, ny ame spirituelle
id ordinairement. Us mangent sans plaisir ; ils
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 219
brutes are machines, and are said to have
carried its practical applications so far as to treat
domestic animals with neglect, if not with actual
cruelty. As late as the middle of the eighteenth
century, the problem was discussed very fully and
ably by Bouillier, in his " Essai philosophique sur
1 Ame des Betes," while Condillac deals with it in
his " Traite des Animaux ; " but since then it has
received little attention. Nevertheless, modern
research has brought to light a great multitude of
facts, which not only show that Descartes view is
defensible, but render it far more defensible than
it was in his day.
It must be premised, that it is wholly impossi
ble absolutely to prove the presence or absence of
consciousness in anything but one s own brain,
though, by analogy, we are justified in assuming
its existence in other men. Now if, by some
accident, a man s spinal cord is divided, his limbs
are paralysed, so far as his volition is concerned,
below the point of injury ; and he is incapable of
experiencing all those states of consciousness
which, in his uninjured state, would be excited by
irritation of those nerves which come off below
the injury. If the spinal cord is divided in the
orient sans douleur ; ils croissent sans le S9avoir ; ils ne desirent
rien ; ils ne connoissent rien ; et s ils agissent avec adresse et d une
maniere qui marque 1 intelligence, c est que Dieu-les faisant pour
les conserver, il a conforme leurs corps de telle maniere, qu ils
evitent organiquement, sans le s^avoir, tout ce qui peut les de-
truire et qu ils semblent craindre. " (Fcuillctdc. Conches. Mtdita-
tions Melaphysiques ct Corrcspondance dc N. Makbranchc. Neu~
viime Meditation. 1841.)
220 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM V
middle of the back, for example, the skin of the
feet may be cut, or pinched, or burned, or wetted
with vitriol, without any sensation of touch, or of
pain, arising in consciousness. So far as the man
is concerned, therefore, the part of the central
nervous system which lies beyond the injury is
cut off from consciousness. It must indeed be
admitted, that, if any one think fit to maintain that
the spinal cord below the injury is conscious, but
that it is cut off from any means of making its
consciousness known to the other consciousness in
the brain, there is no means of driving him from
his position by logic. But assuredly there is no
way of proving it, and in the matter of conscious
ness, if in anything, we may hold by the rule, " De
non apparentibus et de non existentibus eadem est
ratio." However near the brain the spinal cord is
injured, consciousness remains intact, except that
the irritation of parts below the injury is no
longer represented by sensation. On the other
hand, pressure upon the anterior division of the
brain, or extensive injuries to it, abolish conscious
ness. Hence, it is a highly probable conclusion,
that consciousness in man depends upon the
integrity of the anterior division of the brain,
while the middle and hinder divisions of the brain, 1
and the rest of the nervous centres, have nothing
to do with it. And it is further highly probable,
Not to be confounded with the anterior middle and hinder
parts of the hemispheres of the cerebrum.
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 221
that what is true for man is true for other
vertebrated animals.
We may assume, then, that in a living verte
brated animal, any segment of the cerebro-spinal
axis (or spinal cord and brain) separated from that
anterior division of the brain which is the organ
of consciousness, is as completely incapable of
giving rise to consciousness as we know it to be
incapable of carrying out volitions. Nevertheless,
this separated segment of the spinal cord is not
passive and inert. On the contrary, it is the seat
of extremely remarkable powers. In our imagin
ary case of injury, the man would, as we have seen,
be devoid of sensation in his legs, and would have
not the least power of moving them. But, if the
soles of his feet were tickled, the legs would be
drawn up just as vigorously as they would have
been before the injury. We know exactly what
happens when the soles of the feet are tickled ; a
molecular change takes place in the sensory
nerves of the skin, and is propagated along them
and through the posterior roots of the spinal
nerves, which are constituted by them, to the grey
matter of the spinal cord. Through that grey
matter the molecular motion is reflected into the
anterior roots of the same nerves, constituted by
the filaments which supply the muscles of the
legs, and, travelling along these motor filaments,
reaches the muscles, which at once contract, and
cause the limbs to be drawn up.
222 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
Iii order to move the legs in this way, a
definite co-ordination of muscular contractions is
necessary ; the muscles must contract in a certain
order and with duly proportioned force ; and
moreover, as the feet are drawn away from the
source of irritation, it may be said that the
action has a final cause, or is purposive.
Thus it follows, that the grey matter of the
segment of the man s spinal cord, though it is
devoid of consciousness, nevertheless responds to
a simple stimulus by giving rise to a complex set
of muscular contractions, co-ordinated towards a
definite end, and serving an obvious purpose.
If the spinal cord of a frog is cut across, so as
to provide us with a segment separated from the
brain, we shall have a subject parallel to the
injured man, on which experiments can be made
without remorse ; as we have a right to conclude
that a frog s spinal cord is not likely to be con
scious, when a man s is not.
Now the frog behaves just as the man did.
The legs are utterly paralysed, so far as voluntary
movement is concerned ; but they are vigorously
drawn up to the body when any irritant is applied
to the foot. But let us study our frog a little
farther. Touch the skin of the side of the body
with a little acetic acid, which gives rise to all
the signs of great pain in an uninjured frog. In
this case, there can be no pain, because the appli
cation is made to a part of the skin supplied with
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 223
nerves which come off from the cord below the
point of section ; nevertheless, the frog lifts up
the limb of the same side, and applies the foot to
rub off the acetic acid; and, what is still more
remarkable, if the limb be held so that the frog
cannot use it, it will, by and by, move the limb of
the other side, turn it across the body, and use it
for the same rubbing process. It is impossible
that the frog, if it were in its entirety and could
reason, should perform actions more purposive
than these : and yet we have most complete
assurance that, in this case, the frog is not acting
from purpose, has no consciousness, and is a mere
insensible machine.
But now suppose that, instead of making a
section of the cord in the middle of the body, it
had been made in such a manner as to separate
the hindermost division of the brain from the
rest of the organ, and suppose the foremost two-
thirds of the brain entirely taken away. The
frog is then absolutely devoid of any spontaneity ;
it sits upright in the attitude which a frog
habitually assumes ; and it will not stir unless it
is touched ; but it differs from the frog which I
have just described in this, that, if it be thrown
into the water, it begins to swim, and swims just
as well as the perfect frog does. But swimming
requires the combination and successive co-ordina
tion of a great number of muscular actions. And
we are forced to conclude, that the impression
224 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
made upon the sensory nerves of the skin of the
frog by the contact with the water into which it
is thrown, causes the transmission to the central
nervous apparatus of an impulse which sets
going a certain machinery by which all the
muscles of swimming are brought into play in
due co-ordination. If the frog be stimulated by
some irritating body, it jumps or walks as well as
the complete frog can do. The simple sensory
impression, acting through the machinery of the
cord, gives rise to these complex combined
movements.
It is possible to go a step farther. Suppose
that only the anterior division of the brain so
much of it as lies in front of the " optic lobes "-
is removed. If that operation is performed
quickly and skilfully, the frog may be kept in a
state of full bodily vigour for months, or it may
be for years; but it will sit unmoved. It sees
nothing : it hears nothing. It will starve sooner
than feed itself, although food put into its mouth
is swallowed. On irritation, it jumps or walks ; if
thrown into the water it swims. If it be put on
the hand, it sits there, crouched, perfectly quiet,
and would sit there for ever. If the hand be
inclined very gently and slowly, so that the frog
would naturally tend to slip off, the creature s fore
paws are shifted on to the edge of the hand, until
he can just prevent himself from falling. If the
turning of the hand be slowly continued, he
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 225
mounts up with great care and deliberation, put
ting first one leg forward and then another, until
he balances himself with perfect precision upon
the edge; and if the turning of the hand is
continued, he goes through the needful set
of muscular operations, until he comes to be
seated in security, upon the back of the hand.
The doing of all this requires a delicacy of co
ordination, and a precision of adjustment of the
muscular apparatus of the body, which are only
comparable to those of a rope-dancer. To the
ordinary influences of light, the frog, deprived of
its cerebral hemispheres, appears to be blind.
Nevertheless, if the animal be put upon a table,
with a book at some little distance between it
and the light, and the skin of the hinder part of
its body is then irritated, it will jump forward,
avoiding the book by passing to the right or left
of it. Therefore, although the frog appears to
have no sensation of light, visible objects act
through its brain upon the motor mechanism of
its body. 1
It is obvious, that had Descartes been acquainted
with these remarkable results of modern research,
they would have furnished him with far more
powerful arguments than he possessed in favour
of his view of the automatism of brutes. The
1 See the remarkable essay of Gbltz, Beitrdge zur Lehre
von den Functionen der Nervencentren des Frosches, published
in 1869. I have repeated Goltz s experiments, and obtained
the same results.
VOL. I O
220 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
habits of a frog, leading its natural life, involve
such simple adaptations to surrounding conditions,
that the machinery which is competent to do so
much without the intervention of consciousness,
might well do all. And this argument is vastly
strengthened by what has been learned in recent
times of the marvellously complex operations
which are performed mechanically, and to all
appearance without consciousness, by men, when,
in consequence of injury or disease, they are
reduced to a condition more or less comparable to
that of a frog, in which the anterior part of the
brain has been removed. A case has recently
been published by an eminent French physician,
Dr. Mesnet, which illustrates this condition so
remarkably, that I make no apology for dwelling
upon it at considerable length. 1
A sergeant of the French army, F , twenty-
seven years of age, was wounded during the battle
of Bazeilles, by a ball which fractured his left
parietal bone. He ran his bayonet through the
Prussian soldier who wounded him, but almost
immediately his right arm became paralysed ;
after walking about two hundred yards, his right
leg became similarly affected, and he lost his
senses. When he recovered them, three weeks
1 " De 1 Automatisme de la Memoire et du Souvenir, dans le
Somnambulisms pathologique. " Parle Dr. E. Mesnet, Medcrin
de 1 HOpitai samt-Antome. ^ union Meatcale, Juiiiet 21 etiw,
1874. My attention was first called to a summary of this
remarkable case, which appeared in the Journal des Dtbats for
the 7th of August, 1874, by my friend General Strachey, F.R.S,
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 227
afterwards, in hospital at Mayence, the right half
of the body was completely paralysed, and re
mained in this condition for a year. At present,
the only trace of the paralysis which remains is a
slight weakness of the right half of the body.
Three or four months after the wound was in
flicted, periodical disturbances of the functions
of the brain made their appearance, and have
continued ever since. The disturbances last
from fifteen to thirty hours ; the intervals at
which they occur being from fifteen to thirty
days.
For four years, therefore, the life of this man
has been divided, into alternating phases short
abnormal states intervening between long normal
states.
In the periods of normal life, the ex-sergeant s
health is perfect ; he is intelligent and kindly, and
performs, satisfactorily, the duties of a hospital
attendant. The commencement of the abnormal
state is ushered in by uneasiness and a sense of
weight about the forehead, which the patient
compares to the constriction of a circle of iron ;
and, after its termination, he complains, for some
hours, of dulness and heaviness of the head. But
the transition from the normal to the abnormal
state takes place in a few minutes, without convul
sions or cries, and without anything to indicate
the change to a bystander. His movements re
main free and his expression calm, except for a
Q 2
228 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
contraction of the brow, an incessant movement
of the eyeballs, and a chewing motion of the jaws.
The eyes are wide open, and their pupils dilated.
If the man happens to be in a place to which he
is accustomed, he walks about as usual ; but, if he
is in a new place, or if obstacles are intentionally
placed in his way, he stumbles gently against
them, stops, and then, feeling over the objects
with his hands, passes on one side of them. He
offers no resistance to any change of direction
which may be impressed upon him, or to the
forcible acceleration or retardation of his move
ments. He eats, drinks, smokes, walks about,
dresses and undresses himself, rises and goes to
bed at the accustomed hours. Nevertheless, pins
may be run into his body, or strong electric shocks
sent through it, without causing the least indica
tion of pain ; no odorous substance, pleasant or
unpleasant, makes the least impression ; he eats
and drinks with avidity whatever is offered, and
takes asafcetida, or vinegar, or quinine, as readily
as water ; no noise affects him ; and light influences
him only under certain conditions. Dr. Mesnet
remarks, that the sense of touch alone seems to
persist, and indeed to be more acute and delicate
than in the normal state : and it is by means of
the nerves of touch, almost exclusively, that his
organism is brought into relation with the external
world. Here a difficulty arises. It is clear from
the facts detailed, that the nervous apparatus by
v ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 229
which, in the normal state, sensations of touch are
excited, is that by which external influences
determine the movements of the body, in the
abnormal state. But does the state of conscious
ness, which we term a tactile sensation, accompany
the operation of this nervous apparatus in the
abnormal state ? or is consciousness utterly absent,
the man being reduced to an insensible mecha
nism ?
It is impossible to obtain direct evidence in
favour of the one conclusion or the other ; all that
can be said is, that the case of the frog shows
that the man may be devoid of any kind of
consciousness.
A further difficult problem is this. The man is
insensible to sensory impressions made through
the ear, the nose, the tongue, and, to a great
extent, the eye ; nor is he susceptible of pain
from causes operating during his abnormal state.
Nevertheless, it is possible so to act upon his
tactile apparatus, as to give rise to those molecular
changes in his sensorium, which are ordinarily the
causes of associated trains of ideas. I give a
striking example of this process in Dr. Mesnet s
words :
" II se promenait dans le jardin, sous un massif d arbres, on
lui remet a la main sa canne qu il avait laisse tomber quelques
minutes avant. II la palpe, promene a plusieurs reprises la main
sur la poignee coudee de sa canne devient attentif semble
preter 1 oreille et, tout-a-coup, appelle Henri ! Puis, Les
Yoila ! Us sont an moins une vingtaine ! a nous deux, nous en
230 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM y
viendrons a bout ! Et alors portant la main derriere son dos
comme pour prendre une cartouche, il fait le mouvement de
charger son arme, so couche dans I herbe a plat ventre, la tete
cachec par un arbre, dans la position d un tirailleur, et suit
1 arme epaulee, tous les mouvements de I ennenii qu il croit voir
acourte distance."
In a subsequent abnormal period, Dr. Mesnet
caused the patient to repeat this scene by placing
him in the same conditions. Now, in this case,
the question arises whether the series of actions
constituting this singular pantomime was accom
panied by the ordinary states of consciousness, the
appropriate train of ideas, or not ? Did the man
dream that he was skirmishing ? or was he in the
condition of one of Vaucauson s automata a
senseless mechanism worked by molecular changes
in his nervous system ? The analogy of the frog
shows that the latter assumption is perfectly justi
fiable.
The ex-sergeant has a good voice, and had, at
one time, been employed as a singer at a cafe. In
one of his abnormal states he was observed to
begin humming a tune. He then went to his
room, dressed himself carefully, and took up some
parts of a periodical novel, which lay on his bed,
as if he were trying to find something. Dr.
Mesnet, suspecting that he was seeking his music,
made up one of these into a roll and put it
into his hand. He appeared satisfied, took his
cane and went down stairs to the door. Here
Dr. Mesnet turned him round, and he walked
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 231
quite contentedly, in the opposite direction,
towards the room of the concierge. The light of
the sun shining through a window now happened
to fall upon him, and seemed to suggest the foot
lights of the stage on which he was accustomed to
make his appearance. He stopped, opened his
roll of imaginary music, put himself into the atti
tude of a singer, and sang, with perfect execution,
three songs, one after the other. After which he
wiped his face with his handkerchief and drank,
without a grimace, a tumbler of strong vinegar
and water which was put into his hand.
An experiment which may be performed upon
the frog deprived of the fore part of its brain, well
known as Goltz s " Quak-versuch ," affords a
parallel to this performance. If the skin of a
certain part of the back of such a frog is gently
stroked with the finger, it immediately croaks. It
never croaks unless it is so stroked, and the croak
always follows the stroke, just as the sound of a
repeater follows the touching of the spring. In
the frog, this " song " is innate so to speak a
priori and depends upon a mechanism in the
brain governing the vocal apparatus, which is set
at work by the molecular change set up in the
sensory nerves of the skin of the back by the
contact of a foreign body.
In man there is also a vocal mechanism, and
the cry of an infant is in the same sense innate
and cb priori, inasmuch as it depends on an organic
232 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM y
relation between its sensory nerves and the
nervous mechanism which governs the vocal
apparatus. Learning to speak, and learning to
sing, are processes by which the vocal mechanism
is set to new tunes. A song which has been
learned has its molecular equivalent, which poten
tially represents it in the brain, just as a musical
box, wound up, potentially represents an overture.
Touch the stop and the overture begins ; send a
molecular impulse along the proper afferent nerve
and the singer begins his song.
Again, the manner in which the frog, though
apparently insensible to light, is yet, under some
circumstances, influenced by visual images, finds a
singular parallel in the case of the ex-sergeant.
Sitting at a table, in one of his abnormal states,
he took up a pen, felt for paper and ink, and
began to write a letter to his general, in which
he recommended himself for a medal, on account
of his good conduct and courage. It occurred to
Dr. Mesnet to ascertain experimentally how far
vision was concerned in this act of writing. He
therefore interposed a screen between the man s
eyes and his hands ; under these circumstances he
went on writing for a short time, but the words
became illegible, and he finally stopped, without
manifesting any discontent. On the withdrawal
of the screen he began to write again where he
had left off. The substitution of water for ink in
the inkstand had a similar result. He stopped,
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 233
looked at his pen, wiped it on his coat, dipped it
in the water, and began again with the same effect.
On one occasion, he began to write upon the
topmost of ten superimposed sheets of paper.
After he had written a line or two, this sheet was
suddenly drawn away. There was a slight ex
pression of surprise, but he continued his letter
on the second sheet exactly as if it had been the
first. This operation was repeated five times, so
that the fifth sheet contained nothing but the
writer s signature at the bottom of the page.
Nevertheless, when the signature was finished,
his eyes turned to the top of the blank sheet, and
he went through the form of reading over what
he had written, a movement of the lips accom
panying each word ; moreover, with his pen, he put
in such corrections as were needed, in that part of
the blank page which corresponded with the
position of the words which required correction,
in the sheets which had been taken away. If the
five sheets had been transparent, therefore, they
would, when superposed, have formed a properly
written and corrected letter.
Immediately after he had written his letter,
F got up, walked down to the garden, made
himself a cigarette, lighted and smoked it. He
was about to prepare another, but sought in vain
for his tobacco-pouch, which had been purposely
taken away. The pouch was now thrust before
his eyes and put under his nose, but he neither
234 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
saw nor smelt it ; yet, when it was placed in his
hand, he at once seized it, made a fresh cigarette,
and ignited a match to light the latter. The
match was blown out, and another lighted match
placed close before his eyes, but he made no
attempt to take it; and, if his cigarette was
lighted for him, he made no attempt to smoke.
All this time the eyes were vacant, and neither
winked, nor exhibited any contraction of the
pupils. From these and other experiments, Dr.
Mesnet draws the conclusion that his patient sees
some things and not others ; that the sense of
sight is accessible to all things which are brought
into relation with him by the sense of touch, and,
on the contrary, insensible to things which lie
outside this relation. He sees the match he holds
and does not see any other.
Just so the frog " sees " the book which is in the
way of his jump, at the same time that isolated
visual impressions take no effect upon him. 1
1 Those who have had occasion to become acquainted with
the phenomena of somnambulism and of mesmerism, will be
struck with the close parallel which they present to the proceed
ings of F. in his abnormal state. But the great value of Dr.
Mesnet s observations lies in the fact that the abnormal condi
tion is traceable to a definite injury to the brain, and that the
circumstances are such as to keep us clear of the cloud of
voluntary and involuntary fictions in which the truth is too
often smothered in such cases. In the unfortunate subjects of
such abnormal conditions of the brain, the disturbance of the
sensory and intellectual faculties is not unfrequently accom
panied by a perturbation of the moral nature, which may
manifest itself in a most astonishing love of lying for its own
sake. And, in this respect, also, F. s case is singularly instruct-
v ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 235
As I have pointed out, it is impossible to prove
that F is absolutely unconscious in his ab
normal state, but it is no less impossible to prove
the contrary ; and the case of the frog goes a long
way to justify the assumption that, in the abnormal
state, the man is a mere insensible machine.
If such facts as these had come under the know
ledge of Descartes, would they not have formed an
apt commentary upon that remarkable passage in
the "Traite de l Homme," which I have quoted
elsewhere, but which is worth repetition ?
"All the functions which I have attributed to this machine
(the body), as the digestion of food, the pulsation of the heart
and of the arteries ; the nutrition and the growth of the limbs ;
respiration, wakefulness, and sleep ; the reception of light,
sounds, odours, flavours, heat, and such like qualities, in the
organs of the external senses ; the impression of the ideas of
these in the organ of common sensation and in the imagination ;
ive, for though, in his normal state, he is a perfectly honest
man, in his abnormal condition he is an inveterate thief, steal
ing and hiding away whatever he can lay hands on, with much
dexterity, and with an absurd indifference as to whether the
property is his own or not. Hoffman s terrible conception of
the " Doppelt-ganger " is realised by men in this state who
live two lives, in the one of which they may be guilty of the
most criminal acts, while, in the other, they are eminently
virtuous and respectable. Neither life knows anything of the
other. Dr. Mesnet states that he has watched a man in his
abnormal state elaborately prepare to hang himself, and has let
him go on until asphyxia set in, when he cut him down. But
on passing into the normal state the would-be suicide was
wholly ignorant of what had happened. The problem of respon
sibility is here as complicated as that of the prince-bishop,
who swore as a prince and not as a bishop. But, highness,
if the prince is damned, what will become of the- bishop ? said
the peasant.
236 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
the retention or the impression of these ideas on the memory ;
the internal movements of the appetites and the passions ; and
lastly the external movements of all the limbs, which follow so
aptly, as well the action of the objects which are presented to
the senses, as the impressions which meet in the memory, that
they imitate as nearly as possible those of a real man ; I desire,
I say, that you should consider that these functions in the
machine naturally proceed from the mere arrangement of its
organs, neither more nor less than do the movements of a clock,
or other automaton, from that of its weights and its wheels ; so
that, so far as these are concerned, it is not necessary to con
ceive any other vegetative or sensitive soul, nor any other
principle of motion or of life, than the blood and the spirits
agitated by the fire which burns continually in the heart, and
which is no wise essentially different from all the fires which
exist in inanimate bodies. "
And would Descartes not have been justified in
asking why we need deny that animals are
machines, when men, in a state of unconsciousness,
perform, mechanically, actions as complicated and
as seemingly rational as those of any animals ?
But though I do not think that Descartes
hypothesis can be positively refuted, I am not dis
posed to accept it. The doctrine of continuity is
too well established for it to be permissible to me
to suppose that any complex natural phenomenon
comes into existence suddenly, and without being
preceded by simpler modifications; and very
strong arguments would be needed to prove that
such complex phenomena as those of conscious
ness, first make their appearance in man. We
know, that, in the individual man, consciousness
grows from a dim glimmer to its full light, whether
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 237
we consider the infant advancing in years, or the
adult emerging from slumber and swoon. We
know, further, that the lower animals possess,
though less developed, that part of the brain which
we have every reason to believe to be the organ of
consciousness in man ; and as, in other cases, func
tion and organ are proportional, so we have a right
to conclude it is with the brain ; and that the
brutes, though they may not possess our intensity
of consciousness, and though, from the absence of
language, they can have no trains of thoughts, but
only trains of feelings, yet have a consciousness
which, more or less distinctly, foreshadows our own.
I confess that, in view of the struggle for exist
ence which goes on in the animal world, and of
the frightful quantity of pain with which it must
be accompanied, I should be glad if the proba
bilities were in favour of Descartes hypothesis ;
but, on the other hand, considering the terrible
practical consequences to domestic animals which
might ensue from any error on our part, it is as
well to err on the right side, if we err at all, and
deal with them as weaker brethren, who are
bound, like the rest of us, to pay their toll for
living, and suffer what is needful for the general
good. As Hartley finely says, " We seem to be in
the place of God to them ; " and we may justly
follow the precedents He sets in nature in our
dealings with them.
But though we may see reason to disagree with
238 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
Descartes hypothesis that brutes are unconscious
machines, it does not follow that he was wrong in
regarding them as automata. They may be more
or less conscious, sensitive, automata; and the
view that they are such conscious machines is that
which is implicitly, or explicitly, adopted by most
persons. When we speak of the actions of the
lower animals being guided by instinct and not by
reason, what we really mean is that, though they
feel as we do, yet their actions are the results of
their physical organisation. We believe, in short,
that they are machines, one part of which (the
nervous system) not only sets the rest in motion,
and co-ordinates its movements in relation with
changes in surrounding bodies, but is provided
with special apparatus, the function of which is
the calling into existence of those states of con
sciousness which are termed sensations, emotions,
and ideas. I believe that this generally accepted
view is the best expression of the facts at present
known.
It is experimentally demonstrable any one
who cares to run a pin into himself may perform a
sufficient demonstration of the fact that a mode
of motion of the nervous system is the immediate
antecedent of a state of consciousness. All but
the adherents of " Occasionalism," or of the doc
trine of " Pre-established Harmony " (if any such
now exist), must admit that we have as much
reason for regarding the mode of motion of the
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 239
nervous system as the cause of the state of con
sciousness, as we have for regarding any event as
the cause of another. How the one phenomenon
causes the other we know, as much or as little, as
in any other case of causation ; but we have as
much right to believe that the sensation is an
effect of the molecular change, as we have to
believe that motion is an effect of impact ; and
there is as much propriety in saying that the brain
evolves sensation, as there is in saying that an
iron rod, when hammered, evolves heat.
As I have endeavoured to show, we are justified
in supposing that something analogous to what
happens in ourselves takes place in the brutes, and
that the affections of their sensory nerves give rise
to molecular changes in the brain, which again
give rise to, or evolve, the corresponding states of
consciousness. Nor can there be any reasonable
doubt that the emotions of brutes, and such ideas
as they possess, are similarly dependent upon
molecular brain changes. Bach sensory impres
sion leaves behind a record in the structure of the
brain an " ideagenous " molecule, so to speak,
which is competent, under certain conditions, to
reproduce, in a fainter condition, the state of con
sciousness which corresponds with that sensory
impression ; and it is these " ideagenous mole
cules " which are the physical basis of memory.
It may be assumed, then, that molecular
changes in the brain are the causes of all the
240 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM V
states of consciousness of brutes. Is there any
evidence that these states of consciousness may,
conversely, cause those molecular changes which
give rise to muscular motion ? I see no such
evidence. The frog walks, hops, swims, and goes
through his gymnastic performances quite as well
without consciousness, and consequently without
volition, as with it ; and, if a frog, in his natural
state, possesses anything corresponding with what
we call volition, there is no reason to think that it
is anything but a concomitant of the molecular
changes in the brain which form part of the series
involved in the production of motion.
The consciousness of brutes would appear to be
related to the mechanism of their body simply as
a collateral product of its working, and to be as
completely without any power of modifying that
working as the steam-whistle which accompanies
the work of a locomotive engine is without in
fluence upon its machinery. Their volition, if
they have any, is an emotion indicative of physical
changes, not a cause of such changes.
This conception of the relations of states of con
sciousness with molecular changes in the brain
of psychoses with neuroses does not prevent us
from ascribing free will to brutes. For an agent
is free when there is nothing to prevent him from
doing that which he desires to do. If a greyhound
chases a hare, he is a free agent, because his
action is in entire accordance with his strong
v ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 241
desire to catch the hare ; while so long as he is
held back by the leash he is Dot free, being pre
vented by external force from following his inclin
ation. And the ascription of freedom to the
greyhound under the former circumstances is by
no means inconsistent with the other aspect of
the facts of the case that he is a machine im
pelled to the chase, and caused, at the same time,
to have the desire to catch the game by the
impression which the rays of light proceeding
from the hare make upon his eyes, and through
them upon his brain.
Much ingenious argument has at various times
been bestowed upon the question : How is it
possible to imagine that volition, which is a
state of consciousness, and, as such, has not the
slightest community of nature with matter in
motion, can act upon the moving matter of which
the body is composed, as it is assumed to do in
voluntary acts ? But if, as is here suggested, the
voluntary acts of brutes or, in other words, the
acts which they desire to perform are as purely
mechanical as the rest of their actions, and are
simply accompanied by the state of consciousness
called volition, the inquiry, so far as they are con
cerned, becomes superfluous. Their volitions do
not enter into the chain of causation of their
actions at all.
The hypothesis that brutes are conscious
automata is perfectly consistent with any view
VOL. I. R
242 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
that may be held respecting the often discussed
and curious question whether they have souls or
not ; and, if they have souls, whether those souls
are immortal or not. It is obviously harmonious
with the most literal adherence to the text of
Scripture concerning " the beast that perisheth " ;
but it is not inconsistent with the amiable con
viction ascribed by Pope to his "untutored
savage," that when he passes to the happy
hunting-grounds in the sky, " his faithful dog
shall bear him company." If the brutes have con
sciousness and no souls, then it is clear that, in
them, consciousness is a direct function of
material changes; while, if they possess im
material subjects of consciousness, or souls, then,
as consciousness is brought into existence only as
the consequence of molecular motion of the brain,
it follows that it is an indirect product of material
changes. The soul stands related to the body as
the bell of a clock to the works, and consciousness
answers to the sound which the bell gives out
when it is struck.
Thus far I have strictly confined myself to the
problem with which I proposed to deal at starting
the automatism of brutes. The question is, I
believe, a perfectly open one, and I feel happy in
running no risk of either Papal or Presbyterian con
demnation for the views which I have ventured to
put forward. And there are so very few interest
ing questions which one is, at present, allowed to
v ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 243
think out scientifically to go as far as reason
leads, and stop where evidence comes to an end
without speedily being deafened by the tattoo of
" the drum ecclesiastic " that I have luxuriated
in my rare freedom, and would now willingly
bring this disquisition to an end if I could hope
that other people would go no farther. Unfortu
nately, past experience debars me from entertain
ing any such hope, even if
"... . that drum s discordant sound
Parading round and round and round,"
were not, at present, as audible to me as it was
to the mild poet who ventured to express his
hatred of drums in general, in that well-known
couplet.
It will be said, that I mean that the conclusions
deduced from the study of the brutes are applicable
to man, and that the logical consequences of such
application are fatalism, materialism, and atheism
whereupon the drums will beat the pas dc
charge.
One does not do battle with drummers ; but I
venture to offer a few remarks for the calm con
sideration of thoughtful persons, untrammelled by
foregone conclusions, unpledged to shore-up totter
ing dogmas, and anxious only to know the true
bearings of the case.
It is quite true that, to the best of my judg
ment, the argumentation which applies to brutes
R 2
244 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
holds equally good of men ; and, therefore, that
all states of consciousness in us, as in them, are
immediately caused by molecular changes of the
brain-substance. It seems to me that in men, as
in brutes, there is no proof that any state of con
sciousness is the cause of change in the motion of
the matter of the organism. If these positions
are well based, it follows that our mental condi
tions are simply the symbols in consciousness of
the changes which takes place automatically in
the organism ; and that, to take an extreme
illustration, the feeling we call volition is not the
cause of a voluntary act, but the symbol of that
state of the brain which is the immediate cause of
that act. We are conscious automata, endowed
with free will in the only intelligible sense of that
much-abused term inasmuch as in many respects
we are able to do as we like but none the less
parts of the great series of causes and effects
which, in unbroken continuity, composes that
which is, and has been, and shall be the sum of
existence.
As to the logical consequences of this conviction
of mine, I may be permitted to remark that
logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools
and the beacons of wise men. The only question
which any wise man can ask himself, and which
any honest man will ask himself, is whether a doc
trine is true or false. Consequences will take care
of themselves ; at most their importance can only
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 245
justify us in testing with extra care the reasoning
process from which they result.
So that if the view I have taken did really and
logically lead to fatalism, materialism, and atheism,
I should profess myself a fatalist, materialist, and
atheist ; and I should look upon those who, while
they believed in my honesty of purpose and intel
lectual competency, should raise a hue and cry
against me, as people who by their own admis
sion preferred lying to truth, and whose opinions
therefore were unworthy of the smallest at
tention.
But, as I have endeavoured to explain on other
occasions, I really have no claim to rank myself
among fatalistic, materialistic, or atheistic philoso
phers. Not among fatalists, for I take the con
ception of necessity to have a logical, and not a
physical foundation ; not among materialists, for
I am utterly incapable of conceiving the existence
of matter if there is no mind in which to picture
that existence ; not among atheists, for the problem
of the ultimate cause of existence is one which
seems to me to be hopelessly out of reach of my
poor powers. Of all the senseless babble I have
ever had occasion to read, the demonstrations of
these philosophers who undertake to tell us all
about the nature of God would be the worst, if they
were not surpassed by the still greater absurdities
of the philosophers who try to prove that there is
no God.
24(5 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
And if this personal disclaimer should not be
enough, let me further point out that a great
many persons whose acuteness and learning will
not be contested, and whose Christian piety, and,
in some cases, strict orthodoxy, are above suspicion,
have held more or less definitely the view that
man is a conscious automaton.
It is held, for example, in substance, by the
whole school of predestinarian theologians, typified
by St. Augustine, Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards
the great work of the latter on the will showing
in this, as in other cases, that the growth of
physical science has introduced no new difficulties
of principle into theological problems, but has
merely given visible body, as it were, to those
already existed.
Among philosophers, the pious Geulincx and
the whole school of occasionalist Cartesians held
this view; the orthodox Leibnitz invented the
term " automate spirituel," and applied it to man ;
the fervent Christian, Hartley, was one of the
chief advocates and best expositors of the doctrine ;
while another zealous apologist of Christianity in
a sceptical age, and a contemporary of Hartley,
Charles Bonnet, the Genevese naturalist, has
embodied the doctrine in language of such pre
cision and simplicity, that I will quote the little-
known passage of his " Essai de Psychologie " at
length :
ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 247
"ANOTHER HYPOTHESIS CONCERNING THE MECHANISM
OF IDEAS l
"Philosophers accustomed to judge of things by that which
they are in themselves, and not by their relation to received
ideas, would not be shocked if they met with the proposition
that the soul is a mere spectator of the movements of its body ;
that the latter performs of itself all that series of actions which
constitutes life : that it moves of itself : that it is the body alone
which reproduces ideas, compares and arranges them ; which
forms reasonings, imagines and executes plans of all kinds, etc.
This hypothesis, though perhaps of an excessive boldness, never
theless deserves some consideration.
" It is not to be denied that Supreme Power could create an
automaton which should exactly imitate all the external and
internal actions of man.
"I understand by external actions, all those movements which
pass under our eyes : I term internal actions, all the motions
which in the natural state cannot be observed because they take
place in the interior of the body such as the movements of
digestion, circulation, sensation, etc. Moreover, I include in
this category the movements which give rise to ideas, whatever
be their nature.
"In the automaton which we are considering everything
would be precisely determined. Everything would occur ao
cording to the rules of the most admirable mechanism : one
state would succeed another state, one operation would lead to
another operation, according to invariable laws ; motion would
become alternately cause and effect, effect and cause ; reaction
would answer to action, and reproduction to production.
" Constructed with definite relations to the activity of the
beings which compose the world, the automaton would receive
impressions from it, and, in faithful correspondence thereto, it
would execute a corresponding series of motions.
" Indifferent towards any determination, it would yield
1 Essai de Psychologic, chap, xxvii.
248 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM V
equally to all, if the first impressions did not, so to speak, wind
up the machine and decide its operations and its course.
" The series of movements which this automaton could execute
would distinguish it from all others formed on the same model,
but which, not having been placed in similar circumstances,
would not have experienced the same impressions, or would not
have experienced them in the same order.
" The senses of .the automaton, set in motion by the objects
presented to it, would communicate their motion to the brain,
the chief motor apparatus of the machine. This would put in
action the muscles of the hands and feet, in virtue of their secret
connection with the senses. These muscles, alternately con
tracted and dilated, would approximate or remove the automa
ton from the objects, in the relation which they would bear to
the conservation or the destruction of the machine.
" The motions of perception and sensation which the objects
would have impressed on the brain, would be preserved in it by
the energy of its mechanism. They would become more vivid
according to the actual condition of the automaton, considered in
itself and relatively to the objects.
" Words being only the motions impressed on the organ of
hearing and that of voice, the diversity of these movements,
their combination, the order in which they would succeed one
another, would represent judgments, reasoning, and all the
operations of the mind.
"A close correspondence between the organs of the senses,
either by the opening into one another of their nervous ramifica
tions, or by interposed springs (ressorts), would establish such a
connection in their working, that, on the occasion of the move
ments impressed on one of these organs, other movements would
be excited, or would become more vivid in some of the other
senses.
Give the automaton a soul which contemplates its move
ments, which believes itself to be the author of them, which has
different volitions on the occasion of the different movements,
and you will on this hypothesis construct a man.
"But would this man be free ? Can the feeling of our liberty,
this feeling which is so clear and so distinct and so vivid as to
V ANIMAL AUTOMATISM 249
persuade us that we are the authors of our actions, be conciliated
with this hypothesis ? If it removes the difficulty which attends
the conception of the action of the soul on the body, on the other
hand it leaves untouched that which meets us in endeavouring
to conceive the action of the body on the soul."
But if Leibnitz, Jonathan Edwards, and Hartley
men who rank among the giants of the world of
thought could see no antagonism between the
doctrine under discussion and Christian orthodoxy,
is it not just possible that smaller folk may be
wrong in making such a coil about " logical con
sequences " ? And, seeing how large a share of
this clamour is raised by the clergy of one denomi
nation or another, may I say, in conclusion, that it
really would be well if ecclesiastical persons
would reflect that ordination, whatever deep-seated
graces it may confer, has never been observed to
be followed by any visible increase in the learning
or the logic of its subject. Making a man
a Bishop, or entrusting him with the office of
ministering to even the largest of Presbyterian
congregations, or setting him up to lecture to a
Church congress, really does not in the smallest
degree augment such title to respect as his
opinions may intrinsically possess. And when
such a man presumes on an authority which was
conferred upon him for other purposes to sit in
judgment upon matters his incompetence to deal
with which is patent, it is permissible to ignore
his sacerdotal pretensions, and to tell him, as one
250 ANIMAL AUTOMATISM v
would tell a mere common, unconsecrated, lay
man : that it is not necessary for any man to
occupy himself with problems of this kind unless
he so choose ; life is filled full enough by the per
formance of its ordinary and obvious duties. But
that, if a man elect to become a judge of these
grave questions; still more, if he assume the
responsibility of attaching praise or blame to his
fellow-men for the conclusions at which they
arrive touching them, he will commit a sin more
grievous than most breaches of the Decalogue,
unless he avoid a lazy reliance upon the informa
tion that is gathered by prejudice and filtered
through passion, unless he go back to the prime
sources of knowledge the facts of Nature, and
the thoughts of those wise men who for genera
tions past have been her best interpreters.
VI
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM
[1871]
To me, and, as I trust, to the great majority of
those whom I address, the great attempt to
educate the people of England which has just
been set afoot, is one of the most satisfactory and
hopeful events in our modern history. But it is
impossible, even if it were desirable, to shut our
eyes to the fact, that there is a minority, not in
considerable in numbers, nor deficient in support
ers of weight and authority, in whose judgment
all this legislation is a step in the wrong direction,
false in principle, and consequently sure to pro
duce evil in practice.
The arguments employed by these objectors are
of two kinds. The first is what I will venture to
term the caste argument ; for, if logically carried
out, it would end in the separation of the people
of this country into castes, as permanent and as
252 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
sharply defined, if not as numerous, as those of
India. It is maintained that the whole fabric
of society will be destroyed if the poor, as well
as the rich, are educated; that anything like
sound and good education will only make them
discontented with their station and raise hopes
which, in the great majority of cases, will be
bitterly disappointed. It is said : There must be
hewers of wood and drawers of water, scavengers
and coalheavers, day labourers and domestic ser
vants, or the work of society will come to a stand
still. But, if you educate and refine everybody,
nobody will be content to assume these functions,
and all the world will want to be gentlemen and
ladies.
One hears this argument most frequently from
the representatives of the well-to-do middle class ;
and, coming from them, it strikes me as peculiarly
inconsistent, as the one thing they admire, strive
after, and advise their own children to do, is to
get on in the world, and, if possible, rise out of
the class in which they were born into that above
them. Society needs grocers and merchants as
much as it needs coalheavers ; but if a merchant
accumulates wealth and works his way to a
baronetcy, or if the son of a greengrocer becomes
a lord chancellor, or an archbishop, or, as a success
ful soldier, wins a peerage, all the world admires
them ; and looks with pride upon the social sys
tem which renders such achievements possible.
VI
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 253
Nobody suggests that there is anything wrong in
their being discontented with their station; or
that, in their cases society suffers by men of
ability reaching the positions for which Nature
has fitted them.
But there are better replies than those of the
tu quoquc sort to the caste agument. In the first
place, it is not true that education, as such, unfits
men for rough and laborious, or even disgusting,
occupations. The life of a sailor is rougher and
harder than that of nine landsmen out of ten, and
yet, as every ship s captain knows, no sailor was
ever the worse for possessing a trained intelligence.
The life of a medical practitioner, especially in the
country, is harder and more laborious than that of
most artisans, and he is constantly obliged to do
things, which, in point of pleasantness, cannot be
ranked above scavengering yet he always ought
to be, and he frequently is, a highly educated
man. In the second place, though it may be
granted that the words of the catechism, which
require a man to do his duty in the station to
which it has pleased God to call him, give an ad
mirable definition of our obligation to ourselves
and to society ; yet the question remains, how is
any given person to find out what is the particular
station to which it has pleased God to call him ?
A new-born infant does not come into the world
labelled scavenger, shopkeeper, bishop or duke.
One mass of red pulp is just like another to all
254 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM
VI
outward appearance. And it is only by finding out
what his faculties are good for, and seeking, not
for the sake of gratifying a paltry vanity, but as
the highest duty to himself and to his fellow-men,
to put himself into the position in which they can
attain their full development, that the man dis
covers his true station. That which is to be
lamented, I fancy, is not that society should do its
utmost to help capacity to ascend from the lower
strata to the higher, but that it has no machinery
by which to facilitate the descent of incapacity from
the higher strata to the lower. In that noble
romance, the " Republic " (which is now, thanks
to the Master of Balliol, as intelligible to us all
as if it had been written in our mother tongue),
Plato makes Socrates say that he should like to
inculcate upon the citizens of his ideal state just
one " royal lie."
" Citizens, we shall say to them in our tale You are
brothers, yet God has framed you differently. Some of you
have the power of command, and these He has composed of gold,
wherefore also they have the greatest honour ; others of silver,
to be auxiliaries ; others again, who are to be husbandmen and
craftsmen, He has made of brass and iron ; and the species will
generally be preserved in the children. But as you are of the
same original family, a golden parent wijl sometimes have a
silver son, or a silver parent a golden son. And God proclaims
to the rulers, as a first principle, that before all they should
watch over their offspring, and see what elements mingle with
their nature ; for if the son of a golden or silver parent has an
admixture of brass and iron, then nature orders a transposition
of ranks, and the eye of the ruler must not be pitiful towards his
child because he has to descend in the scale and become a
VI
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 255
husbandman or artisan ; just as there may be others sprung
from the artisan class, who are raised to honour, and become
guardians and auxiliaries. For an oracle says that when a man
of brass and iron guards the State, it will then be destroyed. " l
Time, whose tooth gnaws away everything else,
is powerless against truth ; and the lapse of more
than two thousand years has not weakened the
force of these wise words. Nor is it necessary
that, as Plato suggests, society should provide
functionaries expressly charged with the perform
ance of the difficult duty of picking out the men
of brass from those of silver and gold. Educate,
and the latter will certainly rise to the top ; re
move all those artificial props by which the brass
and iron folk are kept at the top, and, by a law as
sure as that of gravitation, they will gradually sink
to the bottom. We have all known noble lords
who would have been coachmen, or gamekeepers,
or billiard-markers, if they had not been kept
afloat by our social corks ; we have all known
men among the lowest ranks, of whom every one
has said, " What might not that man have become,
if he had only had a little education ? "
And who that attends, even in the most super
ficial way, to the conditions upon which the
stability of modern society and especially of a
society like ours, in which recent legislation has
placed sovereign authority in the hands of the
1 The Dialogues of Plato. Translated into English, with
Analysis and Introduction, by B. Jowett, M.A. Vol. ii. p. 243.
256 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
masses, whenever they are united enough to wield
their power can doubt that every man of high
natural ability, who is both ignorant and miser
able, is as great a danger to society as a rocket
without a stick is to the people who fire it ?
Misery is a match that never goes out ; genius, as
an explosive power, beats gunpowder hollow ; and
if knowledge, which should give that power guid
ance, is wanting, the chances are not small that
the rocket will simply run a-muck among friends
and foes. What gives force to the socialistic
movement which is now stirring European society
to its depths, but a determination on the part of
the naturally able men among the proletariat, to
put an end, somehow or other, to the misery and
degradation in which a large proportion of their
fellows are steeped ? The question, whether the
means by which they purpose to achieve this end
are adequate or not, is at this moment the most
important of all political questions and it is
beside my present purpose to discuss it. All I
desire to point out is, that if the chance of the
controversy being decided calmly and rationally,
and not by passion and force, looks miserably
small to an impartial bystander, the reason is that
not one in ten thousand of those who constitute
the ultimate court of appeal, by which questions
of the utmost difficulty, as well as of the most
momentous gravity, will have to be decided,
is prepared by education to comprehend the
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 257
real nature of the suit brought before their
tribunal.
Finally, as to the ladies and gentlemen question,
all I can say is, would that every woman-child
born into this world were trained to be a lady, and
every man-child a gentleman ! But then I do
not use those much-abused words by way of dis
tinguishing people who wear fine clothes, and live
in fine houses, and talk aristocratic slang, from
those who go about in fustian, and live in back
slums, and talk gutter slang. Some inborn
plebeian blindness, in fact, prevents me from
understanding what advantage the former have
over the latter. I have never even been able to
understand why pigeon-shooting at Hurlingham
should be refined and polite, while a rat-killing
match in Whitechapel is low ; or why " What a
lark " should be coarse, when one hears " How
awfully jolly " drop from the most refined lips
twenty times in an evening.
Though tfulness for others, generosity, modesty,
and self-respect, are the qualities which make a
real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished from the
veneered article which commonly goes by that
name. I by no means wish to express any senti
mental preference for Lazarus against Dives, but,
on the face of the matter, one does not see why
the practice of these virtues should be more
difficult in one state of life than another ; and any
one who has had a wide experience among all
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258 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
sorts and conditions of men, will, I think, agree
with me that they are as common in the lower
ranks of life as in the higher.
Leaving the caste argument aside then, as in
consistent with the practice of those who employ
it, as devoid of any justification in theory, and as
utterly mischievous if its logical consequences
were carried out, let us turn to the other class of
objectors. To these opponents, the Education
Act is only one of a number of pieces of legisla
tion to which they object on principle ; and they
include under like condemnation the Vaccination
Act, the Contagious Diseases Act, and all other
sanitary Acts; all attempts on the part of the
State to prevent adulteration, or to regulate
injurious trades ; all legislative interference with
anything that bears directly or indirectly on
commerce, such as shipping, harbours, railways,
roads, cab-fares, and the carriage of letters ; and
all attempts to promote the spread of knowledge
by the establishment of teaching bodies, examin
ing bodies, libraries, or museums, or by the sending
out of scientific expeditions; all endeavours to
advance art by the establishment of schools of
design, or picture galleries ; or by spending money
upon an architectural public building when a
brick box would answer the purpose. According
to their views, not a shilling of public money must
be bestowed upon a public park or pleasure-
ground ; not sixpence upon the relief of starvation,
Vi ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 259
or the cure of disease. Those who hold these
views support them by two lines of argument.
They enforce them deductively by arguing from
an assumed axiom, that the State has no right to
do anything but protect its subjects from aggres
sion. The State is simply a policeman, and its
duty is neither more nor less than to prevent
robbery and murder and enforce contracts. It is
not to promote good, nor even to do anything to
prevent evil, except by the enforcement of
penalties upon those who have been guilty of
obvious and tangible assaults upon purses or
persons. And, according to this view, the proper
form of government is neither a monarchy, an
aristocracy, nor a democracy, but an asty nomocracy,
or police government. On the other hand, these
views are supported a posteriori, by an induction
from observation, which professes to show that
whatever is done by a Government beyond these
negative limits, is not only sure to be done badly,
but to be done much worse than private enterprise
would have done the same thing.
I am by no means clear as to the truth of the
latter proposition. It is generally supported by
statements which prove clearly enough that the
State does a great many things very badly. But
this is really beside the question. The State
lives in a glass house ; we see what it tries to do,
and all its failures, partial or total, are made the
most of. But private enterprise is sheltered under
S 2
260 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
good opaque bricks and mortar. The public
rarely knows what it tries to do, and only hears of
failures when they are gross and patent to all the
world. Who is to say how private enterprise
would come out if it tried its hand at State work ?
Those who have had most experience of joint-
stock companies and their management, will
probably be least inclined to believe in the innate
superiority of private enterprise over State
management. If continental bureaucracy and
centralisation be fraught with multitudinous evils,
surely English beadleocracy and parochial ob
struction are not altogether lovely. If it be said
that, as a matter of political experience, it is found
to be for the best interests, including the healthy
and free development, of a people, that the State
should restrict itself to what is absolutely neces
sary, and should leave to the voluntary efforts of
individuals as much as voluntary effort can be got
to do, nothing can be more just. But, on the
other hand, it seems to me that nothing can be
less justifiable than the dogmatic assertion that
State interference, beyond the limits of home
and foreign police, must, under all circumstances,
do harm.
Suppose, however, for the sake of argument,
that we accept the proposition that the functions
of the State may be properly summed up in the
one great negative commandment, " Thou shalt
not allow any man to interfere with the liberty of
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 261
any other man," I am unable to see that the
logical consequence is any such restriction of the
power of Government, as its supporters imply.
If my next-door neighbour chooses to have his
drains in such a state as to create a poisonous at
mosphere, which I breathe at the risk of typhoid
and diphtheria, he restricts my just freedom to live
just as much as if he went about with a pistol,
threatening my life ; if he is to be allowed to let
his children go unvaccinated, he might as well be
allowed to leave strychnine lozenges about in the
way of mine ; and if he brings them up untaught
and untrained to earn their living, he is doing his
best to restrict my freedom, by increasing the
burden of taxation for the support of gaols and
workhouses, which I have to pay.
The higher the state of civilisation, the more
completely do the actions of one member of the
social body influence all the rest, and the less
possible is it for any one man to do a wrong thing
without interfering, more or less, with the freedom
of all his fellow-citizens. So that, even upon the
narrowest view of the functions of the State, it
must be admitted to have wider powers than the
advocates of the police theory are disposed to
admit.
It is urged, I am aware, that if the right of
the State to step beyond the assigned limits is
admitted at all, there is no stopping ; and that the
principle which justifies the State in enforcing
262 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vt
vaccination or education, will also justify it in
prescribing my religious belief, or my mode of
carrying on my trade or profession ; in deter
mining the number of courses I have for dinner,
or the pattern of my waistcoat.
But surely the answer is obvious that, on
similar grounds, the right of a man to eat when he
is hungry might be disputed, because if you once
allow that he may eat at all, there is no stopping
him until he gorges himself, and suffers all the ills
of a surfeit. In practice, the man leaves off when
reason tells him he has had enough; and, in a
properly organised State, the Government, being
nothing but the corporate reason of the community,
will soon find out when State interference has been
carried far enough. And, so far as my acquaint
ance with those who carry on the business of
Government goes, I must say that I find them far
less eager to interfere with the people, than the
people are to be interfered with. And the reason
is obvious. The people are keenly sensible of
particular evils, and, like a man suffering from
pain, desire an immediate remedy. The states
man, on the other hand, is like the physician, who
knows that he can stop the pain at once by an
opiate ; but who also knows that the opiate may
do more harm than good in the long run. In
three cases out of four the wisest thing he can do
is to wait, and leave the case to nature. But in
the fourth case, in which the symptoms are
vi ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 263
unmistakable, and the cause of the disease
distinctly known, prompt remedy saves a life. Is
the fact that a wise physician will give as little
medicine as possible any argument for his abstain
ing from giving any at all ?
But the argument may be met directly. It
may be granted that the State, or corporate
authority of the people, might with perfect pro
priety order my religion, or my waistcoat, if as
good grounds could be assigned for such an order
as for the command to educate my children. And
this leads us to the question which lies at the
root of the whole discussion the question,
namely, upon what foundation does the authority
of the State rest, and how are the limits of that
authority to be determined ?
One of the oldest and profoundest of English
philosophers, Hobbesof Malmesbury writes thus :
"The office of the sovereign, be it monarch or an assembly,
consisteth in the end for which he was entrusted with the sover
eign power, namely, the procuration of the safety of the people :
to which he is obliged by the law of nature, and to render an
account thereof to God, the author of that law, and to none but
Him. But by safety, here, is not meant a bare preservation, but
also all other contentments of life, which every man by lawful
industiy, without danger or hurt to the commonwealth, shall
acquire to himself."
At first sight this may appear to be a statement
of the police-theory of government, pure and
simple ; but it is not so. For Hobbes goes on to
say :
264 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
And this is intended should be done, not by care applied to
individuals, further than their protection from injuries, when
they shall complain ; but by a general providence contained
in public instruction both of doctrine and example ; and in the
making and executing of good laws to which individual persons
may apply their own cases." i
To a witness of the civil war between Charles I.
and the Parliament, it is not wonderful that the
dissolution of the bonds of society which is
involved in such strife should appear to be " the
greatest evil that can happen in this life ; " and
all who have read the " Leviathan " know to what
length Hobbes s anxiety for the preservation of
the authority of the representative of the sovereign
power, whatever its shape, leads him. But the
justice of his conception of the duties of the
sovereign power does not seem to me to be invali
dated by his monstrous doctrines respecting the
sacredness of that power.
To Hobbes, who lived during the break-up of
the sovereign power by popular force, society
appeared to be threatened by everything which
weakened that power ; but, to John Locke, who
witnessed the evils which flow from the attempt
of the sovereign power to destroy the rights of
the people by fraud and violence, the danger lay
in the other direction.
The safety of the representative of the sovereign
power itself is to Locke a matter of very small
1 Leviathan, Molesworth s ed. p. 322.
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 265
moment, and he contemplates its abolition when
it ceases to do its duty, and its replacement by
another, as a matter of course. The great cham
pion of the revolution of 1688 could do no less.
Nor is it otherwise than natural that he should
seek to limit, rather than to enlarge, the powers
of the State, though in substance he entirely
agrees with Hobbes s view of its duties :
" But though men," says he, "when they enter into society,
give up the equality, liberty, and executive power they had in
the state of nature, into the hands of the society, to be so far
disposed of by the Legislature as the good of society shall
require ; yet it being only with an intention in every one the
better to preserve himself, his liberty and property (for no
rational creature can be supposed to change his condition with
an intention to be worse), the power of the society, or legislation,
constituted by them can never be supposed to extend further
than the common good, but is obliged to secure every one s pro
perty by providing against those three defects above mentioned,
that made the state of nature so unsafe and uneasy. And so, who
ever has the legislative or supreme power of any commonwealth,
is bound to govern by established standing laws, promulgated
and known to the people, and not by extemporary decrees ; by
indifferent and upright judges, who are to decide controversies
by those laws : and to employ the force of the community at
home only in the execution of such laws ; or abroad, to prevent
or redress foreign injuries, and secure the community from in
roads and invasion. And all this to be directed to no other end
than the peace, safety, and public good of the people." l
Just as in the case of Hobbes, so in that of
Locke, it may at first sight appear from this pas
sage that the latter philosopher s views of the
1 Locke s Essay, Of Civil Government, 131.
266 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
functions of Government incline to the negative,
rather than the positive, side. But a further
study of Locke s writings will at once remove
this misconception. In the famous " Letter con
cerning Toleration," Locke says :
"The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men con
stituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their
own civil interests.
"Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of
body ; and the possession of outward things, such as money,
lands, houses, furniture, and the like.
"It is the duty of the civil magistrate, by the impartial
execution of equal laws, to secure unto all the people in general,
and to every one of his subjects in particular, the just possession
of those things belonging to this life.
"... The whole jurisdiction of the magistrate reaches only
to these civil concernments. . . . All civil power, right, and
dominion, is bounded and confined to the only care of promoting
these things."
Elsewhere in the same " Letter," Locke lays
down the proposition that if the magistrate
understand washing a child " to be profitable to
the curing or preventing any disease that children
are subject unto, and esteem the matter weighty
enough to be taken care of by a law, in that case
he may order it to be done/
Locke seems to differ most widely from Hobbes
by his strong advocacy of a certain measure of
toleration in religious matters. But the reason
why the civil magistrate ought to leave religion
alone is, according to Locke, simply this, that
" true and saving religion consists in the inward
Vi ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 267
persuasion of the mind." And since " such is the
nature of the understanding that it cannot be
compelled to the belief of anything by outward
force," it is absurd to attempt to make men
religious by compulsion. I cannot discover that
Locke fathers the pet doctrine of modern Liberal
ism, that the toleration of error is a good thing
in itself, and to be reckoned among the cardinal
virtues ; on the contrary, in this very " Letter on
Toleration " he states in the clearest language that
" No opinion contrary to human society, or to
those moral rules which are necessary to the
preservation of civil society, are to be tolerated
by the magistrate." And the practical corollary
which he draws from this proposition is that
there ought to be no toleration for either Papists
or Atheists.
After Locke s time the negative view of the
functions of Government gradually grew in
strength, until it obtained systematic and able
expression in Wilhelm von Humboldt s " Ideen," *
the essence of which is the denial that the State
has a right to be anything more than chief police
man. And, of late years, the belief in the efficacy
of doing nothing, thus formulated, has acquired
considerable popularity for several reasons. In the
first place, men s speculative convictions have
become less and less real ; their tolerance is large
1 An English translation has been published under the title of
Essay on the Sphere and Duties of Government.
268 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
because their belief is small ; they know that the
State had better leave things alone unless it has a
clear knowledge about them ; and, with reason,
they suspect that the knowledge of the governing
power may stand no higher than the very low
watermark of their own.
In the second place, men have become largely
absorbed in the mere accumulation of wealth ; and
as this is a matter in which the plainest and
strongest form of self-interest is intensely con
cerned, science (in the shape of Political Economy)
has readily demonstrated that self-interest may
be safely left to find the best way of attaining its
ends. Rapidity and certainty of intercourse
between different countries, the enormous deve
lopment of the powers of machinery, and general
peace (however interrupted by brief periods of
warfare), have changed the face of commerce as
completely as modern artillery has changed that of
war. The merchant found himself as much
burdened by ancient protective measures as the
soldier by his armour and negative legislation
has been of as much use to the one as the strip
ping off of breast-plates, greaves, and buff-coat to
the other. But because the soldier is better
without his armour it does not exactly follow that
it is desirable that our defenders should strip them
selves stark naked ; and it is not more apparent why
laissez-faire great and beneficial as it may be in
all that relates to the accumulation of wealth
vr ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 269
should be the one great commandment which the
State is to obey in all other matters ; and especi
ally in those in which the justification of laissez-
faire, namely, the keen insight given by the strong
stimulus of direct personal interest, in matters
clearly understood, is entirely absent.
Thirdly, to the indifference generated by the
absence of fixed beliefs, and to the confidence in
the efficacy of laissez-faire, apparently justified by
experience of the value of that principle when
applied to the pursuit of wealth, there must be
added that nobler and better reason for a profound
distrust of legislative interference, which animates
Von Humboldt and shines forth in the pages of
Mr. Mill s famous Essay on Liberty I mean the
just fear lest the end should be sacrificed to
the means; lest freedom and variety should be
drilled and disciplined out of human life in order
that the great mill of the State should grind
smoothly.
One of the profoundest of living English
philosophers, who is at the same time the most
thoroughgoing and consistent of the champions
of astynomocracy, has devoted a very able and
ingenious essay l to the drawing out of a com
parison between the process by which men have
advanced from the savage state to the highest
civilisation, and that by which an animal passes
from the condition of an almost shapeless and
1 The Social Organism : Essays. Second Series.
270 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM
VI
structureless germ, to that in which it exhibits a
highly complicated structure and a corresponding
diversity of powers. Mr. Spencer says with great
justice
"That they gradually increase in mass ; that they become,
little by little, more complex ; that, at the same time, their
parts grow more mutually dependent ; and that they continue to
live and grow as wholes, while successive generations of their
units appear and disappear, are broad peculiarities which
bodies politic display, in common with all living bodies, and in
which they and living bodies differ from everything else."
In a very striking passage of this essay Mr.
Spencer shows with what singular closeness a
parallel between the development of a nervous
system, which is the governing power of the body
in the series of animal organisms, and that of
government, in the series of social organisms, can
be drawn :
"Strange as the assertion will be thought," says Mr. Spencer,
"our Houses of Parliament discharge in the social economy
functions that are, in sundry respects, comparable to those dis
charged by the cerebral masses in a vertebrate animal
The cerebrum co-ordinates the countless heterogeneous consider
ations which affect the present and future welfare of the indi
vidual as a whole ; and the Legislature co-ordinates the countless
heterogeneous considerations which affect the immediate and
remote welfare of the whole community. "We may describe the
office of the brain as that of averaging the interests of life,
physical, intellectual, moral, social ; and a good brain is one in
which the desires answering to their respective interests are so
balanced, that the conduct they jointly dictate sacrifices none of
them. Similarly we may describe the office of Parliament as
that of averaging the interests of the various classes in a com-
Vi ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 271
munity ; and a good Parliament is one in which the parties
answering to these respective interests are so balanced, that their
united legislation concedes to each class as much as consists with
the claims of the rest."
All this appears to be very just. But if the
resemblances between the body physiological and
the body politic are any indication, not only of
what the latter is, and how it has become what it
is, but of what it ought to be, and what it is tend
ing to become, I cannot but think that the real
force of the analogy is totally opposed to the
negative view of State function.
Suppose that, in accordance with this view,
each muscle were to maintain that the nervous
system had no right to interfere with its con
traction, except to prevent it from hindering the
contraction of another muscle ; or each gland, that
it had a right to secrete, so long as its secretion
interfered with no other ; suppose every separate
cell left free to follow its own " interest," and
laissez-faire lord of all, what would become of
the body physiological ?
The fact is that the sovereign power of the
body thinks for the physiological organism, acts
for it, and rules the individual components with a
rod of iron. Even the blood-corpuscles can t hold
a public meeting without being accused of " con
gestion " and the brain, like other despots whom
we have known, calls out at once for the use of
sharp steel against them. As in Hobbes s
272 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
" Leviathan," the representative of the sovereign
authority in the living organism, though he
derives all his powers from the mass which he
rules, is above the law. The questioning of his
authority involves death, or that partial death
which we call paralysis. Hence, if the analogy of
the body politic with the body physiological
counts for anything, it seems to me to be in
favour of a much larger amount of governmental
interference than exists at present, or than I,
for one, at all desire to see. But, tempting as
the opportunity is, I am not disposed to build
up any argument in favour of my own case upon
this analogy, curious, interesting, and in many
respects close, as it is, for it takes no cognisance
of certain profound and essential differences
between the physiological and the political
bodies.
Much as the notion of a " social contract " has
been ridiculed, it nevertheless seems to be clear
enough, that all social organisation whatever
depends upon what is substantially a contract,
whether expressed or implied, between the mem
bers of the society. No society ever was, or ever
can be, really held together by force. It may seem
a paradox to say that a slaveholder does not make
his slaves work by force, but by agreement. And
yet it is true. There is a contract between the
two which, if it were written out, would run in
these terms : " I undertake to feed, clothe, house,
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 273
and not to kill, flog, or otherwise maltreat you,
Quashie, if you perform a certain amount of work."
Quashie, seeing no better terms to be had, accepts
the bargain, and goes to work accordingly. A
highwayman who garrotes me, and then clears out
my pockets, robs me by force in the strict sense of
the words ; but if he puts a pistol to my head and
demands my money or my life, and I, preferring
the latter, hand over my purse, we have virtually
made a contract, and I perform one of the terms
of that contract. If, nevertheless, the highway
man subsequently shoots me, everybody will
see that, in addition to the crimes of murder
and theft, he has been guilty of a breach of
contract.
A despotic Government, therefore, though often
a mere combination of slaveholding and highway
robbery, nevertheless implies a contract between
governor and governed, with voluntary submission
on the part of the latter ; and d fortiori, all other
forms of government are in like case.
Now a contract between any two men implies
a restriction of the freedom of each in certain
particulars. The highwayman gives up his free
dom to shoot me, on condition of my giving up
my freedom to do as I like with my money : I
give up my freedom to kill Quashie, on condition
of Quashie s giving up his freedom to be idle.
And the essence and foundation of every social
organisation, whether simple or complex, is the
VOL. I T
274 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vt
fact that each member of the society voluntarily
renounces his freedom in certain directions, in
return for the advantages which he expects from
association with the other members of that society.
Nor are constitutions, laws, or manners, in ultimate
analysis, anything but so many expressed or im
plied contracts between the members of a society
to do this, or abstain from that.
It appears to me that this feature constitutes
the difference between the social and the physiolo
gical organism. Among the higher physiological
organisms, there is none which is developed by
the conjunction of a number of primitively inde
pendent existences into a complex whole. The
process of social organisation appears to be com
parable, not so much to the process of organic
development, as to the synthesis of the chemist,
by which independent elements are gradually built
up into complex aggregations in which each
element retains an independent individuality,
though held in subordination to the whole. The
atoms of carbon and hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen,
which enter into a complex molecule, do not lose
the powers originally inherent in them, when they
unite to form that molecule, the properties of
which express those forces of the whole aggregation
which are not neutralised and balanced by one
another. Each atom has given up something,
in order that the atomic society, or molecule, may
subsist. And as soon as any one or more of the
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 275
atoms thus associated resumes the freedom which
it has renounced, and follows some external attrac
tion, the molecule is broken up, and all the peculiar
properties which depended upon its constitution
vanish.
Every society, great or small, resembles such
a complex molecule, in which the atoms are re
presented by men, possessed of all those multifar
ious attractions and repulsions which are mani
fested in their desires and volitions, the unlimited
power of satisfying which, we call freedom. The
social molecule exists in virtue of the renuncia
tion of more or less of this freedom by every
individual. It is decomposed, when the attraction
of desire leads to the resumption of that freedom,
the suppression of which is essential to the exist
ence of the social molecule. And the great
problem of that social chemistry we call politics,
is to discover what desires of mankind may be
gratified, and what must be suppressed, if the
highly complex compound, society, is to avoid
decomposition. That the gratification of some of
men s desires shall be renounced is essential to
order ; that the satisfaction of others shall be per
mitted is no less essential to progress ; and the
business of the sovereign authority which is, or
ought to be, simply a delegation of the people
appointed to act for its good appears to me
to be, not only to enforce the renunciation of
the anti-social desires, but, wherever it may be
T 2
276 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
necessary, to promote the satisfaction of those
which are conducive to progress.
The great metaphysician, Immanuel Kant, who
is at his greatest when he discusses questions
which are not metaphysical, wrote, nearly a century
ago, a wonderfully instructive essay entitled "A
Conception of Universal History in relation to
Universal Citizenship," l from which I will borrow
a few pregnant sentences :
"The means of which Nature has availed herself, in order to
bring about the development of all the capacities of man, is the
antagonism of those capacities to social organisation, so far as
the latter does in the long run necessitate their definite correla
tion. By antagonism, I here mean the unsocial sociability of
mankind that is, the combination in them of an impulse to
enter into society, with a thorough spirit of opposition which
constantly threatens to break up this society. The ground of
this lies in human nature. Man has an inclination to enter
into society, because in that state he feels that he becomes more
a man, or, in other words, that his natural faculties develop.
But he has also a great tendency to isolate himself, because he
is, at the same time, aware of the unsocial peculiarity of desir
ing to have everything his own way ; and thus, being conscious
of an inclination to oppose others, he is naturally led to expect
opposition from them.
"Now it is this opposition which awakens all the dormant
powers of men, stimulates them to overcome their inclination to
be idle, and, spurred by the love of honour, or power, or wealth,
to make themselves a place among their fellows, whom they can
neither do with, nor do without.
1 Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbilrgerlicher
Absicht, 1784. This paper has been translated by De Quincey^
and attention has been recently drawn to its " signal merits "
by the Editor of the Fortnightly Review in his Essay on Con-
dorcet (Fortnightly Review, No. xxxviii. N.S. pp. 136, 137.)
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 277
" Thus they make the first steps from brutishness towards
culture, of which the social value of man is the measure. Thus
all talents become gradually developed, taste is formed, and by
continual enlightenment the foundations of a way of thinking
are laid, which gradually changes the mere rude capacity of
moral perception into determinate practical principles; and
thus society, which is originated by a sort of pathological com
pulsion, becomes metamorphosed into a moral unity." (Loc.
cit. p. 147.)
"All the culture and art which adorn humanity, the most
refined social order, are produced by that unsociability which is
compelled by its own existence to discipline itself, and so by
enforced art to bring the seeds implanted by Nature into full
flower." (Loc. cit. p. 148.)
In these passages, as in others of this remark
able tract, Kant anticipates the application of the
" struggle for existence " to politics, and indicates
the manner in which the evolution of society has
resulted from the constant attempt of individuals
to strain its bonds. If individuality has no play,
society does not advance ; if individuality breaks
out of all bounds, society perishes.
But when men living in society once become
aware that their welfare depends upon two op
posing tendencies of equal importance the one
restraining, the other encouraging, individual
freedom the question " What are the functions
of Government ? " is translated into another
namely, " What ought we men, in our corporate
capacity, to do, not only in the way of restraining
that free individuality which is inconsistent with
the existence of society, but in encouraging that
278 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
free individuality which is essential to the evolu
tion of the social organisation ? The formula
which truly defines the function of Government
must contain the solution of both the problems
involved, and not merely of one of them.
Locke has furnished us with such a formula,
in the noblest, and at the same time briefest,
statement of the purpose of Government known
to me :
"THE END OF GOVERNMENT is THE GOOD OF
MANKIND." 1
But the good of mankind is not a something
which is absolute and fixed for all men, whatever
their capacities or state of civilisation. Doubt
less it is possible to imagine a true " Civitas Dei,"
in which every man s moral faculty shall be such
as leads him to control all those desires which
run counter to the good of mankind, and to
cherish only those which conduce to the welfare
of society; and in which every man s native in
tellect shall be. sufficiently strong, and his culture
sufficiently extensive, to enable him to know
what he ought to do and to seek after. And,
in that blessed State, police will be as much a
superfluity as every other kind of government.
But the eye of man has not beheld that State,
and is not likely to behold it for some time to
1 Of Civil Government, 229.
VI
ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 279
come. What we do see, in fact, is that States
are made up of a considerable number of the
ignorant and foolish, a small proportion of genuine
knaves, and a sprinkling of capable and honest
men, by whose efforts the former are kept in a
reasonable state of guidance, and the latter of
repression. And, such being the case, I do not
see how any limit whatever can be laid down as
to the extent to which, under some circumstances,
the action of Government may be rightfully
carried.
Was our own Government wrong in suppressing
Thuggee in India ? If not, would it be wrong in
putting down any enthusiast who attempted to
set up the worship of Astarte in the Haymarket ?
Has the State no right to put a stop to gross and
open violations of common decency ? And if the
State has, as I believe it has, a perfect right to do
all these things, are we not bound to admit, with
Locke, that it may have a right to interfere with
" Popery " and " Atheism," if it be really true that
the practical consequences of such beliefs can be
proved to be injurious to civil society? The
question where to draw the line between those
things with which the State ought, and those
with which it ought not, to interfere, then, is one
which must be left to be decided separately for
each individual case. The difficulty which meets
the statesman is the same as that which meets
us all in individual life, in which our abstract
280 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
rights are generally clear enough, though it is
frequently extremely hard to say at what point
it is wise to cease our attempts to enforce them.
The notion that the social body should be or
ganised in such a manner as to advance the
welfare of its members, is as old as political
thought ; and the schemes of Plato, More, Robert
Owen, St. Simon, Comte, and the modern so
cialists, bear witness that, in every age, men
whose capacity is of no mean order, and whose
desire to benefit their fellows has rarely been
excelled, have been strongly, nay, enthusiastically,
convinced that Government may attain its end
the good of the people by some more effectual
process than the very simple and easy one of
putting its hands in its pockets, and letting them
alone.
It may be, that all the schemes of social or
ganisation which have hitherto been propounded
are impracticable follies. But if this be so the
fact proves, not that the idea which underlies
them is worthless, but only that the science of
politics is in a very rudimentary and imperfect
state. Politics, as a science, is not older than
astronomy ; but though the subject-matter of the
latter is vastly less complex than that of the
former, the theory of the moon s motions is not
quite settled yet.
Perhaps it may help us a little way towards
getting clearer notions of what the State may and
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 281
what it may not do, if, assuming the truth of
Locke s maxim that " The end of Government is
the good of mankind," we consider a little what
the good of mankind is.
I take it that the good of mankind means the
attainment, by every man, of all the happiness
which he can enjoy without diminishing the
happiness of his fellow men. 1
If we inquire what kinds of happiness come
under this definition, we find those derived from
the sense of security or peace ; from wealth, or
commodity, obtained by commerce ; from Art
whether it be architecture, sculpture, painting,
music, or literature ; from knowledge, or science ;
and, finally, from sympathy, or friendship. No
man is injured, but the contrary, by peace.
No man is any the worse off because another
acquires wealth by trade, or by the exercise of
a profession ; on the contrary, he cannot have
acquired his wealth, except by benefiting others
to the full extent of what they considered to be
its value ; and his wealth is no more than fairy
gold if he does not go on benefiting others in
1 " Hie est itaque finis ad quera tendo, talem scilicet Naturam
acquirere, et ut multi niecum earn acquirant, conari hoc est de
mea felicitate etiam operam dare, ut alii multi idem atque ego
intelligant, ut eorum intellectus et cupiditas prorsus cum meo
intellectu et cupiditate conveniant : atque hoc fiat, necesse
est tantum de Natura intelligere, quantum sufficit ad talem
naturam acquirendam ; deinde formare talem societatem qualis
est desideranda, ut quam plurimi quam facillime et secure
eo perveniant." B. SPINOZA, DC Intellecttis Emendatione Trac-
tatus.
282 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM
VI
the same way. A thousand men may enjoy the
pleasure derived from a picture, a symphony, or
a poem, without lessening the happiness of the
most devoted connoisseur. The investigation of
Nature is an infinite pasture-ground, where all
may graze, and where the more bite, the longer
the grass grows, the sweeter is its flavour, and
the more it nourishes. If I love a friend, it is
no damage to me, but rather a pleasure, if all the
world also love him and think of him as highly
as I do.
It appears to be universally agreed, for the
reasons already mentioned, that it is unnecessary
and undesirable for the State to attempt to pro
mote the acquisition of wealth by any direct
interference with commerce. But there is no such
agreement as to the further question whether
the State may not promote the acquisition of
wealth by indirect means. For example, may
the State make a road, or build a harbour, when
it is quite clear that by so doing it will open
up a productive district, and thereby add enor
mously to the total wealth of the community ?
And if so, may the State, acting for the general
good, take charge of the means of communication
between its members, or of the postal and tele
graph services ? I have not yet met with any
valid argument against the propriety of the State
doing what our Government does in this matter ;
except the assumption, which remains to be
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 283
proved, that Government will manage these things
worse than private enterprise would do. Nor is
there any agreement upon the still more im
portant question whether the State ought, or
ought not, to regulate the distribution of wealth.
If it ought not, then all legislation which regu
lates inheritance the Statute of Mortmain, and
the like is wrong in principle ; and, when a rich
man dies, we ought to return to the state of
Nature, and have a scramble for his property.
If, on the other hand, the authority of the State is
legitimately employed in regulating these matters,
then it is an open question, to be decided entirely
by evidence as to what tends to the highest good
of the people, whether we keep our present laws,
or whether we modify them. At present the
State protects men in the possession and enjoy
ment of their property, and defines what that
property is. The justification for its so doing is
that its action promotes the good of the people.
If it can be clearly proved that the abolition of
property would tend still more to promote the
good of the people, the State will have the same
justification for abolishing property that it now
has for maintaining it.
Again, I suppose it is universally agreed that
it would be useless and absurd for the State
to attempt to promote friendship and sympathy
between man and man directly. But I see no
reason why, if it be otherwise expedient, the State
284 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM vi
may not do something towards that end indirectly.
For example, I can conceive the existence of an
Established Church which should be a blessing
to the community. A Church in which, week by
week, services should be devoted, not to the itera
tion of abstract propositions in theology, but to
the setting before men s minds of an ideal of true,
just, and pure living ; a place in which those who
are weary of the burden of daily cares, should find
a moment s rest in the contemplation of the higher
life which is possible for all, though attained by so
few ; a place in which the man of strife and of
business should have time to think how small,
after all, are the rewards he covets compared with
peace and charity. Depend upon it, if such a
Church existed, no one would seek to dis
establish it.
Whatever the State may not do, however, it is
universally agreed that it may take charge of the
maintenance of internal and external peace. Even
the strongest advocate of administrative nihilism
admits that Government may prevent aggression
of one man on another. But this implies the
maintenance of an army and navy, as much as of a
body of police ; it implies a diplomatic as well as
a detective force ; and it implies, further, that the
State, as a corporate whole, shall have distinct
and definite views as to its wants, powers, and
obligations.
For independent States stand in the same
V! ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 285
relation to one another as men in a state of nature,
or unlimited freedom. Each endeavours to get all
it can, until the inconvenience of the state of war
suggests either the formation of those express
contracts we call treaties, or mutual consent to
those implied contracts which are expressed by
international law. The moral rights of a State
rest upon the same basis as those of an individual.
If any number of States agree to observe a com
mon set of international laws, they have, in fact,
set up a sovereign authority or supra-national
government, the end of which, like that of all
governments, is the good of mankind ; and the
possession of as much freedom by each State, as is
consistent with the attainment of that end. But
there is this difference : that the government thus
set up over nations is ideal, and has no concrete
representative of the sovereign power ; whence the
only way of settling any dispute finally is to fight
it out. Thus the supra-national society is con
tinually in danger of returning to the state of
nature, in which contracts are void ; and the pos
sibility of this contingency justifies a government
in restricting the liberty of its subjects in many
ways that would otherwise be unjustifiable.
Finally, with respect to the advancement of
science and art. I have never yet had the good
fortune to hear any valid reason alleged why that
corporation of individuals we call the State may
not do what voluntary effort fails in doing, either
286 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM V I
from want of intelligence or lack of will. And
here it cannot be alleged that the action of the
State is always hurtful. On the contrary, in every
country in Europe, universities, public libraries,
picture galleries, museums, and laboratories, have
been established by the State, and have done
infinite service to the intellectual and moral pro
gress and the refinement of mankind.
A few days ago I received from one of the most
eminent members of the Institut of France a
pamphlet entitled " Pourquoi la France n a pas
trouv6 d hommes supe"rieurs au moment du peril."
The writer, M. Pasteur, has no doubt that the
cause of the astounding collapse of his countrymen
is to be sought in the miserable neglect of the
higher branches of culture, which has been one of
the many disgraces of the Second Empire, if not
of its predecessors.
"Au point ou nous somraes arrives de ce qu on appelle la
civilisation modernc, la culture ties sciences dans leur expression
la plus elevee est peut-etre plus necessaire encore a 1 etat moral
d une nation qu a sa prosperite materielle.
" Les grandes decouvertes, les meditations de la pensee dans
les arts, dans les sciences et dans les lettres, en un mot les
travaux desinteresses de 1 esprit dans tous les genres, les centres
d enseignement propres a les faire connaitre, introduisent dans
le corps social tout entier 1 esprit philosophique ou scientifique,
cet esprit de discernement qui soumet tout a une raison severe,
condamne 1 ignorance, dissipe les prejuges et les erreurs. Ils
elevent le niveau intellectuel, le sentiment moral ; par eux,
1 idee divine elle-meme se rcpand et s exalte. ... Si, au
moment du peril supreme, la France n a pas trouve des
hommes superieurs pour inettre en osuvre ses ressources et
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 287
le courage de ses enfants, il faut I attribuer, j en ai la convic
tion, a ce que la France s est desinteressee, depuis un demi-siecle,
des grands travaux de la pensee, particulierement dans les
sciences exactes."
Individually, I have no love for academies on
the continental model, and still less for the system
of decorating men of distinction in science, letters >
or art, with orders and titles, or enriching them
with sinecures. What men of science want is only
a fair day s wages for more than a fair day s work ;
and most of us, I suspect, would be well content if,
for our days and nights of unremitting toil, we
could secure the pay which a first-class Treasury
clerk earns without any obviously trying strain
upon his faculties. The sole order of nobility
which, in my judgment, becomes a philosopher, is
that rank which he holds in the estimation of his
fellow-workers, who are the only competent judges
in such matters. Newton and Cuvier lowered
themselves when the one accepted an idle knight
hood, and the other became a baron of the empire.
The great men who went to their graves as
Michael Faraday and George Grote seem to
me to have understood the dignity of knowledge
better when they declined all such meretricious
trappings.
But it is one thing for the State to appeal to
the vanity and ambition which are to be found in
philosophical as in other breasts, and another to
offer men who desire to do the hardest of work for
288 ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM
VI
the most modest of tangible rewards, the means of
making themselves useful to their age and genera
tion. And this is just what the State does when
it founds a public library or museum, or provides
the means of scientific research by such grants of
money as that administered by the Royal Society.
It is one thing, again, for the State to take all
the higher education of the nation into its own
hands ; it is another to stimulate and to aid, while
they are yet young and weak, local efforts to the
same end. The Midland Institute, Owens College
in Manchester, the newly-instituted Science Col
lege in Newcastle, are all noble products of local
energy and munificence. But the good they are
doing is not local the commonwealth, to its
uttermost limits, shares in the benefits they con
fer ; and I am at a loss to understand upon
what principle of equity the State, which admits
the principle of payment on results, refuses to
give a fair equivalent for these benefits; or on
what principle of justice the State, which admits
the obligation of sharing the duty of primary
education with a locality, denies the existence
of that obligation when the higher education is
in question.
To sum up : If the positive advancement of
the peace, wealth, and the intellectual and moral
development of its members, are objects which
the Government, as the representative of the
corporate authority of society, may justly strive
VI ADMINISTRATIVE NIHILISM 289
after, in fulfilment of its end the good of man
kind ; then it is clear that the Government may
undertake to educate the people. For education
promotes peace by teaching men the realities of
life and the obligations which are involved in
the very existence of society ; it promotes intel
lectual development, not only by training the
individual intellect, but by sifting out from the
masses of ordinary or inferior capacities, those
who are competent to increase the general wel
fare by occupying higher positions ; and, lastly,
it promotes morality and refinement, by teaching
men to discipline themselves, and by leading
them to see that the highest, as it is the only
permanent, content is to be attained, not by
grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys of
sense, but by continual striving towards those
high peaks, where, resting in eternal calm, reason
discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the
highest Good " a claud by day, a pillar of fire
by night."
VOL. I
VII
ON THE
NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN
[1890]
THE political speculations set forth in Rousseau s
" Discours sur 1 origine de rine*galit parmi les
hommes," and in the more noted essay, " Du
Contrat Social," which were published, the former
in 1754 and the latter eight years later, are, for
the most part, if not wholly, founded upon concep
tions with the origination of which he had nothing
to do. The political, like the religious, revolutionary
intellectual movement of the eighteenth century
in France came from England. Hobbes, primarily,
and Locke, secondarily (Rousseau was acquainted
with the writings of both), supplied every notion
of fundamental importance which is to be found
in the works which I have mentioned. But the
skill of a master of the literary art and the
fervour of a prophet combined to embellish and
Viz ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 201
intensify the new presentation of old speculations ;
which had the further good fortune to address
itself to a public as ripe and ready as Balak him
self to accept the revelations of any seer whose
prophecies were to its mind.
Missionaries, whether of philosophy or of re
ligion, rarely make rapid way, unless their
preachings fall in with the prepossessions of the
multitude of shallow thinkers, or can be made to
serve as a stalking-horse for the promotion of the
practical aims of the still larger multitude, who
do not profess to think much, but are quite
certain they want a great deal. Rousseau s
writings are so admirably adapted to touch both
these classes that the effect they produced, espe
cially in France, is easily intelligible. For, in
the middle of the eighteenth century, French
society (not perhaps so different as may be im
agined from other societies before and since) pre
sented two large groups of people who troubled
themselves about politics in any sense other
than that of personal or party intrigue. There
was an upper stratum of luxurious idlers, jealously
excluded from political action and consequently
ignorant of practical affairs, with no solid know
ledge or firm principles of any sort ; but, on the
other hand, open-minded to every novelty which
could be apprehended without too much trouble,
and exquisitely appreciative of close deductive
reasoning and clear exposition. Such a public
U 2
292 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vn
naturally welcomed Rousseau s brilliant develop
ments of plausible first principles by the help of
that a priori method which saves so much trouble
some investigation. 1 It just suited the " philo-
sophes," male and female, interchanging their airy
epigrams in salons, which had about as much
likeness to the Academy or to the Stoa, as the
" philosophes " had to the philosophers of antiquity.
I do not forget the existence of men of the type
of Montesquieu or D Argenson in the France of
the eighteenth century, when I take this as a fair
representation of the enlightened public of that
day. The unenlightened public, on the other
hand, the people who were morally and physically
debased by sheer hunger ; or those, not so far
dulled or infuriated by absolute want, who yet
were maddened by the wrongs of every description
inflicted upon them by a political system, which
so far as its proper object, the welfare of the
1 In his famous work on Ancient Law the late Sir Henry
Maine has remarked, with great justice, that Rousseau s philo
sophy "still possesses singular fascination for the looser thinkers
of every country ;" that "it helped most powerfully to bring
about the grosser disappointments of which the first French
Revolution was fertile, " and that it gave birth, or intense
stimulus, to the vices of mental habit all but universal at the
time, disdain of positive law, impatience of experience, and
the preference of a priori to all other reasoning " (pp. 89-92). I
shall often have to quote Ancient Law. The first edition of
this admirable book was published in 1861, but now, after twenty-
nine years of growing influence on thoughtful men, it seems
to be forgotten, or wilfully ignored, by the ruck of political
speculators. It is enough to make one despair of the future
that Demos and the Bourbons seem to be much alike in their
want of capacity for either learning or forgetting.
Vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 293
people, was concerned was effete and powerless ;
the subjects of a government smitten with para
lysis for everything but the working of iniquity
and the generation of scandals ; these naturally
hailed with rapture the appearance of the teacher
who clothed passion in the garb of philosophy ; and
preached the sweeping away of injustice by the per
petration of further injustice, as if it were nothing
but the conversion of sound theory into practice.
It is true that any one who has looked below
the surface J will hardly be disposed to join in the
cry which is so often raised against the " philo-
sophes " that their " infidel and levelling " prin
ciples brought about the French Revolution.
People, with political eyes in their heads, like the
Marquis d Argenson, saw that the Revolution was
inevitable before Rousseau wrote a line. In truth,
the Bull " Unigenitus," the interested restiveness
of the Parliaments and the extravagances and
profligacy of the Court had a great deal more in
fluence in generating the catastrophe than all the
" philosophes " that ever put pen to paper. But,
undoubtedly, Rousseau s extremely attractive and
1 Those who desire to do so with ease and pleasure should
read M. Rocquain s L Esprit revolutionnaire en France avant la
Revolution. It is really a luminous book, which ought to be
translated for the benefit of our rising public men, who, having
had the advantage of a public school education, are so often
unable to read French with comfort. For deeper students
there is, of course, the great work of M. Taine, Les Origines de la
Prance contemporaine. [An excellent condensed English version
of M. Rocquain s book, by Miss J. D Hunting, was published iii
1891.]
294 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
widely read writings did a great deal to give a
colour of rationality to those principles of 89 l
which, even after the lapse of a century, are con
sidered by a good many people to be the Magna
Charta of the human race. " Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity," is still the war-cry of those, and
they are many, who think, with Rousseau, that
human sufferings must needs be the consequence
of the artificial arrangements of society and can
all be alleviated or removed by political changes.
The intellectual impulse which may thus be
fairly enough connected with the name of the
Genevese dreamer has by no means spent itself in
the century and a half which has elapsed since it
was given. On the contrary, after a period of
comparative obscurity (at least outside France),
Rousseauism has gradually come to the front
again, and at present promises to exert once more
a very grave influence on practical life. The two
essays to which I have referred are, to all appear
ance, very little known to the present generation
of those who have followed in Rousseau s track.
None the less is it true that his teachings, filtered
1 Sir H. Maine observes that the " strictly juridical axiom "
of the lawyers of the Antonine era ("otnnes homines natura
aequales sunt "), after passing through the hands of Rousseau,
and being adopted by the founders of the Constitution of the
United States, returned to France endowed with vastly greater
energy and dignity, and that "of all the principles of 1789
it is the one which has been least strenuously assailed, which
lias most thoroughly leavened modern opinion, and which prom
ises to modify most deeply the constitution of societies, and
the politics of States" (Ancient Law, p. 90).
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 295
through innumerable channels and passing under
other names, are still regarded as the foundations
of political science by the existing representatives
of the classes who were so much attracted by them
when they were put forth. My friend, Mr. John
Morley, who probably knows more about Rousseau
and his school than anybody else, 1 must have been
entertained (so far as amusement is possible to
the subject of the process of "heckling") when
Rousseau s plats, the indigestibility of which he
exposed so many years ago, were set before him as
a wholesome British dish ; the situation had a
certain piquancy, which no one would appreciate
more keenly.
I happened to be very much occupied upon
subjects of a totally different character, and had
no mind to leave them, when the narrative of this
occurrence and some letters to which it gave rise,
appeared in the " Times. " But I have very long
entertained the conviction that the revived
Rousseauism of our day is working sad mischief,
leading astray those who have not the time, even
when they possess the ability, to go to the root of
the superficially plausible doctrines which are
disseminated among them. And I thought it was
1 If I had not reason to think that Mr. Morley s Rousseau,
and Sir Henry Maine s Ancient Law, especially the admirable
chapters III. and IV., must be unknown to many political
writers and speakers, and ft fortiori to the general public, there
would be no excuse for the present essay, which simply restates
the case which they have so exhaustively treated.
296 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vn
my duty to see whether some thirty years training
in the art of making difficult questions intelligible
to audiences without much learning, but with that
abundance of keen practical sense which charac
terises English workmen of the better class, would
enable me to do something towards the counter
action of the fallacious guidance which is offered
to them. Perhaps I may be permitted to add
that the subject was by no means new to me.
Very curious cases of communal organisation and
difficult questions involving the whole subject of
the rights of property come before those whose
duty it is to acquaint themselves with the condition
of either sea or freshwater fisheries, or with the
administration of Fishery Laws. For a number
of years it was my fate to discharge such duties
to the best of my ability ; and, in doing so, I was
brought face to face with the problem of land-
ownership and the difficulties which arise out of
the conflicting claims of commoners and owners in
severalty. And I had good reason to know that
mistaken theories on these subjects are very
liable to be translated into illegal actions. I can
not say whether the letters which I wrote in
any degree attained the object (of vastly greater
importance, to my mind, than any personal ques
tion) which I had in view. But I was quite
aware, whatever their other results, they would
probably involve me in disagreeable consequences ;
and, among the rest, in the necessity of proving a
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 297
variety of statements, which I could only adum
brate within the compass of the space that the
" Times " could afford me, liberal as the editor
showed himself to be in that respect. What I pur
pose to do in the course of the present essay
is to make good these shortcomings ; to show what
Rousseau s doctrines were; and to inquire into
their scientific value with, I hope, that impar
tiality which it beseems us to exhibit in inquiries
into ancient history. Having done this I propose
to leave the application of the conclusions at which
I arrive to the intelligence of my readers, as I shall
thus escape collision with several of my respected
contemporaries. 1
I have indicated two sources from which our
knowledge of Rousseau s system may be derived,
and it is not worth while to go any further. But it
is needful to observe that the dicta of the author of
the " Contrat Social," published in 1762, are not un-
1 From Mr. Herbert Spencer s letter in the Times of the 27th
of November, 1889, I gather that he altogether repudiates the
doctrines which I am about to criticise. I rejoice to hear it ; in
the first place, because they thus lose the shelter of his high
authority ; secondly, because, after this repudiation, anything I
may say in the course of the following pages against Rousseau-
ism cannot be disagreeable to him ; and, thirdly, because I
desire to express my great regret that, in however good com-
Cy, I should have lacked the intelligence to perceive that Mr.
ncer had previously repudiated the views attributed to him
by the land socialists. May I take this opportunity of inform
ing the many correspondents who usually favour me with com
ments (mostly adverse, I am sorry to say) on what I venture to
write, that I have no other answer to give them but Pilate s :
"What I have written I have written" ? I have no energy to
waste on replies to irresponsible criticism.
298 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN viz
frequently very hard indeed I might say impos
sible to reconcile with those of the author of the
"Discours," which appeared eight years earlier ; and
that, if any one should maintain that the older essay
was not meant to be taken seriously, or that it has
been, in some respects, more or less set aside by the
later, he might find strong grounds for his opinion.
It is enough for me that the same a priori method
and the same fallacious assumptions pervade both.
The thesis of the earlier work is that man, in
the " state of nature," was a very excellent creature
indeed, strong, healthy, good and contented ; and
that all the evils which have befallen him, such as
feebleness, sickness, wickedness, and misery, result
from his having forsaken the " state of nature "
for the " state of civilisation." And the first step
in this downward progress was the setting up of
rights of several property. It might seem to a
plain man that the argument here turns on a mat
ter of fact : if it is not historically true that men
were once in this " state of nature " what becomes
of it all ? However, Rousseau tells us, in the pre
face to the " Discours," not only that the " state of
nature " is something which no longer exists, but
that " perhaps it never existed, and probably never
will exist." Yet it is something " of which it is
nevertheless necessary to have accurate notions in
order to judge our present condition rightly." After
making this singular statement, Rousseau goes on
to observe : " II faudrait meme plus de philosophic
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 299
qu on ne pense a celui qui entreprendrait de
determiner exactement les precautions a prendre
pour faire sur ce sujet de solides observations."
And, certainly, the amount of philosophy required
to base an argument on that which does not exist,
has not existed, and, perhaps, never will exist, may
well seem unattainable at any rate, at first sight.
Yet, apart from analogies which might be drawn
from the mathematical sciences where, for ex
ample, a straight line is a thing which has not
existed, does not exist, and probably never will
exist, and yet forms a good ground for reasoning ;
and the value of which I need not stop to discuss
I take it that Rousseau has a very comprehensible
idea at the bottom of this troublesome statement.
What I conceive him to mean is that it is
possible to form an ideal conception of what
ought to be the condition of mankind ; 1 and that,
having done so, we are bound to judge the existing
state of things by that ideal. That assumption
puts us on the " high priori road " at once.
1 Compare Ancient Law : " The Law of Nature confused the
Past and the Present. Logically, it implied a state of Nature
which had once been regulated by Natural Law ; yet the juris
consults do not speak clearly or confidently of the existence of
such a state " (p. 73). "There are some writers on the subject
who attempt to evade the fundamental difficulty by contending
that the code of Nature exists in the future and is the goal to
which all civil laws are moving" (p. 74). The jurisconsults
conceived of Natural Law " as a system which ought gradually
to absorb Civil Laws" (p. 76). " Its functions were, in short,
remedial, not revolutionary or anarchical. And this unfortun
ately is the exact point at which the modern view of a Law of
Nature has often ceased to resemble the ancient" (p. 77).
300 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
I do not suppose that any one is inclined to
doubt the usefulness of a political ideal as a goal
towards which social conduct should strive, whether
it can ever be completely realised or not ; any
more than any one will doubt that it is useful to
have a moral ideal towards which personal conduct
should tend, even though one may never reach it.
Certainly, I am the last person to question this,
or to doubt that politics is as susceptible of treat
ment by scientific method as any other field of
natural knowledge. 1 But it will be admitted
that, great as are the advantages of having a
political ideal, fashioned by an absolute rule of
political conduct, it is perhaps better to do with
out one, rather than to adopt the first phantasm,
bred of fallacious reasonings and born of the
unscientific imagination, which presents itself.
The benighted traveller, lost on a moor, who
refuses to follow a man with a lantern is surely
not to be commended. But suppose his hesitation
arises from a well-grounded doubt as to whether
the seeming luminary is anything but a will o the
wisp ? And, unless I fail egregiously in attaining
1 In the course of the correspondence in the Times to which
I have referred, I was earnestly exhorted to believe that the
world of politics does not lie outside of the province of science.
My impression is that I was trying to teach the public that
great truth, which I had learned from Mill and Comte, thirty-
five years ago ; when, if I mistake not, my well-meaning monitor
was more occupied with peg-tops than with politics. See a
lecture on the "Educational Value of the Natural History
Sciences" delivered in 1854 (Lay Sermons, p. 97).
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 301
my purpose, those who read this paper to the end
will, I think, have no doubt that the political
lantern of Rousseauism is a mere corpse candle
and will plunge those who follow it in the deepest
of anarchic bogs.
There is another point which must be carefully
borne in mind in any discussion of Rousseau s
doctrines ; and that is the meaning which he
attaches to the word "inequality." A hundred
and fifty years ago, as now, political and biological
philosophers found they were natural allies. 1
Rousseau is not intelligible without Buffon,
with whose earlier works he was evidently
acquainted, and whose influence in the following
passage is obvious :
It is easy to see that we must seek the primary cause of the
differences by which men are distinguished in these successive
changes of the human constitution ; since it is universally
admitted that they are, naturally, as equal among themselves
as were the animals of each species before various physical
causes had produced, in some of them, the varieties which we
observe. In fact, it is not conceivable that these first changes,
by whatever means they were brought about, altered, at once
and in the same way, all the individuals of a species ; but some
having become improved or deteriorated, and having acquired
different qualities, good or bad, which were not inherent in their
1 The publication of Buffon s Histoire Naturelle began in
1749. Thus Rousseau was indebted to the naturalists ; on the
other hand, in the case of the elder Darwin, who started what
is now usually known as Lamarck s hypothesis, the naturalist
was set speculating by the ideas of the philosopher Hartley,
transmitted through Priestley. See Zoonomia, I. sect, xxxix.
p. 483 (ed. 176). I hope some day to deal at length with this
curious fact in scientific history.
302 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN VTT
nature, the others remained longer in their original state ; and
such was the first source of inequality among men, which is
more easy to prove thus, in a general way, than to assign
exactly to its true causes. (" Discours," Preface.)
In accordance with this conception of the
origin of inequality among men, Rousseau dis
tinguishes, at the outset of the "Discours," two
kinds of inequality :
the one which I term natural, or physical, because it is estab
lished by Nature, and which consists in the differences of age,
health, bodily strength, and intellectual or spiritual qualities ;
the other, which may be called moral, or political, because it
depends on a sort of convention, and is established, or at least
authorised, by the consent of mankind. This last inequality
consists in the different privileges which some enjoy, to the
prejudice of others, as being richer, more honoured, more
powerful than they, or by making themselves obeyed by
others.
Of course the question readily suggests itself :
Before drawing this sharp line of demarcation
between natural and political inequality, might it
not be as well to inquire whether they are not
intimately connected, in such a manner that the
latter is essentially a consequence of the former ?
This question is indeed put by Rousseau himself.
And, as the only answer he has to give is a piece
of silly and insincere rhetoric about its being a
question fit only for slaves to discuss in presence
of their masters, we may fairly conclude that he
knew well enough he dare not grapple with it.
The only safe course for him was to go by on the
VTI ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 303
other side and as far as the breadth of the road
would permit; and, in the rest of his writings
to play fast and loose with the two senses of
inequality, as convenience might dictate.
With these preliminary remarks kept well in
view, we may proceed to the discussion of those
fundamental theses of the " Discourse " and of
the "Social Contract" which Rousseau calls the
" principes du droit politique." Rousseau defines
his object thus :
Je veux chercher si dans 1 ordre civil il peut y avoir quelque
regie d administration legitime et siire, en prenant les homines
tels qu ils sont et les lois tels qu elles peuvent ctre. Je tacherai
d allier toujours dans cette recherche ce que le droit permet
avec ce que 1 interet prescrit, afin que la justice et 1 utilite ne se
trouvent point divisees. 1
In other words, our philosopher propounds
11 sure," that is " absolute," principles which are,
at once ethically and politically, sufficient rules
of conduct, and that I understand to be the
precise object of all who have followed in his
track. It was said of the Genevese theorist, " Le
1 Contrat Social, livre l cr . Compare Hobbes s dedication of
Hitman Nature written in 1640 : " They who have written of
justice and policy in general, do all invade each other and
themselves with contradictions. To reduce this doctrine to the
rules and infallibility of reason there is no way, but, first, put
such principles down for a foundation, as passion, not mis
trusting, may not seek to displace ; and afterwards to build
thereon the truth of cases in the law of Nature (which hitherto
have been built in the air) by degrees, till the whole have been
inexpugnable." However, it must be recollected that Hobbes
does not start from a priori principles of ethics, but from the
practical necessities of men in society.
304 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
genre humain avait perdu ses titres; Jean-
Jacques les a retrouve s " ; just as his intellectual
progeny declare that the nation ought to "re
sume " the landed property of which it has, un
fortunately, lost the title-deeds.
We are now in a position to consider what the
chief of these principles of the gospel according to
Jean-Jacques are :
1. All men are born free, politically equal, and
good, and in the " state of nature " remain so ;
consequently it is their natural right to be free,
equal, and (presumably, their duty to be) good. 1
2. All men being equal by natural right, none
can have any right to encroach on another s equal
right. Hence no man can appropriate any part
of the common means of subsistence that is to
say, the land or anything which the land produces
without the unanimous consent of all other
men. Under any other circumstances, property
is usurpation, or, in plain terms, robbery. 2
3. Political rights, therefore, are based upon
contract ; the so-called right of conquest is no
1 Contrat Social, v. pp. 98, 99. The references here given
are to the volumes and pages of Mussay Pathay s edition (1826).
Discours, passim ; see especially p. 268.
2 Discours, pp. 257, 258-276. How many wild sermons have
been preached on this text : " Ignorez-vous qu une multitude
de vos freres pent ou souffre du besoin de ce que vous avez de
trop, et qu il vous fallait un consentement expres et unanime
du genre humain pour vous approprier sur la subsistance
commune tout ce qui alloit audela de la vOtre ? "
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 305
right, and property which has been acquired by
force may rightly be taken away by force. 1
I am bound to confess, at the outset, that, while
quite open to conviction, I incline to think that
the obvious practical consequences of these pro
positions are not likely to conduce to the welfare
of society, and that they are certain to prove as
injurious to the poor as to the rich. Due allow
ance must be made for the possible influence of
such prejudice as may flow from this opinion
upon my further conviction that, regarded from a
purely theoretical and scientific point of view, they
are so plainly and demonstrably false that, except
for the gravity of their practical consequences,
they would be ridiculous.
What is the meaning of the famous phrase that
"all men are born free and equal," which gallicised
Americans, who were as much " philosophies " as
their inherited common sense and their practical
acquaintance with men and with affairs would let
them be, put forth as the foundation of the " De
claration of Independence " ? I have seen a consid-
1 Discours, pp. 276, 280; Contrat, chap. iii. : "Telle^fut
ou chit etre " (charming alternative !) "1 origine de la societe et
des lois, qui donnerent de nouvelles entraves au foible et de
nouvelles forces au riche, detruisirent sans retour la liberte
naturelle, fixerent pour jamais la loi de la propriete et de
rinegalite, d une adroite usurpation firent un droit irrevocable,
et, pour le profit de quelques ambitieux, assujettirent desormais
tout le genre humain au travail, a la servitude et a la misere"
(Discours, p. 278). Behold the quintessence of Rousseauism
method and results with practical application, legible by the
swiftest runner !
VOL. I X
306 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
erable number of new-born infants. Without wish
ing to speak of them with the least disrespect a
thing no man can do, without, as the proverb says,
" fouling his own nest " I fail to understand how
they can be affirmed to have any political qualities
at all. How can it be said that these poor little
mortals who have not even the capacity to kick
to any definite end, nor indeed to do anything but
vaguely squirm and squall, are equal politically,
except as all zeros may be said to be equal ?
How can little creatures be said to be " free " of
whom not one would live for four and twenty
hours if it were not imprisoned by kindly hands
and coerced into applying its foolish wandering
mouth to the breast it could never find for itself ?
How is the being whose brain is still too pulpy to
hold an idea of any description to be a moral agent
either good or bad ? Surely it must be a joke,
and rather a cynical one too, to talk of the poli
tical status of a new-born child ? But we may
carry our questions a step further. If it is mere
abracadabra to speak of men being born in a state
of political freedom and equality, thus fallaciously
confusing positive equality that is to say, the
equality of powers with the equality of im
potences ; in what conceivable state of society is
it possible that men should not merely be born,
but pass through childhood and still remain free ?
Has a child of fourteen been free to choose its
language and all the connotations with which
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 307
words became burdened in their use by genera
tion after generation ? Has it been free to choose
the habits enforced by precept and more surely
driven home by example ? Has it been free to
invent its own standard of right and wrong ? Or
rather, has it not been as much held in bondage
by its surroundings and driven hither and thither
by the scourge of opinion, as a veritable slave,
although the fetters and the whip may be in
visible and intangible ?
Surely, Aristotle was much nearer the truth in
this matter than Hobbes or Rousseau. And if
the predicate " born slave " would more nearly
agree with fact than " born free," what is to be
said about "born equal "J Rousseau, like the
sentimental rhetorician that he was, and half, or
more than half, sham, as all sentimental rhetori
cians are, sagaciously fought shy, as we have seen,
of the question of the influence of natural upon
political equality. But those of us who do not
care for sentiment and do care for truth may not
evade the consideration of that which is really the
key of the position. If Rousseau, instead of
letting his children go to the enfants trouvds, had
taken the trouble to discharge a father s duties
towards them, he would hardly have talked so
fast about men being born equal, even in a poli
tical sense. For, if that merely means that all
new-born children are political zeros it is, as we
have seen, though true enough, nothing to the
x 2
308 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
purpose ; while, if it means that, in their poten
tiality of becoming factors in any social organisa
tion citizens in Rousseau s sense all men are
born equal, it is probably the most astounding
falsity that ever was put forth by a political
speculator ; and that, as all students of political
speculation will agree, is saying a good deal for it.
In fact, nothing is more remarkable than the
wide inequality which children, even of the same
family, exhibit, as soon as the mental and moral
qualities begin to manifest themselves; which is
earlier than most people fancy. Every family
spontaneously becomes a polity. Among the
children, there are some who continue to be " more
honoured and more powerful than the rest, and to
make themselves obeyed " (sometimes, indeed, by
their elders) in virtue of nothing but their moral
and mental qualities. Here, " political inequality "
visibly dogs the heels of " natural " inequality
The group of children becomes a political body, a
civitas, with its rights of property, and its prac
tical distinctions of rank and power. And all
this comes about neither by force nor by fraud,
but as the necessary consequence of the innate
inequalities of capability.
Thus men are certainly not born free and equal
in natural qualities ; when they are born, the pre
dicates " free " and " equal " in the political sense
are not applicable to them ; and as they develop
year by year, the differences in the political
Vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 309
potentialities with which they really are born,
become more and more obviously converted into
actual differences the inequality of political
faculty shows itself to be a necessary conse
quence of the inequality of natural faculty. It
is probably true that the earliest men were
nomads. But among a body of naked wander
ing savages, though there may be no verbally
recognised distinctions of rank or office, superior
strength and cunning confer authority of a more
valid kind than that secured by Acts of Parlia
ment ; there may be no property in things, but
the witless man will be poverty-stricken in ideas,
the clever man will be a capitalist in that same
commodity, which in the long run buys all other
commodities ; one will miss opportunities, the
other will make them ; and, proclaim human
equality as loudly as you like, Witless will serve
his brother. So long as men are men and society
is society, human equality will be a dream ; and
the assumption that it does exist is as untrue in
fact as it sets the mark of impracticability on every
theory of what ought to be, which starts from it.
And that last remark suggests that there is
another way of regarding Rousseau s speculations.
It may be pointed out that, after all, whatever
estimate we may form of him, the author of works
which have made such a noise in the world could
not have been a mere fool ; and that, if, in their
plain and obvious sense, the doctrines which he
310 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
advanced are so easily upset, it is probable that
he had in his mind something which is different
from that sense.
I am a good deal disposed to think that this is
the case. There is much to be said in favour of
the view that Rousseau, having got hold of a
plausible hypothesis, more or less unconsciously
made up a clothing of imaginary facts to hide its
real nakedness. He was not the first nor the last
philosopher to perform this feat.
As soon as men began to think about political
problems, it must have struck them that, if the
main object of society was the welfare of its mem
bers (and until this became clear, political action
could not have risen above the level of instinct J ),
there were all sorts of distinctions among men, and
burdens laid upon them, which nowise contributed
1 It is not to be forgotten that what we call rational grounds
for our beliefs are often extremely irrational attempts to justify
our instincts. I cannot doubt that human society existed before
language or any ethical consciousness. Gregarious animals form
polities, in which they act according to rules conducive to the
welfare of the whole society, although, of course, it would be
absurd to say that they obey laws in the juridical sense. The
polities of the masterless dogs in Eastern cities are well known.
And, in any street of an English town, one may observe a small
dog chased by a bigger, who turns round the moment he has
entered his own territory and defies the other ; while, usually,
after various manifestations of anger and contempt, the bigger
withdraws. No doubt the small dog has had previous ex
perience of the arrival of assistance under such circumstances,
and the big one of the effects of sticks and stones and other odd
missiles ; no doubt, the associations thus engrained are the
prime source of the practical acknowledgment of ownership on
both sides. I suspect it has been very much the same among
men.
Vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 311
to that end. Even before the great leveller,
Rome, had actually thrown down innumerable
social and national party-walls, had absorbed all
other forms of citizenship into her own, and brought
the inhabitants of what was then known as the
world under one system of obligations thoughtful
men were discovering that it was desirable, in the
interests of society, that all men should be as free
as possible, consistently with those interests ; and
that they should all be equally bound by the
ethical and legal obligations which are essential to
social existence. It will be observed that this
conclusion is one which might be arrived at by
observation and induction from the phenomena of
past and present experience. My belief is that it
is the conclusion which must be reached by those
means, when they are rightly employed and
that, in point of fact, the doctrines of freedom and
equality, so far as they were preached by the
Stoics and others, would have had not the least
success, if they had not been so far approved by
experience and so far in harmony with human
instincts, that the Roman jurists found they could
work them up with effect into practical legislation.
For the d priori arguments of the philosophers
in the last century of the Republic, and the first
of the Empire, stand examination no better than
those of the philosophers in the centuries before
and after the French Revolution. As is the
fashion of speculators, they scorned to remain on
312 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vit
the safe, if humble, ground of experience, and pre
ferred to prophesy from the sublime cloudland of
the d priori ; so that, busied with deduction from
their ideal "ought to be" they overlooked the "what
has been," the " what is," and the " what can be "
It is to them that we owe the idea of living
" according to nature " ; which begot the idea of
the " state of nature " ; which begot the notion
that the " state of nature " was a reality, and that,
once upon a time, " all men were free and equal "
which again begot the theory, that society ought
to be reformed in such a manner as to bring back
these halcyon days of freedom and equality ; which
begot laissez faire and universal suffrage ; which
begot the theory so dear to young men of more
ambition than industry, that, while every other
trade, business, or profession requires theoretical
training and practical skill, and would go to the
dogs if those who carry them on were appointed
by the majority of votes of people who know
nothing about it and very little about them the
management of the affairs of society will be per
fectly successful, if only the people who may be
trusted to know nothing, will vote into office the
people who may be trusted to do nothing.
If this is the political ideal of the modern fol
lowers of Rousseau, I, for my part, object to strive
after it, or to do anything but oppose, to the
best of my ability, those who would fain drive us
that way. Freedom, used foolishly, and equality,
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OP MEN 313
asserted in words, but every moment denied by the
facts of nature, are things of which, as it seems
to me, we have rather too much already. If I
mistake not, one thing we need to learn is the
necessity of limiting individual freedom for the
general good ; and another, that, although decision
by a majority of votes may be as good a rough-
and-ready way as can be devised to get political
questions settled, yet that, theoretically, the des
potism of a majority is as little justifiable and as
dangerous as that of one man ; and yet another,
that voting power, as a means of giving effect to
opinion, is more likely to prove a curse than a
blessing to the voters, unless that opinion is the
result of a sound judgment operating upon sound
knowledge. Some experience of sea-life leads me
to think that I should be veiy sorry to find myself
on board a ship in which the voices of the cook
and the loblolly boys counted for as much as those
of the officers, upon a question of steering, or
reefing topsails ; or where the " great heart " of
the crew was called upon to settle the ship s
course. And there is no sea more dangerous than
the ocean of practical politics none in which
there is more need of good pilotage and of a single,
unfaltering purpose when the waves rise high.
The conclusion of the whole matter, then, would
seem to be that the doctrine that all men are, in
any sense, or have been, at any time, free and
equal, is an utterly baseless fiction. Nor does the
314 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN Vll
proposition fare much better if we modify it, so as
to say that all men ought to be free and equal, so
long as the " ought " poses as a command of im
mutable morality. For, assuredly, it is not intu
itively certain " that all men ought to be free and
equal." Therefore, if it is to be justified at all d
prim, it must be educible from some proposition
which is intuitively certain ; and unfortunately
none is forthcoming. For the proposition that
men ought to be free to do what they please, so
long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of
other men, assumes that men have equal rights
and cannot be used to prove that assumption.
And if, instead of appealing to philosophy we
turn to revealed religion, I am not aware that
either Judaism or Christianity affirms the political
freedom or the political equality of men in Rous
seau s sense. They affirm the equality of men
before God but that is an equality either of
insignificance or of imperfection.
With the demonstration that men are not all
equal under whatever aspect they are contemplated,
and that the assumption that they ought to be con
sidered equal has no sort of d priori foundation
however much it may, in reference to positive law,
with due limitations, be justifiable by considerations
of practical expediency the bottom of Rousseau s
argument, from d priori ethical assumptions to the
denial of the right of an individual to hold private
property, falls out. For Rousseau, with more
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 315
logical consistency than some of those who have
come after him, puts the land and its produce upon
the same footing. " Vous etes perdus si vous
oubliez que les fruits sont a tous, et que la terre
n est a personne," says he. 1
From Rousseau s point of view (and, for the
present, I leave any other aside), this is, in fact,
the only rational conclusion from the premisses.
The attempt to draw a distinction between land,
as a limited commodity, and other things as un
limited, is an obvious fallacy. For, according to
him, 2 the total habitable surface of the earth is the
property of the whole human race in common.
Undoubtedly, the habitable and cultivable land
amounts to a definite number of square miles,
which, by no effort of human ingenuity, at present
known or suspected, can be sensibly increased be
yond the area of that part of the globe which is not
covered by water ; and therefore its quantity is
limited. But if the land is limited, so is the quan
tity of the trees that will grow on it ; of the cattle
that can be pastured on it ; of the crops that can
be raised from it ; of the minerals that can be dug
from it ; of the wind and of the water-power,
afforded by the limited streams which flow from
the limited heights. And, if the human race were
to go on increasing in number at its present rate,
a time would come when there would not be stand-
[ l Which may be Englished, in brief, " Crops are everybody s
and land is nobody s."]
2 As to Hobbes, but on different grounds.
316 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
ing ground for any more ; if it were not that, long
before that time, they would have eaten up the
limited quantity of food-stuffs and died like the
locusts that have consumed everything eatable in
an oasis of the desert. The attempt to draw a
distinction between land as limited in quantity, in
the sense, I suppose, that it is something that can
not be imported and other things as unlimited,
because they can be imported has arisen from
the fact that Rousseau s modern followers entertain
the delusion that, consistently with their principles,
it is possible to suppose that a nation has right of
ownership in the land it occupies. If the island
of Great Britain is the property of the British na
tion, then, of course, it is true that Britons cannot
have more than somewhere about 90,000 square
miles of land, while the quantity of other things
they can import is (for the present, at any rate), prac
tically, if not strictly, unlimited. But how is the
assumption that the Britons own Britain, to be re
conciled with the great dictum of Rousseau,
that a man cannot rightfully appropriate any part
of this limited commodity, land, without the unani
mous consent of all his fellow men ? My strong
impression is that if a parti- coloured plebiscite of
Europeans, Chinese, Hindoos, Negroes, Red Indians,
Maoris, and all the other inhabitants of the terres
trial globe were to decree us to be usurpers, not a
soul would budge ; and that, if it came to fighting,
Mr. Morley s late " hecklers " might be safely
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 317
depended upon to hold their native soil against all
intruders, and in the teeth of the most absolute of
ethical politicians, even though he should prove
from Rousseau,
"Exceedingly well
That such conduct was quite atrocious."
Rousseau s first and second great doctrines hav
ing thus collapsed, what is to be said to the third ?
Of course, if there are no rights of property but
those based on contract, conquest, that is to say,
taking possession by force, of itself can confer no
right. But, as the doctrine that there are no rights
of property but those based on the consent of the
whole human race that is, that A. B. cannot own
anything unless the whole of mankind formally
signify their assent to his ownership turns out to
be more than doubtful in theory and decidedly in
convenient in practice, we may inquire if there is
any better reason for the assertion that force
can confer no right of ownership. Suppose that
in the old seafaring days, a pirate attacked an East
Indiaman got soundly beaten and had to surrender.
When the pirates had walked the plank or been
hanged, had the captain and crew of the East India
man no right of property in the prize I am not
speaking of mere legal right, but ethically ? But
if they had, what is the difference when nations
attack one another ; when there is no way out of
their quarrel but the appeal to force, and the one
318 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vn
that gets the better seizes more or less of the other s
territory and demands it as the price of peace ?
In the latter case, in fact, we have a contract, a
price paid for an article to wit peace delivered,
and certain lands taken in exchange ; and there
can be no question that the buyer s title is based
on contract. Even in the former alternative, I see
little difference. When they declared war, the
parties knew very well that they referred their case
to the arbitrament of force; and if contracts are
eternally valid, they are fully bound to abide by
the decision of the arbitrator whom they have
elected to obey. Therefore, even on Hobbes s or
Rousseau s principles, it is not by any means
clear to my mind that force, or rather the state of
express or tacit contract which follows upon force,
successfully applied, may not be plausibly con
sidered to confer ownership.
But if the question is argued, as I think it
ought to be, on empirical grounds if the real
question is not one of imagined d priori principle,
but of practical expediency of the conduct which
conduces most to human welfare then it appears
to me that there is much to be said for the
opinion that force effectually and thoroughly used,
so as to render further opposition hopeless,
establishes an ownership * which should be recog-
1 Submission to the Revolution of 1688 by Jacobites could be
advocated ethically on no other ground, though all sorts of
pretexts were invented to disguise the fact.
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 319
nised as soon as possible. I am greatly disposed
to think, that when ownership established by
force has endured for many generations, and all
sorts of contracts have been entered into on the
faith of such ownership, the attempt to disturb it
is very much to be deprecated on all grounds.
For the welfare of society, as for that of individual
men, it is surely essential that there should be a
statute of limitations in respect of the consequences
of wrong-doing. As there is nothing more fatal
to nobility of personal character than the nursing
of the feeling of revenge nothing that more
clearly indicates a barbarous state of society than
the carrying on of a vendetta, generation after
generation, so I take it to be a plain maxim of
that political ethic which does not profess to have
any greater authority than agreeableness to good
feeling and good sense can confer, that the
evil deeds of former generations especially if they
were in accordance with the practices of a less
advanced civilisation, and had the sanction of
a less refined morality should, as speedily as
possible, be forgotten and buried under better
things.
" Musst immer thun wie neu geboren " is the
best of all maxims for the guidance of the life of
States, no less than of individuals. However, I
express what I personally think, in all humility,
in the face of the too patent fact, that there are
persons of light and leading with a political
320 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vn
authority to which I can make not the remotest
pretension, and with a weight of political responsi
bility which I rejoice to think can never rest on
my shoulders who by no means share my opinion,
but who, on the contrary, deem it right to fan the
sparks of revenge which linger among the embers
of ancient discords ; and to stand between the dead
past and the living present, not with the healing
purpose of the Jewish leader, but rather to
intensify the plague of political strife, and hold
aloft the brazen image of the father s wrongs,
lest the children might perchance forget and for
give.
However, the question whether the fact that
property in land was originally acquired by force
invalidates all subsequent dealings in that property
so completely, that no lapse of time, no formal
legalisation, no passing from hand to hand by free
contract through an endless series of owners, can
extinguish the right of the nation to take it away
by force from the latest proprietor, has rather an
academic than a practical interest, so long as the
evidence that landed ownership did so arise is
wanting. Potent an organon as the d priori
method may be, its employment in the region of
history has rarely been found to yield satisfactory
results ; and, in this particular case, the confident
assertions that land was originally held in common
by the whole nation, and that it has been con-
vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 321
verted into severalty by force, as the outcome of
the military spirit rather than by the consent, or
contract, characteristic of industrialism, are sin
gularly ill-founded.
Let us see what genuine history has to say to
these assertions. Perhaps it might have been
pardonable in Rousseau to propound such a state
ment as that the primitive landowner was either a
robber or a cheat ; but, in the course of the century
and a half which has elapsed since lie wrote, and
especially in that of the last fifty years, an
immense amount of information on the subject of
ancient land-tenure has come to light ; so that it
is no longer pardonable, in any one, to content
himself with Rousseau s ignorance. Even a super
ficial glance over the results of modern investiga
tions into anthropology, archeology, ancient law
and ancient religion, suffices to show that there is
not a particle of evidence that men ever existed
in Rousseau s state of nature, and that there are
very strong reasons for thinking that they never
could have done so, and never will do so.
It is, at the least, highly probable that the
nomadic preceded any other social state ; and, as
the needs of a wandering hunter s or pastor s life
are far more simple than any other, it follows that
the inequalities of condition must be less obvious
among nomads than among settled people. Men
who have no costume at all, for example, cannot
be said to be unequally clothed ; they are, doubt-
VOL. I Y
322 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
less, more equal than men some of whom are well
clothed and others in rags, though the equality is
of the negative sort. But it is a profound mistake
to imagine that, in the nomadic condition, any
more than in any other which has yet been
observed, men are either " free " or " equal " in
Rousseau s sense. I can call to mind no nomadic
nation in which women are on an equality with
men ; nor any in which young men are on the same
footing as old men ; nor any in which family
groups, bound together by blood ties, by their
mutual responsiblity for bloodshed and by common
worship, do not constitute corporate political units,
in the sense of the city 1 of the Greeks and
Romans. A " state of nature " in which noble and
peaceful, but nude and propertyless, savages sit in
solitary meditation under trees, unless they are
dining or amusing themselves in other ways, with
out cares or responsibilities of any sort, is simply
another figment of the unscientific imagination.
The only uncivilised men of whom anything is
really known are hampered by superstitions and
enslaved by conventions, as strange as those of
the most artificial societies, to an almost incredible
degree. Furthermore, I think it may be said
with much confidence that the primitive " land-
1 I may remind the reader that, in their original senses, ir6\is
and cimtas mean, not an aggregation of houses, but a corpor
ation. In this sense, the City of London is formed by the free
men of the City, with their Common Councillors, Aldermen, and
Lord Mayor.
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 323
grabber " did not either force or cheat his co-
proprietors into letting him fence in a bit of the
land which hitherto was the property of all.
The truth is we do not know, and, probably,
never shall know completely, the nature of all the
various processes by which the ownership of land
was originally brought about. But there is ex
cellent ground for sundry probable conclusions 1
in the fact that almost all parts of the world, and
almost all nations, have yielded evidence that, in
the earliest settled condition we can get at, land
was held as private or several property, and not
as the property of the public, or general body of
the nation. Now private or several property may
be held in one of two ways. The ownership may
be vested in a single individual person, in the
ordinary sense of that word ; or it may be vested
in two or more individuals forming a corporation
or legal person ; that is to say, an entity which
has all the duties and responsibilities of an in
dividual person, but is composed of two or more
individuals. It is obvious that all the arguments
which Rousseau uses against individual land-
ownership apply to corporate landownership. If
the rights of A, B, and C are individually nil, you
cannot make any more of your by multiplying
it by three. (A B C) the corporation must be
1 For the difficulties which attach to the establishment of
such probable conclusions, see the remarkable work of M. Fustel
de Coulanges Rccherches sur qiwlques problemcs d Histvire : Les
Germains.
y 2
324 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
an usurper if A, B, and C taken each by him
self is so. Moreover, I think I may take it for
granted that those who desire to make the State
universal landowner, would eject a corporation
from its estates with even less hesitation than
they would expel an individual. .
The particular method of early landholding of
which we have the most widespread traces is that
in which each of a great number of moderate-
sized portions of the whole territory occupied by a
nation is held in complete and inalienable owner
ship 1 by the males of a family, or of a small
number of actual or supposed kindred families,
mutually responsible in blood feuds, and worship
ping the same God or Gods. No female had any
share in the ownership of the land. If she
married outside the community she might take a
share of the moveables ; and, as a rule, she went
to her husband s community. If, however, the
community was short of hands, the husband might
be taken into it, and then he acquired all the
rights and responsibilities of the other members.
Children born in the community became full
members of it by domicile, so to speak, not by
heredity from their parents. This primitive " city "
was lodged in one or more dwellings, each usually
standing in a patch of inclosed ground ; of arable
land in the immediate neighbourhood of the
1 Inalienable, that is, without the consent of the whole
owning community.
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 325
dwellings ; while pasture and uncleared forest
land lay outside all. Each commune was as
jealous of its rights of ownership as the touchiest
of squires ; but, so long as the population was as
scanty in proportion to the occupied territory, as
was usually the case in ancient times, the com
munities got along pretty peaceably with one
another. Any notion that all the communities
which made up the nation had a sort of corporate
overlordship over any one, still more that all the
rest of the world had any right to complain of
their " appropriation of the means of subsistence,"
most assuredly never entered the heads of our
forefathers. But, alongside this corporate several
ownership, there is strong ground for the belief
that individual ownership was recognised, to a
certain extent, even in these early times. The
inclosure around each dwelling was understood to
belong to the family inhabiting the dwelling ;
and, for all practical purposes, must have been as
much owned by the head of it as a modern
entailed estate is owned by the possessor for the
time being. Moreover, if any member of the
community chose to go outside and clear and
cultivate some of the waste, the reclaimed land
was thenceforth recognised as his, that is to say,
the right of ownership, in virtue of labour spent,
was admitted. 1
1 Rousseau himself not only admits, but insists on the
validity of this claim in the Contrat Social, liv. i. chap. ix.
326 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN VII
Thus it is obvious that, though the early land
holders were, to a great extent, collective owners,
the imaginary rights of mankind to universal land-
ownership, or even of that of the nation at large
to the whole territory occupied, were utterly
ignored ; that, so far from several ownership being
the result of force or fraud, it was the system
established with universal assent ; and that, from
the first, in all probability, individual rights of
property, under certain conditions, were fully
recognised and respected. Rousseau was, there
fore, correct in suspecting that his "state of
nature " had never existed it never did, nor any
thing like it. But it may be said, supposing that
all this is true, and supposing that the doctrine
that Englishmen have no right to their appro
priation of English soil is nonsense ; it must,
nevertheless, be admitted that, at one time, the
great body of the nation, consisting of these
numerous landowning corporations, composed of
comparatively poor men, did own the land. And
it must also be admitted that now they do not ;
but that the land is in the hands of a relatively
small number of actually or comparatively rich
proprietors, who constitute perhaps not one per
cent, of the population. What is this but the
result of robbery and cheating ? The descendants
of the robbers and cut-throat soldiers who came
over with William of Normandy, have been true to
their military instincts, and have " conveyed " the
Viz ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 327
property of the primitive corporations into their
own possession. No doubt, that is history made
easy ; but here, once more, fact and d priori specu
lations cannot be made to fit.
Let us look at the case dispassionately, and
by the light of real history. No doubt, the early
system of land tenure by collective several owner
ship was excellently adapted to the circumstances
in which mankind found themselves. If it had
not been so, it would not have endured so long,
nor would it have been adopted by all sorts of
different races from the ancient Irish to the
Hindoos, and from the Russians to the Kaffirs
and Japanese. These circumstances were in the
main as follows : That there was plenty of land
unoccupied ; that population was very scanty and
increased slowly; that wants were simple; that
people were content to go on living in the same
way, generation after generation ; that there was
no commerce worth speaking of; that manu
factures were really that which they are etymo-
logically things made by the hands ; and that
there was no need of capital in the shape of money.
Moreover, with such methods of warfare as then
existed, the system was good for defence, and not
bad for offence.
Yet, even if left to itself, to develop undis
turbedly, without the intrusion of force, fraud
or militarism in any shape, the communal system,
like the individual-owner system or the State-
328 OX THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
owner system, or any other system that the wit of
man has yet devised, would sooner or later have
had to face the everlasting agrarian difficulty.
And the more the communities enjoyed general
health, peace, and plenty, the sooner would the
pressure of population upon the means of support
make itself felt. The difficulty paraded by the
opponents of individual ownership, that, by the
extension of the private appropriation of the means
of subsistence, the time would arrive when men
would come into the world for whom there was
no place, must needs make its appearance under
any system, unless mankind are prevented from
multiplying indefinitely. For, even if the habit
able land is the property of the whole human race
the multiplication of that race must, as we have
seen, sooner or later, bring its numbers up to the
maximum which the produce can support; and
then the interesting problem in casuistry, which
even absolute political ethics may find puzzling,
will arise : Are we, who can just exist, bound to
admit the newcomers who will simply starve them
selves and us ? If the rule that any one may
exercise his freedom only so far as he does not
interfere with the freedom of others is all-sufficient,
it is clear that the newcomers will have no rights
to exist at all, inasmuch as they will interfere
most seriously with the freedom of their prede
cessors. The population question is the real riddle
of the sphinx, to which no political (Edipus has as
Vir ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 320
yet found the answer. In view of the ravages of
the terrible monster, over-multiplication, all other
riddles sink into insignificance.
But to return to the question of the manner in
which individual several ownership has, in our own
and some other countries, superseded communal
several ownership. There is an exceedingly in
structive chapter in M. de Laveleye s well-known
work on "Primitive Property," entitled "The
Origin of Inequality in Landed Property." And
I select M. de Laveleye as a witness the more
willingly, because he draws very different con
clusions from the facts he so carefully adduces to
those which they appear to me to support.
After enumerating various countries in which,
as M. de Laveleye thinks, inequality and an aristo
cracy were the result of conquest, he asks very
pertinently
But how were they developed in such countries as Germany,
which know nothing of conquerors coming to create a privileged
caste above a vanquished and enslaved population ? Originally
we see in Germany associations of free and independent peasants
like the inhabitants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden at the
present day. At the close of the middle ages we find, in the
same country, a feudal aristocracy resting more heavily on the
soil, and a rustic population more completely enslaved than in
England, Italy, or France (p. 222).
The author proceeds to answer the question
which he propounds by showing, in the first place,
that the admission of the right of individuals and
their heirs to the land they had reclaimed, which
330 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
was so general, if not universal, created hereditary
individual property alongside the communal
property, so that private estates arose in the
waste between the sparse communal estates.
Now, it was not every family or member of a
community that was enterprising enough to go
out and clear waste lands, or that had the courage
to defend its possessions when once obtained.
The originally small size of the domains thus
acquired, and the strong stimulus of personal
interest, led to the introduction of better methods
of cultivation than those traditional in the com
munes. And, finally, as the private owner got
little or no benefit from the community, he was
exempted from the charges and corctes laid upon
its members. The result, as may be imagined,
was that the private proprietors, aided by serf-
labour, prospered more than the communities
cultivated by their free members, seriously ham
pered them by occupying fresh waste lands, yielded
more produce, and furnished wealth, which, with
the help of the majorat system, remained con
centrated in the hands of owners who, in virtue
of their possessions, could maintain retainers;
while, freed from the need to labour, they could
occupy themselves with war and the chase, and,
as nobles, attend the sovereign. On the other
hand, their brethren, left behind in the communes,
had little chance of growing individually rich or
powerful, and had to give themselves up to
Vii ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 331
agricultural toil. The Bishop of Oxford, in his
well-known " Constitutional History of England "
(vol. i., p. 51), puts the case, as his wont is, con
cisely and precisely : " As the population increased,
and agriculture itself improved, the mark system
must have been superseded everywhere." No
doubt, when the nobles had once established them
selves, they often added force and fraud to their
other means of enlarging their borders. But, to
begin with, the inequality was the result, not of
militarism, but of industrialism. Clearing a piece
of land for the purpose of cultivating it and reap
ing the crops for one s own advantage is surely an
industrial operation, if ever there was one.
Secondly, M. de Laveleye points out that
the Church was a great devourer of commune
lands :
" We know that a member of the commune
could only dispose of his share with the consent
of his associates, who had a right of resumption :
but this right could not be exercised against
the Church. Accordingly, in these days of relig
ious fervour, the faithful frequently left to the
Church all that they possessed, not only their
house and its inclosure, but the undivided
share in the mark attached to it " (p. 225). Thus
an abbot, or a bishop, became co-proprietor with
the peasants of a commune ; and, with such a
cuckoo in the nest, one can conceive that the
hedge-spaiTows might have a bad time. "Already
332 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vil
by the end of the ninth century one-third of the
whole soil of Gaul belonged to the clergy" (p.
225). But, if the men who left their property to
the Church believed that they got their quid
pro qiio in the shape of masses for their souls, as
they certainly did ; and if the Churchmen believed
as sincerely (and they certainly did) that they
gave valuable consideration for the property left
them, where does fraud come in ? Is it not again
a truly industrial operation ? Indeed, a keen
witted and eminent Scotch judge once called
a huge bequest to a Church " fire insurance/ so
emphatically commercial did the transaction
appear to him.
Thirdly, personal several property was carved
out of the corporate communal property in another
fashion, to which no objection can be taken by
industrialism. Plots of arable land were granted
to members of the commune who were skilled
artificers, as a salary for their services. The
craft transmitting itself from father to son the
land went with it and grew into an hereditary
benefice.
Fourthly, Sir Henry Maine 1 has proved in a
very striking manner, from the collection of
the Brehon Laws of ancient Ireland, how the
original communal landownership of the sept, with
the allotment of an extra allowance of pasture to
the chief, as the honorarium for his services of all
1 See Early History of Institutions, especially Lecture vi.
VII ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 333
kinds, became modified, in consequence of the
power of keeping more cattle than the rest of the
sept, thus conferred on the chief. He became a
lender of cattle at a high rate of interest to his
more needy sept-fellows, who when they borrowed
became bound to do him service in other ways
and lost status by falling into the position of his
debtors. Hence the chief gradually acquired the
characteristics of what naturalists have called
" synthetic " and " prophetic " types, combining
the features of the modern gombeen-man with
those of the modern rack-renting landlord, who is
commonly supposed to be a purely imported
Norman or Saxon product, saturated with the
very spirit of industrialism namely, the deter
mination to get the highest price for an article
which is to be had. As a fact, the condition of
the native Irish, under their own chiefs, was as
bad in Queen Elizabeth s time as it has ever been
since. Again, the status of the original com
moners of the sept was steadily altered for the
worse by the privilege which the chief possessed,
and of which he freely availed himself, of settling
on the waste land of the commune such broken
vagabonds of other tribes as sought his patronage
and protection, and who became absolutely depen
dent upon him. Thus, without war and without
any necessity for force or fraud (though doubtless
there was an adventitious abundance of both), the
communal system was bound to go to pieces, and
334 ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN vii
to be replaced by individual ownership, in conse
quence of the operation of purely industrial
causes. That is to say, in consequence of the
many commercial advantages of individual owner
ship over communal ownership; which became
more and more marked exactly in proportion as
territory became more fully occupied, security of
possession increased, and the chances of the
success of individual enterprise and skill as
against routine, in an industrial occupation,
became greater and greater.
The notion that all individual ownership of
land is the result of force and fraud appears to me
to be on a level with the peculiarly short-sighted
prejudice that all religions are the results of
sacerdotal cunning and imposture. As religions
are the inevitable products of the human mind,
which generates the priest and the prophet as
much as it generates the faithful ; so the inequality
of individual ownership has grown out of the
relative equality of communal ownership in virtue
of those natural inequalities of men, which, if
unimpeded by circumstances, cannot fail to give
rise quietly and peaceably to corresponding
political inequalities.
The task I have set myself is completed, as far
as it can be within reasonable limits. I trust
that those who have taken the trouble to follow
the argument, will agree with me that the gospel
viz ON THE NATURAL INEQUALITY OF MEN 335
of Jean Jacques, in its relation to property, is a
very sorry affair that it is the product of an
untrustworthy method, applied to assumptions
which are devoid of foundation in fact ; and that
nothing can be more profoundly true than the
saying of the great and truly philosophical
English jurist, whose recent death we all deplore,
that speculations of this sort are rooted in " im
patience of experience and the preference of a
priori to all other methods of reasoning."
Almost all the multitudinous causes which con
curred in bringing about the French Revolution
are happily absent in this country ; and I have not
the slightest fear that the preaching of any
amount of political fallacy will involve us in evils
of the magnitude of those which accompanied that
great drama. But, seeing how great and manifold
are the inevitable sufferings of men ; how pro
foundly important it is that all should give their
best will and devote their best intelligence to the
alleviation of those sufferings which can be
diminished, by seeking out, and, as far as lies
within human power, removing their causes ; it is
surely lamentable that they should be drawn
away by speculative chima3ras from the attempt
to find that narrow path which for nations, as
for individual men, is the sole road to permanent
well-being.
VIII
NATURAL RIGHTS AND POLITICAL
RIGHTS
[1890]
IN looking through a series of critical notices the
other day, my eye was caught by a remark upon
my essay " On the Natural Inequality of Men "
to the effect that it was well enough ; but why
should I have taken all that trouble to slay the
slain ?
Evidently, the propoundcr of the question be
lieves that the doctrines of that school of political
philosophers of which Rousseau was the typical
representative, are not only killed but dead.
But, whatever may hold good of men, doctrines do
not necessarily die from being killed. Many a
long year ago, I fondly imagined that Hume and
Kant and Hamilton having slain the " Absolute,"
the thing must, in decency, decease. Yet, at the
present time, the same hypostatised negation,
sometimes thinly disguised under a new name,
VIII NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 337
goes about in broad daylight, in company with the
dogmas of absolute ethics, political and other, and
seems to be as lively as ever. It would seem to be
to no purpose that the history of every branch of
physical and historical science teems with examples
of the fate which befalls the hasty generaliser
who numbers, rather than weighs, supposed facts ;
and treats the rough approximations to truth
obtained by the observation of highly complex
phenomena as if they had the precision of geome
trical theorems.
There is, unfortunately, abundant evidence that
the vicious method of & priori political speculation
which I have illustrated from the writings of
Rousseau is not only in full vigour, but that it is
exerting an influence upon the political action of
our contemporaries which is extremely serious. No
better evidence of the fact need be adduced than
the avidity with which the writings of political
teachers of this school have been and are being
read, especially among the more intelligent of
the working classes; and I doubt if any book
published during the last ten years has obtained a
larger circulation among them, not only in this
country but in the United States, than " Progress
and Poverty." The other day there was a rumour
that some devoted disciple of its author, Mr. Henry
George, had bequeathed a large sum of money to
him in order to aid in the propagation of his
doctrines.
VOL. I Z
338 NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS vill
In some respects, the work undoubtedly deserves
the success which it has won. Clearly and vigor
ously written, though sometimes weakened by
superfluous rhetorical confectionery, " Progress and
Poverty " leaves the reader in no doubt as to Mr.
George s meaning, and thus fulfils the primary
condition of honest literature. Nor will any one
question the author s intense conviction that the
adoption of his panacea will cure the ills under
which the modern state groans.
Mr. George s political philosophy is, in principle,
though by no means in all its details, identical
with Rousseauism. It exhibits, in perfection, the
same a priori method, starting from highly question
able axioms which are assumed to represent ab
solute truth, and asking us to upset the existing
arrangements of society on the faith of deductions
from those axioms. The doctrine of "natural
rights " is the fulcrum upon which he, like a good
many other political philosophers, during the last
130 years, rests the lever wherewith the social
world is to be lifted away from its present founda
tions and deposited upon others. In this respect,
he is at one, not only with Rousseau and his con
scious or unconscious followers in France and in
England; but, I regret to say, may claim the
countenance of a far more scientifically minded and
practical school of political thinkers that of the
French Physiocratcs of the eighteenth century.
The founder of this school, Quesnay, the saga-
VIII NATURAL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS 339
cious physician of Louis the Fifteenth, whom even
that graceless prince appreciated and called his
"thinker," was an eminently practical man, espe
cially conversant with agriculture. As the name
taken by his disciples implies, his te 
